But I Digress...

I WROTE THIS POST IN 20 MINUTES...SEE IF YOU CAN TELL

2011-06-13T20:11:00.000-06:00

The Hangover Part II

My Grade: C-

This is an unnecessary movie. Some of my friends (Dave, I'm calling you out) would argue the FIRST Hangover is also unnecessary. I disagree. These movies are basically gross-out sitcoms for people who appreciate a dark sense of humor and recognize that in the world today, loutish, infantile men have become the norm instead of the exception. Better to make fun of them than to try to make sense of them.

All that being said, The Hangover Part II really is unnecessary. It is not nearly as funny as the first one. Moving the movie to Thailand doesn't make it more exotic...it feels vaguely exploitative. Repeating the same hijinks and moving them to a new location isn't giving the audience more of what it wants....it is being lazy. Frankly, all of the funniest scenes in this movie felt like either a) Zach Galifinakis/"Alan" improvisations or b) throw away moments. (Admittedly, I laughed pretty hard at those moments, but they came separated by long moments of queasy silence.) I really hope they don't make another one, but if they do, I might see it if they make Galifinakis the prospective groom and put him front and center. The prospect of Alan getting married might almost be worth dragging one's carcass to see them rehash this premise once again. Almost.

The NBA Finals

Ain't karma a bitch, LeBron? I'm no Mavericks fan (far from it), but seeing the way the series played out couldn't have been more satisfying given the entitled, self-satisfied way the overrated LeBron James has handled himself practically since Day One in the League.

The other thought about The Finals--okay, I didn't watch it wire-to-wire, but NBA basketball is a pretty lame product these days if these really are the two best teams. Maybe a lockout will do the NBA good? It better...since it is inevitable anyway.

The Colorado Rockies

They are pretenders and sellers, not winners and buyers. After 65 games, you really are what your record says you are. And that saddens me, because I really like a lot of the players and they do try hard. They're just not very good. They have four guys who are All-Stars (or who should be All-Stars: Tulo, CarGo, Helton and Jhoulys Chacin) and a bunch of journeymen or not-quite-there prospects. And if anyone can figure out Ian Stewart, who was supposed to be the next Graig Nettles or Scott Rolen at third base, please give them a Ph.D. and have them call GM Dan O'Dowd.

The Rockies will make their usual thrilling late summer run, but they will have more losing streaks than winning streaks and unless Ubaldo Jimenez remembers how to pitch at home, the Rockies will finish 82-80 (give or take three games either way) and the ever penurious Monfort Brothers will be moving a lot of "supporting cast" to try and rebuild around CarGo and Tulo. It will be interesting to see if anyone has the patience to sit through it again.

The Best Shows on Television

Next week, around the time the Emmy nominations are announced, I'll do my annual list of what I think the best shows and performers on television really are. I can say that last week I finally watched the first few episodes of BREAKING BAD (2008) on DVD, which had been a show that eluded me, and I think that it might have the greatest pilot episode I've ever seen. If I taught screenwriting, I might use it as an example of how to take an outlandish premise with potentially unlikeable or unbelievable characters and make it riveting and believable. I have a feeling the rest of the series doesn't quite hold up (even fans of the show tell me it can be overly reliant on the brilliant Bryan Cranston in the lead role), but kudoes to Vince Gilligan doing such a great job setting the whole thing up. I'm jealous, haha!

My time is up. Thanks for the vine. And remember that friends don't let their monkey smoke or do drugs.

Peace...

MAYOR HANCOCK, WE HARDLY KNEW YE...

2011-06-11T12:48:00.000-06:00

So...Denver elected a new mayor this week. Do you miss John Hickenlooper yet? Any chance he can do double-duty?

I'm not going to throw Mayor-elect Michael Hancock under the bus until the full story is revealed (if it ever gets revealed). But as we learned with the Anthony Weiner case, if a story looks bad, smells bad and on the surface doesn't seem to make a lot of sense, then there's probably something pretty unseemly going on. Sometimes it's not raining--you really are just getting pissed on.

When Hancock says, "There are very good reasons why my phone number would be [on the call list of a prostitution service] that I'm not prepared to go into now," you do wonder what exactly those very good reasons would be. I am 100% sure that if someone pulled up my cell phone records, there wouldn't be any escort services showing up on the list of either outgoing or incoming calls. Unless my phone number got cloned somehow, but then my bill would be a lot higher than it is and I would investigate it. Mayor-elect Hancock isn't even saying this. If I understand him correctly, he's not denying that he called these numbers, but he is saying he was framed. He won't allow The Denver Post and 9News full access to the phone records, but he maintains (for now) that he didn't hire prostitutes from this service between 2004 and 2006.

Kind of sounds like, "I did not have sexual relations with this woman." Until he did, if you know what I mean? I guess sometimes, Sex Happens.

Full disclosure: I voted for Hancock twice, both in the initial election and the runoff. I also seriously considered James Mejia, Chris Romer and Doug Linkhart. Ultimately, I probably considered Romer the least, because it felt too much like he was trying to ride into the mayor's office on his Daddy's coattails, because he was the only candidate in the campaign to consistently go negative and because he didn't seem to have very well thought out answers to some of the questions about his vision for the city that some of the other candidates had. Would he have been a bad mayor? Probably not.

I voted for Hancock not because he is a fellow African-American, but because a) I liked his personal story and b) I preferred somebody who knew the inner workings fo Denver's city government first hand, which Hancock certainly would, based on being the City Council president. Would Michael Hancock be a bad mayor if he actually gets to serve? I question his judgement and his trustworthiness, of course, but since being honest and being judicious with where you put your penis doesn't seem to disqualify any men from elected office, it also is probably not an indicator of how effective Hancock could be at managing the city's machinery.

Does anyone else think we would have fewer controversies like this if we had more women in elected office? I mean, I think Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann are dangerous idiots, but I'm pretty sure we wouldn't have to worry about the unnecessary distraction of a sex scandal with either one of them in office. The possession of both power and a penis seems to be an irresistable and damaging combination for too many men. This is nothing new. Pharaohs, Roman emperors, kings, popes, presidents, congressmen, MPs, mayors, councilmen--all have a history of mingling political leadership roles and sexual profligacy from the dawn of time. It is not likely to change any time soon either. The entire world is one big frat house.

Here's what I'd like to see happen: I would like to see Hancock and his team stop dragging their feet and hemming and hawing and allow access to the phone records. I would like Hancock to come out and tell the truth, or as much truth as he can keeping mindful that the people of Denver don't need to know every detail, but that we do deserve to know if he has done any wrongdoing. Don't try to hide behind the bromide of "for the good of my family" or "the media is dragging my family through the mud", because that obviously wasn't part of the thought process if and when Hancock solicited prostitutes. Then--and this is the tough part--if he did pay prostitutes for sex and then tried to cover it up he needs to resign and there needs to be yet another mayoral election. This time, if Romer runs again, I may even vote for him. (Unless it was his team that was responsible for leaking Hancock's connection to the brothel. Which seems highly possible.)

What are the odds it will all actually play out this way? Don't hold your breath.

Peace...

(Here is the link to the most recent Denver Post story about Hancock and his alleged ties to the "Denver Players Club": http://www.denverpost.com/ci_18252064

DISCLAIMER: Also, this is an opinion posted on a personal blog. Despite my [admittedly tangential] ties to 9News, I am in no way connected to any part of the investigation and reportage of this story and my views DO NOT reflect those of 9News, Gannett, The Denver Post or anyone else connected to any of these organizations.)

THOR HAS A REALLY BIG HAMMER (and he knows how to use it...)

2011-05-09T18:38:00.001-06:00

A Review

In the space of just a couple of days I went from having no real interest whatsoever in seeing the latest Marvel Comics adaptation, THOR, to feeling like I had to check it out. Why? Two reasons: I learned that Kenneth Brannagh had directed it and I remembered that in my senior year of college, my fellow housemates had decided to call our apartment "Valhalla" while jokingly naming ourselves after various Norse gods. These seemed to be two reasons as good as any to see the movie. (No, I don't remember what my Norse god name was. I remember being disappointed that I couldn't be Loki though.)

Anyway, I checked out THOR this past Saturday and while it was certainly not my favorite Marvel movie so far, it delivered a little bit better than I expected. I came away impressed with the straightforward storytelling, the movie's sense of humor and most of the special effects. THOR doesn't aspire to go much beyond being a good popcorn movie...but it is a good popcorn movie and that is an increasingly rare thing.

The thumbnail sketch of the plot--which will be recognizable to anyone who is familiar with the comic book adaptation, but probably unfamiliar to anyone whose only knowledge of Thor is from your high school discussion of Norse mythology--involves Thor (played by Aussie Chris Hemsworth, looking pretty buff) inheriting the throne of the alien realm of Aasgard from old King Odin (Anthony Hopkins), much to the chagrin of his mischievious younger brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston). Aasgard is at war with another realm, populated by "Frost Giants"--a fragile truce is maintained only by a promise kept between Odin and the rival King Laufey (Colm Feore, looking very much like a Cardassian in a bad mood). The hot-headed Thor has other ideas, leads an ill-conceived invasion of the ice realm via a stable wormhole that connects "all the realms of the Tree of Life" and from there it is a very short journey to Odin finding out, stripping Thor of his powers and crown and banishing him and his magic hammer to another realm. A realm that just happens to be Earth, where he is promptly run over by an astrophysicist played by Natalie Portman who, let's face it, seems to be turning up everywhere these days.

The rest of the movie then cuts back and forth between the political struggles in Aasgard, with the untrustworthy Loki now in charge and the efforts on Earth of Thor and his new ragtag group of scientist friends to reunite him with his magic hammer while staying one step ahead of secretive government agents (led by Clark Gregg, dryly effective as usual) and the Aasgard "Destroyer" who has been dispatched to Earth to do just what his name says. Brannagh keeps the pace moving, which is a challenge since THOR has a bit more plot and exposition than most of the other Marvel Comics movies and the old Shakespearean director is savvy enough to know that if you linger too much in one scene or another, you just might realize how flimsy the whole thing is. The conclusion is predictably full of slam bang action and gee whiz special effects, although I thought it was just a little bit unsatisfying. Almost needless to say, I think the writers are holding back just a bit for the upcoming "Avengers" movie, which will unite at least three key members of the Marvel universe (Iron Man, Thor and Captain America) in one adventure.

Should you see THOR? How the hell should I know? It's not a bad movie at all, at times it is pretty darn good, the acting never disappoints and your patience for it probably depends on how much you enjoy comic book movies, Natalie Portman, tall blonde dudes with washboard abs, Anthony Hopkins and all or none of the above. The movie is also chalk full of impressively cast cameo or supporting parts (Idris Elba, Jeremy Renner--really??, Stellan Skarsgard, Rene Russo, Samuel L. Jackson) in case you grow weary of following the plot and just like to stargaze. If I had to give it a letter grade, I'd say "B".

THOR was written by Ashley Miller, Nick Stentz and Don Payne. Directed by Kenneth Brannagh. It stars Chris Hemsworth, Anthony Hopkins, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Stellan Skarsgard, Clark Gregg and Idris Elba. It is a Marvel Picture released by Paramount Studios. It is rated PG-13 for, I guess, intense comic book action and mild profanity.

(Side digression--this might be sacrilege to somebody like my good friend Z., but I am starting to weary of all the comic book movies. We are now "reimagining" or "retooling" comic book franchises that are less than 15 years old, like Spider-Man, The X-Men and Superman. WHY??? Plus, was there really a clamor for a Captain America movie? For the Green Hornet? The Green Lantern? I say enough! This is a topic I should probably dive into another time, but it all just seems a little out of control to me. If you have any thoughts on this topic, feel free to share them with me.)

Random Thought of the Week

Former "real" housewife of New York Bethanny Frankel just sold her new "Skinny Girl Margarita" line to a major alcohol distributor for a cool $120 milllion. Who says it doesn't pay to be on reality TV?

Peace...

REGGIE SCOTT Stars As "Undercover Hipster Brother"

2011-05-08T16:56:00.000-06:00

The Supporting Opportunities for Ugandans to Learn (S.O.U.L. Benefit)

There is a great organization started by a 25-year old University of Colorado grad named Brooke Stern. The organization is named S.O.U.L. (Supporting Opportunities for Ugandans to Learn). You should definitely Google the amazing story of this young woman and how she started a philanthophic drive to help underprivileged school children in Uganda. This is not a blog about her organization nor is it a pitch to get you to donate (although you should, if you can). This is the story of what it is like to be forty, Black and uncool in a crowd full of earnest 25 to 35 year old hipsters. This is the story of my Friday night as The Undercover Hipster Brother.

The above picture is a cellphone snapshot of a special art auction and raffle benefitting S.O.U.L. that I was invited to attend. Ryan Snyder is one of the board members and he and his partners thought it would be a great idea to hold a silent art auction to raise money to buy more solar computers for Ugandan schools. You can read more about the concept here. My connection to this whole thing is that I work with Ryan's sister, who put the event together, and I am all about trying to increase opportunities for African children, no matter how small the gesture might be.

What's funny is that I probably hadn't been to something like this since I was in my mid-20's. Unfortunately, Tracy couldn't make it because of work commitments, so I had to wander stag into the LoDo loft space that was hosting the auction. I didn't know what to expect, but I was happy to lend my support and to buy a raffle ticket with a chance of winning an iPad2. Besides, there are many worse ways to spend a Friday night, right?

Ryan's sister is a sweet gal with a real passion for charitable causes (she spent a month in Calcutta herself helping the underprivileged) and she was a gracious host, but when you have over a 100 guests and you're responsible for putting the whole thing together, you certainly don't have a ton of time to spend with little old me. So after a while I found myself adrift in the Domain of the Hipsters. What's funny is that just a couple of nights previously I had watched an episode of ABC's Happy Endings, a very funny show with what I fear is a dim future that had just done an episode making fun of--tah dah!--hipsters.

So this was fresh on my mind as I wandered amongst the bright eyed twentysomething gals with their low cut blouses, skinny jeans and four inch heels and their twenty or thirtysomething mates, with their five o'clock shadow, untucked Arrow shirts with loose cuffs and distressed jeans; their gazes looking appreciatively at the art for sale, but not TOO appreciatively, lest they be revealed to be not as cool as everyone else who exchanged banal chit chat over wine or microbrews while occasionally expressing their concern for "the plight of sub-Saharan Africa" and smugly noting that they were happy to "do their part, however small" as they looked down their noses at the t-shirts for sale and the art they weren't bidding on.

I drank a little too much wine and at one point I realized I was leaning up against a wooden post, staring for far too long at a photograph of a smiling young Ugandan girl when an older couple (by older, I mean about my age) noticed me, took pity on me and then introduced themselves.

Dave and Lisa from Boulder (oh, really?) were their names and believe me, I was glad after a while to have somebody to talk to other than Ryan's sister, because one of the loneliest places on Earth is to be a single, middle-aged man in a loft full of too-cool-for-the-room hipsters. (Another one of the loneliest places on Earth is to be an intelligent thought looking for the same inside of Sarah Palin's head. But I digress...)

Turns out Dave's dad was a diplomat and he's lived all around the world--Egypt, Kenya, Jordan--and Lisa was his girlfriend of six years and they were feeling just as lost as I was. It was good to chat with them for a while. Apparently, Dave got out of a recent trip to Egypt just two days before that country went all a-Twitter and kicked out Mubarak. Between the three of us, none of us won any raffle prizes, but I must say I had a fairly good time. On the way out, I said goodbye to Ryan, Ryan's sister (I'm protecting her name, but I'm not sure why) and walked past a group of hipsters, two gals and a guy, who were milling around at the entrance. I heard the guy say, "My friend who works at the gallery said there was going to be a deejay. I don't think there's a deejay." One of the women responded, "Well, we should still check it out, right? There's drinks and I think there will be African children dancing and stuff." The second gal, trying to be funny, I think, said, "God, I hope they don't let the children drink." With that, I wandered off into the night, $10 t-shirt in hand, feeling like I had "done my part, however small," but thinking that next time I get an invite for an event like this I might just write a check instead. The undercover hipster returned home, kissed his wife, threw on his pj's and went to bed.

Here's to African children dancing and stuff. Peace...

BROKEN NEWS: Osama bin Laden is Dead!

2011-05-01T22:45:00.000-06:00

I can honestly say I was one of those people that never believed Osama bin Laden would be apprehended or killed by anyone and I would be lying if I said that I wasn't happy he was dead. I, like a lot of Americans apparently, are quite happy.

I guess the real question becomes, what does it really mean? Will we rapidly begin demobilizing from Afgahanistan now that U.S. troops have killed bin Laden in Pakistan? I would hope so, but something tells me that it won't be that simple. Will al-Qaeda cease to exist as a terrorist organization? With pro-democracy movements spreading like a virus across the Middle East, are we on the verge of a new era of peace and prosperity? As much as I will choose to hope for the best, I'm pretty sure the answer to both of those questions will be a resounding "no".

The relentless questioner in me also has other annoying questions that will cut the euphoria a bit, and I'm sure many of these questions will go unanswered in my lifetime--for instance, how did bin Laden get safe passage into a mansion in exurban Islamabad? Will there be reprisals against the U.S. and its citizens, both here and abroad?

This much I am certain of...tonight, whether you support him and his policies or not, President Barack Obama became the runaway front-runner to win reelection in 2012. Think back to his 2008 campaign promises...stimulate the economy partially through tackling health care reform--I'll give that half a check. Bring Osama bin Laden to justice--check. Meanwhile the Republicans give us buffoons, racists, idiots, deviants and bald-faced liars. Good luck with that.

I would not have been at all shocked if President Obama had strode up to the podium and said, "We killed Osama bin Laden. Suck it bitches", and then thrown down the microphone alt-comic style and just walked out of the White House while giving the Black Power salute. In some ways, that might have been appropriate, although I guess it also would not have been presidential. Whatever that means.

How do I feel? I'm glad we can turn the page on Osama bin Laden and that we can give a little bit of closure, just a little bit, to all of the victims of his heinous terrorist attacks. But don't think for a moment that it solves everything.

Sincerely, your handsome dark cloud on a sunny day...

Peace.

I CAN'T BELIEVE THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT IS AN AMERICAN

2011-04-27T18:07:00.001-06:00

I am like so stunned to find out that President Barack Obama was born in Hawaii, in the good old USA, and apparently has a long form birth certificate to prove it.

I was sure that he was actually hatched in a laboratory deep in the mountains of Tora Bora, a genetic avatar funded with ill-gotten billions by Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda in a half-century long plot to bring down the United States of America from within through a diabolical program of excessive taxation, government funded death squads--I mean, Obamacare, sneaky Liberal amoralism and cigarette smoking. Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh and Donald Trump all told me so.

(Also developed in that secret lab deep in the mountains of Tora Bora? Donald Trump's hairdo.)

Now, it turns out that President Obama is just a regular American dickweed like the rest of us. He likes beer, the Chicago White Sox, Star Trek and Motown. None of that previous list makes him either a terrorist or a socialist. It actually makes him both a geek and "The Neighbor Next Door Who Is Slightly Better Read and Better Looking Than You." He does not speak French. He does like long walks on the beach (preferably while shirtless) and earnest discussions of economic policy. He's just like us, except, you know, he's The Most Powerful Brotha on the Planet. Word!

Can we please now round up all the Birthers and ship them directly to the loony bin so that we can have a frank, thoughtful discussion about the direction of the country, Obama's strengths and weaknesses and how to keep the Chinese from owning us lock, stock and barrel? It is unfathomable that we have spent a good portion of Obama's first (only?) term actually discussing whether or not he should legally be the president of the United States. You know who shouldn't have been the President of the United States? George W. Bush, who probably lost in 2000, but five thugs in black robes ended that discussion when it was just getting started.

Yeah, that's right, 11 years and I'm still not over that shit. If the Arabs and Jews can be at each other's throats for over 3,000 years, then I think my little eleven year grudge should qualify me for the Nobel Peace Prize.

But I digress--it has been suggested, by myself and a lot of people a whole lot smarter than me, that in any given time a democratic nation gets exactly the leadership they deserve. I don't know if that's true anymore, but sometimes I wonder if Obama, for all his weaknesses, is still a better president than we deserve.

And don't get me started about the wackadoos the Republicans have so far put forth for 2012--we have a whole year and a half to dissect that, although the mere thought of the next election makes me want to ball up in the fetal position and just cry. (Which is probably what candidate Newt Gingrich's ex-wife did after he served her divorce papers while she was in the hospital with cancer. Just sayin'.)

President Barack Hussein Obama, citizen of the United States. What took him so long to tell us what we already knew?

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A Few Quick Hitters

I'm tired of hearing about who the first pick of the NFL Draft might be on Thursday night (April 28th). The only time I want to hear the words "draft" and "NFL" in the same sentence are when I go to my wife's work to do the annual fantasy league draft because the motherfucking players and owners finally settled on how to share their $9 billion booty and they've started playing again.

Todd Helton = not done yet.

I hear some chick named Kate and some dude named Andrew are getting married in London on Friday. Is this the setup for the upcoming Hangover sequel? Why am I hearing so much about this?

There are 38 candidates running for the late Carla Madison's District 8 Denver City Council seat. I really, really hope that the "Rent Is Too Damn High" guy from New York is one of them. He might be not be eligible to serve, but he's just too irresistable not to vote for.

What is it with the associates of current and ex-Bronco players getting so stabby? I thought gun control was an issue, but apparently I should start worrying about knives, shivs and shanks as well.

You've been a great audience. Please, tip your wait staff. If you are wait staff, please do not spit in the soup. Thank you!

Peace...

A NEW LOOK...THE SAME ME

2011-04-19T18:05:00.000-06:00

Hello!

Bet you didn't think I'd be back so soon! Every couple of years I get the itch to change things around a bit. I think this is human nature, don't you? So, I have once again updated the look of my blog. My point of view remains the same, although I admit I will probably try to steer away from politics and current events a little more than I have in the past.

When one is commenting on events in the current news cycle or on the neverending political wars, there are thousands of blogs out there that will do it better than I can, blogs written and posted by insiders, news junkies or journalists who blog for daily newspapers or major magazines. Where is your incentive to read what I'm posting if I'm posting the same stories as these people are--and their stories are more thoroughly researched and more informed?

Nope...I'll stick to essays about pop culture, books, movies and TV, sports and random digressions. If I do that, I may actually be tempted to post more too. (If I can't think of anything, I may just decide to post a random picture of my cat Sammy. He's usually good for a laugh.) You can decide whether or not me posting more is a good thing.

As an example of what you have to look forward to, I've been thinking a lot about emoticons lately. "Hi, my name is Reggie and I am addicted to emoticons." These little computer-keyed smiley faces, frowny faces, kisses and general expressions of canned emotions are a part of the downfall of sophisticated human interaction in modern day society. This is because emoticons are the natural outgrowth of email generated anagrams like "LOL" and "OMG" and the new one, "IKR!" (I Know, Right!) that reduce all of written communication to a series of lazy, fatuous and largely disingenous catchphrases.

Yet, I love them. I IM them all the time. Why can't I quit :-P ? Or :-( ? Or my favorite, the old reliable :-) ? It is ridiculous.

If you're willing to search on the Internet long enough, you can find an emoticon for anything. Currently, I am looking for an emoticon that expresses "I-work-with-some-annoying-nitwits-and-my-job-does-not-come-close-to-fulfilling-my personal-career-needs." That is a mouthful as a sentence, but if only there was some kind of face that could convey that, well, then I'd be on my way!

Come to think of it, there's probably an app for generating new emoticons. I'm sure I can download it from the Apple Store for 99 cents. I should go look into that.

Ah hell...

DEDICATED POST

2011-04-18T20:17:00.002-06:00

Hello...it has only been two months since my last post. Did I miss anything? What...there was ANOTHER tsunami? You're kidding. The NFL is on a lockout? No way...that's a $9 billion a year business, there's no way either side would let that happen. HBO has this new series called GAME OF THRONES. Apparently, everyone knows about the George R.R. Martin novel (just like everyone knew about the TRUE BLOOD books...hmmm, I have to meet "everyone"). Based on the 98 promos I've seen for it, it looks like "The Lord of the Rings" meets Cinemax After Dark. I guess I should check it out or something. Oh, and there was a budget crisis where the federal government almost shut down. Question is, would anyone have noticed the difference?

I am going to make an effort to get back into the blogging game on a more regular basis. After this, one more "real" blog per week I promise. But this post is a Special Edition. My friend Dave and I have been exchanging mix tapes and now mix CDs for years. For this latest installment of shared music, I have decided to share a few quick notes about the songs and artists on the current CD as a kind of "bonus material" to go with the CD. I thought it would be something fun to do and I hope no one minds the indulgence.

So Dave, this playlist is for you! Enjoy! Peace everyone...
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This playlist is organized as a series of rough "suites" organized by musical genre. I start with indie or alternative rock, progress to four offbeat pop songs from different eras, then some offbeat hip-hop (although one song should be immediately recognizable), a soul classic and finally two Indian dance classics.

TV On The Radio/Second Song - this is the leadoff song from their new album "Nine Types of Light". I've given you plenty of their stuff before. I think you'll like this one. It is typical TVOTR...literate, polyrhythmic and funky.

St. Vincent - two songs from her album "Actor". I like her a lot. Feist meets Beck with a predeliction for the dark side. She plays most of her own instruments and writes all of her own lyrics and music, so you know I like that.

Led Zeppelin/Fool in the Rain - of course you've heard this song...who hasn't? Great piano playing and kick-ass drumming from John Bonham. When I hear it I think of the early 80s.

Amber/311 - great mellow groove from these mid-90's So Cal rockers. Makes me think of love...and living in Los Angeles. :-)

The New Pornographers/The Laws Have Changed - pop with a twist from this Canadian alt-rock supergroup, featuring the vocals of Neko Case. I think you'll like it.

Aloe Blacc/I Need A Dollar - Occasionally, you actually get a good free song from Starbucks! It's rare though. But I liked this one immediately. It reminds of Bill Withers in his prime. And this song is perfect for our times.

Kanye West - the first song, "Through the Wire", is the one we talked about in the car on the way to Twist & Shout...he recorded most (not all) of the vocals while his jaw was wired shut after a car accident that nearly took his life. Amazing. The second song, "Power" is from his last album, the brilliant "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy". You will recognize it immediately because it was only used in like three commercials for different movies over the past year. It is "Power" that has the wonderful King Crimson sample we talked about.

Black Sheep/The Choice is Yours - Ever wonder who did the song with the rapping hamsters from the Kia Soul commercials? Of course you didn't...but here's the answer anyway!

Mos Def/Quiet Dog - I don't know what this song is about, but it makes me want to move every time I hear it. Mos Def is a great, socially conscious rapper and a pretty good actor too. This song was also featured in a popular commercial. At least commercials are good for something!

Q-Tip & D'Angelo/Believe - I think this song is beautiful. It was from Q-Tip's last album. He remains one of the most verbally gifted and distinctive rappers.

Flobots/Airplane Mode - This is the Denver-based Flobots at their best. Too bad they lost their record deal...UGH! The music business, good at neither music, nor business.

Curtis Mayfield/Pusherman - You probably know more about this song than I do. But I always love it and I think it was Mayfield at his greatest.

Panjabi MC - I discovered the first song, "Beware of the Boys" while eating at the lunch buffet at Little India. I immediately recognized the "Knight Rider" sample and became obsessed with tracking it down because the song was so full of life and so danceable. That led me to other Panjabi MC tracks, of whic "Stop What You're Doing..." has actually become my favorite. Both of these songs always lift my mood.

I sure hope you like the CD Dave. I think all of these songs could actually be heard by Nora without risk of teaching her any bad habits, but I made it for you, so feel free to drive around town, laying down the funk like you do! You da man Dave!

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FINALLY...And The "Reggies" Go To...

2011-02-27T16:02:00.003-07:00

Greetings Earthlings!

Today, February 27th, is that magical day for film buffs around the world when they hand out the Academy Awards, otherwise known as the Oscars. (That term is trademarked, so don't toss it around too much, okay?) One could do a pretty good thesis about what it really means to win an Academy Award and whether or not the Best Picture winner really represents the top film from the previous year. You could then hand that thesis paper into a French film professor who could expound at length about auteur theory and the schism between commercialism and art in cinema all while sipping mutliple glasses of French cabernet while getting a blowjob from his mistress/teaching assistant under the desk.

What was I talking about? Oh yes...the Oscars. Look, we are Americans and we subscribe to that ridiculous Vince Lombardi hokum about how winning isn't everything, it is the only thing, so a lot of attention will be paid to who wins the big categories tonight and why and, of course, people will remind you that no one remembers who came second. (We don't know who came second of course, because the mysterious Motion Picture Academy of Arts & Sciences doesn't rank the Best Picture nominees--they just hand the naked gold guy to the producers of the top picture and skip merrily away into the night to attend one of the glamorous after-party/schmoozefests, while secretly hoping they run into Charlie Sheen and one of his hookers.)

Here's a question for you...without looking it up you have five seconds to name who won best picture last year. Do you give up? Here's a hint--it wasn't the Most Successful Motion Picture of All Time in terms of box office, AVATAR. (Answer at the end of this post.) My point is that Oscar history is littered with movies that won big on Oscar night but which proved historically irrelevant as the years went by when compared to other movies that year which didn't win or might not have been nominated. My favorite example of this for all time was the mysterious victory of HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY over CITIZEN KANE. Even in 1941, anyone who saw CITIZEN KANE must have been blown away by how different it was, by the extraordinary acting, writing, cinematography and editing. So of course...it didn't win. Even with ten nominees that year (yes, this is nothing new), it wasn't even NOMINATED for Best Picture. But what movie do you remember better? Which one is more important to American film history? All of which just proves my point that the Academy Awards are more sport than artistic measurement, more spectacle than anything significant.

Frankly, that makes them more fun.

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This Year's Reggie Awards - My Ten Favorite Films of 2010

After hemming and hawing for two months about whether to post a ten best picture list from last year, or pick my seven favorites or not post anything at all, I finally decided (with some "gentle" prodding from Dr. Z.) to counteract the Oscar's Ten best picture nominees (really, aren't four or five enough? What is this, 1941?) with ten of my own.

Out of sheer laziness and a desire to try and make brevity my friend instead of a passing acquaintance, I will limit myself to a dozen words or less about each of my Top Ten. I will also further break down the best movies I saw from last year in different subcategories. And of course, it wouldn't be me without noting that there were some darn good movies from last year I just didn't get around to seeing--I make no apologies for my list, but if you want to know why say, TRUE GRIT, isn't on it, well, I haven't seen it yet. I don't rate by reputation.

Without further adieu, from bottom to top, The Reggies go to:

10. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World - In pure visual storytelling, the second most innovative film of the year.

9. The King's Speech - A tad overrated? Maybe. Uniformly brilliant performances? Absolutely.

8. Winter's Bone - A triumph of atmosphere on a shoestring budget. Jennifer Lawrence = star.

7. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo - Maybe the book's better. Hard to imagine Fincher's American adaptation will be.

6. The Kids Are All Right - Sublime acting in a subversively clever satire of SoCal hipster family life.

5. 127 Hours - The real Aron Ralston bugs me. This fake one had arguably the most gripping single scene of the year--and not the one YOU'RE thinking of. (OK, I had to cheat here with the twelve words, but I'll be better going forward, I promise.)

4. The Fighter - Fantastically directed, compellingly acted tale of dysfunctional Lowell, Mass boxing family.

3. Inception - The most visually innovative piece of storytelling all year, hands down.

2. Black Swan - It was close...Swan flirts with camp, but haunts your dreams.

1. The Social Network - Whatever wins Best Picture, this film will be remembered better over time.

CANDIDATES THAT I DIDN'T SEE WHICH MIGHT FORCE ME TO REVISE THIS LIST: True Grit, Toy Story 3, The Town.

HONORABLE MENTIONS: Salt, Shutter Island, Exit Through the Gift Shop.

BEST ACTION/THRILLERS
Inception
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Salt
Iron Man 2

BEST COMEDIES (Intentional Division)
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
Due Date
Death at a Funeral

BEST LEAD ACTOR: James Franco, by a hair over Colin Firth. Firth is sublime (isn't he always?), but consider the challenges confronted by tonight's Oscar co-host--he is the only person on screen for most the movie's 89 minute running time, he has to convey cockiness, resourcefulness, sexiness, despair, resolve and desperation without the aid of co-stars, special effects or makeup and for most of the movie he really can't move. Sounds easy, doesn't it?

BEST LEAD ACTRESS: Natalie Portman deserves it, but surely Annette Bening must win one of these days, shouldn't she? A special shout out goes to Noomi Rapace who played Lisbeth in THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO and the other "Millenium" thrillers--this Swedish actress has set the bar very high for Rooney Mara in the American adaptations.

MOST MEMORABLE SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE/MALE: Christian Bale, THE FIGHTER. If he doesn't win tonight it will be a sign that a) Oscar voters don't like Bale's cockiness and occasional recalcitrance and want to give it to Geoffrey Rush, who is the safe choice or b) not enough people saw THE FIGHTER--or realized that this was the same guy who is also currently Batman. On a side note, where's Justin Timberlake? He practically walked off with THE SOCIAL NETWORK.

MOST MEMORABLE SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE/FEMALE: Its hard not to pick Melissa Leo, also from THE FIGHTER, although Julianne Moore did some nice work in THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT--but it could be argued she's the second lead in that movie.

Am I done yet? You betcha...done like the NFL's labor negotiations.

Oh wait--last year's Best Picture was THE HURT LOCKER. A great choice, but will it be remembered all that well in ten years? We'll see.

Peace...

IT'S ONLY BEEN 50 DAYS...WHAT DO YOU WANT?

2011-02-04T18:08:00.006-07:00

Hey...hey, I'm alive!

I think this is the longest I've ever gone between posts and I'm sorry about that (if there's anyone out there still reading this.) I DO have a lot of things on my mind and instead of spreading them out, I thought I'd go ahead and vomit them out now because you'll never know when I'll take another 50 day posting vacation. I'm cuckoo-for-cocoa-puffs like that. In classic bullet point style, its time to let it rip!

You're Really Super, Super Bowl*
*- name that musical reference

There's few things in sports that bug me more than the two weeks of nonsense the NFL has us endure leading up to the Super Bowl. The inane press conferences. The Pro Bowl. The DirecTV celebrity Flag Football (well, that's actually not that bad, especially if you get some swimsuit models participating.) Feature after pointless feature about the players, the coaches, the friggin' trainers even.

It is funny how the predominately middle-aged, privileged fraternity that owns, coaches, scouts, covers and administers the National Football League has somehow managed to turn pre-Super Bowl week into another one of those great middle-aged, privileged, fraternal events, the business convention. Everybody who's anybody in the NFL now has to spend the week before the game in the Super Bowl city shmoozing, making appearances and giving interviews. The circus has come to Dallas. There's been a lot of bitching and moaning about the awful weather there this week, but hey, to be completely honest, if the game isn't being played in Arizona, SoCal or South Florida, the weather is always going to be a potential factor. (Despite what the league's grand poobahs might think, Denver would do a pheneomenal job hosting the Super Bowl and there's a lot more fun things to do than there are in Dallas and we actually have snowplows--although the Metroplex has better strip clubs which given the fraternal nature of the whole enterprise, undoubtedly played some small part in Big D's selection as a host city. Can't wait for that New Jersey Super Bowl. But I digress.)

Truthfully, this all probably made sense back in the bad old days of terrible games, but think back and ask yourself, when's the last time the NFL didn't have a competitive Super Bowl? I think we have to go all the way back to Denver's last championship (a moment of silence please) after the 1998 season when the Broncos beat the Atlanta Falcons 31-19 in a game Denver news anchor Ron Zappolo would be correct in calling "not as close as that score might indicate." My point? It wouldn't kill the NFL to dial down the hype and the nonsense a little bit so that the game could regain a little bit of it's rightful luster. You just don't get mismatches in the Super Bowl any more, so let the final game speak for itself...

The Game Itself

All that being said, this will be a less competitive Super Bowl than any we've seen in the last few years. Not a blowout, but a solid Green Bay Packers win, somewhere in the range of 27-17. Why? The hype machine will tell you that the Steelers are loose and confident while the Packers have been uptight all week. Uh huh. The Steelers are missing one of their four most indispensible players--rookie center Maurkice Pouncey--and they already have a somewhat suspect offensive line. Aaron Rodgers is the hottest quarterback in football with the league's best group of veteran receivers, playing indoors on the fast track of the Jerry Jones Dome. The Steelers will hit hard and play dirty, but as long as the Cheesheads don't commit stupid turnovers, they have an advantage in depth and intangibles and will control the game.

Now feel free to bet the other way...

Revolt Like An Egyptian

Some people think democracy is spreading through the Middle East like a virus and that its long overdue. Not me. Don't be fooled...it started One Night in Tunisia when the natives woke up and realized...what exactly? All those elections over the years have been rigged and the cutbacks the government proposed during tough economic times were killing the little people and not doing anything to reform the fat cats. Everything new is old again. But Tunisia is relatively small and moderate by Arab standards. Egypt...that's a whole different sarcophagus. The bloodier it gets, the more opportunities extremists will have to infiltrate and manipulate the revolution for their cause. And that cause will not be democracy or a more liberalized form of Islam. Consider that a warning.

Still...it is good to see people stand up for free elections and regime change ON THEIR OWN instead of having it crammed down their throats by a foreign power with imperial ambitions. The rest of the world needs to let this play out wit ha cautious eye.

Now, In Honor of the Upcoming Series Finale of Friday Night Lights (Sure, That's It) a Random Picture of Minka Kelley

Coming next...before the Oscars I promise, if not much sooner, my Top Movies of 2010. I know I said I wouldn't do a cliched Top Ten list, but it will probably be more than 7. Perhaps a Prime number? Whatever. Until then...

Peace.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Green Bay defeated Pittsburgh 31-25.

6 x 7 = 42 much work...

2010-12-15T17:41:00.002-07:00

You know what, I'm an idiot...

You've probably figured this out by now, but sometimes on this little blog of mine I tend to bite off more than I can chew. Then I choke. So it goes with the whole, "one of my favorites of 2010 a day for six weeks" thing. Who am I kidding?

I'll hold off on finishing my picks for The Top Seven Movies of 2010, because I still have some catching up to do and you know how the end of the year is backloaded with "prestige" releases. (Good news Zub, if you're out there, I'm finally watching Scott Pilgrim vs. The World--soon!) But because I try to be a man of my word, here's the rest of my choices that I hadn't gotten to yet, with the exception of the Top Quotes of the Year--I don't know what I was thinking with that category. No one other than The Situation, Zubin and the writers of Modern Family had anything really memorable to say this year (for different reasons) and you know what? I can't remember most of those quotes anyway!

Time to get the TV shows out of the way. All right, here we go:

MY FAVORITE TV SHOWS FROM 2010

7. The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret (IFC)

6. Watch What Happens Live! (Bravo) - can't believe I'm typing this, but this craptastic fest that comes on after all of the Real Housewives shows is actually reinventing the TV talk show for the modern age, using celebrities to comment on the Real Housewives shows in a relaxed setting and to occasionally even act out scenes from the shows. Actors playing real people pretending to be celebrities...it doesn't get more Meta than that!

5. Damages (FX)

4. Friday Night Lights (DirecTV/NBC) - one year to go. It will be missed. Last season was fantastic.

3. The Good Wife (CBS) - The only show on TV about which I can honestly say it gets better almost every episode. The current season which started in September has had some of the best legal plotlines since the heyday of The Practice.

2. Modern Family (ABC) - My favorite TV comedy with a guarantee of at least two belly laughs every week. Great characters.

1. Mad Men (AMC) - The show can't go on forever...it wouldn't work being set in the 70s and we're headed there fast, but right now there is no richer, more layered show on television.

Honorable Mention: Boardwalk Empire (HBO), Top Chef (Bravo), The Big Bang Theory (CBS).

Peace...

6 x 7: Websites

2010-12-09T20:48:00.002-07:00

One of my favorite websites is www.xtranormal.com. I haven't "made my own movie" yet, but the idea is awesome...It's like making your own movie with the creepy yet addictive avatars from The Sims.

What's one of your favorite sites?

Peace...

6 x 7: One of My Favorite 7 Albums of 2010

2010-12-08T18:56:00.003-07:00

M.I.A., Maya
16 Tracks, Rap/Hip-hop/Electronica

Are you sick of me yet? I think I'm sick of me...but not sick enough to stop with this mad, "blogging every day and ranking stuff" shit.

I think M.I.A.'s third album was one of the year's most critically misunderstood releases. I admit when I first got it, I thought "What is this crap?" But then I kept playing it...something about the music kept drawing me back to it even though at first a lot of it turned me off.

The turning point was a solo road trip I made in July to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Grand Mesa and then back to Denver. I had Maya on in the car almost the whole time. I began to recognize it's genius--the layers of syncopation, the way M.I.A. seamlessly interwove raps, world music, electronica, dub and rock to create this kind of sonic universe that envelops you, takes you in and takes you for a ride. I do admit that I have trouble following the storytelling on some of the songs--M.I.A. likes overdubs, prefers to rap in a thick Sri Lankan patois and that makes her hard to understand sometimes unless you've got her on the headphones and you're concentrating, but my point is that I WANTED to concentrate on it and how much music makes you do that now a days? The theme is easy to pick up though...these are songs about love and connection (or the lack thereof) in the Age of the Internet. How apropos.

I think this is one of 2010's best.

Favorite tracks: "It Takes A Muscle", "Caps Lock", "Believer".

If You Like This, then You May Also Like: Tricky, Massive Attack, Dizzie Rascal, The Streets.

Peace...

6 x 7: Awesome Singles or Downloads

2010-12-07T17:39:00.002-07:00

Kanye West, "Runaway [original version]"

I'm no music expert (hardly!), but I feel like I do know a compelling track when I hear one. Intrigued by "Runaway" from the very first moment I heard it debuted on the MTV Music Video Awards (and what was I doing watching the MTV Music Video Awards exactly? And when does MTV show these alleged music videos?), it proved to be one of my favorite downloads of the year. Check it out. Yes, Kanye West is an asshole, but at least he knows it and has the balls to write a rap about it. By the way, he may be the most interesting pop music producer working today, so he can take a whiny, self-lacerating piece of martyrdom like "Runaway" and make it dramatic, interesting, catchy and thought-provoking all at the same time.

Kanye makes you love his shit and then hate yourself for loving it. That's a pretty cool trick.

One note of caution though...the original pre-album version is shorter, tighter and better than the version that wound up on his just-released opus My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. So, if you really want this song, look for the version that is NOT on the album.

Sample Lyric: "Raise a toast to the douchebags/Raise a toast to the assholes..."

If You Like This Song, You May Also Like: pretty much anything else Kanye has done from his last two albums, Lil' Wayne's "I'm Single", Eminem's Recovery album.

Peace...

6 x 7: TV SHOWS

2010-12-06T21:27:00.003-07:00

#7 The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret (IFC)

Created by and starring David Cross. With Will Arnett, John Fortune and Sharon Horgan.

Okay, I admit that the first two episodes proved to be vastly funnier than the five subsequent episodes, but for sheer audacity and unabashed weirdness, nothing this year may top the ponderously titled The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret.

Clearly inspired by the satirical lunacy of Arrested Development and his own cult-hit sketch show Mr. Show with Bob and Dave, David Cross fashions a story about a bumbling, nebbishy, pathologically lying office temp named Todd Margaret who manages to "Peter Principle" his way into a middle management position heading up British distribution of a quasi-legal energy drink known as "Thunder Muscle." Saddled with a smiling, backstabbing subordinate (Fortune), a profane, overbearing, moronic boss (Arnett) and a product that only shadowy terrorist-types seem interested in, the one thing the increasingly desperate Margaret seems to have going for him is the attention of a comely, wanna-be molecular gastronomer (Horgan) who is extraordinarily patient with all of Margaret's schemes, half-truths and outright lies. So of course, Margaret misinterprets her good nature as a chance to score and only gets himself into more trouble as a result.

There's more, much more in this densely plotted little comedy, including a grotesque running gag involving a cat back home that has to be seen to be appreciated. I do hope Todd Margaret gets renewed for another season, but if it doesn't, please look for it on Netflix or DVD. It's worth it. Plus, the way the season ended, there doesn't seem to be much farther for the storyline to go, although I'm sure the demented Cross will come up with something if he has to.

My grade: B+

You May Like This Show if You've Also Liked: Arrested Development, Mr. Show with Bob & Dave, The Ben Stiller Show, Absolutely Fabulous, Community, The Comeback.

Peace...

6 x 7: One of the Seven Best Movies of 2010

2010-12-05T20:07:00.005-07:00

WINTER'S BONE (R)

Winter's Bone is a bleak, unsparing drama about a 17-year old woman named Ree (played by Jennifer Lawrence, and she's riveting) who is the caretaker of her psychologically damaged mother and two younger siblings in the absence of her father, a man who has gone to jail for cooking methamphetamines in the backwoods of the Ozarks. His bail has been posted, but there's a catch--he put up his family's home to secure the bond and now he has gone missing. Ree takes upon herself to find her father to save her home. She must bring him to his appointed court date or, worse prove that he is dead in order to keep from losing her home.

What makes the movie special is the documentary-like look at a subculture you don't see in movies or on TV that much: the rural life among the disposessed in Missouri's Ozarks. Support of a kind is supplied to Ree from her Uncle Teardrop, played with gravelly menace by long time indie character actor John Hawkes, a fellow meth cooker who may know a lot more than he lets on about what happened to his brother. Dale Dickey plays "Merab", an antagonist to Ree's family who potentially has a lot to lose if the father turns up.

Sure, sometimes Winter's Bone is so bleak and unsparing it is hard to watch, but it is never a chore to sit through. It is well-paced, like a thriller and beautifully acted, especially by Lawrence who effectively conveys desperation, tenderness, steely resolve, vulnerability and toughness in her quest to find her father and keep her family together. Its a real long shot, but a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her would be well-deserved.

Winter's Bone is definitely one of the best films of 2010.

Winter's Bone was released by Anonymous Content during the summer of 2010. It is now available on DVD. Written and directed by Debra Granik. Also written by Anne Rosellini. It is based on a novel by Daniel Woodworth.

Other Good Movies Similar in Subject or Tone to Winter's Bone: River's Edge, The Straight Story.

Peace...

a quick word...

2010-11-30T20:37:00.002-07:00

That 7 x 6 thing...yeah, that's going to be tougher than I thought, but I still want to do it. If you see a movie review on this coming Sunday the fifth, you'll know its started.

Now, a few quick hitters:

--Good deal by the Rockies locking up Tulo for ten years and Jorge de la Rosa for two. I don't know that there was an urgency to doing the deal with Troy Tulowitizki (baseball's best shortstop) right now, but I'm glad the team did. It is refreshing in this day and age. My only concern is that there will be a couple of years there where they will be paying Tulo and the by-then retired Todd Helton about $35 million combined. I hope the Rox have a pretty good team in place then, because they won't be able to afford adding any spare parts.

--Pat Bowlen has come out and said that Broncos coach Josh McDaniels' job is safe through next year...sort of. Here's someone who might want to polish that resume then--GM Brian Xanders. If McDunce is the coach, it will behoove the Broncos to find a real personnel man to oversee the draft and free agency, because that is McDaniels' only chance to prove that he can actually coach. Then I would say in 2012, Bowlen should either extend McDaniels if the team appears to be on the upswing or hire one of the following three men to be head coach should they be available:

Perry Fewell, NY Giants defensive coordinator
Marc Trestman, Montreal Alouettes head coach (two-time Grey Cup champ)
Jon Gruden

--I can't think of anything with the arrogance and wrongheadedness of WikiLeaks. What does it accomplish, exactly? Other than getting Americans in conflict killed and making everyone look bad?

Peace...

6 x 7

2010-11-18T18:02:00.002-07:00

2010 Pop Culture & Entertainment in Review

Yes, I'm still here and I still blog! I don't have much in this post, but I do want to say that one of my favorite annual traditions on this site is about to begin again. Yes, believe it or not, 2010 is almost over and I will be running down my favorites from this past year once again.

Starting next Sunday, I'm going to take the next six weeks to a daily recap of my personal favorites from the past year in each of the following seven categories:

--Websites
--TV Shows
--Movies
--Songs (singles)
--Albums
--Quote or phrase
--Viral clips

Ambitious? Yes. Crazy, even? Perhaps. But what the heck...I've only done about two dozen posts this year, so why not try 42 between now and the end of the year? As always, suggestions and comments will be welcome.

Next up on Sunday: my pick for the seventh best movie I've seen this year.

Peace...

THINGS I THINK ABOUT SOMETIMES WHEN I CAN'T SLEEP...

2010-10-31T07:33:00.003-07:00

I think the next President of the United States will be a woman and I hope to God its not Sarah Palin.

--------------------------

Everyone is so sick of all the political advertising...for weeks now, entire commercial breaks are devoted to one political candidate after another slamming their opponent (and rarely saying why they're so qualified for the job). Every local race has it's own peculiar flavor and tactics. In Colorado, all of the "non-attack" ads make a point of showing Candidate X, Y or Z either standing in a field, or on a dirt road, with the Rocky Mountains in the background, preferably while wearing a Cowboy hat and jeans. Last night during Saturday Night Live, I saw three commercials in a row that used some variation of this motif, one for Betsy Markey, the next for John Hickenlooper and then one for John Salazar. That shit was hilarious! Seriously, they should have all ended the commercial by driving off in either their pickup truck or a Subaru Outback. I want to see a Colorado candidate walk out in front of a failed savings and loan, while wearing a top hat and a bow tie and say, "I'm so-and-so and I approve this message, and I'm not from here, but judging by Colorado's 9% unemployment rate, declining quality of education and some of the wackadoos you have running for office, you probably need an out-of-town dandy such as myself to come in a set your affairs straight. Vote for me, blah blah blah..." Really, it couldn't be any worse.

-------------------

If political blogging had existed in the 19th century, I'm sure the American political system would not have made it to today. Picture the following scene, between rival "bloggers" before the election of 1860. (Please, don't lecture me on the irony of me posting this in my blog--I'm aware!):

John McTwilliger walks up to the big oak tree in the town square with a hammer and nail in one hand and a long piece of parchment paper in the other. His friend, Donny McGuillacuddy, accompanies him.

DONNY: What are you up to John?

JOHN: Hold on a second Donny old boy, I have to post my blog.

(John takes the paper and holds it aginst the oak tree with the nail at the top. He hands the hammer to Donny.)

JOHN: Hit send.

(Donny nails the paper to the tree.)

DONNY: What's this about?

JOHN: The election. I'll read it out loud for all to hear--

(John clears his throat and then begins to read his post in a loud voice).

JOHN: "Citizens, can we really trust President James Buchanan? This 'bachelor' president--and, why is it that he's not married?--this man twiddles his pinkie over his tea while the rancor between North and South reaches a fever pitch! It makes me wonder if Buchanan is secretly a Redcoat! His fey, aristocratc bearing and British sounding name bespeaks to the fact that if this nation goes to war with itself, who stands to benefit? The British Empire, that's who! And then dowdy Queen Victoria and her pompous biscuit eaters can swoop in and do what they failed to do during the Revolution and again forty-eight years ago--they can step on the neck of the American Eagle with their jackboots and turn us all into the Queen's subjects again!! And I say no, NO SIR to imperialism!! A vote for Buchanan is a vote for the Queen to come in and tax us to death and tell us what to do! Vote Abe Lincoln in '60!!" (then, sotto voce) A message from John, of the Americans To Support the Liberty of Americans, not officially affiliated with the Republican Party.

DONNY: (fuming) I had no idea you felt this way! This gives me an idea...

(Donny runs off...an hour later, he returns to the tree with his post. John is there and he points to his post.)

JOHN: Look! Five people "like" my post!

DONNY: Really? Well, we'll see what people think of your post after they hear about mine! (Donny nails his post under John's and begins to loudly read from it.)

DONNY: "Who is the real Abe Lincoln? Why is he opposed to the rights of states to determine for themselves the slavery question? Who is he really working for? Why does he want to extend the fingers of big government even further into our pockets and into our homes? What's he hiding under that beard and tall top hat? Citizens, I'll tell you what--Abraham Lincoln...IS A NEGRO!! Yes, yes! This is why he wants to abolish slavery wholesale! This is why he covers his face with a beard! This is why his nose is so big and why he stands so tall, like the infamous Tutsi of the distant Dark Continent! Don't be fooled by his pretty words and stirring oratory! This is not a CHANGE that you want. Americans...once we go black, we will NEVER GO BACK!! Re-elect James Buchanan and protect your freedom--not to mention our white women!" (then, sotto voce) A message from Donny, of the Freedom for States and All Citizens Movement, not officially affiliated with James Buchanan.

Then Donny and John get into a fist fight while all about them a hullaballoo breaks out. End scene.

Ah...just imagine it. Where would we be now if all that had come to pass? I guess we'll find out soon enough.

Peace...

NFL: Hypocrisy. It has it.

2010-10-21T17:16:00.002-06:00

Ahhh...there's nothing quite like labor strife between billionaires and millionaires to make one appreciate the simpler things in life. This week the sports talk shows have been chattering non-stop about the latest apostacy to the national religion of football--the idea that the NFL is going to start "cracking down" on helmet-to-helmet hits and other unsafe tackling practices in an effort to try and "safeguard the safety of NFL players."

Never mind the fact that professional football is built around mongoloids running into each other at high speeds and with maximum leverage so that an oblong spheroid can be carried across the final frontier of pretend enemy territory. In other words, this ain't flag football and it was a game designed to mimic warfare, which isn't nice and pretty either.

The NFL Player's Association has had increasing player safety and minimizing serious head injuries on it's agenda for nearly 15 years. According to former player rep Marcellus Wiley, the league could allow safer models of helmet than the Riddell and Bike brands most players use, but those brands have precedence because they pay more in sponsorship deals with the league. If players were forced to wear mouthpieces, that would also reduce the risk of serious head injuries.

There's more: until today apparently, the NFL's marketing arm was still selling videos online that featured some of the same unsafe hits that the league claims it wants to discourage. NFL Films also turns up natural, ambient sound at field level to try and amplify "the sounds of the game"--which include the vicious hits that have helped the league to become so dominant and that fans have come to expect.

Players are unwilling to change their ways, even if it is in their best interest. The owners want the good PR of appearing to stand up on this issue even when they are not. Why the tempest in a teapot now? Simple--the league's collective bargaining agreement is about to expire and this is all posturing so that the NFL's owners can gain important concessions that will allow them to reap even greater profits in future years:

--An 18-game regular season

--Perhaps some give-backs on free agency and a rookie salary cap in exchange for a greater contribution to the NFL pension plan and more post-retirement medical benefits.

We the fans, of course, are the pawns just like we always are. I guess until we stop paying billions of dollars for NFL ticket packages, season tickets and merchandise and stop gambling on the NFL to the tune of billions of dollars more, I have no right to complain and neither does anyone else, because money will always rule the day and the hypocrisy of everyone will always be a part of the bottom line. Still, it's important to remember that when billionaires and millionaires are squabbling, nothing is ever quite what it seems.

Peace...

THE SOCIAL NETWORK: A Review

2010-10-05T18:02:00.003-06:00

Reggie Scott loved The Social Network!

Reggie Scott noted that The Social Network stars Jesse Eisenberg, future Spider-Man Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake and Armie Hammer in a cleverly filmed dual role.

The Social Network was written by Aaron Sorkin (The West Wing, A Few Good Men) and directed by Denver-born David Fincher (Fight Club).

Reggie Scott also noticed that Rooney Mara plays a small but pivotal role in The Social Network. She was recently cast as Lisabeth in the Fincher-directed American version of the The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. This movie is a veritable cornucopia of future movie stars!

Reggie Scott sums up The Social Network thusly: it is a biopic of sorts about the invention and growing pains of the world's most popular Internet social networking site, Facebook. Dig this--the movie posits the idea that Marc Zuckerberg (Eisenberg), Facebook's creator, dreamed up the genesis of his multibillion dollar empire while he was an undergrad at Harvard, fulminating drunkenly after his girlfriend (Mara) broke up with him. Seems Zuckerberg is a programming and mathematical genius who doesn't have many social skills with women--or anybody else. Asperger much?

Reggie Scott dug the delicious irony of the movie's thesis about Facebook and Zuckerberg...that a guy who didn't have much real use for social contact became the world's youngest billionaire by inventing a website that allows everyone to become more socially connected to their friends and acquaintances. But, in a final twist, those connections are limited and proscribed by what can be conveyed in a status update and a response...which in turn distances people from the very human connections they crave and which Facebook claims to traffic in.

Reggie Scott says that The Social Network isn't a dry "history of" movie though. It crackles with sharp, interesting dialogue and is driven by one of the oldest stories you can tell--a tale of greed told from different compelling points of view. And every performance is spot on, especially Timberlake, who plays playboy Internet entrepreneur Sean Parker, who started Napster and was an early investor and promoter of Facebook--but barely survived to talk about it.

Reggie Scott says you should definitely go see The Social Network! You won't be disappointed!

(Rated PG-13, this is that rare movie nowadays that has little real profanity, no violence and few scenes of sensuality that, while they convey exactly what is happening, still manage to be fairly tasteful. Go figure.)
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Sidebar: My Five Favorite David Fincher Films

Fincher is one of my favorite current film directors and my admiration for him grows year-by-year. He is one of the few directors who has never made a film that wasn't compelling to watch...they may not all be great, but they are all interesting, visually distinctive and compelling on some level. My personal favorite Fincher films:

Fight Club (1999) - ahead of its time and still vastly underappreciated
Seven (1995) - a taut, masterful mystery thriller
The Social Network (2010)
The Game (1997) - mind games have never been so much fun in the movies
Zodiac (2007) - moody and poetic, made all the more so by its ambivalent ending.

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Some Final Fall TV Thoughts

If you see no other new series premieres this fall, you must check out the pilot episode of the new IFC David Cross/Will Arnett comedy "The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret." I won't say much about it here, other than that it has been a long time since I've watched anything as demented, original, dark and laugh-out-loud funny as Margaret. Cross plays the title character and even if future episodes don't turn out to be as inventive or funny, he should get an Emmy nomination next year just for his work in the premiere, which he also wrote. So there.

Peace...

NAUGHTY PICKUP LINES

2010-09-29T17:02:00.003-06:00

And now for a complete change of pace, here are some lines to use before a one-night stand, courtesy of the musical comedy duo Garfunkel & Oates (get it?). Full disclosure, of the kind you'll almost never get on Twitter*--I've never had a one-night stand. I don't regret it, so I don't know a lot of the things guys say to get someone to go to bed with them without a commitment because

A. I've never used any pickup lines and
B. No one's ever used them on me**

So, for your reading pleasure here are SOME PICKUP LINES GIRLS USE TO GET GUYS TO GO TO BED WITH THEM, again courtesy of the female musical comedy duo Garfunkel & Oates:

--"I have 206 bones inside my body and I'd sure like one more."

--"Let's get horizontal and combine."

--"You can call me the Coffee Bean because I know just how to grind."

--"If you like to play naked Twister I've got a mat back at my place."

--"Your knees are Thanksgiving and your stomach is Christmas. I'd like to visit in between the holidays."

Do you have any good (funny), naughty pickup lines men say to women (or other men)? Or more examples of female come-ons? Send them to me and I'll post them! We could all use a good laugh.

*I thought of some examples of some Tweets you could see if someone were tweeting about a one-night stand. Please bear with me:

--"OMG I am doing the walk of shame...how could four beers make such
a difference? WTF!"
--"Did the deed...the broom closet at work has sticky floors, eww!"
--"If I met u at The Church last night and f***ed u between 2 and 4 AM,
plz reply to this txt. I need my bra back!"

**I do remember one time where I'm pretty sure a guy tried to pick me up at a bus stop in L.A. I was walking on the sidewalk and he was sitting on the bench in the bus stop and he said, "That's a good looking pair of jeans. Wish I had a pair like that." My response was, "Uh, thanks," and I kept on walking. In hindight (no pun intended), this had to be a pickup line because straight guys never talk about each other's jeans. It's just a big no-no.

And now, for no particular reason, here is a random picture of my cat "helping me":

Peace...

THE FALL TV UPDATE

2010-09-28T21:13:00.003-06:00

The Fall television season--which is still the most important one, coming in just slightly ahead of Winter--has arrived in full force and as I like to do every year, I've selected a healthy number of new shows to sample to see if any of them are worth watching. Oh, who am I kidding? I want to see which of the new shows are worth DVRing. Or maybe watching on Hulu.

Since I still have a blog that I post to occasionally, I thought it use this post to share my impressions of what I've seen so far. Feel free to ignore this completely:

GOOD - WORTH WATCHING REGULARLY

Nikita (the CW) - I'll grant you that it caught my attention because Maggie Q, playing
the title character, is insanely good looking (in a she-can't-be-one-of-us-mere-mortals-can-she? kind of way), but to my surprise, the writing and action on this show are so far top notch. Having a "mole" on the inside is a good twist too that has already paid some dividends. This is the best show on the CW by far, although as I am fond of saying, that is like being the best player on the midget basketball team. Still, I plan to watch this regularly.

Better With You (ABC) - Funny, funny, funny, from the people (some of them) who brought us Everybody Loves Raymond. Cliched at times? Yes. Don't let that stop you from checking it out. It airs before Modern Family, last year's best new show.

Hawaii Five-O (CBS) - I know, I know...Alex O' Laughlin (playing the son of Steve McGarrett from the original 70's series) is as stiff as a board...so far Grace Park (Battlestar Galactica) is just eye-candy...there's nothing original here...and yet, somehow, so far, the whole thing works. The bad news? If the ratings stay high, expect a whole raft of other shows from the 70s and 80s to be remade with diminishing results. How about Danny DeVito as Barretta? (Didn't think so.)

Boardwalk Empire (HBO) - I only saw a six-minute trailer and I fell in love with it. Damn...why does HBO have to be so expensive?

MEDIOCRITIES - PROCEED WITH CAUTION

Running Wilde (Fox) - it tries too hard, Keri Russell shows no knack for comedy and the relationships aren't clearly established yet, but it's creator Mitchell Hurwitz (Arrested Development)and Will Arnett (Gob from Arrested Development!) so it would be stupid not to give it a chance.

Undercovers (NBC) - damn those two (Boris Kodjoe & Gugu Mbatha-Raw) are sexy. What was that show about again?

Outsourced (NBC) - I didn't find it offensive, but then I'm not Indian. What I did find was that it was uneven.

Shit My Dad Says (CBS) - Well, it is an entertaining blog and William Shatner is an entertaining actor but...ech! Maybe it will settle into a groove. Maybe not...

Terriers (FX) - well-acted, low key detective series. Kind of like The Rockford Files 2010.

The Event (NBC) - It took me two weeks to cool on this Lost/24/FlashForward hybrid, but you might find it more intriguing. It does have an attractive cast and seems a little more committed to meting out clues behind "the event" than Lost did at giving consistent clue to it's mystery. Still, I'd be shocked if this show didn't peter out by March.

BAD - FIND SOMETHING BETTER TO DO

Lone Star (Fox) - oh well, it's going to be cancelled soon anyway.

The Defenders (CBS)

Outlaw (NBC)

STILL ON MY LIST TO CHECK OUT

Law & Order: LA (NBC) - so why did they cancel the original Law & Order again?
Blue Bloods (CBS) - have Tom Selleck, will travel.
No Ordinary Family (ABC) - I think I may have seen this when it was called The Incredibles, but at least it has Michael Chiklis and Julie Benz.

And that's enough TV to watch because I still try to keep up with Modern Family, The Office, Mad Men, NFL football and Community.

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Finally, I want to send my special thoughts to the friends, family and colleagues of Sally Menke (1954-2010) one of the best film editors who ever lived and who has now passed from this Earth too soon. The brutal Southern California heat wave has claimed an unexpected victim indeed.

Rest in Peace.

HAPPY HAPPY JOY JOY POST

2010-09-20T13:07:00.003-06:00

The Recession Is Over?

Yea! I missed this one. According to a report by some very smart and influential economists, the recession actually ended in June of 2009. Check out the Yahoo! News post here.

Tell that to the 15-20 million or so Americans who lost their jobs and are still out of work. Go to a job fair and watch the 60-year old men with their briefcase full of resumes who are going for jobs geared toward recent college graduates. Try being a recent college graduate.

This story is a perfect example of the disconnect between academia and the typical American. Or between academics and plain old common sense. For those of us who don't live or work in an "ivory tower", the measure of whether the economy is healthy or not is as basic as whether or not you have to struggle to pay your mortgage or if you have a job or you don't.

The Deepwater Oil Spill Is Over!

Well, it only took all spring and summer, but it appears the oil spill in the Gulf has been plugged. Yea! There is still an awful lot of oil floating around there in the Gulf of Mexico, but I guess the only way to heal the water is to not pump any more crude oil into it. I'm doing cartwheels as I type this.

Any word on whether or not the Federal government was going to take a long look at prohibiting deep water drilling or on insisting for stricter regulations on the oil industry? Um, no...and don't hold your breath. Remember who really calls the shots on Capitol Hill.

Peace...

THE FREEDOM TO CHOOSE IS NOT CHOOSING TO BE FREE...

2010-09-15T17:43:00.003-06:00

In response to my post yesterday about the Movie Poop game, the inimitable Dr. Z (who I knew would be the first to respond) sent this:

Subject: Regarding your blog post entitled Let's Go Hiking in Iran...
...I give you the following:

The Terminator
The Incredible Hulk
Fargo
The Burbs
The Prestige
Inception
Goldfinger
Thunderball
Moonraker
Goldeneye (yeah, I know I'm on a Bond kick)
Something's Gotta Give
King Kong

Good choices! "Thunderball" and "Something's Gotta Give" in particular had me laughing out loud. Now, how about these?

The Changeling
The Godfather
The Godfather Parts II and III
Dr. Strangelove (or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb)
Memento
The Shawshank Redemption (which is actually another suggestion by Chris Hardwicke)
Stand and Deliver
Bring It On
Cast Away
Reservoir Dogs
The Big Lebowski

Unfortunately, I too could do this all day...

More Random Musings

I came home recently and saw Tracy watching the end of an episode of "Keeping Up With the Kardashians". In this particular episode, the Kardashians, who I like to think of as a modern day version of the Cleavers, find out that when she was underaged, Kourtney had a boyfriend who took naked pictures of her. Somehow, it seems someone has discovered these long discarded pictures and they are trying to sell them to a website. (I think I did see this once on "Mama's Family".) Multiple choice quiz--what do you think the Kardashians learned from this misadventure?

A) It is not good to take naked pictures of yourself if there is any chance someone you don't trust might see them.
B) You should only take naked pictures of yourself if you're 18 or older. Then find a good agent.
C) The FBI is very good at tracking down the perpetrators of child pornography.
D) If you have feelings for a boy, you should talk it over with your big sister before taking naked pictures of yourself.

If you guessed "D", then you are correct. Ahhhhh...I can't wait for the afterschool special!

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The Colorado Rockies recent ten game winning streak (and a current stretch where they've won 18 of 24) have vaulted them from about .500 to the thick of both of the NL West and NL Wildcard races. I still think that it will turn out to be too little, too late (losing the home series to the Padres was brutal), but since 2007 no team in baseball has been more interesting to watch in September than the Rockies.

--------

I hadn't been hip to Florence & The Machine before the Video Music Awards (and just when does MTV play these videos that they honor by the way?), but now I can't stop playing them. What a voice! The difference between singers of real talent and charisma and all the pretenders out there is still a stark and obvious one, isn't it?

Peace...

LET'S GO HIKING IN IRAN

2010-09-14T19:06:00.002-06:00

I'm a big fan of some podcasts and one of my favorites is Chris Hardwicke's "The Nerdist", which is an hour long weekly free form discussion of all things comedic and nerdy with cool guests like Bill Maher, Alison Brie, Donald Glover and Craig Ferguson just to name a few. On a recent podcast, they discussed one of those pointless made up pop culture games like the infamous "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" and I thought I'd share it here on my blog and see if anyone had any suggestions.

Credited as the invention of comic actors John Hodgman and Justin Long--the stars of the iconic Apple commercials--it is known simply as "The Poop Game". The object is to think of as many real movie titles as possible that might also be synonyms for pooping. As juvenile and asinine as it sounds, it is actually a lot of fun! What is amazing is how many movies might actually be a euphemism for shitting, pooping or copping a squat. Some of my favorites (keep in mind these are all actual movies):

The Brown Bunny
The Green Mile
Operation Dumbo Drop
There Will Be Blood
Shaft
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Cool Runnings
A River Runs Through It

Turns out the possibilities are endless! Got some suggestions? Send them to me and I'll publish them...if you're not too ashamed.

Peace.

WE ARE BETTER THAN OUR WORST IDIOTS

2010-09-07T14:21:00.003-06:00

The title of this post would be my message to the world in anticipation of the Quran burning scheduled by the "Reverend" Terry Jones this coming Saturday in Gainesville, Florida. (The link to the Yahoo! news story is here.)

There are so many levels of wrongness and stupidity to what this evangelical minister wants to do. I know there are many Americans who are, like me, repulsed by this publicity stunt. But there are also too many people who call themselves proud Americans who think that burning a religious text is a good idea, a form of protest, a way to "stand up" to the terrorists and "Islamo-fascists" who attacked us on 9/11. With anti-Muslim bigotry on the rise (many of the flames being fanned by the so-called Tea Partiers, who with each passing day look less and less like a legitimate independent political movement and more and more like bigoted, fringe arch-conservatives with an axe to grind) how is there going to be any progress made towards healing the wounds of 9/11? Toward putting the occupation of Iraq behind us? Towards finally ending the conflict in Afghanistan?

I don't want to be one of those bloggers who draws too much attention to this crackpot, because attention is clearly something he craves while faith and Christian values are only things he pays lip service to, but when something makes me angry inside and threatens to break my heart--and this story does--I have to say something about it, speak out against it and point out the idiocy of it. Just like any country where Islam is the predominate faith is better than the idiots who are members of al-Qaeda or the Taliban, we are a better country than the one that Terry Jones claims to represent.

I just hope the rest of the world realizes this fact so that we don't have many more "9/11"'s to deal with very soon.

Finally, a quote, to all those who think this Farhenheit 451 stunt is just harmless theater:

"Oh my People...give weight and measure with fairness; purloin not other men's goods; and perpetrate not injustice on the Earth with corrupt practices."

That's just one of the many wise things you can learn in the Quran. Let it burn, let it burn.

Peace...

DEFENDING OUR FREEDOM

2010-08-16T20:17:00.002-06:00

A Mosque at Ground Zero

I'm embarrassed to live in a country where people attack a president for defending the First Amendment. Oh wait, did I misspeak? Because that's what happened last week when President Obama vigorously supported the right of Muslims to build a mosque near Ground Zero.

Did Muslims fly planes into the World Trade Center causing the deaths of nearly 3,000 people? It depends on the what the definition of a Muslim is. As in most faiths, the Koran preaches non-violence unless violence is trespassed against you (in so many words) and the misogynist, Stone Age, anti-Western violence preached by al-Qaeda has as much to do with real Islam as polygamy does with modern day Mormons or Mater Dei does with the vast majority of Catholics. But even so, the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects our freedom to worship--and doesn't make any exceptions for excluding that freedom from certain areas if it makes people uncomfortable.

This is typical of the kind of non-issue that propels so much of our political discourse today. If you want to rip President Obama for bogging us down in an unwinnable war in Afghanistan, feel free to do so. If you want to attack his health care plan as riddled with hidden costs and not nearly far reaching enough, there are points to be made there too. But don't attack the President when he is doing his job. That's just base politics with no rhyme or reason.

Peace...

WHERE HAVE I BEEN? WHAT AM I DOING?

2010-08-12T21:02:00.006-06:00

Time gets away from us all sometimes. Looking at the date of my last post, I noticed that it has been more than a month since I shared my thoughts with the world. ("The World...ha ha ha, so grandiose in my middle age.)

Here are some of the things I've been meaning to talk about over that time condensed down into bite-sized pieces for your perusal. After all, your Internet time is valuable.
----------------------------------

INCEPTION

I won't do a full review here, but I can tell you that I've seen this movie twice now and it is even more engrossing and impressive the second time around than it was on first viewing.

Writer-director Christopher Nolan reportedly spent over ten years working on this mind-bender of a story about a shadowy team of people who can invade people's dreams to steal secrets--or in the case of Inception, implant an idea. Leonardo DiCaprio is in peak, movie star form as "Cobb", the leader of the team which also includes the cautiously debonair "Arthur" (Joseph Gordon-Leavitt, who just gets better and better), newbie Ellen Page and a silver-tongued forger played with impish glee by Tom Hardy. Ken Watanabe plays Saito, the billionaire businessman who masterminds the mission and who provides a very special motivation for Cobb to take this quintessential "one last job."

What the movie is best at is setting up a plausible dream reality with it's own rules and it's own unique stakes while combining that with an emotional backstory almost guaranteed to tug at anyone's heartstrings. Look for Marion Cotillard as Cobb's ex-wife--she's sexy, smart and creepy all at the same time. The idea the crew is trying to implant is almost a Hitchcockian MacGuffin--it seems there could be much easier ways to achieve the same result, but how much fun would that be, right?

So far, Inception is the best movie of 2010--by a wide margin.

THE OTHER GUYS

Another brief review...another winning movie. This is not a groundbreaking comedy by any means, nor does it have the cheeky, parodic lunacy of the first two Naked Gun movies which are clear antecedents for this buddy cop farce. But instead of me blathering on about what the movie isn't, let me tell you what it is: fucking funny.

Will Ferrell is back in form as the dweeby, paunchy, forenzic accountant whose main job with the NYPD seems to be doing the paperwork for the Alpha male, bad ass, supercops played hilariously (and not spoiling anything here, briefly) by Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, who essentially are doing amped-up, dumbed down versions of their stereotypical movie roles. Mark Wahlberg is Ferrell's unwilling partner, shackled to him after an unfortunate incident involving a New York Yankee just moments before a deciding World Series Game 7. Michael Keaton plays the precinct captain, channeling every precinct captain you've ever seen in a cop movie or TV show over the years and winking at the role just enough to let you know he's in on the joke.

The plot is mostly irrelevant, which is good because its unnecessarily convoluted. The point is the chemistry between Wahlberg and Ferrell, who seem to be having a blast; combined with more than a few good jokes about what it is to be macho and how to find happiness in a workplace full of buffoons. Oh, and Eva Mendes shows up playing Ferrell's "Perfect Wife" who, in a running gag that wisely stops just before it gets too old, Ferrell can't stand and Wahlberg naturally lusts after.

You're not going to believe this, but if you stick around through the final credits, you might actually learn something about Ponzi schemes and the ridiculous inequity in the distribution of wealth in present-day American society, so you can't say the movie isn't enlightening in it's own way. My grade for The Other Guys would definitely be a B+ and this year, that's pretty damn good.

BP Stops the Leak...Can't Congratulate Itself Fast Enough

Am I the only person still concerned that there are literally millions of gallons of crude oil still floating around in the Gulf of Mexico, leak or no leak? I think the mainstream media will revisit this story when the prices of shrimp and other fish or crustaceans normally harvested in the Gulf suddenly skyrockets.

Still, it is a relief that for now the leak seems to have been capped. I only wish that greedy BP had put enough money and manpower into preventing such a spill in the first place. With their history, they should never have been allowed to build a deepwater rig in the Gulf of Mexico in the first place.

Summer TV Worth Watching

Quickly, thumbs up--oh wait, that's trademarked. Thanks Roger Ebert! :-(

Let me try again...here are the shows worth watching or DVR'ing this summer:

Mad Men
Friday Night Lights (if you didn't catch it on DirectTV)
Top Chef
Royal Pains
Covert Affairs (will make you remember Alias fondly though it's not nearly as complex as that show was)
The "C" Word
Lie to Me

This category is "Shows Worth A Look or Two, But Don't Get Hooked":

Next Food Network Star
The Closer
Louie
The Good Guys

And finally, "Shows That If You Watch More Than Once, You Clearly Are Wasting Your Summer and You Should Consider Destroying Your TV As Punishment":

The Bachelorette
Bachelor Pad
Dating in the Dark
Rizzoli & Isles
Wipeout

It's getting late...but at least I have a three-day weekend! Hooray for me. Bad for you, if you don't. Come back and visit me soon, I promise I'll write more. Maybe I was away at summer camp?

Peace.

JUST MAYBE THERE'S SOMETHING TO THIS APOCALYPSE THING...

2010-07-09T20:43:00.004-06:00

Where have I been for the last three weeks? Apparently, watching too much bad TV. The thesis for this blogpost: that this may have been the worst week of television in the medium's history. I give you three reasons to support this thesis:

1) The Jake and Vienna interview on The Bachelorette
2) The hysterical coverage of the Lindsay Lohan trial
3) The Decision starring LeBron James, arguably the greatest televised debacle in sports history.

My derision of reality television and reality "relationship shows" in particular is well-documented. But there is something about The Bachelor and The Bachelorette in particular that has always really gotten my goat. I think the fact that people watch with interest these contrived romances cooked up between a preening narcissist and a bevy of overexposed fame-whores is what bothers me more than the actual show itself. We all have a part of us that likes to be a Peeping Tom and an eavesdropper on other people's lives, but real lives lived by real people who are relatable are infinitely more interesting than what happens between people on a reality TV show. Even worse, with every new cycle of every new reality show, the contestants become more aware that they are on a reality show and therefore, in a perverse uniquely 21st century irony, less real.

Jake Pavelka [sp?], last season's contestant in The Bachelor, showed his true colors in ABC's train wreck sit-down interview this past Monday where he was joined with the "winner", Vienna to discuss their tabloid breakup. It was like a scene from Who's Afraid of Virgina Wolff?, but with characters of low intelligence, little self-awareness and a keen eye for milking audience sympathies to spin their story. How a normal person could watch any of that without feeling at least a little nauseous is beyond me.

But that was only the appetizer for this headache inducing week. Lindsay Lohan gave arguably the best performance of her "adult" career in court this week, giving a tearful plea to the judge to try and talk her way out of jail for violating the terms of her parole. Then, the entertainment press had a field day dissecting the ins and outs of this case while the high crimes and misdemeanors of British Petroleum and the oil industry at large continue to go underreported.

Finally came the pinnacle of poop, the steaming pile of crap that was ESPN's THE DECISION. I learned two things that I wasn't sure of from this spectacle--first, ESPN can never again claim to have any kind of meaningful journalistic integrity after they sell out an hour of their prime time to King LeBron James for his own self-serving purposes. Two, LeBron James isn't the player or person I thought he was. No, I'm not surprised he went to Miami to join his playmates, er, new teammates Chris Bosh and DeWayne Wade. Anybody who paid attention to the collusion of those three over the past month or so had to figure that wherever Bosh and Wade wound up, LeBron was likely to follow. But using kids from the Akron Boys & Girls Club as props for his own reality show? Referring to himself in the third person five times in his own interview with his hand-picked, paid under the table interviewer (Jim Gray)? In the future, in the online Merriam Webster dictionary, by the word hubris, there should forever be a picture of LeBron James. I'm not hating on him for his choice--what 25-year old, handsome, multimillionaire wouldn't want to choose Miami, with it's lingerie models, fast living and no state income tax as his chosen place to make a living? But there's a right way and a wrong way to do things and LeBron's way was definitely the wrongest. And there was television to serve it up to us like crack in a spoon. Slurp, slurp, slurp it all down. Try not to retch while you're doing so.

One Good Thing

It wasn't a completely disastrous week on the boob tube...the Primetime Emmy nominations were announced on Thursday and for once, there wasn't much to complain about.

I continued to be baffled by the runaway critical and popular success of GLEE (19 nominations), but this is one of those things I'm willing to admit that I might be in the wrong about. (I'm definitely in the minority.) And did we really need another nomination for Tony Shalhoub? I thought MONK was long gone? On the plus side was all the love for THE GOOD WIFE, FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS (it's first two acting nominations, including one that was long overdue for Connie Britton), MODERN FAMILY, DAMAGES and the HBO biopic TEMPLE GRANDIN (rent it if you haven't seen it!) Oh--and Conan got nominated, but Leno didn't. It would have been sweet to see them go head-to-head in the variety show category, but in a way Leno's omission was even sweeter. Talk about taking it on the chin.

Now, there's probably no way I'm watching the Emmys in September (it is the most unwatchable of the major awards shows), but at least I know who to root for.

Quotes of the Week

Both from Marshall McLuhan, who I could frankly use every single post:

"We drive into the future using only our rearview mirror."

"Television is called a medium because it is neither rare, nor well-done."

Peace...

MY VOLUMINOUS READER MAIL & A Few Other Thoughts

2010-06-15T18:43:00.003-06:00

I've got mail! This note came from "J" (many thanks J.) regarding my last post about the greed driven realignment in major college football (which has slowed, but may not yet be done as I will outline below):

"So now that Texas has decided to stay put, Nebraska bolts next year to the Big 11 (or are they the new Big 12?) and Colorado to the Pac-10 in 2012, what are your thoughts? It doesn't sound like there will be too much more movement for a while and college sports are saved!!"

Well, first of all let's get something straight--Texas didn't magnanimously decide to stay put. They knew they had the biggest dick in the conference and they decided to swing it around. And they will get paid--at least $20 million a year more for staying in the "Big 12" then they were already making plus a rumored 60-40 share of any revenues from a planned Big 12 television network package. The other schools in the Big 12 (with the exception of Oklahoma) didn't really have much choice since they had nowhere else to go if the Big 12 fell apart. (As much as I think the Mountain West conference is nationally undervalued, could you see Missouri, Kansas and Kansas State being happy there? I didn't think so.)

So while it seems like things have stabilized, I say Texas' decision only reinforces my original argument. I'd also like to add that we may not be done with realignment yet. We're not going to see four or five "superconferences" as some had feared, but Utah is being courted to join the "Pac-10/12", Rutgers and Notre Dame remain possible (although fading) options for the "Big 10/12" and both Arkansas and TCU may be replacement teams in the "Big 12"--they are natural long time rivals with Texas anyway, so at least that makes some sense.

Trust me, in five years, almost all of the top 50 BCS conference teams and a few others will have changed affiliations at least once, college football players will force some sort of further compensation beyond mere college scholarships to classes they don't attend anyway and every surviving power conference will have some sort of divisional championship game or playoff. In other words, it really will be the NFL Junior League. Get used to it! :-)

News & Notes

--I caught most of President Obama's Oval Office speech tonight. It was solid, forceful and well-crafted, but there wasn't very much there that was concrete I thought. He gave a nice shout out to Colorado's own embattled Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and pledged a lot of future action, but aside from promising that the government would commandeer control of BP's compensatory payments to local businesses and citizens affected by the spill, there wasn't anything in the President's speech that anyone could really hang their hat on. Maybe that's because the networks were only willing to give him 18 minutes of Prime Time. Time will tell.

--I thoroughly enjoyed the first season of FX's new drama Justified. I thought after the first couple of episodes that Timothy Olyphant's portrayal of U.S. Marshal Ralyen Givens was the strongest part of the show, but I feared that the writing and the basic premise might get stale pretty quickly. Um, no. The finale was a tour-de-force of nail biting intensity leavened with Elmore Leonard's trademark droll wit and full-bodied characterizations. The episodes leading up to it developed the supporting cast expertly and added novel-like plot twists to the year's story arc. I'm looking forward to Season 2 and if there was any merit to these types of things, Olyphant would be assured at least a Best Actor in a Drama Emmy nomination for his work this year.

--Beware rapid weight loss diets! My wife just had a bad experience with Medifast, a diet which limits you to no more than 1200 calories a day (preferably less) and charges you hundreds of dollars a month for their calorie controlled shake packets and one (or at most) two solid meals of your own making a day. Once you get on this diet, it's hard to maintain both your weight and good organ health once you stop. It's insidious...you have to keep buying the packets to keep your body's metabolism under control, but your body craves solid food making it difficult to stay on the diet. And once you're off, you're in a world of trouble.

Spread the word...warn your dieting friends. I can't emphasize this enough! Doctors do not recommend this diet for anyone but the most morbidly obese, for whom the diet was designed in the first place. The good people of Medifast however, saw profit in America's dieting obsession and have marketed it for everyone. This is just another example of how the profit motive supercedes all else in America today. Tracy probably won't be too happy that I wrote about this, but I feel strongly about it. Something has to be said.

Enough for now...good wishes to those who are working to save the Gulf Coast shoreline, the water and the wetlands.

Peace.

ON THE DEATH OF COLLEGE FOOTBALL AS WE KNOW IT

2010-06-09T18:17:00.003-06:00

I would like anyone who still believes that college sports is this great and noble celebration of student-athletes competing in amateur competition to stand up and introduce themselves so that I can have them submitted for a CAT scan. Clearly, anyone who believes that may be missing a brain.

Certain power schools believe they are bigger than the NCAA and bigger than the games of college football and college basketball. You know who they are: Texas, Nebraska, Notre Dame, USC, Florida, just to name a few. The impending earthquake that is about to realign all the conferences in college football started with Texas, which was being wooed by the Pac-10 (a conference eager to expand and to implement a conference championship game to appease the gods of TV) and by Texas' unwillingness to give up any additional revenue or support a reapportionment of revenue within their current conference, the Big 12.

As briefly as possible, once Texas began to explore it's options and exercise it's leverage, other conferences began to consider ways to bolster their coffers and make themselves more appealing to the networks of college football. If Texas could go to the Pac-10, that would make the Big 12 a lot less appealing. The Big 10--the ultimate misnomer, since there are already 11 schools in that conference--has long coveted further expansion into the East Coast and Midwest and it's own conference championship game. Texas wouldn't make any sense...but what about Nebraska? Missouri? Rutgers? Notre Dame? It wasn't long before the rumblings grew louder and the dominoes started to fall.

Within a month we could see the number of conferences reduced to about nine or ten with three or four "megaconferences" dominating the landscape: a "Pac-16" or a "Great Midwest Conference" with as many as 16 or 18 teams; even mid-majors like the Mountain West and the Western Athletic could be forced into a significant realignment. And for what? More money for academic scholarships? Student housing? Capital improvements? Sure...some of it maybe. But most of it will be fed right back into the athletic programs of the schools in these new conferences. Bigger training centers. Nicer locker rooms. Cool uniforms. Education is our mission, right?

Sometimes a change will do you good. Sometimes change is done just for change sake. But all too often, change happens because rich and powerful men get greedy. There's not an unlimited amount of pie available and everybody raises their knives to cut themselves a bigger piece. Pity the stragglers to the table who can't grab their forks in time--or get invited to the table.

Finally, a lot of people love college football and basketball for the impassioned rivalries between long time adversarial schools. But athletic directors and regent boards don't care about the fans all that much more than they care about the students. No more Nebraska-Colorado? No big deal! Embrace the new rivalry between Wisconsin and Nebraska. Who needs Texas-Texas A & M when you can get Texas-Washington State every year? Uh huh...

I know even complaining about this makes me sound old, but I have to wonder if college sports will just one day wind up eating itself in it's own greed. Will the fans continue to watch just because it's on? Or will they miss the tradition, the rivalries, the recognizable stakes and bowl tie-ins and revolt? It will certainly be interesting to see.

One thing on a local note: if Colorado bolts the Big 12, and at this point they probably should, I hope they get into the Mountain West as opposed to the Pac-Whatever. It would be nice for them to have to play Colorado State and Air Force every year and both the Mountain West and Colorado will be better off with each other than without each other. Add Boise State to the mix and the Mountain West becomes a BCS conference almost automatically. No harm, no foul and less travel. But this being sports, that probably makes too much sense.

Peace...and less oil.

QUICK QUIPS, Vol. 3

2010-06-01T19:36:00.003-06:00

You can always tell when I'm feeling lazy or tired when I resort to the one and two-liners as my blog post. Yet...you read them anyway. Hmmmm...

----------------------------------------------
THESE ARE ACTUAL HEADLINES CULLED FROM THE INTERNET (sources cited)
My comments below are in italics. Enjoy!

20-year old held in stabbing before Insane Clown Posse concert (Denver Post)

This headline should have been filed under, "least surprising story of the week." Now if the stabbing had taken place before a Mormon Tabernacle choir concert...

Oil spill sparks criminal probe (Yahoo! News)

How about sparking a probe that will plug the leak? There will be plenty of time for lawsuits and indictments later.

James Cameron working on [oil] cleanup plan (Huffington Post)

Woody Allen is working on kvetching about it while Spike Lee is blaming White people. Weren't there any engineers available to work on this? Oh wait--they're too busy with the first drafts of their screenplays.

MMA fighter accused of tearing out and cooking friend's heart (Huffington Post)

Well, in the fighter's defense, his buddy did say, "eat your heart out." He just misunderstood the "your" part.

Hurricane vs. Oil Spill: What could happen? (Weather Channel)

Not nearly as successful as Godzilla vs. The Martians. But still better than Sex & The City 2.

Nicklaus still expects Tiger to break his record (MSNBC.com)

I hope to God he's just talking about golf...

That's it ladies and germs. Please tip your wait staff--but not completely over, because that would be rude.

Peace...and clean seas.

CATCHING UP WITH THE MOVIES

2010-05-10T18:20:00.003-06:00

Lately, I've been trying to get back to the movies, since I love going to the movies and love that great, dying art form. So, I thought it might be time to share a few thoughts from about the most recent movies I've seen:

IRON MAN 2
My grade: B

In a Hollywood where every movie seems to be either a sequel, a remake or an adaptation of some previous greater (or lesser) work, it seems almost pointless to compare Iron Man 2 to it's predecessor. It is a movie off of the Marvel assembly line--having established the basic template in Iron Man by introducing us to the key characters while also sketching a picture of our flawed superhero--every movie carrying the Iron Man brand name from this point forward is going to plug in different supervillians from the comic books while riffing on the basic themes and character points established in the original. Such is Iron Man 2.

Enter a few new characters this time: a comely new assistant, Natalie Rushman a.k.a. Natasha Romanoff a.k.a. "the Black Widow" (Scarlett Johansson - the more "a.k.a"'s a character has by the way, the better); a shadowy, badass operative named Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson); a weaselly rival to Tony Stark/Iron Man in Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell) and our ugly Russian villain, Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke, almost stealing the movie).

Mix them all up, press start on the blender, add generous impressive special effects, make sure to allow for some impressive Robert Downey Jr. verbal riffing and, voila! Instant crowd pleaser and box office smash. Nothing I could possibly say would prevent this movie from making close to a billion dollars worldwide, but I will note that as much as I enjoyed it--and I enjoyed the hell out of most of it--I am aware that Hollywood could and should do better. After all, the comic book genre has given us some transcendent movies in the not-too-distant past: The Dark Knight, Spider-Man 2, the first Iron Man. Iron Man 2 is fun but it feels a little like the latest shiny car off of the assembly line. Thank goodness for Robert Downey Jr., who looks like he's having the time of his life and imbues that feeling throughout the entire movie.

Also stars: Don Cheadle, Garry Shandling, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jon Favreau and Clark Gregg. Written by Justin Theroux (based on the comic book created by Stan Lee). Directed by Jon Favreau. Rated PG-13 for special effects violence and intense action sequences. There may also be a couple of curse words.

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO
(in Swedish, with subtitles)
My Grade: A

I haven't yet become a part of the almost cult-like following that almost worships the "Millenium Trilogy" of mystery thrillers by the late Stieg Larssen (this movie is an adaptation of the first book), but I couldn't pass up a chance to check out the first movie adaptation of one of these acclaimed thrillers. I wasn't disappointed, although I was shocked at the level of violence. Considering the original Swedish title of the novel was "Men Who Hate Women", I can't say the violence is inappropriate.

Tautly written, very well acted and subtly, but noticeably political in it's intent, T.G.W.T.D.T grips you from the beginning and never lets you go, eventually weaving together what at first seem to be two very different plot threads into a classically structured mystery-thriller that deals with rape, murder, Nazis, a wealthy family and financial malfeasance among other things.

Have I been too vague? I am probably assuming that if you're reading this then a) you've already read the book or b) you want to and you want to discover everything for yourself. I will say that the inevitably crappy American remake (already in pre-production) will probably tone down the violence and go with a leading lady with nowhere the spunk or edge of Swedish actress Noomi Rapace. However, if I can make a suggestion, the American remake could do worse than Emma Stone, an American actress of Swedish descent who might--read MIGHT--have the chops and the edge to do the part of Lisbeth justice (see below).

Stars Noomi Rapace and Michael Nyqvist. Written by Nikolaj Arcel, Rasmus Heisterberg (from the novel by Stieg Larssen). Directed by Niels Arden Oplev. Rated "R" for graphic rape, strong sexuality, violence, adult themes and nudity.

ZOMBIELAND (DVD)
My Grade: C-

I checked this one out through Netflix because a) my wife suddenly became very interested in a certain zombie-based video game and b) the commercials made it look tongue-in-cheek, stylish and different than the typical zombie movie. "B" turned out to be true, but that wasn't quite enough I'm afraid. Even though zombie horror comedies have become all the rage (thank you, Edgar Wright), an essential component of the better ones is that you are still afraid of the zombies. It also helps if the zombies in some way comment either satirically or ironically on something in contemporary society. In Zombieland, neither of these components is present and the movie suffers as a result. As gross as the flesh eating zombies appear to be, they never seem to be more than a mere nuisance.

This movie has several things going for it: Jesse Eisenberg plays a sheltered OCD young man known as "Columbus" who is forced out of his nerdy agoraphobia by a plague outbreak, but still keeps a lengthy list of "rules" that he religously follows in order to cope with it all; Woody Harrelson plays a Twinkie-obsessed redneck who loves to kill zombies; Abigail Breslin (maturing nicely from Little Miss Sunshine) and the aforementioned Emma Stone are grifter sisters with their own set of rules. They seem to be the only four non-zombies left in the world. Well...there's one other non-zombie, but in what turns out to be Zombieland's best and most subversive sequence, it's best if I don't tell you who shows up.

All in all, Zombieland was a disappointment to me. The cast was game, there are some occasionally funny moments and I liked the way "Columbus'" rules sometimes flashed on screen with creative and gruesome examples of how he carried them out. But the whole picture could have been so much...more. More fun, more hilarious, more gruesome, more detailed, even more wise. Sometimes less is more. Usually though, more is more, know what I mean?

Stars Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin. Written by Rhett Rheese and Paul Wernick. Directed by Reuben Fleischer. Rated "R" for gore, violence and profanity.

ARIZONA UBER ALLES

2010-05-06T17:15:00.002-06:00

Don't Scapegoat the Illegal Immigrants, Scapegoat Those That Enable Them

I don't know what new insight I can add to the recently passed immigration reform laws that were just recently passed in Arizona. I am appalled of course, that in a country that has always prided itself on taking in "the tired, the poor, those yearning to be free", that whenever the economy is tough or the nation collectively feels itself under foreign threat, the very people who make this country run on a very essential level are the first ones we want to deport.

I would be the first to argue that we need immigration reform in this country. The laws are sometimes confusing, they are unevenly enforced and occasionally discriminatory. There are hundreds of thousands (maybe over a million) undocumented foreign workers in this country. But ICE has also abused the deportation laws over the last several years, sending hundreds of immigrants back to their home country for minor infractions. And any directive that basically orders law enforcement officers to racially profile people to determine whether or not they are legal citizens smacks of fascism. (As SNL's Seth Meyers recently cracked in a German accent, "Show me your papers!")

We can and should do better as a nation. The people who are trumpeting the hardline on illegal immigrants want to be able to say that they are giving jobs back to hardworking Americans by cracking down on illegal immigrants. Of course, the employers that exploit illegal labor with their low wages and non-existent benefits aren't going to hire most American citizens for those jobs anyway. People who want to look the other way on illegal immigration ignore many of the negative impacts that illegal immigrants can and do have on this society.

That's the thing about common sense, law and politics. They are almost never to be found in the same place at the same time.

LT and Big Ben

I'm big on personal responsibility, but we as sports fans have to take a little bit of the blame for the out of control behavior that far too many professional athletes engage in. In an article in this week's Sports Illustrated, it was reported that Ben Roethlisberger would get upset and churlish whenever he would go into a bar or club and he wasn't getting enough free drinks or attention. "Don't you know who I am?", he would bellow.

Lawrence Taylor has always lived on the edge and battled innumerable demons, most famously a long addition to cocaine that once cost him $1.5 million a month. Few would be shocked that he likes the company of prostitutes, even underaged ones, but it all comes from the same syndrome, the "cult of me", the ability to want anything and get anything you want just because you're famous and millions of people root for you on a football field/basketball court/baseball diamond. Without fans to indulge these people's every whim, their behavior in no way would go so far off the rails. I don't know if the answer is to stop watching sports altogether but we could all go a lot farther if we didn't idolize the people who we already pay millions of dollars to play kid's games.

Peace.

OBAMA'S KATRINA?

2010-05-01T11:20:00.005-06:00

What is it about Louisiana? Maybe it has to do with the fact that large numbers of human beings were never meant to live down there in the swamps, infested with alligators, subject to the natural annual onslaught of floods, hurricanes and high storm surges. Yet, people came to Louisiana and even thrived; a local economy built by the African slave trade, by shipping up and down the Mississippi River and into the Gulf of Mexico, by the cultivation of cotton and later soybeans, by harvesting abundant seafood crops and by the discovery of oil offshore.

Which brings me to the principal point at hand: the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that threatens to engulf what's left of Louisiana's wetlands could be the death knell to all of that, the end of Louisiana as we know it and one of the most significant environmental disasters of all time. While not as insensitively and incompetently handled by President Obama as the Hurricane Katrina disaster was by President Bush, there is still plenty of blame to be shared by this President as it pertains to his role in this latest disaster to threaten America's leading producer of gumbo.

Years of building levees to the control the flow of the Mississippi River have starved the wetlands and barrier islands off the coast of the most important resource they need to remain in existence--namely silt. According to the New York Times, Louisiana has lost an area the size of the state of Delaware since 1932 and continues to lose a net of 24 square miles a year. Extensive use of boats in the wetlands have caused splashback and wave enhancements that have also eroded the marshes. Hurricanes have done huge damage, especially Katrina. Now, the Louisiana wetlands face their greatest threat yet--an oil spill which is pouring potentially millions of gallons of "sweet crude oil" in to the Gulf of Mexico. A lot of it is heading straight for the Louisiana wetlands and coastal barrier islands.

The Obama administration has placed a lot of the blame for the unfolding disaster on British Petroleum's slow reaction to the accident and to a certain laissez-faire attitude towards certain safety procedures with their oil rigs. This is true, but why did the Department of Homeland Security, the EPA and other government agencies also drag their feet? Why didn't Janet Napolitano know if the Defense Department had equipment and ships that could be mobilized to try and neutralize the spill? (I know what you're thinking--"because its the Federal government?" I know, I know...) Today, President Obama will visit the affected areas in Louisiana, much like President Bush took a belated tour of the Gulf Coast in the wake of Katrina. He won't like what he sees. In addition to the potential economic impact from the loss of a siginifcant portion of Louisiana's seafood harvest, there is the chance that the marshes, barrier islands and swamps that help to protect Louisiana's low-lying coast from complete innundation may now be mortally wounded for good. Louisiana is already slowly sinking into the sea (the lowest point in the state is eight feet below sea level...fifty years ago it was three feet below sea level. This point is near New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward.) The impact of years of poor environmental choices, compounded by a forseeable but still unpredictable accident like this oil spill, could be the accelerant in a chain reaction of events that lead to the accelerated loss of habitable, cultivated land in Louisiana, the continuing exodus of the state's citizens to other places, the complete collapse of the Gulf's ecosystem and even the greater likelihood of more damaging tropical storms and hurricanes in the region.

(Extended parenthetical: let us not forget that many scientists believe that the increase of monster hurricanes, Category 3 and stronger, over recent years is in itself a symptom of global warming which has heated up the world's oceans. The evidence is compelling although not enough of a slam dunk at this point to debunk the counterargument that what is happening is just a normal climactic cycle.)

None of this makes President Obama's all too eager decision to increase the amount of offshore drilling look any better. He's no Sarah Palin (remember, "Drill baby, drill"?), but the desire to cater to American desperation to suck every drop of oil out of every pore of the Earth's crust has far reaching consequences that go way beyond political efficacy or even this particular ecological disaster. The more you drill, the more accidents like this will happen, the better you have to have a plan to mitigate that disaster. Because if you don't, the larger tragedy is what happens over the next several years and it is something that will affect all of us, not just Louisianans. Laissez les bon temps roulez? Et, no.

Peace...

FRAGMENTS OF A BLOG...

2010-04-15T20:16:00.003-06:00

I keep hitting the "Monetize" button on my posting page, but I haven't gotten rich yet. Am I doing something wrong?

---------------------------
If Jimmy Fallon can "slow jam the news" of the day, I can certainly quick jam it. Back by popular demand (?), here are my comments--in a dozen italicized words or less hopefully--on some of the day's top headlines...

"Bachmann at Tea Party rally upbraids 'gangster government'"
Luckily, her speechwriter talked her out of calling it a nigger government, but kept the gist of the message intact.

"Senate Democrats pave way for Wall Street reform vote"
Unfortunately, the path was paved with campaign donations from Wall Street.

"Israel bans imports of Apple iPad"
Who knew that the iPad wasn't kosher?

"Steelers plan to discipline Roethlisberger"
Better late than never. Oh wait--sooner would have been MUCH better.

"Iowan ready for prom with gum wrapper dress"
Somewhere in Iowa there's a school with even more gum stuck under the desk than usual...

All headlines are courtesy of either Yahoo! News or the AP.

----------------------------------------
Finally, a few quick riffs...

--NPR reported that in the Palestian district of East Jerusalem, a teacher recently brought in a loaded gun and confronted the headmaster. The school called the Israeli police and were told that since they were in a Palestinian sector, they had to call the Palestinian authorities for assistance. When they called the Palestinian police, they were told that since they were part of East Jerusalem, they had no jurisdiction to intercede in the matter. If nine or ten kids had been killed by that gunman, would God have cared whether they were murdered under Palestinian or Israeli authority? Fortunately, the situation was diffused without injury or loss of life, but I see this as a perfect Kafkaesque example of what happens when political and bureaucratic solutions are used to prop up old, continuing hatreds. People are people, people!

--We continue to enjoy THE TUDORS on Showtime (which just started it's fourth and final season), but by the time Henry VIII married his fifth (much younger--mid-life crises are nothing new) wife, he looked a lot more like Paul Giamatti than Jonathan Rhys-Myers with a few streaks of gray in his hair. Just sayin'.

--I'm high on the Colorado Rockies this year, but I do fear the Even Numbered Curse, which seems to relegate the Rockies most disappointing seasons to even numbered years. Look it up--the Rockies have never made the playoffs and, in fact, have only been in contention once, in even numbered years. We'll see...gotta get Jeff Francis, Huston Street and now Brad Hawpe healthy to live up to most prognosticators pre-season predictions.

--Jazz win the opening round playoff series with the Nuggets in six games. Sorry...I hope I'm wrong and I'm sure I'll hear it from die hard fans if I am, but you can tell a lot about a basketball team by how it plays the last two weeks of the regular season. The Nuggets don't have the look of a champion. (I will give myself an out by noting that if Utah's AK-47 and Carlos Boozer are out significant time, than the result will be the opposite.) But the good news is that this isn't the year for the Lakers or Celtics either. My hunch at this point: Dallas beats Cleveland in seven games to win the NBA Finals. Ugh.

Peace...

R COMMENTS ON THE DAYS HEADLINES

2010-03-29T18:33:00.002-07:00

A dozen words or less about actual selected headlines from Yahoo! News, the AP and other sources. (The headlines will be in italics.) You know, like Twitter, only interesting. Away we go! :-)

----------------------------------------------------------
Coroner Says Man May Have Frozen to Death - 9News.com
I'm guessing the ice cicles weren't a dead giveaway?

In Surprise Visit to War Zone, Obama Prods Afghans - AP
He used a pointy stick followed by Vulcan logic.

Her Career Rising, Palin Now Gives McCain A Boost - AP
He needed help out of his rocking chair.

Marine General: Gays Would Get Their Own Rooms - AP
Pink curtains and Chippendale chairs not included.

Family Dog Rescued Off of Cliff - 9News.com
Family cat is held as "animal of interest." OR
Cliff swears they're just friends.

Tiger Woods Reportedly Loaded Phone with Porn - HuffingtonPost.com
That's bringing the "iTouch" to a whole new level.
------------------------------------------------------------

Good Thing MTV No Longer Plays Music Videos

Finally, a link to the new video from crazy R&B songstress Erykah Badu. Check it out--but not at work. Although Badu's weird and totally unnecessary nudity is pixallated, you probably still don't want it popping up on your computer screen when the boss walks by.

Unless you work for Tiger Woods.

Or the Republican National Committee apparently.

http://www.erykahbadu.com/

Peace!

A STORY OF ME

2010-03-23T19:55:00.003-07:00

As it snows, it blows...

Before I get to this week's proper blog, I just want to say that I'm glad my cynicism about the health care reform package wasn't completely rewarded. It passed! Whatever feelings you might have about the provisions or cost of the health care reform bill, this is a landmark moment in American history and an important political victory for Barack Obama--although it does have the possibility to be short-lived. Remember that Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Bill Clinton all tried to push some sort of universal health care coverage for Americans and they all failed. Remember this day over the course of the next few years as Republicans, "Tea Partiers", Fox News and most importantly insurance lobbyists attack, litigate and chip away at the $938 billion plus proposal. If nothing else, it provides an outline of where we need to go as a country and a gameplan for an embattled Democratic party on how to deal with Republican resistance going forward.

-------------------------------------------------

The Dark Strands in the Tapestry
Lately I've been thinking a lot about my life. The face I show to some of my friends and co-workers; the guy who always cracks wise, tries to keep people's spirits up, who's quick with a smile, that's me but not me. There are darker strands in the tapestry of me. Sometimes I choose to pluck at those strings, sometimes I try to pretend they don't exist. They are there regardless.

I wonder which are the elements of my life that are truly interesting or unique? What are the things that I think are somewhat remarkable that are really a common experience shared by many people? What about things that are the opposite: events or behaviors that I assume to be fairly widespread but might be unique to me? The ruminations that drove me to these questions are me wondering if I'm always going to fail to reach my personal ambitions for myself.

I worked to become a screenwriter--I never even got an agent.

I've spent most of the last decade working in the obscure media field of Traffic--but I've never been in management and I always seem to be running in place.

I'm often well-liked but often not beloved. I have to keep most people at arm's length.

When I was seven, living with my Mom and grandma in one of Denver's rougher neighborhoods, a little red-headed boy from across the street knocked on our door and asked if he can please use our bathroom because his folks weren't home (?) and he was desperate. My mom let him in and he introduced himself to us--I don't remember his name. He used the bathroom for what seemed to be a long time, then he left and he thanked my Mom for letting him in. He seemed very nice and I remember my Mom saying that it would be nice to have a friend in the neighborhood, since back then I pretty much spent all of my time either at school (which was 11 miles away--remember school busing?) or playing alone by myself in the backyard.

When I went to use the bathroom myself a few minutes later, I was in for quite a surprise. Sitting in the tub was a large brown turd. The nice little neighborhood red-headed boy had shat in the bathtub. I ran out of the bathroom so fast I think I left jet trails streaming behind me. It wasn't until much later that it occurred to me that my Mom had to go in there and clean poop out of a bathtub and that this must have been unbelievably humiliating. Much, much later after that I finally realized that my Mom wasn't too keen on having me meet any more kids from around the way either.

All of my friends growing up were from school, not from my block on Williams Street. One day, I was minding my own business playing in the front yard when a Mexican kid walked down the sidewalk, threw an empty beer bottle at my feet and said, "Fuck you." He couldn't have been more than 10 or 11 himself.

I did get to occasionally hang out with a neighbor boy who moved in when I was in high school. My reward for his companionship was that one day he asked to borrow my Mom's car for an "emergency" and he promptly stole the car. I think he sold it to buy drugs. This was supposed to be the car I would learn to drive and maybe eventually own. C'est la vie. I learned to drive at the age of 24.

I know in many ways I was very lucky growing up, being blessed with great friends and teachers who looked out for me even though I was extremely sheltered by an overprotective mother who was slowly losing her mind, heading towards an undignified death at the premature age of 50. But looking back how can I fault her for any of her choices? Life was the turd in the bathtub, the borrowed car gone missing, the broken beer bottle at your feet. If you're my Mom, if you're anybody's parent, you have to hold what is dearest to you closest to your heart and protect it with all you've got the best way you know how. Once your child leaves you, you may always be their parent but you get to exhale just a little, because now they are on their own. The traumas of childhood will sort themselves out eventually and manifest themselves in many intricate ways, but at least the hard part is over.

It is then up to the child to figure out what it all means and how it all fits into their life plan, their successes and their failures. The final answer may never be known by those who ask the questions.

Thank you for letting me share this weird collection of totally true anecdotes. I know that there's a saying about reading people's memoirs, along the lines that it's kind of like seeing your friends naked, warts and all--it might be interesting at first, or even kind of funny, but in the long run you'd much rather look away than stare and if this was uncomfortable to read, I sincerely apologize.

You may now look away...

Peace!

BY THE NUMBERS

2010-03-15T16:40:00.003-07:00

Warning: at least 73 percent of these mathematical facts are made up. The other 50 percent are completely true!

Number of movies in which Michael Douglas has played either a philandering lawyer or a corrupt financier: 127

Number of quarterbacks currently on the Broncos roster: 3 (Chris Simms was cut today)

Number of Pro Bowl caliber quarterbacks currently on the Broncos roster: 0

Estimated population of the City & County of Denver, 2010: 602,000

Estimated population of Los Angeles, 2010: 3.8 million

Estimated population of Texas, 2010: 24.7 million

Estimated percentage of Denverrites who once lived in L.A. and Texas, 2010: 42%

3D Movie That People Most Want to See, According to Gallup Poll: Avatar 44% (Alice in Wonderland 36%).

3D Movie That People LEAST Want to See, According to Gallup Poll: Sex & The City, 99%.

Percentage of voters who think Congress is doing a good job (NY Times Poll): 25%

Percentage of voters who approve of President Obama's job performance (NY Times Poll): 49%

Percentage of voters who think the most important issues should be decided on American Idol, with Ryan Seacrest as host/president: 71%

Total Domestic Box Office so far for Avatar: $730 million

Total number of Public School Districts in the U.S.: 13,506

Amount of money spent on Avatar if apportioned per school district: $54,074.07.

Amount of money spent by the U.S. on the War in Afghanistan in 2009 alone: approximately $780 million.

Peace...

SHUTTER ISLAND Review & Other Stuff

2010-02-27T19:48:00.003-07:00

SHUTTER ISLAND - Directed by Martin Scorsese. Screenplay by Laeta Kalogridis, from the novel by Dennis Lehane. Stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Michelle Williams, Emily Mortimer and Max von Sydow. Rated 'R' for violence, some language and disturbing images. 137 minutes.

Take one part One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, one part Titicut Follies (the infamous Maysles' Brothers documentary about a Massachusetts insane asylum) and add a dash of noirish mystery and you have Martin Scorsese's latest masterwork, Shutter Island. While lacking some of the showy flair of some of Scorsese's other work, this movie is every bit as well made as some of his classics and it sticks with you well after the closing credits.

This is one of those movies where describing the plot is almost beside the point--it sets the scene and gives you a sense of the key characters, but doesn't really get to the heart of what the movie is about. Nonetheless, I'll try, however briefly: Leonardo DiCaprio is U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels, dispatched to the forbidding Shutter Island with new partner Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) to investigate the seemingly impossible disappearance of a dangerous mental patient. The asylum is lorded over by the genteel yet vaguely menacing Dr. Cawley (played by Ben Kingsley who, post-Schindler's List, seems to have made an entire career of playing genteel but vaguely menacing), a psychiatrist who seems to simultaneously know more and less than he is letting on. Clues and hints appear but don't seem to lead anywhere. A conspiracy is suggested. A hurricane approaches. The electrical system goes down and some of the loonies escape. Now the movie is just getting started.

Honestly, to say more at this point would be unfair to those who are still going to see it. So I'll focus on all the elements that work in this movie: the top notch cinematography by Robert Richardson; the moody score from Robbie Robertson that unsettles you even before you've comfortably taken your seat; top notch acting by all the principles, especially Ruffalo who is always a welcome presence on screen and has a very complex role to play in the movie. Scorsese's direction is absorbing but not showy; he is a master completely in service to his story and his characters. Scorsese hasn't done this good a job and evoking mood and atmosphere in a thriller since at least Cape Fear. There comes a point where you may wonder if the movie is ever going to get to it's climax--but then it arrives and, well, you should see for yourself. I can understand the argument of those who think the movie pulls the rug out from under the audience, but I respectfully disagree with that assessment. Everything in the conclusion is carefully set up, hinted at or even stated outright. But because we are so thoroughly along for the ride in Scorsese's horrific little world, we might not realize it at first. To me, that's just good filmmaking.

My Grade: A

Slip Slidin' Away...

Check out this link (http://www.buzzfeed.com/minjaeormes/olympics-fashion-winner-the-norwegian-mens-c-ohu/) and tell me again how curling isn't the most mindlessly mesmerizing of all the Winter Olympic sports? Like a good David Lynch movie, curling is simultaneously funny, baffling, inscrutable, idiosyncratic, hypnotic and endlessly watchable. It is possible to watch curling for three hours and have no idea that it has been that long or what you've been doing that whole time. Everyone gets the basic principle but no one can explain it, kind of like the Congressional plan to overhaul health care. Then, of course, there's the fashion sense.

Overall, the Winter Olympics for me has been what it always is--sporadically entertaining but generally blah, filled with sports I don't care a whole lot about tape delayed and overproduced to the hilt. I do plan to watch some of the U.S. vs. Canada gold medal hockey match tomorrow and the opening and closing ceremonies are always good for both spectacle and amusement. It was a nice diversion at times but I'll be glad when it's over so that we can get back to a more normal television schedule on both NBC and the competing broadcast networks.

Then it's on to London's summer games in 2012, I guess. My how the time flies! I still vividly remember the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

Peace...

From FB: MY 15 GREATEST NBA PLAYERS OF ALL-TIME

2010-02-20T12:15:00.003-07:00

(This was originally posted as a Facebook note earlier this week. Sorry to be lazy...I'll try to think of something interesting later this weekend.) :-)

My 15 Greatest NBA Players of All-Time

In yet another attempt to create a diverting Facebook time killer, I’ve decided to list my choices for the 15 greatest NBA players of all time. Inspired by Bill Simmons’ The Basketball Book (which is a great read by the way), I’ve given a few reasons to support my choices, but I don’t want to pontificate. I really want to know how my list compares to yours. So let me have it! And pass this on to the sports fans/basketball junkies in your life.

Remember: if you had to pick the greatest 15-man squad in NBA history, regardless of position, who would you pick? It can’t just be all of your favorite players…

1. Michael Jordan (Chicago Bulls/Washington Wizards, 1984-2003) - In the NBA, stats aren’t the truest measure of a man’s greatness. This ain’t baseball after all. When you think of one player making the biggest plays in the game’s biggest moments over the last thirty years, who do you think of? Air Jordan, that’s who. Six titles in eight years don’t hurt the rep either.

2. Bill Russell (Boston Celtics, 1956-1969) – Eleven titles in 13 seasons. Greatest shot blocker and post defender in NBA history (back before the league officially kept track of blocked shots.) Also one of the best at starting the fast break via the entry pass and an underrated clutch scorer. He drove Wilt nuts and that’s worth a lot right there.

3. Elgin Baylor (Minneapolis & Los Angeles Lakers, 1958-1972) – My first slightly off the wall choice, but it’s hard to argue that Baylor wasn’t one of the most athletically gifted, game changing players of all time. He scored over 23,000 points despite missing all or most of four different seasons to either injury or military service. He was a stalwart and articulate spokesperson for civil rights too, like Russell.

4. Wilt Chamberlain (Philadelphia & San Francisco Warriors/Philadelphia 76ers/Los Angeles Lakers, 1959-1972) – 31,419 career points. Over 23,000 rebounds. About 20,000 women (allegedly). Only two championships and a knack for alienating teammates and disappearing in the clutch. That’s why Wilt is fourth—but you can’t put him lower because “The Stilt” once averaged 50 points and 25 rebounds in a season and we’ll never see that kind of dominance again.

5. Oscar Robertson (Cincinatti Royals/Milwaukee Bucks, 1960-1974) – Once averaged a triple-double FOR AN ENTIRE SEASON. Almost did it three years in a row. Terrific scorer both inside and outside and probably still the best all-around point guard to ever play the game.

6. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Milwaukee Bucks/Los Angeles Lakers, 1969-1989) – You can’t leave the leading scorer in NBA history out of the top six. Plus he won five titles with two different teams and early in his career he was a dominating all-around force in the middle a la Chamberlain.

7. Jerry West (Los Angeles Lakers, 1960-1974) – The Logo. The Original Mr. West. That should be enough said, but then there’s this: from 1960-66 he was the most prolific scoring non-center in the league and a great passer and defender to boot. Mr. Lakers as far as I am concerned.

8. Larry Bird (Boston Celtics, 1979-1992) – Injuries robbed him of a couple of more years of greatness, but before the rise of Jordan, Bird was the best clutch championship player between Russell and Air Jordan. He still looked like a dork in that feathery porn star mustache though.

9. Moses Malone (several teams over 19 seasons, most notably the Houston Rockets [1976-82] and the Philadelphia 76ers [1982-86]) – I’d argue Moses was the second most dominant “undersized” (less than 7’) center of all time after Russell. In a five year stretch from 1978-83, Malone averaged better than 25 points and 14 rebounds a game while making an otherwise bad Houston team better than average and a very good Sixer team championship quality. He scored over 27,000 points and grabbed over 16,000 rebounds in his career.

10. Earvin “Magic” Johnson (Los Angeles Lakers, 1979-1991, 1995-96) – The quarterback of “Showtime”, the straw that stirred the Lakers drink during their 80’s dominance, Johnson revolutionized his position and was the best passing point guard since Bob Cousy. If he had played any real defense, he would have made my top five.

11. Kobe Bryant (Los Angeles Lakers, 1996-present) – Hate him or hate him, his 25,000 points and counting plus blistering defense and four championships have earned him this position.

12. Bob Cousy (Boston Celtics/Cincinatti Royals, 1950-1969) – Don’t forget about the Cooz, who brought flash to a mostly white, very stale NBA when it most needed it in the mid-1950’s and as a player always made the right pass to the right player at the right time.

13. Tim Duncan (San Antonio Spurs, 1997 – present) – Sure, he can be like watching paint dry…unless watching smart, winning, team first basketball is exciting to you. Then, suddenly “TIMMY!” becomes as exciting as Lady GaGa in concert. Oh and he still has over 20,000 career points and 11,000 career rebounds in case you’re wondering.

14. Hakeem Olijuwon (Houston Rockets/Toronto Raptors, 1984-2001) – Best footwork and prettiest offensive game of any pivot man ever. Won two championships with the Rockets. How the hell did he finish in Toronto?

15. Kevin Garnett (Minnesota Timberwolves/Boston Celtics, 1995-present) – Already destined for the Hall of Fame, the skill and intensity of his all-around game will be most appreciated after he retires. Garnett pretty much willed the Celtics to their 2008 championship.

On the verge, but not quite...: LeBron James, Shaquille O'Neal, Jason Kidd, Dirk Nowitzki (is he the best Euro ever?)

Hall of Famers who didn't make the cut: Julius Erving, Wes Unseld, David Robinson, John Havlicek, Scottie Pippen, Clyde Frazier, Isiah Thomas, Elvin Hayes, Charles Barkley.

Peace...

SCATTERSHOT SUPER BOWL SUNDAY

2010-02-07T15:24:00.003-07:00

I'm too A.D.D. today to blog coherently about one topic, so I thought I'd babble incoherently about many different topics at once. Here I go a'ramblin'...

Quick Review: The Blind Side

Directed and adapted for the screen by John Lee Hancock. Based on the best selling non-fiction book by Michael Lewis. Starring Sandra Bullock, Tim McGraw, Quinton Aaron and Kathy Bates.

My Grade: B+

The Blind Side is a legitimately heartwarming and moving true story about an orphaned, homeless Black teenager from the wrong side of the tracks named Michael Oher (Quinton Aaron) who gets taken in by a well-to-do Memphis family headed by socialite Leigh Ann Tuohy (Sandra Bullock).

Years behind his peers both socially and developmentally, Oher nonetheless has three things going for him--he is massively oversized, yet a gifted athlete who immediately catches the attention of a high school football coach (played by Ray McKinnon); he has a gentle spirit and the one area of aptitude at which he tests well is "protective ability". World, meet the perfect left tackle in the making.

There's nothing groundbreaking about this story but it hits all of the expected emotional high points and Bullock's perfectly calibrated Oscar-nominated performance is tough, tender and sexy, providing a nice counterpoint to the football and "Dangerous Minds" parts of the story which tend to be a little more cliched and unremarkable. The Blind Side doesn't milk the melodrama though, which is nice and when both the cheers and the tears come they are both well-earned. Overall, this is that increasingly rare phenomenon at the movies: a good, intelligent, not overly whitewashed, populist drama that the whole family can enjoy.

My Super Bowl Prediction

Confession: I am a New Orleans Saints fan and I was one long before Hurricane Katrina, Drew Brees or even Sean Payton. They'll never be my number one team, but there's an awful lot I like about the Saints and their story.

That being said (and despite the good-natured taunting I've been doing to some of my Colts fan friends), an honest analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of each team leads me to predict this score for today's game--

Indianapolis 27, New Orleans 17

Obviously, each team must avoid turnovers and the Saints explosive special teams can totally turn the game in their favor. But if I'm not picking with my heart, that's the score that makes the most sense to me. Peyton Manning is just too good and the Saints defense (when it's not ball hawking) is just a little too soft to get the job done today.

President Wimpy

I voted for Barack Obama and I still support Barack Obama but the President's approach to dealing with the Republican-engineered health care stalemate leaves me with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. He correctly identified that the lack of affordable health care for all Americans was crippling any real chance of a sustained economic recovery--then he sent one mixed message after another and shrunk from leadership at the most crucial time allowing the Congress (and health care lobbyists) to eviscerate anything good that could come out of a government-run health care reorganization.

President Obama's tough talk since the State of the Union address is needed and welcomed, but I almost wonder if it is too little, too late. He's lost the American people (only African-American voters and die hard liberals were ever 100% in his corner anyway), his own party smells blood in the water and the Republicans will be content to stall, delay and defray until they inevitably take back dozens of Congressional seats in the midterms. All politics aside, the prospect of a "lame duck" President only a year into his term combined with an ineffective Congress, with the economy still in deep recession and two ongoing wars is not a scenario that fills me with much optimism for the immediate future. Am I wrong?

Kickoff is coming...PEACE!

"HERE'S TO WATER BEING WET"

2010-01-30T21:33:00.005-07:00

The above picture is of the basement in our 14-month old condo. As you can probably tell, it is soaked with water.

We had been renting a washer and dryer from Azuma Leasing because at the time we didn't have the money to buy a set and the ones that our builder offered were overpriced. We never intended to have the leased units for more than a few months...but you get settled, the washer and dryer work fine and before you know it, a few months becomes a year. Hey, there are always higher priorities, right?

Finally, we decided enough was enough! Especially since we had probably "purchased" these seven or eight year old machines two or three times over now. Not only that, one of Tracy's work friends had just purchased a new washer and dryer and still had perfectly working, fairly new ones just sitting around unused and taking up space. Score! Free washer and dryer and money saved.

Today, we took out the old and installed the new. We decided to clean out the washer by letting it run while we ran to Home Depot and the grocery store. When we got back, the washing machine was still running and the entire basement was under an inch of water. Apparently, either a hose came off while the water was running (although it didn't look like it when we got home) or a valve got nicked while we were moving the washer in, causing the water to leak. We may not know until we're able to move the washing machine back out again. The early verdict:

Carpet -- lost cause.

Some wedding pictures -- damaged.

Some furniture -- damaged.

Two feet of drywall and insulation around the entire bottom floor -- wet

We called Rainbow International, then our insurance company and the contractors came out right away to assess the damage, take pictures and then set up all of the equipment needed to dry out our basement floor and minimize the damage to the drywall.

We found out that they'll have to strip away the bottom of the outside of our condo (called "floodcutting" - nice) to remove the flooded insulation and to try and get the remaining water out. This should take two weeks.

While the workers were getting some equipment from their truck, I took the bottle of vodka from our freezer, where there was only about the equivalent of a small glass left, took two glasses, divided the vodka between them, gave one glass to Tracy and raised my glass in a toast.

"Here's to water being wet," I said and then we both chugged our drinks down. Maybe it's not the most appropriate time to drink or maybe it's the best time to drink. All I know is that all the cliches about when life gives you lemons make lemonade keep popping into my head and they all ring hollow and pointless.

I'm thankful for Tracy, thankful we have homeowner's insurance and grateful that nothing happened to our cat Sammy during le deluge. But frankly it's hard to see past the hassle, the expense and the stupidity of the whole thing to the brighter future on the other side. Sorry to end on a dark note, but there it is. I guess this is just one of those things homeowners have to go through and maybe it's not that a big deal, but given a choice between living this particular life experience and not having to go through it, I must say I would have chosen "not."

If you've got any suggestions or any similar stories you'd like to share, I'd love to read about them and compare notes. In the meantime, remember always to check your hoses.

Peace...

GET RICH? YES! GET WELL? FUHGEDDABOUTIT

2010-01-28T19:34:00.005-07:00

A State of Disunion

Am I the only person who found President Obama's first State of the Union address to be scattered and a bit disheartening? Let me sum up the roughly 80-minute speech for you in a few short paragraphs:

"We need to find a way to put Americans back to work, but we don't really know how to do that and the only way the economy can even come close to recovering at this point is to keep costs down by not paying salaries and benefits.

Health care is really important, but I realize now that the monied interests on Wall Street and K Street will never let real substantive health care coverage be extended to all Americans, so the only hope is token change that everyone knows won't make much of a difference. Let me be honest, Massachusetts really fucked us all on this one, because the bill we spent 12 months working on depended on a "supermajority" and my God, the Democrats just squandered one.

Clean energy initiatives are a key to growing the economy and restoring American dominance going forward, but we don't really have the money, resources or national willpower to do all that needs to be done on this front. But it's really important, so Congress should do all it can to make it happen.

We've stopped torturing people and closed Gitmo, but our enemies are still waging war against us and we're still waging war against them with not much progress being made on either side. We foiled a Christmas Day al-Qaeda plot...well, we COULD have foiled the plot if our various intelligence gathering agencies had properly communicated with each other, but bureaucratic agencies tasked with keeping Americans safe invariably get in each other's way. Thank goodness for underwear that doesn't detonate and pissed off Americans in a plane who just decided they'd had enough.

God Bless America and I hope the Democrats don't lose more than fifty seats in the midterms. Hey, didn't Bush suck?"

An Actual Quote from Yahoo! News

About the diverging fortunes of health care reform and Wall Street:

While lawmakers struggle, Wall Street is celebrating the sinking prospects for a sweeping overhaul that would put new taxes and requirements on insurance companies. Insurers have opposed the overhaul even though it aims to insure more than 30 million people over the next decade with a new requirement for nearly everyone to be covered.

An analysis distributed by UBS Investment Bank after the State of the Union speech stated: "Investors should proceed as if the health care effort is dead."

How could anyone doubt the evil of Wall Street?

The Five Best Dramas Currently on TV

You may be watching these shows. You may not. My point is, if you have time, you should be!

1. Mad Men (AMC) - I've said plenty about this show in previous posts. My only complaint about it is that EVERYONE raves about it. With good reason.

2. Damages (FX) - take Lost, merge it with L.A. Law then add then add a heaping helping of Glenn Close and Rose Byrne, who may be the two best actresses on TV and you've got Damages. Season Three looks as good or better than the first two.

3. Big Love (HBO) - keeps getting better and better. It is no longer a guilty pleasure show about polygamists, but rather a clever, twisted (and surprisingly earnest) examination of American family values and the cumulative sin born from overreaching ambition.

4. Men of a Certain Age (TNT) - Ray Romano brings welcome humor as both star and producer of this low key dramedy, which features cracker jack acting by each of the leads (Romano, Andre Braugher and Scott Bakula) and realistic characters that are both relatable and occasionally heartbreaking.

5. Friday Night Lights (DirecTV, then NBC [Spring]) - The best directed show on television, this drama perfectly captures how life in a small Texas town swirls around the local high school football teams. Coach Taylor (Kyle Chandler) and his family may be the most functional, normal family on TV, but by no means are they boring. And by the way--it's not really about football.

That's it. Sorry it's been so long...those 6:30 am to 3:30 or 4 pm days are starting to catch up to me! But that's no excuse.

Peace...

[NOTE: This post corrects a post from earlier this evening. The list of shows has changed.]

NOTES FROM THE ROAD

2010-01-15T21:51:00.009-07:00

Up in the Air, On the Ground and in the Airport

My trip to Jacksonville this week was my first business trip ever, which might be somewhat embarrassing to admit as I just turned 39 and the business trip is a staple of the successful, up-and-coming American businessperson. What have I been missing out on for the last 17 years, right?

The trip was one of a series of site visits set up by the new Gannett Traffic Operations group which has been set up to centralize the commercial traffic operations of all it's member television stations. (See previous rants). I only had to visit my new market--Jacksonville, Florida. Lucky me! I could have been assigned Buffalo, NY or Grand Rapids, MI and would have had to visit one of those lovely cities in mid-winter.

More than just a standard meet and greet, I went with my operations manager to try and assess the readiness of my two main stations to make the transition and to figure out how I needed to traffic the logs for them starting February 1st. There were so many meetings with so many people I'd never met before, that I certainly didn't have much opportunity to get to know the city. But I've got to admit that the view from my hotel room (see above) was pretty nice. Downtown Jacksonville is one of the nicer downtowns I've seen for a city of comparable size and while I didn't see anything about J'ville that would compel me to want to move there, I wouldn't mind coming back to visit some time, especially when there's more time to play instead of work.

Some quick notes from my Three Days of the Jaguar:

--If you're looking for a trendy but not-too-trendy place in Jacksonville to eat, play or hang out, I suggest the San Marcos neighborhood just a couple of miles north and west of Downtown. Try the orzo and short ribs at Taverna. Yum!

--I've said it before but the TSA is a joke. Sometimes you are practically stripping yourself naked in the security line and sometimes you just sail on through. Sometimes its okay to take durable medical equipment (DME's) out of it's case and other times they'll scan it in the case. There's no consistency and no plan and while I've heard some argue that this "randomness" helps keep the terrorists off guard, but I think that's just a cover story for having no coherent plan and just causing confusion and frustration in every airport in America.

--Either I was enjoying the Florida cypress pines a little too much, or they really need more obvious signage on I-95 northbound for the airport, because somehow I drove right past the exit and wound up across the Georgia state line! Obviously, I made my flight, but you talk about a panicked half hour or so...

--Jacksonville is definitely "The South" as we all know it, while much of the rest of Florida is more "East Coast" or like the North, in both temperament and attitude.

--People down there really feel like the Jaguars are going to stay because there's a real enthusiasm and fondness for the team down there. It's just that economically, the Jags may have priced themselves out of the market and Florida will always be much more of college football state than an NFL state. Also, Jack del Rio is not very well liked there. Maybe he should have taken the USC job instead of Lane "If It's Tuesday, I'm Coaching X" Kiffin. (By the way, way to show commitment there Lane!)

--It didn't feel like I was in Florida until the day I left, with temperatures ranging from 25 to 50 all week before that.

--There's more interpersonal melodrama behind the scenes of most television stations than even a movie like ANCHORMAN could ever imagine. Trust me.

Overall, a good trip. But it's better to be home.

Peace...

MY FAVE FIVE MOVIES FOR 2009

2010-01-10T17:33:00.004-07:00

Better late than never, here is my list of my five favorite movies and movie performances from the past year. Discuss, complain and enjoy! :-)
-----------------------

BEST MOVIES

1. Avatar - written and directed by James Cameron. See my earlier review for complete details and the total review. Needless to say, this was the most impressive movie of 2009 and it is not just about the special effects. Cameron brought awe and spectacle back to the movies.

2. The Hurt Locker - Directed by Katheryn Bigelow. Written by Mark Boal. Jeremy Renner plays Staff Sargeant William James, a man brought in to lead a unit of American soldiers charged with discovering and disposing of IED's in and around Baghdad. Renner is brilliant as a man who is good at his job and addicted to the adrenaline of cheating death every day. Problem is, he's not much good at anything else. The best adult drama of the year. (Fun subplot that's not in the movie--should both Bigelow and Avatar's James Cameron pick up Oscar nominations for Best Director, which seems likely, it will be the first time in Academy Awards history that a divorced couple will compete against each other in the same category. Juicy!)

3. Up in the Air - Directed by Jason Reitman. Written by Reitman and Sheldon Turner. George Clooney is Ryan Bingham, a man who is a parttime motivational speaker and full time expert at being "a hired terminator", a guy firms bring in to lay people off when they don't have the balls to do it themselves. (This is an actual job.) He is joined by fresh-out-of-college Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick, sharp) who has an innovation to Bingham's job that might ironically put him out of work. They go on the road together so that Bingham can show her how it's done and the result is a tragicomic tour of how the American workplace has been ravaged in 2009-10, with some life lessons learned along the way. Vera Farmiga is on hand as Clooney's mature and sexy love interest. The screenplay is crackerjack and always manages to avoid maudlin sentimentality even when you think it's going there. "A-"

4. Precious - Directed by Lee Daniels. Screenplay by Geoffrey Fletcher. Searing, remarkable performances by all of the principal actors elevate this dark melodrama above the level of ghetto porn. Precious (played by first-time actor Gabourey Sidibe) is a pregnant, 15-year old, overweight, African-American high school student who has an infant son with Down's Syndrome and an abusive, manpulative mother (Mo'Nique) who uses her for welfare checks. Oh, and Precous is pregnant by her father. Did we mention she gets kicked out of school? There's more, so much more, but it's not all inner city horror as Precious tries to make something of her self and figure out her mess of a life with the help of a kindly, passionate teacher named Blu Rain (played by Paula Patton). Wisely eschewing a trite happy ending and using both humor and dream sequences to lighten the mood at key points, Precious is the kind of movie that you can't believe got made but wind up being glad that it did. Heavy, but worth it for the brave moviegoer. (Bonus trivia: key funding for the movie came from Denver heavyweights Gary and Sara Siegel-Magness. Without them, it may have never been distributed.)

5. Inglourious Basterds - Written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. A gleeful tribute to and sendup of all the classic World War II films, Tarantino's Basterds packs more cinematic homage, clever dialogue and lush cinematography into it's 2 hours and and 40 minutes than any other movie this year. Does it make sense? Well...kind of. Does it rewrite history? Yes, but this ain't a documentary and that's partially the point. Standout performances include Christoph Waltz as a charmingly sadistic SS officer and Brad Pitt as Nazi hunting American soldier Aldo Raine. Not as groundbreaking as Pulp Fiction or as poetic as the Kill Bill movies, this still ranks as one of Tarantino's strongest overall efforts.

Worthy of Very Honorable Mentions: The Hangover, (500) Days of Summer, Star Trek, Public Enemies, Brothers.
---------------
Fave Five Lead Actress *
* - I am limited to what I've seen, so take these with a grain of salt

Gabourey Sidibe, Precious
Meryl Streep, Julie and Julia
Zooey Deschanel, (500) Days of Summer
Vera Farmiga, Up in the Air
Julia Roberts, Duplicity

Fave Five Lead Actors

Jeremy Renner, The Hurt Locker
George Clooney, Up in the Air/The Men Who Stare at Goats
Brad Pitt, Inglourious Basterds
Joseph Gordon-Leavitt, (500) Days of Summer
Tobey Maguire, Brothers

Super Six Supporting Performances (Male or Female)

Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air
Jackie Earle Haley, Watchmen
Mo'nique, Precious
Zach Galifinakis, The Hangover
Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds
Melanie Laurent, Inglourious Basterds

Peace...

(NOTE: This post has been edited since it's original posting on 1/10/2010)

MY NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS 2010

2009-12-31T18:06:00.002-07:00

I usually don't make New Year's Resolutions because every year they get harder to keep and sometimes what sounds good on December 31st doesn't fit the realities of life on May 12th. But here are a few resolutions that I'd like to pursue for the new year and I think they are attainable and might make a slightly better person:

1. Try to be a better husband to Tracy.

2. Watch less TV, go to a few more movies.

3. Finish at least 100 pages of my novel and start to work on my Internet film project. Be more creative generally.

4. Figure out if I want to pursue a new career and, if so, go for it!

5. Exercise vigorously at least four times a week after the holidays.

6. Finish decorating the condo, especially the second bedroom and my office/creative space.

7. Try to worry less.

How do you want to start the next decade?

Peace...

MY VEGAS CHRISTMAS VACATION

2009-12-27T13:39:00.003-07:00

Coming at ya' like Clark Griswold only Anthony Michael Hall is nowhere to be found...

You know it's a weird Christmas holiday when on the night of your birthday you find yourself eating in the House of Blues in Las Vegas and YOUR WIFE is the one who can't take her eyes off of the go-go dancers who have mysteriously materialized by the blackjack tables on the casino floor.

"Look at them," Tracy says to me, "I don't think their bikini bottoms fit properly. They keep having to pull them up while they dance."

Me, working very hard to NOT look says, "I think that's the general idea honey."

Ho ho ho...

---------------------

I know this is very politically incorrect, but why are there so many Asians--particularly Chinese--who like to gamble? On Christmas Day in Las Vegas I would say easily 3 out of every 4 people on The Strip were Asian, many of whom (from what little I could tell) speaking Chinese. I get that on Christmas Day you're not going to get a lot of Christians partying hearty on the streets of Las Vegas, but this percentage I must admit surprised me.

But this is a constant thing the times I've been to Vegas and over the last few years the preponderance of Asian tourists in Las Vegas has only increased. Is it the growth of the Asian economies over the last several years, especially in China, Korea and Singapore? Has there been a proportional decline in the number of American visitors to Vegas over the same time period? I don't know the answers and I'm certainly not bothered by it, but it is one of those things you notice. You know, like you always notice a white cornerback in the NFL or the straight guy at a Lady GaGa concert. If anybody has a theory or the answer, I'd love to hear it.

------------------------

All in all, I had a great time although I'm not sure I'm ready for another Las Vegas trip any time soon--after all, to my shock I've been there four times in the last three years! My advice for all you Vegas travellers: don't tip the go go dancers on the casino floor, if you have to choose between penny slots and a low stakes game of blackjack choose the blackjack and don't down your cocktails in threes.

Peace...

AVATAR: My review (A)

2009-12-18T21:00:00.002-07:00

AVATAR was written, directed and co-edited by James Cameron. (Rated PG-13 for near Nav'i nudity, occasional profanity and violence. There is no overt sex or gore.)
Stars Sam Worthington (Jake Scully), Zoe Saldana (Natyr'a), Stephen Lang, Sigourney Weaver, Michelle Rodriguez, Giovanni Ribisi and Wes Studi. Filmed in New Zealand and at Lightwalker Studios in Los Angeles. A 20th Century Fox release.

I make it a point not to give "A+" grades to movies. To me, that grade should be reserved only for movies that are "perfect" at executing the story they are trying to tell while displaying an artistry that transcends the form and stands the test of time. At this point I have only given four movies that I've seen an A+ grade: The Godfather (I), Citizen Kane, Casablanca and Dr. Strangelove. I almost added Avatar to this list.

Avatar is the story of a paralyzed Earth Marine named Jake Scully who in the year 2154 is tasked with replacing his tragically killed twin brother on a top secret project taking place on the distant, aptly named planet of Pandora. We don't waste much time on backstory--in a manner of a few minutes we learn that Pandora, while teeming with all manner of alien life forms, has an atmosphere unbreathable by humans for more than a few minutes. Underneath it's verdant surface, Pandora has a substance which may just save life on Earth--the aptly named "MacGuffin" is called obtanium. A powerful corporation backed by the force of the U.S. Marines will stop at nothing to obtain the obtanium. Standing in their way is a peace loving, Native American-like people called the Nav'i, who are blue-skinned, ten feet tall, handy with a bow and arrow and determined to save their planet and way of life. Game on.

It's game on literally because Jake has been tabbed to take over his late brother's "avatar": a genetically engineered, part human, part Nav'i puppet that can be synaptically controlled while semi-conscious both literally and symbolically from what looks very much like a space age coffin. Although not a scientist like his immediate boss Grace (played with the usual aplomb by Sigourney Weaver), Jake takes to his new job and he especially enjoys being able to run and jump again. The "fake" Nav'i gives Jake the real life and purpose he's been looking for.

The story has a lot of predictable beats from there, but because this is a hero's story in the classic Joseph Campbell tradition, writ large on a sci-fi/fantasy scale with a $230 million+ budget, we in the audience are along for the ride and rooting for some of the predictable elements instead of fighting against them. There's the gonzo Marine colonel (a great Stephen Lang) who approaches Jake covertly to get intel on the Nav'i. Of course there will be a girl Nav'i (Zoe Saldana) who will first fight with, then eventually grow to love the Jake Avatar. There will be a moment of conscience when Jake realizes that the job he's doing and the mission he's being asked to complete isn't in the best interests of anyone--especially Jake. Alleigances, betrayals, politics and battles await. Battle lines are drawn. Eventually Jake must choose sides and the Nav'i must stand up against the "Sky People" or face certain death against insurmountable odds. None of this is what makes Avatar such a great movie.

Cameron's vision here positions this picture as the template for the next era of big event movie making, 21st century style. A seamless, integrated and completely realistic blend of CGI, motion capture animation and traditional filmmaking, Avatar makes preceding effects fests like The Matrix and The Lord of the Rings look almost like Steamboat Willie by comparison. Pandora is a living, breathing, fully-realized world, with creatures that could only spring from the imagination but who all look completely realistic and behave so convincingly that you almost believe you yourself are living on a planet far, far away.

The most masterful special effect of the movie are the Nav'i themselves. After the initial shock of seeing these giant blue creatures for the first time wears off, one quickly buys these humanoids as their own, distinct completely convincing alien race, one with their own language (crafted by professional linguists) and a natural, believable physicality and, yes, sexuality. It is tempting to think of them as tall actors and stuntpeople in makeup, they look so real, but only the faces exist, rendered in a computer from motion capture technololgy that uses the real faces of the actors and then places them in lithe, alien bodies (with tails) that inhabit and serve as caretakers of their world.

Although the dialogue is typical Cameron-clunky (see Titanic or the first two Terminator movies--that's why no A+), the breadth of the storytelling, the pacing, the acting, the effects even the more subtle script elements (pay attention to the ways in which the idea of the avatar is echoed, subverted and reinvented throughout the movie) are all perfect. This is the first movie in a long time I would go to the theater to see again and again. Avatar is the best picture I've seen from 2009 and the way most action movies are going to look in the very near future. It is a film for film lovers who want their movies on the big screen and want them to be awesome.

Peace...

JUST CHECKING IN

2009-12-12T23:00:00.004-07:00

Sorry, it's been a while but I've been buried in Training for my new job with Gannett (it's the same basic job but with a different title and a different TV station while I get to stay in the same city--got it?) I don't have a lot to say right now, but I don't like to go more than a couple of weeks without posting to this blog for fear that they might take it away from me! SNL sucks tonight--the holiday sketch about the junior high "Jingle Jam" was spirited and you know Weekend Update will have some good jokes, and that's about it--but that's going to happen more than a few times over the course of a long season.

One suggestion though, that I have to admit I'm stealing from Entertainment Weekly's Ken Tucker: more interesting and edgy hosts and musical guests would be nice instead of trying to plug in the "it" 18-35 year old host of the moment. Taylor Swift worked, but Taylor Lautner didn't. Joseph Gordon-Levitt had his moments, but January Jones didn't. And so on. I'd love to see what a less hip, but very talented character actor who seems quick on their feet could do if they hosted the show, somebody like John C. Reilly or The Office's Ed Helms.

Well, that's all for now. Hopefully I'll post something more interesting later this week!

Peace...

WHERE DO I BEGIN?

2009-12-02T21:33:00.004-07:00

The Afghan Mistake

President Barack Obama still has my support overall, but what he is doing with his Afghanistan strategy is horrible and will have wide ranging consequences both for American foreign policy and the political future of his administration.

The key questions we have to ask as citizens are:

--Is sending more troops to Afghanistan and increasing the war expense for this mission by $30 billion a move that will bring sustainable peace to Afghanistan a good investment of lives and money? I say no, seeing as a combination of terrain and intractable foes who are difficult to eradicate have made Afghanistan unconquerable by foreign powers centuries (see Soviet Union, circa 1980-87).

--Is al-Qaeda a conquerable foe by conventional military means? Probably not, since they are a pervasive and wide-ranging terrorist organization that thrives on their ability to remain hidden for long periods of time while they plan and execute their elaborate, lethal civilian terrorist attacks. This does not sound like the kind of challenge that any large military force can handle effectively.

--Why the timeline? To me, this is strictly a matter of political expediency, a way to appease the anti-war left while going into Afghanistan with both guns blazing anyway. Although it pains me to agree with people like South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham (R), if you announce a timeline publicly it does two things you don't want it to do--it emboldens your enemy to wait you out and it puts undue pressure on the troops to achieve something within an artificial timeline which may not be logistically possible.

--Isn't Pakistan a bigger worry anyway? Yes...Pakistan has the nukes, is essentially a failed state with a heavy Taliban/al-Qaeda influence and it is questionable that we will get the full support we need from their armed forces when our troops inevitably drive some of the remaining Taliban supporters out of Afghanistan and over to the Pakistan side of the border. But we have no answer for any of these quandaries because Pakistan is one of our "allies" and if we are too heavy-handed with them diplomaticlally or militarily we could tip the whole country over to the control of the very people we are trying to eradicate.

Afghanistan will define the success or failure of the Obama administration far more than the health care initiative ever will (especially since anything good about the healh care reform legislation has largely been gutted by the Senate and health industry lobbyists). At best, we appear headed for a stalemate and the status quo. At worst, the match could be lit for World War III.

Catch a Tiger by His Tale

Raise your hand if you're surprised that Tiger Woods has more or less confessed to cheating on his wife Elin Nordegren with possibly many women. Um, Elin, put your hand down...you may be the only one.

It's sad that I've come to expect such things from our most prominent athletes, actors and politicians. To those who much is given, much is expected. Expectations are seldom met.

But let's keep a little perspective here...is Tiger Woods still the greatest golfer on the planet? Yes. Does that excuse or justify his transgressions or his holier than thou attitude (or his unwillingness to explain himself or offer any apology until forced to by breaking tabloid news)? Of course not. Let thee who is without sin cast the first stone, but all I want from Tiger is for him to wear his red shirt on Sunday while trying to hold a two shot lead in a major golf tournament. If he proves that his character is worthy of any more than that, I'll call it a bonus, just like I do with any other pro athlete.

Peace...

SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE

2009-11-14T19:11:00.004-07:00

Rapid Fire

The above picture is me after absorbing 1000 volts from a vicious taser attack. What?! That didn't happen? Okay...it is actually part of a "70's outfit" I put together for this fall's 9 Cares Colorado Shares food and clothing drive. For the first time this year, I was a co-site coordinator, which meant I got to crack a whip and throw tomatoes at the Rangeview High School volunteers. What?! That's not true either? No...it's not true. But it was fun, despite a wet, soaking snow and temperatures around 30 degrees. It never ceases to amaze me all the people who come out and bring cars full of clothes, canned goods and toys--and even food for the volunteers! (To the lady who brought the six loaves of awesome pumpkin bread...you were a God send! :-) It was another successful year and all of the volunteers, ARC staff and those who donated should be proud.

Now, on to other random musings from the top of my head:

--Is Taylor Swift the world's most perfect 19-year old entertainer or have I just bought into the hype? I'll never download any of her songs (at least I think I won't), but she seems intelligent, driven, reasonably talented, earnest and well-behaved. In other words, the anti-Britney.

--The CU Buffaloes football team is in utter disarray. You can't pin all of the blame on head coach Dan Hawkins, but the gap between the potential and enthusiasm he brought to Boulder when he was hired and the sorry state of the program now, just three years later, is stunning and disheartening. The problem is, there is no easy replacement out there who can necessarily make everything better.

--I'm not a big college football guy, but from what I've seen, TCU head coach Gary Patterson is the best college football coach in America. You can quote me on that.

--Tracy and I are going to see U2 at Invesco Field in June!! Can't wait!

--There are some conservative evangelical wingnuts who are secretly (or not so secretly) rooting for Israel to bomb Iran's nuclear weapons facilities, kicking off a Middle East war that could a) potentially embarrass President Obama and b) start a chain reaction of events that could bring about "the Rapture". The only thing more depressing than living as if the apocalypse is right around the corner is trying to bring about that apocalypse to validate your own twisted ideology. The goal of all human beings on planet Earth should be...

...Peace.

200 WORDS OR LESS...

2009-11-06T22:57:00.003-07:00

Boy...where does the time go? It's been forever since my last post!

All I have for now are the following tidbits:

--Even as most economic indicators continue to rise, the unemployment figures for October have now topped 10% nationally. In another study, the average hours worked by Americans remained at 33 last month, which is generally an indication that employers are still holding the line on new hiring. A jobless recovery is no recovery at all.

--The top five television series so far of the new season, both new and returning series are as follows:
Mad Men (AMC)
Modern Family (ABC)
Friday Night Lights (101 Network/NBC)
The Office (NBC)
The Big Bang Theory (CBS)

See the trend? Comedy is back in a big way baby! Also showing either promise or renewed vigor so far this year: V, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Community and even (yes) Grey's Anatomy.

Peace...

ONE YEAR AGO...

2009-10-30T20:18:00.002-07:00

One year ago today, Tracy & I closed on our first home together, our condo in far Northeast Denver...

One year ago today, George W. Bush was the president of the United States, but young senator Barack H. Obama from Illinois was poised to become the United States' first African-American president.

One year ago today, U.S. troops were a relatively small presence in Afghanistan but over 150,000 strong in Iraq.

One year ago, Congress had just passed an emergency asset relief program which included a massive $800 billion plus bailout of some of the nation's largest financial institutions. There were fears that we were on the precipice of another Great Depression.

One year ago, the Denver Broncos were 4-2 and in first place in the AFC West (they would miss the playoffs).

One year ago, Clint Hurdle had just finished his seventh full season as manager of the Colorado Rockies with a disappointing 74-88 record.

One year ago, Joe Sakic was the starting first-line center for the Colorado Avalanche.

One year ago, CSI was the number one scripted show on television. (Now it is NCIS.)

One year ago, Jay Leno was the host of the Tonight Show, David Letterman was a newlywed with a five-year old son by longtime girlfriend Regina Lasko and Jon & Kate Plus 8 was one of the top 5 shows on cable television.

Yes, as if you needed it said, a lot can change in a year...no matter how much it seems like things stay the same.

-----------------------------

This Week's Sign of the Apocalypse*
* - with apologies to Sports Illustrated

Fox is planning to devote a picture in the corner of the screen for the duration of the Minnesota-Green Bay game to Brett Favre--whether he's on the field of play or not.

Peace...

THE DEAL WITH HEALTH CARE

2009-10-24T11:04:00.002-06:00

This American Life is the greatest weekly radio show on the air today and the previous two weeks they did an in-depth analysis of the challenges facing the United States as we prepare to complete the first significant health care reform in our history. You should download the free podcasts from iTunes or from thisamericanlife.org.

Some facts I wanted to pass along from the two broadcasts:

--Many, if not most doctors, charge “fees for service” which pays them more for specialized fees and services.
--Instead of more doctors in an area meaning more competition and cheaper care, doctors are doing more unnecessary services sooner to generate higher fees which in part covers their high malpractice insurance. The more complex and difficult the patient and their condition, the more doctors get paid.
--Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care: 1/3 of medical care delivered in this country is unnecessary.
--Patients often request or even demand treatments that aren’t medically necessary. (In a recent survey, half of patients felt people were getting unnecessary medical services, but only 16% thought it was them.)
--Going out of plan for treatment and services, whether or not it is in the best interest of patients, also adds tremendously to costs.
--Big insurers are less and less able to resist rate hikes set by big providers (the hospitals.)
--Many economists believe that multiplying the number of insurance options against a consolidated, coordinated bloc of health providers is not likely to lower health care costs because individual providers lack enough market share to negotiate significantly lower costs

As the House vote comes closer, it is not so much about the public option or the lack of a public option but about the kind of health care Americans need and should have in the 21st century and what is the best way to achieve this. As citizens, we have to make our voices heard and we cannot just assume that whatever plan the government actually passes is the end all and be all. There may not be a more important legislative initiative in our time.

Peace...

THE THIN LINE BETWEEN CREEPY & ECCENTRIC

2009-10-23T18:00:00.003-06:00

This is a topic I've thought about some this week--when does someone cross the line from being a delightful, unique individual who moves to the beat of their own drum to being someone that most reasonable people would cross the street trying to avoid? What are the behaviors and attitudes that cause individuals to reach that tipping point that makes them crazy?

What got me thinking about this was, someone pointed out to me that when I get frustrated at work (which has been a lot lately), I'll lean in moving my face closer to the computer monitor and I'll start to stroke my chin, as if I were Sigmund Freud trying to sort out a particularly tricky patient psychosis. I guess one day this week, I spent the better part of the afternoon with my face a foot from the computer screen and my hand rubbing my chin so vigorously you'd think I was trying to push the stubble back into my face. If someone who didn't know me had seen me, would they have thought I was some sort of a demented weirdo on a work-release program or would it have looked like I was being charmingly eccentric? I have no idea...

Tracy has the habit of checking to see if she's unplugged her curling iron every morning--even if she knows that she unplugged it. Sometimes, she'll be in her coat and ready to walk out the door, but if she hasn't checked TO MAKE SURE that the curling iron is unplugged, she's got to go back upstairs to look--or send me to do it for her, despite my protestations that I may have SEEN her unplug the curling iron. I find this to be a personal tic of Tracy's and generally it is charming, if occasionally annoying. I wonder if anyone else would suggest that this is OCD behavior that maybe she should have looked at. Beauty is not all that is in the eye of the beholder!

My cat Sammy cannot abide a closed door--he attacks it as vigorously as he would chase a mouse if he saw one and howls and meows piteously. Does this make the cat crazed or adorably needy?

I once knew a person in college who had to say "shit" under his breath every time he sneezed. Is that from embarrassment, or a chemical imbalance?

If you have a work friend in a different department or even a different city who you like to email several times a day, is that compulsive and stalker-ish or are you just good friends trying to make the day go by faster and easier?

When you're home alone do you ever watch television, cook or do other chores in the nude--even if you don't consider yourself a nudist? If so, is that just private, fun behavior that you enjoy and no one knows about or are you one and-a-half steps away from being a pervert?

I'd love opinions on this topic (anyone? anyone?) and more examples would be great. This is a completely qualitative survey of course, with no right or wrong answers, but I'd really like to know. Frankly, I just want to know if there's some way to tell if I'm falling off the deep edge or not or safely in the welcoming arms of Mother Sanity.

A quote...

"A man who falls in love once is truly lucky. The man who falls in love twice is cursed. But the man who falls in love three or more times is most certainly a fool..."
--Unknown, probably early 20th century origin

Peace...

THE MAGICAL MYSTERY BALLOON TOUR

2009-10-15T20:20:00.003-06:00

In Weld County, CO, It's Raining White Children...

Ohhhh hell...I can't not blog about the biggest news story of the day, especially since it all happened practically in my backyard and the family involved apparently chose to call 9News, my current employer, as one of their first actions. In the future, I would hope that the first thing the Heenee's would do would be to thoroughly check their house for their son. Or keep an eye on their sons in the first place. And maybe not build a weather balloon in their house when they are not actually scientists or meteorologists.

By now people have learned that this family has appeared on ABC's Wife Swap not once, but twice. Out of sheer coincidence, Tracy and I happened to watch a rerun of one of their appearances just a couple of nights ago. The father comes off as an egotistical, misogynistic, overgrown child with control issues. The wife appears to be enabler along for the ride. Although you can't trust reality television to actually present things as they really are (a paradox foretold by Paddy Chayevsky and others over 30 years ago), its hard to imagine someone would let themselves look like such freaky, irresponsible and permissive parents unless they were actually freaky, irresponsible and permissive parents. I guess what I'm trying to say is that sometimes the fruit doesn't fall far from the tree. Or the helium-filled, experimental weather balloon far from the house it was made in.

The good news out of all this is that the child is all right (and was apparently never in danger) and someday we'll look back at this the way we once did Jessica Lynch's story when she spent that long dark night in the well. The bad news is that this story is one more symbol of a society where parenting takes third priority after self-promotion and Whatever Feels Good At That Moment. This is a country where the only thing that seems reliably real is the depths to which people will go to gain notoriety.

Peace...

MISCELLANEOUS MUSINGS ON A MONDAY...

2009-10-12T15:31:00.003-06:00

You know your job is going away soon when you have time to post a blog from work. You also know your job is going away soon when you don't really care if you get caught or not. (On the off chance this is being monitored, don't worry, all my responsibilities are finished for the day and the highlight for the rest of the afternoon will be turning on the Rockies playoff game after 4p.)

Some thoughts from the last few days...
-------------------------------

Obama Named Nobel Peace Prize Winner and AL MVP

I am unabashed fan of the man's work, life story and ambitions, but giving President Obama the Nobel Peace Prize nine months into his presidency (after nominating him two weeks after he took office) would be like giving me a Lifetime Achievement award at the Oscars for writing five unproduced screenplays. Even though I think my sci-fi magnum opus SATURN IS FALLING is pretty damn good, thank you very much!

We Americans who elected Obama as a reaction to eight years of warmongering, environmental neglect and general corruption by George W. Bush appreciate the gesture, but please Oslo, don't cheapen your own award. Consider that Barack Obama has a Nobel Peace Prize and Mathatma Gandhi has none. Such an award will give far more ammunition to his ever more virulent critics than it will give comfort to his supporters.

Broncos Now 5-0; Rockies on the Brink

I've eaten so much crow about Josh McDaniels the last few weeks, I think I am starting to sprout black feathers. Every time I caution my fellow Broncomaniacs to temper their enthusiasm, that the season is still early, that Mike Shanahan's Broncos have started fast plenty of times before only to fade and miss the playoffs, every time I say these things the Broncos win again over a more impressive opponent and people just call me a "hater."

So, I'm going to temper my enthusiasm less and enjoy the ride. It still wouldn't shock me if the Broncos somehow missed the playoffs (they have an incredibly thin margin of error...they are not going to blow anyone other than Cleveland-Oakland-KC out), but I have to admit that 11-5 and a division title is not only looking possible, but like the minimum we should expect at this point.

As for the Rox...blame the umps, the cold, the Hennesey (shout out to Jamie Foxx!) or whatever, but you had it all in your hands in Game 3 and walked too many people and missed on too many timely big hits. Cliff Lee can be had, but if the Rockies season ends today, it will be disappointing but it will hardly be shocking.

Quote of the Day

From Dan Patrick's daily sports podcast:

"Don't let the scarecrow play with the matches..."

This is in reference to when ESPN wrongheadedly hired--and then quickly fired--Rush Limbaugh to do football commentary.

Peace...

NOTHING LASTS FOREVER

2009-10-05T20:34:00.002-06:00

Today I found out that my job will come to an end in January. There's nothing wrong with my job performance, my reviews are all top notch. I've merely become the latest victim of the shrinking global economy. The economy is recovering we're told. But the jobs aren't coming back.

I will of course get a chance to reapply for a "new position" not with my station, but with the larger Gannett TV group--which lucky for me is going to be based here in Denver at my station. I am cautiously optimistic. I will apply. But it still stings a little. And the absurdity of reapplying for a job that offers you five times as much work at little or no extra pay need not be commented upon here. Wish me luck.

-----------------------------------

My Favorite TV Promo of the Day

"John Elway has tips for how you can help recognize terrorists!" -- from Denver's Channel 4

Right after he pitches Game 3 for the Rockies against Philadelphia, finds a cure for the common cold and lays his healing hands upon the lepers. Yeah, right!

Denver Beats Dallas. Hold Your Horses

The Broncos are 4-0, which makes no sense to me, but I am quite pleased. But if they want to keep all the good vibrations going, remember this: the next five games (sandwiched around a bye) are New England (3-1), at San Diego (2-2), Indianapolis (4-0), at Baltimore (3-1) and Pittsburgh (2-2). Going 2-3 would set up the Broncos very nicely for a playoff run, but we shouldn't expect it.

Peace...

THE RAPIST'S LAMENT

2009-09-29T21:47:00.003-06:00

Roman's Turn To Face the Music

So in Europe it is apparently perfectly acceptable for a talented, artistic, charming middle-aged man to invite a 13-year old girl into his home, take semi-nude pictures of her, drug her and then have sex with her? I did not know this. There's a new name for pedophilia in France. It is called a first date.

In all seriousness though, Roman Polanski has gotten away with this crime (and it is a crime, no matter how much his admirers try to spin it--and Polanski pled guilty to it in a court of law) for the last thirty years. His argument that a vain and publicity seeking judge double crossed him and sentenced him when he had agreed to time served is misleading and misses the point. (In the 2008 documentary about the case, this is presented as the reason why Polanski felt he had to flee.) Almost all big name trial judges in Los Angeles are venal publicity whores (Robert Ito, anyone?) and what kind of mindset leads a man of Polanski's obvious intelligence to believe that he had already been properly punished for the crime he committed?

Is Roman Polanski one of the greatest film directors of our time? Undoubtedly--CHINATOWN alone should be required viewing for anyone who loves the art of the cinema and then you have THE VAMPIRE HUNTERS, ROSEMARY'S BABY, THE PIANO and DEATH & THE MAIDEN as well. But this is all irrelevant, because this about a man, a girl and an illegal and immoral act. We can celebrate the artistry of the man, but that should never exonerate him for the act or for the cowardice of hiding out in Europe for three decades to avoid punishment for it.

It is true that the victim has forgiven Polanski and asked that his sentence be commuted. Guess what? Victims are the last people who should be involved in the sentencing process. Her wishes are irrelevant. Let the grand poobahs of Europe try to do what they will, but nothing should stop Polanski from finally being extradited to the United States to serve his time and face his crime.

Peace...

A QUICKIE WHILE WATCHING TV ON A THURSDAY NIGHT...

2009-09-24T21:33:00.003-06:00

My Idiot of the Week

Cleveland Cavaliers guard Delonte West (pictured) was arrested earlier this week for speeding on a three-wheeled motorcycle while carrying two handguns and an automatic rifle in a guitar case. No word on whether or not they located the Thunderdome.

TV Notes

--GREY'S ANATOMY continues to become a parody of its former self. The mannered, stammered dialogue, the extreme melodrama, the constant revolving door of sexual liaisons, the weekly shouting matches, the over-the-top gore...where is the nuance, convincing characterizations that made the show worth watching in the first place? Tracy still watches but me, I've had more than enough.
--The MODERN FAMILY pilot was the funniest half hour of TV I've seen since the "waterwalker" episode of Arrested Development (Season 3) almost four years ago. Hope they can keep it up.
--It's sad and scary that there's more news in one half hour of BBC WORLD NEWS AMERICA than on a week of nightly news from all three major networks combined.
--The gags in COMMUNITY don't always work but at least they're trying something a little bit offbeat.

Haiku News of the Week

Qaddafi waxes
Nonsensically at UN
Delegates scatter

Peace...

THESE ARE MY OBSESSIONS...

2009-09-19T15:52:00.003-06:00

New Fall Shows

I'm certainly not going to take the time to try and watch all the new shows and blog about them, but since I still get a thrill out of new television product, I might as well take the time to exercise my semi-creative writing skills and share a few thoughts about the ones that I do watch. If I REALLY like a show, I might write a whole post dedicated to that show's awesomeness, but for now a few quick blurbs should do the trick:

--COMMUNITY (NBC) - Full disclosure: I work for an NBC affiliate so I might have a vested interest in checking out more of the NBC shows. This year, that's not as much of a chore since it does seem that NBC is debuting the majority of the more well-received (or at least more interesting) shows. Community is one of these. It stars Joel McHale (The Soup) as a snarky, fast talking, pop culture obsessed "fake lawyer" who enrolls in a community college to try and earn credits towards an actual law degree. There he encounters an intentionally stereotypical kaleidoscope of fellow students who he somehow cons into forming a Spanish study group--all so he can try to get into the pants of a sharp-tongued blonde hottie played by Gillian Jacobs. The pilot set up a good premise and reveled in its pop culture/80's movies homages (Stripes, John Hughes films, etc.) The show won't make anybody forget Seinfeld or Friends, but it has promise, is willing to give regular roles to Chevy Chase (!) and Dr. Ken Jeong (the nutty gangster from The Hangover!!) and has a decent timeslot. All of which make the show worth checking out on a regular basis. (My early grade: B+)

--THE JAY LENO SHOW (NBC) Ha! See my previous post. But in a nutshell, here's what I think of Leno's "new" show: exactly like his old one except earlier and with more of those lame skits that Conan and Letterman usually do better.

Rockies Baseball

There's nothing quite like the thrill ride of a pennant race. For fans of the Colorado Rockies, of which I am one, it is a rare treat, something that in 17 seasons of baseball we've only legitimately been able to enjoy three times. However, I fear this season may be the first time we have hearts broken.

Sure, the Rox are still in front of the wildcard race (+2 1/2 games as of this writing) and within striking distance of the first place Dodgers (-5 games). But when I've watched them play over the last week and a half, I've seen several things that have given me pause and forced me to temper my optimism about the team's playoff hopes. The most troubling:

--The Rockies continue to lead the National League in strikeouts and they continue to kill potential rallies with swings
at pitches that may be out of the strike zone.
--The only two Rockies hitters that currently have hot bats (Troy Tulowitzki and Yorvit Torrealba, feel free to buy a vowel) have lifetime batting averages under .270. Meaning, they won't stay hot forever.
--Jason Marquis, the erstwhile All-Star starting pitcher, is disappearing before our eyes. Of course, this isn't surprising since he's historically been a stud before the All-Star break and a pure journeyman after it. Problem is, with San Francisco, Florida and Atlanta breathing down the Rockies necks, they can't afford to have one or two horrible starts each time through the rotation when they're already not hitting.
--The bullpen looks like it's starting to wear down. Huston Street can't come back soon enough...he should pitch a little on
Sunday and we'll see how he looks.
--Key Rockies are battling through injuries that are more debilitating than they appear, but they also can't afford to stay out of the lineup. Aaron Cook is out of the rotation, Street is out of the bullpen, Todd Helton and Dexter Fowler have very sore legs and both Ian Stewart and Troy Tulowitzki are one bad swing away from being out of commission with back injuries.
--Most damning of all, the look in the eyes of some of the players on the current road trip suggests the panic and the
overeagerness to live up to expectations that killed this team in 2008 and got Clint Hurdle fired at the beginning of 2009.
They need to learn to relax and focus on doing what them got from fourth place to the top of the wildcard chase in the first place.

It has been said that losing builds character. That's actually not true. Losing builds losing. But from the fan's perspective, losing a playoff spot after once having a 5 1/2 game lead with less than 25 games to play builds something else much more important.

High blood pressure.

Peace...

BLACK PEOPLE BEHAVING BADLY

2009-09-14T21:10:00.005-06:00

Reg's Favorite Headlines of the Week

From ESPN.com: "NFL Players Vow to Donate Brains for Research"
Reg's comment: It shouldn't affect their availability for Sunday.

From 9News.com: "CU Study: Showers can make people sick"
My comment: Most at risk - hippies!

From CNN: "Rep. Joe Wilson Shouts 'You Lie' to President Obama During Speech"
My comment: He may have confused the President with GOP chairman Michael Steele since Wilson probably still thinks all black people look alike.

The Jay Leno Show (NBC)

It doesn't exactly suck. It's just awfully hard to imagine a large number of Americans spending five hours a week watching something so corny and occasionally painful. I still maintain the way for Jay to go would have been to make it more like the old Ed Sullivan show but with a ten minute monologue at the beginning--Leno would totally rock that format. But the premiere did have a couple of nice jokes plus a surprisingly earnest (and unplanned) apology from the usually insufferable Kanye West that is sure to be talked about tomorrow morning. We shall see how this show plays out over the next few weeks...

Haiku of the Week

Rockies lead Wildcard
The strikeouts are alarming
Just two weeks to go.

Parting Shots

**I don't think its necessary for the replay officials to review every single touchdown scored in the last two minutes. An NFL game is too long and filled with too many interruptions as it is to waste time on unnecessary reviews.

**Kanye West and Serena Williams had very bad weekends but let's not immediately turn them into supervillains for their errors of judgement. West has more of a history of being a boor, but at least he has apologized (and apologized and apologized). But Serena's outburst is more troubling because she refuses to acknowledge what she said and how harmful it was even though numerous replays and observers have confirmed it. No matter how much she didn't mean it, she did threaten to "kill" the the line judge and she was completely out of line. Yes, the foot fault was a bad and especially ill-timed call, but that's no excuse to show no class and suddenly become thuggish. As I've said before, civility may have been one of the first casualties of the 21st Century.

R.I.P. Patrick Swayze. Thanks for the memories and for a valiant fight against pancreatic cancer.

Peace...

FRESH MEAT

2009-08-31T17:49:00.003-06:00

I answer the mocking challenge of the blank screen with yet another "notes blog." Please forgive me...

**Fire, Fire Everywhere - oh, this is one of those days when I don't miss living in Los Angeles, but I do definitely feel for the residents of that city. I remember when I would try to go for a walk during a nearby brush fire and it felt my lungs would fill with ash. (I would think to myself, if that's what smoking is like, then what the hell is the appeal?) Hang in there L.A. Remember, there's still two months left in peak fire season.

The brush fires did inspire this week's haiku:

Los Angeles smokes
Smells of burnt mesquite and ash
Rains down like stardust

**To all you Denver Broncos fans out there, denial is a river in Africa. Trust your eyes, not your heart. This Broncos team is just as bad as it seems.

The Head Coach, Josh McDaniels, comes off like one of those punks straight out of the Ivy League, who thinks he can run the branch office just because he graduated near the top of his class at PrincetonBrownYale and he figures that if you treat everybody like shit you're being fair because you're not playing favorites and yes, damn it, it is a meritocracy. Only it's NOT a meritocracy because his ass went to PrincetonBrownYale as a legacy kid and he's about to find out that it takes more than knowing every answer in the book to be a good manager out in the real world where results (rightly or wrongly) are expected immediately and everybody is more than just a little bit suspicious of a guy who struts like he invented the game of football but still doesn't have to shave on a daily basis.

**I've had it with all the news "pundits" who scream across the airwaves from their ideological bully pulpit trying to shape public opinion instead of commenting on the news. Whether it be Glenn Beck (Obama is a racist?! Come down to Five Points sometime and try saying that shit out loud) or Keith Olbermann, it's amazing to me just how much modern day TV has become like Paddy Chayevsky's NETWORK--only not quite as tame. Yeah, I'm mad as hell and I don't want to take it anymore.

**Isn't it interesting that now that our increased ground presence in Afghanistan is taking out a new Taliban top honcho almost every week, George Will is leading the conservative brigade to get our troops out of Afghanistan? I must admit though, long term, Afghanistan is unwinnable. Just ask the Russians and Genghis Khan (if he were alive that is.) The sooner we can draw down there, the better it will be for everybody.

That's the notes, I'm a ghost...

Peace.

FREE VERSE*

2009-08-17T18:09:00.003-06:00

(*- because that's all its worth!)

If you have your annual review at work but they can't give you a raise because of "the economy", is it really that great a review?
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A haiku:

Health care reform twists
In the winds of greedy whims
Obama waffles

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The MAD MEN premiere went down like a gin and tonic: bracing, refreshing, a bit acrid and intoxicating.

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I missed my 20th high school reunion because I apparently don't know how to read a calendar. But I had a great time up in Steamboat Springs with Tracy. This must be why I feel so guilty...

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Only in Denver could a meaningless first preseason game get more analysis and impassioned talk show discussion than the state's current budget crisis, the Rockies playoff run and President Obama's town hall in Grand Junction--combined.

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I really enjoyed the movie GRAN TORINO directed by Clint Eastwood, who seems to get better every year even though he's 78, but I wish it had been less predictable and obvious at times.

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If the only consensus is that there is no consensus, then there is no consensus.

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THE DAN PATRICK SHOW is both the best free sports podcast and the best syndicated sports talk radio show in existence.

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Why is it that so many people believe that the greatest patriots are only the ones who are sent and fight to die for this country? Servicemen and women should not be presumed to be more patriotic than people who try to raise their children the right way, or hardworking Americans who make it a point to make an informed vote in every election.

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If cats can't tell time, how do they always know exactly what time they need to be fed?

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In order for the United States to survive as a global superpower and the most culturally influential country on the planet, we will have to someday realize that our primary values cannot be based around the acquisition of money and the promulgation of the Judeo-Christian religious mythology. You can't take the former with you (and it won't nourish your soul) and to the latter point, most of the world doesn't follow that belief system and cannot be won over if they're told that accepting that system is their only path to salvation.

So it goes...

Peace.

SOME MORE RANDOM STUFF...

2009-07-29T22:11:00.003-06:00

Tracy and I went to the proverbial dinner and a show last night at LoDo's Walnut Room. We saw Greg Laswell with opening act Elizabeth & The Catapult (who in their own way were actually more impressive.) We were there to enjoy the show, which we did, so I didn't take notes or pictures or anything, but I can say that the whole night was well worth it. We only spent $47--dinner was free, $20 for two tickets, $12 for the Elizabeth & The Catapult CD (I HAD to do it) and about $15 in drinks and tips. If you want to read a fairly accurate review of the show, click here. (Tracy is sitting right behind the blogger who took the picture.)

By the way, I talked to Elizabeth from the opening act and she was as nice, sweet and cute as could be, although she should maybe tighten up her math skills since I gave her a $20 bill for the $12 CD and she tried to give me $12 change. As we all know, the music business LOVES to eat it's young and rip off it's artists.

* * * * * * * * *
Factoid That Would Interest Only Me, Part 1: Every episode of CBS' hit show The Mentalist has either red or some reference to the color red in the episode title (which I believe refers to the lead character's obsession with "Johnny Red", the man who supposedly murdered his wife.)

Queens is to the Colorado Rockies what kryptonite is to Superman.

All the comic book-based movies that are being made and have been made, someone please explain to me how Wonder Woman, one of the best known and best-loved titles, still hasn't made it to the big screen? How is it that Thor and The Punisher (twice!) will have big screen movies before her? Let's get this thing made and cast Megan Fox before she gets either too expensive or too old.

Hollywood has ruined Comic-Con. But we still get to see some great previews and trailers from the convention.

I really wish Facebook had a "don't like" button.

In a way it amuses me that people actually believe that a chaotic, multiple payer health care system which doubles in cost every decade and regularly denies coverage to people who have jobs and make payments just because they are unregulated seems preferable to a government-run single payer system that fixes costs and tries to cover everyone so that neither businesses nor consumers have to foot the bill.

"There's a sucker born every minute." -- P.T. Barnum

My friend Cap is sort of a beerologist. His recommendation of the week: Kona Longboard, which I can vouch for as being very good. And I'm not even that big a beer fan.

Cost of my Grimes Family Reunion (on my Mom's side): $125 per couple without kids. Which includes "rap praise performance" by Jedediah, $12 for "family portraits" and a Sunday "remembrance of the elders and tribute to Michael Jackson." Cost of two tickets to the August 7th Cubs-Rockies game that same weekend: $56. Guess which one I'm choosing?

Factoid That Would Interest Only Me, Part 2: The Sears Tower in Chicago was renamed this month to the Willis Tower ("what you talkin' about?"). There have been 48,000 plus signatures on a petition to change the name back. There hasn't been a single employee of the Sears Roebuck Company in that building since 1994 and the company sold the building in 1995.

Remember to always spay and neuter your pets, but not anyone else because that would be illegal.

Peace...

ALWAYS LEAVE 'EM LAUGHING?

2009-07-14T11:18:00.001-06:00

The fates of some famous comedians and comic actors over the years as inspired by the recent Biography documentary:

Tim Allen – star of Home Improvement, several movies. Recovering alcoholic.
Richard Jeni – came down with severe depression at age 48. Committed suicide.
Jonathan Katz – created Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist. Suffers from multiple sclerosis, had to retire from on-screen performing.
Freddie Prinze – star of Chico & the Man. Became addicted to drugs, manic depressive. Committed suicide at 23.
Richard Pryor – battled long time drug addiction. Nearly burned himself to death while freebasing cocaine. Died of complications from multiple sclerosis.
Bernie Mac – died of pneumonia at age 50.
Bill Hicks – died at 33 from pancreatic cancer. David Letterman cut his best known mainstream comic appearance from Late Night only months before he died—the segment did not air until 15 years later.
Andy Kauffman – one of the first “performance artists.” Co-starred in Taxi. Died in his 30’s from complications of lung, brain cancer.
Lenny Bruce – the most famous and controversial stand-up comedian of the 1960s (he influenced Richard Pryor and George Carlin). Arrested over a dozen times on obscenity charges, he died of a drug overdose at age 40.
Robin Williams – addicted to cocaine in the 1970s. Had a child out of wedlock with his nanny (whom he later married.) Sued by a cocktail waitress with whom he had a one night stand—she claimed he had herpes and didn’t tell her (they settled out of court). Recently admitted struggling with alcoholism and had surgery to combat a heart problem.
John Belushi – died after a speedball overdose at the age of 33.
Chris Farley – died of a speedball overdose at the age of 33.
Sam Kinison – died in a car accident at the age of 38 six days after getting married. Traces of cocaine, codeine and prescription drugs were found in his system although it was the driver of the other vehicle that was convicted of driving under the influence.
Phil Hartman – killed by his wife as part of a murder-suicide at his home in Encino. Never a user of drugs or alcohol, he nevertheless was dead at 49.
Teri Garr – suffers from multiple sclerosis and had a brain aneurysm in 2006. Currently recovering.
Brett Butler – battled alcoholism and was so difficult and unprofessional on the set of her sitcom Grace Under Fire that co-star Julie White quit before the final season.
Bill Cosby – oldest son was murdered by the side of the 405 in 1996.
Woody Allen – divorced wife Mia Farrow after it was revealed that he was having an affair with eventual wife (and former adopted stepdaughter) Soon-Yi Previn.
Craig Ferguson – host of Emmy-nominated Late Late Show. A recovering alcoholic and drug user.
John Candy – died of a heart attack at age 43.

Of course, there are plenty of famous comedians who have done just fine largely avoiding tragedy, addiction and controversy – so far:

Ellen Degeneres (although she did struggle with coming out of the closet)
Jerry Seinfeld
Jon Stewart
Sasha Baron Cohen
Chris Rock
Steven Wright
Jay Leno
Conan O’Brien
David Letterman
Adam Sandler

IN CALANDA (a story)

2009-07-13T22:20:00.004-06:00

REG'S NOTE: It is a dangerous thing to take a nightmare and turn it into a story and an even more dangerous thing to put that story into a blog that your friends and spouse might read. But here it is...make of it what you will. If you want to know what parts I dreamt and what parts I made up, write to me and I might tell you. Or I might not. Either way, you should know that if you are easily offended or disturbed by profanity, language or certain imagery, perhaps this story is not for you... )

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IN CALANDA
By R.E. Scott

“How did I get here?”

The Man heard himself ask this question to no one in particular. He hadn’t even realized that he was talking out loud until he heard his own voice. He tried to keep a thought to himself. In his mind he said, “What kind of place is this?” He heard that out loud too.

What kind of place was this indeed? The Man stood in what appeared to be a splendidly overstuffed living room, albeit one with no windows but far too many doors. The décor was a haphazard, illogical jumble of contrasts—purple crushed velour here; overstuffed, tan leather chair there; a state-of-the-art high definition television set sitting on top of an unfinished, antique dresser next to a bookshelf with no books, but overloaded with knickknacks. If a room could be said to possess a stream of consciousness, this room was a torrent of consciousness, without focus or direction. It was everything and nothing at the same time.

The Man carefully picked his way through a village of ottomans until he came to a large, wooden, six-paneled door. He opened it.

He stepped into an Escher drawing, stairs everywhere, at right angles, at oblique angles, going everywhere at once but leading back only to themselves. Feeling panicked, The Man left the way he had entered and stepped back into the living room.

Only the room had changed. Some items had disappeared while new ones had materialized. (Where had that chandelier been before? Was that ping pong table in the corner?) The Man heard something in a far corner of the massive room and he went toward the sound.

Behind a translucent screen, the kind that you would see in old movies when the female star needed to discreetly change outfits, there were two men, one sodomizing the other. The man doing the sodomizing was wearing lederhosen, his suspenders undone and his shorts around his ankles. The other man was completely naked and seemed oblivious to the sudden bewildered appearance of the new Man. Nonchalantly and somewhat breathlessly he said, “Don’t worry, I’m being liberated.” He said it several more times, although The Man had heard him the first time. Quickly, The Man scurried away and tried another door exiting the living room.

This new room was lush and ornate but well-appointed, with just the right amount of furniture. It was dimly lit, dominated by two Chippendale chairs in the center of room with a tall floor lamp and desk small desk placed between the chairs. One chair was empty. In the other sat a woman who looked very much like Sarah Palin, the vice presidential candidate. Except she had on a red clown’s wig and white face makeup beneath her trademark glasses. Otherwise wore only a G-string, a holster, snow boots and pasties.

Not knowing what else to do, The Man sat down next to her.

“How are ya’?”, she asked cheerfully.

“I’m not sure. What is this place?”

“It is what it is and it ain’t what it ain’t,” Palin replied. She had a bottle of beer on the desk beside her and she took a long drink. She looked at the man quizzically. “Are we having the same dream?,” she asked.

“I don’t know what this is. I don’t know where I am. One minute, I was somewhere else, then I closed my eyes and I was…here.”

“I know how you feel.” She smiled but even with the smile and the clown makeup she still managed to look very sad. “I know just how you feel.”

“Do you have any idea how I can get back?”

“Get back to where?”

“To where I’m supposed to be.”

Palin motioned to the door. “Well I would imagine you would just go back the way you came, don’t you think? What do I look like, a geographer?”

“I saw two men in there. They…”

“They were fucking?”

“Yes. Have you seen them before?”

“I don’t have to see them. I know what goes on in there.” Her whole face darkened. With the wig and the makeup, she suddenly seemed more frightening than jolly.

Palin stood up abruptly. She took her pistol out of its holster. It had a pearl handle with the initials “SP” engraved into it in pink script. The Man took a good look at her for the first time. He didn’t want to ogle her, but he admired her body even as he was afraid of whatever it was she was about to do.

“I’m gonna take care of them,” she said.

“Take care of who?”

“Those men. This is a nice house, a decent house. There is happiness here.”

“You’re…going to shoot them?”

She winked. “Don’t you worry ‘bout that partner.” She took off her wig and threw it to the floor. Out of the corner of his eye, The Man saw the wig scurry off into a dark corner of the room.

She turned and headed for the door. Palin looked back over her shoulder and said, “You should ring the butler and have him bring you some tea. Or maybe some whiskey.”

The Man looked down at the little table and saw a bell there. He could have sworn the bell wasn’t there before. “What if those men know the way out of this place? You shouldn’t shoot them.”

“If they’d a-known, wouldn’t they have told you?”

“I never asked them!”

“Then they probably don’t know.” And with that she cocked her pistol and was out the door.

Somewhere in the corner a scruffy little kitty cat approached a covered litter box. The litter box growled and lunged at the cat, spitting cat litter on her. The cat scurried away with a yelp.

The Man thought about going to stop Sarah Palin, but suddenly he felt very tired and thirsty. He rang the bell and out of nowhere appeared the butler, a tall, thin man with long black hair tied in a ponytail and sagging white skin. He looked older than he probably was, younger than he probably should. He was impeccably attired in his old style butler’s uniform except that he was only wearing one glove.

“Yes?”, the butler said.

“I’m very thirsty”, the Man said. “Could you get me a glass of water? And do you know how I can get out of this place?”

“Certainly sir. I’ll be right back.” The butler left. The Man looked around him. He noticed a very impressive bookcase against one wall, this one loaded with a vast collection of old looking books. He started to get up, but found that suddenly he could not move his legs. His feet felt as if they were stuck to the floor and his legs felt as heavy as two marble pillars.

When The Man looked up, the butler had reappeared. He was carrying a silver tray on which was a glass of water and a revolver. The butler set the tray down on the desk.

“Something’s happening to me”, the Man said.

“I think we’re having the same dream,” the butler replied.

“I thought you were going to show me the way out of here!”

The butler said nothing but nodded towards the gun.

“What is the meaning of this?!” The Man was starting to panic. He could feel his lower body slowly becoming immobile and heavy. “What’s happening to me?”

The butler sighed as if he had seen this a million times before and would see it a million times again. “The choice is yours sir,” he explained slowly. “You can live forever but never leave this chair. You’ll be cared for but you can never feel again, never walk again, never see the sun again. Or you can put a bullet in your brain and leave. But for a split second, at the moment of your death, all of the answers to life will be revealed to you.”

The butler turned on his heel and headed for the door. “I’ll leave you alone so that you may decide. But I wouldn’t wait too long. You haven’t got much time.” The butler left and the door shut behind him.

The Man panicked. He was paralyzed now from the waist down. He felt his stomach starting to harden and to convulse. He looked at the gun, then looked around the room. He wondered if Sarah Palin would come back. He thought about the two men in the living room. He wondered about his name, which he had forgotten or perhaps never known. Did he have a wife, children, friends, a job? What did the butler mean that he would live forever in this room? He felt like he was dying. The Man then realized, he wasn’t sure he’d ever really been living.

“This is a dream,” the Man said. “This has to be a nightmare. And the gun…the gun must be the only way I can wake up from the dream. But, if I die here, don’t I die for real? Did I read that somewhere, or see it on TV?”

It was getting harder to breathe. The Man looked at the gun. He closed his eyes. His mouth and throat were so dry, they felt like they were covered with sandpaper. He wondered if it was the adrenaline. The Man opened his eyes. He took the deepest breath he could manage. His arms felt heavy. He tried to move his right arm.

He was reaching for the glass of water. Just a sip, he thought, then the gun. It had to be the gun.

His hand reached the glass, but he couldn’t grasp it. He couldn’t even feel it. He watched as the glass tipped over, the water spilled on to the tray, then onto the desk and then dripped onto the floor. He tried to pick up the gun, but his hand would not close and his arm had turned to stone.
The butler reentered the room. He had no expression, he just calmly took out a handkerchief and wiped the water up from the floor. “I see you’ve made your choice”, he said. “Well done sir. I’ll be back to check on you in a while.”

As the butler picked up the tray and again left the room, he didn’t see the tear running down The Man’s cheek. The red wig saw it though and it came up to The Man’s leg and nuzzled against it.

It wanted to comfort him.

THE END

Copyright Reggie E. Scott 2009, All Rights Reserved

MORE FUN THAN A HERD OF ELK FALLING DOWNHILL IN A HAILSTORM, PART II

2009-07-07T22:03:00.003-06:00

(Continued from the last post...)

Around and around the mountain we go and where we could stop, we did not know.

"I still think you should turn around," pleaded Tracy as we slowly worked our way around another switchback.

"I think we missed it," I said, trying to sound matter-of-fact. "Unfortunately babe, I think the only way out now is through."

So we continued up Trail Ridge Road. Of course it was beautiful. At one point all the cars stopped on the road because two magnificent giant elk were grazing in a meadow right by the side of the road. Eventually, we continued onward on the narrow, winding highway, up to 10,000 feet, then 2 miles above sea level, then up above timberline at around 11000 feet.

Under darkening skies, we decided to stop at the Visitor Center near the summit. It gave us a chance to stretch our legs and maybe take a few pictures. There was a marmot--a small mammal that looks a bit like a cross between a beaver and a wolverine that is about the size of a German shepherd--that was hurriedly scurrying among the rocks apparently looking for a place to hide. (Tracy took a picture that apparently didn't save because of low battery power.) We would soon understand why the marmot was scurrying for cover.

As the first thunderclaps echoed over the next range of peaks, it was then that we decided it would be a good idea to get off of the mountaintop. We were making our way slowly along Trail Ridge Road when suddenly, every car in front of us came to a sudden dead stop.

"Are they serious?" asked Tracy aloud. "That mountain over there just got struck by lightning!"

"Calm down...maybe its an accident?"

Only it wasn't an accident--there was a herd of elk less than fifty yards from the roadside, grazing on the alpine tundra. As the first significant raindrops began to pelt our car, we sat there dumbfounded while people GOT OUT OF THEIR CARS and began lining up the side of the road to take pictures of the elk.

Then came the hail. So much pea-sized hail it began to pile up in Biblical proportions (see picture above). The road disappeared beside us and in front of us in a pile of, as Tracy called it, "white slushy." The elk ran for cover, coming uncomfortably close to our car. Lightning flashed above us, sounding like it was exploding mere feet above our car. I drove the car almost blindly at five miles per hour, aware that as much as I wasn't sure where we were going (is that a cliff over there behind the hail or merely a grassy berm?), there also wasn't exactly anywhere to pull over, so it seemed like driving blindly in the slushy was the lesser of two evils.

Finally, the heart of the thunderstorm passed and we dropped below the timberline into relative safety. Tracy and I each took a deep breath and then she said (uncharacteristically, I might add), "Those people who stopped on the road were motherfuckers! What were they thinking?"

"People don't think any more," I sighed, "they just do and worry about the rest later. Hey, look at the bright side."

"What bright side?", she asked.

"We're still here, you got some cool pictures and we got our money's worth at the national park."

I'm not sure Tracy completely bought my argument, but she smiled and we exchanged "I love yous" as we drove back down towards Denver from probably the most traumatic picnic either one of us had ever had.

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Coming soon, more about Michael Jackson, Sarah Palin and proof that maybe the comic's life is not for you.

Peace...

MORE FUN THAN A HERD OF ELKS FALLING DOWNHILL IN A HAILSTORM

2009-07-04T20:32:00.003-06:00

So I said to the wife, "Let's get up to the mountains during 4th of July weekend. We live in Denver, but we hardly ever get up there. I need to get away from the city, it might do you some good to get away from the computer for a while, what do you say?'

She said yes, so we embarked on our Sunday Drive (conveniently held on a Saturday, so that we had a day to recover.) Happy Birthday America!! It was a cool, mostly cloudy morning as we set out on the highway, looking for adventure. Normally, the summer "monsoon" season in Colorado starts in late July and runs through the first half of August, but this year it's been more like Seattle (or Rangoon) than Denver, with heavy rain and high humidity almost every afternoon since the second week of June. But I figure, we're starting out reasonably early and we're not going that far--just to Grand Lake and back--so hopefully we can avoid any serious rainstorms and still have time for a lovely picnic lunch in the mountains. It's going to be fun. Tracy is psyched, I am psyched. We're getting back to nature and we're going to get our Rocky Mountain High.

The first part of the trip goes smoothly. We get to Idaho Springs by 9:45 where we get more gas and then we're soon on US 40 headed up to Lake Granby and Grand Lake, with little traffic, Stevie Wonder in the CD player and mostly sunny skies. The only minor glitch is a little mini-traffic jam in Fraser due to an Independence Day parade. But this doesn't trouble us at all because the whole thing is such a Norman Rockwell-like pastiche of small town life: horses, fire trucks, little kids, U.S. flags, streamers and ice cream cones. Quaint!

I chose Grand Lake as our destination because 1) its one of the most beautiful places in Colorado and the entire United States and 2) it holds a special place in my heart and my memory from when I was growing up. I didn't spend a lot of time there when I was a teenager, but my Dad did have a time share cabin there and he took me there a few times over the summer for hiking, hanging out, horseshoes and just general sightseeing. I also went up there with friends like Zubin, Dave, his late wife Kim, Al and Anna. The cabin is gone, but why not share some of that with Tracy? The problem is, I was so excited about getting up there that I neglected to do my usual due diligence in trip planning--for instance, where exactly were those old cabins? Were there any special events going on up at Grand Lake that I should know about? Would there be anywhere to dine within a reasonable view of the lake? We got to the lake and it was beautiful (although the first gray clouds and sprinkles began to darken the early afternoon), but Grand Lake seemed to have doubled in population. It was teeming with people and cars and there was nowhere to drive, nowhere to park and nowhere to sit.

"Let's head on up into the park," I suggested, meaning Rocky Mountain National Park. "There's beautiful wildflowers there and we can go back to Grand Lake some other time when it is less crowded." Tracy was enthusiastic about this idea and since we were both getting hungry, we attacked the idea with gusto.

We paid our entrance fee to the park (I don't remember it being $20 before but aren't the glories of God and nature priceless?) and then we found an open picnic area which sat in a lovely, sun-drenched meadow, sprinkled with columbines and white, unrecognizable but still lovely little flowers. We took our picnic basket to the bench and dined on ham and salami sandwiches, potato chips, nectarines and juices. It was nearly perfect!

If only I had stopped there. Perhaps motivated by a desire to get our "money's worth" for our park fee and fooled by the patch of sunny sky over our picnic meadow, I suggested we drive a little way further into the park up U.S. 34 so that maybe we take a short little walk somewhere. For the first time, I sensed a little hesitation from Tracy, but she was game, so we continued up the highway with the full intention of turning around before the ascent up Trail Ridge Road, an arduous (but very beautiful) drive under the best of conditions, but white knuckle terror drive in bad weather. Of course, the skies were already starting to darken.

We each glanced at the park map that they give you when you enter the park and it looked like the Colorado River Trailhead might be a good place at which to park, walk a bit and then turn around for the drive back home. When I glanced over to the left side of the road, I noticed that the Colorado River Trailhead was falling behind me as I drove past it on the highway.

"Why aren't you turning around?" asked Tracy in her I'm-trying-not-to-make-you-feel-bad-but-that-was-really-stupid voice.

"There's oncoming traffic," I replied. "Besides, there's going to be a place to turn around up here before the road gets really steep and bad." Then I added the piece de resistance, "You should trust me."

These words would prove prophetic an hour later, as we dodged lightning bolts, hailstones, oncoming traffic and stampeding elk on top of one of the highest paved roads in the world...

PART 2 posted Tomorrow with pics!

MICHAEL & FARRAH

2009-06-25T19:08:00.003-06:00

Two iconic white ladies died today.

Okay, all terrible jokes aside, did you ever imagine that Michael Jackson, for years the "King of Pop", and Farrah Fawcett, the most notable sex symbol of the 70's, would die on the same day?

Farrah Fawcett's struggles with cancer are well-known and have been painstakingly and publicly documented over recent years. She died today at the age of 62 from complications related to anal cancer which she originally contracted in 2006. Her struggle to fight the disease and her commitment to educating women about early cancer screening and regular physicals was courageous and had become well-known. Fawcett was hardly a saint of course and her "issues" with prescription medication and other treatments over the years had generated negative publicity and ridicule (most notably on the David Letterman program in the early 2000s), but while Farrah still seemed young, in spite of it all her death was not a surprise. This last bout of cancer had invaded the liver and unfortunately her days were numbered.

Personally, while I was tired of the relentless publicity about Farrah's cancer in her final days, spearheaded by her creepy close friends Ryan O'Neal and Alana Stewart, I feel no personal connection to her story or career--just a sense that an American icon has passed and an era may have ended.

Michael Jackson is different (ha ha, Understatement of the Year alert!) He may not have had as profound an influence on my musical tastes and appreciation as artists like Stevie Wonder, Prince, Miles Davis and Marvin Gaye, but when I think about growing up in the 1970s and 80s, Jackson's music, style and videos form a big part of the soundtrack of my life. Let others ruminate on whether or not Jackson was a child molester (my gut feeling is that he was probably guilty of something), let the media pundits pick apart the ups and downs of Michael's career and his personal finances, but what will resonate for me always is the one-two punch of "Off the Wall", "Thriller" and "Bad" the greatest consecutive troika of hit pop albums in music history. His accomplishments as a showman, a pop tunesmith and a musical icon will almost certainly never again be duplicated. I wish people would let Michael Jackson, gone too soon of a heart attack at age 50, rest in peace and celebrate his legacy. Of course, this can never happen in this day and age and that is tragedy in and of itself.

Peace...

OK...I MADE A MISTAKE

2009-06-24T21:52:00.002-06:00

The title of this story is, "Reggie Scott made a big mistake and now he's saying he's sorry."

No, this is not an actual story. Just a plain old blog like the good old days. It is hard to eat crow and even harder to eat grub worms, since you can only eat them while they're alive and they move around in your mouth which feels disgusting. But I digress. I still want to make this blog more literary and I still intend to get my stories and poems out there.

But lets be honest a moment--if you're like me, you have a full time job (one that probably pays you less than you made a year ago), you've got family responsibilities and you have chores and some kind of life. Do you have time to sit down and create a credible piece of literary art every week or two? Something that won't embarrass you? I didn't, you don't and I decided that I couldn't feel bad about that. Every now and then there's nothing wrong with just getting a few pithy thoughts off your chest and into the blogosphere. And that brings us to today, right now, this page that you are reading at this moment. Please forgive me and sorry I've been gone so long!

--------------------------
Governor Sanford's Got A Stimulus Package

At least South Carolina governor Marc Sanford hasn't previously come off as one of the GOP's pious, finger-wagging, family values goons. But it is still hilarious to me how Sanford can be too principled for his state to accept money from the Federal stimulus package, but not so principled that he can't run off to Argentina for a week to dally with his mistress without telling anyone, including his wife. Did he use state funds to finance any part of his trip? Is he crying at his press conference because he's truly sorry, or merely because he got found out? Ah, politics. Methinks that those eager beaver GOP'ers who had run Sanford's name up the flagpole as a possible presidential contender for 2012 are probably taking that flag down as quickly as possible now.

Tango Argentino indeed...

Factoid of the Week That Probably Only Interests Me

Last week the NBC television network had an average nightly rating of 4.6. The most watched basic cable network, USA (owned by NBC Universal), averaged 4.5 per night. USA's top rated show, Royal Pains (fun, well-written although not to deep. You should check it out!), drew 6.5 million visitors for last Thursday's episode. NBC had only two prime time shows the entire week that had a rating equal to or greater than that. Maybe Jeff Zucker was serious at the upfronts when he claimed that NBC thought of itself as "being in the cable business more than being a traditional Big Four network." I guess you've got to go with what works.

Parting Thoughts

Looking at the fight of both words and fists involving Perez Hilton and members of the Black Eyed Peas camp, I'm wondering if so much mediocrity has ever before generated so much vitriol. I'd like to take the combined egos of Hilton and will.i.am and lock them in the new Cowboys Stadium to see if they could actually fit in there. I doubt it...

Jon and Kate+ Eight - Jon = goddamn I don't give a shit. Please go away and start putting money away for your children's therapy bills.

Its good to be back...peace.

BROTHER PETUNIA

2009-05-05T18:21:00.004-06:00

Reed Purcell thought he was a good gardener. At least, in his mind, it felt like visiting his brother Bryce was like being a good gardener. After all, Bryce today had much more in common with your typical houseplant than he did with the brother that he grew up with. Reed thought about petunias, which were his mother’s favorite flower. A petunia, properly potted, needs to be watered and kept in direct sunlight for a portion of the day. The petunia converts carbon dioxide to oxygen and goes on its unsuspecting way through life until that unfortunate moment when, it’s purpose fulfilled, it withers away and dies.

Bryce, properly wheelchaired, was watered and fed three times daily. He set himself in the sunlight of the window at the VA Center and soaked up the rays during the afternoon. Then, with a nurse’s help, he was laid flat in his bed to slumber the night away. He breathed in oxygen and exhaled carbon dioxide and never said a word or acknowledged his surroundings in any meaningful way and was, in almost every respect, much like their mother’s beloved petunia.

At least petunias knew when to die.

Reed parked his Lexus in the visitor’s lot, set his car alarm, squinted in the too bright July sun and walked into the lobby. There was a pretty nurse at the registration desk, she looked Indian and her nametag said “Indira.” She smiled brightly as Reed checked signed the registration book.

“You’re a little late today, “ she said. “Don’t you usually get here a little earlier?”

“Traffic was a bitch.”

Indira was puzzled. “On a Saturday?”

Reed mumbled “football traffic”, which meant nothing to Indira and then he slammed the pen down a little too loudly, in a manner designed to show that he didn’t want to have this particular discussion and didn’t need to be judged by some underpaid, fresh out of community college caregiver about the timeliness (or lack thereof) of his visits to his brother. He made sure to smile though, so that Indira didn’t think he was being rude. It was always important, whenever possible, to leave a good impression.

Reed knew the way to Bryce’s room. He knocked three times softly as was his ritual and then slowly opened the door. Bryce is indeed where Reed expects him to be, sitting listlessly in his wheelchair in a pool of sunlight with an expression on his face that could be the faintest of smiles, could be gas or could be nothing at all. Bryce turns his head ever so slightly to look at Reed and then just as quickly returns his gaze out the window.

The look reminds Reed of something his aunt had said to him not too long ago. (One of the aunts that rarely visits.) “When you look in his eyes you know they’s something in there”, she said. “Them eyes is angry. That anger is keeping him alive.”

Reed stepped forward. This is the part of their time together that he always dreaded the most. He hated the awkwardness of it. The pointlessness. But Bryce was still his brother, still somewhat human and he deserved to be addressed as such. The doctors said he needed to be talked to, that he could still hear would people said to him, even if he no longer understood all of it and lacked the ability to respond. So make nice small talk with the houseplant and get on with it.

“How are you Bryce?”

Bryce looked at him. His eyelids widened ever so slightly. They seemed to say, “How are you, asshole?”

“I heard that you’re breathing better. That’s good. You’re going longer without needing a respirator. I’m proud of you. You’ve got to hang in there.” Reed tries to say this with conviction, with feeling, but he feels like a hack Hollywood actor straight out of drama school. What’s his motivation? He wonders if Bryce can somehow sense this. Just as he is about to chuckle at his own ridiculousness for even thinking such a thing, the corner of Bryce’s lips twitch and his eyes seem to flash.

Reed blusters on. Got to get this over with. “Has Earlean been by to visit? I ran into her the other day in church and she asked about you. I told her you were doing the best you could. She said she’s been meaning to come down and visit but, well, you know how people are.”

As opposed to me. I come every week, thought Reed. I must be a fucking saint.

“I don’t know if you heard, but Obama’s really cutting down the troops in Iraq. Sending a lot of ‘em over to Afghanistan. If you ask me, it’s a big mistake, but at least that means things are getting better over in Iraq. That must make you feel somewhat good. This…isn’t all for naught.”

Reed could have never expected so sudden a movement from his brother. In one motion Bryce turned his head to look directly at Reed, sucked in his cheeks and then with all the force he could muster, he spit right in Reed’s face. For maybe the first time, Reed sees the angry eyes his aunt is talking about.

He takes a handkerchief from his coat pocket—always have a handkerchief when you’re wearing a suit, their Dad had always said—and slowly wipes Bryce’s saliva off of his face.

“Well. I guess I know how you feel about that.” Reed folded the handkerchief and put it into his pocket. He laughed softly and shook his head. “I’m sorry to say even a black president can’t give you your spine back. But shit Bryce, why spit at me? At least I’m here. At least I care enough to tell you what the hell is going on.”

Reed wondered, why the hell was he was here? At least petunias don’t spit on you. Petunias 1, Bryce 0.

Bryce had returned his gaze out the window. His breathing was becoming labored. The effort needed to express his anger had severely taxed him. Reed leaned down near Bryce’s ear. If his older brother wasn’t going to appreciate him, was in fact, going to start spitting on him, then Reed had to let him know where he stood. Maybe it was petty, he thought, but enough was enough.

“I came by to tell you that in the next election, I’m planning to run for Congress. If I get elected, I’m going to make sure that I get you out of this VA hospital and put you into a nice, private facility. Some place with a lot of grass and a lot of trees where they can take the time to take care of you the way you deserve. But for now, I need you here. See, you’re the war hero who took the bullet that saved another man’s life and you’re here rehabbing on the taxpayer’s dime with simple, humble dignity.”

“Before you came back, I was just the nerdy little brother who never had a date and went to school but didn’t know what to do with his life. Now I’m the devoted brother who looks after the war hero and stands up for veteran’s rights. I’m going to be making a lot of visits here while I’m campaigning and you’d better not spit at me, because if you do, I’ll leave you here to rot and die and you’ll never see me here again. Not me, not anybody. Do you understand me?”

Bryce turned his head slowly. The eyes were angry, but Reed knew he understood.

On his way out the door, Indira called out to him, “See you next week.”

Reed smiled and without breaking stride said, “You will. You most definitely will.”

Copyright 1992, 2009 Reggie E. Scott All Rights Reserved

OMG I H8 U

2009-04-25T01:08:00.003-06:00

From: Alex Gregory
Sent: Thursday, April 23, 2009 3:34 PM
To: Teresa Montgomery (DCH-DEN) [mail to: te.montgomery@dcha-den.com]
Subject: Lunch meeting
Importance: High

Tess,

Are we still on for the lunch meeting tomorrow @ 1? Haven’t got a confirmation back from you yet. My presentation will be ready. Please make sure you bring the particulars. ;-)

BTW, you’ll never guess what PH did the other day in the Weekly staff meeting! If he doesn’t get fired this time, he’s got more lives than Rasputin.

TTYL,

Alex

Alex Gregory
Research Coordinator
Dewey, Chapman & Hewitt Associates
P: 720.555.1616
635 17th Street, 34th Floor
Denver, CO 80202

---------------------------------------------------------

From: Teresa Montgomery
Sent: Thursday, April 23, 2009 3:42 PM
To: Alex Gregory (DCH-DEN) [mail to: alex.gregory@dcha-den.com]
Subject: RE: Lunch meeting

I can’t talk right now. Something’s going down. I’ll Tweet you later.

Teresa

--------------------------------------------------------------

From: Alex Gregory
Sent: Thursday, April 23, 2009 3:50 PM
To: Teresa Montgomery (DCH-DEN) [mail to: te.montgomery@dcha-den.com]
Subject: RE: RE: Lunch meeting

OK…Is everything alright?

Alex

---------------------------------------------------------------

To: te.montgomery@dcha-den.com
Sent: Thursday, April 23, 2009 7:11 PM
I tried calling. I tried that Blackberry PIN # thing, but I think I screwed it up. What’s going on? You’re making me nervous…need to talk to you. Hit me back ASAP.

Alex

Sent from Blackberry

Tess feels like a change is gonna come…big doings at the Office. Will keep posted.

* * * * * * *

To: tmontgomery@gmail.com
Sent: Thursday, April 23, 2009 9:58 PM

Well, I guess UR not answering your phone. I saw on Twitter that you were talking about a change. WTF? Why won’t you talk to me? I hope we get a chance to talk tomorrow. I don’t like this…

PS I think your new hairdo is sexy. “Don’t go changin’…” ;-)

A

Sent from Blackberry

--------------------------------------------------------

From: Teresa Montgomery
Sent: Friday, April 24, 2009 10:02 AM
To: Alex Gregory (DCH-DEN) [mail to: alex.gregory@dcha-den.com]
Subject: Meeting

Hi Alex,

We should meet, but not at the Hyatt. We do need to talk. I’ve got to step into a meeting – I should be free by 2. Meet me at the coffee shop in the lobby?

I’m sorry for all this…

Tess

Teresa Montgomery
Accounts Payable Coordinator
Dewey, Chapman & Hewitt Associates
P: 720.555.2344
635 17th Street, 25th Floor
Denver, CO 80202

From: Alex Gregory
Sent: Friday, April 24, 2009 10:07 AM
To: Teresa Montgomery (DCH-DEN) [mail to: te.montgomery@dcha-den.com]
Subject: RE: Meeting

I can swing it. I can’t wait to hear what this is all about…I think. Take care,

Alex
From: Alex Gregory
Sent: Friday, April 24, 2009 2:45 PM
To: Teresa Montgomery (DCH-DEN) [mail to: te.montgomery@dcha-den.com]
Subject:

I waited down there more than a half hour for you, you bitch! What the fuck is going on? I know this is an inappropriate email, which I’m sure the dorkwads in IT would love to get a hold of and send to HR, but I don’t care. I don’t like being toyed with Tess! What’s happening to you? Or should I say, what’s happening to us?

I think I’m going to come downstairs and see you in person…

Alex

----------------------------------------------------------------

From: Teresa Montgomery
Sent: Friday, April 24, 2009 2:45 PM
To: Alex Gregory (DCH-DEN) [mail to: alex.gregory@dcha-den.com]
Subject: Message failure UNDELIVERABLE

Your message did not reach the intended recipient. This is no longer a valid email address. If you feel this message is in error, please check the email address and try to send again.

------------------------------------------------------------

To: tmontgomery@gmail.com
Sent: Friday, April 24, 2009 2:49 PM

Tess…

I sent an email…but I guess u didn’t get it. I hope u didn’t. It was terrible.

Remember, that time in Breckenridge? When u left me in the lodge wondering where u were and then I went back to our room and I found u, naked and…? When I first touched u in the room that night u said how aggressive I was—it was cuz I was so angry that you played a trick on me but still so hot for u at the same time. I hoped 2day that’s what u were doing, but then I realized u weren’t coming and I got so angry.

Its hard 2 type on these things. Just call me when u can. If what happened to u was because of me, I don’t know how I can make it up 2 you. Plz let me try. I can’t go to the office and do the same shitty job knowing you’re not there.

Xoxoxo,
Alex

Sent from Blackberry
------------------------------------------------------

Tess will miss most of her co-workers and friends at DCHA, but she is looking forward to an exciting new chapter in her career. Stiff upper lip, right?

• * * * * *

Alex just got one of the shocks of his life at work today.

* * * * *

To: AGMan@earthlink.net
From: “Tess” [tmontgomery@gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, April 25, 2009 11:16 AM
Subject: an explanation

Dear Alex,

I know it’s been a crazy few days. I’m sorry that I haven’t been able to fill you in on the whirlwind of the past few days. I’m also sorry I didn’t get to see you one last time in the coffee shop. That meeting I stepped into was with my boss and the HR rep. While you were sipping your vanilla latte (you did get the vanilla latte, didn’t you? It amazes me how you always get the exact same thing), I was busy getting fired.

I knew that with the economy being what it is and the consultants on our floor that a big change was coming. I figured some people would get laid off and I even thought I might be one of them, even though my evals have been top notch now for four-plus years. But you know what Alex? I wasn’t “laid off”. I wasn’t “let go.” I was fired. And do you know why? You’ll probably never guess…

Alex, you’re probably the best lover I’ve ever had, but I always knew you would hurt me. Every bone in my body told me that it was a huge mistake to ever get involved with you, but so much for women’s intuition, huh? You could make me feel so special, but at the same time, I knew you would never leave your wife, never leave your child, never leave the firm. And what would that make me to you then? Like the quotation marks around “Alex”. Always the warm-up act for the Big Show. I deserve better.

By now you’re probably wondering exactly what it was that got me fired, especially since the fraternization policy at DCHA is a fucking joke and even if our affair was the cause of my dismissal, it would seem you still have your job. Well, I won’t tell you in this email because you deserve to twist in the wind for a couple days, to wriggle like the slimy, nasty worm you really are. Just make sure you check your mail before your wife does. In it will be a letter from me with no return address and that will tell you all that you need to know about what happened to me…and what’s going to happen to you.

Have a good life Alex. You will never see me or hear from me again. It’s long overdue. Try to be a better husband, a better father and a better man. Then, and only then, can you truly become the man that you think you are.

Sincerely,

Tess

---------------------------------------------------------------
Alex just got a very important letter that he had been waiting for. How exciting!

• * * * *

To: Teresa Montgomery (DCH-DEN) [mail to: te.montgomery@dcha-den.com]
From: carybug1212@yahoo.com
Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 2009 5:25 PM
Subject :
Importance: High

Teresa,

My name is Cary Stein. You don’t know me, but I work on the 34th floor here at Dewey, Chapman as an assistant to one of the VPs. Peter Howsam? Maybe you’ve heard of him? He’s in charge of Personnel.

It seems you and I have a common interest. Please see the email attached below:

To: carybug1212@yahoo.com
From: AGMan@earthlink.net
Sent: Monday, April 20, 2009
Subject: about the weekend…

Hey baby,

I had a great time with you on Saturday. Too bad it was so short. Well—what we did wasn’t
so short, but the time we had was hardly enough, wouldn’t you agree? (I know, I’m awful.)

I’ll try to get away again some time this weekend, but I promised my wife we’d visit
her folks—you know how that goes!

I get hard just thinking about you. But only you make me get hard anymore. I can’t get
enough of you. Let’s get together soon. My schedule is pretty full, but I will make the
time for you.

Xoxoxoxo,
Alex

Yesterday, I saw you and Alex coming back from the coffee shop. He didn’t see me and of course, you don’t know who I am. But I saw him gently, briefly, take your hand and at one point he rubbed your lower back. You know, the way only people really close to each other do? And then I knew. I was jealous. He’s never that way with me. Sometimes, I swear he treats me like a blowup sex doll.

It wasn’t hard to figure out who you are. It also wasn’t hard to convince one of the guys in IT who has always had a little crush on me that he should dig around in yours and Alex’s email and forward them to one of the HR reps anonymously. It’s really stupid to send sexy emails through work. Even when you delete them, they remain in the server file practically forever. Did you know that?

Anyway, you can have Alex if you still want him, although I doubt you do. He’s a shit. And he’ll get his, don’t worry. But if I’m going to hurt, you’re going to hurt too. Fuck sisterly solidarity. And good luck finding another job.

Yours,

Cary

-------------------------------------------

Alex is bummin' out. But at least I get to enjoy a nice family dinner with the in-laws tonight.

(Copyright Reggie E. Scott 2009, All Rights Reserved)

Hope You Like the New Layout...Stories to follow

2009-04-21T22:37:00.002-06:00

It's taking a little longer to recover from my recent trip to Las Vegas than I anticipated, so I apologize for not breaking in the new content yet. Thanks for the awesome comments about my previous posts and my new direction. Jamal--I had no idea you were such a fan! Thanks indeed.

The first official entry of this redone blog will be posted Friday night or Saturday at the latest, I promise. From that point forward, until I can figure out a better format each story will be continually updated under the same title until the story is completed. You'll know the story is done because a good old fashioned "The End" will appear at the end of the post.

Keep in mind that old content, while no longer visible on the side, can still be viewed if you like under the "Older Posts" tab.

Hope you enjoy and thanks again. Peace!

THE END OF AN ERA?

2009-04-13T23:05:00.004-06:00

Today, I had a revelation.

It is time to do something completely different with my blog, something potentially revolutionary, or maybe just something really stupid.

After five years--FIVE FREAKIN' YEARS!!--The R Spot will completely change formats starting later this week, or by Tuesday, April 21st at the latest. I've come to the realization that anyone who has stumbled across this site over the years pretty much knows by now on what side of the political spectrum my opinions are going to fall. They will have read any number of movie, television and music reviews and seen pictures of family, friends, celebrities and a few of the events that I've encountered since I first started posting. It has been an online diary that has been open to the world, where I may not have shared all of my most innermost thoughts, but I have SHARED dammit, and there is something to be said for that.

No more.

Beginning within the next week, this site will change it's layout and it's content for good. The R Spot will become...a continually updating lit blog, featuring a rotating, episodically updated roster of short stories and/or novellas written by yours truly.

No, I'm not shitting you.

I will copyright protect each story and each post at the bottom of each page, but of course, nothing is to stop anybody from stealing my ideas, writing them better than I do and then selling them for a fortune. (NOTE: if I see one of my stories in print under another name, I will find you and your ass will be mine. Just so you know.)

Why the change? As I creep ever closer to 40, like a lot of people, I find myself yearning for a way to shake things up and make a change. Since I'm happily married, happy where I live and reasonably happy where I work (as if there are a lot of comparable salaried options in THIS economy), other things have to change. We are all to a certain extent limited in what change we can truly affect, whether we like to admit this limitation to ourselves or not. In my case, since I am unable to put Dick Cheney in jail or give new Broncos head coach Josh McDaniels a brain transplant, I've decided to marry one of my life's passions with my blog and see where it takes me.

The passion I'm referring to by the way is writing.

Ah, writing. I moved to Los Angeles to pursue my dream of becoming a highly paid and infinitely respected Hollywood screenwriter. Once there, I found out that the two greatest detriments to succeeding in that field are professional shyness and an inability to direct your own script. That's not to say that I was ever the greatest screenwriter in the world (far from it--my Facebook friends Elizabeth Kirkscey, Tony Gama-Lobo and Todd Carney, just to name a few, are far more capable movie and TV writers than I will EVER be.) But I know I was much more talented than a lot of the people who have their names in the credits of movies and TV shows we've all seen--ultimately, I didn't have the moxie, the schmoozability, the patience or the salesmanship to break through to even get an agent. That, combined with the too-fast L.A. lifestyle and a wife who would be much happier somewhere else led me back to my hometown and away from the movie life.

However, I still love to write. I have been negligent in doing so lately. Adult life is not kind to the simple pursuit of putting words to the page but that shouldn't be an excuse. After all, I've posted almost 300 little essays right here on The R Spot on topics ranging from my favorite hip-hop albums, to the joy of getting married, to the injustice and incompetence of the Bush administration, to my joy and amazement at the election of Barack Obama, to my choices of favorite TV shows and movies, to jokes I've heard and even celebrities who I've peed with. It has been a terrific outlet for me and a way to write even when I've been blocked on more creative endeavors, but let's be honest. A blog is a blog is a blog. They lead to bad habits, to laziness, to a smugness that is not healthy for one's creative impulses or their self-image.

It is time for me to challenge myself. It is time to be a little more ambitious. It is time to take a risk. Whether these stories invoke O. Henry and Stephen King or get me ridiculed by some snarky office worker stumbling upon my blog in their cubicle, I can't continue to keep doing the same thing, especially when in the blogosphere my opinions and rants have no more or no less value than anyone else's. Besides, the idea of crafting a story, adding to it and putting it online feels like a new frontier to me. It excites me in a way that even I find surprising. It is, to cop a theme from our nation's 44th president, a change I need.

Indeed.

Who knows what will become of it, if it will work or be interesting? Who knows if Blogger.com is even the best site for this kind of thing? All I know is that I have to try it, before I forget how to write or before I run out of anything interesting to say. I hope anyone who has read this post sticks with me and shares their thoughts about the new direction (all six of you). If you don't have the time for such folly, I completely understand.

I want to thank Zubin (Dr. Z), Tuhina, Lyle, Dave Rowe and most of all my wife (who hopefully has made it to Atlanta safely tonight and then on to West Palm Beach tomorrow) for indulging me over the years and offering feedback--some of it kind, some of it not, all of it thoughtful--to the various thoughts on this post. Some of you I know have great blogs of your own that I've read and I hope you keep continuing to do what you want to do the way that you want to do it.

Hopefully, the new direction will curb my tendency to ramble! It didn't help here, but I had a lot to say and I wanted to make clear why I've decided to make this change. Wish me luck, keep on reading and remember one important thing:

No matter what new technologies and media are born in this ever changing, all too unsettling time in which we live, nothing will ever top the power of the written word. It is not just mightier than the sword, but mightier than the splitting of an atom, then all the images ever broadcast on a cathode ray tube, mightier than the gun, the knife or the cynical instruments of torture. Wherever the future takes us, I hope we as human beings always have the desire to put words on a page, to read words on a page, to tell a story. Truly I believe, that is our only hope.

Peace.

FIXING AMERICA'S SCHOOLS - BUT PROBABLY NOT THE OBAMA WAY

2009-04-08T22:11:00.002-06:00

President Obama's Secretary of Education Arne Duncan visited Denver earlier this week to tour a couple of the city's more successful alternative public schools and deliver a couple of policy speeches on how he and the administration want to reform education policy.

Duncan has some good ideas--empowering teachers more, encouraging more innovation and promoting pay-for-performance teacher contracts to name a few. But he is also a proponent of one of the more radical plans I've heard for public schools.

"You're competing for jobs with kids from India and China," he told a group of students at Bruce Randolph School. "I think schools should be open six, seven days a week, 11 or 12 months a year."

WHAT?!? Is more school really the answer if we can't firmly nail down exactly what the curriculum for our students should be? And what do India and China have to do with more time in the classroom? In neither country do students attend class 11-12 months a year, six to seven days a week. While you'll get little argument from me that American students, teachers, parents and administrators all need to work harder to improve the education of our children, I don't think chaining kids to desks in classrooms up to 300 days a year will produce the desired result. Does this bother you as much as it bothers me or am I just overreacting?

Sources for this post include 9News.com

Reg's Cheap Wine of the Week

This week, a delightful dessert wine from--surprise, surprise!--Colorado's Western Slope. (This means if you're reading this on the East or West coasts, this wine may not be available. Sorry.)

The vineyard is Stoney Mesa in Cedaredge, Colorado on the Western Slope. They make a Riesling which is fruity, full bodied, sweet and delicious. For $8.99 a bottle, you could do a lot worse! If you have this wine in your area, definitely give it a try.

Have You Gone "In Treatment"?

We checked out the first five segments from Season 2 of HBO's IN TREATMENT this week and it is setting up to be an even better season than the first one. In addition to regulars Gabriel Byrne and Dianne Weist, this year's guest stars include John Mahoney as a beleaguered CEO, Hope Davis as a high-priced attorney with past connections to Byrne's therapist character and Alison Pill as a college student suffering from lymphoma. If you can, check it out. The quality of the acting and writing is as good as anything on TV today.

Thanks for the vine...until I swing again.

Peace...

SEX APPEAL & MONEY

2009-04-02T19:15:00.004-07:00

You know I've been thinking about how it seems that a lot of how happiness is measured in American life is based on how either how sexy something is or how much money is attached to it. I know, this isn't a groundbreaking thought. But this is not just a question of how rich someone is or how good looking they are. This observation can apply to many different facets of American life and I'll try to hit on a couple in this post.

To me, the reality of Sex Appeal and Money is maybe the least attractive aspect of being alive in the USA today. A person perceived as being "sexy" but lacking in substance will always get the nod over someone who is bland or unsexy but deep and intelligent. Also, if you have sex appeal and money, no recession or depression can get you down and opportunity will usually be just around the corner. If you have one or the other, opportunities are there for you although you still have to work at building the American Dream. Lack either one however, and life will probably be an unrelenting struggle to find happiness. So it goes.

Finally, I would like to add that when I refer to sex appeal, I'm not just talking about looks. I'm talking about the perception of cool, of hipness, the ability to generate excitement in others. I'm talking about charisma and charm. I'm talking about the perception of being on the cutting edge or ahead of the curve. I'm talking about the quarterback, not the offensive lineman. Facebook as opposed to MySpace. It's the director as opposed to the screenwriter. The sizzle and not the steak. You know what I mean.

Kyle Orton?! Is That the Kid from South Park?

At one time the Denver Broncos had sex appeal and money. Now they've hired a kid coach, pissed off and then traded their petulant quarterback and it seems to me they've got neither. A six-and-ten season seemed inevitable with an unhappy Jay Cutler and a rebuilding, disjointed defense. Now, even that record seems like a pipe dream for 2009, unless the Broncos parlay their ten draft picks into their version of a lotto jackpot.

(See here for the latest story about the Broncos trade of Jay Cutler to the Chicago Bears.)

All that being said, I'm not a 100% convinced that Kyle Orton actually will be the Denver Broncos starting quarterback. I could see the Broncs turning around and packaging Orton, one of their 2009 first round picks and/or a later round pick in a deal for one of the Cleveland Browns' quarterbacks, most likely Derek Anderson. Or they can send a similar package to draft pick starved Carolina for defensive end Julius Peppers--then they could sign one of the remaining veteran free agent quarterbacks still remaining, like Byron Leftwich (who I like) or Jeff Garcia (not so much).

Whether Orton stays or not, one thing is clear--the Denver Broncos, one of the league's proudest and most successful franchises over the last 30 years, are in a full on rebuilding mode. I wish them luck, but when you're not sexy anymore, it gets a lot harder to keep people's interest and convince them that you're worth anything.

Now, could we please talk about something else, PLEASE?!

The Least Surprising Headline of the Week

Former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich was indicted on corruption charges today.

In a separate case, his hair was also indicted on seven counts of fraud, perjury and general ridiculousness.

Peace...

TWITTER ME THIS

2009-03-31T19:30:00.002-07:00

I begin with a thought about the future of blogging. This is a thought not so much about my blogs, but everyone's blogs and the quicksilver nature of things here in the peak of the Information Age.

In the last 45 days, I have posted five blogs. I used to post two or three blogs a week, sometimes daily (especially during a national election season.) I have over five hundred posts between this site and my blogs on Dissent Channel. Why has everything slowed down so much? Is it some new facet of my personal life, have I taken on added responsibilities at work? Not really...the problem is Facebook. Facebook has, and will, forever change the way people communicate. In just three short years, it has already become one of the most important inventions of the 21st century--whether or not the company even survives the next decade.

When you can choose who you want to communicate with and what you want to say instantaneously, building your own fan base through your own Facebook (and now Twitter) communities, then everybody has the potential to be a rock star. Andy Warhol famously mused that everyone has 15 minutes of fame. If you thought "reality TV" gave everybody that 15 minutes, think about the possibilities on Facebook, through Twitter or any number of other social networking sites. The possibilities are endless. (As is the potential for narcissism, reckless self-promotion and pragmatic disinformation, just to name some of the more potentially damaging aspects of this phenomenon.)

I mentioned this concern on--irony alert!--my Facebook page and my friend Lyle encouraged me to keep on bloggin', noting that people with longer attention spans will always appreciate taking the time to read different points of view on blogs and web pages. I think he's right. But it sure is nice sometimes to just put the headline of the day on your Facebook page and let your commenting friends do the rest. I'll have to make sure I don't become a victim of excessive laziness so that I can occasionally express myself over the quarter mile instead of settling for the short sprint of Facebook or Twitter.

Fun Fact About the Recession #1

According to MSNBC.com and This American Life, shark attacks are at a five year low because fewer people than ever are vacationing in shark prone areas.

This just in: sharks are now swimming to Washington to lobby for a bailout.

The Wine of the Week

A new feature on The R Spot where I recommend a good bottle of wine every now and then on a budget. This week, I'm enjoying the Barefoot Shiraz 2008, available here for only $7.99. Smooth, with a "plummy", good body and a good flavor, if you enjoy a good table wine but don't want to spend an arm and a leg for a bottle, I think the Barefoot brand is pretty decent and the Shiraz is the best one from them that I've had so far.

What if You Get Fired in the Depths of a Recession?

Did you ever have one of those weeks at work where it seems like nothing goes quite right? That has been the last week or so for me. First, I make a typo and one of our station's winds up running the wrong episode of JUDGE JUDY (begging the question, how does one really tell the difference?) Then, you're alerted to $1300 worth of mistakes made a couple of months ago in inputting the wrong information for some movie spots. If this doesn't happen in the same week, maybe it's not a big deal, because we are all human (except for those of us that might be Cylons) and sometimes we make mistakes. Especially when the company we work for keeps laying us off and furloughing us and forcing us to work short staffed and at a reduction of wage. But this is not an excuse...you still have to do the work and you still have to do it well. And when information like this comes out in the same week...it's hard not to start second-guessing yourself.

Then, in the wee hours of the night sometimes, you wake up and you find yourself wondering about the worst case scenario--what if I make a mistake that costs me my job? What if I have to find a new job, having been fired from the old one in a time when the unemployment rate is 8% and rising and every company seems to shed employees every week instead of hiring them? What happens when you're approaching middle age, have but one degree, haven't had any new training and you have bills to pay and a mortgage to worry about? What if you're not a star but an asteroid and now you're burned out, used up and crashing into the Earth's atmosphere faster than a falling 401k?

Then you think, nah, what am I worried about? A bad week is a bad week. Everybody has them, right? Why be paranoid? Don't let the mistakes of the past throw you off your game. Focus on what you have to do, do it and stop worrying. Things will work out okay, right?

Right?

Peace...

A DOZEN RANDOM THOUGHTS ON A LAZY SATURDAY MORNING...

2009-03-21T09:54:00.003-07:00

Iran rejects President Obama's overtures until there is a "substantive change in U.S. policy." Why is it the countries with the worst policies and most dangerous leaders are always the ones that most want everyone else to change?

For my money, you can't top March Madness as this country's premiere sporting event. Its what the top soccer tournaments are on every other continent on the planet (except Australia).

That being said, the part of the NCAA tournament that everyone loves is really the first two rounds. After that, it gets considerably less exciting and more predictable.

I wonder if anyone else's elderly parents are as clueless about computers as mine are.

Everyone is up in arms about the AIG bonuses, but the better question is how the government could not have known about these contracted bonuses when we ostensibly took over the company. At the time we first agreed to bail out AIG with taxpayer money, that would have been the time to kaibosh the bonuses, not now. (I hate to sound like a Bush basher now that the Decider is out of office, but this was something initially arranged under his administration's watch.) The important thing now is to move forward and make sure the accountability is there for all future bailouts and loans.

All the warm early spring weather is nice, but if Denver doesn't start getting some rain or snow soon in significant quantities, I have two words for you: Dust Bowl.

Tracy has on a rerun of Eve and I'm actually laughing. This is shocking. And whatever happened to guest star Morris Day? Or, for that matter, Eve?

I really like the new U2 album, No Line on the Horizon. I'm in "like" with it. I'm not in "love" with it. There's definite filler there and the rockers aren't as strong as the quieter, more experimental songs. Still, it's far from the disaster that some had suggested it would be.

It's been three weeks and Jimmy Fallon's version of Late Night hasn't gotten a lot better. The Roots are still one kick-ass house band though.

I'm trying to figure out how the Colorado Avalanche got so bad, so quickly.

Don't tell me how Battlestar Galactica ends because I haven't watched it yet, but I will before the day is done. This may be the TV show that I wind up missing the most now that it's gone, a sure sign that it ended at the right time: leaving us wanting more.

Why does wine get better with age but human beings only get achy, breaky, bald and fat?

Peace.

A MERE SCRAP OF PAPER...

2009-03-16T10:52:00.003-07:00

Today what's on my mind is the sanctity of contracts. It was the Austro-Hungarian foreign minister Metternich who famously proclaimed that a contract or treaty is nothing more "than a mere scrap of paper." The truthfulness of this amoral statement gets proven to us all the time, most recently in situations as radically different as the AIG bonuses and the Jay Cutler soap opera in Denver.

Bonuses? They Don't Need No Stinkin' Bonuses!

Ah, AIG. You've gotta love them. Once again they are about to pay out hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses, despite losing over $99 billion last year and despite receiving a massive bailout package from the Federal government.

AIG executives argue that the bonuses are part of a contractual obligation that must be paid to their executives and that the law upholds their right to make those payments. (Translation: "nyah nyah nyah na na!") This is interesting to me because if I've learned one thing about the modern workplace, it is that nothing is ever really guaranteed. I signed paperwork to receive a 4% raise for 2009, but then Gannett had me and at least 2000 other employees take an unpaid week off during the first quarter to try and cut costs and stave off bankruptcy. If it happens again in each financial quarter, there goes most of that 4% raise.

Or how about the United Auto Workers giving huge concessions to General Motors after they received a $15 billion government loan? Those concessions included no pay raises and cut backs in hours and benefits. These concessions had to be negotiated, sure, but they were done and GM got their way. Why is it okay for "the little people" to get less than they were promised when it is "impossible" to keep corrupt, incompetent and greedy executives from getting their bonuses? These are the times we live in.

Don't Drink the Orange Kool-Aid...and Don't Let the Door Hit You on the Way Out

I'm so sick and tired of the will-they-or-won't-they trade Jay saga of the Denver Broncos. It's funny though, living in Denver and listening to all of the talk show palaver about the issue--people still have a tremendous loyalty towards hometown team even when it is obvious that the owner has lost control, the new coach is in over his head and the entire direction of the franchise is trending down like the stock market. If you listen to most of the fans, they put most of the blame for the whole thing on whiny-boy Jay Cutler and his agent, slimy Bus Cook.

It is clear to me now that Bus Cook was hoping to stir up trouble in order to drive up Jay Cutler's next contract, especially since 2011 will probably be an "uncapped" year in the NFL. I don't believe that Cutler asked him to do this, but rather that Cutler is surprisingly naive about the way business works in the NFL and he has allowed himself to be manipulated by his agent. Jay is no babe in the woods--he carries an air of entitlement and a cockiness that is out of proportion to what he has accomplished thus far with the Broncos. He should never have viewed himself as untouchable or untradeable and until he leads the Broncos (or some team) to the playoffs, he will never be viewed as a truly elite quarterback whether he likes that or not.

But is the Denver Broncos team that is most responsible for this whole mess and the team will be ultimately responsible for trading their Pro Bowl quarterback for a bag of chips and some peanuts. What was Josh McDaniels thinking, even entertaining trading Cutler for draft picks and then acquiring Matt "One Year Wonder" Cassell? Sure, Denver needs draft picks to restock its defense with talented young players, but all of the rookie d-linemen and linebackers in the world can't get you more wins than a strong-armed, mobile quarterback with experience can. But then again, that is both the strength and the weakness of the so-called "Patriot Way"--no player is more indispensable than the coach and the organization and the coach is always right. This is the raison d'etre of Bill Belichick, but what works for him probably won't work for a 32-year old first time head coach at a new organization and that will prove to be the undoing of the Broncos thinking.

Hopefully, the Broncos will grant Cutler his wish and trade him sooner rather than later so that this sordid affair won't get drawn out any longer. My humble suggestion: see if you can sign Bryon Leftwich from the Steelers and draft a quarterback in the second or third round. He's had his career ups and downs, but he gives the team the best chance of any of the still-available quarterbacks to be respectable while the Broncos continue their extreme makeover. Chris Simms is strictly a backup, but he'll be one of the better backups in the NFL and then you just move forward as best as you can.

Peace...

I WATCHED THE WATCHMEN

2009-03-06T20:05:00.005-07:00

Call me a geek, a fan boy, a superhero lover, just don't call me late for dinner--I just had to see WATCHMEN on the day it was released. Since I happened to be furloughed--uh, "off" today, it worked out perfectly, especially since I like to avoid all the teens and out of control fan boys who crowd the movie theater on opening weekend.

Where was I? Oh yes, WATCHMEN. I loved it! Or, I should say, I really, really, really liked this quasi-nihilistic, post-modern, paranoid superhero fantasy adapted faithfully from the graphic novel of the same name. (Sidebar: Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' "Watchmen" is a legitimate graphic novel, with adult sophistication, complex themes and interwoven plots. I object to the overuse of the term "graphic novel", which should not apply to just any collection of comic book stories involving the same characters.) At times I was shocked by how faithful director Zach Snyder and his screenwriters actually were to the panels of the book. Whole swaths of dialogue are taken verbatim from the novel, sometimes to great effect (usually anything said by Roarshach, played by Jackie Earle Haley) and sometimes not so much (something about the character of The Comedian, played here by Jeffrey Dean Morgan, got lost in translation I think).

As you would expect from the director of THE 300, the movie is visually stunning, especially during a clever montage under the opening credits which lays out everything the uninitiated need to know about the history of Watchmen and the parallel universe the movie inhabits. You will hear critics complain about the length of the movie (a robust two hours and 41 minutes and towards the end it does start to feel like it), but frankly there's a lot of characters and a lot of time jumping going on and it's not like you could easily eliminate a character or a plot point and still have a coherent and faithful movie.

The story is a noirish nightmare tale of what happens when a society decides it doesn't need its "masked heroes" anymore. It is also a total deconstruction of every comic book superhero fable you've ever read or heard about and that is WATCHMEN's greatest genius. Just because someone wears a cool outfit and has the reflexes of a tiger, what gives them the right to call themselves a hero? How do we know they don't deal with the same dysfunctions as everyone else: psychosis, sexual dysfunction, petty jealousy or resentment? As the world stands on the brink of nuclear annihilation, the old band of Watchmen are being murdered or discredited one by one and initially only the sociopath Roarshach suspects it might be part of a master plan. The movie uncovers the plot, the past histories of all of the Watchmen and sets up a battle at the brink of apocalypse. The movie might be long, but it is never dull and it is one of the rare comic book type of story that is not afraid to let the characters express real emotion and talk through a few weighty topics. Just in case I'm making it sound boring, there's enough nudity (giant blue penis!) and broken bones to scare the squeamish away and appeal to the fan boy in all of us.

I'm rambling and I know it, so I'll finish by saying that the cast does a generally good job, with Haley's Roarshach doing the best job and Malin Akerman's Silk Spectre II probably faring the worst (although she looks good naked I have to admit). No matter how much money the movie makes, the studio should resist the temptation to concoct some phony sequel, something that would infuriate much of the novel's fan base and drive Alan Moore even further off the deep end. WATCHMEN is a unique visionary work that may not be for everybody but it certainly stands out from--and above many--superhero movies that have come before.

My Grade: A-

Directed by Zach Snyder. Written by Alex Tse and David Haybert. Stars Billy Crudup, Patrick Wilson, Malik Akerman, Matthew Goode, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Robert Wisden and Jackie Earle Haley. Rated 'R' for comic book violence, profanity, nudity and sexual situations.

Peace...

HOW TO SPEAK AND UNDERSTAND REPUBLICAN

2009-02-25T10:44:00.005-07:00

Hello bloggers and blog readers! Navigating through the convoluted and often contradictory language of politics can be difficult for the layperson. It can be espcially difficult to make sense of exactly what it is the Republicans are saying, especially when they are the minority party. (I call it, "GOPonics".) Here at The R Spot, I've decided to take some of the things that President Obama and the Democrats have been saying and run them through my special patented translator so that I can help people to understand the language differences between the two parties and to try to foster more bipartisan communication. Enjoy!
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WHAT OBAMA SAID: As Americans, we will emerge stronger from the current economic crisis...we will persevere.
WHAT REPUBLICANS HEARD: The same. (This is called a "cognate".)

WHAT DEMOCRATS SAY: We must become less dependent on foreign oil and we must increase efficiency if we are to rebuild our economy and make ourselves less vulnerable to volatility in the Middle East.
WHAT REPUBLICANS HEAR: Tree hugging Dems want us to rely on solar energy and wind power. We say, "Drill baby, drill!"

WHAT REPUBLICANS SAY: We believe that all Americans should have access to affordable health care.
WHAT REPUBLICANS MEAN: The current system isn't broken--even though we work in government, we don't trust it to do anything right and we don't know how to make any money off of it. So as long as you have a job, make over $100K a year, are old or so poor that you have to go to the emergency room, you'll have health care. No one else deserves it.

WHAT OBAMA SAID: We will make sure that the people that receive the bailout money are being held accountable...line by line if necessary.
WHAT REPUBLICANS HEAR: "Accountable" has many different meanings to Republicans, but in this context they hear, "The government is taking over the banks. Obama is a socialist!"

WHAT REPUBLICANS SAY: We are all thrilled and honored to see the American dream of an African-American becoming president finally coming true.
WHAT REPUBLICANS MEAN: We can't believe we lost to a black guy. We've got an Indian!

This is just a sample of course. And yes, Democrats occasionally have an idiomatic way of speaking and listening that requires it's own translation. (They hear the word "pork" a lot.) But hopefully, this will help provide a loose framework to better understand where our right-wing brothers and sisters are coming from. After all, it's about cooperation, right?

Peace...

24 WINNERS

2009-02-22T16:27:00.003-07:00

We won't be able to make my friend Dave & Kerstin's Annual Oscar party this year so that Tracy can rest and continue her recovery from a hysterectomy (nor will I be able to watch the Oscars with my movie expert, Z) but that doesn't mean I can't still make my Oscar picks. Not one to shy away from the lesser known categories, I'll dare to pick a winner in every category being presented tonight. How well did I do compared to you?

For a complete list of nominees, go to www.oscars.org.
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BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona (just a warning - I don't anticipate a lot of upsets)
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight (one of three sure things tonight)
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE: Wall-E (the second of three sure things)
BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN ART DIRECTION: The Dark Knight
BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN CINEMATOGRAPHY: The Reader (a mild upset - the Academy loves to honor Roger Deakins, who is a co-nominee for this award)
BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN COSTUME DESIGN: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: Man on Wire
BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT: The Witness - From the Balcony of Room 306 (I have no idea...but I like the title)
BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN FILM EDITING: Slumdog Millionaire
BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: Waltz with Bashir
BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN MAKEUP: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (the only way this loses is if the Academy voters somehow think that making Brad Pitt look like an old shriveled boy is ALL special effects)
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE: Slumdog Millionaire (should be Wall-E, but it's going to be that type of night)
BEST ORIGINAL SONG: "Jai Ho" from Slumdog Millionaire
BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM: Oktopodi (it's the only one I've seen, so why not take a shot?)
BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM: Manon on the Asphalt
BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN SOUND EDITING: The Dark Knight (should be Wall-E though)
BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN SOUND MIXING: Wall-E (the Academy splits the spoils for the sound awards)
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Slumdog Millionaire
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Milk (far and away the best and most known script of a lackluster category--and it's really more of an adapted screenplay)
BEST DIRECTOR: Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
BEST ACTOR: Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler (I'm rooting hard for Richard Jenkins, but the Academy loves comeback stories)
BEST ACTRESS: Kate Winslet, The Reader (almost a cinch, but you can't call it that when you have Meryl Streep in your category)
BEST PICTURE: Slumdog Millionaire (the third of three sure things)

"PAIN DON'T HURT"

2009-02-17T20:49:00.004-07:00

The Wrestler - My Grade: B+

I saw The Wrestler while on my mini-vacay the other day and found it to be a very solid American melodrama. Was it one of the Best Movies of 2008? Well, I'm not going to be revising my previous list, but it was nice to see a good, old-fashioned, gritty 70's style character study done well. The movie is also a departure for director Darren Aronofsky, who in the past has specialized in stylish, grandiose, Big Theme pictures (see Requiem for a Dream and The Fountain).

Mickey Rourke is sensational in his latest "comeback" role ("don't call it a comeback/he's been here for years") as washed-up wrestler Randy "The Ram", twenty years past his prime, but still going out every weekend, putting on the tights and giving his loyal fans the best show he can. The best parts of The Wrestler involve the little behind-the-scene details of what wrestlers do to prepare for their "bouts". Yes, wrestling is fake and not a real sport. However, that doesn't mean that these guys aren't good athletes and charismatic entertainers. Although a lot of the more sensational aspects of a match are worked out beforehand by the combatants, that should in no way give one the impression that wrestling doesn't tear up these guys bodies. For the squeamish, there's some particularly nasty business involving a staple gun that will probably have you closing your eyes until the scene is over.

Other good scenes involve the halting, insecure and probably unhealthy relationship between The Ram and a stripper named "Cassidy" played with a winking confidence by Hollywood's go-to-gal for over-30 nudity, Marisa Tomei. As Aronofsky has pointed out in interviews, there is a nice parallel story here between two people who depend on their bodies to make a living and how each one has to deal in their own way with the realization that they won't be able to depend on those bodies much longer. Still, it left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth to see yet ANOTHER big screen story involving a tough talking but kind-hearted stripper and it bothers even more that such a role earns yet another Oscar nomination. Although the frequently underrated Tomei does a great job, it is impossible to ignore the cliche. (If she wanted to win another Oscar to go along with her victory for My Cousin Vinny, she should have lobbied the producers to rewrite the movie back into the 60's and turn her character into a Holocaust survivor. But I digress.)

A less successful plotline in The Wrestler involves Randy's attempt to reach out to his estranged daughter Stephanie played by Evan Rachel Wood. While Wood is usually one of Hollywood's more interesting and talented young actors, here her role is underwritten and her acting choices basically amount to either shrieking hostility or tearful diffidence. I never really bought into this storyline.

The Wrestler is worth a trip to the theater, especially for a matinee. My friends have teased me because I have not been a Rourke fan over the years and here, I was actually blown away by his performance. Hey, I never found the guy sexy and if you spend fifteen years making uninteresting movies and giving largely uninteresting performances, then yes, I'd say The Wrestler qualifies as a bit of a revelation (even if the part was pretty much written expressly for him). Randy The Ram never feels like a performance and he always feels like a real person. He is charming, deeply flawed, relatable. Unlike the performances turned in by his fellow Best Actor nominees, Rourke's work is more than a highly skilled impersonation (see Langella, Frank or Penn, Sean) or a creation of terrific makeup and special effects (see Pitt, Brad) and his character is more open and less frigid than Richard Jenkins' repressed literature professor in The Visitor. But will Rourke win? My gut feeling is probably not--Sean Penn's performance is showier and he's playing a completely different type of character than anything we've seen him do before. Besides, Penn is universally admired among his fellow actors in a way that Rourke could never hope to be. That should not in any way diminish appreciation for The Wrestler, rather it is a statement of, as Walter Cronkite might say, just the "way it is."

THE WRESTLER stars Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei and Evan Rachel Wood. It is Rated 'R' for wrestling violence, adult themes, profanity, brief nudity and sexuality. Written by Rober Siegel. Directed by Darren Aronofsky.

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Now Comes The Hard Part...

President Obama and his staff successfully shepherded the stimulus package to pass through the Senate last week, but as painful as that process was and as many concessions as they had to make (a lot of money earmarked for "green" job initiatives got gutted in favor of Republican sponsored tax cuts), it was a major victory to get the bill passed. Now it will be interesting to see what happens when the economy continues its inexorable decline into Depression over the next nine months--how will Obama be able to convince a nervous and cynical populace that better times may be right around the corner when another five million people are probably about to lose their jobs? Can people be convinced that putting money in the coffers of the banks and the moneylenders as opposed to the pockets of working middle class Americans is just what the economy needs right now?

At least the Republicans look more pathetic and out of touch than ever...when only one party in a two-party country seems to have a grasp of the problem at hand, that buys time to make mistakes and fashion the message. The next nine months may tell us a lot about just what kind of presidency the Obama administration is going to be.

Peace.

SICK OF IT

2009-02-12T09:33:00.001-07:00

I’m sick of hearing about steroids in baseball, but not football or anything else non-Olympic. This comes down to one thing—stats and historical importance and that’s why I think sports writers and hosts especially get so up in arms about it.

Yes, it is unethical to have an uneven playing field and yes, anabolic steroids are illegal. (But HGH isn’t and baseball doesn’t test for that). But do we really think some players wouldn’t have used steroids 70 years ago if they could have had access to them or been aware of what they could do? In a sport that didn’t even allow blacks to compete in the big leagues for almost 50 years, why are we so worried about who should be in the Hall of Fame or who the “true” home run champ of all time is? Isn’t the real problem that astronomical contracts are being given to those who produce “numbers” on the field regardless of whether or not they know how to be champions on and off the field, thereby encouraging players to disregard their health and the rules for the next $20 million a year contract? What do you think—should we treat all baseball numbers the same regardless of which era they were accrued in or should we start putting asterisks everywhere? Should Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Alex Rodriguez be able to go to the Hall of Fame and if so, what about Pete Rose?

Something to think about…

Peace.

FAMOUS PEOPLE I'VE SEEN IN THE MEN'S ROOM

2009-02-11T12:05:00.002-07:00

This is true and I'm not making it up. Also, nothing untoward or illegal occurred with any of these sightings--after all, I have NOT met Senator Larry Craig!

HOLLYWOOD DIVISION
Kurtwood Smith
Rainn Wilson
Cuba Gooding Jr.
Richard Lewis

LOCAL
Most of the anchormen at the station where I work (but thankfully, none of the anchorwomen)
Governor Bill Ritter

Remember...everyone poops!

Peace...

WITH HER UMBRELLA, NO LESS

2009-02-10T20:40:00.002-07:00

So Much For A Promising Career

Entertainment websites are reporting that prior to the Grammys, pop star Chris Brown and girlfriend Rhianna (also a pop star if you haven't heard) got into a vicious fight near Hancock Park (where I used to live!) where Chris Brown assaulted Rhianna so severely that she had to be admitted to a hospital. The tabloids and entertainment blogs are all over this story, so I won't belabor it here, but what I find most interesting about this story are two things:

1) Reportedly on a rainy Saturday night in Los Angeles, Brown may have beaten Rhianna with her umbrella. Let that sink in for a minute ("Hey hey hey/With my um-brell-a/Hey hey hey"). How wrong is that? Think she'll ever sing that song in concert again?

2) Jay-Z and Ne-Yo are supposedly so protective of their protege Rhianna that they may already be cooking up a way to kill Brown's career. If they succeed, Brown really will be the next Michael Jackson--an excellent singer and dancer who's career goes AWOL because of his own criminal, unsavory activity.

I'll keep you posted.

Now THAT'S A Golden Globe

You've got to see this video:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/peggy/salma-hayek-breastfeeds-an-african-baby

Salma Hayek whips out a breast to feed a starving African baby on NIGHTLINE!! That's one small step towards sainthood for Ms. Hayek, one giant leap for man.

I have more to write about, including our idiot representatives in Congress, but I need to check in on Tracy, so I'll save it for another time. You've been a beautiful audience, please tip your wait staff.

Peace...

THAT'S REALLY SUPER, SUPER BOWL...

2009-02-03T19:47:00.002-07:00

I'm back bitches!! This will be a quick blast because I'm still on wifely caretaker duty and, to be totally honest, I'm also trying to follow tonight's big Spurs-Nuggets tilt.

One Hell of A Fourth Quarter, But Best Super Bowl Ever?

Congrats to the Steel Curtain for winning their sixth Super Bowl in history. Six world championships in 34 years is pretty amazing until you remember that the Pittsburgh Steelers had zero championships (and not many more playoff appearances) in their first 45-odd years of existence. I guess things have a way of evening out, right? I came away more impressed by the Arizona Cardinals (no championships in 61 years and counting) and their never-say-die effort. And repeat after me, "Larry Fitzgerald is the best player in the NFL." There, that wasn't so hard, was it?

But all the sportswriters falling all over themselves to call this the best Super Bowl ever? Sorry - no sale! Try and remember one significant or interesting play from the third quarter? Or, aside from that unbelievable interception return by James Harrison, remember anything else that happened in the second quarter? The fourth quarter of Super Bowl XLIII was everything that's great about American professional football. The first three quarters was a penalty-ridden, one-sided mess. Let's keep it real and avoid the hagiography.

My thanks to the kind and attentive staff at Rose Medical Center in Denver for taking such good care of Tracy during her hysterectomy (except for that one nurse. You know who you are. You will get no love!) And to any of the readers of this blog who have sent good thoughts, my thanks for those as well. Please keep them coming.

Peace...

THE ENCORE PRESENTATION

2009-01-26T19:53:00.003-07:00

I'll be taking a break from blogging for a couple of days while my wife Tracy undergoes a myomectomy (she has a blog about it that's actually pretty cool -- Tracy's Myomectomy Blog. Check it out!) and I try to pick up the slack while she recuperates. Don't worry, I'll be back in plenty of time to talk about the Super Bowl, Obama's First 100 Days and whatever else strikes my fancy.

For now, enjoy this little nugget from last February. In television, this would be euphemistically referred to as "an encore presentation". In lay terms, the upcoming part of this post is a "rerun". Enjoy!

-------------------

Amy Winehouse is coming out with her own line of fragrances reports entertainment blogmeister Perez Hilton. I have a few suggestions for possible names, but please take them with a grain of salt. Remember, I'm the guy that suggested that a cool new slogan for Major League Baseball would be "Baseball: Like Cricket, but Even Slower!" For some reason, they didn't like that...

POSSIBLE AMY WINEHOUSE FRAGRANCE NAMES
Drunken Whore
Rehab
NoGood
Flatulence
Neo Retro
IHaveAGreatBackingBand
Pissed
Exposure
Cocaine

Peace...

REFLECTIONS ETERNAL (One Possibility)

2009-01-22T22:11:00.004-07:00

WASHINGTON D.C. Dateline: January 20, 2017

"Today, Jennifer Granholm took the oath of office as America's 45th (and first female) president, something that might not have been thought possible before the remarkable, groundbreaking presidency of Barack Obama. Obama weathered an often rocky and turbulent two-term presidency, but is credited with lifting the U.S. economy out of a deep global recession, restoring the prestige of the United States around the world, providing greater security to Afghanistan and generally raising the American self-image after enduring the dark days of the Bush Administration.

Re-elected by a narrow margin over both independent Sarah Palin and Republican nominee Bobby Jindahl in the 2012 elections, Obama finally succeeded in ending America's almost seven year recession during his second term, laying the groundwork for the Democrats to retain the White House and the House of Representatives behind the presidential campaign of Granholm, the likable and attractive former governor of Michigan.

In what could be perceived as a bit of bipartisan gamesmanship, Granholm took the oath of office from Chief Justice John Roberts on the family Bible of former Republican president (and Michigan congressperson) Gerald R. Ford. Afterwards, she pledged to continue America's economic recovery and complete the mission that Obama set forth to "completely wean America off of dependence on foreign oil by the end of my first term." She thanked President Obama for returning "humanity, decency and compassion for all Americans" to the White House and she promised to try and "follow in Obama's footsteps" in attempting to keep America at the forefront of green technology and scientific innovation.

President Granholm likened the recent American renaissance to the Detroit Lions recent back-to-back Super Bowl championships, noting that the Lions went 0-16 in 2008 and lost 25 games in a row before building into a perennial contender that is now the envy of the NFL..."

Isn't it nice to dream in the possible again and to believe that the person in the Oval Office is on your side for a change? Congratulations to President Obama and to all of America. I've never been prouder.

Peace...

MY TOP MOVIE PICKS FROM '08

2009-01-19T18:59:00.003-07:00

I have to get this post out of the way tonight so that I can concentrate on the Inauguration tomorrow, which is merely one of the most important events in American history. Or so I've heard.

Besides, I "only" saw 29 movies from the year 2008 (most via Netflix), so there's no point in trying to squeeze in a few more titles over the next couple of weeks to get a more representative sample to choose from because there are just too many movies to see. And most of them aren't any good.

So without any further adieu, here are my five favorite movies from the last year. (If I've written about the movie previously, I'll put an asterisk "*" by it and keep the comments very short.)
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1. SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE* - A spectacular coming-of-age tale from modern day Mumbai, told in the oh-so-popular time jumping fashion that is all the rage these days. The movie is dramatic yes, and at times very dark, but it is also filled with joy, humor and some of the infectious colorful spirit that infuses the very best Bollywood films--even though this is an English language British production. Describing Slumdog doesn't do it justice--just see it.

2. MILK - Directed by Gus Van Sant. Written by Dustin Lance Black. Stars Sean Penn, James Franco, James Brolin and Emile Hirsch. The centerpiece is the fantastic performance by Penn as slain San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected public official in America. But every aspect of this film is top notch, from the evocative (but not showy) cinematography by Harris Savides, to the strong and never preachy screenplay by Dustin Lance Black (TV's Big Love) to James Brolin's surprisingly sympathetic portrait of fellow supervisor Dan White, the man who ultimately killed Milk. Moving, illuminating, funny, sexy and clear-eyed, MILK is a biopic that is never dry and leaves scarcely a dry eye.

3. THE DARK KNIGHT* - Dark and brilliant it managed to even surpass the excellent franchise reboot, Batman Begins. Heath Ledger IS the best supporting actor for his twisted, villainous and yet moving take on the Joker, but one shouldn't overlook terrific performances from Michael Caine as Alfred, Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent/Two Face and of course Bale himself as "the Batman."

4. THE VISITOR - Written and directed by Tom McCarthy. Stars Richard Jenkins. Reminiscent of the best of the 1970's character studies that Hollywood studios used to make but really don't anymore, The Visitor is about a 50-something literature professor from Connecticut who returns to the apartment he owns in New York City and discovers that it has been rented out from under him to two illegal immigrants. But that is just where the story begins, as the professor's world slowly opens up and he finds something worth caring about greater than his humdrum life. Trust me, it's better than it sounds and the movie manages to transcend the cliches, thanks primarily to Jenkins' moving, award-worthy performance.

5. FROST/NIXON - Directed by Ron Howard. Written by Peter Morgan (based on his stage play). Stars Frank Langella, Michael Sheen, Sam Rockwell, Oliver Platt and Rebecca Hall. With just a few more character insights and a little trimming this would have been a great movie. Even so, this movie still has a great performance by Langella as Richard Nixon, perhaps still America's most misunderstood president. Also, don't think for a moment that the parallels between Watergate and Nixon and Guantanamo/Iraq and Dubya aren't made painstakingly, alarmingly clear. Still, a lot of the movie leading up to the sit down interview between David Frost and Richard Nixon felt more like background instead of buildup. However, the ultimate showdown between the playboy interviewer and the disgraced ex-president is well worth the wait.

Honorable Mentions: 6. Wall-E*, 7. Iron Man*, 8. Tropic Thunder*, 9. The Take, 10. Rachel Getting Married*.

Tomorrow, Obama Day.

Peace...

MY BEST OF '08

2009-01-17T22:34:00.004-07:00

I'll hold off on my movie picks until I see at least one of the following three movies in the coming week: FROST/NIXON, DOUBT or REVOLUTIONARY ROAD. But I'm happy to share some of the other highlights of pop culture that I experienced from the past year. As always, your comments are welcome!

Top Music Downloads

Album Category
TV On The Radio, "Dear Science," (partial review in a previous post) -- Album of the Year.

Vampire Weekend

Raphael Saddiq, "The Way I See It"-- Old style 60's soul dressed up with a little modern day hip-hop sheen from one of the masters of the genre. If you haven't heard it, you've gotta check it out.

Beck, "Modern Guilt" -- perfect blend of Beck's patented wacky white boy funk (see "Odelay") and his more, somber and mature singer-songwriter side (see "Sea Changes").

Lil' Wayne, "Tha Carter III" -- Profane and insane, it is nevertheless plain that the new wizard of rhyme is none other than Lil' Wayne.

Singles Category
Beyonce, "Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)" -- just try and resist this song. I dare you. No, I double-dog dare you. Even Sigourney Weaver confessed her love for this song and that's when you know a song is huge--when everyone from age 7 to 70 is referencing them.

The Wild Beasts, "The Devil's Crayon" -- discovered this song through radio airplay (remember that?) on KCRW in Santa Monica and wound up downloading it. The rhythm is reminiscent of middle-era Talking Heads and the energy is infectious.

Kanye West, "Heartless" -- I didn't care much for Kanye West's new 808's & Heartbreak album (the idea is artistically interesting--what if you use icy cold computer technology to try to cover the pain of love and life lost? But ultimately it was too much Auto-Tune and too few beats) but there is something about this particular song that I found very affecting.

Lil' Wayne, "Tie My Hands" -- "Lollipop" and "A Milli" get all the airplay, but this is the best song on the album.

Vampire Weekend, "A-Punk"

Dido, "I Don't Believe in Love" -- It's groovy but typically gloomy technoblues from Dido. Nevertheless, you'll find yourself singing along to the song in your car, but not through your headphones, because that would be unsafe.

Top Five Television Shows

1. MAD MEN (AMC) - you've heard enough about this show from me and others. If you're not watching it, start! (Returns July of 2009).
2. John Adams [HBO - miniseries] - the best movie I saw all year was this 7 1/2 hour masterpiece on HBO. Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney were riveting portraying Mr. and Mrs. Adams from the dawn of the American Revolution to their respective deaths.
3. The Shield (FX) - after seven harrowing seasons, The Shield shut down and oh yes, THEY WENT THERE. Every harrowing, horrible, depressing thing that could happen to our favorite conflicted cops happened this year. And it was thrilling.
4. The Office (NBC) - Finally, a traditional network show. The Office survived a writer's strike and a sluggish start to season 4 to continue delivering the funny in an increasingly offbeat, yet endearing ways.
5. Carrier (PBS) - Sensational verite documentary about life on an active duty aircraft carrier headed for the Persian Gulf. Great cinematography and compelling stories from start to finish.

Top Podcasts

This American Life - adapted from the WBEZ public radio show in Chicago hosted by Ira Glass (and also produced as an occasional TV series on Showtime), This American Life features the best storytelling on radio, producing compelling and informative features centered around a variety of different themes every week. It's also never stodgy which is a tremendous accomplishment in itself.

The Dan Patrick Show - also available through syndication, but I prefer to download the show in hour segments. Dan Patrick is just as funny and engaging on the radio as he was on SportsCenter and he always manages to get the most interesting guests in sports and entertainment.

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A Quick DVD Review: BURN AFTER READING

A Coen Brothers Film. Stars George Clooney, Frances McDormand, Brad Pitt, John Malkovich and Tilda Swinton. Rated 'R'.

This movie provides numerous chuckles as it explores what happens when idiotic, self-deluded employees at a D.C. gym collide with idiotic, self-involved government operatives over what is thought to be a piece of lost intelligence (get it?) This shaggy dog story shambles along amiably (and with relatively little blood for a Coen Brothers film) until it dawned on me that it had no real point and no real ending. Although still a trademark Coen Brothers dark comedy, I guess this film counts as a lighthearted trifle after the unrelenting, sober darkness of the Oscar-winning NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN. BURN is still worth a rental, especially for Brad Pitt's goofball performance as a gym trainer named Chet. His work here confirms what I've always suspected--he is truly a character actor trapped in a leading man's body.

My grade: C+

Peace...