Last Ride

Yesterday we stopped by the Honda place and promised to send them a lot of money every month for years if they'd give us one of their new cars. Cars are not really a big deal to us, thank God, but everyone loves that new car smell, and actually we HAD to do it. The old Tercel's tag would have expired tomorrow, and it was never going to pass California's smog tests.

The Honda people graciously accepted the '92 Tercel on trade-in for $100. I say graciously even with that paltry amount because it would have cost a lot more to hang on to it and try to figure out what to do about an aging Tercel I had no parking spot or tag for.

To say I was a bit sad while we were doing this would be an understatement. I loved my little red car. It must have been showing all over my face at the dealership because Ami kept asking me if I was OK. I WAS OK, but the kind of OK where I'd be OK only if nobody asked me if I was OK. During the financing section I realized they'd need the car title, which was back at home, so I went to get it while Ami stayed behind - I wanted to take a last ride. (Unfortunately by the time I got back, most everyone in the dealership knew I was not OK, which made it all the harder.)

How many places had that little car taken me? Cross country, twice. For two seasons it knew the road between Yellowstone and Jackson Hole so well I could let go of the wheel and arrive safely. I fit the props and set for an entire theatre production in its back seat one summer, shuttling them back and forth from suburbs to Chicago every weekend. From Roselle to Chicago a thousand times. More than a few times almost the length of I-65 to see family, always with a stop in Indiana to get a speeding ticket. Early on, following too close gave it a slight bend in its hood in Birmingham, but luckily it came after my full-on Destructive Period in driving; it had taken a Jetta and a Mazda truck to teach me to keep a few car lengths between me and the next guy. The Tercel had been a graduation present - Mom and Dad had given me a copy of Dr. Suess's "Oh, The Places You'll Go" and taped to the last page was the key.

So, after 13 years and 139,609 miles we drove away and left the little red car there. I'd had to install about four right headlights on it for some reason. The back left speaker wire had torn off because the stereo guy in Montana did such a shitty job. I'm convinced the red paint they used on Toyotas in '92 was from the dregs of the barrel, because I've never seen a paint (even of such advanced age) dull so much, and so uniformly on other Toyotas of that year. The guys at Reliable in Chicago put two new alternators in it. The brakes had started to make that scary scraping sound. But what a car - I'd have driven it until it stopped.

Let's Curb Our Dogs

Spotted in the neighborhood: A pile of dog poop on someone's lawn, and a sign planted right behind it offering $200 to anyone who can name the owner of the dog.

He's mad as hell and not going to take any more crap.

Adam McKay wants to know...

What were we fighting over again? In the Huffington Post:

Won't someone save the Hentai girls?

A brief review of the some 800 pieces of spam waiting for me in my email box:

Revenge of the Sith

I'm sure Lucasfilm and the entire blog universe is dying for me to weigh in on this movie, so here goes.

What a thrill. In a way this movie could almost stand alone as a prequel to the original trilogy. Anakin's dilemma is laid out neatly, and for the first time we truly get to see not only his conflict but some unmistakable examples of how bad he will become. This was the guy that could destroy a planet, torture a princess, and freeze a man in carbonite and make him a big worm's wall-hanging.

In a movie filled with thousands of details, there were still some that stuck out. For the first time after a spaceship explodes I saw a body floating away in the debris. The little vulture-droids in the exciting, lengthy, and uncharacteristic opening scene were a great idea. I liked the way General Grievous's whirring lightsabers gouged scars in the deck. I liked how a crowd of the "mouse" robots that crawl the floor were scooting to get away from Vader when he showed up to clean house in one scene.

The last two films have had ups and downs, but a definite constant has been how solid Ian McDiarmid is, and this is his movie. The scenes with the Chancellor manipulating Anakin are the best. I've wondered just how Palpatine would transform into the Emperor we know and love, and the moment he made his move, revealing his true day job to Anakin (I'm not just a client of the Sith, I'm also their Dark Lord!) and then telling Mace Windu to STEP OFF in a big way, was fabulous. Worth everything in the movie. I loved the way the big moment with Mace, Anakin and Palpatine echoed the big moment of the entire series in "Jedi."

If there is one overall thing I would change in the last three films it would be the tendency towards bringing old characters back to tie everything together. I seem to remember that the droids were always going to be a constant, but to give them an origin in common with the central character makes them too prominent, I think, and raises continuity questions that could be avoided. And I am just as thrilled as anyone to see Chewbacca onscreen again, but having him know Yoda somehow shrinks the Star Wars universe. I enjoy that little Luke gets dropped off on Tantoine (obviously the absolute center of the Universe, despite what he will think later) in front of a familiar double sunset, and that the droids end up on the very ship we first met them on, but I didn't need for this film to take me right to the very doorstep of "New Hope."

Still, the movie delivers on scenes that any true fan or geek has wondered about for years, and that's no small feat. The big Obi Wan v. Anakin duel was not a disappointment. And I will always count hearing James Earl Jones' voice at the end as one of the big movie thrills of all time.

In Medias Hiatus

Returning to LA tomorrow after a tour of the Southland; expect many new innovations for air travel in this space.

Hiatus

Going on hiatus for a week, probably, as we take a vacation.

Everybody enjoy the movie...

Let's get some perspective

In these divided times of nuclear options and unending conflict, perhaps what we all need is a little perspective. And Jeff Russell is the man to provide it.

He's not afraid to ask the hard questions, like: Which is bigger, the spaceship from "V," or the Federation space dock?

http://www.merzo.net/

God bless you, Jeff. If you're going to geek out, this is the way to do it.

The Moral Clarity Merit Badge

Scott McClellan Drives a Sunset Orange Pearl-Colored Honda Element

Maybe another advantage offered by a coat of Sunset Orange Pearl on your car is that it keeps you from exploding out of the sheer irony of your own stupidity.

White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said the discredited Newsweek story about interrogators at Guantanamo Bay desecrating a Muslim Holy book

But Keith Olbermann at MSNBC speaks for the trees when he says:

How much do they pay McClellan to stand in front of them with stuff like this? He should be wearing those neon black-and-yellow stickers on his head like a crash test dummy.

Sunset Orange Pearl

Is there a more unfortunate color for a car than this orange I'm seeing these days on Honda Elements? It's called "Sunset Orange Pearl," and like most ill-advised auto colors, it seems to be based partially on baby poop.

Please tell me that the paint somehow converts sunlight to electricity, or deflects police radar, or resists all forms of dirt. Is there some sort of rebate off the sticker price if you choose this color? If I wear special glasses will some sort of message pop out? And I thought that two-tone "mood" paint job several years back was bad.

And it's not just the Element - I feel like I'm seeing it on every other make and model. How in a million years did this become THE car color for 2005? Did Britney Spears wear a Sunset Orange Pearl dress at the big Car Paint Expo this year?

When America was on its knees...

... they looked to a horse to give them hope. Seabiscuit.

And then later, when America was on its knees AGAIN, one man gave them hope. The Cinderella Man.

Is this to be the standard intro to period sports movies? What other periods has America been on its knees at the same time a lone sports hero gave us hope? THINK, people! There have to be some! Surely some basketball player gave us all hope during Vietnam? What sports were they playing during the Civil War? Anything good?

The Amityville Horror

It sounds strange to praise a movie for how authentically cruel one of the characters is to children, but as in "The Shining," the divide between the father and the family is central to this story, moreso than the supernatural elements. And Ryan Reynolds as the stepfather gets it mostly right. So often movies will tend towards a cartoonish villainry when meanness towards kids is required to show us they don't really mean it, but for the most part "Amityville" takes it seriously.

It's not to say Reynolds doesn't take it TOO far occasionally. It seems like Reynolds, a mostly comic actor, could be perched right on the edge of moving into a more serious, high-profile kind of role, like Jim Carrey. His missteps over the edge felt more like the kind of thing a stronger director would have helped him reign in. Here's hoping he starts spending less time working on the abs and more on moving into the circles of very good directors and good scripts.

Speaking of authentic meanness to kids - the few scenes with the drop-dead pot-smoking babysitter who casually tortures the kids with a ghost story were spot-on. I can't find the actress's name, but watch for her, she's perfect.

This remake is in some ways better than the original, in some ways not, although the original is no great shakes. Still, if every era is going to have its classic haunted house story, the strange tale of the Lutzes and their short stay in Long Island may be the proto- story of the 70s. Perhaps the fact that it has endured (although whether it truly has is a matter of debate) is not due so much to the supernatural elements but to the much more common dilemma the characters face - the horror of buyer's remorse. George Lutz has committed his life to not only a strange new piece of property but also a strange new family. Certainly anyone can relate to feeling completely overwhelmed and possessed by such a thing.

When the film is concentrating on the family, it exceeds the original, but towards the end when it speculates a new origin for the evil of the house, (which would make a great story in itself, just not here) it feels as if it has strayed from the core.

The New Science

There is an organization called The Creation Science Association for Mid-America, which seems to be trying to build a bridge between the Godless theory of evolution, or "facts," and pure Creationism, or as I know it, "the history of the world for children."

I am intrigued by this new science, and I wish to subscribe to their newsletter! What seems to matter is not what facts you can prove, but what facts you are comfortable with. Isn't that nice?

The Creation Science people are willing to concede that, OK, things like dinosaurs existed, and NO, fossils aren't fake, but for them the sticking point for some reason seems to be the whole "millions of years" things. Like a squeamish virgin, they can only face it if it happens really really really fast. In this way, they have come up with theories like Rapid Fossilization.

That's right! Why use carbon dating when you can instead rely on old wives' tales. The CSAMA even has Creation safaris, where presumably you can discover fossils that were formed maybe last week.

Also, the CSAMA, God bless their hearts, is willing to accept that dinosaurs walked the Earth, but only if they did so at the same time as man. According to them, "History is Full of Dinosaurs." How do they deal with the dinosaur question?

And it's really easy to find the evidence of dinosaur / co-existence in the writings of men:

This new learning amazes me, Sir Bedevere! Tell me again how ram's bladders may be employed to prevent earthquakes!

I encourage you to check out the CSAMA F.A.Q., as it is filled with such wisdom. Ever want to know why the light from distant stars appears millions of years old but really isn't? It's in there. (Hint: it's God) Ever wonder how Steven J. Gould's "imperfection" theory was wrong? It's there. (Hint: He hated Christians and was a Marxist) Ever wonder about the so-called link between modern birds and dinosaurs? Wonder no more - it's in there. (Hint: no feathers have ever been found on a dinosaur. Duh!)

Analysis of my Haircut's Retreat Strategy

Conflict Analysis: Recent analysis of my haircut's strategy of retreat from the forehead theatre has revealed that perhaps the haircut is not as willing to fly the white flag as we may have thought.

While there is no doubt the battle has long been lost at the front-lines, (leaving the forehead to serve as a sort of reflective beacon), the hair continues to grow as thick as ever - and certainly higher - in the central-rear region.

A classic flanking strategy? Perhaps.

For the net effect is not so much that the hair is being lost, as it is simply relocating in toto farther back on the head. To visualize, imagine a wig simply being adjusted backwards by two inches or so.

Conflict Background: It's speculation, but I have long believed that my primitive ancestors lived in an extremely cold, windy climate - but that the winds came primarily from above and just behind them. That would explain the strange strengthening of the forces in the rear.

Next steps: I recently discovered a comfortable middle ground of hair products between the powerful but unmanageable "wax" and the weak and slightly effeminate "mousse" - in the form of the quaintly-named "pomade." I'm not sure why pomade is not "gel," or maybe it is. The pomade has served as an effective policing force against the tendency to bouffant.

Unfortunately, much like the conflict between my allergies and most common remedies, my hair has proved exceptional at shifting its strategy over time to counter these measures, and I have developed an immunity to two brands of pomade already.

At this rate it would just be simpler to employ post-hypnotic suggestion on each and every person I meet, planting subliminal directives to subtract ten years from my appearance, much as I do with my own body image.

Past haircut status reports: The Curse of Liza Minelli. The Myth of Pyramiditus.

King of the Idiots: Ch. 4

Nonsense on Stilts

Here's a question: if it was useless to drill for oil in a wildlife refuge, why would you do it?

If reputable sources are saying there isn't that much oil there to begin with, then what's the point? The CATO Institute (a conservative think tank, but they are also known to hide in your closet and karate you when you come home) has said that

And even the oil companies are saying there is not enough oil there to justify going in:

I know we don't do "science" in this administration but doesn't it have to enter into it at some point? I mean, I'm no expert in oil-drilling, but don't you have experts you consult that say where the oil might be? You don't just wander in the woods with dousing rods, do you?

According to Molly Ivins, writing for WorkingForChange.com:

Full disclosure: I have never been to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. But I understand it's where we keep a lot of our caribou and bears and wolves and other snow-critters. And again, no expert on oil-drilling I, but from the pictures I've seen, it's not a nature-friendly process. Isn't the idea of a "refuge" a place where you go for protection?

I have been playing "Rise of Nations" lately. It's one of these "develop your tiny camp into an empire" games, and in it, if you need oil, you generate a Worker unit and send him up to a spot on the map that has a little "oil" icon. That's it.

More and more, I think that's the way the NeoCons view the whole world.

FrankenStyleSheet

I am a Mozilla Firefox guy, and usually I forget to check this site on Internet Explorer to see if everything's lining up well. But since I changed things around this last weekend, it occurred to me to check and HOCHEE MAMA were things off over there.

It wasn't exactly the Picasso version of my layout, but how long have you people been reading this site and not telling me the entire thing is centered, including all text? I blame you - all five of you.

Actually I blame my Stylesheet, which does not so much Cascade as lie there in an Ungraceful Heap. It is a lot like this blog - I add things as they come to me and don't bother to take out the stuff that contradicts. It's a Frankenstein assortment of directions and poorly-degrading references, and although Mozilla could figure out the spirit of the agreement, I.E. assumed that by default I'd want to everything centered down the middle. Nice. Maybe it's revenge for all those pop-ups it never gets through anymore.

Can someone let me know if the fancy javascript thing I included to close / open all comments at once (Who's a big boy to figure it out? Me, that's who) is doing something obviously weird like making the whole page go away? I assure you, that's not my intention.

A tense elevator ride

I bet a tense elevator ride in the Fox building is when everyone else has gotten off and the only people left are the head of the news division and the head of the entertainment division. Could there be two more opposite poles? Between the "Left Below" parody on "The Simpsons," then "Family Guy" and THEN "American Dad," I was out of breath from laughing all night.

Seriously, what keeps these two opposites from exploding on contact in the Fox building, like matter and anti-matter?

An obscure flaw

There's a bit of a confessional quality when I go to the eye doctor. He asks me if I'm wearing my disposable contacts too long, I lie, and then he literally looks right in my eyes and know the truth. He makes warnings about what will happen to me if I don't lay off the contacts, but when I ask him if I will go blind he ultimately offers reassurance. I leave a new man, fully intending to treat my eyes better, to not spend so much time "seeing" things.

And anyway the reality is I'm already a few miles down that road. This time I asked as I always do if my vision was still correctable within present disposable contact technology. As always, the doctor laughed, but admitted I am still right at the edge of what they make. I use a -9 in one eye and a -8.5 in another.

And now you know my secret, obscure weakness - my sight. I warn you, though - if you are planning on using this knowledge to attack me, I have spent a lifetime honing my remaining senses and I will be ready for you. Well, not my hearing - I'm told I'm pretty deaf. And due to sinus problems I can't really smell things. But I'm telling you - make a move against me and my powers of satire will render you useless from humilation.

The doctor also told me that Lasik seems unlikely for me. This is a bitter disappointment but I have suspected it for a while. Soon it will be coke bottles for me, and I'll be forced to work as an addled old professor, cobbling together useful gadgets for the hero of the story.

Rapture Index Up 9 Points

OK, now I'M worried that we're living in the End Times. Because when even George Will starts writing columns about how political the religious right has become:

...then surely it's got to be one of the Final Signs.

The Assistant Ellison position is filled

Is there such a job as Assistant Ellison? Someone to take over the asshole duties if Harlan Ellison isn't available that day? Because that would be a good position for Orson Scott Card to fill.

The Fig Leaf Brigade

It is difficult to argue against these movie-sanitizing companies like "CleanFlicks" because the ledge they've found to peddle their purified wares from is on a pretty slippery slope. And like most defenses you might stage against the armies of chastity, it was already an uphill battle. Invariably you find yourself in the position of arguing the artistic merit of the films of Michael Bay.

CleanFlicks, you may know, is a company that edits movies to make them more "family friendly." "It's about choice!" their website says without irony. "We remove all profanity! Nudity! Graphic Violence! Sexual Content!"

Although this seems on its face pretty repulsive, I have to stop short before hitting it with my OBVIOUSLY WRONG stamp. CleanFlicks is a voluntary service, and renters of these edited DVDs obviously know what they're getting. Also, it's not as if the company is pirating. They're buying copies of the original, unclean DVDs just like Netflix would - I suppose.

Further preventing me from getting on my high horse is the fact that movies are already being modified all the time. They are dubbed, reframed, interrupted, and shortened on T.V. Airlines serve up an express version that seems to run about an hour, and sometimes the copyright holders themselves don't seem to mind. Directors themselves sometimes re-edit their older films to satisfy their latest sensibilities. Sometimes what constitutes an “official” version is a matter of dispute between creative parties.

Even though I prefer to take a hard line on alterations (it even pisses me off when T.V. squishes the credits all over to one side and runs them at 10X speed) I recognize that there's a matter of degree here.

And it’s hard for me to argue that any change whatsoever to a movie is wrong when I am on record as saying the idea of Phantom Edits is kinda cool.

But whatever happened to "if you don't like it, don't watch?" Is that just something liberal losers like myself say?

Also: Movies are art. They are not links of sausage from which you can take as much as you like and leave the rest, or change it around. It's somebody's expression of an idea, and when you change it for big or little, you're messing with that. It's something an artist made, and so you leave it alone.

Funny - whenever the conservatives called for a movie to be banned or started up the old "Hollywood Is Babylon" chant, my response was that they should make their own movies. Who knew I'd have to qualify that statement?

(Peter Rojas in the Village Voice, in addition to giving a great overview of the issue, points out that maybe the net result of this conservative editing will be to empower people to be more creative. I hope so - but I find that pretty optimistic.)

The folks over at this rather random discussion forum are also talking about it, but to my mind they miss the point by a wide mark. Amongst their comments are:

While I'm not surprised a company like CleanFlicks would have little respect for art, it's disturbing to me how little the average Joes up there do as well.

And no, I don't think just keeping an "original version" out there will do it. Tell you what: since Jesus Christ and the emperor Caligula were more or less contemporaries, I was thinking I would take Mel Gibson's "Passion of the Christ" and Bob Guccione's "Caligula" and cut them together. You know, edit it into one big 4-hour historical epic. So every now and then I cut away from Jesus being tortured to Malcolm McDowell having his way with the bride AND the groom.

No problem, right? The original is still out there.

One other project I have in mind: I was thinking of re-editing both “Ten Commandments” and “Jesus of Nazareth” for that under-served audience, the Skeptics. I plan on removing any scenes containing “miracles” or any other phenomena that cannot be explained by science.

Let us pause for one second to imagine the firestorm of protest that would rain down on my head, and the highest most official corridors of powers from whence it would come.

Speaking of official corridors of power, Frank Rich in the NY Times says that

Although I don't want to come down on CleanFlicks because of my obvious political leanings, I think there's a difference between changing a movie because you think Jar Jar Binks is dumb and changing a movie because you think boobs and swearing are evil. I think one comes out of a belief that if they don't want to see something, then no one should be able to, and one comes out of annoying but harmless fanboy tinkering.

I think it is also worth noting that the Phantom editor did not set up shop to peddle his "corrected" edits of Star Wars to an audience of eager fans.

This kind of thing may be legal, but I will side with the artist. Yea though that artist may sometimes be Michael Bay.

Tech Support Knock-Knock Joke: Recording a Focus Group

Knock knock.

Who's there?

THE VORTEX OF SETTING UP VIDEO FOR FOCUS GROUPS. WE WILL BE INTERVIEWING PEOPLE LATER THIS WEEK FOR A PROJECT SO CAN YOU PLEASE ASSIST WITH ALL THE VIDEO EQUIPMENT LIKE LAST TIME AND IT NEEDS TO RUN TO TWO MONITORS IN ADJOINING ROOMS WHERE THE CLIENT WILL BE WATCHING. BECAUSE I AM A VORTEX I SWALLOWED ALL THE HELPFUL COMMENTS AND DIAGRAMS YOU MADE LAST TIME WE DID THIS, SO GO AHEAD AND START COMPLETELY OVER AGAIN. NO, I DON'T KNOW WHERE THE CAMERA IS. YES, I WAS THE LAST ONE TO CHECK IT OUT. HA HA, IT AMUSES ME THAT YOU THINK I WOULD RETAIN KNOWLEDGE OF WHAT COLOR GOES TO WHAT JACK ON THE RCA CABLE, IN FACT WHAT'S AN RCA CABLE? I KNOW YOU TOLD ME LAST TIME, BUT HELLOOOO! VORTEX HERE, YOU CAN'T EXPECT STUFF LIKE THAT TO STAY FLOATING AROUND. AND CAN WE RECORD THIS AND THEN EDIT THE VIDEO ONTO DVD BY FRIDAY, THANKS.

The End.

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

I dearly love these books but do not have them memorized. I knew they were adding some characters and plot points and I looked forward to see how they'd do it. But some of the True Fans are enraged. However, these guys wake up that way each morning and there's nothing we can do for them.

It's best to realize that with the "Hitchhiker's" series there probably is no such thing as the Definitive Version anyway because Douglas Adams himself loved to tinker and modify things with the story every time it reappeared. I get the impression it's O.K. if you don't own the radio show, the books, the T.V. series, the comics, the other books, AND the Grecian Urns, because this thing is constantly changing.

The movie could not have been better cast in a million years, from Stephen Fry as the narrator to Sam Rockwell as Zaphod to Martin Freeman as Arthur to Alan Rickman and Bill Nighy, and the list goes on. I liked the new John Malkovich character. And to my knowledge, the movie comes up with the first rationale for Zaphod having two heads I've heard.

The Vogons are the most amazing movie creatures the Jim Henson people have ever done, and their ships, offices, and devices are absolutely hilarious. They're worth the entire movie. Another thing I loved was that some of the other aliens had a slight "plush" look to them, as if they weren't trying for realistic so much as cute.

The unfortunate but predictable addition is the enhancement of the "Trillian / Arthur" love story, which is atypically unclever of the movie. It ends up distracting from the amazing way the seemingly random elements of the plot are tied together by the improbability engine. I'd give this whole movie a B, but I do fear it may be for fans only.