Munich review
Justice is a funny thing. As a people, we humans are still overly obsessed with getting even.
Vengeance is a long-time standard dish in the commissary of film fare. From great Westerns like Hang 'Em High or The Outlaw Josey Wales to the Kill Bill movies to the recent Chan Wook Park "Vengeance" series from Korea, my cinematic upbringing has been heaped with piles of revenge movies served cold.
Getting even is a power play. It's about making your adversary powerless. More than just the killing itself, it's about the moment when you hold the power and your opponent does not. The trick is, vengeance is not necessarily in the interests of justice.
The killings at the 1972 Munich Olympics were horrific, to be certain. And the act was reprehensible beyond any stretch of the imagination. Israel was beset on all sides by enemies, and had the extra disadvantage of having displaced the Palestinian people, who were never taken in by any of their neighbors. The Palestinians turned to terror in the mid to late 1960s, igniting the international firestorm that continues to this day.
Steven Spielberg's latest film, Munich, isn't about the attack at the Olympics, though the incident is painstakingly reproduced. It's about Israel's systematic assassination of the 11 Palestinian leaders who were suspected of masterminding the Munich plot.
Led by Eric Bana's Avner Kauffman, a team of well-meaning dilletantes systematically tracks and eliminates the people assigned them by their handlers. None of them are Mossad -- this is an unofficial mission that can't be traced back to Israel. Each of them has a specific skill which can aid the group in accomplishing their mission.
There's the hotheaded driver, Steve (Daniel Craig, in yet another remarkable performance); the gentle toymaker turned bombmaker, Robert (Mathiew Kassovitz); the precise antique dealer/documents expert Hans (Hanns Zischler); and the ever-worrying 'cleaner' Carl (Ciarán Hinds) whose job it is to make sure they leave no trace at each killing.
Each person aches for vengeance for their nation -- and for themselves. But, one by one, they begin to question their mission. Are the killings just? Are their targets guilty? At what point do they cease being soldiers and begin being murderers?
To his credit, Spielberg never answers any of these questions. It would be far to simple to say that their targets were terrorists and needed to be eliminated (Look no further than our current administration in Washington to see how the short-sighted policies of vengeance have served us.). Instead, Spielberg shows how absolutely mammoth his cojones are by showing us reality: vengeance serves no one.
No killing has ever filled the void of a lost loved one.
No execution has ever brought real comfort to a crime victim or their family.
No amount of killing will ever bring peace.
To say that Munich is a step forward for Spielberg is an understatement. This is not only the smartest, most mature movie he's ever done; it's also the most ethically flexible he's ever allowed himself to be. He doesn't preach at all. In fact, if you want to see Munich as a straight-forward revenge movie you can (for the most part). There's ample reason to hate the targets of the squad. But there's also enough gray area that the audience, like some of the assassins themselves, might see things differently.
The movie is sparse and devoid of artifice. Spielberg himself is barely visible, if at all, in the finished product. He directs so subtly that you'd never know this is the same guy who made Always and E.T.. The only thing that matters is the performances, and damn, what performances. I've been a fairly vocal supporter of Daniel Craig since Layer Cake. He's excellent. Geoffrey Rush? Amazing. Hinds? Kassovitz? Unbelievably good. Of course, the centerpiece of the cast, and the lynch pin of the entire movie is Eric Bana. Bana hasn't been this good since Chopper. Too few people realize how absolutely amazing he is in pretty much EVERYTHING (including Hulk, naysayers. Shut up.).
I know it's not the feel-good holiday movie you've been looking forward to, but Munich is important cinema. It's not only the greatest film from the most talented filmmaker alive, it's an impressive thing to think over and discuss after you leave the theater.
I'll be talking a wee bit more about Munich soon...

This X-Man's X-Rant on X-Mas
OK. What gives?
When exactly did it become a capital crime to wish someone a Merry Christmas? (I'd like to note that this sentence originally contained no less than three F-bombs. But, in the interests of this message being passed along -- as several of my rants have, I'm keeping it somewhat family friendly.)
The big topic of conversation in this 'burg of late has been all about how "Happy Holidays" has replaced "Merry Christmas" because it's more politically correct. What's up with that? Since when is it wrong to be nice to someone?
People are actually AFRAID to say Merry Christmas to people now. People are so damned afraid to offend someone that they don't feel comfortable using what's become a secular phrase to wish them well at the closing of the year. Christmas has a religious antecedent and some form of religious connotation, but it's not a religious holiday. Not any more.
I realize that there are other holiday celebrations going on. Every single world culture has a year-end gift-giving holiday or festival. Every single one. The idea to celebrate the year's blessings by gathering with family, or by giving of yourself to others, is universal. The Japanese didn't have a name for their tradition -- it was simply called "Year End Gifts" until they appropriated the Christmas tag.
Christmas, as a term and as a concept, has outgrown Christianity. It's fully established itself as a secular holiday. Yes, there are religious roots to the name and to the holiday itself. But, it's grown beyond that. Let's face it...when Sears published the first Christmas Catalog and ushered in the age of commercialism, Christmas began pulling away from its sacred origins.
Heck, Santa Claus hasn't been a religious figure for nearly a century. How many people do you know who actually know the story of St Nicholas? But, every single person who doesn't know the Christian myth of St Nick can recite the lyrics to "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer". See what I'm talking about? The holiday has lost its holy luster. It's truly a secular day, which means that EVERYONE can take part. Hell, I know a Jewish person who puts up a Christmas tree every year because she enjoys the decorations. Another symbol bites the dust.
Christmas isn't the property of Christians any more. I'm hereby claiming the holiday on behalf of the secular majority. I'm hereby reclaiming the Christmas Spirit on behalf of mankind. I've drawn a line in the snow, and I'm daring you all to cross it.
There's nothing uniquely Christian about wishing for peace on earth and goodwill to all mankind. Especially not how the Religious Right sees Christianity at this point. So, I'm taking those principles from them. They don't believe in them, so they hereby cede claim to the Christmas holiday and the Christmas Spirit.
If someone happens to be a Christian and wants to actually feel that Christmas Spirit, more power to 'em. In fact, I'd encourage that, as it might inspire other Christians to actually begin adhering to the principles that they were supposed to believe anyway. Charity and peace and good will are fantastic ideals. Too bad the Fundies don't believe in them.
Don't be afraid to wish someone a Merry Christmas. Or a Joyeux Noel. Or a Happy Hanukkah. Or whatever. Claim a holiday, and live the holiday spirit. Not just through December, but throughout the year. Every day is cause for celebration, and occasionally, it takes a special day like Christmas to rekindle that fire in our hearts.
Merry Christmas!

It's Podcast Time!
Kevin's Constant Columbus podcast is now available on iTunes and Yahoo's podcast directory!
SUBSCRIBE NOW OR FEEL MY WRATH!
Click here for the official site

The Bush Administration Acting Like Children

So here we are, the United States of America, the supposed leader of the free and civilized world, acting like a bunch of toddlers at day-care....

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,69800,00.html?tw=rss.TOP

Does everyone remember the days of Clinton and Gore and the start of what was to become the Kyoto Accord, setting a precedent of clean-air standards? Does everyone also remember the Bush Admin. refusing to comply because of what they saw as damage to the economy? WTF?!

"Naw, we don't want clean air so long as I've got my truck,' the Texan said. "I think that what our economy needs is free trade and lots of coal fired power plants to speed things along!"

I remember a bumper sticker I saw the other day, "Somewhere in Texas a village is missing its idiot."

Well, now the Bush-led government is at it again. 10,000 delegates met in Montreal to discuss further standards when Kyoto expires in 2012. Again, the Bush-ers sat to the wayside refusing to even enter into preliminary discussions! I keep seeing a child pouting in the corner because it is not getting what it wants. Anyone else? Am I alone here? WHEN ARE WE GOING TO JOIN IN THIS THING AND CLEAN OUR WORLD UP?! HUH?! The US produces the largest amount of pollution on the planet and we are kind enough to share with everyone, though we want nothing to do with the cleanup!

I am not a earth lover by any means. I buy plastic, I do not recycle.... But, I walk to work everyday, I do not litter, I make do with what I have now instead of adding to the crap piling up. I am just angry that Bush is not more ecologically minded. 'Go ahead and drill in the nature preserve, ruin it. We need that extra 1% of domestic oil it will supply....' I hear his idiotic voice in my head, preaching his nonsensical blubber!

OK. Enough for now. I am just becoming more and more upset with every word I type.

Have a good day, might as well start sucking on a tail pipe!

Kevin W.

Podcasting In Columbus

Hello everyone. I am using this blog to promote my upcoming podcast, ConstantColumbus. It will feature local music in and around Central Ohio with reviews, interviews, live recordings and show calendars.

Please check out the rough demo and send comments a flying!

Also, keep and eye out for another podcast that will be featuring Movies. Your humble host Adam Bic will be co-hosting and heading up this project. Keep looking for it!

Kevin W.

Now This is a Christmas Display!!!!

I have never seen a more amazing Christmas display in my life! I was absolutely in awe while watching this festive lighting!

Another Note From Michael Moore

"Dear Mr. Bush:

I would like to extend my hand and invite you to join us, the mainstream American majority. We, the people -- that's the majority of the people -- share these majority opinions:

1. Going to war was a mistake -- a big mistake.

2. You and your administration misled us into this war.

3. We want the war ended and our troops brought home.

4. We don't trust you.

Now, I know this is a bitter pill to swallow. Iraq was going to be your great legacy. Now, it's just your legacy. It didn't have to end up this way.

This week, when Republicans and conservative Democrats started jumping ship, you lashed out at them. You thought the most damning thing you could say to them was that they were "endorsing the policy positions of Michael Moore and the extreme liberal wing of the Democratic party." I mean, is that the best you can do to persuade them to stick with you -- compare them to me? You gotta come up with a better villain. For heaven's sakes, you had a hundred-plus million other Americans who think the same way I do -- and you could have picked on any one of them!

But hey, why not cut out the name-calling and the smearing and just do the obvious thing: Come join the majority! Be one of us, your fellow Americans! Is it really that hard? Is there really any other choice? George, take a walk on the wild side!

Your loyal representative from the majority,

Michael Moore
www.michaelmoore.com
mmflint@aol.com"

There were links beside the majority stuff at the top so here they are....


http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=4924#mistake
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=4924#misled
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=4924#bringemhome
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=4924#trust

And Now Your Privacy is Thwarted Yet Again!

I never thought I would see the day when Homeland Security actually made it okay for anyone to get an electronic copy of YOUR drivers license! But lo', that day has come, children, and a dark day it is...... A dark day.

RETURN OF THE TWO-HEADED MARATHON DIARY

It begins at...
5:12 am
Oh. Fuck. No.
No fucking way.
I better be taking a nap today before the damn marathon because this is fucking stupid.
Why am I up at 5 am? I went to bed at midnight. God fucking dammit.
It's gonna be a looooooooooong day.

I have to work 3 hours today. And 3 hours tomorrow, after I get out of the marathon. Thankfully, my duties for the weekend just consist of stocking beer for the rabid Buckeye fans who'll be tailgating this morning, and the drunken Sunday afternoon football junkies tomorrow.

Why the fuck am I awake at 5 am? I gotta get my head examined. I mean, seriously, I'm notorious for being a foul-mouthed crank ANYWAY. Why add tired to the whole equation? Yes. I need to attempt to nap today. Maybe I should go see IN HER SHOES or something sappy like that and see if it puts me out.
I ran into jolly Joe Neff two days ago at the night job. Yammered at him for a few minutes, where he had to remind me that THREE: EXTREMES was my fault in case the audience was as receptive to it as GOZU last year (which ruled my unholy soul to see it in the theater). Considering that Fruit Chan's DUMPLINGS has possibly the biggest "EWWWWWWW" moment I've enjoyed in a movie in some time, I hope to hell people give it a chance. Besides, there's more Miike for the saps...and the delicously wicked CUT by Chan Wook Park, too.
I should shut up before I give away all the fun. Yes. I should.
I'm gonna read some comics or something.

8:15 am
My alarm went off, not that I was asleep to appreciate it. Man, I was just about to get to sleep again. Maybe. Ah, fuck it. I'm gonna get ready and go to work.

12:33 pm
On my way downtown to the Arena Grand Theatre to drop some stuff off and maybe finally get my ass in to see ELIZABETHTOWN. Maybe. I might just fall asleep at the bar. I'm sure that'd look good.
The morning at the night job was mercifully easy. However, the cold here is already merciless. Winter is teh suck. And it's not even winter yet. Bleh.

Since I've lived in CBus, I've tried to get to every marathon I could, though I was only recently able to get to the October horror marathons. So, while I was browsing through my collection of t--shirts to wear today, I only had a couple horror shirts available. I settled on last year's design for several reasons: 1) It showcases the fact that this marathon is a collaboration between hosts Bruce Bartoo and Joe Neff (who both rule) 2) It's a way cool design by a local guy who does shitloads of rock show posters. I can't remember his name, but trust me, he does a lot of them. and 3) It's glow in the dark. I'm a total sucker for glow in the dark shit. I'd paint my house glow in the dark if I owned one.
Yes, I'm that shallow. Deal, bitches.

7:03 pm
After hanging out with some friends downtown (and simultaneously hanging out with some friends in the AICN chatroom and sharing some exciting news -- congrats, SB!!!) and taking in ELIZABETHTOWN (which was fantastic, just as I imagined I imagined it would be), I'm sitting at the bar drinking a water. Yeah, I'm being responsible. Mostly because I don't intend on passing out.
Like I did at the midnight show of Return of the King.
Yes, I'm still embarassed about that. So, let's move on and not dwell on the fiascos of my wee life.
Or, rather, let's concentrate on the fiasco of being totally exhausted before a 14+ hour movie marathon. Yes, I'm a bright one.
I tried to go back to sleep this morning. Hell, my cat crawled up on me and went to sleep. But I couldn't get back to la-la land. I guess I should be tired and cranky, and I'm sure we'll get to that.

The big to-do at the theater today was the new Narnia trailer (which sadly is encoded in such a way that I can't mess with it or put it on a trailer DVD -- damn youse, Disney! Impressive. Yes, very impressive.

Soon, off to the Drexel Grandview and my date with insomnia.
Oh goody.

8:11 pm
I'm lucky 13th in line. It makes sense, doesn't it? It's gotta be an omen. It's cold. Fuck, it's cold. I'm gonna show trailers to some of the folks in line. Get people worked up.

10:53 pm
Oh, boy...we just got in. And yes, I'm fucking frozen. I've got a killer headache. And I'm gonna throw a Red Bull at it. Without vodka or Jagermeister. That's a change.
Saw Bruce and Joe as I got in, scored my t-shirt and I'm good to go.

10:58 pm
Red Bull #1 gone. I brought 2. I'm in trouble, aren't I?
Things'll get rolling around 11:15-11:30pm...

Down to brass tacks. I don't know how the Butt-Numb-A-Thonners do it. The 24+ hours is no problem. The partying the night before is. I've heard stories about the drunken adventures down Austin way.
I've done a 24 hour horror marathon drunk off my ass. Watching Ichi the Killer at 5 am with a wicked buzz and a ton of caffeine in your system is close to a religious experience. And I've hit Vegas hard enough that Vegas has hit back and survived.
I still don't think I could do a movie marathon with a hangover. Nope, don't think I could...

11:15 pm
Almost ready to start. Already lobbed my first (loving) insult at host Bruce Bartoo, and he responded in kind (Actually, he owned my ass. But I have too much pride to tell you that, don't I?). Too bad he can't fire back when he's up front being all hosty.
I yell, though. I'm a bad, bad audience member.

11:26 pm
Joe and Bruce are rockin the startup. But I gotta get my za soon. Yessir. Must have ZA.

11:29 pm
"It is night. It is cold..." THE FOG trailer. Jooooooooooooooooy. Haven't seen the remake (yet) because it's at the dirt theater. Fuck the AMC.
11:30 pm
BEYOND THE FOG trailer. Hmmm. I've never seen this. Trippy. And hopefully delightfully crappy. Yes, definitely delightfully crappy. Why have I not seen this?
Gonna have to look that one up.
11:33pm
ANGEL HEART trailer. You know, I never bought into the controversy, but I loved this movie just for being a genuinely creepy lil' Southern Gothic horror. I'm glad as hell that Mickey Rourke is back on top. He's always been interesting, if nothing else.
Damn, I almost forgot that Robert DeNiro really WAS the Man, back in the day. Why he's making tons of just utter SHIT now, I don' t know.
Hmmmm. This is a Red Band trailer. Didn't notice that. Durn those boobies. They'll get the Super Bowl all cancelled and shit.
I said boobies.
11:37 pm
ALABAMA'S GHOST trailer?
Alabama, King of the Cosmos!
Shit, I've never seen this, either, but I HAVE to.
Hippies and magic and weird horror freakouts.
Damn, I GOT TO SEE THAT.
11:39 pm
THE TRAVELLING EXECUTIONER trailer.
Stacy Keach rules. That is all.
"Her ass is just too good to cook."
Damn straight.
This trailer fucking rocks. Another one to add to my "MUST SEE THIS RIGHT FUCKING NOW" list.
And the Red Bull has kicked in nicely. I'll hit the other one in 5 or 6 hours.
11:42 pm
THE CONQUEROR WORM trailer. That's showing at the Wexner Center this week...with VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED (the original). Coolness.
When I was a kid, Vincent Price was about as close as I had to a hero. And this was one of the most evil, depraved performances he had. Great stuff.
"Please...LEAVE THE CHILDREN AT HOME"
11:44 pm
CARNIVAL OF BLOOD trailer. Craptastic. Been there. Done that.
Is that Burt Young? I can never remember.
and another bloody chiller...
Hmmm...I've not seen this. CURSE OF THE HEADLESS HORSEMAN. Then again, do I really need to?
Fuck, it's PG. I probably DON'T need to.
11:47 pm
FUNHOUSE trailer. Haven't seen it in AGES. Nice print of the trailer, too.
11:49 pm
Red Band trailer for PROM NIGHT. I'd love to say I enjoy this movie...but I don't. It's the damn thick fucking filter they shot it through. It's like what I see without my glasses.
FOCUS THE DAMN CAMERA, AND WIPE THE VASELINE OFF THE LENS, DAMMIT.
Wait, it's PROM NIGHT. It probably won't help all that much.
11:50 pm
Red Band trailer for HELL NIGHT. Damn, we're all about the nudity and gore already. Fuck that PG shit. Fuck family values. Fuck the MPAA. Fuck the FCC.
And Fuck Vincent Van Patten. That dude sucks. Hard.
Man, this damn trailer shows the whole fucking movie.
11:53 pm
Wacky pizza promo. Thank the gods we already ordered ours.
11:54 pm
BURGESS FUCKING MEREDITH! ("Rock, yer a killin' machine")
Ooh. Oliver Reed!!!
Yes, it s the BURNT OFFERINGS trailer. I had this on Laserdisc, back in the day. I got it cheap, too.
Bette Davis looks so goddamn scary in this damn movie.
Coolness. And a round of applause for Ollie Reed leaping out the winder. 'Cause Oliver Reed is a badass. Like Shaft or William Shatner.
11:56 pm
FRANCIS IN THE HAUNTED HOUSE trailer...Wow. I've never seen a Francis the Talking Mule movie. I saw the movie that was the basis for MR ED ages ago, but I can't remember the name of it.
"YOU'LL SHUDDER"...Hmmm. I guess I will. This looks painful.
11:58 pm
THE HOUSE OF THE DAMNED trailer. Sounds like my apartment.
Hmmm. Looks like my apartment, too. Except it's cleaner. And there's no toys or DVDs.
OK, it's not really like my apartment. Great old trailer
RICHARD KIEL!!!!!!!!!
Ladies and gentlemen, we have Richard Kiel. All is good.
11:59 pm
HORROR HOUSE trailer. Another one I haven't seen in a dog's age.
"An orgy of horror makes maddening music on your nerve strings..." Great wording. A+ for the trailer just on that.
12:01 am
It's a new day already. And now...HORROR HOTEL trailer. I love this flick.
I first saw it when I was all of maybe 5, and it scared the fuck out of me. Then again, it's not so hard to scare the fuck out of a 5 year-old.
Awesome.
12:03 am
THE SHINING trailer. So different from the joke one online recently. But a great, effective teaser...that tells you NOTHING about the film. You'd think the movie was about purple aluminum foil if you saw nothing but the original teaser.
12:04 am
MOTEL HELL trailer. Didn't even need to see 10 seconds of it to know.
Man, I watch too many movies.
12:04 am
Yeah, that was a short one. Now, teh trailerage for MASTER OF HORROR. Gotta love bad dubbing.
12:06 am
Why am I putting the time to EVERY trailer? What's my fucking problem? I dunno, but I'm still awake. Lovin' the goofy refreshment stand promo.
Trailer for a horror triple feature
THE VAMPIRE
THE RETURN OF DRACULA
THE MONSTER THAT CHALLENGED THE WORLD
Booya. They should have booked that. It would have curled my toes up backwards, like when Nordling licks my nipples.
12:08 am
Feature time. Back in a few.
1:40 am
BLACK SABBATH is over. It was the international cut, a pretty good print, too. The color was gorgeous. There was some dirt on the print, but only towards the beginning.
Since it was subbed, people immediately turned against it. Because, of course, everything is better in English. Boy, when THREE EXTREMES comes on, they're gonna go nuts.
Thankfully, by the end, they realized that there WAS some humor to be had in the movie, since Bava himself was more of a clown than a deranged maniac. His three tales might have been morbid, but they weren't without a wink to the audience.
Bava was a master of color and mood, and BLACK SABBATH has that in spades. I'd never seen it in Italian, so it was a treat for me. And, judging by the thunderous applause at the end, it became one for the rest of the attendees.
The three short stories in it cover the gamut from crime/revenge stories to supernatural horror to Edgar Allen Poe-ish psychological terror. Bava grabs each genre and makes it his own, all in his own unique style.
Though occasionally it shows that Bava shot the vast majority of his stuff in the studio, it fits with his philosophy that he was aping dreams. Realism was never his aim. He was more into creating fantasy. And goody on him for that.
There's gonna be a toast before THE SHINING. Gotta get some kinda beverage for that. My guess is it's some form of ginger ale or some nonsense.
I'm bound and determined. I will make it through this night, dammit.

My friend Scott couldn't make it -- he came down with bronchitis at the last moment, and I'm sure he'll regret not seeing BLACK SABBATH. However, my buddy DDP and his son Gio (and Gio's buddies Nick, Bill and Justin -- who shall hereafter be named the Peanut Gallery) are keeping me company.
When you're a geek, you're never alone.
Oh, and a request from the peanut gallery...

"Pronto?"

Had to say it.
If you don't get it, fuck you.

1:53 am
ZA. And I've liberated it from Gio. I am teh asshole.
Mowing down on thin-crust pepperoni. Yum.
Costume Contest time. Bruce is up telling us there's Tartan Video samplers for all of us (whee, we're lucky and shit).
A little thank you to the folks who decorated and volunteered and whatnot...
And Joe warns everyone that LEGEND OF THE WOLF WOMAN is frickin' awesome and shite. Duh.
Heh. More prizes than entrants. Someone read my stinging criticism of the last contest at the Sci Fi Marathon...
IF YOU DON'T DRESS UP, DON'T ENTER THE CONTEST, FUCKER.

And the prize is...FOGHAT. Oh, shit. They're just hats from THE FOG.
Um...the 3 entrants...kinda suck.
Well, that's not true. They totally suck.
Totally, totally suck. But, they DID dress up.
The wanna-be Corpse Bride whose costume looks nothing like the Corpse Bride's needs to shut the fuck up. You know who you are. Shut the fuck up already.

FOGHAT.
Had to say that, to.
FOGHAT.

Well, shit. It seems that Kevin S O'Brien (director of NIGHT OF THE LIVING BREAD, if'n you've got the Millenium Edition NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD dvd) is back in Australia. We miss you already, Kev.

2:09 am
Back to trailerage.
THE RAGE: CARRIE 2. Yawn.
THINNER. Bad trailer, halfway decent movie. Sorta. Kinda.
THE MANGLER. Baaaaaaaaaaaad movie. I tried watching the sequel once, but I don't remember it at all.
THE DARK HALF. Great book. So-so movie. Not that I didn't appreciate Timothy Hutton's take on George Stark (I did! Really, I did! Don't hurt me, Mr Hutton!). George Romero's just been better. No, I'm not talking about MONKEY SHINES, fuckstick.
THE LAWNMOWER MAN...A movie that did not hold up. At. All. And it begat LAWNMOWER MAN 2: JOBE'S WAR. Which sucketh like the wind.
MISERY. Greaaaaaaaaaaaat performances, both from Cathy Bates and James Caan.
GRAVEYARD SHIFT trailer. Damn, there were a ton of terrible movies based on King stories. Doesn't make me love him any less.
PET SEMETARY trailer.
"Now I wanna play with yooooooooooou." That kid still creeps me the fuck out.
THE RUNNING MAN. Ahnuld. The Oak. One-liners a-poppin. Booya.
Red band trailer for CREEPSHOW 2. Awresome.
MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE trailer!!! "Honeybuns, the bank machine just called me an asshooooole." Shitty movie. Shitty, shitty movie. That I love so dearly. Speak ill of MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE and knuckle sammich is on the menu.
SILVER BULLET trailer. Corey Haim before the coke habit. Then again, he was like 10.
CAT'S EYE. Another fun one. Love the "Quitter's Inc." segment.
FIRESTARTER trailer. I know all you Drew Barrymore fans love the shit out of this. I don't. Nyah.
CHILDREN OF THE CORN trailer. I actually knew someone named Malachai, years ago. He was a fucking psychopath, too.
CHRISTINE trailer. A fun collaboration between the visions of King and Carpenter.
THE DEAD ZONE trailer. Greatness. WALKEN FOR PRESIDENT.
Trailer for CUJO. The book was sooooo much better.
What's Dee Wallace doing now?
CASTLEBURY'S BARBECUE commercial! MEAT! DEAD MEAT!
DEAD, DISGUSTING LOOKING MEAT!
How appropos.
CREEPSHOW trailer! Booyakasha. Meteor shit! Adrienne Barbeau!
Confession time. Cockroaches give me the willies. And the cockroach segment in CREEPSHOW gave me nightmares for MONTHS.
and now...THE SHINING trailer backwards and upside down. Fun time!!!
CARRIE trailer. Dirty pillows!
DIRTY PILLOWS!
DIIIIIIRTY PILLOOOOOOOOWS!!!
I just like that phrase. Shut up.
2:48 am
SHINING Time!
5:20 am
I just showed the faux SHINING trailer for the staff and a few of the folks here who haven't seen it. They loved the living daylights out of it.
I tried to sleep. REALLY. I did. Not that I don't adore THE SHINING, which I do. But, I've seen it a hundred hundred times.
Strangely, either I'm too gawdawful tired to sleep, or THE SHINING kept me awake. There's still jolts in the movie, and like I said -- I've seen it hundreds of times. It's just that damn good. The feeling of dread and isolation is so effective, and everything is so motherfucking creepy that I'll probably still have nightmares about little girls in hallways.
Damn you, Stanley Kubrick. You knew which buttons to push far too well.
Oh, Scream Contest. I'm glad to not be in there, heckling. Especially because I'm louder than all the entrants. That's so wrong. But, I'm loud.
Besides, they've had an ear piercer or two the last few years. Nothing like ringing in your ears whilst you're trying to watch a movie. Seriously, they hit frequencies that would make a dog's ears bleed.
I'm gonna take a break during THREE EXTREMES, methinks.
No sleep, but I'll let the laptop recharge. After that, I'll be good to make it through the rest of this mess. Just need to get to the outlet, which is currently blocked by the line for the lil' girls room.
I haven't been NEARLY as grumpy as usual. But, I haven't had someone crushing my knees. The people in front of me hit 'em once or twice, but only by accident. It's a kindler, gentler marathon for apparently a kinder, gentler, more absofuckinglutely exhausted me.

I can still watch out in the lobby, anyway. Annnnnd...I get the option of watching it BACKWARDS...which has its own appeal, especially this late at night/early in the morning. Which is what I'm gonna do.
Trailers for THE KEEP, FREEZE ME, COUNT DRACULA AND HIS BRIDES, AUDITION, THE DEVIL'S BRIDE, WAXWORK, DUNWICH HORROR.
6:03 am
THREE: EXTREMES starts with "Dumplings", which is, oddly, the second short on the HK disc. Well done subs.
I'm pleased. In spite of the fact that I've now discovered that I'm sitting in a puddle of popcorn butter. My butt is sticky. Yes, it' was popcorn butter and not jizz. Shut up.
"Dumplings" is the sickest of the three shorts that make up THREE: EXTREMES, and the one thing I've seen this year that just made me go "eeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwww." Other than that, I'm not gonna say any more. It's best left a surprise. Besides, you find out early enough in the short. And let me reiterate...DAMN.
Nervous laughter from the audience. They're enjoying it, methinks.
I'm far more awake than I was in THE SHINING, and I'm guessing a bit of stretching is to blame. Not to say that I'm not feeling right in the head at all...I'm not. I've been up for 25 hours already, and been from one end of town to the other.

To divert a bit from the movie, let me say I'm sad to see the Studio 35 crew decided against a competing horror marathon this year. Especially since BOTH of them sold out last year. Not that I'd show up there, since this is the place to be, but I'm an elitist prick.

Evil random thought. It would have been cool as hell if they had a bunch of Chinese dumplings catered to the marathon. And then showed THREE: EXTREMES.
Yummy.

Random evil thought redux. Barnes and Barnes should do a song about dumplings. Yessir.

Big round of applause for Dumplings. We have a winner.
Hmmmm. "Cut" is next on the US print. Which is odd, because it made such a good finisher on the HK DVD.
Chan Wook Park has shown an affinity for the nastiness that man commits on his fellow man, what with the VENGEANCE (SYMPATHY FOR MR VENGEANCE, OLDBOY and SYMPATHY FOR LADY VENGEANCE) series and JOINT SECURITY AREA. This is one of the most mean-spirited things in his catalog.
A man kidnaps a film director's pianist wife and threatens to cut her fingers off if the director doesn't kill a little girl. Why?
Well, you sorta find out it's because the director has a reputation for being a nice guy, and the kidnapper hates him anyway. But there's twists, turns and more evil lurking behind his maniacal grin. By the end of it, you fall into the trap too.
When I first saw THREE: EXTREMES, I really wanted to hate this one. It seemed so pointless until the end. And when all the pieces fell together, I had to admit it -- the man totally fucked with my head. Chan Wook Park pretty much amazed me with each of his films, and this short is no exception.
I'm very pleased with how people are receiving these. After the beginnings of the reaction to BLACK SABBATH...and how poorly GOZU did...I was worried.
Have I mentioned that this print is just so damn pristine I curse myself for wearing glasses? It looks way better than my DVD. Crisp, crisp, crisp.

6:58 am
My ass is sore. That is all.
Did some strecthing in the lobby, which I'm sure looked hella ridiculous. But, fuck it. I look hella ridiculous already. I'm willing to sacrifice a little bit of my immense ego for comfort.
The one problem with the Drexel Grandview is the comfort level. There's a reason why I loooooove the Arena Grand. Big, comfy seats. That aren't falling apart.
Maybe my ass has become fragile in my old age. Maybe I'm just a crotchety, nitpicking fuck. I. Don't. Care. I wanna be comfy.
The fun thing about me taking a break and hanging out in the lobby is I get to see the camaraderie between the poor souls who've sacrificed their day to keep the marathon running. It's SEVEN IN THE FUCKING MORNING, and some of these folks have been going since around noon yesterday. Now, I might have been awake since then, but I haven't been "working" the whole time.
I really have to give it up to the staff here. They go the extra mile, hell, they go the extra seven miles. And, with one exception, there hasn't been a single solitary projection problem so far. Marathons are normally not this smooth (in spite of the extra wait to get in, since they couldn't cancel a showing of SEPARATE LIES due to contractual obligations [and probably also because Tom Wilkinson rules]).

Token fanboy bitch, since I'm watching a Chan Wook Park short...
GIVE UP TRYING TO REMAKE OLDBOY. COCKSUCKERS.
Had to be done. Had to be said.
Oh, and in case this gets published on AICN, just for old times' sake...FUCK FIRST POSTERS. FUCK THEM UP THEIR STUPID ASSES.

I haven't watched THREE: EXTREMES in a while, and I forgot just how evil and devious "Cut" is. Evil. Evil. Evil. Evil. EVIL. God DAMN, what a mindfuck.
Manomanoman, I'm jazzed about the rest of this marathon. Even DEMONS, which isn't technically all that good, but it's hella fun. If my body and brain holds out...

The segment "Box" is the finale of the US cut, most likely because Miike is the best-known of the three directors. It makes a better opener, in my opinion, because the surreality and open-endedness of the story don't leave you with any closure (which "Cut" does in spades). But, it's not my fucking choice, is it???
"Box" seems partially very mainstream and accessible. But it's also Takashi Miike, which means that the words mainstream and accessible mean jack and shit. Just when you think you have a normal, haunting tale, it ventures to Weirdo Land and you get dragged along.
Contortionists weird me out, man. Other than that, I got no problems at all with this almost serene take on a ghost story. Fucking brilliant.

I haven't had a lot to bitch about tonight. That's great. But, without that anger to sustain me, I don't know how long I am going to remain awake.
I am supposed to be a primal kettle of rage. That's part of my wholesome American charm.

8:41 am
Spoke too soon about the lack of problems. The film broke. Damnation.
Fixed in a minute. We're back and moving...
9:48 am
THE BROOD is the over. A bit over the top for this crowd after "Dumplings", but...FUCK IT.
Cronenberg's been a favorite of mine since I first saw VIDEODROME as a stupid and impressionable kid.
It's one of the more overt psychosexual drama's he's done, but that doesn't lessen it. Oliver Reed is excellent (as always). Someone needs to clone Oliver Reed. Now. Samantha Egger overacts like Shatner. Don't clone her. (But Shatner's OK to clone) And evil children always fuck me up. I hate evil kids. Except that Macauley Culkin. He's just so durn adorable (but uncloneworthy).

10:02 am
Bruce and Joe are plugging all the upcoming fun, like a special edition to LOST SKELETON OF CADAVERA (which I can't really recommend), the Wexner showing of VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED and WITCHFINDER GENERAL (again) etc.
We're almost into LEGEND OF THE WOLF WOMAN. Almost.
GHOST OF DRAGSTRIP HOLLOW trailer...without sound (oops)...
We're gonna be out of here around 1 or 2 or so...
Which means, I'll have been up for this for 31 hours. Yes, I'm truly an idiot. And proud of it.
We have SOUND. And "She prefers hot rods to hot romances". The bitch.
"Anyone wanna kiss a duck?"
Perhaps I'm not up on my 50s lingo. WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT MEAN? Kiss a duck? Huh? I mean, what the fuck?
Is it quite as filthy as I think it is? I certainly hope so.
THE BEAT MUST DIE trailer. A movie I was pretty much obsessed with as a child, because of the "Werewolf Break". I was easily impressed with gimmicks, I guess.
THE BOY WHO CRIED WEREWOLF trailer. Awesome.
Aaaaaaaaaand, the film breaks again. Apparently, the fatigue is setting in. Shit, I could have told you that last fucking night. Me? I'm bushed.
Every time the lights go down, I feel it. God dammit.
Maybe that's why I'm not pissed at everyone else this year...because I'm so pissed at myself. But, like the Sci Fi Marathon earlier this year, this marathon has, programming-wise, been excellent.

I COULD have handled a 24 hour marathon (I still haven't slept yet), but I guess the 14 hour length makes it easier to fit it in amidst the regular schedule of an operating movie theater. It's too bad, though. The 24 hour ones bring out more insanity.
SMITHFIELD'S BARBECUE commercial...MORE GROSS MEAT!
A trailer for WEREWOLVES ON WHEELS, which I've still yet to see...and...
LEGEND OF THE WOLF WOMAN!!!!
Now, to drink Red Bull #2.
11:31 am
Dude, that was fucking hilarious. Allegedly, of course, a true story. And just whacked out. So crazy and exploitative, it couldn't make up its mind what it was. Was it soft porn? A revenge pic? A horror movie? Who cares???
It starts off with a nekkid chick doing some modern dance, except it's the 1700s or something. Then she turns into this weresheep with like nine inch long spiked nipples (but I think she's supposed to be a werewolf) and kills some dude) then she wakes up and it's the 70s and she's at some Itallian villa with her father (the Italian Ernest Borgnine) and her sister comes to visit and...ah, fuck it. The story doesn't matter.
There's lots of nudity. And bad dubbing.
I'm in heaven. Now, if I can make it through ONE MORE MOVIE, I'm done. Yes!!! Done... Blessed sleep, here I come.
11:41 am
GOD TOLD ME TO trailer. Larry Cohen is your god. And GOD TELLS YOU TO UM...ah, fuck it, I got nothing.
TALES FROM THE CRYPT PRESENTS: DEMON KNIGHT trailer. Which I adore. What a cast. Billy Zane, William Sadler, Jada Pinkett, CCH Pounder, Dick Miller, etc etc... Lurve that movie...
Trailer for DEMONOID. Shitty movie. Great trailer.
DEMONS 2 trailer. Could it be that our final film is upon us??? Nope.
Trailer for NOSTRADAMUS. Which I've not seen. Not that I'm in a hurry. Hell, it's the same guy who directed BATTLEFIELD: EARTH.
POPCORN trailer. It tried to be a classic. Didn't necessarily succeed, but it's watchable. Jill Schloen had a good, though short, run as a scream queen. Whatever happened to her, anyway? Probably selling real estate or doing dinner theater.
DEMONS finally rolls, and for the first time all damn night, I'm not struggling to stay awake.
If DEMONS is a classic, it's only in the most minor of senses.
People get tix to a screening at some arty Euro-theater and start turning into demons (hence the title). It doesn't take a brain cell to watch. In fact it's better without them.
It would have been a great print if the soundtrack weren't all fubar. It sounds like someone's frying an egg all the way through it.
1:20 pm
We shuffle out quickly just as the last movie is ending. Dave has to get the Peanut Gallery home before 12:30 pm...which is already past. Oopsie.
On the way out, we stop for some swag -- posters for THE FOG, ZATHURA, DOOM, SKELETON KEY and LAND OF THE DEAD, Pokemon cards (that go wholly untouched...go figure) and those Tartan Asia Extreme sampler DVDs.
Tired. Have to work. Going the hell home afterwards, dammit.
Been a good ride. Now I just need to get some damn shuteye.
5:35 pm
Home. FINALLY. Tired, but I don't wanna sleep yet. Gonna try and return to a normal sleep cycle in a day. Yeah, right. Like that's gonna happen...

***Note: I was asleep less than ten minutes after I typed that last line. For sixteen hours.***

Check THIS Out...
The iTunes Store just keeps getting cooler...

Adam's Serenity Review!
Joss Whedon was long one of TV's most effective and talented writers. And no, I'm not talking about Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Angel or Firefly. I'm talking about his days as a writer for hire in sitcom hell on shows like Roseanne or Grace Under Fire.
Whedon showed his skill even past the colossal egos and substance abuse problems of those shows' stars. He further refined his craft working on movie scripts in Hollywood. And yes, before you mention it, I liked Alien: Resurrection. The hybrid monster may have been hokey, but the movie showed a deft hand at characterization and cleverly handled the link between Ripley and the alien in a way that expanded the franchise's mythology rather than destroyed it like the subsequent mindless crossover. He also wrote Toy Story, which is beloved enough to perhaps reach that elusive status of classic in time.
His TV work after his struggles in the movie industry established a worldwide fanbase that literally will go to the ends of the earth for him. Witness the campaigns to save both Buffy and Angel from cancellation's axe. The brisk sales of his shows' DVDs might also hint that people seem to connect with his material.
Whedon also wows me monthly in the pages of Astonishing X-Men. But, I'm a comic geek and love that the man's writing the best X-book since Claremont in the early 80s. Yes, it's even better than Grant Morrison's take on the team in New X-Men, though the plot's not nearly as intricate.
Which brings me to his current opus, the film Serenity (based on his late, lamented FOX series Firefly). It's perhaps his most "writerly" work. And perhaps also his best.
Firefly was easily his best TV show. Things just clicked perfectly. Not that FOX noticed. Instead of giving the best quality show they had a chance, they gave it an unceremonious heave-ho (much like other quality shows like The Family Guy, Wonderfalls, etc.). Time and time again, FOX cancels quality fare in favor of crap. Makes you wonder how in the world they survive, doesn't it? (HINT: the competition is even worse...)
The premise of Firefly was deceptively simple. It's a Western in space (much like Star Trek, Battle Beyond the Stars, Space Rangers, etc.). There were layers to each characters relationships with each other...and with their ship, Serenity. Each had a reason for being there, and those reason were what kept the stories meaningful. In the short span of the series, EVERYTHING that happened mattered. There were no random episodes. No freak fo the week monsters to fight. The whole thing interlocked on the basis of the relationships between the characters and the history of the galaxy in which they found themselves.
Serenity encapsulates the history very quickly in the simplest way possible...a history lesson. The Alliance, the civilized core worlds of the human territories (Sorry folks, no space aliens...mankind hasn't reached out into the blackness far enough to find them yet.), set to enforcing their will on the outlying Independent worlds. The Independents lost. Badly.
Shades of the Civil War? Well, yes...and no. The structure of both wars is similar, however the Alliance has more in common with the government of Today than any of history. The Alliance is fascistic and secretive, controlled by a shadowy Parliment who maintain control though military might and covert programs like the one which spawned River Tam (Summer Glau), the mystery girl from the series.
River was experimented on and turned into a psychic assassin by the Alliance. She was the program's greatest success. And greatest failure. She was their most powerful psychic and most talented killer. However, she was also rendered insane by their programming techniques, causing her to lapse into catatonia or psychosis more often than she could remain lucid.
Rescued by her brother Simon (Sean Maher), a brilliant doctor who squandered his family's entire fortune to find and liberate her, the two ended up on Serenity with no aim except to escape the clutches of the Alliance.
The Serenity's captain, Malcom "Mal" Reynolds (Nathan Fillion) kept them aboard for personal reasons more than anything else. The doc, much as he was skilled at patching up the crew's frequent injuries, never integrated into the familial unit that the rest of the crew comprised. And River served no function except as an occasional threat to their well-being when an Alliance bounty hunter or Operative caught up with them.
She's much more of a threat to them in the feature film. And the Operative who finds them this time is far and above the worst that the Alliance has to throw at them. He's a believer, to use the parlance of the crew. He believes that no matter how heinous the actions he perpetrates in the name of the Alliance, it's all worth it to make a better world. Oddly, he knows it's a world he could never live in, since he is himself an aberration and a monster.
He's sent after River Tam because the lab where she was created trotted VIPs through to show off their successes and to justify their covert funding. VIPs whose secrets might have been gleaned by the unstable psychic they were shown. The Operative doesn't know she actually knows any secrets. But the possibility that she might marks her for death as surely as the certainty.
Chiwetel Ejiofor portrays the operative as every bit of the complex individual that he could be. He's lucid, rational and intelligent. He never seems to anger or act out of violent rage. He's not the picture of the monstrous that Hollywood normally trots out. In fact, in a different movie, a man of his questionable methods and ethics could easily be painted as heroic (like James Bond or any of the myriad characters portrayed by Arnold Scharzenegger).
Meanwhile, our heroes are a much more motley band. The aformentioned Mal (a man scarred by the horrors of war, loyal to his friends but lost in a sea of his own beliefs), the Doc and River; but also Zoe ([Gina Torres] the first mate and the only other survivor of the massacre that named Mal's ship in Serenity Valley), Wash ([Alan Tudyk] Zoe's husband and the Serenity's amazing pilot), Jayne ([Adam Baldwin] the tough, dumb and mutinous cuss who lends muscle when needed) and Kaylee ([Jewel Staite] the cute, spunky and desperately horny mechanic).
Two members of the Serenity's crew are missing: Inara (Morena Baccarin), a "companion" (think of her as a prostitute/counsellor/diplomat) who had a private berth in one of Serenity's shuttles, and Book (Ron Glass), a "Shepherd" (mostly like a roaming priest) who had booked passage on Serenity and grown into one of the more valued members of their family. Before you think they're forgotten and cast aside, Whedon doesn't forget things like that. He's a continuity whore. The great thing about his television shows was that things could pay off from a random episode YEARS down the road. Both characters show up in short order. And both have very important things to do.
The previously mentioned robbery is the first job that Mal has thought to bring River along on (against Simon's objections). And it's a good thing that he did, because while they're in the vault, the settlement is attacked by Reavers. River's psychic senses warn them of the attack, so the crew is able to escape -- and warn the hapless employees of the place they're robbing to lock themselves in the vault (and thus ensuring their survival). Reavers are men reduced to worse than savagery. They're raiders who rape and eat their conquests (sometimes concurrently), lash corpses to the exterior of their spacecraft as trophies and generally aren't pleasant folk to be around. Legend has it that Reavers are men who travelled to the edge of known space and, when confronted with the infinite blackness before them, went mad. Legend is wrong.

You know, I could tell you the entire plot to the movie at this point (In fact, I had about another eight pages of stuff detailing plot points and not even getting to the real meat of things). But I'm not gonna. Because you really should see it. Really. You don't have to have seen an episode of the show to appreciate the movie -- in fact, some of the fans of the show might be plum pissed off by certain events in the movie.
The writing isn't the only thing showcased by Serenity. Nathan Fillion shows he has the chops to be an honest-to-goodness movie star, should Hollywood so choose to deem him one. Ron Glass is a touch of class, and he's the spiritual heart of not just the crew, but the movie. Morena Baccarin is just unbelievably gorgeous and apparently can do much, much more than just look stunning in costume (Did Joss give her action scenes to set her up for Wonder Woman? If so, can't wait to see her in the red, white and blue...yum!). Jewel Staite is wonderful. Alan Tuydyk is great -- as usual. Gina Torres (who'd make an even BETTER Wonder Woman if only the character were black -- do you think Hollywood could just this once turn a colorblind eye to casting?) is the picture of strength and humanity that Zoe needs to be. And damn...Summer Glau gets some of the best scenes imaginable. Hell, she gets damn near all the hero moments...and the best Wolverine moment outside of an X-Men comic book that may ever be (and that includes in the X-Men movies). And finally, Sean Maher gets a bit of room to stretch his acting muscles. But only a little bit. He's always been the most underused of the actors in the ensemble, but maybe that looks to change.
The ensemble might have been put together for TV, but they're more than up to the challenges of a motion picture. As was the writer/director. Joss Whedon's been itching to get back into the movie biz for some time now (the travails of his shows at the hands of the various networks have soured him to the medium...and he's always wanted to be more of a film director anyway). And he does it with a vengeance. The movie is confident, smart and expertly constructed. All hallmarks of a Joss Whedon TV show. Now, hopefully, we can look forward to more of his work on the big screen. Me personally? I can't wait for another chapter of the adventures of the crew of Serenity. The Little Show That Could became the movie that kicked my ass nine ways to Sunday.

Thank the Mighty Dog and Bog for Bush-isms!

Please enjoy some of these, my favorite Bushisms!

Just Too Damn Funny
$cienTOMogy
Thanks so much to thecongressman for the heads up

Why We Fight.... The "War in Iraq" and Other Matters- Per a Rant

Good day to you fellows that may be reading this post. I hope that so far I have not angered anyone too much. Adam did give me permission to post whatever I like but I hope I am not abusing that privilege. If anyone would like to send me a private scolding or whatnot, my email is baristaCMH@Gmail.com. I welcome input of all types.... Now, the rest of the blog....

Last night I sat watching the final episodes of Band of Brothers, that HBO mini series that follows the exploits and trials of Easy Company of the 101st Airborne during the final years of WWII. I was mortified. I thoroughly enjoy Band of Brothers for I rarely see movies that touch on such real aspects of war. To the point: As horrible as that war was, I see the point and the reason we were there, why so many sons and daughters, mothers and fathers died across the ocean. I get that. Mass genocide is a good reason to go to war. Now let us go to Iraq, today.... Yes yes.... You will tell me that Saddam was murdering the Curds in the North, genocide you say.... That was years ago and we did nothing. The powers that be sat by and watched the Curds being eliminated. Turkey did nothing to help even though, 1) Turkey is Iraq's Northern neighbor and 2) a substantial percentage of Turkey's populace is Kurdish. Even Turkey sat back and watched! Out of no where Bush decides that Saddam is a bad influence on the lives of the Kurdish and on the Iraqi nation. What gives? WWII was a true coalition. In the words of one of my favorite childhood TV shows, "... cooperation makes it happen...." So true. WWII was the cooperation of multiple nations working towards a common goal, one that was near noble in cause. Iraq I see as quite another matter.

We, we being the United States government, went to the United Nations Security Council to request a declaration of war on Iraq. I believe, and someone please confirm or deny this, but we were refused on the basis of lack of evidence. (I think everyone knows that hard as we tried to will the existence of weapons into being in Iraq, it just did not work). So that left Bush with his pants down around his ankles in front of the world. What to do? What to do?

People die in war. Many people die in war. According to Mr. Bush (I refuse to call him Pres. I didn't vote for him) the war is over. It has been 'over' or 'mission accomplished' since 5/1/03. TWO YEARS AGO!!!

There are two numbers to the right of each heading. These numbers are the number of American casualties since __________.
The first number is total, the second is in combat.

Since war began (3/19/03): 1907 1520
Since "Mission Accomplished" (5/1/03) (the list)
1770 1412
Since Capture of Saddam (12/13/03): 1440 1216
Since Handover (6/29/04): 1041 887
Since Election (1/31/05): 475 414

Nearly 2000 Americans have died since the war ended and that is just Americans. It is extremely hard to find reports of native casualties. FOX news seems to not be very concerned with the numbers on their side of things. Haven't enough people died for our dictator's whims? When do we call a stop to all of this madness following 9/11. It was a horrible day in our lives, an attack on our soil. But it has happened and though I say we must never forget, neither must we live our lives like it happens every day since. How many bills and executive orders and the like have ridden through on the coat tails of '9/11'.

Once on Conan O'Brien he was doing his TV face thing where just the lips of the picture move. Bush was one of the faces this night that I was watching. Conan asked Bush a question pertaining to his inaction in regards to the Kyoto Clean Air Act. Bush replied," Let me tell you, Conan, it all comes down to 9/11." I know it was a joke but it hit entirely too close to home. Everything Bush does, he links to 9/11. He manages to get what he wants by driving the memory of that day deep into our hearts so as to scare his policy through.

Welcome to America, the Land of the Free, the Home of the Brave. Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free..... So we can lock them in a cell under the Patriot Act and deny them representation according to the law, so we can racially profile their asses, so we can pretend that everyone is equal unless you do not make very much money or own half of Texas, or a chance to prove that THEY HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS FUCKING WAR!!!

I have more rants pertaining to these delicate issues. Please send me a mail and let me know how my first RANT went.

Thank you,
Kevin

The NEW Kickstand CD is here!
Another Taste 4 1/2" finished version

So I found this article when purusing the net. I found another interesting one at CNN which led me to this one. I make no statement one way or another. I just thought that everyone might like to check this out: I had no idea there were rallies like this one out there. Guess FOX just doesn't have the coverage it used to.... Here is the link to CNN's version.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/americas/09/16/chavez.ap/index.html



"Published on Tuesday, August 9, 2005 by the Australian Associated Press
Venezuela Warns Against US Invasion

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has told thousands of visiting students that if US forces are to invade his South American country, they will be soundly defeated.

The US government has strongly denied Chavez's claims that it is considering military action against Cuba's closest ally in the Americas.

But Chavez said the US government, which "won't stop caressing the idea of invading Cuba or invading Venezuela," should be warned of the consequences.

"If some day they get the crazy idea of coming to invade us, we'll make them bite the dust defending the freedom of our land," Chavez said to applause.

He spoke during the opening ceremony of a world youth festival bringing together student delegations from across the world and convened under the slogan "Against Imperialism and War."

Chavez called the United States the "most savage, cruel and murderous empire that has existed in the history of the world."

The Venezuelan leader said "socialism is the only path," and told the students the collective goal is to "save a world threatened by the voracity of US imperialism."

Earlier, the students waved flags, danced in traditional dress, and held signs praising socialism, Cuban leader Fidel Castro and Ernesto "Che" Guevara.

More than 300 students from the United States shouted out their disapproval of US President George W Bush, chanting "Get out Bush!" Other students chanted: "Bush, fascist - you're a terrorist!"

Some 15,000 youths from 144 countries traveled to Venezuela for the week-long festival and conference, organizers said.

Chavez wore a red shirt like many of the students, and embraced delegation leaders as their groups marched past.

The ceremony was held in Venezuela's military headquarters in Caracas. Troops looked on while students passed carrying colored flags and shouting: "We will overcome!"

This year's World Festival of Students and Youth is the 16th. The first, in 1947, was held in Czechoslovakia, and during the Cold War most host countries were aligned with the Soviet bloc.

Apart from the former Soviet Union, other host countries have included Romania, Poland, Finland, Cuba, the former East Germany and North Korea.

The week-long gathering will include musical performances, panel discussions and an "Anti-imperialist Court," which in past years has condemned the US government's actions.

While tensions have grown between Chavez and Washington, the Venezuelan leader has built close ties with countries from Iran to China.

Chavez expressed his support for Iran's new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, saying he expected to continue strengthening relations.

He said that like Venezuela, Iran was a country that had been "attacked" for many years by "the hand of imperialism."

Chavez, whose country remains a major supplier of oil to the United States, also is sharply critical of the US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq."

Objectionable Content
Yay.
I just noticed today that the Blogger Bar (that ubiquitous little bar at the top of the page with Blogger logo and the search bar) has a button to flag "objectionable content" and notify the service that you're a naughy bird and need your mouth washed out with soap.
Yay!
Yay, freedom of speech!
oopsie!
Yay, censorship!
Something rankles me about that button. Something is amiss in this wonderful online utopia. It's the spectre of the greatest of intellectual evils. Yessir, I'm talkin' 'bout CENSORSHIP.
I'm sure the folks at Blogger have wonderful reasons for wanting to protect their readers from naughty words and harsh language. Since, of course, it's language that's running this country straight into the shithouse.
Oh, fuck. I said shithouse.
Oh, fuck. I said fuck.
I guess I'm in trouble.
What's the matter with a word, anyway? How did it get this mythic power? How did a word become more powerful than, say, the President? How is it that the leader of the free world cannot defend us from the word FUCK???
I know that Michael Powell has been doing his damnedest to protect us from bare flesh and inflammatory language, but he's only one man. And the FCC are woefully understaffed for the task of washing out the mouths of everyone in America who thinks as dirty as I do.
I've searched around rather futilely, looking for some kind of statement or rule set about what constitutes objectionable language, and of course, find none.
Well, fuck that.
They can come get me after they burn the Bill of Rights.

Another Letter

So, I was mailed this from a certain someone that seems to have the ability to say what I find myself lacking in constitution to say. I intend no offense by posting this, but I feel it has a few relevant points. Enjoy, or don't.

K

"To All My Fellow Americans Who Voted for George W. Bush:

On this, the fourth anniversary of 9/11, I'm just curious, how does it feel?

How does it feel to know that the man you elected to lead us after we were attacked went ahead and put a guy in charge of FEMA whose main qualification was that he ran horse shows?

That's right. Horse shows.

I really want to know -- and I ask you this in all sincerity and with all due respect -- how do you feel about the utter contempt Mr. Bush has shown for your safety? C'mon, give me just a moment of honesty. Don't start ranting on about how this disaster in New Orleans was the fault of one of the poorest cities in America. Put aside your hatred of Democrats and liberals and anyone with the last name of Clinton. Just look me in the eye and tell me our President did the right thing after 9/11 by naming a horse show runner as the top man to protect us in case of an emergency or catastrophe.

I want you to put aside your self-affixed label of Republican/conservative/born-again/capitalist/ditto-head/right-winger and just talk to me as an American, on the common ground we both call America.

Are we safer now than before 9/11? When you learn that behind the horse show runner, the #2 and #3 men in charge of emergency preparedness have zero experience in emergency preparedness, do you think we are safer?

When you look at Michael Chertoff, the head of Homeland Security, a man with little experience in national security, do you feel secure?

When men who never served in the military and have never seen young men die in battle send our young people off to war, do you think they know how to conduct a war? Do they know what it means to have your legs blown off for a threat that was never there?

Do you really believe that turning over important government services to private corporations has resulted in better services for the people?

Why do you hate our federal government so much? You have voted for politicians for the past 25 years whose main goal has been to de-fund the federal government. Do you think that cutting federal programs like FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers has been good or bad for America? GOOD OR BAD?

With the nation's debt at an all-time high, do you think tax cuts for the rich are still a good idea? Will you give yours back so hundreds of thousands of homeless in New Orleans can have a home?

Do you believe in Jesus? Really? Didn't he say that we would be judged by how we treat the least among us? Hurricane Katrina came in and blew off the facade that we were a nation with liberty and justice for all. The wind howled and the water rose and what was revealed was that the poor in America shall be left to suffer and die while the President of the United States fiddles and tells them to eat cake.

That's not a joke. The day the hurricane hit and the levees broke, Mr. Bush, John McCain and their rich pals were stuffing themselves with cake. A full day after the levees broke (the same levees whose repair funding he had cut), Mr. Bush was playing a guitar some country singer gave him. All this while New Orleans sank under water.

It would take ANOTHER day before the President would do a flyover in his jumbo jet, peeking out the widow at the misery 2500 feet below him as he flew back to his second home in DC. It would then be TWO MORE DAYS before a trickle of federal aid and troops would arrive. This was no seven minutes in a sitting trance while children read "My Pet Goat" to him. This was FOUR DAYS of doing nothing other than saying "Brownie (FEMA director Michael Brown), you're doing a heck of a job!"

My Republican friends, does it bother you that we are the laughing stock of the world?

And on this sacred day of remembrance, do you think we honor or shame those who died on 9/11/01? If we learned nothing and find ourselves today every bit as vulnerable and unprepared as we were on that bright sunny morning, then did the 3,000 die in vain?

Our vulnerability is not just about dealing with terrorists or natural disasters. We are vulnerable and unsafe because we allow one in eight Americans to live in horrible poverty. We accept an education system where one in six children never graduate and most of those who do can't string a coherent sentence together. The middle class can't pay the mortgage or the hospital bills and 45 million have no health coverage whatsoever.

Are we safe? Do you really feel safe? You can only move so far out and build so many gated communities before the fruit of what you've sown will be crashing through your walls and demanding retribution. Do you really want to wait until that happens? Or is it your hope that if they are left alone long enough to soil themselves and shoot themselves and drown in the filth that fills the street that maybe the problem will somehow go away?

I know you know better. You gave the country and the world a man who wasn't up for the job and all he does is hire people who aren't up for the job. You did this to us, to the world, to the people of New Orleans. Please fix it. Bush is yours. And you know, for our peace and safety and security, this has to be fixed. What do you propose?

I have an idea, and it isn't a horse show.

Yours,
Michael Moore"

An Open Letter From Michael Moore to Pres. Bush

"Dear Mr. Bush:

Any idea where all our helicopters are? It's Day 5 of Hurricane Katrina and thousands remain stranded in New Orleans and need to be airlifted. Where on earth could you have misplaced all our military choppers? Do you need help finding them? I once lost my car in a Sears parking lot. Man, was that a drag.

Also, any idea where all our national guard soldiers are? We could really use them right now for the type of thing they signed up to do like helping with national disasters. How come they weren't there to begin with?

Last Thursday I was in south Florida and sat outside while the eye of Hurricane Katrina passed over my head. It was only a Category 1 then but it was pretty nasty. Eleven people died and, as of today, there were still homes without power. That night the weatherman said this storm was on its way to New Orleans. That was Thursday! Did anybody tell you? I know you didn't want to interrupt your vacation and I know how you don't like to get bad news. Plus, you had fundraisers to go to and mothers of dead soldiers to ignore and smear. You sure showed her!

I especially like how, the day after the hurricane, instead of flying to Louisiana, you flew to San Diego to party with your business peeps. Don't let people criticize you for this -- after all, the hurricane was over and what the heck could you do, put your finger in the dike?

And don't listen to those who, in the coming days, will reveal how you specifically reduced the Army Corps of Engineers' budget for New Orleans this summer for the third year in a row. You just tell them that even if you hadn't cut the money to fix those levees, there weren't going to be any Army engineers to fix them anyway because you had a much more important construction job for them -- BUILDING DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ!

On Day 3, when you finally left your vacation home, I have to say I was moved by how you had your Air Force One pilot descend from the clouds as you flew over New Orleans so you could catch a quick look of the disaster. Hey, I know you couldn't stop and grab a bullhorn and stand on some rubble and act like a commander in chief. Been there done that.

There will be those who will try to politicize this tragedy and try to use it against you. Just have your people keep pointing that out. Respond to nothing. Even those pesky scientists who predicted this would happen because the water in the Gulf of Mexico is getting hotter and hotter making a storm like this inevitable. Ignore them and all their global warming Chicken Littles. There is nothing unusual about a hurricane that was so wide it would be like having one F-4 tornado that stretched from New York to Cleveland.

No, Mr. Bush, you just stay the course. It's not your fault that 30 percent of New Orleans lives in poverty or that tens of thousands had no transportation to get out of town. C'mon, they're black! I mean, it's not like this happened to Kennebunkport. Can you imagine leaving white people on their roofs for five days? Don't make me laugh! Race has nothing -- NOTHING -- to do with this!

You hang in there, Mr. Bush. Just try to find a few of our Army helicopters and send them there. Pretend the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are near Tikrit.

Yours,

Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
www.MichaelMoore.com

P.S. That annoying mother, Cindy Sheehan, is no longer at your ranch. She and dozens of other relatives of the Iraqi War dead are now driving across the country, stopping in many cities along the way. Maybe you can catch up with them before they get to DC on September 21st."

Two DVDs about the Flaming Lips
Video Overview In Deceleration
Warner Reprise Video
Track Listing:
•Mr Ambulance Driver (2005)
•Psychic Wall (2004)
•Fight Test (2002)
•Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (2002)
•Do You Realize? (UK Version) (2002)
•Race for the Prize (1999)
•Waiting for a Superman (1999)
•This Here Giraffe (1996)
•When You Smile (1995)
•Bad Days (1995)
•Christmas at the Zoo (1995)
•Be My Head (1994)
•She Don't Use Jelly (1993)
•Turn it On (1993)
•Frogs (1992)
•Everyone Wants to Live Forever (1991)
•Phoebe Battles the Pink Robots (2002)
•Are You a Hypnotist?? (2002)
•Do You Realize?? (Extended US Version) (2002)

I've never realized it before, but the Flaming Lips are kinda obsessed with death. Not in the way that goth kids are. No, they don't wear black, and they're not really depressed all the time.
No, the Lips realize our time here is limited. And because of that, their music is truly a celebration of life. I could have told you that they were the best live band in the country today (a tremendous understatement) -- but they've been that for years. The visual dynamic of the band has always made for interesting videos, hence the collection VOID. However visually stimulating their live show is, though, what I've kind of always known in the back of my mind was I always felt happy and alive after a show.
There's a reason the Flaming Lips shower the audience with bubbles or stage fog or have giant mirrorballs and sixty people in animal costumes dancing on stage with them. It's not, as they tell you in the documentary The Fearless Freaks, to distract you from the fact that they aren't very good. They really are a great band.
It's because they want to involve the audience in the celebration. They want you to join them and have a great time and feel good. It's their mission
The VOID collection goes backwards in time, peeling back the career of this unique and special bunch of guys from Oklahoma City. You start with the present, gracefully-aged band an backpedal to their spunky days of youthful exhuberance. Then, just to screw around with your psyche, they include three more clips from recent history.
Oddly, though you watch the band members de-age on viddie, there's a remarkable continuity to the atmosphere and mission statement of the band. They might have started skinny, with long hair and wailing guitars. They might have flirted with MTV success. Hell, they might have even been nominated for a Grammy in there. But they really are the same bunch of guys...and it shows.
There's a central theme to the videos, an inherent joy in the music and visuals. Life ends. But, dammit, that's the reason why it's special. The videos really are pretty simple compared to most of the tripe you see on MTV -- even compared to what their contemporaries were doing at the time this collection was begun. They might build a totally fake as all get-out crow's nest and put on pirate costumes. Of just run around their neighborhood in OK City and turn on the camera. The props might be as simple as a hand-drawn sign. For all the weirdness that the lips throw at you, they're never really flashy. They might have done an ad for Intel a couple years back, but the Lips will never sell out. They can't. And that's great. For them, and us.
VOID is a delight, both musically and visually (and for you folks out there with home theaters, all of the videos are remixed in 5.1 surround). Sure, the FLips will probably never be as hugely popular as they deserve. But that's good for the fans, too. Because you can see them in venues where you can actually see the whites of the band's eyes without a telescope -- which makes for a more personal and immersive concert experience. People who only go to see arena and stadium shows miss out on the real point of live music: interaction with the band. It's a hallmark of truly great live shows, and I sometimes wonder if bands like Nine Inch Nails or The Rolling Stones or U2 misses being able to see their audience.
Enough with the comments about live music -- we're talking viddies here, right? Can't interact with the DVD...well, unless you bop around the room like a madman. But then you'd be a geek, and you're not one of THOSE, are you? Well, if you are, there's more to love here. Like I said...it's remixed in surround. You get more immersive, more expansive sound to pogo to when the clip for "She Don't Use Jelly" comes on. Just close the drapes before you do it. The neighbors will think you're some kind of weirdo. God forbid the neighbors think you're a weirdo.
My one disappointment with the collection -- and it's slight -- is the censoring of the UK video for "Do You Realize??". I realize they'd have to put some kind of label on it that there was unrated, uncensored footage of naked breastesses in the video and that then they might not sell a million billion copies of the DVD. Because, of course, if you see a boob you might have a nervous breakdown. Or society could just fall apart right there. Boobs are bad. (Of course, it's legal for women to be topless in public in Ohio. But, we're a state of savages and mountain men.) Hmmm. This sounds like material I've covered here already. I'll shut up, then.

The Fearless Freaks
Director: Bradley Beesley
Shout Factory
Yeah, we're discussing the Flaming Lips again.
Deal.
And yes, I know the DVD came out months ago. It seemed appropriate to discuss both of them at the same time. Don't like it? Why the hell are you reading this site, anyway?
Where VOID chronicles the Lips' history through their music and promotional clips, The Fearless Freaks literally chronicles every seminal moment of the last 15 or so odd years of their existence. Bradley Beesley was a friend of the band, and his behind the scenes footage, concert archives and interviews with the band total over 400 hours. Cutting that down to a 110 minute documentary must have been the next best thing to an impossible task.
Very few bands have ever given a documentarian that access that Beesley enjoyed. Those that have weren't always pleased with the results (Metallica: Some Kind of Monster). While the results aren't really pretty, they're nearly always interesting.
From their early days in Oklahoma City to flirting with success after the release of Transmissions from the Satellite Heart to visionary musical stunts like the Parking Lot Experiment (which mutated into the Boombox Concerts and then into the four CD set Zaireeka) to their contemporary work like The Soft Bulletin and Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots and the feature film Christmas on Mars, the audience gets a fly's-eye view of the band's journey. (Dammit, I wanna see Christmas on Mars soooooo damn bad, too. When's that coming out???)
How many bands truly deal with the fact that one of their members is an addict? How many times have you seen a musician get his works out and shoot up in a documentary? Believe it or not, Steven Drozd actually gets his gear out and prepares a shot on camera while he talks candidly about addiciton. He realizes he's an addict. He realizes it's consuming him. And he's totally honest about it. He explains the drug experience with candor that every damn anti-drug commercial has missed.
Ever wonder how to clean fake blood out of a white suit? Did you ever think a frontman for a band would teach you? Seriously? How many times have you watched a musician clean out his gutters? That's the kind of access you have into their little world. And it's why The Fearless Freaks is a great documentary. Whether you're watching Wayne Coyne's childhood home movies or watching them rehearse in the studio, you get an unvarnished view of the band's life and career almost from the very beginning right up to the present. It's a unique look at one of the more unique bands out there.
There's a second disc included with a few deleted scenes, some live clips and a photo slide show. Not necessarily crucial stuff...but it fleshes things out just enough to make the disc just as viewable as the feature itself. The live clips, of course, are the highlight, but they're just single songs from individual performances. Damned if I wouldn't like to go through Bradley Beesley's archives after watching those (And I will, too. I'm going to stalk him and track him down and feed him pancakes until he relents and gives me total access. PANCAKES, I TELL YAS!).

The FLips are weird. Yes. We get that. But, as Quentin Crisp so wisely said, "The only normal people are those you do not know very well." They might be weird, but you know something? It's tempered with a joy in what they're doing that really carries through to their audience -- be it the listening audience, the live audience, or the people watching their DVDs. Gotta love 'em.

Our President Believes in 'Intelligent Design' Now...

CHECK THIS SHIT OUT...

This is why I try not to pay too much attention to the news lately.
Our President, supposedly our leader and the head of our government comes out and makes a statement endorsing a scientific policy that's more hocus pocus than hard science.
Can we get Penn and Teller to call bullshit on this? Come on, people!
The concept of 'Intelligent Design' is just a blatant attempt to go back to Creationism and pushing mythology instead of fact. It's great to believe that there's something beyond this existence. I personally like the idea in DesCartes' "Discourse on Reason" that mankind's ability to think rationally and creatively proves that something beyond what we know exists.
However, beyond that, I have very little use for the whole Christian Fundamentalist point of view.
Yeah, that's right. I'm going off on the fucking Fundies again.
Let's think about this...why is it that all of the proponents of 'Intelligent Design' are all people of little or no intelligence? Does it have something to do with the fact that you have to be smart to understand science???
Can someone please explain to me how 'Intelligent Design' is different than the Norse mythology creation story? Or the stories of the Greek or Roman or Egyptian pantheons? How is replacing science and fact with fairy tales and mythological nonsense good for our country?
President Bush should not only apologize for his ignorant and short-sighted comment, he should fund some more SCIENCE. Maybe some stem cell research or the Human Genome Project...so we can maybe breed his brand of stupidity out of the gene pool.

Another site to frequent...
My buddy Art's blog

Review: A Guy Goes Into a Bar
a short film by Derek Mahr

2 minutes and 54 seconds. That's it. And fifty seconds of it is credits.
In. Out. No fucking about.
It's an old joke. A dumb joke, but one that still made me laugh, in spite of the fact that I've heard it told before (thanks to one of the local mail carriers), read it in Maxim or Stuff or one of those dopey magazines, and now have seen it rendered into pixelated videe.
Yeah, I laughed. Fuck you. Whatever. I still laugh at dick and fart jokes. I'm a guy. I'm a primitive. Eat me.
My big bitches about the film -- 1) The video encode is super shitty (but you gotta make things small to put 'em online so the poor dial-up saps can still get it in under a day -- stinking bastard dial-up users) and the flat and occasionally jerky cinematography (OK, it's only really jerky when it's walking with the titular Guy -- try a skateboard next time, dude, 'cause handheld and jerky just makes me flash back to every bad shaky-cam movie I've seen). Thankfully, there's some halfway decent editing to cover up most of that. 2) The bartender (Joel Eckman) fidgets way too much...and because of it, there are a few continuity gaffes. Most bartenders are a bit more relaxed anyway, unless they're in a rush.
Two minutes isn't a lot of time to sacrifice watching a short film. And unlike a few I've seen (fucking student films...grrrrrrrr), it had plot, made sense, and wasn't overdone.
Speaking of done, I'm done talking about it. It was only two minutes long, fer chrissakes!

PS, if you're interested in seeing the damn movie, contact him via his LJ. He has it online somewhere...

Rant in B flat
Every single day, when you wake up, you're faced with a choice. Right at that moment, your entire day is decided.
You can have a great day. Or, you can have a shitty day. Your choice.
Pretty much nothing can change that. And it's YOUR CHOICE.
If you let someone else ruin your day...you've given that person power over you, and consequently made yourself powerless. Is that the way you want to live your life?
Really. Your choice.
Realizing that it's within your damn ability to have a great day every fucking day of your life is one of those steps toward enlightenment that very few people have the sack to make. Which explains why so fucking many people are unhappy out there.
You wanna bitch about the overmedication of America? People need the medication. Because they're unhappy. All the time.
Hell, if I had to live like that, I'd off myself. Seriously. If you're in agony every day of your life because it's impossible for you to achieve happiness...you're better off. Kill yourself now. Why? So WE will be out of your misery.
Sit down and think about it. What makes you happy?
There's something. There always is. Sometimes it's the misery of others. It's petty. And it's jealous. But if it makes you happy, fucking work with it. Study Don Rickles. Figure out how to make yourself happy more often.
There. You've got a reason to live, right there.
Chances are, there's SOMETHING that makes you happy. Statistically speaking, it's impossible that you're completely miserable. Consequently, there's no fucking excuse for you to be unhappy all the damn time. Which means there's no reason for anyone to commit suicide, other than to ease their suffering and accelerate their departure from this mortal plane when they're terminally ill.

Yeah, that's right. I support peoples' right to die with dignity. I've watched two parents get sick and die -- and it took YEARS for them to finally expire. In both cases there was a long period where treatment worked, and there was some kind of hope that they'd recover. Could you watch a loved one suffer? Would you INSIST that they be kept alive and fed with a goddamn tube?
Would YOU have kept Terri Schiavo alive as a vegetable for ten years? Twenty? At what point do you finally fucking realize that keeping someone alive artificially is vanity (YOUR vanity) and let them go?

The Christian Right pisses me off. Why? Because they're the biggest sinners on the fucking planet, by their own definition, and they STILL insist on judging others. And controlling others. Doesn't the bible say something about "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone" etc etc? Yet, these are the fuckers who are moralizing us back into the stone age.
Let's take Sundays, just for an instance. It's the "Lord's Day". Consequently, you can't go into most stores, shopping malls, etc after SIX O'CLOCK on a Sunday.
What. Fucking. Gives?
Seriously???
If it's the Lord's Day...and you're supposed to be in church and all that nonsense...OPEN THE BUSINESS AT NOON. Then, close at your normal time like a civilized human being. The rest of us can call Sunday "Hangover Day" and learn to appreciate your Sunday Blue Laws. We wouldn't be pissing and moaning because we can't get a fucking print cartridge for our computer at eight o'clock at night on a Sunday any more. No, instead, we'll be sleeping off the bender from the night before that we went on because you fucking Jesus freaks are trying to ruin something else that we enjoy. Like Television.

TV. It's great. Occasionally, it's informative.
Shit, most of the people I know -- whether or not they have kids -- spend at least half of their television viewing time watching CNN or the Discovery Channel or the Learning Channel or CSPAN (which I find unwatchable because I keep screaming obscenities at the Senate...but that's just me) or something actually educational.
But, dammit...TV is totally unrealistic.
Why? Because fucking right wingers complain. About everything.
It wasn't until the late 1960s that we had an "interracial" kiss on TV. Why? Because Right Wingers didn't approve of Negroes and Whites being together.
Guess what, motherfuckers...there's one race. It's called the HUMAN race. Your hang-up on skin color is pretty fucking ridiculous, since it's caused by the amount of exposure you have to the sun. If Sweden were the Veldt, Swedes would be black as night. Get over yourselves. Really. All the hatred that racists have isn't healthy.
Funny, of course, that most of the people in hate groups in the US are Right Wing Christians, isn't it?
Let's look at things from a historical perspective.
Jesus was kind of a cool guy, even if only twenty percent of the statements in the bible attributed to him were actually his own words. Jesus believed in love and forgiveness. I wish I had more love in my heart. I wish I could be more forgiving.
Now, Christian moralist fucks believe in hate and judgemental jackoffery.
They believe that if a person wants to fuck another person in a very uncomfortable place (not that much unlike the back of a Volkswagen) that they're an abomination and shouldn't be allowed basic human rights -- like the right to marry the human being of their choice.
They also believe that they know better than EVERYONE ELSE ON THE FUCKING PLANET what's good for them. So, a group like Focus on Family, which claims over a million members and actually has less than a hundred, can control what the other two hundred million other Americans get to watch on TV.
Even if they really had a million members (they don't)...that still doesn't give them the right to dictate shit. They'd be roughly about one third of one percent of the total population.
In other words, they need to shut the fuck up. Yesterday.
Why can't we have full penetration sex on TV? What's so scary about that? Kids might see it, you say? Good. They might learn that sex is a HEALTHY thing, and a normal part of life. It might not have the cache of that forbidden fruit they always wanna eat.
They might learn something. Maybe how to please a partner (though given how TV/movie love scenes are shot...and porno's unrealistic acrobatics...probably not). Maybe they'll learn some responsibility. Or to use a fucking condom. Yeah, that's right, Mr Pope, I'm advocating birth control. Why? BECAUSE IT'S RESPONSIBLE. You want the world overpopulated? You want rampant plague and illness that would make the biblical plagues pale in comparison? Overpopulate, you dumbass. You'll get your fucking wish.
Sex on TV wouldn't be the end of the world. Archie Bunker flushing his toilet didn't destroy America. It wouldn't kill us if Edith went down on him once in a while, either. I'm not saying I want 24/7 ugly people having sex on TV. Let's just be realistic. People fuck.
The fact that we're here is proof of that, unless you all are a bunch of government-grown clones. People get it on, just like Marvin Gaye and Barry White and Mills Lane intended.
What's wrong with being honest about that? What's immoral about it?
See, the funny thing is...if you read the Book of Genesis and actually read what it says, nothing's wrong with it.
The forbidden fruit was from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Everything they were doing before was perfectly fine.
But once they learned morality, Adam and Eve ceased to be perfect.
Hmmm...
The BIBLE says morality's bad. Right back to the rhetorical first stone.
Why is it that the worst sinners have all the rocks again? Oh, that's right. They say the same fucking book tells them too. Of course, it also says not to eat pork and that it's okay to beat your wife with a rod as long as it's not thicker than your thumb.
What's wrong with some bouncing girl parts on the boob tube? Why not show some dangly (or turgid) boy parts for the ladies out there? Oprah can have a show a month on how to blow a guy properly. I'm sure Steadman would appreciate that.
Would everyone still love Raymond if they watched him schtup his wife? Probably. Would Seinfeld still be funny if he said masturbate instead of Master of Your Domain? Probably.
The fallout from seeing Janet Jackson's saggy tit on TV continues to this day. It's kind of funny. It's legal in the State of Ohio for a woman to walk around topless in public. Really. It is. (Though not enough women outside of CommFest actually take advantage of this one sensible part of Ohio's civil code...) But if you have a breast on TV...my stars! The FCC and the morality squad are coming to get you!
Fuck. That.
Really.

Let's talk for a moment about foul language, since I use a lot of it.
What's wrong with the word fuck?
To take the words of George Carlin and push them just a wee bit further...Let everyone who is offended by the word fuck never fuck again. They shouldn't be breeding. They contribute nothing but dillution and warm yellow water to the gene pool.
The problem is...they DO breed. More than those of us with brains. There's something wrong with that. Sure, we use condoms, the pill, etc. But...shouldn't people with brains actually take over this whole breeding thing? Shouldn't we take the proverbial bull by his horns and get down?
What's wrong with the word fuck? Or ass? Or assfuck? At what point does a word become obscene? And who the fuck gets to make that distinction?
Who let Polly Prissy Pants from Squirrel Dick Holler, Alabama make the decision over which word is too naughty to say in public? Who made her Queen of the World, anyway?
Why can't we outlaw all Right Wing language as obscene? Because, quite frankly, they offend the shit out of me every single time they open their fucking moralistic gaping cunt mouths.
Things like this bother me. I don't know why I let them. I'm an imperfect being. This I know. And I'll never achieve true enlightenment when I let some subhuman Right Wing Christian fuckstains shit in my Cheerios. But I'm trying.