Sunday, April 29, 2012
Pontypool -- Canadians revisit "The Crazies" a la Orson Welles
There's a whole genre of books and movies involving small town, everyday folks becoming infected with a disease that causes everyone but a handful of main characters to turn homicidal. Often, these are zombie movies, but I think flicks such as 'The Crazies,' 'Tommyknockers' and 'Children of the Corn' also fit the bill. In the apocalypse, your worst enemy is the milkman...
You've seen the drill: Farmer Bob's otherwise sweetnatured, grandmotherly wife decapitates him with hedge clippers, the good folks from American Gothic turn on each other and chase each other down the street with their pitchforks, the postman or Girl Scout cookie sales girl runs into the house to gnaw at your arm. Americana becomes an inverted caricature of itself. Creepy, no?
Well, about nine nights ago, seeking emotional refuge from a fight with my significant other, I lost myself in "Pontypool," an unusual Canadian film that found an interesting twist on the 'Homicide has gone viral' genre. The New York Times review is here.
Almost all of the action aside from the opening scenes takes place inside of a small town's 3-man talk radio studio. You rarely see the infected townspeople. Mostly, the radio station workers (a grizzled shock-jock style talk radio host, his exasperated female producer, and a young studio girl on the controls) just get reports from callers and their eye-in-the-sky news helicopter guy, who of course makes the mistake of landing the chopper at some point and hiding out in a silo.
His panicky descriptions of the insanity he's witnessing are all phoned in. There's a ton of death, but the audience sees only two fatalities throughout the entire flick. All the rest is called or radioed in and recounted, so you have to picture the killing for yourself. Well, I liked this movie, but I could see how someone else would get bored stiff.
Here's a spoiler: the way the infection gets transmitted... do you really want to keep reading? Are u sureeeee?? Well, ok then...is words. Certain words are infected, but the infection seems to bounce from word to word. So the same word isn't necessarily infected for everyone. At least, I think that's how it works.
Someone says 'everyone is being killed!' And suddenly they're repeating the word killed over and over until they're crazy, and then bloodthirsty. How the infection works and how it gets cured aren't really fully fleshed out, which left me unsatisified but resigned... the characters never fully comprehend what's going on, so why should the audience?
The New York Times review makes accurate note of the pretension here (We're telling you something deep about language and media and... aw, no we're not. Bring on the zombies!) and picks up on the whole Orson Welles, 'War of the Worlds' parallel. Orson drove half of America nuts when he delivered War of the Worlds via radio half a century ago; people were so naive and fresh to media back then, they figured the alien invasion he was documenting must be true!
Anyhow, I was mostly impressed that 'Pontypool' could keep me interested while telling rather than showing, and left my ears to translate pictures of this infected town to my head. It also helped me cool-down after my to-do with my girlfriend. I'd suggest it to fans of the 'small town turns crazy' genre, but not to everyone. Your scary movie fan signing out!
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Wall Street Journal reporter's mom loves the Olive Garden
This story is great ... an 85-year-old grandma has been "reviewing" restaurants for the Grand Forks Herald in North Dakota, including such gems as Applebees, Taco Bell and KFC. The other day, she wrote a glowing review of what she called the largest, most beautiful new restaurant in town: the Olive Garden.
It turns out Marilyn Hagerty had one bowl of pasta and a glass of water, declining the lemonade. Her review is like a play-by-play of her lunch outing.
It's also "gone viral," generating some 290,000 hits on the paper's website. (The next most well-read story on the site drew 5,000 or so hits.) Predictably, some blogs and haters are taking her to town for writing about the mundane eatery down the street in anything but their own snarky, condescending fashion.
Let the haters hate. I'm all for grandma, for lots of different reasons. It turns out she's the widow of the former newspaper editor, and the mother of a Wall Street Journal reporter. She didn't raise no slouch.
She's also been doing this for years -- critiquing local eateries that a frugal, 85-year-old woman might actually enjoy, as opposed to some bullshit haute cuisine that no one but a 1-percenter could actually afford during a recession. And when I say years, I mean she's been with the paper six decades, according to this AP piece, which is the most thorough and best-written of all the coverage I've seen of her Olive Garden expose online.
But there's another reason for me to love Grandma Hagerty. While young folks are flocking online, it's the 40-and-older crowd (if not the 70-and-older crowd) that is keeping print circulation afloat. And print subsidizes online coverage alot more than online subsidizes print, at least for now. (Old folks, to my knowledge, are the fastest growing section of the American population. Let's hope they all get newspaper subscriptions, fast, or print is a goner.)
In other words, her loyal following of frugal, octogenarian, Taco Bell-eating print readers provides the salary for the more skeptical, critical-thinking, self-fashioned "elite" reporters digging through public documents for their next big scoop.
You StateHouse reporters and public events bloggers think you're where the action is, but your front page or local section "expose" is just the accident these readers trip across on their way to her restaurant 'reviews.' (I put 'reviews' in quote marks because she admits that if she doesn't like a restaurant, she doesn't write anything. Good old grandma!)
Newspapers, in the past 10 years, have adopted the mantra "local-local" to describe their eagerness to corner a market the New York Times and Wall Street Journal can't, which involves printing hyper-local news, like what's on the school lunch menu.
The problem is, it doesn't work. There's no room in the shrinking print edition of your daily newspaper to report on every old pothole, every new park bench and every change to the school lunch menu in your entire coverage area, and there's fewer bodies in the newsroom to pull that mundane crap together. It seems hardly worth the effort, especially if you're at a statewide paper known for its investigative work, like the Star Tribune, which does "local-local" worse than any paper I've ever seen.
But newspaper readers are typically older propertyowners with kids who want to know about things that will impact their property values, tie up traffic, inspire them to switch school districts or otherwise waste their tax dollars. So if a McDonalds is opening up down the street and traffic is going to be a bear, they want to know that. If that McDonalds is super sketchy and the kids behind the counter pick their nose and pocket your change, they want to know that, too.
Weekly newspapers tend to do this kind of coverage quite well. They're at the Planning Commission meetings and leafing through the business license requests and the zoning variances -- the kind of stuff the big boy newspapers often can't be bothered with.
How can print dailies compete with the weeklies without looking picayunne? They can contract community voices like Grandma Hagerty to do that kind of pothole coverage reporting for them -- "Mcdonalds has opened up downtown! What's the deal with all the broken parking meters? That new playground is perfect for my grandkids!" -- which would allow their core staff to focus on the bigger stories.
That's just my two cents.
It turns out Marilyn Hagerty had one bowl of pasta and a glass of water, declining the lemonade. Her review is like a play-by-play of her lunch outing.
It's also "gone viral," generating some 290,000 hits on the paper's website. (The next most well-read story on the site drew 5,000 or so hits.) Predictably, some blogs and haters are taking her to town for writing about the mundane eatery down the street in anything but their own snarky, condescending fashion.
Let the haters hate. I'm all for grandma, for lots of different reasons. It turns out she's the widow of the former newspaper editor, and the mother of a Wall Street Journal reporter. She didn't raise no slouch.
She's also been doing this for years -- critiquing local eateries that a frugal, 85-year-old woman might actually enjoy, as opposed to some bullshit haute cuisine that no one but a 1-percenter could actually afford during a recession. And when I say years, I mean she's been with the paper six decades, according to this AP piece, which is the most thorough and best-written of all the coverage I've seen of her Olive Garden expose online.
But there's another reason for me to love Grandma Hagerty. While young folks are flocking online, it's the 40-and-older crowd (if not the 70-and-older crowd) that is keeping print circulation afloat. And print subsidizes online coverage alot more than online subsidizes print, at least for now. (Old folks, to my knowledge, are the fastest growing section of the American population. Let's hope they all get newspaper subscriptions, fast, or print is a goner.)
In other words, her loyal following of frugal, octogenarian, Taco Bell-eating print readers provides the salary for the more skeptical, critical-thinking, self-fashioned "elite" reporters digging through public documents for their next big scoop.
You StateHouse reporters and public events bloggers think you're where the action is, but your front page or local section "expose" is just the accident these readers trip across on their way to her restaurant 'reviews.' (I put 'reviews' in quote marks because she admits that if she doesn't like a restaurant, she doesn't write anything. Good old grandma!)
Newspapers, in the past 10 years, have adopted the mantra "local-local" to describe their eagerness to corner a market the New York Times and Wall Street Journal can't, which involves printing hyper-local news, like what's on the school lunch menu.
The problem is, it doesn't work. There's no room in the shrinking print edition of your daily newspaper to report on every old pothole, every new park bench and every change to the school lunch menu in your entire coverage area, and there's fewer bodies in the newsroom to pull that mundane crap together. It seems hardly worth the effort, especially if you're at a statewide paper known for its investigative work, like the Star Tribune, which does "local-local" worse than any paper I've ever seen.
But newspaper readers are typically older propertyowners with kids who want to know about things that will impact their property values, tie up traffic, inspire them to switch school districts or otherwise waste their tax dollars. So if a McDonalds is opening up down the street and traffic is going to be a bear, they want to know that. If that McDonalds is super sketchy and the kids behind the counter pick their nose and pocket your change, they want to know that, too.
Weekly newspapers tend to do this kind of coverage quite well. They're at the Planning Commission meetings and leafing through the business license requests and the zoning variances -- the kind of stuff the big boy newspapers often can't be bothered with.
How can print dailies compete with the weeklies without looking picayunne? They can contract community voices like Grandma Hagerty to do that kind of pothole coverage reporting for them -- "Mcdonalds has opened up downtown! What's the deal with all the broken parking meters? That new playground is perfect for my grandkids!" -- which would allow their core staff to focus on the bigger stories.
That's just my two cents.
Monday, February 27, 2012
West Side Story and 'When the gun goes bang bang bang, who's going to know who's the one?'
I finally watched the video for the New Orleans duo the Knux ... "Bang! Bang!" ... which is a lot 'cleaner' than the version of the song I'm used to, but worth watching all the same, especially if you're a fan of West Side Story.
Here's the video.
I remember buying this album a couple of years ago and thinking "Bang, Bang!" the one song I was familiar with, was the only song I really enjoyed, but I have to give the album a better listen. This song, in my humble opinion, is spectacular, even though I can only make sense of every third sentence or so.
The gist of it, from what I can tell, is that this rock-rap duo are remembering their mispent youth, as every rapper from JayZ to Pit Bull to Fifty Cent tends to do, and kind of poking fun at all the tough-guy bullshit they had to put up with in the 'hood, and some of the shenanigans they dealt out themselves, like "jackin' them cars."
They go on to say they "flipped the script" on the gangster lifestyle and found a higher calling, despite their poverty:
"I don't wan' sound like a hypocrite, but momma raised me for greatness,
but we broke as fuck and hope is stuck and New Orleans defines the cage"
Here's another one of my favorite lines:
"Where they mommas at, where they mommas at? Nobody knows, nobody cares. To claim your hard, come go through the ward,come fuck with them,when nobody dares."
Given the subject matter, West Side Story was an inspired choice for the video, and the execution was spot on.
Here's the fully lyrics courtesy of Metro Lyrics, though I doubt whoever transcribed this understood each and every word verbatim:
When the gun goes bang bang bang, who's gonna know who's the one? No, nobody knows.When the gun goes bang bang bang, who's gonna know who's the one? No, nobody knows.
Takin' it back to 94, when niggas was dealin' the finest soul,
Crack the hit then fucked it up, and baby gangstas was full of they cluck.
Pluck the feathers up off the duck, you stuck like chuck if carried the banter
Pistol player knuckled up, then better to telling the children to scatter
Everyone knows don't fuck with them ho's drinking with keisha from out they yo
Full of that clearly pop a silly when niggas first heard the choppers city
And I was a dancin' b-boy who resorted to slinging them heat boys
And jackin' them cars, mackin' them broads, sadistic shit, then flipped the script.
I don't wan' sound like a hypocrite, but momma raised me for greatness,
but we broke as fuck and hope is stuck and New Orleans defines the cage hits
The animal house like getting out like takin' food from a animals mouth,roar roar like the dungeon dragon, takin' it back to the cannibals house
When the gun goes bang bang bang, who's gonna know who's the one? No, no nobody knows. When the gun goes bang bang bang, who's gonna know who's the one?
No, no nobody knows.
I'm from a place you couldn't imagine, beautiful women some Creole with ass
Them niggas are hazards, we bitchin' they crabbin', and changin lanes like benjamin massing
From 10 to 12 they thinkin' it's cool, something awful when they aint in the mood.
Don't get 'em bent, fuck that innocence, cause in a sense they film as you.
Where they mommas at, where they mommas at? Nobody knows, nobody cares. To claim your hard, come go through the ward,come fuck with them,when nobody dares
Your job, yes, ya ho-jocker, put that pop on you like Redenbacher
The things they say, the slang they use, catching kung fu while they bangin' the tools.
When the gun goes bang bang bang, who's gonna know the one? No, nobody knows.When the gun goes bang bang bang, who's gonna know the one? No, nobody knows.
Even when it's cold outside 'round here. It's a 100 degrees, I keep the heat around here.It's when you least expect it, people creep up from the rear,it's racking my brain cannot contain my fear.
'Cause even when it's cold outside 'round here. It's a 100 degrees, I keep the heat around here.It's when you least expect it, people creep up from the rear,it's racking my brain cannot contain my fear.
Copied from MetroLyrics.com
Here's the video.
I remember buying this album a couple of years ago and thinking "Bang, Bang!" the one song I was familiar with, was the only song I really enjoyed, but I have to give the album a better listen. This song, in my humble opinion, is spectacular, even though I can only make sense of every third sentence or so.
The gist of it, from what I can tell, is that this rock-rap duo are remembering their mispent youth, as every rapper from JayZ to Pit Bull to Fifty Cent tends to do, and kind of poking fun at all the tough-guy bullshit they had to put up with in the 'hood, and some of the shenanigans they dealt out themselves, like "jackin' them cars."
They go on to say they "flipped the script" on the gangster lifestyle and found a higher calling, despite their poverty:
"I don't wan' sound like a hypocrite, but momma raised me for greatness,
but we broke as fuck and hope is stuck and New Orleans defines the cage"
Here's another one of my favorite lines:
"Where they mommas at, where they mommas at? Nobody knows, nobody cares. To claim your hard, come go through the ward,come fuck with them,when nobody dares."
Given the subject matter, West Side Story was an inspired choice for the video, and the execution was spot on.
Here's the fully lyrics courtesy of Metro Lyrics, though I doubt whoever transcribed this understood each and every word verbatim:
When the gun goes bang bang bang, who's gonna know who's the one? No, nobody knows.When the gun goes bang bang bang, who's gonna know who's the one? No, nobody knows.
Takin' it back to 94, when niggas was dealin' the finest soul,
Crack the hit then fucked it up, and baby gangstas was full of they cluck.
Pluck the feathers up off the duck, you stuck like chuck if carried the banter
Pistol player knuckled up, then better to telling the children to scatter
Everyone knows don't fuck with them ho's drinking with keisha from out they yo
Full of that clearly pop a silly when niggas first heard the choppers city
And I was a dancin' b-boy who resorted to slinging them heat boys
And jackin' them cars, mackin' them broads, sadistic shit, then flipped the script.
I don't wan' sound like a hypocrite, but momma raised me for greatness,
but we broke as fuck and hope is stuck and New Orleans defines the cage hits
The animal house like getting out like takin' food from a animals mouth,roar roar like the dungeon dragon, takin' it back to the cannibals house
When the gun goes bang bang bang, who's gonna know who's the one? No, no nobody knows. When the gun goes bang bang bang, who's gonna know who's the one?
No, no nobody knows.
I'm from a place you couldn't imagine, beautiful women some Creole with ass
Them niggas are hazards, we bitchin' they crabbin', and changin lanes like benjamin massing
From 10 to 12 they thinkin' it's cool, something awful when they aint in the mood.
Don't get 'em bent, fuck that innocence, cause in a sense they film as you.
Where they mommas at, where they mommas at? Nobody knows, nobody cares. To claim your hard, come go through the ward,come fuck with them,when nobody dares
Your job, yes, ya ho-jocker, put that pop on you like Redenbacher
The things they say, the slang they use, catching kung fu while they bangin' the tools.
When the gun goes bang bang bang, who's gonna know the one? No, nobody knows.When the gun goes bang bang bang, who's gonna know the one? No, nobody knows.
Even when it's cold outside 'round here. It's a 100 degrees, I keep the heat around here.It's when you least expect it, people creep up from the rear,it's racking my brain cannot contain my fear.
'Cause even when it's cold outside 'round here. It's a 100 degrees, I keep the heat around here.It's when you least expect it, people creep up from the rear,it's racking my brain cannot contain my fear.
Copied from MetroLyrics.com
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Actresses I could do without / Demi Moore's half-brother beats woman in head with telephone book
This just in from the U.K.'s Daily Mail: Demi Moore's half-brother is a Texas lunatic who once used a telephone book to beat his fiancee in the head for an hour.
Don't take my word for it. The story is here.
He's serving a 10 year jail sentence. Yikes.
The article says it's unclear how close he is to Demi Moore, even though they share the same father. It's not difficult to drop your seed left and right, so "half-brother" can mean anything ... a product of a one-night stand, for instance. But part of me isn't surprised that her blood relative is a yucky yuckster.
Demi Moore is toward the top of the list of celebrity females I could do without. You know you have your own list going -- people who are famous and celebrated for their beauty that just leave you cold. Like, "She's famous?? Why??"
She's all skeleton bones and angular jaw and her characters are always pissy and manly and conniving and bitchy. Demi Moore as G.I. Jane, a female Marine, tougher than the tough guys... Demi Moore as a corporate executive, tougher than the tough guys... That's not attractive to me, sorry.
My list would include Demi Moore, Kirsten Dunst, and Snoop Dogg. Snoop is not an actress but I dislike him so much I'm going to put him on my list anyway. The guy looks like something sleazy that just crawled out of jail. When people say, "Our young men have no rolemodels except the negative ones they find in rap music," I envision Snoop as the person they are talking about. And I kinda like rap (not all of it, but some of it.).
What actresses would be on your list of celebrity women who really shouldn't be celebrities? My girlfriend just said "Jennifer Aniston." I think Aniston is severely over-rated (sexiest woman alive? no way) but still kind of cute and well-meaning while being boring. She plays the same character over and over but so do most celebrities, so I forgive her. She is not on my list. I'm sure she's relieved.
Don't take my word for it. The story is here.
He's serving a 10 year jail sentence. Yikes.
The article says it's unclear how close he is to Demi Moore, even though they share the same father. It's not difficult to drop your seed left and right, so "half-brother" can mean anything ... a product of a one-night stand, for instance. But part of me isn't surprised that her blood relative is a yucky yuckster.
Demi Moore is toward the top of the list of celebrity females I could do without. You know you have your own list going -- people who are famous and celebrated for their beauty that just leave you cold. Like, "She's famous?? Why??"
She's all skeleton bones and angular jaw and her characters are always pissy and manly and conniving and bitchy. Demi Moore as G.I. Jane, a female Marine, tougher than the tough guys... Demi Moore as a corporate executive, tougher than the tough guys... That's not attractive to me, sorry.
My list would include Demi Moore, Kirsten Dunst, and Snoop Dogg. Snoop is not an actress but I dislike him so much I'm going to put him on my list anyway. The guy looks like something sleazy that just crawled out of jail. When people say, "Our young men have no rolemodels except the negative ones they find in rap music," I envision Snoop as the person they are talking about. And I kinda like rap (not all of it, but some of it.).
What actresses would be on your list of celebrity women who really shouldn't be celebrities? My girlfriend just said "Jennifer Aniston." I think Aniston is severely over-rated (sexiest woman alive? no way) but still kind of cute and well-meaning while being boring. She plays the same character over and over but so do most celebrities, so I forgive her. She is not on my list. I'm sure she's relieved.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
I should revive this thing
I should revive this blog, though it's been a good 10 months or so since I've updated it. I think I was always self-conscious that something I wrote here would be traced back to me, held against me, considering the work I do. Maybe that's over-rating my importaance in the world, but whatever. I've seen "objective" reporters and media types challenged for political stances attributed to them based on little things in their work or personal lives ... a bumper sticker left on an editor's desk becomes supposed proof in a rival community newspaper's column that the editor is a supporter of that candidate in a close election, etc. etc. People will use anything to get you off a certain beat or a certain avenue of investigation when they feel you're upsetting their apple cart and undermining their agenda.
It's late, I am watching a film before bed, but a few tidbits before I nod off. There was a column in Time Magazine about race and happiness... they've been polling people of different races for decades to see who is happiest. Whites are still happier than blacks, but the distance between the two has never been so small. Black women showed the greatest gains in happiness, I guess because of economic and social independence, no longer needing a man to move ahead in the world, something like that. White women showed the biggest drop, I do believe. I'm not surprised. They can be a pretty miserable, petty bunch, all those white female perfectionists out there hovering like helicopters over their children and bursting into tears if dinner isn't perfect. Control freak Type A = Type Bitch in my book. But I'm supposedly an asshole by some standards, so whatever.
Young black men stayed flat. The column said one in three young black men faced incarceration, or something like that, so no wonder happiness doesn't improve for said group. That's sad. Pathetic, too. But mostly sad.
Okay, I'm done criticizing white women and black men. Here's my other rant so I can offend everyone equally.
Ok, I was of the "support the troops -- bring 'em home!" camp for a long time. These wars haven't accomplished much and everyone knows, as soon as we exit IrAQ and Afghanistan, both countries are going to go five ways to hell in a damn handbasket. But lookee here... why would someone sign up for the military now, knowing full well based on media coverage that if you deploy today you're probably going to shoot up some jeep full of a family of civilians, women, kids, maybe infants, as it's desperately trying to pass your Humvee?
I keep reading the same story over and over. "We ordered the jeep to stop. They wouldn't stop. We fired a warning shot. They kept coming. We opened fire. The jeep flipped. When we went to investigate, we found a dead man and wife, their two dead kids, and a dead baby."
It's like clockwork. I've read the same account from so many different soldiers - the one that appeared today was in City Pages, some guy returning from war traumatized. His marriage fell apart, he flipped out at a convenience store, yadda yadda...
I'm sympathetic... to a point. But I'm growing less so. I mean, look here: Knowing that you will quite likely end up shooting innocent people, why would you still sign up for that job? It makes no sense. Absolutely no sense.
I know I haven't fought overseas (I'm too ADHD to go over there, even as a reporter, I fear). But I did lose a friend in Afghanistan. His take on the wars was: this sucks. And it does.
It's late, I am watching a film before bed, but a few tidbits before I nod off. There was a column in Time Magazine about race and happiness... they've been polling people of different races for decades to see who is happiest. Whites are still happier than blacks, but the distance between the two has never been so small. Black women showed the greatest gains in happiness, I guess because of economic and social independence, no longer needing a man to move ahead in the world, something like that. White women showed the biggest drop, I do believe. I'm not surprised. They can be a pretty miserable, petty bunch, all those white female perfectionists out there hovering like helicopters over their children and bursting into tears if dinner isn't perfect. Control freak Type A = Type Bitch in my book. But I'm supposedly an asshole by some standards, so whatever.
Young black men stayed flat. The column said one in three young black men faced incarceration, or something like that, so no wonder happiness doesn't improve for said group. That's sad. Pathetic, too. But mostly sad.
Okay, I'm done criticizing white women and black men. Here's my other rant so I can offend everyone equally.
Ok, I was of the "support the troops -- bring 'em home!" camp for a long time. These wars haven't accomplished much and everyone knows, as soon as we exit IrAQ and Afghanistan, both countries are going to go five ways to hell in a damn handbasket. But lookee here... why would someone sign up for the military now, knowing full well based on media coverage that if you deploy today you're probably going to shoot up some jeep full of a family of civilians, women, kids, maybe infants, as it's desperately trying to pass your Humvee?
I keep reading the same story over and over. "We ordered the jeep to stop. They wouldn't stop. We fired a warning shot. They kept coming. We opened fire. The jeep flipped. When we went to investigate, we found a dead man and wife, their two dead kids, and a dead baby."
It's like clockwork. I've read the same account from so many different soldiers - the one that appeared today was in City Pages, some guy returning from war traumatized. His marriage fell apart, he flipped out at a convenience store, yadda yadda...
I'm sympathetic... to a point. But I'm growing less so. I mean, look here: Knowing that you will quite likely end up shooting innocent people, why would you still sign up for that job? It makes no sense. Absolutely no sense.
I know I haven't fought overseas (I'm too ADHD to go over there, even as a reporter, I fear). But I did lose a friend in Afghanistan. His take on the wars was: this sucks. And it does.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Free write stuff on tiger woods and stuff. Yeah.
I've been dreaming of refining my opinion-style writing since college, an embarrassingly long time ago. But I suck at it. It's clunky and boring and doesn't say much. Sigh.
Anyhoo, you gotta ejaculate on paper and then refine, refine, refine. Here's my ejaculate, oh yeah:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
America, like Hollywood, needs a hero-athlete to answer its celebrity villains, and maybe vice versa. You got a Mike Tyson, a Carl Everett, a bad boy Denis Rodman? Then it's time for a well-scrubbed Tiger Woods, a shiny Oscar de la Hoya, a made-for-television Alex Rodriguez, a perservering Nancy Kerrigan. Say hello to the White Knights in the briar patch of anti-heroes. Group hug, everybody.
This is what the Buddhists call the auspicious and the inauspicious, the ying and the yang. Darth Vader without Luke? Unthinkable. Now it's time for the media to give Luke a flattering story to tell. Throw in a back-story of adversity and humility. Make 'em an underdog back in the day. That way they can be truly self-made, truly American. The underdog is, afterall, always right.
But here's the rub, and no, it ain't pretty. Captain America was, even in the comic books, the manufactured byproduct of a "super soldier" serum -- a steroidal freak. Superman had daddy issues. You think he's up all night fighting volcanoes the world over for his health? C'mon, Clark was desperate for acceptance.
The Buddhists will tell you the auspicious and the inauspicious aren't so separate. There's a big black chunk of ying in the yang, of yang in the ying. Sure, I'm surprised by Wood's infidelity. But that not surprised.
Look, I won't waste my breath defending a guy who has the gall to cheat on his wife while she's home nursing their 10-month-old (son?). Woods doesn't look so well-flossed anymore. But who are we to have dared to dream that the hero of the golf course was a moral power off the links?
Few of our other heroes have lived up to the hype. Rodriguez didn't just abuse steroids; he guzzled them, all while earning hundreds of millions of dollars that left his teammates cold. Kerrigan? An Olympic ingrate who couldn't stop complaining while headlining a parade at Disneyland. De La Hoya? #$$%%^.
Here's an equation for you. Crime is just a motive that's met an opportunity, expressed like this: Crime = (motive) + (opportunity). What's infidelity but a crime of the heart, a moral mistep against your family? And what law of the universe prevents a celebrity from acting on his or her carnal desires and need for public acceptance?
In other words: Celebrity infidelity = (sex / acceptance) + (infinite opportunity, with untold beautiful women, at any time of day, anywhere in the world).
(And so on...)
Anyhoo, you gotta ejaculate on paper and then refine, refine, refine. Here's my ejaculate, oh yeah:
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America, like Hollywood, needs a hero-athlete to answer its celebrity villains, and maybe vice versa. You got a Mike Tyson, a Carl Everett, a bad boy Denis Rodman? Then it's time for a well-scrubbed Tiger Woods, a shiny Oscar de la Hoya, a made-for-television Alex Rodriguez, a perservering Nancy Kerrigan. Say hello to the White Knights in the briar patch of anti-heroes. Group hug, everybody.
This is what the Buddhists call the auspicious and the inauspicious, the ying and the yang. Darth Vader without Luke? Unthinkable. Now it's time for the media to give Luke a flattering story to tell. Throw in a back-story of adversity and humility. Make 'em an underdog back in the day. That way they can be truly self-made, truly American. The underdog is, afterall, always right.
But here's the rub, and no, it ain't pretty. Captain America was, even in the comic books, the manufactured byproduct of a "super soldier" serum -- a steroidal freak. Superman had daddy issues. You think he's up all night fighting volcanoes the world over for his health? C'mon, Clark was desperate for acceptance.
The Buddhists will tell you the auspicious and the inauspicious aren't so separate. There's a big black chunk of ying in the yang, of yang in the ying. Sure, I'm surprised by Wood's infidelity. But that not surprised.
Look, I won't waste my breath defending a guy who has the gall to cheat on his wife while she's home nursing their 10-month-old (son?). Woods doesn't look so well-flossed anymore. But who are we to have dared to dream that the hero of the golf course was a moral power off the links?
Few of our other heroes have lived up to the hype. Rodriguez didn't just abuse steroids; he guzzled them, all while earning hundreds of millions of dollars that left his teammates cold. Kerrigan? An Olympic ingrate who couldn't stop complaining while headlining a parade at Disneyland. De La Hoya? #$$%%^.
Here's an equation for you. Crime is just a motive that's met an opportunity, expressed like this: Crime = (motive) + (opportunity). What's infidelity but a crime of the heart, a moral mistep against your family? And what law of the universe prevents a celebrity from acting on his or her carnal desires and need for public acceptance?
In other words: Celebrity infidelity = (sex / acceptance) + (infinite opportunity, with untold beautiful women, at any time of day, anywhere in the world).
(And so on...)
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Next evolution of porn?
Been thinking about writing this piece for a long while now... but I don't really have the inside view. Nor do I tune into mainstream porn. hmmm...
PIECE:
Sa Phoen is pushing herself to get back into animation. Mitss Varl gets migraines. XXX suffers from depression. XXX once miscarried a child. And XXX could really, really use an orgasm, a backrub and a chocolate milk.
TRANSITION HERE...
These are tough times for the porn industry, what with so much being given away on the Internet for free. But the women of the sex industry haven't buckled; they've evolved, marketing themselves through their own interactive Web sites, selling their own short sex clips, and broadcasting their every waking thought into the sometimes hazardous world of the social Web.
Despite anything ever imagined by Woody Allen or Russ Meyer or (robot love author), the next evolution for adult film actresses isn't mechanized or holographic or 3-D or laid out in the bizarre contours of virtual reality. In the information age, it's utterly fitting that women who love and have been consumed by sex and exhibitionism marry their neurosis to technology, self-promotion and over-sharing. Whatever the future of the porn industry, the future for porn stars looks a lot like Twitter.
TO BE CONTINUED...
PIECE:
Sa Phoen is pushing herself to get back into animation. Mitss Varl gets migraines. XXX suffers from depression. XXX once miscarried a child. And XXX could really, really use an orgasm, a backrub and a chocolate milk.
TRANSITION HERE...
These are tough times for the porn industry, what with so much being given away on the Internet for free. But the women of the sex industry haven't buckled; they've evolved, marketing themselves through their own interactive Web sites, selling their own short sex clips, and broadcasting their every waking thought into the sometimes hazardous world of the social Web.
Despite anything ever imagined by Woody Allen or Russ Meyer or (robot love author), the next evolution for adult film actresses isn't mechanized or holographic or 3-D or laid out in the bizarre contours of virtual reality. In the information age, it's utterly fitting that women who love and have been consumed by sex and exhibitionism marry their neurosis to technology, self-promotion and over-sharing. Whatever the future of the porn industry, the future for porn stars looks a lot like Twitter.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Weight loss = weight loss
Wow, I'm down to 165 lbs on two different scales, two days in a row, at different times of day. My October entry a month ago had me at 172 lbs.
That's a seven lb. difference. I'll take it!
That's a seven lb. difference. I'll take it!
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Personal goals: Running 5 miles at an 8:30-pace
Well, I think I have a new running goal. I completed the Medtronic 10-mile in early October running a 9:32 pace (i.e. 9:32-minutes per mile). I hadn't slept much nor eaten breakfast nor eaten much at all the entire day before, and I ran 6 miles the night before the race just to make sure I was up to it, so I basically was as far off my peak performance as you can get, haha.
That said, assuming that a 9:30 is a "comfortable" pace for me, I think my new goal should be running 5 miles at 8:30.
That would be a wonderful birthday present to myself in January, though achieving that pace by January might be a little ambitious.
Here's where I'm at: I hit the treadmill for about 45 - 50 painful minutes tonight (5+ miles) averaging a 9:05 pace, with mucho variation between 10 minute miles and 8 minute miles. Those 8-minute miles are killer. I had to take a minute break from the treadmill twice and I almost threw up once, I guess from swallowing my own spit and counting down the minutes outloud to encourage myself. I was dry heaving and running for the bathroom, where I coughed up some saliva while making puke noises. Haha.
I think my next workout will be a fartlek, doing 30 minutes in 90-second intervals of 11, 9:00 and 7:00 pace. If I do 7 rounds of those, I'd be averaging 9-minute miles for 30 minutes. (i.e. running 3 1/3 miles).
For the workout after that, I'd like to run 5 miles without stopping at a pace of 8:57 - 9:10. That'd be a 45-minute workout, even. Not sure if my lungs are up to yet. The backs of my legs (hamstrings?) are tight tonight but otherwise I'm fine after my workout. It's the lungs that always fail me. The cramping feeling in the abs and the muscle aches in my back or neck -- neither of which hit me tonight -- go away, but the lungs always do me in; sometimes even for hours after a run I feel tightness in my chest.
Speaking of pain, I put my training with the personal trainer on hold. I kinda wish I'd never signed up for it. It's $300 I can't afford and the workouts are too intense. I don't want to be a muscle man or a top athlete; I just want to be faster and drop 16 lbs. Sigh. I was like hyperventilating at the end of my first workout, but I went back for another. Silly me.
Well, I stopped going entirely after about four or five workouts because I've been working late but mostly because I've been getting these terrible headaches. They tend to start when I'm doing anything more strenuous than running, especially when I'm changing levels as in a sit-up or push-up. One lasted more than 12 hours and woke me up at night from the pain, so I stayed home from work because I hadn't slept at all. I called my doctor and got referred to a nurse who told me to take more Ibuprofen. Sheesh, thanks. Jerk-ette.
It might have to do with my outdated glasses prescription. I'm wearing an old pair because my existing ones broke months ago, and even those were ready to be replaced.
It could also be my couch-sleeping. I don't sleep on my bed because I prefer the openess of my livingroom and the easy access to my computer, the television and the kitchen. As a result, I've worn down my couch and the cushions don't really give me head and back support. I suspect that my torso weighs more than my legs so I'm basically at an angle when I sleep, with the tips of my toes a centimeter higher than my head. That's not good for blood circulation, I betcha!
Or, I could just have a popped blood vessel in my head. Or all three. Dunno.
Anyway, I resume with the personal trainer on Nov. 30, the Monday after Thanksgiving.
The good news is I'm 168 lbs. tonight, down from 172 whenever my last entry was. But I never trust one weighing, as your weight changes day to day and moment to moment. I ate very lightly today, just a yogurt and granola bar for breakfast and a grilled chicken salad from Wendy's with a cup of coffee for dinner, though I drank a rum drink at SAUCE and later drank some O.J. just before weighing myself. It probably cancels out.
My goal continues to be 153 lbs., but I think focusing on speed and frequency of workouts, rather than weight, is smarter, healthier and more sustainable in the long-term.
Okay, this must be the most boring blog post ever. I sure hope no one is reading this!
That said, assuming that a 9:30 is a "comfortable" pace for me, I think my new goal should be running 5 miles at 8:30.
That would be a wonderful birthday present to myself in January, though achieving that pace by January might be a little ambitious.
Here's where I'm at: I hit the treadmill for about 45 - 50 painful minutes tonight (5+ miles) averaging a 9:05 pace, with mucho variation between 10 minute miles and 8 minute miles. Those 8-minute miles are killer. I had to take a minute break from the treadmill twice and I almost threw up once, I guess from swallowing my own spit and counting down the minutes outloud to encourage myself. I was dry heaving and running for the bathroom, where I coughed up some saliva while making puke noises. Haha.
I think my next workout will be a fartlek, doing 30 minutes in 90-second intervals of 11, 9:00 and 7:00 pace. If I do 7 rounds of those, I'd be averaging 9-minute miles for 30 minutes. (i.e. running 3 1/3 miles).
For the workout after that, I'd like to run 5 miles without stopping at a pace of 8:57 - 9:10. That'd be a 45-minute workout, even. Not sure if my lungs are up to yet. The backs of my legs (hamstrings?) are tight tonight but otherwise I'm fine after my workout. It's the lungs that always fail me. The cramping feeling in the abs and the muscle aches in my back or neck -- neither of which hit me tonight -- go away, but the lungs always do me in; sometimes even for hours after a run I feel tightness in my chest.
Speaking of pain, I put my training with the personal trainer on hold. I kinda wish I'd never signed up for it. It's $300 I can't afford and the workouts are too intense. I don't want to be a muscle man or a top athlete; I just want to be faster and drop 16 lbs. Sigh. I was like hyperventilating at the end of my first workout, but I went back for another. Silly me.
Well, I stopped going entirely after about four or five workouts because I've been working late but mostly because I've been getting these terrible headaches. They tend to start when I'm doing anything more strenuous than running, especially when I'm changing levels as in a sit-up or push-up. One lasted more than 12 hours and woke me up at night from the pain, so I stayed home from work because I hadn't slept at all. I called my doctor and got referred to a nurse who told me to take more Ibuprofen. Sheesh, thanks. Jerk-ette.
It might have to do with my outdated glasses prescription. I'm wearing an old pair because my existing ones broke months ago, and even those were ready to be replaced.
It could also be my couch-sleeping. I don't sleep on my bed because I prefer the openess of my livingroom and the easy access to my computer, the television and the kitchen. As a result, I've worn down my couch and the cushions don't really give me head and back support. I suspect that my torso weighs more than my legs so I'm basically at an angle when I sleep, with the tips of my toes a centimeter higher than my head. That's not good for blood circulation, I betcha!
Or, I could just have a popped blood vessel in my head. Or all three. Dunno.
Anyway, I resume with the personal trainer on Nov. 30, the Monday after Thanksgiving.
The good news is I'm 168 lbs. tonight, down from 172 whenever my last entry was. But I never trust one weighing, as your weight changes day to day and moment to moment. I ate very lightly today, just a yogurt and granola bar for breakfast and a grilled chicken salad from Wendy's with a cup of coffee for dinner, though I drank a rum drink at SAUCE and later drank some O.J. just before weighing myself. It probably cancels out.
My goal continues to be 153 lbs., but I think focusing on speed and frequency of workouts, rather than weight, is smarter, healthier and more sustainable in the long-term.
Okay, this must be the most boring blog post ever. I sure hope no one is reading this!
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Weight loss = weight gain
Listening to "Modest Mouse" and their album "Good News for People Who Like Bad News"... they rock. I heart music.
So, two different scales tell me I'm at 172 lbs. I guess I've actually gained weight over the summer. Oh, man, that was the opposite of what I've intended. I'm kind of amazed. I was sure I was below 167. I don't feel 172.
I do feel a little more solid than I have been before, even though I haven't been doing virtually any upper body work. I kind of think this 172 lbs. suits me in this cold, hearty Minnesotan environment. That said, what I see when I look in the mirror is so different from what I see when I look at myself in pictures. I'm sometimes pretty round-faced in pics, which I dislike.
Plus, people tease me about my weight (including my recent ex-girlfriend, who really pissed me off bringing it up a lot one weekend in particular) and that's just annoying.
I've tried to eat healthier lunches but night time is tough. I catch up on missing calories, and when I'm having a late-night beer, I automatically reach for pizza or quesadillas, and a fair amount of them.
Sigh. I know the answer: run 5 miles every other day. Nobody who runs 5 miles every other day is overweight, I don't think.
I'm just disappointed because I've been running a bit, though to be fair, not much more than once a week. I guess no one loses weight working out once a week. I did a 10-mile road race and a little hiking this summer, and I think my lower body looks more muscular as a result, but my tummy is sizable when I slouch or touch my toes. Sigh.
So, two different scales tell me I'm at 172 lbs. I guess I've actually gained weight over the summer. Oh, man, that was the opposite of what I've intended. I'm kind of amazed. I was sure I was below 167. I don't feel 172.
I do feel a little more solid than I have been before, even though I haven't been doing virtually any upper body work. I kind of think this 172 lbs. suits me in this cold, hearty Minnesotan environment. That said, what I see when I look in the mirror is so different from what I see when I look at myself in pictures. I'm sometimes pretty round-faced in pics, which I dislike.
Plus, people tease me about my weight (including my recent ex-girlfriend, who really pissed me off bringing it up a lot one weekend in particular) and that's just annoying.
I've tried to eat healthier lunches but night time is tough. I catch up on missing calories, and when I'm having a late-night beer, I automatically reach for pizza or quesadillas, and a fair amount of them.
Sigh. I know the answer: run 5 miles every other day. Nobody who runs 5 miles every other day is overweight, I don't think.
I'm just disappointed because I've been running a bit, though to be fair, not much more than once a week. I guess no one loses weight working out once a week. I did a 10-mile road race and a little hiking this summer, and I think my lower body looks more muscular as a result, but my tummy is sizable when I slouch or touch my toes. Sigh.
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