Hollywood Blvd.

Last night I went to a short film thingy that Film Independent* was doing. Lots of great short movies and the filmmakers were there to answer questions. The event was held in a bar called Cinespace which is over on the bad part of Hollywood Blvd. If you can't find a tattoo or some trashy lingerie or some crack or a way to get stabbed on this part of the Boulevard then you just aren't trying.

It's all pretty bad, though, which is disappointing even though I have never seen it as anything else. At some point heading west it gets marginally better with the cheeseball places like Ripley's Believe it or Not! and the Wax Museum, and then it breaks into full-fledged modern attraction with the big stores, and the Kodak, Egyptian, and El Capitan.

One of the movies last night was a documentary on the people who dress up in movie costumes for the tourists in front of the Chinese theatre. The guy who dresses up like Superman was on hand for the screening, in full costume. (It's one of the actual costumes from Superman III, we were told.)

Afterwards, I was walking out with some people, including Superman, and we all walked down the boulevard together for a few blocks before splitting off to go to our cars. Let's just say walking with Superman down Hollywood Blvd doesn't hold the thrill I might have imagined that it would as, say, a five-year old. But God bless him.

Entrepreneur!

Friend Jessica appears to be quietly building an empire for herself over at Cafe Press, with her line of What What Ed Hochuli Do? clothing:

http://www.cafepress.com/jarbys

The WWEHD line has even gotten a mention in ESPN magazine. Also check out the "Opposing Team Sucks" mugs.

Me Putting on Clothes vs Me Buying Clothes

Me Putting on Clothes may not know exactly what he wants, but he knows he isn't seeing it in the closet these days. As he reviews the options open to him, sliding the hangers holding inexcusable selections quickly to the right with escalating anger, he shakes his head and curses Me Buying Clothes. What was he thinking?

He can trace the evolution of Me Buying Clothes's preferences the same way you can trace the passage of eons in the adjoining strata of a cliff face, and none of it is satisfactory. Here's the Old Navy Period, here's the Gap Period, here's a brief, unfortunate Attempted Bohemian Period. When do we get to the Looks Right, Feels Right Period?

There are always the old stand-bys that seem to please everyone. And the unfavorable things are pushed to the back so that only about 1/4 of the actual wardrobe is "in play" at any given time. Occasionally, Me Putting on Clothes will find a lost treasure over in that other, rejected 3/4. But it's rare.

Me Putting on Clothes leaves angry mental notes to Me Buying Clothes. "What is going on out there?" he asks. "I'm the one that has to put your insane experiments into action!" Usually the notes get lost, or arrive too late to make any difference.

In contrast, Me Buying Clothes is all alone, confused, wandering the aisles of the Men's Department without advice or context. Perhaps he is lulled into a stupor by the cumulative perfume cloud wafting over from the nearby fragrance counters, or maybe it's the flourescents. The only thing that makes sense are the same solid colors - WHITE, BLACK, BLUE - so he gravitates towards these, even while knowing that Me Putting On Clothes will not be happy.

But what is he to do? There is little to no communication from Me Putting On Clothes. Tomorrow morning he will open up the shopping bags, look at the purchases and go "What the-? What was he THINKING?"

Me Buying Clothes will remember his primary function one hour before arriving at the store, and having no direction from Me Putting On Clothes, will begin a desperate scan of the men around him on the bus, at work, on the street. Anyone watching him would find his scrutiny of these people unnerving and rude. But he has a lot of data to collect and analyze before he arrives at Robinsons Mays. He must formulate a theory, a preference, a solid LIST before arriving.

The pictures of the men wearing the clothes in the store may as well show alien beings in some other dimension - they offer no help.

Occasionally he will venture outside the standard pallette and be rewarded. But most of the time he has done nothing other than spend $75 to add something to that untouched 75% of the wardrobe.

At these times Me Buying Clothes tries to adopt the "persona" of Me Putting On Clothes, and the exercise is much like that of an actor cast in a biographical role far beyond his range. It is never convincing.

Similarly, Me Putting On Clothes tries desperately to analyze the thinking of Me Buying Clothes without ever having actually met him - hoping to glean some clue to what made these purchases seem like a good idea. Maybe it's me, he thinks.

The two may as well be from different countries and different periods in time.

Citibank Billboard Watch #4

Another in a wonderful series of unintentionally ironic Citibank billboards:

WOULDN'T IT BE GREAT IF YOU COULD PAY FOR THINGS WITH A KISS?

Sure - like how about the balance on my two* Citibank credit cards, one of which has an interest rate of 15.240% and the other which has 18.990%?

Previous billboardery:

"ON SALE," LOOSELY TRANSLATED, DOES NOT MEAN "ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY"

THE SHELF OF YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY HAS SOME GREAT LOANS, TOO.

WHAT PART OF WINNING A MILLION DOLLARS IS "REALITY?"

The Village Anachronist

Three Dots for Tuesday

All In: Dennis Miller

Why did I even watch Dennis Miller's new special on HBO? I guess for the same reason that I still pop over to Lileks.com every now and then - just to see if he's still crazy, and if so how much.

Not much has changed since he "came out" in "Raw Feed." He must have taken heat for his views on global warming in that HBO special, because he took some pains to explain himself again: He seems to believe that since people don't throw fast-food wrappers out of their car windows on highways much anymore, how could it really be as bad as they say?

He also explains that we should be able to do whatever we want in Alaska, because who's going there anyway, when you think about it.

To be fair, later on he indicated that these were just jokes. As if his entire turn to the dark side is just a comic persona, I suppose. Like how Gilbert Gottfried's "thing" is to be shrill and screechy all the time, I guess.

Like many people, for him the worst thing that has happened in the White House in the past decade is still... wait for it... WAIT FOR IT... Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. Boy, was that guy a horny redneck. And that Hillary!

Just purely from a comedy shelf-life standpoint - Clinton jokes? In 2006? And it's fascinating that for a topical comedian like Miller, apparently nothing in the Bush presidency comes close to Clinton's sexual indiscretions for sheer absurdity and injustice. Nothing about Bush warrants even a slight joke for him? Not even in the interest of equal time?

I guess not, since none were on display, and to my mind that settles the question of whether red states can have good comedians or not: No, because they have to live in a state of mental denial. Good comedians are all about obeserving the world and reporting back from a fresh viewpoint, not toadying to some party line.

I can follow the logic of the Neocons for whom Miller has become a favored jester, but his assessment of the issues that matter is so myopic it makes Mr. Magoo look like the Hubble telescope, to borrow his own reference template.

Most shockingly, he also said that even if he were dead-set against the war, he'd make sure to keep his mouth shut until all our troops were home. Hopefully this was one of the jokes. Because to my mind this attitude overlooks a fairly big logical inconsistency. (Hint: it involves our "freedom of speech" and "representative government.")

But what do I know - I'm not a professional comedian.

I'll Have No Truck With Your Decorative Guest Towels

I'm at your house, I've gone to the bathroom, I turn around to wipe my hands on the towel, and there's all this decorative embroidery and monogram work to contend with.

Very pretty, but how am I supposed to dry my hands on that?

Number one, I don't want to wipe my hands all over some heirloom, number two, all that delicate threadwork isn't going to be very absorbant, now is it?

Can you leave me one piece of simple terrycloth not festooned with lovely needlework? How many times have I come over and ended up wiping my hands on my pants because I was afraid of soiling the damn guest bathroom towels?!?

Give me a real towel in the guest bathroom. I'll have no truck with the decorative ones!

Et tu, Google?

The White House is still defending itself against charges of spying on us through wiretaps - and not even on the heels of that, but more like riding piggyback, comes the headline that they are also suing Google to get their hands on our web searches.

These guys clearly are on a different page than me. Not only are they not trying to hide it, they are actually asking for more. What this tells me is that they don't even see the wiretapping of us as a problem in the first place. They don't "get" the privacy issue.

More dismaying than this is that Joe Q. Public doesn't seem to have much a problem with it, either. What a surprise.

Today on CNN an expert was being interviewed about the issues surrounding this Google lawsuit. The interviewer's first question was "What's wrong with helping the government track down child pornographers?" What ignorance! I'm sure the administration would love for this to become a debate about kiddie porn. Who's going to step up to defend that?

Let's start connecting the dots little bit better. Based on what we've seen of the NeoCon policies and beliefs, do we really think quashing child pornography is on their top ten list of issues?

No. Their thing, as evidenced by everything else they've pushed for, is expanding the powers of the executive. Child porn would be great to stop, sure, but isn't it more likely they're using that to make their actions unimpeachable?

But Joe Q's attitude towards the wiretaps and the Google searches seems to be, "Hey, I'm not saying anything inappropriate on the phone - what do I care if they're listening?" Or "I'm not looking for anything inappropriate on Google! Let them have my searches if it helps find terrorists or kiddie porn users! There's a war on!"

Be honest - is this your attitude?

Here's the problem with letting them grab all this information about us any time we want: President Bush may have the best of intentions to use it stop terrorism (and I suspect that he does), but what about the other guys working for him? We've seen what some of them are willing to stoop to if they deem someone a political enemy. (Questioning whether decorated former Marine John Murtha deserved his medals? Insinuating that a political rival faked his shrapnel wounds in Vietnam? Wow.)

And what about the guys that come after them? Does it really take that much imagination to see how private information like what you're looking at online could be taken out of context? And potentially be used for nefarious purposes?

You don't think that some day someone may want a list of people that routinely visit Michael Moore's website, or that ever searched for Howard Zinn, or Noam Chomsky? Or anyone else labeled unAmerican by a politician in the future? Does anyone remember the lists that Joe McCarthy used to make? The abuses of power by J. Edgar Hoover?

Do you want to be called on to explain in public your reasons for visiting any particular website? How about when you visit them (ever surfed at work?), how often, and for how long?

But it's OK, because

Excuse me? This is the only thing lamer than the kiddie porn excuse. Because if they can't even tie a search for "Al Qaida" and "atom bomb plans" to an identity or a computer, then what the hell good would it be anyway?

I'm also dismayed at the lack of concern Joe Q. has over keeping the internet free from intervention. They have a place where the government controls the internet and what you can see on it - it's called China.

My default position on voluntarily sharing information with ANY large organization? Whether it's the government or Wal-Mart or Amazon or my bank or my doctor? "No."

I don't offer any more than the minimum requirement. And it's not because I have something to hide. It's because it's not their business, and I don't know how the info is going to be used.

And it's not incumbent on me to defend my privacy - it should be incumbent on them to explain why they need it.

Look - I know we're being data-mined to death. I know that every keystroke I send to the internet is tracked in various databases, and if some agency ever decided it needed to make a project of me, they could figure me out without too much analysis: who I am, what I read, what I watch, what I think, what I'm likely to do about it.

That doesn't mean we have to hand it over on a platter. Fellow citizens, can you think these things through a little more before you gleefully sign your rights - and mine - away?

And to Google - your famous corporate slogan is, "Don't be evil." I have no doubt that you're not trying to be, but perhaps the definition of not being evil might be expanded to include not creating services and "tools" that insinuate themselves into every single aspect of our lives - that can then be used for the wrong reasons by someone else. Someone else that perhaps does not work under such a slogan as yours.

If you hadn't sought a way to create a list of our web searches in the first place, then there would be no question about handing them over.

I am so damn sick of companies that feel the need to stretch some umbrella over my entire existence, to worm their fingers into every little nook and cranny of my life, trying desperately to be the one place I need to go for every single need I may have. I'm tired of companies that reflexively, mindlessly spread themselves in every possible direction, like some corporate slime mold. This is always what comes of it!

Somewhere between one and two trillion

The American Economic Association has estimated the likely cost of the Iraq War: "somewhere between one and two trillion dollars."

Helpfully, they also provide some comparison and analysis:

And, a conclusion:

Interesting. Oh well, water under the bridge, spilled milk, and all that.

Fantastic quote

Embedded in this article on health care by Ezra Klein (on Tapped) is a description for our administration that should not be missed:

How fantastic is that.

UHURA: Captain, the Xirgogians wish to begin negotiating a surrender.

SPOCK: If I may, Captain. The Xirgogians are transdimensional beings composed entirely of greed. They cannot possibly be satisfied with anything you can give them inside this Universe, no matter how much of it you offer.

KIRK: You're saying they'll always want more? Speak plainly, Spock!

SPOCK: I'm saying Captain, that their very essence... is want itself. There is nothing beyond it.

(Sudden dramatic chord of music)

Cheesesticks Enough At Last

I am on a diet now which purports to be a healthy alternative to the Atkins thing. I have seen a few people try Atkins and go into a "wasting away" period, and I thought, hey! I could really stand to go through a few weeks of that! But others close to me disagreed, so I went with this one, which I have dubbed the Rod Serling Diet.

Why? Because even after you strip away the evil, delicious things in your diet (yummy breads, scrumptious baked things, lotsa sugar, fruit, alcohol, caffeine, rice, things made from potatoes, the best parts of the chicken), you still have a lot of things to eat. Lots of vegetables that I don't find disagreeable, chicken breasts, steaks, various fishes, and - cheese sticks.

In fact, I have been encouraged to snack on cheese sticks. Low-fat ones, true, but cheese sticks. Which is fantastic, because you see, I always snacked on cheese sticks anyway. And not just sticks - cheese cubes, cheese rectangles, miniature cheese wheels, and lopsided cheese trapezoids, the kind I'd make when I'd just swing the butcher knife at the block of cheddar and eat whatever happened to fall off. I love cheese. When I grate cheese to put in my omelette, I give myself a little extra cheese "reward" for my efforts. Hey - if I'm chopping olives for a recipe that doesn't remotely involve cheese, when I'm done I'll still reward myself with cheese. If anyone in the house is cooking with cheese, I levy a "cheese tax," which means that I take up to 5% of that which has been grated for my own, immediate use. Yes, it's steep, but then look at the services you get in return.

Perhaps I have not made myself clear. Je t'aime the fromage. Je t'aime it a LOT.

And here is the part that Rod Serling would have loved. Now, after two weeks, I have snacked on Low-Fat cheese sticks a good bit, and I am pretty sure that I never want to see another one. No thanks. I think the cheese tax has been abolished. No more hacking a good three inches off the cheddar as a snack. And this is a big deal. I expect a letter from the Dairy Commission any day because they will no doubt feel this in their quarterly earnings. I mean I was a big consumer. A lifetime member of the Curd of the Month Club.

I'm not sure if this sort of reverse psychology is the secret point of the Rod Serling Diet, but I'll bet if steak had been my big thing, I'd be swearing that off now too.

I scream to heaven to take away all the cheese sticks, just TAKE THEM AWAY, we tilt slowly up to the sky, DISSOLVE to a field of stars, queue Serling's closing monologue, and... FADE OUT.

The Traveling Library

Over the past two moves I have been winnowing down my book collection, a painful but I feel necessary process. I love having all these books around me but the reality is, in order to keep them I have to basically live amongst piles and piles of books.

I'd already skimmed off the easy ones, and then I made the second and third passes for the harder stuff. Now we're moved in a larger place and I still find myself maybe one or two boxes over.

Looking over the vast selections, I am forced to admit that for the past several years my love of reading has been overtaken by my love of buying books. There are some that I remember desperately wanting, that I have not opened. But boy am I glad I have them.

I can also see now that my interests are fairly easily classifiable. I think I stopped being interesting in the early nineties. These are the sections of my library:

Top Ten Chuck Norris Facts

Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits.

http://www.chucknorrisfacts.com/index.html

And also it blogs

Why the silence from this blog lately? Have I found such peace with the universe that nothing remains to complain about? Hardly. I blame a variety of things: I have been slightly under the weather, maybe only 15% under the weather, and also I am trying to kick screenplay #5 into high gear.

Regarding the weather-underness: There has been lots of productive coughing and much Therafluing and losenging and Store-Equivalent Sudafeding. Now would be an excellent time for someone to give me shit, because a) I am slightly buzzed from my over-the-counter cocktail and therefore care 26% less what people think, and b) my voice is often one register lower, which causes me to imagine that I can be that much more intimidating. How hilarious it would be if I actually got to test this.

Regarding the screenplay: This was the "It will take just a month to write it" screenplay, that I'm now approaching three months on. I was surprised to learn last week that my protagonist was not in fact my actual protagonist. Instead, it turns out that his sidekick, a minor character I wasn't spending much time on because I planned on him kicking it in Act III, was the main character. This clears much up, but also necessitated some revision of story, theme, etc.

One day I hope to learn how to write. On this screenplay, as on all of them, it feels like I am a stubborn sculptor that just walks around and around the marble all day, occasionally taking a swipe at it with the chisel but mainly just walking around and around it, considering it from the same angles. The thing eventually takes shape but it is slow. Commissions suffer. Breakthroughs are rare.

This year's Mardi Gras

It seems that people are very excited to descend on New Orleans again this year for Mardi Gras. Some may even be doing this in the spirit of charity, knowing full well that the city is still in disarray, but assuming that their tourist money will contribute to the cause.

I'm sure New Orleans could use some tourist money right now, but what I think they can use more than that is just money - without having to make a big parade about it.

I don't think the city is ready for Mardi Gras yet. (Although I bet even New Orleans won't admit that.) But with every report I read like this one, saying that Katrina evacuees are being asked to vacate hotel rooms to accomodate tourists, and just looking at the pictures, I think they should have done something different this year.

What I think should happen is, instead of Mardi Gras in New Orleans, it should be in Las Vegas - and Chicago, and NYC, and Dallas, and Atlanta, and every other city that can get it together. Or people should just have their own Mardi Gras parties. Anyone who ever enjoyed Mardi Gras or Jazzfest or just strolling through the French Quarter should come together from far and wide to party their ass off, and the proceeds should go to rebuilding New Orleans.

Mantis! and other random thoughts

Goldenherring

I found this entry saved in the "drafts" section from last year, before Daniel Craig was officially named the new Bond. Oh well, it WOULD have been a good idea:

Since the James Bond franchise is between actors right now, no doubt the search for the new 007 is in high frenzy. Here's my idea:

Skip the big announcement about who it's going to be before the next film. Say instead that people will have to go to the movie to find out. And then, in the movie, skip the post-opening credits MI-6 exposition.

We will then see the "new" Bond on a mission, being suave, man-handling swarthy types, smiling at the babes but not afraid to slap them if they're Communists, shooting people with his watch, etc. This needs to be a high-profile, name actor - someone who could plausibly be cast as Bond.

But then we see Bond do something really nasty, like bad-guy terrorist nasty. And then we cut to ANOTHER agent somewhere else in the world, introducing himself as Bond, James Bond. Again, this needs to be someone who could plausibly be cast in the 007 role. We learn now that someone is running around impersonating Bond, and he must be stopped by the real James.

So that's fine - but then we see this second new Bond do something really mean and not at all in keeping with the British ethos - and then we realize that he is ALSO a fake Bond.

Only then do we cut back to MI-6, where the REAL new Bond comes in and is given the file on these two malefactors. Voila, that's him.

If the producers were very brave they could indicate that "James Bond" is not one agent but an identity that has been passed around the agency since the early 60s. Or is that too close to Doctor Who?

All three actors have to be name players that could be great Bonds - and ideally actors who have been floated as possibilities in the past (Jude Law, Rupert Everett, Clive Owen, etc.)

Movies I saw over the holiday

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - I am always at the ready to mock this series because it feels like such an obligatory adaptation, but I found this fourth installment in the Potter series... are you ready for it? I'm going to commit to this word, even though it is somewhat emasculating, because it perfectly describes it: delightful.

Maybe it's because the characters are now dealing with things like dating and dances, but this one seemed somehow more interesting than the rest. Not sure, but I might rank it as #1, or #2, after the previous one. Mike Newell was obviously a good choice for director. The movie made me want to pick the books back up again, after having neglected the last three or so.

The depiction of the Quidditch game has now evolved to the point that it feels not at all like a video game but exactly like an amazingly popular sporting event, complete with fans spending the night outside before game night, and plenty of painted faces. And even though I am jaded by well-accomplished special effects, I thank whoever designed the sailing ship emerging out of the water.

Also: what do you do if you're a well-regarded British actor and you are NOT asked to appear as one of the Hogwarts' staff? What recourse do you have? There's always "Narnia," I guess.

The Family Stone - I am on record as not being a big fan of SJP, but she did a great job. All the actors did, but I'm afraid I didn't buy the family Stone, and that's the fault of the script. First SJP's character was absurdly stiff, then the Stones were completely cruel to her. There were a few standout scenes. It's the best thing I've seen Dermot Mulrooney do. But I felt it could have lost a few characters. I'm a big fan of the many-characters-gathering-for-the holiday genre, and this one I'll study for where it goes wrong.

Munich - Although Steven Spielberg is known for his ability to make people misty-eyed and awe-filled at some diffusely-lit wonder, he also has a subversive talent for detailed violence that even cinema bad-boys like Quentin Tarantino haven't shown. He only depicts violence this way in his later, "serious" works, when he really wants us to feel it - "Schindler's List," "Saving Private Ryan," and now "Munich."

Each murder or assassination in "Munich" includes a sharp, disturbing and sickly fascinating detail to the act. People aren't just blown away, they are shot through a grocery bag, and then the blood mingles with the spilled milk; they are shot and then take way too many minutes to die, as the blood finally decides to spurt through pencil-mark bullet holes; or they are shot right through the cheek.

Only Coppola has depicted violence in this sort of way - little details that make you gasp in horror but at the same time stare with fascination.

Smitewatch

Pat Robertson continues to distinguish himself as the go-to man to explain God's mysterious smiting patterns. According to the 700 Club evangelist,

From CNN:

Nice! But what's the point of tracking this man's amazingly classless comments anymore? A better headline would be when he DIDN'T say something horrible after a tragedy or disaster.

I Am A "Hand & Foot" Explanation Critic

Over the holidays we played "Hand and Foot," the world's longest card game, and one that is rarely played at my house not only because of its length but for the number of rules it has. This game is possibly more complex than Sabacc (and if you know what that game is, then truly you belong with me amongst the geek clouds).

Few in my family have patience for complicated games, or games with many parts. I believe as a kid we played exactly one-half game of "Cootie-Bug" together until everyone wandered away but me, after which I just opened it occasionally to build the bugs. "Monopoly" was right out. "Risk" was bought but never played.

Always with these games the first skill set required is being able to explain the game to others in a way that maintains their focus and interest. With "Hand and Foot" it's an uphill battle from the moment the cards are brought out. There is a detailed, non-intuitive scoring system (that has to be jotted down on a notepad for everyone), a particular set of wild cards, and the game requires something like three decks of cards plus one deck for every player. Often we never get past this first step in playing the game.

Sometimes I have tried to be the explainer, but really I am best at sitting back, letting someone else go over the rules, while I act as silent judge of their Hand and Foot Rule Explanation skills.

I have found that people easily lose the thread of the narrative in their explanation, getting bogged down first in what makes a dirty book and a clean book, whether the red 3's take 100 points away, how many points you have to have to initially lay melds down, whether or not you can pick up discards, etc. before even explaining the basic point.

A perfect narrative to explain this complex game has been evolving in my head. In three or four more games, I'll be ready and I'll just DEVASTATE with how easy I make it.