Now you tell me, Frank

From The Comics Journal Library: Frank Miller

I've found that there's a simple way to get the feminist contingent, the real heavy-duty radical-feminist contingent, angry at you: Do a woman character. If a woman is tough and assertive, you're castigated for portraying women as too tough. If you do a Heather Glenn or a Sue Storm, you're castigated for perpetuating a sterotype. That's just a particular group that can't be satisfied, and I don't intend to even try.

I created Elektra as a character that I was interested in doing, not as a means to satisfy some readers. I worked on giving her a personality, a weapon and a means of fighting that would make it belivable, that someone who isn't as physically powerful as Daredevil could function in his kind of situation.

Random Flickr-blogging 3847: Words & Image (and music)

If you're fond of sad news and salty air,
quaint little villages here and there...

--Groove Armada, "At The River"

(Original source here)

And:

Random Flickr-blogging 3847

Though no one doubted that Jim's commitment to the pro-choice movement was high, he found it was best not to work his shift at Planned Parenthood after a night out at the clubs.

(Credit)

I just know this is supposed to be all symbolic and shit...

(Source)

Without even trying to, I managed to have a mini Bill Nighy film festival this week

Though in both of them, it's mostly or all just his voice that can be heard.

Watched a couple of DVDs from the video store over the past few days. I knew Nighy was the voice (and eyes) behind the motion capture Davy Jones in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, but I didn't realize till watching the credits that he's also the voice of Whitey, a rat mob enforcer in Flushed Away. He's good in both, but both are not good.

I thought of Dead Man's Chest what most people over the age of 11 seem to have thought of Dead Man's Chest: Depp is still fun to watch, but the movie becomes unbalanced whenever it decides to inexplicably focus on, well, just about anybody else.

The DVD features suggest a couple of reasons why. First, a "making of" featurette shows three or four different people bemoaning the fact that due to a set-in-iron release date, they had to start production without a...whatchamacalit...wassitcalled...screenplay.

Boy, if you ever want to improve your odds of making a mediocre film (at best), that's the way to do it. Pirates of the Caribbean 2 is, and they make no bones about this, little more than a series of set pieces which were thought of first; then given connections.

This might be a fun writing excercise, but it's no way to make a worthwhile movie (again, for anyone over the age of 11). The screenwriters, Ted Elliott & Terry Rossio, seem to know this in their hearts of hearts. They contribute a commentary which, like the one on Curse of the Black Pearl, is remarkable in its defensiveness.

I thought that film had one too many rewrites, but still wasn't half bad. The sequel, it seems clear to me, didn't get rewritten enough. And it doesn't help that...well, they actually seem to have taken it seriously and forgotten that they were (or should have been) writing a comedy.

Flushed Away, on the other hand, is a splendid mix of both high (or at least middle) and low-brow humor. I'd give it second place to Ice Age in the "best non-Pixar CGI animated features" sweepstakes.

Speaking of Pixar, Finding Nemo gets a little tweak here and there in the movie, along with many other "Easter eggs." Including when mouse hero Roddy is choosing a wardrobe; one of the outfits he considers and rejects is a Wolverine costume. In case you didn't know, Roddy is voiced by Hugh Jackman.

When it comes to Aardman Animations, I don't like the "Wallace and Gromit" (who make one or two appearances here) movies as much as some. Though I certainly admire them for pure craftsmanship, something ...Away has going for it as well.

And I'm a big fan of the Oscar-winning "Creature Comforts" short...



But IMO, ...Away does what the best family entertainment--say, the books of Dr Seuss, Warner Bros. cartoons, or the Muppets-has always done: It's interesting on multiple levels and for multiple ages.

Unlike Pirates 2, which as I keep saying I can't see being much fun for anyone who's in or past puberty.

Okay, the ladies still have Depp & Bloom to look at.

Keira Knightley's not bad either, for us lads.

But, well, is it wrong that I still find Kate Winslet much hotter?

Even when I can only hear her voice coming out of a feisty, street-wise and spirited rat?

Yes, I thought it might be.

I'll just be going.

Sometimes I think I post too much pop and smooth dance music

Other times I think this is just something that you're going to have to get used to. Take this song from the "supergroup" Electronic (Johnny Marr of The Smiths, Neil Tennant of Pet Shop Boys, Bernard Sumner of New Order), for example.

Originally released on the killer soundtrack to the all but unwatchable film Cool World, it was a top 10 hit in England that didn't do much on the charts over here. More importantly, it seems to be a touchstone for how I feel...too much of the time.

Here's "Disappointed."

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each

Here's two clips from The Mermen, featuring the beautiful guitar work of Jim Thomas. I reviewed their album The Amazing California Health and Happiness Road Show, and interviewed Thomas, back in 2000.

I also named ...Health and Happiness Road Show one of the top albums I heard that year, saying,

A true artist, Thomas plays thoughtfully and with great craft and spirit...This is an album to fall in love with, this is an album to mediate on, and this is an album to restore your faith.

And you won't often see me say that about a guitar showcase.

If I've wetted your appetite enough, here's the first clip. It's live footage of the surf trio playing in a bar, in early 2001.



You may notice that footage is very simple, they just stand and play, and it's lovely.

In that interview I said,

Later in the conversation we discuss videos. [Thomas] doesn't want to make one. I agree with him. If your reaction to this music is anything like mine, it will be very strongly visual. Even acknowledging videos powerful say on the charts, this is music that you don't need a video for (always assuming any music "needs" a video, but that's another topic for another piece). You don't need a video coming in and saying this is the visual for this music.Or to put it another way, Thomas may want his record to sell, but not if it means he has to be on the cover half-naked a la Mariah Carey.

Then we have a live performance from a couple of months after the first. Some video production tricks have been added to this one, and they're actually completely cool (girl on girl fire dancing! Who do I know who enjoyed that?). But again, the brilliant guitar playing is all you need.



(h/t Jennifer Neil for giving me the idea of looking for Mermen live videos.)

You shiver; quiver, for that soft caress

Or "between this and yesterday's Tron clip, I think I finally found something else to post besides videos of my favorite post-post-punk groups." This is from Shock Treatment, the "sequel" to Rocky Horror with in some ways an even better soundtrack.



For those of you playing at home, yes, that weird blind German character who takes the second verse of the song is played by Barry Humphries, AKA Dame Edna Everage.

Keeping our eye on the ball

You remember Jessica Lynch. She's the former POW that the Bush administration tried to use to sell propaganda, until she tripped them up by telling the truth. She turned out to be a more genuinely remarkable person than we had any right to expect. The army's concocted spin made her out to be both more and less than she is.

Earlier this week she testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform hearing to separate fact from fiction. I don't know if you can call that being brave, but it's undoubtedly the opposite of being cowardly.

Here she is along with the brother of the former NFL star Pat Tillman who was killed in Iraq (And who the same administration treated us like naive children about).



Which brings us to my point. Jessica Lynch is a truth-teller, a genuinely remarkable and brave person.

She is also hotter than Nelly Furtado only wishes she could be.

(Nelly, "30 Rock"...I'm really hitting my pet hates today)

For those six other people (if that) who care

"Studio 60" will be returning to the air, that's good!

Not until the end of next month, that's bad.

Every show NBC has replaced "Studio 60" with has done even more poorly in the ratings. I don't know if that's good, but it isn't bad. (Neither is reading headlines like "Baldwin wants off "30 Rock." Karma, baby.)

Now "Studio 60" will be on Thursday nights at 10 p.m. like it was originally supposed to be, that's good!

It's due to come back the day after NBC announces its fall schedule. So even if 13 million new viewers suddenly show up, the decision as to whether or not it gets a second season will already have been taken. That's bad.

Still, "Studio 60" will be returning to the air. That's good. I've always tried to be honest about the things I think the show does not-so-well, but I remain a committed fan.

Well, but of course, or As quiz results go, I must say this is pretty dead-on

"What Classic Actress Are You?" - Results:



Marilyn Monroe. Everyone knows her, she is arguably the most recognizable figure in the 20th century.

Quiet, Shy, Unstable, Wistful, Lost


Even though you tend to be vulnerable and insecure, you are still able to give the appearance of being your vibrant, content self, downplaying your sadness. You struggle to express yourself and to break the facade for which everyone percieves you. You are also determined to prove yourself and show that your beauty is not only skin deep. Through it all, you just want to be rescued as you reach out for help, but remember that you have the super-human drive that can get you out and back on your feet

Take this quiz!

A contest with no prize.

If anyone gets the reference in the new blog description - that's the bit directly beneath the title - I will be absolutely amazed, so leave a quick comment if you do.

Have you seen the movie, "Tron?"

Want to? Got about three minutes? 'Cos this guy on YouTube's broken it down to its most prominent features, the soundtrack by Wendy Carlos (I'd have picked another track, but never mind) and the groundbreaking visuals.

You lose the acting, which is better than you might think, but you don't have to suffer through the more..."functional" elements of the script. Enjoy!

But in the back of my head I heard distant feet

Or, 2,476 entries, and I haven't posted any Pet Shop Boys videos.

We must correct this at once.

Get well soon, Roger

Here's a sweet story about Roger Ebert attending his Overlooked Film Festival in Champaign on Wednesday, his first public appearance since surgery last summer. Elsewhere on Ebert's site, BTW, you can see that the follow-up to "I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie" is now available.

You can also see that title high atop my Amazon Wish list. I'm just saying is all.

(That's right, I just turned an expression of well-wishing for a man I admire into an proclamation of greed. Shame? No time for it. I am the '80s man.)

(And some money would go into Ebert's pocket, after all)

A stolen idea

In honor of National Poetry Month, Ahab at If I Ran The Zoo decided to share a favorite poem. He invited others to do the same in the comments there, but the poem I thought of is a little long so I thought I'd just make a post of it here.

I'm still going to excerpt it, BTW, because in its entirety it's four pages long. But here's a selected version of

What Nina Answered

HE: Just the two of us together,
Okay? We could go
Through the fresh and pleasant weather
In the cool glow

Of the blue morning, washed in
The wine of day...
When all the love-struck forest
Quivers, bleeds

From each branch; clear drops tremble,
Bright buds blow,
Everything opens and vibrates;
All things grow.
[...]
Madly in love with the country,
You sprinkle about
Like shining champagne bubbles
Your crazy laugh:

Laughing at me, and I'd be brutal
And I'd grab your hair
Like this-how beautiful,
Oh!-In the air
[...]
Just the two of us together,
Our voices joined,
Slowly we'd wander farther
Into the wood...

Then, like the girl in the fairy tale
You'd start to faint;
You'd tell me to carry you
With half a wink...

I'd carry you quivering
Beneath a tree;
A bird nearby is whistling:
"Who loves to lie with me..."
[...]
What things we'll see, my darling,
In those farms,
By those bright fires sparkling
In dark windowpanes!
[...]
I love you! Come! Come for
A beautiful walk!
You will come, won't you? What's more...

SHE: And be late for work?

--Rimbaud

If you have any favorite poems of your own you'd like to share, please feel free to do so either in your own blogs (but please let me know) or in the comments.

BTW, the reason that comic cover's there: There was a time when Shade was, IMO, one of the best, coolest and greatest comics around (it crashed and burned at the end, but that's not important right now).

Peter Milligan's writing was an influence on my own, and I realized in retrospect that the series had indirect connections with my own piece My Girlfriend's Boyfriend.

But that's not important right now either.

It's a series that predated Vertigo, but changed over to become part of that line. One of the best run of issues after the changeover was called "Season In Hell," inspired by but not based on Rimbaud's book, and that's how I discovered the writer.

The cover at left is part of that run. I thought it made for a nice touch.

This is the most brilliant TV show I've ever seen in my life.

And one that makes me truly proud to be...an American. What am I talking about? "Rad Girls," of course. What is it? It's a female version of MTV's "Jackass." That is to say, sexy girls doing stunts.

What kinds of stunts? How about...using a car bumper as a replacement for waxing strips in a bikini wax?

Yes, you read that right.

Or...bending over, flipping up their tennis skirts and letting a semi-pro women's player lob fast balls at their asses?

Now that's what I call a show. I don't care who you are, that's just good TV.

(The girls are from Santa Cruz, Calif, which for some of us explains everything.)

By the way, only about 50% of this post is ironic.

That's the damndest thing I've ever seen.

Ask yourself: Do I want to see video of republican idiot Michelle Malkin performing a cheerleading routine in full costume? If the answer is yes, click away. If no, scroll down to where you can see pictures of prettier, and more importantly smarter, people like Jennifer Aniston, Amber Benson and the Dixie Chicks.

You pays your money (well actually you don't, but if I could just direct your attention to that Amazon wish list link in my profile) and you makes your choice.

Is it me, or is this the ugliest tour logo you've ever seen in your life?

You'll remember the True Colors Tour, which supports the Human Rights Campaign. A worthy charity, to be sure, but I'm somewhat skeptical of the methods being used.

But on another topic, I've just seen the tour logo. You're telling me there was nobody involved in this entire tour that was gay enough to tell them that the logo looks like a feminine hygiene product box designed while on an acid trip?

Bush's Approval dropping quicker than Lindsay Lohan's pants

Bush Approval Rating Falls to 28%,
Lowest Level So Far, in Harris Poll

Unfortunately, Pelosi & Co. aren't doing much better. I'll always believe it's because they're not acting quickly enough to throw the pigs out.

More beautiful women (oh, okay and one or two men for you womenfolk and any male gays who may be looking in) or, Ladies, ladies ladies

In my last post, I mentioned that Eva Amurri had been on People Magazine's "100 Most Beautiful People" list in 2003. This year's list, synchronistically enough, is out this week, and a few names were released last night.

So let's have a look at this baby.

In the number one spot is Drew Barrymore. Drew Barrymore is cute as a button, but I don't know if I'd put her at the top of any such list.



By the way, when it comes to words like beautiful Vs. cute, I subscribe to the theory put forth in this clip from NewsRadio featuring TPWFMA and Vicki Lewis.





Also on the list:

Eva Longoria. I don't get it.

"The three Jessicas" (Simpson, Alba and Biel). Besides the first name, what the three Jessicas all have in common is that I would, but I'd hate myself in the morning, you know, if we had to, what is the word...talk.

Jennifer Garner. In the same category with Eva Longoria.

Nicole Kidman. There was a time when I used to say I felt completely unable to rate Kidman as an actress, because any time she was onscreen all I was thinking was "pretty..." That time has more-or-less passed, but there's no denying...

And as I have previously observed, there is something about Scarlett Johansson that makes me lose all my gentility and resort to tit jokes like an 11-year-old.

I'm sorry, but there truly doesn't seem to be anything I can do. Not if she will continue to wear dresses like that...

Jennifer Aniston. Well, come on.

As to that guy I promised you: One of the fellas on the list is George Clooney, and...

I would. I would right now.

Speaking of George, I've never understood what's supposed to be so hot about Jennifer Lopez...with the exception of her in Out Of Sight.

Halle Berry.
Don't believe I know the woman. Sweet, is she?

Julia Roberts. She's the voice of a spider. That's just creepy.

Carrie Underwood. I'd much rather Mary Stuart Masterson (below) were on the list. She's a dead ringer for Underwood anyway...only Masterson has more talent.

Some women apparently not prominently featured this year who would make it to my top 15: Eva Amurri, Anne Hathaway, Teri Polo (that pic is totally not "safe for work," that's why I'm not running it here), Phoebe Cates, Courtney Love, Paget Brewster, Courteney Cox and...

Jennifer Connelly (top), Amber Benson (bottom)...and I reckon I know a few people who'd like to see that...

, The Dixie Chicks,
Sarah Paulson (left), Lisa Edelstein (below). (For those of you who don't watch House, Ms. Edelstein is the woman nicely filling out the tight skirt and pink shirt in the photo above. The scruffysexycool fella to her right is Hugh Laurie, who I'm assuming is somewhere on my sex's half of People's list...)

...and Tara Reid.

You know what I don't get?

Eva Amurri is an actress, a model, and a very good-looking young woman.



In fact one of People Magazine's "50 Most Beautiful People in the World," 2003, as you can see above. She is also the daughter of Susan Sarandon. Amurri's upcoming film reportedly contains a couple of sex scenes. She said to "Rush & Molloy" in the NY Daily News:

"In one of them, I got to wear a garter belt, which is my fantasy come true - ever since my prom dress."

Now, none of this is what I don't get. "Sex sells" is hardly the hottest news on the planet. No, what I don't get is that Rush & Molloy led the item by saying,

Susan Sarandon might be squirming in her seat during the flick "The Education of Charlie Banks" Friday at the Tribeca Film Fest.

Does anyone out there think Susan Sarandon is the kind of mother to be embarassed by her daughter's sex scene? If I were her I'd be more uncomfortable with the fact that the film is directed by big-hollow-dick swagger "Rock Star" Fred Durst.

You know, Fred Durst, from Limp Bizkit, the Black Oak Arkansas of the '90s.

I wouldn't let my daughter appear in a film he made, but that's just me.

Look at this.

Late in his life, in fact not long before he died, Sammy Davis Jr. was the subject of a tribute television special. Almost every living performer short of Joey Bishop with even the slightest connection to Davis participated, seriously, look at this cast list and tell me who's missing.

Sammy was seated in a special section right by the stage, so many of the performers addressed their remarks and/or performances directly to him. Including Frank Sinatra, who called him his brother.

But the moment that was one for the books came after Gregory Hines performed. Like Davis, Hines (who we would lose only 13 years later) was an award-winning, former child prodigy tap dancer and multi-talented performer; he idolized the older man. His performance has in it much of the talented pupil trying to please an old master.

Then Sammy, who I'll remind you again was very ill at the time-his legs were like matchsticks-reached for his tap shoes and took the stage. What followed was unbelivable.

The special is not available on video, but clips make it out as part of things like the Davis episode of Biography. I checked YouTube for it a few months ago but it wasn't up. Today, however, luck was with me. Look at this.

Anne Hathaway wearing nothing but a paper bag

I swear to god, the woman's trying to kill me.

BTW, I have revised my earlier theory about what happens to us when we die if we've been good. I no longer think we go into a never-ending shower with a 21-year-old Virgina Madsen.

Now I think we get into an ever-warm bed which we never have to leave and in which every time we wake up, this is the first thing we see:

You make your heaven, and I'll make mine.

ETA: In a sense, this is some kind of an accomplishment. This blog is now listed on the Anne Hathaway Home Page at Guilty Obsession. Under the label, "Anne Hathaway Obsessors." I don't know that this is entirely fair, I mean, I wouldn't say that I was obsessed with Anne Hathaway...

I mean, I do find her awfully sexy and all, and it is kind of unfair how insanely beautiful she is. But I'm also pleased to see her winning acclaim as an actress, and I wouldn't want you to think that I...that is, that I...ah...that I...


Eyes...those eyes...good lord in heaven almighty, those eyes...

Okay, but I'm not the least bit guilty about it.

Who do I root for in a case like this: The name of the place...Babylon 5

Sheryl Crow vs. Karl Rove

And now for something completely different

Just so you shouldn't think I only like synth-heavy, lyrically penetrating and smart sexually ambiguous (if not sexually repressed) mope-pop that treats women as people with whom to do anything but "do it till you're satisfied"...

I love this song, this album, and to a lesser extent this band. I consider them techno-pop at least as much as rock (no synths, but dig that slick, polished production), but I love them.

And it's not a pleasure I feel particuarly guilty about. They're stupid, they're fun and they're most definitely boys.

By the way, I haven't been able to get the hot blonde in the striped shirt who appears around the 4.05 mark in this video out of my head for almost 20 years. It's not because I want to discuss feminist theory with her.

It's because she symbolizes, in one split-second shot, the reason why every band was ever formed ever.

Oh, boy...

The University of Western Ontario's newspaper, the Gazette, is in trouble because of a "humorous" article published last April Fool's day. It seems that a (pseudonymously credited) writer decided that it would be great fun to "spoof" anti-sexual assualt events like "Take Back The Night" marches and "women's" plays like the Vagina Monologues.

The way he-I'm just guessing-did this was through such laff-inspiring conceits as postulating that a woman's vagina might take on a life of its own, "[crawl} from under [a] flowing white nightie, [steal] a loudspeaker and [go] on a rampage."

This is called fun. Oh, and the woman with the lively vagina turns out to have a name similar to that of a member of a women's group on campus.

Zuzu at Feministe is irked because of the various phobias and isms she believes the piece relies upon, as am I. But first of all, I'm dismayed because the piece is so , as Zuzu also puts it, "unfunny and confused."

Come on, guys, you're Canadians, for god's sake, you're from the land of SCTV.

(The show that gave us Libby Wolfson's "I'm Taking My Own Head, Screwing It On Right, and No Guy's Gonna Tell Me That It Aint." And other genuinely scathing, brilliant and funny satires of feminism at it's most self-righteous.)

This is the best you can do?

To make matters worse, these funnyboys have insured that no one will ever be likely to try satire at the paper again, including those who might be better at it.

...editor-in-chief Ian Van Den Hurk...says that the newspaper’s goal was to create satire...

Apparently the university has allowed Van Den Hurk to keep his position as editor-in-chief, but is working with him to “implement several changes for the next publishing year,” including a new study group that will take students’ concerns and suggestions when publishing each issue.
(From Feministing)

Nice work, boys. To paraphrase Spider-Man's slogan, with great power of the press comes great responsibility. Editors of student newspapers (and hell, real newspapers) ought to have that on a plaque over their layout desk.

Debbie Schlussel, Sen. Larry Craig, John McCain still employed

An adjunct professor was fired after leading a classroom discussion about the Virginia Tech shootings in which he pointed a marker at some students and said "pow."

The five-minute demonstration at Emmanuel College on Wednesday, two days after a student killed 32 people on the Virginia Tech campus, included a discussion of gun control, whether to respond to violence with violence, and the public's "celebration of victimhood," said the professor, Nicholas Winset.

During the demonstration, Winset pretended to shoot some students. Then one student pretended to shoot Winset to illustrate his point that the gunman might have been stopped had another student or faculty member been armed.

There's more if you can take it.

Random Flickr-blogging 3318

Just then, Sonya heard a cable snap.

Her mouth twitched.

Credit.

"Elmo demands FOOD! Bring Elmo FOOD, so that that Elmo's power may GROW! Bwa ha ha ha ha ha!"

Credit.

Eventually, they would return to their everyday lives, and never speak of this again.

Credit.

This is one of the very best Joe Jackson songs

...which means it's the best of the best.

Hot fun making happy times

As expected, "Hot Fuzz" is good fun; genuinely funny and with a knack for pointing out the absurdities of a genre even as it celebrates it. (This knack may be unique to subjects of the Queen: The Kids In The Hall could do it too.)

I'd call it not quite as good as "Shaun of the Dead." But that may be because I like the genre of film that was affectionately satirizing (scary movies) more than the one this is (noisy. OTT buddy cop movies).

Either way, it's a difference of only about a percentage point if I were giving perecentage points. I'm kind of hoping its kickoff weekend underscores just how badly "Grindhouse" fell flat.

Where else are you going to see a sweet old lady get a flying roundhouse kick to the face?

By the hero, yet?

PS: This movie also contains possibly the single greatest "girl on girl" joke in cinema history...a thought that certainly puts the title in a somewhat different light...



BTW, the village in which most of the film's action takes place is called "Sandford." Here in Seattle, the theater where I saw it had this on the marquee:

Hot Fuzz
Sandford and Guns

We think ourselves quite clever, here in Seattle.

Never forget the glory days of electropop

...or that they weren't so far away. This performance, for instance, is from only three or four years ago. The song, however...well, you'll either recognize it or you won't, and it'll mean something to you or not.

There is no god

So I decided I'd like to become a registered poster at the IMDb site. I don't know if you know this, but when you become a registered poster at the IMDb site, one of the steps is that they ask you to enter something in a little window.

It's kind of like that nonsense word you have to enter to leave a comment on my blog and some others. Except the IMDb folks, clever as they are, have worked it out so what you have to enter is not nonsense but a random, computer selected title of some film or TV show.

The random, computer selected title of a film or TV show I was asked to enter to validate my registration?

"The L Word."

There is. No god.

John McCain, master of comedy.

John? 1979 called. It wants its joke back. Come to think of it, elementary school children of 1979 called and they want their joke back. You're a war hero, a United States Senator, and you're asking people to choose you to lead them.

Surely you're supposed to take the thought of your country making war more seriously than this.

Good question.

Former Clinton advisor (and author of Reason: Why Liberals Will Win the Battle for America ) Robert Reich wants to know:

Why is it easier to buy a handgun than medicine in this country?

Look abroad and you have another useful point of contrast. In the United States, many people who are seriously depressed can't afford to see a doctor, let alone get a prescription. Unlike every other advanced nation, we do not provide universal health care or ready access to mental health services. But unlike every other advanced nation, we do allow just about anyone to buy a handgun.

vegan lesbian transsexual 'interspecies erotica' devotee speaking...and how are you?

Debbie Schlussel has responded to Media Matters pointing out that her answer to the Virginia Tech shootings was to agitate for racial prejudice and conflict. Since this blog was one of those that joined MM in taking Schlussel to task for this, and since nothing is more important to me than a sense of fair play, I felt it only right to let you see that response.

In the interests of equal time. Miss Schussel?

"...I suppose now that Don Imus is gone, they've assigned the vegan lesbian transsexual 'interspecies erotica' devotee they had monitoring the Imus show to monitor my site."

Well! I don't know about you, friends, but I don't qualify under any of those labels.*












*Technically.

To obstinately hope of winning

As a quick follow-up to yesterday's post about Tideland, just wanted to say that if you see it on DVD, watching the extras is especially recommended. There's three different "featurettes" (two on the making-of, one specifically on SFX) and deleted scenes, but best of all is an 11-minute interview with Gilliam.

Gilliam is always fun to listen to talk. But here he says some especially interesting things about:

• The way most adults think of childhood


• Why it was important to him to have women in key positions behind the scenes on the film.


• And why he thinks men and women have perceived it differently.

Secondary recommendation over. Except just to add:


(click to make bigger)

"The squirrels made it seem less lonely?" Best Tagline ever.

Pride.

As I type, this blog is the number three answer for the question "what does sapphic septet mean?" on Ask.com.

It's the little things that keep you going.

Oh. My. God.

Shorter version of the reaction of unbearable pro-war idiots like Neal Boortz and Mark Steyn to the deaths of 32 people:

The 32 people are to blame.

I am not making this up.

This is another one of those moments when I just want to say...

Isn't it Democrats like me who are supposed to look everywhere for someone to blame except the killer?

Wouldn't you think that if these Heathers had an ounce of compassion in their hearts for every parent who just lost their child they would wipe the drool from their mouths and just sit quietly for a while in recognition of the fact that something MASSIVE happened here?

Something bigger than all their fantasies of being Bruce Willis?

You'd think so, wouldn't ya?

For those who look for meaning, in form as they do fact

Some people thought Roberts', and then Alito's, confirmation to the Supreme Court wasn't really that big a deal. Or worth paying as much attention to as did some blogs (including this one).

Get that abortion now, folks:

The Supreme Court's new conservative majority gave anti-abortion forces a landmark victory Wednesday in a 5-4 decision that bans a controversial abortion procedure nationwide and sets the stage for further restrictions.

The 5-4 decision written by Justice Anthony Kennedy said the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act that Congress passed and Bush signed into law in 2003 does not violate a woman's constitutional right to an abortion.

The law is constitutional despite not containing an exception that would allow the procedure if needed to preserve a woman's health, Kennedy said. "The law need not give abortion doctors unfettered choice in the course of their medical practice," he wrote in the majority opinion.

Reacting to the ruling, Bush said that it affirms the progress his administration has made to defend the "sanctity of life."

This begs an obvious response, and rather than waste both our time being obvious I'm going to quote George Carlin recorded in 1988, at the end of the Reagan presidency. I'm just angry, he was angry and funny. I'm sure all of us could use a laugh right now, even if it's tinged with anger.

And because it's a reminder that four years later, a president was elected who was strongly opposed to pro-life legislation. Unfortunately, even if his wife is elected next year, the Supreme Court the Bush administration made will still be there.

Here's grand master Carlin:

They were going to get government off our backs. Yeah, but when it comes to abortion they don't mind government being in a woman's uterus, do they? Yeah, backs are no good, but uterus is ok by them. These people call themselves "Right to Lifers." Don't you love that phrase, and don't you love the way these people pervert the English language? "Right to Lifers?" Don't you realize that most of the Right to Lifers are in favor of the death penalty, and they support the South American death squads, and they're against gun control, and they're against nuclear weapons control. When they say "Right to Life" they're talking about their right to decide which people should live or die.

Now back to the amateur comedians.

Abortion rights groups as well as the leading association of obstetricians and gynecologists have said the procedure sometimes is the safest for a woman. They also said that such a ruling could threaten most abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy, although Kennedy said alternate, more widely used procedures remain legal.

Emphasis mine. It's not bad enough these people think they know more about a woman's health than the woman, they think they know more than doctors!


As a long-time lover of women who thinks most politicians who aren't written by Aaron Sorkin should be made to sit in a corner in dunce caps...

...this is one of those times I want to apologize for all those fetus-obsessed, homophobic, women-phobic twits.

Eve Gartner of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America deserves the last word:

"This ruling flies in the face of 30 years of Supreme Court precedent and the best interest of women's health and safety. ... This ruling tells women that politicians, not doctors, will make their health care decisions for them."

In spite of everything, went swimming Against the tide

(For the record, this review contains a spoiler for the end of Time Bandits. But if you haven't seen that supreme and pure fantasy, go away and watch it right now and don't let me catch you reading my blog until you have)

Terry Gilliam's Tideland is a movie that deserved, and deserves, a much better reception than it got in the theaters, to which it was barely released, and from the critics, who found it "disturbing and mostly unwatchable." Stupid Richard Roeper said it nearly made him walk out of the theater, which ought to be recommendation enough right there.

Disturbing it certainly is, not all in a bad way, but it comes to an end which is dramatically satisfying. Unwatchable it most emphatically is not. I'll believe Terry Gilliam is capable of making an unwatchable film when I believe I'd turn down an "indecent proposal" from Halle Berry.

This one has one or two images that reminded me why I've always felt he was one of only two directors who could do Neil Gaiman's Sandman justice . (Peter Jackson is the other, if you want to know, an opinion I've held since before Lord of the Rings)

Tideland is wrongly labeled a science fiction/fantasy film at some sites, including Rotten Tomatoes. This is wrong. The film is no more an SF or fantasy film than our lives are just because sometimes we all fall into our own fantasy worlds.

On DVD, the movie starts with an introduction from Gilliam that is not optional (you don't select it, it just comes up when you start the film). In this, he acknowledges that most people will not like the film, and talks a little about his hopes for it.

I kind of wish he hadn't felt the need to do that. A movie should stand on its own. On the other hand, it's the kind of audacious move I expect from him as a filmmaker-as most of you know, Terry Gilliam movies are a few of my favorite things.

At the end of the introduction, Gilliam says that at the age of 64, as he was at the time he made this film, he thinks he finally found his inner child. And it turned out to be a little girl.

(Boy, I sure know what that's like, baby)

The girl is Jeliza-Rose. When we first meet her, she's living as the enabling daughter of two drug-addicted parents (played by Jeff Bridges and Jennifer Tilly, but it's not really about them).

Then her mother dies, and her father takes her on a trip far away, to the house where he grew up. But that was a long time ago; the house is the middle of nowhere and in a state of great disrepair.

And soon, her father departs himself on his own trip.

And Jeliza-Rose is left alone.

What follows is how she copes with a world which is increasingly turning crazy and dangerous. And how her imagination acts both as her source of escape and as her protector.

Members of Gilliam's cult of fans like myself will be able to make connections with other child heroes in his work, like Sally in Munchhausen and Kevin in Time Bandits. It's Sally's role in her film to keep the Baron going when all seems lost. And Kevin comes home to find a world in which his parents promptly explode. But Gilliam keeps Jeliza an individual, and the pain she faces could conceivably make Sally and Kevin curl up and die.

In a way, this story is about what might have happened if Kevin's parents exploded at the beginning of the picture instead of the end. Jeliza has to keep herself going, her Baron falls down no matter how many attempts she makes to prop him up.

Jeliza is played in one of the great unflinching child performances by Jodelle Ferland, for which the young Canadian actress was nominated for a Genie (that's Canada's Academy Award). Which is only right-if we don't stay with her character, the movie doesn't work, and Ferland carries it off shiningly.

Do not listen to anything else you've heard until you see this movie for yourself. Is it perfect? Oh hell, no. It's not a masterpiece like Gilliam's best work with the Python team, or a gem like his own Munchausen or Time Bandits.

But it is the best film he's made since Fisher King, and in many ways his most mature.

Oh, fuck.

That's all I have to say about this.

John Travolta spends too much time hanging out with Quentin Tarantino watching his old movies

“I have fame on the level of a Marilyn Monroe or an Elvis, but part of the reason I didn’t go the way they did was because of my beliefs,” Travolta told the Irish Independent [via MSNBC].

Well...in a sense, he's correct. The Travolta of Saturday Night Fever is a cultural icon of the '70s and disco, just as Presley is of the '50s and "Rock 'N Roll." But...as a performer, Presley quite literally changed the world. Travolta was just in a movie that a lot of people were high on.

And that was 30 years ago.

The Monroe comparison is even further off. She's an icon of beautiful, ripe female sexuality, if not sexuality itself.

"Pretty women...silhouetted...stay within you...glancing...stay forever..." (Stephen Sondheim)

A thing of joy forever.

That sort of woman.

Travolta at the height of his power was never anywhere near that sort of wattage. And even if he had been...saying it about yourself instantly demotes you by showing that you're not the brightest spark in the universe.

No night to stay in/Bad moon is rising again

Here's a story, probably not coincidentally from the Houston Chronicle, saying not to expect a "rush to new gun control" after yesterday's events. It strikes me as cynical to the point of toxicity.

Notice something. Nearly every time the article quotes a prominent Democrat-Harry Reid, Ted Kennedy, Dianne Feinstein-they are saying pretty much what I wrote yesterday that I hoped they'd say.

"I think we ought to be thinking about the families and the victims and not speculate about future legislative battles that might lie ahead," said Reid, a view expressed by other Democratic leaders the day after the shootings that left 33 dead on the campus of Virginia Tech.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., was one of very few lawmakers to refer on gun control in the early hours after the shootings. "There will be time to debate the steps needed to avert such tragedies," he said on Monday, "but today, our thoughts and prayers go to their families."

But every time, they are followed or preceeded by assertions like this:

Democrats traditionally have been in the forefront of efforts to pass gun control legislation, but there is a widespread perception among political strategists that the issue has been a loser in recent campaigns. It was notably absent from the agenda Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi unveiled earlier this year when the party took control of the House and Senate for the first time in more than a decade.

Overall, though, said Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y., "It is a tough sell" to pass gun control legislation. Neither Reid nor House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., seemed eager to predict Democrats would lead a drive to toughen existing laws.

Emphasis mine. In other words, Democrats like Reid and Kennedy aren't thinking of or praying for the families of the victims today, like most everyone else in the country and world. That is not, this article implies, why they're not making immidiate efforts to link the shootings to the passage of new gun control legislation.

No, they're just cowering in the corner and saying "please don't hurt me" because "the issue has been a loser in recent campaigns."

And notice something else. Go back and read that Ted Kennedy statement. Find me the "reference to gun control" AP writer David Espo assures us he made, pls.

Finally, notice the difference when a Republican or two, god bless their money-loving hearts, is heard from:

Not all lawmakers were as reticent.

Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, one of Congress' most persistent advocates of gun rights, noted that the student who police say was the shooter at Virginia Tech had brought a weapon onto campus in violation of restrictions. He said he doubted a law could be passed that would protect "any of us when somebody who is mentally deranged decides to do this."

That is all. The Democrats are "reticent." By implied contrast, the Republican is expansive, confident, and open. Nothing about any alternate motivation a Republican might have for making an anti-gun control statement at this time.

Funnily enough, if you do a few searches for "Larry Craig" on Yahoo! you find two or three interesting things, such as that:

Larry Craig, Republican of Idaho...sits on the N.R.A.'s board of directors in addition to his day job as a federal lawmaker.

Get that? He isn't just " a persistent advocate of gun rights." He is quite literally in the N.R.A's pocket. It is in his financial interest to futher their interest. Shouldn't that have come up, at least in passing, in an article that repeatedly bends over backwards to question the motivations of Democrats?

And isn't it also worth mentioning in an article like this that a majority of Americans already wanted stricter laws covering the sale of firearms before yesterday's shocking killings? I'm not saying this will change the will of the people one way or the other, I simply don't know.

But either way, I suspect that (the will of the people) will have a lot more to do with what the Democrats do than anything Harry Reid says now.

ETA: Similarly, notice something in this story on John McCain's simplistic reaction:

"We have to look at what happened here, but it doesn't change my views on the Second Amendment, except to make sure that these kinds of weapons don't fall into the hands of bad people," McCain said Monday in response to a question.

"...to make sure that these kinds of weapons don't fall into the hands of bad people."

In other words...regulating them, you weasel!

But the headline is "Sen. McCain sticks to views on guns," thus associating him with the phrase, "stick to your guns." Which means, "Do what you know to be right regardless of consequences," and which makes McCain sound a lot better than the flip-flopper he really is.

BTW, as a way of rinsing any bad taste this tale of corruption and weasels may have left behind out of your mouth, have a look at the aforementioned Sen. Craig, on the issues. Among other positive things, notice the consistent record of voting against same-sex marriage, prohibiting job discrimination by sexual orientation, and other gay rights issues.

We all know what that means, don't we?

An anti-gay rights GOP Senator?

Uh-huh, that's right. He has sex with men.

ETA, again: This is what we call the other shoe dropping. To the rest of the world, our gun laws are just another part of their image of us as Mickey Mouse cowboys.

South Korea's Foreign Ministry said the government hoped Monday's shootings, allegedly carried out by a 23-year-old South Korean native, would not "stir up racial prejudice or confrontation."

Gee, why would they think that might happen? Just because Debbie Schlussel-she who thinks women are just too darn stupid to have the vote-said she suspected the shooter might have been a "Paki" doesn't necessarily mean...

(re Media Matters)

While some focused blame only on the gunman, world opinion over U.S. gun laws was almost unanimous: Access to weapons increases the probability of shootings. There was no sympathy for the view that more guns would have saved lives by enabling students to shoot the assailant.

Emphasis mine. Definitely read the whole thing, not only to get some information about what the rest of the world thinks about us at a time like this, but to read about men like:

Liviu Librescu, 76, an engineering science and mathematics lecturer, tried to stop the gunman from entering his classroom by blocking the door before he was fatally shot, his son said Tuesday from Tel Aviv.

"My father blocked the doorway with his body and asked the students to flee," Joe Librescu said. His father, a Holocaust survivor, immigrated to Israel from Romania, and was on sabbatical in Virginia.

Again, emphasis mine. As the reaction to the shooting heats up on both sides, I don't want to lose sight of the fact that there were honest-to-god heroes involved. A 76 year old man put himself between his students and danger, and lost his life because of it.

I don't know if I could have done that. Could you?

Thasright, baby. Allfather Odin, that's me.

(click pics for expanded clarity)



Which Norse God or Goddess are you most like?

This is weird.

(Click to enlarge)

Just over a week after Johnny Hart, the writer of The Wizard of Id, passes away, his collaborator, Brant Parker, follows him. I can't add anything to what I said about the strip last week, there was a time when I was quite enchanted with its humor and owned about a baker's dozen of the paperbacks.

Nevertheless...this is weird.

Man, I'm a bitch

Or so I thought after rereading this Yoko Ono review a couple of days ago, prior to publication.

Bonus: This is (best girl band name ever) We've Got a Fuzzbox and We're Gonna Use It, covering Yoko Ono's "Walking On Thin Ice."



Cool, huh?

Gunman Kills 32 at Virginia Tech

You've heard about this and there's little I can say. Except that I knew with sickening certainty that it was only a matter of time before someone started trying to make political hay out of it. I was almost as certain I knew what sort of people it would be.

And here you can read about them saying if only more people had handguns, things like this just wouldn't happen.

And from the Earthlink News story:

A White House spokesman said President Bush was horrified and offered his prayers to the victims and the people of Virginia. "The president believes that there is a right for people to bear arms, but that all laws must be followed," spokeswoman Dana Perino said.

Y'know...I don't know who was expecting that people like President Bush would change their position on the right-to-carry. That's not what struck me as offensive about that statement and the ones linked above.

It's that...shouldn't this be a time for tending to the wounded, both physically and psychically; the mourning of the dead? Before we rush ass-over-teakettle to "prove" that it supports our already deeply-held belief, shouldn't we wait until we can try to find out exactly what happened here, what went wrong?

Shouldn't we be thinking about the victims, the survivors, and possible heroes? Possible heroes like the one in this story:

Alec Calhoun, a 20-year-old junior, said he was in a 9:05 a.m. mechanics class when he and classmates heard a thunderous sound from the classroom next door - "what sounded like an enormous hammer."

Screams followed an instant later, and the banging contined. When students realized the sounds were gunshots, Calhoun said, he started flipping over desks for hiding places. Others dashed to the windows of the second-floor classroom, kicking out the screens and jumping from the ledge of Room 204, he said.

"I must've been the eighth or ninth person who jumped, and I think I was the last," said Calhoun, of Waynesboro, Va. He landed in a bush and ran.

Calhoun said that the two students behind him were shot, but that he believed they survived. Just before he climbed out the window, Calhoun said, he turned to look at the professor, who had stayed behind, perhaps to block the door.

The instructor was killed, he said.

Emphasis mine. Surely we should be thinking about this, and not trying to score petty points, at this time.

Not really a meme, and I'm not really a fanatic...

...but I decided to pick up on Reel Fanatic's post about good movie soundtracks anyway. In the following list, links are to reviews or earlier blog posts I've done about the subject.

Pretty in Pink or almost any of the great John Hughes movie soundtracks from my teenage years. These may have been the most influential in shaping my musical taste.

Wendy Carlos' score for Tron

Teachers

Finding Nemo

Xanadu. Representing that whole school of soundtracks like Jesus Christ Superstar, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Little Shop Of Horrors and Reefer Madness, and something of a guilty pleasure.

Most scores composed by the late Jerry Goldsmith, especially the original Planet of The Apes, but also Gremlins, Basic Instinct, Escape From The Planet Of The Apes and the original score to Legend.

Shock Treatment.

In some ways this soundtrack is even better than that for Rocky Horror, to which it was a "sequel."

Doctor Who from 1980-1984. Ah, the golden age of the BBC Radiophonic workshop.

The Beatles' A Hard Day's Night (oh, those screaming schoolgirls), and Help, and...

And all the Disney records I blogged about here.

As I said, this isn't really a meme so I'm not tagging anyone, but I think anybody who wants to should feel free to join in.

...and...

All together now...

More proof that Marilyn Manson is not a man

I mean, besides the already well-established fact that he can't keep women satisfied.

He thinks his new girlfriend, Evan Rachel Wood, is "my double, my twin."

This is Evan Rachel Wood:



Must be like looking in a mirror.

I'm a boy

And just to prove it, here's a link to an article on the sex/gross-out comedies of the Classic Eighties Teen Movie era. It appeared in last week's Entertainment Weekly, but it reads as though I could have written it myself:

If Porky's had the advantage of being first out of the gate, Fast Times quickly established itself as the classiest of the breed — it was the Citizen Kane of teen sex comedies — thanks to Sean Penn's dazed-and-confused star turn as Jeff Spicoli (''Aloha, Mr. Hand!''), the easy-on-the-eyes Cates [and] Jennifer Jason Leigh's Stacy.

By Reagan's second inauguration in 1985, the party was over in more ways than one. There was a runaway deficit in Washington and a president who could barely bring himself to mention the word AIDS, much less make it a national priority. And the once innocent sex comedies of just a few years earlier were starting to develop a nasty, malicious aftertaste. With the exception of 1984's truly classic Revenge of the Nerds

(the Ambersons of teen sex comedies to Fast Times' Citizen Kane), disposable knockoffs like The Big Bet, Loose Screws, Fraternity Vacation...and Hardbodies 2 seemed to regard women more and more as the enemy. There was nothing romantic about ''losin' it'' anymore; these women were suckers to be lied to, drugged, and otherwise shanghaied into having sex. That's not just a buzzkill, them's felonies.

Ladies, go read if you want to know how we thought then and be honest, think now. Fellas, reminisce.

Tim Burton's best-written movie

You old-timers will be aware that I do not think much of the movies of Tim Burton. Not to put too fine a point on it, I think most of them are pretty terrible. But there's one big exception, and it's Ed Wood.

Why? Well I'm always going to think it's because he was working from an actual...what's it called...script.

(The screenplay was written by Larry Karaszewski & Scott Alexander, who would go on to write Man on the Moon and The People vs. Larry Flynt, so it's obvious they knew a little something about bio-pics)

Anyway, all this is in aid of the fact that Mark Evanier ran a scene from the movie on his blog today and I'm stealing it. Mark wanted to talk about how Maurice LaMarche dubbed the voice of Orson Welles in the scene, which is an interesting fact and LaMarche gives a great, dramatic vocal performance.

But I just wanted to talk about what a great scene it is, and how rare it is for me to say that about a Tim Burton movie.

Says you, sister

Vanessa at Feministing found an interesting article on the BBC News site. It purports to be about a rise in violence among girls. I say, "purports to be," because five paragraphs in, we get

Statistically, an increase in numbers of offences of violence and disorder involving girls is hard to prove.

But...

Rephrased: This may or may not be true, but we think it's a jolly exciting story, so we're going to write about it anyway.

They quote a Dr Sally Henry, who blames it on, wait for it...

Dr Henry said: "It's a bit like the Spice Girls' 'girl power' thing. Kicking and lashing out is seen as a way of empowering yourself, but it's not.

Dr Henry also says things like that the only way to save these poor misbegotten waifs is,

"You need to get to them at 10 and 11 years old to educate them about what it means to be a girl"

Now, as we know, I'm not one. But speaking as someone who spends a signifigant amount of his time trying to think like a girl-to write them-I'm gonna go way out on a limb here: By age 10 and 11, I suspect most females already know what it means to be a girl. Any of you ladies wanna back me up?

For obvious, good and sufficent reasons Vanessa is chiefly concerned with this story in terms of disempowering women and otherwise making them feel bad. But being-despite everything in the last paragraph-a boy, what caught my attention is that the good doctor doesn't seem to think much of us, either:

"And it's not a way of attracting boys either like some girls might think. Boys might find aggressive women in music videos attractive, but they don't want to take them home and marry them."

Says you, sister! I'd marry a girl like Chloe from 24 (back when she was still Chloe, but that's another post) in a second.

Or Topanga from Boy Meets World-she just grabs Cory, puts him up against his locker, and gives him his first kiss. Swoon.

Heck, I could probably even be ensnared by Christina Ricci's character in The Opposite of Sex (though, I grant you, that probably wouldn't end well...).

Random Flickr-blogging 4374

I'm sorry-well actually no I'm not-this just made me smile. Smile and giggle like a fool.



"Helloo...Hellooo...Helloooo...Hello!"

Original pic credit

Oh really, Dick?

Vice President Dick Cheney says he is "willing to bet" that Democratic lawmakers will back down and approve a war-spending bill that doesn't call for U.S. troops to leave Iraq.

I myself am willing to bet that Jon Stewart will cover this with an image of two of something like Cheney saying "all is well" on CNN, while in split screen next to him Iraq burns.

And with the new day's dawning

Here's Double with "The Captain of Her Heart." Some of you may remember this hit by the Swiss duo–it got to #16 in 1986. I’ve heard the song innumerable times since then. Either on the album from which it was taken (Blue), which I still have and which still holds up, or on Volume 5 of the Living in Oblivion series.

And it still took me nearly 20 years to realize that the song has only one verse. It's just so damn jazzy and atmospheric.



From what I found on Google there were three different versions of this video, this, the "European Version" is by far the greatest. It's a rare example of a video being almost exactly what I've always seen in my head whenever I hear the song.

The others are wrongheaded from the word go. It's over 20 years too late, but you want to tell whoever directed them, "Hey, you notice how the first line of the song is 'It was way past midnight?' That's maybe a clue that the video shouldn't be filmed in the middle of a lovely day."

They do make for an interesting look at the cliches of what European musicians thought the U.S. market wanted, however.

(Lots of models and scenes of the band members driving around various picturesque locales.)

Things That Make You Go Hmmm

It's unfortunate when a man is better remembered for jokes about himself than for his work

But nevertheless, as I read this brief news item...

Legendary crooner Don Ho, known for his raspberry-tinted sunglasses and catchy signature tune 'Tiny Bubbles,' has died, his publicist said Saturday, April 14, 2007. He was 76

...all I can think about is how, back when I was making my only fitfully funny attempts at being a stand-up comedian, there used to be a guy at the Holy City Zoo that would go onstage in a brightly colored Hawaiian shirt and say something like,

"Many people ask me: Did you sleep with Don Ho to get that shirt? And I say, no. I slept with Don Ho because he's a fine entertainer who's brought happiness to millions of people."

I was amused to see Patton Oswalt & Brian Posehn remembering the same fella in the Comedians of Comedy documentary movie.

In this sense, Mr. Ho, you will never be forgotten.

And now, an unsolicited commercial endorsement

This stuff is amazing. Considering my previous favorite Ben & Jerry's flavor was their vanilla fudge caramel swirl, and this formula just adds waffle cone bits (and, of course, truthiness), that wasn't hard to guess.

I may just have to stock up on some the very next chance I get (it's also amazingly hard to find), to hold out against the coming communist hoarde.

Another day, another scandal

Paul Wolfowitz is a famous incompetent, a failure as a human being and an architect of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Despite all this (or indeed most likely because of it), he was made president of the World Bank a couple of years ago.

As Echidine Of The Snakes pointed out at the time, this was a perfect example of how President Bush's mind works.

Logic would require this. Find the person without any experience or training in the field, make sure that she is totally opposed to the values of the institution, and then nominate her to run it anyway. Tralalah!

But, I know what you're saying. You're saying, if only he'd engineered a promotion and a massive pay hike for someone who turned out to be his girlfriend.

Well, guess what.

World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz must decide whether he still has the credibility to head the institution, following controversy over his handling of a promotion for his girlfriend, a top German official said on Saturday.

"For me the most important thing is that the moral authority and the financial stability of the World Bank must not be harmed," German development minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul told Reuters.

I have two thoughts in response: One is that Ms. Wieczorek-Zeul obviously doesn't know that our government and president stopped worrying about credibility years ago! In fact, the only right-wing figure with a shred of credibility left is Stephen Colbert.

And second...so it's come to this. We're being lectured on moral authority by the Germans (Don't mention the war. Either of them). Gosh that president Bush sure runs a good, Christian administration doesn't he?

In No Sense Nonsense.

There is a part of me, and it's not buried all that terribly deep, that wants to get up every single day and act exactly like this.



Dig the like-a-looks for the Queen, what looks like now (but obviously wouldn't have been then) Courtney Love, John Cleese and...

Well, hello Adam, where you been?
I said a'stand aside 'cause I'm feelin' mean,
I've had a gutful of you and I'm feelin' bad
'Cause you're an ugly old bore and ain't I glad...

Of course she won't wear fur. Fur is natural and everything about this woman is a fake

Continuing a couple of recently reappearing themes of this blog: How even if you take off all your clothes, it doesn't necessarily mean I think you're hot, and the un-subtle linking of unhealthy foods and sex.

There is a Playboy model named "Holly Madison." I'm sure this is her real name and the fact that it makes her sound like a snack cake is just a meaningless coincidence. Ms. Madison is the latest to pose for that 'I'd Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur' campaign PETA's into.

I don't think everyone who supports PETA is necessarily nuts. Though as I've said before they're not exactly known for their well-thought-out and convincing arguments. And as I've also said before-going naked-all for it.

But it's just...well, have you ever seen a more fake-looking woman in your life?

Like the fellow once said, ain't that a kick in the head

Okay. Back in August, a would-be director sits outside of a movie theater in New York trying to talk pedestrians into buying his latest movie. He sees a group of seven women walking together (at 2 a.m.) and, finding at least some of them attractive, starts hitting on them.

Via Feministing:

If you take it from the Times, 28-year-old Dwayne Buckle merely said, “Hey, how’re you doing?” to one of the women, and then was attacked by the group and stabbed in the stomach with a steak knife.

But unlike the Times, which only talked to Buckle, the NY Daily News interviewed police and others who were at the scene. Turns out it the fight probably wasn't caused by a violent response to a "harmless" catcall, but by an anti-gay comment and threat. (The women were reportedly lesbians.)

"He called us [homophobic slur] and he said he was going to f- us all," one of the women said hours later as cops led the seven suspects out of the 6th Precinct stationhouse.
"He spit on us and threw a cigarette," another woman said.

Now, it seems apparent to me that this is a case both of a wannabe trying to get some publicity, and a boy not liking to tell people that he was beaten up by a bunch of girls.

But yesterday the New York Post ran an update item, as the trial of some of the women has just started. Buried nine paragraphs into the item is the information that

He then spat on them, threw a cigarette at them, and even grabbed one of them by the throat - which, like much of the melee, was caught on an IFC video security camera.

Emphasis in that quote mine. But then I suppose the Post had to run that fact nine paragraphs into the story, because earlier space was taken up with this headline:

ATTACK OF THE KILLER LESBIANS

And 'graphs like this:

"The girls started coming out of nowhere," Dwayne Buckle told a Manhattan jury yesterday, describing the bizarre beat-down he suffered last summer, allegedly at the hands of a seething sapphic septet from Newark, N.J.

Emphasis again mine.

"Seething sapphic septet."
"Seething sapphic septet."

I should think of five more lesbian characters to write so I could say I have a "seething sapphic septet."

(Annabel: He'll have to settle for a dynamic duo)

(Keitha: I knew you were gonna say that)

(Annabel: The dyke-namic duo?)

(Keitha: I'm outta here...)

(Colley: Annie, didn't I warn you about her and puns?)

Whom the Gods would destroy, they first make mad.

I went to see my therapist this morning. On the way there, I found myself behind a car which was...well, you know how sometimes you see another car and you can't figure out what the fuck the driver thinks s/he's doing? This was like that.

The driver kept signaling that they were going to change lanes when there was no room in the lane next to them to merge. Then seemed confused about in which direction s/he wanted the car to move, signalling one way, then the other.

None of this was overly distressing to me, as I had time to spare. I was just idly wondering what in the name of fuck was wrong with this guy or gal. As one does. Then I happened to glance down at the license plate frame of the car.

At the top: Tennessee.
At the bottom: Knox.

I laughed for at least the next 10 blocks.

Then when I got into my therapy session, I was talking about something that happens whenever I start a new piece of fiction writing. Usually it's the result of a couple or more ideas that have been flitting around my head for a while, until something, usually quite random, happens to coalesce them.

I was describing what that process feels like by imitating the sound of a lamp flickering and sputtering into life for a few seconds, and then coming on with a "ping!"

Without a word of a lie, as I said the word "Ping!"...a lamp in my therapist's office flicked on spontaneously.

I am a god.

Babylon and on...

This is another one of those one-hit wonders of which I'm so fond. But for once it's not by a band from the '80s. I don't know how that happened.

This is Babylon Zoo, with "Spaceman" (1995). Judging by two or three of the comments I found while I was looking for this clip, I seem to be one of the few people who likes this version of the record from beginning, middle to end.

This is just great. I'm going to get it on with a hotass twin, but then I'm going to get a corkscrew through the hand and a cleaver to the face

Isn't that always the way?

And as if that's not bad enough, I'm played by Crispin Glover.

What Friday the 13th Character Are You?




However, at least he doesn't sing in this one.

(I'd appreciate it if everyone who sees this would take this quiz and enter their results in their blogs-where applicable-or the comments.)

Quiz found via Friday The 13th: The Website.

And our store of great character actors is another man poorer

...with the death of Roscoe Lee Browne . Excerpting from that Yahoo! News obituary:

Actor Roscoe Lee Browne, whose rich voice and dignified bearing brought him an Emmy Award and a Tony nomination, has died. He was 81.

Browne's career included classic theater to TV cartoons. He also was a poet and a former world-class athlete.

His deep, cultured voice was heard narrating the 1995 hit movie "Babe." On screen, his character often was smart, cynical and well-educated, whether a congressman, a judge or a butler.

In movies, he was a spy in the 1969 Alfred Hitchcock feature "Topaz" and a camp cook in 1972's "The Cowboys," which starred John Wayne.

"Some critics complained that I spoke too well to be believable" in the cook's role, Browne told The Washington Post in 1972. "When a critic makes that remark, I think, if I had said, 'Yassuh, boss' to John Wayne, then the critic would have taken a shine to me."

On television, he had several memorable guest roles. He was a snobbish black lawyer trapped in an elevator with bigot Archie Bunker in an episode of the 1970s TV comedy "All in the Family" and the butler Saunders in the comedy "Soap." He won an Emmy in 1986 for a guest role as Professor Foster on "The Cosby Show."

As luck would have it, I happened to catch an episode of "The Cosby Show" on Nick at Nite recently with Browne in it. I'm not sure if it was the one for which he won an award, as he made a couple of appearances. At any rate he was extremely funny.

The obit doesn't single this out, but another memorable guest part came on an episode in the first season of "Barney Miller," in which Browne played a philisophical and cheerful escape artist. I don't know why they didn't mention it, really, as he won an Emmy for that role as well and deservedly-he was phenomenal.

I also remember that he was in the audience when Laurence Fishburne apeared on 'Inside the Actor's Studio,' which is actually one of the best episodes of that entire series. Browne doesn't speak in it, but Fishburne makes clear what a dear friend and mentor the older actor had been to him. It's genuinely moving when Fishburne thanks him from the stage.

In 1992, Browne returned to Broadway in "Two Trains Running," one of August Wilson's acclaimed series of plays on the black experience. It won the Tony for best play and brought Browne a Tony nomination for best featured (supporting) actor.

The New York Times said he portrayed "the wry perspective of one who believes that human folly knows few bounds and certainly no racial bounds. The performance is wise and slyly life-affirming."

That actually sounds to me like a good description of Browne's attitude in most of his roles. I don't pretend to have seen them all, but he often seemed to me like a man who knew the value of silliness, because it was stupid to pretend that you'd figured everything out. He had a sly smile and, as his friend of four decades Sidney Poitier said,

"He was one of the most remarkable presences on stage, on film, on television,"

I'll miss him.