Saturday, August 21, 2004

I Pass for Peter Jackson

Now, for a more diary-like entry.


A reminder that when you click the link, you are NOT looking at a picture of me. I no longer have hair.

American Cinematech's Egyptian Theater has my ass-prints deep in one of their seats after 3 movies there last night. I PASS FOR HUMAN (2003), directed by Cinematech-insider Chris D., and Lynn Margulies (editor, producer, and noted ex of Andy Kaufman) screened at 7, and a double bill of Peter Jackson's first 2 features, MEET THE FEEBLES (1989) & BAD TASTE (1987) followed.

I had to run to the valley to aquire something, but I won't complain about the commute here. Plus, complaining about traffic in LA is like complaining about sunshine here; the traffic is also omnipresent. Anyway, I left my brother's in Sherman Oaks just before 6:30 pm to try to make the 7:00 pm showing on Hollywood Blvd. HA! I got there just as the opening credits were finishing.

I won't do a full-blown review here. I'd say it might be worth a video rental. It's about how dead junkies haunt current junkies from the after-life...AND it featured music by a band that played with FOREIGN OBJECT at the Garage the last night I saw Stephan perform, THE HANGMEN. Their music was perfect for this movie, and I must admit a deep and abiding affection for the bass player I saw perform with them in June of 2002.

Jackson's MEET THE FEEBLES cannot be easily explained, but here's a shot: what if the Muppet Show had a tell-all, non-politically correct, no taboo respected documentary made about it? It's an incredible piece of imagination, but not for the faint of heart. There's a scene that to me recalls the end of PINK FLAMINGOS...

Wait. Here's one sentence to describe it. Animals acting like people acting like animals.

MTF's desire to gross out it's audience is carried over from BAD TASTE, which was a cool exercise in DIY horror, it kind of feels like Jackson's version of EVIL DEAD. Unlike Sam Raimi's movie, Jackson plays 2 huge roles. And in one of those roles, imagine the love child of THE GOODIES Bill Oddie and WWE's Mick Foley as an alien invader..

What will make this entry more diary-like is the admission that last night, I wasn't as aware of the empty-nest blues...I could feel the upside of bachelorhood returning!

Thursday, August 12, 2004

Observations in traffic

Today, commuting south on Bundy in Santa Monica, around 5:30 pm...


Sorry, Ataki, if I am borrowing a motif of yours, but it was a weird one.

Two older guys, 50 - 60 years old. Southwest corner of Bundy & Venice, I think it was. They were having their own little anti-Bush rally. One guy had a salt-and-pepper beard (mostly salt), and it looked like in order to dry the beard, he would stick a fork into an electrical outlet. His sign read "Bush is a lying sack of shit." This was so hilarious to me, that I couldn't read the sign the other guy, skinny and bald, was holding. Something about the bald skinny guy reminded me of an engineer.

"Sir!"

A big blond in an even bigger car, an expedition, I think. She needed directions to the 405. I gave them to her, and warned her about how bad the traffic would be. She wondered if she should stick to the side streets, to which I said "It depends on how far you're going."

Long pause.

"All the way! Thanks!" And she sped off...

A woman madly gesticulating behind the wheel of her car; exchanging attempts to explain what she needed with the urgent offering of the middle finger of each hand, directed all at the car ahead of her. Through her strange digital patois, I think she was trying to communicate the following:

"You need to move forward so that I can turn right!" "Fuck you! Move it! Aw, what an idiot you are! Fuck you! Fuck you!" (left hand) "Fuck you!"

Now would be the time to click the title.

All of this and more, before I hit the 10 freeway. After that, it was a routine commute home!

My folding chair creaked a little tonight.

Wednesday, August 04, 2004

What's Wrong With dubya

Click the alliterative title...

Why has Bush got to go? Okay, I will list here, one good reason. If he is wins, he puts a small percentage of our country in charge of the rest of us. That group is the Bible-is-literal-word-of-God crowd. What's the most urgent issue facing this country RIGHT NOW? There more answers to that question than there will be people that read these words! But, YOU pick...

Our security

Bad economic policy

Improving schools

Fixing the environment

homelessness/urban decay/social security/giant radioactive monsters coming out of the ocean to destroy us...

...and on and on.

What's on Bush's mind more than anything else?

GAY MARRIAGE!

Weapons of mass distraction.

Why is gay marriage so important to Dubya? Because that's what matters to the ultra-conservative (and some not-so-conservative) Christians. Why should these people have so much power? Are YOU comfortable with the amount of power they currently yield? Should our Attorney General give a FUCK if statues behind him in photos have bare breasts? Sheesh! What is this guy, Taliban? He can't look at a REPRESENTATION of a nude woman without dropping both hands to cover his pee-pee?

Create your own similar sentence about Michael Powell, head of the FCC.

But, REALLY, why do they have so much power?

Because we don't participate.

We have a democracy; but it's like having a bike you never ride. It doesn't sustain itself. The right-wing Christians have ALREADY gotten what they wanted in President Bush. They elected him in 2000, and they will in 2004 if we let them.

Okay, they SORT OF elected him.

To me, as much energy as possible should be directed in 2 ways: voter registration in the swing states (remember Florida 2000) and voter turnout election day...

Sorry, but it looks like I've found something that I can just RIFF on!

Tuesday, August 03, 2004

So you wanna know about John Kerry?

The Democratic National Convention ended in Boston on Thursday of last week. This gave the country a glimpse at the man who should, and hopefully will, be president. Of course, the "should and hopefully will" designation can be applied to so many when you think of what Dubya and his cabal have done to the country.

At any rate, I haven't been this enthusiastic about a Democratic candidate since Clinton ran the first time. I voted for Ralph Nader in '96 (I was pissed at Clinton for signing the Welfare Reform Act of 1996, I have been a member of the Green Party ever since the day it was signed), and 2000.

Of course, in 2000, I thought "Wow, a decent showing for Nader will show this country that his message is viable, maybe we can get meaningful campaign finance reform enacted, help get our democracy back from the multinational corporations that really run things." Today I think: "Gee, our country is about to plunge into a flaming abyss, and its Dubya's abyss, not James Cameron's." At least Cameron's Abyss would be a little more entertaining. When you think about it, someone able to tie his own shoes should be able to beat Bush. The Democrats haved chosen a real American hero to run against a guy who 1) still can't prove he fulfilled his National Guard duty, and 2) when he TRIES to prove he did his duty, he reveals a connection to public enemy number one, Osama bin Laden (and STILL fails to prove he showed up for his duty!). How? You're going to have to shell out the dough to see FAHRENHEIT 9/11 for the answer to that one.

BUT: an excellent overview of Kerry's life and career are available if you click the title of this post. It will take you to a summary of Kerry's career compiled by the people that would know him best, the Boston Globe. THIS IS BY NO MEANS A PUFF PIECE. Read it!

This year, PUT ME DOWN FOR THE LESSER OF TWO EVILS! I don't care what you call it anymore, Bush has got to go!

Sunday, August 01, 2004

Another World

I will try to not always reference the distant past in this here blog; but I am doing so again this Sunday morning. Thanks to Carl Sagan, I have a very deep interest in and respect for science; the Voyager probes that took such amazing images of Jupiter & Saturn in 1979 - 1981 helped cement this interest/respect.

Well, people, human exploration is once again at Saturn's door. Click on the title of this post to see the images being relayed from the Cassini-Huygens probe; the probe is providing images that make the Voyager images look like the product of a 110 camera. Plus, Another World is the name of a comic book shop in Eagle Rock (on Colorado Bl., before you get into Pasadena) that I frequented as a mispent youth. I also got to see the likes of Ray Bradbury, George Takei (ha HA), and Roy Thomas read ficton there (the comic shop, not Saturn). Hello Mr. & Mrs. Costa!

There are a ton of images at the Cassini-Huygens site; but as you look them over, imagine each one as a vantage from a space station. HEY! We RIGHT NOW have a little robot orbiting Saturn. 2 robots are currently surveying Mars for us. Maybe in another 20 years (okay...60 years) Earth's astronauts will head for Titan and its space station as they head for even more daring journeys into interstellar space...and beyond...it's our destiny. We are children of the stars, our very bodies (in a much more basic form) once cooked in the heart of a gigantic sun. We will one day live among them as we today live among the suburbs of Los Angeles.

I owe the last parargraph to Carl Sagan, more or less. That isn't all I owe him.

"DATA! Spell 'knife!'"