The broken system.

If anyone needed proof about how dysfunctional our electoral process is, they need only take a look at what is transpiring today. I’m talking about the Michigan primary and the amazing thing about this is that because the state decided to move its primary up, the national committees decided to penalize the voters of the state by taking away their delegates to the national conventions!

Michigan has been told not to bother sending its 156 Democratic National Convention delegates to Denver, where even the hotel rooms have been taken away.
Petition groups target primary voters to get issues on ’08 ballot Lawsuit wants access expanded to Mich. primary election records National convention hotel rooms taken away from Michigan Dems US judge rules against Democrat who sued to stop Mich. primary Lawsuit calls for halt to Democratic presidential primary Will all votes count in Michigan’s primary? On the Republican side, the party faithful are supposed to pick just 30 delegates to attend the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul, half the normal number.

Think about that for a second, the voters are being told by the national committees of the two major parties that the national organization DOESN’T CARE what they think! Neither party is innocent, the Republicans have cut the delegates from Michigan in half but, the Democrats have invalidated the entire state’s delegates!

Now, Michigan happens to be the eighth largest state ranked by population - does anyone think the national committees are sending a message to the voters in Michigan? If they are, I can tell you it isn’t a good one.

As of July 1, 2007, the estimated population of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the other insular areas of the United States was 303,746,137. Notably, the top nine states in population contain slightly more than half of the total population.

So, who is getting taught a lesson here?

Former U.S. Sen. Don Riegle and former Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer, pals since both were in office in 1994, united Monday in Detroit to tell Democratic voters who support candidates not on the presidential primary ballot to vote uncommitted.

Riegle called the ballot a sham and said it was rigged.

Hillary and Bill Clinton “don’t care how they win, only that they do,” he said of the candidate and her husband. “It’s not very different from what used to happen in the old Soviet Union.” After Michigan defied the party by scheduling an early primary, Riegle said the Democratic candidates had an understanding that none of them would compete in Michigan. Barack Obama and John Edwards honored the commitment, but Hillary Clinton did not and gained an unfair advantage, Riegle said.

These are not Republicans who are saying this!

Kay Nevil plans to pull a Democratic ballot, but told us, she isn’t sure how she’ll vote for the candidate she wants to.

Caroline Doan plans to vote Democratic, too, but says she’s confused about what to do as well. Her solution if she’s confused behind the curtain?

“I guess I would just not vote,” she said.

That’s exactly what election workers are worried about because, legally, they can't explain to a voter “step by step” how to vote for a candidate.

“All we can do is tell the voters what the options are or what the law or regulations are,” said Stein.
Minks is convinced that will be enough to ensure Michigan isn’t left behind.

"It is disheartening to some folks now, but we have to make the stand to bring it back to where everybody has a voice," he said.

Then a few moments ago this just came across the wires:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton won a meaningless Michigan presidential primary Tuesday night, a contest held in violation of party rules as she and her Democratic rivals shared a debate stage 2,000 miles distant.

You just have to love it when the eighth largest state in the nation holds a primary that afterward is declared meaningless. What does that say to us?

It’s a fine mess, created in part by the national party’s infernal allegiance to the idea that the world might end if Iowa and New Hampshire didn’t get to winnow the presidential field by holding their primary contests first. State Democrats’ dithering over a fix after the candidates withdrew added insult to injury.

Democratic voters should remember this sham, and it should inspire them to work even harder for a more rational primary system next time.

Sometimes, you just have to pay homage to the classics and this week’s TERROR FILLED MONDAY! entry certainly could be considered one of the classics!

Wise’s background in directing horror (his solo directorial debut had come with producer Val Lewton some five years before) lent itself to a “haunted house” feel to the movie’s spookier scenes, with a stark use of deep shadow, often patterned to resemble the bars of a cage (his hospital room, the wallpaper and balustrade of the boarding house, the elevator). High angle shots are often used to create a feeling of vulnerability or isolation; here, they are presumably used to augment the viewer's Klaatu’s separation from the people of Earth, whose warlike ways are alien to him. Low angle shots are believed to give the subject an aura of potency; it can be inferred that shooting Klaatu in low shot was intended to highlight the unlimited power he represents. Theories of cinematography such as the effect of camera angles were, at the time of the making of this film, an art not a science.

The Day the Earth Stood Still another one of those hallmark scifi pics, while last week’s entry could be considered emblematic of the genre as depicted in film in the 50’s, the Day the Earth Stood Still is markedly a cut above. In large part that has to do with the cast and the cinematography.

It may well have been the highpoint of Michael Rennie’s career but, it was another outstanding performance by Patricia Neal, two years off the Fountainhead and 12 years away from an Oscar for Best Actress (HUD).

The other notable performance in the movie was that of Billy Gray who played mostly opposite Rennie as his diminutive tour guide to our planet. Gray would later play (and the thing I remember him most for) Bud on Father Knows Best.

The other thing the flick has going for it, is a haunting score penned by one of film’s great composers, Bernard Herrmann. A score that plays into and emphasizes the wonderful mood of the piece.

While looking around for source material, I came to discover that like other TERROR FILLED MONDAY! entry Colossus, this film is another movie in the process of being remade and updated:

Twentieth Century Fox has set Keanu Reeves to star in “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” its re-imagining of the 1951 Robert Wise-directed sci-fi classic. Reeves committed over the weekend to play Klaatu, a humanoid alien who arrives on Earth accompanied by an indestructible, heavily armed robot and a warning to world leaders that their continued aggression will lead to annihilation by species watching from afar.

Already in production, the movie will also have Jennifer Connelly in the role played by Patricia Neal. I’m just hoping it’s not another Hulk fiasco.

Hot Stove Sunday.

Just a general wrap-up of some baseball related items and opinions on such.

The Yankees envision Joba Chamberlain as a starter and they are eager to see what his blazing fastball and electric slider can do as part of their rotation. But the Bombers also are concerned about how many innings the 22-year-old will throw next season, so Chamberlain may start the year in the bullpen.

I’m am still trying to figure out what it is exactly that the Yankees are thinking. Great closers aren’t born, they’re made!

I was a Yankee fan throughout the 80’s and into the mid-90’s. Throughout that time I can remember biting my nails on an almost daily basis. See for a lot of that time I suffered through Dave Righetti. Dave Righetti while a fine pitcher had the kind of nail biting consistency as a closer that left you on the edge of your seat because you never knew just what you were going to get when he trotted in from the bullpen.

I think today’s Yankee fans are a bit spoiled having had Mariano Rivera around for the last decade and while he just signed for another three years, the sad thing about closers is that when they lose it, it isn’t a gradual thing as much as something that happens overnight. One day a pitcher can be a dominant closer and the next he could have lost just enough off his stuff to make him hittable.

In between Righette and Mariano, the Yankees had Steve Farr (who was an improvement over Righetti) and John Wetteland. Wetteland took a then rookie Mariano Rivera under his wing and showed him the ins and outs of what it was to be a dominant closer.

One of the good things about the Yankees last season was watching Joba Chamberlain come into his own and true students of the game could see something special in his makeup. Why then wouldn’t you have Joba be schooled in the ways of closing by one of the most successful closers in the game? By the time Mariano makes it to the third year of his contract he will be, well for all intents and purposes, three years older? Why wouldn’t you take advantage of that and have him train his successor?

If you think I’m being a bit ridiculous, let me trot out some names for the Yankee fan to rollover in their minds. Names of guys who tried but couldn’t ever really achieve what the Yankees were looking for: Jay Howell, Brian Fisher, Rich Bordi, Cecilio Guante, Tim Stoddard, Pat Clements, Lance McCullers, Dale Mohorcic, Lee Gutterman, Jeff Robinson, Greg Cadaret, Steve Howe, John Habyan, Xavier Hernandez.

If the litany of names doesn’t send chills down your spine, just remember what problems the Yankees have had just over the last five years or so filling out their bullpen. Jobe is your heir-apparent, bite the bullet and start the learning process now.

---

A really sad, sad story about a guy who is going to jail:

The mystique of the once high-flying Yankee was finally shattered during an alleged drunken-driving accident in Fort Lauderdale. He now appears destined to be remembered for a much more sinister act: blowing a red light and slamming into another SUV - killing a young mother.

As much as you can love Leyritz for his hard nosed style of play, he was known for rubbing his teammates the wrong way (he was traded rumor had it because of being a disruptive force in the clubhouse). It’s sad to see he threw it all away. In the tradition of many beloved New York ballplayers (Backman? Gooden? Strawberry? Dykstra? Martin?).

---

Never going to be the player we hoped?

Mets fans (myself included) had to groan a bit when hearing this tidbit. In what has proved to be a lackluster off-season this just added to the misery:

“He tweaked his hamstring, a slight pull, and he banged up his ankle,” said a baseball official familiar with the injury who requested anonymity. “But he’s fine. It should not impact him being ready at all.”

Makes me think holding back one of those young outfielders from any potential deal with the Twins becomes even more important (especially if you are counting on Moises Alou to be an everyday left fielder).

---

A study in contrasts?

“There has been absolutely no change in Roger’s willingness and indeed desire to testify under oath before Congress in a public hearing at a date of the Oversight Committee's choosing,” Hardin said in a statement. “Any suggestion that he or we are having any second thoughts about that is absolutely false. All other pre-appearance issues and scheduling we will discuss privately with the committee and do not think it is appropriate to discuss those matters publicly.”

What‘s amazing in all of this is the louder Roger Clemens protests his innocence, the more people disbelieve him. In the meantime, Andy Pettite came out and admitted what he did, apologized and has moved on. Well, maybe I should qualify that, it’s probably not a dead issue for Pettite but, at the very least he isn’t in the paper everyday and I think if you asked most fans they are ready to forgive Pettite and move on.

---

Omar, are you listening?

Seattle continues to be the front-runner for Erik Bedard, though it’s baffling to this reporter why the Orioles would want to deal him. The Mariners are willing to give up center field prospect Adam Jones and possibly young shortstop Carlos Triunfel or pitcher Chris Tillman. They have other chips, including catcher Jeff Clement, and would love to make the deal without including Brandon Morrow. Don’t count the Reds out, either.

The trade Omar Minaya should be exploring, is one for Baltimore’s Bedard. Aside from the fact Bedard is an additional year away from free agency over Minnesota’s Santana, everyone in baseball knows Minaya has to pull the trigger on some kind of deal. At the very least he should play the Orioles off against the Twins (or vice a versa). The only thing I buyer has as leverage is to shop at the store down the street, if Minaya doesn’t show he is actively pursuing other avenues to get a top of the line starting pitcher, he allows the other club a superior position in negotiations. Wake up Omar!

Saturday Morning Cartoons.

Some things stick with you throughout your life. Some are events, some are movies, some are even cartoons. Back in the days before there was cable TV and VCRs or DVDs, there weren’t the abundance of things to choose from when one was watching TV. Further, if something didn’t make it onto the local broadcast channels, you were unlikely to see it. If you did catch something you really wanted to watch and you missed part of it, you usually were out of luck because running the same material in multiple timeslots (especially films) was almost unheard of.

So, every once in a blue moon, this movie would come on. At the time it was at least 30 years old but, it still managed to stand out even against the current fare of the day.

Max and Dave Fleischer had no intentions of producing a full-length feature film until Paramount, who distributed Fleischer’s Popeye, Betty Boop, and Screen Songs cartoon shorts, approached him with the idea. Paramount offered to build the New York City-based Fleischer’s a new state-of-the-art animation studio in Miami Beach, Florida, away from the union influence which had polarized the Fleischer Studio after a bitter 1937 labor strike.

Now, if you are familiar with the old Popeye or Betty Boop cartoons, I’m pretty sure you’ll know where I’m going with this. Maybe you’ve seen the terrific Superman cartoons done by the Fleischers. If you aren’t at all familiar with the name you should be!

Fleischer came up with a concept to simplify the process of animating movement by tracing frames of live action film. His patent for the rotoscope was granted in 1917, although Max and his brother Dave Fleischer made their first cartoon using the device in 1915. Extensive use of this technique was made in Fleischer's Out of the Inkwell series, which started in 1919 and starred Koko the Clown and Fitz the dog.

Anyway, this movie really stands out because it was one of the coolest things I can remember seeing when it came to animated films. Also, I would think in some ways you could consider this the grandfather of movies like Schrek and The Incredibles because it showed just how amazing animated films could be. And wonder of wonders, now you can watch the whole thing over the internet!*Note - you’ll want to download the movie to your drive by clicking on the rightmost button of the movie window as the page automatically reloads. You can also point your browser to this address if you prefer to watch it as a streaming video.

The anniversary.


Cats always seem to know when something is up. Taken that first night.

’07 began with the passing of the EYOC. It couldn’t have sucked more because the last time I saw the guy, I walked away thinking about how nice a time I had with him, how I needed to go see him more often. I haven’t talked about that last week or two (or three) - maybe it was because I needed some time to absorb it.

Now that the first anniversary is coming up on it, maybe I can look at things with something of a better perspective. There are a couple of things that stick with me...

First off, was that last stay in the hospital:
Interesting mainly because it was mostly me around and only me. After you’re sick for a long time and dance in and out of danger on a regular basis, very few will remain at your side. I managed to be that person for the EYOC. It’s not something I need a pat on the back for, I did it for myself as much as for the EYOC. It had a lot to do with the responsibility I felt in the situation (especially after so many years of caring for him). Funny thing though is that he recognized it. I’m not tearing down others either because, the regular back and forth to the hospital and death’s door is not an easy thing to keep up with.

The main thing that sticks out from that week to ten days was how someone’s meddling made it harder for me to oversee his care. The very same party who couldn’t be bothered to show up at the hospital (or the funeral for that matter). I can’t say it was surprising in the long run given the history - it just made a clear statement about a person’s character or lack thereof.

In the end, the hours I spent at the hospital (including my second consecutive New Year’s Eve there) were well worth it.

Second, my last visit has me thoroughly convinced people know they are about to die:
I walked away from my last visit having a truly nice visit and a great time. As last memories of a person go, it’s a good one. I thought it was the EYOC’s final revenge, me walking away that last time I saw him and thinking to myself how much I enjoyed it and how I needed to come more. I guess that old adage of the stage about always leave them wanting more holds true for people who are about to check out too.

Third, making it through a funeral I had to set up and arrange:
No one tells you about this s**t! I mean, nobody sits a body down and tells them a day will come when they are going to have to plan or supervise the funeral of a loved one. The best advice I ever got was from two of my cousins on separate occasions urging me to take care of all the planning and arrangements in advance. I have never been more thankful of heeding advice than I was during that three or four day period.

You can expect someone to die, you can anticipate it but, no matter how much you do when the event occurs you are still unprepared for the reality of it. If it’s hard just to drag yourself out of bed on a normal day, you can only imagine how hard it is to drag yourself out of bed on a day after someone you care about has died.

Really, if anything I could’ve slept for a week or a month and really not had too much of a problem with it. Instead, there was all this stuff that had to get done to make sure everything came off without a hitch. The one thing about someone dying is that you can’t postpone things to next week or next month, you have to deal with it NOW!

Fourth, seeing him the night he died:
Look, can’t put this any other way than to say after someone has died, I really don’t need to see them.

The general tradition for my people is to do the open casket/viewing thing. I choose not to in the case of the EYOC. I saw him dead, or maybe I should say I say his body because, believe me, he was already long gone. Whatever it was that made him the person he was, like Elvis, had already left the building and there was nothing in the hall to see after the main act had left the stage.

Those moments lingering around the ER of the hospital waiting to have someone take me to see the body were some of the longest moments in my life. The only thing trumping them was the few moments being in the room with a lifeless corpse. I have a lot of memories I’ll carry with me, some fond, many not but, that is something I will try my best to forget.

There are still a few things to do in regard to the EYOC and I’ll be doing that as the first anniversary approaches. I don’t want to spend a lot of the time looking back on what was. However, when I do look back, I look back with the pride of knowing I did a job that was well-done. I sacrificed a lot, there are times I wonder whether or not I should have made some of the decisions I did but, ultimately I believe I made the right choices.

The other thing I carry with me is the hope he is truly at peace, surprisingly enough, he is very much missed.

Video Vault Thursdays!

This week, the video that comes out of the vault is actually a bit of an anti-video:

A music video, filmed by local students, to promote the single shows the band playing their instruments through a distorted fish-eye lens, the camera variously panning horizontally across the performance space and vertically over the individual band members. Keeping in the spirit of the mimed performance, Francis and Deal open and shut their mouths in time with their prerecorded vocals, yet make no attempt to articulate their lips in synch with the words that they are supposed to be singing. Instead, they simply keep their mouths wide open with blank expressions for the duration of each verse.

Even though it’s an anti-video, it’s an anti-video of one of my all-time favorite songs. Of course helped along by the fact that it features one of my big crushes Kim Deal.

All the world’s a:

The truth behind the Black Smoke on LOST.

I started this entry back about a week before Christmas in the process of writing a slew of entries about LOST (some I’ll finish later) but, between now and the time the fourth season will start, LOST fans may have a chance to get a glimpse of what the monster on the island looks like.

Actually, J.J. Abrams is giving us a new monster:

After he and his son visited a toy store in Japan, J. J. Abrams conceived of a new monster. He explained, “I want a monster movie, I’ve wanted one for so long. I was in Japan with my son and all he wanted to do is go to toy stores. And we saw all these Godzilla toys, and I thought, we need our own monster, and not King Kong, King Kong’s adorable. I wanted something that was just insane and intense. It’s almost done shooting and I watch dailies and I’m more excited for them than the trailer, which has had an overwhelming response. We have 6 months before this comes out. We’re going to have a whole bunch of things, a whole bunch more.”

Watching the trailer, there are sounds suspiciously similar to LOST’s monster (and if you’ve ever heard a New York Taxi chug out a receipt you know how terrifying that sounds, especially the way the fare has gone up).

Set to open in the next ten days, I’ve got a feeling though it has the potential to be a big winner or a big loser, there just doesn’t seem to be middle ground with this one. Click on the one sheet image to see the trailer:


Funny thing is the teaser trailer looks incredible but the recent campaign makes the mistake a lot of these movies do in showing you way too much! The stuff I’ve seen lately makes me want to see the movie less. Although I will say that some of the sounds you hear during the course of the trailer are reminiscent of the Monster on LOST.

Director Matt Reeves described the presentation, “We wanted this to be as if someone found a Handicam, took out the tape and put it in the player to watch it. What you’re watching is a home movie that then turns into something else.” Reeves explained that the pedestrians documenting the severed head of the Statue of Liberty with the camera phones was reflective of the contemporary period. “Cloverfield very much speaks to the fear and anxieties of our time, how we live our lives. Constantly documenting things and putting them up on YouTube, sending people videos through e-mail - we felt it was very applicable to the way people feel now,” the director said.

I actually watched this week’s entry into TERROR FILLED MONDAYS! over the weekend.

It Came From Outer Space was Universal-International’s first serious venture into ’50s science-fiction, as their earlier attempts had been decidedly lighter fare like Abbott And Costello Meet The Invisible Man and Abbott And Costello Go To Mars. 1953’s It Came From Outer Space (originally titled The Strangers From Outer Space) tells of a crippled alien starship that crash-lands in the Arizona desert, and of the attempts of amateur astronomer John Putnam (Richard Carlson) to convince the frightened townsfolk to leave the aliens alone so they can repair their craft and return from whence they came.

It’s not a great movie but, I do think of It Came From Outer Space as one of those touchstones. To me, it’s a flick that exemplifies the kind of movie we picture when we talk about the sci-fi and horror movies that come out of the fifties.

First off, there’s the soundtrack to the movie. It’s classic fifties all the way even down to the use of a theremin:

Probably because this was Universal’s first film about invaders from space, the studio felt they needed an original score, as nothing in their music library would impart the appropriate alien gloss to the picture. The single piece of previously-written music in the movie was a three-second excerpt from a Henry Mancini song (“Jitterbug Routine’) tracked in from Sally And Saint Anne and heard over a radio. In addition, a plain-old original orchestral score wasn’t deemed sufficient to create the necessary extraterrestrial ambience, and so the film’s composers — Henry Mancini, Herman Stein, and Irving Gertz — decided to feature the Theremin in their score.

You can even hear a great sample of the soundtrack by clicking here! (sample from the incredible Monstrous Movie Music website).

The musical score is one of those things that definitely stand out about the film but this is a movie that has a slew of connections to movies and tv.

Director Jack Arnold was a prolific man and was responsible for several ’50s scifi cult classics including Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), Revenge of the Creature (1955), This Island Earth (1955) (reshoots), Tarantula (1955), and The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957). He would later go on to have a long career in TV throughout the sixties and the seventies directing shows such as “Peter Gunn,” “Dr. Kildare,” “Perry Mason,” “Rawhide,” “Gilligan’s Island,” “The Mod Squad,” “Nanny and the Professor,” “It Takes a Thief,” “The Brady Bunch,” “McCloud,” “Wonder Woman,” “The Love Boat,” “The Bionic Woman” and “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century”

Another TV connection via Arnold is that he would later go on to work with one of the actors from It Came From Outer Space, Russell Johnson who would be familiar to viewers as The Professor from Gilligan’s Island! Johnson no stranger to Terror Filled Mondays having a leading role in the first entry Attack of the Crab Monsters.

It Came from Outer Space also marks the first time the work of Ray Bradbury appeared on the big screen:

Director Jack Arnold first brought Bradbury to movie theaters in 1953 with It Came from Outer Space, a Harry Essex screenplay developed from Bradbury’s screen treatment, “The Meteor.” Three weeks later, Eugène Lourié’s The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (1953), based on Bradbury’s "The Fog Horn," about a sea monster mistaking the sound of a fog horn for the mating cry of a female, was released. Bradbury’s close friend Ray Harryhausen produced the stop-motion animation of the creature. (Bradbury would later return the favor by writing a short story, “Tyrannosaurus Rex,” about a stop-motion animator who strongly resembled Harryhausen.) Over the next 50 years, more than 35 features, shorts, and TV movies were based on Bradbury’s stories or screenplays.

So, as you can see, while It Came from Outer Space may seem a bit tame by today’s standards, it really has to be considered one of those landmark movies. Oh, lest I forget the basic plot synopsis follows:

Author and amateur astronomer John Putnam (Carlson) and schoolteacher Ellen Fields (Rush) watch a great meteor crash to earth near the small town of Sand Rock, Arizona. After visiting the crash site, John Putnam notices a strange object at the impact site, and comes to believe the meteor is not a meteor at all, but an alien spaceship. After a landslide covers the mysterious craft, John Putnam’s story is ridiculed by the townspeople, the sheriff (Drake), and the local media. Even Ellen is unsure of what to believe at first, but soon agrees to assist John in further investigation.

Aptly named.

I finally realized why Apple named their browser Safari – it’s because every time you use it you are on an adventure! I can’t begin to tell you how many times this thing craps out on me. I keep meaning to switch over to Firefox as my main browser but, I’m reluctant to go through the hassle of transferring everything (bookmarks, passwords and the like) over to another app. Apple released a new version of Safari recently but, it wouldn’t run on my machine so I have no way of knowing whether or not they’ve finally worked all the bugs out. I do know however, I find myself ever more frustrated by the performance of Safari – Apple seems to get a lot right so, it’s a bit disheartening that they get this one thing wrong.

Send in the clowns.

I’m as much a political junkie as the next guy, although I do think we are getting a little nutty with the way we handle the whole presidential race. It seems as if the presidential race has some similarities to the Christmas season in that it begins earlier and earlier with each go round.

Anyway, over the last few days as the race has begun in earnest and there have been a bunch of debates that are all very entertaining to watch. I was stricken by one thought that I wanted to put out there to see what other‘s opinions of it would be.

Each time elections role around, whether they be for governors, senators, representatives or president, one of the issues that always comes up is education. In almost every debate you will hear candidates talk about the sorry state of education in our country. I’m not talking about this year’s race for president, I’m talking about every race! Every time there is a discussion among candidates about education, we always hear about how the candidates are going to ‘fix’ education in our country.

This discussion goes back now at least two decades if not longer - so, what does this mean? Is education really as f**ked up in our nation as it is often portrayed? Is the problem really the educational system or is it some deeper issue in our society that is being masked by this debate and education is merely the smokescreen it hides behind? Are we talking about other issues such as parental responsibility? If not, and we have been having this discussion about ‘fixing’ our educational system for over two decades, does this speak to how ineffectual our government is in fixing any problem because twenty years is a long time and if education in our nation has been a mess for that long we have already lost two generations. It sure doesn’t speak well about what to expect in the future if that is the case.

Feel free though to leave your opinions.

Still Kicking.

I was innovative and had a pioneer spirit and now today I am an antique who has been buried by the technological changes that have destroyed my very existence. I still long for the days when the IBM typewriter could be used and it’s little ball would seemingly hop around as if it had a life of its own. That typewriter was to me a majestic gift from the gods and today I loathe typing on a computer keyboard, listening to iPod quality music, watching shitty satellite TV or a losing a call on my worthless cell phone.

Just a pointer over to Al Goldstein’s blog - funny thing is I find it quite poignant to read Al’s blog because love him or hate him a lot of the things that are mainstream today are mainstream because of people like him. There’s this whole underground scene that goes on in New York and it seems to have bypassed the man and I think that’s kind of a shame.

Saturday Morning Cartoons.

One of my favorite movies has been in rotation on Comedy Central lately. It’s notable because as cited Trey Parker in a VH1 special said he heard that Stephen Sondheim, famed musical theater composer and lyricist, thinks South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut is the best musical he’s seen in the past 15 years. Parker joked about writing Sondheim a response saying, “We think you've done some good work, too.”


Above and below are just two of the songs from the movie that made it into the Guiness Book of World Records:

The movie’s use of profanity gained it a spot in the 2002 edition of Guinness World Records for “Most Swearing in an Animated Film” (399 profane words, including 146 uses of fuck, 79 uses of shit, and 66 uses of bitch, 128 offensive gestures and 221 acts of violence).

Some people might be put off by the language but, it’s a wickedly funny movie and if you haven’t ever seen it, you can watch the entire flick online here - Saturday Morning Cartoons Lives!

At least he’s honest about it!

The Rocket blasts off, here’s Clemen’s talking about the allegations made in the Mitchell Report and at least it all makes sense to me now.

VIDEO VAULT THURSDAYS!

You know it’s always good to start of the New Year on a high note so, this week’s entry into VIDEO VAULT THURSDAYS! needs to be something special and it is.

The music video was directed by Mark Romanek and first aired on May 12, 1994. It was cut down from its original length to 4:36. The video was popular and helped bolster the success of the band. The video shows events that deal with religion, animal cruelity, politics, and even terror. It was also somewhat controversial due to its imagery which included a nude woman with a crucifix mask, a monkey tied to a cross, diagrams of vulvas, and even Reznor wearing a mask while swinging in shackles. These images seem to be inspired by the art of Joel-Peter Witkin. Certain removed scenes were replaced with a title card that said “Scene Missing,” and the instances of the word “fuck” being edited out were accompanied by a stop in the video motion, to make it appear as if the stop was a result of defective film (this was done to make sure the flow of the song was not affected). The video also has a stylized, old-film look. The video is one of two directed by Romanek that the Museum of Modern Art has added to its permanent collection. The other video is Madonna’s “Bedtime Story.”

The unfortunate thing about a video like this is that it spawns a host of imitators who don’t understand why the video was a success in the first place. It does prove the point of how a music video can actually make a song more than a piece of music by marrying images to it. While this video is now almost 14 years old (in itself hard to imagine), it stands the test of time exceptionally well:

by the way, it probably is NSFW although if you do you probably want to listen to it with headphones or with the sound down

The unedited version of this video was shown on Playboy TV’s uncensored music video show Hot Rocks in 1994. In mid-2002, the unedited version of this video was aired on MTV2 as part of a special countdown showcasing the most controversial videos ever to air on MTV.

The keyboard Reznor is seen playing toward the end of the video is a piece of Reznor’s own Mellotron, which was once owned by John Lennon and may have been used on The Beatles’ song “Strawberry Fields Forever.”

After you’ve watched the video, it’s even more interesting to watch it with commentary by the artist:

In 2006, “Closer” was number one in a poll held by VH1 Classic for the twenty greatest videos of all time.

It’s not hard to see why it made the number one spot.

Happy New Year.

Happy New Year to everyone. I for one love New Year’s Day.

There are two reasons for this:

First, New Years Day is a marker where a year lies out before us, fresh and full of promise to make of it what we will. There is something refreshing about that, something hopeful, something good.

Second, it means the dreaded holidays are over! Yay! It means, shopping, cards, gifts, this faux spirit that seems to get a stronger and stronger basis in consumerism is put back in the box until right after next Halloween.

Halloween because that’s when the stores start barraging us with all the Christmas decorations and reminders it’s a good idea to ‘shop early!’ 2 months of this finally put to rest.

Since January 2nd is tomorrow, I can almost bet you that we’ll be seeing Valentine’s decorations up before the end of next week. Somehow, VD (don’t even get me going on the irony of Valentine’s Day’s initials being the shorthand for Venereal Disease) doesn’t quite have the same impact on the psyche as the Christmas season.

Anyway, the NEW YEAR beckons so get out there and CARPE DIEM! Happy New Year to you all!

So, this week is the last TFM for the year and I whipped up a sharp new header for it!

The Year: 2022. The Place: New York City.
The Population: 40,000,000

...a dystopian future in which the population has grown to forty million in New York City alone. The water and soil have been poisoned, and pollution has produced a year-round heatwave due to a “greenhouse effect.” Most housing is dilapidated and overcrowded, and food as it is known today is a rare and expensive commodity.

It’s somewhat unnerving when some aspects of those scifi movies of my youth start popping up in the news. Certainly, seeing a movie from the early seventies talk about the greenhouse effect and reading any of a number of headlines about Global Warming is a bit alarming.

Soylent Green was one of a series of scifi movies Charlton Heston appeared in at this point in his career. As a kid, these films were my first exposure to the actor - it was only later I would see him in other flicks like the Ten Commandments or A Touch of Evil and realize he was something more than a B-movie actor.

The other thing about Soylent Green aside from the line that has become a parody of itself, is that it was the last movie for Edward G. Robinson. Ironically enough, the star’s last appearance on the big screen was a death scene where Robinson is ushered to his end in by Eight Is Enough’s dad Dick Van Patten no less!

Aside from the irony of having the dad of a show named Eight Is Enough in a flick that touches on the hazards of overpopulation - further proof that the gods have a sense of humor is found in this little item:

Van Patten was in the news in early December 2005 for lending his name to Natural Balance, a line of high-end dog food that is intended to be indistinguishable from stews and other dishes that are normally intended for human consumption. He has demonstrated this by eating, on at least one occasion, his own brand of dog food in tandem with some pet.

Getting back to the film though, you can watch a portion of it below. It’s probably one of the best scenes in the movie and I remember as a kid how effective it was in making me tear up:



Soylent Green wasn’t considered high entertainment in its day but what is interesting is, how this last appearance of Robinson on screeen holds up so well many years later. As death scenes go, especially in scifi flicks, Robinson’s performance as a man who has grown tired of living is what makes the movie so very special. One of the things I came across while looking up info on the film was that Heston’s tears in the scene were real as he was on of a select few to know just how sick Robinson was when he was filming this scene.

In closing, this movie is a must see if only to be able to hear the origin of this line.

LOST secrets revealed.

So, I have been putting together an entry on LOST now for awhile and I just haven’t finished the single one I was going to do so, it will wind up being a bunch of entries over the next few days. I just finished watching (or is that rewatching?) Season 3. One thing I have to say is that the season holds up well in terms of the overall development of the series.

ABC dropped the ball on LOST. The numbers went down but, that has to do with how the network has handled the show more than anything else. When LOST first hit the airwaves, it wasn’t an immediate hit but it certainly was one of the hits that season for ABC and went a long way in bringing ABC’s overall numbers back up as a network.

Thing was ABC did something with LOST that I don’t remember them doing with any other series in recent memory. Namely, the network aired first run episodes and then reran the week’s episodes in a second timeslot on Saturday nights. What was good about that was that if you missed an episode you had another chance to catch it later on in the week. It’s something that is vitally important for a series like LOST where the storyline is so rich and intricate that if you do miss an episode you can miss significant plot points.

I always wondered why ABC didn’t continue to do that with the series.

Secondly, the series was moved into a later timeslot and a lot of people speculated the show LOST a bunch of younger viewers because of it. I still think not doing a second run during the week was the biggest part of the equation that was missing and truthfully I think ABC missed the boat by not continuing to run the series from the very beginning in a Saturday timeslot since the 3rd season finale. It would’ve given a lot more people the chance to catch up on the series from the very beginning and see parts of the story they missed.

Anyway, a couple of points about the mysterious flash-forward in the season finale. I’m throwing this out there, make of it what you will but, I if you watched the finale closely you’ll see how seamlessly this all fits.

Jack sees an obituary in the finale and winds up attending a viewing at a funeral home for someone who died. The funeral director tells Jack he is the only one who showed. There was a lot of speculation about who the person who was in the casket was. Well, it was Sawyer (James Ford). The other thing was at the end of the episode Jack meets up with Kate and shows her the funeral notice and wonders why she didn’t go. Kate towards the end of her meeting with Jack says she has to go because ‘he’ll be wondering where I am.’

A lot of people supposed there was some new man in Kate’s life and they kept trying to figure out who among the cast it could be.

Well, it was Kate’s young son.

Or maybe, I should say it was Kate and Sawyer’s son. See, if you were watching closely throughout, the season one of the things that was hinted at was whether or not Kate was pregnant. Pregnant as a result of her rendezvous with Sawyer (of which there were two on camera in Season 3 - maybe more off camera?). James Ford has never been good with sticking around for his kids and there is no reason to think when he got back from the island he was willing to make a go of it with a pregnant Kate or even if he tried that the situation worked out. He left his kid and the mother behind and it would go a long way towards explaining why Kate wouldn’t go to Ford’s funeral.

I don’t know if we’ll even find out in Season Four but, if it should wind up that Kate turns out to be pregnant and needs to leave the island to avoid dying - it fits that final scene of season three so well. Jack wants to return but, Kate with the responsibility of raising a child of her own can’t see returning to the island at all.

I FOUND IT!

Here’s a streaming version of the Tom Petty song I wanted to use for this week’s Video Vault Thursday! Again, another song I couldn’t find a video for but one that you can at least enjoy listening to:

Well it’s Christmas time again, decorations are all hung by the fire
Everybody’s singin’, all the bells are ringing out
And it’s Christmas all over again, yeah again

Long-distance relatives, haven’t seen ’em in a long, long time
Yeah I kind of missed ’em, I just don’t wanna kiss ’em, no
It’s Christmas all over again, yeah again

And all over town little kids gonna get down
And Christmas is a rockin’ time, put your body next to mine
Underneath the mistletoe we go, we go

Everybodys singin’, all the bells are ringin’ out
It’s Christmas all over again, yeah again

And right down our block little kids start to rock
And Christmas is a rockin’ time, put your body next to mine
Underneath the mistletoe we go, we go

Merry Christmas time come and find you happy and there by your fire
I hope you have a good one, I hope momma gets her shoppin' done
And it’s a Christmas all over again
Baby it’s Christmas all over again
And it’s Christmas all over again

Now let’s see...I want a new Rickenbacker guitar,
two Fender bass-mans, Chuck Berry songbooks, xylophone...

Video Vault Thursdays!

“Bah, humbug!” No, that’s too strong
’Cause it is my favorite holiday
But all this year's been a busy blur
Don’t think I have the energy

So, I tried really, really hard this week to find a holiday themed entry into Video Vault Thursdays, unfortunately the two tunes I wanted to put up for this week don’t have videos!!!

The song is as much about a harried lifestyle and trying to make connections as it is about Christmas. And that’s a lifestyle Butler knew well as a musician and songwriter trying to break big in New York in the early 80s - a lifestyle that has mellowed in middle age. He may never have cracked the Top 40. But so what? He’s made it to age 56, continues to make music, is a husband and the father of a 6-year-old son.

One of those tunes was by The Waitresses, it was their very special holiday hit Christmas Wrapping. However, they never did get around to making a video for the song!

"Christmas Wrapping" (sometimes misspelled as "Christmas Wrappings") is a Christmas song recorded in 1981 by The Waitresses. It was first released on the 1981 various artists holiday compilation album A Christmas Record on ZE Records. The group then included the track on their 1982 EP I Could Rule the World if I Could Only Get the Parts. It has since been included on numerous holiday compilation albums, including Now That's What I Call Christmas!: The Signature Collection.
The song is narrated from the point of view of a busy single woman who is adamant that she will try to sit-out the exhausting Christmas period, not participating in the traditional Christmas activities (except for making dinner, see below).
She reveals that, during the course of the year, she has attempted to meet up with a man she encountered in a ski shop the previous year. Despite the couple’s attempts to meet, a succession of mishaps conspires to keep them apart.
Finally on Christmas Eve, while the protagonist (after stating that A&P provided her with “the world’s smallest turkey”) is doing last-minute shopping for cranberries at a local convenience store, ends up running into the man after discovering that he, too, forgot to buy cranberries.
This coincidence seems to hint that the narrator, and therefore the listener, shouldn’t completely abandon their faith in the magic of Christmas.

Like I said though, The Waitresses never did make a video of the tune and somehow I think if they had it would have been a hit. In the meantime, this week we’ll go back to The Waitresses other big tune, the one that bought them to fame - “I Know What Boys Like.” Not Christmas Wrapping but it will have to do: