Infinite Infinite blog

Monday the 11th

2010-01-12T09:11:00.001-08:00

Techno was the word of the day.
9:59 am	Sneaker Pimps - wasted early sunday morning
10:03 am	Capsula - zero one blues
10:12 am	Basshunter - I'm Your Bass Creator
10:18 am	U2 - Sunday Bloody Sunday (live)

Comment:	from "Under a blood red sky" 1983

10:22 am	Chelley - Text message
10:25 am	Jerry Fels and the Jerry Fels - I don't want to share my toys
10:28 am	The Sunny Era - Head in the sand
10:32 am	Anvil - Axe to Grind
10:37 am	Tiesto - Feel Me
10:41 am	Daft Punk - Alive
10:47 am	Shallow Grave Satanic - Blagojevich 666
10:48 am	Weezer - Falling for you
10:53 am	The Tramps - Feels like I've been living on the dark side of the moon
11:02 am	The Japanese Popstars - If I were boy (Beyonce remix)
11:04 am	Phish - Joy
11:09 am	John Lennon - Watching the wheels
11:12 am	Bette Midler - Married Men
11:20 am	Twin Atlantic - Lightspeed
11:20 am	God Module - Forseen
11:26 am	Chores - Super Car
11:31 am	Pansy Division - Twinkie Twinkie Little Star
11:31 am	Pansy Division - That's so gay
11:34 am	Gladys Knight and the Pips - Every Beat of my Heart
11:35 am	Gladys Knight and the Pips - I had a dream last night
11:39 am	Funk Agenda - No one listens to techno
11:43 am	Adam Lambert - A loaded smile
11:52 am	Symphony of science - the unbroken thread

Comment:	symphonyofscience.com

11:56 am	symphony of science - we are all connected

Peter Lorre is yellow

2010-01-12T08:15:00.000-08:00

"Think Fast Mr. Moto" (1937) stars Peter Lorre. This is the first of eight films with the Japanese detective played by a German with a thick German accent that Lorre only kind of hides. Lorre is also slathered in bronzer to play the detective.

Lorre is trying to break up a smuggling ring in China so he follows clues from San Fransisco to Shanghai. There are fights, romance, a blond vixen, and a dumbass who falls head over heals for her. There's betrayal, loyalty, murder, deception, and an exotic location----ooooooooooooooh, impressive. This yarn, and it is a yarn, has everything one could want in a detective story.

This a fun black and white pic with good acting, good action, and an okay story. Some of the dialogue is cheesy and is done better in other pictures. Peter Lorre is sublime and naturally creepy so his performances always impress me. I could watch him talk about how much he likes a white wall, I find him that interesting. He IS a good actor but his looks give Lorre more to work with as an actor. They allow him to stand apart from his peers. the movie is also short, clocking in at 70 mins so sitting down for this like watching a prime time drama.

Mark Lindquest minds his nirvana

2010-01-10T14:26:00.000-08:00

Some more books for you, things I've read this past month that I picked up at the library. "The King of Methlehem" (2007) and "Nevermind Nirvana" (2000) by Mark Lindquist, a relatively handsome guy from the Seatle area.

NN is about a lawyer who was once a lead singer of a band that made one album. He is about 35 and is stuck between adolesence and adulthood and must confront his musical past by prosecuting a member of his past for date rape.

KOM is about meth maker/dealer and a cop trying to bust him, again the lead charecters confronts issues that involve growing into adulthood. The dealer and the cop share similiar attributes and it's interesting because meth is such a dirty drug---here you get to see how and why it's smoked.

Mark's books are generational. They are about a people with specific values, not about the human condition or emotions that are translatable from person to person. There is disillusionment that is often the trademark of my generation. The books take place in and around Seatle, WA and include many references to grunge related pop. The charecters are sharp and developed and Mark keeps his stories moving. He doesn't mince words and there are not flowing passages of prose. These are novels that are somewhat brutal and abrupt in their language in order to maintain their sceptical and gray imagery. The charecters have flaws, make mistakes, and try to find a bit of happiness in a world they aren't sure they want to join---not because adulthood sucks but because they haven't seen it done well enough to engender a desire to join.

Make Room Make room!! It's not soylent enough

2010-01-09T19:37:00.000-08:00

Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison. It's a book!! It's a dystopian novel!!! It's the book that Soylent Green was based upon!! (Yummers!!!!) Talk about a find, I was searching the library to find something readable and I spotted this gem, well....it's almost a gem. 1984 it isn't, but few things live up to that level of literature.

The plot and the book are drastically different but one thing remains the same. Earth is severly overpopulated, nature has been destroyed to house mankind, and natural resources have run dry. The book takes place in 1999 and America's population is 340 million which is pretty close to where we are now. We sit at 300 million. There's a detective, a murder, an old roommate, a foxy lady, and tons of sad images about an overcrowded world.

Harrison effectively communicates his vision of a cramped, dirty, violent, wasteland of a future where most people live off of soylent burgers and wafers (only the climatic scene of the movie isn't in the movie nor is it explicit that the earth is dead. The movie tells the audience that the world is one inch from death). The future is bleak and the world is almost about to come crashing down but the leaders still fight over mundane things like birth control as water rations cause riots. The old man is Harrison's voice and expels his philosophy while the scenery is Harrison's vision.

Harrison 's prose is nothing fancy but he communicates his vision without being preachy, mostly, and he does it well by constantly repeating certain facts over and over again about the heat, the dust and dirt, people in every available inch of space. The plot is mostly an excuse to communicate his ideas which isn't a bad thing but I'm just pointing out that a million stories in his fictional future could have communicated his vision just as well which to me means that the plot isn't the most important thing, it's the message. That being said, it's still a great mood affecting read, not as depressing as The Road by any stretch of the imagination but still good.

Nims Island

2010-01-09T19:12:00.000-08:00

Nim's Island (2008) stars Jodie Foster, Gerald Butler, and Abigal Breslin. Butler and Breslin are father and daughter on a remote tropical island. Butler gets lost at sea, Breslin, through coincidence, is talking to her favorite author, Foster, and invites her to help her find her father and defend her island against tourists from a cruise ship.

The movie is a children's movie that does't rely on making the adults into dumb idiots although it isn't exactly smart either. It follows a predictable plot that at times descends into a Home Alone spoof as Breslin defends her island against a horde of fat tourists with homemade traps. Foster (as a fish out of water author---see Romance and the Stone) and Breslin (who can't really act but does 'cute' very well) each carry their own weight, Foster as an agoriphobic author who leaves to help the child, and Breslin the child who should be (but isn't really) wise beyond her years. Butler isn't very good here. He's fantastic at being violent and sneering at people he's about to murder but as a loving father, no (call me crazy). The movie is cute, harmless, and won't make you gag. Not every children's movie can be smart but not every children's movie doesn't want to make the adults vomit. I left this movie feeling fine (except I kept expecting Butler to kill someone or something).

A bad sequal and a great original involving a stone and a jewel, and Turner!

2010-01-09T18:57:00.000-08:00

Romance and the Stone (1983) and The Jewel of the Nile (1985) stars Mike Douglas (also producer), Kathleen Turner (such a silky husky voice, mmmmm), and Danny Devito (Rhea Pearlman's husband). The idea of the first movie is that Turner is a romance writer and she has to go to Columbia to rescue her sister. She's a New York City shut-in so it's a fish-out-of-water story. She meets Douglas and together they get into trouble and along with Devito as a crook, they compete to get a famous emerald. The sequal has Turner and Douglas in a tropical location (because of course they shack up) and she decides to take a break from them and goes off with a dictator of an African nation. Since he's a dictator he's an ass, goes without saying (right?) and Douglas and Devito decide to rescue her and seek out the mythical jewel at the same time.

RATS is the better movie and if you pick one of the two, this is the one to watch. It is from a firs time screen writer who hit the script out of the park. Diane Thomas declined to write the second one and it shows. (She died shortly after the sequal was released.) She is the one who made action movies with strong female leads a thing. Without her there may never have been action movies with female heroes. It also helps that she wrote real charecters that are relatable and believable and it helps when your script is helmed by pre-Back to the Future Robert Zemeckis although he isn't really an auteur as much as he's a really good everyman's director. His, along with Diane's abscence from the sequal are noticed.

JOTN has a lot of dancing and scene fillers. There's still plenty of action but there's a lot more scenes when nothing happens. At best those scenes could be called mood setters but it's likely they are filler to stretch the movie out and cash in on the success of the first movie. The one bright spot is (spoiler alert) the clown they hired to play the jewel (he's a mystic). The actors do what they can with the script which isn't bad but there wasn't a lot to do with these guys that wasn't done in the first one. This, along with Beverly Hills Cop 2 showed Hollywood that audiences don't want more of the same, which is what this movie is, more of the same.

Kudos to Kathleen Turner. What a sexy voice! She could melt butter just by speaking.

Zack and Stella....fuck fuck fuck

2010-01-06T12:02:00.000-08:00

You're a fucking piece of shit. You suck. God you're dumb. Why are you reading this? What's wrong with you? Stupid audience.

Mmmmm, delicious insults. They make for awful art which is why I'm surprised two comedy dvds I recently watched featured comedians insulting their audience.

Zack Galifinikas: Live (2006) and Stella (2008) are both an hour long and they both feature comics being mean to their audience. Maybe I'm a little old fashioned at the ripe old age of 29, but it seems rude and....well....mean.

Zack's dvd is half stage show and half garbage, and garbage is being nice. Zack has good and witty material when he can be bothered to perform the material. The dvd is a mixture of an "interiew" with his "twin" brother, Zack without a beard, and footage of Zack driving around in a VW van doing nothing. He can't even bother to be funny while "travelling." I shoudln't be surprised since he doesn't try to be funny while performing his show. He hams it up a lot for the cameras, insults his audience in what is supposed to ironic (and people actually laugh! By yelling profanities at his audience Zack is saying that words don't have power. I respectfully disagree.) He lies around the stage floor for a bit, flubs his lines many times, and generally avoids doing his routine. When he does his act, he's fucking brilliant, why he chose to muddle his act with what I'm sure he thought was inspired brilliance while stoned, but is actually shit in the day of light, is a mystery to everyone and I'm including Zack too.

Stella, starring three of the guys of the 90's sketch comedy show "The State" and "Stella" tv show is like watching an ameteur troupe at your local college, maybe slightly better, maybe not, and this surprises me because I love the State and generally whatever those guys make. I'm a fan of their movies, of the tv show Stella, but this was an uneven performance going between insulting and good (never great or genius but good). The show got off to a slow start which made me want to turn it off, had Michael Ian Black insulting the audience (irony doesn't extend to vulgarity) and was generally lackluster. The performance picked up steam and they got more orginal and state-like until they showed a video, basically an extended Stella clip. Even though the video was funny, I think that's laziness on their part even though other reviews say that the video is a staple of their live act.

And regarding both the comics propensity to swear, Bill Cosby is right, swearing by a comic is laziness and cheap. I never thought I'd dislike swearing but when that's half of or most of your show, you've ceased to have anything to say and get off the stage.

Avatar meets Downey and they abide no one

2010-01-04T18:28:00.000-08:00

Avatar (2009) It costs $300 million and was pretty good. I don't need to say much because so much has been written already so I'll say this: It's a well put together event/spectacle and represents and advancement in fx like Terminator 2 and the Matrix did when they were released. If you like "WOW!!" movies, see this. If you don't, your loss. The plot got ripped by respectable critics but there is nothing wrong with the plot. It isn't complex and you know the good guys are going to win but there isn't anything wrong with a predictable plot, just as long as it isn't cheesy or contrived like a child's movie.

And yes, there is a romance to accompany the action.

Sherlock Holmes (2009) Again, this movie has been getting okay reviews but again, who are these people who go to these movies? Holmes is a solid movie with a script that is funny and smart. The mystery is a bit lame and why it doesn't center on Moriarty is a mystery but the bromance between Holmes and Jude Law's Dr. Watson is fantastic. Downey plays Holmes as an eccentric genius who is alienated from society because of his brilliance and he does the things he does just to feel anything besides boredom (ala Fight Club). The director Guy Ritche has finally made a good movie after a ton of duds and should be given credit for making an appealing movie that doesn't pander to the LCD.

Law Abiding Citizen (2009) Gerard Butler's family has been murdered and he's secret/ex CIA, Jamie Foxx is a DA who cops a deal with the bad guy. Butler gets pissed, waits awhile, then proceeds to murder in the name of revenge. Good idea, bad execution. The actors are fine, it's the script and the movitation of the characters. I know it's just an action movie but characters still need to be believable and Foxx's charecter commits (spoiler alert) murder at the end of the movie. I don't buy that a stand up anal retentive DA is goingt to commit murder, no matter the circumstance, least of all the one presented in the movie, as for Butler's beserko charecter, he's entertaining but even he started to do things that weren't consistent with who he is supposed to be. This movie suffers from a bad script and a bad ending. Ugh, the ending was awful, just awful. Butler is too smart to go down like he did in the end, NOT BELIEVABLE. Skip this one, even though Stephen King ranked this as one of his ten best in this week's Entertainment Weekly. Ugh.

The Beatles get high on a bus

2010-01-04T18:10:00.000-08:00

Beatles: Magical Mystery Tour (1968) starring all the Beatles and directed by all four of them although Ringo was credited with the director of photography.

This is a one hour "movie" that was made in England prior to the album being released and it aired on BBC. It's about a bus of passengers going for a drive into the country and having an adventure. There is a dream sequence with Lennon shoveling food onto a table in front of a fat lady, a character named Mr. Blood Vessel, the Beatles dressed up in a variety of costumes, and a few songs. For whatever reason, the songs are different from the album. This isn't purely a showcase for the album. If it was it'd have likely featured the polished versions of the songs, more of them, and more of the Beatles. While they are in the movie they aren't the center of the film, the "mystery tour" and the characters (and I use that term loosely) are the center.

This a movie for amateur wannabes and Beatle lovers and is nowhere near as polished at their other movies. This was written and shot by them so it is a how-to for amateurs. It is vaguely trippy. It is more odd than psychadelic. I last saw this film when I was 18 and tripping on mushrooms. It was genius then but now, sober, and many years of movie experience under my belt, it's a curious oddity from a great band.

9 1/2 Weeks gives bad movies a boner

2009-12-19T09:33:00.000-08:00

9 1/2 Weeks (1986) stars Mickey Rourke and Kim Bassinger as a couple, and I use that word loosely, who engage in a series of progressively more and more extreme sex acts that eventually shakes her soul and does nothing to him.

The movie is a 2 hour long love song to BDSM. The characters, again I use that word loosely, only serve to act out the writers imagination. Who they are is irrelevant, only that they are engaging in some seriously fun and sensual sex that happens to involve a lot of submission. Nothing drives the characters and their reactions to certain situations is never explained. Elizabeth (Bassinger) eventually can't handle the relationship and runs away crying only it is never explained why she breaks, why she can't handle what was up to that point a pleasurable and sexually fulfilling relationship. We don't know why John likes to seduce women, only that he's very intense, works on Wall Street, and is uber-masculine.

The acting is terrible. Bassinger is okay but it's hard to do much when the script is so lame. Rourke is awful. He wrote the book on underacting and understatement with this role. Whenever he spoke I had to turn up the volume on my television. Adrian Lyne, the director (Flashdance, Indecent Proposal) has nothing to work with but does a capable job of filming some really erotic scenes and conveying at least one thing, sexual desire. Since the screenplay was nominated for a Razzie, it's surprising Lyne was able to do anything with the script.

Skip this movie unless you want to see Bassinger's tits and her Razzie nominated role for worst actress.

Home Alone is never alone in my heart

2009-12-17T18:54:00.000-08:00

Home Alone (1990) and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992) stars Macauley Culkin and a bunch of other people, most noteabley Catherine O'Hara, John Head, Joe Pesci, and Daniel Stearn who all had careers for most of the 90's except for maybe Culkin but he hooked up with MJ and divorced his parents, so he might as well have had a career since he was still around.

These are hard movies to review because I was ten years old when the first movie was released. These movies are a part of my holiday traditions. I watch them every year and several times throughout the year, not because they are particularly good but because they are associated with that sugary innocent time known as childhood.

Very quickly, the run down of the plots are that Kevin (Culkin) is a child whose parents accidentally leave him behind at home while they go to Paris. Burglars want to rob his house and he outsmarts them using a variety of slapstick gags. Same thing in part 2 except Kevin boards a plane for New York City while his family boards a plane for Miami. More slapstick humor ensues and in both movies the end is a heartfelt reunion with mom (O'Hara).

Written by John Hughes (yes, that Hughes) and directed by Chris Columbus, (yes, that Columbus) the movies portray Kevin as headstrong and the rest of the adults as impediments to what he wants, which is fine, but this formula doesn't usually work for repeat viewings but the movies are helped with fantastic supporting actors, from Pesci, Stern, O'Hara, John Candy, character actor Larry Hankin, and Tim Robbins, to the entire supporting cast. The movies have great actors but because of the scripts and the nature of a holiday family movie, the performances don't necessarily soar as much as they float or walk very tall in their performances. Culkin as a child is watchable but he is not as fluid in his performance as some of the child actors today, such as Dakota Fanning or, well....anyone. Culkin isn't a good a actor. Even as he grew, first puberty, then adulthood, his performances have been forced. Whatever good actors have, Culkin doesn't have it. In these two movies he doesn't need to posses good skills because he isn't acting in Shakespearean tragedy, he's acting in a family movie.

The writing is typical Hughes with adults who are unsympathetic to the needs of the child protagonist. The adults are obtuse and comically one dimensional but that makes sense because as a child, adults are never anything more than what they are yelling or doing. It never occurs to most kids that adults are anything more than authority figures. Hughes captures that well and the adults in these movies are no different. This doesn't mean that Culkin's character is deep because Kevin isn't. He's a boy who wants his way and who through circumstance, gets what he desires. The directing is unexceptional. Lots of bright lights and Christmas things, Columbus knows what he's doing and that's to make a piece of candy for consumption by the most people. Fine, no problems there. If he wasn't good at his job these movies might have sucked but instead they are good examples of family friendly fare.

If you are new to Home Alone, stop at the first two. There were two more sequals and the lack the charm the first to hold. They also have none of the original cast/director/writer. I'm thinking that if you like fuzzy movies, you'll like these two flicks. The combination of Culkin and Hughes and the fantastic supporting cast really is to much to resist.

Radio show from December 14

2009-12-15T22:11:00.000-08:00

December 14, 2009

There was a "word of the day" today but because I only had an hour to play only two songs from the "word" made it onto the air. My favorite song of the day was by "Poopy Pants." Their myspace page hasn't been updated since 2007 so they are long defunct but I like their love song for fat people. Most interesting song was Leonard Nimoy's take on the country classic "Put a little love into your heart." I wasn't interested in the song, I was interested in Nimoy's voice because actors always think they can sing and many times they can't (sorry Bruce Willis). Nimoy's voice is okay,nothing to get excited about. I like Shatner's voice better because he exudes a certain ego-mania/confidence/craziness/undefinable 'it' thing.

10:10 am	South Park - Poker face (lady gaga cover)
10:11 am	over my head (cable car) - a day to remember
10:12 am	pinhead gunpowder - keeping warm in the nighttime
10:12 am	the addicts - love sucks
10:13 am	the heavy - how do you like me now?
10:18 am	Larry Adler - Bolero
10:20 am	Lenord Nimoy - put a little love into your heart
10:23 am	NOFX - orphan year
10:26 am	Smashing Pumpkins - Bury Me
10:31 am	South Park - Dreidal Song
10:34 am	Nick Cave and the Badseeds - Jesus of the Moon
10:35 am	white stripes - the big three killed my baby
10:39 am	The Surfaris - I'm a hog for you baby
10:42 am	The poopy pants - your fat but i love you
10:46 am	Ludacris - money maker
10:50 am	Outkast - Hey Ya
10:55 am	Dick Dale and the Del-tones - Surf Beat
10:55 am	South Park - Mr Hankey

Tapeheads can only wish

2009-12-15T22:06:00.000-08:00

Tapeheads (1988) starring John Cusak and Tim Robbins and produced by Monkee member Mike Nesmith and a soundtrack by Fishbone.
Tapheads is a movie that has cult written all over. It smacks of something that would bomb like mad at the box office but resurrected for the midnight crowd.

John and Tim are young friends who become video producers, John being the slick businessman and Tim being the art brain. They're out in LA, get involved with a sex scandel plagued politician, a gun toting artist roommate, and some industry guy who gets them to make everything on spec. Throw it all in a blender, add an obscure soul group and a terribly long filler scene involving said obscure soul group near the end, mix it up in a blender, and you have hilarity, apparently.

This is a movie seems like it should be watched many times before an opinion can be formed but I've already watched it twice, will watch it at least once more, and so far I'm not that impressed. It's neat, sometimes cute, sometimes experimental, definitely an homage to youth, defintely one of John's better acted movies, but it isn't so edgy or artistic that it begs repeat viewings. It's essentially a silly comedy with some big names attached but nothing more.

A cult movie, in part, need to be misunderstood because it pushes artistic boundries or cultural taboos. This movie does neither. A cult movie doesn't need to be good (think ed wood) but the great ones are also great movies put together by artistic masters. Ed wood's movies are well known and loved but he's never reached the appeal of Rocky Horror Picture Show or Big Lebowski and that is the same fate Tapeheads has suffered. It's strange but not strange enough. It's silly but not dangerous. It pushes nothing which is why I've never heard about it except from one person which says a lot about the movie. Dedicated followers but not enough to make it midnight madness.

It has a good soundtrack, okay acting (mostly), and average directing. There isn't much to say except John Cusack's best role isn't squat compared to Tim's. Tim is a better actor. "Get busy living or get busy dying."

World's Greatest Dad is pretty great

2009-12-15T21:35:00.000-08:00

World's Greatest Dad (2009) starring Robin Williams and directed/written by 80's rebel comic and Police Academy badboy Bobcat Golthwait

First, Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic has a cameo as a newstand man. He doesn't have any lines but WOW, hello there, I've seen Dave Grohl all over the place but you, you are a hidden little man, nice to see you again. While you're in the spotlight again, you and Dave Grohl should have a 3-way with Courtney Love and produce a super musical baby.

Back to the movie. Lance is a struggling writer/high school teacher who has a perverted son named Kyle. Kyle is stupid, likes poop porn, is hated at school, has one friend, and is mean and absuve towards his father. Kyle dies an embarassing accidental death, Lance writes a suicide note for Kyle, and achieves literary success that has eluded him throughout his life. Kyle, once the trash of the school, now becomes a vaulted hero that inspires his classmates to not die, love life, and some other positive crap----beware, the movie does NOT get bogged down here. As Lance's good fortunes continue to skyrocket the guiltier he feels and he must decide to come clean or use his new fame to pulish in Kyle's name to help troubled teens.

Good movie. Not great, but good. Kyle is a greasy fucking spazz who always looks sweaty and covered in unshowered filth. Williams is good as always but he looks his age, which is near 60, so don't expect to see him in many more movies (sorry but the truth is old people don't act in hollywood---see Jack Nicholson, great actor but he's only made crap (or been offered crap) since he joined the AARP). The script by Bobcat is surprisingly deep and free of cliches. There are some tiny ones, such as the gay jock, but beyond that Bobcat uses Kyle's death and his "suicide" letter to illustrate how perceptions are transient in nature and facts change depending on the season. Deep without becoming heavy, entertaining without being preachy, a very hard thing to do, intellectual without being Woody Allen, good job Bobcat.

The script, besides taking shot at some deep intellectual stuff is also about relationships. Lance and Kyle's, Lance and a hot teacher who is wavering between him and a young English teacher, Kyle and his friend Andrew, and Lance and his horder neighbor. The relationships were relateable and sometimes uncomfortably real but what an accomplishment for the comic turned director. There are many other writers who can't write relationships like Bobcat and they've done a lot more things (see Bad Boys 1 and 2).

Everything is acted superbly. Williams is always good and he's great here. He is often called upon to showcase a wide range a emotions in a matter of seconds and he pulls it off like he was 30 years old all over again. The direction at times was very original. Bobcat frames his shots with more of an artistic bent using contrasting colors as a simple palette to express his emotions and he often times and effectively uses pop music to convey the characters emotions.

Maybe because I was a pothead nihilistic perv like Kyle that I understood and like the relationships so much, or maybe Bobcat knows his stuff, either way, there is more to this movie then just Krist and Williams.

Watch this for Krist, the last good movie Williams is likely to make (so sad, farewell my Captain), and a good script with good actors, directing, and writing.

DVD extras, the deleted scenes and outtakes aren't worth the time, the music video is cool.

Repo my genetic heart, an opera about death and blood

2009-12-13T09:33:00.000-08:00

Repo: The Genetic Opera (2008) Who this stars isn't important but you'll want to know that Paris Hilton is in this but I didn't spot her until near the end which means she was heavily made-up and I'm a blind idiot or really does have a tiny part. No matter, this isn't about the stars, it's about the blood and singing of which there is plenty.

It's the future and a company that makes body organs has been allowed to repossess them when customers fall behind on payments. Let the madness ensue, and the cheesiness. The plot centers on the boss of the company who is dying, is three crazy children, the doctor/mass murderer who repossess the organs, the doc's daughter, and a love triangle involving a dead woman, the CEO and the doctor. A quick side note, the doctor's killing costume looks like the mad scientist dad from "Invader Zim." Wicked.

It should be stated early on that this isn't a bad movie. It's so over the top and crazy that it should be much much worse than it is, but it isn't bad. It isn't good but the music is desent and the acting is fine but it felt like a movie that people would make up if they wanted to satarize something, not create as a serious piece of art, which I'm relatively certain this is. This is art, not parady or a social commentary, so I believe. I didn't watch the DVD commentary so maybe I'm really wrong.

This is a musical, so if you don't like 'em, you'll hate this, if you like them, then you'll like the music, although again, the lyrics sound like someone is making a joke, not serious art, but they are sung well, and the actors are all fine, so no problems there. There's money so this has a polished 'A' movie feel. There's a lot blood but this isn't a snuff film so no squeamish scenes.

The problem or its saving grace is the oddness of it all. I was torn between wanting to laugh and not laughing, art or sarcasm. I didn't know how to feel which is maybe why this movie works. Perhaps I'm an idiot and over analyzing a movie that should be analyzed at all and just enjoyed or maybe it does work on many different levels and I'm an idiot for not seeing it clearly. Either way, the movie was weird and deserving of a birth into the pantheon of cult movies. Watch out midnight movies, here comes Repo: The Genetic Opera.

M is for marvelous

2009-12-13T09:06:00.000-08:00

M (Murders Among Us) (1931) is a German film with subtitles that has been restored by Criterion so you know it's "GREAT" and you have a fifty-fifty chance of it boring you to death. Luckily for me, I am here, which means I survived. Criterion tends to pick very arty-dialogue heavy movies that are lost on all but the MENSA cinema fans. I love movies and have watched a shit load of them but the Criterion label turns me off because of the number of times I've been bored sitting through one of their picks.

M is a fantastic movie starring a very young and pre-Hollywood Peter Lorre. If you don't know who Peter Lorre is, SHAME ON YOU!!! He's the villian from "Arsenic and Old Lace" and was in "Maltese Falcon" and "Casablanca," among others. He's a fantastic actor with large round expressive eyes and a bit of a doughy face. If you grew up with Warner Brother cartooons, you've seen him. Anyways, M is the story of a child killer played by Lorre who is terrozing the town. The cops and local crime syndicate are both looking for him, the cops because that's their jobs, and the criminals because pissed off cops are hurting their bottom line.

It's a fantastic and well shot movie. Some knowledge of cinema helps as Fritz Lang's directing was revolutionary at the time and in order to be amazed, a history lesson helps, but it isn't needed. Lange seemlessly goes back and forth between the cops and the criminals, juxtaposing their organizations and making statements about truth, society, and justice, all the while telling a gripping and fantastically acted movie. Few movies today or ever have flawlessly told a movie that addressed major human themes without getting bogged down in them or letting the storytelling lapse. Lange accomplishes this beautifully. Everything from the plotting and pacing to his slow reveal of the killers face to the finale where Lorre gives one of the performances ever as a killer. M is meant to be seen by all, not just lovers of cinema becaue while the movie appeals to their upturned noses, it also appeals to people looking for a great story.

Whiteout should have wiped out my memory

2009-12-10T14:43:00.000-08:00

Whiteout (2009) Starring the babe Kate Beckinsale and some other people. It doesn't matter who else is in this movie because from the opening shower scene with Kate, this is clearly her vehicle. It's to bad the vehicle is a rusted pile of shit that she drives it right into the ground.

A murder has ocurred in Antartica and Kate is a sheriff in self imposed exile. Why she's there is told through flashbacks. Why the audience is supposed to care is never made clear. This movie was so bad it's like trying to define the infinite. There are so many different ways.

First, ANY movie that starts with a pretty woman stripping down to whitey-tighties and then taking a heavily steamed shower is going to suck. I knew I was fucked from that moment forward and I was correct. Second, Kate can't act. She was fine in those werewolf movies but plenty of people "act" in cg movies. We don't see them for the actors, we see them for the action/cg/cool factor. Like most jobs, those acting jobs could be handled by a trained monkey. Third, for a trained sheriff, Kate was ineffective. Her skills should have been way more advanced then screaming and running which she somehow did poorly (it added to the dramatic tension). Fourth, the killer (SPOILER ALERT) was a guy clad from head to toe in winter gear, thus remained a mystery yet not scary at all. Why Kate didn't shoot him when she had the chance is beyond me. Five, where was the killers plane? They both fly out to a remote camp and Kate happens upon him while killing a person. Where was his plane? And in a whiteout, how did he get back to the homebase while she and her pilot were snowed in? Sixth, when outside fighting, how is it that one guy was blown away to his death across a flat stretch of land in a whiteout while Kate could still stand? Mind you this guy was clad in survival gear and likely had training to live in a whiteout, and even in a hurricane people aren't tossed around like rag dolls.

The only exciting part of this movie, besides the credits, was when I momentarily confused Tom Skarrit with Kris Kristofferson. Avoid this movie at all costs.

Radio show for December 7

2009-12-08T21:08:00.000-08:00

This was a fun day. Dave Mert brought his metal and other music in so there was a good mix of opera related things I found and whatever Dave felt like playing. He getting primed for the Megadeth show that is probably just getting over right now at the Hub.
The worst song I played today was by Janes Addiction. I found it in the studio. I generally like JA but that song was boring. The best song I played was by a British artist named Floetry. Check them out on myspace.com. This show is available for upload.

9:57 am	Muppets - Bohemian Rhapsody
10:03 am	Jamie T - Castro Dies
10:07 am	Carebears on Fire - Song about you
10:08 am	Star wars gangsta video - (you tube video)

Comment:	http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=493ljyoox6o

10:11 am	Janes Addiction - LA medley (live)

Comment:	from their album "Cabinet of curiosities sampler"

10:15 am	Holding on - the greatest trick the devil...
10:21 am	Sara Brightman and Antonio Banderas - phantom of the opera
10:28 am	Dinosaur. Jr. - Pieces
10:34 am	Weird Al Yankavoic - Smells like Nirvana
10:37 am	Jerry Lee Lewis - whole lotta shakin goinn on
10:40 am	Tiny Tim - i've never seen a straight banana
10:43 am	Tiny Tim - Mr. phnonograph
10:45 am	vladijonia la chia - opera
10:46 am	Low - John Prime
10:54 am	dufresne concerto alloe zoe riman - opera
10:55 am	megadeth - train of consequences
10:57 am	nancy sinatra - two shots of happy one shot of sad
11:02 am	nash the slash - born to be wild
11:19 am	devander banhart - pumpkin seeds
11:20 am	whitney houston - i'll always love you
11:20 am	iggy pop - avenue b
11:20 am	Floetic - opera

Comment:	this song was played after 'nash the slash'

11:24 am	Pansey Division - that's so gay
11:27 am	slayer - spirit in black
11:32 am	cake - opera singer
11:35 am	johnny cash - i hung my head
11:37 am	cecilia bartoli - All'arme si accesi guerrieri"

Comment:	http://music.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=music.artistalbums&artistid=2766962&ap=0&albumid=9701195

11:42 am	angels of light - untitled love song
11:49 am	ghost face killa - street opera
11:51 am	type o negative - love you to death
11:56 am	boys 2 men - yesterday

joblessness is great!

2009-12-08T20:58:00.000-08:00

Well I was fired again today. I got a phone call from a boss at 801 and she told me my appeal was denied. I was angry and initially damned this cold cybernetic woman to hell but then it dawned on me, she's a robot. If I get angry with her it won't do any good because she's incapable of feeling emotions. Oh well. At least it's cold outside. I bet she's outside bathing in the snow.

The job hunt continues. I've applied to over 30 locations, all of which I am over qualified for either by a lot or by a lightyear. I know this and prospective employers know this but what am I supposed to do? If I am applying for a job that I can do blindfolded with four limbs tied behind my back, I'm there because I need a job and I'll take whatever salarey you care to give me. Yes, I am smart. Yes, I read. Yes, I know things. No, I won't jump ship at the first sign of land. No, I won't be an insubordinate ass. Yes, I will work hard. Yes, trained birds could do this job, but who cares? I'll work hard. Since when has being intelligent become a handicap? I'm not blowing my own horn. I'm a guy with regular intelligence but I'm in graduate school so if anything I have a great work ethic but that doesn't mean a damn thing. I am to the point of leaving off my education on applications and wondering if I should utter a few more 'ums' and 'ahs' and randomly stare off into space.

And if you are a prospective employer checking me out, just fucking hire me. My references are excellent, my work ethic is second to none, and if I'm over qualified for the job, so what? Short of being an engineer, by virtue of having a functioning brain, you, I, and most people are overqualified for their jobs.

Flash of Genius sodomizes Surrogates

2009-12-02T22:56:00.000-08:00

Surrogates (2009) Bruce Willis, directed by Jonathon Mostow of T3 fame.
One word to describe this movie: forced. The entire plot seemed forced. It wasn't given time to unwind at its own pace. Charecters were given motive without proper explanation or just a cursory explanation, whatever reason they had seemed fake and not believable.
The plot is that in the future we all have androids that we move around from our beds. The world is a safer place. A small amount of humans decide robots aren't the way to go and they set up robot-free reservations and become marginalized in the process. The "meatbags" get a hold of a weapon that can kill users and their "surrogates." How they got the weapon is the mystery.

Bruce Willis does an okay job with the material he has but he's phoning in his performance. It's the same character he always plays in action movies: tough, able to take a punch without wincing, and coldly detached yet inexplicably passionate. Willis needs to update his act or he'll never headline another movie again. The rest of the actors were okay and there were no standouts although I find it odd that James Cromwell plays the inventor of the surrogates and he played the inventor of the robots in "I Robot."

The script okay and as I already said, forced. The movie ended on the cliche of giant proportions. To reveal it would be to give away the ending which shouldn't matter in the case of a blase movie but I'm trying to be professional ;)

Gomorah (2009) is a two hour Italian movie about the mob in a housing project in Italy. It's all in Italian so I caught myself reading the subtitles more than I was watching the actors who when I was watching them, weren't really acting as much as they were strutting in the macho style that only Italian men can seem to do.

This movie got a lot of positive attention. I would venture to guess that the reason why is the subject matter. It is a compelling watch especially since it is based on a real place. Watching a movie that is telling the story about a real criminal organization is a fun thing to watch but I didn't care about any of the characters. It was a neat idea with an original subject matter but I didn't care about the characters and was getting impatient waiting for the movie to end. The only thing I like was that one of the guys walks around in his tighty-whiteys and I was able to see his bulge, besides that, I didn't care.

Is this movie bad? No. Does it deserve all the hype it's gotten? Possibly. The subject matter was impressive and heavy so it has deserved all the accolades it has gotten but as far as acting goes, no way. It this movie had all the same players doing anything other subject matter I know we wouldn't be here discussing it and that bothers me but I don't know why.

Gomorrah isn't a bad movie but it wasn't what I expected. Watch it, you'll probably enjoy it but not love it.

Flash of Genius (2008) Greg Kinnear
Kinnear plays the real life inventor of the windshield wiper whose idea was stolen by the automakers. He spends the rest of his life pursuing justice, not for the money but for his ideals. He eventually sacrifices his marriage and family on his idealistic altar. He succeeds in the end but at what costs and was it worth the trouble? The movie answers these questions as it goes along and the answer is most definitely yes. It's a classic David vs. Goliath story. Spoiler alert, David eventually wins.

This is an understated movie that doesn't become preachy even though there are a millions of opportunities. The acting flies beneath the radar, never reaching a zenith even as the marriage crumbles and Kinner's character has an emotional breakdown. At times it seems fatalistic, like his path was chosen for him, and at other times it seems like everyone back in the 60's and 70's was in need of speed.

Kinnear does a fine job. He's an underrated actor who doesn't get the recognition he deserves. As Robert Kearns, he is slightly dilluisional about his family but very stubborn when it comes to his invention. He is unable to see the damage he is doing to his family even as it disintergrates around him. Agent Skinner from X-Files plays an auto guy and the rest of the cast is competent but this is Kinnear's show, eveyone else just needs to be competent.

Everything about this movie is understated but don't let that stop you from seeing a good movie about a little man standing up to big corporations. It's enough to melt your heart and pull some tears from your eyes.

Radio show Monday Nov 30

2009-12-02T22:18:00.000-08:00

This show was obviously dedicated to the gangsta rap that I grew up with. I didn't listen to rap music when I was a teen and still really don't but I enjoy it a lot more as an adult and wanted to bring back some of the biggies from my youth. REM of course is just awesome and I played them while I was saying goodbye to the previous dj and setting up my stuff.
My favorite tune of this week is actually Ice Cube's "Gangsta rap made me do it." It's a newer song and found it while searching youtube for music videos I could play.

10:05 am	REM - end of the world
10:10 am	Dr. Dre - aint' nothing but a g thing (clean---and I'm not sure this is the right name but you get the idea)
10:13 am	2Pac - Dear Mama
10:18 am	Warren G - Regulate
10:21 am	Ice Cube - Gangsta rap made me do it (clean)
10:26 am	Protomen - the Hounds
10:31 am	Kenny Young and the Eggplants - The House at Creepy Lake
10:37 am	Arrested Development - Mr. Wendal
10:37 am	Snoop Dogg - What's my name? (clean)
10:40 am	Susan Boyle - Daydream Believer
10:44 am	Vanilla Ice - Ninja Rap
10:50 am	The Rick Weeds Band - it's true
10:51 am	Tracy Jordan - Wereworlf Bar Mitzvah (30 Rock)
10:58 am	Ice Cube - today was a good day
10:59 am	Meter Maids - don't sleep
11:04 am	velvet underground - femme fatale
11:06 am	Capgun Coup - now that i'm home
11:08 am	Megadeth - black curtains
11:15 am	Eazy E - Eazy Duz it (clean)
11:16 am	the Harptones - you know you're doin' me wrong
11:18 am	Coolio - Gangsta paradise (live)
11:24 am	Symphony of science - we are all connected
11:26 am	MC Hammer - U can't touch this
11:31 am	Big Strides - No lower case kisses
11:34 am	Portugal. The Man - Work all day
11:37 am	NMA ft. Eazy E - Boyz in the Hood
11:43 am	Arrested Development - Tennessee
11:48 am	Family of the Year - Feel Good track of Rosemead
11:52 am	Carebears on Fire - Met you on myspace
11:53 am	Vanilla Ice - Ice Ice Baby
11:59 am	Susan Boyle - I dreamed a dream

Graphic novels kill books

2009-11-24T21:56:00.000-08:00

I love comics. I don't want to take them and make sweet perverted love to them but I am enjoying their stories. I own zero comics so to say I love them is misleading but I was at the library and picked up some graphic novels and wow o wow, talk about great stories.
I've read two volumes of "Exiles," an X-Men spin-off, and "Banner" by Rian Azzarello and Richard Corben.

The "Exiles" titles are amazing. Time travel, alternate universes, and different stories for the X-Men and all without having to read hundreds of pages. I get smart sci-fi, good dialogue, thoughtful art, and a good story. Time is a real living thing and is comprised of Time DNA. Something goes wrong and it's spreading across Time like a cancer so some mutants get unhinged in time and must pull a Quantum Leap and reverse bad things or they will cease to exist. As the missions progress some die, some go home, and new mutants take their places.
The stories involve all the characters of the Marvel universe expect to see a lot familiar faces doing unfamiliar things. The Exiles are faced with dilemmas such as fighting against people they know from their own universes, battle fatigue, and personal sacrifice. The stories for each of the characters is smart and developed and the art is appropriately heroic, strong, and full. The artists convey much emotion while still drawing kick ass battle scenes. "Exiles" is awesome and written for adults. Children will enjoy them too but there is a depth that only adults will appreciate.

"Banner" left me wanting. The story is about Bruce Banner's pain he feels about the Hulk's destruction on society. This is contemplative story and that's great, I love introspective pieces but too much of the story was about catching Banner and not enough about his demons. There's a point when he attempts suicide and it comes on so quickly that the reader has no time to react and then as quickly as it comes, it disappears into the pages.
The art work was not serious enough for the story that was being told and wanted to be told. The artwork wasn't bad but it didn't fit the material. Banner should have been drawn more tortured and with more emotions. This could have been so much better but I found myself racing through it on purpose because I didn't care what happened.

Julie and Julia

2009-11-24T21:30:00.000-08:00

Julie and Julia (2009) starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams.
Meryl Streep is amazing. She is the Al Pacino or Johnny Depp of female actors. She transforms herself into whatever character she is playing and makes me forget that she's anyone but the person she's playing. Amy Adams is mousy. The end. She's got that thing that makes her watchable but I found myself getting fed up her. I wanted to watch Streep and I couldn't give a shit about her or her character. Great, Julie Powell is a loser who decides to blog, I don't care which is Adams' fault since as an actor she is supposed to make me care. I cared because what she was doing with the food was interesting but Powell could have been played by anyone. I looked at the food and cared about the food much more than I did about Powell or her marriage which went from love to fight to almost breakup to reconcilliation without covering the needed ground. Her marriage could have been left at the curb but the writers were trying to run it parallel to Streep's Child and her marriage. Child's marriage was more interesting to watch but only because it had to do with Julia Child and Meryl Streep. It wasn't necessarily written better but because of the romantic background of Paris and Child, it was more interesting.
This is a good movie but at 2 hours, it was too long. Adams was in the movie to often. It should have been pure Streep as Julia Child but I doubt this picture would have worked as a straight bio piece so the Powell charecter was sadly needed. If you like mousey women, then you'll love Adams but if you don't then focus on the food whenever she's there---Julia Child will be around shortly.

My cat sleeps forever.

2009-11-23T20:10:00.000-08:00

There is no radio show this week. I forgot the code to get into the building. I was going to play some radio friendly gangsta hits from the early 90's. Sorry everyone. If it makes you feel any better I was so angry with myself that I was unable to get anything productive done during those two hours.

I put my cat to sleep today. She was sixteen and a mix of browns and white with a pink nose that was covered in food. She'd stopped cleaning herself. She was too old and tired to make the effort. She might have had kidney disease, diabetes, or a thyroid problem. None of the solutions were easy were an easy fix and she was to old to be put through a fix, whether it be slow or long. I miss my cat and mourn her dearly.

movie movies movies

2009-11-21T12:25:00.000-08:00

I scored a job interview for Tuesday and I'm more excited about this one than the security guard position. I'd be able to travel around the area and see small towns and meet new people. There's nothing glorious about the position. I'd be staying in motels and away from home for up to two weeks but I'm okay with this. I love to travel. Even when traveling the same routes over and over again, it never gets old.
I met a hotty at the theater last night. We didn't really meat. He took my money and I noticed his awsome sideburns. They may be the best sideburns in the tri-state area. They're like Joe Maur's sideburns. Well groomed, clean, tight, and attached to a sexy body but on the geeky side because that's how I like my men, geeky.
And now for the movies because while I'm unemployed I watch a ton of movies. I also write and I'm sending my books out to agents but that only takes up so much time. Thinking is exhausting so I watch movies in between my literary adventures.

The Lady Vanishes (1938) Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. I'm not going to try to touch or dissect a Hitchcock movie. There are people are there who can analyze every nuance and write thesis papers, I'm not that guy but I can tell you how wonderful the movie is. Unlike some of the over acted movies Hollywood put out (this one came from London) the acting was not as stage-y and the characters actually had believable motives. "Wait until Dark" was difficult to watch at times because the acting style was over the top and the characters were insanely stupid (except Alan Arkin's psychopath---kudos for the good job), TLV suffered none of those pits. The movie was well paced and moved along gracefully. The directing of course was great. For people who don't like old movies, this movie plays like a modern movie. I can understand hating WUD but see this movie.

2009-11-18T09:11:00.000-08:00

My mustache looks amazing. It is thick and luxurious and everyone is jealous. They aren't but I don't care. I like my facial hair just as it is. I've gotten Freddie Mercury and Frank Zappa comments, in that I look like them, not play music like them. The mustache and soul patch are just to do something different, nothing else.

Job hunting is slow. This market is terrible, not that i need to tell you that. I had an interview on Friday at a hotel here in town for a security guard position. I nailed the interview but still didn't get the job. He called me on Sunday to let me know. He was a giant of a man with a hand that could crush skulls in his sleep but I'm sure he was soft and fuzzy on the inside.

Time for movies!! Yay, I know, it's my favorite part too.

Hulk (2003) Eric Bana and Jennifer Connelly and directed by Ang Lee
This holds up well after six years. It's still a good movie. It was good then and it's good now only the fanboys being a bunch of literalists and whining dicks hated this movie. They needed more smashing and less story. Their yelling virtually guaranteed that no comic book movie will ever be smart, ever. They bitched when the Watchmen went to 3 hours but they'd have yelled bloody murder if one scene was cut. "Hulk" is a well told story about the demons that haunt Bruce Banner. It's beautifully acted and directed and unfolds like a good story ought too, not jam a bunch of explosions, a pair of tits, and a macho dick inbetween credits. The directing was original in that it told a rather traditional story but using comic book squares with different views of the action unfolding. This heightened the drama on the screen and didn't come off as a silly gimick. Hulk is limited in screen time but if he wasn't this would have been a GI Joe: Rise of the Cobra catastrophe. Scenes with hulk are action packed and emotional and I know fan boys wanted 90 minutes of destruction but this isn't a comic book, it's a movie, with charecters. Wasn't going to happen and when it did happen last year with Ed Norton, well it suffered a bit. Bana is great and his career was launched here and Connelly, well she's kind of disappeared but she's still great here. Public, it's been 6 years, forgive Ang Lee and check out "Hulk." He's in there even though he doesn't dominate the movie.

Wait Until Dark (1967) Audrey Hepburn, Alan Arkin Hepburn is a blind wife in a NYC apt. A group of criminals want something she has so they devise an elaborae ruse to get it without violence. She eventually outsmarts them in a cinimatic finale that is as good as anything shot today.
Yikes, Hepburn was mis-cast. Super Yikes. She is always this bird like woman with a vaguely Brit accent who tends to cry a lot and is possessed by feminine weakness laced with just a tish of self survival instinct. Her crying got on my nerves. It's a left over from earlier films when stage acting was the preferred method of acting but she still played this woman with much more weakness than necessary and her dependence on her husband who is absent from the movie is sickening.

Alan Arkin plays the lead criminal and he does so brilliantly. It's one of the best pyschopaths ever committed to film. Rent it for his acting job and the riveting finale.
Ignore the obvious problems, like how she can hear a person dusting or open and closing the blinds but can't here three men breathing in her apartment pretending they aren't there or her refusal to lock her door or go to another apartment for help or she sends off the neighbor girl before calling for help, or doesn't go to her apt to call for help, she's blind and navigates NYC by herself yet is childishly weak and cries at the drop of a hat, how arguments are resolved in hugs and kisses in under 60 seconds. Problems all over the place but I was able to suspend judgement to let the thriller unfold and it did very well. For annoying as Hepburn's performance was, she's still a powerfully emotive woman and watchable and between her, Arkin's criminal, and the ending, this is one movie a new generation should discover.

Jim Jefferies: I swear to God (2009) Jefferies goes beautiful things with being obscene. He attacks god and family. There's a good mix of drugs, sex, and rock n roll. I laughed until my jaw hurt. Through it all you can see his heart and that's what makes a dangerous comic great. Someone lampooning religion isn't new and it can easily grow stale but Jefferies tells personal family stories and self deprecating stories that are equally as obscene but touching at the same time. It's a good funny 60 minutes.

Radio show november 16

2009-11-17T19:31:00.000-08:00

The radio show went well but I wasn't taking requests because I only had an hour to perform the show. I had a funeral to attend that's why the show was cut short. I'm not sure how I picked John Lithgow as the word of the day. The bands I played were all of them with either JL in the name or song name. Lithgow has a few albums on Myspace and videos on Youtube and I played a song from each of his albums. Apparently he's a singer of children's tunes. Who would have guessed?
And I only played one Boys Noize song. It's listed twice because I wanted to delete the incorrectly spelled one.
My favorite song and band is The William Blakes. That's a new album and the studio just received it last week. I took it home and wrote up the review for the other dj's. Smart rock is great rock. The Carl Sagan piece is good too but it's smart so of course I'd love it. He talks about the universe. That's a huge intellectual turn-on. Instead of talking dirty to me, whisper the theory of relativity and we'll be in business. Grrrrrr:) See you next week.

10:08 am	Gregory Pepper - Must be true
10:08 am	Jonny Lang - I believe
10:11 am	Carl Sagan - Cosmos Remixed

Comment:	http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSgiXGELjbc

10:14 am	The William Blakes - Violent God
10:19 am	Boy Noize - Starter
10:22 am	John Lithgow - Welcome to the night
10:25 am	Boys Noize - Starter
10:25 am	Like Alaska - John Lithgow as the bad guy
10:30 am	Ginsu Wives - Robotic John Lithgow
10:32 am	The John Lithgow Funk and Flow Experience - Hey Dad thanks for the bike
10:38 am	Kenny Loggins - Footloose (live)
10:43 am	Portugal the Man - LAy me back down
10:46 am	Queen - Fun it
10:49 am	John Lithgow - You got to have pep
10:54 am	Bana nah nah nah - the banana rap song
10:57 am	Craig C. featuring Jimmy Somerville - I was born this way
10:57 am	Beck - bottle of blues

Time Traveller's Wife, Drop Dead, Electric Mist

2009-11-14T08:10:00.000-08:00

Better Off Dead (1985) stars John Cusack as a teen whose love and object of devotion has left him for the school ski instructor (Do high schools really had ski teams?? I live in Fargo, so an utter impossiblity). He takes this poorly, tries to kill himself (but not really), he meets a foriegn exchange student, romance insues (oh, I'm not giving the plot away, there is not plot to give), the end. It co-stars Booger from Revenge of the Nerds---he showed up a lot in 80's comedies. This is a non-sequitar movie with romance as it's excuse for gags and comedy. Cusack is not at his finest so if you're looking for a good repesentation of his work, this movie is not one of them.

In the Electric Mist with theConfederate Dead (2008) stars Tommy Lee Jones and John Goodman. That's what go me to watch and they kept me watching (that wasn't a compliment to the movie). They are the good parts. Jones does a good Cajun accent (it takes place in the bayou of Lousiana), Goodman sports a Cajun accent too and together, they act up a storm and so does everyone else. There are no bad actors here. What was bad was the script. It didn't make any sense. It introduced characters without giving reason as to why they were important (Goodman's character for example), there's a back story involving the murder of black prisoner from the 1960's whose significance isn't sufficiently explained, and then there is Lee's character and the confederate soldiers he meets in his hallucinations. There's a completely unneccessary voice over (the movie isn't that complex). The script breaks right, then left, then right again when it could have just taken the ball right up the field. This is a movie about a serial killer and it should have been made a thriller focusing on that from the start but that story line doesn't fully emerge from the surrounding story (mess).

Time Travllers Wife (2009) Eric Bana, Rachel McAdams, Ron Livingston. Screenplay by Bruce Joel Rubin (he wrote Ghost). Adapted from a book, this is a very tender romance about a man who travels through time because of a genetic disorder and the woman who love him despite his often dissappearances. Rubin got it right (even though it doesn't answer which came first, the chicken or the egg but this isn't sci-fi so take your objections elsewhere) and his screenplay got lucky because Bana plays Henry with a maturity toughness that masks his vulnerablity tiredness of time travel. McAdams plays Claire, his wife, and she loves Henry deeply but at times resents him for not having an freedom (if he can travel through time then time is set in stone and she had no choice but to fall in love with him). It's beautiful and sweet without becomes sugary or sachrine and as it comes to its tear inducing finale, the heart aches for their pain and tears want to flow. Writing a movie that touches the heart with gentleness and making the audience FEEL is a tribute to the writer. It means the charecters were real, the acting was good or great, and the directing was invisible (which is what you want in these movies. This a charecter and acting movie, if the director does their job they blend into the job and the audience doesn't realize they were there until the end). Great movie.

Cat Stevens and He-Man

2009-11-11T15:06:00.000-08:00

This was shot in 1976 in Maryland but 18 months later Cat Stevens quit performing and, well you know the rest. It was found and released in 2004, five years before his first album in 30 years came out in May of 2009.

I've never seen Cat Stevens perform live so I have no previous bar by which to measure this performance but based on the extras (some performances are from 1971) I'd say he's the same, which is to say peak or bottom, depending on your view.

The tour included magicians, a back up band, grand piano, and a large set (but not elaborate even by those standards). Stevens sits up front, kind of standing/sitting on a large stool, and sings his hits. He sounds exactly like his records. I've never seen anyone sound almost identical to their recordings. There were only a few songs where he varied his voice enough to make them different from his albums.

This is for a Cat Stevens. The performance isn't so great that it'll win people over, if anything, it'll disappointment fans by the lack of depth he displays as a performer but his songs are so well crafted that his hardly matters.

DOLPH LUNGRAN. There is nothing else to say, which is good because this movie, well...it doesn't hold up very well. I think it may not have held up from day one. Dolph is awsome, more so because his name is fun to say and he's a total bad ass in Rocky 4, but the movie is lame. There isn't any one thing that I can point to and say that is sucked, I can only point at it all of it and say that is sucked. The acting and directing were flat---Courtney Cox was forgettable, the dude from Back to the Future---the hairless principal, actually looked feminine at times--- I swore I saw eyeline a few times and if I did I blame the makeup guys. The story is disapointing. This is He-Man, he should be fighting dudes on his world, not coming back to Earth. That seems like it was either laziness on the scriptwriters or an attempt to save a buck on the producers part, or both, although it can't be that hard to find alien landscapes in the dessert of California.

It was fun to watch because it was reliving a part of my childhood but it was also painful to watch.

More job hunting and some atoms too

2009-11-11T14:44:00.000-08:00

Why hello there! You look sexy. Come here, let me devour you. Meow!----oh, what a week and not even over yet!---to be alive, what a nifty thing:)---Have you checked out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGK84Poeynk yet? I'm still amazed by it. It isn't technically great but I love atoms and planets the star dust that you and I are made of. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, bitch.

I was busy this week looking for unemployment. I had a 2.5 hr class at Job Service here in Fargo on resume and interview skills. It was a lot better than I thought it would be. It was taught by a very tall man, close to 7 ft, and he did the obligatory ice breakers and there was a crusty old man across from me who was sniping under his breath the entire hour but he was so cute and miserly that I didn't care that he was acting like a rude seventeen year old boy. The class was useful and the handouts were especially useful. I was able to write up two resumes and two intro letters based on the examples given, which is what I did today. I spent all morning writing two combo resumes and two intro letters. I'm applying for some jobs of which I can't say here because I don' want all of you (you 2 or 3 search engines that 'read' me for search results) hehe, to rush out there and grab MY jobs, that's right, my job, before I even get it, they're mine!!!---so the class was fine then I had an interview an hour later. I made it home, decided jeans weren't appropriate, changed, read up on the company, readied myself for their questions (what is your greatest weakness?) (Look at me, you know I have none, baby)---Got half way through the interview when it was discovered I wasn't qualified for the job. I applied for a CNA position. They used to train for that, not any more. $550 and six weeks will get me that license, which I might do because there are a lot of CNA positions in the paper but there is a little thing of money, of which I have little. I am UNEMPLOYED, so paying for a class when XMAS, car insurance, and all that jazz is probably not going to happen.

Next up, movie reviews. Sexy.

I'm working on making me portable.

2009-11-09T19:55:00.000-08:00

I'm trying to figure out how to make my shows available online. I may be on to something. Oooooh, feel the excitement.

My show is fun and crazy and fun and crazy

2009-11-09T12:17:00.000-08:00

Can you guess the word of the day? Go ahead, take a look at the song titles. What one word stands do you see most often? What? You want me to tell? No sir, I mustn't. I'll give you a hint. FARGO! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, I said the word of the day! AHHHHHHHHHHH! HE-HE!!
The coolest song I played today, or the one I liked the best, is The Fugs. They're a group from the 1960s known for their protest songs. KISS was okay, Slayer was good---and it was the first time I'd listen to both all the way through, Queen is always good, Deanhilmusic was good too and he's from the Netherlands.

Ugh, I should get to work. I haven't worked on my book for a few days and I feel guilty whenever I'm away to long. ----Symphony of Science---that's my favorite song (I changed my mind but I'm allowed too).

10:12 am	The Exotic Rimsky Korsakov - Flight of the bumble bee
10:12 am	Robert Randoldh and the clark sisters - Higher Ground
10:13 am	Flip Fargo - Throw it away
10:16 am	Counting Crows - Hangin around

Comment:	http://www.youtube.com/user/countingcrows?blend=1&ob=4#p/u/39/yp6mVIzDsRA

10:20 am	Beatles - Carry that Weight
10:24 am	The Gene Krupa Story Soundtrack - Spiritual Jazz
10:25 am	Pennywise - Bro-hymn
10:31 am	Charlie Parr - Far Cry From Fargo

Comment:	http://www.myspace.com/charlieparrduluth

10:34 am	Impala - Fargo (Wanda's Theme)

Comment:	http://music.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=music.artistalbums&artistid=5779414&ap=0&albumid=11715185

10:35 am	Sour Mash - Fargo
10:39 am	Beatles - The End
10:43 am	Symphony of Science - We are all connected

Comment:	http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGK84Poeynk

10:46 am	John Williams - Superman theme song, movie soundtrack
10:51 am	The Deadly Gentlemen - the Splendor of the Bender
10:58 am	John Twomey - Stars and Stripes Forever (Here's Johnny Magic Moments from the Tonight Show)
11:01 am	Anti-flag - Smartest Bomb
11:01 am	Richard Nixon - from Here's Johnny Magic Moments from the Tonight Show
11:06 am	The Fugs - Kill for peace
11:08 am	The Breeders - Divine Hammer

Comment:	http://www.myspace.com/completelianaccident

11:16 am	The small cities - Fargo

Comment:	http://www.myspace.com/thesmallcities

11:18 am	Katsumasa Takasago - Komori uta

Comment:	Flower Dance, Japanese folk melodies

11:21 am	Katsumasa Takasago - Hietsuki bushi
11:25 am	Deanhilmusic - Fargo

Comment:	http://www.myspace.com/deanhilmusic

11:28 am	Kiss - Modern Day Delilah
11:32 am	Wire Daisies - Gay Boy
11:40 am	Presidents of the United States of America - more bad times
11:40 am	Slayer - Our world painted in blood
11:45 am	KFMDM - R U OK?
11:50 am	Brazen - Fargo
11:54 am	Queen - These are the days of our lives

I'm a writer, haha, and I watch movies, haha.

2009-11-08T21:21:00.000-08:00

A-haaaaaaaaaaaa! I am sending my books off to publishers! I repeat, a-haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! I just wasted a bunch of paper printing off my submission when I could have emailed it. A-haaaaaaaaaaaaa! I'm such a romantic. Now I need to go buy paper and I'll probably need to buy ink much sooner than later. An email would have been fine with the agent but I, ever the old fashioned guy, like the process of printing off manuscripts and filling out SASEs and filling out manilla envelopes with addresses to New York City. But I am so cheap and now that I am unemployed it makes sense for me to email things but there is nothing like going to the post office with chapters of your books to send off to an agent and then waiting impatiently for the rejetion letter (No, I'm not being a pessimist, I'm just playing the odds, if I was a pessimist and or didn't believe in my work I wouldn't bother sending out my work.) This is not a bad way to spend a Sunday night although I am still very bored and hyper. I NEED THINGS TO DOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!----Captain Beyond is really good---haha, back to the books, no, not really, I've said my piece (peace?).

Tomorrow is my radio show. Can you guess the word of the day? I'll give you a hint. It's where I live. Oooh, do I mean a city? A dwelling? A number? Maybe something abstract like hell or heaven? Maybe it's simple. Maybe it's complex. I will never tell you but I promise, promise, oh so ever do I promise that it'll be clear to all but the blind and deaf ;p

And now for the film review section of this blog. I'm exicted, aren't you?

I saw a fantasy---oooh, are you getting excited? Well don't be because I saw MR. MAGORIUM'S MAGIC EMPORIUM (2007). It stars Dustin Hoffman and Natalie Portman and some nine year old boy who I haven't seen since so let's convientantly forget about him. Hoffman played the mysterious and three century old Magorium with a slight lisp, lots of gray hair, and an air of idiot aloofness that is befitting of a magical man. He wouldn't be very wonderful if he understood culture mores, right? Exactly. Hoffman was okay. He was over the top and not in a good way. Portman can't act and she isn't a flavor I like to indulge in so her role as the young assistant who must discover her destiny under Magorium's tutalage falls flat (Hayden Christension, Jar Jar Binks, and that little Anakin from ep. 1 aren't the only reason episodes 1-3 sucked). Zack Helm who wrote and directed the story is never able to gel the story so it feels hollow and distant and at times it seems like it was making fun of magical stories even though it wasn't. Avoid at all costs unless you like Portman. If you like Hoffman, avoid this movie. He's done so many others that this isn't worth your time.

And the next movie is (drum roll please) ....................................THE SECRET LIVES OF ADULT STARS It's a documentary from 2004 and it covers the straight porn industry. It talks to a bunch of male and female porn actors, some famous, some not (I'd never heard of any of them but then I watch porn to get aroused, not to care that's a there's a mind attched to the penis,---that's right i'm objectivfying men, how do you like them apples?---hehe, mmm, men are delicious creatures, the lines, the angles). Anyhoo, the movie breaks down the life of a porn star and shows how glamorous it is, which is to say it isn't. The actors talk about other revenue streams (women have them, men are literally underpaid dildos). All and all, a good movie for the curious. And there is no nudity so don't expect anything more than shots of boobs---no bush, no cock.

Now wasn't that fun. Until tomorrow my little wittle audience.

"The Proposal" didn't give me a "Hangover" like "The Informant" did.

2009-11-05T08:34:00.000-08:00

Being unemployed as given me ample time to go to movies. This week I've seen "The Proposal" with Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds, "The Hangover" with a bunch of male stars, and the "Informant," with Matt Damon.

"The Proposal" is all Reynolds. Bullock is good as a tough woman but Reynolds is it. If you like him, you'll like this until the movie descends into predictable cheese to wrap the movie up into a little bow. You can leave during that part, it's only the last ten minutes and you won't miss thing. It's not like they aren't going to get together. We're not going to this movie because there's a mystery to be solved nor are we going because either one is a great actor (They aren't and you know it.) Reynolds is funny as hell but he plays himself in every movie and Bullock has a little more skill but just a little, and when they hook up, well it isn't "Ghost" romantic.

"The Hangover." Four guys get drunk, wake up minus one friend and spend the film recounting their blacked out night. Way more funny than one would think. They avoid cliches (not a single gay joke and apparently using the word 'gay' isn't meant to ridicule gays, so no gay jokes) Ed Helms is awsome, Vegas has never looked like so much fun, Mike Tyson cameos as himself, the movie is an accomplishment to take a stale idea like bachlor party in Las Vegas and make it work. Kudos to them.

Finally, "The Informant." Matt Damon is great, everyone loves him. He has that 'it' quality that makes him watchable without any effort on his part. That being said, this movie bored me. Damon's charecter is supposed to be a whistle blower and we slowly realize that the guy has major problems. Throughout the unfolding the charecter makes mundane observations like the killer from "American Pyscho." Through all the drama that's he's apart of, he apparently doesn't feel it, which is fine, but because it made me think of "American Pyscho," I couldn't buy what Damon and the director were selling. If wasn't as dead as I was thinking nor do I think he's as dead as they were selling him to be. The director was going for cute and quirky but got lost somewhere. One observation I'd like to make, I've noticed in movies, as of late, that bit roles are now being filled recognizable faces, bit roles for bit actors with a face we know. Interesting idea, like taking celebs and having them do cartoon work instead of the unknown charecter actors who they replaced. Purposeful strategy, agents getting smarter? What's the deal? If you insert people I know into bit parts, I smile, by smiling I associate it with the movie and am more likely to think favorably of the movie---is that the gist? The plan? Whatever.

Unemployment is stressful

2009-11-05T08:14:00.000-08:00

Well I'm still unemployed and it isn't for lack of trying. I've applied to twenty business in the 3 weeks that I have been unemployed and have had two interviews. The problem isn't that I am a square who doesn't know how to fill out an application or conduct a proper interview, or that I'm applying for jobs way out of my league (I've only done that twice and they were only slightly out of my league so I still had an outside chance). It's the economy, and yes, what an obvious statement, but it's good to remind myself that as I look for work along with thousands of others qualified people.

I went to Job Service ND yesterday to sign up for a refresher course in interview skills and I thought the place would be dead. Apparently I'm an idiot because at 1 pm on a Wednesday, the place was packed. I got a sinking feeling when I saw what I knew to be true, that there a lot of people fighting for the type of job I'm seeking. I have a philosophy degree which is useless in this world (no, it is, don't let anyone fool you into thinking it isn't). So all the jobs I seek are entry level positions, jobs that anyone with a GED or high school diploma can get. I have experience in health care but why hire me when that will command a hire price? Experience isn't cheap, unless you're hungry, but you can't tell people that until you get into the interview and in this economy, that's a hard thing to get.

I'm not going hungry. I have unemployment and food stamps but suddenly all those stories about people going homeless is suddenly very real to me. I never could imagine how a person with an apartment could become homeless but if an unemployed person isn't resourceful or too full of pride (hello fast food, I have no problem serving fries), rent will come due and unemployment will expire. While I'll never go hungry or homeless ( I have family who'll take me in) I don't want to rely on them for my survival. I do have some pride. I want to make it on my own, even when it's tough because they won't be around forever. What if I'm in my 40s or 50s and this happens again? I need to know how to survive.

This is an adult worry. I have friends who are in school (undgrads and grads) who are living off of school loans but overworked by their classes. They are stressing out but as I pointed out to one yesterday, it isn't the same type of stress and as he pointed out to me, I have adult stress, even though we are the same age. I am stressing about losing my apartment (which I really love) and the possibility of going hungry (however remote) and he's worried about getting his work done. I'd much rather have his stress. I'd much rather worry about grades than employment.

I'm really glad I have unemployment. It allows me time to get a job but in a way it just stretches out the stress. If I wouldn't have gotten it, I'd be out of money in a few months, so I was working the pavement every day looking for work. Now I don't have too and the stress has decreased to a dull feeling but in a few months when my unemployment nears expiring it'll be back to a full roar. I kind of wish (but not really) that I'd not gotten unemployment so I'd be forced to take whatever job I could find, then the stress of homelessness and hunger wouldn't be over my head and I could just stress about bills which is a better worry.

Picture taken from http://home.pon.net/hunnicutt/images/unemployed_comic.gif

The Beats: A graphic history

2009-11-03T18:06:00.000-08:00

THE BEATS: A GRAPHIC HISTORY by Harvey Pekar, Nancy J. Peters, Penelope Rosemont, Joyce Brabner, Trina Robbins, and Tuli Kupferberg

If you are new to the Beats, read this book last. Read it long after you've read the works of the Beats and shortly after you've moved onto their biographies and autobiographies. Read it when you've finished all of Jack Kerouac's books, half of William S. Burrough's books, all of Allen Ginsberg's poems, suffered through Gary Snyder, have watched interviews, movies, and read almost everyting there is to experience on the Beats, then read this book because there are numberable historical facts that Pekar gets wrong. I'm not a Beat scholar but I've read them extensively and read bios, heard the jazz collaborations, seen the movies, and even I was aware of the mistakes Pekar makes in some of the histories.

Keeping in mind that Pekar isn't the best historian, (a damn shame since it prevents the book from being great and universally recommendable) the book is good. Pekar's style is short and simple. Outside of the movie "American Splendor" this was my first exposure to Pekar and since I am not a comic fan, the main illustrator Ed Piskor was alien to me as well. Pekar sums of the giants of the Beats very succinctly and Piskor draws them with a certain rawness that conveys the emotions as animalistic and creepy (not a bad thing---just saying).

The real treats begin when some of the other authors and artists get a turn. There's a section devoted to women beats (go feminism!) beat artists, beat musicians, and beat poets outside of the most recognizable ones. Tuli Kupferberg's section is my favorite. The style owes a lot to artist R. Crumb and the narrative is his own so it's a bit braggard at times (if someone else said said the same thing about him it wouldn't come across that way) but that's fine because he was in a seminal rock band most of us have never heard of: The Fugs.

I included a link in the title to another review of the book. It lists the errors Pekar makes in great depth. A good book, fascinating illustrations, good for Beat fans, and if you're in Fargo, it's at the library.

Job hunting zombie loving fool

2009-11-03T11:43:00.000-08:00

Day 2 of unemployment. The radiation cast off by the meteorite has already mutated the inhabitants. I've grown a thick, fleshy antenna like appendage from the back of my head while others have been rendered insane by this overpowering need to work. "Work," they say. They sound like Zombies on a death march, but they leave anyone without a job alone. I once saw them tear a middle manager from limb to limb because he smelled promising. It was gruesome but I'd be lying if didn't say I'd give anything to have traded positions with that son of a bitch. To die employed, how noble!
I have no plans except to go out daily and brave the cold streets and search for a job. There are days when I fear I may fall into one of the many crevices created by the meteorite. The depths are full of sweet smoke, a cross between fresh bread and warm chocolate. Something is going on down there is those blind depths. When I put my ear near to the opening I hear metal on metal in regular intervals, like something is being pounded together. One day, if things don't improve, I may go down there myself to investigate but for now I stay landside.
It's my hope that besides dying with a job, my fleshy appandege---Bernie, I named it after my favorite movie---will become useful to me. I hope it becomes magical but I'll be happy if it leads me to a job.
This is Neil
---over and out.

My radio show was nihilistic and gay today

2009-11-02T18:16:00.000-08:00

Yay, another show is complete. Can you guess the word of the day? (There were actually two, tee hee hee:) I am a sneaky one, aren't I?
The oddest song I played today was the song by "Say Anything." That is one pissed off rock band, so they'd like you to believe but it's an act, like the gangsta in gangsta rap. The lyrics sound like they are pretending, acting, taking on the role of a disillusioned person. I didn't get any sense of seriousness from their songs except when they mentioned JC (to use their parlance). Many bands have pretended to be others things (Liz Phair is not a slut like 'Exiled in Guyville' led us to believe and AC/DC isn't a real band no matter how much they pretend) so this isn't a big deal but I am always leary of people who hide their message and that's what it feels like with "Say Anything." They are pretending to be angry when they aren't, they're Christians with an angry act which is to bad because they created a catchy album.
My favorite song is by Wire Daisies--Gay Boy. It's poppy, catchy, the vocals are harmonized to sound like a choir, I couldn't help but to shake my rump.

10:00 am	Nihilsm - welcome to hell
10:00 am	weird al yankovic - canadian idiot
10:01 am	Pansy Division - That's so gay
10:05 am	Rufus Wainwright - Gay Messiah
10:09 am	Queen - These are the days of our lives
10:14 am	Hank Snow - Down the Trail of Achin' Hearts
10:14 am	Hank Snow - The Change of the Tide
10:19 am	Wilco - Sonny Feeling
10:23 am	Japanroids - Rockers East Vancouver
10:28 am	Boss Hoss - Gay Bar
10:30 am	Sonny James - Today is the end of the world
10:30 am	Sonny James - We're on our way
10:36 am	DJ Nihilist - Forever
10:40 am	Or the Whale - never coming out
10:42 am	Mr. Oizo - Gay dentist
10:46 am	MXPX - Money Tree
10:48 am	Rollins Band - Another Life
10:49 am	Tammy Wynette - DIVORCE
10:57 am	Tammy Wynette - Come on home
11:03 am	Amongst the queers - ATQ
11:03 am	Lemonheads - Mrs. Robinson
11:07 am	Boss Hoss - Sheer Heart Attack
11:08 am	Loretta Lynn - He's all i got
11:13 am	Say Anything - Hate Everyone
11:18 am	Gay Beast - Expanding
11:18 am	Solopsistics - glam destiny
11:21 am	Conway Twitty - Touch the hand
11:25 am	Annie the musical - Hard knock life (movie soundtrack taken from youtube.com)
11:28 am	Bloodhound gang - i wish i were queer so i could get chicks
11:33 am	Oak Ridge Boys - Setting fancy free
11:38 am	Wire Daisies - Gay boy
11:46 am	Memphis - It's alright
11:46 am	Brian Wilson - I'm in great shop I wanna be around workshop
11:47 am	Cass Elliot - Make your own kind of music
11:51 am	Hank Locklin - We live in two seperate worlds
11:53 am	Oasis - Rock N Roll Star

Atomic unemployment

2009-11-01T09:35:00.000-08:00

Day 01 of unemployment. The atomic bombs have decimated the world but I still go out and look for a job, inexplicably yearning for that "dare to be great" moment when I can stand tall, employed, and bathe myself in the warmth that only radiation and being gainfully employed can promise.

The wreckage outside hasn't stopped my quest. I am determined to work again. I will rise like a mushroom cloud and the Phoenix and incinerate those who dare to stop me, like the gangs of cannibals that roam the alleys. (Can't they see I just want to work?) "No!" I say, "I will not cut off my arm and let you eat that piece of me so that I may pass. I will turn around and walk away. There is employment elsewhere. I need not sacrifice myself for the sake of warmth and security, unless I am desperate, in that case, feast away.

It's enough to make a man want to leave his belongings to time, pack a bag, and leave. Going nowhere in paticular is the aim. It's like now, but instead of waiting years and years to finish the destinationless journey, I'd begin now. Head down to Australia where large parts of the inerior remain free from fallout. I'd ditch the pack and most of my clothes and wander and forage like an uneventful Mad Max. But that life would be like this life, only the aimlessness would be more immediate and satisfying. I'll stay put and offer my brains to the green glow of security. My eyes are failing and I'm addicted to the haunting pulsing light, even though the night offers so much promise.

I glow you glow we all glow for uranium (book review)

2009-11-01T08:54:00.000-08:00

Uranium: War, Energy, and the Rock that Shaped the World (2009) by Tom Zoellner

A history book for the hardcore and a history book that ranges a bit far from uranium (The actual history of uranium takes a few pages. I could have stopped there but I had nothing else to read). The book begins at when and where uranium became noticed with mankind and quickly works its way to the early 1900s when atomic theory and radiation were discovered by man. After that the book becomes a history of the cold war and a history of mining uranium. It is the story of the Soviet Union and their labor camps, the story of get rich schemes in America's southwest, and the story of politics (Australia is thought to hold 40% of the world's uranium but they produce and export very little because of internal opposition to the rock which is based on the morality of exporting a potential weapon).

I felt the book strayed off course but Zoellner had no choice. He had a book to write and a literal history of the rock as it pertains to geology would be tedious and unreadable by anyone but academics within a tiny field, so kudos to Zoellner for filling 300 pages with mostly interesting things. He talks about espionage, current events like India and Pakistan both having the bomb, why Israel wanted the bomb and how they got it (thanks France), the faked evidence America bought (metaphorically) to invade Iraq, Iran is there too, the giant uranium mines in Africa, and modern day uranium smuggling (Georgia is mentioned and they were in the news last year because they were invaded by Russia). At times the book is surprisingly topical.

I would have liked to have seen a few things mentioned that he left out of the book. How the atom bomb led to the H-bomb and the role uranium plays in that bomb? Statistics on the H-bomb and some other information would have been nice since he spends a lot of time on the atomic bomb. He doesn't mention atomic waste. I'd be interested in knowing what exactly is toxic waste and how long is it toxic. Other than that, the book is a quick, easy read with no technical jargon and no slow parts.

Jim Jarmusch struck again

2009-10-30T18:07:00.000-07:00

Down by Law (1986) Directed by Jim Jarmusch

PRETENTIOUS! Sing it with me (to the Micky Mouse Club theme song) P-R-E T-E-N IO-Uuuu-S
As those words were wafting through my head I was thinking about when the horror would end, what had I gotten myself into? I kept looking at the clock, hoping I'd make it through to the end. I wanted to see my mother again. Thankfully the movie got better, much better.

Three guys get set-up and taken to prison in New Orleans and when in prison they bond over their troubles. The set up to the prison took FOREVER and is what many people often hate about cinema: moody, "edgy" black and white, and jazz music. It was a noir without out any of the enduring qualities. For some reason when they got to the prison I found myself interested. The shadows didn't seem as self serving, the actors shined brighter, and Criterion's selecting this movie as one to get gussied up made more sense although I'm not sure why this movie deserved the 5 star treatment.

Tom Waits is great as a dj. He is a hip jazz cat and pulls it off with great realism. The pimp charecter is decent enough although I think the black and white film helped their acting quite a bit, and Roberto Begnigni is lively (remember him? he won an Oscar a few years back and was crazily running up and down the aisles with the biggest grin ever recorded). By the time the movie ends, they've all acted their pants off and I cared what happened to each of them. That's a long way from wishing for death in a scant 100 minutes.

All the credit goes to Jarmusch. In the hands of another director, this could have and probably would have sucked giant balls but Jarmusch is an autuer. He has an eye and a style all his own. I've seen many of his movies and they are all conversation, scene centered, minimalist movies. Jarmusch makes the charecters' plight real by taking them through the swamps and 9th Ward of New Orleans. His directing and the camera work spare no detail. It is gritty and raw and in some ways, over the top just like my favorite noirs from the 1950's. If you're a cinephile, you'll probably like this, if you aren't, beware.

Writing is a bitch and so is being driven.

2009-10-29T09:05:00.000-07:00

Writing is difficult. I don't need to tell you that. If you've ever picked up a pen and tried to come up with something brilliant, you know what I mean. Writing, in my case, is more like painting, so a lot of what I write doesn't go anywhere but the verbal colors are pretty and how they are constructed say something, like the totality of a picture, but novels aren't revealed in their entirey, they're revealed one page at a time, which can make my novels a challenge to get through, which is what I want, to challenge the reader, but few people like to be challenged, especially in literature because it is a time consuming process to make it through something that may or may not be worth the effort.

I recently got a critique from a friend who read a novel of mine and had some very valid complaints. She said that it was at times boring and didn't always go anywhere, and she's right, but my novels are a reflection of life, a literal interpretation. Life often doesn't go anywhere. From a small enough frame, the curve of life in which we go from birth to death or learn lessons, is a straight line where nothing is learned, just experienced. Sometimes people, even over a long enough time frame, don't learn anything or don't do anything of consquence. I realize that this doesn't always make for engrossing novels but those are the types of novels I write. Maybe they'll go unread for eternity but that's what I like to write. I had a crisis of faith this week, wondering if I should continue to write novels that people seem to admire me for finishing but not much else. Should I focus my time and energy on something else that might be more productive, show more fruits for my labor. I'm not sure what that means but I feel it.

I've led a productive life compared to most people. I've seen large parts of the world, have a college degree, I am in graduate school, I have close friends, a close family, and I've written books. That's impressive yet I still feel the need to do more? Why? What is this drive? I don't want to keep up with the Jones, that's stupid beyond words, I don't want large sums of money, I live comfortably on hardly anything, yet I'm always asking myself if I can do more. Is this a cultural thing that was implanted in me without my knowledge, some sort of message that tells people that life is short so do as much as possible, experience everything now because later won't always be there? Why am I driven and to what end? Where or when does it stop? When is good enough good enough? I'm not sure I want to know the answer to that question because the grass is always greener on the other side and the grass is green now--mostly:)

Radio show from Monday October 26

2009-10-29T08:39:00.000-07:00

The radio show went well (I'm a little late posting but that's okay because I'm vain and the vain are oblivious to anything that isn't a mirror). The most interesting part of the morning was playing Puscifer, Maynard's new band. The buzz I got from people who'd heard it all said it was obscene country music but the tracks that I found online didn't contain any obscenity and Maynard's voice is that great that I was interested even though I didn't think the music was anything special. The members of Puscifer should get down on their knees and kiss Maynard's feet because if it wasn't for him they'd be obscure nobodies (in the show business that is---I'm sure their mothers think they are some bodies). Anvil was played again because A) I saw their movie and felt moved to give them some business (I felt sorry for them) and B) their music is good. I wouldn't play them if I thought they were shit, well, I'd probably play them once but I'm a sucker for feel good movies.

10:03 am	Nirvana - You know you're right
10:05 am	Tool - Ticks and Leeches
10:14 am	Perfect Circle - Nurse who loved me
10:20 am	Puscifer - Momma sed
10:22 am	Ashes Divide - Enemies
10:26 am	Bob Dylan - My Wife's Home Town
10:27 am	Wilco - Wilco (the song)
10:32 am	Kitty, Daisy, and Lewis - Going up the country
10:36 am	Buddy Holly and the Crickets - Peggy Sue Got Married
10:38 am	Vera Lynn - We Three (My echo, my shadow, and me)
10:42 am	Mahavishnu Orchestra - On the way home to Earth
10:50 am	Alice in Chains - Sludge Factory
10:54 am	Anvil Chorus - Deadly Weapons
10:58 am	The Dirtbombs - It's not funny until they see you cry
10:59 am	The Ettes - Red in Tooth and Claw
11:05 am	Gallows - The riverbed
11:09 am	Vivian Girls - walking alone at night
11:13 am	Animal Collective - Summertime
11:21 am	Neil Perth - Cottontail
11:25 am	Phish - Split Open and Melt
11:30 am	Smashing Pumpkins - Rhinoceros
11:36 am	Anvil - Metal on Metal
11:40 am	Iron & Wine - Boy With a Coin
11:44 am	NOFX - The cause
11:46 am	Fireball ministry - in the end
11:47 am	Melissa Auf Der Maur - Followed the Waves
11:53 am	Nancy Sinatra - Another Gay Sunshine Day

Gerard Bulter isn't bad but his movie are very GAMER.

2009-10-27T12:47:00.000-07:00

There is nothing like a windy day and fresh baked bread to make me hate everyone and everything. That being said, it's MOVIE REVIEW TIME!!!
Today's selection "GAMER" stars Gerald Butler, the ripped star of "300" as a prisoner in a world with real Sims. A computer genius played by Michael C. Hall of "Dexter" and "Six Feet Under" fame, invented a way for computer cells to replace brain cells and thus allowing people to enter a Sim environment. Ooooh, what neat a idea, but wait, there wouldn't be a movie if there wasn't a bad guy. That's you Mr. Hall. He's an evil genous who wants to make his self replicating cells into an aerosal and essentially take over the world with him as the puppet master! Muhaha. But wait, who's the guy with an awsome agent? It's Ludicrous, the leader of a rebel group called Humanz. They aren't to happy with the situation. Apparently they believe the Sims is leading to a class war---that's no fun:( Butler is at the center of the story because there is also a violent version of Sims that he calls Slayer. Death row inmates play a combat game. If one person survives 30 rounds, they go free. Wow, what a neat idea, too bad it's been done better in "The Running Man."

In all seriousness, this movie had a lot of potential. It is similar to "Running Man" and that's fine, the brain/computer idea is neat and for awhile, it works, but it quickly becomes unreasonable when the Humanz and other charecters make unreasonable choices, things that any person with half a brain would never EVER EVER do, and that 's when the movie falls apart. The charecters defy even the most basic of common sense to move the movie to an ending not inspired by but directly ripped off from "A Face in the Crowd," a must see for fans of sublte pyschotic characters. That's why this movie failed because people with lobotomies and severe mental imparements were stupified by the choice the charecters were making.

But was the movie enteraining? Hell fucking yes. A ton of blood, gore, but nothing over the top like the Saw movies, add a touch of director style, and viola, an entertaining but not good movie.

Tales from the unemployment line

2009-10-25T20:36:00.000-07:00

Applying for jobs I am consistently confront with two questions: what is my social security number and what year I graduated high school.
Social security numbers are supposed to be used very sparingly, if at all. I understand background checks are necessary---fine---but applications have a separate sheet just for the background check and I assume those sheets are sent off to the investigators so the application remains in the office. Social security numbers should not be accessible to those who not need them, i.e. everyone else who isn't looking into my background.

Asking when I graduated high school is violating the law that forbids employers from asking how old an applicant is. By knowing what year I graduated they can reasonably guess my age since people typically graduate high school between the ages of 17-19. If an employer needs to know if I graduated high school, ask a yes or no question like this "Did you graduate high school? If not, how many years of high school did you complete?"

And while I'm here, I'd like to voice my support to ending the practice of investigating applicants' credit history because they believe an applicant with bad credit will be a bad employee. Laziness and credit are not related. Plenty of hard working people have bad credit and plenty of lazy people have good credit or no credit and many others can interview great and still be lazy. Maybe employers should start giving lie deterctor tests in interviews?

Jesus didn't sell His life for this movie

2009-10-25T15:21:00.000-07:00

"The Book of Life: 2000 Seen By..." (1998)Directed by Hal Hartley

Jesus has come back to Earth to fulfill His obligation as the Son of God. It's the last day of the year in 1999 and Jesus is troubled by what he is being ordered to do. He's a hippy while his dad is a buzzcut downer. Satan is here too. He wears red so we know he's evil. A blue Wal-Mart smock would have sufficed but I'm not the director.

All the acting is up to par except PJ Harvey. She looked lost. The script could have been better but instead it zings typical meaning of life one liners that are charecteristic of new adults. Think Emo rock but less clever (if that's even possible). The writers went for depth but fell into the a wasteland of cliches. Camera work is muddled by different lens that is at first annoying then numbing which must mean it works since I didn't notice it after a while. This being a student film, Satan stops to speak into a microphone while addressing the camera to spout off something "prophetic."

Student film doesn't mean cheaply or poorly made. It's an odd film but the production quality is first rate.

I liked the movie because I don't see many student films, so the experimenting was fun to witness, and it's short, so it didn't have time to annoy me, which may be the best thing I can say about the movie.

Bride of Re-animator

2009-10-24T17:36:00.000-07:00

Bride of Re-Animator (1989)

Bride of Frankenstein this is not, it's better! Dr. West is back and this time he's building people! I'm excited because the sequal surpasses the original! We all know how rare this is and a cheesy horror movie of all things has done the nearly impossible!!!

Basic premise is eight months after the first movie ended, Dr. West and Dr. Cain (his assistant with a conscious) have decided to put a body together, to create life not merely re-animate life. They take the heart of Cain's dead girlfriend who died at the end of the first movie, and build a body using parts they take from the hospital morgue where they both work. Honestly, who cares about the plot, this is about crazy amounts of fake blood and demented creatures West desisgns, like a dog with a human hand, or four fingers with an eye ball. His re-animator juice brings cells back to life so as long as they are touching, a new life is created!!! Oh, it gets better. The headless doctor from the first movie returns and he uses his pyschic ability to get even with Dr. West and to cap it all off he finds a way to fly. A flying headless man, how does anyone not want to see this movie?

Bride of Re-animator is vastly superior to the 3rd installment which came out in 2003. It is also better than many of the new gore porns (Saw, Hostel) because the blood isn't realistic so it lacks the cringe/sadistic factor. It is best enjoyed with a friend mocking it every inch of the way but if you are alone, it's still fucking great. It is predictable and rarely scary (if ever) but it is cum your pants fantastic.

Beyond Re-animator

2009-10-23T08:02:00.000-07:00

More of the same yet somehow not as good.

This movie had a bigger budget than the first one (I assume based on his production quality) but it was slightly worse than the original. There was a mystique about the first movie that added to its aura of greatness. By now, we know the plot, even if it has changed locations and principles (except for Jeff Combs, the Re-Animator). The first movie was just done better. This installment, numeral 3, has worse makeup, worse acting, more boobs (of course it does), some cock (I'd say yay but wait till you see it) and an even worse plot, not to mention the excitement of Combs' performance of Dr. West didn't excite me like it did the first time (he's still the only thing this movie has going for it, besides the blood.) The movie culminates in a frenzy of blood and guts so we the fans get our extended money shot, but even the blood seemed sedate compared to the original and it shouldn't since these guys had money for green screens. The movie was still enjoyable but it just seemed a little off.
PS-- This movie deserves to be rented JUST for the scene that shows during the closing credits. I've never seen anything like it committed to film. It's crazy cheesey but amazingly awsome.

I'm so hungry I could eat my paystubs

2009-10-23T07:37:00.000-07:00

So I'm unemployed, and hungry. I applied for food stamps, or as it is called now, the nauseatingly SNAP, ---supplimental nutrional blah blah blah, what was wrong with food stamps? Why not just call the program, "I am not on the dole." Free food is free food, no matter how you parse it, but someone somewhere probably felt that good enough must be bothered with and that corner office doesn't reward itself, so in what I can only believe was a spark of sheer mediocrity, although I'm sure genius was thrown around in the person's head, SNAP saw the light. "To better reflect what is actually going on," I'm sure they said. ----Whatever.

The process was surprisingly pain free until I had to get my pay stubs. ---The office here in Fargo is in the juvinile detention center, nice clean waiting room, and I was helped in less than an hour. That seems long but I was ready to wait hours. In order to get my foodstamps, I had to show proof of rent (my lease---easy), a phone bill (go online to my phone's website, easy) and show a pay stub for all the days I worked in October---should have been easy. I worked for ___ ___ ___. Last year they stopped giving paychecks and paystubs, direct deposit was mandatory and paystubs were available online, I left my job and my access to the site was disabled. Fine, the stubs are electonic, they can email them to me or fax them or email them to the regional office where I worked and HR can give them to me. HELL FUCKING NO! I have to wait over a week to get my paystubs and thus to eat. (I have food but I'm out of fresh fruit and a few other items so I'm not going to starve). Why they didn't just block me from doing anything else on the website except for accessing my paystubs is beyond me. Those are obviously a necessity when one is employed but they are when they are UNEMPLOYED. Why they can't verify my information and email me my paystubs is beyond me. Why they were so fucking cheap that they couldn't issue paper paystubs blows my mind. I'm sorry but if you run a business, that's an expense you should have to eat, like taking shit from your customers and paying for all the governemtn regulations, paystubs is not an option, especially now since I'm hungry.

Drag Me to Hell, please.

2009-10-21T20:58:00.000-07:00

Drag Me to Hell got fantastic reviews. No sir, Hell to Me Drag. Haha!

The lead actress, tsk tsk tsk. The word 'mousy' comes to mind. Not a good thing, and since I don't want to fuck her, it doesn't stretch with me. She handles the role fine but I wonder what the role would been like in the hands of someone a bit more capable.

Justin Long---You were awsome in Waiting, your disposable here but you knew that. Why don't you make more movies with Kevin Smith?---Or another Waiting sequel? The second one wasn't that bad.

Sam Rami---You directed all the Spiderman movies. I forgive you because you directed all the Evil Dead movies. Why you ever left the horror genre is beyond me. You excel here. This is your bread and butter.

This movie is actually good. There are few negative things to say. The lead actress was 'meh' but her style fit Rami's movie. The scares were real and subdued, a change of pace from the popular snuff films (Saw, Hostel, etc.) It was at times over the top (campy) like "Army of Darkness" but never comedic like AOD. Blood and gore was sparse but there was still plenty of outright thrills. As much as I hate to admit it, Drag Me to Hell deserves the love.

Woody popscicles

2009-10-21T20:36:00.000-07:00

Do you like wood? Do you like fruit? Do you LOVE Splenda? Splendid:)
Then try Edy's Fruit Popscicles with Splenda. They taste just like wood. Why bother with fruit. It's always so healthy and tasty, and wood, well we all know it is either coming, going, or being burned in an arson fire, but when the two flavors are combined, you get delicious woody treat minus the headache of protection and flavor. Jeez, what a wonderful world:)

Women rule, you drool.

2009-10-21T15:01:00.000-07:00

To write, to write, to write, why do I write---to keep busy as I search and chase jobs like a dog trailing behind a car. Run and run and leap-----and fall----flat on my chest and face I get up on all fours and run some more, barking this time I run and run and leap----to fall on my face. I get up once more, still smiling, and I run again, barking louder, tongue hanging out one side of my mouth, and I leap, and midway through the air I realize I'm chasing a bike driven by a pimply teenager tossing newspapers onto front lawns. I am a dumb tired dog in need of a job. At least I have Netflix and at least I've seen The Women.

George Cukor directed this all women cast, which means ALL women, no men, not even tiny little one syllable parts. The script was adapted from the Broadway play of the same name (it performed 666 shows,---who stops on 666??) and was later adapted into a 2008 movie of the same name. This is the original and it is superbly written. Few other movies A) have the guts to have only women on screen B) be as far ahead of its time as this movie was, and C) be as insightful as this script is.

The movie sweat feminism while also realistically portraying women as the competative wombs they are (think evolution and the precious egg idea). My girlfriends have told me stories about female friendships that are accuretely portrayed in this movie. It gets away with things that might be called stereotypical today, even though the behavior of the charecters is spot on from what I know about womenkind.

The movie is about a group of friends and their marriages. Their is love, backstabbing, betrayels, children, gossiping, divorce, and woman empowerment without the heaviness of modern movies with preach like the cinema is a pulpit. It's in black and white but midway through there's a fashion show shot in color. I can't say enough good things about this movie. ----oh, and the opening shot in the beauty parlor where all the voices of the talking women blend into a headache, well they don't call a group of women a gaggle of women for no reason.

ps---Joan Crawford is awsome. She may be Mommy Dearest, but on screen, she's a viper.

Decoding Love is as easy as monkey sex

2009-10-20T19:50:00.000-07:00

Decoding Love: Why it takes twelve frogs to find a prince, and other revelations from the science of attraction
by Andrew Trees, 264 pages

Did you know that having a son increases your chance of having a good marriage? That men can smell when women are having their period? Did you know, did you know, did you know? This book is an illuminating treasure trove of trivia related to sex and romance based on science and evolution.

A lot of what goes into mating is out of our hands, such as body odor and height. The books tells people how to overcome some obstacles, like height, and confirms what most of us already know, that men like sex, and dispels what we believe to be true, that men usually make the first move---we don't---not even close. Trees gives the evolutionary reason, as well as comparing different species as our own to give us perspective on how monogamy and lust function in animal brains. I now know why testicle sizes vary across species, why the penis has glands that protrude, and why the vagina is in the front.---Fascinating!

Trees doesn't cite his sources in the text. This is not an academic paper. He has a section at the end of the book where he mentions many sources that were consulted and often mentions specific studies and scientists for the skeptic and fanatic. His prose is simple to read and fast but beware of the first chapter, it's slow and almost vanquished me, but it picks up in chapter two and I sailed to the end, my brain in a constant state of arousal---I wonder what Tree would say about that?

Yankees or Jury Duty, which one sucks?

2009-10-19T16:58:00.000-07:00

The Yankees suck, let me count the ways. It isn't that they suck, it's precisely the opposite, they don't suck, that bothers me. The argument can be made that they don't know how to play fundemental baseball, that they are a bunch of juiced up cavemen, but NO! I will not make those arguments. They suck because they beat my team, the TWINS! and they are a bunch of juiced of neanderthals (except Derek Jeter, that man is an all around good player; They suck because they refused to lose thus causing their game to go into extra innings, thus preempting House. Shame on them for wanting to win. You know what they say about people who like to win? They're Yankee fans.
I have jury duty tomorrow and while I need to be up at 7am and face a few days of sitting in a courtroom, I am none the less excited about participating in democracy. All citizens should look forward to the day when they can serve their country, especially when a gun isn't needed.
To sum myself up, the Yankees are bad, Derek Jeter (how ever much I hate him) is good, and so is jury duty.

Tekkon Kinkreet (2007)

2009-10-19T14:37:00.000-07:00

Sloppy. That best describes the plot of Tekkon Kinkreet (Black and White). I rented the movie because it was created by the people who did Animatrix.

The plot centers on two orphans in a neighborhood in an unidentified city that is colorful. Black, the older child, and White, the younger child, rule over the neighborhood, calling themselves the Cats and keeping out other child gangs. Black represents Darth Vadar and all things that are dark. White is good but also flaky and borderline retarded as he cannot tie his shoes, bathe, or do much for himself at the age of 11 besides kicking ass, which he does a few times. They take it upon themselve to defend their home against the Yakuza as they want to destroy the neighborhood to build an amusement park. There are an assortment of colorful side characters and what Black and White represent should keep you busy thinking. Sample question: If Black is evil, why does he care? If White is good, why is he stupid and why does he fight?

The movie is visually entertaining as are most anime. The colors and artwork are all first-rate. Had the plot been tighter, this would be an excellent movie. The people who build the amusement park aren't gangsters, according to the Netflix summary, but they clearly aren't corporate d-bags as the summary said, and the leader's henchmen come off as inhuman but quickly show themselves to be vulnerable, and when seen near the end of the movie, they seem frightingly banal. Once again, the corporation is a metaphor so have fun thinking.

Thinking is a great thing but a solid story shouldn't be sacrificed to make my gray matter work.

Pod casts equals ANGER!

2009-10-19T14:01:00.000-07:00

I've been trying for an hour to set up pod casting but I don't think it'll work, anywhere. KNDS saves the shows in WAVE, and everything uses mp3. I don't know how to convert WAVE to mp3 and I haven't found a site that will let me upload a WAVE file, so all that I can do is post my playlist from KNDS.
Without further ado, my set from this morning.

10:04 am	Rhymes against humanity - political christmas
10:05 am	take me to the hospital - take me to the hospital
10:05 am	joe cocker - That's your business now
10:09 am	maudlin - infidelity
10:15 am	Ramones - Mama's boy
10:17 am	Anvil FX - Sewing machine
10:19 am	Anvil Grey - Nightmare
10:25 am	Doobie Brothers - Road Angel
10:30 am	Black Anvil - Ten Talons Deep

Comment:	The website won't let delete Black Anvil. The next song PLAYED WAS

10:35 am	Phish - Any colour you like (pink floyd cover---live)

Comment:	Now I'm playing...

10:42 am	Black Anvil - Ten Talons Deep
10:48 am	Deep Purple - Hold On
10:56 am	Anvil - Metal on Metal
10:56 am	Anthrax - Phantom Lord
11:02 am	Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band - The Famous Final Scene
11:06 am	Patient Zero - Great Inflatable Ape
11:12 am	Mudhoney - Let is slide
11:13 am	Anvil - Forged in Fire
11:17 am	Judas Priest - Delivering the Goods
11:26 am	Anvil Chorus - Deadly Weapons
11:27 am	Anvil Chorus - The Blade
11:31 am	Megadeth - 1320'
11:31 am	Iron Butterfly - In-a-gadda-da-vida
11:52 am	Brokencyde - jealousy

Things to avoid to reach the playoffs of life

2009-10-18T08:58:00.000-07:00

Things to avoid:
                     Wine. I had my first glass of wine (and alcohol in general) a few days ago. I had two cups. I didn't feel right for 36 hours. It was also a cheap port wine that I used in the roast (which I posted a few days ago) The moral of this story: If one is going to drink, they should be a drinker.
                     Unemployment: If one is going to be unemployed, they should have a nest egg to fall back in case of emergency. Nothing big, just a month or two of rent to allow for a job search. Why do I know this? Because I too am in the job hunting business. Job Service of ND, we're about to get real aquainted.
                    Dirty underwear: They lead to rashes in bad places. I'm not speaking from personal experience but it seems like good advice for those of us who like to remain rash free.
                  Marcus Theaters: The movie chain has raised their rates to $6.50 for a matinee and a kidney for an evening show I'm not saying they should be avoided forever, just as long as it takes for the anger at their rake hits to simmer down. They have no competition in Fargo so the populace is at their mercy. If one were to propose a boycott, I would not be opposed. If one were to encourage movie fans to go to Safari 7, the cheap theater, again, I would not be opposed.
   Greenland: If I were a super villain, that's where I'd be. One can never be too careful.
                 New York Yankees: A team of super villains that are impervious to the hatred of everyone outside of Manhattan. Oh Lex Luthor, wherefore art thou?
Astro-psychology and Tyra Banks: A person who bases her therapy on astrological signs should have their right to think, revoked, since they clearly are abusing the privalige, and Tyra Banks for letter this woman on her show and give dating advice.

Slow roasted pork

2009-10-15T16:59:00.000-07:00

Check out the link above for a pork shoulder recipe I tried.
This recipe is for the rich because a lot of what goes into the recipe is thrown away either in the garbage or down the drain. It requires one bottle of wine, 2 quarts of chicken stock, and vegs that are thrown into the sauce to add flavor but then are discarded when the cooking is finished. There aren't many people who can put $12-15 into the garbage.

I made it and I don't see what all the fuss was about. Tender pork could be made without all the extra stuff like twine to tie it together or leeks and shallots for the sauce which turned out salty as hell although I used chicken boullion so that may have had something to do with the sauce.

It was fun to make because there aren't many recipes that require reduction of sauces or to use twine, so the recipe offers a challenge and I am a sucker for culinary challenges but tastewise and economically, I'm not going to venture down this path again for this or similar recipes.

Bruce is sprucy and goosey and loose in the woodsys

2009-10-15T16:44:00.000-07:00

My Name is Bruce (2006) stars and was directed by Bruce Campell, the rather infamous B-movie star with a manly-steel-sculpted jaw. He plays a chauvinistic, drunk, divorced version of himself who gets kidnapped by a fan-boy to help save a town that is being haunted by a Japanese demon.

The movie is entirely tongue-in-cheek and it oftens plays up the B-movie genre it is paying homage too. The sets are cheaply contructed, the demon is funny looking, and the blood came out in squirts, not gushes, and the script was B-movie perfect (digging for nose gold is always classy).

This movie is great vehicle for Campell who is at his best when he combines serious with looney, like "Army of Darkness" and "Brisco County Jr." For as sculpted and Fabio-esque Campell is, he's never been a sex symbol which has probably worked against him (the sexy ones succeed--Brad Pitt, Robert Redfort, etc etc) His acting is a melo-dramitic, (i.e. not subltle) with a large dose cartoonish-ness. He should be in soap operas and tele-novelas, he'd win over the ladies and sweep the Daytime Emmys.

You have to like B-movies, fake blood, and Campell, if you don't, then you'll probably want to skip this as you'll be bored and wondering what his boom stick has to do with the price of wheat.

I like Combs, Jeffery.

2009-10-14T17:41:00.000-07:00

He's that good in Re-animator that he deserves his own post. Not to mention that he was in Star Trek Deep Space 9 as one of the genetically engineered slaves that the Dominion created.

Reanimator really does animate. Cool.

2009-10-14T17:24:00.000-07:00

Re-animator is a 1985 cult horror film and it has achieved his status for a few very good reasons, there is a ton of blood and severed body parts and a scene involving a cat that will leave some viewers slightly queasy. If an upset stomach is your thing while simultaneously holding an erection, you've found home, although the erection via vi boobs, doesn't come till the end of the movie.

The premise is that a medical student discovers an elixir to bring back to life dead tissue, thus reanimating the body. He recruits his roommate to help him. The bodies don't react well to be woken up from death (the book is excellent in this area). A few murders later and a man ends up with his head in a suitcase and his headless body carrying it around.

The script is on the low side of average but no one cares. This movie is about blood. The script writers are like tissue paper at a masturbation party. There is a lot of blood and it drips, splatters, and gushes. The makeup is sometimes laughably bad. The acting is okay except for Jeffery Combs, the mad scientist. His performance was amazing; angry, contemptuous, and with a wicked sneer. He deserves props. ::::Props to Jeffery::::

If you like campy horror films, then here you go. My only complaint, not enough blood.
PS Watch for the fourth installment House of Re-animator.

Writing is cute when everything functions

2009-10-13T16:58:00.000-07:00

I have been trying for the last five days to sit down and write. I've written a bunch of books and I'm still writing---it's what I do. The sun goes up, the sun goes down, I write, only these past few days have been a headache to find A) time to write and B) be in the correct mindset when time avails itself to me. I am not sure how most writers work but for me, writing comes slowly. I am only able to concentrate long enough to write one page a day and just to accomplish that feat can take 2-3 hours. Much of that time is me wandering around online like a hyper active child. My ability to write is also hampered by my brain's inablity to write on demand. The slightest difference in mental states can throw me off for the day. If I have a headache, I cannot write, if I am slightly tired, I cannot write, if I don't get the bulk of my writing done by noon, I cannot write. If anything at all happens, I cannot write anything that has to do with my novel. For whatever reason, the writing of my blog seems to be of a different beast and my mind can easily grasp this writing at anytime of day.

Writing the novel is an obsession, so much so that when I say I have to work, I am either referring to the job that pays my bills, or the writing of my novel, as sitting down day after day to write one page over a 3 hour period is most definitely work. When I'm out and about, living, I am always thinking about the book and about doing things in the present that won't distract me from getting up and continuing my writing. I am obsessed with my writing, which has generally gotten positive reviews from the people who have read it, but those who have read my books are friends so can their opinion be trusted? If I was on the outside looking in, I'd say no.

This blog entry has no intended destination other than to comment on writing in general, so there.

Dear Johnny, Dalton's got your gun

2009-10-12T12:28:00.000-07:00

Meh. That's what I felt like while watching this documentary on contrarian/Oscar winner/genius/novelist/father/husband/Hollywood screenwriter/ and a member of Hollywood's origianal Blacklist. I kinda cared and I kinda wanted it to end, soon. This type of documentary isn't my style but Dalton Trumbo is. (Anyone who can write a novel like "Johnny Got his Gun" is worthy of a billion documentaries.)

The movie is a bunch of mostly well known celebrities reading letters that Dalton Trumbo had written during his life. The readings, in conjunction with interviews with Trumbo's friends, family, and Trumbo himself which he gave during his life (Trumbo died in 1976). They chronicle his life from the start of the Red Scare that gripped the nation in the late 1940s and lasted throughout the 1950s when he finally got his first screen credit in ten years with "Spartacus."

The movie is compelling less for the way it was told and more so because of the man. Trumbo comes across as witty, quick, and sharp. His letters are full of razors and body blows if he's talking to an enemy and full of warm verbal frollicking if he was talking to a friend. Trumbo's talent lied in his ablity to verbalize complex situations without having to resort to vague metaphors or analogies, and his belief that remaining true to one's self was the ultimate aim and to betray the self was to commit psychic suicide.

If you want to see a real patriot or a real man, here is your chance,and who knows, maybe the movie's format will yank your chain more than it did to me, but who really cares, it's a movie about Dalton Trumbo.

"The chief internal enemies of any state are those public officials who betray the trust imposed upon them by the people." Dalton Trumbo

Set list from Neil's Show on KNDS 96.3

2009-10-12T12:00:00.000-07:00

Yet again, there is no pod cast. I am not an idiot when it comes to technology, I swear. Last week I accidentally deleted the recording, this time I couldn't access them from the computer. So NEXT week I'll post the pod casts, assuming I'm not all thumbs.

The show went well except for Dean Martin's "Let is snow." I never realized till today that Dean Martin sang that song. I was looking for a generic song about snow, not a X-mas song. I should not have played an Xmas song, it is to, to, to early for Christmas.

10:01 am	Queen - Flash Gordon
10:05 am	the Monkees - you told me
10:08 am	Amazing Baby - smoke brothers
10:11 am	The runaways - cherry bomb
10:12 am	elvis presley - blue hawaii
10:16 am	Pavement - stop breathing
10:17 am	Vulcan freedom fighters - the will of landru
10:23 am	mike nesmith - more than we can imagine
10:36 am	hanson - mmmbop
10:36 am	tinted windows - live on David letterman

Comment:	http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pvYje9EyO4

10:37 am	Hanson - great divide
10:39 am	Gallows - london is the reason
10:43 am	Pushover - everyone everything
10:43 am	hank snow - let me go lover
10:47 am	flaming lips - Silver Trembling Hands
10:53 am	Flaming lips - the yeah yeah yeah song
11:01 am	Monte Video - shoop shoop diddy wop cumma cumma wang dang
11:02 am	PEARL JAM - do the evolution
11:08 am	cloud cult - alien christ
11:10 am	faith no more - midlife crisis
11:14 am	statesmen quartet - don't you wanna be saved
11:18 am	dean martin - let is snow
11:18 am	Jaws theme song - theme song from the movie "Jaws"
11:22 am	"Shortbus" soundtrack - In the end, "Shortbus" soundtrack, track 17
11:23 am	Scott Matthew - In the end, "Shortbus" soundtrack, track 17
11:30 am	Queen - Leaving home ain't easy
11:32 am	Village People - Go west
11:38 am	Jet - She holds a grudge
11:44 am	"Chorus Line" soundtrack - Nothing
11:45 am	Turbo Fruits - Want some mo'
11:53 am	The Doors - Want you

Snow is great, snow is great.

2009-10-11T08:19:00.000-07:00

Why is it that when it snows, people get angry? Should we not be frollicking and engaging in gay merriment as the first snow fall of the year commences? One would think so but last week, after the first dusting of the season, which promptly melted, Facebook was filled with the horrors of my friends and aquaintences at the adaucity of the heavens to release snow before Halloween.

I am forced to ask, if such a common occurance can bring such misery and professed annoyance to people, how is it that anyone lives up in this part of the world?

Let is snow, let is snow, let is snow, or rain, or hail, or shine sun.

Columbine

2009-10-11T08:00:00.000-07:00

"Columbine" by Dave Cullen lays out how the massacre occurred and tries to answer why it occurred. There is no primary focus of the novel in that it does not favor victims over the killers, the "how" questions versus the "why" questions. It is well researched and does not make conclusions that are not well supported by facts, which he quotes and credits at length Cullen isn't persuading the reader like an academic would do with their research, Cullen is reporting what experts have concluded. The book is a 400 page synopsis of everything and everyone before and after the tragedy.

What is so fascinating to me about this material is that it addresses and debunks common myths about the killers, that they were loners, part of a "trench coat mafia," and out for revenge. They were actually popular, played sports, and very social. What is true is that Eric Harris was a psychopath who gave Dylan Klebold, an angry and depressed young man, a way out, and that their parents were involved in their sons' lives but were still fooled.

The book is sad and will likely make you cry at parts but it is important book because the myths that Columbine started about loners, goths, and 'us vs. them' mentality isn't true. American culture may have its problems but we didn't produce the tragedy. The killers, boys with parents who were actively involved in their lives, boys who had friends and people who loved them, chose to produce this tragedy.

There's a reason why movies suck

2009-10-11T07:37:00.000-07:00

I saw "Couples Retreat" over the weekend and buyer beware, this movie is an average movie tied up with an obnoxious happy ending bow. I laughed a lot but then the movie needed to wrap itself up and as always, that's where most big movies fail miserably. They appeal to the heart no matter how much the back story of the charecters would prohibit that course.

Four couples end up on a vacation island to work on their marriage, thus the movie's name. One guy is already divorced and brought a girl half his age (and yes, I used girl even though it is demeaning to call a grown woman that, this charecter was a girl even at 20), a boring couple, an uhnappy couple waiting for their kid to move out so they can get divorced, and a couple really wanting to work on their marriage. Laughs and hilarity ensue using both the American Pie method of gross sexual situations and the juvenile but sophisticated humor of Judd Apatow movies only it was more juvenilie than sophisticated.

The movie sucked when it got time to end. Three couples do hilariously impossible emotional leaps and bounds to make up with their wives completely disregarding the years and years of behavior it took them to get to the point of divorce.

They should label this movie a "romantic comedy fantasy" so that impressionable youth will know that happy endings like this are not logical and problems that existed in a relationship don't go away with some sort of love epiphany. Yes, I realize that most people will know that the ending was schlocky but unless they analyze why and critically think about why the ending was bad, they'll take the message that it sends about love into their subconscious and unknowingly think that love works in this way, some sort of Goliath like love conquers all myth, and that'll most likely lead to problems in their own lives as they unknowingly act out the cultural message of love that they have drunk from so many times but have never stopped to wonder why it tastes so foul

Zombieland sucked

2009-10-08T18:23:00.000-07:00

Zombieland, the hit movie with undead that owes more to "Shaun of the Dead" then "Night of the Living Dead," has made some serious money but I must ask why? How the hell is this movie any good? It felt like the writers had a great idea but only enough to get it to the 60 minute mark, and just barely, then they switched gears and went from smart-slightly snotty self aware dialogue to full on action sequence minus all dialogue in a situation that should never have happened. I won't give it away but right around the hour mark the movie jumps the shark and 1/3 of the ticket price should be refunded as a result. A movie that self aware would never, ever, EVER do what two charecters at the one hour mark. If this was a 1980's slasher flick, then yes, totally expected, but not here, it didn't fit and as soon as it happened, the movie was over and I watched in terror as the movie became a cliche.

The first hour was decent, not great, but watchable. It could have been better (should have been better) but by the time they end up at Bill Murray's mansion (I'm not spoiling a thing, he's listed in the credits on imdb.org) the script become dialogue heavy, whereas before that it was an even mix of action and smart dialogue, and from the situation-less/dragging scene at Murray's it dives headfirst into the shark moment.

I don't rate movies but this time I'll make an exception. The movie should be two stars but because the writers failed so miserably at what could have been a fucking great comedy, it gets a punative one star.

PS Jesse Eisenburg is hot. If I ever get married, he'd be on the list.

Dr. Horrible's Sing Song Blog

2009-10-06T21:33:00.000-07:00

Dr Horrible's Sing Song Blog starring NEIL PATRICK HARRIS and written by JOSS WHEADON and a bunch of other people namely his siblings and or cousins (they all all male and share the same last name!!)

It was conceived during the great Hollywood Writer's strike of aught-seven and aught-eight as an internet piece that became so successful that it was released on DVD, thus this blog. (Tah-dah!!!)

The shorts, three in total, are combined to make a bigger short (45 mins total) that is full of singing (no dancing), smart acting by Harris (who is the aspiring super villian Dr. Horrible) and Nathan Fillion (Firefly, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) who plays his nemisis, Captain Hammer ("my hammer is my penis") who hams it up as a jocky (stupid and sex obsessed) hero.

The movie, which was shot for free and tons of dontated expertise, has great production value, a smart script, and well done songs that are as funny as they are serious. The actors are exceptionally great (Harris especially), and the ending is actually unexpected but not hugely plot twisting like Mr. Chokes-on-own-ego (M. Night Shyamalan).
ps--watch the commentary. It's sung.

Goodbye stupid brain and cruel sumptuous youth

2009-10-06T21:17:00.000-07:00

Oh the human brain, I hate thee, like I hate the body that is ending one day at a time, yet it is not the body that bothers me, for that can be improved upon with exercise and activity, but oh my pain, poor, pititiful organ that looks worse in the light than male genitalia in the pale white light of a doctor's office.

My brain, my brain, my little gray brain, how it is slowly breaking apart and vexing me, me, who use to have no problem spelling, who could multi-task like a man with a three brains---instead I now multi-task like a man running on half a brain that is running on empty. My vocabulary has shrunk, my ability to remember common words is decreasing, and names, forget about out it, for it too has taken a severe beating. Is it my age, my ripe old age of 28? Perhaps. Is it a sign that I'll have alziehmers? Perhaps. I once heard that those who cannot learn another language are more prone to getting the disease. A brain tumor? That would be refreshing because then I would know I am not crazy but alas, it is doubtful. My blood is as clean as a Catholic priest's dick (if they are good little priests and not the bad icky ones). Perhaps I am insane or on my way there. Doubtful because it'd be sudden, like lightening. One minute I'm here and the next, I'm not.

Why do I think these thoughts. Because at the age of 28 and 10 months, it is so clear that my body is breaking. I knew the day would come, knew that my youth wouldn't last forever, and alas, it has not.

The sun will come out, TOMORROW

2009-10-05T07:12:00.000-07:00

I am cranky today because again, there is no sun. The greatness (haha---I obviously kid) of Fargo is that in addition to cold winters and one day of spring, we also get many, MANY cloudy days. We are on day 8 (I don't know, it's been so long). I dragged myself out of bed today and did stretches, not many, but enough to get the flood flowing and limber up the body. I'm pushing 30 and very aware that this body, this temple, will not magically repair itself to full glory much longer (I'm actually past that point). I should do stretches every day but that isn't me but I feel that eventually a gym membership will be me and that I'll be sweatin to the television mounted over a stationary bike like most people.

On the plus side I found a ton of great records for FREE. Got some Beatles in good condition, a ton of Elton John, and some obscure country western stuff that is great. Now all I need is a new needle for the record player, two new speakers, and a new receiver. When did I become some a materialist? I know that new stuff doesn't make me happy (for more than a fleeting moment) but imagine how good this stuff will sound on new equipment instead of pawn shop bought equipment? Mmmm, vinyl lives on!.

Bland and blind, love keeps chugging

2009-10-03T08:52:00.000-07:00

There's a wedding today, and yay for the happy couple, but is love worth the trouble? They, and other couples, seem to trade good for an obscene amount of bad and I have to wonder, why bother? Good is good but the misery that accompanies seems contradictory to the entire point of love, happiness, Most couples I know spend a good amount of time in misery although I know they would charecterize it the total package of love. I would not.

Would not the procurement of happiness from another source other than love perhaps not be a wiser and more logical idea? Is not the purpose of life to maximize happiness while minimizing misery? One cannot be happy if they cannot see. The old cliche "Love is blind," is taken to mean that we love who we love, regardless of compatibility. What this cliche really means is that love blinds the person, NOT that love transcends and unites two different souls in happiness. Any thing that blinds a person should be looked at as suspect.

I'm a donkey butt

2009-10-01T20:16:00.000-07:00

I screwed up and deleted my radio show. My bad. On the positive side, it looks like I'll be maintaining my radio show but at a different time. I'll post the new time and day when it's been decided.

7:58 pm	Jan and Dean - sidewalk surfin
7:59 pm	Barry white - I've got so much to give
8:08 pm	Rent (movie soundtrack) - I'll cover you (reprise)
8:10 pm	Cat Stevens - Home in the sky
8:13 pm	Screeching Weasel - phasers on kill
8:18 pm	Millions of Dead Cops (MDC) - Walking on Thin Ice
8:19 pm	10,000 Maniacs - Hey Jack Kerouac
8:25 pm	The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Maken - My Son Ted
8:30 pm	Leon Hobson - Ball and Chain Blues

Comment:	from the collection "Lonesome jailhouse blues and other Prison songs by country music stars"

8:32 pm	REM - Disturbance at the Heron House
8:35 pm	Buddy Holly and the Crickets - Peggy Sued Got Married
8:35 pm	Little Richard - Chain, Chain, Chain
8:42 pm	Extreme - Big Boys Don't Cry
8:43 pm	Al Jolson - Toot Toot Tootsie
8:45 pm	Yusuf Islam (cat stevens) - Roadsinger

Comment:	http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/227675/may-14-2009/yusuf---roadsinger

8:52 pm	Pretenders - Talk of the Town
8:52 pm	Pavement - Heaven is a Truck

Hello there, I don't know how to gamble

2009-10-01T09:03:00.000-07:00

So I had to drop out of school this semester because I became anemic and had to get my spleen removed. Since I am not a student I cannot do my radio show at KNDS even though I haven't dropped out of school. The dilemma I faced was, do I try to hide my non-student status to the KNDS to keep doing my show? If they discover that I am not a student I risk alienating them and not having a show in the spring when I can return.

I decided to forfeit my show and return in the spring rather than alienate them. My NDSU email account was turned off today and that is how they primarily communicate so anytime they email me they'd get a 'return to sender' message. I might have lasted a few weeks, even a month or two, but when they discover I shouldn't be there (and it seems highly likely that they'd figure out this easy puzzle) I imagine people angry at being deceived and reluctant or opposed to giving me a show in the spring.

I'll Cry Tomorrow because melodramas are time delayed

2009-09-30T07:37:00.000-07:00

Lillian Roth was famous by the time she was eighteen, but the time she reached her mid-twenties, her career was over, a victim of alcoholism. You may not have heard of her because her career peaked in the 1930s. "I'll Cry Tomorrow" (1955) is a biopic of her life starring Susan Hayward who won Best Acting award at Cannes and was nominated for an Oscar.

The movie is a melodrama so this is not the acting most of us are familiar with, such as method acting used by Marlon Brando and Mickey Rourke. It is highly emotional and overacted, very similar to a soap opera only taken to the next gut wrenching level of pain (or overacting depending on your view).

Susan Hayward is over the top in her performance as she goes from her mother's kitten to a hardened drunk to a suicidal drunk. No matter how drunk she gets, she is always looking for love and it never works out for her (the real Roth was married 8 times).

The movie is a product of its time, so beware. This means that Hayward’s Roth is written as weak willed, morally clueless, and like all women everywhere, is only happy when marriage and kids are in her future (it’s the death of that dream that apparently sets her to drinking). Critiquing of the script based on our standards isn’t fair, so I won’t, but beware because even though I’ve seen a million (exaggeration for effect!!) old movies, it still annoys me but try to get past that and the black and white film because Susan Hayward could level a city faster than Godzilla with the intensity of her acting. She’s amazing but even better in “I Want to Live!” (1958).

Flash Gordon and the cult that isn't

2009-09-29T08:17:00.000-07:00

Flash Gordon, 1980

This movie is madly entertaining, maybe not for the reasons it was intended but I sat through this two hour movie absolutely riveted. The opening sequence with Queen’s music grabs the viewer as Emperor Ming plans Earth’s destruction (motive---because he can, oooh, evil!)
Flash Gordon, the football player and accidental hero who would have been better played by Dolph Lundgren from his ‘Rocky IV’ or ‘Universal Soldier’ days ends up in Ming’s part of the universe with a woman and a mad scientist. Flash Gordon (QB for the NY Giants) leads a revolt against the evil Ming. The entire premise is that Gordon is the every man, the hero that all men possess; unfortunately he’s more boring than Spiderman (sorry Spidey fans).

This is a silly movie and not to be taken seriously (he doesn’t attack the guards with fists, he plays football against them), which is good because there are serious continuity issues (11 days and the Earth will be destroyed yet it seems like only 2 or 3 have passed.) The special effects are reflective of the 1930’s movie serials and not of the technology available at the time (don’t miss an original 1936 Flash Gordon serial in the ‘extras’ section.)

The costumes, set pieces, and the entire movie as a whole are visually stunning. The colors are loud and at times trippy, almost reminiscent of a psychedelic movie (more than once a ‘Yellow Submarine’ visual comparison was apt). This, coupled with Queen’s music and at times nifty camera work, sometimes made ‘Flash Gordon’ feel like a rock opera. All of the acting was flat which contributes to the feel of the B-movie this movie intentionally or unintentionally achieves. If the actors could act, then it would have been obvious that this wasn’t a serious sci-fi movie but it takes awhile to realize that the campiness is intentional (I think??). Why this movie isn’t a cult favorite and played at midnight shows is beyond me.

Ice Age: Hell on Earth with really cute squirrels

2009-09-27T21:51:00.000-07:00

Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs was so close to suck, suck, sucking (and LARGE parts of the movie did) but then the dinosaurs came to play and the movie got funny but the misery of the beginning cannot be excused as I almost got up and left the theater from the intense awfulness. On a side note, I could watch 90 minutes of the squirrel chasing his acorn and never talking, just screaming in horror as the acorn escapes his grasp, and there are two opossums which are equally enteratining and desrving of their own movie. I did laugh and enjoy msyelf but the ride through hell to get there isn't worth the payoff.

Vikings won---yay, Twins lost---nay, the job hunt continues---nay, and the new Pearl Jam is a lot better than I thought possible---yay (??)

Banana sparks tragedy.

2009-09-27T08:15:00.000-07:00

First off, no headache, yay, second off, go Vikings, third, go Twins, fourth, when making banana bread, let it cool in the pan before removing to cool on a wire rack as I just removed my fresh from the oven banana bread from the pan, minus its bottom. Sadness doesn't even begin to describe my emotional state right now. I have been looking forward to this bread for ages even though I only decided to make it last week. I never make banana bread so I never get to smell the intoxicating banana aroma that wafts around the house as it slowly bakes in the oven. I feel that I have been violated and I will blame everyone else but myself for my problems. If it wasn't for me, I'd be perfect.

Headaches don't equal cancer, and District 9 is genius.

2009-09-25T21:29:00.000-07:00

Oh, happy day. I finally saw District 9 and when it was over, I was on a cloud of amazement. I had just seen a good movie. The last time I'd seen a movie that made me feel like I'd witnessed something genius or truly orginal was Kill Bill Volume 1 and before that, the first Matrix movie. I love that feeling. It's like witnessing how far the human spirit can soar.

On a side note, just because you've had a headache for three weeks doesn't mean you have a brain tumor. I went from caffeine withdrawel to prednisone withdrawel to a sinus headache, to a stress headache, and back to a stress headache. Maybe it's cancer but I've had a lot of blood work done lately so unless I'm way off base, I'm assuming the blood tests would show something adnormal.

Radio show set list

2009-09-24T20:47:00.000-07:00

This is the set list from my radio show tonight. Listen live at KNDSradio.com, Thursday, 8-9 pm. The name of my show is "Neil's show" but it actually just says Neil/ And I forgot to add one song. The last song I played was Kiss Off by Violent Femmes.

8:00 pm	Liz Phair - Turning Japanese
8:01 pm	Dead Alive - Big Daddy Rhythm
8:05 pm	Nancy Sinatra - Another gay sunshine day

Comment:	from "Another gay movie" soundtrack

8:09 pm	Peter Gabriel - Modern Love
8:12 pm	He-man - theme song
8:17 pm	Rocky horror show new broadway cast - I'm going home
8:18 pm	Perry Cuomo - he's got the whole world in his hands
8:19 pm	green sweater society - to entertain you
8:23 pm	Osaka Popstars featuring Daniel Johnston - man of constant sorrow
8:30 pm	7 year bitch - gun
8:30 pm	Hole - Turpentine
8:35 pm	Zarah Leander - Davon geht die welt nicht

Comment:	"Inglorious Basterds" soundtrack

8:37 pm	Duane Whitaker/Peter Green/Revels - Bring out the gimp

Comment:	Pulp Fiction soundtrack

8:40 pm	Barbera Streisand - I'm the greatest star

Comment:	Funny Girl soundtrack

8:40 pm	Rosemary Clooney - I'll be seeing you
8:46 pm	Screaming Trees - Shadow of the season
8:48 pm	Cream - White room

Elvis is broken and Graceland is laughing.

2009-09-24T20:38:00.000-07:00

This is my Elvis mug. I bought it last month when I visited Graceland. It's the perfect souvenir because It was cheap ($10). One month and two weeks into owning the mug, and less then 20 uses, the handle is breaking. The top of the handle where it attaches to the mug has a few chips and a crack goes around the base of the top connection. It is trash, literally. I've thrown it away before it breaks mid-use.

2009-09-23T11:01:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting here with a headache, trying to figure out what is causing the pain. It isn't my head cold, that's on its tailend, it isn't lack of coffee, I kicked my addiction down a notch a few weeks ago so I already went through withdrawels, then it donned on me, it's probably stress. Work has been busy lately and I'm normally not one to feel the effects of stress but my head aches in the back near the spine, like I need to get my neck adjusted but in reality I just need to relax. Tylenol hasn't helped. Reading Dan Brown's new hasn't helped (not that I expected it to). It's too pretty outside to take a nap. I can either up my pill intake or find a way to reduce work stress. I'm not one for popping pills and work is out of my control, so I guess I'm fucked, and by fucked, I mean I have no choice but to ride out this wave.

On a side note, why do I love Courtney Love's voice so much? Hole and her solo stuff is great.

2009-09-22T10:16:00.000-07:00

My Chemical Romance: The Black Parade is Dead! (2008)

My guilty pleasure is The Black Parade. I’m 28 years old. I should not be listening to emo music but The Black Parade is a smart concept album and A) I’m attracted to smart things (Hello James Maynard Keys;)) and B) I related to the lyrics and still relate to the lyrics albeit through a more mature lens (cough::: cough::: keep telling yourself that Neil). That being said….
Two concerts are included, one from Mexico City (the last stop on the tour, thus “is Dead!” part) and one from Hoboken, NJ. The Mexico City performance is a stadium show where they perform the album from beginning to end, have costumes (actually singular but 5 band members makes it costumeS), pyrotechnics, and whole largeness that comes with an arena show. The New Jersey is in a club with a few hundred fans and just the band on a small stage a few feet from their fans.
The Mexico City concert is fun to watch and it does capture the essence of their stage show although I was initially disappointed because when I heard they were doing a stage show of their album, The Black Parade, for some reason I envisioned something as elaborate as Pink Floyd’s The Wall (not even close). The only drawback, the director cut to new cameras one or two seconds. That isn’t enough time to watch the artists perform their craft, it’s annoying, and if a band sucks, clever editing comes off as desperate---not the case here, it just came off as annoying. The NJ show was better because it was stripped down. One gets to see the band and the camera edits weren’t as often (although they were still abundant).
By virtue of including a stripped down show to accompany their stage production, this is a good concert dvd. Whose ever idea that was, kudos to them.

Another Halloween movie?

2009-09-21T07:31:00.000-07:00

Halloween 2 “Family is forever.”

Mike Myers is back and for once we get to see his face. He has a long ragged beard like a lumberjack. He also makes grunting noises. This is a reimagining so my critiques are slightly out of line but that being said I feel that he was scarier when he was quiet because one didn’t know if he was a demon from hell or really human, the grunting humanizes him and for me, demystifies him.
Myers is after his sister, Angel, who is traumatized by the off screen killing of Michael a year earlier. She is unstable and connected to Michael, who is given a motive for his killings (it’s psychological and again with the humanizing). She also wastes our time with a dream sequence at the beginning of the movie. Dream sequences rarely work and in this instance it DOESN’T. It is suppose to show how messed up the sister is, well Rob Zombie, there are a million QUICKER ways to accomplish that goal, all of which involve not jerking the audience around.
Zombie himself is an okay director but unless you are again, Orson Wells, you are not going to be able to improve this genre past clichés, such as conveniently rainy nights, house in the country, TERRIBLE dialogue, unexplained character motives, etc. (the list goes on).
I will give this movie two props, the ending was unexpected and I’m intrigued by where the movies could go, and the psychological aspect that explains Myers’ desire to kill, while humanizing him (and annoying me), was an interesting idea to pursue.
All and all, if you like slasher movies, you’ll ignore everything I’ve written because you won’t care, and if you don’t like these types of movies, you won’t ignore this because you’ll disregard it because you’ll never be caught dead at this movie.

I feel all fuzzy

2009-09-21T07:12:00.000-07:00

I feel all fuzzy. "Borrowed" from: http://xkcd.com/162/

Young hot actors, and the future is....

2009-09-19T20:52:00.001-07:00

Diner (1982) Directed and written by Barry Levinson

Do you want to see Mickey Rourke when he was really really young and wearing eye shadow? Or that guy from Wings, the straight-laced one who didn’t have any fun? Or what about Kevin Bacon, Paul Reiser, and the baby-faced awesome-ness of Steve Gutenberg? One of the guys from LA Law is there, plus Ellin Barkin is someone’s wife, and they are all young and sexy smooth, which by itself isn’t reason enough to see Diner, but it doesn’t hurt.
Diner, written and directed by Barry Levinson takes place in 1959 Baltimore. It is a coming of age story that centers on five friends as they navigate the winter holidays. Sex, marriage, gambling, alcoholism, and growing up are talked about while they frequent a diner and other haunts in Baltimore. All five of the men give great performances that only lead to heartache because they show such promise and some of them weren’t able to live up to the talent they showed in this movie. Rourke, the “last” of the method actors actually gives the least interesting performance of the five men as he has to play it cool the entire movie while Gutenberg and Bacon give the most interesting performances playing a football fan on the verge of getting married and a smart, emotionally wounded rich kid.
This movie is good and not just because of the young cast of stars. Levinson addresses a variety of topics without getting lost in long stretches of conversation. The actors are able to emote what is needed while the script is succinct in what it wants to express and the 1959 setting adds a certain gravitas to the occasion as the topics they discuss are contrary to all the stereotypical Hollywood depictions. Diner, excuse the pun, is worth dining on.

Acedmic biography---for those who are interested.

2009-09-19T20:50:00.000-07:00

I joined the Communication Department in the fall of 2008. I decided to remain in my home town to be close to family and friends. I was pleased that I was accepted into the program so that I could continue to be close to my family and enjoy the area’s unique winters.

My undergraduate degree is in philosophy. I graduated from Minnesota State University of Moorhead in 2003. My philosophical specialties are skepticism, solipsism, existentialism with an interest in Zen Buddhism and existential novels. My communication interests have to do with topics related to homosexuality. I am still early in my career so I unable to narrow the topic down but if it has to do with homosexuals and it advances the understanding of gay people, then it is likely that I am interested. I prefer to approach my communication interests using qualitative methods.

This fall I am academically working on a paper that compares and contrasts generational differences between young gay men and older gay men. Personally, I am working on a novel that deals with issues of identity, sexuality, and truth. In addition to be a fulltime graduate student I work a fulltime job as a caregiver to mentally challenged adults and I am a dj at the campus radio station for one hour a week.

Spaced is the new...wow I'm high.

2009-09-19T20:48:00.000-07:00

Spaced: The Complete Series (1999) Starring and written by Simon Pegg and Jessica Hynes

You like pop references and lead characters eating copious amounts of junk food, drugs, and video games while wasting (living) their lives in the middle of a suburban jungle? Sure you do because you, we, the public ate up the movies that Simon Pegg co-wrote, namely “Shawn of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz.” It’s time to dig up the past, DVD style.
“Spaced,” a BBC comedy from 1999 that was co-written and co-starred Simon Pegg and Jessica Hynes (Son of Rambow) is a pop reference heaven. Tim and Daisy pretend to be a professional couple to rent a furnished apartment. Tim is an aspiring comic book artist and Daisy is an aspiring journalist and writer. He plays video games all day and she pretends to write and when they aren’t doing either of those activities they are messing around with their friends, watching movies (Star Wars) and having ADVENTURES!---and by adventures I mean quests into the land of reality where people exist and the world they love (their own) must be shared with others demanding tea, biscuits, and Lord help them, a human response or two.
This comedy is one of the more accessible, (closer to American humor) friendly BBC shows so there is more of a general appeal. The pop culture references to comics, skateboarding, raves, drugs, video games (Tomb Raider 3), and behavior towards their friends and neighbors is in line with what television gives us now, rude (or real) responses to rude or real people (think Curb Your Enthusiasm but not neurotic). The camera angles, lighting, and directing of the series is also original. Yes, the scripts are great but if it wasn’t for the originality in the look as well, this good script could have been taken down a dumb (Kevin Smith) path.

Marty shmarty, it's all Borgnine

2009-09-19T20:47:00.001-07:00

Marty (1955) Ernest Borgnine
Oscars for best actor, director, picture, and screenplay.

“Ah ma, I’m not sure I can deal with the heartache,” Marty says to his mother when she needles him about finding a wife. Marty is 33 years old and played by the homely (and I mean that in the nicest way) Ernest Borgnine.
“Marty” is a one man show and its Borgnine’s the entire way. If you’ve seen him “From Here to Eternity” where he plays a character fitting to his physical stature (a cruel oaf of an MP Officer who tortures Frank Sinatra) then seeing him bare his soul for ninety minutes is a shocking surprise and as unexpected to me as it probably was to the audience 50 years ago.
The difference between Marty’s looks (short, heavy set, looks like he could rip the head off a man in seconds) and his emotions is striking. Borgnine somehow makes Marty smaller with his shyness and reluctant bachelorhood. When he smiles, you see his thin coat of armor and how easily he is hurt.
Marty reluctantly goes on a date but only after an emotional outburst where he takes a stand against dating and the requisite pain that follows. He meets Clara, played with an awkward strength by Betsy Blair, and they spend the night talking and falling in love. The problem is that none of Marty’s friends and family likes Clara. They realize that inertia is a good thing and a married Marty would rock their boat too much so Marty must decide to call the girl or honor his friends and family and not date “the dog.”
The script show’s people’s selfishness will stop at nothing even if it means stopping others from reaching happiness while creating a character Borgnine was born to play, a sensitive, smart, Catholic boy looking for love in a world that doesn’t care about personal happiness.

Valentino needs a soul.

2009-09-19T20:43:00.000-07:00

Valentino (2008)

The biggest question that arises after seeing this documentary based on Valentino, is why he never kisses his boyfriend during the entire movie. He buys him a Christmas present, thanks him during an important French award ceremony, but not once does he kiss him, hug him, or in any other way show him affection. That’s what I’m left with, is Valentino so exacting that he can’t show any weakness in the form of physical intimacy?
Yes, the movie does show Valentino and the fashion world in a way most of us will never ever see. The movie not only captures Valentino during the design process but it also captures the cut throat business of high end fashion but at the end of the movie I still didn’t feel like I knew Valentino, and that may say more about the man than the filmmakers. Unlike most documentaries, Valentino never sat for an interview and I’m sure that isn’t for lack of trying on the filmmakers’ part. Thank god for DVD extras.
The DVD extras is where the show really is. One follows his executive servant (a term not nearly adequate to describe this man’s duties) as he goes from different Valentino homes on different continents and prepares them for Valentino’s arrival (No small feat. Valentino is the last of the classy rich.) Another one follows him after the film takes place as he puts on his last show before he retires. They both offer different glimpses of the man who has dominated fashion for 40 years---the butler segment by showing the high standards Valentino expects every part of his life to live up to, and the fashion show segment by revealing more of his personality than the movie does, including moments of anger and friendship.
The movie is fine but the DVD extras is where the soul resides.