Hello People of the World;
Here we are, getting closer to that December
21st end date. October has been very rainy of late. But it has been
crisp and clear and as predicted, everyone is FREEEEEEEEEEEEEE-zing! Yet, the
temperature has not dropped below the 50’s. Not during the day anyway. That’s
not cold. -10 degrees is cold. Wait until then to complain and I’ll be right
there next to you complaining along with you, but cloudy, rainy and chilly?
Man.
So I read this online the other day: “Rule for Friends of Introverts – There is a difference
between someone acting better than others and simply wanting to be left alone.
If you cannot tell the different, you’re probably stupid.” Being rather
introverted myself I had to chuckle at the truth of that of late.
Anyways, let’s get started shall we?
1:[ First Item of the
Month:
I have come to believe that politics is the most stupid invention by mankind
ever. It is divisive by its very nature and only serves to Other one another
based on the very thing we can openly REFUSE to change: our ideologies. Which
means that it simply appears to be an illusion of “freedom”. It also
seems that public discourse in this country is now shouting and interrupting
and trying to get in the last word so everyone can go “OoooooH, BURN!”. Do that
and you win the argument, even if you don’t make a damn bit of sense. We seem
to have lost that in our society. Common Sense. Look at how we wear our pants
and our caps. No sense at all.
Coming Soon: More Truthfulness
+ NAMELESS: The Authentic and Magical Ledger
Art of EW3 & A Treatise on American Indian Art (VERY SOON): I am
working to get this wrapped up by November. I may be showing some art soon and
this will be the project statement. Well, a treatise on Native Art, rather. I
do have a much shorter project statement. But I need to sharpen this piece and
add a couple of things that add to my point. If anyone is interested in reading
the rough draft, let me know. Also, I agree, GAP should be ashamed! Native
Americans would never, NEVER put something that is meaningful, even sacred to
Natives on a logo or tee shirt- oh, uh, …wait. Dammit!
+ The Five Six SEVEN Hypocrisies
of Native America: (Because Seven is a sacred number) Yes, that is the full
title. COMPLETE. As you can see, I upped it again from six to seven because I
keep running into them in this “community”. But I am still contemplating
whether or not I should post this. Should I? With the recent GAP controversy I
am definitely posting it soon.
+ ONE: A Spoken Word (October 1): I
figured out a starting point for this one and it will incorporate a ton of
ideas that have been floating around in my head from observing the world around
me for the last few years. It will have ideas from NAMELESS and SEVEN
HYPOCRISIES and should be a fun piece to read and perform….
2:[ So, I have to ask
you people a serious question: Who ever told Paul McCartney that he could sing?
Really. What person, seriously, heard that sh*t and said, “That’s going on the
album….”?
3:[ More MOVIE TIME ADVENTURES:
+ Once again, Bonnie
and I will be heading out to see Rifftrax Live. This time, it will be their
Halloween event: Birdemic. We have followed Rifftrax for a while now and we
have always enjoyed their live offerings, which they seem to be doing more of.
They have a friendly competitor in Cinema Titanic, which also consists of
former stars of Mystery Science Theater 3000. CT has been doing a glut of live
touring as well but seems to have tapered off. Rifftrax was a MP3 downloading
site but has seen an uptick in live performing. We love both iterations. I will
tell you more about this in next month’s edition…
+ Here is a glut of
short reviews for you:
Looper Review/ Sorry, your gimmicky casting cannot disguise the
fact that you are basically “The Terminator” no matter how much Geek Love is
given you….
The Master Review/ It should
really be called “The Meh-ster” or “How to Torment a Horny Drunk for Fun and
Profit”. I don’t get the PT Anderson love sometimes. This just proved that
“There Will be Blood” was all Day-Lewis….
Argo Review/ It balances historical recreation, political
intrigue, with humor and a Hollywood backlot story without demonizing anyone.
Now, I REALLY HATE Ben Affleck….
+ So, it turns out
that Paramount won the rights to keep making The Godfather movies, without Coppela or Puzo. What most people
don’t get about the series is that they were all about the corruption of family
in the wake of living the American Dream. Most especially, the corruption of
the most innocent of the brothers, who was the only hope for the father at
legitimacy and how far he has fallen and how he eventually tries for
redemption. But the new books by Winegartner and those insipid video games
turned a generational story about a family man who turns to crime to make it in
America into stupid, shitty “mafia” shlock just because “Sonny was a badass”.
They don’t get it. Even, Part III had a great theme: Higher the Power, Deeper
the Corruption is lost because stupid people want mafia shoot-outs and tits.
Yes, it was saddled with a weak performance but the touch of family is
overshadowed by the fact “the fans” wanted mafia shlock. I am sure they will
get that. The next movie is supposed to be about how Young Sonny is so Badass….
How the mighty have fallen….
+ I was watching “The
Empire Strikes Back” recently, and I noticed a couple of things: 1) C-3PO is
simply repeating everything R2-D2 is saying. Really. Try watching it again and
try to imagine the conversations with C-3P0 NOT saying what R2-D2 just said.
2) How much Han Solo grew as a character in
between Star Wars and Empire and how subtly it was shown.
The first instance is when he returns to
base at the beginning. He announces to the general that he has to leave, that
he has to pay back Jabba the Hutt (Who at this time was never seen. Until, the Special
Editions that is. I was watching the unaltered version.) The general states
that Han is a “good fighter” that he hates to lose. Which, seems like a cool
throwaway line until you realize that in the intervening time between the first
Death Star battle and their hiding on Hoth, Han has been fighting with the
Rebellion! He is serving a greater cause now. Not selfishly selling his
services as a smuggler. He was commanding troops, leading men, and coming under
fire so many times that Luke and he form a deep friendship. So much so, it
leads me to the second thing.
Luke has not returned to Echo Base and Han,
after some investigation decides to ride out alone into the cold night to
search for him. One of the other rebels admonishes him for taking a tauntaun
out and that it would freeze before Han can get any real distance to find Luke
and that would trap him out there and by implication, Han would die too. Han’s
reply, “Then I’ll see you in hell!”
Again, many think it a cool throwaway line
just because Han is a badass. True dat, beluga. But it also shows his deep caring for Luke, his friend, lost
out there in the freezing cold of a Hoth night and Han is risking his own life
to find his friend. Let me say this another way: Han was willing to die to find Luke! Han has grown as a character in those
two scenes. Thusly, this frees up Han to pursue a relationship with Leia.
Remember, he’s the one pursuing.
Because his growth of character, which Leia
refuses to admit, he is taking the next logical step in his own development!
The scene in the base as Han and Chewie are rushing to repair the Falcon before
the Imperial army arrives with its walkers and Luke shows up to say goodbye
suddenly takes on more meaning, as they both say nothing to each other. They
just share a look of shared adventure and that through it all somehow, they
will see each other again. “Be careful.” “You too.”
This is why I think Han’s character was not
watered down in Return of the Jedi. The director just could not bring off the
full maturation. No, Han did not need to die to prove some fanboy’s point. A
better director would have found a way to make the performance true enough to
Han’s evolution of character that he would want to be with Leia and not come
off as slap-sticky and goofy as it did at the end. (I hated that they reprised
the “I know” line as a winking joke.) The closest it comes is when he is alone
with Leia right after Luke departs to face Vader. He cares enough to want to
comfort her but has grown enough to show his emotion to her in his slight
jealousy over his friend and even in his apology. No, he was not neutered. He
was putting her feelings ahead of his own. Something a man of maturity would
do. This all then makes you realize that when they first meet in Star Wars, Han
really was beginning to like her.
Anyways, those were the things I noticed
about watching “The Empire Strikes Back” again. Man, I am such a geek….
4:[ I find it kind of
sad that Louis CK’s excellent FX series “Louis” is devolving into a “Spot the
Cameo by Some Other Famous Comedians Show”. The series is great but in the
first and second seasons he would anchor it with his real-life comedian
friends. Now, we have Amy Pohler and Jerry Seinfeld making Guest Appearances.
My favorite will always be the episode with Doug Stanhope. That was such a
great episode and to hear Louis talk about it on NPR and give Stanhope some
props is also great. But this, Famous Comedian of the Week needs to be nipped
in the bud.
But what do I know? The dude’s won Emmys for
gosh sakes. What do I do? I blog about my complaints….
5:[ Ah yes, settle in
Dear Readers for more of:
Adventures
at the Coffee Shop!
+ Due to financial
circumstances, I have not been to a coffee shop is a while. As you can guess, I
had a really bad coffee withdrawal. I had a pressing headache for a night and
had a strange dream as a result. It was very bad. I would call it a migraine
had I ever had a migraine before. So I have no point of reference. Anyways, I
had a dream that I was riding in an air-sealed bus with Alec Baldwin, because I
was trying to catch a ride back to this really long bridge that connected to
downtown Chicago. I felt it I could get back to downtown I could find my way
back to Bonnie and the Girls. Instead of dropping me by the bridge the bus keeps
going around these curvy beach roads and veers off onto the beach and drives
straight into the ocean.
Underwater, I can really feel the pressure
on my head and I start to panic but could not wake up. Instead, we are taken to
the undersea restaurant for the very wealthy, which is why, I guess, Alec
Baldwin was there, that is pressurized but I cannot enjoy anything because the
pressure of the ocean is killing my head. Finally, I force myself to wake up
and the headache does not go away, but it lessens.
Lesson learned: those who suffer though
withdrawal, I get it now. Your body is killing you for more and what can you
do? It is a body chemistry reaction, basically. I hear that a caffeine
withdrawal is supposed to be as bad a heroin one. I kind of doubt that. But
that night, I am sure I would have agreed wholeheartedly….
+ Now that I’ve been
off coffee for three weeks, I have switched to drinking green tea instead at
the coffee shop. I like the Tazo Tao Green Tea with lemon and spearmint. Though
by mistake a rude barista, terrible at selling differing teas, gave me
peppermint tea. But I enjoyed that as well. So, I’m off coffee for the time
being. Does anyone have any good tea suggestions? We’ll see how long this keeps
up…. I’m sleepy….
+ Bonnie has a new job.
It is cool to see Bonnie chatting it up with her new co-workers at the Barnes
and Noble while we get drinks. (Yes, that same B&N!) I love her and am
pretty proud of her. Plus, she gets an employee discount at the coffee shop and
bookstore, which makes our Beanies very happy. And that is the most important
aspect….
+ You know what I
cannot stand? The people who simply walk in the coffee shop and start talking
very loudly to the hardworking baristas, just sticking their big, ugly faces
into everyone-else-who-is-in-the-line-ahead-of-them’s lives just to talk about
their buffoonery causing the baristas to struggle both to keep up with
everyone’s orders and have to listen to this person’s nonsense….
6:[ Speaking of, I have
another movie question for those that love to critique them: When you say a
movie plot is sooo contrived, aren’t all movie plots contrived?
7:[ And now Wisdom of
the Sages presents:
“An Ever-growing List of Things That MUST Stop!”
+ Here something that
needs to stop: Those fucking people who barge ahead of people with canes or
walkers getting on the bus. Man, just have some patience. I hate it when at the
bus stop and the bus “kneels” to let on an old lady or someone struggling with
a cane on board and some ass hat who is needed right away simply cuts in front
of them while they are boarding just so they can get a seat. Worse are those
that don’t even have their fare cards ready! That really needs to stop….
+ A recent posting on
the Internet pointed out some striking similarities between two very bad
movies, Manos: The Hands of Fate and
the more recent Birdemic: Something of
Terror. (I can’t remember.) In the comments someone offered the suggestion
that the latter purposely mirrored the former and that Birdemic is a purposely-made “bad” film. Made to gain notoriety on
a society that praises mediocrity.
We seem to be fostering this filmmaking
ideology that even crappy movie can gain popularity if enough people can make
it into a “Cult” movie. This again, raises this question of if we are making
great films anymore. You never see anything that isn’t based on something else,
a comic book, a popular ‘tween book series, or the like. We allow shit like
“The Room” and other gain some sort of status just because we like to think we
are in on the joke of it being a
shitty movie. To some degree, MST3K has contributed to this because it has
raised some shitty films like “Manos” and others to cult status.
Doesn’t matter now days if it is a good film
anymore. We’ll watch it anyway. We cut too much slack to mediocrity and
awfulness in the name of our own egos. We prize mediocrity now. We don’t want
substance anymore, we want entertainment because we think we earned it and are
owed it…. That spells doom for any kind of serious filmmaking. All we do anymore
are reboots, adaptations or genre-mimicry (i.e. grindhouse, found-footage). We
don’t try anything new, subversive anymore. Failing species that we are….
+ You know what
ladies? I am a guy. As admitted last month, I occasionally check out the pretty
women that cross my gaze. It’s natural. SO REMEMBER: if your guy tells you he
doesn’t look, no matter how much in love you are with each other, HE LIES! So,
sufficed to say, I have seen a lot of attractive women while walking in the
streets. Sometimes, we will exchange glances and smiles. Look, I realized long
ago that I don’t rate with pretty women (So, don’t worry about that.) but I
think that it is nice to let them know that I think they’re pretty. It’s a
stupid Nice Guy thing. Anyways.
For me, my sense of what makes a woman
attractive is a series of peaks and valleys. I tend to be attracted to
non-traditional beauty as evidenced by some of the women I have pursued. Well,
in one case I did chase a rodeo queen. But that is the exception that proves my
point. (I tend to find beauty in a lot of women.) So, when I see a pretty woman
in the street I usually find them attractive. (I am not blind.)
That is, until some of them just open their
damn mouths! SHEESH!
Many are on their phones just interfering
with other people’s walking just so they can talk about themselves, loudly and
out spews this maddeningly juvenile teenybopper selfishness! “I really don’t see what you see in them”,
“If we can just avoid them that’ll be best”, “I told them to do that but I just
wanted to make sure of blah, blah, blah”, “It’s not me, it’s how they treat me”
and on, and on, and on. Most are either trying to escape some sort of
responsibility or are cutting down someone else. Most have that nasally,
up-ending syntax that sounds like everything they frickin’ say is some stupid
question!! Yergh!
So. Yeah. My sexist judgment of female
strangers must stop!
+ So, there I was
viewing clips on YouTube. Of late my favorite video series has been Jerry
Seinfeld’s “Comedians in Cars getting Coffee” which featured such luminaries as
Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks, Larry David, Ricky Gervais, and closed up its first
series with a touching episode with Michael Richards. One of my favorites is
the episode featuring Joel Hodgeson, the creator and first host of my all-time
favorite TV show Mystery Science Theater
3000. In it Jerry and Joel sit in a restaurant over coffee and chat out a
skit about upside-down ketchup bottles. It was funny and charming.
So, some days later the Rifftrax folk put
out a promo video of them sitting around over coffee chatting out a skit of
their writers going insane during the production of their latest offering. I
wrote a comment that maybe the recent Joel appearance had some influence on
this promo and the fanboys jumped down my throat. One even harshly pointed out
the differences between the two videos before rudely dismissing my statement.
Man, you should have read my great retort! I
went over his argument with a sarcastic tone of phony apologetics and showed my
intellect by providing the poster with a definition of the word “influence”!
But, I didn’t do that. Why would I? Just to give my ego a boost? This is why I
rarely reply to comments made on this blog, even though I parse them out and
create counterarguments for them. It is all simply actions made out of our ego,
worse yet, our intellectual ego! So. Yeah. My egotism needs to stop….
+ When has reaching
the end of the workweek been some sort of Herculean effort that allows stupid
people to go out for no reason and celebrate? I mean, getting out of prison
after 23 years of being wrongfully imprisoned or returning home after working
on an oil derrick in the North Sea for 10 years and you will have cause to
celebrate. But making it to Friday from the comfort of your own office just so
you can get dolled up and meet cute guys and get hammered? Please. Hell, making
it through 8 hours on a Wednesday of being a glorified secretary and you
suddenly deserve to hit the bars to meet some fine-ass bitches? Give ME a
break….
8:[ Speaking of drunk
people during the weekdays: I was on my way home from a teacher PD and was on
the Purple Line express heading north. When at the Chicago stop, north of the
loop, this be-flanneled dude gets on and slumps in the seat next to me. I am in
the very front window seat looking out the front window, a cool seat to get if
you like trains. (I’m indifferent.) And for the rest of the way to Belmont, the
last stop before it goes express to Howard, he slumps over in his seat. First,
when he slumped against me it is then I noticed, the dude is SNACKERED! He
shifts so that he will slump in the other direction and before we get to
Belmont nearly falls out of his seat several times bothering most of the
standing passengers. So, at Fullerton I tap him and offer to trade seats. He
gives me a grateful “Thank you”.
I felt bad for him. I didn’t want him to
fall to the floor. Even the worst drunkards know to lean up against the
barriers and windows. So, he conks out against the window until we reach Howard
and we both get off and head to our respective homes….
9:[ From the “This Just In” Department: Warp Drive
may be possible and scientists are actively working on it. According to this article, scientists have found new areas to explore in physics that could open
the door to warp speed! What is really cool is how close to the concepts the
series got. Shoot, I’m in the backyard building my full-scale starship
Enterprise right now!
10:[ Last Item of the Month: I have started a new job. The Adobe
Youth Voices Program in the Educational Technology Department of Chicago Public
Schools recently hired me as a Media Mentor. Now, I just started and have not
gotten to the nitty-gritty of what the job entails. But I will be visiting
various CPS schools in the Adobe Youth Voices program and mentoring both
teachers and students in graphic design and video production. Both things I
really enjoy doing. I enjoy the company, the staff and the work I did so far.
So, we’ll see how well this turns out. Stay tuned….
That will do it for this month.
To keep up with the cinema-heaviness of this
month’s edition I have to admit that I do not understand it when everyone talks
about how great and how true to the James Bond character On Her Majesty’s Secret Service movie was. Honestly, all I remember
from that movie was Emma Peel getting gunned down at the end. That’s it. I
think most are afraid that is the only thing that makes that
particular Bond movie interesting at all and they are just afraid to admit it.
Anyways.
As stated earlier, feel free to comment,
correct or contradict anything I post here without fear of reprisal. It’s all
egotism anyhow. Unless you wish to have a sort of Internet discussion, let me
know, otherwise post away! Keep it civil and keep reading my nonsense. I do
appreciate it.
Until Next Time, “I try to show the schemers
how pathetic their attempts to control everything really are.”
© 2012 Ernest M. Whiteman III
