Ginger points us to this Houston Chronicle story about a proposed referendum in Conroe, TX to allow alcohol sales in the previously dry southern half of town:
The Conroe election will involve citywide voting on whether to allow unrestricted alcohol sales in the city's now-dry south half, as have been permitted in north Conroe for decades.
An affirmative vote would authorize the sale of beer, wine, liquor and mixed drinks in neighborhoods generally south of Texas 105.
City officials and backers of the proposal say liquor sales downtown are needed to foster development of new hotels, restaurants and entertainment spots.
Parts of Houston are dry, as are sections of Dallas. That one need only travel a few hundred feet in either city to find a liquor store or bar doesn't seem to bother those who believe "the children" will be safe as long as the local Kroger doesn't have Sam Smith's Taddy Porter on the beer aisle.
This is Conroe, however, the town where the über-reactionary Republican Leadership Council successfully lobbied to have a replica of Michelangelo's David covered with a fig leaf, and Italian Renaissance prints deemed "obscene" removed from an area restaurant:
Although Michelangelo's anatomically correct classical sculpture of "David" has been on display for almost 500 years in Florence, Italy, it took only a short time for public pressure to force Portofino's management to clothe a replica of the masterpiece -- using a plaster grape leaf.
Similarly, complaints that some classic illustrations on the interior of Buca di Beppo restaurant were pornographic has prompted management there to remove the offending art.
One wonders how many concerned Conroe residents who agree with the shrouding of David's trouser snake will be shepherding their kids to see Mel Gibson's latest exercise in ultra-violence.
The crusade by the Whitts and others has resulted in two pictures being removed from inside the restaurant. One was a picture of a classic Italian statue of naked wrestlers, and another was a well-known picture of a young boy urinating on a wall, which was shown in the men's restroom.
Apparently the Whitts don't have a problem with the Hooters restaurant on I-45 in Conroe, or the kind of, uh, "artwork" present in their men's room.
I'm not sure how the "dry" thing works outside of Texas, though I understand other states below the Mason-Dixon Line have similar ordinances. It amuses me greatly to know that, while I may have a difficult time purchasing a six-pack in Lufkin, a brief jaunt to Louisiana allows me to buy Jack Daniels in a 7-11. Priorities.
Dry neighborhoods are an annoyance: drive a few extra blocks to an alcohol-supplied store or BYOB to a restaurant. Dry counties are a different matter. Restaurants still allow drinking, provided you purchase a "membership" for that particular establishment, or - in north Texas, for example - you can buy a card that allows you to drink in participating establishments for a year.
The ability to buy beer at a grocery store and consume it in your home would seem to be safer for your kids than having to drag ass to the Bennigan's three exits down, load up, and drive home. Of course, I'm one of those fringe characters who thinks a replica of David situated on top of a for-crying-out-loud strip center Oshman's should swing free like nature (and Michelangelo) intended, so what do I know?
Next round's on me.
I took the Which Peanuts Character Are You? quiz just to confirm my hypothesis that everyone who takes it ends up as Schroeder. My result: Franklin. Franklin??? Why not Shermy? Or 5? Nothing against Franklin, but I'm having a hard time remembering any significant contributions he made to the canon.
But never mind that now , for I was once like many of you, eagerly pouncing on the latest opportunity to discover which republic of the former Yugoslavia or which World War I aeroplane I was (the Nieuport 17, of course). In my darker days, I even contributed to the "Vote for your favorite beer" thread on alt.drunken.bastards. But with the explosion of the internet and the rise of sites like Quizilla, the entire phenomenon has gotten out of hand.
The latest quiz making the rounds is the one that finally pushed me over the edge. It's the Which Calvin and Hobbes Character Are You Most Like? test. There are five answers. Two of which are more or less identical (Spaceman Spiff and Calvin), two are obvious (Hobbes and Susie...I guess Mr. Bun was busy), and one is thrown in to pad the results out (a space mutant).
It isn't that the quizzes themselves aren't - occasionally - mildly entertaining. I just can't help wondering, as I peruse some of the options on Quizilla, if maybe Socrates was wrong about that whole "unexamined life" deal.
I wouldn't dwell on it, except I ended up with "I Drank What?" on the Which Socrates Quote Are You? quiz.
The great grandaddy of self-important cinematic bloviation takes place this weekend. No, not the opening of The Passion of The Christ, I'm talking about the Oscars.
Because I have money on the outcome, and because some of those I'm competing against read this blog, I'm not going to give my predictions for who's going to take home the main prizes. Instead, I'm going to offer my picks for some of those who aren't going to win an award.
Which really only means they'll fade from memory somewhat more rapidly than the actual winners. It also means I now have a 60% chance of looking like a savvy movie analyst instead of the customary 20%.
Best Picture - Seabiscuit (15 to 1) absolutely doesn't belong in this category, especially given that films like American Splendor, The Cooler, and City of God were overlooked. Don't put any money on Master and Commander (40 to 1) either.
Best Director - Sofia Coppola (8 to 1) is emerging as a dark horse for Lost in Translation, which I'm sorry to say was one of the more overrated entries this year (and I say this as a huge fan of Bill Murray's). Voters will figure she's got plenty of time to win later on. Conversely, Peter Weir (20 to 1) is getting his 3rd directing nod for M&C, but it still won't be him.
Best Actor - Don't let the SAGs fool you, Johnny Depp's (9 to 5) turn in Pirates of the Caribbean was far too lightweight for this category. And House of Sand and Fog came and went too quickly for large numbers of people to get a look at Ben Kingsely (50 to 1).
Best Actress - The Supporting Actress category is traditionally the one reserved for unknowns and left field winners, which is why Whale Rider's Keisha Castle-Hughes (12 to 1) doesn't have a chance. Any other year, I would've said Naomi Watts (8 to 1) uglied herself up sufficiently to get the win for 21 Grams. Close, but no banana.
Best Supporting Actor - Too soon for Benicio Del Toro (21 Grams, 25 to 1), too cliché for Djimon Honsou (In America, 40 to 1).
Best Supporting Actress - Holly Hunter's (50 to 1) 1993 win for The Piano is probably still sticking in the collective craw of many voters, so no dice for Thirteen. And unless Mystic River sweeps the awards, Marcia Gay Harden (40 to 1) is a long shot, at best.
Best Adapted Screenplay - It helps if a significant number of voters have actually read the source material, so City of God (35 to 1) and Seabiscuit (9 to 5) are right out (I'd say the same about American Splendor (15 to 1), but its comics format might have suckered some people in).
Best Original Screenplay - Dirty Pretty Things (50 to 1)? Too foreign (London). Barbarian Invasions (20 to 1)? Way too foreign (French Canadian).
There you go. Hopefully it's been no help at all. We'll have a recap on Monday.
UPDATE: Odds for my non-picks (from a website that shall remain nameless) added.
Ten years ago today, stand-up comedian/social critic/all-around pain in the ass Bill Hicks died of pancreatic cancer.
Hicks perfected the "rant" before Dennis Miller made it into a marketing tool. His routines were like surgery: unerringly precise, occasionally repulsive, and sometimes completely botched. He was an equal-opportunity offender, although he saved his best bits for the ultra-conservative forces he (rightly) asserted were slowly taking over America. A deeply spiritual man, he nonetheless skewered the false holiness of many of our nation's leaders. All the hooplah surrounding Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ this week makes me recall his comment about Christians' love for wearing crosses ("Do you think when Jesus comes back he ever wants to see another fucking cross?"). I'm sure he'd have some choice words about the latest Rumble in the Gulf, as well.
As pop culture experiences go, I regret two things: that I wasn't in the Olympic Hockey Arena on February 22, 1980, and that I never got the chance to see Bill Hicks live (though I've seen Leary's No Cure for Cancer video, which is essentially the throwaway bits from Hicks' Relentless tour, so that sort of counts, right?).
Stand-up comedy has died a slow, ugly death since its brief heyday in the late '80s/early '90s. There are still popular comics, but those that devote their routines to weightier material than booze and midget transvestites lack Hicks' unnerving ability to completely mesmerize or utterly alienate his audiences, often in the same performance. I didn't agree with all his points, and sometimes grew impatient with the lengthy discourses on drugs and universal brotherhood, but it didn't matter. Hicks did what he did because he actually believed, unlike the Jake Johanssens and Margaret Chos of the world, that what he said mattered.
Some good articles on Hicks:
The black-humored articulator of doubt - Jack Boulware for Salon
Prophet of rage - by Stave Hobbs for GQ
His biography, American Scream, by Cynthia True
His collected CDs, available from BillHicks.com. Of these, I've heard Dangerous, Relentless, Arizona Bay, and Rant in E Minor. The last, recorded after Hicks was told his cancer was terminal and really, truly took the gloves off, is highly recommended.
Last night, Greg challenged me to write an entry about the best Christmas television special ever made. He asserted that the all-time champion of Yuletide TV is Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. I scoffed, and a brief scuffle ensued. After incapacitating him with the sleeper hold, I got to thinking...which one is the best? They come and go, like Angels after Farrah left, but there's a decent handful that have endured for decades, becoming embedded in our already pop culture-glutted consciousness.
And so, today we are going to settle the question once and for all: what is the greatest Christmas TV special of all time?
UPDATE: I covered mandatory Christmas movies a few months ago. This poll is solely for holiday TV shows.
I'm not going to get into the issue of whether you believe in Jesus, or Santa Claus for that matter. If you were alive, American, and able to hold your head up unassisted in the 1970s, there's a good chance you're familiar with most of these films. For those of you who may be a little hazy, here's a brief chronological recap of our contestants. I've excluded obvious marketing opportunities like the Jetsons or Flintstones Xmas specials (with one exception...you'll know it when you see it), and anything made post-1978.
1. Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol (1962) - Less a children's special than a particularly odd Dickens adaptation featuring legally blind protagonist Mr. Magoo stumbling through the proceedings. Minimalist in the best early 1960s tradition, it nonetheless deserves mention solely for the song, "We're Despicable."
2. Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964) - The stop-motion freakshow that started this whole mess. How Arthur Rankin and Jules Bass stretched a 2 minute song into a 47 minute epic chock full of prospectors, an elf that wants to be a dentist (and the hostile workplace he has to endure), and an abominable snowman some three thousand miles from his native Himalayas remains a mystery to modern science.
3. A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965) - Foreboding anti-commercial message served with a heaping helping of New Testament quotes and long stretches of children dancing like freaky beatniks. The Peanuts characters are still universally loved, which has kept this otherwise spare and poorly animated offering alive for almost 40 years. Me, I prefer It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.
4. How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966) - Ignore any later live-action versions with extreme prejudice and concentrate on the dulcet tones of Boris Karloff, the Herculean labors of Max the dog, and the altogether creepy Whos. I was always disappointed that Santa never showed up during the Grinch's felonious caper and beat the shit out of him. As a bonus bit of trivia, Thurl Ravenscroft (singer of "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch") later became the voice of Tony the Tiger.
5. The Little Drummer Boy (1968) - Rankin and Bass are back. And this time: it's Biblical. Aaron the titular misanthropic percussionist whiles away his days bitching about mankind with his Orwellian-looking animal friends until the coming of the baby Jesus teaches him to love again. TLDB would become one of the last straight-up Bible stories shown on network TV, and doesn't air on the Big 3 anymore.
6. Frosty the Snowman (1969) - As I grow older and less tolerant, I really find myself sympathizing with Prof. Hinkle in this one. I mean, the fat, frozen fuck took off across state lines with his magic hat. What's the man supposed to do, laugh it off and subsequently teach our children to be willing victims of crime? Melting's too good for him, and book Santa as an accessory while you're at it.
7. Santa Claus is Comin' to Town (1970) - For all the teeming throngs of fans clamoring for the mysterious origin of Santa Claus, this one's for you. A young Kris Kringle saves the children of Sombertown (sister city to Bartertown) from their mean old mayor and, in the process, meets his eventual wife. And let me tell you, the future Mrs. Claus is disturbingly hot for a Claymation figure.
8. The Year Without a Santa Claus (1974) - What would happen if Santa decided he didn't want to work on Christmas Eve, the one freaking day of the year he's expected to put the bong down and atually get some work done? I'm not sure, but it has something to do with Heat and Cold Misers and really frightening looking doll-like children. Not as fun as you remember. Trust me.
9. 'Twas the Night Before Christmas (1974) - Not only is Santa lazy, he apparently has the capacity for petty revenge. After Albert the smart-ass mouse(!) writes a letter to the editor calling the not-so-jolly old elf's existence into question, Santa strikes a whole town off his list. Do the townspeople kill Albert? Well...maybe, but if so it happens offscreen. Before that, they have to prove their worthiness. In the space of ten short years, Santa Claus has transformed from the benevolent patriarch of Rudolph into a vengeful demi-god. Sweet.
10. The Star Wars Holiday Special (1978) - George Lucas commented once that if he had the time he would track down every bootlegged copy of this and destroy it. Good luck. Han Solo takes Chewie back to his home planet for "Life Day" and hugs everyone. Princess Leia sings. Bea Arthur, Harvey Korman, and Jefferson Starship put in appearances. There's a great collection of pics here, and a nice review here.
Now vote, damn you.
Massive deficits might have long-term consequences for our economy? What'choo talkin' 'bout, Greenspan?
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan warned Congress Wednesday to take quick action to fix the nation's swollen budget deficit -- including cutting some future Social Security payments -- in order to avoid even bigger problems for the nation's economy down the road.
The central bank chairman also repeated his assertion that recent tax cuts should be made permanent and said cutting Social Security benefits and other spending was a better way to fix the deficit than tax increases.
While somewhat alarming, talk of cutting Social Security really shouldn't come as a shock to anyone who's been paying attention to that huge demographic bulge about to retire. My own retirement planning (once I was finally convinced to get off my ass and start saving) has always assumed that SSA wouldn't be around when I finally got around to retiring. In my mid-80s, apparently.
The fact that our current deficit is not a product of so-called "tax-and-spend" Democrat policies but is thanks to our allegedly conservative President is strangely satisfying. Or would be, if I wasn't worried about my job going to Bangalore. But that's apparently "a good thing" as well, so what can you do.
He proposed some solutions that would reduce future Social Security benefits to retirees, including raising the ages at which retirement benefits are paid and changing the inflation measure used to index the payments.
On a purely unrelated note:
CLINTON, Maryland (AP) -- William Coates, believed to be the oldest man in the United States, died Monday at age 114.
That would make Coates four years older than Greenspan's projected (in 2050) retirement age of 110.
As a straight man, I find it more than a little suspect amusing that I keep writing about gay marriage. And I'd stop, if it wasn't so damn fun:
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush said Tuesday that he supports a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage to "prevent the meaning of marriage from being changed forever."
Apparently the current meaning: "an institution, solemnly entered into (unless you're drunk, or in Reno) by two individuals (unless you're a member of the Unification Church) who love each other to the exclusion of all others (unless it's just for the money, or a green card) until death they do part (unless one of them obtains an annulment, or a no-fault divorce)," needed a little reinforcement.
"After more than two centuries of American jurisprudence and millennia of human experience, a few judges and local authorities are presuming to change the most fundamental institution of civilization."
The Socratic school? Wait, I know this one...the city-state?
Shhh, he's still talking:
"On a matter of such importance, the voice of the people must be heard. Activist courts have left the people with one recourse. If we're to prevent the meaning of marriage from being changed forever, our nation must enact a constitutional amendment to protect marriage in America. Decisive and democratic action is needed because attempts to redefine marriage in a single state or city could have serious consequences throughout the country."
I can feel my own wedding band loosening already.
Save us, Mr. President, I beseech you. Only by legislating against those uppity homos will you ensure that I won't have to breathe their foul "gay" air while covering my child's eyes and ears as we sprint through an ever-growing gauntlet of queer couples, all aggressively seeking to foist their anti-family, ass-poking agenda upon me and mine.
But Bush also said state legislatures should be left to define "legal arrangements other than marriage," suggesting that such an amendment would do nothing to stop states from allowing civil unions for same-sex couples.
"Our government should respect every person and protect the institution of marriage," he said. "There is not a contradiction between these responsibilities."
I'm really looking forward to how the hell they're going to write this thing. If they follow Bush's lead, it's going to be even more vaguely worded than the Second Amendment.
Bush called for a civil debate on the controversial issue.
"We should also conduct this difficult debate in a matter worthy of our country, without bitterness or anger. In all that lies ahead, let us match strong convictions with kindness and good will and decency."
It's not the debate that needs "good will and decency," Mr. President, but your proposed Consitutional tampering. This little amendment you're trumpeting will reverse the expanding civil rights tradition of "two centuries of American jurisprudence." Is there decency somewhere in that?
Now that's a debate.
In his State of the Union speech last month, Bush has addressed same-sex marriage, saying, "our nation must defend the sanctity of marriage."
Translation: "Until my administration captures Osama bin Laden, gets our military out of Iraq, and creates actual job growth, I'll be forced to freak out our indolent, Cheetoh-scarfing public by tossing around non-threats like 'steroid use in sports' and 'gay marriage.' Y'all have a good night."
Another Fat Tuesday is upon us, and in the American tradition of gluttonous excess, what was once a holiday marked by pre-Lenten feasts and the odd parade or two has swelled into the phantasmagoric orgy of booze, breasts, and beads we've all come to know and love from those numerous C.O.P.S. specials.
I've been to New Orleans a number of times, but never for Mardi Gras. Even in my callow youth I was wary enough of the hassle to steer clear, and now I'm too old. I'm comfortable with that, for Mardi Gras is a holiday for drunken youth and drunken still-wish-they-were-youth. How else do you explain the savagery with which crowds descend upon The City that Sobriety Forgot every March? Yeah, yeah, yeah, New Orleans is steeped in French-Americal colonial history, which would be a pertinent argument if more than 1% of visitors ever made it past the Daquiri Factory. I also hate crowds, so Mardi Gras would drive me nuts. I'd end up paying less attention to the boobs being flashed around me than I would the next throat I had to elbow in order to get the hell off Bourbon Street.
Even before I was old enough to sample the city's earthier pleasures, New Orleans freaked me out. I remarked once - to my friend Sven as we were driving through on a return trip from Atlanta - that there was an almost palpable miasma of evil that clung to the city. It tweaked at a visitor's nerves, making one skittish and edgy. Perhaps, I mused, this was the reason people felt compelled to drink so much. Sven just grunted something unintelligible, then rolled back over to continue sleeping off his hangover. The same hangover that necessitated my driving solo from Atlanta to Beaumont.
What was my point? Oh, right...miasma. I couldn't decide, when I visited the Big Sleazy later in life, if there really was some cloud of malevolence hovering over the Mississippi River delta or if it was merely four decades' worth of accumulated vomit and urine. New Orleans is the only city I've ever visited that made me feel like washing my shoes afterwards. And I've been to Paris. And Amsterdam.
In the interest of fairness, I should point out that the Wife loves New Orleans. She's been to three Mardi Gras celebrations and, by all accounts, had a blast each time.
I prefer Vegas. Keep your phony forced jubilation and give me hard drinking gamblers who'd just as soon blow White Owl smoke in your face as learn your name. Mardi Gras is "the greatest night of the year?" With those tinted windows, it's always night in Treasure Island. Spare me swimming against a tide of Coors Light-addled frat boys for a 48 oz. pina colada and just keep the whiskey straights coming while I play Texas Hold 'Em. Here's a $5 chip for all your hard work.
And Vegas celebrates the institution of marriage, which is apparently very important to our President.
Here at APCB, we don't just entertain, we want to perform a public service. Blogs aren't merely arenas in which misanthropic cranks spew their bilge about politics and pop culture, they can also educate and - dare I say? - save some lives.
Last Friday marked the 1st anniversary of the Rhode Island nightclub fire that killed 100 patrons attending a concert by former '80s hair metal stalwarts Great White. The band's tour manager and club managers at the Station were indicted for involuntary manslaughter late last year. That's well and good, but in order to help prevent future rock-related tragedies (and due to little free time at the moment) I've resurrected an e-mail from a list I'm on to help music fans avoid future calamities. For those of you on that e-mail list who've already seen this, my apologies. Original entertainment will return shortly.
When I first heard of the fire in Rhode Island, I think I was less surprised it had taken place than I was that there were actually 300 people there to see Great White. a group of Ian Hunter-wannabes I'd consigned to the bargain bin of my musical consciousness long ago.
The lesson coming from the Station fire, therefore, is to balk at attending a show where the hair metal musical combo in question might have to resort to fireworks to cover up a lack of talent/stage presence/recognizable hits from this decade. To that end, I urge each of you to be especially wary of upcoming concerts featuring the following "vintage" rock acts:
Warrant - The Backstreet Boys of metal. Not just dumb music - Jethro Bodine dumb music.
Cinderella - Not to take away from the musicianship of Tom Kiefer, but they'd give Aerosmith a run for the "Ugliest Metal Band of All Time" title.
Dangerous Toys - The tagline of their 1988 tour was, I believe, "Sport'N a Woody." There isn't much I can add to that.
Enuff Z'Nuff - Metal/psychedelia fusion, with just a dash of suck.
Vixen - Third lamest band depicted in The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years (behind obvious winners Odin and London).
Whitesnake - At the show I saw in 1987, both Heather Locklear and Tawny Kitaen were in attendance. This was a great source of joy of us dateless wonders. At one time, the group was a virtual hair band Hall of Fame, featuring Vivian Campbell (Dio, Def Leppard), Adrian Vandenberg (Vandenberg), Rudy Sarzo (Quiet Riot), and Steve Vai. Today I wait for the inevitable 80's Rock Reunion with Motley Crue and Poison. Sponsored by Cialis.
Tesla - Not really a hair band, but an ex-girlfriend of mine was in one of their videos. I wasn't aware of this before we started dating.
White Lion - 1987's "When the Children Cry" set the 'heavy ballad' bar so high it would be years before Creed would happen along to take a shot at it.
BulletBoys - I could never decide if "Smooth Up In Ya" was a more penetrating analytical dissection of gender dynamics than Whitesnake's "Slide It In" or not.
Krokus - The videos for "Eat the Rich" and "Headhunter" finally gave America's youth the heavy metal-Dungeons & Dragons connection they so sorely needed.
Lizzy Borden - Never achieved the notoriety of the similarly named Marilyn Manson, for some reason.
Slaughter - You poor bastard, they roped you into buying their album by giving themselves a name evocative of rapacious barbarians, then used their inoffensive wimp rock and dreamy lead vocalist to convince your girlfriend to keep you from throwing the album away. Dirty pool.
Skid Row - I actually saw these yabbos twice: opening for Aerosmith in 1990 and for Guns N' Roses in 1991. Given the moderate success of Sebastian Bach's recent acting and entertainment ventures, I think we can thankfully rule out a reunion tour.
Trixter - Approximately as "metal" as the Spice Girls. Better hair, though.
Faster Pussycat - Fourth lamest band depicted in The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years, in spite of their exploitation cinema name.
Dokken - I had a homemade "Dokken Sucks" shirt that cemented my adolescent status as an aloof outsider. Of course, I only made it because a girl in high school broke up with me to the strains of "Alone Again."
Europe - Neck and neck with White Lion as NATO's worst musical export. "The Final Countdown" was 1986's "Who Let the Dogs Out?"
Saigon Kick - The lesser known half (along with Hanoi Rocks) of the fabled Vietnam metal dyad.
Britny Fox - Sissiest name in rock and roll, although their song "Girlschool" predated America's obsession with Catholic schoolgirls by 10 years.
Fastway - It's generally ill-advised to combine two names to come up with a moniker for your group (D.N.A., The Captain and Tennille), but would "Fast" Eddie Clarke and Pete Way listen? Nooooo. I think "Autobahn" is much cooler, but association with Kraftwerk is doubtless something these guys were trying to avoid.
Leatherwolf - That this band released three albums (the first two both named Leatherwolf) before the forces of good taste consigned them to oblivion is testament to the fact that any band with big hair and a lead vocalist with his scrotum in a vice could get signed in the 1980s.
Kingdom Come - Latecomers to the party, but the song "Get It On" gave us all a welcome respite from the Milli Vanilli scandal for a while.
Ratt - Uh, I actually used to like Ratt.
I'm leaving out some obvious ones like Def Leppard (still a big draw, at the Rodeo anyway), Bon Jovi (never technically metal), and Poison (not sure any of them still have henough hair to qualify as a "hair band"). Aerosmith continues to offend on a regular basis, but most arenas capable of holding their legions of aging, faux hesher fans have pretty adequate fire protection.
Certainly some of you are wondering what qualifies me to speak so eloquently about '80s hair bands. Unsurprisingly, my research started in an attempt to pick up girls. While at a party in or around 1988, a Whitesnake song came on the stereo. I turned to my friend and said something along the lines of, "Whitesnake is the biggest derivative, Led Zeppelin cock rock, bullshit rip-off band I've ever heard. Feh, Whitesnake."
A fetching young lady in teased blonde hair, ripped jeans, and a leather jacket - who had apparently only heard one word of my previous diatribe - tapped my shoulder and said, "Wow, do you like Whitesnake?" Sizing her up, I replied in the only way I could: "I love Whitesnake."
My friend had to excuse himself.
Meanwhile, she and I embarked on a heady summer-long affair. I ground my teeth to the nerve endings listening to her Slaughter albums and she let me touch her breasts. It worked out pretty well.
I guess you could say I sold my soul to rock and roll.
The end times are upon us:
Has sexual anthropologist Carrie Bradshaw run out of questions?
Or is it that when women grow up, they stop trying to understand what makes relationships work?
Probably neither.
But after six lubricious seasons and 91 episodes, the 45-minute final installment of HBO's Sex and the City will air at 8 tonight, with an hourlong countdown special beginning at 7.
Only 91 episodes? Funny, it felt like so many more.
But it isn't just my local rag talking about the end of the show. Seems like all the major news outlets are getting into the act:
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte say adieu on Sunday night to a nation captivated for six years by their frank sex talk, dating hijinks and outrageous outfits on HBO's "Sex and the City."
The show, which has been the subject of books and university courses and may become a feature movie, touched a chord with women who saw something of themselves in the characters struggling to find love, happiness and great shoes.
There's plenty more to be had: CNN's Wolf Blitzer has an interview with creator Darren Star, whom you may remember as the creator of such weighty TV fare as Melrose Place. And everyone from USA Today to the New York Times are falling all over each other to sum up the Sex and the City experience for the rest of us hopeless plebes.
I admit, I underestimated this show's appeal to women in flyover country: women who'd just as soon spend $300 on a pair of Manolo Blahniks as flush a payheck down the toilet. And yet (and ignoring the whole "university courses" angle), it seems like the amount of attention given to the show's imminent demise is a bit much.
What's the attraction? I ask this as a man who - while not naming names - knows many women near and dear to his heart who have been following the last season with the same unhealthy fascination usually reserved for fans of Babylon 5 and Buffy. It can't be the longevity of the series...hell, six seasons doesn't even outdo Perfect Strangers, and I can remember a nationwide sigh of relief when that dog finally called it quits. Same for Full House, which cast a pall over our great nation for eight years. Was it Sarah Jessica Parker's Doogie Howser-esque musings that drew audiences in? What about the vicarious boning of every man you ran into at the health club, a la Kim Cattrall?
Maybe it's something more prurient. Is dishing about the size of your boyfriend's penis groundbreaking television? Can all of you sympathize with Carrie when she has to choose between the hot, successful financier(?) Mr. Big and the hot, successful artist Aleksandr Petrovsky? How hard is it for everday women to relate to Samantha when she contracts breast cancer, even though you know her health insurance will cover everything but the wig?
Everyone wants to fall in love. I understand. But I'm afraid Sex and the City's legacy is going to be this manufactured parallel universe where every man who's not a goddamn cheating scumbag is either physically or emotionally unattainable. That's entertainment.
Whatever. One more show and I can start looking forward to the next season of The Wire.
Area whack-job and father of that Braveheart guy Hutton Gibson is at it again:
Gibson's dad calls Holocaust mostly fiction
As interest heats up in Mel Gibson's new film about the death of Jesus, the filmmaker's father, who lives in Tomball, ranted to a New York City-based radio show host about the Holocaust.
On Speak Your Piece, Hutton Gibson, 86, told host Steve Feuerstein: "It's all, maybe not all fiction, but most of it is," according to a New York Daily News story.
He also lashed out at prominent Jews, including Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan.
"They're after one world religion and one world government," Hutton Gibson said. "That's why they've attacked the Catholic Church so strongly, to ultimately take control over it by their doctrine."
Anytime I hear the expression "one world government" I have to make sure I haven't suddenly slipped the bonds of my mortal body and somehow been transported to an Aryan Nations meeting in Michigan. Then I'm reminded of Jon Stewart's derision of those who believe Jews run the world out of some "luxury cave in Barbados."
He added: "They claimed that there were 6.2 million (Jews) in Poland before the war and after the war there were 200,000, therefore he (Hitler) must have killed 6 million of them. They simply got up and left. They were all over the Bronx and Brooklyn and Sydney and Los Angeles."
These would be all those Jews the FDR Administration wouldn't let into the country before the war, I guess. I'm relieved Hutton Gibson is around to correct my impression that "getting up and leaving" Nazi-occupied Europe was actually sort of, y'know, difficult.
This shouldn't really surprise anyone, however. Gibson made similar comments last year in a Houston Press article:
The pope isn't Catholic. John Paul II, the man most people believe to be pope, is really an imposter. He's deliberately plotting to destroy the Catholic Church from within. Catholics have been lied to, and they have been robbed. These are the messages Hutton Gibson preaches in his crusade to save the souls of his fellow Catholics.
From his home in northwest Houston, he mails out his eight-page newsletter titled "The War Is Now!" He has 600 subscribers worldwide. He's also authored the self-published books Is the Pope Catholic? and The Enemy Is Here, which features a cover with a map of Italy and an arrow pointing to Rome.
Shit. If the Pope isn't Catholic I'm only going to be left with that one-liner about the bear when someone asks me an obvious question.
The elder Gibson doesn't believe the holocaust happened and thinks the idea of evolution is ridiculous.
Perhaps he'd be more comfortable living in Georgia.
More telling is this bit, from when his kids came home from Catholic school in Australia with a new catechism:
Gibson's kids came home from Catholic school with a catechism titled "Shalom." "Shalom," Gibson says, clearly horrified.
"Shalom," Gibson repeats again, as if it were a four-letter word. He declared the catechism heresy. It's what spurred him to look at the documents from the Vatican II Council and examine the changes in the church.
Gibson's clearly in the minority with Catholics regarding Vatican II, but what does son Mel have to say about all this? First, here's what the Press reports:
Mel reportedly was outraged when The New York Times Magazine recently interviewed his father; the New York Post reported that Mel Gibson declared the Times story a "hit piece" on him and that the newspaper had harassed his father.
No word on whether his "outrage" was equal to his assertion that he'd like to kill New York Times columnist Frank Rich and see his "intestines on a stick." And that was just for a critical piece on The Passion of the Christ.
Then there's the Chronicle article again:
In an ABC PrimeTime Live interview with Diane Sawyer that aired Monday, Mel Gibson called the death of Jews under the Nazi regime "an atrocity of monumental proportion." He also said questions about his father were meant to drive a wedge between family members.
"That's my father, OK, I love him," he said. "And if they're going to try and drive a wedge in there, it ain't going to happen."
Gibson's loyalty to Dad is admirable, but maybe he should take a page from Brett Hull's playbook and make more of an effort to distance himself from his father's statements (Bobby Hull was widely vilified for comments made to a Moscow newspaper that "Hitler had some good ideas"). Mel has put himself way out on a limb, Hollywood reputation-wise, and there are plenty who will be waiting for him to fall on his face.
He could always direct the rest of the Left Behind movies, I suppose.
Of course, it may not make a bit of difference. The Passion of the Christ is opening on a respectable 4,000 screens in some 2,800 theaters. Not bad for a film shot entirely in Aramaic and Latin. Curiosity will be as much of a factor motivating people to buy tickets as the advertising push being made in Christian churches across America.
Remind me not to sneak my flask in when I go.
Twin losses, in rugby and soccer, to the Welsh have caused a crisis of confidence in Scotland (via Fark):
ANY Scot who had the misfortune to obtain tickets for the Millennium Stadium to watch the national rugby and football teams endure a double humping at the hands of the Welsh over the past few days was fated to leave Cardiff floundering in a Niagara of self-doubt. No disrespect to our neighbours, who battered Berti Vogts’ side by a record four-goal margin on Wednesday after their rugby XV won more handsomely than Saturday’s scoreline of 23-10 suggested, but getting a pasting from Wales is not quite in the same comfort league as losing 7 and 6 to Tiger Woods.
I especially like the use of the expression "double humping."
Some doings are just more acceptable than others - it was almost a privilege for a boxer to be thumped by Muhammad Ali, a club football team to be taken apart by Real Madrid or a rugby side to be pummelled by the All Blacks. Back-to-back batterings from Wales are more like losing 7 and 6 to Maurice Flitcroft.
I'll bet that would be doubly hilarious if I had any idea who Maurice Flitcroft was.
The article goes on to examine how changes in national mindset and the advancement of other nations' athletes have left Scotland in a precarious sporting position. The situation doesn't look to improve much when they play rugby world champions England on Saturday.
Even if Williams contents himself with a one-man, one-position philosophy against the world champions at Murrayfield tomorrow it will be hard for some of us to watch the game against England on TV without cowering behind the sofa.
To put it in an American perspective, think about what Red Sox fans go through every time they face New York in the playoffs.
Ever wonder what happened to Cobra Kai's Johnny Lawrence after Danny LaRusso crane-kicked his ass right out of the All-Valley Championship? Do you have the faintest freaking clue what I'm talking about? Not to worry, Patton Oswalt has the lowdown:
Sweep the Leg and Wake the Gimp: The Johnny Lawrence Story
Excelsior.
The Thing That Walks Like a Man knows my affinity for all things zombie, which is why he felt it of critical importance to notify me of this article in Wired:
Soldiers' moms will no doubt be horrified. But the Pentagon is looking into ways for GIs to fight for up to five days -- without eating a single meal.
During a mission, soldiers in the field typically don't have the time, or the inclination, to chow down. That lack of food can affect their battlefield performance. So Darpa, the U.S. military's far-out research arm, wants scientists to figure out if soldiers can operate at top levels -- without lunch breaks.
"The question is: 'Are there temporary biochemical approaches we can use to squeeze the last ounce of performance out of soldiers when they're already worked to exhaustion?'" said a Darpa life sciences consultant, who asked not to be named.
I'll bet he did. He probably remembers what happened to the guy who started SkyNet in T2. You bet your ass if I survive the coming zombie soldier apocalypse, I'll be sending someone back in time to drop a couple pounds of C4 down Darpa's air vents.
The agency has a couple of ideas on how this might be done: A cocktail of nutrients or so-called "nutraceuticals" could help build endurance. Lowering soldiers' core body temperature might keep them from overheating. Or, perhaps, the change could be made at the microscopic level, by turbo-charging mitochondria -- the cell's energy suppliers.
Or why not just animate dead grunts, a la Universal Soldier? How about recruiting the downed pilots from the "B-17" segment of Heavy Metal? They'd be especially motivated to fight, as their very survival would depend on how many enemies they could defeat and devour.
Maybe the Pentagon could research what spell Mickey Mouse cast in "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" that reanimated pieces of broom. Then they'd really only need one soldier to start with.
The Darpa project, called "Metabolic Dominance" or "peak soldier performance," is part of a wider, future-facing Pentagon research push to develop grunts who are pretty much immune to normal human demands. The agency has sunk millions into programs to reduce the need for sleep and is investigating ways to keep injured GIs pulling the trigger for days on end -- without help from a medic.
Why do I keep thinking of that Bloom County strip with the "giant space laser Frisbees?"
But enough of these Pentagon maniacs, their minds are obviously addled by their bloated wallets. Surely some respected scientists can impart some sanity onto these proceedings?
"What this seems to be asking for is fantastic in every sense of the word," said Marion Nestle, the former chair of NYU's department of nutrition, food studies and public health in an e-mail message. "Calories are calories, laws of thermodynamics still operate, and humans are still human. I think they should use robots."
No, you fool! That's just what the robots want!
Finally, Darpa simply wants to find ways to control hunger. And the agency is looking at nutraceuticals, natural products and traditional nutritional supplements to give the body what it requires when there's no food around.
These components of Metabolic Dominance, at least, are more in line with ongoing Pentagon research to supply soldiers' nutritional needs more efficiently.
I was half expecting someone to recommend brains.
Delicious brains.
The interior decorators are once again at the gate, it would seem, And if the sentinels of decency weren't already yammering in panicked tongues about the Massachusetts Supreme Court striking down a ban on gay marriages, they're certainly waiting in beatific anticipation for the city of San Francisco to be consumed in holy fire in retaliation for allowing thousands of same-sex couples to marry in the past days.
I wrote about the Massachusetts ruling already. Unfortunately, this was before Britney Spears' sanctified heterosexual Vegas wedding, which would've given me even more ammo. Curiously, there was nary a peep from groups like Campaign for Calfornia Families or any of the other wholesome organizations lining up to protect the institution of marriage when Ms. Spears and wozname got their annulment a day later. I'll stand by my earlier assertion that if they really wanted to put their money where their mouths are they'd move to criminalize divorce. I suspect that might hit a little close to home for some of the faithful, however.
Because I'm a lover, not a fighter, I felt it was high time to try and put the minds of our bigoted assholes misguided brethren at ease by pointing out a few simple facts:
1. The legalization of gay marriage will not invalidate your Biblically-sanctioned union. Only you and the babysitter can do that.
2. You will not be required to let your partner put anything in your anus, unless such penetration occurs "accidentally" during the course of normal, procreative sex, of course.
3. Your children, upon seeing two men (or women) holding hands, will not be struck by an overhwleming desire to listen to Bronski Beat (boys) or the Indigo Girls (girls).
4. Mary Cheney and Candace Gingrich will not turn into pillars of salt. Quit asking.
5. That tingly feeling you experienced upon seeing those two well-muscled young men strolling arm in arm through the Gap will only increase in frequency as more couples emerge. Relax, it's just Jesus testing you.
6. Once gay marriage is legalized, you may want to read the fine print on future "swingers parties" invitations, so as to avoid any unexpected surprises in the "group grope" room.
Hope this helps.
Today's exercise is arbitrary movie list rebuttal is brought to you via jedikaos.net.
The fine folks in the LiveJournal Horror Movies group have produced their list of the Bestest Horror Movies of All Time. Here's their top 20:
1. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (USA, 1974)
2. A Nightmare on Elm Street (USA, 1984)
3. Halloween (USA, 1978)
4. Night of the Living Dead (USA, 1968)
5. Dawn of the Dead (USA, 1978)
6. The Evil Dead (USA, 1981)
7. Hellraiser (UK, 1987)
8. The Exorcist (USA, 1973)
9. Braindead (AKA Dead Alive) (New Zealand, 1990)
10. Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn (USA, 1987)
11. Suspiria (Italy/West Germany, 1977)
12. The Thing (USA, 1982)
13. Return of the Living Dead (USA, 1985)
14. The Ring (USA/Japan, 2002)
15. The Shining (UK, 1980)
16. 28 Days Later (UK/USA/France, 2002)
17. Friday the 13th (USA, 1980)
18. Army of Darkness (USA, 1993)
19. Poltergeist (USA, 1982)
20. Alien (UK, 1979)
We all know it's fairly pointless to take apart a ranking based on someone's personal tastes (in this case, several someones - the list is the result of a poll), but since that's one of the things that makes blogging so darn fun, that's exactly what I'm going to do.
The LiveJournal list seems to suffer from the same complex as the various Top N lists on the Internet Movie Database. Namely, that people have short memories. Recent films fare much better than those released pre-1980 because most of us recall the high profile horror releases of the last few years over those that have been around for decades.
Case in point: 28 Days Later. An enjoyable enough movie, but no one will ever convince me it's a better horror flick than Alien. Also included on the LiveJournal list, 2003's Cabin Fever (#22) and House of 1000 Corpses (#26) - both of which ranked higher than Psycho - and 2002's Ghost Ship (#47), which doesn't even deserve inclusion as one of the best horror movies of that year, much less of all time.
And the only possible way the American version of The Ring ranks ahead of Ringu is if you haven't seen the latter.
So here's my list. My only real criterion for the ranking was that the film had to scare the bejeezus out of me (post-grade school, that is...Land of the Lost scared the hell out me when I was 7). The higher the ranking, the longer I spent watching it through shuttered fingers. As with my other movie lists, these results are prone to change within the next few hours. I also have a weakness for zombie films. Don't like it? Make your own.
1. Alien - "Dallas, it's right in front of you!" This movie is one of the reasons I opposed the Voyager mission.
2. The Thing (1982) - And this is the other.
3. The Exorcist - Most so-called "horror" movies become less frightening the older you get. I've found the opposite to be true of The Exorcist.
4. Psycho - Still the best of the umpteen movies inspired by the life of Ed Gein.
5. The Haunting (1963) - "Back in my day, we didn't need all that CGI statuary and Catherine Zeta-Joes. We had black and white movies, and Russ Tamblyn, and creaky doors and we LIKED it."
6. Jaws - Not only would I not swim in the ocean after this movie came out, I wouldn't take a bath - because everyone knows the deadliest shark is the water pipe shark.
7. Night of the Living Dead - Made you think twice about making fun of that retarded guy in the cemetary, didn't it?
8. Nosferatu - Bela Lugosi was cool and all, but Max Schreck is der hizzle für rizzle.
9. The Omen - I always wondered what would happen is Damien Thorn duked it out with Regan MacNeil. I imagine there'd be a lot of work for the maid.
10. Suspiria - No horror list is complete without a little Argento.
11. The Shining - I don't care how much Stephen King whines about it, Kubrick's version is great horror. Hell, Shelley Duvall scared the crap out of me in Popeye.
12. Re-Animator - Get the unrated version and try to imagine what H.P. Lovecraft would've thought. I believe he actually might've enjoyed it.
13. Day of the Dead - I may be in the minority, but Day worked better for me as a horror movie than Dawn of the Dead. Better intestine footage, I guess.
14. Godzilla - People tend to forget the first Godzilla was a horror movie. There's none of the camp found in later releases here, as the big G turns Tokyo into a charnel house.
15. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) - Best. Ending. Ever.
16. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre - The second best Ed Gein homage.
17. An American Werewolf in London - "Queen Elizabeth is a man!" Token werewolf entry (The Howling is a close second, but Dog Soldiers is coming up on the outside).
18. Bride of Frankenstein - Teaching women everywhere the dangers of rejecting potential suitors.
19. Evil Dead 2 - In a perfect world, this would've been the Sam Raimi movie that grossed $400 million.
20. Zombie - The original title, Zombi 2: Eviscerating Boogaloo bombed with test audiences.
Probably in my Top 30: The Fly, Horror of Dracula, Hideo Nakata's Ringu and Dark Water, Cannibal Apocalypse, Halloween, Return of the Living Dead
Anyone else?
At A Perfectly Cromulent Blog, the greatest love of all is happening to us.
Because I'm lazy this evening, here are some more personals from the Austin Chronicle:
1) ACTION FOR Animals Benefit Bash. You: sexy, drunk, goth girl wearing rabbit fur jacket. I was like...Good Gracious! Coffee sometime? Cheesecake? #3093
If she was wearing a rabbit fur jacket at the Action for Animals benefit, and you were attending in earnest, there might be some problems. Or was this an "Action for Delicious Animals" shindig?
AMERICAN FLIGHT #1863 from Dallas. You: curly-haired boy, yellow t-shirt. Me: fidgety girl next to you. Wanted to offer you cookies but was preoccupied with thoughts of crashing. #3023
Heh. An offer of "cookies" might've kept both of your minds off crashing.
JANUARY 29TH, YOU: Sexy brunette buying Love Potion at Thrift on Fifth ME: Getting inked next door at Telepathic Tattoo. Wanna mingle potions? Call 3115
If there's anything more romantic than someone offering to swap fluids while sitting in a tattoo parlor, I don't know what it is.
OLD NAVY GATEWAY . You: Girl, singing, Eagles T-shirt. Me: asked if you were a fan. You just liked the shirt. You left before I could embarrass myself. "I'm a Believer". #3113
Dude, you already embarrassed yourself by trying to use the Eagles to strike up a conversation (and in an Old Navy, no less), then you follow up with a Monkees song reference. This is self-immolation approaching the scale of the scene in Swingers when Jon Favreau calls the girl he just met and leaves 20 messages on her machine. Move along.
Holy crap, this is the coolest (thank to Rick for the link): it's a Flash version of the old Dark Tower boardgame.
My friends and I played this game way too many times in 7th and 8th grade. I still remember the thrill of sending the dragon packing with the Dragon Sword, as well as the horrible feeling of loss when the plague wiped out half my army. Half the fun was talking shit to the three other guys while you scooped up the keys, but a little one player action is pretty amusing, too.
It's testament to my addiction to this game (or perhaps my fear of my parents) that, after I broke my collarbone playing football at a friend's house, we played three rounds of Dark Tower before I finally relented and went home to inform mom and dad that my arm was "messed up."
The third installment in the Blade movies, Blade: Trinity, comes out later this year. I've enjoyed the first two movies, for different reasons. The original Blade showcased some groovy fighting, and Stephen Dorff dies, which is always a plus. Blade II was perversely gory (a good thing), and sported a welcome nastier feel than the glossy original.
The new movie is written and directed by David S. Goyer (his second directorial feature), the writer of the original Blade. How well he'll do helming a big budget action/horror film remains to be seen, but comments like this are quickly endearing him to me (via Dark Horizons):
The big question of course is will there be a fourth film? "Wesley told me when we did the second one that he thought he only had one more in him but you never know. We'll see. I always conceived of three films and there is a definite ending to this. I don't want to cheat (by opening it up again). On the other hand if it does $150 million, then . . . we're all whores".
Yes you are. Dirty, dirty whores.
It's not just the most TiVo-ed event of all time or the most searched for item in internet history anymore. Now it appears Janet Jackson's "releasing of the hound" is making some serious waves:
SINGAPORE - Viewer outrage over singer Janet Jackson's breast-baring Super Bowl stunt is forcing the U.S. television industry to change its programming style, the president of music channel MTV said today.
"The artist sometimes can be unpredictable, which is difficult in a live format. We were absolutely mortified by it," said Bill Roedy, president of London-based MTV Networks International, part of the U.S. MTV cable network that produced Jackson's half-time show.
This must be that obscure definition of the word "mortified" which means "cackling and gleefully rubbing hands together while rolling naked in a mountain of press releases."
It's in the OED. Look it up.
CBS, MTV's sister company, used an "enhanced delay" on its recent broadcast of the Grammy Awards and Walt Disney Co's ABC Network plans to implement a similar five-second delay on its Academy Awards broadcast later this month.
In addition to its own time delays, MTV has quietly consigned raunchy material, such as Britney Spears' video for her new single "Toxic," to evening from daytime slots.
MTV couldn't be more overjoyed at this. The Jackson incident has finally given them the excuse to begin the inevitable phase-out of music in favor of total reality programming like Sorority Life, The Osbournes, and Real World: Calcutta. If I didn't know better, I'd suspect Viacom had engineered the whole thing in order to divest themselves of videos entirely.
This, however, is my favorite part of the article:
Upset viewers filed more than 200,000 complaints about the incident, which Timberlake blamed on a "wardrobe malfunction," and quickly prompted the Federal Communications Commission to launch an investigation.
Riddle me this: if 89 million people were watching the Super Bowl at any given time, and 200,000 complained about the halftime show, that means 444 out of 445 viewers obiously didn't care enough to bitch to the FCC. Where are the telegrams and dictaphone calls of support for naked breasts on television? When will this silent majority be counted?
Oh, and this just in:
The House Commerce Committee's telecommunications subcommittee on Thursday voted to increase the fines that the FCC could level against broadcasters for broadcasting indecent material. The new fines would represent a tenfold increase from the current $27,000 to $270,000. The bill, by Republican Congressman Fred Upton of Michigan who chairs the subcommittee, received bipartisan backing and is expected to receive swift passage by the Congress and an equally swift signature from President Bush.
Open-ended wars on "terror"...record national debt and trade deficits...negative job growth for three years and thousands of American jobs exported overseas...good thing this administraton has its priorities straight.
Meanwhile, Georgia Senator Zell Miller declared Thursday that he particularly objected to the halftime performance by Kid Rock in which he wore an American flag poncho. The Associated Press quoted Miller as saying, "This is the same flag we pledge allegiance to, the same flag that is draped over the coffins of dead, young, uniformed warriors killed while protecting Kid Rock's bony butt."
You fucking clown. How is one talent-challenged jagoff sporting a star-spangled poncho more obscene than the fact that we have to continue making flags to drape "over the coffins of dead, young, uniformed warriors?" Would it help if I told you Kid Rock's flag, like most of those sold in this country, was probably made in China? Would that take the pain away?
Fine, so the Commenter Whose Moniker Must Perforce Remain Unspoken demands to know APCB's stance on the new Bond rumors. For those who don't hang on showbiz news like a slobbering dog, several media outlets are reporting that contract negotiations between Pierce Brosnan and Eon Productions (the prodcuers of Bond 21) have broken down, and Eon is now aggressively pursuing a successor.
Brosnan's Bond movies were among the most profitable of the franchise, each making more domestic box office than the last, yet the star was injured filming all four movies, which might have something to do with his decision to walk. Also playing into Eon's positon were growing complaints about the franchise's growing reliance on gadgetry. Several sources are reporting Eon wants a younger Bond who will, to quote the Daily Mail, "re-energise the franchise and take it to even greater heights." I say just hire Aston Kutcher and be done with it.
Ha ha. No really, who are the contestants?
Hugh Jackman - Appears to be the odds-on favorite (and he'd be the second Australian to play the role, after George Lazenby). I can certainly see him doing it, though I'm not sure what he'd bring to the table that Brosnan couldn't, except bigger pecs. Meaning more shirtless scenes. Give the people what they want.
Orlando Bloom - Too young,. I mean, really too young. If they didn't take Brosnan in his Remington Steele days for that reason, I can't see them going with Bloom. Maybe he could play Bond's punk kid brother.
Colin Farrell - Interesting choice, as his off-screen antics certainly put him closer to Fleming's original conception of Bond as a womanizing alcoholic. I maintain he's a little too rough around the edges for Bond. He'd be hell to insure, too.
Christian Bale - I think I'd rather see Bale get this than Jackman, if only because he's a better actor and has a darker streak to him. And that's exactly why he won't be offered it. If you'd asked me about this a year ago, I would've said Bale has shown no inclination to get involved in an action franchise. Now, of course, he's doing the new Batman movie. Good thing nobody asked.
Jude Law - Has said he'd consider it, which means nothing. Law's got the chops, for sure, but he seems a little...what's the word...light, to play Bond. Good actor, and a debonair rascal to be sure. Something about him leaves me cold, however.
Ewan McGregor - Yeah right. You think he wants to dive into another franchise when he's so close to being done with Star Wars? Personally, I think he'd be great, but I'm not holding my breath. I predict a slew of indies for Mr. McGregor when Episode III wraps.
Clive Owen - Has reportedly said he won't do it.
Russell Crowe - He'd definitely be the burliest guy to play 007. My gut tells me he's not interested in doing something as fluffy as the Bond movies when he's doing so well with more "serious" roles.
Form what it's worth, here are the odds for who might next pick up the Walther (via ITV):
2/1 Hugh Jackman
7/2 Colin Farrell
5/1 Orlando Bloom
7/1 Jude Law
8/1 Christian Bale
8/1 Ewan McGregor
12/1 Greg Wise
12/1 Jeremy Northam
14/1 Russell Crowe
100/1 Robbie Williams
Cast Robbie Williams as 007 and I god damn guarantee you I will never fork my hard-earned money over for a Bond movie again. Worse, I will use the awesome power of APCB to mobilize others to my cause.
That oughta scare 'em.
Tomorrow is Valentines Day. Doubtless some of you are fretting about how best to commemorate this occasion dedicated to the forced celebration of your romantic attachments. Try not to let the fact that Hallmark, FTD, Zales, and Hershey are laughing their asses off all the way to the bank ruin your fun.
If you're still stuck for a unique way to prove your love, and seeing how it's that rarest of calendar events - a Friday the 13th before Valentine's Day - might I offer the suggestion of a Friday the 13th movie marathon?
"Gee, Pete...I don't know," you're probably saying, "They're classic American entertainment and all, but that's a lot of movies. How do I know which ones to check out?"
The true cinematic completist would scoff at your question, and then flick a few Junior Mints at your face. But, since time is a valuable commodity, and because I want to spare most of you from the sheer drudgery of the task, I've taken the liberty of putting together a brief rundown of all ten Friday the 13th films.
The ten I've seen, anyway. So much for completism.
Friday the 13th - Dismissed as schlock when first released (in 1980 - I still remember the commercials), the original...is still schlock, though it has gained recognition in some circles as the film that spawned a new genre. Grisly cinematic murders were nothing new in 1980, but Ft13 introduced the horny teenager element that would be imitated/pardodied for the next twenty years. The twist? Of course, it isn't Jason offing all the pot-smoking degenerates, it's his mom, herself killed by spunky counselor Alice.
Rating: B
Best Death: Is there even a question? Kevin Bacon. In the throat. With an arrow.
Friday the 13th, Part 2 - Alice, the plucky heroine from the first film, inexplicably returns to Camp Crystal Lake and is promptly icepicked (bet you didn't see that coming). By Jason, this time, who obivously holds a grudge against the chick who did his mother in. No hockey mask yet, and the pillowcase over the head is an obvious homage to the killer in The Town that Dreaded Sundown. Tom Savini didn't return for Part 2, and the film sacrifices gore for increased suspense, with mixed results.
Rating: B-
Best Death: The double-impalement of Jeff and Sandra is the ultimate example of coitus interruptus.
Friday the 13th, Part 3: 3-D - I confess, I saw Jaws 3-D, Amityville 3-D, and the 3rd Ft13 movie in the theater, goofy ineffective glasses and all. I wasn't around in the 1950's, so I can't speak for it's appeal at inception, but why the resurgence in popularity 30 years later? No matter, this second sequel is unremarkable not because of week F/X or the sheer goofiness of 3-D (how many times can Jason point a knife at us?), but thanks to uninspired death scenes and rehashing an already formulaic plot. Could the series possibly recover?
That would be telling.
Rating: C-
Best Death: Tie - Rick getting his head squeezed like an overripe melon (with similar results) or Andy sliced in half with a machete, while walking on his hands.
Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter - The good news: Tom Savini returns (reportedly only because he wanted to kill Jason), and the deaths in his chapter are much more brutal than the two previous films; plus Kimberly Beck goes against convention and puts up a hell of a fight at the end. The bad news: Corey Feldman, though he's not that bad as Tommy Jarvis. Ft13:TFC is also where Jason's immortal revenant qualities really kick into high gear, to the point where you begin to suspect he can't be killed by anything less than a thermonuclear device. And even then...
There's also an arid 30 minute stretch right after the warm-up murders where no one dies. Faux pas for a slasher film.
Rating: C+
Best Death: Paul - harpoon to the groin wins every time.
Friday the 13th: A New Beginning - So much for "The Final Chapter," you dirty Hollywood bastards. ANB is widely regarded as the nadir of the Ft13 series. Worse, it isn't even Jason killing the teens, but some dude named Roy who's using Jason's MO to get revenge on the punk kids who caused the death of his son. Little Tommy Jarvis, confined to an asylum thanks to the traumatic events of TFC, is forced to kill Roy, which can't be good for his convalescence.
Rating: D
Best Death: Tina's post-coital garden shears cataract surgery.
Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives - Wisely ignoring the reference to Jason's cremation in ANB, Jason Lives sees Tommy seek revenge on Jason the only way he can: by digging up his corpse and setting it on fire. Unfortunately, he inadvertantly reanimates Jason (never exhume a body during a thunderstorm), spurring him on to yet another quest to rid the world of sexed-up adolescents. Jason returns to Camp Forest Green (renamed for PR reasons) and sets about tallying up the highest body count of the Ft13 series to date (18). Jason Lives is also one of the funniest entries in the franchise, which offers a welcome change for audiences desensitized by five movies' worth of disembowements.
Rating: A-
Best Death: I'll have to go with the triple decapitation of Stan, Katie, and Larry, though ripping the sheriff in half is a close second.
Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood - Uneven entry pitting Jason against a teenage psychic who accidentally raised Jason from Crystal Lake (no, I don't know when they changed the name back), where he'd been drowned by Tommy Jarvis in Jason Lives. She was trying to resurrect another corpse (that of her father), if that helps explain things...though why the body was left at the bottom of the lake for four years is anyone's guess. Deaths ensue (though most are almost blood-free, thanks MPAA), and Tina eventually sends Jason back into the depths, which I'm willing to bet he's getting pretty tired of.
ANB marks Kane Hodder's first appearance as Jason. Hodder is a fan favorite, and the only Jason to don the hockey mask in more than one film, but I'm not sure why everyone reveres him so much. He's a big bastard, but that's about it, and Ted White TFC did just as well, and actually took a beating. Hodder plays a great hulking monster, but how hard is that for a guy who's 6' 3" and probably pushing 3 bills?
Rating: C+
Best Death: In what might be the best death of the entire series, Jason picks up camper Judy, sleeping bag and all, and bashes her brains out against a tree. Now that's acting.
Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan - Blah blah blah - kills chick with electric guitar - blah blah blah - gets on a boat, kills crew - blah blah blah - finally get to Vancouver Manhattan for final ten minutes of the movie. I know when I first saw previews for JTM I had high hopes that the movie would be a dizzying cavalcade of carnage in the streets of New York. Little did I know they could've just as easily called this Jason Takes a Cruise. Weak even by the slasher standards of the late '80s, JTM has bad F/X, bad acting, and almost no redeeming qualities.
Rating: D-
Best Death: Aspiring boxer Julius gets his block knocked off with one punch. Damn.
Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday - Promises, promises.
JGTH pissed off a number of hardcore fans because, for almost the entire movie, we don't see Jason killinng his victims. Oh, it's still Jason, only now he can take over other peoples' bodies and use them to do his licentious bidding.
The beginning is interesting enough: SWAT troops have staked out Camp Crystal Lake after Jason's disappearance from Manhattan, and they lure Jason into a murderous crossfire. At this point, you'd be better just popping the DVD out of its player, otherwise you'll be forced to hear how Jason is some sort of parasite who hops from body to body (a la The Hidden) in an attempt to kill the last of the Voorhees women, Voorhees women being the only people who can kill Jason.
Kudos to New Line for trying something different, but combining an almost complete lack of Jason with the utter obliteration of existing continuity alientated more people than it intrigued.
Rating: D
Best Death: The rude interruption of Deborah's tryst with Luke via tent spike in the back, and the subsequent (and familiar) tearing in half.
Jason X - Sue me, I liked it. Freeing Jason from the present day and the its continuous reliance on farm implements helps amp up the body count in new and occasionally interesting ways. Yeah, it's an Alien rip-off. True, the effects could use some work, but come on..."Uber-Jason" is pretty fricking cool.
And don't fool yourself, Ft13 stopped being horror around the 7th installment. Jason was no longer a villain by then, but had become the familiar anti-hero we root for to kill the stupefyingly idiotic teens (there's even a VR flashback to the original movie here). I won't lie and say the comedy is great, or that the myriad of cinema references (Blade Runner, Solaris) can forgive the obvious flaws (horny counselors, horny astronauts...who cares, right?), you'll either like this one or absolutely loathe it. Watch at your own risk.
Rating: B
Best Death: Jason dipping Adrienne's hot blonde face in liquid nitrogen, then shattering it on a countertop.
Freddy vs. Jason: not seen at press time
If you'd like to learn more about Jason Voorhees or the Friday the 13 films, please go to your local library and check out these sites:
Friday the 13th: The Website
Camp Blood
Camp Crystal Lake Online
Remember, knowledge is power.
"Feelin' groovy," indeed:
HURLEY, New York (AP) -- Art Garfunkel pleaded guilty to marijuana possession in upstate New York and paid $200 in fines.
Garfunkel, 62, of Manhattan, was charged with unlawful possession of marijuana after state police stopped his limousine for speeding January 17 in Hurley, 55 miles southwest of Albany.
The trooper who stopped the limo, in which Garfunkel was the lone passenger, smelled marijuana and found a bag containing 6 grams of the drug in Garfunkel's jacket pocket, police said.
6 grams? Art must've gotten screwed on the take from his recent reunion tour with Simon. 6 grams isn't even a quarter bag. If he'd had more on him, maybe Mr. Garfunkel wouldn't have been in such a hurry to score some more.
Of course, it's a good thing New York's drug laws were amended in the late '70s, otherwise he might've seen some harsher penalties.
Oh, I forgot, he's white. Never mind.
A little something for the ladies...
I hear a lot about how men tend to get off easy when it comes to wedding planning, and in many cases I suppose it's true. I've had more than one male friend describe his entire matrimonial preparaton regimen as, "I just have to show up." This was often punctuated by a belch as he tried to reach for a beer while simultaneously steering Jeremy Roenick to the blue line on Sega's NHL '94.
Whether or not this is still overwhelmingly the case, I don't know. Speaking from personal experience, I can tell you The Wife (at the time, The Fiancee) and I did almost all the planning and legwork together. We were living hundreds of miles from most family members, so it was necessity more than anything else, but I think I enjoyed the wedding that much more knowing I'd pitched in. Disadvantages? Dealing with the printer was a bitch. Advantages? Getting to tell the DJ that if he played "Celebration" by Kool and the Gang I would personally come across the console and tear out his throat.
Memories...
One area where women really do get shortchanged, nuptial-wise, is that of clothing. I'm told the pressures involved in picking out the proper wedding dress, as well as outfitting your bridesmaids, are pretty nasty. Personally, I adopted the tried and true male tactic of picking up my tuxedo the day before the ceremony and trying not to tear out any seams while jumping around like an idiot to "Head Like A Hole" at the reception. Not very complicated, certainly by the bridal party's standards.
But it could've been worse.
Submitted for your amusement, a link to Ugly Dress.com, home to pictures of some of the world's worst bridesmaid dresses, some pretty hideous wedding gowns, prom dresses, and shoes as well. It probably doesn't speak too well of me to say that I didn't see the problem with a number of the frocks presented here, so I'll just shut up.
I get the point about the pregnant prom dress and the maxi-pad slippers, however. Ye gods.
Thanks to my friend Karen for the link.
The Frink quote is in in honor of my latest "Footage Fetishes" column subject: Weird Science, up now at Film Threat. Check it out here.
What's that? You need a humorous excerpt to convince you? Very well:
This is why “Weird Science” belongs on a stratum somewhere above “The Breakfast Club” and all the others. Sure, the rest of John Hughes’ movies dabble in the far-fetched: Ferris Bueller’s inexplicable coolness (lest we forget the Beastie Boys’ Adam Horowitz was arrested for the same behavior Ferris exhibits: jumping on a float); any girl falling in love with Andrew McCarthy; the fact that The Geek (from “Sixteen Candles”), Brian Johnson (“Breakfast Club”), and Garry Wallace - all played by Anthony Michael Hall - all live in the same small town of Shermer and never cross paths with each other. Fine and dandy, but come on…“Weird Science” gives us Wez from “The Road Warrior” and Pluto from “The Hills Have Eyes!” A grand piano gets sucked up a chimney! Garry and Wyatt hook up with Deb and Hilly…and Deb is a man!
Please read it. I beseech you.
And while you're there, feel free to read a few of my Sundance reviews:
D.E.B.S.
The Corporation
Dirty Work
Disbelief
Down to the Bone
Good Bye, Lenin!
Imelda
Persons of Interest
Riding Giants
September Tapes
Stander
Super Size Me
WAR
My faves: Stander, Riding Giants, and The Corporation.
Jesus...I mean, "Golly." Today's Houston Chronicle tells us we'll all soon be safe from godless behavior in county venues:
Singer Janet Jackson set off a nationwide clamor when she briefly flashed a glimpse of one breast during an already racy Super Bowl halftime show at Reliant Stadium.
Now, Harris County Commissioner Steve Radack wants to make sure there's no more such misbehavior in a county-owned building.
Radack said Tuesday that he wants a "morality clause" added to the contracts of all entertainers who perform in such venues, including Reliant Stadium, Reliant Center and the Astrodome.
Radack is acting in the fine spirit of knee-jerkery following the Super Bowl - even thought Reliant Park's management already prohibits performers from using the place for "unlawful or immoral purposes." Naked breasts must make the Baby Jesus cry.
"Basically, I want to make it clear that in county venues, we expect wholesome entertainment, and basically set some parameters," [Radack] said.
He suggested developing clear regulations, including restrictions on nudity, dress, sexually suggestive dance movements and even lyrics.
What qualify as suggestive dance moves, again? Does playing a song by a convicted child pornographer at a football game fall within these "clear regulations?"
Radack and company appear to have a little breathing room, however, since the next gig lined up at Reliant doesn't look like it'll cause too many problems.
Or will it?
The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo has its own safeguards in place for performers, who were signed in October, well before Jackson took the field at the Super Bowl.
Performers' contracts include an acknowledgment that the event, which begins March 2, is family-oriented and that they must perform "in a manner that is not offensive to any social or ethnic groups and that is suitable for a family audience."
Let's take a look at some the Rodeo's upcoming "family friendly" acts:
March 4 - Wynonna -- Does singing drunk violate the clause?
March 5 - Bow Wow and the You Got Served Tour -- All dancers will reportedly be required to have their pasties applied with KraZy Glue.
March 10 - Vince Gill and Amy Grant -- Uh, pass.
March 16 - Kelly Clarkson, and Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson -- Is there anything about Jessica Simpson that isn't offensive?
March 17 - Kenny Chesney - The biggest danger to the family audience in Chesney's case is how many people will get splattered with his brains when a fan of decent music finally snaps and sneaks a Barrett .50 cal into the arena.
March 18 - Beyoncé - I can't see anyone going too far out on a limb to ask Ms. Knowles to tone down the bootyliciousness, though the gravity well generated by her ample posterior might cause a separate hazard - undermining the structural integrity of the venue itself. That's probably more of a zoning issue, though.
March 21 - Willie Nelson - Possibility of profanity or leftist political diatribes, but there should be enough secondhand bong smoke that most in the audience won't notice.
My hilarious jokes aside, a morality clause is a dumb idea for three reasons.
1. The arenas listed don't land the really offensive performers. Acts like 50 Cent and Marilyn Manson play the Verizon Ampitheater or Toyota Center anyway. The truth is, not many acts capable of selling out a stadium are going to be very
