Why "Star Wars" fans are dumbasses

From page xiv of the introduction to the book A Galaxy Not So Far Away: Writers and Artists on Twenty-five Years of Star Wars, by that volume's editor Glenn Kenny:

Kevin Kline's character in The Big Chill has a much quoted "no good music since year X" line that I can't bring myself to quote accurately, as it would mean looking at the movie again...

The accurate quote is actually this exchange of dialogue from Kline's character and Jeff Goldblum's:

Michael: Harold, don't you have any other music , you know, from this century?
Harold: There is no other music, not in my house.
Michael: There's been a lot of terrific music in the last ten years.
Harold: Like what?

I pulled that from the IMDb page, but I could've done it from memory, because even though as a rule, I hate boomers, I happen to love that movie. Go figure. I am large, I contain multitudes. For example, the title of this entry notwithstanding, I'm something of a Star Wars fan.

But anyway, that Kenny clearly doesn't love a movie which I do is not why I've made him exhibit Z (or whatever) in my case for why Star Wars fans are dumbasses. For that, we have to go two pages later, and read this from page xvii:

Empire's dialogue was a lot snappier than Star Wars' (I like to think that a lot of what I enjoyed in Empire was due to the participation of veteran screenwriter Leigh Brackett...

Glenn, Glenn, Glenn. You're making this all too easy, Glenn.

If I may hit you with a few more quotes, these are from the Lucas bio Skywalking:

Lucas had one lengthy meeting with Brackett to outline the story and turn his notes over to her, and by March 1978 Brackett's first draft was done. It was also her last-she died of cancer two weeks later.

One meeting. One draft. Still, I'm sure Brackett's participation is what paid off in enjoyment for Kenny and most others, including myself. Except that:

Lucas shelved Brackett's script and started anew. If he could get a new first draft done, he could turn it over to a new writer, and they could pass versions back and forth until Lucas was satisfied.

But who would be his new writer? Well, a few months later, one Lawrence Kasdan turned in a screenplay Lucas had hired him to write for something called Raiders of the Lost Ark, and he and Lucas went to lunch...

Lucas abruptly launched into the story of Leigh Brackett's untimely death, his problem with Empire, and his need for a writer to polish the new draft. He'd be happy to give Kasdan screenplay credit in Empire (Lucas planned to take none himself) but asked whether Kasdan would mind sharing it with Brackett. He wanted her estate to benefit from a profit percentage of the film.

And that was, indeed, how the writing credits for Empire ran: Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan, (screenplay); George Lucas, (story).

So then, who's responsible for the snappier dialogue and other joys missing from Star Wars that appeared in The Empire Strikes Back? Well, clearly, demonstrably, Kasdan.

Who is also screenwriter, co-screenwriter and/or the director of a dozen-plus other movies, including, what?

The Big Chill.

I repeat: Star Wars fans are dumbasses.

Quick quiz: How many of you remember...

...when I mentioned that Jennifer Connelly's husband is sexually insecure?

On a completely unrelated matter, his next role will have him playing, and called, a "Master of Sex."

I'm sure I wasn't the only one

But for the record, yesterday I sent the Keith Olbermann show's contact email address a link to this story about Ford's Theater "banning" Bill O'Reilly's Lincoln book for factual inaccuracies.

I figured it was right across Olbermann's strike zone (did I use that metaphor right?)

Sure enough, on tonight's show...



Now, as I say, I'm quite sure I'm not the only one to have thought of that. Plus Keith and/or his staff probably would've found it anyway. But...

Happy Birthday, Wendy Carlos!

I've seen Tron Legacy three times now. You know how with some movies...you like them when you first see them, especially if it's one you've been looking forward to for a long time. But then with repeated exposure, you realize they're not terribly good movies (cough, Saw V, cough--although Saw 3D makes Saw V look like Saw III. But I digress.)?

My point is, Tron Legacy ...is not one of those movies. I still like it a lot, at least as much as the original; in some ways, even more so. But one place in which it doesn't even come close to topping the original is in its score. If I had the know-how and the equipment, I think I'd dub myself a version of the new movie that used Wendy Carlos's music in place of Daft Punk's, as much as possible.

Nothing against Daft Punk. It's just that, as most of you know, I'm a big fan of Carlos' score for the original Tron, and consider it a key factor in shaping my love for electronic, synthetic music. So naturally here, in celebration of Carlos' 72nd birthday, is a theme from Tron played by hand on a genuine guitar.

This I've got to see

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus defended the GOP on Sunday against the notion that its policies only favor the rich, arguing that Republicans are out to create jobs and cut taxes for people of all income levels.

Really? Right, well let's see him then.

"Of course the party doesn’t favor the rich, but what the party does favor is reducing taxes on every single American out there," Priebus said on CNN’s "State of the Union." "Making sure Washington is focused then on job creation, on cutting spending, on reducing the size of government -- these are things that will spur the economy and these are things that are cornerstone to the Republican Party."

I count about five empirically provable lies in that paragraph. How many can you name?

A recent CBS/New York Times poll showed that 69 percent of Americans believe Republican policies favor the rich. Only 9 percent believe they help the middle class.

Priebus blamed that perception on President Barack Obama.

Oh please, Reince. We wish...

What kind of fools could be foolish enough to fall for this fool's foolishness?

Kim Kardashian Wedding Made People Feel Like 'Fools'

By the same token: There are billions of people the Manson family *didn't* kill...

Cain responds to accusations. For every woman who says I harassed her, there are “thousands” who say I didn’t.

Fucking well good.

Okay. One reason I'm taking a particular interest in this Joe Paterno thing is because it's reminded me of something. Something which I should know full well, but due to the whole "my not giving a fuck about sports" thing, I sometimes tend to forget.

This is namely, just how deep up the ass of sports my country has its head. Case in point:

Nike has no plans to change the name of the Joe Paterno Center, a child day care facility on the World Headquarters Campus near Beaverton, in response to a sexual abuse scandal involving one of Paterno's former Penn State University assistants, a Nike spokeswoman said this evening.

Really, that's just sad.

But on the bright side, it looks like my curse is taking.

Penn State football scandal will cost school millions

Good.

Now let us pause for this very important message

I'm sorry, you can't what?

Okay. As most of you know, I don't give a fuck about sports. So, the first I heard about the Penn State University/Paterno scandal--

Former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky has been charged with 40 criminal counts accusing him of sexually abusing minors. As the scandal unfolded, it became known that Penn State officials, including Joe Paterno, had known about Sandusky's unlawful behavior.

--was yesterday when Keith Olbermann made Paterno his "worst person in the world" and called for his immediate firing, both of which he repeated today. A few hours later, Paterno was, in fact, fired, along with the school president.

You would think the Penn Board of Trustees would've done this because it is--clearly--the right thing to do in this situation. I would say this was a no-brainer: Coach fails to follow-up on reports that his employee raped children (in the coach's own locker room, no less) coach loses his job. At least.

Yes, I would say this was a no-brainer, but I want to reserve that honorific for the football-lovers who care more (they really do) about a game, a team, and/or a coach's career than they do molested children.

This brings me back to the Penn Board of Trustees. Dig this quote from an AP story on the firing.

Asked what Paterno did wrong, [board vice chair John] Surma said: “I can’t characterize that. We thought because of the difficulties that have engulfed our university, it was necessary to make changes.”

You can't characterize what he did wrong?

Think. Try to stretch your mind. Take a minute if you have to.

Or in other words, you fired this man not because he committed foul sins, but because people knowing he committed those sins is making your school look bad.

Metaphorically speaking, I hope your school gets stomped hard in the face with football shoes, every game for the next 30 years.

On the other hand, people do get good and irritated whenever sex rears its ugly head around The World's Child Star.

Wait a minute...

...a new ad for Marc Jacobs' fragrance Oh Lola!, starring "Twilight" actress Dakota Fanning, has been pulled from the British markets after consumers complained that it was sexualizing children.

Am I the only person who thinks this ad is not sexualizing children much if at all (Fanning is 17); not provocative, shocking or sickening?

You bastards!

sometimes my conscience kinda bothers me...

Derbyshire!

Oh, happy day.

You longtime members of my vast reading audience may remember an utterly creepy fella named John Derbyshire, a writer for the conservative National Review's The Corner.

He's the guy who said he thought women should have the vote--in 2009 (how generous!)--but never use it. He's the guy whose reaction to the shocking killings at Virginia Tech was to call the students cowards for not rushing the killer, as he's quite sure he would've done.

Yeah, that guy. I love him. He's just so perfectly fucked in the head.

So now, he's weighed in on the whole "Herman Cain/sexual harassment" thing (about which, for the record, I really couldn't give that much of a fuck. Except to observe that as always, it's not the offense that sinks you, it's the covering and backpedaling and filling ).

Brace yourselves...

Is there anyone who thinks sexual harassment is a real thing?

Um, well, there's the law...ah, but Mr. Derbyshire has anticipated me here, for his next statement is:

Is there anyone who doesn’t know it’s all a lawyers’ ramp, like “racial discrimination“?

I'm not totally sure what he means by "lawyers' ramp," but I think I can get the gist. Which doesn't really matter because I'm still reeling from his assertion that "racial discrimination" isn't a real thing either.

Across the country right now, Republicans are trying to fix the laws so as to make it harder for blacks to vote.

You pay a girl a compliment nowadays, she runs off and gets lawyered up.

You know what I think the difference is between paying a girl (or a woman, ahem) a compliment and sexual harassment? Respect. I'd like to believe that most of the time, women do know the difference.

Is this any way to live?

Well yeah, John, yeah it is, unless you're living in the 1950's. Oh, wait...

There has never in the history of the world been a people better mannered and less inclined to insulting acts of prejudice than today’s Americans,

Well, except for the Netherlands, Denmark, Japan, Canada, or pretty much any place where they practice Buddhism, I'm sure he's quite correct.

yet we’re supposed to believe that the nation is seething with “harassment” and “discrimination,” women being groped in every business office and crosses burning on every lawn.

Um, no. You're supposed to believe that harassment and discrimination are real things that do go on and need to be taken seriously when they do. As for women being groped in every office or crosses burning on every lawn, so far as I'm aware no one's asserted that. I think you might be projecting a little wish fulfillment there, John.

Aren’t there any grown-ups around?

You wouldn't think he'd be talking too much about grown-ups, would you, considering he's the guy who publicly asserted that only pubescent girls are attractive...

What must this do to one's self-esteem?

Playboy Unhappy With Lindsay Lohan Nudes

"The People vs. George Lucas"

"The People vs. George Lucas", a photo by lucbyhet on Flickr.

Attention, Star Wars fans: You need to see this movie. It's for us but does not pander to us--and not pandering to an assumed audience is more than you can say for roughly half of the Star Wars films.

The People vs George Lucas, a photo by Danny Choo on Flickr.

And besides, where else are you going to see a Japanese stormtrooper getting down with his funky self?

Please God...

new polling data shows that a Cain collapse could trigger a Gingrich surge.

Personally, I'm seriously hoping that Romney and Gingrich are the GOP ticket...just because I really like saying "Mitt/Newt."

Today's contestant on "Who's Searching For Me Now?"

...comes to us from Slovak Telecom, Leopoldov, Trnava, Slovakia.

They searched my name; didn't stay long.

Right, here's the thing...it wasn't an affair.

Wrong again, media.

Okay. You guys remember how I cursed the way the story of an "adult" harassing a 13-year-old girl into committing suicide somehow got spun into "The Myspace Suicide Case," simply because that "adult" used MySpace to do her harassing?

Well, it's happening again, and by some sick coincidence, there's a 13-year-old girl involved here, too. A conservative politician in Virginia has admitted to a homosexual affair in the past (but they're feeling much better now, having "prayed the gay away."

By itself, this isn't really news--as my friend Turner is fond of asking, are there any straight conservatives anymore? But this has an unusual, "sexy" twist in that the politician in question is a woman.

Linda Wall, a conservative independent Virginia candidate for the House of Delegates, admitted on Wednesday that she had an affair with a female student as a junior high gym teacher in the early 1970s, but said she has changed.

Every headline I've seen on this--and I just looked at five or six-- describes it as "an affair." Sometimes they add the word "lesbian," and sometimes they mention in the banner that it was with a student, but still call it "an affair."

When an "adult" has sexual contact with a minor, it's not an affair. It's child molestation. And when you add it that as a teacher, Ms. Wall was in a position of authority and trust...well, just imagine if she were a man. You think they'd be calling it "an affair" then, whether gay or not?

Okay, this is becoming increasingly incredible

Today's contestant on "Who's Searching For Me Now?" comes to us from an Android, the IP of which reveals itself to come from the Ministry Of Communications...in Kuwait. They searched the URL of this blog specifically, not just my name, stayed a couple of minutes and left on the Evan Rachel Wood image below.

Maybe she's a Pseudo Echo fan (I am) and somehow thought that was a compliment?

Tell me something: If you were a singer, would you quote on your website a review which said your CD:

"Makes Mariah Carey sound like someone who made it on the basis of her talent. Makes Pseudo Echo sound like lyrical geniuses."

No, I wouldn't either. But Tey Punsalan would. And I know that because I wrote the review.

And speaking of anniversaries...

...today marks that very thing of my pal Corey Klemow's birth (I won't tell you which anniversary it is--he's an actor, he doesn't need that kind of stuff out there).

As I've often said, Corey is one of the most generous and supportive people I know. But more importantly, he's the only person I know, nowadays, whom I can talk Doctor Who with.

(Speaking of which, Corey: The Sarah Jane package arrived but I haven't had a chance to watch the episodes yet.)

Anyway, another fandom that Cor and I share is for Charles Schulz's comic strip and the animated versions thereof. And he once told me that one of his favorite arrangements of the famous Vince Guaraldi music was from a special that, as luck would have it, is doubly appropriate for this season...

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Norton Juster's book...

...The Phantom Tollbooth coming out. So naturally I have to tip my hat, being as that's where the name of this blog comes from. So here's an essay I found from a Harvard student on the effect the book had on her growing up.

Easy Joke Department

Headline:

Blind Man Regains Sight Through Tongue

That tongue? Evan Rachel Woods'.

Norman Corwin, writer in the great days of radio, R.I.P.

A man named Norman Corwin died Tuesday.

I first heard of Corwin through J. Michael Straczynski, who is the creator and chief writer of the television series Babylon 5, and the screenwriter of films including The Changeling, directed by Clint Eastwood.

Straczynski admired Corwin inordinately, naming a recurring character in B5 after him and talking about him as "a writer's writer." So when I got a chance to listen to Corwin's work on one of those "Old-Time Radio" sets, I paid particular attention.

JMS was right. This guy was great.

Sometimes called "the poet laureate of radio," Corwin could be childlike in his passion for wordplay. A couple of his most acclaimed works, The Plot To Overthrow Christmas and my personal favorite, The Undecided Molecule, were written entirely in rhyme. They sound like Dr. Seuss before anybody sounded like Dr. Seuss, including Dr. Seuss.

As well-described by journalist (and Corwin's cousin by marriage) Cindy Sher, The Undecided Molecule-

relates the account of a molecule who refuses to work for one of the elements. In the story, the court charges the molecule with:

Unwilling to be named.

Rebelling when defined.

Declining to be blamed.

Objecting when assigned.

Protesting when selected.

Resisting an attack.

Refusing to be directed.

And talking back.

(BTW, the court that's mentioned is presided over by Groucho Marx.)

Defending itself, the molecule says through an interpreter:

I cannot chide
My inner soul:
I must confide
I've set a goal...

Let me explain to you how widely admired Corwin was in his day. He was famous enough to appear as a guest star on comedy programs of the time, where his work was satirized under the assumption that audiences would be familiar enough with the original. (This was a good assumption. Keep reading.)

He had his own radio shows--named after him and promoted on the strength of that name--as a writer. One of those programs, incidentally, was placed on the air opposite one of Bob Hope's. This put Corwin in the rare position of, as he put it, literally "hoping against Hope."

The period just before, during and at the end of WWII was probably Corwin's peak, and indeed he book-ended it with a couple of his most highly regarded works.

In 1941 he was asked to write a program commemorating the 150th anniversary of the bill of rights. Between his agreeing to write it and its broadcast, however, Pearl Harbor happened, and the US entered the war.

This lent an almost frightening intensity to the delivery of such picturesque phrases:

One hundred fifty years is not long in the reckoning of a hill. But to a man it's long enough.
One hundred fifty years is a weekend to a redwood tree, but to a man it's two full lifetimes.
One hundred years is a twinkle to a star, but to a man it's time enough to teach six generations what the meaning is of Liberty, how to use it, when to fight for it!

And in the closing Jimmy Stewart, who'd already enlisted, asked:

Can it be progress if our Bill of Rights is stronger now than when it was conceived?

In 1944, Corwin wrote a piece called Untitled. This reviews the life of a soldier only recently killed in action, from the varying perspectives of the M.O. who pronounced him, the doctor who delivered him, his mother; teachers, the girl he left behind, the editor of a paper reporting his death, his friend...and the enemy who shot him.

By the end of the piece, we learn that the voice that has been narrating all this is of course that of the deceased man wondering if his sacrifice has been worth it:

From my acre of now undisputed ground I will be listening:
I will be tuned to clauses in the contract where the word Democracy appears
And how the freedoms are inflicted to a Negro's ear.
I shall listen for a phrase obliging little peoples of the earth:
For Partisans and Jews and Puerto Ricans,
Chinese farmers, miners of tin ore beneath Bolivia;
I shall listen how the words go easy into Russian
And the idiom's translated to the tongue of Spain.

I shall wait and I shall wait in a long and long suspense
For the password that the Peace is setting solidly.

On that day, please to let my mother know
Why it had to happen to her boy.

That's heavy stuff, so let me give you a couple more examples of the lighter side of Corwin. The writer also acted as director for most of his broadcast work, and like the best writers (not just the best radio writers, the best writers) and directors, he was attuned to music and sound as well as the spoken word.

Describing a cue for music he wanted in his play Savage Encounter, he wrote:

A nocturne expressing the south sea island you remember from your fondest imaginings. Healthy lusts and red flowers and blue skies and bare breasts are all mixed up in it.

Obviously, this was my kind of guy.

For another play he needed the sound of his characters rushing down the stairs in fear of missing their train (the play was about a romantic meeting on the railways between a soldier and a girl).

For authenticity's sake, rather than rely upon the sound effects men, he directed his leads to walk away from the microphone (given a portable one so there was no break). Then they went out of the studio completely and into the building's stairwell, where they performed their dialogue before returning.

And remember, this was in the days when everything was broadcast live. It worked without a hitch.

Okay, everybody got their breath back? Good.

As the end of the war approached, Corwin wrote There Will Be Time Later, the intent of which was to fight off complacency, isolationism, and political attacks. He used the characters of a fascist and the diffident to ask:

Why should we bother with the Great Unwashed?

And gave this reply:

...when you tell him it's the Great Unwashed who wash away the stains of high corruption,
It's the common man, un-manicured, whose hand prevails against the Elite Guard,
He will rejoin:

You make me sick, you and your people with a capital P.

At that point you can break the news to him:
The People shall remain in capitals, coming before Princes in the alphabet of things...

I have a book about Corwin called On A Note Of Triumph. The author of that book, R. LeRoy Bannerman, said critics of the day

"...saw in Corwin a fresh, new influence: an independent whose concept of broadcasting dared to be different. They saw in his work literacy uncommon in the communicative arts."

In his book Raised on Radio Gerald Nachman says of Corwin:

"Whatever his shortcomings--purple passages, heavy-handed
irony, liberal bias--they were overcome by the programs' ambitions, impact,
superior writing, and high production values."

Bannerman's book is named after what is arguably Corwin's most famous work On A Note Of Triumph, written for the end of World War II. The first broadcast of this show was heard by some 60 million Americans. (That's over half of the adult population at the time. Remember what I said about it being a good assumption that audiences knew his work?)

The response was both overwhelming and overwhelmed. One person wrote, "I didn't expect this so soon."

Expect what?

Expect this:

How much did it cost?

Well, the gun, the halftrack, and the fuselage come to a figure resembling mileages between two stars-
Impressive, but not to be grasped by any single imagination.
High octane is high, and K rations in the aggregate mount up; also mosquito netting and battleships.
But these costs are calculable, and have no nerve endings.
And will eventually be taken care of by the federal taxes on antiques, cigarettes, and excess profits.
However, in the matter of the kid who used to deliver folded newspapers to your doorstep, flipping them sideways from his bicycle,
And who died on a jeep in the Ruhr,
There is no fixed price, and no amount of taxes can restore him to his mother.

Expect that.

(About five years ago, a documentary about Corwin and that broadcast, A Note of Triumph: The Golden Age of Norman Corwin, won the Documentary--short subject--Oscar.)

But, for that piece he had months to prepare. For his last program written about the war, he had one night. He began on August 13th a program he completed on, and titled, 14 August, read by Orson Welles.

Once again, Corwin refused to rejoice while forgetting to count the cost:

The turtle is young at sixty-one, but the flier is dead at eighteen.

Remember them when July comes around
And the shimmer of noon excites the locusts
When the pretty girls bounce as they walk in the park,
And the moth is in love with the fifty-watt bulb
And the tar on the road is blistered.

For further reading: An interview with Corwin from about 15 years ago.

"Pre-e-e-pare thee the way of the lord!"

Time for this blog's most popular recurring feature

That's right kids, once again it's...

"Who's searching for me now?"

Today's contestant comes to us from an IP Address for Comcast Cable in Detroit, Michigan, here in the great USA.

To my knowledge, I do not know anyone in Detroit, Michigan.

Spent a few hours in the airport there when I was flying back-and-forth to Tennessee, and was much impressed with same (the airport, not Tennessee).

But whoever this is, he, she or undecided (and with some of my friends past and present it's hard to tell) found this blog by Googling my name; stayed around for almost a minute.

I've been hearted

Or rather, an image I ran (and possibly the caption I ran with it) has.

365.119 - it's Harley Quinn

365.119 - it's Harley Quinn, a photo by nettsu on Flickr.

The remarkably psychotic.

I know this REALLY isn't a new thought, but MAN this country is screwed up about sex

The following is taken from the introduction to the book Baptism by Fire: Eight Presidents Who Took Office in times of Crisis By Mark K. Updegrove.

In the last half century alone we have lamented the end of American innocence around the cold war, John F. Kennedy's assassination, Vietnam, Watergate, the Iran hostage crisis, Iran-contra, Monica Lewinsky, 9/11, and, more recently, the war in Iraq, our fading status abroad, and the global economic crisis, imagining the simpler times that preceded them.

Emphasis mine.

Which one of these things is not like the others...

Surprising searches under which you'll find this blog

We are now the number two result if you Google the phrase,

oh spiffy

Drowned

Drowned, a photo by chrisjohnbeckett on Flickr.

Damned by lust and gone to hell
And then I look into your eyes
And something melts
I shake inside
And cool water
Washes me all over
Washes me away
And still I'm drowning

I wonder which is more humiliating

Getting less money than everybody else, or having everybody know you're making less money than everybody else?

The Crappiest Movies I've Ever Seen

I'm picking up a "Blogfest" idea from Timothy Brannan:

Saw 3D (2010)

Yup, almost a year later and I'm still not over it. Over what? Over the experience of sitting in a seat watching what was unfolding onscreen and coming to the realization: This is really it. It's not going to get any better.

You know that I'm a real fan of the Saw series. This film is the biggest insult to cult fans of any franchise I have ever felt. It is utter, utter bullshit.

Carlito's Way (1993)

I could put many of Brian De Palma's films on this list. He's just a director I will never trust. But this one in particular, though like many of his films it has its fans, to me just takes itself way too seriously for as flawed as it is.

Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010)

This is another franchise that I'm actually a fan of, though in no way near to the pathological obsession I developed with Saw. By the same token, this one isn't the slap in the face that Saw 3D was. It's just...boring.



And when I'm bored watching Milla Jovovich (even dressed)...the world has truly turned upside-down.

Beowulf (2007)

As a wise man once said,

See, making cartoon drawings move, by itself, isn't animation any more than putting piles of meat on sticks and moving them around--Meat Puppets, to coin a phrase--would be acting. For real animation, you need (not to be too didactic)...soul. And Beowulf doesn't have a drop of it.

Even the voice actors sound indifferent.

Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)

Just one of the million-or-so things for which George Lucas needs to be bitch slapped.

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (2005).

It may be stretching a point to say that I hated this movie. Like Resident Evil: Afterlife its biggest crime is that it's just terribly, terribly boring. And for the record, while I enjoyed many of the Narnia books growing up, it's not one of those things where any deviation from the original was going to piss me off.

Planet of the Apes (2001)

In a few words: I loathe Tim Burton with the heat of 1,000 suns. In a few more...

Jaws 3 (1983)

I know that Jaws: The Revenge frequently gets named on lists like these, and god knows I'm not saying that was a better sequel. But Jaws 3 has always inched it out for me in the crappy movie department by virtue of the fact that a key feature of the plot is that the big mama shark is hiding by staying put in an underwater tunnel.

Look, I'm no Matt Hooper, but even I know this much: Sharks cannot stop moving...

Ghostbusters II (1989)

A pet peeve of mine is sequels in which the mechanics of the plot require a lot of people in the movie to forget things that they should know perfectly well from the first movie. In this case, it's the eons of time wasted while they run through the "But I don't believe in ghosts" rigmarole.

One of the many brilliant things about the original is that they started with the premise: Ghosts are real, and most people know it. Sure there were still a couple of doubters along the way, but after the climax of the last movie? Gimme a break.

To this day we occasionally hear rumors of a Ghostbusters 3; this movie is why I hope they will remain just that.

Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel (2009)

I had to see this with my nephew. Believe me, I begged him to choose The Princess and the Frog or Fantastic Mr. Fox, both of which were playing in the same theater at the same time, and both of which I've subsequently seen and know to be much better movies (especially Frog).

But I lost that battle. An hour and a half later, I had only this to say, and it remains the best summing up I could possibly give:

I want my brains back!

Make up your own joke here

Rosie O'Donnell: Estrogen Helped Calm My Rage

Some More of My Favorite Podcasts: Six

The Mental Illness Happy Hour

"A Podcast & Forum about mental illness & depression ~ especially among artists."

Okay, I'm gonna have to go serious on you here for a minute. As I think most of you know who are reading this, I was raised in an environment that was dysfunctional in some key ways. Largely but perhaps not entirely because of that, I suffer from depression.

In fighting this, I've been taking medication, and I've also tried to open myself up to a little Buddhism-influence (or a lot). I'm not going to turn this into an entry all about my reactions and feelings in this fight (I have a whole other blog for that), but some ways in which the depression manifests itself are hopelessness, fear, isolation and shame.

Well, here's a show the stated goal of which is spreading the idea, not that everything's coming up roses...but that roses can still grow. Of figuring out how to stay safe against those things, real and imagined, that you're scared of. A show the motto of which is "You Are Not Alone." A show that honors the suffering.

It does this in the form of remarkably candid interviews with people, usually in the comedy performing and/or writing business, who've suffered from depression and/or other mental illnesses.

This makes for an excellent use of the intimacy of the podcast format. You really feel as though the people conversing have forgotten that their words are being recorded and will be "broadcast" (or whatever it is podcasts do). Though obviously, that can't be so.

This is another one that I subscribed to after hearing only one episode. However, although it still pushes some of my buttons is mostly good ways, I do have a couple of qualms; they're both about the host.

Paul Gilmartin is not a mental health professional. Nor does he pretend to be (he's not Dr. Laura); the website for the show states clearly:

This site is not intended to replace the need for medical diagnosis. Please leave that to professionals. It’s not a doctor’s office. Think of it more as a waiting room that doesn’t suck.

Yet I still feel sometimes uneasy, or at least...not completely at ease.

Gilmartin is a comedian who himself suffers from some of these illnesses. On the one hand, his situation means he knows something whereof he speaks. But it also means he's playing with some very valuable (and volatile) things, the emotions of his audience; perhaps without fully knowing what he is doing. I think perhaps it might make me, personally, feel better, if he would make a statement similar to the above quote a part of the show's usual intro.

However well-intentioned--and I believe that Gilmartin's intentions are nothing but good, to help himself and to help his audience--there's still at least as much of a chance that could hurt as heal. I also kind of wish that he'd do a little more research sometimes.

If my expectations for this are higher than they are for something like good old WTF, it's because WTF hasn't hung out a shingle advertising for the neurotic (the neurotic just show up there).

Okay, I've talked enough--maybe/probably more than enough. Listen to a few and make up your own mind. Recommended episodes: Wendy Liebman, Greg Behrendt, Marc Maron and Frank Conniff.

Risk!

This podcast is a series of true stories told by the people they happened to. Most though not all of these are entertainers and writers; some you'll know, others you won't. At least one that had me laughing out loud was told by someone I had never heard of before.

The idea being that these should be events the tellers never in a million years thought they would be telling to anyone, let alone an audience. Hence the name for the show. The results are always interesting, often funny and entertaining.

But I should be clear: The stories are by no means all meant to be funny. Many of them are, but some of them are just devastating. Some are stories you'll wish had happened to you, others you'll thank whatever name you put "god" under in the book have never happened to you.

The weekly-changing variety of storytellers makes it a bit like an anthology--okay, maybe exactly like an anthology: If you don't enjoy one particular story, you have a chance that the next one will be better.

And like many anthologies, each episode has a theme around which each tale is supposed to spin. Some of the connections made are weird, but who cares?

At least one recent episode does suffer from the same flaw for which I chided Rob Paulsen: An irritatingly hard sell for a project the host wishes to promote, but it remains to be seen whether or not this will prove a habit.

Recommended episodes: Son of Strange Sex, In Harms Way, and Sneaky Choices.

How Did This Get Made?

I've talked about this one of my favorite podcasts a couple of times here already. It's a show that, to quote the opening theme song, "wallow[s] in the mediocrity of sub-par art." Twice a month their goal is to take aim at some movie which is not just bad, but amazingly so.

Paul Scheer hosts along with Jason Mantzoukas and June Diane Raphael. And there's a fourth "chair" filled by a different guest each episode.

The discussions sound very much like the participants have loaded up on Coke and M& M'S before each recording. They're highly stimulated, talk fast and often over each other, remarkably without sacrificing much clarity--though it is sometimes difficult to tell who's speaking.

(Especially when the guest is a woman. Raphael's take on the movie under review is nearly always worth hearing, but she does not have, to my ear, an especially distinctive speaking voice.)

They're not much for a plot synopsis, but usually reveal enough in the course of their discussions that you can follow along even if you haven't seen the movie. In one--and only, so far--case, they made me want to see it (that case was the episode for Crank 2: High Voltage.)

Raphael is Scheer's wife, incidentally. But completely not incidentally, all three of the regulars are working actors and/or writers in Hollywood. This means their speculation on just what the hell was happening on the sets of the movies they report on can be well-informed, certainly more so than mine would be, and maybe yours.

It also means that sooner or later, if they're at all fair, they're going to have to get to a movie that one or more of them were in. There comes a time when if you're going to deal out blows, however funny those blows may be, you have to pay the piper.

Scheer had a supporting role in Piranha 3-D and returns in its upcoming sequel, and has floated the idea of a special show on one or both of those movies, perhaps with other members of the cast and/or crew.

While I'd like to hear that episode, it does drift a bit far astray of the "so unintentionally stupid they're funny/so bad they're good" criteria. Piranha 3-D is intentionally stupid, funny, and good.

No, the movie I await their taking on with baited breath is...one I'll admit right now that I haven't seen, but most everyone who has seems to think sucked. It's one not only that Raphael and Scheer appeared in, but that Raphael actually co-wrote with one of their guests, Casey Wilson: Bride Wars.

Till that happy day, I recommend checking out one, more, or all of these episodes: , The Back-Up Plan, The Love Guru, Old Dogs, Burlesque, and All About Steve.

Blogging My Podcasts: Five

Pop My Culture

You're likely to have gotten by now that I prefer my podcasts on the lighter side, although there are certainly exceptions--WTF can get pretty heavy, for example. But Pop My Culture is probably the coziest podcast around.

It's like sitting on a sofa with a couple of funny, nerdy friends, hosts Cole Stratton and Vanessa Ragland. Who developed pretty quickly if not instantaneously into a good double act.

Neither is the others stooge, but--to oversimplify--Stratton is the "Abbott" or pseudointellectual one, and Ragland the "Costello"--childlike in her enthusiasms, and almost surreal in her thinking processes (at least as presented on the show).

Their guests tend to be people whose names you may or may not recognize depending on how aware you were of that sort of thing in preadulthood, but whose work you definitely know if you were young at all in the '80s.

For example: William Zabka, Eddie Deezen, Alan Ruck, and Savage Steve Holland w/Curtis Armstrong.

Another of their guests, voice artist Rob Paulsen, has a podcast of his own called:

Talkin Toons with Rob Paulsen

Unfortunately I can't recommend it as a regular listen. Not that Paulsen doesn't have some great stories to tell, he does. And like most voice-over artists, he can raise a smile simply by adopting a voice from when you were a kid (he was Pinky of and the Brain, Yakko of the Animaniacs and hundreds more).

Listening to at least a handful of his shows is well worth your time: Episode 7, with special guest “The Brain” Maurice Lamarche is the one I’d suggest first.

The problem is that he front-loads each episode with too long a commercial for seminars he's offering across the States. I don't object to him promoting this venture, the podcast is, after all, free, and he has the right to use it to get people in their seats at paying gigs.

That's what most comedians use theirs for at least in part, after all. But Marc Maron gets through his sponsorship messages and/or personal plugs in scarcely more than a minute, y'know?

(It should also be noted that a percentage of the moneys from these seminars is to go to charity, in the interest of fairness and fullness)

How Was Your Week with Julie Klausner

If you're anything like me, you may find yourself disagreeing with Klausner at least as often as you agree with and/or are amused by her. But where else are you going to find a podcast with segments on favorite performances of the National Anthem? Or interviews with Paul Scheer of the podcast How Did This Get Made? (which I'll get to any day now) and movie star Sally Kellerman in the same episode?

These are the podcasts I listen to: Four

I listen to a number of old-time radio podcasts. Retro radio is one of my favorite things, and there's something extra-fun to me about the incongruity of listening to it via technology not only that the participants couldn't have imagined, their children couldn't have imagined. I won't recommend any specific episodes or even podcasts (there are simply too many), but if you share my interest, the iTunes search window is your friend.

Kevin Pollak's Chat Show

Actor and comedian Pollak was an "early adopter" of the online show/podcast format with this series, which he has described as an attempt to make "a funny Charlie Rose." Which I interpret as something with dignity which also tries to go a little deeper than your average come-on-and-plug-your-movie show...and is also funny.

The resulting show, available in both audio and video formats, is hit-and-miss. The best come when Pollak gets to the conversation with his guest quickly. He too often spends too much time beforehand chatting with regulars Sam Levene, the closest thing this show has to an Andy Richter, and Jaime Fox, who assists Pollak in the running of the show (she's also his romantic partner). This is not as much fun for the audience, or at least not this member of it, as Pollak thinks.

But some of the conversations are excellent, with Michael McKean a recent standout, and a joint appearance from Paul Provenza + Rick Overton a little further back another. Certainly enough to keep me a subscriber.

(The Laura Prepon interview, on the other hand, I've yet to be able to get through and it's not just because I don't like looking at Prepon so much since she went blonde--why, god, why?. It's because their conversation sinks into a discussion of poker, of interest to both of them as well as Levene. Just not to me. I can listen to conversations about things not really of interest to me, if those conversing can connect to me in such a way that I understand at least their passion for it. A recounting of winning hands does not qualify, at least not without a good story to go with it.)

Totally Laime

I've said of other shows in this ongoing "tribute" that they were "relaxed" and/or "easygoing." Well, Elizabeth Laime (get it?) takes that to such an extreme on her podcast that one could almost forget she was even there; her guests seem to get the lion's share of the attention. I'm not entirely sure that's a bad thing.

I don't mean that Laime isn't interesting herself: I started listening to this podcast because I liked a piece she'd written in an anthology. But the "podsphere" (people say that, right?) is not exactly lacking in people who like to talk about themselves--or, to be fair, in people who are engaging at it. It's kind of a nice relief to tune into someone who doesn't seem to be podcasting from the home for the pitiful wretched.

Recommended episodes: Garfunkel and Oates; Margot Leitman

Ben Loves Podcasts III

Doug Loves Movies

The Doug of the title is comic Doug Benson, and this is half talk show; half game show. The talk is just about what movies he and his guests have seen recently, and the game is what's called "The Leonard Maltin Game."

This consists of him reading an entry from the Maltin movie guide (leaving out anything that gives away the title). Then the contestants--show guests who play for someone in the audience that they select--"bet" on how few names from the cast list, starting from the bottom, they need to hear before naming the movie. If this game were played for some real money, I could clean up.

I fear I've made this sound a whole lot heavier than it is. Benson makes no secret of his regular marijuana usage (and I have just proven myself a master of understatement) and, at least partly as a result, his attitude towards his hosting duties can perhaps best be described as...relaxed.

Recommended episodes: John Lithgow, Jonathan Lipnicki, Sarah Silverman and Greg Behrendt, Kevin Pollak & Dave Foley.

Who Charted?

This agreeable if inconsequential podcast looks at the music and movie charts with the help of a guest, and there's usually a special chart or two just for them. Recommended episodes: Sarah Silverman and Aimee Mann.

Battleship Pretension

BP probably does the best job of bringing on guests you haven't already heard on every single other podcast. Even if you like Marc Maron and Paul F. Tompkins, and I do (especially Maron), there comes a time when you start to wonder if they have to be on every show every week.

What Battleship Pretension does the worst job of, however, is labeling their episodes for their subscribers on iTunes. See, when I go to the WTF section of my "sync podcasts" page, I can see at a glance that episode 203 is Carol Leifer, 202 is Jimmy Schubert, 197 is Andrew Dice Clay and his son. In the Battleship Pretension section, all I get is numbers: 231, 230, 229, 228. I wish they'd fix that.

But anyway, recommended episode: 221 with Susan Burke. I had never heard (or heard of) Burke before, but it's a good conversation, and on a semi-personal note I was especially taken with Burke's speaking voice. After hearing this episode I "Facebooked" her to say I thought she should do audiobooks.

More podcasts

Making It with Riki Lindhome

Lindhome is the Garfunkel in Garfunkel and Oates, the singing-songwriting team all the nerds have crushes on and I am no exception.



She's also an actress whose films have ranged from two with Clint Eastwood to the Last House on the Left remake, and worked in the theater with Tim Robbins' Actors Gang.

The idea of her podcast is to talk to other people who, like her, have basically "made it" (get the pun of the title now?) in the business they call show. Not your Emma Stones necessarily in terms of fame, but people who are at the very least financially secure from their work.

She's trying (I think) to give as gloss-free a look as possible at the process of getting there; they're fun conversations on which to "eavesdrop."

Recommended episodes: Diora Baird and Lindhome talk candidly about being good-looking women in Hollywood, and it's actually a lot more interesting than I just made it sound. And my favorite Terminator-turned-supercomputer/sociopathic, human trafficking and murdering villain, Garret Dillahunt.

The Nerdist

This is a chat show about, as the title suggests, nerdy things. However, since host Chris Hardwick uses the definition of "nerd" as-

"A person who is intensely interested in a particular hobby or topic."

-he casts a wider net than you might imagine. SF TV shows, more mainstream fare, comic-books, comic-book movies; comedy and comedians are all subjects worthy of nerding out over on this show (among others).

When Hardwick and sidekicks Jonah Ray and Matt Mira don't have guests they do what they call "Hostful Podcasts," which is just the three of them talking. These can be fun and informative, but the best shows hands down are those with the guests, especially if those guests have some relationship with one or more of the hosts.

For example, possibly the episode to which I've re-listened most often features geek god Wil Wheaton, whose friendship with Hardwick spans two decades; that history can be heard in the way they talk to each other.

That episode, like all of those I would choose as the "best of the best," was recorded live before an audience. The hosts and their guests universally seem to do better with an audience to play to.

Another recommendation, but only if you're already a fan, is the special Doctor Who episode they did for the premiere of that series' season six. Hardwick is arguably the best known Who fan in America...at least as far as the contemporary version is concerned. When it comes to the original; classic series his knowledge is a little more shaky.

Which is why he gets taken to school in the episode featuring his only rival for most famous US Dr. Who fan, Late Late Show host and all around cool guy Craig Ferguson.

WTF with Marc Maron

Odds are even if you don't listen to many (or any) podcasts, you've heard of this one. Maron is the current face of podcasting, having taken over the role from Ricky Gervais. His experience working in radio no doubt helps the professional sound, but the biggest rocks in his pack are his neurosis and ability to articulate same.

As with The Nerdist, the very best episodes are those whose guests have some history with Maron; since he's a 20-plus year veteran of stand-up, that's almost everyone. But in Maron's case, however, there's a running gag in the number of guests to whom he has to apologize at least once during the show, usually for having acted like a dick to them in some previous meeting.

As a recommended episode, I'm going to suggest you start with the recent 200th, even though it's atypical. For this Maron turns the tables on himself and is interviewed by New York City comedian Mike Birbiglia.

Basically, if Marc isn't for you, his podcast won't be either, and an hour and a half of him talking about himself should be enough to tell you if he's for you. Besides, he certainly has a history with that guest. As a bonus, there's a closing montage of "greatest hits" from the first 199 episodes.

To be continued...

A Continuing Guide to Podcasts, pt. One (EDITED WITH ADDITION)

So I was thinking that I'd like to write a little about some of the podcasts I've been listening to lately. Some are quite well-known, others...less so. As usual with me with this kind of thing, there's no great significance to the order, but let's start with:

So I Married A Movie Geek

Just as the name suggests, the premise of this podcast is that in a married couple, Krissy & Justin, the husband is trying to teach his wife the error of her ways for having missed so many films. The couple watch a couple a week, usually that complement each other in some way, and talk about them. Sometimes I question their taste, but it's usually fun.

Recommended Episode: 13-The Blue Lagoon

Offstage w/ Christian Polanco

I subscribed to this 'cast immediately after hearing one episode--this one. It's a kind of podcast I'd been hoping for, one with honest, real exchanges and talk about relationships. It's surprising how intimate one or two of his guests are willing to be--or maybe not, since they tend to be performers, who in turn tend to have exhibitionist streaks.

PRI: The Sound of Young America

This easygoing interview program also airs (in an expurgated form) on some public radio stations--PRI stands for "Public Radio International." Also, they chose my favorite soundbyte from Evil Dead to play with the Bruce Campbell interview.

SYA host Jesse Thorn also co-hosts a podcast called Jordan, Jesse GO! This is as close to indistinguishable from SYA as makes no odds, save for the presence of co-host Jordan Morris. (I'd imagine that like the parents of twins, they could tell me lots of differences between the two, but to this outsider...)

ETA: One thing JJG does have to distinguish it from the SYA is this theme song:



To be continued.

Playing Dragon Poker

What would you say were the odds of my finding a pop song at random (like, it was on the internet radio on a page I visited) and thinking it was pretty cool? Those odds have got to be good, right? Pop music is one of those things which I enjoy to the fullest.

But plus to that my then finding some YouTuber has made a video for it (and uploaded it today) featuring another of those things which I enjoy to the fullest. Namely, dragons? Surely those things make it just a little bit more unlikely, right? What if it also had art from the deviantart site, yet, from which I've posted images?

Well then, I think we can only draw one conclusion: I was meant to find that song and this video today, and post it here. If you want to trifle with the will of the universe you can just scroll on right past, but I wouldn't, if I were you.

(BTW, there are one or two tastefully depicted portrayals of dragon-on-dragon sex)

Sentences that should've been rephrased

Christine O'Donnell walked off the set of her interview with Piers Morgan after he probed her

Nothing to see here, folks, move along, step lively

So it seems that this 18-year-old girl in Australia was found with what was purported to be a "booby trap" type of device around her neck. After the police force, working with experts, were able to remove the collar, it was found to have been a hoax.

Now...I will not voice any suspicions at this time as to whether the young lady's tale of how she got into the collar was the truth.

But I'm not the only one who, on seeing this story, was reminded of a certain third film in the thrilling (mostly) Saw series.

The terror echoes the plot of the 2006 horror movie Saw III in which a madman fits a collar of shotgun cartridges round a pretty victim's neck.

Technically, a madwoman fits the shotgun cartridges round her neck.

More interestingly:

Prime Minister Julia Gillard has likened the ordeal to "a Hollywood script". She said it's "the kind of thing you would see at the cinema or on TV. You would never expect it to happen in real life in Australia".

Well, yeah...if you forget that Saw was created and Saw III was written by two Australians (Leigh Whannell and James Wan).

Let's not be so quick to blame Hollywood for the mad things in art that mad people try to make live, m'kay?

Why would she do this to me, that's all.

I just want to know why she'd do this to me. Why would who do what?

Why would Jane Wiedlin, at whose hotness I once fell at her feet.



Why would she sacrifice her signature Joan of Arc cut to go bleach blonde?

Why, that's all.

So go figure.

In the first 10 minutes of this WTF with Marc Maron podcast, Maron reads some e-mails. One of them is from me. He doesn't read my name--although oddly, one of the others whose name he does read (bastard) is Ben, too.

Whether by process of elimination or because you recognize my style, you'll probably know which one is mine, should you care to listen.

Again indulging that occasional habit of Amazon reviewing

Talking to Girls About Duran Duran, by Rob Sheffield.

It's time for the annual try

And now, four completely unrelated matters.

1. Tuesday, September First, will be my birthday.

2. iTunes sells gift certificates; I have a Wish List there.

3. I also have an Amazon Wishlist.

4. All together, every single Saw movie on said Amazon Wishlist combined could be had for like, $16 (not including shipping).

Good day. Thank you for your time.

A New Feature

You in my vast reading audience are familiar by now with the fun I like to have with headlines. "Headlines That Should Have Been Rephrased;" "Great Headlines in Journalism," and the like.

I'm proud now to introduce a new series, which I intend to call: Headlines That Could've been a Lot Funnier, with a Little Rewriting.

Case in point:

Rick Santorum Unleashes on Rick Perry for Gay Marriage Stance

Now, if they'd just gone for the word "Unloads"...

I'm beginning to think John Boehner may not be the wisest of men

Hello. If you follow the doings in our government, you may remember this incident a few months ago:

House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) said Thursday that he would not agree to another temporary extension of federal government funding at current levels, upping the stakes in the debate over federal spending.

“Read my lips: We’re going to cut spending...

Shortly thereafter he was overheard saying he couldn't believe he'd said that.

Why? Because--

The phrase “Read my lips” is rarely heard in politics since George H. W. Bush used it during the Republican National Convention in 1988 to emphasize that he wouldn’t raise taxes — something he did as president to shrink the deficit.

And breaking that promise was one of the things--not the only thing, but one of the things--that killed Bush's chances for a second term. So you can understand Boehner's disbelief.

You might think, however, that he'd have learned a lesson from that gaffe. However, back in 1984...

Bush had gotten in some trouble because he had refused categorically to rule out a tax increase in terms as adamantine as Reagan's. Bush tried to wiggle out of press conferences where this came up: "No more nit-picking. Zippity doo-dah. Now it's off to the races," was his parting shot as he sought to exit one press conference where he was being grilled.

And today...

Boehner: 'It's A Zippity-Do-Da Day!'

That's what Speaker Boehner told one of our reporters as he was walking into a meeting of his caucus a short time ago.

Now, to invite comparison with George Bush I (esp. where taxes are concerned) once might be cast as unwise. To do so twice smacks of irresponsibility. The question is: Will he go for the hat trick?

And if so, how? Will he pick a fight with a short, Greek man as Bush One did? Will he be defeated by Bill Clinton, as Bush One was? Nah. If I had to place a bet, I'd look for something in the area of describing Medicare as "socialized medicine," as Bush did all the way back in 1964.

C'mon, John. I know you can do it.

That's the funniest thing I've heard in years

"As hours pass and the uncertainty builds, I think the market is starting to price in the potential that we might not have a solution by August 2," the deadline for raising the U.S. debt limit, said Channing Smith, managing director of Capital Advisors Inc. "Confidence in our political system is beginning to fade."

Beginning to fade? Beginning?

The war in Iraq...

Bush v. Gore...

Iran/Contra...

The war in Vietnam...

Watergate...

The assassination of JFK...

And he thinks confidence in our political system is just beginning to fade?

Sheesh.

I've been dissed by the star of one of my favorite shows!

Holy shit.

Okay, quick backstory. About a month ago, MoveOn.Org ran a clip from the Roseanne show under the headline,

What If Everyone Understood Today What Roseanne Understood Then?

Good clip, right? I agree. However--I freely admit--I get a little twitchy when I think writers aren't being given proper credit. So I did some quick searching and then made this comment on the Facebook version of the MoveOn post--

I think you mean what if everyone understood today what Jeff Abugov, Joel Madison and Ron Nelson knew then. They're the ones who actually wrote the episode.

--and then I don't think I've thought about it since.

Apparently, however, a fan of Roseanne * went to her blog and asked about it, saying,

Roseanne, do you know who the fuck Ben A. Varkentine is?

And lo and behold, she replied.

if you read the comments--one guy says that the three writers whose names are on the script wrote the lines, but that isn't how tv works at all--people get their names on a script according to a ledger--when it's their turn to get their names on a script--the roseanne show was written by at least fifteen people each script--and then I added jokes and thoughts and scenes to it and it was sent back and "gang punched up"...

Now. I'm actually aware that most TV is "gang written" and Roseanne was no exception. Thing is, not having been on the set myself, the only guide I have as to who wrote what is the credits. So did the three guys who were credited actually not write that scene? Maybe.

Did Roseanne? Funny, she doesn't say so. But after all, she delivered the lines (and did a good job) and the show was named after her. It appears that she would like us to infer that we might as well assume she wrote them all.

Certainly she doesn't name any other writer or writers who might be responsible, either. It's also worth noting that her relationship with most if not all of the Roseanne writers was famously abusive and belittling.

Speaking of which. Back on her blog, she then said this...

--so this guy ben k.v. who thinks he knows something --quite simply knows nothing.

Well. The easy shot is that I do at least know that my latter two initials are A & V, not K and V. But let's overlook that--she was probably in a hurry, and the name "Varkentine" has confused people better than me, you, or she. But I'm less inclined to overlook her parting shot "at" me:

Nice try though, boy--always trying to separate the woman from her work.

Well thank you, little lady, for always assuming sexism if someone doesn't like your work (or in this case, does like your work (much of it, anyway--see below), but questions whether you deserve all 100% of the credit for it).

The thing is--Roseanne is one of my favorite shows. To name just one example of why, I think the two-part story in which Roseanne's sister Jackie is beaten by her boyfriend should be a model of how to do a "very special" episode.

I think it really tried to examine, within its restrictions, the different and varying thoughts and feelings women and men have about violence. And it did so while remaining really funny, but without resorting to a compulsive need to "lighten" a very dark subject.

I think the Conners showed better than 97% of other sitcoms what a real American family was like in the '90s. ...up to a certain point.

(I mark the disintegration as beginning with the arrival of the not-Becky. Nothing against Sarah Chalke--as she would go on to show on Scrubs, she's a talented actress--but that's where the show's fictional reality began to thin, until it was finally torn up completely. By the time of the ending, oh god was it waiting to die.)

I have no problem acknowledging that Roseanne probably deserves the queen's share of the credit for why the show was so good, when it was so good. Characters like Roseanne, Dan and Darlene Conner had rarely if ever been shown before on television.

However, I think she deserves the queen's share of the credit. Not all of it. And I also think she deserves at least as much blame for why when the show got bad, it got so bad. In that regard, I suppose I should just be grateful that Roseanne didn't see these thoughts of mine on the series, written a few years ago:

It's ironic, but I really think you can trace the decline of this show by how much power Roseanne had over her character.

In the first years, Roseanne Conner is a strong, funny, loving woman. At the end, she's controlling, grim, and hateful.

Or that I said that the "real" her irritated me (and that was before all this!).

Then she might really have gotten angry.

And if that doesn't just say it all.

With pressure mounting on Congress and the White House to ensure the government doesn't default on its debt, the latest Democratic offering shows just how much party leaders have compromised during the negotiations as Republicans have held their ground. For weeks, Democrats demanded that any substantial package include revenues to offset spending cuts, namely by closing corporate tax loopholes and ending subsidies for the oil and gas industry. But their demands have now been whittled away to a proposal coming from their own party with major cuts and no revenue at all.

Republicans, meanwhile, have largely gotten what they wanted in their push for significant spending cuts without new revenue.

I ask for your forgiveness in advance

Just reading an article about the killings in Norway today. And I want to be clear that I'm as horrified by the thought of them as I hope every reasonable person would be. So I don't mean to make light, rather to take some solace in dark humor, when I say that this sentence from the story jumped out at me.

See if you can tell why.

"I saw many dead people," said Elise, whose father, Vidar Myhre, didn't want her to disclose her last name.

Sigh. Laugh, clown, laugh...

A choice of replies

Paris Hilton storms off TV interview after being called a has-been

1. Don't you have to have once been something in order to be a has-been?

Or...

2. To be fair, Paris still can wear clothes, help cause the failure of movies (some of which should've done better) and be at least two different kinds of whore. That's not a has-been at all, that's all she's ever been.

Thank you.

They couldn't have just turned on a TV, I suppose. (Edited w/addition)

I'm not saying journalism all over the world has other problems than the Murdochs...but I did just notice something. If you read news items of the father and son testimony today, you'll see that in some of them, Murdoch, Sr, tells the committee, "This is the most humble day of my life."

But in others, it was "...the most humble day of my career." Well really, how hard is that? We're talking about testimony which is being televised (live) on a multiplicity of stations around the world. And they can't get right words he spoke less than two hours before?

ETA: On the other hand, Murdoch later claimed that he wasn't sure whether or not he'd said the arrested ex-employee Rebekah Brooks was his "priority." (He's been so quoted by low-profile outlets like the BBC. )

Why isn't he sure, he says? Because there were "about 20 microphones stuck in my mouth" at the time. As if the number of devices that convert sound into electronic signal in front of one's mouth at any given time have any effect on what comes out of that mouth, or memory of same.

Even granting that might be true of you or I, or any so-called "regular people," it doesn't fly when we're talking about someone who has been an influential media mogul for more than 30 years.

You're telling me he doesn't know exactly what he's saying to that self-same media at any given time, no matter how many microphones are in front of him? Well. This is another one of those problems.

Either he knows perfectly well and is lying about it, which doesn't say much for his ethics, or he truly doesn't remember something he said less than two weeks ago, which doesn't say much for his faculties.

See, this is how you know you've crossed some sort of a line.

If You Offer To Masturbate For Her, Sophie Monk WILL Get In Touch With You.

Appeals to the public? I wouldn't be so sure of that...

There's an old saying. I've seen it attributed to Mahatma Gandhi, and I've seen it attributed to a "French radical." It may even be apocryphal. But it goes like this:

"There they go. I must run, and catch up with them--for I am their leader!"

For some reason, that old saying popped into my head just now when I saw this headline on the Yahoo! main page:

Obama appeals to public to help influence debt-ceiling deal

Oh. Really. Now Obama appeals to the public. The public that has been screaming into the wilderness (for months, at least) that they don't want anything to happen to Social Security, and they do want the wealthy people of this country to pay their share.

(Seriously, the numbers are pretty overwhelming for both).

Now Obama appeals to the public, after wasting so much time trying to make deals with people who are actively working for his defeat, and clearly don't care if everybody from the middle class on down goes with him.

Great.

How many times will the republicans have to keep pissing in his mouth before he'll stop calling it lemonade?

Gracious. Don't tell me I offend.

Got a nice note from a fella screennamed "joe_h," who informs me that

You have suckass taste in women.

This is in reaction to an old post here in which I responded to Esquire's naming Kate Beckinsale "The sexiest woman alive."

My correspondent further goes on to say that:

None of the women you named should even be mentioned in the same breath with Kate Beckinsale.

For the record, the other women I named in that old post: Anna Faris, Lauren Graham; Rosamund Pike, Megan Mullally, Bebe Neuwirth, Megan Aniston and Jennifer Fox (or sumthin), Amanda Seyfried and Amy Sedaris.

Now, this was almost two years ago. It is a fact of life that sexy does not always age well.

I'm not sure I'd name them all again now, except maybe Aniston, and I'd probably add Rosario Dawson.

But to say that none of them should be mentioned in the same breath? Is he serious? I'll say he's serious:

The fact that Kate doesn't ring your bell means you are either blind or a fag.

Oh, like there's no chance I could be both?

Sorry. I freely admit Beckinsale does have a certain something (although that something isn't picking good movie roles), but I still don't think she's all that.

...you had to be slapped down for your awful and wrong post.

Consider me slapped!

Oh, no no no no no no no no no...

Mars Needs Moms didn't fall flat soon enough to stop this future eyesore from being made.

Spielberg doesn't understand animation much better than his friend Zemeckis does--he made a movie out of The Flintstones, for crying out loud. To say nothing of An American Tail (and believe me, I'd rather say nothing of An American Tail).

But then motion capture, as we've discussed but as I am going to keep repeating until I've wrung the nausea that it causes from my body, is not animation. Any more than moving corpses around on sticks is acting.