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Friday, May 28, 2004
He didn't have to read the morning newspaper. He already knew the extent of the injuries to the three young men. After all, he was there. After all, he was the one who had inflicted the injuries.
He saw the newspaper laying on the cabinet by his secretary. She was sitting in her cubicle typing something on her computer. He thought twice about it, then tried to appear to absent mindedly pick up the periodical. His eyes looked around the room as his face seem to casually be turning to the story about the beating on page A3.
He read about how the authorities were looking for any clues leading to the person or persons responsible for the attack which left the three youths hospitalized. He knew that if the police had any substantial clues they would not admit them to the media. But he wanted to read about it as a athlete would look at footage of his last game in order to learn from his mistakes. He knew that he would be out there again. He knew he had more work to do.
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Thursday, May 27, 2004
IMPERATIVES AND IMPEDIMENTS
I am trying to understand why I get so upset everytime I see somebody acting in such a way as to inconvenience either myself or others in general. It just shows me how prevalent and common inconsideration is. Intellelctually I realize that people are inconsiderate and self-regarding. I know that this has always been so. Since the dawn of man there have been assholes in the world. I fear it is part of the human condition. But it doesn't have to be.
That is part of my anxiety. Not that these people do these things but that they don't have to. These people have only to try a little bit harder. Try a little bit more. To just take into account those around them. But they don't.
I honestly believe that deep down inside I want to promote my own species. To further humankind, to propel us into the next arena of existence. Maybe I watched too many Star Trek episodes as a kid. And when I see people being both actively and passively unkind to others I know that these people are the ones holding us back. They are the millstone around our collective neck. But it doesn't have to be.
I know that the tensions within me arise from me wanting to help these miscreants be better people and also from wanting to punish them for hindering others as well as hindering us all.
The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.
James Branch Cabell
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Wednesday, May 26, 2004
HOCKEY! THE VIOLENTEST OF SPORTS
No, no, hockey is in fact the violentest of all sports. I don't want to hear any stories about your cousin who actually was in a rugby scrum one summer away Down Under. Hockey was intended to be violent. Period. Think about it. It's not called hockeyball.
"Instead of some kind of ball like baseball or basketball let's give the players some kind of small round hard projectile."
"And sticks! Big sticks!"
"Yeah! And all the players will have to wear padding and armor and gloves. And some of them must wear masks."
"And let's give them shoes with knives on the bottom of them!"
"Yeah!"
What happens when a pro ball player actually hauls off and punches somebody? He is immediately thrown out of the game, suspended for a good fraction of a season, fined and forced to apologize publicly.
What happens when a fight breaks out at a hockey game? Uh oh. It looks like somebody needs a time out. Better sit down for two minutes. If they really didn't want players to fight each other they would teach kickboxers to skate and make them referees.
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DEPT. OF PRACTICAL JOKES
Next time you are over at your buddy's place, excuse yourself and go to the bathroom. While in there make sure you study his toothbrush. I mean really scrutinize it. Take pictures if you can sneak in a camera. Then wash up and come out. After leaving his place head immediately to the hardware store and go to the paint department. Pick up one of those cheap wire brushes with a wooden handle. Go back to your place and start sanding and carving it to exactly match your buddy's toothbrush. Then spray paint it to look exactly like his.
Then tape off the handle in order to paint the bristles to match.
Go back over to your buddy's place to hang out. Excuse yourself to the bathroom again. Replace his toothbrush with the acicular double and go back out. Hang out the rest of the day then go home as usual. Wait to hear from your friend from the hospital the next day. Good times!
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Monday, May 17, 2004
BELLY DANCING THE MYTH AND THE REALITY
Everybody seems to have this preconception of belly dancers being these lithe exotically (from a eurocentric view) beautiful women with the power to enthrall men. And this is always true. In a H.Rider Haggard story. But for the rest of us who have not plundered King Solomon's mines it is not so.
I have had the opportunity to teach art in several different types of municiple and public centers. And over the course of my opportunities I have had, numerous times, belly dancing classes follow mine.
This means I have seen plenty of instructors as well as students file into the room expecting me to vacate.
It would stand to reason that each of these students wants to be a belly dancer. A BELLY dancer. Yet each of them comes in with a baggy man's shirt or overcoat pulled tightly about them as if someone might see their belly! I would be packing up my equipment or materials after the end of my class and they would all just stand there clutching their outer garments and fearfully staring at me as if I were about to attack them. (By the way, I wasn't.) Which leads me to my next point.
Why is it that all belly dancer seem to look the same? I mean they all look like really frumpy hausfraus trying to recapture some of that appeal that they may or may not have had somewhere around high school.
They are afraid that if they were to walk to their class in costume all the men nearby would ogle them mercilessly. Are you kidding? All these guys have to do to see women who not only look more exotic and aren't afraid that you might see their bellies but absolutely want you to see their bellies is to go to the mall. These belly dancers are trying way too hard. Desperation is a stinky perfume. Plus, it is one thing to want to do something that makes you feel good about yourself and say "I am pretty, I am smart and darn it, people like me!", but give it up. Listen sweetheart, nobody is ogling you anytime soon. All of these women look like Geddy Lee in drag! I want to get a grant to study why only women that have the same body type as well as facial hair want to go out for the team.
"Bellies are beautiful". Hey great, but quit showing it to me while I am trying to eat my lunch.
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VAN HELSING? VAN HASTY!
Saw Van Helsing over the weekend and am now going to review it for you. A good comic book movie. In fact It reminded me in several very coincidental ways to a specific comic book called Chakan, the Forever Man. Not high art but again I don't think people make these kinds of movies with high art in mind. And I hope that viewers wouldn't walk out disapointed because it is not a Royal National Theatre production.
Three complaints; two minor, one more than.
1.The color palette of this film is highly muted. I know what the director was going for. An homage to the black and white horror films of a bygone era. And that is fine. (one almost wishes that he had filmed it entirely in black and white. Except that black and white films are not usually financially successful today) But in using such a limited range of colors in the production he flattened out a lot of the backgrounds as well as difused some of the principle characters while they were in action. This again makes one wish this movie was done film noir with all the attending shades of gray. Minor.
2.An almost amateurish lack of establishing shots throughout the film. Again I think I know what the director was going for. This movie is very fast paced. So fast paced that almost everything is done in medium shots and close ups. The problem is that part way through the movie you stop having any empathy for the characters while they are in danger because the director won't let you get a feel for where they are in relationship to the danger and their surroundings. Not a deal breaker but it sorely detracts from the enjoyment of the film. Almost major.
3. The denouement. I will not ruin it for anyone hoping to see V.H. but I found the ending somewhat schmaltzy and sentimental. And not even sentimental in a endearing way but rather cliche'd. Minor.
As a goofy side note: I don't know what your local theatre shows before your features but around here it is The Twenty. That right, twenty minutes of ads before your movie begins. Yeeha! I can hardly wait for Los Venty. During this mockery of entertainment there was an advert for Sex in the City. And I was marveling at this marketing oddity. Was this the first time somebody has advertised a series that has already gone off the air?
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Thursday, May 06, 2004
DANG IT ALL, JIM, HE'S DEAD!
I am glad that there just are no southerners in Star Trek in any of it's myriad forms. Aren't you? Just how excited would you be to be watching the adventures of the U.S.S. Dixie Bell? Exploring the galaxy for the United ConFederation of planets? Hearing your chief engineering officer tell you over the intercom that the dilithium crystals "are plumb empty"? As inscrutable as Kirk's little cowboy boot sideburns were, I just can't see him in muttonchops. How logical is a mullet, Spock? And no, we cannot put mag wheels on the ship, so put away the sloe gin and make with the tricorder. Please, Number One, use the spitoon, that's what for I put it there.
Although the idea of a galaxy class starship with a huge stars and bars emblazoned across the front hull and playing "Dixie" as it jumped across black holes in order to get away from Boss Hogg with the cloaking device does actually sound pretty sweet!
Tuesday, May 04, 2004
WHY JOHNNY CARSON IS BETTER THAN JAY LENO
I know there are now plenty of people out there who never even saw Johnny Carson on theTonight Show. But trust me Carson was simply more entertaining. Don't get me wrong I actually am a fan of Leno. The non-Tonight Show Leno. I have been following Leno for about twenty years. His old "What's my beef?" bit was great.
The problem with the show is both in content and in execution. On Leno's show he doesn't write his own material. Not that Carson wrote his own but Leno left to his own devices knows his own strengths and can be devastatingly funny. So right off, you are gettting the non-edgy-don't-get-our-sponsors-mad Leno. If you have seen Leno's own act, the difference is quite noticable.
The other thing that I hate about late night talk shows nowadays is that every guest on the show seems to be "on the circuit". That is to say they are promoting their new book/movie/CD/project/etc. The questions and answers seem thought out, rehearsed, and pat. It is all a cleverly disguised commercial for something for you to go out and spend some money on.
By contrast Carson had no such agenda. The people he had on his show seem to be a healthy admixture of celebrities and regular people that had some quirky human interest element to them. But the coolest part of the show was the celebrities.
Many times even the ones who did have a new movie in theatres that week were more interested in kibitzing with Johnny and Ed. And that is where the difference lies. Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon were a couple of cutups. And for that matter so was Doc Severin. When they would have, say, Burt Reynolds out in the chair and they are just laughing and laughing for minutes on end you totally got the impression that if they weren't working that night taping a show they would actually all be over at Johnny's place down in the rec room with drinks doing exactly the same thing! Nowadays if a show had that much unadulterated laughter they would consider it dead air and unproductive and try to stop it. And the stars again were actually more concerned with goofing and having fun than promoting anything. Can't say I have heard about the Leno show where Don Rickles sneaks out on stage during a skit and crashes it with funny results just because he is friends with Leno and wants to play a prank on him on national television.
I can actually remember being young, staying up late, tuning into the Tonight Show in the middle of it and finding Johnny, Ed, his guest and the entire audience shaking with laughter. And it was infectuous. Pretty soon I found myself laughing. Laughing to the point that my sides hurt. When was the last time you can remember laughing so hard and for so long you were sore? That is what happened to me and I didn't even know what they were laughing about. I am pretty sure that that has never happened on Leno's show.
Sunday, May 02, 2004
SOCCER? NOT HERE MISTER.
I am not starting this rant because lately the area of the city park that my class has used every Saturday for the last eighteen years has been overrun by diminutive soccer punks displacing us to a less than choice area. Smart-assed ten year olds. No sir, this is not an example of me crying "sour grapes". Soccer is simply not an American sport. I don't care if you do call it football or futbol. It is a Euro-Latin abomination. No real American would stoop to participating in such a godless exercise.
And soccer moms. And dads. What a bunch of obnoxious, scurrilous, vicarious pack of louts. (hmmm. That does sound suspiciously American.) This is the sport that brought back the popular usage of the term "hooligan" after a century of repose.
And why aren't only people with no arms allowed to play soccer? I mean, really, who devises a sport where you aren't permitted to use your arms or hands? You wake up in the hospital after a horrible thresher accident with no arms and look down and decide, "Whelp, soccer for me!". That's who should play the game. Dudes with no arms. The sight of a team of double amputees wiggling along the field trying to kick a little leather bag into a net while the tears of frustration well up in their eyes would be acceptable.
I am sending out a call to all good people of America to drive this alien activity from our shores. To revolt against those who would try to force upon us a inherently evil athletic and subjugate us in our homes and churches. And again this isn't because they play soccer in that part of the park I used to play in.
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