We're the Roses

Forgive me my long absence, but it will have to go on for another couple of days.

My mother is in the hospital. She's been there since Saturday night. It's a damn good thing I wasn't out on the town that night.

She has atrial fibrulation, which is common enough that it's not so life-threatening, but it's heart-y enough to be really worrisome. She's tried to fix it with drugs. She's tried to fix it with good ole fashioned electricity. None of those worked so she's going under the knife...or under the diamond-tipped nanolaser. Whatever they're using now.

I'm not really clear on what is being done to her, but I can tell you confidently that my mind if focused only on that. And while she's having this procedure done at one of the best cardiac hospital in the world (lucky thing we live so close to DC, eh?), I still can't help being somewhat terrified.

I understand my parents' mortality, but I have never been this aware of it. I don't know that I'll ever accept it. I've been reassured that the procedure she is going to be having is safe and will likely stave off the kraken that is writhing in her chest, pretending to be a heart.

I just can't sit here and write about how Meet Dave is delightful for the first thirty minutes or how all of our nation's writing talent is being outsourced to India or the imminent shitcanning of between four and ten current NFL coaches.


I mean...I can, but my heart just isn't in it right now.

Stay with me, though.

Big things are coming.

Disappearing Act

Eddie Jordan was the coach of the Washington Wizards professional basketball club, but this morning he was shit canned.

Some would say he was fired or (more diplomatically) "relieved of his position", but there's no doubting this fact: he was shit canned.

Eddie Jordan came to the Wizards as a highly-regarded assistant coach from the New Jersey Nets.  His first season was rocky, with only 25 wins (out of 82 games), but in the following four years he led the team to 40+ wins and four straight playoff appearances, something that the Wizards haven't done since the late 80s.  Eddie Jordan has never had the luxury of a healthy team and his boss has proven less than competent the past two or three years, but Jordan found a way to lead his team to the playoffs.

In the offseason the Wizards failed to sign any relevant free agents and let Roger Mason, an important locker room presence and a solid player, sign with the San Antonio Spurs.  Oh yeah, they re-signed an enigmatic point guard who hasn't met an injury he didn't love to a 124-million-dollar contract that lasts until 2014, essentially handcuffing the franchise to the fate of Gilbert Arenas' knees.  Ernie Grunfeld, the man responsible for all of this, seems to be putting his faith (and our sanity) in the hands of a bunch of very risky gambles.  High reward, certainly...but still very high risk.

So naturally, as the Wizards plummet to the bottom of the standings, Ernie Grunfeld eliminates the only good constant in the equation: the coach.  

Eddie Jordan gracefully fell on the sword and is paying a humiliating price for the sins and misfires of another, untouchable man.  

On top of this, Jordan is being replaced by a man, Ed Tapscott, who has never had any NBA coaching experience.  In fact, he has no coaching experience greater than low-level, division 1 college ball, but I guess coaching American University to a scorching 109-117 record over eight seasons.  

Good.

Great.

It's going to be a long, long season.

Part 4 of A Serious Discussion: A Broad Look

4.

The problem with what this Greenville, SC priest did is much more broad and universal than we may think.  At the end of the day, who cares if a priest announces that his parishioners should repent for voting for Mr. Obama?  What he said does not matter anymore, nor will it tomorrow: nor has it ever.  

What matters is this priest's rationale.  It is clear that the priest believes that voting for Mr.  Obama (or any pro-choice candidate) is evil, against God's will.  

But here's the problem, true believers:

How do we know what God's will is?

Hell, how do we know that God even has a will?  

The very idea that God has a preferred candidate or holds the United States in higher graces than other nations is nonsense.  How arrogant and simple-minded does one have to be to assume they know God so well?  

Fundamentalists of all kind seem to think that they have a direct line to God's penthouse, whether they be televangelists, FLDS members, suicide bombers or what have you.  They use this phrase, God's will, to justify their beliefs.  So who is wrong?  Who actually knows what God wants?  

If you believe in an omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient God, isn't it counter intuitive in this case to claim that anything but an Obama victory was God's will?  If God is all-powerful, ever-present and all-knowing, how is Obama's victory not God's will?  I know so many people who went home and prayed for McCain's victory a couple Tuesdays ago.

So who was wrong?

Did God make a huge boner and accidentally give the election to Obama?  Did God foul this one up?  Was God wrong?

Or were they?

Or maybe the next three years are going to be seen as a test, like if God was telling us to take our kid up to the mountain and kill him, until the last minute when He pops out of a cloud and says "ZOMM, I was totally kidding...Just a test. PwNed!!".  Is God just pwning the fundamentalist Christian right or is it His will that Obama won?

What nonsense.  In all likelihood, God doesn't have a favorite candidate.  Or a favorite tv show.  Or a favorite ice cream flavor.  In all likelihood God created us and in His divine grace gave us the ability and tools to save ourselves.

Our hearts and our brains.

So instead of making crazy claims about which candidate God supports or who is going to hell let's stop for a second and think of what His will really is:  to lead a good life, to help more people than we hurt and to leave this world better than when we were brought onto it.

All of that other stuff...the words of clerics or priests, the books that are quoted nonstop, the small laws about what to eat or wear...all of that stuff is man's will.  It was that priest from SC's will that Obama lose.  It is his will that people not be able to participate in a crucial sacrament of their religion.  It is his will that the people who voted for Obama or support the right to choose are complicit in evil.

Not God's.  

In this life we will never come close to understand God, let alone God's will.

Part 3 of A Serious Discussion

3.

What I find most objectionable about the article I posted on Monday is Evangelical Christians are starting to refer to their antagonists as pro abortion instead of pro life.

Sure, at first it was annoying that the priest mentioned the penance in the first place, but I understand why he would do something like that. I think a lot of priests admire him for doing what he did: sure, it's self-righteous and presumptuous (which we will ultimately get to tomorrow), but it's not the worst thing a Catholic priest has ever done.

What the Christian Right can be blamed for is unfairly vilifying the Pro Choice camp by calling them "pro abortion".




Let's get it straight.
Nobody is pro abortion. Nobody wants to have an abortion. I'm sure there are some people who want them because they've turned the act into a sick fetish, but I'm 90% sure that most people who get them do so out of desperation. To call this group of people pro-abortion is not only factually inaccurate, but intellectually irresponsible.


But I've found that in most religious fundamentalism, there is one common denominator:


Intellectual Laziness

Stay tuned for Part 4 tomorrow.

A Serious Discussion in Four Parts: Pts 1 and 2 in Which the Author Explains His Views on the Issue

A couple of days ago a Catholic priest from Greenville, SC urged those of his parishioners who voted for Barack Obama to repent before accepting the Holy Eucharist, on the grounds that they were complicit in original sin since Mr. Obama is a pro-choice candidate.

I don't fault him for this, as I think his intentions were mostly good: a priest is the shepherd of a flock of people and when he sees them doing evil (as he and the Catholic Church see it), it is his duty to advise them to ask for Christ's forgiveness and accept the penance which is given to them by the priest. He was well within his right to do so, legally and morally.

In the following three days, I will discuss this incident because I think it's important. I think there's more to it than we may be seeing.

First, though, I should give some background into how I feel about the core issue: abortion.

1.

I think abortion is disgusting. I think the willful act of terminating a life is morally wicked, whether zygote or geriatric. Just because I can do something doesn't mean that I should. There are other options. Nor am I convinced that it is only a woman's choice. If I impregnate someone, I feel as though I should have the chance to discuss some options. I would never advise anybody to have an abortion. I don't know that I could. I think it's used less to save lives and more the shirk responsibility. Sex isn't for kids. It's a big deal and people should start treating it as such. If you want to go around fucking people willy-nilly, you may get pregnant. I don't think it's right that people can be so irresponsible and have this get-out-of-jail-free card.

However...

2.

However, I think abortion is a necessary evil. What happens if we criminalize it? Nobody is jumping out of their seats and getting pregnant just so they can get an abortion. It's not something people are doing for shits and giggles. Abortion seems to be the last vestige of hope for some people: those who have been raped, abused or just plain stupid. Criminalizing abortion is not going to make it disappear. This is where the pro-lifers are wrong. Abortion is like drugs in that sense. Just because meth is illegal does not mean that people are going to use it any less. That's the main thing about abortion: it seems to be all about desperation. If I was pregnant and the only option I saw was to get an abortion, I'd probably get one. I'm sure that many people who get abortions feel the same. If we make abortion illegal, we also lose the ability to regulate it. If we can't regulate abortion, anybody will be able to perform them for any price. Watch 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days, a movie about a desperate woman in Ceauşescu-era Romania where abortion is illegal, and you'll get a good idea what might happen if we criminalize abortion.

Wrapping It Up:

Abortion is nasty business. In a perfect world, nobody would need an abortion, but we don't live in a perfect world. Sometimes people need abortions and will go to any length to get them. If we criminalize the act, we lose the ability to ensure that it is done safely at a reasonable price. Call me a cafeteria Catholic all you want, but the people fighting for the right to life are so blinded by their own disgust for the act that they can't see the forest for the trees: they don't get that making abortion illegal will lead to even more death and upheaval.

Tomorrow: Parts 3 and 4

A Prelude to a Serious Discussion

Homework: read this article.

I'd write about it today, but I'm too steamed. My thoughts are too jumbled to write a decent entry about this without sounding unreasonable and missing my own point. So...bear with me, read the article and come on back Wednesday night (because I don't roll on Shabbos...I mean...I don't write on Tuesdays).

Queston: why is it that...

I like Marc Forster a lot. Of the five films he has made since 2000, four have been good. That's a pretty good track record, so I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. He has never directed a movie with a tremendous amount of action.

Martin Campbell, on the other hand, has not made many great movies, but he has made one good Bond movie and another great Bond movie. It's arguable that Casino Royale was the best Bond movie.

Quantum of Solace is a continuation of Casino Royale, a sequel of sorts.




So...why is Marc Forster, a man who has no real experience with the type of film Bond films are, directing Quantum of Solace instead of Martin Campbell?



I'm still going to see it, but funk dat. I'd like to see Martin Campbell finish what he started.

An Open Memo to Lavar Arrington

For those of you unaware of who exactly LaVar Arrington is, he's a former Redskins linebacker. He was drafted out of Penn State second overall in the 2000 NFL draft and played 5 seasons for the Redskins. He retired, due to injury, shortly thereafter. A couple of days ago he insulted his former coach and the owner of the Redskins.



LaVar,

I feel for you. I was sad to hear that your career ended so shortly and that you almost lost your young life in a motorcycle accident. I think your agents did you a great injustice in misreading your contract with the Redskins. I wish I could still watch you play almost as much as I wish I could still watch Sean Taylor play. Your career is a tragic reminder of how fickle fate it: one minute you're on top, the next you're rock bottom.

That being said, sir, I think you've made a mistake by calling Joe Gibbs a coward. A man who wants to spend time with his sick grandchild over making millions of dollars coaching football is not coward. A man who is willing to recognize his weaknesses and gracefully step away from a game that was an important and precious part of his life is no coward.

When the Redskins drafted you, LaVar, they were not looking for a roving maverick who played defense on his own terms. They were looking for a professional. They were looking for a stalwart to anchor a defense that was relying on a future-hall-of-fame cornerback and aging has-beens. If you had been more professional and followed the coach's game plan, maybe you would have had a longer, less disappointing career. There is no argument that you were an incredible talent, but the Redskins and the fans would rather have has someone a little more willing to shape his game to what the team needed. Someone like Brian Urlacher. If you asked a Redskin fan whether they'd have 5 years of you or 16 years of Urlacher, I'm sure that 90% would choose Urlacher.

My point is this, sir: you are not the only victim. The Redskins fans loved you and you let us down. Now this talk about Gibbs being a coward is you pouring salt into our wound. I think you're the coward for trying to malign two grown men because you can't taste anything but sour grapes. Wake up, LaVar! You were lucky to have played in the NFL: you should be a little more gracious to the people who drafted you, paid you, and LOVED you week in and week out.

I'd say that you should be ashamed of yourself, but it's very clear that you have no shame.

I wish you well and I hope your restaurant makes a ton of money. I still loved the years you were a Redskin.

But don't push it.

Love,
Jim

I had a chance to see Changeling, the new Clint Eastwood film, this weekend and I recommend it for anybody who is fascinated by serial killers. I guess serial killers are a little too morbid for some people, but there's something about people, who by most standards are as normal as you or I, feel compelled to kill people again and again. I don't have a favorite serial killer because...that would be weird...but I think the one who interests me the most is the Zodiac Killer.

Until I saw Changeling.

Serial killers usually don't shock me. Not much shocks me.

Until I saw Changeling.

It's not the best movie ever, so don't go see it hoping for whatever your favorite film is. In fact, I'd compare it favorably to Zodiac: a very well-made film that has a few too many flaws to be called great. The script is a bit trite sometimes, but when you consider that 95% of it came from public record you can't fault the screenwriter much. It goes on a bit long, but it kind of has to in order to fit in the right ending. It could end in a number of places and Eastwood could have tacked on a blurb at the end about what happens after the main story concludes, but he chose to show it. Maybe that was a mistake, but I'm not going to fault him for it.

The acting is what really sticks out to me...or maybe it was that Eastwood seems to know exactly what he wants his movie to be and knows exactly how much to pull from his actors in order to make a compelling film. It's probably a mix of the two.

Anyway, I've never been creeped out by a serial killer until seeing this film. Jason Butler Harner portrays Gordon Northcott in a way that is very unique. Instead of making the killer strong, silent and deranged, Harner makes Northcott slimy and pathetic, but also strangely endearing and sweet. That's why he's so damn creepy: because he's so likable. Once I saw what he did and found out what he was capable of, my jaw dropped.

There's not a whole lot written about Northcott, so I'm taking most of what I know about him from Changeling and wikipedia. I wish there was more to read on him and I'm surprised that there isn't anything to read about him. The Wineville Chicken Coop Murders were really big back then: they are the reason the city Mira Loma isn't called Wineville anymore. They confirmed to the public that the LAPD was (is) one of the most corrupt institutions in American history. Just look at the guy: doesn't he look fascinating?




Also, the cd listings are probably coming on Friday. I'll just do one massive post. Or something like that. The autumn cds are coming.

Autumn Mix Update and Crazy Covers

For the past 3 years, around this time of year, I’ve made an Autumn Mix CD. Since it’s the middle of November, I feel the need to make a fourth. It’s become a tradition, albeit one that two or three people know about, only two of which have reaped any reward from my efforts. Next Friday I will premiere of the fourth mix, which will be a two-cd mix like the mix I made last year.

I will also be listing and analyzing the first three mix cds next week, in part because the post where I got drunk and analyzed the mid-90s cd was enormously popular and also because I want a chance to write some stuff for the week after next before I post it.

So look forward to that.

I think the true test of greatness that any pop song faces is when it remains a great song when it’s covered by someone else. Take “Hit Me Baby One More Time,” which has been covered by many people, myself (and Doug) included, and it’s almost always good. Listen to Travis and Fountains of Wayne cover it: “Hit Me Baby One More Time” is a great song.

Not many songs pass this test, but Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy” is one that passes with flying colors. Listen to The Kooks, Shaun Colvin and Nelly Furtado cover it and you’ll realize something: “Crazy” is just a great song. Give it a try, have a good weekend and stay out of trouble.

The Youth Movement

Today Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck ascended to the Bhutanese throne, making him the youngest head of state in the world. He has already begun democratizing Bhutan and seems to be immensely popular with his people.

This makes me wonder whether electing members of the up-and-coming elite youth is such a bad idea. King Wangchuck, while still asserting his power over his country, is reforming Bhutan for the better. Foregoing the bull-in-the-china-shop help of the United States and spreading democracy gradually is probably a pretty good idea. His ascendancy gives me a lot of hope for the future.

It’s just Bhutan, though, right?

Wrong.

Bhutan is landlocked between India and China. Much like Switzerland and Her Alps (only on a much, much larger scale), the Bhutanese are protected from China by the Great Himalaya Range, making Bhutan a crucial territory for India and Her allies. Bhutan is a buffer, both geographically and emotionally, between two growing super powers and King Wangchuck can do a lot to ensure a peaceful existence between China and India.

So let’s all give a big cheer for King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck.

An Open Memo to America

Alright Mr. Obama...

We've invested ourselves emotionally and monetarily in you.
We elected you President.
We, as a nation, are entrusting you with our future.
We are handing you the keys to the '56 Bel Air that's sitting on blocks in our front yard (that's a metaphor, slowpokes).


Let's see what you've got.

Because whether we voted for you or Senator McCain, you're now our president whether we like it or not (for the record, I do like it).

Take a couple of days for yourself, but remember that January 20th is coming up really quickly.


McCain supporters...

Listen to your man's consolation speech again. It was the best speech he's ever given. He was right: all of the mistakes that were made were his. Instead of running his campaign like he did in 2000, he chose a different path and he's going to have to live with that for the rest of his life. He lost. He knows he lost. Go ahead and hang your head if it makes you feel better. You can even rant about how "Obama isn't your President" for a few weeks. Keep in mind, though, that McCain doesn't want a divided country. He wants all of us to serve America and support Her, no matter who is sleeping in the White House.

So get on board: your voice matters, too.


Obama supporters...

The game isn't over yet. There are still millions of Americans that don't agree on many of Mr. Obama's political profile. Just because their guy lost doesn't mean they are wrong. Just because our guy won doesn't mean that we are right. They are still Americans. They still matter. Remember that. Don't get upset when Mr. Obama puts a couple of Republicans in his cabinet. It's going to happen. It's a good idea. Lincoln did it and he's on money. Money talks, people.


The rest of the world...

Look out. We're back...and yes, we can.

My connection is on the fritz, but no worries. I'll still be posting.

On the eve of the election, I can't think of anybody better to link to than Patton Oswalt. Mr. Oswalt isn't just one of the best comics working today, he's also, arguably, the smartest: at the very least, he's the most erudite.

Here is a link to a post of his about John McCain. Fear not, my fellow R.I.N.O.s, it's not a biased rant about how McCain sucks. Quite the opposite. Just read it.


And You Will Be Fascinated By Defeat by Patton Oswalt

Chasm of Doom

Question of the Day

Is the chasm of hilarity between Kath & Kim and The Office bigger than the Grand Canyon?

Kath & Kim really is this unfunny, right? It's not just me? Right?

I feel bad for Molly Shannon and Selma Blair because I enjoy their work and they deserve a better show or at least a funnier one.

I wonder its replacement will be: maybe something funny?


What's your least favorite new television show?

Is This Music...Or Is It Nonsense?

I remember the moment I discovered The Killers (not the movie, but the synth-driven post-punk band (I remember discovering the movie, too. That's another story)): I was deejaying a radio show with my good friend Doug Roberts and we slid in Hot Fuss, their first album, because we desperately needed something to play. It's odd, now, thinking that The Killers were ever small enough to be considered independent, but in the midwinter of 2004 they were just small enough.

I don't remember which track we played, but I remember being kind of blown away because I'd never heard a contemporary band use synthesizers in the same way as The Killers. Most other synthesizer bands brought the synthesizers to the forefront, making them a novelty. The Killers blended them, seamlessly integrating the synthesizers into their melodies and harmonies.

I kind of lost interest in when they released their second album. They had gotten too big and the concept of the second album was not something that I was particularly interested in, even if it was a spectacular album. I really wouldn't know because I haven't given it too much thought.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, I saw my old friends The Killers on Saturday Night Live and they hooked me again. Something about the songs they're playing now interests me more than their last album. I am eager for the new album to drop in a couple of weeks.

I've been listening to the first single "Human" a lot for the past week. It's one of my favorite current songs. I even embedded one of the many youtube "music videos" at the end of this entry. Give it a listen. The synthesizers start off quite, like a faraway freight train, but it's full steam ahead toward the end.

The only thing that may bother you is one of the lyrics. I know it bothers me...a lot. In the chorus the lead singer asks whether we are humans or if we are dancer.


I'm not joking.

Are we human or are we dancer?

It's something out of the fever dreams of the love child of Frida Kahlo and James Joyce. I'm saying that it doesn't make any sense.

First of all, why "dancer" instead of "dancers"? Is dancer an ancient and unknown human archetype or some different state of being? Are not dancers human, too? If you tickle them, do they not giggle? If you refuse to dance with them at a party, do they not pout and call you an asshole? If you let them eat 3 of your onion rings, do they not disappear for 20 minutes only to come back flushed, eyes bloodshot? The point being: dancers are obviously human, so what is Brandon Flowers (lead singer and writer) smoking?


As it turns out: nothing. Flowers, a devout follower of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (that's a mouth full, so let's just call 'em Mormons from here out), allegedly lives the clean and sober life. So it must not be drugs.


The nonsensical lyrics isn't enough to make me hate the song. I've loved many nonsense-lyric bands, from the Red Hot Chili Peppers to Bob Dylan (look all you Dylan supporters out there: I love him and I think he's brilliant, but sometimes his lyrics don't make a lick of sense), but I demand an explanation.

I DEMAND SATISFACTION!


Here's the song.

Against Offices

I'm convinced that whatever created us, whether it be God or something more powerful and mysterious, it did not intend for human beings to work in an office environment.



Consider the gas situation, and this is one of many situations like this.

If you're sitting at work and start having horrible gas, you have to go all the way across the building to the public bathroom, where you're forced to serenade a bunch of random people in stalls with your body's natural, gaseous symphony. One of the most natural and pure acts is relegated to the semi-privacy of the gray-tiled darkness of corporate bathrooms.

I submit that if we humans were meant to work in an office that we'd have found a more suitable way to deal with body gas. Since we have not yet evolved sufficiently, I submit that all offices be moved either outside or all workers be allowed to expel their own gas openly. I'd prefer the offices being moved outside, but either way, we will overcome!

Jolly Old Saint Nick

Today on the news there was a story about the Tyson's Corner Center Santa. The mall recently terminated its contract with Santa because they were using a new photography company: a new company that wanted a new Santa. So the original TCC Santa got ticked off and filed suit against the mall.

Then the community got involved.

The community's outrage was so heated that the local, and eventually national, press picked up on it.

Now I'm fine with the story. The guy should have kept his job and is in talks with Tyson's Corner Center to get it back. Good for him.

What I do have a problem is ruining the mystique of Santa Claus. This story was on the 6:00 news. How many kids now know that Santa's name is Michael Graham? I feel like the Santa myth is a practice of public courtesy. If you don't believe it or don't want your kids to believe it, fine. But don't go fucking it up for everyone whose kids believe in Santa Claus.

It's been really difficult not to write about politics when all i hear about is political. I probably should be writing about how the McCain/Palin campaign is a joke or how they're using misinformation more than actual information. Or maybe I should talk about how George W. Bush and his buds are a couple of months away from getting away with swindling the American public and setting us back years, if not decades. Or how politicians seem to think Israel needs our help instead of the other way around (get real politicians: Israel has lasted almost 60 years surrounded by people that hate Her. They've fought numerous wars and have staved off a couple of intifada without the US getting directly involved. If anything, we need them. If Adam Sandler has taught us anything, it's that you do not mess with the Mossad.)

But I made a promise not to write about politics: a promise to you and, more so, a promise to myself.

I'm not perfect, though and as a compromise between not writing about politics and writing about them, I'm going to fill out a survey as completely and amusingly as I can. It's a total cop-out, I know, but it's all I've got tonight. Between nothing going on in the world but the Us Presidential Election and hating my job, I've got to let some things slide.

The survey is labeled as being "controversial," even if it's not that controversial. I stole it from my old friend Dawn from high school. Here goes.


01] Do you have the guts to answer​ these​ quest​ions and re-​post as The​ Contr​overs​ial Surve​y ?
I have the guts to answer this survey and fore go re-posting it on myspace. I'm taking this shit public, son! Do you have the guts for that? Burn!


[02] Would​ you do meth if it was legal​ized?​
I wouldn't do meth if it was mandatory. The list of things I would do before I'd smoke meth is so desperate and disgusting that it's virtually unprintable. Let's just say that something called the Cincinnati Bowtie would be prominently involved. There are way too many deal breakers with meth: meth mouth, tweeking, the possibility of blowing up while making it...the list goes on and on.

[03] Abort​ion:​ for or again​st it?
I'm mostly pro choice. Like if you ask me whether a woman should have an abortion or not, I'd most likely say that she can do whatever she wants. But if it's my girlfriend or my wife, I'd imagine it'd be a different story. Ultimately a woman should be allowed to do with her body whatever she wants, but it does take two to tango. If I impregnate a lady, I think I have a right to have a voice in the decision process. So, I think it should be legal, but I don't think aborting a fetus (whether it is a human yet or not) should be taken lightly.

[04] Do you think​ the world​ would​ fail with a femal​e presi​dent?​
The world isn't going to fail because of one person. This is a stupid question. No country or group of people fails just because their leader. Rome didn't fail because Romulus Augustus was a shitty leader. You can make the argument that a leader's ideas will help topple an empire, but I think it's the complicity and credulity of the empire's citizens that kills a country.

[05] Do you belie​ve in the death​ penal​ty?​
I'm honestly not sure where I stand on this.

[06] Do you wish marij​uana would​ be legal​ized alrea​dy?
I don't wish it was. I think it should be legal, but I'm not praying for it to happen. I think the government could probably make a whole lot of money by legalizing and regulating marijuana, so it's probably not such a bad idea.

[07] Are you for or again​st prema​rital​ sex?
I think people are more ready for it than others, but to take this one step farther, I am for teaching kids in various stages of school about sex and disease and birth control.

[08] Do you belie​ve in God?
I do. Not in a limited, narrow-minded way, though. If I believe that God is omniscient and omnipotent, shouldn't I believe that God is everything to everybody? What I do know for sure is that the concept of God is not something we will ever fully understand. I do know that Hell isn't other people, though: it's loving you. That reference should only be obscure to some of you.


[09] Do you think​ same sex marri​age shoul​d be legal​ized?​
I think it should be legal, but I also maintain that any religious organization has the right to disallow or refuse to recognize same-sex marriages. First and foremost, religion and government should be separated. If you start telling religions what they can and can't do, that opens up a lot of boxes that can't be closed. It's a complicated issue, but I believe that it is fundamentally wrong to make something legal for one group, but illegal for another. How is that different that the separate-but-equal south?

[10] Do you think​ it's wrong​ that so many Hispa​nics are illeg​ally movin​g to the US?
Illegal immigration hasn't directly effected me, so I can't complain about it. It sure is a problem in other parts of the country, though. I think the only way to fix this is to make Mexico, Central America and South America more habitable for people. Wouldn't that pretty much staunch the flow of illegals into America? I mean, they're not coming here to fuck everything up. They're coming here because living in the lower 3/4 of the Western hemisphere sucks. If Chavez, Calderon, Castro and Velez would be more like the Kirchners, Bachelet and (to a lesser extent)Garcia maybe that would happen. Unfortunately, the former seems either too megalomaniacal or weak-willed, so maybe it will take a little longer. I guess that's what you get in a leader: a real maverick and a guy who thinks he's a maverick, but is really just a politician who will say or do anything for a vote. Good thing it's not like that in OUR country...


[11] A twelv​e year old girl has a baby,​ shoul​d she keep it?
If she's had the baby, she couldn't abort it, so it seems like the only options are keeping it, giving it up for adoption, or the dumpster on the night of the fall dance. In that case, she should either keep it or give it up for adoption.

[12] Shoul​d the alcoh​ol age be lower​ed to eight​een?​
I think it should be lowered to 14, and here's why: if we learn to drink responsibly at an age before we learn how to drive, with our parents' supervision, maybe we won't all act like such assholes when we get drunk for the first time in college. Or maybe that's just me.

13] Shoul​d the war in Iraq be calle​d off?
Can we do that? If we can just do a Zack Morris "Time-Out" and just call off the war, yeah. Let's do that.

[14] Assis​ted suici​de is illeg​al:​ Do you agree​?​
I'm not sure, maybe? I see a movie like The Sea Inside and think that maybe it should be legal. Then I see a movie like The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and think it shouldn't. I wish someone would make a movie so I could form a definitive opinion on this matter.

[15] Do you belie​ve in spank​ing your child​ren?
I have never had kids, so I don't know. I think it can be done effectively, but I'm not sure that I would or could. I think spanking is an appropriate punishment for some things, but like abortion, it should be something that we do willy-nilly.

[16] Would​ you burn an Ameri​can flag for a milli​on dolla​rs?​
A million dollars is a lot of money.


[17] Who do you think​ would​ make a bette​r presi​dent?​
Whoever would surround himself with the most qualified Cabinet. I'd lead toward Barack Obama because he seems a little more open to the advice of people more qualified in a specialized subject as Mr. Obama is. That's one way that McCain seems like Bush: both seem to think their word is covenant.



[18] Do you think​ Obama​ will be kille​d?​
I think it's horrifying that we still live in a world where someone could hate an idea or a person or a group of people so much that they'd kill them. I don't think anybody deserves to be killed because someone disagree with them, but you know what? I've seen videos on youtube of some of McCain's supporters and I wouldn't put it past some nutjob to do it. I think it's despicable and disgusting to even think about, though. Whether you agree with his politics or not, Barack Obama (AND John McCain) are good, moral people. They don't deserve to be killed. Nobody deserves to be killed.



So that's it. Thanks for sticking with me. I hope you get some enjoyment out of this post.


If not, I leave you with this: a boy with impossibly chubby cheeks. Enjoy.

Standard Operating Procedures

I watched Errol Morris' excellent documentary about Abu Ghraib called Standard Operating Procedure.



The American military probably does a lot of fucked up shit that we don't know about. Like the difference between torture and "standard operating procedure" is very, very slim. Like being tied with electrical cords while in a stress position? That is standard operating procedure. One gentleman says that this is only someone being put into discomfort in order to obtain information. Humiliation, "softening up" and other uncomfortable things are considered standard.

My understanding is that torture is exactly that: being put into uncomfortable positions (not like a good-natured jibe at the expense of a friend's relative without knowing that the relative has passed away...not that kind of discomfort) to obtain information is exactly what torture is. I'm not totally against it, but let's call a spade a spade.

The more shocking thing about the documentary is how Morris humanizes the torturers, Lynndie England specifically. As it turns out, there's a lot more to the story than we heard in the news and now that I am privy to certain information, I feel a lot more sympathy for England. Yes, she did some pretty despicable things, but she's paid her fine to society and we should let her live her life.

The real crime here is that the people who approved of torture have not been punished. England and her ilk are scapegoats, to an extent, and I letting them take all the blame is just as despicable. England lives in infamy, raising the son she had with Charles Graner (one of the main instigators of the torture, who cheated on England with another of the torturers), and the people who approved of the attrocities walk free. I don't care whether you're a liberal or a conservative, this period of unaccountability in governmental matters has to end.

George Lucas, Bringer of Death or How My Brain Works After a Long Day and a Couple of Beers

I just watched Indiana Jones and The Legend of the Crystal Skull for the second time with my parents and I came to a chilling conclusion:

George Lucas might be Shiva the bringer of death.


After the last three Star Wars movies and the aforementioned Indiana Jones movie, I'm convinced that he's going to destroy the world next. I'm sure he's generally sweet and benevolent, but watch out for his next movie. I don't mean to alarm you, but his next film may really be a herald of the great world-eater Galactus.

He's writing a movie due for release in 2009 about the Tuskegee Airmen. If I was one of those men, I'd be so pissed off. They did something fairly incredible by breaking the race barrier in the air force and this is how they're repaid. If I was about to do something great and someone from the future told me that by doing so George Lucas would make a movie about me, I'd think twice before doing it. Seriously. It's like being told that Carrot Top would be playing you in the movie of your life. Wouldn't you work damned hard to change your life if someone told you that?

Am I racist for getting the Tuskegee Airmen and the Tuskegee Experiment mixed up or for thinking they were related? I don't get them confused because both involve African Americans. I get them mixed up because they both have the word Tuskegee in them. Does that happen to anybody else, because it happens to me ALL THE TIME. Like the name Britney and Whitney. That -itney just screws me up. I can't remember all of the times I've called someone Britney when they should have been called Whitney. Isn't that strange?

Isn't it strange how my posts tend to jump all over the place after I've had a few beers? Sorry for that.

War Machine

Terrence Howard couldn't look much more different than Don Cheadle. Normally, in the real world, this wouldn't be a problem. But since Don Cheadle will be replacing Terrence Howard in the sequel to Iron Man, it matters.  Only a little, but it still matters.

Neither of the actors can be blamed for this, least of all Don Cheadle, so I'm going to leave them out of it. Word on the street is that Howard wanted more money, but since Marvel thinks continuity is a waste of time, they've decided to get someone else in lieu of paying Howard what he has coming to him. When they make Iron Man 3 and Don Cheadle asks for more money, will they replace him with Bow Wow? They all look and act the same, right Marvel?


Okay, true believers, that may have been a little unfair. I'm almost positive that the good people at Marvel are not racists. They were pretty close to 86ing Tobey Maguire in one of the Spiderman movies because he was having some back issues, but they were going to replace him with Jake Gyllenhaal who actually does resemble Mr. Maguire somewhat more than Cheadle does Howard.

Still, though, if a movie is going to make a bundle of money, why not just pay the guy who was in the first movie?

Random Thoughts: October 15, 2008

1. ESPN is the clear leader when it comes to sports news. They seem to be able to break stories before anybody else and they have the prettiest, most accessible sports website in the business. Their vastly inferior rival is Sports Illustrated. Sports Illustrated used to be the be-all-end-all of sports journalism, but they have fallen on hard times, especially their website. Recently they posted a list of the best stadiums in the National Football League. The most glaring mistake is that Giants Stadium is ranked 5 or 6 spots higher than "Jets Stadium". The kicker? Both teams use the same stadium. Way to go SI.
2. I'm not positive why movies that don't need to be remade are green-lighted. Granted, some look better than the original, as is the case with the two Omen films, but for the most part the remake is worse than the original. The only exception I can think of off hand is The Departed, which I think is better than its Hong-Kongish (made up words FTW!) counterpart. I would prefer it if studios would re-release (and effectively market) the original.
3. Would Douglas and Lincoln cherish the idea of debate drinking games? Or would they, as I suspect, be rolling in their graves if they ever found out that young adults were using the Presidential debates as a reason to drink. While I'm thinking about it, would our ancestors be rolling in their graves if they found out that we needed to think of contrived reasons to justify having a drink or being drunk when "It's Wednesday" was good enough for them?
4. Is "al Qaeda second-in-command" officially the most dangerous job in the world? It has to be, right? Those guys are getting killed at a pretty rapid pace. Imagine if administrative assistant was that dangerous.
5. I don't wish marital strife on anybody, but this Madonna/Guy Ritchie divorce couldn't have come at a better time. We need something to bring us all together and I'm betting that "thing" will be a kickass Guy Ritchie movie. Or a great Madonna record. Either way, this divorce is a win-win for the general public.
6. I know I vowed to stay away from politics until after the end of the Presidential race, but it seems like McCain's whole campaign has been based on, at best, misrepresenting Barak Obama and at worst being intellectually irresponsible and manipulative just to get votes. No matter what you believe, I think it's a good idea to vote for the man who has a plan as opposed to voting for the guy who only says the other guy's plan is shitty. Just saying.
7. According to an article on yahoo, Ryan O'Neal, former star/current former star, and his 17-year-old son were arrested for drug possession. Both were in possession of drugs and pepper spray, which leads me to wonder two things:

• Why does Ryan O'Neal need pepper spray? I can understand why he may have needed pepper spray, back when he was palling around with Ali MacGraw (no progress on getting an interview with her, btw), but why does he need it now? Who knows what Ryan O'Neal even looks like now?
• Is Ryan O'Neal officially the worst father ever? He took Tatum O'Neal to parties when she was underage and seemingly introduced her to drugs, which she still has tons of problems with, and now this. Talk about poor judgement.

If You Got the Patience Celebrate the Ancients

Some of you lucky so-and-sos got the day off today. It's Columbus Day, after all. I wasn't so lucky, though. No matter. I still had a productive day and was forced to appreciate Christopher Columbus more than i ever have.

i overheard a person talking about Columbus and saying that he was basically a failure because he couldn't find his way to India. This person, who I see in between 4 and 6 days a week, mentioned that there were so many other explorers, so why celebrate a doofus? She had been complaining about it for about 5 minutes and I couldn't stay silent. Columbus isn't one of my heroes nor do I think he was the best explorer ever (Ibn Battuta anyone?), but he certainly wasn't a doofus.

Me: "Don't you think calling Christopher Columbus a doofus is a little short-sighted?"
Overheard Person: "No."

So that was that. The person clearly thinks just any Joe Sixpack can sail the ocean blue in 1492. Nothing special. No biggy.


Seriously? Sailing the Atlantic, even if you didn't reach your destination, is pretty impressive. Or maybe it's not. Tons of people did it before Columbus, right? A couple of people got there before Columbus, but they pissed off back to their own home country. Columbus isn't the celebrated because he got somewhere: he's famous because he helped prove (along with Vespucci) that this somewhere, where we all live, exists! He helped lead the way to uncovering half of the world! Sure, someone would have stumbled onto the Americas eventually, but Columbus helped people see that there was something over here, blocking them from getting to those precious spices. Columbus did some bad stuff, sure...but so did ALL of the explorers. That's kind of the nature of exploration, isn't it? Nobody back then explored for explorations sake. They did it for money and the people who paid them did it because they trying to gain an advantage over another country. So, I'm blowing a big Internet raspberry at everyone who thinks Columbus was just some doofus who stumbled on something bigger than himself. If that's the case, Alexander Fleming is a doofus, too, right?



In any case, Happy Columbus/Explorer/Indigenous Persons Day.

The Nobel Farce

Today the Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio and I would be fine with that if not for this article.

To recap for those that don't want to read the article, the gist is that a Nobel judge things the US is too irrelevant in the literary world to be considered for a prize.

Horace Engdahl, a permanent Nobel judge, says that "[t]he U.S. is too isolated, too insular. They don't translate enough and don't really participate in the big dialogue of literature," and that our collective "ignorance is restraining".


So instead of giving the award to any American author that deserved it (who apparently hasn't existed since 1993 when Toni Morrison won the award), they give it to an obscure French writer, who, by the way, lives in New Mexico.

The Nobel Prize is a great honor, but it loses some legitimacy when you consider how many brilliant writers didn't win: Tolsty, Chekov, Joyce, Borges, Nabokov, Auden, Twain, Zola and Ibsen come to mind. It's not as though the awards were given to better authors and the reasons for not awarding the writers listed above seem to be purely political.


So I don't think Le Clezio is undeserving (how could I: I've never read or even heard of anything he's written), but I think you could make a pretty good case for Norman Mailer, Gore Vidal, Joyce Carol Oates, John Updike, Cormac McCarthy, Carson McCullers, Truman Capote etc. ad nauseam. Is Le Clezio really a better written or more important culturally than anybody I've listed? I don't think he is, but (for those who may think I'm being a literary Jingo) is he more important than Rushdie or Amis or Margaret Atwood or Alan Paton or Chinua Achebe?

Not even close, right?

And to claim that the United States doesn't play a big enough role in the literary world? Really? The can't be true, can it?

The irony of it all is that the Nobel judge says that the US doesn't translate enough, but how many English translations of Le Clezio's 30 books have I found at my library?

One.

What Isn't Love?

Diet Pepsimax is a new soda being marketing the United States, although it seems to have been available in Europe for a couple of years. It is a low-calorie option for people who don't like diet sodas, but also don't really like regular soda. Whatever. The soda doesn't matter.

The advertisement does, though.

The people over at Pepsi decided to use a popular Saturday Night Live sketch as the inspiration for their new Diet Pepsimax add campaign. The problem? The popular Saturday Night Life sketch is over a decade old. The Butabis are two brothers, played by Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan, who go to clubs and dance with women in an awkward and invasive manner. It was a funny sketch and a watchable comedy, but as a commercial?

You be the judge.

This wouldn't have been a horrible commercial ten years ago. It's like Pepsi is living in the past: even all of the rappers are either irrelevant or on the verge. Macy Gray? Busta Rhymes? Jeez. Was DJ Kool Herc too busy? Couldn't find any footage of Al Jolson?

The cool thing about this commercial is the meta-scene at the end, where Chris Kattan tells the people in the commercial to stop doing the Butabi dance. It's like I'm Chris Kattan and I'm telling the commercial to stop. Because that's what the commercial should do. Just stop.

Back in Action

I've made a lot of promises to my readers and I've broken all of them. I feel horrible about that so I'm starting anew.



I decided against watching the debates tonight. It's not that I don't care about it or that I am trying to be willfully ignorant. I'll read about it and ruminate at length on its implications. I'm just not interested in watching it. I know who I'm voting for. I know why I'm voting for him. Furthermore, I'm confident that my electoral vote is going to the man I'm going to vote for whether I do or not. If you know anything about Maryland, you'll know who I'm talking about, but, if not, his name rhymes with Barack Obama.



I've reached an election overload. My election reactor has reached critical mass. I'm going to do all I can in the next month to not think about the election without losing a grasp of what is going on in this country.

So that's why, from now until the election, I'm going to be avoiding everything political in this blog. I'm not saying that you should avoid reading anything political, but I do urge you to join me here and take a rest from all of the politics. Think of the next month as a sweet respite, shelter from the storm.


Now who's comin' with me?

Emmy Amuse-bouche

Since there's a scheduled blogger outage soon and I know it will take me more than an hour to finish the Emmys blog, I'll have to do that one for Saturday.


I will give you a quick taste, though.

There were many surprises at the Emmys, some good and some bad. The nicest surprise for me, though, was the supporting actor for a drama award. I was sure that William Shatner would win for Boston Legal in part because he's supposed to be good in it and also because Emmy seems to simply adore him. I was hoping that my second pick would win, John Slattery, but I guess you can't win an award for looking amazing in a gray flannel suit. Tension was building as the two unmemorable stars announced the nominees. Then they opened the envelope and one of the presenters said the two most beautiful words known to mankind.

Zeljko Ivanek.

I was so happy because he did so well in Damages and he should be rewarded for bringing that character to life with such skill, depth and thoughtfulness. Part of that is the writing, as it usually is, but Ivanek really stepped up to the plate and hit a home run. So congratulations Mr. Ivanek. I hope this opens up many new doors to you and your zombie face. I mean that in the best way.

Sorry guys.

Okay, so I'm being a real tease about the Emmys post, but I have plans for tonight.

Mom and I are going out to dinner and when I get home, I don't anticipate wanting to write up a long post about the Emmys. So...tomorrow you will all be rewarded with the Emmy post.


I hope you don't think I'm leaving you empty-handed though.

A discussion: on a scale from 1 to 10, 10 being the tops, how surprising is Clay Aiken's admittance that he is indeed of the homosexual persuasion? First and foremost, good for him for living his life and damning the proverbial torpedoes on this news. He could have waited until he was totally irrelevant, like Dick Chamberlain did.

I was thinking it was as surprising as finding out that Anna Nicole Smith died of a drug overdose. It just seems like one of those "Oh really." moments. Like in Boogie Nights, when one of the porn stars' girl is overdosing on coke, nose bleeding and mouth foaming, and he says "I think I bought some bad coke" and the main porn investor says "Oh really Doctor."

I love that scene.

DJ Khaled

I've always been prone to impulse buys. When I have money sometimes I'll buy something unnecessary. To be clear, most of the stuff I buy is already unnecessary, but these impulses? Even more so. It's never anything big and I refuse to spend beyond my means, but if I see a CD that I think I might like, I'll usually pick it up.

Like last Friday when I picked up DJ Khaled's new album. I should stop right here because calling it "his album" is a bit inaccurate. It seems like all he does, like all the other DJs, is put the songs on the album. He has a good ear for talent. The stars and the newcomers on the album are good. What could go wrong with Kanye, Akon, Rick Ross, The Game, Nas, Jim Jones and more on your album?


Well, I'll tell you. DJ Khaled seems to fancy himself a hype man, feeling the need to scream his name and other hiphop phrases at the beginning of every song. If he wanted to do some kind of skit at the beginning of the album hyping himself, that'd be acceptable. It'd even be expected. But on every track?

Mr. Khaled...I already bought your album. I don't need to be yelled at. Yes, I know you're the #1 hustla or whatever, but I spent my hard earned ten bucks on your CD to hear Kanye and Nas rip shit up, not you hyping yourself and giving shout outs to the nearly irrelevant Terra Squad.


Tomorrow I'm going to be writing about the 2008 Emmys. It might be more entertaining than the actual show.

I'll be taking the rest of the week off because I need to start fresh with posts that I've written before-hand.

Tune in Monday for a new, improved blog.
Next Friday also marks the return of guest blogging. Get excited for a new post by Beth Seavers.

Thank you for your patience.








I will be doing an post about the Emmys on Sunday morning, though. Maybe an Emmy running diary.

The Little British Invasion

Little Britain was a sketch comedy show from Britain and has since been reproduced by the original creators for the US. HBO immediately picked it up and the first season starts soon.

I'm really excited for this show, even though I don't have HBO, because it's one of the funniest sketch shows I've ever seen. Most of the funniest sketch comedy shows I've seen are British.

I've embedded some sketches below, for your pleasure. Some are not safe for work.





I think this show is brilliant because, unlike most sketch shows, it's done by two people. It's rare to find two actors that can play anybody with flair and humor, but David Walliams and Matt Lucas shine. I'm really happy that America will finally see these two funny gentlemen at work. Both Lucas and Walliams have found success outside of Little Britain (Lucas is rumored to be playing Tweedledum and Tweedledee in Burton's Alice in Wonderland, while Walliams was the voice of the bear in Prince Caspian and they are pretty famous in the UK, but they're unknown over here. I especially admire Lucas for committing to the gag even if it means bearing too much or himself (both physically or personally).



So despite the fake stories (thanks Tim Curran) about the "West Hollywood Gay and Lesbian Alliance" (which apparently doesn't even exist) branding the show as obnoxious and offensive, I think everyone should give it a try.

The Mountain Meadows Massacre: September 11th 1.0

Yesterday we remembered the lives lost and affected by the September 11th attacks: the loss was tragic and I'm sure we'll never forget it.


Or will we?

We certainly haven't remembered the Maine! Pearl Harbor seems to be becoming a bit of an after-thought. And nobody even knows what the Gulf of Tonkin incident is (or if it was even real, huh Lyndie?).

There are pros (mutual friendship and trust) and cons (forgetting how reactionary We are) to forgetting.

Hell, the air attacks on 9-11-01 was not even the first attack on Americans by religious zealots.

On September 11th, 1857 a militia of Mormons massacred a wagon trail of Arkansas emigrants, who were heading to San Francisco. The attacks seem to be a result of Brigham Young's (I don't want to hear that he had no idea it was happening.) growing paranoia over an impending scuffle with the US Army. While this paranoia wasn't unfounded by any means, massacring 140 people who were literally just passing through is ridiculous. It's a big, black mark on the Church of Latter Day Saints' record. It's that, blood atonement, and plural marriage (pretty soon they'll be caught up with the rest of Christianity). The Mormons were never attacked by the Army and the Mormons acquiesced to the government's desire to ban plural marriage, so everything turned out okay in the end. Except for those 140 innocents and the remaining 12 children that lost everybody they knew. I'm over-simplifying it, so I urge you to pick up a book about the massacre or read the wikipedia page about it. But don't rent the recent movie based on these events. Just don't. It's horrible.

Crazy Ideas I've Been Thinking About For A Week #1

If the biggest elephant in the political room is partisanship, why not try something to address it? Instead of this endless circle of senate majorities and minorities, wouldn't it be worthwhile discussing some options?


Let's start in the Senate. I have no position of power and my opinions are somewhat ignorant, so I don't feel too bad if this sounds totally naive, because it most likely is. Naive and crazy...like a fox. Wouldn't it be fun, maybe just for a short period, to have voters vote for one Republican and one Democrat Senator, regardless of one's politics? So you're have 50 Republicans and 50 Democrats in the Senate. That leaves out guys like Benedict Lieberman and Bernie Sanders, but both caucused with the Democrats...so...let's just call them Democrats. I have a feeling that Lieberman is only Independent so he could retain his position as Senator. Maybe I'm wrong, though.

Anyway...I know there would be a bit of a logjam for a while, but the result might be really good. Imagine a legislative branch that wasn't about party politics and lobbyists and pandering to bases. Maybe with the small ideologies that keep us, as Americans, apart, like abortion or same-sex marriage, would either cease mattering Federally or trickle down to the State governments, the way they should! Imagine a legislative branch that actually checked and balanced! Maybe politics would stop being about winners and losers and start being about the people. There's too much power in Washington and not enough humility. Politicians are only there because we allow them to be.

I think both Liberals and Conservatives can both agree that after 200+ years of beautiful democracy, something is a little off about our government. I don't think it's the small things that keep both parties and ideals apart: essentially we're all the same. We all want to have happy lives. So why do we continue to settle for politicians that don't seem to care about that?


I just think if we're both forced to vote for a Republican and a Democrat, we'll make our votes really count. Our democracy isn't meant to be a static, unchagning thing. It should evolve with the times and this may be the first step into perfecting it. Or maybe I'm drunk on sleepiness.

Danger!

This morning I posed a question to two of my very good and loyal friends: would they remain my friend if I grew out my beard, got a very dark tan and changed my name to Osama Jim Laden?

Both said yes, even when I amended the name to Osama Jim Danger. The loyalty of my friends aside, I came away from this experiment with a strong conclusion.

In the spirit of tomorrow's scientific experiment (which is getting little-to-no airplay), I have concluded that "Danger" Jim Eustice is a great name. Like if I wrestled professionally or was an adventurer.


Still, fell free to refer to me as Danger Jim. Kind of like Ranger Jim. Let's make this thing stick, people.

Baking for Novices

This Wednesday, deep beneath Switzerland, the biggest particle-collision we know of, since the Big Bang, will take place.

That seems exciting. I'm excited for it to happen. I'm not sure what the point is...just to show what a millionth of a second after the Big Bang was like? Kay. Awesome. I'm psyched.

It's a pretty big step and maybe it will take some of the "theoretical" out of "theoretical physics," which is good. It doesn't really prove anything, but still...awesome stuff.


And really, what could go wrong?
Tiny black holes? An unexpectedly gigantic explosion?

I'm for scientific breakthroughs, don't get me wrong...but have you ever tasted a cake that has been baked without a precise recipe? Pretty nasty.

Let me rephrase: if we don't know how the Big Bang happened, how can we safely reproduce it? What if the Big Bang was the result of a much smaller particle collision? I mean...if that's the case, we'll never know, but...I hope this cake doesn't taste like shit.


Sometimes I agree with Patton Oswalt: "Science: we're all about coulda, not shoulda".



I should mention, though, that I know little about what goes into this experiment or what it may lead to. Again, like Patton Oswalt, my knowledge of science goes as far as "salt is salty".

Augusten Burroughs is Full of It

I've read almost every one of Augusten Burroughs' books and, for the most part, have enjoyed them. There's a certain sensationalism that appeals to me, mostly out of schadenfreude, I suppose. A couple of years ago, the Turcotte family sued Burroughs for defamation and invasion of privacy because they felt that Burroughs took certain extreme liberties, painting a more negative (and it's pretty damn negative) picture of the Turcotte family. I've never been completely sure who is telling the truth because both parties have ample reason to lie, but I've always sided partially with the Turcottes because Burroughs did settle out of court, changing Running With Scissors from a "memoir" into simply a "book". Either he was the one lying or, more likely, he has much more to lose (like a lucrative career in an industry that is hard to break into).

Now, after reading the first sentence of his new memoir, A Wolf at the Table (about his messed up father), I am fairly convinced that Burroughs is full of shit. The book starts off with a passage, from his own perspective, recalling him sitting in a high chair looking at the world through a tiny hole in a saltine. It's a dynamic image and a creative way to start a book (kind of...not like it hasn't been done by better writers like Grass and Joyce), but it can't be a genuine memory, can it? I'm not sure why I feel like a beginning like that is such a slap in the face or why I feel like my intelligence is being insulted, but that's my first reaction. I couldn't read any more. I wanted to read the book at first, but after reading the first sentence I was totally put off.

I understand that writers use stuff that isn't real all the time. Every writer exaggerates; I certainly have exaggerated plenty of times on this very blog. So I guess I'm a bit of a hypocrite for getting so upset with Burroughs.

Or maybe I'm just jealous that he seems to have found a way of getting away with it.

What Lies Beneath

When the candidates spoke last night, I couldn't help thinking that some of the stuff they said couldn't be true. Thank god we have yahoo to fact check for us.


Read this article.

Some Random Unconnected Thoughts on Music, Movies, Politics, and...Bodily Functions?

1. Sometimes it takes me a very long time to discover something and learn to love it. Like Stevie Wonder or The Rolling Stones or Bob Dylan. I disliked all of those guys before I started listening to whatever I could get my hands on six years ago. I consider these artists my flip-flopping-libido artists. I'll explain: when I was in middle school, my friendly neighbor and school mate Mark showed me a picture of a naked lady. Not just the bewbs or the butt, but the whole thing. The full Montgomery. Upon seeing the area from which we were all spewed forth (to put it delicately) I gagged. I thought lady business was possibly the most disgusting thing I'd ever seen. I even remember asking, aghast, whether we were supposed to like that...thing. Needless to say, I got over that pretty quickly. It wasn't a process as much as it was like a light switch had been turned on. My new attitude toward this infamous area was enthusiastic and awestruck. Kind of like with the Stones or Stevie or Dylan. I used to dislike them to the point of disgust, but now I'm going out to clubs looking for some hot Dylan or trying to get a Wonder-job. Or something like that. The newest band to enter the hallowed realm of flip-flopping-libido-bands is Vampire Weekend. I bought their album because Doug said they were good. The first time I listened to them, I couldn't get past their sound: sounded a little too much like Rusted Root to me, which is a HUGE deal-breaker. I decided to listen to them at work because I didn't have anything better to listen to. Thank God for that. Vampire Weekend is amazing. I feel like they could blow up and become huge any time. They may already be huge for all I know.
   
2. A great musician died recently. LeRoi Moore was the saxophonist for Dave Matthews Band and was arguably the most talented of the bunch (in my opinion). I know he was instrumental in bringing the sax back into popular rock and he was great at what he did. He was my favorite part of DMB...the only part I liked, honestly. He went to the same college as me, apparently, which is cool. He'll be missed. Maybe we will find a silver lining in this premature loss. Possibly the dismantling of Dave Matthews Band? I hope so. Pretty tragic all the same.
3. I overheard a kid in Blockbuster saying that he couldn't watch a certain movie because it was made by Columbia. It's strange when you have the same basic rules as a four-year-old.
4. Should the democrats avoid being hypocritical or should they pull a Swift Boat and question John McCain's service record? I lean toward being classy about the whole thing, but...doesn't his military record deserve to be scrutinized? A big part of his campaign is predicated on him being a war hero. I feel bad about him being a prisoner and I'm glad it wasn't me, but was his mission to be shot down and imprisoned? What part of "P.O.W." is synonymous with "successful wartime experience"? It's not as if he commanded an army during a legitimate conflict, like Clark did. For all the backlash Ole Wes took for calling McCain out, I agree with him.
5. The more I hear about Sarah Palin, the more I think I might be dreaming. Someone pinch me, please?
6. I don't know the proper way to fart at work. I'll put it out there. I'm not embarrassed. I get gassy at work and I don't know what to do. I can't leave my desk 5 or 6 times an hour to let go of one. At the end of the day I come home, like a Slitheen, and blitz my bathroom with a barrage of toots. I feel bad for my roommates (aka parents), but what can I do? That's not a rhetorical question. Really...what can I do? I already asked my friend Joe (who may be the next guest writer. Remember those?), who I consider to be the Sultan of Stink and he gave me some sound advice, but as I told him...something cranky and mean lives up inside of there and it's not welcome in front of others.
   

This post grossed me out. Sorry.

I intended to do a great many things this Saturday past, but as a result of Doug Roberts' housewarming and the ensuing four-person after party(not to mention many Miller Lites) I eschewed all social interaction and holed up in my room all day. After my respite, I found that my roommates (read: parents) had already had dinner.

I dragged myself up and drove to Whole Foods, mostly because the night before a bunch of party goers, as all party goers do, were talking about an alien store named Wegman's. I decided Whole Foods was the closest, most expensive alternative...I may have been wrong, but judging by the amount of money I spent, I doubt it.

I bought a ribeye and some spinach, realizing that I have terrible luck cooking beef. I decided on cooking it in a regular, non-non-stick pan and butter, basting it periodically while it cooked on the range. I'll reitterrate that I am shit at cooking beef. This time, though, some delicious miracle occured and I produced the best steak I've ever had. I deglazed the pan and wilted my spinach at the same time, the by-product of which was pretty amazing. I couldn't even eat the whole thing. Not because it was too much (although it probably was), but because I knew how incredible it would taste cold over a salad (which I have just eaten for dinner. I was right).

There's nothing quite like cooking. It's an art, but also a science. It's the ultimate expression of fondness and caring, I think. Cooking for someone, whether they need the meal or not, is telling them that you care enough for them to sustain their lives, albeit on a small scale. So, clearly, if nobody is cooking for you...somebody wants you to die.

All kidding aside...I've decided that in the near future (2 months or so?) I'm going to have a dinner party. 5 courses, limited attendance. Because we're adults now and that's what they do, right?

Sarah Palin: A Political Paradox

I'll be the first to admit that I nearly did a spit-take when I on CNN that McCain picked the unknown governor of Alaska as his running mate. I let out a very audible gawp of surprise, causing all of my co-workers to look at me. I furrowed my brow and looked as though I was working on some particularly hard data entry to throw them off the scent of my lack of productivity at that moment.

I can't stress enough that I'm not sure Sarah Palin is right for the job right now. A lot of people are making a big hubbub over her political standings, most of which I disagree with, but that's not why she's unqualified. You can read copious reasons why people believe she is wrong for the job on the horrendously misguided message board of the facebook group "Sarah Palin is Not Hilary Clinton"* if you choose to do so.

I can't hate her for being anti-gay or anti-choice or anti-science: in fact, I can't bring myself to hate her at all. She's an honest woman who sticks to her guns (literally and figuratively) and I respect that a lot...even if her guns are rusty and old. She's not unqualified because she has conflicting beliefs.

She's unqualified because she's governing a state that is vastly different from every other state in the union. Alaska isn't like the rest of the country. It's just not. What is good up there (Palin is arguably good for up there, as her approval rating is enormously high: 89%) is not necessarily good for down here. The fact that she is one of the most popular governors in the country, judging by approval ratings, says something about Alaska. Alaska in comparison to the continental US is like comparing apples and...baseball bats.

How can she possibly have any frame of reference for what is good for our country as a whole? That's why she's not a qualified candidate and it's a shame McCain doesn't realize this. The sad thing is that I do think it was a smart pick. She's going to take some of the disenfranchised Hilary supporters away from Obama (which is kind of silly seeing as how Clinton is more like Obama than McCain when it comes to policy), so let's hope McCain finds a way to screw things up irrevocably so that we don't have to find out whether they're good for the country.





* The first problem I have with the name of this group is that it presumes that we can't tell the difference between the two. The message board is full to the brim of "feminists" spouting off about how Palin (a self-described feminist) is anti-woman. Yet the title of this group implies that there are those that can't tell the difference between two completely different women. We're not idiots. They're also presuming that there were not people who voted/supported Clinton only because she was a woman! Like it was okay for some ill-informed voters to support Clinton because she's a woman, but not the other way around. There's one particularly cantankerous young Iowan who claims that Palin is a "fucking idiot" and doesn't know the meaning of being a feminist. Ah...there's nothing halfway about the Iowa to treat you. First, to imply that there is a certain way in which a woman should be a feminist is inherently sexist in itself. Feminism doesn't have a owner's manual. Secondly, I'd counter our young Iowan with: "What the hell do you know? You're 19. You go to a great college. She's been a beauty queen, a governor, a sports journalist, has taken on the pork-barrel spending of Alaska political mainstays like Ted Stevens (she nixed the Bridge to Nowhere plan, which should be praised more than it is) and is now is entering into one of the last vestiges of glass-ceiling sexism: the United States presidential race. I think she knows a thing or two about being subjugated, so give her some credit where credit is due." I'm glad I got that off my chest.