I saw this in a gun magazine and I knew I wanted to be the first on my block with one. First the post office then well you get the picture. No more postage due.
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
As Featured on Guns and Ammo.com
I saw this in a gun magazine and I knew I wanted to be the first on my block with one. First the post office then well you get the picture. No more postage due.
College Libraries are always cool even there study areas are different.
Seriously folks, when your designing a library study cubicle think before setting the design. I mean come on ZEIG HEIL . i took this at the college library at Unnamed University in Houston that is near the medical center and was founded by a guy named William Marsh something. I thought it was too funny that I had to post it.
I saw the sign in Covington and was like what the Hell
True the sign never lies, but damn aren't we a tad cruel.just a little aren't we
True I can't drive but appartently neither do the drivers for Clements Truck Rentals
What a total dumbass
I had a revelation last night while sleeping
I want to start a band. Yea a blues band. I had a great time singing old school blues at a country western. It will be a band that feature great blues and soul music. The blues are great part of Americana. I liked soulful Blues. I want to create the Blues Brothers experience but at here in Houston. Only if I had a few people can play or at least jam the blues that I want to play. I am thinking if I have a band we will dress like the Blues Brothers on Vacation. Straw fedoras and sunglasses with hawaiian shirts and either sandals or boat shoes. I am thinking we would be better than the Blues Brothers but not be an imitation. Yea! I am thinking of what we would call it the Beachwood Classic Showband. BCS for short. That would be cool, classic blues and some great soul music like Aretha Franklin, Cab Calloway and Sam & Dean. Yea that sounds like a great dream.
Well, today I am planning on finishing my book today. I have been putting it off for the last time. I did listen to some new cds today, I didn't purchase them, I borrowed them and well. I listened to the new Billy Corgan cd.Well I like Smashing Pumpkins and I like Billy but somehow this was a near miss in my list of what I would by myself. He still bitches and whines like he typically did when he was front man for Pumpkins. Its has a great few songs but the rest of the album is a total waste. I figured, I was waiting Melissa Auf De Maur to show up in the album. Oh well the cd was a good listen to but I would pay at least 7 bucks for it rather than what the store was selling it for 16.00 but thats just me.
I have a few things that I have done today to finish, like my book and answer a few complex equations but I can wait till I am finished with them. I am tired and my muscles ache I just feel real sluggish. I hate feeling so achy in the morning especially when I have been so tired the last few nights.
Well alright, nothing exciting has happend I am going to start writing the last page. I'll write more later.
Well, today I am planning on finishing my book today. I have been putting it off for the last time. I did listen to some new cds today, I didn't purchase them, I borrowed them and well. I listened to the new Billy Corgan cd.Well I like Smashing Pumpkins and I like Billy but somehow this was a near miss in my list of what I would by myself. He still bitches and whines like he typically did when he was front man for Pumpkins. Its has a great few songs but the rest of the album is a total waste. I figured, I was waiting Melissa Auf De Maur to show up in the album. Oh well the cd was a good listen to but I would pay at least 7 bucks for it rather than what the store was selling it for 16.00 but thats just me.
I have a few things that I have done today to finish, like my book and answer a few complex equations but I can wait till I am finished with them. I am tired and my muscles ache I just feel real sluggish. I hate feeling so achy in the morning especially when I have been so tired the last few nights.
Well alright, nothing exciting has happend I am going to start writing the last page. I'll write more later.
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
Tell Me Mister Know It All
Among the rather large number of things I don’t understand, one looms larger than the others today. Allow me to address it first with a simple question:
Are there quantifiable traits that go into making an excellent bar owner?
Seriously. Are there? And if there are, what might they be? In all likelihood the traits are numerous, and probably differ greatly depending upon who is answering the question. There is one, though, that, in my somewhat expert opinion, should never be exhibited by any bar owner.
He or she must not be a know-it-all.
Entering into a new business arrangement believing that you are smarter than everyone else spells doom. Know-it-alls don’t listen, they don’t watch, they don’t study, or ponder, or mull. Why? Because they already know it all.
It’s a prime example of bad thinking. It’s the sort of thinking that lead Roseanne Barr to believe she could render a splendid version of the National Anthem. It’s the sort of thinking that infected George Lucas just before he decided that Jar-Jar Binks would lend Episode I that special touch of whimsy. It is, in fact, the sort of thinking that lead to, among other things, New Coke, the Chrysler K-Car, Pickett’s charge at Gettysburg, social Darwinism, and Mr. and Mrs. Hilton’s decision to leave the rubbers in the drawer the night they conceived Paris.
Bar owning is serious business. Many owners fail to grasp this most rigid of facts, and it’s especially problematic when talking about buying an already-thriving establishment.
Which brings me, at long last, to my main point.
I have watched the purchase and subsequent downfall of several terrific bars over the last few years. These places were fully-fledged members of their neighborhoods, each with a scads of regulars, and robust weekend and “theme” night crowds. They were, in short, thriving concerns. Then, for a variety of reasons, their owners decided to sell, and each buyer seemed dumber than the next—guys who couldn’t pour water out of a boot with instructions printed on the heel.
One in particular stands out, though I’ll avoid using either its old or new name. The place was pretty much all you could want in a neighborhood tavern. The cocktail waitresses remembered your name and your usual drink, and the bartenders were total pros—long-time service people who knew when to float a free round to regulars, knew their names, and the names of their kids. For food, it offered an array of standard bar fare—nachos and the like—in addition to a compliment of yummy Greek dishes. The coolest thing, however, was that the cook was an actual chef, trained at the Culinary Institute of America, and so each day there was a special menu of stuff you almost never see in a local pub—cold blueberry bisque, spicy New Orleans gumbo, escargot in garlic butter, etc. The atmosphere of the place changed according to the time of day. Around lunchtime it attracted business people, then a late-afternoon gaggle of elderly stool-flies. A family contingent moved in for dinner, only to be replaced in the later part of the evening by a college crowd, for whom it was walking distance from campus housing. Every Wednesday was Ladies Night. Atypically, more women showed than men. Tuesdays and Saturdays, they had karaoke, and you felt embarrassed for fewer people than is usually the case. They showed sports on TV, but you couldn’t really call it a sports bar. Two pool tables lurked in the back room, host to a league night on Thursdays. You could smoke anywhere you wanted, strike up a conversation with all sorts of different people, get full, get loaded, and have a righteous ol’ time generally.
Then the owners, tired some said of their hectic lives, found a buyer and got out of the business. It happened over night.
A waitress said to me, “See that guy over there in the Aloha shirt? He’s the new owner.” As a regular, I was curious, and so went over and introduced myself. In return I got a limp handshake, and a snotty attitude. The guy didn’t give a shit, he was meeting one of his regular customers. Many of the other habitués complained of the same treatment.
And it got worse in a hurry.
First, he changed the menu. Said it cost too much to keep it supplied. Then he changed the beer selection, which had previously featured beverages from all over the world, to a bland assortment of watery American drool—he had made promotional deals with the distributors, you see. Right on the heels of that, he decreed that no waitress or bartender was to hand out free drinks. If they wanted to buy a customer a shot from their tips, that was fine, but freebies were right out. As a follow-up, he ruled that boyfriends and girlfriends of the staff were persona non grata when the staff was on duty. Over the next few weeks he cancelled the karaoke nights because he didn’t like them, he fired the chef for refusing to reuse yesterday’s fry oil, and he canned all but one of the waitresses and bartenders—all the good ones, of course. The one he kept was rude and lazy, but adhered to the new rules with malevolent gusto. He redecorated, removing the pictures of happy customers and other homey touches, replacing them with sports team and distillery neon. It had been his life-long wish, it was said, to own a real sports bar. He topped off the remodel with the installation of several plasma screen TVs, which he paid for by raising drink prices by a dollar each.
The long-time customers, some of whom had been drinking there for twenty years, were peeved and bolted in droves. The family diners found other destinations because the food now sucked. The college kids stopped coming because the place had lost its eclectic charm. Soon, all the owner had left were the stool-flies, guys who can nurse a single glass of beer for three hours, and always tip a quarter, never less never more.
He lost money by the bucketful.
I stopped by a few weeks ago, just because I was in the area and wanted a quick shot and a beer before work. I was the only customer in the place. The bartender, a surly kid with too many facial piercings, told me it’s always like this. I smiled, drank my booze, and left.
The new owner is a fool. Beyond that, he’s a know-it-all. He looked at a thriving business, thought he could make it better, and instead murdered it.
What a stooge.
Many of us drunkards want to be bar owners. When you decide to make the move, do it wisely.
I thought of a conclusion.
You know this reality is kind of true. I would be weird. I am still trying to solve the last chapter of my book. Like every work I have written I am scared to write a conclusion. A conclusion is always an end. An end is a means that I have to start a new beginning. Well what brought me to the subject of an end was my thoughts of the Great American writer, Walker Percy. When I went to the Wedding of Chip & Kerry I talked with Mrs.Percy and told her I am a writer and still working on the conclusion. She brought me a subject that her husband had a hard time finishing the ending of the Moviegoer. I know that doesn't sound right but I am just worried that I am able to finished and I won't be able to conclude it the right way or the way I wanted to start it off.
I guess writing will help me solve the solution.
I guess writing will help me solve the solution.
Damn You Tony Orlando and the your freaking Yellow Ribbon
This blog is comes from Miss Canada.
Tie a yellow ribbon 'round your SUV
It started with yellow ribbons. Yellow ribbons from the old folk song, dating all the way back to 1981, showing support for the US troops abroad. Yeah, we all thought it was an older tradition than that (see essays here and here) -- some suggest dating back to the civil war. It turns out that the practice of tying a yellow ribbon 'round the old oak tree really only exploded with the Scud missiles during the first Gulf Storm.If only it stopped with yellow ribbons. At one time it was a nice gesture -- a show of solidarity, support, faithfulness. Now Americans are ribbon-crazy. Next it was the AIDS awareness red ribbon. The pink breast cancer awareness ribbon. You want a list? There are millions! Black; Black and Blue; Black and Pink; Blue (Dark); Blue (Light); Blue and Yellow; Brown; Burgundy... Wait a minute, I'm not even out of the B's yet? Luckily there are kind souls willing to help us match our colour to a cause, and even sell us the ribbons to go with it -- See here.Now, I don't want to seem unpatriotic or uncharitable. I support all sorts of good things -- just not by wearing ribbons. Or by wearing pins that look like ribbons. Or even by (my favourite) slapping a magnetic ribbon onto my vehicle.Let's think about it: We put ribbons on our cars to tell the world that we support our troops. Our troops are in Iraq. They are fighting for oil. To fuel our gas-guzzling, irresponsible SUVs. Whereupon we paste ribbons to tell the world that we support our...
Tie a yellow ribbon 'round your SUV
It started with yellow ribbons. Yellow ribbons from the old folk song, dating all the way back to 1981, showing support for the US troops abroad. Yeah, we all thought it was an older tradition than that (see essays here and here) -- some suggest dating back to the civil war. It turns out that the practice of tying a yellow ribbon 'round the old oak tree really only exploded with the Scud missiles during the first Gulf Storm.If only it stopped with yellow ribbons. At one time it was a nice gesture -- a show of solidarity, support, faithfulness. Now Americans are ribbon-crazy. Next it was the AIDS awareness red ribbon. The pink breast cancer awareness ribbon. You want a list? There are millions! Black; Black and Blue; Black and Pink; Blue (Dark); Blue (Light); Blue and Yellow; Brown; Burgundy... Wait a minute, I'm not even out of the B's yet? Luckily there are kind souls willing to help us match our colour to a cause, and even sell us the ribbons to go with it -- See here.Now, I don't want to seem unpatriotic or uncharitable. I support all sorts of good things -- just not by wearing ribbons. Or by wearing pins that look like ribbons. Or even by (my favourite) slapping a magnetic ribbon onto my vehicle.Let's think about it: We put ribbons on our cars to tell the world that we support our troops. Our troops are in Iraq. They are fighting for oil. To fuel our gas-guzzling, irresponsible SUVs. Whereupon we paste ribbons to tell the world that we support our...
Jack & Me, and a perfect apartment for me
I tend to complain and today was a day I thought I wouldn't complain but I just feel hot and sticky. The weather itself is no fun. I am again stuck at home writing. Which of course can be a great thing. I spent most of my day at home pondering what could I do to cheer myself up. I have after all nearly finished reviewing an edited my novel. I am thinking of Jack Kerouac today. I mean, Me and Mister Kerouac have a lot of similarities and brings me to the point that I believe that I am his reinarcnate.
Here are a few similarities. Both of were raised with French Canadian Mothers and American fathers. Both were ackward as children that people found to be wierd. He tried many careers before settling into writing, like I have. He had a strange set of friends, like I do. He dropped out of Columbia, I dropped out of Ottawa. Both of us are left handed. He loved to explore new parts of America, I love visiting backwoods of areas. Both of us have trusty best friends that inspire us to write about them, he had Neal Cassidy I have Michael. Both of us have our mothers confidence to continue writing. Both of our fathers have a great sense of humor. Both are proud of there sons. Both of us, tried out for some sort of sport and failed to do something and quit, he played Football & I wrestled.
Jack was a drunk, I am a drunk. So you see there are a lot more possiblities that I can compare myself to Kerouac. But those are just a few I could think of on the spot. I was thinking of that when I went to Barnes and Nobles and found a cool post card of him and his cat. I figured it would be kind of cool to get a cat just like that. If I ever get a cat, I would get two, one named Ginsberg and the other Kerouac. Named after my two favorite beat poets.
I can imagine myself living in a small apartment with two cats in the city. Writing or at least having papers filling the rooms with poetry and articles that I deem somewhat subjectable or unsubjectable. Its just a dream I have. Of course, my dream is to get out of Houston and live in Montreal where its cooler or maybe even New York. Have a place where I can sit on my lap top and write. Ah that sounds like an ideal place to live a nice studio filled with manuscripts and papers of notes for my latest books. Bookshelves full of books of poetry and generation X stuff like Nick Hornsby and MTV Generation stuff. Records on the floor. I know it would look like a disaster but heck it would be my personal place. I would get a housekeeper to clean every 2 weeks. I would do the laundry in the basement or have my own washing machine. I was thinking a place like Patrice has,but in a str8 neighborhood. Close to everything to walk around at night. A place I can walk or ride my bike around the city. Ahh my dream apartment. I would have furnature from IKEA and stuff from home.
I can dream can't I. I know that this dream is far ahead of myself and I know I am not ready to move out on my own yet but I am slowly thinking about it. I am still trying to think what I am going to do next, like am I going to like living in Montreal or will I live in Montreal, or would I like to live in Montreal. I am saying I am going there for vacation its not like I am looking for work and staying there for a long ass time. Its a vacation.
I also want to go to Ottawa while I am there. To visit and sight see. Maybe have lunch at Minglewoods. Just explore the city. Or I may relax and take it easy. A lot too think about while waiting. I have to first figure out where to stay and when I can stay and for how long? Pretty much a lot to think about. I just want to get out of Houston soon the heat is driving me nuts.
My birthday is coming up and I am thinking I am going to be old.25 woohoo a mile stone. A quarter of a century. Yea, I am now officially going to be in my mid twenties. I am also one of those lables now. 20 somethings. YUCK. Well I can't wait to be 25. Yea, I have some fall back ideas, I mean sure 24 is great but 25 I am practically 30 but hell I am going to be happy. I am still not married, don't have a kid yet. So things are going good for me. Going to celebrate it in New Orleans, hopefully I am going to be able to go visit the quarter. I want to go to Pat O's and drink a Hurricane or two.
I also want to go to Preservation Hall to listen to some good jazz. I am thinking of all the stuff I want to do while there.
Well I am going to write more later.
Here are a few similarities. Both of were raised with French Canadian Mothers and American fathers. Both were ackward as children that people found to be wierd. He tried many careers before settling into writing, like I have. He had a strange set of friends, like I do. He dropped out of Columbia, I dropped out of Ottawa. Both of us are left handed. He loved to explore new parts of America, I love visiting backwoods of areas. Both of us have trusty best friends that inspire us to write about them, he had Neal Cassidy I have Michael. Both of us have our mothers confidence to continue writing. Both of our fathers have a great sense of humor. Both are proud of there sons. Both of us, tried out for some sort of sport and failed to do something and quit, he played Football & I wrestled.
Jack was a drunk, I am a drunk. So you see there are a lot more possiblities that I can compare myself to Kerouac. But those are just a few I could think of on the spot. I was thinking of that when I went to Barnes and Nobles and found a cool post card of him and his cat. I figured it would be kind of cool to get a cat just like that. If I ever get a cat, I would get two, one named Ginsberg and the other Kerouac. Named after my two favorite beat poets.
I can imagine myself living in a small apartment with two cats in the city. Writing or at least having papers filling the rooms with poetry and articles that I deem somewhat subjectable or unsubjectable. Its just a dream I have. Of course, my dream is to get out of Houston and live in Montreal where its cooler or maybe even New York. Have a place where I can sit on my lap top and write. Ah that sounds like an ideal place to live a nice studio filled with manuscripts and papers of notes for my latest books. Bookshelves full of books of poetry and generation X stuff like Nick Hornsby and MTV Generation stuff. Records on the floor. I know it would look like a disaster but heck it would be my personal place. I would get a housekeeper to clean every 2 weeks. I would do the laundry in the basement or have my own washing machine. I was thinking a place like Patrice has,but in a str8 neighborhood. Close to everything to walk around at night. A place I can walk or ride my bike around the city. Ahh my dream apartment. I would have furnature from IKEA and stuff from home.
I can dream can't I. I know that this dream is far ahead of myself and I know I am not ready to move out on my own yet but I am slowly thinking about it. I am still trying to think what I am going to do next, like am I going to like living in Montreal or will I live in Montreal, or would I like to live in Montreal. I am saying I am going there for vacation its not like I am looking for work and staying there for a long ass time. Its a vacation.
I also want to go to Ottawa while I am there. To visit and sight see. Maybe have lunch at Minglewoods. Just explore the city. Or I may relax and take it easy. A lot too think about while waiting. I have to first figure out where to stay and when I can stay and for how long? Pretty much a lot to think about. I just want to get out of Houston soon the heat is driving me nuts.
My birthday is coming up and I am thinking I am going to be old.25 woohoo a mile stone. A quarter of a century. Yea, I am now officially going to be in my mid twenties. I am also one of those lables now. 20 somethings. YUCK. Well I can't wait to be 25. Yea, I have some fall back ideas, I mean sure 24 is great but 25 I am practically 30 but hell I am going to be happy. I am still not married, don't have a kid yet. So things are going good for me. Going to celebrate it in New Orleans, hopefully I am going to be able to go visit the quarter. I want to go to Pat O's and drink a Hurricane or two.
I also want to go to Preservation Hall to listen to some good jazz. I am thinking of all the stuff I want to do while there.
Well I am going to write more later.
Sunday, June 19, 2005
A boring Sunday
This has truely been a boring sunday.
I mean you know Sundays have always been boring. I know I don't do much on Sundays, I am usually sick but today I have a headache and I have a terrible pain in the legs and arms. My muscles feel weak. The weather isn't much help either. Today is Father's day and well I am stuck inside again. The whole thing with Amy is still worse off then before. It seems like this fight will last another day. So why fight it right.
Today, I am planning on staying home and relaxing at home and watch a dvd. I am thinking of watching either Superman or try to sleep. Well I finished earlier this weekend watching The Prisoner the entire series. That to me was pretty cool. I liked that show, it was a great series, and to think they don't make good shows like that anymore. Patrick McGoohan is a terrific actor. He played King Longshanks in Braveheart. I am thinking I am going to buy the series or at least order it from Barnes & Nobles and use the money I save from the house cleaning to buy it.
Well, I don't know what to do today. Infact, I don't know what to do tommorow either. Hell, it kind of sucks when Ihave no plans. I used to have plans. Now I just feel like they are all tossed up in the air. Last night, I went out to eat with my parents and I tried to see Amy before getting in a wreck which nearly killed me. So I have a swollen arm. That sucks. So I have a swollen arm and a terrible headache.
My eyes are so droopy that I feel like I am going to hit the keyboard falling asleep,but I also know that once I hit the pillow I won't sleep.
Nothing is on t.v. and I am bored. :-(. I am hungry too. I am going to raid the refrigrator. See what can I. Hopefully there are some hotpockets left or some meat balls. At least that will fill me up. Hmm! I did the tacky room added some pictures on my wall. I think I am going to ask mom to take me to Barnes and Nobles so I can pick up some post cards of pictures of comedians to put on my wall. Hopefully she says yes. i really need to get out of the house. My feet are killing me. Hmm. I hate lupus. I just wish I knew what to do.:-( AH I GOT AN IDEA!
NAH!
Well I will write more later.
I mean you know Sundays have always been boring. I know I don't do much on Sundays, I am usually sick but today I have a headache and I have a terrible pain in the legs and arms. My muscles feel weak. The weather isn't much help either. Today is Father's day and well I am stuck inside again. The whole thing with Amy is still worse off then before. It seems like this fight will last another day. So why fight it right.
Today, I am planning on staying home and relaxing at home and watch a dvd. I am thinking of watching either Superman or try to sleep. Well I finished earlier this weekend watching The Prisoner the entire series. That to me was pretty cool. I liked that show, it was a great series, and to think they don't make good shows like that anymore. Patrick McGoohan is a terrific actor. He played King Longshanks in Braveheart. I am thinking I am going to buy the series or at least order it from Barnes & Nobles and use the money I save from the house cleaning to buy it.
Well, I don't know what to do today. Infact, I don't know what to do tommorow either. Hell, it kind of sucks when Ihave no plans. I used to have plans. Now I just feel like they are all tossed up in the air. Last night, I went out to eat with my parents and I tried to see Amy before getting in a wreck which nearly killed me. So I have a swollen arm. That sucks. So I have a swollen arm and a terrible headache.
My eyes are so droopy that I feel like I am going to hit the keyboard falling asleep,but I also know that once I hit the pillow I won't sleep.
Nothing is on t.v. and I am bored. :-(. I am hungry too. I am going to raid the refrigrator. See what can I. Hopefully there are some hotpockets left or some meat balls. At least that will fill me up. Hmm! I did the tacky room added some pictures on my wall. I think I am going to ask mom to take me to Barnes and Nobles so I can pick up some post cards of pictures of comedians to put on my wall. Hopefully she says yes. i really need to get out of the house. My feet are killing me. Hmm. I hate lupus. I just wish I knew what to do.:-( AH I GOT AN IDEA!
NAH!
Well I will write more later.
Saturday, June 18, 2005
So Dick Durbin hates the Military.So Freaking What.
Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) is a good man and I understand what he really meant by comparing the treatment of prisoners at Gitmo to Stalin, Hitler, and Paul Pot. He wasn’t bashing the troops, but the government policy of torture. And no, the torture policy of the US isn’t equal to the three regimes Durbin mentioned, but any torture is bad no matter who does it and to what extent. The German Nazis torturing Jews is torture, but so is US policy of allowing prisoners to defecate on themselves and to attack them with dogs. There’s also a difference between “comparing” and “equating”. Equating is like saying 3=3. Comparing is like saying 3 and 5 are both prime numbers, odd numbers, and less than 6. So Durbin was comparing, not equating. Also, Durbin wasn’t blaming the troops or blaming the US, but bush and the government policy. The guards at the prison were just using tactics given to them by the bushies to soften up and torture the prisoners for some reason I don’t know. So Durbin was actually “blaming the government”. Hmmmmm that sounds like what a conservative would do. But the conservatives now own all four branches of the government, so they fuck their own platform. I think bush and the ‘cans are the ones who really hate the troops; they send them to die in a war that was fought because of a lie.
I can talk about torture and moral relativism until the cows come home, but let me say one final thing about Durbin: HE SAID NOTHING WRONG. Why don’t we talk about all the ‘cans comparing liberals to Stalinists and Nazis. Rush limbaugh, the vulgar pigboy keeps calling feminists “feminazis” just for wanting equal pay and opportunities. And look what I found on his limbaugh’s quote page at his website today:
“Since the fall of the Soviet empire, the new home of socialists and quasi-communists is the environmental movement.”
Whoa whoa whoa, is limbaugh-the-hut morally “equating” Stalin, Castro, Lenin, Mao, Krushchev, Kim Jong Ill, and Paul Pot to environmentalists who keep our air, water, and land clean? Or is he “comparing”? Heh heh
I can talk about torture and moral relativism until the cows come home, but let me say one final thing about Durbin: HE SAID NOTHING WRONG. Why don’t we talk about all the ‘cans comparing liberals to Stalinists and Nazis. Rush limbaugh, the vulgar pigboy keeps calling feminists “feminazis” just for wanting equal pay and opportunities. And look what I found on his limbaugh’s quote page at his website today:
“Since the fall of the Soviet empire, the new home of socialists and quasi-communists is the environmental movement.”
Whoa whoa whoa, is limbaugh-the-hut morally “equating” Stalin, Castro, Lenin, Mao, Krushchev, Kim Jong Ill, and Paul Pot to environmentalists who keep our air, water, and land clean? Or is he “comparing”? Heh heh
Well! :-)
I figured I had a wonderful morning except I had a fight with Amy. I am still trying hard to figure out what I did wrong. Well I think I did a few things wrong like I had see Lise. The terrible witch of an ex. I also compaired Amy to Lise. Which was a terrible mistake,in my own part. I also did a few things I shouldn't do I had a pint of Smithwicks and a glass of water. I should of gotten a coke or something. I was so angry seeing Lise and Leslie that I took it out on Amy. So we are pretty much in non speaking terms for today. I also talked with these other ladies at the other end of the table, just talking with them. She said it was ok that I talked with them, but I can tell with her body language it was like No. I am so confused.
My heart feels funny after this fight, I know I have done a lot to hurt our relationship and I am trying to figure out what to do to fix it. I know I am in the dog house and the only way out is to fix it without sounding like I am fake.
Emotions are killing me, I have hard to figure out, part of me is sad, part of me is releaved. I don't know how to feel. I did to much or I did to little. I know I shouldn't let my emotions carry me and I shouldn't leash it out on the women I love. I did that before and that is why I was single for so long. I keep all my emotions inside and attack on people. I do that with every1 even my parents.
Well, ok aside from the fight I had a good morning I woke up and I started moving really funny I guess I had my head full with emotions. Well, can't figure out what to do, whether I should call her or should I let her call me.
The weather outside is hot and sticky and I am staying inside. It couldn't be much worse then it is now. I am staying in and going to grab my clothes out the dryer and fold them. Then I am going to shower and look nice to go stay in with my parents.
Well today Tulane is in the College World Series so I am going to watch the game with Dad. Pretty boring day. I am so torn between staying at home and feeling sad or going out. I think I am going to shower and shave.
I need to cheer myself up.
My heart feels funny after this fight, I know I have done a lot to hurt our relationship and I am trying to figure out what to do to fix it. I know I am in the dog house and the only way out is to fix it without sounding like I am fake.
Emotions are killing me, I have hard to figure out, part of me is sad, part of me is releaved. I don't know how to feel. I did to much or I did to little. I know I shouldn't let my emotions carry me and I shouldn't leash it out on the women I love. I did that before and that is why I was single for so long. I keep all my emotions inside and attack on people. I do that with every1 even my parents.
Well, ok aside from the fight I had a good morning I woke up and I started moving really funny I guess I had my head full with emotions. Well, can't figure out what to do, whether I should call her or should I let her call me.
The weather outside is hot and sticky and I am staying inside. It couldn't be much worse then it is now. I am staying in and going to grab my clothes out the dryer and fold them. Then I am going to shower and look nice to go stay in with my parents.
Well today Tulane is in the College World Series so I am going to watch the game with Dad. Pretty boring day. I am so torn between staying at home and feeling sad or going out. I think I am going to shower and shave.
I need to cheer myself up.
Friday, June 17, 2005
What a long day
I can't believe my day has been so boring. I spent half of the day either at home writing or cleaning or doing laundry or at the gallery waiting to go home. My muscles were killing me earlier but now they feel fine.
I am trying to figure out what I am going to do tonight. If I am going to see Amy or if I am staying home. Its hot outside and yet I feel hot inside. I feel as if I live in the freaking desert. What the hell. Am I really in the Sahara or what.
I think, that today has been a really boring day. I was also at Nancy's for 30 minutes and then it was at the Gallery for the rest of the day. I worked on set up an invoice software which took forever and then I went upstairs to talk with Bob. I was so bored that I felt like I was going to fall asleep.
I am trying to figure out what I am going to do tonight. If I am going to see Amy or if I am staying home. Its hot outside and yet I feel hot inside. I feel as if I live in the freaking desert. What the hell. Am I really in the Sahara or what.
I think, that today has been a really boring day. I was also at Nancy's for 30 minutes and then it was at the Gallery for the rest of the day. I worked on set up an invoice software which took forever and then I went upstairs to talk with Bob. I was so bored that I felt like I was going to fall asleep.
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
Enter the gnome
Pronounce the g's
The gnome on my windowsill told me not to do it. The sun was making his face burn, he said, so stop gnawing and move me into the shade. That’s what he said. After I had made significant progress on the twine, that’s when I picked him up. I told him to stop bossing me around, because he is only plastic. Not to mention 10 inches tall. I put him back down in the same spot, to see if he would notice. He isn’t too clever, this gnome. But I guess more so than I thought. The screech coming from him was enough to get anyone to obey.He was perpetually gnoming up my day.What I was doing with the twine was I was gnawing it. Incidentally, I was also gnawing on my lip. Only this was by accident. I was trying to untie a package. Who ties packages with twine these days? It’s the twenty-first century for crying out loud. I didn’t really. Naturally, this whole conversation was in my head.Inside was a pot. Inside the pot was dirt. Inside the dirt was a seed, which was now a bursting orchid. Bursting in that it was purple and heliotrope and then bright white. Bursting with color.I put it into the sun filled spot previously occupied by Grumpy McGnomey. HA! I told him, this orchid won’t complain. Finally I can have some peace and quiet around here.
The gnome on my windowsill told me not to do it. The sun was making his face burn, he said, so stop gnawing and move me into the shade. That’s what he said. After I had made significant progress on the twine, that’s when I picked him up. I told him to stop bossing me around, because he is only plastic. Not to mention 10 inches tall. I put him back down in the same spot, to see if he would notice. He isn’t too clever, this gnome. But I guess more so than I thought. The screech coming from him was enough to get anyone to obey.He was perpetually gnoming up my day.What I was doing with the twine was I was gnawing it. Incidentally, I was also gnawing on my lip. Only this was by accident. I was trying to untie a package. Who ties packages with twine these days? It’s the twenty-first century for crying out loud. I didn’t really. Naturally, this whole conversation was in my head.Inside was a pot. Inside the pot was dirt. Inside the dirt was a seed, which was now a bursting orchid. Bursting in that it was purple and heliotrope and then bright white. Bursting with color.I put it into the sun filled spot previously occupied by Grumpy McGnomey. HA! I told him, this orchid won’t complain. Finally I can have some peace and quiet around here.
Hockey is not on
A barren, hockeyless land
So I have learned that there is no International Hockey World Championship coverage at all in the US. Because ESPN refused to buy coverage (claiming something to do with the hockey strike), and because the other TV channels couldn't afford to.
The only way to watch online (as far as I can see) is through Mediazone. This costs $7.99 per quarter final game, and $9.99 per semi/medal game. Or $39.99 for an all-access pass. Fox cut a deal with Mediazone to offer coverage for a bargain: $34.99, but the Fox Sports Grill in town isn't even showing it.
I sucked it up and spent the ten-spot on the Gold medal game since Canada (more or less undeservedly) made it to the finals. God knows where Mediazone got their commentators, but the experience was a far cry from Hockey Night in Canada, or TSN. One commentator had a British accent, and the other sounded Dutch. Or South African. Or something. All of these countries known for their hockey, of course.
The live streaming was decent, I suppose, but deficiencies (either on my end or theirs) tended to make the whole game look like a slow-mo replay. I could rarely see the puck, as it moved faster than the transmission could show.
In future, I will hunt out a good sports bar with a satellite dish that carries TSN and I will arrange to watch all the games there. I recommend that any sports bar in a non-Hockey town that is looking to carve a niche should really try to cater to all of us Canadian ex-pats who love and miss hockey -- even if just because it reminds us of home.
So I have learned that there is no International Hockey World Championship coverage at all in the US. Because ESPN refused to buy coverage (claiming something to do with the hockey strike), and because the other TV channels couldn't afford to.
The only way to watch online (as far as I can see) is through Mediazone. This costs $7.99 per quarter final game, and $9.99 per semi/medal game. Or $39.99 for an all-access pass. Fox cut a deal with Mediazone to offer coverage for a bargain: $34.99, but the Fox Sports Grill in town isn't even showing it.
I sucked it up and spent the ten-spot on the Gold medal game since Canada (more or less undeservedly) made it to the finals. God knows where Mediazone got their commentators, but the experience was a far cry from Hockey Night in Canada, or TSN. One commentator had a British accent, and the other sounded Dutch. Or South African. Or something. All of these countries known for their hockey, of course.
The live streaming was decent, I suppose, but deficiencies (either on my end or theirs) tended to make the whole game look like a slow-mo replay. I could rarely see the puck, as it moved faster than the transmission could show.
In future, I will hunt out a good sports bar with a satellite dish that carries TSN and I will arrange to watch all the games there. I recommend that any sports bar in a non-Hockey town that is looking to carve a niche should really try to cater to all of us Canadian ex-pats who love and miss hockey -- even if just because it reminds us of home.
Monday, June 13, 2005
Canuck N Texas attacking the Accent Police
Yes, I have an accent.
Where are you from?I am asked at least once a week where I am from. My accent is so strong that even the middle-eastern lady at the sandwich shop, and the cashier at my grocery store notice right away and ask me where I'm from. Or maybe that's just because I said "Please" and "Thank you".Either way, I know I speak Canadian. There are some pointed differences, outside of the ubiquitous "Eh?" that punctuates my verbal language and the obvious spelling variations that characterize the written.- I say a purse-lipped, prudish "out" and "about", while my American friends yawn a lazy, slack-jawed "aout" and "abaout".- When I was in grade five, my American friends were in fifth grade.- When I'm sorry, I'm SO-rry. When they're sorry, they're sah-rry.- My Canadian teachers set exams, I write them, they grade them and I hope to get a good mark. American teachers write exams, the students take them and hope to get good grades.- I say "you're welcome". Americans say "uh-huh", "yup", or "sure".- My Mum and my girlfriend MOM get along splendidly.- When get pissed, it often doesn't mean I'm angry.- The last letter of the alphabet is zed.There are lots of other examples -- I won't bore you with an exhaustive list.a secret: I'm terrified of losing my accent
Where are you from?I am asked at least once a week where I am from. My accent is so strong that even the middle-eastern lady at the sandwich shop, and the cashier at my grocery store notice right away and ask me where I'm from. Or maybe that's just because I said "Please" and "Thank you".Either way, I know I speak Canadian. There are some pointed differences, outside of the ubiquitous "Eh?" that punctuates my verbal language and the obvious spelling variations that characterize the written.- I say a purse-lipped, prudish "out" and "about", while my American friends yawn a lazy, slack-jawed "aout" and "abaout".- When I was in grade five, my American friends were in fifth grade.- When I'm sorry, I'm SO-rry. When they're sorry, they're sah-rry.- My Canadian teachers set exams, I write them, they grade them and I hope to get a good mark. American teachers write exams, the students take them and hope to get good grades.- I say "you're welcome". Americans say "uh-huh", "yup", or "sure".- My Mum and my girlfriend MOM get along splendidly.- When get pissed, it often doesn't mean I'm angry.- The last letter of the alphabet is zed.There are lots of other examples -- I won't bore you with an exhaustive list.a secret: I'm terrified of losing my accent
It has been a long weekend.
Well,
I haven't done much writing this weekend so I thought I write something today. This past weekend I watched sports and sat around home watching more sports. I know nothing exciting. Well the weather has been typical Houston hot for summer and I haven't enjoyed the great excitement of the summer days.
On Friday I spent the day t KPFT at the Living Art Studio before heading back home. The show was a total disaster, it was supposed to be a clip show of the best of 3 years but it looked like they chopped off most of the interviews that they aired previously and put them together in one whole show. So that was terrible. I decided afterwards I would come home and relax. I didn't do much relaxing I was back on my feet cleaning up the den and living room.
After I did that I decided that on Friday I should just relax and chill. So thats what I did.
Saturday rolled around and like most Saturdays I tend to get bored staying home,well this Saturday had two sporting events I wanted to see Rice Vrs Tulane and The Belmont. Well after thinking that dad was going with me to BW3s to watch the Tulane game, I thought it would be cool if I meet a friend there to go watch it with us. Well change of plans, the game was on TV. So of course, Dad didn't needed to be there so I told him I would just need a ride to the place to meet my friend. Well my friend didn't show up either but I did meet Peter Mcdonald. Peter is this 50ish old guy with a beach hat who reminds me of southern Woody Allen. Nicest guy in the world and neurotic to the bone but funny as hell. I met him when I was part of the Rally club at Rice. So of course seeing him was exciting enough to watch the game and it sure beat staying at home cooped up staying another boring Saturday at the house. So while watching the game we order food I ordered a chicken wrap and he order wings. He ordered a bucket of beer for us to split. Well, when it came to split the check, I thought I was ordering cheap Oh boy was I wrong . I paid 22 dollars. I felt ripped off. I felt like I blew a load of money which I didn't have on something I really didn't care for the beer but I thought OK we would split it. I enjoyed my diet coke.
Afterwards I was feeling a little depressed that I spent half of my money with Pete, also at the fact that Tulane lost. I felt that I needed to do something that night, so I figured I needed to do something that night. I needed to do something to do something to keep myself off the edge off of blowing off my hard earned money. I can home and watched the Belmont and saw that Afleet Alex won. That was awesome! I was pulling for Giacomo but he placed 4th not bad he was in the lead till the end but blew it.
After the race I wanted to do something fun. I needed to do something that night since dad was working and mom was going out and dad was working.
I called my friends to see if they wanted to do something, so I called Polly to see if she wanted to do something. So she was the only one who was free and we saw each other and hung out at Starbucks and ate at Goode Company.
She paid for it, so that was kind of fun. Polly was a really nice lady and we talked for a while till both of us were tired.
Then Sunday arrived which was fun. I woke up at 10 and I started my day at 12. I saw Amy. I thought that was fun. Amy and I spent the time MFA looking at the Baseball exhibit that was displayed which was a lot of fun. The weather was hot but we enjoyed the exhibit then afterwards we went to Hermann park and walked around hung around there for a few hours then returned home to eat barbeque and ate ribs. After we ate we left to return to Helios to Liz Keith's gone away party. The party itself was terribly boring but I did have a good time with Amy so it was not bad I saw Mariana, but it was terrible at poetry and loud music. The whole thing was just awful. But in the good news, Tulane won yesterday.
So my weekend was pretty full and I enjoyed it and I hope to have fun this week.
Well Thath as been my weekend I hope to accomplish something productive and do something good like finish my book and write a new one.
I haven't done much writing this weekend so I thought I write something today. This past weekend I watched sports and sat around home watching more sports. I know nothing exciting. Well the weather has been typical Houston hot for summer and I haven't enjoyed the great excitement of the summer days.
On Friday I spent the day t KPFT at the Living Art Studio before heading back home. The show was a total disaster, it was supposed to be a clip show of the best of 3 years but it looked like they chopped off most of the interviews that they aired previously and put them together in one whole show. So that was terrible. I decided afterwards I would come home and relax. I didn't do much relaxing I was back on my feet cleaning up the den and living room.
After I did that I decided that on Friday I should just relax and chill. So thats what I did.
Saturday rolled around and like most Saturdays I tend to get bored staying home,well this Saturday had two sporting events I wanted to see Rice Vrs Tulane and The Belmont. Well after thinking that dad was going with me to BW3s to watch the Tulane game, I thought it would be cool if I meet a friend there to go watch it with us. Well change of plans, the game was on TV. So of course, Dad didn't needed to be there so I told him I would just need a ride to the place to meet my friend. Well my friend didn't show up either but I did meet Peter Mcdonald. Peter is this 50ish old guy with a beach hat who reminds me of southern Woody Allen. Nicest guy in the world and neurotic to the bone but funny as hell. I met him when I was part of the Rally club at Rice. So of course seeing him was exciting enough to watch the game and it sure beat staying at home cooped up staying another boring Saturday at the house. So while watching the game we order food I ordered a chicken wrap and he order wings. He ordered a bucket of beer for us to split. Well, when it came to split the check, I thought I was ordering cheap Oh boy was I wrong . I paid 22 dollars. I felt ripped off. I felt like I blew a load of money which I didn't have on something I really didn't care for the beer but I thought OK we would split it. I enjoyed my diet coke.
Afterwards I was feeling a little depressed that I spent half of my money with Pete, also at the fact that Tulane lost. I felt that I needed to do something that night, so I figured I needed to do something that night. I needed to do something to do something to keep myself off the edge off of blowing off my hard earned money. I can home and watched the Belmont and saw that Afleet Alex won. That was awesome! I was pulling for Giacomo but he placed 4th not bad he was in the lead till the end but blew it.
After the race I wanted to do something fun. I needed to do something that night since dad was working and mom was going out and dad was working.
I called my friends to see if they wanted to do something, so I called Polly to see if she wanted to do something. So she was the only one who was free and we saw each other and hung out at Starbucks and ate at Goode Company.
She paid for it, so that was kind of fun. Polly was a really nice lady and we talked for a while till both of us were tired.
Then Sunday arrived which was fun. I woke up at 10 and I started my day at 12. I saw Amy. I thought that was fun. Amy and I spent the time MFA looking at the Baseball exhibit that was displayed which was a lot of fun. The weather was hot but we enjoyed the exhibit then afterwards we went to Hermann park and walked around hung around there for a few hours then returned home to eat barbeque and ate ribs. After we ate we left to return to Helios to Liz Keith's gone away party. The party itself was terribly boring but I did have a good time with Amy so it was not bad I saw Mariana, but it was terrible at poetry and loud music. The whole thing was just awful. But in the good news, Tulane won yesterday.
So my weekend was pretty full and I enjoyed it and I hope to have fun this week.
Well Thath as been my weekend I hope to accomplish something productive and do something good like finish my book and write a new one.
Thursday, June 09, 2005
Last Night!
Well last night was an eventful night, I went to Helios after a year of absences I decided to return and boy did the place suck. I felt as if the place was so disappointment. I never felt so sad about returning to place that I so loved and coming back so hurt. All these poets were the same and they had the same boring and pathetic poetry. The poetry was terrible and I felt like I was going to drive my head through a wooden spike. The bartender, was clueless and didn't know how to pour a drink and made charged over priced for a Shiner. It was just a rip off. The only good thing about Helios was that I was able to see Andrew, I missed talking with him but it was like talking with an Alziemers patient talking about the same stories over and over again. The poets were the same as last year, and the new ones who were there were just as bad as the ones as the old farts.
I am glad that Amy came with me cause I know that I would of possibly left after my set and just screamed.
I am glad that Amy came with me cause I know that I would of possibly left after my set and just screamed.
Wednesday, June 08, 2005
We will Miss You Mrs Robinson
Well, I am sad a little, Anne Bancroft died yesterday. Anne Bancroft who was Mel Brooks wife and who played in such films as The Graduate and Miracle Worker. She was only 72. Anne Bancroft was one of those actresses that was great in her films. She seemed to have played the roles with feeling and emotions. I know the world will miss Anne.
Today is one of those days I don't feel like going out. My plan is that I am going to stay in. I hate that I can't move without feeling pins and needles. I am planning on either spend the day watching t.v. but first I have to go to the store and then water the plants. Its a long day and this day has taken forever.
I have a terrible tummy ache. The weather outside is not fun. It has made me stuck inside again. I can't wait to leave for a cooler climate, like Canada. I am going to enjoy the nice cool breeze of the St.Lawrence and maybe it will help me get my muscles inshape. I think once I am in Montreal I am going to visit my favorite places and stop by and see if Melissa wants to hang out. I am thinking of also taking the Metro to visit the places like downtown and also the cemetary to see my brother.
Hmm, well I will rest today.
Today is one of those days I don't feel like going out. My plan is that I am going to stay in. I hate that I can't move without feeling pins and needles. I am planning on either spend the day watching t.v. but first I have to go to the store and then water the plants. Its a long day and this day has taken forever.
I have a terrible tummy ache. The weather outside is not fun. It has made me stuck inside again. I can't wait to leave for a cooler climate, like Canada. I am going to enjoy the nice cool breeze of the St.Lawrence and maybe it will help me get my muscles inshape. I think once I am in Montreal I am going to visit my favorite places and stop by and see if Melissa wants to hang out. I am thinking of also taking the Metro to visit the places like downtown and also the cemetary to see my brother.
Hmm, well I will rest today.
The madness of King Phil Spector
The Other trial of the Century. We have had enough of to many trials of this century to be dubbed the trial of the century. We had Robert Blake's murder case, Michael Jackson's molestation case and we are now faced with Phil Spector's murder case. I begin to wonder whats the deal with so many trials. Today I am looking at Phil Spector. And since I have been a big music fan since I was younger I thought I'd explore more of Phil Spector.
Any history of Phil's gunplay is pretty interesting (supposedly, he pulled a gun on the Ramones during the recording of "End of the Century"), but any discussion of evidence, no matter how shocking, pales in comparison with that hair. I mean, c'mon! Just look at it! Wow!Murder charges aside, I've always been a big Phil Spector fan. That whole "Wall of Sound" technique is one of the genius achievements in pop music, in my opinion, and his demanding (to say the least) production values gave pop an operatic boost just when it needed it. Naturally, that would all be taken too far during the "Sgt. Pepper" era, necessitating the brutal stripping-back-down the Ramones gave rock 'n' roll in the mid '70s. But Spector's girl group work still sounds pure and beautiful, and his 1963 album, "A Christmas Gift To You" is one of the finest holiday recordings ever. (I know Beatles fans bitch and moan about the production job he did on "Let It Be," but you know what? Beatles fans are a pain in the ass.)Then again, pop genius aside, Phil has always had the repulation of being a, shall we say, difficult collaborator. Besides the Ramones incident, he's rumored to have fired a gun while in the studio with John Lennon, pointed a gun at Leonard Cohen and made Ronnie Spector's life a living hell for years. And though Carole King and Gerry Goffin wrote the 1963 Crystal's single "He Hit Me (And It Felt Like A Kiss)," Phil was the one who brought it to life via the Wall of Sound. Great tune, jaw-droppingly apalling lyrics.For more of Phil's trial, keep your eyes glued to E! For more of his music, pick up the "Back to Mono" boxed set that came out in the early '90s. It includes all his hits, plus "A Christmas Gift to You" and, in case you're morbidly curious, "He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss)."
By the way, wasn't Tom Cruise supposed to be making a biopic of Phil? The story is building up to a big ending, Tom. Time to stop jumping around like a monkey on "Oprah" and get fitted for that Phil Spector wig!
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
I am so sexy it hurts.
Hey,
You know whats really good. I just had an idea. You know I am beginning to think my shower was the best that I have taken in years. Well I know it sounds stupid but hey I am showered and I feel super clean. I have taken plenty of showers in my life but I have never had the same expirences in taking one that could match the ones I had when I went to Stuebenville Ohio. While at Stuebenville, the college dorm at Franciscan had the best water pressure and the best warm water that ever hit my bare skin. I know its sounds stupid, but I hated the school,with its preachy rhetoric but the shower was amazing.
Well, the shower I just took was breath taking. I loved that I soft skin and I am enjoying my writing. Tonight, I am going to the Kemah boardwalk with Amy. I am pretty excited about that I've never been but at least I will go with a woman.
Anyway, I am pretty happy that I took a shower I am wearing my linen pants and my dress shirt. It looks good and I feel clean. I am also so clean and I smell good. Its at least a desirable look for a young woman to look for. I am wearing my new shoes and they don't hurt as much as did my sandals.
I am pretty happy about my day, I spent it either reading and writing. I like this new clean look. I think I look O.C. ish like the woman at the store said. I look like a millionaire and speaking of which I am broke. Well I have 7 bucks. I am looking for the missing 10 dollars. I thought I put them in my pants but I can't find them. So I won't be going out much this week.
Hmm. I am going to eat before I go. I can't wait to go out tonight. Well, my muscles are weaking if I don't walk around I think it would take a toll on me. I know I have written a few posts already today but this is making up for my missing.
Well I have a few films I am planning on seeing this summer, and some though I have complained a few weeks ago are remakes some just seem good to watch and the I can critizies. I want to see the new Herbie film. I am not a big fan of Lindsay Lohan but I do love that car its part of my childhood. I may want to see Mr& Mrs Smith, just because it seems so hot that Angelina Jolie is in the film.
I am also thinking of seeing though its a remake The Longest Yard, just to see if it matches up with the 70s film.
The movie worth watching in my summer film list would be Bewitched, with Nicole Kidman and Will Ferrell. I hate Will Ferrell but I did enjoy the old tv show with Elizabeth Montgomery and Dick Sergant and the Dick York. So it may seem like a funny film to watch plus it sounds like an ideal Chick flick too. Its directed b y Nora Ephorn ,who has done a lot of chick flicks that I enjoyed. My favorite You've Got Mail and Sleepless in Seattle. Those two are so cute and even for a guy they were fun to watch.
I do want to watch Cinderella Man but with Dad. I like Ron Howard and Russel Crowe especially in the first film they worked with A Beautiful Mind. I loved that film, since I simpathize with John Nash. Ron Howard best as Opie has done a great series of films as Director and Producer A Beautiful Mind, Backdraft, the remake (yes Remake can be good in some sense) Ransom.
I guess I also want to see Star Wars, not because everyone is seeing it, so I can finally understand what the big deal is. I think though I would have to watch all the Star Wars episodes before watching this one. I may also want to see it to see how gorgeous my gal Natalie looks.
Well I also want to see a lot of films this summer. I just wish I had the money to go to them.
I have a new film I am going to review Tonari no Toroto a japanese anima film from 1988. Its about two young japanese girls and there adventures with there sick mother.
lighter, less ominous precursor to Spirited Away, Hayao Miyazaki's My Neighbor Totoro is a childhood tale that holds great appeal for adults, too. Drawn in a style favoring a pleasing mix of fantasy and gentle dreams, we are pulled persistently into the world of two little girls, Mei (Chika Sakamoto) and Satsuki (Noriko Hidaka), sisters who move to the countryside with their father Tatsuo (Shigesato Itoi) when their mother (Sumi Shimamoto) becomes very ill and is hospitalized nearby. The girls enjoy the adventure of exploring their spacious if decrepit home, soon discovering that it is inhabited by harmless ghosts called "soot sprites". In the vast forest next to their house, they meet more spirits called, totoros, lead by the giant Totoro (Hitoshi Takagi), not to mention the fantastically mobile Cat Bus ghost. Again, there is absolutely nothing scary or evil about these spirits, traits that seem to have become unavoidable ingredients in most children's films. The totoros seem more akin to the comforting invisible friends that many kids create, watching and accompanying the sisters in their play and day-to-day activities. The closest thing to a scary monster in the story is the serious illness that threatens the girls' mother throughout the film, but that sickness is construed as a part of the ebb and flow of life, as opposed to a pain-filled melodramatic plot point. The essence of tranquility and grace of this film seems to mirror what life could be, if only mankind could let fear recede and embrace the unknown
Like I may of said before, I have never been a big fan of Japanese Animation mainly because some of it makes me sick, well have fits like Seizures. They are some films though that are great. I loved Spirited Away. That was a few seizuresless films but I can't watch Dragon Ball Z or Pokemon. I think each week I will find a new movie to review.
You know whats really good. I just had an idea. You know I am beginning to think my shower was the best that I have taken in years. Well I know it sounds stupid but hey I am showered and I feel super clean. I have taken plenty of showers in my life but I have never had the same expirences in taking one that could match the ones I had when I went to Stuebenville Ohio. While at Stuebenville, the college dorm at Franciscan had the best water pressure and the best warm water that ever hit my bare skin. I know its sounds stupid, but I hated the school,with its preachy rhetoric but the shower was amazing.
Well, the shower I just took was breath taking. I loved that I soft skin and I am enjoying my writing. Tonight, I am going to the Kemah boardwalk with Amy. I am pretty excited about that I've never been but at least I will go with a woman.
Anyway, I am pretty happy that I took a shower I am wearing my linen pants and my dress shirt. It looks good and I feel clean. I am also so clean and I smell good. Its at least a desirable look for a young woman to look for. I am wearing my new shoes and they don't hurt as much as did my sandals.
I am pretty happy about my day, I spent it either reading and writing. I like this new clean look. I think I look O.C. ish like the woman at the store said. I look like a millionaire and speaking of which I am broke. Well I have 7 bucks. I am looking for the missing 10 dollars. I thought I put them in my pants but I can't find them. So I won't be going out much this week.
Hmm. I am going to eat before I go. I can't wait to go out tonight. Well, my muscles are weaking if I don't walk around I think it would take a toll on me. I know I have written a few posts already today but this is making up for my missing.
Well I have a few films I am planning on seeing this summer, and some though I have complained a few weeks ago are remakes some just seem good to watch and the I can critizies. I want to see the new Herbie film. I am not a big fan of Lindsay Lohan but I do love that car its part of my childhood. I may want to see Mr& Mrs Smith, just because it seems so hot that Angelina Jolie is in the film.
I am also thinking of seeing though its a remake The Longest Yard, just to see if it matches up with the 70s film.
The movie worth watching in my summer film list would be Bewitched, with Nicole Kidman and Will Ferrell. I hate Will Ferrell but I did enjoy the old tv show with Elizabeth Montgomery and Dick Sergant and the Dick York. So it may seem like a funny film to watch plus it sounds like an ideal Chick flick too. Its directed b y Nora Ephorn ,who has done a lot of chick flicks that I enjoyed. My favorite You've Got Mail and Sleepless in Seattle. Those two are so cute and even for a guy they were fun to watch.
I do want to watch Cinderella Man but with Dad. I like Ron Howard and Russel Crowe especially in the first film they worked with A Beautiful Mind. I loved that film, since I simpathize with John Nash. Ron Howard best as Opie has done a great series of films as Director and Producer A Beautiful Mind, Backdraft, the remake (yes Remake can be good in some sense) Ransom.
I guess I also want to see Star Wars, not because everyone is seeing it, so I can finally understand what the big deal is. I think though I would have to watch all the Star Wars episodes before watching this one. I may also want to see it to see how gorgeous my gal Natalie looks.
Well I also want to see a lot of films this summer. I just wish I had the money to go to them.
I have a new film I am going to review Tonari no Toroto a japanese anima film from 1988. Its about two young japanese girls and there adventures with there sick mother.
lighter, less ominous precursor to Spirited Away, Hayao Miyazaki's My Neighbor Totoro is a childhood tale that holds great appeal for adults, too. Drawn in a style favoring a pleasing mix of fantasy and gentle dreams, we are pulled persistently into the world of two little girls, Mei (Chika Sakamoto) and Satsuki (Noriko Hidaka), sisters who move to the countryside with their father Tatsuo (Shigesato Itoi) when their mother (Sumi Shimamoto) becomes very ill and is hospitalized nearby. The girls enjoy the adventure of exploring their spacious if decrepit home, soon discovering that it is inhabited by harmless ghosts called "soot sprites". In the vast forest next to their house, they meet more spirits called, totoros, lead by the giant Totoro (Hitoshi Takagi), not to mention the fantastically mobile Cat Bus ghost. Again, there is absolutely nothing scary or evil about these spirits, traits that seem to have become unavoidable ingredients in most children's films. The totoros seem more akin to the comforting invisible friends that many kids create, watching and accompanying the sisters in their play and day-to-day activities. The closest thing to a scary monster in the story is the serious illness that threatens the girls' mother throughout the film, but that sickness is construed as a part of the ebb and flow of life, as opposed to a pain-filled melodramatic plot point. The essence of tranquility and grace of this film seems to mirror what life could be, if only mankind could let fear recede and embrace the unknown
Like I may of said before, I have never been a big fan of Japanese Animation mainly because some of it makes me sick, well have fits like Seizures. They are some films though that are great. I loved Spirited Away. That was a few seizuresless films but I can't watch Dragon Ball Z or Pokemon. I think each week I will find a new movie to review.
No laughing matters,Lisa Kudrow's Comeback Kyra Sedgewick as The Closer.and Lost's Season Finale. An overview of this summer Television Season.
Like I have ranted and said before I love T.V. and I love to write about t.v. but its pretty good to talk about this summer seasons hit & misses.
SATIRE OR PEEVISHNESS? Kudrow is valiant in her role as an aging sit-com star, but The Comeback just isn't funny enough.
TOUGH WORK, TOUGH GIRL: in The Closer, Kyra Sedgwick takes a character who could have been a Clarice-Starling-meets-Jane-Tennison wanna-be and gives her a snippy, complicated personality of her own.
Lisa Kudrow’s new HBO series The Comeback (Sundays at 9:30 p.m. on HBO beginning June 5) is billed as a comedy, but it’s the most depressing show you’re likely to see all year. If former Friends star Kudrow was determined to put ditsy Phoebe to rest, she has succeeded, and then some.
Created by Kudrow and Sex and the City producer/director Michael Patrick King (they also wrote the first two episodes), The Comeback is a scripted mock-reality series that aims to shed satirical light on the brutal truths of life for the over-40 actress in Hollywood. This might sound reminiscent of Kirstie Alley’s series Fat Actress, but the dark tone of The Comeback is closer to the British version of The Office. Like Ricky Gervais’s David Brent, Kudrow’s washed-up TV star Valerie Cherish is half-blind to how people really feel about her. Swaddled in self-importance but growing dimly aware of a chill in the air, Valerie keeps looking into the camera and offering nervous smiles and face-saving explanations of why the work offers aren’t pouring in and why even her own husband is unimpressed with her B-list fame. Once the star of the hit 1980s sit-com I’m It!, Valerie has resorted to reality TV to rekindle her career. She’s appearing in a show called The Comeback that follows her as she makes her comeback as the star of a network sit-com called Room and Bored. (The show-within-a-show-within-a-show construction is clunky and, in the first episode, confusing.)
Well, "star" is not exactly the word for Valerie’s role on Room and Bored, but she’s too proud to realize what’s going on. In a spoof of the tortured process by which shows get on the air, Valerie signs on for a sit-com about four thirtysomething career women who share an apartment, but on the first day of shooting the pilot, she finds that the network has made a few changes. Her character now shares an apartment with three nubile twentysomethings, so the age difference between Valerie and her co-stars is painfully noticeable. On the second day of shooting, the network makes another change, and the news is delivered to Valerie with barely disguised contempt by the show’s obnoxious white-boy-homie head writers. The apartment is now shared by four horny twentysomethings — two women, two men — and Valerie is to play the landlady, "Aunt Sassy," who lives upstairs and disapproves of the kids’ sexual antics. In short, she’s become Stanley Roper on Three’s Company. The point is underscored in a later scene where the cast of Room and Bored pose for publicity photos. The hot young things are up front in skimpy outfits; Valerie is far, far back, wearing Aunt Sassy’s only costume, a matronly track suit.
Kudrow is valiant in her role; she hits beautiful notes of foolishness, desperation, and heartbreak as she’s ignored or humiliated by everyone around her. But the two episodes I saw were just not funny enough; they started out on a down and stayed there, displaying none of The Office’s agile dance between dark and light. There’s also a fatal flaw in the show’s central contention that TV has no use for actresses who’ve passed their perceived sell-by date. Desperate Housewives, anyone? The Comeback isn’t satire, it’s just peevishness.
THERE’S A SCENE in The Comeback in which an anxious Valerie is caught by a hidden overhead camera in her kitchen rehearsing her lines late into the night while polishing off an entire chocolate cake. The secret-junk-food-binge motif also appears in the new TNT cop drama The Closer, which stars Kyra Sedgwick as the driven, embattled head of an almost all-male homicide unit of the LAPD. These images of ambitious women pigging out under pressure may seem like a TV cliché by now. But an image can feel cliché’d and still be rooted in truth. Is there any relationship as enduring, intense, and clandestine as the one between a woman and her food?
In The Closer (Mondays at 9 p.m. on TNT, beginning June 13), the deft and under-appreciated Sedgwick plays Deputy Police Chief Brenda Johnson, a CIA-trained Atlanta police detective who comes to Los Angeles to head the elite Priority Murder Squad. She has a reputation as being the best "closer" in law enforcement — her interrogations always yield confessions that hold up in court. She has an unerring understanding of human nature and more than a taste for theatricality; inside the interrogation room, she becomes whatever sort of woman she senses the suspect might need to confess to. Her detective skills aside, the fact that she’s female and an outsider ruffles many feathers in her new squad room, and the boys lay it on thick with the sexist remarks. But Brenda gives as good as she gets. "Excuse me, lieutenant," she smiles in a peachy drawl. "But if ah liked being called a bitch to mah face, ah’d still be married."
The Closer is a crisply entertaining cop show from Nip/Tuck producers Greer Shepherd and Michael M. Robin. The first episode is built around a decent puzzler about a dead woman found in the home of a missing software billionaire. But the most watchable thing about The Closer is Sedgwick. She takes a character who could have been a Clarice-Starling-meets-Jane-Tennison wanna-be and gives her a snippy, complicated personality of her own. Brenda is alive with a rabbity energy that suggests a woman who’s been trying to outrun personal demons for a long time. She has secrets. In the first episode, there’s an allusion to an "ethics inquiry" back in Atlanta. It’s also made clear that she has a romantic and professional history with her (married) boss, Assistant Police Chief Will Pope (J.K. Simmons from Oz).
Brenda is emotionally divided — part no-bullshit cop in charge, part insecure, lonely woman in her 40s who’s still being nagged by her parents about her bewildering career choice. And Sedgwick makes smooth and believable the transitions between the public and private Brenda. It’s tough work being a tough girl, and when the act becomes too stressful, Brenda seeks comfort in junk food. She keeps candy bars hidden in her purse, in her desk, in the bedside table in the hotel where she’s living. But like many women, Brenda wrestles with that pesky food-guilt issue. Through much of the first episode of The Closer, she fights temptation in public (she agonizes over the doughnut box in the squad room, finally takes one, walks around with it, then doesn’t eat it) but succumbs in private. At the end of the first episode, she collapses on her hotel bed with what appears to be a Hostess Ho Ho, savoring each bite of the chocolaty disk with orgasmic moans, and Sedgwick makes you feel you’re seeing the real Brenda Johnson at last. Drawn to the forbidden and the dangerous, she relaxes only when she’s indulging her secret passions in blissful isolation.
SO, YOU THOUGHT that after all those weeks of teasing, the season finale of Lost might answer a few questions. Ha! No clear look at the giant person-eating monster thingy. No polar bears. No solution to the riddle of Hurley’s "cursed" lottery numbers. No explanation for why the crazy French chick has hairless armpits despite living in the jungle for 16 years and being, you know, French.
And that mysterious metal hatch that Locke finally blasted open? Big deal — it’s a hole in the ground leading to a tunnel. A long, long, long tunnel, symbolizing perhaps the long, long, long summer ahead as Lost fans wait for J.J. Abrams and company to spin out another season of exquisite torture.
But let’s look at what we do know in light of the finale. The crazy French chick wasn’t hallucinating — there are "Others" on the island. And those Others finally showed themselves. They’re appear to be grizzled descendants of the Gorton’s fisherman, floating around in uncharted waters on a little trawler. I don’t think there was a scarier moment on TV this year than when Michael and his fellow survivors on the makeshift raft thought they were being rescued by the boat full of old weirdos and then the lead weirdo said to Michael with surreal pleasantness, "The thing is, we’re going to have to take your boy."
Well, it’s nice to know that you weren’t just being paranoid about Michael’s boy, Walt. The kid is, it seems, the key to the mystery. Ever wonder why, of all the passengers on the plane, there seems to have been only one child? The crash was orchestrated, I’m telling you. And it’s because of Walt. Of all the survivors, his back story is the sketchiest. Over the season, we saw at least four allusions to Walt creeping people out. His stepfather didn’t want him after his mother’s death because, as the guy told Michael, weird stuff happens around him. In a flashback scene, Walt got really, really angry and a bird crashed dead into the window glass. The night before the fateful flight, Michael told surly Walt that he was going to get on that plane with him whether he liked it or not, and Walt replied, in a resigned and oddly portentous tone, that, yeah, he knew, they had to. And then Walt sabotaged Michael’s first attempted rescue raft by torching it to ashes.
Yep, unlike the rest of us, little Walt could see it all coming
SATIRE OR PEEVISHNESS? Kudrow is valiant in her role as an aging sit-com star, but The Comeback just isn't funny enough.
TOUGH WORK, TOUGH GIRL: in The Closer, Kyra Sedgwick takes a character who could have been a Clarice-Starling-meets-Jane-Tennison wanna-be and gives her a snippy, complicated personality of her own.
Lisa Kudrow’s new HBO series The Comeback (Sundays at 9:30 p.m. on HBO beginning June 5) is billed as a comedy, but it’s the most depressing show you’re likely to see all year. If former Friends star Kudrow was determined to put ditsy Phoebe to rest, she has succeeded, and then some.
Created by Kudrow and Sex and the City producer/director Michael Patrick King (they also wrote the first two episodes), The Comeback is a scripted mock-reality series that aims to shed satirical light on the brutal truths of life for the over-40 actress in Hollywood. This might sound reminiscent of Kirstie Alley’s series Fat Actress, but the dark tone of The Comeback is closer to the British version of The Office. Like Ricky Gervais’s David Brent, Kudrow’s washed-up TV star Valerie Cherish is half-blind to how people really feel about her. Swaddled in self-importance but growing dimly aware of a chill in the air, Valerie keeps looking into the camera and offering nervous smiles and face-saving explanations of why the work offers aren’t pouring in and why even her own husband is unimpressed with her B-list fame. Once the star of the hit 1980s sit-com I’m It!, Valerie has resorted to reality TV to rekindle her career. She’s appearing in a show called The Comeback that follows her as she makes her comeback as the star of a network sit-com called Room and Bored. (The show-within-a-show-within-a-show construction is clunky and, in the first episode, confusing.)
Well, "star" is not exactly the word for Valerie’s role on Room and Bored, but she’s too proud to realize what’s going on. In a spoof of the tortured process by which shows get on the air, Valerie signs on for a sit-com about four thirtysomething career women who share an apartment, but on the first day of shooting the pilot, she finds that the network has made a few changes. Her character now shares an apartment with three nubile twentysomethings, so the age difference between Valerie and her co-stars is painfully noticeable. On the second day of shooting, the network makes another change, and the news is delivered to Valerie with barely disguised contempt by the show’s obnoxious white-boy-homie head writers. The apartment is now shared by four horny twentysomethings — two women, two men — and Valerie is to play the landlady, "Aunt Sassy," who lives upstairs and disapproves of the kids’ sexual antics. In short, she’s become Stanley Roper on Three’s Company. The point is underscored in a later scene where the cast of Room and Bored pose for publicity photos. The hot young things are up front in skimpy outfits; Valerie is far, far back, wearing Aunt Sassy’s only costume, a matronly track suit.
Kudrow is valiant in her role; she hits beautiful notes of foolishness, desperation, and heartbreak as she’s ignored or humiliated by everyone around her. But the two episodes I saw were just not funny enough; they started out on a down and stayed there, displaying none of The Office’s agile dance between dark and light. There’s also a fatal flaw in the show’s central contention that TV has no use for actresses who’ve passed their perceived sell-by date. Desperate Housewives, anyone? The Comeback isn’t satire, it’s just peevishness.
THERE’S A SCENE in The Comeback in which an anxious Valerie is caught by a hidden overhead camera in her kitchen rehearsing her lines late into the night while polishing off an entire chocolate cake. The secret-junk-food-binge motif also appears in the new TNT cop drama The Closer, which stars Kyra Sedgwick as the driven, embattled head of an almost all-male homicide unit of the LAPD. These images of ambitious women pigging out under pressure may seem like a TV cliché by now. But an image can feel cliché’d and still be rooted in truth. Is there any relationship as enduring, intense, and clandestine as the one between a woman and her food?
In The Closer (Mondays at 9 p.m. on TNT, beginning June 13), the deft and under-appreciated Sedgwick plays Deputy Police Chief Brenda Johnson, a CIA-trained Atlanta police detective who comes to Los Angeles to head the elite Priority Murder Squad. She has a reputation as being the best "closer" in law enforcement — her interrogations always yield confessions that hold up in court. She has an unerring understanding of human nature and more than a taste for theatricality; inside the interrogation room, she becomes whatever sort of woman she senses the suspect might need to confess to. Her detective skills aside, the fact that she’s female and an outsider ruffles many feathers in her new squad room, and the boys lay it on thick with the sexist remarks. But Brenda gives as good as she gets. "Excuse me, lieutenant," she smiles in a peachy drawl. "But if ah liked being called a bitch to mah face, ah’d still be married."
The Closer is a crisply entertaining cop show from Nip/Tuck producers Greer Shepherd and Michael M. Robin. The first episode is built around a decent puzzler about a dead woman found in the home of a missing software billionaire. But the most watchable thing about The Closer is Sedgwick. She takes a character who could have been a Clarice-Starling-meets-Jane-Tennison wanna-be and gives her a snippy, complicated personality of her own. Brenda is alive with a rabbity energy that suggests a woman who’s been trying to outrun personal demons for a long time. She has secrets. In the first episode, there’s an allusion to an "ethics inquiry" back in Atlanta. It’s also made clear that she has a romantic and professional history with her (married) boss, Assistant Police Chief Will Pope (J.K. Simmons from Oz).
Brenda is emotionally divided — part no-bullshit cop in charge, part insecure, lonely woman in her 40s who’s still being nagged by her parents about her bewildering career choice. And Sedgwick makes smooth and believable the transitions between the public and private Brenda. It’s tough work being a tough girl, and when the act becomes too stressful, Brenda seeks comfort in junk food. She keeps candy bars hidden in her purse, in her desk, in the bedside table in the hotel where she’s living. But like many women, Brenda wrestles with that pesky food-guilt issue. Through much of the first episode of The Closer, she fights temptation in public (she agonizes over the doughnut box in the squad room, finally takes one, walks around with it, then doesn’t eat it) but succumbs in private. At the end of the first episode, she collapses on her hotel bed with what appears to be a Hostess Ho Ho, savoring each bite of the chocolaty disk with orgasmic moans, and Sedgwick makes you feel you’re seeing the real Brenda Johnson at last. Drawn to the forbidden and the dangerous, she relaxes only when she’s indulging her secret passions in blissful isolation.
SO, YOU THOUGHT that after all those weeks of teasing, the season finale of Lost might answer a few questions. Ha! No clear look at the giant person-eating monster thingy. No polar bears. No solution to the riddle of Hurley’s "cursed" lottery numbers. No explanation for why the crazy French chick has hairless armpits despite living in the jungle for 16 years and being, you know, French.
And that mysterious metal hatch that Locke finally blasted open? Big deal — it’s a hole in the ground leading to a tunnel. A long, long, long tunnel, symbolizing perhaps the long, long, long summer ahead as Lost fans wait for J.J. Abrams and company to spin out another season of exquisite torture.
But let’s look at what we do know in light of the finale. The crazy French chick wasn’t hallucinating — there are "Others" on the island. And those Others finally showed themselves. They’re appear to be grizzled descendants of the Gorton’s fisherman, floating around in uncharted waters on a little trawler. I don’t think there was a scarier moment on TV this year than when Michael and his fellow survivors on the makeshift raft thought they were being rescued by the boat full of old weirdos and then the lead weirdo said to Michael with surreal pleasantness, "The thing is, we’re going to have to take your boy."
Well, it’s nice to know that you weren’t just being paranoid about Michael’s boy, Walt. The kid is, it seems, the key to the mystery. Ever wonder why, of all the passengers on the plane, there seems to have been only one child? The crash was orchestrated, I’m telling you. And it’s because of Walt. Of all the survivors, his back story is the sketchiest. Over the season, we saw at least four allusions to Walt creeping people out. His stepfather didn’t want him after his mother’s death because, as the guy told Michael, weird stuff happens around him. In a flashback scene, Walt got really, really angry and a bird crashed dead into the window glass. The night before the fateful flight, Michael told surly Walt that he was going to get on that plane with him whether he liked it or not, and Walt replied, in a resigned and oddly portentous tone, that, yeah, he knew, they had to. And then Walt sabotaged Michael’s first attempted rescue raft by torching it to ashes.
Yep, unlike the rest of us, little Walt could see it all coming
Its Been A While
I know I know,
it has been truly a while and well I haven't had internet access in ages. A lot of things have happend, well not really a lot but I have been without a single good thought in ages. The weather outside is hot but its not swealtering. I am wearing a pair of new shorts. I never realized I still have my strong calves. I had really strong legs when I was at St.Pauls. The muscles are great today. I feel as if I am confident I could possibly go out.
This pass weekend, I slept both Sunday and Saturday. Monday I didn't do much but I felt like relaxing. That was fun. I told my parents last night about my idea of exploring trip to Europe. What I was thinking was that I would explore the continent with a friend, more than likely Bjorn. They agreed to help me with the trip providing I did find a publisher for my book or poetry. I would look and explore the world of publishing.
First if I decide to explore Europe I would invest in a Europass and explore France,Germany and Italy. Just explore these places and maybe use the journey for my next book. Of course I would need money in order to start my trip. So finding a publisher is a must in my quest to go. Second I would see if Bjorn would be interested in going. We would possibly go camping as well. I would invest in a tent.
I sound like I am all set to go. Well, aside from my idea of going to Europe. I have been busy with having mom home. She arrived on Friday and it has been great having her home. I missed seeing her and so did Maxine. So these things have been pretty well done. I have been busy at home if I wasn't sleeping. I have been also writing on correcting most of my book. The idea getting it published soon sounds awesome. I first have to see Eric to see what he thinks before I give it back to Marie Claire.
it has been truly a while and well I haven't had internet access in ages. A lot of things have happend, well not really a lot but I have been without a single good thought in ages. The weather outside is hot but its not swealtering. I am wearing a pair of new shorts. I never realized I still have my strong calves. I had really strong legs when I was at St.Pauls. The muscles are great today. I feel as if I am confident I could possibly go out.
This pass weekend, I slept both Sunday and Saturday. Monday I didn't do much but I felt like relaxing. That was fun. I told my parents last night about my idea of exploring trip to Europe. What I was thinking was that I would explore the continent with a friend, more than likely Bjorn. They agreed to help me with the trip providing I did find a publisher for my book or poetry. I would look and explore the world of publishing.
First if I decide to explore Europe I would invest in a Europass and explore France,Germany and Italy. Just explore these places and maybe use the journey for my next book. Of course I would need money in order to start my trip. So finding a publisher is a must in my quest to go. Second I would see if Bjorn would be interested in going. We would possibly go camping as well. I would invest in a tent.
I sound like I am all set to go. Well, aside from my idea of going to Europe. I have been busy with having mom home. She arrived on Friday and it has been great having her home. I missed seeing her and so did Maxine. So these things have been pretty well done. I have been busy at home if I wasn't sleeping. I have been also writing on correcting most of my book. The idea getting it published soon sounds awesome. I first have to see Eric to see what he thinks before I give it back to Marie Claire.
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Canadian Parliment I want in
HEY,
This sounds like crazy thing I was watching on C-SPAN. I am so facinated in Canadian Parliment procedure. It is so cool. These two parties are yelling at one another trying to get there point across. Its more uncivilized then our own congress. I know I sound like a great member of debate. I am thinking I should work in parliment once I move back to Ottawa. I was so addicted to Canadian procedure once I was in Ottawa.
Well, things are pretty good at home I am still sore and I am very tired. I am a bit bored but I am trying to find something to do. I took a walk to the store and I felt drained. It was extremely hot and it wasn't a good idea. Well the weather, is making me stay at home. I woke up at 12 and now I feel like I over slept.
Well last night was great night. I invited Amy to come over and we had fun watching tv, the only crappy part was that Maxine was too hyper. Everytime I wanted to do something Maxine was barking. I was wondering what the hell is wrong with her. She usually calmed down after a few minutes. Some days I am wondering, if she is doing this on purpose.
I am thinking I am going to stay in and relax today. I just feel so drained. My day has been boring. I will
This sounds like crazy thing I was watching on C-SPAN. I am so facinated in Canadian Parliment procedure. It is so cool. These two parties are yelling at one another trying to get there point across. Its more uncivilized then our own congress. I know I sound like a great member of debate. I am thinking I should work in parliment once I move back to Ottawa. I was so addicted to Canadian procedure once I was in Ottawa.
Well, things are pretty good at home I am still sore and I am very tired. I am a bit bored but I am trying to find something to do. I took a walk to the store and I felt drained. It was extremely hot and it wasn't a good idea. Well the weather, is making me stay at home. I woke up at 12 and now I feel like I over slept.
Well last night was great night. I invited Amy to come over and we had fun watching tv, the only crappy part was that Maxine was too hyper. Everytime I wanted to do something Maxine was barking. I was wondering what the hell is wrong with her. She usually calmed down after a few minutes. Some days I am wondering, if she is doing this on purpose.
I am thinking I am going to stay in and relax today. I just feel so drained. My day has been boring. I will
Monday, May 30, 2005
OK today its Monday afternoon,
I thought I write. Today is the start of my newest venture, for the company Wonderious Inc. It will be a combination web publishing and computer repair. Wonderious is a terrific name cause it shows orignality. What I am planing on doing is talk or research for companies or people who are interested in joining this venture. Its a free service which I hope to one day get paid for the time and recognition. I'm thinking its a great idea that I'll start by having my pictures online and my business around. The whole idea, of wonderious inc is a business I created and don't have to ha ve a full payroll. I know maybe I am becoming a little dellusional with creating this company but It will keep me busy while I am living at home. I figured every great company needs to start someone maybe Wonderious will be successful. I will discuss it with mom and dad see what they think. I mean I already know I can work hard and spend an hour or two each day writing and find publishers.
I love the idea of creating companies that can be successful, I guess if I begin my venture capitalist in me. I can one day get paid for doing all the work for it. Right now though I have one company holder who would be interested and I can find many clients by doing just that. It can be digital photography and computer design, two things I love the most. I hope that publishing will be the mark of an upstart. Digital Photography/Publishing, It will be a halarious idea,if and when it can make money. I can work on this every day just few hours a day. Its just a venture to keep me busy.
Shan loves the idea so if my parents agree then I am set. I like that it will keep me busy and its something that I love so much. I know this is just cloud talk but I can see myself in the future making lot of money and have myself as a publishing giant. I am not saying I am going to be the next William Randolph Hearst or anything like that but a person who is interested in finding ways to get published.
Well today, I woke up a little late around 8:30 becauseof Maxine and I couldn't go back to sleep when she started hitting her paws on the kennel. Well I started my shift of writing at 10:00am and will stop at noon for lunch. I am going to work hard in trying to get things written. Well I am going to work on this project.
I'll write more when it comes. Right now, watching while writing Unsolved Mysteries.
OK I just ate lunch, Popeyes. Boy was I hungry, I think I at least 5 pieces and some rice. Anyway, I talked it over with my family about my business idea and they haven't agreed to it. So I guess I'll start it off on my own. What is a good way to make money? I mean I am tired of asking for money that belongs to me. So if I make some money my way I don't have to be asked how I spent 80 bucks in less than a week. I have to figure it out later. I think I'll ask for money on Tuesday when mom is at work. Maybe he can be understanding,*crossing my fingers* Well, I am also thinking with all that fried chicken and rice i ate that i really need to lose some weight. I feel though I am tall, I am gaining weight out of the ying yang. So starting early in the mornings I will walk with the dog and run. Today wasn't really a good day cause it was really hot and my muscles were aching so badly. Most likely I'll do this every day starting tommorow. I will lose at least 5 lbs. I will eat less sweets cut on the amount of soda. I know it sounds like a terrible thing to start losing weight tbut I am going to start as much as i can by excersise. Don't overly excerice but take time to breathe and relax. Feel fitness without feeling fat. I am going to relax and feel better with myself if losing my weight. I want to be thin or at least muscular cause I hate being tall and flabby.
I thought I write. Today is the start of my newest venture, for the company Wonderious Inc. It will be a combination web publishing and computer repair. Wonderious is a terrific name cause it shows orignality. What I am planing on doing is talk or research for companies or people who are interested in joining this venture. Its a free service which I hope to one day get paid for the time and recognition. I'm thinking its a great idea that I'll start by having my pictures online and my business around. The whole idea, of wonderious inc is a business I created and don't have to ha ve a full payroll. I know maybe I am becoming a little dellusional with creating this company but It will keep me busy while I am living at home. I figured every great company needs to start someone maybe Wonderious will be successful. I will discuss it with mom and dad see what they think. I mean I already know I can work hard and spend an hour or two each day writing and find publishers.
I love the idea of creating companies that can be successful, I guess if I begin my venture capitalist in me. I can one day get paid for doing all the work for it. Right now though I have one company holder who would be interested and I can find many clients by doing just that. It can be digital photography and computer design, two things I love the most. I hope that publishing will be the mark of an upstart. Digital Photography/Publishing, It will be a halarious idea,if and when it can make money. I can work on this every day just few hours a day. Its just a venture to keep me busy.
Shan loves the idea so if my parents agree then I am set. I like that it will keep me busy and its something that I love so much. I know this is just cloud talk but I can see myself in the future making lot of money and have myself as a publishing giant. I am not saying I am going to be the next William Randolph Hearst or anything like that but a person who is interested in finding ways to get published.
Well today, I woke up a little late around 8:30 becauseof Maxine and I couldn't go back to sleep when she started hitting her paws on the kennel. Well I started my shift of writing at 10:00am and will stop at noon for lunch. I am going to work hard in trying to get things written. Well I am going to work on this project.
I'll write more when it comes. Right now, watching while writing Unsolved Mysteries.
OK I just ate lunch, Popeyes. Boy was I hungry, I think I at least 5 pieces and some rice. Anyway, I talked it over with my family about my business idea and they haven't agreed to it. So I guess I'll start it off on my own. What is a good way to make money? I mean I am tired of asking for money that belongs to me. So if I make some money my way I don't have to be asked how I spent 80 bucks in less than a week. I have to figure it out later. I think I'll ask for money on Tuesday when mom is at work. Maybe he can be understanding,*crossing my fingers* Well, I am also thinking with all that fried chicken and rice i ate that i really need to lose some weight. I feel though I am tall, I am gaining weight out of the ying yang. So starting early in the mornings I will walk with the dog and run. Today wasn't really a good day cause it was really hot and my muscles were aching so badly. Most likely I'll do this every day starting tommorow. I will lose at least 5 lbs. I will eat less sweets cut on the amount of soda. I know it sounds like a terrible thing to start losing weight tbut I am going to start as much as i can by excersise. Don't overly excerice but take time to breathe and relax. Feel fitness without feeling fat. I am going to relax and feel better with myself if losing my weight. I want to be thin or at least muscular cause I hate being tall and flabby.
ok an idea!
A few of my friends and even Gene Shalet, reviewer for the Today Show, thought that the remake of The Longest Yard was terrible. While I haven't seen it, it
is one of the films I do want to see. I loved the original, and well I am not a big Burt Reynolds fan but the first one was great and funny. Eddie Albert who played the warden, (who just passed away a few days ago) was kind of cool playing a bad guy. Well, the film according it looks funny, even though I am not a big fan of Chris Rock. So before I panned the movie, I am thinking of watching it with Michael and give my own review.
Well, I am still sleepy but I am also hot. The two aren't fun. Ah I am ready to start my day.
Well, I remember my senior year for a project we had to do for Religion come and think of a comenment speach as if you were the one giving it. Well I don't remember what mine was but i thought I would write a new one.
As soon as I figure out what to write, I'll post it.
is one of the films I do want to see. I loved the original, and well I am not a big Burt Reynolds fan but the first one was great and funny. Eddie Albert who played the warden, (who just passed away a few days ago) was kind of cool playing a bad guy. Well, the film according it looks funny, even though I am not a big fan of Chris Rock. So before I panned the movie, I am thinking of watching it with Michael and give my own review.
Well, I am still sleepy but I am also hot. The two aren't fun. Ah I am ready to start my day.
Well, I remember my senior year for a project we had to do for Religion come and think of a comenment speach as if you were the one giving it. Well I don't remember what mine was but i thought I would write a new one.
As soon as I figure out what to write, I'll post it.
Sunday, May 29, 2005
Independent Film Review
Last week, the world’s most successful independent filmmaker opened his latest movie in 3661 theaters; it grossed a record-setting $158.5 million in its first four days of domestic release. Next week, one of America’s most respected independent filmmakers will open his new film at the Brattle Theatre. There are five prints in release.
You might say there’s a big gap between George Lucas and Hal Hartley, but there are some similarities as well. Both filmmakers have total control over the production and distribution of their product. Both have inspired imitation. And both Star Wars and Hartley’s new The Girl from Monday are science-fiction epics that reflect both the world outside and the world of the filmmaking process.
Lucas, of course, has had the greater impact. The success of the original Star Wars in 1977 made the blockbuster the model for the film industry. Whether he meant to or not, he all but eliminated the individual creator from the film-production process. High concept, special effects, corporate marketing, and merchandising replaced inspiration, originality, and artistry. Corporate profiteering, like the Evil Empire, threatened to wipe out the force of individual creativity.
As in his film, though, pockets of resistance remained. Independents staged a comeback in the late ’80s. Films like Steven Soderbergh’s sex, lies, and videotape and independent studios like Miramax led the charge. In 1996, all five Oscar Best Picture nominations were more or less independent productions.
Now, a decade later, the direction of independent filmmaking has gone at best Sideways. Most of the indie studios have folded or been sucked up by the majors, who have learned that if you can’t beat them, then let them join you. Miramax’s troubled marriage with Disney has ended in a messy divorce, and the newly single studio’s future, to judge from its upcoming release schedule, is uncertain.
Still, there’s hope in the resurgence of independent filmmakers at Cannes this year. Jim Jarmusch’s Broken Flowers, starring indie favorite Bill Murray, won the festival’s second-highest honor, the Grand Prix. Gus Van Sant’s Last Days earned critical acclaim. Whether American audiences will get to see these films is another matter. Anne Thompson in the Hollywood Reporter reported that the studios showed little enthusiasm. "They’re challenging," says Mark Urman of ThinkFilm, one of the few remaining independent distributors. "And people don’t want to be challenged to the degree they used to be."
Hal Hartley, for one, seems undaunted by opening in the wake of the latest Lucas juggernaut, even though his film’s $300,000 budget is probably less than that of a single Star Wars Burger King ad. Neither does he expect to recoup even that amount very soon. "Maybe I should have Girl from Monday action figures," he quips.
Nonetheless, he has his audience, which has responded to his deadpan irony and his knack for recording the surreal absurdity of the everyday in such films as Amateur (1994) and Henry Fool (1997). With his most recent effort, No Such Thing (2001), he might have overreached. An ambitious "horror" film set in Iceland it, it did not meet the expectations of the distributor, MGM/UA. Hartley found himself afterward with diminished commercial credibility and fewer financial resources.
But he had an idea. He had long been annoyed by ads using classic rock-and-roll songs to sell SUVs and the like. "I heard the Beatles’ ‘Revolution’ playing over a Nike commercial," he recalls. "There seemed something wrong about that. Overhearing people’s casual conversations with each other, I notice how everyone’s saying the same things. People give the impression that they’re expressing themselves individually, but they’re all talking like some character on a popular sit-com. We feel like we’re being flattered all the time for being original, but in fact we’re all just buying into the same things."
He started writing a story about a not-so-future dystopia where a "revolution" has imposed a "dictatorship of the consumer" overseen by MMM, an all-powerful corporation. It’s Lucas’s Evil Empire, except this time the enemy is much like the system that Lucas represents. A small band of "terrorists" resist, abetted by visitors from another galaxy, such as the girl of the title.
To make this film fast and cheap and to achieve its hyper-real style, Hartley used digital technology. Making the film available to viewers proved more difficult. "It’s much less expensive these days to make movies, but distribution is much more conservative, so it’s harder to get films out there. It feels a lot like it did in ’84, when I first came to New York. By ’88, things had totally changed, but I when I first got here, everyone was talking about how movies are not very interesting because you have to pack them with big stars in order to get a film even financed. Well, you hear that same kind of talk now."
This old situation called for new tactics. Hartley decided to do something he had never done before — distribute his new movie himself. "When we finished the film, we realized we had something that was considerably outside the mainstream, and somewhere along the line, the boundary between producing a movie and distributing it dissolved. We’re not making a ton of money. I’m happy we just finished the New York run and the theater made money. We’ll have to sell something like 300,000 to make our money back. I don’t think that’s very likely."
In the meantime, Hartley has left the United States, taking root in Berlin, where he’s preparing for his next film, Fay Grim, a sequel (his first) to Henry Fool. Is Berlin an escape from the dictatorship of the consumer he lampoons in The Girl from Monday?
"I do feel more comfortable in Berlin. They’re more welcoming to the arts, I find. It’s easier to work in Berlin than in the US. But the same sort of consumerist mentality is everywhere. I think there’s an escape in finding smaller communities and having to forgo your participation in popular culture."
Back in Boston, another independent filmmaker also finds support in a smaller community and trying to distribute his films on his own. Andrew Bujalski won critical praise for his first film, Funny Ha Ha (2002), the deceptively simple story of a twentysomething woman who doesn’t know what to do with her life. As it turns out, no distributor has yet figured out what to do with the movie.
"We finished the film way back in 2002," he recalls. "The first public screening we ever did was at the Coolidge Corner in 2002, and from there it traveled around to a bunch of festivals, and I kept thinking that the thing was going to die out. But something would always come along and there’d be some spurt of energy for it. Finally we just decided to jump in whole hog and back this little private self-distribution for the film."
Whole hog, at this point, means two prints. Meanwhile, Bujalski has completed a second film, Mutual Appreciation, which also has been applauded at various festivals (last month it screened at the Independent Film Festival of Boston) but as yet has mustered no interest from distributors. Lawrence, a young musician in New York seeks success with a little help from his friends. They fantasize about forming a "cool and inclusive club" of like-minded creative types to support one another and fulfill their dreams.
Does this club reflect Bujalski’s own ambitions? "There’s very little autobiography in either film. But one thing that is an accurate reflection of me is that, much like Lawrence, I tend to be skeptical of clubs for clubs’ sake. Although, that said, at least half of the cast Mutual Appreciation is filmmakers whom I have met along the way. A lot of things do come out of those situations and . . . networking is such an ugly word."
So is solipsism. One of the critiques of Bujalski’s films, and independent movies in general, is that they ignore the world outside. Bujalski’s films lack any overt reference to politics. September 11 took place while he was editing Funny Ha Ha, but though he recalls a sense of futility in making a film in such circumstances, there’s no hint of the terrible events in the finished product. "The kind of films I’m doing, everyone ends up being a type for myself. That said, I think that one of the things about Funny Ha Ha is that it’s a film in which almost no one talks about art or practices art. I think I did that on purpose. I kept that stuff out of the film because I wanted to avoid that certain glib self-reflexivity."
Some independent filmmakers avoid that self-reflexivity by making documentaries. Nina Davenport has been applauded for Hello Photo (1994) and Always a Bridesmaid (2000). On September 11, she was working for hire on a set in San Diego. Her apartment in Manhattan was in view of the Twin Towers. Stunned, she decided to make the cross-country trip home by car, interviewing ordinary people she met along the way. The result, Parallel Lines, was completed in 2003. It received a rare theatrical screening at this year’s Independent Film Festival of Boston. I found it the best documentary yet about September 11, and one of the best films ever about life in America. Why has it been seen by so few Americans?
"I really have no idea!" she says. "When I compare the film-festival route now with Hello Photo, it’s gotten so much more competitive and so much less professional, and jurors who don’t know about filmmaking . . . I don’t know this for a fact, but it certainly seems like it. So it’s harder to stand out than it was before. And I guess there must have been some sort of resistance to it, because of September 11 and people wanting to move on."
Davenport herself has moved on, but she hasn’t turned away. Her new project, funded by non-American sources, looks at the Iraq War. "It’s a long crazy story of an Iraqi filmmaker, this guy called Muthana Mudher, who was on the MTV show Real Life that a friend of mine produced, where he described how his school was bombed by the Americans. Liev Schreiber happened to see the show and got MTV to invite Muthana to work on his next movie, which was Everything Is Illuminated, based on the Jonathan Safran Foer novel. It’s basically a metaphor for American-Iraqi relations, because it was a very rocky road between Muthana and Liev and also with me because everything was sort of a power struggle. It’s going to be a great film. I’m really excited about it."
Perhaps this new film will benefit from the recent popularity of hot-button documentaries like Fahrenheit 9/11 and Super Size Me. But Davenport has mixed feelings about the new vogue. "It’s always great when any documentary does well. But I think that it means that this kind of reality-TV culture is seeping in, corrupting and co-opting the medium. Maybe in the long run, it would have been better if it had remained marginalized."
Elliot Greenebaum is an ambitious young filmmaker who shares Davenport’s concerns about independent filmmaking and the future of reality in movies. How does one reconcile the narrative nature of movies with its power to reflect real life? These two aspects of the medium come together in his debut feature, Assisted Living.
He got the idea in film school — by defying his teachers. "I had written a movie about a woman who gives her son an airplane and then years later she gets a call from him. He’s an astronaut lost in outer space, and she’s in a nursing home, and she sees a plane fly over and apologizes to the janitor for giving him an airplane. NYU, where I was attending school, thought that was a bad movie. I disagreed. They said they wanted three acts. And I said that that was crappy. They said you have to learn how to do crappy stuff before you can do good stuff. I said I’ll make a 15-minute film this summer . . . and follow their formula very briskly so they couldn’t say, ‘You don’t have mastery over conventional narrative.’ But I decided to drop out of school instead and make a totally weird movie that’s experimenting with the boundaries between documentary and fiction. That short film, which I filmed in a real nursing home with real residents, evolved into this weird film, which is Assisted Living."
You can’t blame the profs at NYU for steering their students away from anything this unusual. They couldn’t have foreseen that a film about a slacker finding solidarity with an Alzheimer’s patient, shot with a non-professional, mostly post-septuagenarian cast, would become the indie equivalent of a hit. Maybe if they’d seen the 1971 cult classic Harold and Maude, but that was so long ago . . .
For Greenebaum, the story was secondary to the tension between the real and the made-up. "In fiction films, everything is more controlled, and in documentary, the idea is you’re not exerting artistic control over the material, and in this environment, the fiction scenes have this eerie, uncontrolled quality to them. You can’t direct elderly people in the way that you can direct actors, so I got interested in making a movie that was in the gray scale between fiction and documentary. It’s sort of documentary, but there’s fictional characters, and the result was that I came up with a lot of interesting material but sort of a story that wasn’t big enough to support it."
There was enough story to get the support of independent distributor Cowboy Pictures. So does Greenebaum see himself as a role model for independent film directors? "What does ‘independent’ mean?" he asks. "It can be used to market a film pretty well, it means less money usually and less genre. I don’t know what it means. Whatever it means definitely applies in my case if your readership wants to see a genuinely independent film where no one knew it was being made, no relevant companies had any idea who I was. This just was a film done in Louisville, Kentucky, by a young filmmaker."
Greenebaum’s probe of the frontier between reality and fiction in cinema has been an issue with filmmakers at least since the documentaries of Robert Flaherty. What did he see as the outcome of these cinematic explorations and the future of movies?
"Video games," he says, ruefully. "And reality TV." And, of course, blockbusters like Star Wars
You might say there’s a big gap between George Lucas and Hal Hartley, but there are some similarities as well. Both filmmakers have total control over the production and distribution of their product. Both have inspired imitation. And both Star Wars and Hartley’s new The Girl from Monday are science-fiction epics that reflect both the world outside and the world of the filmmaking process.
Lucas, of course, has had the greater impact. The success of the original Star Wars in 1977 made the blockbuster the model for the film industry. Whether he meant to or not, he all but eliminated the individual creator from the film-production process. High concept, special effects, corporate marketing, and merchandising replaced inspiration, originality, and artistry. Corporate profiteering, like the Evil Empire, threatened to wipe out the force of individual creativity.
As in his film, though, pockets of resistance remained. Independents staged a comeback in the late ’80s. Films like Steven Soderbergh’s sex, lies, and videotape and independent studios like Miramax led the charge. In 1996, all five Oscar Best Picture nominations were more or less independent productions.
Now, a decade later, the direction of independent filmmaking has gone at best Sideways. Most of the indie studios have folded or been sucked up by the majors, who have learned that if you can’t beat them, then let them join you. Miramax’s troubled marriage with Disney has ended in a messy divorce, and the newly single studio’s future, to judge from its upcoming release schedule, is uncertain.
Still, there’s hope in the resurgence of independent filmmakers at Cannes this year. Jim Jarmusch’s Broken Flowers, starring indie favorite Bill Murray, won the festival’s second-highest honor, the Grand Prix. Gus Van Sant’s Last Days earned critical acclaim. Whether American audiences will get to see these films is another matter. Anne Thompson in the Hollywood Reporter reported that the studios showed little enthusiasm. "They’re challenging," says Mark Urman of ThinkFilm, one of the few remaining independent distributors. "And people don’t want to be challenged to the degree they used to be."
Hal Hartley, for one, seems undaunted by opening in the wake of the latest Lucas juggernaut, even though his film’s $300,000 budget is probably less than that of a single Star Wars Burger King ad. Neither does he expect to recoup even that amount very soon. "Maybe I should have Girl from Monday action figures," he quips.
Nonetheless, he has his audience, which has responded to his deadpan irony and his knack for recording the surreal absurdity of the everyday in such films as Amateur (1994) and Henry Fool (1997). With his most recent effort, No Such Thing (2001), he might have overreached. An ambitious "horror" film set in Iceland it, it did not meet the expectations of the distributor, MGM/UA. Hartley found himself afterward with diminished commercial credibility and fewer financial resources.
But he had an idea. He had long been annoyed by ads using classic rock-and-roll songs to sell SUVs and the like. "I heard the Beatles’ ‘Revolution’ playing over a Nike commercial," he recalls. "There seemed something wrong about that. Overhearing people’s casual conversations with each other, I notice how everyone’s saying the same things. People give the impression that they’re expressing themselves individually, but they’re all talking like some character on a popular sit-com. We feel like we’re being flattered all the time for being original, but in fact we’re all just buying into the same things."
He started writing a story about a not-so-future dystopia where a "revolution" has imposed a "dictatorship of the consumer" overseen by MMM, an all-powerful corporation. It’s Lucas’s Evil Empire, except this time the enemy is much like the system that Lucas represents. A small band of "terrorists" resist, abetted by visitors from another galaxy, such as the girl of the title.
To make this film fast and cheap and to achieve its hyper-real style, Hartley used digital technology. Making the film available to viewers proved more difficult. "It’s much less expensive these days to make movies, but distribution is much more conservative, so it’s harder to get films out there. It feels a lot like it did in ’84, when I first came to New York. By ’88, things had totally changed, but I when I first got here, everyone was talking about how movies are not very interesting because you have to pack them with big stars in order to get a film even financed. Well, you hear that same kind of talk now."
This old situation called for new tactics. Hartley decided to do something he had never done before — distribute his new movie himself. "When we finished the film, we realized we had something that was considerably outside the mainstream, and somewhere along the line, the boundary between producing a movie and distributing it dissolved. We’re not making a ton of money. I’m happy we just finished the New York run and the theater made money. We’ll have to sell something like 300,000 to make our money back. I don’t think that’s very likely."
In the meantime, Hartley has left the United States, taking root in Berlin, where he’s preparing for his next film, Fay Grim, a sequel (his first) to Henry Fool. Is Berlin an escape from the dictatorship of the consumer he lampoons in The Girl from Monday?
"I do feel more comfortable in Berlin. They’re more welcoming to the arts, I find. It’s easier to work in Berlin than in the US. But the same sort of consumerist mentality is everywhere. I think there’s an escape in finding smaller communities and having to forgo your participation in popular culture."
Back in Boston, another independent filmmaker also finds support in a smaller community and trying to distribute his films on his own. Andrew Bujalski won critical praise for his first film, Funny Ha Ha (2002), the deceptively simple story of a twentysomething woman who doesn’t know what to do with her life. As it turns out, no distributor has yet figured out what to do with the movie.
"We finished the film way back in 2002," he recalls. "The first public screening we ever did was at the Coolidge Corner in 2002, and from there it traveled around to a bunch of festivals, and I kept thinking that the thing was going to die out. But something would always come along and there’d be some spurt of energy for it. Finally we just decided to jump in whole hog and back this little private self-distribution for the film."
Whole hog, at this point, means two prints. Meanwhile, Bujalski has completed a second film, Mutual Appreciation, which also has been applauded at various festivals (last month it screened at the Independent Film Festival of Boston) but as yet has mustered no interest from distributors. Lawrence, a young musician in New York seeks success with a little help from his friends. They fantasize about forming a "cool and inclusive club" of like-minded creative types to support one another and fulfill their dreams.
Does this club reflect Bujalski’s own ambitions? "There’s very little autobiography in either film. But one thing that is an accurate reflection of me is that, much like Lawrence, I tend to be skeptical of clubs for clubs’ sake. Although, that said, at least half of the cast Mutual Appreciation is filmmakers whom I have met along the way. A lot of things do come out of those situations and . . . networking is such an ugly word."
So is solipsism. One of the critiques of Bujalski’s films, and independent movies in general, is that they ignore the world outside. Bujalski’s films lack any overt reference to politics. September 11 took place while he was editing Funny Ha Ha, but though he recalls a sense of futility in making a film in such circumstances, there’s no hint of the terrible events in the finished product. "The kind of films I’m doing, everyone ends up being a type for myself. That said, I think that one of the things about Funny Ha Ha is that it’s a film in which almost no one talks about art or practices art. I think I did that on purpose. I kept that stuff out of the film because I wanted to avoid that certain glib self-reflexivity."
Some independent filmmakers avoid that self-reflexivity by making documentaries. Nina Davenport has been applauded for Hello Photo (1994) and Always a Bridesmaid (2000). On September 11, she was working for hire on a set in San Diego. Her apartment in Manhattan was in view of the Twin Towers. Stunned, she decided to make the cross-country trip home by car, interviewing ordinary people she met along the way. The result, Parallel Lines, was completed in 2003. It received a rare theatrical screening at this year’s Independent Film Festival of Boston. I found it the best documentary yet about September 11, and one of the best films ever about life in America. Why has it been seen by so few Americans?
"I really have no idea!" she says. "When I compare the film-festival route now with Hello Photo, it’s gotten so much more competitive and so much less professional, and jurors who don’t know about filmmaking . . . I don’t know this for a fact, but it certainly seems like it. So it’s harder to stand out than it was before. And I guess there must have been some sort of resistance to it, because of September 11 and people wanting to move on."
Davenport herself has moved on, but she hasn’t turned away. Her new project, funded by non-American sources, looks at the Iraq War. "It’s a long crazy story of an Iraqi filmmaker, this guy called Muthana Mudher, who was on the MTV show Real Life that a friend of mine produced, where he described how his school was bombed by the Americans. Liev Schreiber happened to see the show and got MTV to invite Muthana to work on his next movie, which was Everything Is Illuminated, based on the Jonathan Safran Foer novel. It’s basically a metaphor for American-Iraqi relations, because it was a very rocky road between Muthana and Liev and also with me because everything was sort of a power struggle. It’s going to be a great film. I’m really excited about it."
Perhaps this new film will benefit from the recent popularity of hot-button documentaries like Fahrenheit 9/11 and Super Size Me. But Davenport has mixed feelings about the new vogue. "It’s always great when any documentary does well. But I think that it means that this kind of reality-TV culture is seeping in, corrupting and co-opting the medium. Maybe in the long run, it would have been better if it had remained marginalized."
Elliot Greenebaum is an ambitious young filmmaker who shares Davenport’s concerns about independent filmmaking and the future of reality in movies. How does one reconcile the narrative nature of movies with its power to reflect real life? These two aspects of the medium come together in his debut feature, Assisted Living.
He got the idea in film school — by defying his teachers. "I had written a movie about a woman who gives her son an airplane and then years later she gets a call from him. He’s an astronaut lost in outer space, and she’s in a nursing home, and she sees a plane fly over and apologizes to the janitor for giving him an airplane. NYU, where I was attending school, thought that was a bad movie. I disagreed. They said they wanted three acts. And I said that that was crappy. They said you have to learn how to do crappy stuff before you can do good stuff. I said I’ll make a 15-minute film this summer . . . and follow their formula very briskly so they couldn’t say, ‘You don’t have mastery over conventional narrative.’ But I decided to drop out of school instead and make a totally weird movie that’s experimenting with the boundaries between documentary and fiction. That short film, which I filmed in a real nursing home with real residents, evolved into this weird film, which is Assisted Living."
You can’t blame the profs at NYU for steering their students away from anything this unusual. They couldn’t have foreseen that a film about a slacker finding solidarity with an Alzheimer’s patient, shot with a non-professional, mostly post-septuagenarian cast, would become the indie equivalent of a hit. Maybe if they’d seen the 1971 cult classic Harold and Maude, but that was so long ago . . .
For Greenebaum, the story was secondary to the tension between the real and the made-up. "In fiction films, everything is more controlled, and in documentary, the idea is you’re not exerting artistic control over the material, and in this environment, the fiction scenes have this eerie, uncontrolled quality to them. You can’t direct elderly people in the way that you can direct actors, so I got interested in making a movie that was in the gray scale between fiction and documentary. It’s sort of documentary, but there’s fictional characters, and the result was that I came up with a lot of interesting material but sort of a story that wasn’t big enough to support it."
There was enough story to get the support of independent distributor Cowboy Pictures. So does Greenebaum see himself as a role model for independent film directors? "What does ‘independent’ mean?" he asks. "It can be used to market a film pretty well, it means less money usually and less genre. I don’t know what it means. Whatever it means definitely applies in my case if your readership wants to see a genuinely independent film where no one knew it was being made, no relevant companies had any idea who I was. This just was a film done in Louisville, Kentucky, by a young filmmaker."
Greenebaum’s probe of the frontier between reality and fiction in cinema has been an issue with filmmakers at least since the documentaries of Robert Flaherty. What did he see as the outcome of these cinematic explorations and the future of movies?
"Video games," he says, ruefully. "And reality TV." And, of course, blockbusters like Star Wars
A Morning An Afternoon And An Evening.
Well, I am watching Law&Order SVU,marathon on USA. I really like the show, and well I have had a great day. I slept for at least 12 hours. I also took a nap. Tonight, I am planning on staying home and watch some more t.v. Well, today, I was so sleepy, I felt like I was going to pass out. Last night was a great I had a friend come over and we watched TV and drank. I am istill,bored,but I am keeping myself from falling asleep. I am kind of trying to figure out to do. I may stay home.
The weather is miserable, it was hot and sticky now its raining. I am wondering if I am wasting my time. I am kind of tired,my muscles are aching and I didn't think I was going to do anything. The day has been boring, I watched some of the Indy 500 and then I took a nap. Well, I am tired of being so sore and I took a shower but I am still feel dirty.
Hmm, I wonder what I am going to do tommorow. I may write for a few hours. Take a nap then write some more. I think I am going to walk around and maybe that ease the joints.
I had a wonderful slow day. I am glad that nothing exciting happend. Infact I am glad that I didn't do anything. Nothing new has happend today, so this will be a short entry.
The weather is miserable, it was hot and sticky now its raining. I am wondering if I am wasting my time. I am kind of tired,my muscles are aching and I didn't think I was going to do anything. The day has been boring, I watched some of the Indy 500 and then I took a nap. Well, I am tired of being so sore and I took a shower but I am still feel dirty.
Hmm, I wonder what I am going to do tommorow. I may write for a few hours. Take a nap then write some more. I think I am going to walk around and maybe that ease the joints.
I had a wonderful slow day. I am glad that nothing exciting happend. Infact I am glad that I didn't do anything. Nothing new has happend today, so this will be a short entry.
Saturday, May 28, 2005
a rant about the war
Well, what a long day. I am having. I thought today would be a restful day but infact it has become somewhat boring and near to death experiences. I have a few things I can do today without feeling sick. The weather outside is pretty warm and well I am stuck again inside. Well, today I watched mostly crap on T.V. and nothing really is on. So anyway, tommorow is the Indianapolis 500. Well I don't really care who wins really but its pretty exciting to watch, well at times it is.
I haven't had a real thing to worry about , tonight I am planning on going to Helios for work. I am not really thrilled into going but hey I just want to get out of the house. A few things are going well for me, I have Jillian to keep me company. As things are getting begin today, I am reminded why I am a Democrat. I have possibly said this before but being a Democrat is what makes me who I am today. I don't like George but I will listen to others praise him. Its not that I have a choice in who my president is. I did vote for Kerry, and living in Texas it was like a wasted ballot. Houston remarkably is a Democrat city, we elected Bill White as our Mayor, rather than Orlando Sanchez.
We haven't really got a chance to be rejoiced of the wonders of a great Democrat as President since Bill left office. While a large majority of people did vote for Gore in 2000, he was cheated out of the election. The problem I have with Republicans are they are so against ideas that I strongly care about. Hmm, some things I begin to wonder why on earth didn't a Democrat do it that way, or why is a Republican doing so half-assed like.
Bush, in my opinion, has done more to screw up the country and got us into the war in Iraq. A war that we shouldn't of been involved in the first place. He told us, we had weapons of mass destruction and well, after searching everywhere in the country, we found out,oops there not here. Sure, we had to protect the rights of the Iraqi people but damn it, we removed Saddam and we are still fighting. This war, I think is becoming more of a pain in the ass. I am not saying we should pull out like Vietnam,but we should try to help rebuild our messes. We are still sending troops back home in body bags and we are still getting many wounded. Not fun I say. Hmm, if we send more troops does that mean we will soon leave. I doubt it. The attack on Afghanstan, well we are still fighting over there,but the Media seemed to ignore that we are there. All our focus is in Iraq. I feel like I should alert the media and tell them, hey we have troops in Afghanstan, lets see what they are fighting against rather than just lay the spotlight on Iraq.
Well, do you think, we'll catch Ossama Bin Ladin, wishful thinking that we will but I doubt it. Sure he is a bad guy and we should get him but everyone is looking for him but he seems to be popping up more often like a groundhog sees his shadow then goes back to thinking whats the next best way to destroy America. I mean he is an evil guy, but he is also the same guy who helped us when fighting against the Russians in the early 80s. See, we chose our enemies based on what we see first. I doubt that people remember ,that some people were good for us at a time while others were just plain assholes. We depended on the help of Saddam, and now he is an evil man. What is it, with our change of hearts. I am not saying we should all be friends, but I am saying we should look at alternative enemies.
Alright, well I hate to argue about this but I am just sa ying we should change settings and scenary.
--------------------------BUSH Military Madness
Here is an article I wrote about Bush's Military Maddness, while I know many of you would hate it I thought it was worth writing.
Of all the inexplicable ways in which George Bush has somehow managed to project an image in direct contradiction to his true persona, none is more harmful nor more baffling than that of an effective and capable commander-in-chief. He is in fact overseeing a downturn in the public fortunes of the American Armed Forces that is beginning to rival the days immediately following the war in Vietnam.
To the American officer corps it must seem like a lifetime ago since the heady days of triumph against the Taliban, quickly followed by the demise of Saddam Hussein's regime. Now the news is a morale-sapping grind of gloom and doom, much of it self-inflicted from a political leadership that is in completely over their heads.
Of course the worst of the news continues to pour out of Iraq. Not only has there been a marked increase in Iraqi casualties, both military and civilian, but the death toll among the American forces refuses to diminish. In the first 4 months of the current War in Iraq the United States suffered 216 deaths; in the first 4 months of 2004 the United States suffered 254 deaths; in the first four months of 2005 the United States suffered 252 deaths (http://www.icasualties.org/oif/). All it takes is a glance at today's headlines to see that there is scarce reason indeed to believe these numbers will be very different in the first four months of 2006.
The killing will go on in Iraq for two very basic reasons: those who vehemently oppose the US presence in Iraq will continue to do so as long as we remain, just as the armed forces of the United States have every intention to continue to occupy their country. Anyone who still believes that the American involvement in Iraq is short-term most likely also believes that presidents don't lie.
Speaking of lies, as one bloody day after another goes by the underlying purpose given by the Bush administration for the invasion of Iraq is exposed for what is was - a spurious and shameless shell game. Bush's minions and mouthpieces skillfully and relentlessly kept the pea moving from cup to cup as they bantered, badgered and blathered about a myriad of dangers that would only escalate by our inaction.
That they succeeded in convincing enough people of the merits of their arguments is more an indictment of the American electorate than it is a reaffirmation of the validity of their position. The fact is that they succeeded by harnessing the enormous persuasive influence of their high office to the hardwired reflexive action of a people motivated by fear and uncertainty. The result has been they we are now committed to a path that upon reflection would never have been chosen - a path that will not lead America to a safer and more secure future, but rather threatens to wear down the best-equipped and best-trained Army in world to a degree of markedly-diminished capabilities.
Outside of Iraq the news, while not lethal, is nonetheless far from positive. The recent announcement of base closings triggered the fully-expected posturing and positioning from affected politicians from sea to shining sea. While each is hellbent to protect the jobs of their constituency – or at least to appear that way in public – none seem to be able to fully grasp the idea that the vast majority of these bases can easily be consolidated within the remaining domestic military infrastructure with little or no degradation of military readiness. But even if their wails of protest go unheeded and all the proposed closings go through, how does this effect the pocketbook of Joan and Joe Taxpayer?
Obviously the $48 billion the Defense Department is claiming will be saved by these closings is a tremendous amount of money. However when one looks at it both from the context of time, and relative to military expenditures as a whole, its stature shrinks considerably. This money is projected to be saved over the course of twenty years. In that time – based on current levels of expenditure with a little inflationary effect thrown in for good measure – the US defense megalith will devour approximately 10 trillion dollars. Meaning this 48 billion dollars will amount to a savings of less than one half of one percent: .048 percent to be exact.
Meanwhile, the powers that be have every intention of making sure that the United States has a firm grasp on the ultimate high ground of the battlefields of tomorrow – they plan to introduce space-based weapons that will increase even further the already-enormous amounts of money devoted to the armed forces. And this will be financed with money we don't have, of course.
Come to think of it, it is probably a good idea that the wave of the future is in robotic weaponry because the Army is having an increasingly hard time getting real live people to join its ranks. According to public records, the Army has missed its enlistment goals every month this year since January. The pressure on the men and women charged with finding the soldiers of tomorrow has risen to such a level that a number of them have been cutting more than a few corners - so much so that the DoD recently ordered an unprecedented one day stand-down which was used to re-indoctrinate its recruiters in the dos and don'ts of filling the ranks.
It is eminently understandable why so many young people are having second thoughts about signing on the dotted line. Can you blame them? Not only are the dangers real and ever-present, but the payoff just doesn't quite seem as worthwhile as it was just a few short years ago. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the same kind of young men and women who have always had the courage, fortitude and strength of their convictions to fight the wars of America were more than willing to put their lives on the line in defense of our homes and way of life. Now the clarion call to battle doesn't ring anywhere near as true.
It is not the wave of damning revelations against the "bad apples" of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, Afghanistan, et al, that has in and of itself soured them on the military; it is more so that it is always the little guy who gets the blame and punishment. That Mr. Bush has never held either himself or any high level commander responsible for any mistake regardless of how widespread or egregious is not lost on the 18-year-olds watching the evening news.
On top of it all, the story of a real American hero, Pat Tillman, a guy who willingly walked away from a life of pampered privilege to accept the thankless job of a combat infantryman, a man who had come to symbolize what's right with the young people of the United States, has now been turned on its head. The coverup surrounding the circumstances of his death has come to represent how these young men and women are not getting the leadership they so richly deserve.
The Army and the Bush administration was so desperate to put a positive spin on Pat Tillman's death that they not only lied about the circumstances surrounding it but they lied about the fact that they lied, and would have continued to do so if members of the much-maligned free press hadn't finally blown the whistle.
Pat Tillman went to his grave, just like almost two thousand of his comrades have, doing their duty to the best of their ability in the face of incalculable sacrifice and hardship. The men who have ordered them into harm's way will eventually go to theirs without a scratch on them.
I haven't had a real thing to worry about , tonight I am planning on going to Helios for work. I am not really thrilled into going but hey I just want to get out of the house. A few things are going well for me, I have Jillian to keep me company. As things are getting begin today, I am reminded why I am a Democrat. I have possibly said this before but being a Democrat is what makes me who I am today. I don't like George but I will listen to others praise him. Its not that I have a choice in who my president is. I did vote for Kerry, and living in Texas it was like a wasted ballot. Houston remarkably is a Democrat city, we elected Bill White as our Mayor, rather than Orlando Sanchez.
We haven't really got a chance to be rejoiced of the wonders of a great Democrat as President since Bill left office. While a large majority of people did vote for Gore in 2000, he was cheated out of the election. The problem I have with Republicans are they are so against ideas that I strongly care about. Hmm, some things I begin to wonder why on earth didn't a Democrat do it that way, or why is a Republican doing so half-assed like.
Bush, in my opinion, has done more to screw up the country and got us into the war in Iraq. A war that we shouldn't of been involved in the first place. He told us, we had weapons of mass destruction and well, after searching everywhere in the country, we found out,oops there not here. Sure, we had to protect the rights of the Iraqi people but damn it, we removed Saddam and we are still fighting. This war, I think is becoming more of a pain in the ass. I am not saying we should pull out like Vietnam,but we should try to help rebuild our messes. We are still sending troops back home in body bags and we are still getting many wounded. Not fun I say. Hmm, if we send more troops does that mean we will soon leave. I doubt it. The attack on Afghanstan, well we are still fighting over there,but the Media seemed to ignore that we are there. All our focus is in Iraq. I feel like I should alert the media and tell them, hey we have troops in Afghanstan, lets see what they are fighting against rather than just lay the spotlight on Iraq.
Well, do you think, we'll catch Ossama Bin Ladin, wishful thinking that we will but I doubt it. Sure he is a bad guy and we should get him but everyone is looking for him but he seems to be popping up more often like a groundhog sees his shadow then goes back to thinking whats the next best way to destroy America. I mean he is an evil guy, but he is also the same guy who helped us when fighting against the Russians in the early 80s. See, we chose our enemies based on what we see first. I doubt that people remember ,that some people were good for us at a time while others were just plain assholes. We depended on the help of Saddam, and now he is an evil man. What is it, with our change of hearts. I am not saying we should all be friends, but I am saying we should look at alternative enemies.
Alright, well I hate to argue about this but I am just sa ying we should change settings and scenary.
--------------------------BUSH Military Madness
Here is an article I wrote about Bush's Military Maddness, while I know many of you would hate it I thought it was worth writing.
Of all the inexplicable ways in which George Bush has somehow managed to project an image in direct contradiction to his true persona, none is more harmful nor more baffling than that of an effective and capable commander-in-chief. He is in fact overseeing a downturn in the public fortunes of the American Armed Forces that is beginning to rival the days immediately following the war in Vietnam.
To the American officer corps it must seem like a lifetime ago since the heady days of triumph against the Taliban, quickly followed by the demise of Saddam Hussein's regime. Now the news is a morale-sapping grind of gloom and doom, much of it self-inflicted from a political leadership that is in completely over their heads.
Of course the worst of the news continues to pour out of Iraq. Not only has there been a marked increase in Iraqi casualties, both military and civilian, but the death toll among the American forces refuses to diminish. In the first 4 months of the current War in Iraq the United States suffered 216 deaths; in the first 4 months of 2004 the United States suffered 254 deaths; in the first four months of 2005 the United States suffered 252 deaths (http://www.icasualties.org/oif/). All it takes is a glance at today's headlines to see that there is scarce reason indeed to believe these numbers will be very different in the first four months of 2006.
The killing will go on in Iraq for two very basic reasons: those who vehemently oppose the US presence in Iraq will continue to do so as long as we remain, just as the armed forces of the United States have every intention to continue to occupy their country. Anyone who still believes that the American involvement in Iraq is short-term most likely also believes that presidents don't lie.
Speaking of lies, as one bloody day after another goes by the underlying purpose given by the Bush administration for the invasion of Iraq is exposed for what is was - a spurious and shameless shell game. Bush's minions and mouthpieces skillfully and relentlessly kept the pea moving from cup to cup as they bantered, badgered and blathered about a myriad of dangers that would only escalate by our inaction.
That they succeeded in convincing enough people of the merits of their arguments is more an indictment of the American electorate than it is a reaffirmation of the validity of their position. The fact is that they succeeded by harnessing the enormous persuasive influence of their high office to the hardwired reflexive action of a people motivated by fear and uncertainty. The result has been they we are now committed to a path that upon reflection would never have been chosen - a path that will not lead America to a safer and more secure future, but rather threatens to wear down the best-equipped and best-trained Army in world to a degree of markedly-diminished capabilities.
Outside of Iraq the news, while not lethal, is nonetheless far from positive. The recent announcement of base closings triggered the fully-expected posturing and positioning from affected politicians from sea to shining sea. While each is hellbent to protect the jobs of their constituency – or at least to appear that way in public – none seem to be able to fully grasp the idea that the vast majority of these bases can easily be consolidated within the remaining domestic military infrastructure with little or no degradation of military readiness. But even if their wails of protest go unheeded and all the proposed closings go through, how does this effect the pocketbook of Joan and Joe Taxpayer?
Obviously the $48 billion the Defense Department is claiming will be saved by these closings is a tremendous amount of money. However when one looks at it both from the context of time, and relative to military expenditures as a whole, its stature shrinks considerably. This money is projected to be saved over the course of twenty years. In that time – based on current levels of expenditure with a little inflationary effect thrown in for good measure – the US defense megalith will devour approximately 10 trillion dollars. Meaning this 48 billion dollars will amount to a savings of less than one half of one percent: .048 percent to be exact.
Meanwhile, the powers that be have every intention of making sure that the United States has a firm grasp on the ultimate high ground of the battlefields of tomorrow – they plan to introduce space-based weapons that will increase even further the already-enormous amounts of money devoted to the armed forces. And this will be financed with money we don't have, of course.
Come to think of it, it is probably a good idea that the wave of the future is in robotic weaponry because the Army is having an increasingly hard time getting real live people to join its ranks. According to public records, the Army has missed its enlistment goals every month this year since January. The pressure on the men and women charged with finding the soldiers of tomorrow has risen to such a level that a number of them have been cutting more than a few corners - so much so that the DoD recently ordered an unprecedented one day stand-down which was used to re-indoctrinate its recruiters in the dos and don'ts of filling the ranks.
It is eminently understandable why so many young people are having second thoughts about signing on the dotted line. Can you blame them? Not only are the dangers real and ever-present, but the payoff just doesn't quite seem as worthwhile as it was just a few short years ago. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the same kind of young men and women who have always had the courage, fortitude and strength of their convictions to fight the wars of America were more than willing to put their lives on the line in defense of our homes and way of life. Now the clarion call to battle doesn't ring anywhere near as true.
It is not the wave of damning revelations against the "bad apples" of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, Afghanistan, et al, that has in and of itself soured them on the military; it is more so that it is always the little guy who gets the blame and punishment. That Mr. Bush has never held either himself or any high level commander responsible for any mistake regardless of how widespread or egregious is not lost on the 18-year-olds watching the evening news.
On top of it all, the story of a real American hero, Pat Tillman, a guy who willingly walked away from a life of pampered privilege to accept the thankless job of a combat infantryman, a man who had come to symbolize what's right with the young people of the United States, has now been turned on its head. The coverup surrounding the circumstances of his death has come to represent how these young men and women are not getting the leadership they so richly deserve.
The Army and the Bush administration was so desperate to put a positive spin on Pat Tillman's death that they not only lied about the circumstances surrounding it but they lied about the fact that they lied, and would have continued to do so if members of the much-maligned free press hadn't finally blown the whistle.
Pat Tillman went to his grave, just like almost two thousand of his comrades have, doing their duty to the best of their ability in the face of incalculable sacrifice and hardship. The men who have ordered them into harm's way will eventually go to theirs without a scratch on them.
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