speaking of the previous post

Clinton's speech the other night was pretty rockin'... and Obama for President in 2012.

Burning Buildings and a Few Ex-Presidents

I was riding on the “L” the other day when the burned out building that we passed prompted the lady sitting next to me to strike up a conversation. Now, normally when someone says something to me on the train, I just kind of smile and nod it off and go about my business. But, as I happened to be on the train a few months prior at the same time the building in question was in flames, I decided to throw the ol’ two cents in and provide the woman with a brief description of the events as I remembered them: intense heat, black smoke, everyone moving to the front of the train, etc, etc.
Then she told me about her son who was a fireman and how she worried about him but not as much as she worried about her other son who was in he National Guard and quit just before 9/11. She told me that under no circumstances was he allowed to re-enlist in any way, to any military body unless Jimmy Carter died and he would get to carry the casket. I said something about how tough of a gig that would be to get and she told me that when she was engaged to Peter Jennings (yes, THAT Peter Jennings) she met the President of France who introduced her to President Clinton who told her that if Carter died her son would be the man to carry him. This was, of course, all after she was engaged to John Kennedy before he went off to New York to marry “that woman.”
Then I got off the train.

The State of Comedy?

Have we entered the ‘platinum age’ of comedy in film? CNN seems to think so:

We are in the midst of a special era in movie history where a group of talented and diverse comedians are ruling the box office as actors, writers and directors, while balancing their mainstream hits with cameos, dramatic work and in a few instances some groundbreaking stand-up hilarity.

The story cites the success of “crossover stars” Adam Sandler and Mike Myers, but fails to mention they’re both coming off subpar, if not terrible movies (animated voice work not withstanding). But the author does go on to mention Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Will Ferrell, Dave Chappelle and Owen Wilson as up-and-comers enriching the silver screen’s funny bone (or whatever).
The article seems to be little more than a late mainstream look at some emerging sub-culture greats, but it does bring an interesting question, in part related to film, but really much broader: Is this era of comedy really emerging as one that can stand up against any of the classics?

From major films to student groups at the UCB to two-man improv at the IO to DVDs of sketch classics and ultra-hip Web sites, I’ve laughed my ass off in the past year. The now might not be any better for comedy in general than at times in the past, but there is certainly plenty to enjoy.
Near as I can tell the secret is simply access, technologically speaking. With the Web and DVDs of cult classics and current favorites, it’s easy to find the best and funniest there is out there.
The question of better or worse then simply becomes one of preference, and when there's so much more readily available, now certainly must be better. And in that regard, CNN gets it right:

We're spoiled. The digital age has made available to us everything under the sun, and just about any sitcom, comedy act or screwball caper is a few clicks away. Access has brought with it the ability for us to not have to settle.

Now if Saturday Night Live could only find its funny somewhere...

Sick Monkey Walks Upright! Coke Stashed in Dogs! Stuff Is Weird!

More from the weird science (sub-category animals) file:

Monkey walks upright after severe illness

JERUSALEM (AP) - A young monkey at an Israeli zoo has started walking on its hind legs only - aping humans - after a near death experience, the zoo's veterinarian said Wednesday.
Natasha, a 5-year-old black macaque at the Safari Park near Tel Aviv, began walking exclusively on her hind legs after a stomach ailment nearly killed her, zookeepers said.

Cocaine stashes found in dogs' stomachs

LONDON - A British man and woman face lengthy prison sentences after being convicted Wednesday of trying to smuggle more than two pounds of cocaine in the stomachs of two dogs.
The cocaine was discovered inside Labradors Rex and Frispa at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport in September. An X-ray taken after an airport worker thought the dogs were behaving oddly revealed that 21 canisters of cocaine with a value of $232,000 were stitched into the animals' stomach cavities.
Rex recovered, but Frispa had to be put down. A vet found the canisters had fused to her abdominal wall.

Mr. Chair was right when he discussed the strange “I must have dreamt that” quality of some science news out there.

Catfish at the cinema

Dodgeball has lots of the funny. Anchorman has just a little of the funny.
The banter between ESPN 8 “The Ocho” commentators Gary Cole and Jason Bateman alone is worth at least matinee price.
Yup. That’s Lumberg and Teen Wolf Too as Cotton McKnight and Pepper Brooks as an over-excited duo of an overly analytical cliche flinger and buzz-word hip X-Games announcer.
Some exhanges:

Cotton McKnight: It looks like it's two on one. This is a ménage à trois of pain.
Pepper Brooks: Usually you have to pay double for that, Cotton.

Cotton McKnight: It looks like this Cinderella story has come to an end. The clock has struck midnight and this magical carriage has turned back into a pumpkin.
Pepper Brooks: I sure do like pumpkins Cotton.

Cotton McKnight: It looks like the Average Joe's are having to forfeit because they don't have enough players.
Pepper Brooks: Interesting strategy, Cot. Let's see how that works out for them.

Dodgeball is surprisingly smart, a film that doesn't stop with it's send-up premise. It's too quirky to dismiss as another in the canon of Ben Stiller weird-voice and weird-hair films. The snappy sketch comedy style bits just keep on a comin'.
Anchorman is hilarious at times, but far too thin to be great, or even a cult classic. That Kelly Bundy, though, she just hasn't quit...

Between the moon and the sun

The first sliver of the moon, for a moment a deep and vibrant red, appeared over the ridge of Thumb Butte.
The fireworks show was over and done, the horseshoes had been pitched and the beers were finished. The conversation had already bridged today, yesterday and tomorrow, seamlessly.
The baby was fed and asleep as we stood on the gravel in front of the deck, a slight wind coming up from the valley, through the Ponderosa pines, the near-to-far sounds of kids on dirt bikes still ringing out.
From everybody’s best recollection, Zach and I had been friends since our growing child minds could comprehend the idea of a friend. It’d been more than 20 years since our pre-school adventures, taken in pickups down dusty roads for the little-kid version of hanging out.
In those same woods we later spent afternoons jumping into swimming holes, helped haul firewood and rocks for our fathers, covered untold miles on mountain bikes, sipped lemonade on Grandma Lou’s porch, built dozens of forts. In those same woods even later we learned to drive, turned bumpy roads into freedom, camped and raised hell drinking beer.
In those same woods he bought a house, where we stood, old friends reconnecting after too many years.
I’d been there a month earlier, for his wedding. Driving in to Highland Pines, one curve in particular opens to the west, where I saw a brilliant sunset, a skyful of colors resting above the hills over Skull Valley.
Zach is a firefighter now, almost two years on with Central Yavapai. With his wife Cynthia and a 7-month-old daughter, his life these days couldn’t be further from my drunken bachelorhood and general jackassery. It’s not a complete switch, but in the days when our friendship had all but vanished I was a newspaper geek on my way to becoming a high school valedictorian, while he spent his waking hours drunk, stoned or on acid.
The night before his wedding we sat on the deck, drinking beer the way our fathers did. We weren’t hell-bent on getting wasted (like my average trip to the bar), we just sipped as we were thirsty, lips slowly loosening as we dug into the stories of those years when we’d barely say hello, yet still proclaimed an endless friendship when we did.
There was the first-hand account I’d never heard of the senior-year Spring Break crash in Mexico that nearly killed two of the best guys around. That rollover was the single shocking, definining tragedy for that high school class. Thankfully it wasn’t fatal. I’d heard vague rumors among what I’d guessed was the occasional solid fact, but for years the whole story was a shrouded, nearly mythological tale of wild teens who nearly went over the line, playing chicken with death itself.
Zach told the whole thing, from the beer-run arrest in Tucson to the lucky seat swap he did not 15 minutes before the car rolled over, to the shattered moments looking at friends, bleeding among twisted shards of metal.
Damn, I told him. That week I started walking again, done with rehab on a reconstructed knee.
Zach painted and worked construction for years, essentially bumming around more than anything until a 22-year-old mind emerged from years of pot haze and he decided to be a firefighter. Years of training, testing, schooling, applying, plenty of hard work, stress and a bit of luck later, he was wearing a CYFD T-shirt, off-duty but undeniably a firefighter - and a father and hours from a husband.
My own path to 25 had plenty of wrinkles, moments of careful thought and near revelation, moments of happy abandon and moments dark turns. I’d embraced a new landscape - a wide, harsh and magnificient desert that felt as home to me as those woods did. I’d travelled, made wonderful friends, could recount stunning achievements at the best, too many wasted hours in the middle and crushing, splintering defeats on the low end.
Sure we couldn’t tell it all, and we didn’t need to. On the eve of his wedding, Zach and I shared great dreams of coming days, triumphs we would watch unfold and demons we were set to defeat.
Each friendship has a rhythm. The dynamic between any two people resonates at its own frequency, changing even, as time goes by. You can fall in and out of touch with somebody repeatedly over a lifetime, yet still merge abruptly in an hour or two of laughter, old stories and catching up.
That night too we saw the full moon rise, in the same wondrous manner, on the same wondrous stage. With each almost imperceptibe step up the ladder of the sky, the moon slid accordingly down the color spectrum, shining through pure orange and golden yellow before it perched straight above us, an orb of brilliant white that lit the whole forest, the same woods where we grew up, that defined our past, cradled the moment and help hope for the future.
But my mind stops on that red. It was a transient color, destroyed and corrupted in an instant, yet stunningly powerful. The red was eternal and mysterious; a rock ‘n’ roll riddle that managed to both burn out and fade away.
I’ve since been trying to name the color with the moment. I thought first of momentary red, then of perfect red. Home red, life red, or friendship red. Or rather than blood red, blood-brother red, in honor of two 8-year-olds whose pin-pricked fingers sealed a lifetime of friendship when they pledged the same.
I bet that when you look at it right, the color of a moonrise is the same as the color of a sunset, or sunrise, or moonset. There are always perfect colors at the changing of days, and they’re always the same. It’s the eyes that are always different, though, still reflecting the light of midday or the dark of night.

Outside is America

One of my new favorite blogs. So normal it hurts. Poor bastard.

Paterfamilia

Eat the flag, take the flag pill, tattoo flags on the insides of your eyelids

(For a personal retrospective look at Independence Day today and past, please hop on over to mrchair)

Not to be melodramatic, but am I the only one who is having a hard time swallowing the annual patriotism orgy of the fourth this year? Maybe it's that it's Sunday and I have to work tomorrow, but I don't feel a damn thing. I usually don't really, but there's a notable vacuum of patriotism this year. I read an interview with Michael Moore in Entertainment Weekly where he had to put up with the typical shelacking from his interviewer.

I find it obnoxious that Michael Moore takes more shit from the press than President Bush does. Because god forbid somebody actually does the job of the fourth estate and slams what needs slamming. Because he's not a complete fucking pussy when it comes to saying what he believes to be true. They detest him because he says what they can't and people listen. He's manipulative with images, but you have to consider: HE'S A DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKER. His job is to provoke a response. This is not a piece of journalism, but it's bolder journalism than any network has done probably since Vietnam, and so when he sits down with Matt Lauer or EW, they nag at him like jealous little bitches.

But anyway, Moore gets a little fed up when Daniel Fierman suggests that showing images of normal Iraqis at play is dishonest.

"We killed a lot of civilians, and I think that we're going to have to answer for that -- whether it's now or in the hereafter. If you pay taxes and you're an American, your name is on those bombs."

This fourth, I have this itching feeling that history isn't going to look back on me and my compatriots fondly. They say liberals hate America, but I think they just wish America wasn't so easy to hate.

An aside to all this: Ralph Nader has officially lost his mind. I usually listen to Ralph and get this fired up feeling about how much brilliant sense he makes. Not anymore. On Meet the Press this morning, Nader was covering his tracks and rationalizing his idiot presidential quest in the face of conservative groups funding his campaign to spoil it for Kerry. But here's the proof that he's fucking lost it: Apparently Nader sent Michael Moore a letter saying that he was disappointed to not be invited to a premiere of F9/11, then criticized Moore's weight. He defended himself on MTP, saying he's genuinely concerned about his weight problem and intended to give the filmmaker "a jolt." Cuckoo.

I know this was a little political, but I'd file it under media/culture. And just to support that, I'll finish by saying that Mean Girls was really funny and I want to have Tina Fey's baby.

Best movie ever

Let me just put something to rest in case some people are doubting the critical praise: Spider-man 2 is the greatest superhero movie of all time, the greatest sequel of all time, probably the greatest big budget action movie of all time and possibly the greatest movie of all time. Granted I'm a bit biased, as I've had a Spider-man poster on my wall since I was like 10. But still.

And if anybody disagrees, I challenge the cunt to a fistfight.

Comic book writer and Portlander BM Bendis weighs in

A man's home is his castle

Want to see where Arizona's rich live?
Some of these cribs kick major ass. Check it out here.

First Poem for the Time & Space Lounge

Here is a poem I wrote this very morning. And now I shall share it with the world on the Time & Space Lounge:



WHAT'S IN A NAME

When the new Oak Park high school opened
the school board decided to let
us eighth-graders choose the mascot
The finalists were The Oak Park Tokers, The Oak Park 69ers, and The Oak Park Cop Killaz
The school board conferred
and announced that the winning bid was
The Oak Park Denny's $5.99 Grand Slammers
and that a football ticket stub
would be good for half-off a Grand Slam Menu item at Denny's
with the purchase of a second Grand Slam Menu item
of greater or equal value
It was a bit ridiculous
but we live in Oak Park
a town with no oaks and no parks

My Life as a Tri-Delt

The other night I was asked to celebrate the birthday of a new friend of mine at a bar close to Chinatown, aka Old Town, aka Bum Town. I was going minus Mr Chair, but felt fairly certain that the dependable MAX would get me safely there and back. It was still light out when I left (around 9:30 at night) but by the time I arrived, dusk in bum town made me fairly certain I would be looking for alternative transportation home.

I went to Kells, one of the only frat/sorority type bars in Portland and found my friend and "her girls" dressed up like someone in, oh, let's say, Scottsdale. I, being a rather anti-girl girl who is happiest in a pair of overalls, was instantly uncomfortable in my plain t-shirt and pants.

But two bourbons later I realized I was fitting in. I simply had to interject "that guy is hot" here and there and they treated me like a soul mate. Not only that, but other people were treating me like I was one of them as well. Guys were swarming us. I didn't have to buy myself a single drink the rest of the night.

I was getting ready to leave when one of the girls said she'd drop me off on her way. That was a huge relief, so I said I'd stay and hang out. They claimed they'd have one more round at another bar and then we'd head home. Great.

At the next bar, the girls met up with a huge pack of douchebag baseball players. These were the biggest losers I've seen in a long time -- in fact the biggest losers since moving away from, oh, lets say, Scottsdale. One of them, Javier, took a likin' to me. He told me how he "used to play pro", but now he's training to get back into the game. I asked where he played. Buttfuck, Illinois. Oh, really? I didn't know there was a farm in Buttfuck. Whose team is it? "Oh man it's, like, an independent team." Oh. "Yeah, it was real though. We got checks and stuff." Ah, the glamourous life of independent professional baseball.

By now it's late and by no choice of my own I'm getting wasted. I see a taxi and try to make my goodbyes. Once again, it was "No, just hang out. We're gonna go soon. We have to work in the morning. We're gonna go to one more bar for one more round, then we'll leave." The taxi was calling to me, but so was my ten dollar bill, so I agreed.

Next bar, two rounds in : I realize that all of the girls have paired off with one of the douchebags. Leaving me with Javier. And no matter how many times I "subtlely" mentioned that "my boyfriend and I live near PGE Park", and "my boyfriend and I went to Diamondback games", and "my boyfriend and I get the fuck away from me", he still seemed to think that I was interested in him. And then he started nudging me. In that stupid, frat guy way, nudge, hey, you havin' a good time? nudge, hey, you look good in glasses. nudge, hey, you want another beer?

I couldn't take another nudge. I looked out the window, at freedom, beautiful freedom and saw a taxi. I looked at Javier. I looked at the window.

"Hey, I know that guy!" I pointed at the empty window. I nudged him away so I could get up and half ran/half walked to the door, partly for show -- I was catching up with "my friend" -- mostly just to get the fuck out of there.

I grabbed my cab and never were ten dollars better spent. I got home and thanked my brain for not letting me be a girly girl. I thanked Mr Chair for being my constant companion and keeping idiots from buying me drinks. And, most importantly, I thanked Portland for being a town that, unlike oh, let's say, Scottsdale, will accept a girl in glasses and overalls.

They really do come in threes

Marlon Brando dies at 80

mrchair needs help

Don't want to kill the buzz in the lounge, but if you get a chance, swing on over to mrchair and give a guy some career advice...

The Oxygen Destroyer

I imagine most people, when challenged to describe Godzilla, would come up with a guy in a big phony-looking rubber suit batting at a rubber giant moth swinging around his head on fishing line. I probably would too. That or the Smog-monster, for my money the best Godzilla foe.

That's why I was pretty surprised when I watched the original 1954 cut of the Japanese film Godzilla, and discovered that it's actually a very serious and disturbing movie. As part of the re-release, Cinema 21 played Godzilla all last week. The true cut has 40-minutes more of Japanese footage and lacks the 20 minutes of American padding. No Raymond Burr. No Americans. Lots of post-war Japanese pain and cynicism toward humanity.

The Japanese version is ALL ABOUT THE BOMB. Not metaphorically. The movie was inspired by the radiation poisoning of the crew of a Japanese ship that passed too close to U.S. Bikini Atoll H-Bomb testing. The blunt message of the movie pretty much boils down to: atomic testing was so much more than the key to ending WWII, and as a result the Japanese psyche is essentially ruined. A couple of examples:

-A young woman talks on a train about how she won't fall victim to fear of Godzilla. "I survived Nagasaki; I treasure my life." Later she's on a boat party (the only joyous event in the movie) laughing and drinking with friends when Godzilla rears up from the water nearby.

-Godzilla doesn't really breathe fire, but heat or radiation that looks like a deadly steam, melting steel and incinerating buildings on contact. It's a barely disguised dramatization of an atomic attack.

-Following a Godzilla rampage, a minutes-long hospital scene shows medics treating burned women and children, sprawled across the room and bawling.

-A mother and child hold each other in the face of death by Godzilla. "Don't worry, just a little longer and we'll be with your father again."

Right down to Godzilla's final confrontation, the enemy isn't guns and planes, or another monster, but a furthering of the arms race -- "The Oxygen Destroyer." The tiny weapon annihilates the elements in water, breaking down the oxygen and liquefying anything in the way. Its eye-patched creator discovered it trying to help humanity, and reluctantly unleashes it on the world, upping the ante in the escalation of weapons of mass destruction. And that's your happy ending. No wonder they put Perry Mason in before showing it to mid-century America.