Did you ever have the feeling you were being watched?
Source.
Monday, January 01, 2007
Sunday, December 31, 2006
Nathan Lane, ladies and gentlemen.
With thanks for recommending the link to Mark Evanier, who has some qualms.
I understand Mark's hesitation. But I have to admit that in the case of something like this that most of us were never going to get a chance to pay to see...
Well, right or wrong, if it's a choice between watching an illegal videotape of a hilarious, amazing and otherwise unpreserved performance or not, my personal ethical bar is set a little lower.
The scene is comedy gold, BTW, and has been done by dozens of actors both pro and amateur, in full productions and acting class scenes. Including, incidentally, yours truly in the latter. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say Lane is funnier than I was.
Call it a hunch.
I shouldn't link to this because I don't want to give even tacit approval to the secret and illegal videotaping of live performances but it's just too good...This is seven minutes from the recent Broadway production of The Odd Couple starring Mr. Lane and Matthew Broderick. It's shot poorly and unethically from the balcony but it's still funny.
I understand Mark's hesitation. But I have to admit that in the case of something like this that most of us were never going to get a chance to pay to see...
Well, right or wrong, if it's a choice between watching an illegal videotape of a hilarious, amazing and otherwise unpreserved performance or not, my personal ethical bar is set a little lower.
The scene is comedy gold, BTW, and has been done by dozens of actors both pro and amateur, in full productions and acting class scenes. Including, incidentally, yours truly in the latter. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say Lane is funnier than I was.
Call it a hunch.
I've seen it, it's rubbish
Continuing my new tradition of late night cable TV viewing reviews, this morning I finally managed to sit through the film version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It was uphill work.
There are reasons why it took 30 years or whatever to bring Hitchhiker's to the big screen, and one of them is that it does not lend itself to a couple hours length or a dramatic format. It's not a drama, it's a comedic yarn, a great one, and trying to make it confrom to the rules of drama (such as they are) could only ever have ended in tears.
The "laid-back," sprawling quality of the aural, TV and book versions accounts for a great deal of their charm, and trying to squeeze so much of it in can't have pleased many. People like me who are familiar with the original will be aggravated by some of the seemingly random changes, and I wonder if those who weren't followed it at all
Yet the words that come to my mind are "noble failure." I'm satisfied that most if not all of those concerned were honestly trying to do justice to Douglas Adams' novel, etc, without being a slavish imitation of the previous versions.
There were plenty of little touches along the way (the use of the original theme "Journey of the Sorcerer" by the Eagles, the TV series Marvin getting a look in, etc) to assure me of that. The trouble is it didn't work, and sometimes when it didn't work, it really didn't work.
Sometimes it only almost, but not quite, completely didn't work.
Worst of all was Sam Rockwell's Zaphod. He was either directed or chose to play the part as a lampoon of George W. Bush. Which is a "reimagining" that is both out of character and will date the film horribly in the unlikely event anyone tries to watch it in 30 years.
On the other arm, Zooey Deschanel's Trillian was probably the most improved considering her character's always been one of the weakest parts in the series. In the film, she's the most interesting character and the only one I could see spending an evening talking to.
And it's not just because she's pretty. As Adams himself found in later books, most of his characters aren't really "heroic" in the traditional dramatic sense, which works fine for the rambling narrative it originally was, but not so much for a two-hour movie.
Trillian is the only one who goes out and actually does anything for any reasons that seem inward-directed, and therefore she's the only one who could possibly have engendered much audience sympathy.
And I found myself strangely respecting Mos Def for finding a new way to approach Ford Prefect, one of my favorites. You can see him trying to find a way to approach his lines that suggest a true alien, for whom Earthling, let alone English, is not a first language.
The trouble is, he's not terribly funny in the role (though still, paradoxically, funnier than anybody else). And Ford, once he's served his individual and sole plot purpose of rescuing Arthur from the exploding Earth, really needs to be funny. Or else the character's just going to disappear into the landscape, as Def, sadly, does.
On the direction/adaptation front, I was astonished at how many of the biggest ideas of the story were treated as throwaways. This may have seemed droll in the filmmaking, but from my POV it made the movie duller and harder to understand.
Speaking of POV, one of the new elements in the film is something called a POV gun, the idea of which is that if you shoot someone with it, they instantly see things from your point of view. It's used as a quick-and-clean way to expose a character's innermost feelings, leading me to dub it "the exposition gun."
This makes for a scene which for me perfectly encapsulated the failure of the new HGttG as drama. In the words of the Robot Devil on Futurama (the best SF satire since the original Hitchhiker's):
"You can't just have your characters announce how they feel! That makes me feel angry!"
At the end, I'm forced to the conclusion that the problem may not have been with the performances, the direction or the adaptation (though all could have been better). The problem is inherent with the source material.
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy didn't really need to be a movie, it's not best served by the form. I'm assuming most of you who are reading this have seen the 1981 TV series, heard the records, and/or read the books, and if you haven't, I urge you to do so.
This movie is perhaps a third, at best, of what Hitchhiker's, at it's best, really is.
Friday, December 29, 2006
Okay, the "Saddam being hanged" thing
Welcome to Pottersville has the best take on it I've seen tonight so far, along with a great quote from the Rev. Jesse Jackson.
No one but his family and friends (if he had any) is going to mourn Saddam Hussein, but it's short-sighted in the extreme to pretend that this sort of "prize" is worth all we've gone through to get it.
Our hands are filthy.
(Even though, as Fox and the producers of 24 keep telling us even after my friendly warning, "America doesn't negotiate with terrorists. Neither does Jack.")
No one but his family and friends (if he had any) is going to mourn Saddam Hussein, but it's short-sighted in the extreme to pretend that this sort of "prize" is worth all we've gone through to get it.
we did squander nearly 3000 lives to depose, capture, try, convict and sentence a single man who was found guilty of killing less than 5% of that number.
The reason for which Saddam will be executed, his ordering the massacre of 148 Shi’ites in 1982, was never, to my knowledge, mentioned in the run-up to war. Perhaps the reason why it was never mentioned was because Saddam carried out these executions with a wink and a nod from Reagan and Poppy, his two bestest buddies. Rummy would soon join the club in December 1983 bearing gifts such as poison gas and satellite photos of the Iranian army’s position.
Our hands are filthy.
(Even though, as Fox and the producers of 24 keep telling us even after my friendly warning, "America doesn't negotiate with terrorists. Neither does Jack.")
It's times like these I really regret MST3K is no longer on the air.
Early this morning, in one of those whimsical "you're up, it's on cable" moods, I gave a low-budget slasher-horror film called Scarecrow Gone Wild a try. Oh, my god. Honesty dictates I should tell you I was not exactly expecting great things from a B-movie called Scarecrow Gone Wild, but still: Oh, my god.
This thing is below-MST3K caliber all the way. The acting seems nonexistent, but (bending over backwards to be fair to a young cast) it is impossible to tell if the actors could ever be any good, because: The direction is incompetent and the script...no, I refuse to believe there was a script. The dialogue makes Kevin Smith sound like Noel Coward.
Here's the scrap of plot: A college hazing victim merges with the soul of a murderous scarcrow and kills the kids who did this to him, on the beach. But put all that aside. It is the most plainly homoerotic slasher-horror film I've seen since at least the Jeepers Creepers movies, and maybe since the infamous Nightmare on Elm St Pt. 2.
First of all, the actor...and I use the word loosely...who was cast to play the role of the victim turned homicidal maniac is a young man with the fake-sounding name of Caleb Roehrig. Obviously I am not privy to Mr. Roehrig's sexual orientation, but I can say that he comes off about as straight as the love child of Liberace and Scott Thompson's Buddy Cole character from The Kids in the Hall.
This wouldn't necessarily be a problem, except that this immidiately noticable "vibe" means whether intentionally or not (I'd guess not), early scenes in which there's talk of setting his character up with a girl can only be greeted with hoots of derision. He, and/or his character, is clearly a gay man. Remember that, it may be important.
And then there's the good ole' boys he spends the rest of the film putting to sleep (much like the audience, ba-da-boom). Most of these fellows seem to spend inordinate amounts of time holding one another, considering their characters are supposed to be straight. And despite the presence of one or two really rather cute girls.
One of whom, a young woman named
Tara Platt, has a part that consists almost wholly of sleeping with her friend's boyfriend, going topless and being killed off. Who says there are no good roles for women any more?
But my point in bringing this up is, even on the most base level of providing pleasant eye-candy for a straight male and/or lesbian audience, this film fails.
Not because Platt is anything less than lovely to look at, she's quite beautiful. But this film seems to have been made mainly on cold, cold days. I'm not making a cheap nipple joke, I'm picturing a director screaming "I don't care about your frostbitten toes, I'm losing the light!"
The scenes of Platt's exposed, pale skin and her bikini-clad form walking into an icy-looking sea do not inspire thoughts of the "hubba-hubba" variety. It's more like will someone for god's sakes get that girl a blanket and some hot chocolate and sit her down by the fire?
There's actually one or two good web sites devoted to looking at horror movies from a queer perspective (my favorite is Camp Blood-get it, get, huh?). I think such a film dramatizing the alienation many if not most young gay men must feel if surrounded by homophobic straight frat-boys could-potentially-be great.
That's the obvious subtext here. But what moves this film from the merely poor to the jaw-droppingly, inexplicably, irresponsibly bad is this: The hazing of the kid who's going to come back and get them, get them all, consists of his being stripped, beaten and left tied to a scarecrow all night.
And then it stops being funny. Because you realize that the filmmakers moral compass is so skewed they're willing to invoke the real-life horror of Matthew Shephard as the inciting incident for their stalker flick. But not willing to come out and say that's what their crappy movie is about.
And that makes Scarecrow Gone Wild not just a bad film, but an actually evil one.
This thing is below-MST3K caliber all the way. The acting seems nonexistent, but (bending over backwards to be fair to a young cast) it is impossible to tell if the actors could ever be any good, because: The direction is incompetent and the script...no, I refuse to believe there was a script. The dialogue makes Kevin Smith sound like Noel Coward.
Here's the scrap of plot: A college hazing victim merges with the soul of a murderous scarcrow and kills the kids who did this to him, on the beach. But put all that aside. It is the most plainly homoerotic slasher-horror film I've seen since at least the Jeepers Creepers movies, and maybe since the infamous Nightmare on Elm St Pt. 2.
First of all, the actor...and I use the word loosely...who was cast to play the role of the victim turned homicidal maniac is a young man with the fake-sounding name of Caleb Roehrig. Obviously I am not privy to Mr. Roehrig's sexual orientation, but I can say that he comes off about as straight as the love child of Liberace and Scott Thompson's Buddy Cole character from The Kids in the Hall.
This wouldn't necessarily be a problem, except that this immidiately noticable "vibe" means whether intentionally or not (I'd guess not), early scenes in which there's talk of setting his character up with a girl can only be greeted with hoots of derision. He, and/or his character, is clearly a gay man. Remember that, it may be important.
And then there's the good ole' boys he spends the rest of the film putting to sleep (much like the audience, ba-da-boom). Most of these fellows seem to spend inordinate amounts of time holding one another, considering their characters are supposed to be straight. And despite the presence of one or two really rather cute girls.
One of whom, a young woman named
Tara Platt, has a part that consists almost wholly of sleeping with her friend's boyfriend, going topless and being killed off. Who says there are no good roles for women any more?But my point in bringing this up is, even on the most base level of providing pleasant eye-candy for a straight male and/or lesbian audience, this film fails.
Not because Platt is anything less than lovely to look at, she's quite beautiful. But this film seems to have been made mainly on cold, cold days. I'm not making a cheap nipple joke, I'm picturing a director screaming "I don't care about your frostbitten toes, I'm losing the light!"
The scenes of Platt's exposed, pale skin and her bikini-clad form walking into an icy-looking sea do not inspire thoughts of the "hubba-hubba" variety. It's more like will someone for god's sakes get that girl a blanket and some hot chocolate and sit her down by the fire?
There's actually one or two good web sites devoted to looking at horror movies from a queer perspective (my favorite is Camp Blood-get it, get, huh?). I think such a film dramatizing the alienation many if not most young gay men must feel if surrounded by homophobic straight frat-boys could-potentially-be great.
That's the obvious subtext here. But what moves this film from the merely poor to the jaw-droppingly, inexplicably, irresponsibly bad is this: The hazing of the kid who's going to come back and get them, get them all, consists of his being stripped, beaten and left tied to a scarecrow all night.
And then it stops being funny. Because you realize that the filmmakers moral compass is so skewed they're willing to invoke the real-life horror of Matthew Shephard as the inciting incident for their stalker flick. But not willing to come out and say that's what their crappy movie is about.
And that makes Scarecrow Gone Wild not just a bad film, but an actually evil one.
Sunday, December 24, 2006
Songs I'm listening to this Christmas Eve
"The Christmas Waltz," as recorded by Frank Sinatra the second time as a single for Capitol records.
It almost always makes me smile as the last chorus fades out when Frank says "Merry Christmas," and he sounds...innocent. Innocence had passed him by a long time ago, but in that moment, on that record, I believe it. The choral group helps-it's haunting (in a good way).
All of us sometimes need our innocence restored, even if it's only artifice. Or art. And if Frank could do it, then there is always hope for the rest of us.
In 1961 Kenneth Tynan wrote,
I still love the way the lines "I wanted to say to you how much I need to be with you," repeated in the chorus into the fade, start to sound, unintentionally, like "I wanted to say to you how much I need to scream with you."
PS: As luck has it, someone's posted a homemade video for this song to YouTube. It's made up of clips from the cartoon movie Anastasia, which I haven't seen, but they seem to work pretty good with the song.
The Charlie Brown Christmas musical soundtrack is a must, of course. What it always captures for me is the melancholy of the holiday. Plus it's an obvious thing to say, but I seriously love Vince Guaraldi's piano playing.
This probably won't be allowed to stay up long (and the sound is a little tinny), but for soever long as it lasts, here's the first seven-odd minutes of the special. Enjoy.
You tell 'em, Chuck old boy.
"Merry Christmas, May Your Every New Year Dream Come True"
It almost always makes me smile as the last chorus fades out when Frank says "Merry Christmas," and he sounds...innocent. Innocence had passed him by a long time ago, but in that moment, on that record, I believe it. The choral group helps-it's haunting (in a good way).
All of us sometimes need our innocence restored, even if it's only artifice. Or art. And if Frank could do it, then there is always hope for the rest of us.
In 1961 Kenneth Tynan wrote,
A few months ago my nine-year-old daughter came in to be kissed while I was playing [Miles Davis'] most haunting LP, Kind of Blue. She listened for a moment and then said: 'That's Miles Davis.' I asked her how she could tell. 'Because, she replied, 'it sounds like a little boy who's been locked out and wants to get in.'
She Won't Be Home
by Erasure
And I wanted to say to you
How much I want to be with you
I wanted to say to you
How much I need to be with you
Christmas time comes once a year
She knows this time he won't be near
She phones her mum
Says this time she cannot come
Don't worry I'm with friends this Christmas
Dad gets upset
But in time he soon forgets
Here comes another lonely Christmas
I still love the way the lines "I wanted to say to you how much I need to be with you," repeated in the chorus into the fade, start to sound, unintentionally, like "I wanted to say to you how much I need to scream with you."
PS: As luck has it, someone's posted a homemade video for this song to YouTube. It's made up of clips from the cartoon movie Anastasia, which I haven't seen, but they seem to work pretty good with the song.
The Charlie Brown Christmas musical soundtrack is a must, of course. What it always captures for me is the melancholy of the holiday. Plus it's an obvious thing to say, but I seriously love Vince Guaraldi's piano playing.
This probably won't be allowed to stay up long (and the sound is a little tinny), but for soever long as it lasts, here's the first seven-odd minutes of the special. Enjoy.
"I know nobody likes me. Why do we have to have a holiday season to emphasize it?"
You tell 'em, Chuck old boy.
"Random" Flickr-Blogging: IMG_1225 (get it?)
Friday, December 22, 2006
Happy Christmas your arse, I pray God it's our last
In 2004 the UK voted it their favorite Christmas song. Over such greats as Baby Please Come Home by U2 (and originally Darlene Love), Little Drummer Boy, White Christmas and Do They Know It's Christmas, just to name a few.
This year, MuchMusic's (Canada's MTV) show of top 20 holiday songs/videos listed it as #2. I find it signifigant that the Canadians, with their apologetic natures, chose Do They Know It's Christmas as #1, and not Tears Are Not Enough, Canada's own 1985 charity single. I guess they still feel bad about the whole Bryan Adams thing.
It reached no. 10 in the official charts this year almost 20 years after its initial release, and only lost a new vote because of a last-day message board rally by Queen fans for Thank God It's Christmas.
Times like this I like to remember something I was once told: That Freddie Mercury himself once compared Queen's music to tissue paper--an immensely useful thing when you need it, but definitively disposable.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you, from a 1988 (just look at her glorious long red hair) live performance on St. Patrick's Day...The Fairytale of New York, by Kirsty MacColl with The Pogues.
The most indispensible Christmas song...ever.
This year, MuchMusic's (Canada's MTV) show of top 20 holiday songs/videos listed it as #2. I find it signifigant that the Canadians, with their apologetic natures, chose Do They Know It's Christmas as #1, and not Tears Are Not Enough, Canada's own 1985 charity single. I guess they still feel bad about the whole Bryan Adams thing.
It reached no. 10 in the official charts this year almost 20 years after its initial release, and only lost a new vote because of a last-day message board rally by Queen fans for Thank God It's Christmas.
Times like this I like to remember something I was once told: That Freddie Mercury himself once compared Queen's music to tissue paper--an immensely useful thing when you need it, but definitively disposable.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you, from a 1988 (just look at her glorious long red hair) live performance on St. Patrick's Day...The Fairytale of New York, by Kirsty MacColl with The Pogues.
The most indispensible Christmas song...ever.
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Okay, the "beauty pageant winners gone wild" thing
I haven't said much about this item because I figured Jon Stewart and especially Stephen Colbert have pretty much said what there was to be said: Blah blah blah blah male hypocrisy, blah blah blah homophobia, blah blah prudes, blah prurience.
Jon & Stephen said it a lot more satirically than that. Then I turn to TMZ this afternoon and find this:
And it dawns on me: It's a publicity stunt. Okay, so sometimes I'm an idiot. Otherwise it wouldn't have taken me X-many days to figure that out. But if memory serves, ratings for the pageants have been on the wane a while, and you don't have to be brilliant to figure out why.
In an age where we're only two clicks away from being able to see Britney Spears' vagina at any given time, what hold does a beauty pageant have? So some combination of the girls, Trump, and/or other officials have decided to go after a little of that L Word/Girls Gone Wild dollar.
You have to admit it's worked like a charm. Ask yourself: When was the last time you heard so much about the beauty pageant winners? That's right, back in 1984 with the Vanessa Williams issue.
Again if memory serves, back then it actually was about hlah blah blah blah male hypocrisy, blah blah blah homophobia, blah blah prudes, blah prurience. But this is just a cynical publicity stunt.
Jon & Stephen said it a lot more satirically than that. Then I turn to TMZ this afternoon and find this:
TMZ has learned that Katie Rees, Miss Nevada USA 2007, has been stripped of her title after racy photos emerged of her kissing other women and exposing herself.
And it dawns on me: It's a publicity stunt. Okay, so sometimes I'm an idiot. Otherwise it wouldn't have taken me X-many days to figure that out. But if memory serves, ratings for the pageants have been on the wane a while, and you don't have to be brilliant to figure out why.
In an age where we're only two clicks away from being able to see Britney Spears' vagina at any given time, what hold does a beauty pageant have? So some combination of the girls, Trump, and/or other officials have decided to go after a little of that L Word/Girls Gone Wild dollar.
You have to admit it's worked like a charm. Ask yourself: When was the last time you heard so much about the beauty pageant winners? That's right, back in 1984 with the Vanessa Williams issue.
Again if memory serves, back then it actually was about hlah blah blah blah male hypocrisy, blah blah blah homophobia, blah blah prudes, blah prurience. But this is just a cynical publicity stunt.
Resist the obvious joke about the Director of something called the Palm Center writing about guys in the shower
Seriously, resist that urge. Because this is serious stuff, and good too. Via The Carpetbagger,
Okay I'm resisting one obvious temptation but I have to give in to this one: Do you suppose there are any conservatives who say that maybe, just maybe, seeing the dishonesty of the White House might lead to fewer Americans signing up for military service?
Two years after it came out, I think that might be, or should have been, the most impactful statement Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" made. Once we've shown the troops we're willing to ask them to kill or be killed for lies, well...
...how do we expect to ask them (or anyone) to put the uniform on at all, much less wear it with pride?
Okay, that's pretty heavy stuff, so here's the paragraph I was talking about in the headline:
A new poll reveals that 73% of military members say they are comfortable around lesbians and gays. And 23% say they know an active duty soldier in their unit who is lesbian or gay…. More than half — 55% — of the troops who know a gay peer said the presence of gays or lesbians in their unit is well known by others.
Only 5% of troops said they are “very uncomfortable” around gays.
For years, conservatives have said allowing gay people to wear a uniform and put their lives on the line for their country would undermine troop morale and lead to fewer Americans signing up for military service, because soldiers are ill at ease around gay people. The claim was always weak, but with poll results like these, it’s pretty thoroughly debunked.
Okay I'm resisting one obvious temptation but I have to give in to this one: Do you suppose there are any conservatives who say that maybe, just maybe, seeing the dishonesty of the White House might lead to fewer Americans signing up for military service?
Two years after it came out, I think that might be, or should have been, the most impactful statement Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" made. Once we've shown the troops we're willing to ask them to kill or be killed for lies, well...
...how do we expect to ask them (or anyone) to put the uniform on at all, much less wear it with pride?
Okay, that's pretty heavy stuff, so here's the paragraph I was talking about in the headline:
Prominent supporters of “don’t ask, don’t tell” have expressed concerns about privacy in the shower, [Dr. Aaron Belkin, Director of the Palm Center, who has written widely on the subject] said, but nearly three out of four troops said in the Zogby poll that they usually or almost always take showers privately – only 8% say they usually or almost always take showers in group stalls.
To be naked and fresh is always hard
NPR's Fresh Air has a couple of particuarly interesting film interviews today.
The first is with Bill Condon, who directed and wrote the screenplay adaptation for the new movie "Dreamgirls." He also wrote the screenplay for the adaptation of "Chicago," and wrote and directed "Kinsey" and "Gods and Monsters," for which screenplay he won the Aademy Award.
So I'm saying he's the real deal.
The second interview is with Christine Vachon, a producer whose films include "A Dirty Shame," "Camp," "Storytelling," "One Hour Photo" and "I Shot Andy Warhol." To be truthful I haven't actually liked most of her movies that I've seen.
But I'm recommending the interview anyway, because she has some good stories about negotiating with ratings boards, and because she uses the phrase "blinking vagina" in a sentence.
The first is with Bill Condon, who directed and wrote the screenplay adaptation for the new movie "Dreamgirls." He also wrote the screenplay for the adaptation of "Chicago," and wrote and directed "Kinsey" and "Gods and Monsters," for which screenplay he won the Aademy Award.
So I'm saying he's the real deal.
The second interview is with Christine Vachon, a producer whose films include "A Dirty Shame," "Camp," "Storytelling," "One Hour Photo" and "I Shot Andy Warhol." To be truthful I haven't actually liked most of her movies that I've seen.
But I'm recommending the interview anyway, because she has some good stories about negotiating with ratings boards, and because she uses the phrase "blinking vagina" in a sentence.
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Monday, December 18, 2006
A sign from God
Via TMZ.com, Alec Baldwin says Obama is not ready to run for President. Well, that settles it. Run, Obama, run.
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection
Shakespeare's Sister registers her disgust with a Christian group that is seeking to "re-claim" a symbol of the gay community, by going into the rainbow business.
ETA: By the way, is it just me? Or did anybody else get the feeling that the unexpectedly warm reaction to Mel Gibson's "Apocalypto" at the box office last weekend was the work of those self-same professed Christian livers? Especially followed by this weeks steep dive.
Call me a conspiracy theorist if you must, but it's not that hard to imagine that some of those filled with God's love just couldn't stand the idea of seeing their boy humiliated, and beat the bushes for ticketbuyers opening weekend.
Oh, and by the by, if you look over to the right there and scroll down, you'll see I've added another permanent little something.
Business is, of course, the operative word here. As I've vociferously complained previously, hate-mongering against the LGBT community sponsored by Gun-Toting Jesus Brand Religious Intolerance Righteousness is a massive cash cow: "Millions and millions of dollars are raised every year by people professing to preach The Word in exchange for a few dollars (and a few more, and a few more) in the collection baskets, but all they’re really doing is selling a product—a way to cope with a changing world that robs bigots of their undeserved dominion, that tells them they really, at long last, must share equality with non-Christians, the LGBT community, strong women, minorities, and immigrants in the public sphere. They are losing control they were never meant to have, and Christianity 2.0 sells them the righteous anger and victimhood they need. In these desperate people, the hate peddlers have found a ripe market for their wares.
ETA: By the way, is it just me? Or did anybody else get the feeling that the unexpectedly warm reaction to Mel Gibson's "Apocalypto" at the box office last weekend was the work of those self-same professed Christian livers? Especially followed by this weeks steep dive.
Call me a conspiracy theorist if you must, but it's not that hard to imagine that some of those filled with God's love just couldn't stand the idea of seeing their boy humiliated, and beat the bushes for ticketbuyers opening weekend.
Oh, and by the by, if you look over to the right there and scroll down, you'll see I've added another permanent little something.
Random Flickr-Blogging: IMG_9684: BONUS
Deep down, Roland knew that the dolphins had only come to his birthday party for the Mountain Dew and cake, but he appreciated it nevertheless. And they were very gracious about it.
"So long, and thanks for all the..."
Sunday, December 17, 2006
Sharon Stone ain't got nothin' on my ass
| You Are Basic Panties |
 You are a laid back chick with a real natural beauty. You can make unwashed hair and minimal make-up super sexy. Men tend to notice you show the "real you" - and they appreciate it. And while basic makes boring for some, it looks classic on you. |
Random Flickr-Blogging: IMG_9684: One Words & Image, one funny
Now -
The mist across the window hides their eyes
But nothing hides the colour of the lights that shine
Electricity so fine
Look and dry your eyes
--Joe Jackson, "Steppin' Out"
"You...hate Christmas?"
"I detest it. It's horrible, it's fascist. It excludes the lonely, the outcast, the ugly. All Christmases do, whether they're Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu...all the ceremonies are for members only. They make the rest of us so miserable."
~Shade #19
Source.
Moments later, Gracie Chan got an idea.
Source.
Time is like a clock in my heart, Touch we touch
By chance I happened to catch VH1's "Rock Doc" presentation of the movie "The Return of Courtney Love." I found it compelling, but then, I find Love compelling. In a mad way, I've felt for a while now that I understood her.
Part of it is that stupid-dick thing I have about seeing psychologically tortured women and thinking "Well, if only I was their lover or friend..." I do find her incredibly sexy, but it's not just about that, there are a lot of celebrity women I find sexy that I couldn't imagine actually sitting in a room and having a long conversation or even exchanging emails with.
But ...well, let me back up for a minute here. When she made her "meltdown" (as some termed it) appearance on David Letterman in 2004, she seemed to most to be incoherent. Probably, in a lateral, literal sense, she was.
Yet I watched that appearance and I remember thinking that, for the most part, I understood exactly what she was talking about. In a similar way to how I always thought I understood exactly what "Strawberry Fields Forever" meant & didn't understand all the books puzzling about it.
We're only a few years apart in age, Love and I, close enough that she was dropping references to cultural touchstones I understood, the thing is, she wasn't leaving pebbles for those in the dark to follow.
I don't do drugs; I've never done drugs, and for the most part her music isn't for me.
Though I got a kick out of one or two of the singles off "Celebrity Skin." Of course I would like the glossy pop one, I'm the guy who thought it was appropriate to headline a blog post about her with a quote from a Boy George lyric.
Some of the clips of her recording the songs for her new album, seen in the doc, were promising too. But to me, there is a burning core of intelligence at the heart of the girl, however caked in psychological make-up and bad habits and protective walls. Which is, underneath the gossip sites and tabloid image we have of her, part of what keeps me coming back.
Part of it is that stupid-dick thing I have about seeing psychologically tortured women and thinking "Well, if only I was their lover or friend..." I do find her incredibly sexy, but it's not just about that, there are a lot of celebrity women I find sexy that I couldn't imagine actually sitting in a room and having a long conversation or even exchanging emails with.
But ...well, let me back up for a minute here. When she made her "meltdown" (as some termed it) appearance on David Letterman in 2004, she seemed to most to be incoherent. Probably, in a lateral, literal sense, she was.
Yet I watched that appearance and I remember thinking that, for the most part, I understood exactly what she was talking about. In a similar way to how I always thought I understood exactly what "Strawberry Fields Forever" meant & didn't understand all the books puzzling about it.
We're only a few years apart in age, Love and I, close enough that she was dropping references to cultural touchstones I understood, the thing is, she wasn't leaving pebbles for those in the dark to follow.
I don't do drugs; I've never done drugs, and for the most part her music isn't for me.
Though I got a kick out of one or two of the singles off "Celebrity Skin." Of course I would like the glossy pop one, I'm the guy who thought it was appropriate to headline a blog post about her with a quote from a Boy George lyric.Some of the clips of her recording the songs for her new album, seen in the doc, were promising too. But to me, there is a burning core of intelligence at the heart of the girl, however caked in psychological make-up and bad habits and protective walls. Which is, underneath the gossip sites and tabloid image we have of her, part of what keeps me coming back.
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