« July 2005 | Main | September 2005 »
August 30, 2005
Come Hell And High Water
I'm sure I'm not the only one using that post title, but it's the only one that fits.
I am simply speechless at what's happened in New Orleans. Not to minimize the tragedies occuring in Mississippi and Alabama -- they're horrible in their own right and the loss of life and property is devastating... but to see New Orleans, one of America's most historic and defining cities -- a major city of 500,000 people and a metropolitan area of more than a million -- effectively erased from the map... it's beyond anything I have words for. This is a catastrophic event the likes of which our nation has never seen -- a disaster of biblical proportion.
1,000,000 people homeless. A city rendered uninhabitable for weeks at the minimum, potentially months or even years. 80% of the city under up to 20 feet of water. Literally every single soul in the city being evacuated. New Orleans is a ghost town that's not on a Hollywood set -- it's real. Only this time, it is reality that is beyond our imagination.
If you haven't already, please donate to the Red Cross to assist our fellow Americans who need our help. The phone number is 1-800-435-7669. If you're not comfortable giving to the Red Cross, here are some other charities that are helping. Here's a challenge to everyone out there... we'll start small, and see where we can go from there.
I'll donate $50 tonight -- not even close to enough, but it's a start. I'm asking everyone who's reading this to match that donation. Or if that's a bit much for you, give what you can afford. There's not that many of us -- I lost much of my audience when I took my break this spring -- but if even 20 of us give $50, we can say we raised $1000 for Hurricane Katrina relief. If you want to remain anonymous, feel free... but if you care to leave a comment that you're answering this challenge, I'll keep a running tally of what we raise. People need our help. Let's do our best for them.
August 29, 2005
When I Was Seventeen... It Was A Very Bad Year
Ok, I'm lifting this from PSoTD. It's a fun enough idea: Pick your high school graduation year, grab the top 100 songs of that year, bold the songs you still like, strikethrough the songs you hate, and underscore your favorite from the list.
This was gonna be fun until I checked the list for 1986, the year I graudated high school. And never mind the whole strikethrough thing... the thing is, 1986 was just a god-awful year for chart music. I mean, like hideous. In the whole list of the top 100 songs of 1986, I liked all of 11. And that's when I'm being generous. The thing is, I don't remember '86 being so tragic. Apparently it was, though. This is an ugly, ugly list. So instead of the strikethrough thing, I simply bolded the handful that I like. Geez, what an embarrassing year.
1. That's What Friends Are For, Dionne Warwick, Elton John, and Gladys Knight
2. Say You, Say Me, Lionel Richie
3. I Miss You, Klymaxx
4. On My Own , Patti Labelle and Michael McDonald
5. Broken Wings, Mr. Mister
6. How Will I Know, Whitney Houston
7. Party All The Time, Eddie Murphy
8. Burning Heart, Survivor
9. Kyrie, Mr. Mister
10. Addicted To Love, Robert Palmer
11. Greatest Love Of All, Whitney Houston
12. Secret Lovers, Atlantic Starr
13. Friends And Lovers, Carl Anderson and Gloria Loring
14. Glory Of Love, Peter Cetera
15. West End Girls, Pet Shop Boys
16. There'll Be Sad Songs, Billy Ocean
17. Alive And Kicking, Simple Minds
18. Never, Heart
19. Kiss, Prince and The Revolution
20. Higher Love, Steve Winwood
21. Stuck With You, Huey Lewis and The News
22. Holding Back The Years, Simply Red
23. Sledgehammer, Peter Gabriel
24. Sara, Starship
25. Human, Human League
26. I Can't Wait, Nu Shooz
27. Take My Breath Away, Berlin
28. Rock Me Amadeus, Falco
29. Papa Don't Preach, Madonna
30. You Give Love A Bad Name, Bon Jovi
31. When The Going Gets Tough, Billy Ocean
32. When I Think Of You, Janet Jackson
33. These Dreams, Heart
34. Don't Forget Me (When I'm Gone), Glass Tiger
35. Live To Tell, Madonna
36. Mad About You, Belinda Carlisle
37. Something About You, Level 42
38. Venus, Bananarama
39. Dancing On The Ceiling, Lionel Richie
40. Conga, Miami Sound Machine
41. True Colors, Cyndi Lauper
42. Danger Zone, Kenny Loggins
43. What Have You Done For Me Lately, Janet Jackson
44. No One Is To Blame, Howard Jones
45. Let's Go All The Way, Sly Fox
46. I Didn't Mean To Turn You On, Robert Palmer
47. Words Get In The Way, Miami Sound Machine
48. Manic Monday, Bangles
49. Walk Of Life, Dire Straits
50. Amanda, Boston
51. Two Of Hearts, Stacey Q
52. Crush On You, Jets
53. If You Leave, Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark
54. Invisible Touch, Genesis
55. The Sweetest Taboo, Sade
56. What You Need, INXS
57. Talk To Me, Stevie Nicks
58. Nasty, Janet Jackson
59. Take Me Home Tonight, Eddie Money
60. We Don't Have To Take Our Clothes Off, Jermaine Stewart
61. All Cried Out, Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam With Full Force
62. Your Love, Outfield
63. I'm Your Man, Wham!
64. Perfect Way, Scritti Politti
65. Living In America, James Brown
66. R.O.C.K. In The U.S.A., John Cougar Mellencamp
67. Who's Johnny, El Debarge
68. Word Up, Cameo
69. Why Can't This Be Love, Van Halen
70. Silent Running, Mike and The Mechanics
71. Typical Male, Tina Turner
72. Small Town, John Cougar Mellencamp
73. Tarzan Boy, Baltimora
74. All I Need Is A Miracle, Mike and The Mechanics
75. Sweet Freedom, Michael McDonald
76. True Blue, Madonna
77. Rumors, Timex Social Club
78. Life In A Northern Town, Dream Academy
79. Bad Boy, Miami Sound Machine
80. Sleeping Bag, ZZ Top
81. Tonight She Comes, Cars
82. Love Touch, Rod Stewart
83. A Love Bizarre, Sheila E.
84. Throwing It All Away, Genesis
85. Baby Love, Regina
86. Election Day, Arcadia
87. Nikita, Elton John
88. Take Me Home, Phil Collins
89. Walk This Way, Run-D.M.C.
90. Sweet Love, Anita Baker
91. Your Wildest Dreams, Moody Blues
92. Spies Like Us, Paul McCartney
93. Object Of My Desire, Starpoint
94. Dreamtime, Daryl Hall
95. Tender Love, Force M.D.'s
96. King For A Day, Thompson Twins
97. Love Will Conquer All, Lionel Richie
98. A Different Corner, George Michael
99. I'll Be Over You, Toto
100. Go Home, Stevie Wonder
Geez, how pathetic is it that there were only 11 decent songs that year? Meanwhile, about half of these songs make my list of Worst. Songs. Ever.
Posted by Christopher at 09:19 PM | Comments (10)August 28, 2005
Weekend Edition
A random sampling of other things running through my primate brain this weekend that didn't quite warrant complete posts on their own:
1) The 2005 Video Music Awards. Tonight, live from Miami, it's the VMAs, hosted by MTV. This, my friends, is high irony -- considering that the last time an actual music video ran on MTV might have been 1996. Watched that channel lately? It's RTV (Reality TV) now. How can a network present awards for something it doesn't even air? What's the point? Rather than highlighting achievement in an art form it no longer knows anything about, MTV is simply giving us all a reminder of just how precipitous the fall of the once-colossus really has been.
2)Must-see movie. I'm a sucker for psychological horror movies. Not the stupid teen slasher 'scare-by-gore' crap (Jason Voorhees just makes me laugh)... but give me a movie that scares you by totally messing with your head, and I'm hooked. In that spirit, I have to say that the upcoming movie that looks the most promising to me is The Exorcism of Emily Rose. Oh, I'm sure there will be all sorts of complaints about how it took liberties with the original story and it's not really based on a true story, etc. Fine. I don't care. It's got Laura Linney and Tom Wilkinson in it, two actors I really like and respect. It's got one of those demonic storylines that will mess with my head and scare me with the idea that theoretically it possibly could happen, unrealistic as it may be. (Oh what, you purists, like Freddy Krueger could really invade your dreams?)
Check the trailer here.
3) Hurricane Katrina. As of noon Sunday, Katrina has strengthened into a Category 5 storm, with sustained winds of 175 mph. New Orleans, a major city of 485,000, is being totally evacuated. And the fear is that N'awlins -- which sits 8 feet below sea level and relies on levees and pumps to keep from flooding even during good weather -- could receive a direct hit from one of the strongest hurricanes (and its accordingly massive storm surge) ever recorded. I haven't seen Marco Polo on in a few days, but he's Louisiana-based... so Marco, you take care of yourself and please be safe. And that goes for anyone else who happens to drop by from bayou country.
4) "Supporting" the troops? Is this what the far Christian right has in mind when they say they support the troops? A group of extreme evangelicals has started showing up at the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq, and shouting "God hates you" at the proceedings. Why, may you ask?
The Rev. Fred Phelps, founder of Westboro Baptist in Kansas, contends that American soldiers are being killed in Iraq as vengeance from God for protecting a country that harbors gays.
So naturally, Phelps and his chruch have started protesting the funerals of our military. According to the AP, The church members carried signs and shouted things such as "God hates fags" and "God hates you."
Members of the church that was burying two Tennessee soldiers and was targeted by the crackpots fought back (to a point, I guess). They chased demonstrators' cars out of town, waving flags and shouting out "God bless America." Okay, they get credit for running these folks off... but what about breaking out the shotguns, a pair of pliers and a blowtorch, and getting medieval on the asses of anyone disrespecting the military enough to shout "God hates you" at a funeral? I mean, had the Cindy Sheehan bus shown up, would they have reacted the same way?
5) Friday night blues. Ever have one of those happy hours that turns unexpectedly into a later evening? Friday after work, a bunch of us (Ethan, George, and my friends Terry and Kelly) went out for happy hour... which turned into dinner... which turned into hanging out at Terra Blues again and catching the Michael Powers show. Good times, good times.
6) Miniskirt madness. A city official in Budapest, Hungary, has proposed allowing mini-skirts to be worn only by women who have "pretty" enough legs to pull it off. Just who gets to decide what's pretty enough and what's not, he apparently doesn't say. Why am I reporting on this story? Well, because I'm a big fan of mini-skirts in general, and I am a shameless hit whore who'd like to get a few more visitors from Hungarians looking for miniskirt ban stories.
Posted by Christopher at 12:56 PM | Comments (0)
It Hurts When I Laugh
Lifted from McSweeney's, here's a few jokes for you...
BY MATT ALEXANDER
A doctor, a lawyer, and an accountant all die and go to heaven on the same day. When they get to the Pearly Gates, they are greeted by St. Peter. St. Peter says, "Scott McClellan is a lying sack of shit and I'd tell him so myself if he weren't going straight to hell when he dies."
- - - -
Q: What do you get when you cross an elephant and a rhino?
A: I'm not sure, but if the answer is "A cure for Parkinson's disease," then Bush will try to stop scientists from breeding them. Because he likes it when people get Parkinson's.
- - - -
This guy walks into a bar carrying a small poodle in one hand and a bowling ball in the other. The guy says, "I'd like a glass of milk for me and a whiskey for my poodle." The bartender says, "Yeah? Well, I'd like an impartial and independent judiciary, but try telling that to Bush, Frist, and the rest of the GOP!"
- - - -
Q: What do you get when you cross a giraffe and a monkey?
A: I'm sorry, I can't think about that right now because I'm too busy wondering why Congress hasn't launched an official investigation into Bush lying to the American public about WMDs and leading us into a war under false pretenses. Tell you what -- as soon as I solve that little riddle, I'll get to work on your little genetic experiment.
- - - -
Q: How many eggs does it take to make a good omelet?
A: Three. By the way, Tom DeLay is a hypocrite of the highest order.
- - - -
Did you hear that Bill Clinton hired a new intern? It turns out that his old intern had to go home and spend time with her family after her brother was killed in Iraq.
- - - -
Q: How many golf players does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: The answer may be locked away in the minutes of Cheney's secret energy meetings. However, conventional wisdom says that the meetings were probably about finding a Cabinet-level position for a pre-scandal Ken Lay or about arranging no-bid contracts for Halliburton.
- - - -
Knock-knock.
Who's there?
Under the Patriot Act, we don't have to tell you.
August 27, 2005
The Super Bowl Shuffle
I stumbled upon something unintended and frightening today while surfing... the original 1985 video for "The Super Bowl Shuffle" as performed by the Chicago Bears. After watching it, I have the following reactions:
* Man, that 80s synth urban/old skool rap style could be awful at times. I mean, really bad. Sadly, the opening bars of the song sound like it could have come from any Eddie Murphy movie from 1983 to 1987. And that's not good.
* Only like three members of what was arguably the best football team of all time had any rhythm to speak of. It's almost embarrassing to watch the inner white guy in many of the players assert himself. I've seen better dancing at redneck weddings.
* God, I miss Walter Payton.
* Is it just me, or does it look like neither Payton nor Jim McMahon were in the studio with the rest of the team? Both of them look like they were shot separately and spliced over video of the other guys.
* The three whitest performances in this video are:
1) Steve Fuller (#4), the backup quarterback. Listen to his verse, and tell me you don't hear Gomer Pyle or one of the Duke cousins. Plus, check his dance moves behind Jim McMahon and tell me you don't see a 8th grade boy at his very first dance.
2) Maury Buford (#8), the punter. MORE COWBELL! Bonus for looking like he was auditioning for "Weekend at Bernie's."
3) Mike Singletary (#50). One of the best linebackers in history never looked so harmless. I watch him in this video and think of that old SNL skit with Jim Belushi and Alex Karras: "We're WHITE GUYS, and we take no crap, as we deliver our - white rap!"
* The chick in the referee uniform blowing her whistle whenever one of them was going to say "ass" turned the light bulb on over my head - I finally figured out where Robert Palmer got the idea for the look for the chicks in his "Addicted to Love" video.
This was historically awful - as hideous an aritfact from the 80s as parachute pants, Bonnie Tyler videos, and musical montages in the middle of teen films.
Posted by Christopher at 01:41 PM | Comments (4)7 Things
Lifted this from Eden's blog. Here's the 7 Things meme:
7 Things I plan to do before I die:
Get in the recording studio and cut a vanity CD
Leave New York
Write my novel
Move to an island or someplace in the Caribbean/Gulf of Mexico
Run a marathon
Take a vacation here
Run for office
7 Things I cannot do:
Pee and sneeze at the same time
Resist a remote control
Vote for a conservative
Drink tequila*
Any math more advanced than basic add/subtract/multiply/divide
Understand the appeal of NASCAR
Stand reality television or understand people who like it
* Seriously. I'm deathly allergic to it. One shot, and within 15 minutes my face breaks out in a rash, my throat swells and closes off, I'm unconscious, and you're speeding me to the emergency room.
7 Things I can do:
-- Cook a fabulous balsamic chicken w/raspberry glaze, with a lemon risotto, grilled shrimp in homemade mint pesto as an appetizer, and a homemade coconut cream pie for dessert
-- See the difference between a fastball and a breaking ball simply by the way the ball leaves the pitcher's hand
-- Sing country smoothly enough that southerners don't know I'm a Yankee
-- Give some of the world's best backrubs
-- Write - be it stories, columns, or speeches
-- Walk and chew gum at the same time
-- Order a beer in six languages
7 Things that attract me to the opposite sex:
A warped/snarky/dark sense of humor
Intelligence
Eyes
Being petite (I've never understood my thing for short girls, but I have a serious thing for them)
Unpredictability/spontaneity
Lack of inhibition
A great derriere
7 Things I say most often:
My own name (answering the phone constantly at work)
"I gotta get out of New York, man."
"Dude"
"One more round?"
"@!#*-ing Red Sox!" (alternately, "They don't have the pitching to repeat this year.")
"Someday"
"A blog is..." (One of the roles I have now in my job is helping lead my company's drive to get our employees blogging; at least once a week I speak or present to some group of our people around the world who have probably heard of blogs but don't yet fully know what they are. When you've been writing one for a couple of years, you forget that lots of the rest of the world thinks they're new and doesn't know much about them.)
7 Celebrity crushes:
Jennifer Love Hewitt
Catherine Bell
Chris Jansing
Brittany Murphy
Mary Louise Parker
Liz Phair
Tina Fey
August 25, 2005
20 "Overrated" Movies - Part IV
Finishing up the whole 20 Most Overrated Movies thing... with Premiere's #5 through #1.
5. Chariots of Fire. Never saw it; I can't say that films about post-Victorian British men in running shorts really intrigue me all that much. When I checked to see which other films were nominated for Best Picture that year (1981 films, awarded 1982), I was flabbergasted. "On Golden Pond" had to be the sentimental choice, and "Raiders of the Lost Ark" had to be the popular choice (not to mention the film that's stood up best to the test of time). And yet this movie won. I think it had to be the cheesy New Age theme song.
4. American Beauty. What the hell? This was a great film, beginning to end. It was a fantastic skewering of both the tedious conformity of suburbia, and the fact that such uniformity and "perfection" is all a lie. It featured brilliant performances by Kevin Spacey and Annette Benning. It featured both Mena Suvari and Thora Birch topless. What's not to love? This list just got really stupid; no way was American Beauty overrated.
3. An American in Paris. Never saw it. But if it has Gene Kelly in it, it's got to be good; Kelly is probably my favorite "classic" actor. (And "Singin' In The Rain" is easily one of my favorite movies of all time.) I realize that this little blurb has nothing to do with An American in Paris, whose plot I'm not even familiar with. But this is my blog and my list, so I don't much have to stick to the topic now, do I?
2. A Beautiful Mind. Every so often, the Academy bestows a career achievement award on somebody, and calls it an Oscar for something far less than their best work. It happened with John Wayne for True Grit in 1969 (at the expense of both Hoffman and Voight for Midnight Cowboy), it happened with Henry Fonda for On Golden Pond, and it'll eventually happen for Martin Scorcese and Harrison Ford. In 2001, it happened for Ron Howard for this clunker. It was slow, boringly paced, and simply not that interesting. That year, both In The Bedroom and Moulin Rouge! were far better films. But Opie needed an Oscar after years of being overlooked, so here we were. Overrated? Hell yeah.
1. 2001: A Space Odyssey I have to preface this review with an admission - that 2001 is one of my favorite movies. I thought it was brilliantly shot, and was a compelling story. It should never have lost Best Picture to a freaking musical version of Oilver Twist. It features homicidal technology and one of the creepiest dialogues ever between a protagonist and villian. And it has that funky creeped out screaming-wraith-sound effect thing going on. Very cool.
That said, the movie is very methodically paced (and that's being nice). Its last 20 minutes are a pandering to acid-whacked hippies tripping out while in the theater. And it's hard for even a fan like me to say that a film whose first 20-25 minutes has not a word of spoken dialogue can keep viewers' attention. Is 2001 overrated? No, but it's close. Does it belong atop this list? Not by a long shot.
Coming next, a few of my suggestions that should have been on this list.
Posted by Christopher at 11:22 PM | Comments (5)Thuggins Fired...
University of Cincinnati basketball coach Bob Huggins (hereafter referred to by his unofficial nickname, "Thuggins") has finally been released by the school's president, Nancy Zimpher, after years of embarrassing personal behavior and an utter lack of standards for either the academic or personal conduct of his players.
Thuggins cares so little about the reputation of the school he is supposed to represent that he'll recruit anyone from any league... junior college or, a la Ricky "Wild Thing" Vaughan, the California Penal League. In 16 years, 21 Thuggins players were arrested or charged with various violations. His graduation rates were among the lowest in the nation. Worst of all, Thuggins' cavalier attitude toward personal conduct extended to his own; he was arrested in 2003 for drunken driving... hardly a pillar of the community.
Yet sadly, there is outcry in Cincinnati over Thuggins' release. The town seems to basically be admitting that winning a sports game is far more important to it than integrity, respect for the law, or reputation. That's pathetic. It reflects incredibly poorly on a city that its residents are so insecure and so unprincipled that such a premium is placed on winning at sports, at the expense of what really matters -- at an academic institution, and in life.
Sadder still are the predictable -- and wrong -- claims from some corners that the move is motivated simply by racism. For example, the Kansas City Star's Jason Whitlock -- a writer whose work I usually respect -- has gone completely Johnny Cochran over the situation. In a column on ESPN2, he writes,
She basically fired Bob Huggins for recruiting too many poor, academically and socially underprepared black kids... Yes, the saga continues. Another institution used poor blacks for its benefit, disrespected them in writing and then kicked them to the curb.
Not only are analyses like this just simply wrong, they're also insulting.
What Whitlock is basically saying is, "It's okay for a black kid to behave any way he wants, get arrested, do whatever... because he's been underprivileged by a racist system, so society has no right to expect any standard of conduct from him." What he's saying is, illegal or dangerous behavior is okay when committed by black kids who can play basketball. What he's saying is, if held to society's standards of proper conduct, black kids are at a disadvantage, and the only way to even up the system is to not expect young black men to behave themselves in accordance with the law.
I can think of few more insulting and more racist arguments. For one, I believe that it's true of any kid that if you tell him he is expected to conform to a standard of behavior, and then hold him to it, he will. Or he'll be gone. It works at the military academies, for example - and plenty of both white and non-white kids graduate with their officers' commissions every year. It works at other basketball powers... many coaches achieve improvements in graduation rates and manage to recruit kids of all colors who don't break the law and don't embarrass their program and their university.
Yet somehow Whitlock and others like him want to excuse the atmosphere Thuggins has created at Cincinnati. They tell us that whatever happens is okay, even if it's against the law, because an unjust system excuses any behavior from those oppressed by it. They tell us that those demanding basic standards of behavior (like "don't get arrested," or "go to class at the school that's paying for you to be here") from student athletes (remember the "student" part of college sports?) are simply racists without the white hoods. It's an unfortunate argument, and does a tremendous disservice to the very kids it purports to defend.
Bob Thuggins got exactly what he had coming this week. He built a lawless program that for sixteen years was never held accountable by anyone for its collective behavior. He embarrassed the institution he was supposed to represent, and he failed the kids he recruited by refusing to hold them responsible for their classwork or conduct.
Bob Thuggins represents much of what is wrong with sport today. Those defending him represent the rest.
Posted by Christopher at 10:46 PM | Comments (2)Republican Wisdom On Wars And Protest
Just felt like sharing a few inspiring and sage words of wisdom with you... here are Republican leaders when they were talking out of their other faces.
"You can support the troops but not the president." --Rep Tom Delay (R-TX)
"Well, I just think it's a bad idea. What's going to happen is they're going to be over there for 10, 15, maybe 20 years." --Joe Scarborough (R-FL)
"Explain to the mothers and fathers of American servicemen that may come home in body bags why their son or daughter have to give up their life?" --Sean Hannity, Fox "News," 4/6/99
"[The] President . . . is once again releasing American military might on a foreign country with an ill-defined objective and no exit strategy. He has yet to tell the Congress how much this operation will cost. And he has not informed our nation's armed forces about how long they will be away from home. These strikes do not make for a sound foreign policy." --Sen. Rick "Latin for asshole" Santorum (R-PA)
"American foreign policy is now one huge big mystery. Simply put, the administration is trying to lead the world with a feel-good foreign policy." --Rep Tom Delay (R-TX)
"If we are going to commit American troops, we must be certain they have a clear mission, an achievable goal and an exit strategy." --Karen Hughes, speaking on behalf of George W Bush
"I had doubts about the bombing campaign from the beginning... I didn't think we had done enough in the diplomatic area."
--Senator Trent Lott (R-MS)
"I cannot support a failed foreign policy. History teaches us that it is often easier to make war than peace. This administration is just learning that lesson right now. The President began this mission with very vague objectives and lots of unanswered questions. A month later, these questions are still unanswered. There are no clarified rules of engagement. There is no timetable. There is no legitimate definition of victory. There is no contingency plan for mission creep. There is no clear funding program. There is no agenda to bolster our over-extended military. There is no explanation defining what vital national interests are at stake. There was no strategic plan for war when the President started this thing, and there still is no plan today" --Rep Tom Delay (R-TX)
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." --Governor George W. Bush (R-TX)
Of course, these statements were all issued when President Clinton deployed troops to Bosnia... a war whose mission was successfully achieved and during which not one serviceman was killed. Funny -- or sad -- how these two-faced lowlifes have changed their tune now that they're in charge and have committed American troops to a war with little planning or forethought and no exit strategy. And it's downright tragic that they've managed to turn the act of thoughtful policy opposition into "unpatriotism." Thinking about conservative hypocrisy on this issue, there seems to be one more quote that feels appropriate:
"How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think" -- Adolf Hitler
Posted by Christopher at 09:40 PM | Comments (0)August 24, 2005
20 "Overrated" Movies - Part III
Back to Premiere magazine's list of the 20 most overrated movies of all time (via Kulturblog, who is now the newest member of the Curmudgeon blogroll). Here's my thoughts on their numbers 10 through 6.
10. Field Of Dreams. I got into a good discussion on IM today about whether this movie is overrated with my friend, fellow Red Sox fan, and occasional commenter "JewsForDamon." JFD argued passionately that there is no way Field of Dreams is overrated. I'm not sure I could agree.
There are parts of Field of Dreams that are not only classic, but will make any American male cry unabashedly. Every time the end of the movie hits, and Kevin Costner calls out to his dad with a lump in his throat and croaks out, "You wanna have a catch?" I break out in sniffles and start blinking furiously to keep a lid on the waterworks. I defy you to find a guy anywhere who doesn't get choked up at that moment. As soon as I get my composure back, it's a dead lock cinch that the next thing I do after hearing that speech is call my dad. And for baseball fans, there is no greater speech in the history of Hollywood than James Earl Jones' impassioned embrace of interconnection between baseball and Americana.
But as soft a spot as I have in my heart for this movie, I have to admit that there are some cringe-worthy moments: Amy Irving telling off the book-banner at the PTA meeting; just happening to run into Moonlight Graham while driving from Minnesota to Iowa; Timothy Busfield all of a sudden seeing the players when Burt Lancaster steps in to save the choking daughter. And I have to think that if I didn't bleed baseball -- if I didn't believe with all my heart that every word of Jones' soliloquy is 100% true -- I might think that Field of Dreams was a sappy melodrama. I love it, so I can't call it overrated. But I can see where Premiere could.
9. Fantasia. I'm not a classical music fan, and I'm not really a Disney fan either. But this is another movie that I think has to be taken in context. This marks the first attempt to synchronize animation on the screen to a specific piece of music (long before Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon/Wizard of Oz thing made it cool. Calling Fantasia overrated just because it's somewhat tame and average by today's standards is to be ignorant of just how innovative it was at the time. Not overrated.
8. Easy Rider. Yes. I've not yet been able to sit through the entire thing. I probably should love this movie, if for no other reason its anti-establishment theme... but I just don't. Gonna have to agree that it's overrated.
7. Clerks. I love Kevin Smith. My film school friends from grad school worshipped him. I own every one of his films (except for Jersey Girl) on DVD or VHS. And Clerks was funny, it really was.
But even as witty and insightful as Smith is, he's also derivative of himself, and he's a one trick pony (I need for him to show me a movie that doesn't depend on vulgarity for its humor). In hindsight, Smith's greatest moment with Clerks was not the film itself, but that he got the film made. He was the pioneer of the indie film genre, but Clerks' legs get weaker with age.
6. Chicago. I didn't think it was overrated. I didn't think it was great either, but it did stand out the year it was nominated. The fact that the leads all did their own singing and dancing adds to its impressiveness. Was this a great film? Nah. Was it the best film of a weak lot the year it won Oscar? Yeah. Is it overrated? No, especially because it's not like I hear a ton of people elevating it to a place in the pantheon of film.
Coming tomorrow: my take on their top 5.
Posted by Christopher at 10:01 PM | Comments (1)Got A Sense Of Humor?
If you've ever spent even one game in a baseball dugout before or during a game -- be it at the Babe Ruth level, high school, college, or the majors -- you know that ribbing, practical jokes, and sophomoric humor are not only a rite of passage, they remain the coin of the players' realm long after they've established themselves. Stupid dares are like fraternity initiations. They're harmless, and they've been part of the game since players had to have "day jobs" because being a ballplayer didn't pay all that well.
Someone should remind the Florida Marlins' organization of how baseball camaraderie works behind the scenes, because they clearly left their sense of humor in the backseat of a cab on the road somewhere. The Marlins suspended an unidentified batboy for six games today. His "crime?"
He tried to complete a dare from former Marlin and current Los Angeles Dodger Brad Penny, by drinking one gallon of milk in one hour without throwing up.
Understand that we're not talking about an underage kid slamming a beer on a dare or anything like that. We're just talking about a kid drinking some milk.
Penny offered the batboy $500 if he could drink a gallon of milk in less than an hour before Sunday's game without throwing up. Penny told the paper the boy drank the milk and didn't throw up, but didn't finish the gallon in the allotted time frame to win the dare.
Can anyone tell me what impediment drinking milk causes to a person's ability to do his or her job? Is there some milk intoxication thing that I never figured out as a kid? (Hell, who needs glue or cough syrup... we got milk, man!)
So, for drinking milk in the clubhouse, a kid gets a six game suspension. Wow, he's almost up to what Rafael Palmiero served -- ten games -- for taking illegal steroids. So I guess it's safe to say that in the Florida Marlins' eyes, drinking milk is 60% as bad as taking steroids.
Freaking idiots.
Posted by Christopher at 09:28 PM | Comments (1)It's *Spelled* "Assassination," But It's Pronounced "Throat-Wobbler Mangrove"
Oh, that Pat Robertson!
After a day spent denying that he said what he was on tape saying, Pat Robertson this afternoon offered his inevitable apology for the oh-so-Christian act of calling for murder. Let's review the day's events, shall we?
"I didn't say 'assassination.' I said our special forces should 'take him out.' And 'take him out' can be a number of things, including kidnapping." -- Robertson, on The 700 Club this morning.
Mudge sez: Right. Because kidnapping is a far more Christian act.
"...there are a number of ways to take out a dictator from power besides killing him. I was misinterpreted by the AP [Associated Press], but that happens all the time," Robertson said.
Mudge sez: Ah, yes... the hackneyed, predictable, and disingenuous fallback card that conservatives play every single time: blame that durn biased media. You know, even as sheep-like as the right wing can be at times, I would think that even the most ardent right-winger would be starting to get sick of that whiny, disingenuous excuse. Of course, it's really hard to get away with blaming the media when you're caught on videotape of your own program, proving that you did say exactly what you claim you never said.
"If he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think we really ought to go ahead and do it," said Robertson Monday. "It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war." -- Robertson on video tape of Monday's 700 Club program.
Mudge sez: Not a whole lot of wiggle room left for you there, Pat. You pretty much got caught with your hand in the collection plate on this one.
"Is it right to call for assassination?" Robertson said. "No, and I apologize for that statement."
Mighty Christian of you to say so, Pat. Of course, it'd be much easier to believe your Christian Taliban-wannabe ass if you hadn't spent all day denying it, blaming someone else for it, and only then being forced to capitulate by your own words.
Still, the biggest disappointment -- and the most revealing action of the whole affair -- was that gutlessly, the White House never issued a personal condemnation of one of his staunchest allies calling for the murder of an opponent. See, as Brent has pointed out in comments on my first post on this subject, Herr Robertson says controversial stuff all the time. It's expected.
But when faced with an ally advocating assassination -- and thus presented with a chance to emphatically declare to the world that such an act is antithetical to everything the United States stands for (or used to, until the Bush cabal seized power) -- Bush chose to remain silent, allowing underlings to offer weak non-denial denials, and deliberately passing up the opportunity. By his silence, he tacitly endorsed Robertson's sad remarks. By his silence, George W. Bush spoke volumes.
Posted by Christopher at 08:59 PM | Comments (0)20 "Overrated" Movies - Part II
Circling back to Premiere magazine's 20 most overrated films, here's my take on their #15-#11 selections.
15. Monster's Ball. I always found it ironic that in Halle Berry's acceptance speech, she talked about how her Oscar win would open doors to actresses of color -- and then proceeded to name about a dozen highly respected and accomplished actresses of color who were already working and doing outstanding work. Kind of hard to open the door for someone who's already in the room, ain't it Halle? Anyway, while Halle's performance is stellar, I didn't think this movie was anything special. Besides, how can a film that co-stars Diddy Combs ask to be taken seriously? But overall, I don't know that you can put this movie in a top overrated films of all time list.
14. Jules and Jim. I don't watch French movies. Period. This has nothing to do with "freedom fries" and whiny jingoism, and everything to do with the pretentious snobbery of the American "cinema" types that dig French film. You know them -- the folks voted "Most Likely To Talk Down At You While Still On The Receiving End Of A Wedgie From You At Age 45" back in high school. They're the kind that almost make me feel that stuff like "Armageddon" is okay after all. I wouldn't have the slightest clue whether Jules and Jim is overrated or not. Nor will I ever.
13. Good Will Hunting. Don't be messing with Boston movies, Premiere. Despite the fact that Ben Affleck's career since this film just screams "overrated," this was a great film. And the fact that the piece of melodramatic garbage about the sinking ship won Best Picture in 1997 over Good Will Hunting ranks as the biggest hose job in Oscar history. Damon and Affleck overrated? Oh yeah. Good Will Hunting overrated? Not by a mile.
12. Gone With The Wind. I generally don't do well with Harlequin romances put to film. That may explain why I've never been able to sit through this movie to its completion. (Either that, or because every time I hear Bob Barr or Saxby Chambliss speak, I start wishing for General Sherman to be reincarnated and to re-enact his march.) This movie, made today, would be a "Lifetime Original Picture" starring Valerie Bertenelli. Yeah, it's overrated. And if you disagree... frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.
11. Forrest Gump. Yes, yes, YES! Easily in my top five of all time. I hate what this movie represents -- a sad and pathetic attempt at self-absolution and cleansing by the baby boom generation. "Here's a list of all the f'ed up things that our generation did... oh look, here comes the slow-witted but big-hearted personification of our entire generation, dragged along by the current of history as an unwitting yet lovable spectator to the events that defined our lives -- spewing platitudes about chocolate and stupidity, and being entirely blameless for the (waste product) that goes on around him! See? We're not so bad after all -- we're all Forrest Gump! We were blameless savants who were inadvertently responsible for every good thing that came from our lifetimes, but wholly innocent of all the nasty stuff! Don't you feel better about being a baby boomer now? I know I do! Absolution and salvation are ours!"
Gah! This movie makes me want to yack. Revisionist history is only fun if it means I end up with the girl. And while there were some strong performances in it, if only one Oscar was given to an actor in Forrest Gump, it should have gone to Gary Sinise. The fact that this schlocky piece of sentiment won Best Picture over the genuinely innovative and far better written Pulp Fiction -- not to mention the sublime and far more inspiring "The Shawshank Redemption" -- also ranks among Oscar's top ten screw jobs. Way overrated.
The only redeeming quality about Forrest Gump is that the little girl who played "Jenny" as a little girl (Hanna Hall) grew up to become absolutely smokin'. Under the right circumstances, she could get me to watch that movie for 24 hours straight.
Coming tomorrow... my take on #10-#6.
Posted by Christopher at 04:25 AM | Comments (6)August 23, 2005
What Would Jesus Do?
"Thou shalt not kill." -- The fifth commandment, Exdous 20:13.
"If he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think we really ought to go ahead and do it... We have the ability to take him (Chavez) out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability." -- Pat Robertson: Christian minister, lead figure of the religious right, and founder of the Christian Coalition, the most influential group in today's right wing politics.
"He's a private citizen. Private citizens say all kinds of things all the time." -- Secretary of Defense and Bush confidant Donald Runsfeld, tepidly disassociating himself from Robertson's comments.
This isn't even a Republican thing -- one of the loudest voices of protest today belonged to Senator Bob Dole. But it is a far evangelical right thing. And dangerously for us all, it is the far right evangelical Christians who dominate the Republican party these days, all the way up to their stooge in the White House -- who remained shamefully silent today and allowed his minions to issue weak disavowals rather than believeably sincere condemnations of Robertson's words.
The message we got today from the spiritual father of the evangelical right is chilling, and it is unmistakable: stray from our orthodoxy, dogma, and viewpoint, and we believe we have the right to kill you.
The shattering thing about that message is that it's the same one being sent by another group of fundamentalist zealots. Only those other zealots live in the Middle East exploiting the fears and anxieties of their most ardent adherents in the name of their religion, while Robertson sits in Hampton Roads, Virginia, playing the same game.
Now, no one need observe al Qaida any longer and wonder, "How could any adherent to a religion get so intense, unyielding, and so full of hate that they could embrace terrorism as a legitimate means to a fanatic end?" All they have to do is watch the 700 Club.
The Christian right embodied by Robertson is little more than the Taliban without turbans. Their influence in our nation, and on one of the leading parties in this nation, tears a deep and brutal scar into our collective character.
Posted by Christopher at 08:52 PM | Comments (6)In The Movie, The Pope Will Be Played By John Lithgow
... The missionary will be played by Kevin Bacon, and introducing Lori Singer as Sister Johanne Vertomme -- in "Footloose Two: European Boogaloo."
A Belgian nun's acrobatic and indecorous dancing with a missionary during the Catholic World Youth Day in Germany over the weekend earned her a reprimand from her mother superior, a Belgian paper said Tuesday.
Daily Het Laatste Nieuws showed pictures of a dancing Johanne Vertommen being held up in the air by the missionary, and then clinging to him with her legs wrapped around his body.
"I wouldn't do this at home but at such occasions I get carried away by the enthusiasm of the group," the 29-year-old told the paper later.
These "Youth Days!" I swear, these things are the devil's handiwork. And I'm not the only one!
"Besides the liquor and the drugs which always seem to accompany such an event, the thing that distresses me even more, Ren, is the spiritual corruption that can be involved," said Pope Bendict. Or maybe it was Reverend Shaw Moore. I get them mixed up sometimes.
August 22, 2005
Animal House
I've written before about my soft spot for animals. Far more than three-fourths of my charitable contributions every year go to animal welfare organizations. I can watch stories of mass human suffering without flinching, but give me one dog or cat with a hurt paw and I'm "awwww"ing louder than anyone. This past weekend, I decided to put my spare time where my money is. One of the largest no-kill shelters in New York is within 20 minutes of my place, so I went over to the Elmsford Animal Shelter and volunteered for a few hours.
First of all, after having been there and seen cages upon cages of beautiful animals waiting for a home, I have to implore you, a la Bob Barker: Spay or neuter your pets. Please. If you've ever thought that it was cruel to deprive ol' Rex of his family jewels, I suggest you visit a shelter and see row upon row of abandoned animals cooped up in cages -- the biggest cages the shelter has room for, but still caged nonetheless -- mewing, howling, and crying any time someone walks by. Walk by, and realize that fewer than 35% of shelter animals are ever adopted into new homes. Realize that most of those animals will live out their days sitting in a cage and waiting for someone to love them... someone who will never come. And then tell me that a few days' recovery from some missing parts is cruel.
Okay, soapbox over. As I am a guy (the last time I checked), they seemed to automatically assume that I was a dog person, and walked me past the cats to the area where they pen all the big dogs. I guess they thought, "okay, big guy here, so we'll give him all the bigger dogs that smaller volunteers have trouble controlling." And so it was that I spent three hours of a Sunday afternoon getting dragged all up and down the nearby bike trails in 95 degree heat by 45 pound dogs. It was so hot that very few of the dogs could be out for more than about 15 minutes at a time, so I ended up taking about 10-12 dogs for walks during my time there. All of them were big, strong brutes, and all of them seemed ridiculously, gloriously happy to be outside.
If you click on the "click here to see our pets" link on the shelter site, I walked Cherries, White Chocolate, Wilma, Josie, Savannah, Quincy, Sylvester Stallone, Sissy, and a couple of other ones who don't seem to have pictures up. And yes, I am on a first name basis with all of them now. They were all beautiful, friendly, happy dogs who gave me no trouble at all and were all okay with being walked by a stranger.
If you happen to live in the New York area, and are looking for a pet, there are literally hundreds of dogs, cats, ferrets, and other animals at the Elmsford shelter, just waiting for you. I'd consider it a personal favor if, should any of you be looking to adopt, you went to Elmsford to find your new pet. And for those of you not in the NY area, if you're looking for a pet... please go to your local animal shelter instead of some puppy or kitty farm or breeder. These animals need people; they've had rough lives or a tough break and deserve better.
Remember, please spay or neuter your pets. And even if you're not adopting a pet, consider spending some time at your local shelter and giving the animals there a little comfort, in whatever way you can. Thanks.
Posted by Christopher at 10:52 PM | Comments (3)20 "Overrated" Movies
While they blew it on their Website (come out with a list, publicize that the list exists, and then don't even put the list on the site? what the hell?), Premiere magazine has come up with a list of "The 20 Most Overrated Movies of All Time." This might be even more fun than a Best Movies list. Thankfully, despite Premiere's Web stupidity, someone in blogtopia posted the list (so thank you, Kulturblog!).
I'll post my take on five of their list at a time... and then will perhaps add a few of my own to complete the effort. So awaaaay we go with Premiere's list of the 20 most overrated movies.
20. The Wizard of Oz. So much has been made of this movie, standing as it does as a Thanksgiving weekend tradition on TV, and with nearly every element of the film having become a cliche. The entire movie's a meme -- from "We're not in Kansas anymore" to the Yellow Brick Road to Munchkins to "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain." So I can understand why some would call it overrated.
But you have to take into account how far ahead of its time this movie was. You have to take into account how deeply the film, its story, and its imagery have become ingrained in our collective consciousness. You have to take into account the power of a film that 65 years later still captivates little kids. You have to say that The Wizard of Oz has no place on a list of overrated movies.
19. The Red Shoes. I've never even heard of The Red Shoes. I had to look it up on IMDB just to find out what it was. I could say that the very fact that I haven't even heard of it makes it overrated. Instead, I'll just opt to watch a few episodes of The Red Shoe Diaries... that's what Cinemax is for.
18. Nashville. Another one I've never seen. Either this means I haven't seen many movies, or I just have the good taste and smarts enough not to watch overrated movies. Either way, I have no opinion on the film "Nashville."
17. Mystic River. Premiere's entire list just lost pretty much all of its credibiity for including Mystic River. This was far and away the Best Picture of 2003 -- far better than that stupid movie about elves and hobbits. This is the finest collection of outstanding performances, from the most stellar cast, so far this decade. And while Sean Penn, Tim Robbins and Marcia Gay Harden got Oscar nominations, and Kevin Bacon got plenty of attention, the film's most accurate Boston accent (and in my opinion it's best performance) belonged to Laurence Fishburne. This movie is on my "ten best of the 2000s" list - hardly belongs on an overrated list. Glaring failure here.
16. Moonstruck. God, I hated this movie. Hated it, hated it, kept hating it, took a walk, went to the store, came back, and hated it some more. Cher is on my list of Ten Most Annoying Celebrities (a list I'll share some time). This may be the biggest case of "every movie and every performance sucked this year, but we had to give the Oscar to somebody, so here you go" in Oscar history. I've disagreed with Premiere so far on every movie they've listed that I've actually seen... but my only disagreement with them here is that "Moonstruck" should have been higher on the overrated list than just 16th.
Coming tomorrow... my take on Premiere's spots #15-11.
Posted by Christopher at 09:20 PM | Comments (3)More Of Those Conservative Moral Values
I just wanted to make sure I was clear about those crystal clear Republican moral standards.
According to conservatives, the parents of Terri Schiavo -- who spent fifteen years ignoring every medical opinion offered to the courts, fighting every court decision, arguing that their legally blind daughter was following their movements with her eyes, arguing that their brain dead daughter was bawling out "I Want to Live" (or at least, "I Waaaaaaaa"), who slandered and libeled their son-in-law by falsely accusing him of spousal abuse, who turned their daughter's case into a nationwide circus, and who implored the governor of Florida to violate the law and personally walk past armed sheriffs to "save" their daughter -- were enduring a personal tragedy and were on solid moral footing for what they did.
These same people now argue that the mother of Casey Sheehan -- who raised an altar boy who became an Eagle Scout who enlisted in the Marines and was killed in the service of this nation -- is a nutjob pursuing a political agenda.
Just had to be sure I understood. Gotta love that devastating conservative moral clarity.
Posted by Christopher at 08:00 PM | Comments (0)August 21, 2005
An Honest Republican
As often as I excoriate Republicans around here, it would be unfair of me to not acknowledge when one displays some integrity and honesty.
Senator Chuck Hagel (R-Nebraska) came out with the strongest Republican statement yet about the result of George W. Bush's Halliburton war. On ABC's "This Week" this morning, Hagel said what we've all realized about Iraq - but until now, no Republican has said.
"We should start figuring out how we get out of there," Hagel said on "This Week" on ABC. "But with this understanding, we cannot leave a vacuum that further destabilizes the Middle East. I think our involvement there has destabilized the Middle East. And the longer we stay there, I think the further destabilization will occur."Hagel said "stay the course" is not a policy. "By any standard, when you analyze 2 1/2 years in Iraq ... we're not winning," he said.
Hagel knows something about what a fruitless war led by people who mislead the American people looks like; he won two Purple Hearts in Vietnam (you know, that war that Bush and Cheney were too cowardly to serve in?). And he's no longer afraid to draw the connection that many of us have seen for years now.
"What I think the White House does not yet understand — and some of my colleagues — the dam has broke on this policy," Hagel said. "The longer we stay there, the more similarities (to Vietnam) are going to come together."
Now it's true that Hagel is considering a run at the Presidency in 2008 (a race that, given current skepticism about Iraq reflected in the polls, may well cost anyone associated with its prosecution), so he may be trying to position himself for that candidacy. But it's highly ironic that a Republican has finally determined that honesty about Iraq just might be the best positioning. Sadly for our nation, none of his party-mates seem to have come to that realization yet.
Posted by Christopher at 06:53 PM | Comments (4)August 20, 2005
Pastafarians, Unite!!
Last week I blogged about the Flying Spaghetti Monster and how Kansas schools should really start teaching about how the FSM (peace be unto him) is responsible for Intelligent Design. I am proud to bring you this update, courtesy of Boing Boing.
First of all, our religion has a name, friends. We are Pastafarians. Secondly, there is an official description of our religion and its beliefs in Wikipedia; I suggest you go to it and familarize yourself with the tentacles -- I mean tenets -- of our faith, lest you never be touched by His Noodly Appendage. Specifically, you should note the following:
* Prayers are ended with the word Ramen rather than Amen.
* Followers are expected to dress in full pirate regalia.
* Like the great noodles they worship, Flying Spaghetti Monsterists have flimsy moral standards.
* Religious holiday every Friday.
* Promise of a stripper factory and a beer volcano in Heaven.
A stripper factory?! Man, screw the 72 virgins (uh, let's make that "who needs the 72 virgins!") -- virgins don't know what they're doing anyway. Pastafarianism offers much better eternal rewards! A stripper factory?! And a beer volcano? I am ready to become a martyr for the Noodly Cause! Especially if the strippers have Angel Hair.
Adherents to Pastafariaism have been beset with persecution and harrassment, most notably in this entry from Boing Boing. But even though they've capped the reward fund at $1,000,000 "intelligently designed" dollars, I am still going to add my tithe to the cause; I will give $200,000* to anyone who can "produce empirical evidence which proves that Jesus is not the son of the Flying Spaghetti Monster." (As with Boing Boing's offer, my dollars must be "intelligently designed" and this offer is void where prohitbited by logic.)
Finally, friends... I wanted to share with you the image of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. This painting was done by Vermicelli and is a fresco on the ceiling of the Linguini Chapel in Rome. (The image is so large that it won't fit on my blog, so here's a link to it as a pop-up.)
Posted by Christopher at 12:35 PM | Comments (5)Bush Lies Yet Again
It boggles the mind, really. How anyone -- even such a single-minded crusader like W -- could continue to cling to an outdated, discredited lie that has been proven false by a bipartisan commission. It's indicative of both the desperation of this administration to justify its violations of international law and the US Constitution, and of its willingness to commit deception and dishonesty in the first place.
But yet again, George W. Bush once again today tried desperately to connect 9/11 (a crime whose primary perpetrator he has allowed to remain at large) and Iraq (which posed no threat to the US, had no weapons of mass destruction at the time of the invasion, and has been turned by Bush's treachery into a breeding ground for terrorists).
"Our troops know that they're fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere to protect their fellow Americans from a savage enemy," Bush said in his weekly radio address. "They know that if we do not confront these evil men abroad, we will have to face them one day in our own cities and streets."
Well, except that at this point no American with the capacity for independent thought believes your lie anymore, George. The bipartisan 9/11 commission found that there was no link between al Qaida and Iraq. Specifically, they said, "We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al-Qaida cooperated on attacks against the United States."
Yet Bush persists in this deliberate attempt to deceive and mislead the American people. He did it in his radio address today - a direct lie to the American public. Meanwhile, the enemy that Bush's folly has allowed to remain free and to repopulate its ranks is still out there, still attacking America; in fact, such an attack occurred only this week. Zarqawi and bin Laden still remain free to plan further strikes against London, New York, and other symbolic centers of Western power.
However, Halliburton continues to see large profits (despite multiple investigations of its fraud and profiteering). Guess Bush is thinking, "What's a few lies and a couple thousand lives, when Dick's friends are making money hand over fist?)
And somehow, through all this, this slimy adminstration and its thug followers still claim the high ground, claiming to be the sole possessors of patriotism in our country and still claiming to be the only ones who "support" the troops (apparently, in conservative war hawks' eyes, suporting the troops includes driving over memorials to them and turning the full brunt of the conservative attack machine on the grieving parents of soldiers who have died. Classy bunch, those Bush supporters.).
Supporting George W. Bush in 2003 was at least understandable, if still naive. Many of us would still like to believe that the President of the United States would not lie to his people, despite ample evidence to the contrary from nearly every predecssor of both parties. Though many of us were trying desperately to shine a spotlight of truth on what Bush and his minions were presenting, the impulse to believe -- and to assign some sort of reason or logic to the horrors of 9/11 -- can at the very least be understood.
But to continue to support this liar and his treacherous administration now is to be a willing party to the deception, to aid and abet the commission of a crime. The Powell presentation to the UN in February 2003? Now wholly discredited (and Powell along with it). The charges by Joseph Wilson that the yellowcake uranium in Niger story was made up? Proven true by time, in spite of Karl Rove's deliberately leaking the identity of his wife in a petulent and cruel attempt to extract revenge that endangered our national security. Every justification this administration made for its actions in 2003 has been invalidated by time and fact, to the point where now they are left clinging to weak rhetorical arguments about freedom and lies about a 9/11 connection that never existed.
To continue to support this administration now is to choose to be part of the lie. That's something no American should do; and no American should forget those currently in power -- of either party -- who continue to do so. November 2006 is 15 months away. Make your memories long, folks.
Posted by Christopher at 12:26 PM | Comments (1)Joe Torre, Hall of Famer
It might seem odd that I, a long time and die hard Red Sox fan, am about to argue that New York Yankees manager Joe Torre belongs in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
It seems especially strange to me, since for most of his managerial career I have been one of Torre's biggest detractors. "Four World Series, my ass," I always thought. "Put me in charge of a team that has a roster that cost twice as much as any other team in baseball, and even I could manage that team to a championship." Torre, I would argue to anyone who would listen, was a side effect of a swollen payroll, and little more.
I've changed my view.
Ironically, it's taken the last two seasons to make me come around -- two seasons that have infuriated the Great Satan (George Steinbrenner) and have many Yankee fans now calling for Torre to be fired. (And no, it's not just George. Those of us "lucky" enough to be in range of New York sports talk radio know that right now, the two least popular people in baseball in New York are Curt Schilling and Joe Torre. They've turned on him here faster than Randy Savage turned on Hulk Hogan way back in the day.)
The Yankees haven't won a World Series since 2000, so in Satanbrenner's view that's five years of failure. This year, the team may not even make the playoffs (if they do, it will be on the coattails of Mariano Rivera -- a guy the oh-so-classy Yankee fans booed off the field in April). So the thinking goes, Torre's got the most expensive baseball team in history, and if he can't get them to the playoffs he should lose his job.
Poppycock, I say. Torre's not at fault for the supposed "debacle" of not making the playoffs. You want someone to blame, Yankee fans, then you ought to turn your focus straight to the front office, where Baby Huey has been busy gutting his farm system and overruling his baseball people (i.e., Cashman and Torre) in order to assemble the world's most costly Rotisserie roster. It's been Steinbrenner's unreasoned and single-minded pursuit of the "expensive-is-better, we'll just buy everyone else's good players" that has caused the shift, if not reversal, of the Yankees' fortunes. You can't put 25 of the biggest salaries and their corresponding egos in the game on the same roster and expect chemistry.
Meanwhile, Torre's run of four titles from 1996-2000 now deserves another look, with the benefit of the persepctive of more recent history. Torre, Cashman and Gene Michael assembled the team during that run, not Steinbrenner -- and won four of five championships during that time before Steinbrenner started usurping them. Torre has the managerial presence to take other teams' mediocre players (Scott Brosius, Luis Sojo) and make them key cogs in a devastating machine. Torre had the leadership skills to soften the egos of genuine stars (Jeter, Tino Martinez, Paul O'Neill) and get them to see that "we" was more important than "me" -- something sorely lacking on the Steinbrenner-assembled fantasy rosters.
I used to think that Joe Torre had done nothing but hold the wheel while the Yankee payroll won the championships. No longer. Managing a massively-funded team comes with other challenges off the field and in the clubhouse that managers of average payrolled squads couldn't dream of. Torre handled those issues more smoothly than I ever gave him credit for. And when you look at the results of the teams Torre put together over those Steinbrenner assembled, it's no contest: Torre teams won four World Series in five years, and won them all; Steinbrenner's teams have gone to only two of the four World Series since then, haven't won any, and this year's model may not even make the playoffs.
Joe Torre could resign tomorrow if he wanted to. He's earned my vote; he's a Hall of Fame manager. It's just ironic that it's taken losing to make me see it.
Posted by Christopher at 12:11 PM | Comments (1)Marco... Polo!
This here's a shout out to a new blog who's linked to me (many thanks for the link!), The Adventures of Marco Polo in Baton Rouge. I think it's very safe to say that Marco represents the only time I have ever been on the same blogroll as Michelle Malkin; I'm not sure what to even think of that. I think it may be one of the signs of the apocolypse, so if you also see Jurgen Prochnow and Demi Moore nearby, you might want to take shelter.
Thanks for the link, Marco. And for anyone interested in the Louisiana perspective of the world, go check Marco out and tell him hello.
Posted by Christopher at 11:59 AM | Comments (0)August 18, 2005
9 - 11 Below Zero
I bet if someone asked you to make a list of the top al Qaida targets in the United States, you'd miss the place that's number one on their list. The Statue of Liberty, you say? Sorry, Captain Obvious. The US Capitol? Buzz! Thank you for playing. DisneyWorld? LAX? The Sears Tower? Golden Gate bridge? Nope, unh-unh, not, no way Jose.
The number one American target of terrorists, according to Congressman Don Young (R-Alaska)? The sparsely inhabited coasts of Alaska.
Accordingly, says Young, New York Representative Peter King should not be the next chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. No, says Young, no New Yorker could possibly understand the needs of Homeland Security, nor the terrorist threat that we still face, like an Alaskan. So Young is challenging King for the chairmanship of the committee.
"It [the committee] affects my state probably more than any other state, because of the Coast Guard here" and the state's extensive shoreline, he said.
A ha. Gotcha. Alaska's extensive shoreline makes it more affected by homeland security than any other state. In the immortal words of Dr. Evil, "riiiiiiiiiiight." Never mind that New York and the DC area not only were the areas targeted on 9/11, but are loaded with additional targets both symbolic (Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, Times Square, Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial), economic (New York Stock Exchange, Wall Street, Federal Reserve) and political (White House, Senate and House office buildings, K Street). Never mind that no Alaskans died on 9/11, or that the last time hostile forces affected Alaska, Alaska wasn't even a state yet (Attu, anyone?). Ignore all that, says Young. He's the man for the job. (Even though he bitterly opposed the creation of the Homeland Security Committee in the first place.)
"I've been chairman of two committees, and he's never been chairman," Young told the Daily News, adding that aside from experience, it makes more sense for him, a resident of Fort Yukon, Alaska, population 700, to head the Homeland Security Committee than a congressman from the state hurt most by 9/11.
Young's not just arrogant, insulting and crazy, he's also the undisputed champion of wasting your money. In the most recent transportation spending bill, Young -- who just happens to run the Transportation committee -- managed to get about $1 billion in funding for his state (the least densely populated state in the country, as opposed to states like New York, California, Michigan, New Jersey, Georgia... with transport systems that are actually used by millions of people every day). And wow, lookee here -- $231 million of that will go toward building a bridge (named after Young, natch) that even the Anchorage Daily News says the state doesn't want.
But even in Alaska, the pork is not entirely welcome. According to an Anchorage Daily News editorial, the earmarked money won't cover the cost of either bridge, and half of it represents a carve-out from regular funding, to the possible detriment of other roadwork in Alaska.
Put this pork guzzling jackass in charge of homeland security, and you know what happens? New York, Washington DC, Los Angeles, the ports of New Orleans, Newark, Houston and Seattle, and nuclear plants in the lower 48 will go unprotected and tens of millions of Americans will be in greater jeopardy... while the Iditarod will become the most secure snowball fight in history.
Posted by Christopher at 03:22 PM | Comments (3)The Blame Game
So Senator Trent "Don't Call Me Jim Crow" Lott has just released a new book that details his own rise and fall. I read the excerpts, and it struck me as remarkable that in the book, Lott manages to blame pretty much everyone in politics for his downfall -- except himself.
Of course his most acidic bile is saved for the current majority leader, Dr. "I can diagnose a patient from 1000 miles away -- oh wait, you mean she was really brain dead and blind? never mind" Bill Frist.
"If Frist had not announced exactly when he did, as the fire was about to burn out, I would still be majority leader of the Senate today," Lott said... He said Frist's actions amounted to a "personal betrayal," since he had taken the Tennessean "under my wing" in earlier years.
Okay, gotcha. It's Bill Frist's fault that Lott had to step down. Wait... what's that you say, Trent?
Bush "struck at me," Lott wrote, when he said that Lott ‘has apologized and rightly so.’"
Oh, okay. It was W's fault that Lott had to resign. Er... wait a tick.
Powell, who was secretary of state at the time, called in reporters to deplore Thurmond's Dixiecrat campaign of 1948. "I couldn't understand it. I'd worked with him enough over the years that he should have known I wasn't a racist,:" Lott wrote.
Okay, now I get it: it was all Colin Powell's fault. Wait... I have it wrong.
"I had raised money for Jeffords; in 2000, I had even campaigned for him in Vermont. Six months later, this was the way he repaid me," Lott wrote.
Do you see a pattern here? I actually feel bad... I didn't get named in Lott's book. Come on, Trent baby... you blamed everyone else -- but no love for the Mudge? Surely, with as many other people as are apparently responsible for your downfall, I must have had at least something to do with it?
Or alternately, you redneck cracker, it might have been because you suggested that America "wouldn't have all these problems" if Strom Thurmond had been elected on his Jim Crow platform in 1948. Just a thought.
Posted by Christopher at 02:57 PM | Comments (0)August 15, 2005
Guilty Pleasures
MSNBC.com has a feature story up on tweleve suggested "Guilty Pleasures" songs. While I agree with their premise that this makes for a fun fluffy article, the premise depends upon the songs on the list actually being enjoyable (even if you have the windows rolled up when you play it in the car).
And their list, their "Hidden 12," is quite frankly awful. Most of it's unenjoyable. Hell, they couldn't even settle on actual songs for a couple of entries. "Broadway songs" isn't one song. Nor are "Misheard Lyrics." If you're gonna make a list of guilty pleasures, don't hide behind a category... admit it to the world. And only like two of the ones they do name are even any good!
In that spirit, I decided to expose myself (figuratively, of course). I've compiled my own "Hidden 12" -- the 12 most embarrassing songs in my iTunes collection. Now, when I say "guilty pleasure," I don't mean little-known song, or good song from a genre I may be alone out here in enjoying (ie, country for example). See, if you like a lot of stuff from a lot of genres, you're just eclectic, not sad.
No, I'm talking about the songs that even I know better than to like... songs I'll admit up front have no business being in my collection. Or anyone else's collection. Songs that -- dammit to hell -- I like despite knowing that should anyone see them on my iTunes, I will never get laid again. (So naturally, I go putting them out here, right? Not a problem - like I ever show this site to any woman I have a shot with? No, the rule is that they gotta wait until after the deed is done before I'll let them come here.)
So here are my twelve most embarrassing, birth control song guiltiest pleasures, counting down from the least embarassing to the most. (And don't even pretend... you know that if you and I were in a blue convertible with a dead deer in the back and driving down some Wisconsin road, and at least one of these songs came on, you would play Spade to my Farley and be doing the whole "Whatever... I can live with it if you can" thing.)
12. "All The Things She Said," t.A.T.u. I first heard this song while in a shuttle from Charles de Gaulle airport to my hotel in Paris. I just thought it was an interesting piece of Europop. When I got home, I looked it up on line, and thought: "Hm. Russian teens with Barbie doll voices who dress provocatively and smooch on stage for the titilation of their teenage boy fans who don't yet get that some women actually like women because it's who they are, not for the viewing pleasure of males... catchy pop tune... yeah, it'll be a hit." Sure enough, it was. I still think it's pretty good dance pop, to tell you the truth. But because t.A.T.u.'s faux lipstick lesbian marketing schtick is so embarrassing to all involved, this a guilty pleasure. The Indigo Girls they're not, but I kinda dig it anyway.
11. "I Still Can't Get Over Lovin' You" - Ray Parker, Jr. When I was a teenager, I just thought this was a really nice song about regret over a lost love - but I thought the music was so pretty that I never thought about or paid attention to the words. Once I downloaded it from iTunes and listened to it as an adult, I went, "Wait a tick... he's singing about stalking an ex, refusing to let her move on, and eventually threatening to kill her. This isn't a love song, it's a domestic violence anthem!" The closing line, "I'm gettin' mad, girl. Don't you ever even try to leave... it'll be the last thing you ever do," is haunting and freaking sick - and I wish I'd have understood the real subject of the song before I gave that jerk 99 cents for it. Still has pretty music though.
10. The Smile Has Left Your Eyes - Asia I don't suffer from the same Asia hatred that so many of the music critics seem to have. To me, "Heat of the Moment" still stands up as good power pop. But owning Asia's last hit - a string-laden number with I think one of the most repetitive choruses and builds ever? Especially when you remember their faux French movie (complete with subtitles) melodramatic video for it, with the little girl sad over her parents' fighting... and you eventually see her little doll floating in the river, implying that she's drowned herself. No song with a video that contains subtitles for the imagined dialogue and consciously tries to ape European angst film should be in any self-respecting man's collection. But for all its Broadway-esque over the top-ness, I still kind of like it.
9. Seventeen - Winger I have Doc to blame for this. I am not going to go into the circumstances; I'll only say that this was one of the Doc's many (failed) attempts to cast witty commentary on my recent social life. I copied it from him while laughing good-naturedly at the joke. Later, I wished I hadn't been so caught up in the male bonding moment as to have actually copied it. But I'd still be able to sing along word for word if it came on in the car.
8. "Brandy" - Looking Glass Ah, the early 70s, when cheesy songs that told a story were all the rage. But while "Billy Don't Be A Hero," "The Night Chicago Died," and "Angie Baby" sound far worse today, Brandy's actually not a bad song. And you know, she's a fine girl - what a good wife she would be! This one, of all the songs on my list, gets my vote as The Song Most Likely To Also Show Up On The Lists Of People Who Read This Blog.
7. Is It Over Yet? - Wynonna This one's a holdout from the dumping that pretty much directly led to my leaving Minnesota for good more than a decade ago (right about when this was a hit). It's a syrupy, self-pitying piece of schlock, and anyone else hearing it would probably just want to slap Wynonna and say, "Okay, you're getitng dumped - enough with the pity party already!" If you were to ask me why I own a whiny ode to getting heartbroken all those years ago (especially when the move east turned out in retrospect to be one of the best things I've ever done), I'd have no good answer. No self-respecting male of any orientation should own this song. But damned if I didn't buy it on iTunes anyway.
6. This Could Be The Night - Loverboy I wrote about this earlier this year; as god-awful cheesy and flat out stupid as the lyrics are, and as 80s power ballad as the music is... it was my senior prom song, and when it came on the 80s station over Memorial Day weekend while the bunch of us were hanging at Doc's place, I knew I'd end up buying it for the nostalgia factor alone. Unlike most of the songs on this list, I don't really like this song... but I guess since I bought it in 2005, it still counts as a guilty pleasure.
5. Wilkommen - Joel Grey Unlike the person who put MSNBC's llist together, I'm not going to apologize for liking Broadway showtunes. I love Broadway. I'm a straight man. Sue me. But while there's nothing to be ashamed about in digging showtunes, they should be good showtunes. What there is that's good about hearing Joel Grey belt out, "Im Cabaret, Au Cabaret, To Cabaret," I have no idea. I didn't even like this show. But there the song is in my library. Oy.
4. "19" - Paul Hardcastle Hey, I have a great subject for a dance song: the most divisive American experience ever! Yeah, man... we could have a narration about the post-traumatic challenges that Vietnam veterans face, interpserse it with old news clips, and then use tape loops of the narrator's voice saying "Nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh, Nineteen!" Because you know... none of them received a hero's welcome. This is another one I got from Doc... why either of us own this, I have no idea. And yet, I still chose to grab it off his iPod. Vietnam... S-S-Saigon. Purple Heart. Saigon!
3. Eres Tu - Mocedades I made a Tommy Boy reference at the beginning of this list; it's Tommy Boy I have to thank for the fact that I own this song. Seeing Chris Farley and David Spade singing along to early 70s Spanish folk, well... it was funny enough to make me actually buy the song off iTunes, just so I could hear the song all the way through once. Once I had, all I could think was, "thank God I was too young to remember the early 70s with any kind of clarity... and that I can blame my parents for anything my five year old butt was listening to or wearing in 1973!" Good god, the 1970s were just a hideous period in time - the fashion and music equivalent of an atomic blast.
2. In The Ghetto - Elvis Last year, I was Fat Elvis for Halloween. I had the white jumpsuit, the wig with sideburns, the scarves, the huge 70s shades... I had the look down, man - right down to the bloat. For some reason, I decided to "get in character" by downloading a few of Vegas Elvis' "best" songs. "Kentucky Rain" and "Suspicious Minds" are I suppose defensible. But "In the Ghetto" is one of the most unintentionally funny attempts at social commentary ever recorded. All of it -- the white guilt lyrics, the french horns and strings, even the hilariously cheesy backing vocals from the "gospel girls" behind Big E -- is terrible. Just terrible.
But try to tell me that you don't know every word. Sure you don't.
1. Our Lips Are Sealed - Hilary and Hayley Duff When I read in some gossip column that Hilary Duff and her baby sister had committed the sin of covering the Go-Gos' new wave classic, all I could think was, "Oh, I have to hear this just to see how badly they massacred it." I downloaded it without even listening to the sample, expecting to spend 99 cents on a good laugh. And the Disneyesque alteration of the lyrics (somehow the line about the walls being too thin to hide the relationship just disappears -- can't let anyone think that a 17 year old girl just might be having sex or anything, right?) is enough to make me roll my eyes.
But you know what? Outside of that, the Duff girls just didn't do an awful job. Their harmony's pretty good, and it's a pretty faithful cover of what was and remains a good song. It's embarrasing as hell that I own it, because a) my guy friends see it in my collection and give me that eyebrow raised look that says, "Chris, if you're gonna do the Disney chick thing, at least go for Lindsay Lohan"... and women usually give me the same raised eyebrow, only with them the look says, "Why does a man in his mid 30s own teeny pop? You don't really think I'm getting anywhere near you now, do you Perv? And no, you can't meet my little sister either!" But as humilating as owning it is for me, I have to at the very least give the Duff girls credit for making a pretty decent effort at respecting a classic.
So there they are - the 12 most embarrassing songs in my iTunes collection. Besides the fact that you're singing at least one of them in your head right now, I'm also willing to bet that your iTunes collections contain at least a few that you're ashamed to admit that you like. So before you belittle me (deservedly, I admit), I challenge you to open your iPods to the world and see what kinds of embarrasing things we can find in the nightstand drawer recesses of your music collections.
Is That A Window Washer Behind You, Or Are You Just Happy To See Me?
I had to just share this video with you all, for three reasons. The first is because the guy being interviewed, Mantill Williams of AAA, is a friend of a good friend of mine in Alexandria VA; he's been at dinners I've been at... really nice guy.
The second reason is that the anchor doing the interviewing, MSNBC's Chris Jansing, is my choice for National News Personality You Most Would Like To Have As Your Personal Mrs. Robinson. Jansing's reason to watch MSNBC all by herself. And even when she has a messed up expression on her face due to stuff happening during an interview, she's still the hottest anchor on television news.
And the third is because it's pretty damn funny to see a live interview broken up by the presence of a window washer doing his job behind the subject, and to hear the entire newsroom busting up in the background. Check it out here.
And Chris, if you're not doing anything Saturday night, call me.
Posted by Christopher at 10:16 PM | Comments (3)August 14, 2005
All Hail The Flying Spaghetti Monster!
This is priceless, just priceless. Someone's written a response to the chuckleheads on the Kansas school boards (and by extension, to Zippy the Born-Again Wonder Chimp down in Crawford), proposing an alternate "intelligent design" theory.
Let us remember that there are multiple theories of Intelligent Design. I and many others around the world are of the strong belief that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster. It was He who created all that we see and all that we feel.
Oh, I love where this is going. And just like The Simpsons, Beavis and Butthead or South Park, once you get past the surface level parody, there's some brilliant social commentary underneath.
...it may be helpful to tell you a little more about our beliefs. We have evidence that a Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe. None of us, of course, were around to see it, but we have written accounts of it. We have several lengthy volumes explaining all details of His power.
I am crying right now, I am laughing so hard. After going on to present a paragraph on how scientists measure evolutionary "evidence," the guy continues:
But what our scientist does not realize is that every time he makes a measurement, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is there changing the results with His Noodly Appendage. We have numerous texts that describe in detail how this can be possible and the reasons why He does this. He is of course invisible and can pass through normal matter with ease.
You see what's happening here, right? The exact same arguments are made by proponents of Intelligent Design (including your president, Red Staters) - it's just that they substitute the biblical supreme being for a flying spaghetti monster. Somehow, they expect it to be more plausible when they present it.
The rest of the open letter is a wicked skewering of the joke that is the push to teach Intelligent Design in our schools. This is one of the funnier, if not dead-on accurate, satires of the extreme evangelical right wing in a long time. (It'd be even funnier if that wing hadn't completely and utterly taken over the Republican party at this point, and these extremist views weren't so close to actually becoming policy.)
I'm counting myself in. I am a child of the Flying Spaghetti Monster! All Hail the Flying Spaghetti Monster!
Posted by Christopher at 10:51 AM | Comments (7)August 13, 2005
What About Nunchucks? When Do We Get The Nunchucks?
On the day after we were reminded of the horror of 9/11 by the release of hours of audio tape from the New York Fire Department, comes perhaps the most asinine proposal ever to come out of the government. Not just the Bush government, but any government.
On the levels of sheer and utter stupidity, this ranks right up there with trying to destabilize Castro by making his beard fall out, or making ketchup a vegetable.
The Transportation Security Agency -- the body charged with making sure we're safe when we travel on airplanes -- has submitted a proposal that would allow ice picks, 5 inch knives, Chinese throwing stars, and bows & arrows to be brought on board planes. I'm not making this up. I couldn't make anything this utterly freaking stupid up.
The TSA memo proposes to minimize the number of passengers who must be patted down at checkpoints. It also recommends that certain categories of passengers be exempt from airport security screening, such as members of Congress, airline pilots, Cabinet members, state governors, federal judges, high-ranking military officers and people with top-secret security clearances.
The proposal also would allow ice picks, throwing stars and bows and arrows on flights. Allowing those items was suggested after a risk evaluation was conducted about which items posed the most danger. [Emphasis mine.]
Why stop there? Why just throwing stars and ice picks (both of which are travel necessities, of course)? If we're gonna turn US domestic flights into the NRA's wet dream (everybody's armed! all weapons, all the time!), let's do it up right -- let's authorize bowie knives, 9 mm Berettas, and nunchucks on air flights too! In fact, let's mandate hand to hand combat as in-flight entertainment on every flight of less than three hours. It's Pilots vs. Passengers in The Octagon!
Edmund S. "Kip" Hawley, an assistant secretary of homeland security, directed his staff to propose changes in how the agency screens 2 million passengers a day... "The process is designed to stimulate creative thinking and challenge conventional beliefs," said TSA spokesman Mark O. Hatfield Jr.
Creative thinking? Challenge conventional beliefs?? Listen, you sloth-brained, short-bus riding buffoon: your process is designed to keep me from being turned into an unwilling guided missile when I'm flying, okay? You want to do creative thinking or challenge conventional beliefs, go join a performance art colony just north of Los Angeles, okay? I don't want creative thinking in my security; I want competence. The TSA is displaying neither.
Between work and pleasure, I travel a lot. I've flown close to 250,000 miles in the last three years. I get mildly annoyed by the extra time you have to spend going through security at the airport. I have grudgingly removed my shoes before walking through the metal detector so often that I've begun wearing loafers when I fly just so it's easier to slip them off. But my attitude toward the whole process isn't "This is ridiculous! They should really find ways to not have to do this." My attitude -- and that of every other frequent traveler I know -- is, "Yeah, it's a pain in the ass, but better safe than sorry."
Kip Hawley (wasn't that the name of the character Tom Hanks played on Bosom Buddies?) has obviously been ingesting or inhaling something that would make it illegal for a pilot to fly a plane in his little system. This person, along with everyone in the TSA who contributed to this little "creative thinking" exercise, should be fired for gross dereliction of duty and sheer incompetence.
Anyone wondering why need only listen here.
Posted by Christopher at 09:23 AM | Comments (4)August 12, 2005
Guess I'm A Real New Yorker Now
Because of my new job (I guess after 11 weeks I should stop calling it new, right?), I have been spending a lot of time in our Manhattan offices instead of up in Stepford. I've had a lot of meetings down there lately, so I've been in "the city" between a third and half of the time over the last couple of weeks.
By and large, this isn't a bad thing; for one, the Manhattan office is much more casual and hipster, so I don't need to wear suits (hell, I look overdressed and stuffy when I show up in khakis and a button down shirt). Also, it's given me the chance to get out in the city and hang out with friends I don't see very often, like Ethan (Friday night was a blast, bro - who'd've thunk there were still places in NY where you could get two beers for $5 during happy hour?). And, I have to say this even though it makes me a piggish male... the talent on the streets of Manhattan during the summer is positively astounding. I may despise their attitudes, but New York women are delightful to observe.
And I even actually live as close to Manhattan as I do to the suburban offices, so the commute's no longer than usual... in fact, there's a Metro North station about a six minute walk from my co-op, so getting there's a breeze. But it's at this point in the story that things take a bad twist. It's at this point in the story where I seem to have become a typical New Yorker.
The normal routine is simple: take Metro North to Grand Central Station, then go to wait in the taxicab queue outside the 42nd Street entrance to the terminal. It usually takes about three minutes to get through the line, after which I take the cab to our offices downtown.
The other day, I was standing in the queue, waiting for a cab and getting ready for an early afternoon meeting. It was already a hot and humid day (those of you from Houston might not have thought so, but for us, 94 degrees is hot, and 60% humidity is pretty damn wet), even at noon; by the time I got to the front of the taxi line, I was already dripping sweat from my brow. At the back of the line, I saw a tiny, five foot grandmotherly type, pretty obviously a tourist, lugging a suitcase that was almost bigger than her. As she walked toward the taxi stand, the line was long enough that she had to stand behind where the velvet ropes end (they're about ten people long, so if you're 11th in line or beyond you have nothing between you and the street).
As a cab pulled into the line, I was relieved to be able to get out of the heat, and prepared to ask my cabbie to crank the A/C all the way up to 11. Suddenly, I saw something... the touristy grandmother was stepping into the street, tugging her giant suitcase behind her and trying to wrestle it toward the approaching cab. My cab. The one I'd waited five stifling minutes for.
Now, the ex-Minnesotan in me (who still comes out more often than I'd like... get raised in a place and you pick up its habits, even if that does mean I still have a damnable streak of midwestern "Minnesota Nice" in my blood even out here in cut-throat, take no prisoners, show-even-a-sliver-of-weakness-and-we'll-eat-your-young New York) thought to himself, "Well, okay... she's stealing your cab. But she's obviously a tourist and doesn't know the rules or protocols of hailing taxis at Grand Central. And besides, she's like 70something, Chris! She's probably scared half out of her nut being here and just wants to get to wherever she's going. And in this heat, if this old lady stands out in line for five more minutes, who knows what'd happen? Let her go; there'll be another cab in a minute or two."
But of course, I've been away from the midwest for going on eleven years now. And the northeasterner in me had an entirely different take on the situation. Guess which "me" won?
As grandma stepped into the street, without even thinking about it, my subconscious New Yorker asserted himself. "Hey, lady! You're cuttin' in the line there." Everyone else looked at her; she seemed oblivious. "Hey! You're cuttin' in line here! Whaddayou think you're doin'?" Now the rest of the line was looking at her, and the New York chorus began.
"What, lady - you don't have to wait in line like the rest of us?"
"Yo, grandma - the line's back here!"
"Oh, no you dih-int even just cut in front of me!"
The porter even got into the act, walking up and admonishing her that you can't just grab a cab from the back of the line. Meanwhile, as grandma looked up in either bewilderment or embarrassment, I stepped in to take my rightful place aside the now-stopped cab. She looked at me furtively... but before she could even spit out her excuse, I just glared at her and growled as I opened the door, "You were gonna cut in line in front of me?" She didn't say anything as I slammed the door shut and asked Habib the cabbie to crank the air up all the way and told him where I was going.
Yes, kids: I muscled an old lady out of a taxi cab.
I could tell you it was because I was hot and sweating like a mule, and thus my patience was thin. I could tell you it was because I needed to get to my meeting. I could even tell you that it was because I'd been having a really bad week and this poor lady just happened to be the trigger that set me off. But I think I'd be lying to you if I did.
I think it's just that after having this area as my home base for the bulk of the last seven years, my resistance has worn down and I have become what I have forsworn.
God help me, I think I'm a New Yorker.
Posted by Christopher at 09:16 PM | Comments (7)August 11, 2005
And The Beat Goes On
The world is still safe for disgusting bathrooms, punks, and yuppies who used to wish they were punks. (Yes, that's really the bathroom, and no, there really is no door. And if you think it looks disgusting in the photo, you should actually use it once.)
A judge ruled today that the legendary punk club CBGB's cannot be evicted by its landlord, which runs a homeless shelter in the building. Basically, what happened is this: the shelter people don't like having to have the club in the bulding, so they jacked the rent way up -- but never told the club's owner they were doing so, and never billed him for it. When the owner continued to pay what he believed was the correct amount, the shelter waited four years to let the past due amount accumulate, then took the club to court with an eviction notice saying they hadn't paid rent. Thankfully for music fans, the judge wasn't buying it.
"It would be unconscionable for this court to allow petitioner to proceed with its intent to evict CBGB ... because it failed to notice that monies were outstanding for approximately four years," the judge wrote.
You know, this has been fairly big news around New York here, as musicians and cultural historians have staged benefits and made counter-proposals to try and save CBGB's. And one of the most striking things about the case has been the smug, over-bearing self-righteousness of the shelter owners... as if the fact that they house the homeless there gives them the right to break the law or act unethically, and as if they are just light years better than those (hold your nose) musicians downstairs.
I love CBGB's anyway and wanted the club to stay, but I'm taking extra pleasure in the fact that those smug pricks at the shelter got their asses handed to them. I'm not exaggerating when I say that this shelter's behavior and attitude have single-handedly made me much less receptive to homelessness issues... if everyone involved in the cause are as prickish as these folks are, then I won't listen to a word they have to say.
In the meantime, the judge's words ring true: "CBGB has proven itself worthy of being recognized as a landmark — a rare achievement for any commercial tenant in the ever diverse and competitive real estate market of New York City," she wrote in the ruling.
The musical legacy of CBGB's is as rarified as any club's anywhere -- and if you're a punk fan or ever were, CBGB's is as close to the Elysian Fields as you'll ever get. The Ramones... Talking Heads... Blondie... B-52s... the Police... their first gigs were here. And even though it's much smaller than you might imagine (and much nastier than you might imagine), it's still a thrill to touch the stage and think "Joey Ramone used to play here."
I've said before that one of the best nights I ever had in New York was the night that Tim, the Doc and I made our first pilgrimage to CBGB's. (And it was even a great night before we met up with the bachelorette party at the transvestite bar... let's just say that being the only straight and single guy in the room when six drunken women were on a bachelorette bender served me very well. Special thanks to Doc for the hit he willingly took on his credit card to buy two rounds of shots for the nine of us, just to make sure the ladies stuck with us/me. 18 shots in five minutes: about $200... Friends who will drop that kind of money and have to explain it to their wives the next day, just to make sure you get hooked up: priceless.)
Anyway, CBGB's is still alive, at least for the time being. The only thing left to say is: "One! Two! Three! Foh!"
Posted by Christopher at 08:54 PM | Comments (5)August 10, 2005
America's Funniest Home Videos
I am a sick person, but you knew that. So you shouldn't be surprised that I think this video clip is about the funniest thing I've seen since that fake VW ad.
I have only this to say about that clip.
(Oh, shut up. The dude lived, didn't he?)
Posted by Christopher at 09:56 PM | Comments (6)Ya Think?
I wasn't even sure how to react when I saw this headline. Maybe incredulity is the right word.
"Jennings' death prompts smokers to quit." Really? Because that was their first inkling that smoking might be bad for you? 40 years of warning labels, the deaths of people like Yul Brenner, Rod Serling, Beach Boy Carl Wilson, Roger Maris, the Marlboro Man, a slew of other famous people, and 447 Americans every day didn't clue them in?
In an online testimonial, a female smoker writes, "I guess my wake up call was Peter Jennings' death."
That's a little like someone saying about car crashes, "I guess my wake up call was Princess Diana's death," or "I guess my wake up call was John Candy's death" about obesity. Really? Wow. Einstein, Gallileo, Fermi and Marie Curie had nothing on this lady.
The government's been putting warning labels on cigarettes since 1965; since the 1980s these warnings have specifically stated that smoking causes cancer. If these people need someone famous to die to wkae them up to something that's stared them in the face every day, well... remember that whole thing Darwin was saying about survival of the fittest?
MSNBC's Keith Olbermann writes here about his own experience; I'll simply echo it. If you smoke, please quit. No, not "please" quit. Just quit. Dammit.
Posted by Christopher at 09:21 PM | Comments (5)August 09, 2005
The Great American Novel
I went to lunch with my boss (I'm one of those lucky bastards who says "I like my boss" not because I have to, but because I genuinely do; he's both a career mentor and a good friend) and another good friend yesterday, and the boss asked me about my aborted novel (which I am still going to finish someday, as Stevie Ray is my witness)... seeing that there's no novel to discuss, we shifted the conversation somewhat.
Since I haven't yet written the Great American Novel that the critics, the best-seller lists, and lit professors everywhere are waiting on me for... well, just what is the reigning Great American Novel? In other words, what is the single greatest work of American fiction?
I nominated The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald -- it became my all time favorite novel the very first time I read it, and nothing has displaced it in the 21 years hence. My boss suggested that he felt it had to be Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. The three of us agreed that while other American authors -- Hemmingway and Faulkner chief among them -- belonged in the team photo, the only other novel that could be mentioned alongside the other two was "To Kill A Mockingbird" by Harper Lee. (What an exquisite one hit wonder she was, by the way... to have written only one novel ever, but to have it still be in print even 40 years later and to win acclaim as one of the greatest novels of all time... I'd settle for that!)
Anyway, so those were our top three. What say you out there? Which books would you nominate as the "Great American Novel?" (Please note that we're talking about American literature here - so while other nations have certainly contributed their share of great literary works, the only ones subject to this contest are American authors.)
Posted by Christopher at 10:18 PM | Comments (7)Pot, Meet Kettle
I couldn't help but shake my head in incredulity when I read that the Baltimore Orioles organization "might not welcome back" disgraced slugger Rafael Palmiero when he returns from his steroid suspension.
Owner Peter Angelos and Vice President of Baseball Operations Mike Flanagan did not return calls seeking comment on Palmeiro. "We're not going to comment at all," Orioles Executive Vice President of Baseball Operations Jim Beattie said.
That's the biggest example of two faced hypocrisy I've seen since Rush Limbaugh railed about needing to protect the sanctity of marriage from gays while divorcing his third wife. Major League Baseball was complicit every step of the way in ushering in -- and promoting -- the steroid era of baseball. No owners stepped up and complained when their parks were being filled by fans who hadn't quite yet caught on that their heroes were full of more juice than a bottle of Welch's. When ticket and revenue sales climbed skyward during the offensive explosion of the 1990s, you never heard a peep from owners.
In Baltimore's case, Peter Angelos didn't say a damn thing in 1996 when Brady Anderson, who entering the season had a career total of 72 home runs in eight seasons and whose career high was just 21 home runs, somehow "magically" managed to swat 50 dingers. Angelos didn't seem to have a problem with the 229 homers that Palmiero clubbed during his mid-90s run with the Orioles -- homers that helped put more than 3.5 million butts in the Camden Yards seats and help the O's finish first or second in the league in attendance every season that Palmiero played in Baltimore the first time. To suggest that Angelos didn't know what was going on is about as credible as suggesting that OJ's out there today looking for the real killer.
I thought that Palmiero getting caught juicing after wagging his finger at the Congress and swearing he'd never... well, I thought that was the slimiest and most disingenuous thing I would see in this case. But Peter Angelos and the Oriole organization abandoning ship and trying to distance themselves from Palmiero now... that's actually even more slimy and disingenuous.
Posted by Christopher at 09:55 PM | Comments (0)Let History Repeat Itself
August 9, 1974... a president whose corruptions violated the trust of the American people, but whose lies involved far less egregious a betrayal of the US Constitution than the current administration, resigns in disgrace.
For the sake of our great country and of our world, we can only hope that history repeats itself.
Posted by Christopher at 09:23 PM | Comments (3)Can A Jury Be Tried?
The problem with jury trials in America is that juries in America have to be made up of Americans. And with some notable exceptions, we're just not a very sharp lot.
A case in point: just a few weeks removed from the Michael Jackson Touches Little Boys Trial, two of the jurors who acquitted him are now doing interviews saying they regret it, and that they're sure Jackson did Beat It with the Pretty Young Thing.
"No doubt in my mind whatsoever, that boy was molested, and I also think he enjoyed to some degree being Michael Jackson's toy," [juror Eleanor] Cook said.
No doubt in your mind that the boy was molested? No doubt? And yet you voted to acquit? And you also think he enjoyed it? Somebody fetch me a rope.
Cook and Hultman said they agreed to go along with the other jurors when it became apparent that they would never convict the pop star.
Wait... you felt he was guilty, but when you thought that you couldn't get a conviction, you just rolled over and changed your vote and let a man you believed was guilty to go free? That just might be the most gutless, chickenspunk piece of garbage I've ever heard. Quite frankly, if you're not capable of standing up for what you believe is the truth, then you're flat out unworthy to serve on a jury. And if you're that unable to withstand peer pressure, well... more girls like you should have gone to my junior high.
Added Cook: "I'm speaking out now because I believe it's never too late to tell the truth."
Well, except for when you're in a jury room, apparently.
Of course, there is another possibility. It's possible that Cook and Hultman, instead of being spineless cowards who let walk a man they believed to be a child molester, are just trying to stir up interest in their upcoming book deals. If that's the case, they ought to be taken to court by Jackson for slander.
Look, I think the freak did it. I think he's touched more 13 year old weiners than the hot dog vendor at Yankee Stadium. But if two jurors who voted to acquit are now choosing to say publicly that he's actually guilty, just so they can sell more books, then they ought to be called on it. And not just for the profits of the book, either; they ought to be taken for what they had before their book deals, too.
The perfect sentence for these two? Their grandkids should have to spend a shirtless month at Neverland Ranc