A Perfectly Cromulent Blog

Marriage is all about the wagering

The Wife and I have a lot of gambling in our marriage. We bet on the sex of our child (back before we knew, obviously), and I still haven't gotten my new grill, come to think of it. The wagers on the annual Texas-Texas A&M game can also get pretty ugly, depending on which team is in ascendancy (I did a lot of yard work in the mid-90s). Lately, we've sated our competitive natures by betting on politics.

For example, The Wife maintains - as she has for weeks - that Bush is going to dump Cheney and make John McCain his Vice President. I remain unconvinced: they've already made all those Bush-Cheney '04 signs and bumper stickers, after all. And if there's one thing this administration stands for, it's fiscal repsonsibility.

And while it's hard to believe Cheney would step aside quietly, both of us agree that a Bush-McCain ticket would be a slam dunk (to coin a phrase) for the Republicans. Hell, they could probably keep bin Laden's body on ice for a while longer. Until the next dip in the polls, that is.

We'll find out by the end of the week, I guess. Network coverage of the convention starts tonight, and a new VP announcement might actually get half the ratings as Trading Spouses.

And I don't care what the outcome is, I'm not paying up until I get my grill.

Texas Tuesdays - 08/31/2004

The tour of the State House concludes this week with Stephen Frost, who's running to replace retiring Democrat Barry Telford in District 1.

There's an introduction to Frost here, and you can also read a brief interview with him as well

But when are the Eltingville auditions?

IFC will be holding tryouts for Ultimate Film Fanatic in the coming weeks, here are the locations:

Boston - Sept. 13 - Loews Boston Common 175 Tremont St., Boston, MA 02111
Austin - Sept. 15 - Alamo Drafthouse Cinema 409B Colorado St., Austin, TX 78701
Chicago - Sept. 17 - Loews Gardens at Old Orchard 7-13 175 Old Orchard St., Skokie, IL 60077
San Francisco - Sept. 20 - Loews Metreon Theatre 101 Fourth Street, San Francisco, CA 94103
Seattle - Sept. 22 - Cineplex Odeon Meridian 1501 7th Avenue, Seattle, WA 98101
Los Angeles Sept. 28 - Universal Cineplex Theatre 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City, CA 91608

The format of the show, if you haven't seen it, is pretty straightforward. Round 1 is general movie trivia, where you are grilled on genres you know little to nothing about. Round 2 is the debate round, where you take a topic given to you by the host and try to convince the panel that it sucks or rules. And Round 3 is your chance to demonstrate your true geekery by displaying the cream of your movie memorabilia crop.

Finally, a chance to show off those misspelled Star Wars patches.

I'm not eligible for this, as Film Threat publisher Chris Gore is the host and the IFC is so wary of a Charles Van Doren-like scenario it's saying you're ineligible if you ever shook Chris' hand at the Anchorage Film Festival in 2000. I fared pretty well against the contestants on the episodes I watched at home, though.

Except for Round 3, that is. I have a handful of decent collectibles, but my seven varieties of lightsaber would pale in comparison to what some of these guys show up with. By the end of the first season, I half expected someone to trot out Doris Wishman's bones.

Confession Time - Gone with the Wind

Today's Confession Time is brought to you by the great taste of Stroh's.

As a person who reviews films and also someone who prides himself on being a bit of a movie aficionado, it is with a heavy heart and a mild case of plantar fascitis that I inform you I've never sat through 1939's Gone with the Wind in its entirety.

Oh, I've seen it. At one point or another I've watched all 238 minutes of David O. Selznick's Civil War magnum opus, just not all at once. It was never re-released when I was a kid, which would've been my best chance to catch it on the big screen. There was another theatrical run in 1989, but I'd have a hard time telling you where I was when that took place. So would most of my family and friends.

Home video? I must have watched the first tape a dozen times, always intending to hop off the couch and pop in the second one after the intermission. For some reason, I could never bring myself to watch the second half. There was always something else that needed doing, or somewhere I had to be, or some other excuse to not have to deal with two more hours of harpy extraordinnaire Scarlett O'Hara and beleaguered Southern characters I had no sympathy for. I'd sometimes catch the second tape a day or two later (the sea of Confederate wounded makes for great hangover material), and I've seen the ending on TV several times, but for whatever reason, I've never made the time committment to watch in all at once.

As cinematic sins go, it's not very significant. Just thought you should know.

Next up: the shocking revelation that, while I have in fact been to Paradise, I've never actually been to me.

Last convention-related post

And it's only tangentially related to the convention, but what are you gonna do?

I've read Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 a couple times, and I always found myself growing nostalgic for the era when political conventions actually meant something. I know both parties like to trot out their celebrity endorsers and try to prove to the opposition how much more they love America, but there's a reason the damn things aren't more widely covered on TV. With both contenders chosen months ago during the primaries, the only purpose the conventions serve is to further confuse the addled 5% of the populace who don't already know for whom they're voting, and to annoy the rest of us who decided on November 8, 2000.

I guess that's more then one reason. Curse my flip-flopping.

More importantly, after seeing coverage of last weekend's protests, can I humbly suggest to the organizers that they come up with some original music for the damn things? If I have to hear one more variation of "Hey Hey Ho Ho" or "What Do We Want? Something! When Do We Want It? A Time Frame of Relative Immediacy!", I'm going to hunt down Country Joe McDonald and force feed him about 25,000 mics of brown acid.

Joan Baez is still alive, right? Or what about Ian MacKaye?

You call this a convention?

Okay, fine...so you've continued the fine Buchanan tradition of bringing out a crackpot whose speech probably sounded better in the original German, but if you guys really want to get this exercise in back-slappery and 9-11 necrophilia off the ground, you need to bring back Shannen Doherty to lead us all in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Because let's face it, the rest of your entertainment lineup isn't exactly going to rock the house:

Top GOP officials say the duo of Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn will perform during the convention at Madison Square Garden, along with country singer Lee Ann Womack, Latin gospel singer Jaci Velasquez and Christian rock band Third Day."

Does the GOP platform allow "boot scooting?"

Among other performers who will appear the convention are Christian singer Gracie Rosenburger, rock band Dexter Freebish, country singer Darryl Worley and gospel singer Donnie McClurkin.

Other celebrities scheduled to attend the GOP convention are singer Wayne Newton, actor Stephen Baldwin and actress Bo Derek.

The GOP announced other performers for the convention earlier this month. That list included country singers, the Gatlin Brothers, and contemporary Christian performer Michael W. Smith.

Sounds like the convention will have all three kinds of music: country, western, and gospel. Should be a hell of a party, espcially if the rumors about James Watt introducing Wayne Newton are true.

"Ooh, Navy Seals!"

I haven't decided if I'm very jazzed about this or not:

More details on the "Clerks" sequel were released on the weekend when Kevin Smith told the Associated Press that he's begun work on the film which will be entitled "The Passion of the Clerks".

The original $27,000 movie chronicled the adventures of Dante and Randal, two guys who talk about life, death, sex and movies while working at neighboring stores. The sequel will pick up events ten years on and shooting is scheduled to begin in January with Miramax distributing the film.

"It's about what happens when that lazy, 20-something malaise lasts into your 30s. Those dudes are kind of still mired, not in that same exact situation, but in a place where it's time to actually grow up and do something more than just sit around and dissect pop culture and talk about sex. It's: What happened to these dudes?" says Smith.

No offense, Kev, but the dissecting pop culture part was what appealed to me in the first place (it sure as hell wasn't the acting). Any time Smith gets serious - witness Chasing Amy or Dogma - the results are less than satisfying.

In short, it sounds like we won't be enjoying the same brand of humor that made Clerks: The Animated Series such a ratings success.

The "Clerks" sequel has moved to the top of his to-do list, making it quite likely he'll no longer direct "The Green Hornet" adaptation. Both the original "Clerks" main stars Brian O'Halloran and Jeff Anderson are signed on, and Jason Mewes, will return as stoner Jay, the "hetero life-mate" of Smith's stoic Silent Bob.

I liked Clerks, probably more than any of his subsequent movies (the first half of Chasing Amy comes close). One was able to forgive the stiff performances and poor direction because - come on - the guy made it for $27,000. His later films have generally left me cold, however. Jersey Girl must have done more harm to Smith's cred than previously reported, if he's reversing his "No more Jay and Silent Bob" pledge so quickly.

As long as Alanis Morrissette isn't in it, we won't have any problems.

Go Astros

The NL Central race has been more or less decided for weeks (St. Louis' magic number is still 18*, but I have to believe Rolen, Pujols, and Edmonds would all have to come down with trench foot to stop their momentum now), but I'll cheer for anyone to beat Chicago and make their playoff hunt that much more difficult.

Happily, the Astros complied this weekend, taking 3 of 4 from the Cubs, dropping the latter into a tie with San Diego for the wild card lead. Of all the team in contention for the WC, the Cubs scare me the most, so the more they lose, the happier I am.

More so than usual, I mean.

Cards 1B Albert Pujols also used today's game to became only the 4th player in MLB history to get 100 RBIs in his first four seasons. The others? Just a couple guys named Al Simmons, Joe DiMaggio, and Ted Williams. He also homered to get his 2nd consecutive 40+ HR season.

I'm still cheesed there aren't any more head-to-head StL-ChC games, however.

*Stay tuned to Len's blog for the countdown

It's a doughnut, people - Pt. II

A scant four months after APCB brought you the story of Hawaiians overloading storage bins on inter-island flights with Krispy Kreme doughnuts comes this story of suckers in DC waiting in line 13 hours for the opening of their new Dupont Circle location (via Fark):

The nation's capital became the latest to join the craze Tuesday, when the city's first Krispy Kreme shop opened. About 150 people waited in line outside the store in Dupont Circle - some for as long as 13 hours - to get their hands on the goodies. They were rewarded when workers gave out trays of doughnuts to the crowd shortly before 6 a.m.

Rami Genauer was awarded a dozen free doughnuts each week for a year for being first in line. The District of Columbia resident said he had been waiting with his folding chair since 4:30 p.m. Monday.

"It's a spectacle," Genauer said, standing amid a sea of sleeping bags, pillows and inflatable air mattresses. "The doughnuts are just secondary," he said, adding that he plans to give them to the homeless.

You evil bastard. Like their lifespans aren't short enough.

13 hours? I've waited in some embarrassing lines in my life (Episode I and Adam West's autograph, to name two, and I was only 6 or 7 for that last one), but never 13 hours. They're still just doughnuts.

The 800-square-foot store expands the chain's presence in the region to three, with stores already in operation in Alexandria (website - news) , Va., and Rockville, Md.

You know, in 13 hours, you could drive back and forth from Alexandria about 22 times. Or watch The Godfather three times. Or reverse some of the horrible psychological damage you've done to your kids. Just a thought.

Why'd it have to be snakes?

Strangely enough, the one movie I managed to review for Film Threat this week - Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid - may earn the best notices of all this week's releases. Suspect Zero is getting widely panned, and early word is that Baby Geniuses 2 may join its predecessor on the all-time worst list.

Then there's Hero, which doesn't count because it's, like, foreign and stuff.

Anyway, my write-up of the "perfect keeling machines" is up here. Remember: "Everything gets eaten out here. It's a jungle."

Word.

Friday Offspring Blogging - 08/27/2004

I don't have a cat or a hamster, and the only birds around these days are grackles and evil blue jays who have an unholy thirst for my sweet, sweet eye juices. As a result, I'm unable to participate in some of the more popular end-of-the-work-week blog phenomena.

Luckily, and for entertainment purposes only, I have a child. I've been kind of squirrely about putting her picture up here, not because I'm paranoid about child predators (I am), but because I dread the day when her technological savvy outstrips mine (in about six years) and she takes revenge for my past exploitation by posting pictures of her old man drunkenly taking a leak off the front porch, waving a machete and singing Sheena Easton's "Morning Train (Nine to Five)."

But if President Bush has taught us anything with his wise stewardship, it's that we can't live our lives in fear. And since I was so proud of this picture The Wife took of our Holy Terror, which conclusively demonstrates how much she shares her dad's love of the cinema, I thought I'd share it with you:

A few things:

- That copy of Spice World was a gift, I swear.
- She's obviously only moving that X-Files tape out of the way so she can get to the real prize: Return of the Living Dead.
- I'm told that soon after this, she went for one of my VHS copies of Raiders of the Lost Ark (I kept a backup, just in case). That's my girl.

I'll be sure to share some equally moving pictures whenever she gets around to destroying my comic book collection.

Strange bedfellows

I don't like Jim Rome. The legions of moronic callers and the affected baritone voice aside, his "takes" - as he calls them - veer between the sycophantic "I love that guy" attitude reserved for athletes and coaches who agree to appear on his show to easy potshots at the others who get busted for drunk driving and blowing games. Obviously, I don't listen to him most days. This is also because I don't listen to local radio in general, but occasionally I find myself without CDs and desperate, so I tune in. This happened today.

My respect for the guy rose a notch, because he was talking about his love for the Replacements.

The Replacements are one of my top 5 all-time favorite bands. I started listening to them in high school (Pleased to Meet Me era), and never really stopped. I even got to see one of their shows in Austin when attending UT. Their (relative) sobriety was tempered by my own extreme state of inebriation, but it was still an outstanding show. Paul Westerberg's solo stuff never struck the same chord with me, but the guy is still an excellent songwriter.

Rome's experiences with the band echoed a lot of my own, right up to his drunkenly attending a 'Mats gig. He didn't have nice things to say about Westerberg, who apparently blew off his fanboy attentions after the show, but it's understandable. The guy probably had to deal with hundreds of intoxicated dipshits professing their love for him every tour.

Anyway, I still won't be tuning in Jim Rome with any regularity. Just thought it was amusing.

If I hadn't had four beers after giving blood, I probably wouldn't even have brought it up.

"You know what they call a boomerang fish is Paris?"

Quentin Tarantino and the Muppets, two great tastes that taste great together:

The Daily Record indicates that Quentin Tarantino, the director behind "Pulp Fiction" and "Kill Bill" will play himself in a Muppets adventure movie for ABC based on L. Frank Baum's classic tale "The Wizard of Oz".

R&B singer Ashanti plays aspiring performer Dorothy Gale, who works at the diner of her Auntie Em in a small Kansas town while dreaming of hitting the big time. One day, a tornado sweeps up the trailer where Dorothy lives, and she finds herself in a Muppet version of Oz.

There, she meets the Munchkins (played by the Muppet rats), the Scarecrow (Kermit the Frog), the Tin Man (Gonzo) and the Lion (Fozzie). The group's quest to get the Wicked Witch (Miss Piggy) culminates with a fight scene between Dorothy and the witch. The film cuts to Tarantino pitching to Kermit how the scene should be done.

Isn't Fozzie a bear?

I run hot and cold on Tarantino, but I'm all for more Muppet entertainment, especially if they can squeeze in cameos by Link Hogthrob, the Swedish Chef, and Statler and Waldorf. Up the creep factor by letting the Skekses play flying monkeys and I'd go see it.

But keep Elmo off the set.

And they didn't even need Tatum O'Neal

Kudos to Richmond, TX's Lamar National Little League team, who beat Morgantown, NC to advance to the U.S. championship game:

The Richmond all-stars again revved up the offense and pounded Morganton, N.C., 8-2 Wednesday before an estimated crowd of 18,250 at Lamade Stadium.

Lamar National, now 4-0 in the Series, advances to Saturday's U.S. championship game, where it will play the winner of today's other semifinal between South Caroline Little League of Preston, Md., the Mid-Atlantic champ, and Conejo Valley LL of Thousand Oaks, Calif., the West champion.

"I'm about as excited as you can get," [Lamar National manager Jim] Michalek said. "We're extremely honored to be representing the state of Texas at the next level."

The winner of the U.S. championship, of course, faces the international champion on Sunday.

It's hard to imagine Lamar National at another level, since it has been so consistently dominating for the past week. Indeed, Wednesday was the anomaly — for the first time in the Series, Lamar National did not hit double figures in runs.

But the Richmond stars hit just about everything else, racking up 11 more base hits. And for the fourth straight game, Lamar National entertained the fans with its Texas air show — Chance Murski belted a grand slam, and Randal Grichuk, who was 3-for-4, delivered a three-run shot.

Grichuk, who is batting .769 (10-for-13) in the Series, has four homers and nine RBIs in the four games, energizing an offense that has amassed 51 runs and 51 hits, nine of which have been homers.

Finally, somebody's playing decent baseball in Houston. Too bad Grichuk's a little young to replace Jeff Bagwell.

Speaking as someone who was - at best - a mediocre Little League player, I'd like to extend APCB's congratulations to Lamar and thank them for allowing me to ignore the Olympics for a few days.

The cashin' of the Christ

Don't fuck with the Jesus:

Film studio 20th Century Fox has launched a massive marketing campaign in US religious communities for the DVD of The Passion of the Christ. The studio has sent e-mails to more than six million Christian households, according to The New York Times.

It has also sent 260,000 postcards to churches offering bulk batches of the film, the newspaper reports.

Orders for the Mel Gibson-produced film are 20% ahead of projections, said Fox. The DVD is out in the US on 31 August.

This sounds like the same bulk buying strategy used by right wing groups to get Michelle Malkin's book to the top of the bestseller lists. At least in this case, the movies will actually end up in someone's house. Did you volunteer at the church bazaar? Have a DVD. Erase the dirty words from the missals? Have a DVD. Pay hush money to that altar boy's family? Have a DVD.

Fox has also urged church leaders to persuade their parishioners to buy individual copies too.

One man called Fox hoping to buy 100,000 copies, Fox executive Steve Feldstein told The New York Times.

Fox have also distributed 10,000 limited-edition lithographs depicting Jesus and other religious images to church officials.

Jesus swag is nothing new, but you've got to give Gibson and Fox credit for elevating the distribution strategy to such impressive levels. In addition to Passion merchandising, the market for Christian t-shirts, action figures (check out Job), and entertainment media is growing at a frightening pace. It's no longer enough to half-ass it, apparently. Or to paraphrase David Mamet, the rapture is for closers.

For now, I'll just savor the irony of religious leaders promoting the purchase and ownership of a hyperviolent R-rated film.

Just thinking of the children

Huzzah, it's the 20th anniversary of the PG-13 rating:

LOS ANGELES -- This is the story of how a gooey green guy in a microwave, a pagan witchdoctor with a beating heart in his hand and that unlucky numeral 13 changed the way Hollywood makes its movies.

It has been two decades since the summer of 1984, when Gremlins and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom caused an uproar among some parents who took their young children to the PG-rated films and walked out wishing the rating had suggested more guidance than just "parental guidance suggested."

The solution became the PG-13 rating.

But instead of being solely an extra warning to parents, as it was originally conceived, it has evolved into the preferred rating of studios and filmmakers. As Steven Spielberg told The Associated Press recently, PG-13 puts "hot sauce" on a movie in the viewer's mind.

Steve must prefer Louisana style hot sauce to the habanero stuff, because the PG-13 rating is a pretty mild seasoning. It stopped denoting extra zestiness long agao, and has more recently provided studios with a means to angle for the teen crowd by emasculating movies that might otherwise have shot for an R.

After Temple of Doom opened May 23, some parents complained to theater managers and the ratings board that their kids were mortified, and news reports began questioning whether the ratings board was being too lax.

Jack Valenti, the longtime MPAA head who recently announced his retirement, told the AP that the heart scene was the catalyst. "By today's standards it's not a big deal," he said. "But it was pretty off-putting. And there was a real problem about how to label that picture."
...
The debate might have faded there if not for Gremlins, which came out two weeks later.

Joe Dante, the director ofGremlins, and later Small Soldiers and Looney Tunes: Back in Action, blames the backlash on the early trailers.
...
Dante said the spots also were deliberately "imitating the color and style of the E.T. ads" from two years earlier, hoping to draw people in based on Spielberg's producer credit.

"So the idea of taking a 4-year-old to see Gremlins, thinking it's going to be a cuddly, funny animal movie and then seeing that it turns into a horror picture, I think people were upset," Dante told the AP. "They felt like they had been sold something family friendly and it wasn't entirely family friendly."

I honestly don't remember the Gremlins trailers, but even back in the hoary days before internet movie gossip, I don't think anyone doubted that it was going to be more frights than "Phone home."

Valenti is right, for once, that it's not a very horrifying movie by today's standards, but plenty of films that were both gorier and more horrifying than either Gremlins or Temple of Doom. Hell, Jaws was rated PG, and that was the movie that made an entire country scared to take a bath.

Okay, maybe it was just me. I was only eight, for crying out loud.

And a lot of the stink surrounding Temple of Doom, aside from Mola Ram's Eagle Claw of Kali, was aimed at the steamed monkey brains, scenes of torture, and overall darker tone of the film compared to the first. If Valenti had just admitted he was looking for a way to put Kate Capshaw out of work, I'd have backed him 110%.

"In a way it's better to get a PG-13 than a PG for certain movies," Spielberg said. "Sometimes PG, unless it's for an animated movie, it turns a lot of young people off. They think it's going to be too below their radar and they tend to want to say, 'Well, PG-13 might have a little bit of hot sauce on it.'"

The disposable income teens spend coming back again and again to their favorite flicks is the fuel that keeps Hollywood running. Would they have flocked to Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl in as many numbers if it had not been marked with the darker PG-13?

Please. Teenagers don't care as long as a movie isn't obviously aimed at the child market, like the Pokémon films. Teen girls went to Pirates of the Caribbean because they wanted to see Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom, teen boys went because their dates wanted to see Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom. And because everyone likes pirates.

The article goes on to note several of the top grossing movies of all time (Titanic (#1), Spider-Man (#6), Jurassic Park(#10)) were rated PG-13. Obviously, those mercurial adolescents wouldn't plunk down their hard-earned allowances for anything else, right? Right, except for Shrek 2 (#4), Star Wars: Episode I (#5), Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (#15), and the G-rated Finding Nemo (#12).

What a PG-13 does allow movie studios to do is tone down films that might otherwise get an R rating in order to fatten their take. This is why recent releases like Alien vs. Predator and King Arthur are bled dry of anything that might make them more interesting to adult fans. Movies don't necessarily have to be swimming in blood or nudity to make them more appealing to an older crowd (and I don't know how much it would've helped in either case), but it's nice to occasionally have the option available.

Ultimately, the PG-13 rating is a failure because it doesn't increase the restrictions on kids getting into the movies. A 10-year old trying to buy a ticket for an R-rated flick is going to have a tough time of it, the same kid going to a PG-13 film won't get a second glance. The rating is only as good as the parents make it, and if they're in the habit of dropping the kids off at the theater with their friends, it might as well not even exist.

Which means, according to the MPAA's carefully thought out ratings system, those lucky children will be able to see decapitations, drownings, exploding buildings, multiple gunshot wounds, stabbings, and every variety of murder imaginable, but no "sexually oriented" nudity (women flashing their tits for "humorous effect" is right on). And no more than one utterance of the word "fuck." Because any more than that and your children will become sex-crazed Ecstasy addicts, roaming the city in feral packs on an insatiable quest for ass and pills.

Clinton Democrats, in other words.

And I hear he's a big Rob Schneider fan

Headline from yesterday's Studio Briefing on the IMDb:

Satan Rules Box Office

This is news? I know they're referring to the weekend grosses for Exorcist: The Beginning, but I always assumed the Father of Lies has had a stranglehold on the movie industry at least since Armageddon hit the $200 million mark.

Thou shalt not be an asshole

I'm pretty sure that's the 11th Commandment. I think I saw it in one of those hotel Bibles.

A friend forwarded this story, from the Albany Times Union, about some particularly dimwitted abortion protestors (I know that sounds redundant, but bear with me):

Parents of a newborn were erroneously targeted Wednesday by about 50 abortion protesters who raised posters of mutilated fetuses and called "Evil dwells here" through a bullhorn.

The problem is they had the wrong house, said Tricia Lehra, who was on the receiving end. The group apparently thought Lehra's Washington Road home belonged to a doctor who performs abortions. Lehra, who has a 2-month-old daughter, is a Shenendehowa Central Schools counselor; her husband, August, is an electrical engineer. The target of the misplaced protest was a neighbor, Paul Drisgula, an executive of Planned Parenthood Mohawk Hudson.

"I feel terrorized," said Lehra, who was not home when the group arrived.
Still, later that evening two teens bicycled past her house and screamed "No
abortion," she said. "They do not have their facts straight," she said of the protesters. "They took pictures. Is my house going to end up on their Web site? I feel victimized in my own home."

This would be funny if it wasn't so repulsive. Oh wait, no it wouldn't. Having an assemblage of underemployed nutbars randomly descend upon your house can't be anything but unnerving, especially if you have no idea why they've decided to visit.

I didn't see any pictures of their house on either the ScriptureWall or Operation Rescue web site, but it's a valid question, considering OR links to the Nuremberg Files, which posts "wanted" posters of doctors and other such examples of Christian love and tolerance.

The 90-minute parade angered some neighbors on the quiet, maple-lined street, drawing them to the sidewalks at around 2:30 p.m.

"I heard them yelling, 'A murderer lives on your street,' " said Brian Whitter, who lives up the block from the Lehras and was getting ready for work when he saw the parade shortly after 2 p.m. "They were shouting about homosexuals. It was really offensive."

"The police told us to go inside because we were arguing with them," Amy
Cremo said. "My 8-year-old came in and asked, 'What's abol-chion?' I couldn't let my kids outside. They're coming to a residential area with these disgusting signs, saying 'You have blood on your hands.' They don't know what we believe. They said, 'There's a gay couple on the street.' I said, 'What's next, you're going to come with burning crosses?' It was rude. It was just a circus."

These guys must share a marketing firm with PETA. At the very least, parading around with 4' high posters of dismembered fetuses in a residential neighborhood is going to alienate a number of people who might actually be sympathetic to your viewpoint, but displaying the same thing or screaming about "sodomites" in front of someone's kids is going to net you nothing but hostility. And trotting your own bewildered toddlers out, as these mouth-breathers are known to do, doesn't make it all right.

This marks the second year in an August campaign called "Oh Saratoga!" organized by The Rev. Francis McCloskey, a Roman Catholic priest from East Durham, Greene County, and Flip Benham, director or Operation Rescue/Operation Save America, a militant group of abortion opponents based in Dallas. Neither Benham nor McCloskey could be reached for comment Thursday.

Big surprise. Benham doesn't talk publicly if there's the slightest possibility that he can be called on the carpet for his misinformation and smear tactics.

Linda Scharf, a Planned Parenthood spokeswoman, said the protesters were wrong to approach anyone's home. "We feel this is creating a climate that leads to violence and it has crossed the line, using free speech to attempt to coerce," Scharf said.

"I don't feel we disrespected their neighborhood or their rights,"
countered Lawrence Willette, a marcher and deacon at St. Clements Catholic church in Saratoga Springs.

That settles that, I guess.

Apparently no one bothered to ask Willette how he'd feel if picketers showed up outside his house, informed all his neighbors that he was a hatemonger who derived some perverse thrill from harassing innocent people, and then posted pictures of him, his home, and his car on the web. Shouldn't be a big deal, since anti-choice groups practice such tactics all the time.

Yeah, I know, none of them "officially condone" such practices. Pull the other one.

The group didn't violate any laws, said Scotia Police Chief John Pytlovany, who had several officers accompany the group of parents, children and grandparents after an earlier protest outside Planned Parenthood in Schenectady. While McCloskey did pray in the street, he did not impede traffic or block pedestrians, Pytlovany said. Police asked Lehra's neighbors not to argue with the protesters because they wanted to keep things calm, Pytlovany said.

Lehra said police told her she was overreacting. One officer "stated that
we're not in any danger because this is a religious group. I told him I lived in Buffalo when Dr. Slepian was killed. I've got a baby in here. I'm afraid."

Wow. That's one stupid cop. Lehra's answer is a good one, but she could have just as easily countered that al-Qaeda, Aum Shinrikyo, the IRA, Hezbollah, the Sudanese Janjaweed, and the Branch Davidians are all "religious groups" (and that's without even bringing up the major churches).

"I was raised Catholic. I consider myself to be a Christian," added Lehra, who has a large cross on her living room wall. "This is not Christian behavior. The fact that these people are terrorizing people in their homes in the name of Jesus is outrageous. What accountability is there for this kind of thing?"

Well, if you're a Christian, I guess you could just wait until they stand in judgment before your god and he casts them into the Pit for being such intolerant scumbags.

Or you could have a friend dress as Jesus, walk down the street to where they're assembled, and ask them to stop. Probably wouldn't work, though. Today's on-the-go fundamentalist doesn't have time for that "love thy brother," tree-hugging, hippie New Testament crap.

I'd probably just turn on the sprinklers, open the windows, and play some Minor Threat.

And release the hounds. Mustn't forget the hounds.

Might (re)makes right

Once again, news from Hollywood prompts my demand for a loaded bazooka:

The Hollywood Reporter indicates that "The Munsters" are headed to the big screen, thanks mostly to the Wayans brothers.

Keenen Ivory, Marlon and Shawn Wayans have all struck a deal with Universal Pictures to take the classic 1960's television show about a family of friendly monsters who never quite get why people react in terror to them and give it a modern makeover that "will stay true to the original characters, but will place them in a contemporary setting".

The deal means the three Wayanses will write the screenplay as well as produce along with Rick Alvarez through Wayans Bros. Prods. There is a possibility that Keenen Ivory Wayans would direct, though no deal is in the works without a finished script.

I might see this, if they made it a Blacula crossover, concluding with Al Lewis and Yvonne De Carlo machine gunning the Wayans to death at the end. Otherwise, no thanks.

Oh, and find something for Butch Patrick. I hear he needs to work (things have been pretty sparse since "Lidsville").

Wait, there's more:

Terence Winter, a writer and executive producer of "The Sopranos," has been drafted into "The Warriors" gang. The scribe will write the remake of the 1979 street-gang classic that Tony Scott is directing. Scott's version will follow the outline of the first film -- in which a gang leader is assassinated during a truce, and The Warriors, wrongly accused of the assassination, must make their way home through hostile gang territories -- while updating the heightend reality of the original film for contemporary audiences..."

First, Tony Scott needs a visit from the Gramercy Riffs. The last thing that would be welcome in a Warriors remake (or any film, for that matter) is his masturbatory St. Vitus' Dance style of directing. He torpedoed Man on Fire - which had the potential to be a decent little revenge flick - with an endless series of jump cuts and exposure tricks.

Second...that's twice now I've heard the word "contemporary" used, and it scares me. How do you update monsters that were affectionate knockoffs of Universal creatures in the first place? Make them black (that seems like a given, if the Wayans are starring as well)? Enlarge them to ridiculous proportions (also known as the Van Helsing strategy)? Or maybe cast Lindsay Lohan as Marilyn and Lil' Bow Bow as Eddie? You're talking $45 million opening weekend, minimum.

What's that? He just goes by "Bow Wow" these days? A thousand pardons.

As for The Warriors...good luck. One of the conceits of that film that doesn't hold up too well in modern times was that almost nobody in the film had a gun. I suppose if they set the film in modern day Limerick, Ireland, that would be one thing, but it only takes about fifteen minutes to get across town.

In trying to appeal to "contemporary" audiences, the Baseball Furies will give way to the Soccer Psychos, who incapacitate their victims with well-aimed bicylcle kicks. The Orphans will all dress like Fred Durst, and Dave Chappelle will play the mysterious DJ. I can't even begin to imagine who'll play the Warriors themselves, but I wouldn't lay money against any of the following: Ashton Kutcher, Rider Strong, Sean Patrick Thomas, Seth Green, Larenz Tate, or Chad Michael Murray.

With Lindsay Lohan as Mercy. Why the hell not?

Finally, one that I'm not too worked up about:

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Comedian Ellen DeGeneres is getting a promotion -- to supreme being.

DeGeneres will star as God in a remake of the 1977 comedy "Oh, God!" The original starred George Burns as the creator and John Denver as a supermarket manager tapped as a new prophet.

"Ellen is a strong comedian and she has always done material about God and questions about God," said Jerry Weintraub, who produced the original movie and also will oversee the remake.

Meh. The original did nothing for me, so it's hard to get irate over a new version. One thing that will be hard to duplicate is the smoldering sexual chemistry between Denver and Teri Garr. Any chance of getting Anne Heche to costar?

How about "Yakko?"

That plastic curgery addict who lives in a 2,600 acre amusement park and is facing charges for child molestation doesn't want you to call him "Wacko" anymore:

Michael Jackson has denounced the recent VH1 movie about him, Man in the Mirror, starring Flex Alexander, which critics had generally described as "pro-Jackson." The Hollywood Reporter faulted it "for studiously [soft-peddling] most instances of Jackson's bizarre behavior and famed eccentricity." The Los Angeles Times' Robert Lloyd concluded that the film, which aired on Aug. 6, "goes pretty easy on him overall, making him out to be more of a sad victim than, say, a perverted creep." Nevertheless, in his statement on Thursday Jackson maintained that the movie "in no way, shape, or form, represents who we are as a family. It is unfortunate that for years, we have been targets of completely inaccurate and false portrayals. We have watched as we have been vilified and humiliated. I, personally, have suffered through many hurtful lies and references to me as 'Wacko Jacko' as well as the latest untruth about me fathering quadruplets. This is intolerable and must stop."

We at APCB are sensitive to the plight of our treasured national celebrities, and so we bring you the Top 12 Alternate Nicknames for Michael Jackson:

12. Uncle Ernie
11. Convict EO
10. (Barking at the) Moonwalker
9. Man-Thing in the Mirror
8. Gary Glitter's Future Neighbor
7. Touch My Kid and I'll Kill You
6. Little John Merrick
5. Hot Barely Legal Action Jackson
4. Hyperbaric Manilow
3. Smooth (But Innocent Until Proven Guilty, Don't Forget) Criminal
2. I'm Still Big in Europe
1. LaToya

"You shut up."
"No, you shut up."

"Why don't you BOTH shut up:"

CRAWFORD, Texas (AP) -- Former Republican Sen. Bob Dole suggested Sunday that John Kerry apologize for past testimony before Congress about alleged atrocities during the Vietnam War and joined critics of the Democratic presidential candidate who say he received an early exit from combat for "superficial wounds."

Dole, the GOP candidate for president in 1996, also called on Kerry to release all the records of his service in Vietnam.

Appearing on CNN's "Late Edition," Dole said he warned Kerry months ago about going "too far" and that the Democrat may have himself to blame for the current situation, in which polls show him losing support among veterans.
...
Dole added: "And here's, you know, a good guy, a good friend. I respect his record. But three Purple Hearts and never bled that I know of. I mean, they're all superficial wounds. Three Purple Hearts and you're out."

Kerry wasn't lucky enough to fight in the Last Good War, like Dole. Then again, he made his Vietnam service a cornerstone of his campaign almost from day one, so ordinarily I'd say it's disingenuous to cry foul when the opposition calls you on it.

Ordinarily, but not in this case.

I respect the fact that Dole lost use of his arm thanks to wounds suffered in combat, but his Purple Heart was awarded for a scratch on his leg (caused, according to his own 1996 campaign bio, when he muffed a grenade throw). How badly would Clinton, who "creatively avoided" the draft, have been crucified if he'd attacked Dole's medal record during the 1996 campaign? Why does Bush, who used Dad's connections to keep from going to Vietnam and then bailed on that obligation, get a pass?

Reading about this anymore, I'm convinced that I've switched places with my Bizarro counterpart. I'm over here, living in a world where a dedicated group of liars is attacking the record of a man who volunteered to go to combat in Vietnam, while the record of the guy who couldn't even be bothered to show up to protect the Gulf Coast of Alabama from the VC hordes enjoys near immunity in the media. Meanwhile, back on the real Earth, Bizarro Pete stumbles around declaring, "Me can't wait for new Resident Evil movie. Me drink beer now."

And I was worried they'd start talking about the issues some time before the election. With any luck, Teresa Heinz Kerry will mouth off to another "reporter" and give us another week's worth of editorials once this swift boat BS dies down.

George Lucas must be destroyed

I will not comment on the latest Star Wars rumors
I will not comment on the latest Star Wars rumors
I will not comment on the latest Star Wars rumors:

Star Wars creator George Lucas could be poised to make three sequels to the original space opera trilogy, according to insiders at Lucasfilm. According to fan site Theforce.Net, employees at Lucas's company Industrial Light And Magic (ILM) have all been made to sign non-disclosure agreements to promise not to talk about the possibility of episode's seven, eight and nine being made. Now industry insiders are predicting the American Graffiti director will make the follow-ups, which pick up where 1983's Return Of The Jedi left off, despite insisting he would never be lured into filming them. A posting on the site says, "You didn't hear this from me, but you might be curious as to why everyone at ILM just signed NDA's saying that they will not discuss Star Wars episodes 7, 8, or 9. Since they're not being made, why the NDA's? Of course, since when has Lucas been consistent?"

Back in October, word was that Spielberg might step in to take over. Then in January, much was made of Peter Mayhew's Episode III contract requiring his appearance in another trilogy. Etc, etc. World without end.

As your faithful Star Wars running dog, I've faithfully tried to keep all of you up to date on the rumors that keep trickling out of Lucasfilm. But with all the contradictory information floating around, fans of the franchise become hungry for The Truth. Can the self-flagellation end after Rise of the Sith? Or will we be tortured for yet another decade only to have the honor of watching Admiral Thrawn step in bantha pudu and Han and Leia's kids team up to fight crime?

Even though it is Lucas' right to continue toying with the fanbase that made him richer than Croesus by screwing around with his old films and sucking the soul from his new ones like a bearded Stormbringer, it is my right to call for action.

That's right: it's time to call in Wayne Dolcefino.

Drastic times call for drastic measures and, as HWRNMNBSOL noted below, APCB is only 5th on Google for WD searches. Lucas might be able to pull the wool over our eyes, using his army of litigators while he broods deep within the fortress-like bowels of Skywalker Ranch, but neither electrified gates nor beefy security guards can keep our hirsute hyena of truth at bay. Wayne would get to the bottom of this, especially if any unsafe strip clubs were involved.

Help us, Obi-Wayne Kenobi...you're our only hope.

Greek love

Good to see the hometown refs are out in full force at the Olympics this year:

Greek fans had something to cheer about, too. Dimosthenis Tampakos sent the Olympic Indoor Hall into a frenzy on the final event of the night, winning gold on still rings. Tampakos was the first of eight competitors, and the hometown fans -- including local games chief Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki -- roared each time a score was posted and Tampakos maintained his hold on first place.

Jordan Jovtchev of Bulgaria won the silver, and Italy's Yuri Chechi took the bronze.

"It was the best moment for my life, and thank God for it," Tampakos said as music from the movie "Zorba the Greek" played in the background.

Zorba the Greek, eh? What singluarly American movie music are our athletes hearing when they win, I wonder? "He Ain't Heavy (He's My Brother)" from Rambo, by Frank Stallone? Or perhaps "Me So Horny" from Malibu's Most Wanted? Personally, my bosom would swell with pride to hear Vanilla Ice's "Ninja Rap" from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze.

Sorry Greece, but your boy didn't deserve the gold. Both Jovtchev and Chechi had better routines, and both stuck their landings. To their credit, neither bitched about the result like women's gymnast Svetlana Khorkina, who placed second behind Carly Patterson in the all-around:

MOSCOW, Aug 22 (Reuters) -- Russia's Svetlana Khorkina, who was second to American Carly Patterson in the women's all-round gymnastics competition, has accused the judges of robbing her of the gold medal and said "everything was decided in advance."

"I'm just furious," Khorkina, who had been favourite for the coveted title, was quoted as saying in the daily Izvestia. "I knew well in advance, even before I stepped on the stage for my first event, that I was going to lose."

That's not a winner's attitude, Svetlana. I admit to being mystified by the scoring system used in gymnastics, but nothing I saw during the all-around made me think Patterson wasn't deserving.

The Russian was also favourite for the all-round title four years ago in Sydney, where her hopes were dashed after she crashed to her knees from the vault. It was later discovered the horse had been set five centimetres too short.

She said she was hoping Sydney's experience would cause the judges to be more sympathetic to her plight in Athens -- her third and last Olympics.

It's never a good idea to count on the Pity Gold. Then again, maybe the judges were just evening things out after that bullshit gold medal the Soviet basketball team won in 1972.

Khorkina confirmed that Athens were her last Olympics but she wants to remain in the sport.

"I'd like to work for the International Gymnastics Federation. These competitions have shown the sport needs a lot of changes," she said. "It should be judged primarily on grace, elegance and beauty rather than simply on mechanical tumbling."

Translation: "I want to amend the current system that favors short, muscular gymnasts in favor of emaciated divas like myself who draw unfavorable comparisons to a praying mantis when performing our floor exercises."

On Sunday the Russian will compete in her last event -- the uneven bars, where she is hoping to become the first gymnast in history to win three consecutive Olympic titles on the same apparatus.

Yeah, well, Khorkina was "robbed" again when she muffed the move that bears her, dropped off the bar, and ended up finishing with an 8.9.

A little murkier is the challenge being made by the South Koreans over the scoring in the men's all-around, where Paul Hamm took the gold by .049 over Yang tae-Young. While it does sound like the there was a screw up, it appears that the Koreans might have only themselves to blame now that the arbitration court isn't taking the case:

Harry Bjerke, an American judge who was on the panel but not one of the two who determined start values, said the South Koreans never came up to the table, or to the president of the technical committee, either of whom could have fixed the mistake.

"They waited until the medals had been given out -- until after the fact," Bjerke told The Associated Press. "It was a very unfortunate mistake and it happened at the worst possible time."

Acknowledging an error was made, FIG suspended the two judges who determined start values -- Benjamin Bango of Spain and Oscar Buitrago Reyes of Colombia -- along with the judge who oversaw the panel, George Beckstead of the United States. But the federation said the results will not be changed.

That's too bad for Yang, and it casts a bit of a pall over what's actually been a pretty interesting Olympics competition.

The good news is, we can stop keeping score of the number of times Elfie Schlegel uses the word "amplitude" (I counted seven tonight).

Episode III: Rise of the Schizo

Some Episode III promo artwork has hit the web. Because I am weak, and will see this movie no matter how awful the advance word is, I thought I'd share:

Hey, lookit that. Darth Vader. I...oh no...he's trying to take over again...*erf*...mustn't give in...have to...withhold judgement until film is released...losing control of own mind...

Oh, pipe down you candy ass. Your average moviegoer willpower is nothing compared to the brute force of your sinister alter-ego, Righteously Indignant Star Wars Fan. You might as well just come out and admit it to yourself: this movie will make Pearl Harbor look like Rashomon. You've heard the old adage about 1000 monkeys typing for 1000 years? Well, Lucas only uses five monkeys, and he pays them scale!

Shut up, shut up. It might be good. After all, this one's going to be darker than the first two.

What the hell does that mean? Sam Jackson has more scenes? Lucas has no concept of the word "dark," which is saying something for a guy who spends so much time with his head up his ass.

But what about the fight scene on the volcano between Anakin and Obi-Wan? That should make a difference, right?

Did the three-way duel in the Episode I make a difference? Did Yoda jumping around like Dripalong Daffy on rotgut in Episode II make a difference? The fight scenes only last for ten or fifteen minutes, meaning we're still left with an hour and a half of green screen crap and Hayden Christiansen's acting to deal with.

What about Darth Vader? We get to see him in this movie. Shouldn't that count for something?

We already saw him in three movies! The fact that you mewling fanboys are getting so excited about the appearance of a 25-year old character shows how bankrupt this franchise has become.

At least Vader was named before Lucas went completed insane and started coming up with characters like "Sidious," "Sleazebaggeno," and "General Greivous."

Chewbacca's in it...

Everybody's in it! There's a whole planet of Wookiees! And Grand Moff Tarkin! Plus Luke and Leia! Would anybody be surprised if Lucas included two little boys running through one scene while somebody called from offscreen, "Han, Lando, time for dinner?"

I'm not listening to you anymore. Episode III might not suck.

Wise up, dipshit. Even if Obi-Wan wakes up and discovers the last two movies were just a dream - Bobby Ewing style - you''re still stuck with the knowledge of what has come before. No retconning of midichlorians, Jar Jar, or Anakin surfing on a space cow is going to take the pain away, and you know it.

Bah, you bore me. Quit posting crap like this or I'm coming back again. And I might bring Star Wars Fan Who Bitches Endlessly About Continuity Errors with me.

No, no...I'll be good.
...
Is he gone?

Man, I hate that guy.

Ugly Americans

Now that the swimming and gymnastics sections of the Olympics are coming to an end, we can all look forward to greater focus on track and field and those flamboyant peacocks of the athletic world, track and field athletes.

Now, I'm not trying to paint all track stars as boorish louts. Just the American ones. Specifically, the sprinters. I probably first became aware of their unbridled egotism in 1984, when Carl Lewis first came to national attention. I wasn't a fan, but the guy won. Like the saying goes, it isn't bragging if you can back it up.

Things have gotten out of hand lately, however, and really reached a head in Sydney, when the American sprint relay team commenced to strip off their shirts, drape themselves in the flag, and generally act like idiots after their win. Perhaps they were just rejoicing that all had passed their steroid tests.

I haven't seen much of the track and field competition yet, but what I watched tonight made me realize I need to schedule my viewing a little more closely. The overall favorite in the 400 meters is a 20-year old from Baylor named Jeremy Wariner. The guy idolizes Michael Johnson (also from Baylor and one of the greatest 400m guys of all time) to the extent that he appears even to have copied his taste in jewelry. Nothing wrong with that, and one can probably even forgive the fact that Wariner, maybe the only white sprinter on the U.S. team, is one of those inexplicable Caucasians who seems to think he's black. The thing that's really annoying is that he insists on wearing his sunglasses at all times: even during a night preliminary, and also during his post-race interview. That's fine if you took a fork in the eye as a kid, like Jim McMahon. Otherwise, you just look like a prick.

Might be one of the reasons coverage of Wariner has been so sparse. If he's lucky, returning American sprinters Bernard Williams and Maurice Greene will help take some of the heat off him with some more antics.

Speaking of pricks (and getting back to swimming), please tell me we've heard the last of Gary Hall, Jr. The American gold medalist in the 50M freestyle was insufferable, both in his pre-meet interview and after his win, when he eschewed exiting on the side of the pool like everyone else and took a bow that the crowd wasn't really asking for. After his race, Hall was queried about why he wasn't asked to participate in (I think) the men's 4 X 100 freestyle. After listening to his answers, I feel pretty safe in saying it was because the other swimmers didn't want to swim with such an obvious jackass. And while I doubt many of the American swimmers are old enough to remember the S&L crisis of the 1980s, the fact that Hall is Charles Keating's grandson can't help his cause.

More High School Confidential

Reading the comments in the entry below, I'm reminded of an amusing episode from my own high school days.

It's amusing today, that is. Back then I was sweating bullets.

The year was 1985. Yours truly was on the cusp of emerging from the cocoon of lower classman geekery to assume the Monarch butterfly status of 11th grade coolness (okay, maybe gypsy moth status...I was still in band, after all). The Cold War was thawing, thanks to the overtures of Mikhail Gorbachev and the music of Rush, whose new album "Power Windows" was changing the world one dateless wonder at a time.

Among the popular styles of the day were the ubiquitous t-shirts of the Corona Beach Club. Even as a teenager, I suspected that Corona beer, an up and coming brew at the time, didn't in fact have a beach club, but I kept such dangerous information to myself. High school is not the place for the malcontent, or the whisperer of secret truths. I kept a low profile, without a Beach Club t-shirt of my own. Publicly, I derided the sheeplike masses who costumed themselves so identically. Privately, I had no clue where to buy one. I was still in the habit of wearing Hawaiian shorts and Star Wars t-shirts, after all.

What I did have was a Lone Star Beer t-shirt. Provided by some friend of my parents, the shirt featured the words "Lone Star" over the front pocket. On the back, running the full length of the shirt, was a Lone Star beer bottle. Attached to the bottle's neck was an air hose, which ran over the shoulder, ending in a regulator over the right breast. I was fond of this saucy scuba sendup, and wore it to school as often as our laundry schedule would allow. Until one day...

I was taken aside at lunch by Coach Terrel (corrected per Tim's remarks in the comments). He was about 6' 5" and fond of wearing those goddamned gray Bike shorts that are issued along with your kinesiology diploma. He pulled me aside one day at lunch to tell me I'd have to change my shirt. The conversation, to the best of my recollection, went something like this:

Pete: Why do I have to change my shirt?
Coach: Because it's got a big beer bottle on the back of it.
Pete: So?
Coach: So, clothing that advertises alcohol or tobacco products aren't allowed in school.
Pete: Can I just wear it inside out?
Coach: Hold on. [He lifts the back of my shirt] No, you can still see it.
Pete: Well, I don't have another shirt here at school.
Coach: Well, then I guess you'll have to go home and change.

Not having a car at this time, going home meant either an hour's walk or calling my mother to pick me up. Neither of which was a pleasant option.

I should point out that this coach was the worst kind of faculty member: bullying, sarcastic, and utterly unwilling to negotiate about anything. I knew it was futile to argue, so I did the only thing left to me: I ruined everyone else's fun.

Pete: Fine. But how come Tracy gets to wear his Corona Beach Club shirt?
Coach: [Looking over at Tracy] What do you mean?
Pete: I mean, half this school walks around all day wearing Corona t-shirts and you don't make them go home.
Coach: ...
Pete: You know Corona is a beer, right?
Coach: Son of a...

The edict came down the next day: no more Corona Beach Club shirts would be allowed. There was a great deal of grumbling and cries of "students' rights" and other such bullshit. I kept my mouth shut and silently entreated the God of Adolescent Smartasses that Coach Terrel would do so as well. To his credit, he never finked me out. More likely, he wanted to take credit for spoiling everyone's fun.

So now the secret's out. My apologies to A&M Consolidated's classes of 1985-88, who were forced to dig out those old Izods and OP shirts to compensate for the ban.

"Your mother owns stock in Shell!"

Or words to that effect.

Once again, there's a movie coming out this weekend that wasn't screened in advance for critics. That movie is Exorcist: The Beginning. Saw it last night. Review's up today in the usual place (i.e. Film Threat).

It seems I didn't hate it as much as many reviewers did, which essentially means I didn't pan it. Given your other options, I'd go see Open Water, myself.

Quote of the day

"Although you may consider purple, blue, and pink beautiful colors, effective Monday, they are not acceptable hair colors." - Announcement at our local high school this morning.

Gee whiz

Via Andante come this breaking news about Germany's uncertain excretory future:

German men are being shamed into urinating while sitting down by a gadget which is saving millions of women from cleaning up in the bathroom after them. The WC ghost, a £6 voice-alarm, reprimands men for standing at the lavatory pan. It is triggered when the seat is lifted. The battery-operated devices are attached to the seats and deliver stern warnings to those who attempt to stand and urinate (known as "Stehpinkeln").

"Hey, stand-peeing is not allowed here and will be punished with fines, so if you don't want any trouble, you'd best sit down," one of the devices orders in a voice impersonating the German leader, Chancellor Gerhard Schroder. Another has a voice similar to that of his predecessor, Helmut Kohl.

This is what happens when you don't do your share of the chores. Just think of all the humiliation that would've been saved by just spritzing a little 409 around the bowl. Seems pretty apparent who trägt die Hosen in German households.

I might think about putting one of these in my own house if I had a wider selection of German voices to choose from. Colonel Klink, for example. Or Franka Potente.

So far 1.8 million WC ghosts have been sold in German supermarkets.

But Klaus Schwerma, author of Standing Urinators: The Last Bastion of Masculinity? doubts whether it will ever be possible to convert all men.

"Many insist on standing, even though it leads to much marital strife," he said.

In German, the phrase for someone who sits and urinates, a "Sitzpinkler", is equivalent to "wimp".

Christ, but Germans are weird (and I say this as a half-Kraut myself). My dad used to live in Alsace, and he was the one who introduced me to the Teutonic obsession with bodily functions. There was one bar with toilets for stools and rools of TP for napkins, for example, and every commode I saw in the country had a little shelf inside the bowl for help in examining your...leavings. I guess the only thing more natural than relieving yourself is feeling ashamed of it.

Sitzplinker is a great insult though. I'll have to remember to use that.

"Smoke up, Johnny!"

Hold on to your butts:

Councilwoman Shelley Sekula-Gibbs, the only physician on the City Council, is studying smoking ordinances in other cities with an eye toward proposing what would be Houston's first outright ban on smoking in workplaces, bars and restaurants.

"The ban would be on smoking in public places — anyplace that conducts business and where people would gather, not in residences," she said. "Smoking and secondhand smoke are dangerous for all Houstonians, and that's why we are looking to move forward."

"Not in residences." Man, that's a relief. And before you laugh, remember that Houston is the city where two gay men were prosecuted under the state's anti-sodomy laws for something they were doing in their own damn house.

Mayor White has said he isn't yet behind a full ban, while others on the City Council are a bit more eager:

But Councilman Gordon Quan believes that, if proposed, such an ordinance has a strong chance of passage.

"I don't know how the sides are going to line up, but I was at a Quality of Life Committee meeting a while ago, and there was a lot of support," he said Tuesday.

This doesn't surprise me, but only because I doubt there are many 2-pack a day types on the Quality of Life Committee. Similarly, I could claim there's widespread support for bringing an NHL franchise to Houston by polling the attendees at my Bring an NHL Franchise to Houston Club meetings.

Houston is the only major metropolitan area in Texas that has not banned smoking in either eateries or workplaces, although many Houston businesses voluntarily have limited smoking.

The city does ban smoking in elevators, restrooms and certain retail establishments; requires workplaces to accommodate nonsmoking employees; and sets special ventilation standards for places that allow smoking.

El Paso barred cigarettes inside all workplaces, restaurants, and bars in 2002; Dallas followed with a restaurant ban in 2003; San Antonio and Austin banned workplace smoking earlier this year.

I don't have much of an opinion one way or the other about this. Like Chuck, I have a hard time thinking of any restaurants I frequent where cigarette smoke is noticeable, if not already banned outright. My main sympathies in this regard concern the employees of restaruants and bars, who don't have the option of just moving tables or going to another establishment.

I've never understood the concept of an ouright ban on smoking in bars, however. Our own Mucky Duck has demonstrated the workability of featuring non-smoking shows by many musical acts, while others have implemented similar restrictions for the table areas. If enough customers bitch about something, owners tend to listen. And there'll always be places you can go to get your cancer on.

They found an interesting workaround in Southern California (which would unfortunately never work in Houston's climate). Because of the smoking ban, none of the bars there have ashtrays, so the bartender just cut empty beer cans in half and gave them to the regulars. The doors and windows were usually open, so the smoke never accumulated. The only catch was that the bartender would claim ignorance if any cops stopped in.

I don't spend enough time in bars anymore to really claim much of a vested interest in this. Sure, the price for spending an evening throwing a few back with friends might be coming home smelling like Mickey Rourke, but no one can convince me that one night breathing a little secondhand smoke is going to give me insta-tumors. I'm more worried about the quality of the air itself in this town.

Besides, I concur with just about everyone else who's written about this that Houston's City Council has bigger problems than whether or not I want to hurt my lungs while I poison my liver and brain.

Up yours, Tim Daggett

My biggest gripe about the last couple days of Olympic coverage (guess I wasn't done with it after all) has been the commentary of former U.S. gymnast Tim Daggett. The scoring in gymnastics is inscrutable enough without having to listen to his switching between hypercriticism and gushing praise during the events, but tonight was especially bad. American Paul Hamm, a medal favorite, ate it on the his vault during the men's all-around competition, scoring a 9.1 something or other, and dropped to 12th place. Daggett was quick to declare him "finished," even though Hamm wasn't mathematically eliminated.

Then the Chinese gymnast, who took the lead after Hamm's spill, scored an 8.9 on the high bar, while the rest of the field made a series of errors that allowed Hamm to work his way back into the hunt. After a solid parallel bars routine, Hamm was 4th and needed a 9.66 on the high bar to win the bronze. He scored a 9.837 to come from behind and win the gold, a first for American men in the all-around. Daggett, of course, does a hasty and stammering 180 to give Hamm his props.

One of the only reasons to watch the Olympics (aside from Amanda Beard) is for these kind of moments: the "Miracle on Ice," Mary Lou Retton's perfect 10 on the vault, or Mark Spitz's seven gold medals. Daggett was a great gymnast in his own time (nailing a 10.0 of his own to secure the men's gold in 1984), but he must still be bitter about Mitch Gaylord getting the lead in American Anthem. Thankfully, the gymnastics competition is almost over, meaning Boxey's little friend* can go back to doing whatever it is he does in the offseason.

* Apologies for the lame Battlestar Galactica reference

"I am haunted by (Roger) Waters."

How the hell did I miss this?

Tommy Mottola and Miramax Films are building "The Wall" on Broadway. The hit album by rockers Pink Floyd will be transformed into a Broadway musical.

"Great!" said Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters in a statement Thursday. "Now I can write in some laughs, notable by their absence in the movie."

I dunno, I thought the school children falling into the meat grinder was pretty funny.

Not having listened to much Pink Floyd in a while, perhaps I was mistaken in thinking that a serious autobiographical work about alienation and isolation didn't really lend itself to, uh, "laughs." Must've been all the harmless tobacco I was smoking.

"There are few projects as timeless as 'The Wall,"' said Mottola in a statement. "Even after two decades since its first release, 'The Wall' continues to break through every generational, socioeconomic and political boundary."

Good to see a lackluster Broadway season hasn't dimmed Mottola's sense of humor, or his flair for hyperbole.

Like most whiny teenagers, I found some solace in endlessly replaying "The Wall" in my bedroom, and I still enjoy the movie, but come on. I'm betting generations younger than mine, raised on hip hop and nu metal, don't care much about "The Wall." And if they do, they can always just download it.

Which throws Mottola's "socioeconomic boundary" comment into relief, as well. It isn't like anyone other than Waters' bloated Baby Boomer counterparts are likely to shell out $120 a pop for mezzanine seats to watch a kookier version of "The Wall." Waters knows this, and has probably been planning a stage show ever since he convinced organizers in Berlin that, because his album has the word "wall" in it, booking him for the reuinification festivities would be a great idea. All it proved was that "The Wall" is nothing without David Gilmour, Cyndi Lauper is just plain wrong for "Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2," and Bryan Adams is the face of evil and must be destroyed.

Subsequent concerts at the Wailing Wall, Great Wall, and the remains of Hadrian's Wall never panned out, for some reason.

What frightens me the most is the trend itself. Sure, they start with the classics like "Tommy" or "The Wall." Next come the lesser know but still decent concept albums, like maybe "Joe's Garage" or "Operation: Mindcrime." But what happens then? Where do the producers go after they've plundered all the marginally interesting stuff? I'm not much for grim prognostication, but within ten years, I predict we can all look forward to either ELP's "Tarkus: The Musical," or "KISS: Music from 'Music from the Elder.'" One way or the other, civilization is doomed.

"You're gonna need a bigger hutch."

The good folks at Angry Alien have done it again. This time around, it's Jaws, in 30 seconds (and re-enacted by bunnies).

Today's reason to be thankful

As of this writing, I have yet to receive information on screenings for either Benji: Off The Leash! or Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2. Life is good.

Nevertheless, I did spend a little time digging for info on the people behind such highbrow fare, and came up with a few interesting tidbits.

For example, Bob Clark - esteemed director of the original Baby Geniuses as well as its upcoming sequel - also directed the 1972 D-grade zombie classic Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things (a film as notorious for actor Alan Ormsby's pants as it was for the subject matter). He also helmed several '80s classics, such as Porky's, A Christmas Story, and Turk 182! (okay, a couple of classics anyway), as well as crapfests like Rhinestone and From the Hip. In fact, it was after the latter that we can see the quality level of Clark's films start dropping precipitously. Eventually, he switched to directing children's fare exclusively (I hear working with Judd Nelson has that effect).

Conversely, Benji writer/director Joe Camp found something he was good at and stuck with it. Namely, Benji. Aside from a throwaway 1979 kid's caper movie called the The Double McGuffin, Camp has focused with laserlike intensity upon furry animal movies. He's made five Benji flicks (and also penned the novelizations), one movie where Benji gets 90% more screen time than top-billed Chevy Chase (Oh! Heavenly Dog!), and one camel movie. I saw that last one - Hawmps! - on some horrible pre-adolescent afternoon, and decades of therapy have yet to help me regain my lost innocence.

Really though, no movie with Slim Pickens, Denver Pyle, and Jack Elam in it can be all bad.

There's not a lot of info about Joe Camp out there. About all I could dig up was that the guy was born in 1939, allegedly in St. Louis (though I think he lives near Dallas now), and wrote a now out-of-print book about making Benji called, wait for it, Underdog. I did manage to find a few pictures floating around out there, and I've decided to share my favorite with the world:

That's former Democratic Presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich with Benji and Joe Camp in 2002, when Kucinich was awarded the Humane Legislator Award from the Humane Society. Rumor has it this was the photo Karl Rove was going to use to spread some unsavory rumors about Kucinich's "love" for canines if he ever got the nomination.

Ha ha, no. I'm sure whatever Rove had planned was much worse.

Texas Tuesdays - 08/17/2004

Today on Texas Tuesdays: Rep. Scott Hochberg, incumbent in SD137, who faces a challenge from Republican Ann Witt in November. Hochberg has a great record of service to his district, and is a great presence for Harris County in the Legislature.

There's also an excellent write-up of the race here.

Seed of doubt

Eli Roth, director of last year's sleeper horror hit Cabin Fever, is set to helm a remake of 1956's The Bad Seed:

The original, about an 8-year-old girl who seems all sugar and spice until she begins killing people, was one of the first to apply Freudian psychology to the psyche of a kid killer. Roth has gorier plans for the remake:

"The original was a great psychological thriller, and we are going to bastardize and exploit it, ramping up the body counts and killings. This is going to be scary, bloody fun, and we're going to create the next horror icon, a la Freddy, Jason and Chucky. She's this cunning, adorable kid who loves to kill, but also loves 'N Sync."

Great. I don't think remaking the film itself - a rather stilted and overlong affair - is the problem, but rather Roth's approach. The effectiveness of the original came from the concept that a cherubic li