Mouse Track memories

Sparked by reading the new Mouse Tracks: The Story of Walt Disney Records book (reviewed last month in Cartoon Brew), I thought I'd talk a little bit about the records of theirs I remember best from my own childhood.

I suspect that part of whatever creativity I've got going for me (he said pretentiously), as well as my sensitive ear for dialogue, comes from listening to records like these, as well as, later, the great radio shows of the '40s and '50s.

The first Disney record I think I remember listening to may have been the soundtrack album to their Babes In Toyland. But I have no idea whether it was the one featuring members of the original cast or the complete re-recording with a second (cheaper) cast. Something we learn from the book was not at all uncommon. I just remember liking the song where Tom disguises himself as a gyspy fortuneteller before revealing himself in the last line of the song.

Then there's 101 Dalmatians. The version I remember had a title song that didn't appear in the film but has been stuck in my head for oh, not long, about 34 years. One hundred and one (Woof! Woof!), one hundred and one (Woof! Woof!) one hundred and one dalmatian puppies...

And Mary Poppins. All children born anytime in the 20 years since the films first release had to have a copy of this recording, especially since in the days before video, they used to periodically rerelease their films to theaters and make yet another packet that way.

I think it's Leonard Maltin in his Disney Films book who says so much has been said about MP it's hard to know what to say about it at this stage. It's such an excellent movie, one of Disney's best, and the songs are so beautiful and memorable.

The Winnie The Pooh records, especially Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too, and Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree.

Aw, man, the best songs ever-"Tubby little cubby all stuffed with fluff..." "The wonderful thing about Tiggers, is Tiggers are wonderful things!"-and the voice of Sterling Holloway. If the Disney corporation spoke with one voice, it would be Sterling Holloway. "I'm so rumbly...in my tum-bly!"

And Paul Winchel, lest we forget, even though, I also learn from this book, he didn't sing Tigger's song on record, Sam Edwards did.

The Jungle Book. First of all, this is probably my personal favorite Disney soundtrack of all time. Not just the songs, but the entire score, and the voice performances. And it led to a terrific record-only sequel, More Jungle Book. I haven't seen the movie sequel Disney released a few years ago and probably never will, there's no way it can be better than this. If for no other reason than that it was recorded while Phil Harris was still alive to play Baloo-and according to the book, contribute greatly to the story as well. It had Louis Prima back as King Louie, too.

Robin Hood. Roger "King of the Road" Miller's performance as narrator Alan-a-Dale, his songs, and Peter Ustinov as Prince John are probably the best things about this movie, which is not generally held to be one of Disney's finest.

In fact, this is probably the only animated feature of which I can honestly say I would rather listen to a record with the music, dialogue, story and songs, letting my imagination fill in the rest, than watch the movie!

The songs are great. "Not In Nottingham." "Oo-De-Lally" (Never ever thinkin' there was danger in the water, They were drinkin', they just guzzled it down...), "Whistle Stop," “The Phony King Of England."

Although Ustinov doesn't get to sing a song, he does get one of my all-time favorite Disney lines:

"This crown, Hiss, gives me a feeling of power! Power! (Forgive me a cruel chuckle) Power."

The whiskery-voiced Pat Buttram is great as the Sheriff, too.

Dickens Christmas Carol with Mickey Mouse and Scrooge McDuck. This original musical for record was released seven years before the short film on the same theme. As I imagine More Jungle Book is, this is the superior to its film cousin in every way. Alan Young played Scrooge for the first time and also wrote 99% of the script, including a mispronounciation by Goofy which has been hanging around my head for 30 years. "I'm doomed-doomed!" pronounced as if "doomed" rhymes with "humid."

Now we come to some records I'd forgotten were released on the Disney label, because they're not from the soundtrack to Disney films.

They distributed the soundtrack recordings to the Charlie Brown television specials. It says here:

Some of the albums, such as A Charlie Brown Christmas, were direct lifts from the soundtrack, while others, including Charlie Brown's All-Stars, combined soundtrack dialogue with new voice work by the current Peanuts child actors.

This explains why the All-Stars special never sounds the way I remember it in my head when I see it today. The record is one of my favorites, along with Christmas and You're In Love, Charlie Brown. But there's something that's always bothered me about it.

Why does Linus join the other kids in yelling at Charlie Brown when he tells them they're not going to get uniforms?

Not only is that not in his character (I don't think) it makes even less sense in the context of this special, since Linus already knows they're not getting uniforms, and a moment later he's informing the others of why Charlie Brown turned them down. Glad I got that off my chest.

Anyway, I love the score that swells up at the very end when Linus tells Charlie Brown "They made your uniform out of my blanket!" I've never found that exact recording on any of the Charlie Brown music CDs.

On the other hand, it's probably best that we not say much about the instantly-dated Flashbeagle.

Finally, The Hobbit.

The music, usually by Maury Laws, was a highlight of all the Rankin/Bass specials, and this was arguably his crowning acheivement. I was always surpried a CD rerelease didn't happen while Hobbitmania was sweeping the land, although the special was put out on DVD.

I value the special so highly it's one of the reasons I can't get on board the why-doesn't-Jackson-do-The Hobbit-next train some are on. I'm sure it would be great, but...

These, then, are (some of) the sounds of my childhood.

Okay, the Joel Siegel/Kevin Smith/'Clerks II' thing

As one or two of you may have heard, movie reviewer Joel Siegel caused a scene at a "Clerks II" screening recently when he walked out midway, loudly announcing his intention to do so. Smith, rightly taking this as a golden opportunity to promote his rebel persona, has been posting about it on his blog and doing a radio talk show appearance or two about it.

In Scanners, Jim Emerson links to Smith's blog entry of the subject, and writes:

(WARNING: If you follow the link to Smith's blog above, be prepared to scroll down through various merchandising offers before getting to the posting itself; and, of course, you should expect lots of profanity and comments about donkey shows and mustaches and ejaculate -- that incorrigible Smith je ne sais quois!)

He then offers his

Full disclosure: I once liked a Kevin Smith movie ("Dogma"), and I haven't seen "Mallrats" or "Jersey Girl." Others, however (especially "Clerks"), have been painful experiences for me. I feel like an accused Communist writing this, but it is my full confession. Indeed, when an aspiring indie filmmaker (who has since had considerable success) once asked me for some directing advice, I told her to watch Smith's films to see exactly how not to shoot a movie, especially a comedy. She recently wrote to say she had heeded this advice, and to thank me for it. She is more than welcome. You can learn a lot from watching bad movies, and Smith's are every bit as hacky as Michael Bay's. The only difference is that the budgets are generally a bit smaller.

I've liked more of Smith's movies than Emerson has, and I've seen them all. I wrote about them at length in my review of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, which is one of the ones I liked. But as you can see in that review, I bought everything Smith was saying at the time about how this was his "hail and farewell" to those characters, and now he was going to try to become a more mature filmmaker.

Well, funny story. "Jersey Girl," his first attempt at such a film, came out and bombed the way it deserved to bomb, it was jaw-droppingly bad. Next thing you know, Smith discovers that why yes! He does have more to say about his Abbott and Costello team after all!

To which I said fine, but let's not pretend he has any more credit with the artistic bank, hmm? To coin a phrase, A Whore Like All The Rest.

(According to some reports, Smith did "Clerks II" not just because he's looking to suck the last drops from his fan base, but as a reward to Jason Mewes for getting sober. This may make him a good friend, but it doesn't make him a good artist.)

(On a matter completely unrelated to writers trying to suck the last drops from their fanbase, it was announced recently that Joss Whedon would write a "Buffy" sequel comic book series. And the creativity continues.)

So, the news that Smith was returning to his "View Asknewverse" already had me halfway turned around about him. It got worse when he published his "collected writings," which led me to predict he was now entering his "Mel Brooks in the '80s" phase. I had more to say about the book, which you can see in the Amazon link above.

I'd been thinking of posting something about this Joel Siegel thing, either in comment on All Along The Watchtower or here, but I'd decided not to. I just figured I didn't have too much to say about it.

I used to think, at the very least, you could say the man makes the movies that he wants to make, and he puts them out to stand or fall on their own. As a creator who wants very much to do something like that, at least I could honor and salute him for it.

Siegel should apologize for disrupting a screening, and you can't really blame Smith for using every chance to promote his movie-well, maybe you can. Wait a minute. Emerson has three examples of critics who didn't like one of Smith's movies being kept from press screenings of those in the future.

So, Smith wants the good reviews without risking getting the bad ones. Who can blame him? I suggest he just grow some cojones, be upfront and honest about it, and announce publicly: "If you don't like one of my movies, you will never be allowed to a press screening of Un Film de Kevin Smith again."

Joel Siegel. Did a dumb thing for which he could apologize-not to Smith, but to his fellow reviewers whose experience he disturbed.

Kevin Smith. Off the artistic roll call. Forever.

Ya! Ya! Ya! Death!

(click to enlarge)

Credit: The Sinfest webcomic.

You know, the saddest thing about this is that I'm in no way surprised

Actress Bryce Dallas Howard and director/writer M. Night Shyamalan have been making the late night talk-show rounds to promote his new film, The Lady In The Water. This has led me to wonder recently: Whatever has become of Haley Joel Osment?

You remember him, former child actor. He saw dead people. Now he sees a dead career. Funny story. He's been hospitalized after a car accident.

...police are investigating the possibility that alcohol played a role in the late-night incident.

Yes, that's right. A former child star is behaving recklessly, getting in trouble with the law, and abusing alcohol. You never see that...

PS: Yes, this story is only peripheraly about Bryce Dallas Howard, but given a choice between running an image of an ex-child star or a hot n' sexy redhead, you know which I'm going to choose every time...

See, you wouldn't think it to look at her, but with nothing more than colored chalk, nifty shoes, and a blue ice pop...

...Nicky knew she was going to rule the world.




Source.

Ashley Olsen takes another step closer to her future profession

...by which, of course, I mean starring as Sandy in revivals of Grease. What'd you think I meant?

Source: ONTD.

Didn't you always kind of suspect?

(click to enlarge)

A brief observation

There is nothing like Jon Stewart talking about the area in-between George W. Bush's balls and anus to make one hestitate before starting to suck ones lemonade-flavored Fruit Bar popsicle.

A new declaration of purpose

This is a blog for the coarse rabble who enjoy nonsense.

Who know that that the periodic dirty thought is paradoxically necessary to keep the heart pure, and that Christianity has been corrupted perhaps to its very core.

This blog's designated man-crush is Captain Jack. And when I say Captain Jack, I don't mean your namby-pamby Johnny Depp with his cartoony "acting," I mean the cheerfully bisexual action hero/con man supporting character on last year's Doctor Who-


-and soon to be seen in his own program.

This is a blog for people who feel that "female sexuality" is not just code words for "whores."

This blog knows that comedy and comedians are valuable.

This blog's Dulcinea remains Ms. Hathaway.


See you in hell.

PS: I'm back, baby!

Lindsay Lohan still hasn't found her mind

LINDSAY LOHAN is stunned after being compared to Hollywood beauties MARILYN MONROE and SHARON STONE. The actress reveals Stone herself and a close friend of Monroe have approached to remark on the likenesses - and she's staggered to be compared to such Tinseltown aristocracy. She says, "Marilyn's best friend came over at the event (at which she wore a Monroe-inspired dress) and said she'd been taken aback because she thought I looked so much like Marilyn. It was incredible. "Recently Sharon Stone told me, 'There's a picture of you in a white dress and you look just like me.' I was so flattered."

Source

For those of you playing at home, this is, respectively, Marilyn Monroe, Sharon Stone and Lindsay Lohan.

Like triplets.

Frankly, I was expecting a lot more Cartman

Stan 50% Kyle. 44% Cartman 38% Kenny 31% Which Southpark Character Are You? (With pictures.) created with QuizFarm.com

If we go, go insane We can all go together

Water 80% Fire 65% Air 50% Earth 50% Spirit 35% Which of the Five Elements are you? created with QuizFarm.com

Nelly Furtado: Symbol of everything that is wrong with women today

Ms. Furtado has recently been following in the footsteps of Huff and trying to pick up a little of that L Word dollar by "opening up" about her bisexuality and attraction to women. It's an obvious publicity stunt, and people being what they are, it's working.

Nelly's career is hotter than ever now that she's remembered to flex her sex and shed her hippie vibe:

“I went through a feminist phase and read a lot of philosophical stuff. Some of the male bashing brainwashed me for a bit so I stopped. I love men!”

"Me love you long time, Joe! (click! Whiiiiir) I love men! Me love you long time, Joe! (click! Whiiiiir) I love men!"

Source: ONTD.

Random Flickr-Blogging: IMG_7226

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!



Deep down, George knew it would never really last. She got embarassed every time her bra strap showed. He was tired of getting rug burn on his head. But during that glorious Christmas party, The Amazing Bendinis, as they were known forever after, thought nothing of dropping everything to show their friends just how they got together in the first place.


There's something in this about all women, too (and men, probably).

There's something in this about all women

...but I don't know what it is.

Original source.

NOTICE

This blog may be closing soon. Thank you for your patronage, but I need a break.

Under a Cajun moon I lay me open
There is a spirit here that won't be broken
Some words are sad to sing
Some leave me tongue-tied
(But the hardest thing to tell you )
But the hardest words I know
Are I love you goodbye
I love you goodbye
--I Love You Goodbye, Thomas Dolby

And now a little traveling music, if you please...

A wonderful character actor named Barnard Hughes has died

He was 90. As is my wont at times like these, I want to talk about performances of his that meant something to me.

As the CNN obituary notes, he won the Tony award for the title role in the stage production of "Da," by Hugh Leonard. I never saw the play but he recreated the part 10 years later in the remarkable film version opposite Martin Sheen. To describe the character makes the performance seem less than it is; yes he's a curmudgeon, yes he's crotchety and "cranky." But none of this speaks to how delightful the performance and the film (shot on location in Ireland, some of the landscape is breathtaking) is.

Those three C's were typical of the kind of roles in which Hughes tended to be cast, but he was usually able to put some spin, either of comedy or just-below-the-surface sweetness on them. Take his part in the underrated movie"Doc Hollywood," wherin he played the very picture of the old country doctor who seemingly lives to bedevil his young city "colleague" played by Michael J. Fox.

You may remember him as the grandpa who got the last words in "The Lost Boys." Dramatically, those last words are a cop-out that simply scream "we thought more about the SFX than the script," but Hughes delivers them so well it's hard to care. As big SFX movies go, it's an almost Shakespearian moment.

He was also Walter Gibbs and the dual role of Dumont in the groundbreaking "Tron." When I think of Hughes in that film I think of the dignity and humanity he brought to his roles, both as the human Gibbs who is being pushed out of the company he founded, and the program Dumont, guardian of I/O. "Tron" has more good actors in it than you might think, but Hughes towers above them all.

I think the first place I remember seeing him was in the title role in the sitcom "Mr. Merlin" which I remember liking when I was 10 but who knows what I'd think of it now.

"Mr. Merlin:" Why yes, yes it was the '80s.

I don't quite know what else to say about him-except that he's another actor who, like John Spencer, I'd always kinda hoped to be good enough to write for one day. I send good thoughts to his family and friends, those that were priviliged enough to know and not merely admire him.

Rest in peace, Da. And remember...you're not to touch that teapot!

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Following up on my post of last month about the writer of "Heathers," one of the more perfect movies of the past 15-20 years, reuniting with its star, Winona Ryder, for a new film...

"According to Winona Ryder, she and Heathers scripter Daniel Waters--both at work on the dark comedy Sex and Death 101--are drumming up a sequel to the 1989 cult classic. 'I've been [arguing], 'There's Heathers in the real world!' she says. 'We have to keep going.'"

No. No you don't. No you shouldn't. "Heathers" does not need a sequel. Then again, that's what I think about "Clerks" and look what's happening there. Even if you could justify such a sequel artistically-and 99% of all sequels can't be-too much time has passed; it's been 17 years and we know too much about Winona.

I don't know what it is with all these years-after sequels lately. I think the "Clerks" sequel is going to suck but I don't care that much, and I certainly don't care that the "Basic Instinct" sequel wasn't worth the wait (who was waiting?). I read elsewhere that Danny DeVito is talking about a third "Romancing the Stone" picture. Forgive me, but has anyone seen Kathleen Turner recently? She may still have the sexy Jessica Rabbit voice but "Body Heat" was a long time ago. Most people probably know her best now as Chandler Bing's transsexual dad.

But "Heathers" actually means something to me, and I don't want to see it tainted.

Source-via ONTD.

Anne Hathaway is trying to kill me.

Seriously. It's the only explaination. Look at this: For crying out loud...

Picture via ohnotheydidn't, where you can also see the rest of Ms. Hathaway's shoot for a magazine called "Hollywood Life." It is unfair how beautiful that woman is.

Welsh?

SyFy Portal has an item about gay characters in science fiction of the past, present and possible future. It's nothing very new if you've been terribly tuned in. A little little "Will & Grace", a little Willow on "Buffy" a little "American networks are still uncomfortable with, etc etc etc."

But here's what grabbed my attention.

It took putting an openly gay man in charge of BBC's "Doctor Who" to help break down some of the sexual barriers in that iconic Welsh television show...

Well, first of all, "Doctor Who" has been gay for years and most of us have either accepted it by now or gotten out of fandom. But second of all...Welsh?

Oh. My. God.

Just when you think you've seen it all when it comes to the idiotic things people do to girls in this world, it turns out you haven't.

Two words.

"Breast ironing."

Would to that I were making this up.

Billions of blistering barnacles!

If you, like me, have many fine memories of the Tintin comic strip, you may want to keep an eye out for a special that's airing on PBS this month. That link will give you some more information about it, and also lead you to where you can check local listings to see when it airs in your area.

I loved Tintin as a young adult, and when I recently went on a nostalgia kick and ordered several of the books from my library, I thought they held up beautifully. As an older adult (at least chronologically) I discovered a lot more of the detail in the art, too.

Of course, the fact the strip inspired the names of two different British new wave bands (The Thompson Twins...
...and Stephen "Tintin" Duffy) is merely the icing on the cake.

One rarely gets a chance to see such carefully prepared sarcasm

Susan Madrak:

Personally, I'm embarrassed by all of us liberal blogofascists insisting on a place in the national discourse simply because we happened to be, um, right about George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Condi Rice, Tom DeLay, Karl Rove, Iraq, the WMDs, the allegiances of the corporate media, the steady erosion of civil liberties, global warming, Republican incompetence, hypocrisy, greed and dishonesty, fiscal irresponsibility, the widening chasm between economic classes, and the evergrowing efforts to turn our country into a theocracy.

It's also really important to understand the difference between a president getting a blowjob in the Oval Office and a president pretending to look for WMDs in the Oval Office. One of those things is funny ha-ha, and the other is treason. Bloggers never quite got that, and I hang my head in shame at our collective shortcomings.

You want facts? Here's one. The fact is, government (and by extension, the media) exists to serve itself. Liberal bloggers are simply weak, greedy and obnoxious for insisting their vision of American democracy is the correct one, grounded though it may be in obsolete concepts like law.

Read the whole thing.

Much better?

Hi there. Do me a favor, would you? Try to get this video clip to play and leave a comment or write telling me whether or not it works for you. I've heard from one or two people that the embedded links are not working. They work for me, so this is strange.

The clip, BTW, may well be my favorite thing that I've discovered so far via YouTube. It's a recent dance remix of a classic song you'll recognize. And the video is basically everything you want rock n roll to be: It's kind of stupid, frankly a bit sexist, and a little childish. I love it.

I sure hope you can see it.





ETA: My friend Corey, master of all things technological which baffle me (that means he knows how to program his VCR and likes to flaunt it, the tart) writes

No problem seeing it. For anybody who can't see the clips, the problem is likely with your browser and not with the video itself, and I'm guessing you also can't watch the videos directly at youtube.com. Make sure you have the latest version of the Flash plugin installed.

Ok, that's one vote in, anybody else?

Random Flickr-Blogging: IMG_2816

Sometimes Chris felt as if he were the last duck on earth.

Original source here.



In later years, the lead singer of The Buggles fell upon hard times.

Words To Live By (One More Time!)

John Irving's The World According to Garp is one of my favorite novels for many reasons, among them, his ability to bring you inside the head of his characters. It's one of the books that...well it would be too much to say I was trying to follow in its/his footsteps when I started to try to write fiction. But it would not be too much to say I was (and am) frequently aware of it as an aspiration.

Given his and its success, there's no question I'm not alone in that. However, it added to my pleasure in discovering this, from Irving's interview in Writers at Work 8, given while he was in progress on A Prayer For Owen Meany:

I feel the story I am writing existed before I existed, I'm just the slob who finds it, and rather clumsily tries to do it, and the characters, justice. I think of writing fiction as doing justice to the people in the story, and doing justice to their story-it's not my story...

Yes. That's exactly how I feel, and seeing it said by a "real" writer...they don't come much realer...gives me a little more hope (I don't have faith, I have hope, but that's another post).

In the same interview, he also quotes one of my favorite sayings about writing:

Didn't Faulkner say something like it was necessary only to write about "The human heart in conflict with itself" in order to write well?

Well Mr. Bush, there's one of those wishes you can make come true

President Bush was in Chicago Thursday for his 60th birthday, having dinner with Mayor Daley. When asked by reporters what he wanted for his birthday he replied, "I've got a lot of birthday wishes. I hope the troops are safe. I hope Roger Ebert does well."

My Madonna cease-fire is still in effect

Therefore, I have nothing to say about this picture.



I have no remark to make. If you do, however, don't let me stop you.

Homina homina

Kristen "Veronica Mars" Bell in a gold bikini.



Anne Hathaway in a black bra with her shirt open.

I don't ask for much, really...

(pictures via ONTD)

Special two-in-one Kate Winslet posting

KATE WINSLET has the most desirable body in Britain, according to a survey of female magazine readers.

The Titanic beauty, 35, a curvaceous mum of two was voted top by readers of Closer as having the body that most women would like to have.

Second was Charlotte Church, Pirates Of The Caribbean star Keira Knightley was third, Coleen McLoughlin fourth and Jude Law’s on/off girlfriend Sienna Miller fifth.

Topping the least desirable list was super skinny Victoria Beckham followed by chunky ex-Atomic Kitten singer Kerry Katona and top-heavy Jordan.

From UK Sun

via ohnotheydidn't.

Smart women, those Brits. According to the skewed values of American society, Kate Winslet is somehow "too big," but the English know sexy when they see it. I wouldn't necessarily rate the rest of 'em, and in fact I've never heard of this Coleen McLoughlin girl, one moment...ah. Apparently she's a footballer's wife. They take these things seriously in the UK, you know.

Seems pleasant enough to look at, but not someone I'd necessarily write home about. Meanwhile, in our second piece of Kate Winslet-related news for today...

If [director James] Cameron gets his way, his pics "Titanic," "Aliens" and "The Terminator" will come to life as 3-D projects, and he's already begun tests on "Titanic" as a 3-D feature.

Source: Variety.com.

I suppose it's only me whose first thought upon reading this was to speculate on the possibilities of Kate Winslet's nude scene as rendered in 3-D, was it?

Yes, I thought so.

Symbolic, no?

Show me the way to go home, I'm tired and I want to go to bed...I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. In a perfect world, I'd live there still, but I was priced out of the area. I've been known to say, in more solipsistic moments, that so far as the nations economy is concerned, the rest of the country can burn for all I care if it means I can move back.

I mean, Thomas Mann is on my right shoulder telling me "You can't go home again." I've been back once or twice over the years and there's a lot of truth to that. Trouble is, Dorothy Gale is on my other shoulder telling me "There's no place like home."

Right or wrong, that's the goal. You ask me, where would I like to be to be really happy? And the answer is, living in the San Francisco Bay Area again. There's nothing for me here and there never has been.

The only thing I can say this period of semi-enforced isolation has done for me is make me a better writer. Which certainly doesn't suck. And if I'd stayed, who knows whether I'd have come up with the characters that I have (or met some of the friends in "real time" that I have)?

I saw the picture above on the Flickr blog. And what it immidiately said to me is "Here is the goal. But it's obscured by a lot of fog and I don't know if I'm ever going to be able to see it." I suspect the fact that I'm feeling the anxious vulnerability and exposure that comes from actually having a query letter out there has something to do with it.

Say, you know what I'd like to hear right now?

I'm cool with this (get it?)

?? Which Season Are You ??

You're Most Like The Season Winter ...You're often depicted as the cold, distant season. But you're incredibly intelligent, mature and Independant. You have an air of power around you - and that can sometimes scare people off. You're complex, and get hurt easily - so you rarely let people in if you can help it. You can be somewhat of a loner, but just as easily you could be the leader of many. You Tend to be negative, and hard to relate to, but you give off a relaxed image despite being insecure - and secretly many people long to be like you, not knowing how deep the Winter season really is.Well done... You're the most inspirational of seasons :)
Take this quiz!








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The Anniversary Party

Here we are again, one year after

Today is the one-year anniversary of Dictionopolis in Digitopolis. When I started this new blog, after two years writing one called The Sound of the Crowd (published via the Ink 19 site), I made a mission statement.

Let's see how I've lived up to my dreams, and how the blog and they have changed. My mission then:

To record my depressing attempts to bring my characters to the screen.

This has changed; I'm now recording my depressing attempts to get my characters published.

To mark the passing of those who should have their passings marked.

Still doing this when people pass whose lives (or more frequently work) has meant something to me.

To indulge in Schadenfreude as Bush's ratings sag.

This has changed, sadly. It's been replaced by the ever-chilling realization that it doesn't matter what the majority of people really want. Too many people in a position to do something about it have too much of their dicks (I mean you, Ms. Clinton) invested in the belief that he's President Bigman Notstupid for anything to ever actually happen.

To act as a self-appointed filter for the "MSM."

See above. As noted, at the moment the attitude that shapes this blog is a simple one. I could do post after post about how little truth sees the light of day, or I could run pictures of Jaime Pressly and Jennifer Connelly. What would you do? One of these things leaves me feeling insanely bad, the other does not.

To pull the covers off hypocritical Republicans.

I hope so, whenever I can, but again, see above. In the words of Bill Murray in Meatballs: It just doesn't matter.

To push for the US to get out of Iraq.

Well yes, obviously. I believe we need to get out now. All the arguments about whether that will make things worse, whether there's a way to stay and make things better blah blah blah, are for me negated by one thing: The people in charge are quite clearly incompetent.

It's not a question of can anything be done, it's a question of can they do it? The answer is obviously no. And until that changes, the only solution is: Get out now.

To occasionally indulge myself by running song lyrics.

To be sure. Most recently, "The Metro" by Berlin. And now that I've figured out how to embed videos occasionally...

To chart the troubling rise of homophobia and related activities in this country.

On a completely unrelated matter, today Georgia and Albany decided, "Let's see, Mississippi and Alabama, 1960...yes! We want to be remembered just as well as they are!"

And yes, though it may not seem so from most of the above, to steal a laugh when and where we can.

I hope to god. There is nothing like a great clown (Nathan Lane, Groucho Marx, Jack Benny) or a witty line of dialogue ("I was misinformed." from Casablanca, many from Buffy/Angel and The Simpsons at their best.) or drawings that just make you smile. They're some of the things that make life worth living.

Even comics I don't think are great anymore (Kevin Smith, Dennis Miller, The Boondocks) still have a bit of my affection just because they were so good once.

Especially by mocking the illiterate, the stupid, and the state of Tennessee.

Always and forever.

When meeting the people who make the Emmy nominations, just nod, smile and back away slowly

This year a new system was tried in hopes of gaining recognition for some acclaimed but nominationless performers and programs. Didn't take, apparently, because what we have here is a list of the usual suspects.

Up until 10 days ago, I would have been all about 24 being the most-nominated series of the year. Now that the show's creators and actors have openly gotten into bed with the evil wing of the republican party, I have fewer horses in this race.

(Although, by the way, if Hollywood is so liberal...ah, skip it)

Nice to see Candace Bergen get a nod for Boston Legal, but I don't understand why Blythe Danner and Oliver Platt were nominated for Huff. First of all, if any cast member of that thankfully-canceled series deserves recognition, it's Azaria, and second...no cast member of that thankfully-cancelled series deserves recognition. Not this year.

And if you'd have told me there would come a time when I'd be rooting for William Shatner against Oliver Platt, Gregory Itzin and Alan Alda, I'd have said you were crazy. For that matter, I might have said that if you'd told me Jaime Pressly would ever have the words "Emmy-nominated actress" attached to her name...but I suppose Corey will be happy.

Battlestar Galactica appears to be the new Buffy, at least in terms of fans whining about how it never gets the nod. I can't watch the new BG-those aren't Cylons! Cylons have one glowing eye bouncing back and forth on the middle of their forehead like a ping pong ball!-but my feelings to one side, I resigned myself to a basic truth about the Emmys years ago:

If not enough people watch your series, or those who do aren't members of the Academy, you're not going to be nominated. So even though I knew this was almost certainly Lauren Graham's last chance at the brass ring for Gilmore Girls, and Kristen Bell's performance was the best thing about some of last seasons less-than-worthy episodes of Veronica Mars, I had little hope.

Deserve's got nothing to do with it.

Jennifer Connelly: What happened?

No.

I'm usually of the opinion that Mark Evanier is right about most things, but...

Enron überthief Kenneth Lay died this morning. Matt Drudge, with his usual flair for accuracy, briefly had it up as a suicide, then switched to a heart attack.

Obviously, anyone's death is a tragedy.

No. Maybe I'd feel differently if I hadn't read Pipe Dreams, Robert Bryce's book about the fall of Enron, recently, but I can't see the death of someone who was greedy on a scale beyond your imagination as a tragedy.

To be fair, Mark's next sentence is

Obviously also, it's hard to get too emotional about Mr. Lay, who swindled so many people out of their retirement funds, health insurance and old age money.

I guess I'm just saying that he's willing to be more generous, in a human condition, we-are-all-part-of-one-big-family way, than I am. Probably makes him a better person.

Barney Frank: Proof positive that all homosexuals are not witty

From the Washington Times:

No matter how hard members of Congress who appear on the "Better Know a District" comedy segment try to beat the system, Stephen Colbert makes them end up looking silly. But several lawmakers said doing the spoof spot on "The Colbert Report" on TV's Comedy Central actually has raised their profiles back home, particularly among young folks.

But Rep. Barney Frank, Massachusetts Democrat, regrets his appearance and called Mr. Colbert a "third-rate" comedian.
"It was a stupid waste of time, and he is two stooges short of a good routine," Mr. Frank said.

Later that same article the Times, which is about on the level of the Drudge Report and Fox News, gets this little lick in:

Mr. Colbert, widely panned for his performance bashing President Bush at the White House Correspondents Dinner, commonly asks guests: "George W. Bush: great president or the greatest president?"

Emphasis mine. Neat how they worked that in. Widely panned? Yeah, I suppose it was-by the people he was "bashing," in other words, the press corps, who actually ignored Colbert's performance for as long as they could.

Then it became obvious that they had to say something, so they set about bashing, and complaining about how he'd spoiled the party. Most people "outside the bubble" seem to have thought he was brilliant.

I've said this before, but it bears repeating and repeating and repeating and repeating until Bush is out of office.

To the White House press corp:

Bush making jokes that suggest sending other people's children to their deaths on a falsehood was funny=cute.

Stephen Colbert making jokes that suggest the press corps is partly to blame for the fact that the country is in such a mellofa hess=an alarmingly disrespectful lack of decorum.

See, if more of them actually had bodies, this would be exciting

At ohnotheydidn't, someone with almost as much time on their hands as I have (and I didn't think that was possible) has put together a sequence of photos of runway models slipping accidentally (?) out of their clothes.

Lest this sound like a nice idea, I would remind you that most models have only slightly bigger chests (and rounder behinds) than your average 10-year-old boy. And if that turns you on, I'd just as soon not know about it, thank you very much.

Random Flickr-Blogging: IMG_8883 EXTRA

A pink bow on a hot chick's bikini top.

The very definition of "gilding the lilly."

(Photo credit: TCarson)

You have to throw the stone To get the pool to ripple

It's a quote from the band Squeeze. I often think of it at times like these, and have even adopted it as something of a personal motto. Times like what, you ask? Well, I mailed off a query letter, chapter outline and SASE (stamped with a Gonzo Muppets stamp for luck) to my first publisher today.

If you pray, do. If you don't, send me good thoughts in whatever way you see fit.

(A less spiritual man would point you to my Amazon.com Wish List, accessible if you look over to the right there and click the View my complete profile link. Fortunately, I am clean-minded and above that sort of thing.)

Random Flickr-Blogging: IMG_8883

Two of the three men were congratulating themselves on their luck in finding their partners; two of the three women were doing the same. Unfortunately for all concerned, the women congratulating themselves were not necessarily partnered with the men who were, and vice-versa.

(Photo credit: Mike & Alexis)

I love when this kind of thing happens

--when you find connections between things.

The Human League were one of the greatest groups of the "new wave" era, and the source of my old blog name, so you know how I feel about them in general. "Love Action" is one of my favorite of their songs.

According to the aforementioned Rip It Up And Start Again,

"It's not got a proper chorus,' admits [Human League singer Phil] Oakey, explaining that 'Love Action' is basically two different songs bolted together. The verses, from a song called 'I Believe In Love' are 'confessional nonsense, what I was feeling at the time,' while the angular, not-quite-a-chorus bit is from another song about watching Sylvia Kristel in the soft-core erotic movie Emmanuelle.

If memory serves, Sylvia Kristel is the first woman I saw naked (onscreen).

I love when this kind of thing happens.

Get well soon, Roger

Film critic Roger Ebert, who has battled cancer in recent years, was in serious condition at a hospital Sunday following an emergency operation to repair complications from an earlier cancer surgery.

Ebert had surgery June 16 to remove a cancerous growth on his salivary gland. He told Sun-Times columnist Robert Feder at the time that the condition was not life threatening and he expected to make a full recovery.

About 8 p.m. Saturday, a blood vessel burst near the site of the operation, the Sun-Times reported Sunday on its Web site. A Northwestern Memorial Hospital spokeswoman declined to comment Sunday afternoon.

Tag to anyone who reads this (who has a blog, of course)

Quick, name seven songs you listened to recently and got really into.

In no particular order:

1. Steady Jules Shear
2. The Honeythief Hipsway
3. Something About You Level 42
4. In A Big Country Big Country
5. Go! Tones On Tail
6. White Lines Grandmaster Flash & Melle Mel
7. Take On Me A-Ha

It takes a very steady hand

Clearing the decks, part one

Most of the songs on Stutter’s self-titled debut album share a frustrating quality of starting out with sonic waves of color bursting forth that the group is then unable to ride to a consistent finish.

Of those, “Brand New Start” (especially in an album-closing remix) and “Twenty-One” are the best-dressed kids at the ball. Even if the lyric to the latter does sound like premature nostalgia from a band in their mid-20s…but “premature nostalgia” isn’t a bad bag to put them in anyway.

Given their ages, by rights Stutter should be nostalgic for 1999. And I don’t mean the Prince album. But instead, many of their songs wouldn't sound out of place on one of Rhino Records' Just Can’t Get Enough: New Wave Hits of the ‘80s volumes.

I rate that era higher than almost anybody, but if I want to revisit it I'll slip on one of those discs, thank you very much. I've said this before: It is not enough to be pastiche snapshots of other songs and bands; that way lays Katrina and the Waves (not such an inapt comparison, as it turns out)

It is just possible that people who were only five when most of the bands influences were in current release will like them more than I do. As for me, it leaves me with a feeling I believe is recognizable to most in their ‘30s, a certain affectionate perspective best illustrated by the pin-on phrase…

“I like you. You remind me of me when I was young and stupid.”

I’m not quite sure why this should be, but Devo’s “Girl U Want” (1980) seems to be one of the most-covered of that venerable groups singles. Trouble is…well, it may be worth remembering that when Devo covered a song, like say “Satisfaction,” they did something to it. Stutter’s stab at “Girl” is distinguishable from the original mainly by changing a personal pronoun (“I’m just the girl…”) or two. You never escape the feeling that you’re listening to boys and girls playing dress-up rather than telling their own stories or developing a songwriting voice.

I can see (said the old fogy, bending over backwards to be fair) how the group might be great fun to go and see. The people are attractive and the songs do indeed sound great, especially on the tracks co-produced by the band and Alex Greggs. Greggs' name is new to me, but a quick trip to Google reveals that his dance card has previously included groups like N’Sync, Backstreet Boys, Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears, Brandy and Du-

Wait a minute.

Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve made a terrible mistake. I’ve been reviewing what (the light slowly dawns) is clearly a bubblegum album as though it were supposed to be Peter Gabriel or Johnny Cash, Joe Jackson or something.

I owe you (and Stutter) an apology. Seen in this new light, the albums’ sometimes blah song construction and banal lyrics are nearly offset by its frothy energy. There’s always a place for warm-blooded performances of songs about lust; to deepen them would be to miss the point.

Whether or not Stutter has promise (they do) is almost beside the point. At this point, from my perspective, it’s like watching people finger-paint in primary colors.

A few words of explaination: The above was written for Ink19. As I do not anticipate writing anything more for that online magazine for reasons of no interest, I have withdrawn it, and decided to post it here.

The link in the band name is to their MySpace page.

Random Observations Of The '80s Man

Things I've learned by reading Simon Reynolds' Rip It Up And Start Again: Postpunk 1978-1984 (so far) :

On the Post-Punk Candy Pop Surf-band Bow Wow Wow, of "I Want Candy" fame, most of which were defectors from Adam's original Ants, apart from the much-younger lead vocalist, Annabella Lwin:

"Because the fourteen-year-old Annabella initially had problems fitting in with a bunch of men who were much older, [notorious manager Malcolm] McLaren even persuaded the guys that the problem was her virginity. To get her out from under her mother's sway and make her commit to the group, one of them had to do the dirty and deflower the underage singer. Reluctantly, the band drew lots, and guitarist Matthew Ashman was dispatched to perform the task. He failed."

On club band Liquid Liquid:

..."they are mostly remembered for one track, "Cavern," which was heisted hook (bass) line and sinker by Grandmaster Flash for the 1983 rap hit "White Lines Don't Don't Do It)."

Well, I don't know about...oh, crap. Why yes, yes it was.

Words and image

I remember a feeling coming over me
the soldier turned, then looked away
I remember hating you for loving me
riding on the Metro
-The Metro, Berlin

One of the things we like here in Dictionopolis...

...is cartoons. Therefore, one of the blogs to which we most often link is the boys over at Cartoon Brew. They found a couple of cool things today that I felt like sharing; both are animator's websites, one from today, one from the "Golden Age."

The first is a website by a woman called Cynthia Petrovic, whose name is new to me, but her designs are cute (in a good way) and the animated intro to the site is, as CB's Jerry Beck says, nifty. Go here and give it a few seconds to download; I don't think you'll be sorry.

The second is a site devoted to the work of Warner Bros. animator Ken Harris, whose name is well known to me and other fans of said Golden Age. He worked under the director Chuck Jones for almost 30 years, all the way through How The Grinch Stole Christmas, on films including Much Ado About Nuttin (character model sheet seen above). This is the one to which the makers of Ice Age were either paying homage or completely ripping off (depending on how generous you want to be) when they created Scrat.

I'm screwed.

"One Odd Goose" attended a Writers Conference in Philadelphia earlier this month. Amongst the things she learned from an agent there,

One interesting tidbit she passed on is that she reads writer's blogs to see if they are crazy.

I'm screwed.

I hanker for a hunka cheese

A man named Lennie Weinrib, who was the voice of H.R. Pufnstuf (also the main writer of the series)and Scrappy Doo among others, and appeared on-camera as Magic Mongo, died yesterday.

Mark Evanier takes note of his passing, and provides links to video clips that most people who watched '70s Saturday morning TV will remember, here and here.

Blue Gal has a filthy, filthy mind

God bless 'er.

I know it's hideous but I...I can't look away!

Sharon Stone at the Dalai Lama benefit on June 9, 2006.

Photo via Ohnotheydidn't.

It's too easy.

Your attention please. In the next day or so, you can expect to see lots of jokes in the other Democrat-leaning blogs about the recent confirmation that Rush Limbaugh can't get it up. I would just like to state, here and now and for the record, that such jokes are cheap, and we here at Dictionopolis in Digitopolis are better than that.

No, you won't see us reveling in the revelation that Rush Limbaugh couldn't get hard with Lindsay Lohan riding him. Not for us the speculation that even a coked-out Ginger Lynn paying special oral attention to his whithered, pinky-sized member wouldn't inspire even a semi.

It would be callous of us to postulate that the once-in-a-blue-moon times Rush actually does get hard, it's when he's using torture pictures from Iraq as a stroke book.

Or that his lifelike inflatable doll of Mary Matalin has several suspicious and sad indentations in the bum-area. Or that he and Michael Medved had an encounter they still don't talk about at a glory hole.

Such talk would be pandering, and we will not stand for it here at Dictionopolis In Digitopolis.

We will, however, register again our distaste with Mary Lynn Rajskub for allowing his lips to come into contact with her cheek.

Now, onward with clean hands and composure.

Kristen Bell in bikini top and tight white jeans

Nice if you're into that sort of thing, I suppose.

Oh, man-Arif Mardin is dead.

From the Billboard obit:

Arif Mardin, the legendary producer/arranger whose career spanned landmark recordings from Aretha Franklin to the Bee Gees to Norah Jones, died yesterday (June 25) in New York.

Born in 1932 into a prominent family in Istanbul, Mardin attended the London School of Economics, but it was a lucky meeting in 1956 in Turkey with Dizzy Gillespie and Quincy Jones that lead to his decision to attend the Berklee School of Music in Boston. He graduated from Berklee in 1961 and Nesuhi Ertegun, a fellow Turk whom he met at the Newport Jazz Festival, brought him to Atlantic Records two years later.

At Atlantic, Mardin took his lessons about engineering and producing from a team of in-house giants that included Ahmet Ertegun, Jerry Wexler and Tom Dowd. Mardin originally wanted to be a big-band arranger, but he caught the pop bug in 1965, while co-producing the Rascals with Dowd. In the coming decades, he produced hits for a remarkable array of Atlantic artists, including Franklin, Average White Band, Phil Collins, Hall & Oates, Roberta Flack, Brook Benton and Dusty Springfield.

In the mid-'70s, Mardin helped the Bee Gees redefine their sound and revive their career with the album "Main Course," which included the No. 1 hit "Jive Talkin'."

Mardin showed great diversity, with successes ranging from Bette Midler's sweeping ballads "From a Distance" and "Wind Beneath My Wings" to Chaka Khan's funky "I Feel For You." He also produced memorable folk albums for John Prine, jazz albums for Eddie Harris, Herbie Mann and Charles Lloyd and country sets for Willie Nelson.

According to his official biography, Mardin collected close to 60 gold or platinum albums and won 12 Grammy Awards. In 1990, he was inducted into the Recording Academy's Hall of Fame.

Here's five of my favorites of his record productions that probably won't be mentioned in most of the obits.

Cupid & Psyche 85, Scritti Politti (album). Did Green Gartside ever write better songs than "Wood Beez (Pray Like Aretha Franklin)" and "Absolute," and did anyone ever cut him better tracks?

Move Away, Culture Club (single). Culture Club's last great...well, good song (they never had any great ones). It comes from their first attempt at a comeback. There's still no masking that the bubble had burst, but Mardin did give one of Boy George's better lyrics a most sympathetic treatment.

One To One, Howard Jones (album) You know, I hadn't thought of this before but it suddenly occurs to me that in 1986 Mardin was the go-to guy for early-'80s hitmakers who'd stopped making hits. Like Culture Club, Jones had pretty much shot his wad as a songwriter on his first two albums (especially Human's Lib), but Mardin's production helped give him his last hit.

You Win Again, Bee Gees (single). The obit mentions that he produced a number one hit for the Brothers Gibb when they really needed one. What it doesn't say is that he did it twice, after they'd spent several years wandering in the desert both times. This is an encredibly likable, easygoing record.

Labyrinth, various artists (album). Mardin co-produced the David Bowie songs on this soundtrack, including the thematic "Underground" and fun "Magic Dance."

Well, that about wraps it up for this lifetime

You know, I've spent some time-maybe not a huge percentage but some-arguing that the politics of the fans of a particular entertainment, or of its creators, should not be an issue in whether or not you enjoy it. The creators of "The West Wing," for example, liked to cite that they had heard from Republicans who disliked the politics of the fictional Barlet administration, yet enjoyed the series. Simply because it was so well-made.

This always seemed a perfectly servicable argument to me. If you enjoy a show, you enjoy a show, and it should make no difference or not whether you like the politics of its fans or creators. Well god, with his/her/or its ironic sense of humor, seems to want to test that little theory of mine.

Michael Chertoff, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security...was the featured speaker at a morning forum sponsored by the Heritage Foundation, a think tank that normally sticks to real, if less sexy, topics such as tax policy and entitlement programs. Heritage's Phillip Truluck conceded in introductory remarks that the event at the Ronald Reagan Building was "very unusual" for the conservative organization.

He was probably right, considering that the panel discussion after Chertoff's remarks included two national security scholars, "24" co-creators Joel Surnow and Robert Cochran, and the actors who play the show's Nixonish president (Gregory Itzin) and CTU agents Tony Almeida (Carlos Bernard) and Chloe O'Brian (Mary Lynn Rajskub).

The discussion was hosted by Rush Limbaugh, who breached the art-vs.-life divide early by planting a big kiss on the woman he introduced to a knowing audience simply as "Chloe."

All this, plus special guest Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who sat in the front row of the packed amphitheater.

Then Bernard and Rajskub bid a hasty farewell. The whole group of counterterrorism experts, actual and synthetic, was headed to the White House for lunch. For real.

Well, $&#&.

"24" has been embraced by the evil, clownish boors that make up the modern Republican party. Which would be bad enough, even savoring the irony they don't see that Logan was at least as Bushesque as "Nixonish."

But the show is embracing them right back. They've turned Tony and Chloe into whorish flacks for them. Sorry, Mr. Bernard and Ms. Rajskub, but you didn't have to show up. Mr. Sutherland didn't.

And they're lending creedence to the idea that a TV show explains and excuses torture.

Via ABC News:

Show co-creator Joel Surnow told the Times that "If there's a bomb about to hit a major U.S. city and you have a person with information … if you don't torture that person, that would be one of the most immoral acts you could imagine."

Which means Abu Ghraib prison and the detention center at Guantanamo Bay are a-okay, right? 'Cause they're just a bunch of Tonys and Chloes, doing The Nation's Business The Only Way It Can Get Done.

And George W. Bush, why, he's just like Jack Bauer!

Jack Bauer's strategy is always proven in the end to be, if not 100% correct, then certainly the only thing he could have done with the information he had at the time. He never offloads responsibility onto others, he always knows exactly what he's doing, he asks for-and inspires-great sacrifice, shuns self-glorification and has no use for politics.

Yeah, for George W. Bush, that must be like looking in a mirror.

Yes, it's been quite a season. "Gilmore Girls" creator Amy Sherman-Palladino and her creative partner leave the show, but not before turning Lorelei hateful. The writing on "Veronica Mars" goes stupid. "Huff" goes from good to bad so fast I view it as a mercy killing when Showtime decides to take it off the air.

Now I just thank god that Sorkin and Schlamme have a new show coming on next season. Otherwise I'm just seeing a lot of "Boston Legal" and "Bones" in my future come fall.

The last "Huff" post

So it all comes to an end and what are we left with? Well, last night sitting through "Huff"'s season and now series finale, I kept thinking about the characters and plotlines they raised and then forgot about.

This is not unheard of in television, but usually it's explainable (if not excusable) for a number of reasons not really availble to "Huff". Bad audience reaction, an actor's sudden unavailibility, the writers just deciding to go a different way after the show had begun airing.

But the second season of "Huff was written, shot, and completed before it even began airing. You would think that would mean it should be virtually watertight, with very few loose ends or logic holes.

So, to name but one example, what happened to the Sharon Stone character? I didn't like her much but they made a big to-do about introducing her and it looked like she was going to be one of Russell's big plot-lines and then, whoops!

In retrospect, the casting of Stone as a guest star that they hoped would jack up the ratings was a clue to the bad sign under which this season was born. If memory serves, it premiered the same weekend as "Basic Instinct 2," which as we know failed miserably.

Which meant "Huff" had as their biggest guest star of the season the woman about whom a whole nation had just said, as one, "Eh! We've seen it!"

The least I can say is this. The return of series creator Robert Lowry to the writer's chair did at least make this finale a little easier to sit through than the last couple episodes. And he did at least suggest a reason for Byrd's seemingly unmotivated character change. Although he also offered a new seemingly unmotivated character change, from Beth's mother, and moved Angelica Huston's character from empathy to apparent clairvoiance.

But even he couldn't save his series from all the wrong turns it's made this year, and two of the biggest plot "twists" last night were so predictable that I calmly voiced them before they happened ("And she goes into labor." "And he's going to kill her.").

I continue to be impressed with Hank Azaria as a dramatic actor and hope he'll find such a role that can sustain him (or vice-versa) for more than a season.

But, finally, the last image of the show was one of the most offensive I have ever seen. A pull-back from a clueless and adrift Craig on a rooftop, to the glittering lights of Los Angeles at night, while Tony Bennett's "The Good Life" (oh, the irony!) begins to play.

So the final message of "Huff" becomes: Feel sorry for the children of privilige, for they indeed do have it just as bad as you. Right. Of course, the really ironic thing is that at the end of the first season you did kind of feel sorry for them.

In retrospect, perhaps mostly because they hadn't begged you so much to.

This is enough to make me rethink my previously hardline pro-sex, anti-Christian stance

Some 50,000 people are expected to celebrate the pleasures of the flesh in Los Angeles this weekend as the worldwide capital of pornography holds its 10th-annual "Erotica LA" convention.

Hosted by porn star Jenna Jameson and rock guitarist Dave Navarro, the three-day event will feature over 300 exhibitors unveiling the latest in sex toys, paraphernalia and publications.

Vivid Entertainment, one of the world's largest pornographic film production companies, will hold auditions for its upcoming movie "Debbie Does Dallas ... Again" and will film the proceedings for an upcoming reality television show.

A series of sex seminars will cover a range of topics, from oral sex techniques to a discussion of the aphrodisiacal properties of chocolate.

And one female attendee will win a free breast implant surgery from a company dedicated to "boosting the self-esteem of women of all legal ages." (Oh brother!)

Christian groups are expected to picket the convention, with one group planning to distribute several thousand "Jesus Loves Porn Stars" Bibles.

Source

Random Flickr-Blogging: IMG_4580

Words and image.



-Photo credit: Morleyroarly

Roads go ever ever on,
Over rock and under tree,
By caves where never sun has shone,
By streams that never find the sea;
Over snow by winter sown,
And through the merry flowers of June,
Over grass and over stone,
And under mountains in the moon.
-Roads Go Ever On, JRR Tolkien

Memories for a Spelling

Wow...Aaron Spelling died. Somehow, I never really thought he would. He's been such a part of TV, from Charlie's Angels to Beverly Hills 90210, that I guess I just came to think of him as someone whose name would always be there.

Did you know that from 1960 to 1989 not a year went by he didn't have at least one series on the air?

Did you know that (among other movies) he produced the very funny satire Soapdish?

Did you know he has a connection to one of my least-favorite writers? He produced a movie that Ilene Chaiken (of The L Word) acted as associate producer on, the notoriously bad Satisfaction.

...and to one of my most-favorite. He gave an early break in television to Harlan Ellison (of The Twilight Zone, many great stories and essays and hell, if you don't know who he is, read this). In his collection of film reviews Ellison tells a great story about winning a bet from Spelling.

I was a little too young to appreciate Charlie's Angels in its first run. I'll admit to developing a certain...fondness for Cheryl Ladd in one or two of the re-runs, for some reason, but that's neither here (sadly) nor there.

BTW, no offense to the dead intended, but choosing between running a photo of him or of her...well, you understand.

And I was a little too old for 90210. My "favorite" Spelling production memories would probably be...

The Rookies, reruns of which I briefly got hooked on when I was around 13.

Hart To Hart. Admit it. Even now, you can hear Max's gravelly voice over the opening credits. "This is my boss, Jonathan Hart, a self-made millionaire. This is Mrs. H. She's quite a lady..."

I remember my mom always liked Family.

A TV-movie spoof of then current television detectives called Murder Can Hurt You.

Fantasy Island! I was seven. Mr. Roarke was god.

And yeah, The Love Boat. I watched it. You watched it. Just think of all those hours we're never going to get back.

Used to have lots of fun playing T.J. Hooker with an ex-roommate of mine. This basically involved me barking "T.J.! Stop that car!" at odd intervals and he would have to immidiately throw himself across the hood of the nearest vehicle. Maybe you had to be there.

And believe it or not, I never felt able to jump on the Tori-bashing wagon as hard as some people. I mean maybe I'm wrong, but in interviews I've read and such, she comes off as separating herself from the Paris Hiltons of the world by being one of those who gets what the joke about her is. I give her credit for spoofing herself in Scream 2, and she didn't completely stink up the joint in House Of Yes or Scary Movie 2. They're not great movies, but that's another matter. I'm not saying I'd let her near any of my characters...

Anyway, Spelling: Even when I wasn't watching his shows (which was most of the time)...he was just always there, you know?

Caption This Photo

Pepe hadn't moved since he discovered that from this height, he could see right into the girls cabin.

Add your own in the comments.

Mercy killing

Per Variety.com, Showtime has cancelled "Huff." Thank god. For any actors, producers, directors or (perhaps especially) writers who may be looking in, the second year of this drama should be an object lesson.

In how to take a fine hour into the toliet after setting a very high standard in the first season.

For the one percent of you (if that) who are going to get this...

Via Best Week Ever's Caption This...



"You didn't really come here to hunt, did ya?"

Which one of these clowns is not like the other?

Premiere Magazine has published a photo feature spotlighting 11 men and women they feel are "Masters of Comedy." Let's take a look at this list and see where we feel they may have gone wrong...

Robin Williams. Well, sure-even though we all know he needs a better shit detector when it comes to picking scripts. And I say that as someone who can find a good word to say about Club Paradise.

Diane Keaton. Can't say as she's ever made me laugh, but then...(see Woody Allen)

Bill Murray. Now we're talking. The funniest man in America, 1979-1994.

Woody Allen. As I've said many times before, though I shy away from any bold proclamations like "Woody Allen isn't funny," because so many people seem to think that he is so very funny...I've just never been an admirer of his. And his thing about casting younger and younger women as his love interests just creeps me out. Although oddly, I tend to appreciate his films much better when he isn't actually in them.

Come to think of it, why isn't Mel Brooks on this list?

Will Ferrell. Again-not for me, but if you kids like that sort of thing, you enjoy it...

It's possible I may never forgive Ferrell for starring in a movie called The Suburbans, in which joining A Flock of Seagulls is seen as a happy ending. That's the sort of thing I can't possibly support. Also, doesn't it seem just a tad early to be putting him in such august company?

Steve Martin. No worries.

Here's where it gets weird, though: Cameron Diaz. Um...even granting her movies like My Best Friend's Wedding or Charlie's Angels...I don't think so. No, what this smacks of is them suddenly realizing they only had one woman on the list so far. Imagine what they would have done if they'd realized there were no black people. I can't think of any great black comedians, can you?

Kevin Kline. Back on solid ground here. Although, you'd think that if both he and Steve Martin are such masters of comedy, the Pink Panther remake might have been better received.

Jack Black. See Will Ferrell.

John Cleese. Well, obviously.

And...Leslie Nielsen. Um, Premiere? 1980 called. It wants its Master of Comedy back.

Trender Bender

You know the trend of taking the catalog of an oldies act (The Four Seasons, Abba) and building a musical around it? It's now officially gone too far:

Gabba Gabby Hey!-- the Ramones musical...makes its UK debut on July 31

As once and future Ink 19 editor Ian Koss points out, given the average length of the Ramones' songs, this looks to be a pretty short musical. And I can't help imagining this whispered conversation taking place in the audience...

"Is this a reprise?"

"No, all their songs just sound alike."

Voices Carry

My next-door neighbor and his girlfriend have been having screaming fights for weeks if not months now. It's been pretty bad, and I've been trying to figure out what the right thing to do was.

Because, I don't want to be one of those people who "doesn't want to get involved," but at the same time I want to grant people their privacy. And as long as it sounded as though only emotional violence was going on...

Still, it's been troubling me enough that I mentioned it to my therapist a week or so back. She suggested that sometimes just reminding people there are witnesses around can help to shock them out of their behavior.

About an hour ago this afternoon it moved from pretty bad to really bad. I heard lots of screaming, crying...and thuds. I opened my office window, I think in retrospect partly to remind them that there was someone here.

And heard the girl saying something I couldn't quite make out about how he had broken her...(garbled). So I called 911 once, and then a second time when I was absolutely sure she was saying he had hurt her.

I just finished giving a statement to the officer who picked up the call. He tells me she's backing up her boyfriend's statement that she (wait for it) "just fell and hit her head on a table." I overheard him telling the cop that, though he admitted there was an argument and "wrestling" going on.

That is not what the hysterical woman I could hear from my office, which adjoins the bathroom of his apartment, was saying. She was quite clearly blaming him for something that had happened to her face (how can I go to work like this?), telling him she wanted to go to the hospital, telling him she wanted to have him arrested, that she hated him and didn't trust him.

This was all over the course of several extremely highly emotionally-pitched exchanges, need I add, and not nearly so coherent. I'm just trying to get down everything I remember right now.

She also kept saying "Don't you fucking touch me!" And "Get away from me!" And he kept saying he was sorry and..."Shhhh!"

The officer informed me that she is going to have to go to the hospital.

But as I said, she apparently refuses to file charges. The cop used the term "battered woman syndrome." I don't understand the psychology of women who put up with it, I really don't.

The officer took my statement and phone number and said the man would still probably be charged regardless. The prosecutor may be contacting me for a further statement and maybe even a court appearance.

I hope that even if this doesn't lead to a successful prosecution it at least gets these two away from each other.

I just wish...I'd called sooner.

Now I don't know what the fuck to do

The Stranger, which is a Seattle free weekly newspaper, has an article on queer movies and why, in the writer's (Annie Wagner) view, most of 'em kinda suck.

Excerpts:

there's an abundance of great gay literature, and great gay visual art, and great gay theater—so what accounts for the fact that, given a random gay romantic comedy and its random straight equivalent, the gay movie will inevitably be lazier, duller, and generally more excruciating than its straight counterpart?

The answer is that gays, long starved for protagonists created in their own image, have unquestioningly gobbled up every last gay-themed movie. As Will of Will & Grace chirpily put it, "Let me tell you a little secret that we try to keep within the community: Gay movies suck. But until the laws change, we're still obligated to go see 'em." (Will has a lot of nerve to talk about sucky gay anything.) Whether it's about prissy preteens or wasting AIDS patients, wise old queens or shrill fag hags, obnoxious circuit boys or attractive trannies (or all possible combinations of the above, stuffed into one toneless cacophony), a gay movie will move tickets at the art-house box office. Not because it's good, but because it's good for "the community." And while gay-themed films have not sold tickets at a clip that would satisfy big studios—except for Brokeback Mountain—sales have been robust enough to maintain a entire pack of specialty distributors trafficking in hairless male chests (and, to a lesser extent, nuzzling pink-hawked girls).

And when queer filmmakers take on a tried-and-true formula, like Todd Stephen's Another Gay Movie, a twist on the virginity-shedding graduation summer of Porky's or American Pie, things go horribly wrong. Like hamster wrong. The words "butt cherry" and "man-snatch" wrong.

Lesbian movies, meanwhile, are susceptible to grave sins of their own. Coming-of-age movies like the catastrophically stupid Better Than Chocolate manage to hit every cliché in the (Rita Mae Brown) book—hidden vibrators, body-paint art, rainbow-festooned bookstores—while careening unevenly between featherweight comedy and dire melodrama.

Actually, I like Better Than Chocolate, except for a couple of things, but I'm only a member of the "gay-adjacent" community. And I think her larger point may be well-taken.

I'd say if anyone wants to read a witty (if I do say so myself) script for a human comedy with a wonderful lesbian couple in, they could contact me. But then I'd still have the problem that I don't want to give up control of my characters.

So as I say, I don't know what to do.

Strut, pout, put it out

Back in 2000, I reviewed Nelly Furtado's debut record, Whoa, Nelly! for PopMatters. It didn't deserve a lot of love, in my view, and I didn't give it much. Of course, I was immidiately proven right when she had a couple of hits that went to the top of the charts.

Over the years there have been sections of a handful of Furtado fan sites dedicated to hating me for the review, but at the moment I think the only one still up is this, where someone who is known as I Am writes:

His name is : Ben Varkentine . " varken " is the word for " pig " in the Netherlands !

I suppose that should sting, but I actually get kind of a kick out of it. I've been flamed before, but never bilingually (to the best of my knowledge). Actually, what hurt more is when another fan once pointed out a stupid error of fact I'd made in the review. I confused Jo Callis of the Human League with his onetime bandmate, Joanne Catherall. Inexcusable from the '80s man.

But anyway...so. We meet again, my old nemesis. Ms. Furtado has a new album out, an attempt at a comeback after her sophomore effort was less than successful. And what is the reason, she feels, it was less than successful?

Because she covered up her stomach and started giving off a hippy chick, feminist I-hate-men vibe. Seriously. These are quotes from her Blender interview, via The Bosh:

On her midriff-baring, sex bomb transformation: “I’m just now catching up, accepting my job more [emphasis mine-BV]. My video choreographer taught me how to move in all these different ways. I’m more at ease with my body than I’ve ever been."

On toning down her hippie vibe: “I went through a feminist phase and read a lot of philosophical stuff. Some of the male bashing brainwashed me for a bit so I stopped. I love men!”

If Furtado's new album brings her career back to life while Pink's album with "Stupid Girls" on it "appears to be close to dying"...I'm quitting show business.

Hell hath no fury

Fans of Barbara Streisand are threatening to sue her for fraud. Angry fans paid a small fortune for tickets to her last concert which was billed as her "last ever" performances. This was back in 1999 when Babs said this was her final farewell.

Well, her second "final farewell concert" will kick off this October.

[Via Dlisted]

Just when you thought Culture Club couldn't do anything dumber than "The War Song"

...but at least that had a certain guilty-pleasure catchiness about it. This, on the other hand...

Culture Club reforming without Boy George

Good, now they can be judged on their music.