Yummsh.com - Between The Yelling And The Sleep

LOST: The Rewatch

2010-12-27T11:32:00.001-05:00

I recently picked up the absolutely enormous and completely stunning 'Complete Collection' of the television show 'Lost', and since I haven't done so yet, I've decided to watch the entire series from start to finish. I love Lost. It's my favorite show of all time, and yes, even the finale. Could've done with a few more answers to some lingering questions, but... whatever. Let's get this show on the road. I've got plenty of time to babble.

DAY 1: September 15, 9:34 AM. Starting off with the beginning, which certainly makes the most sense, even with a show like this. 'Pilot: Parts 1 and 2', to be specific. Cue Jack's eye opening, and... we're off.

I think this show has spurned more visually iconic television moments than any other in recent memory. Even the long pull-out from Jack's face and body as he lies on the jungle floor in the first few seconds of the show could be made into a poster tomorrow and sell a million copies. Shannon standing on the beach screaming, Claire going into faux-labor amidst the chaos, Jack standing at the plane wreckage and crying for the first time (heh), Locke sitting on the sand staring out at the ocean... all incredibly memorable.

Jack and Kate had the bloodiest, drunkenest meet-cute moment ever. That I know of, anyway. It also featured television's first coupling of the phrases 'dural sac' and 'angel hair pasta' in a single monologue. That I know of, anyway. 'Laugh In' was a pretty weird show.

As much as I love him, JJ Abrams has got to be the most wicked hyperbolist working in entertainment today. There needs to be a drinking game based upon how many times he says the word 'incredible' in the commentary. Speaking of the commentary, it's remarkably muted compared to that of the commentaries included in the later episodes of the show. Listen to a commentary of an episode in Seasons 4 or 5, for example, and it's wildly different. Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse are some of the best commentary givers out there, if you ask me.

Smokezilla rearing his ugly head for the first time. Man, I love that eerie howling sound, no matter how canned and manufactured it may be. If you were hundreds of years old and didn't have a name, you'd be pissed off and howling, too.

Not sure what's creepier - Vincent just sitting there or Locke just sitting there. Remember in the old days when the common theory was 'Dude, Locke is totally evil!'? Good times.

It's interesting to note that the scenes in this initial episode seemed a lot slower and patient than they did in later seasons. It's a bit dull to watch now that I've seen it multiple times and can practically quote it all by heart, but it's nice to see a show with actors and dialogue that aren't afraid to take their time. A point to further my long-standing opinion that the show should've gone for seven seasons, not six. I liked the last season and thought it did what it needed to do while keeping the creators' initial visions for the show intact, but I will readily admit that it felt a little rushed. They could've at least kicked it out to a full 23 or 24 episodes like the first two seasons were. It would've kept that whole 'Season 1/Season 6' mirror angle going until the very end, as well.

Count us out, Kate! 1... 2... 3... 4... 5. Atta girl.

So there's the first episode. Moving on to Part 2 now.

Multi-character flashbacks here in the second half of the pilot. One of the only times this occurred in the early days.

So Walt could summon birds, but not dogs? Interesting. I think.

Lot of first appearances here: Sayid as Mr. Fix-It, Jin The Fisherman, and Sawyer The Sensitive Racist all in the same episode. Oh, and a sped-up version of Giacchino's 'Hollywood And Vines'! Awesome.

After all these years, Locke and Walt's backgammon scene still gives me the chills. Two players, two sides. One is light, one is dark... So many interesting character vignettes in this episode. Quite the achievement to outline such a wide-ranging library of characters in an 80-minute premiere, and yet still manage to keep the pace of things moving as quickly as it does.

Enter The Conquering Icee Bear!

Absolutely spectacular ending. The whole scene of Shannon translating Rousseau's message, Sayid deducing that it had been playing for 16 years, Charlie's 'Guys, where are we?' Fantastic. My only qualm with that last scene is that they should have cut to black directly from Charlie's face right after that line and not from a fairly pointless cut-in of Kate looking worried. Oh well. I guess the editors thought she had nicer eyelashes, which she does. I distinctly remember watching this 2-hour premiere on September 22, 2004, and it was with that ridiculously inviting cliffhanger that the show truly sucked me in and made me the super-fan that I am today. Either that or 'Walkabout', but we'll get to that soon enough.

And that's it for the pilot. On to the first layer of meat in the sandwich, 'Tabula Rasa'.

Fairly flat episode for the most part. It sets up the fairly gruesome and excruciating storyline of Kate's U.S. Marshal dying a painful death after suffering through an airplane crash AND a gunshot wound, but besides that... hmm. Not entirely sure.

Alright, so it sets up Kate's criminal background, as well. Love how the Australian farmer only has one arm, and that Kate's alias at his ranch is 'Annie'.

Large amount of character development in 'Tabula Rasa'. I'm not complaining, but for all of you that complained about the supposed slowness of the first 6 episodes of Season 3, I invite you to make the slog through the first third of Season 1 again. It's a nice dip into character-based nostalgia, but as for right now, all I really want to do is turn the donkey wheel and flash-forward on over to the hatch.

Oh, but wait - here's Sun taking a sponge bath. Perhaps this isn't a bad episode after all.

'Tabula Rasa' marks the third time in as many episodes that we've actually seen Flight 815 split in half from the inside. Not sure if that's a coincidence, or an example of lucking into a future method of storytelling that was advantageously and wisefully taken on. I think this theme of showing things over and over again underlines the repeating aspects of history on 'Lost'. Nothing ever only happens once, but when it does, it's just progress.

Way to botch an execution, Sawyer. Jesus. Nice job of making the one guy who doesn't seem to want to hate anyone hate you.

Remember when episodes ended with a nice song over a montage? Vincent and Creepy Locke sure do.

With 'Tabula Rasa' out of the way, let's move on to a flat-out 'Lost' classic - 'Walkabout'.

Another instance of the show repeating itself visually to mark a moment - here we are back on the beach again, with 815 broiling in the background and John Locke waking up to find that his legs move.

I love how Sawyer's flashlight is so much bigger than Jack's. Boy, a subtle dick joke. Don't see those very often.

The boar scene is boring. Ha. I didn't know boars ate human flesh. Sexy. However, that scene did make a nice callback (callforward?) to the boars running amok and picking corpses clean in the hull of the Black Rock in 'Ab Aeterno'.

Locke's monologue about the boars and resulting grand entrance into the fabric of the show is the most awesome thing ever.

I want to catch Maggie Grace a fish. With my bare hands. With her watching.

Just noticed that Locke's wheelchair was conveniently and quickly re-purposed as a firewood carrier thingy.

People call Ben Linus a villain, but I'd say Locke's boss Randy is far worse. Jesus, the scenes at the office of the box company are depressing. Nice first mention of John's 'don't tell me what I can't do' mantra, as well.

Seeing the picture of Sayid's girl Nadia reminds me to mention that I think I know why he didn't end up with her at the tail end of Season 6, but we're a ways off from that. More later.

Know what's sadder than the scenes at Locke's office? The scene of him talking to the fake Helen on the sex line.

Aaaaaand there's Christian Shepherd. Quite a lot of long-term storylines being planted here. Extensive furthering of Sayid's ability to fix absolutely goddamn anything, to boot. Nice.

Discovering that Locke was in a wheelchair was a massive move forward for the series, a weighty and veritable stomp on the terra of television. One of the creative high peaks of the entire show, and one in a long series of many. Positively sublime.

I think if I had to think up a different title for this episode, it would be 'Bore-n Under A Bad Sign'.

That does it for Disc 1 of Season 1, and my first day on the job as well. This might take a little longer to get through than I expected, but I wouldn't really want it any other way. See you next time.

Staring Down Big Brother - Part IV

2010-09-11T17:07:00.004-04:00

So as the grand and glorious Chenbot fussed about in the dark back corner of the room with her phalanx of make-up assistants, hairstylists and god knows what else swarming all around her like flies buzzing around too much hairspray, myself and the rest of the studio audience were being given a run-through of how the show was going to play out by the stage manager. I didn't catch his name, but he was a guy about my age with a bald head and an impressive amount of crap hanging from his belt. I saw at least three cell phones, a walkie, various security badges and passes, a whistle (WTF?), and all kind of other random assorted stuff. He was a walking junk drawer, and it was his job to tell us how the show we were about to be very much a part of was going to take place. Funny guy, too. I have to say that his job fit him just about perfectly.

He told us repeatedly that he was also a super fan of the show, and that he had been on the crew of 'Big Brother' since its inception 12 seasons ago. A lifer, as it were. He'd seen it all, everything from the chicken coop cam in the ungodly horrific and boring first season to Nakomis' ingenious six-finger veto plan to evict the ungodly horrific and boring Jase to the enormous egos of the All-Stars and back again. 'Who is everyone's favorite houseguest ever?' he asked us. 'Evel Dick?' Dick got a few shouts and rounds of applause, but when I yelled out 'Dr. Will!', well, that got even more. I doubt anyone can dispute the claim that the evil doctor is undoubtedly one of the greatest Big Brother players ever, and it was nice to see that I wasn't alone in my opinion. Stage manager guy ranked Dick and Dr. Will among the top two for sure (in that order, to which I say bullshit - Dick was good, but Will was and always will be the master), and it was right about then that I started to feel at home amongst the hundred-or-so people all around me. We were all there to achieve a common goal. We knew our material, we knew our history, and we were ready to see some truly craptastic yet deeply satisfying summertime television get made. My people.

So Stage Manager is babbling along, and all of a sudden, every head in the place turns slightly to the left. Julie Chen is walking up right behind him and taking her place in front of the couches for the first run-through of her opening monologue. When I say 'every head', people, I mean EVERY HEAD. No one gave shit one about Stage Manager anymore. Not in the slightest. We had wanted our Chenbot since the get-go, and there she was, resplendent in all her robotic glory. No pomp, no circumstance, no flock of doves, nothing. My girl just walks onstage with entourage in tow and takes her mark at center stage. Fantastic. It was like she was moving on a track hidden in the floor, and for all I know, she was. Clad in all black like a biomechanical stealth geisha. Stage Manager noticed every head in the place had turned slightly askew away from him, and a small smile played across his face. Without even having to look behind him, he dipped his head slightly to one side and says 'Yeah... I know.' We all laughed. Our fearless, emotionless android leader had arrived.

Now let's get something perfectly clear - Julie Chen the woman is not anything near my type. Not really at all. Don't get me wrong, she's an impossibly beautiful and near-flawless specimen of womanhood and femininity, but she's just so... perfect. Not a hair is out of place, and I've seen less make-up at the counter at Nordstrom. I know it's for the show and I totally understand that, but like I said, she's just too... perfect. I like a flaw or three in the women I choose to interpret and associate with in that manner, but really, that's neither here or there. Julie Chen the television host, on the other hand, is probably one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen. She's perfect. Perfect face, perfect body, perfect poise and grace under the pressure of performing on live national television week after week, everything. It's no wonder her die-hard fans refer to her as 'Chenbot', because as perfectly human and emotionally present as Julie Chen the woman clearly is, Julie Chen the television host has taken it upon herself to remove virtually every human flaw from her character you could possibly imagine. She barely moved throughout the course of the hour-long show (yes, it really is taped live, and not edited together piecemeal afterward) except to transport herself between stage marks, and she stood statue-still while her army of assistants manipulated literally every piece of her manufactured facade. I saw single hairs being lifted and moved from one place to another on her head. A tiny battery-powered airbrush was used to apply make-up to her sculpted face. The woman, no, the HOST is literally a living canvas, and to me, it's merely a bonus that she is able to walk and talk on top of it all.

So with Chenbot firmly affixed in place, Stage Manager left us with our instructions and called for the first dry run through the opening spiel. There were teleprompters for Chenbot to follow virtually everywhere (another piece of beautiful behind the scenes filth for me to admire), and truly, there was no question as to who was in charge once the cameras started rolling. She was our captain, and we were her grimy crew. We were told to keep our gaze at her eyeline during her spiel, and we obeyed. Chenbot glided through her rehearsal without a hitch, and the clock on the far wall told us we had less than ten minutes before showtime. Stage Manager returned for a few minutes while Chenbot's handlers rebooted her for maximum performance, and as we fixed our hair and adjusted our postures, the clock continued to tick down towards 5:00 PST. Cameras were adjusted, stage lights were intensified (those things are HOT), and with that, it was go time.

Chenbot took her place in the middle of the stairs, and everyone adjusted our gaze to her eyeline, just as we were instructed. I saw the clock turn to 5 sharp from the corner of my eye, and the stage manager signaled us to start applauding. As he faded us out with a hand gesture, Chenbot was activated, and the show began. 'Good evening, I'm Julie Chen,' she began. 'And welcome to Big Brother!'

It was happening. I was here. I sat up a little straighter, smiled a little wider, and watched as television history was made right there in front of me. I'm fairly certain I giggled.

To be continued...

Oh! Would Someone Get This Out Of My Head

2010-09-06T04:16:00.005-04:00

All of it. Please. The song, too.

I just feel broken, and I can't stand it for another single second. I've done nothing to deserve it, I've done everything to try and prevent it, and now that it's nearly here, it feels like it's never going to go away.

Staring Down Big Brother - Part III

2010-09-05T14:46:00.010-04:00

So I awaken from my Cindy Brady game show nightmare and am led to my seat - last chair on the end of the top row on the left. Eh. Not exactly my first choice, but I had assumed getting as much what with all the schmoozies getting led in ahead of everyone else. Hey, at least I'm here, and with a quick look around, I am not at all disappointed in the sheer volume of behind the scenes filthy goodness all around me. The entire ceiling over the far end of the room is absolutely dripping with equipment. Lights, light supports, microphones, more microphones, lights and microphones criss-crossed over one another, rigging equipment, monitors, power supplies, an endless jungle of cables and wires, and anything and everything more than you could ever possibly imagine. It was beautiful, like H.R. Giger's technophiliac wet dream. It looked like the roof of a bat cave - completely covered and teeming with activity and static movement as confusing and chaotic as life itself, and yet somehow totally organized as a self-sufficient unit, its sole desire and function being to bring enhancement and showmanship to the proceedings below. I stared at it for a full five minutes in sheer romantic awe.

Yet again I am pulled from a semi-state of hypnosis by the voice of a crew member, and this time it was that of an older gentleman who had walked to the center of the stage area in front of us and picked up a microphone. I guessed that it was his job to address us as the studio audience and bring us up to speed on how to act and react as a temporary yet vital part of the evening's show. I'd seen this happen before when I attended a taping or two of the Craig Ferguson show earlier this year; in short, he was our warm-up guy. He introduced himself as John.

John's job was to get us laughing, get us smiling, and above all, remind us how to clap. There is an art to clapping when it comes to being in a studio audience. Clapping faster is far superior to simply attempting to clap louder, for example. Knowing how to effectively fade out a clap is essential, as well. No matter what you try to yell and/or scream over the din of a clapping audience doesn't really matter, as the audio tech in charge of mixing the applause levels into the overall mix of a show will always either rend your exclamations totally incomprehensible or remove it altogether. Believe me on this one, as I am an expert in yelling shit at precisely the right time so that it is heard over the capacity of a large, crowded room. However, each of my attempts at this while taking part in the taping of a television show have been for naught. I've tried it at least a half a dozen times, and it's never been anywhere near audible. Ever.

John had a very familiar voice. I couldn't quite place it, and I assumed this was the general consensus of the crowd as I took a look around the room. Where had we heard him before? It wasn't until he said a few simple words to us that the communal light bulb popped on in each of our heads and we instantly made the connection as to whose voice it was in the context of the show. Those words were 'Houseguests...' Now, I don't know how many of the 3 people reading this are Big Brother fans (Mom, that includes you), but if you are one of that illustrious trio, you know the voice I'm talking about. John was the voice of the Big Brother house, the man that calls people to the Diary Room or tells them to quit singing or just tells them to knock it off when they're being too much of an asshole even for this show. The crowd loved finding out John's secret identity, and there was much applause for him. I tried yelling shit over it, but again, pointless.

John knew he had us with his admission of his role on the show, so it was time to step it up a notch by handing out free shit. Stuck under a few of the chairs in the studio were cards with the words 'T-SHIRT WINNER!' printed on them, and whoever found one of those cards... oh, you get the point. I got one, as you can plainly see in the picture above. However, the cool part about this is that at an earlier point in John's spiel, a crowd handler had moved me from one side of the studio to the other, claiming that my row looked too crowded and would need to be lightened up a bit. I obliged, of course, and took the harrowing walk across the wide-open stage area in front of damn near everyone to find my new seat. I have no idea whose seat I ended up usurping as a result of this switch, but being that I found out from a fellow audience member after the show that my old seat on the other side of the studio also had a 'T-SHIRT WINNER!' card stuck underneath it, I didn't feel too badly about it. Luck was clearly on my side that day. I was out, I was about, and ready to bask in the imminent glory of the vision I then saw ready to make an entrance from the wings - the one and only Julie Chen.

To be continued...

Staring Down Big Brother - Part II

2010-09-04T16:39:00.004-04:00

So unsurprisingly, a good portion of the walls inside the Big Brother studio are padded. Mainly for sound issues, but it certainly wasn't my first thought. The strangest thing about walking into the main stage area where they shoot the eviction episodes is realizing that the house is right behind the back wall. Every week an evicted hamster comes out to thunderous applause no matter how much of a douchebag they've been to everyone all summer long, and I was now standing in the very room where they've done that every week for my past 6 summers. For an entertainment junkie like myself, this was big. Yes, I realize it's a TV studio and that it's all make-believe and of COURSE they're going to take us into a room directly adjacent to where the main soundstage of the show is, but still... it's big. Right behind that big padded, reinforced wall is where a large portion of my craptacular summer entertainment has taken place. I geek on shit like that. I simply can't help myself.

So now we're in the main stage area where the eviction episodes take place, and a bunch of us are just kinda standing there, getting in the way of all the production staff and being just about as touristy as we can possibly be. It is, I have to say, pretty cool. There are the couches where the bootee and Chenbot sit for the exit interviews! Wow, they look pretty shabby. Like, REALLY shabby, and all the flowers surrounding them are ludicrously fake-looking. See, this is something I also really enjoy about getting to go behind the scenes on a television or movie production - you get to see all the dirt and grime that the magic of television is somehow able to gloss right over. I told you that glittery stink is what makes my engine go go go, and the back half of that equation is quite simply all over the goddamn place as I stand here and gawk. I'm in heaven.

The couches are not nearly as bright orange or new as they seem. You can practically see the words 'MADE IN CHINA' stamped on each individual flower. Every white surface everywhere has been painted not with the high-gloss enamel you would imagine, but instead with a thin, glue-like wash that clearly appears far better on camera than it does off. There are the roots of in-camera trickery scattered virtually everywhere, and I play Where's Waldo with myself as I try to pick more and more of them out from hiding. Julie Chen's pink duct tape stage mark on the stairs in between the bleachers could not be more visible as I stand there and stare at it, but I dare anyone to pick it out over the course of an episode. I bend my knees a bit and try to get the level of my gaze down to that of the TV camera to my right, and miraculously, all the imperfections seem to vanish. The shabby-looking couches still don't glow quite as bright as they do on the television, but with that exception, I am pulled directly into the illusion. It honestly feels like I've jumped with both feet right into my television.

A production assistant touches me on the shoulder and arouses me from my waking dream. 'Could you follow me to your seat, please?' You bet your ass I will. I can't wait to see what this place looks like from the other side. That's where I'll be able to see all the REALLY filthy stuff.

To be continued...

A Good Question

2010-09-04T03:22:00.002-04:00

A brief musical interlude before our next episode. Neil, Eddie, and all associated parties showing us all how it needs to be done.

All I really want is for a few things to fall into place, to feel right, to feel real, to feel like I am somewhere I belong with someone who understands me. Why so many puzzles? It all gets so tiresome and unwieldy. I realize that this is probably what everyone everywhere wants, but truly, I don't think it's all that much to ask for. I really don't. Somehow, though, I know I will find it. Just you wait.

Staring Down Big Brother - Part I

2010-09-03T18:33:00.010-04:00

One of the many perks of living in Los Angeles while unemployed is that you get the chance to actually get out and do shit during the day. Of course, most of that shit has be to free shit, which might make you think that the value of said shit wouldn't be very high. Well, yesterday I found this theorem of shit to be very untrue, as I finally got the opportunity to go see the taping of a live eviction episode of 'Big Brother'. I had joined a waiting list months ago, only a short while after I relocated to Los Angeles earlier this year. I've been a longtime fan of Big Brother after beginning to watch it during its fifth year on the air, and although the show has had its fair share of stinker seasons, (I'm looking at you, 11 and 12) I have yet to tear myself away from it. Yes, it's trash, but it is top dollar trash, something I cannot help but be a fan of. When you throw enough money at trash, there is always such a higher chance of said trash stinking up the place just that much more. Glittery stink is my bread and butter.

So having gotten my confirmation e-mail a few days prior, I plotted out my course and set sail for Studio City, CA, home to CBS Studios and Big Brother. Every time I take the long drive through town to Los Angeles proper and beyond, I'm reminded of why I really do love living here so much. Beautiful sunshine, palm trees, decades of entertainment history that I could read about and study until I'm blue in the face, the whole bit.

I really don't care what anyone says about LA. I love this town. Every filthy, corrupted, unbelievably gorgeous and shining square inch of it. I take pride in the traffic and the smog and the noise and the stretch limousines made out of bright-yellow Hummers. It is the perfect marriage of success and excess strung together in a high-wire, high dollar, three-ring chaotic circus, and if all I have to do in order to experience the tiniest taste of it is sacrifice an afternoon of battling the Hollywood Freeway, then by all means. I made my up through town and deposited Joan in the ungodly packed parking structure adjacent to the studio. Made my way through the fairly lax security check, checked in with the welcoming crew, and parked my ass on a bench to wait.

And wait. And wait some more. There were easily over a hundred of us there by the time I walked in. One side of the alleyway in which we waited was designated for friends, family, and schmoozing targets of the production crew, and the other was for the rest of the poor regular schmucks. I'm sure I don't have to tell you which side I was on. Around 30 minutes passed before we were summoned by the young and delightfully beautiful blonde production assistant (everyone is young and delightfully blonde and beautiful out here), and off we went. The schmoozies got to go in first. Fuckers.

We trudged through a back alley or three of the studio lot, marching past an uncountable number of sets, prop rooms, shooting streets, offices, living quarters (there is a virtual army of numbered 'bungalows' on the lot that I was dying to run into and hide in for a while) and god knows what else before we finally arrived at Studio 8, the elaborately constructed faux-house of Big Brother. The afternoon sun shone in our faces with merciless abandon, but no one complained. Prying eyes were everywhere, particularly toward the open shed full of Big Brother props across the narrow street. I recognized a few of them from the ongoing season, but no matter. We were being let into the studio, and that's all that really mattered. The hive of glittering, top dollar trash was opening before our very eyes, and my breath was held as I made my way in. Mostly to keep the stink out of my eyes and nose, but you get the idea.

To be continued...

Stupid Questions Stupid Answers

2010-08-20T03:46:00.004-04:00

Let me in, let me out, tell me fear, tell me doubt. Why is it I have so much difficulty with doing things for myself, but absolutely no problem at all doing everything I can possibly muster and imagine so that maybe someday you will smile at me again? Why do I respect you more than I do myself? Why can't I bring myself to ask you why? Why am I afraid of you? All I ever wanted was for you to be happy, but now that you tell me that you will be, why does it hurt so much? Why do you make me hurt so much? Why do I let you?

The fact that it isn't me but you instead just isn't good enough. Not anymore. Changing your mind isn't either. It's just not. Not anymore. I don't even want to talk to you, and yet I want to tell you everything you probably don't even want to hear. Why do I bother wanting you back? If I want you back so much and want you to get what you want, why is it I want you to be somewhere that you obviously don't want to be?

I hurt so much right now I can barely see, but in that blindness my vision and viewpoint is better than it has ever been. While I still want what I had, the only thing I want more is what I've never had. What you were never able to give me, and what I've never been able to give myself.

I miss you and need you and want you by my side more than ever, but this time, I'm saying that to myself as well. I will never let us feel like this ever again. As I wave goodbye and touch your face from off in the distance, I hope you are saying the same.

Push The Button

2010-08-15T23:52:00.003-04:00

I would like to have a thought deletion button implanted into the side of my head. A button that would switch off whatever thought process or problem is currently plaguing me and causing me to waste time on shit I really shouldn't be thinking about or at least wasting so much time on. It could work like an old-school remote control. Click it once, and one of the things I'm thinking about pops into view with a 'KEEP/DELETE' function menu listed beneath it. One blink and it's kept, two and it's gone. Click it again, and bam! The next bit of obnoxious, worrisome, time-wasting, heartwrenching information is offered up for potential deletion. Click! Click! Click click!

I have pretty much of a one-track mind, and once my tiny little plastic hamster wheel gets set on something, it practically takes a concussion to get it out of there. I have no time for this. I have no energy for this. Not anymore. All I'm asking is for a big, shiny red button stitched into the side of my skull so I can click it all away whenever I want. Not too much to ask, I don't think.

Christopher Nolan, make it so. I will pay you in tuna fish sandwiches.

I think I've got it

2010-03-29T05:24:00.000-04:00

It came to me in a dream. The original Flight 815 timeline was the alternate timeline, the one that never should have happened. THAT was the bad juju-filled timeline where everything went completely ass over teakettle and NOT AT ALL how it should have.

This other timeline we're seeing now in S6 with Officer Sawyer and Dr. Linus is how things should've gone down all along. But why did 815 happen in the first place? Jacob? Is he the REAL big bad here? Darlton hinted at it in this week's podcast, so it's a remote possibility. I don't think Jacob touching the candidates happened in the Sideways timelines either, did it?

I really think this theory really must be it. It will be how they explain away a lot - Ben killing Jacob, for example. That will be what was supposed to happen, and it will be how it will tie in the 815 timeline to the Sideways timeline. Maybe Ben was meant to kill Jacob and Widmore was meant to kill Smokey/Locke. Maybe both those aspects of the island need to be destroyed so that the island itself can be utilized in the best ways possible.

Also, the shortness of the Sideways timeline. I had qualms about the show never being able to have enough time to fully expand the history of it full enough, but thinking about it now, it doesn't need to. Why? BECAUSE IT IS OUR HAPPY ENDING. It fits. Season 6 is the Sideways timeline, and Season 6 is the end of the show. Learning about what wasn't supposed to happen and why, i.e. the 815 timeline, was the meat of the story. Now that it has been told and effectively ended by Juliet detonating Jughead, the end now needs to be told.

Remember in 'Follow The Leader' when Richard told Sun that he saw all the 815ers die? Well, I'm thinking he really did. However, what he saw was the end of the 815 timeline. I'm sure how just yet (although the end of the season will probably tell us), but I think a clue lies in the fact that Richard didn't get a Sideways timeline flashback this past week in 'Ab Aeterno'. Why didn't he get one? Because he didn't exist in that timeline, that's why. Jacob never intervened in his life in that timeline, and therefore he probably died sometime in the late 19th century.

I'm still postulating about what Desmond has to do with all this and what it is EXACTLY he's going to be able to do once Widmore gets him back out onto the island. Yes, I think he's the secret weapon Charles has stashed on the sub. Is he going to be able to leap between timelines somehow, what with all those pesky rules not applying to him? We'll see.

More answers later after I wake up from my next dream.

He Blinded Me With Silence - NSA Diary Part 6

2010-01-22T20:21:00.003-05:00

Entry Date: July 11th, 2002

The party was pretty low-key, nothing too fancy. Buffet-style foodstuffs happening on the side, cash bar in the back, ($5.00 Heinekens!) full-on wedding band rocking some serious Bryan Adams action onstage when we walked in. Seemed pretty fun, though, so we grabbed some chow and planted ourselves. Gotta hand it to my man Dan, though - he was in full schmooze mode the whole weekend. Kissing hands, shaking babies, the works. Before long, Woody and the Peckers finished their set of songs and the introductions and speeches began.

Formalities led the way, of course - president of this, spokesperson of that, they all spoke first and got the crowd pretty happy. Or maybe that was the cash bar. Did I mention how much the Heinekens were? Christ. Anyway, most of those first speeches and introductions were pretty cool, but there was one in particular that, quite literally, had me on my feet. There was a group of "teen chaperones," as they were called, who were veterans of the past few NSA conferences who were helping out some of the new people find their places (and more importantly, their voices) in the confusion of the conference. There were three of these chaperones introducing themselves that night, and the first two went up and did their thing pretty smoothly. Sure, they stuttered a bit, but not anything that you would really notice in normal conversation. But the third guy, though...

I had had just enough of those $5.00 Heinekens beforehand to make me forget his name now, but I do know he had a yellow t-shirt on. Looked like your average awkward teenager - scraggly hair, glasses, downward gaze, you get the idea. He stepped up to the microphone to introduce himself, opened his mouth, and...

Nothing.

And I mean nothing. He was caught in a MONSTER of a block that wouldn't let him loose for anything in the world. He stood there with his mouth open for what seemed like forever, his neck muscles seizing, his lips twitching, both of his eyes squeezed shut tight. I looked up at his face after about the first 30 seconds, and I couldn’t think of anything else but identification. I knew where he was, what he was feeling, and how badly he just wanted to say what he had to say and get the hell out of there. He could have crumpled in fear and skulked off, but no. No, goddamnit. He stood proudly with his neck taut and lips quivering and eyes shut tight. Although he hadn't said a word in over a minute, his message was clear. He Had Something To Say, And He Wasn't Going Fuckin' Anywhere Until He Had Said It.

A minute had passed by. Two. Two and a half. He was into his third minute by the time his first name popped out of his throat, and still, it was unbelievably clear that he still Wasn't Going Anywhere.

His last name.

Hometown.

What else could there be? There were still words coming out of his mouth every now and then, and they were as clear as crystal to anyone who was truly listening.

And believe me, everyone in that room was doing exactly that. You could have dropped an imaginary pin on the dance floor for the entire duration of his introduction, and it would have sounded like Hiroshima. Every eye was on him. No one spoke, no one whispered, no one dared even breathe. People rose and stood silently at their tables in support, and if anyone dare make any kind of noise whatsoever, they were immediately silenced by hand motions. What else could he possibly have to say?

Words slowly found their way out of him at an excruciating pace.

"And."

Thirty seconds passed.

"This."

"Is."

A full minute.

"My."

"Third..."

I looked around the room at all the captivated faces, and I'm sure that I was not the only one that had tears in their eyes. Not tears of sadness, not tears of pity, but tears of true love and compassion. We were there for him, waiting patiently.

"Conference."

He stepped back from the microphone, and quite simply, the entire conference room as a whole exploded. BOOM! You would have thought that Michael Jordan just broke the backboard or something. People absolutely could not get to their feet fast enough to start yelling, cheering, and applauding. It was absolute chaos. I've never seen a group of people show their appreciation through sound in quite that manner, and man, it was absolutely one of the most amazing things I've ever witnessed in my entire life. I threw my head back and let out the loudest whoop I could muster. "WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO..."

He started his descent down the stairs of the stage, and when he got down to the floor, there were hands everywhere. Hands shaking his, hands slapping him on the back, and most of all, hands applauding an absolutely incredible feat. Fear just didn't exist in that kid's mind for those seemingly endless minutes, and he emerged on the other side of it all as everyone's champion.

I was absolutely blown away. I just can't say it any clearer than that.

Citizen Pig - NSA Diary Part 5

2010-01-22T13:45:00.001-05:00

So after the performance, Dan stuck around to see if he could line up some interviews for later, and I really can't remember what Shane and I did. Ah, yes - we sat outside and ate the food from the coffee shop that we had had to get to go because we were running so late for the Our Time show. While we were sitting around filling our respective holes, some older guy wandered up and started making conversation with Shane. I was just kind of sitting around listening to them, and at first, I thought he was just some weird old guy who needed someone to talk to. But after a while, I recognized that he was actually pretty interesting. I also realized that he was a stutterer, but after walking through the hallways and realizing that that was true of almost everyone there, I shouldn’t have been all that surprised.

His name was Ira, and he had some pretty damn cool stories to tell. He had far too many of them for me to remember them all, but the one that sticks in my mind was about Porky Pig. Seems that when he was a kid, he wrote a letter to Warner Brothers telling them how much the cartoon character Porky Pig affected his life as a youth. He would get ridiculed for stuttering because of this character, so he decided to vent his anger at Warner Brothers. Well, the response he got was pretty much what you would have expected. Yep, you guessed it - some photocopied, rubberstamped form letter that thanked him for being a viewer. Huh?

Well, anyway, years later, he bought a single share of Warner Brothers stock just so he could sit in on the shareholders' meeting and raise some hell. I'm cutting out a lot of the details of his story here, but eventually he ended up raising such a stink that Warner Brothers finally decided to listen to him. They ended up making Porky Pig the spokesperson for the National Stuttering Project, (which was what the National Stuttering Association was known as back then) and they also put up a ton of stuff on their website that teachers could download and use in their classrooms to teach students not to harass kids who stuttered.

Shane and Ira chatted for what seemed like forever, and Dan finally came back from interview wrangling. There was an opening ceremonies party in the hotel that night, so we planned on going to that, of course.

Our Time With Zied - NSA Diary Part 4

2010-01-21T16:57:00.002-05:00

Entry Date: July 7th, 2002

So after chatting with the speech therapist lady and waiting far too long for our food and drinks, we looked at our watches and realized that we might be late for the 4:30 performance of Our Time Theater Company. Our Time was one of the main reasons Dan had come to the conference at all, and we weren't about to blow it off. Dan ran over there to save us all some seats, and me and Shane got our foodstuffs to go and beat feet over to the conference hall where it was being held.

Only the first hundred people were being admitted to the show, being that the conference hall was pretty tiny. They packed us in there like Republicans at a fundraiser, though, and we actually got some pretty decent seats. We were a bit early, but I passed the time by dislocating my shoulder while reaching under my seat for Dan's Coke. Oh, and I also read the program, which was pretty damn funny. The caption underneath the main titles and credits page read "The performance will be anywhere from 2-10 hours depending on the actors' fluency. There will be a ten-minute intermission." See? Funny.

Speaking of funny, I really want to make it clear how imperative it is to have a sense of humor if you do indeed stutter. I mean, put aside all the social taboos surrounding it just for a second. Let's face it, stutterers - sometimes when we get stuck in a block, our faces look pretty damn funny. People are going to laugh, and if you can't too, then you're just taking yourself entirely too seriously. I mean, look at some of the faces that we all make while we're having sex. Now THAT is some funny shit. Watch a porno movie with the sound off sometime. You'll think they're all a bunch of stutterers or something.

But anyway, we sat there for a few minutes, and then some bald guy who looked like Moby walks up on stage. Well, it wasn't Moby, it was Taro Alexander, artistic director of Our Time Theater Company. He introduced himself, gave a short history of the troupe, and we were under way.

The skits that they put on were remarkable for one solitary reason - they were all conceived, written, and produced in their entirety by Our Time. Every line, every stage direction, every lyric and melody for every song was 100% original. Now, I'm not going to be so biased as to say that they were the best plays I’d ever seen just because they were created and performed by stutterers. I enjoyed them immensely, of course, and I think that a lot of the people that I saw perform them have a lot of talent. I admit that I am a little biased in my opinion, however, considering the fact that each and every performer on stage that afternoon had or has a fairly debilitating stutter is pretty remarkable. I know people who speak beautifully and with an enormous amount of intelligence, insight, and wit, but wouldn't step on a stage and address a crowd if their lives depended on it. My point is, put aside the material for a second and look at what these people have accomplished just by being there in the first place.

Anyway, it was great. Our Time blew me away. I never imagined that something like this existed anywhere, and even while I sit here writing this, I am happy and thankful to be lucky enough to experience it. Even with a dislocated shoulder.

There was a short Q&A session after the performance that was very revealing of the people I just saw perform. One gentleman, Zied Hamada, comes to mind in particular. During his performance, his stutter was really extreme. You had to pay such close attention to what he was saying at all times, or else you would miss it. I have to say that there were a few times I really didn't know what he said at all. I tried, believe me, but on top of his stutter, he also had a really thick accent that made it that much more difficult to understand him. On the other hand, he did manage to sing a song in both Arabic and Spanish so beautifully and transcendentally that it made the word "stutter" not even seem to exist anymore, but that's another diary entry altogether.

Anyhow, during this Q&A, somebody in the audience asked him how much of his stutter onstage was real, and how much of it was acting. Again, in his answer, his stutter was really extreme. But what was really amazing about his answer was that he made it sound as if he was acting the whole time. Who knows if he actually was or not - the point is that his answer put the idea into our heads that he was. Sure, we in the audience all saw some guy up on stage stuttering his ass off, but maybe that's what he wanted us to see. Not necessarily as Zied, but as the character that he was portraying. It certainly fit the piece that he was performing in, I'll say that much.

Where is the line between acting and reality? Acting is convincing someone that you are who you say you are. In my mind, stutterers do that more than anyone on a daily basis. You have to convince everyone you meet that you're not the village idiot, that you're not about to collapse of a heart attack, and that you really and truly do have thoughts and ideas and words in your head that are just as valid as anyone else's. If life really is a stage, then I believe that stutterers are some of the best damn actors out there, and the very fact that Our Time Theater Company has been able to tap into that and provide this forum for stutterers is astounding. If Zied was indeed acting the whole time he was having such a difficult time with his stutter, then give that man an Academy Award. Why? Because he was just as convincing, emotional and attention-getting as any notable acting performance that you can name. He had that entire room in the palm of his hand, and there is no way that anyone there could've told me that they weren't convinced of his authenticity and power as a person, and what's more, as an actor. If we had discovered during the Q&A that Zied wasn't a stutterer at all, I wouldn't have been the least surprised.

Coffee, Boar Wrestling and You - NSA Diary Part 3

2010-01-21T15:38:00.002-05:00

Entry Date: July 6th, 2002

After registration, we sojourned to the back patio area and settled in for a sort of post-arrival briefing. Shane recorded Dan and myself yapping to each other about what our initial reactions to the conference were, how we had both dealt similarly with our stutters in the past, and mostly about Dan's eye for curvaceous nature. He has quite an eye. We even spied on the "Entertainment Tonight"-looking camera crew sitting a few tables over from us, conducting their own interviews with people. Some big, toothy, blonde woman in a red suit was conducting their interview, and I laughed at my thoughts of how badly someone looking like her would probably get their asses kicked in Northern California. Drop her off at the Lexington Club in San Francisco, see what happens. I turned my attention back to the, uh, "nature" that Dan was telling us about before and soaked up some more sun.

So after lollygagging around for a little while, Dan split off from Shane and I to go talk to someone about, um, something. When he came back, we split off to the hotel coffee shop. We had at least a little bit of time to kill before one of the main events of the conference started - the performance of the Our Time Theater Company of New York City. Our Time promotes itself as "An Artistic Home For People Who Stutter," but what you can really think of it as is a acting troupe that is composed entirely of stutterers. That's right - every last one of the actors, singers, dancers, and musicians are stutterers. The cute female stage hands weren't, but it didn't matter. They were cute.

While ordering a cup of coffee in the (duh!) coffee shop, I got stuck in a REALLY bad block. (If you don't know, when stutterers talk about "blocks," they mean the words that they get stuck on. FYI.) I just could NOT get the word "coffee" out, no matter how hard I tried. Finally, after about a minute of jerking about and embarrassing the shit out of myself, the word popped out. "Coffee, please..." Christ, why was that so hard?, I thought. I never have that bad of a problem at home. Deciding that I was beginning to sound too much like a Sanka commercial, I stopped beating myself up about it and just tried to relax.

Just then, a woman whom I had noticed sitting at a table a few down from us came over to us and asked if she could sit down. "Sure," we said. She explained that she was a speech therapist, and that she couldn't help but notice me jerking about and embarrassing the shit out of myself a few moments before. What do you think is the best way to deal with something like that?, she asked. Of course, camera stud Shane instantly whipped out the camera and a release form and started filming our conversation. I started explaining to the woman that in my mind, no matter how bad a block is, I really and truly try to just confront it. Mow it down, bowl it over, grab it by the throat and kick it into the nearest ditch. I really think that's the best way to do it, I explained, because any other way is just trying to escape the inevitable. I don't like avoiding things like that, I said. If people can't wait for me, screw 'em. They're probably not that important to talk to anyway. I say that because in a really weird way, I like to see people's reactions to my stuttering. It allows me to gauge what kind of person they are. Their reactions are usually one of three -

1. Calm, patient support,

2. A slight uneasiness, but still moderately calm and patient,

3. Confused, abject terror. They'd rather be wrestling a boar than talking to me. Women seem to be a lot more susceptible to this reaction, for some reason. Figures.

Whichever way it goes, though, I win. I get to say what I want, and I either get to talk to them again, or I've just scared the crap out of someone. Pretty cool. Why don't people just stutter voluntarily? It boggles the mind.

So we rapped with the nice speech therapist lady for a while, and then she went her on her way. She left her room number with Dan so that they could be in contact later. For an interview about speech therapy, of course. Or at least that's what Dan told us.

Anaheim Or Bust/Fear and Self-Loathing In Anaheim - Parts 1 & 2

2010-01-21T10:20:00.002-05:00

Entry Date: July 4th, 2002

This past weekend, I went down to Anaheim, CA with some filmmaker friends of mine from San Francisco, Dan "Space Mountain Sucks" Janos and Shane "Pleasure Palace" King. They're doing a documentary on stuttering, and so they invited me to come along with them to the 19th Annual Conference of the National Stuttering Association. I met Dan and Shane a few months back when I answered an ad that Dan had posted looking for stutterers to help him with his project. He needed some real stutterers to interview, and hey! That pretty much fits my description. Before long, Dan and I had conducted a few lengthy and pretty damn terrifying (for me) interviews at my house. I dug it a lot, no matter how nervous I was. I'm pretty much a narcissist at heart, and I really like it when I can sucker some innocents into joining me in my eternal inward gaze.

Well, anyway, a few weeks ago, Dan invited me to go with him and Shane to the conference. I hadn't taken a good long roadtrip in a while, so I agreed almost instantly. I didn't quite know what I was going to make of the conference when I got down there, but it sounded interesting enough for me to take a few days off work and go. We made plans, maxed out the credit cards, and hit the road.

Dan and Shane picked me up last Wednesday night, and by 11:00, we were barreling down I-5 towards LA. A handful of greasy spoons, danishes masquerading as biscuits, and animal scrotums suspended from the backs of motorcycles later, we were there. A much-needed four hours of sleep was had, and after breakfast and "Black Sheep Squadron," (I can't shake him, Dutch!) we were off to the conference.

Driving over to the conference from where we were staying in Long Beach, Dan conducted an interview with me about what I was expecting to find at the conference. To be honest with all of you, I had no idea. I hadn't really had much experience hanging out with a large group of stutterers before, or even a small group, for that matter, so honestly - I had no idea. The only thing I could really imagine in my mind was a picture of all the other kinds of conferences I had been to in the past - MacWorld Expo, SeyboldSF, parent-teacher conferences in the 6th grade. Dan asked me about what kind of community I expected to find there, and to be honest, I couldn't for the life of me envision a bunch of stutterers hanging out together. If there is one thing I do know about, it's stuttering, and I know what kind of social basket-case I can be. A conference center full of basket-cases? Couldn't see it.

"I hope there actually is some kind of community," I replied to Dan's question. "I know how anti-social and introverted stutterers can be, so I don't know..." Dan seemed happy with my answer, or at least with the fact that it had been caught on tape by Shane's camera. We drove on towards Anaheim.

We pulled up to the immense West Coast Anaheim Hotel in Anaheim, California, two long blocks from Disneyland. Pretty swank place, from what we could see. Valet parking and carpeted sidewalk outside, pretty fancy stuff... We parked our own car and Shane ran ahead of us to get a shot of the two of us walking up to the hotel. We registered at the main conference desk and checked out the rest of the hotel. Like I said, it was pretty swank. Nice big pool out back that we'd definitely have to hijack our way into at some point, lots of nice-looking people milling about, the works. Didn't look so bad...

Missing Pieces - "316"

2009-02-20T14:56:00.003-05:00

Wait a minute - isn't there supposed to be an island on this show? "316" certainly spent its sweet time in Los Angeles with the Oceanic 6 this week, but it's not like I'm complaining. I don't think we've had an episode that has spent this much time off the island since "Meet Kevin Johnson", and even then, we were hanging around that gloomy old freighter most of the time. Let's take it from the top...

That first shot of Jack's eye certainly looked familiar, didn't it? I'm sure I wasn't the only one who thought that Jack and crew not only made it back to the island, but had actually traveled back in time and landed right back into the shoes they had all filled on that fateful day of September 22, 2004. It wouldn't be too far out of the question, would it? Eventually they're all going to have to go back and fix whatever the hell they screwed up on their first go-around at surviving Craphole Island, so why not start at the beginning? That last shot of the episode with Jin in some rather unusual duds suggested that they might be going even further back than that, but we'll get to that in a while.

To pick up from where we left off last week, Mrs. Hawking rounded up all of her new recruits and took them down to the Lamppost, an off-island Dharma station masquerading as the basement of her church. Cool, right? Well, sure, but what the hell is that place? According to her, it was built many moons ago by Dharma scientists trying to track down the location of the island itself and the enormous pockets of electromagnetic energy that it is seemingly crowdsurfing its away around the globe on. However, the giant swinging pendulum winging its way through the room every few seconds and threatening to put poor Desmond through a wall with every pass is something else entirely. In Mrs. Hawking's words, the pendulum itself was built by a "clever fellow" (it's gotta either be Marvin Candle or her son Daniel Faraday himself, don't you think?) who constructed it as a way to track the island as it moves. Yes, the island not only moved, but MOVES. According to Hawking, the island is in a constant state of movement, and Faraday's pendulum is a device built to track not where the island IS, but more along the lines of where it's GOING to be. So in essence, the island has been moving through time and space all along, including the 108 days that the majority of the 815ers spent on it.

To expand on that, does anyone remember a scene back in the Season 4 episode "Confirmed Dead", the one that took place just a few days after Faraday arrived on the island? Well, check this out - in a scene from that episode, Daniel claims that the light on the island doesn't scatter quite right. At the time, that all sounded like Faraday-ian gibberish, but now that we know that the island was probably bouncing through time and space even then, way before Ben turned the donkey wheel and skipped the record, that statement doesn't sound so insane anymore, does it?

Anyway, back to the fun in the Lamppost. Desmond certainly didn't want much to do with that group, now did he? Nope, not at all. All he wanted to do was pass on the message from Faraday and get back to nautical bliss with Penny and little Charlie. With all he's been through at the hands of the very woman who is now insisting that the island isn't finished with him, you can hardly blame the man for just wanting to get the hell out of there while the getting is still good. However, what the island wants, the island gets, and I don't think we as viewers are done with Desmond either. Oh, he'll be back, but whether or not his return will have anything to do with why the hell Ben turned up at that payphone all bloody and wet remains to be seen. What was up with that scene, anyway?

A few more fun little tidbits about the Lamppost before we leave it behind and head off to the airport - anyone notice the date on the U.S. Army reconnaisance photo of the island that was tacked up on the bulletin board? 9/23/54, it read, 50 years less one day before the crash of Flight 815. What's more, 1954 is the same year that Faraday came across Jughead and the young version of his mother, John Locke caught up to Richard Alpert and passed on the compass, and the young Charles Widmore revealed himself to be just as much of an asshole in the past as he is in the present and future. Also, not only do the numbers in that date add up to 23 (9+2+3+5+4), but it was also about a year before Doc Brown discovered time travel in the first place.

So who do you think that guy was who expressed his condolences to Jack at the airport? The new Sayid, maybe? Speaking of the Iraqi peach, who the hell was that leading him onto the plane in handcuffs? Alright, let's back up a bit. After the history lesson at the Lamppost, Jack, Sun, and Ben made plans to meet up at the airport in 36 hours to make a flight on Ajira Airways, the only way back to the island through the "time window" as described by Mrs. Hawking. In order for that to work, she explained, the conditions of the flight would have to be re-created to resemble that of Flight 815 as closely as possible. I think this was probably one of the more fun aspects of the episode, actually - picking through the details of the boarding scene and trying to match them up with what happened back at the Sydney airport three years ago. Jack and Sun were pretty much themselves for this little impromptu performance (but what of Ji-Yeon, Sun?), but as for Kate, she took on a much more Charlie-esque vibe this time around, didn't she? Dark glasses, somber attitude, the whole bit. As for Sayid, sure, he was there, but didn't he and his armed accomplice take on a Kate-ish kinda vibe? Hurley was there with both a guitar case standing in for Charlie AND a Spanish-language comic book taking the place of our missing friend Walt (more on that libro de cómics in just a second), and if that wasn't enough, here comes Benjamin Linus. Sure, he wasn't on Flight 815, but that doesn't mean he can't replicate Hurley's almost missing the flight by running up the jetway and thanking the crew for holding the door, just like Hurley did the first time around. That wasn't all of it, though - did you check out the gate number at the airport? Gate 15, of course. What of the kid in the track jacket waiting to board? There was a big number 8 on that jacket, much like the kids' soccer team that Hurley ran past back in Sydney, the one with the numbers plastered all over their jerseys. Fun, right?

But wait a minute - Hurley, Kate, and Sayid weren't even to supposed to be there, remember? Hurley was in jail, Kate split with Aaron, and Sayid threatened to kick the ass out of whoever even thought about trying to track him down! How the hell did they all turn up there on the same flight? Well, as for Hurley, we weren't really told, but you know how the big man's been seeing ghosts lately? Charlie, Mr. Eko... Well, my idea is that the ghost of Libby showed up and told him that he HAD to be on that plane no matter what. We saw how resilient Hurley was to the idea of going back, even when Charlie was ghost-smacking him around and telling him how much he HAD to do it. I think Libby would be the only one with enough pull over Hurley to make him get on that plane, don't you?

As for Kate, I things got a bit darker. We weren't told exactly why she decided to ditch Aaron somewhere and join Jack's crew on Flight 316, and I think that was kind of the point. As she told Jack when she showed up in his bedroom looking rather dead behind the eyes, "Don't ask me what happened to Aaron." Gotcha. Show up in my bedroom in the middle of the night, Kate, and your secret would be safe with me, too.

Just to play Devil's Advocate here for a second, what DO you suppose happened to Aaron? I think she dumped him off with Claire's mom after feeling guilty about having him in the first place, but we'll see.

Sayid's appearance at Gate 15 was rather unexpected, and maybe even the most mysterious of all. Hurley and Kate showing up is something we can kinda talk our way through, but I really don't have any idea what could have happened behind the scenes that made Sayid show up with his armed guard in tow. I do have a theory, of course, and it goes like this - Ben did it. Yup, simple as that. Remember when Ben called Jack and told him to go pick up Locke's body from the his Other friend Jill's butcher shop? Well, he looked like he had gotten his ass kicked six ways to Sunday, and when I think ass-kickings, I think Sayid. Ben knew he had to get serious in order to get Sayid on that plane, so whatever he did to do that must've led to his bloodied face and busted arm. Also, consider the fact that Flight 316 was going to Guam, and maybe Sayid was en route to being deported for something he had done in the States. In fact, do we have any proof at all that Sayid is a legal American citizen? Think about it - he's a native Iraqi that is only in the United States because of what happened on Flight 815. Sure, he was en route to Irvine, CA to find Nadia, but yeah... that never happened. My bet is that Ben got Sayid busted for being in the US illegally, and what's more, I think the marshall who took him on Flight 316 was one of Ben's accomplices. Coincidences don't happen on this show very often, and for Sayid to just show up on Flight 316 is just too convenient.

As for who that Arab man was and all those other people in the back of the plane, I have no idea. Not yet, anyway. There's a theory floating around out there that while the Oceanic 6 time-jumped off of the airplane, everyone else on it (including Ben) landed safely on the runway that was being built over on Hydra Island. Remember that place? Where Sawyer and Kate were busting up rocks and trying not to get tased? Yeah.

Speaking of Ben, let's subtract Sayid from his ass-kicking for a moment. What if he didn't do it at all? What if was, say, Desmond? Let's not forget that Ben was soaking wet when he called Jack from that pay phone, and Penny and Desmond live on a boat. Remember what Ben said to Jack when he left him at the church? "I made a promise to an old friend of mine. Just a loose end that needs to be tied up." I really hate to say this, but what if that old friend is Charles Widmore and the loose end is Penny? We all remember what he promised Charles he was going to do to Penny, right? I'm sure I don't have to explain what might happen to Ben if he so much as laid a finger on Penny when Desmond was around, either, especially with the two of them happily reunited and in such parental bliss nowadays. Of course, Ben didn't look too happy with himself at the phone booth when he was calling Jack, so if he did spend the afternoon trying to live up to his promise, I'm not sure if he was successful or not. I'm hoping like hell that he wasn't, but you know Ben - whatever that slippery bastard wants, he usually gets.

On the topic of Desmond, it's not really any wonder that he didn't get on Flight 316, is it? Desmond got there in the first place by boat, not airplane. If he does end up back on the island, it's more than likely than he'll get there by sea, namely Penny's boat. Also, was anyone else waiting for Desmond to get nailed by the pendulum down in the Lamppost station? Maybe on the blooper reel. Anyway, I thought that Desmond's ease in walking through the pendulum's course was quite intentional and rather symbolic, given that according to Faraday, he exists outside of "the rules." Of all people, he wouldn't be affected by it.

Anyone think Kate is pregnant? She did have that one-night stand with Jack the night before the left to go back to the island, you know. Sure as hell would calm her baby blues and right the course of not bringing the equivalent of an unborn Aaron back to the island. Was that how Claire was represented on Flight 316? To further this theory, take a look at the book that Hurley was reading on the flight. It was Book Three of "Y: The Last Man", a series by LOST writer/producer Brian K. Vaughn. In the book, a female astronaut is revealed to have been impregnated in space by one of her male colleagues. Oh, yeah - Kate's pregnant.

Man, Ben lies just to keep himself active, doesn't he? His response of "My mother taught me" when Jack asked him how he could read was priceless. Um, no she didn't, Ben. Remember? However, I wonder if Ben's return to the island pre-815 will help him clear a few mistakes he made along the way. Maybe even save the life of his mother, if he can make it back that far? Maybe she really DID teach him to read. Power of positive thinking, Mr. Linus. Speaking of reading, Ben had his nose buried in 'Ulysses' while on the plane. Anyone recall what the last chapter of that book is called? Yup, that's right - 'Penelope'.

Anyone notice that a whole lot of the places mentioned and visited in the show are islands? Australia, England, Guam, Scotland, Manhattan, and Japan? Wow.

Hey, Lapidus is back! I barely recognized him, what with the shaved mug and all. I'm not sure how much I should be celebrating, though, what with the possibility that he just crash-landed an airliner into the ocean still lingering about. Hmm. Well, it was nice to see the Lawnmower Man back again, if only for a little bit. "We're not going to Guam, are we?" Classic.

We haven't even touched on Locke yet, have we? I think my idea from last week that Locke would be resurrected as Christian upon his return to the island came true, but I'm not entirely sure. I think the fact that he got Christian's shoes to wear a week before the elder Shepard finally showed up on the island wearing something other than those tacky white sneakers was a little more than a coincidence, though. Watch the end of "This Place Is Death" back again. Do Christian's shoes look familiar? Well, they should, as they're his. He finally got them back to wear again when Locke's coffin served as the world's biggest shoebox on Flight 316. Also, I'm guessing from the previews for next week that we finally get to see how Jeremy Bentham dies. Well, my question is this - was it really Locke's time to go when he died, or were there other circumstances? Was the island truly done with him at that point? Seems to me that that's the only way you can truly die once you get mixed up in all this island stuff. Just ask Michael. Anyway, if it was Locke's time to die, then I think the reason for that was because the island needed him to in order to become resurrected and return to the island anyway. Trippy.

How did Mrs. Hawking get Locke's suicide letter? From Ben?

Okay, time for the biggest payoff of the episode - JIN! What the hell was he doing riding around in a Dharma bus and wearing that uniform? Same thing Daniel Faraday was doing down in the Orchid station, I guess. It's strange to think that the 815ers might spend the rest of the season infiltrating the Dharma Initiative from the inside out and rectifying the course that was taken by their then-leader, Ben. You think that preventing the Purge might have something to do with all this? Or hell, maybe even the crash of Flight 815, too? I do. One more thing about Jin, though - do you think he was the one who taught Charlotte how to speak Korean when she was a little girl?

The Line of The Night has to go to Mrs. Hawking without question. "Stop thinking about how ridiculous it is, and start thinking about whether or not it's going to work," she said. "That's why it's called a leap of faith, Jack." Now, she was talking about the mission she sent Jack on to bring Locke back to the island with his father's shoes on, of course, but she could've been talking about the show itself, if you think about it. Yes, smoke monsters and resurrections and underground bunkers that save the world are kind of ridiculous, but is it all going to make sense in the end? I think the writers were daring us to stick with them for the rest of the season (and series) with that statement. Are you ready to take that leap? I sure am.

Until next week!

Missing Pieces - "This Place Is Death"

2009-02-15T02:27:00.002-05:00

I really have to hand it to this week's episode, if only for the name alone. "This Place Is Death." Cool, right? Yes, very much so. We got Rousseau killing her husband Robert, Smokey tearing poor Montand limb from limb, our first look at the mysterious Temple, the lovely Charlotte biting the big one, Ben bitch-slapping the Oceanic 6, and Christ Figure Locke (now with kung-fu grip!) descending down the rabbit hole to do who knows what with Christian Shepherd's ghost. Fun! Let's take it from the top for a closer look.

It was strictly by chance that I caught the Season 1 episode "Solitary" on G4 a few hours before watching the new episode, and if you haven't seen that little gem in a while, I highly recommend going back and checking it out. Not only does it provide the history of the path Danielle Rousseau took to save herself from her own crew, but it also has her speaking a variety of different languages while trying to rouse Sayid. I'm certainly no trained linguist, but the first thing that popped into my mind as she rattled off various versions of "Wake up, Sayid!" was whether or not one of the languages she was using was Latin, the official language of the Others. I know there was French, Spanish, and maybe even some Portugese in there, but if I'm right, that would be an incredible 4-season crossover. I realize that Rousseau has claimed that in her 16 years on the island, she's never seen anyone else there at all. Well, while that may be true (although I doubt it), she is certainly quite privy to the mysterious whispering voices that may be of the various time-traveling entities making their way around the island. Additionally, it would put one more nail in the obnoxious "They're making all this up as they go along!" nonsense that plagues far too many message boards out there. Obnoxious messageboard denizens, you know who you are.

To get away from my harebrained theories and step a little closer to what we actually saw Rousseau go through this week, let's start with the fate of the strapping young Frenchman Montand. I've wondered how exactly he managed to lose his arm for quite a while now, and to actually get to see how and when it happened was a real treat for me. I'd theorized that it was the work of the young Widmore's maniacal hand-chopping crew, but in reality (or what passes for it on the island, anyway) it was the handiwork of a rather vengeful Smokey as it tried to pull Montand into one of its many lairs. It really was a cool sequence, and it is with great pride and satisfaction that I cross it off my lengthy LOST wishlist of things that I've been dying to see.

Speaking of that sequence, let's take a closer look. As the fate of Montand was determined as Smokey pulled him into the crack of the Temple wall (more on that place in a minute), we saw that Jin might have played a key part in not only getting his arm ripped off, but also in saving Rousseau's life, sanity, and the fate of the then-unborn Alex. Rousseau had every intention of going in after her crew as they ventured down into Smokey's lair to retrieve the mewling Montand, but Jin convinced her not to, and it was a good thing he did. If she had, not only would Alex probably have never been born, but Rousseau herself might have been subjected to whatever twisted fate awaited her crew as they made their way down into the creepy crack in the wall. You don't really think that was Montand calling for help down there, do you? Of course it wasn't, and with that, we got our requisite Smokey clue that comes standard with every viewing of that lovable cloud of death. See, Damon and Carlton have repeatedly stated in the official LOST podcasts that every time we see Smokey, we learn something new about it, and this episode was no exception. We learned not only that one of Smokey's main priorities seems to be guarding the Temple, but also that it has the ability to either mimic someone's voice or to actually inhibit their body and make them do or say whatever it chooses. Crazy LOST freaks like me know that it has long been theorized that many appearances of various characters on the island have actually been Smokey in disguise (Walt, Yemi, and perhaps even Christian Shepherd), so maybe our foggy friend was actually inhabiting Montand's doomed body and using his voice to lure Rousseau and her crew down into that hole for dessert. Assuming that's true, it comes as no surprise that the crew was quick to make their way down there. Robert's call of "no one gets left behind" made sure of that. However, as I stated before, it's a good thing Jin was there to convince Rousseau to think of her baby first (I love seeing Jin in overprotective Daddy mode, don't you?) and not make the trip down into the hole. Knowing that both Rousseau and Alex are very much alive on the island in 2004 (or were, anyway), it can be deduced that Jin had ALWAYS been around back then in 1988 to have the effect on those characters' timelines that he did. Faraday's theories about the time-skips are correct - there is only one past, and there is only one future. There is no version of that fateful day on the island in 1988 where Jin wasn't around to save Rousseau and Alex. If there were, the women wouldn't be alive in the future, and they never would have had any interaction with the 815ers in the first place. Got all that? Me neither.

Now, what of this 'sickness' that Rousseau tells Sayid about back in 'Solitary'? I'd previously thought that it was the time sickness that affects such characters as Minkowski and Charlotte, but now, I'm not so sure. I'm more of the mind now that interacting with Smokey in the ways that they did made them insane (for lack of a better word), and it is for this reason that Rousseau found the need to kill her entire crew. "You are not Robert!" she yelled at her doomed lover shortly before she unloaded both barrels on him as Jin looked on, and being that he took a shot at her the first chance he got (or at least tried to, not knowing that Danielle had removed the firing pin on his rifle, the same one that Sayid stole and attempted to use on her in 'Solitary'), I'm fairly certain that he wasn't exactly in his right mind. His plea to her to put her gun down in the name of their future together as well as their unborn child was nice, but his attempt at shooting her dead shortly afterward? Not so much. There was something clearly wrong with Robert in that scene, and my guess at it is either my aforementioned theory of 'Smokey makes you wacko' or maybe they were really dead all along and then reincarnated by Smokey. Hell, Yemi made an appearance on the island long after he had kicked the bucket, right? Remember what he said to Eko shortly before Smokey pounded him into a fine powder? "You speak to me as if I am your brother." Interesting. Hell, maybe ALL the Others have been possessed by Smokey this entire time. We've never gotten a reason why they seem to be so super-strong, have we? Ethan Rom was a bad muthafucka before Charlie's bullets came into the picture. Had Juliet been previously possessed before switching sides? Does that explain the 'branding' she got from the Others after she attempted to help Jack in the Hydra station? Maybe you're out of Smokey's glee club once you turn tail. Hmmm...

Geez, will I ever shut up about Rousseau and Smokey? Yes. Yes, I will. Well, maybe. For now anyway. Let's move on to the Temple, or at least what we got to see of it. Being that the wall we saw was practically covered in hieroglyphs that strongly resembled those on the columns in the donkey wheel room, the secret door in Ben's back room, and the counters on the clock in the Swan station after it passed zero, I'm waging a guess that all those things are intertwined. I don't think that what we saw was the ENTIRE Temple (if it was, that's lame), but it was certainly some sort of outer wall or remnant thereof. Robert told us on the beach that Smokey wasn't a monster, but more of a security system to guard the Temple, as well. (Interesting point, that - did the two of them chat it up over coffee or something?) Remember the blast door map in the Swan station? Well, if you do, you'll also recall the various points on it labeled 'CV' (confirmed later by the producers to mean 'Cerberus vents') and I'm guessing that the crack in the Temple wall that Smokey pulled Montand into was one of those. Kinda like the one that he almost pulled Locke into way back in Season 1 before Kate and Jack dropped a dynamite bomb into it to set him free. Speaking of which, remember what Locke said to Kate and Jack when that happened? 'Let me go, I'll be alright'? Was that also an instance of Smokey attempting to speak through someone?

There I go talking about Smokey again, though. Let's give ourselves a rest for a moment and touch on a few smaller things like the jubilant man-hug between Sawyer and Jin when the two finally meet back up again. Hurray! I love a bad-ass 'The Long Con'-era Sawyer just as much as everyone else does, but when he drops the facade for a moment and shows a little appreciation and love for his fellow castaways, I simply love him all the more. It's also a testament to Sawyer's growth and character arc to see him so distraught when Locke's descent into the well is broken up by a time flash, leaving him there standing above it with the rope still in hand. His instant attempt to dig his newfound friend out of his predicament was great, albeit pointless. That's gotta be 40 feet of solid rock, James!

One more bone to pick with Smokey before I move on - how DARE you kill Nadine, the smoking hot blonde French woman on Rousseau's crew before we got the opportunity to see her in a few different outfits? Not cool, big guy. Not cool at all.

Speaking of the well, I've got a doozy of a theory/speculation about it, but again, we'll get to that in a minute. For now, though, I have to give the line of the night to John Locke. When Sawyer asks him if he'd prefer to be lowered down the well rather than climbing down himself, his response of "Now where would the fun in that be?" was some CLASSIC John Locke self-involvement. I was surprised he didn't look around for something to blow up before he started down. To his credit, though, he did underline it with that great smirky grin of his, so you know he was taking just as much piss out of himself as he was out of Sawyer. Having Terry O'Quinn on my television every week playing such a unique, unprecedented character like John Locke is nothing less than a gift.

Now that we've had a bit of fun talking about the island, what of the Oceanic 6 back in LA? I have to say that my weekly "Line of the night" contest very nearly went to Mr. Benjamin Linus for his broad-brushed bitch-slap of Sun and Jack when they couldn't stop arguing over who was to going to kill him first. Attaboy, Ben. You do and you do and you do, and what do you get for it? Tied up in a gun locker, beat up six ways to Sunday, and then on top of all that, made to drive in the sheer hell that is LA traffic. Besides all that, though, Ben came through on his promise to prove to Sun that Jin was indeed still alive, and it came in the form of Jin's wedding ring. Jin gave it to Locke before he climbed down the well, and although Locke promised Jin that he wouldn't try and convince Sun (and the baby he still knows as being unborn, very much unlike the rest of us) to come back to the island, Locke slipped through the loophole he left for himself in that promise and made Ben do it instead. Not sure if that would be considered a cheat or not, but it certainly wouldn't be the first time Locke had taken a shortcut to get him where he needed to be. Just ask Anthony Cooper.

The endgame of the Oceanic 6 seemed closer than ever this week, what with their rendezvous with Mrs. Hawking at her lab/church. Nice little meeting of science and faith in that place, isn't there? Anyway, Ben's plan to get the band back together hit a snag when Kate & Sayid decided they were getting too old for this shit like their name was Danny Glover. What's more, Kate took Aaron with her and Hurley's still in the joint, so the O6 is now more along the lines of a skimpy little O2. (Well, three if you count the stiff in the back of Ben's van.) Luckily, Hawking didn't seem to be too disturbed by that fact, and told Ben that Jack and Sun were just going to have to do for now. So let's get started, shall we? But wait! Who else should show up at the church but Desmond, living up to his promise to find Faraday's mother. Ben looked a little shaken when Desmond asked if they were all here to find Mama Faraday, but why? I guess it all depends on whether Ben knew that Eloise was his mom in the first place. If he didn't know, then it might have meant that Eloise had been keeping something from him all along, something Ben doesn't take very kindly to. Pile Daniel's strong connection to Charles Widmore right up on top of that, and I'd say maybe that's why he didn't seem too bothered by telling her that he had only managed to round up 3 members of the Oceanic 6. Certainly a different attitude than the one he had a few weeks ago when Eloise was stressing the importance of the 70-hour time limit he had. Could this mean a future alliance between Ben and the Oceanic 6?

Alright, some quick weirdness about the well. Remember when I proposed that there was some odd time loop going on involving the compass that Richard and Locke can't seem to stop passing between them? Well, turns out there may be something similar going on with the well that leads down to the time wheel room. When it first appears to Locke and his crew shortly before he falls down in it and breaks his leg, the time period that the group was in was pre-Dharma Initiative. How do we know that? Well, mainly Because the Orchid station wasn't there yet and the well was the only way to access the time wheel. However, when the time flash happened while Locke was hanging in space halfway down the well, it sent him and his group back to a point when the well hadn't been built yet. Fine, but what of the rope that was now left sticking out of the ground? You know, the one that Sawyer had been holding on to? Well, here's where it gets tricky. I'm thinking the only reason the well got built in the first place was because someone came along and found that rope sticking out of the ground. Wouldn't you want to dig up something like that just to see what was on the other end of it? Hell, maybe that's what led to the discovery of the time wheel in the first place. It's basically a paradox, and I'm happy that time loop conundrums like this one are being kept in the background of the show and not exploited for attention or plot points. It keeps them much more interesting to analyze, and what's more, it keeps them from turning into ripoffs of 'Back To The Future'.

Anyone notice that the voice saying the numbers over Montand's radio sounded a hell of a lot like Hurley?

What of the column of black smoke that Jin saw way over on the other side of the island when he stopped for a drink of water? We know that the smoke means the Others are coming to steal your children (according to Rousseau, anyway), so I'm betting that Jin's sighting of it took place right around the time that Alex was taken by Ben.

Locke and Christian, Christian and Locke. So who the hell was it that we saw down at the bottom of the well? I realize that we saw the person we've come to know as Christian, but um... Christian Shepherd is dead. So could it have been Jacob instead? Sure, I guess so - being that Jacob is probably the spirit of the island, I'd say it's safe to assume that Jacob could appear in pretty much whatever form it chooses. However, here's another theory. What if it was a reincarnated Locke? If you listened to this week's official LOST podcast with Damon and Carlton, they fielded a fan question about Christian. In it, a viewer asked whether or not Christian's dead body on Flight 815 had anything to do with the plane making it to the island. In other words, maybe Locke isn't the only one that has been (or will be) resurrected over the course of the season. In response, Damon hinted that in the next episode, we might get a little insight into this issue. From what I can pull from all that is maybe Locke is being resurrected as Christian, and that's why we've been seeing him 'alive' on the island for so long. Could the iteration of Christian we saw in 'This Place Is Death' have been a reincarnated John Locke stepping into view and advising his counterpart on what to do next?

Alternatively, perhaps in the future of the island's timeline, Christian Shepherd's body was part of the required guestlist on the island (along with all the other Losties that are still alive) so that Jacob would have a vessel to inhabit. Perhaps that's why Christian's body wasn't in the coffin when Jack found it, and maybe it's also why we got such an unexpected cameo in the mobisode entitled 'So It Begins'. Once he acquired that body, Jacob/Christian would, um, 'shepherd' the goings-on of the island so that John Locke would eventually become its new leader, a path that was undoubtedly thrown askew when the Oceanic 6 left far before their dance cards were filled, and perhaps more importantly, when Ben turned the wheel instead of Locke. After all, as we heard from Christian/Jacob/Whoever down in the well, he wanted LOCKE to turn the time wheel and in effect move the island, NOT Ben. It doesn't matter now, what with Locke finally arriving at his destiny by turning the wheel and getting word from Jacob himself not to take any more of Ben Linus' shit no matter how pretty the wrapping paper is. I don't know about you, but I'm going to be keeping my eyes firmly peeled on Episode 507, "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham" coming up in a few weeks. Should be quite a hoot.

Which brings us to the dearly departed Charlotte. Oh, Charlotte... I miss her jeans already. Just in time for Valentine's Day, too. Charlotte hadn't exactly been having the time of her life on the island, was she? Not really at all, what with her nose running like a faucet every time the island decided to do the time warp again and scramble the poor girl's brains in the process. It's really too bad, too, seeming she grew up on the island and all. Not only that, but her father might still very well be there. Or is he? 'Charlotte' is the female version of 'Charles', you know. Hmm. Anyway, not only did her final moments on the island seem eerily similar to whatever brand of sickness Faraday's female friend Theresa back in England had, but she also seemed to have a pre-death vision of Daniel himself coming to her as a child and warning her never to come back to the island if she wanted to stay alive. What was all that about? Well, here's my idea - upon realizing that Charlotte was on the verge of death, Daniel got the idea in his head to go back in time and scare the young Charlotte into never coming back so that she wouldn't die. Nice sentiment and all, but doesn't that go against Faraday's theory that changing the future of the island is impossible? The future will turn out as its supposed to no matter what happens (Charlie will attest to that), and sure enough, the island course-corrected the passage of time to overlook Daniel's warnings and bring Charlotte back to the island no matter what. Anyway, the reason that Charlotte never remembered her meeting with Faraday in her past is because in theory, it hadn't happened yet. Daniel only got the idea to do it while kneeling next to her as she lay dying in the present/future, and as soon as he had that idea, Charlotte remembered it. The same thing happened to Desmond when he woke up in bed and retroactively remembered Faraday forcing a meeting with him at the Swan station. It doesn't seem as if Daniel is taking his own lessons very much to heart, does it? He knew that an exception to his rules lie in his future pal Desmond, but why didn't he realize that about Charlotte? Affairs of the heart don't often work that way, no matter how much he may have wanted them to.

In closing, my apologies go out to Bob Dylan and Manfred Mann for this, but it really must be said...

Come all without, come all within
You'll not see nothing like the Mighty Jin
Come all without, come all within
You'll not see nothing like the Mighty Jin

Everybody's building ships and boats
Some are building monuments, others are jotting down notes
Everybody's in despair, every girl and boy
But when Jin The Korean gets here
Everybody's gonna jump for joy

Come all without, come all within
You'll not see nothing like the Mighty Jin

See you next week!

Missing Pieces - "The Little Prince"

2009-02-08T13:42:00.003-05:00

My apologies for the lateness of this, first of all. I've had a fairly hectic week, and what's more, I haven't been able to sleep too well since seeing Hurley in a prison jumpsuit. More on that later, though - let's get to the good stuff.

Once again, big stuff first. Jin's alive! After being rescued by Rousseau, of all people! Crazy, right? That was a pretty nasty explosion that he somehow managed to escape from, so I'm looking forward to seeing how he managed that. There was a short period of time between the freighter exploding and the island moving, so assuming he survived the explosion, he theoretically had time to get himself back inside the radius of the island's time-bubble. And not only did he manage to get off the freighter unharmed, apparently he's been jumping around in time with the rest of the left-behind Losties, as well. Did he somehow swim inside the radius of the island's time-bubble, or is the island just keeping him alive because it isn't done with him yet? (Maybe that's why Christian Shepherd only appeared on the freighter to Michael, and not Jin.) I'm going with a little of both of those theories, because as the cliffhanger told us, Danielle Rousseau and her crew of Frenchies found the guy floating along in what must be around 1988 or so. Jin got a pretty raw deal, if you think about it. Not only does he find himself rescued by a bunch of people he's going to have a hell of a time communicating with, but he also had the misfortune to wake up back in the '80s. Ew. Relax, Jin. Don't do it.

Other things Jin shouldn't do - get on any more boats. Both of the ones he's stepped on over the course of his time on the island have been blown to smithereens. Doesn't seem to have much luck with airplanes, either. Or taxicabs, for that matter. That random jerk back in Korea still owes him a new phone AND a stuffed panda.

Not only did we get to see the young Rousseau at the end of the episode, and not only did we hear the numbers being broadcasted over the radio her team had, but we also managed a quick peek at Montand, Rousseau's fellow expeditionist who somehow loses an arm at some point in his adventures on the island. Remember Rousseau telling us about that way back in Season 1? You think maybe young Charles Widmore's crew of hand-chopping maniacs were the people who did that to him? Not only that, but Montand was also carrying a violin case. If my theory of little Charlie Hume (Desmond's son) growing up to be the musician that programs the musical keypad in the Looking Glass station was too crazy for you, well, then maybe it was Montand instead. In other news, who was the blonde cutie in the back of Rousseau's group? Wow.

Back to basics for a minute. What of the storyline with Claire's mother? Did you buy it? It's a classic LOST misdirection technique, but the only hole I can find in it is how she wouldn't know who Aaron is. Aaron's one of the Oceanic 6, and they're all famous the world over. Surely his name would've gotten out by now, right? Anyway, as holey as it may or may not have been, it set up one of the biggest reveals of the episode - Mr. Norton is Ben's private lawyer. Of course he is! He's dealing with ALL the Flight 815-related legal hooha, probably in an attempt to keep everything quiet as possible, and also maybe even to stay one step ahead of Charles Widmore. If you haven't noticed, Widmore's been trying like the dickens to get his hands on at least one of the 815ers, especially Sun and Sayid.

Boy, this time sickness might be more than what we've cracked it up to be, huh? I kinda understand how Miles and Juliet are getting the nosebleeds (excessive and constant exposure to these time jumps seem to have just as much of an effect on people as not having a Constant), but man, Charlotte's really getting the worst of it, isn't she? I explained it last week, but to put it bluntly, I think the actions being put forward by Faraday's team are causing Charlotte to become, well... erased. Faraday's deeds might be righting the course of the island and its timeline, but for Charlotte? Not so much. I'm thinking that somewhere along the line, we've seen actions being taken that very well might have prevented her parents from ever meeting. I don't know how, where, or who, but I'm betting dollars to Dharmalars that we've seen it happen right in front of our eyes. Is she going to have to be some sort of sacrifice to the island?

On the lighter side, Hurley in a prison jumpsuit looked like any or all of the following - the mascot of the Syracuse Orangemen, a citrusy version of Violet Beauregard, or someone in this commercial. Take your pick. Speaking of Hurley's short scene in this episode, anyone notice the prisoner coming in the door behind him that looked a hell of a lot like his invisible friend Dave? I don't think it was actually Hurley's abusive imaginary friend, being that a guard opened the door for him, but it was a nice little Easter egg anyway. Prison guards don't usually open the door for imaginary friends.

So who the hell were the people in the other canoe that started shooting at Locke's group? The Others? Well, I guess it could've been, but check this out - maybe it was the Oceanic 6. Locke's crew did find all that stuff on the beach at their camp, and among it all was a water bottle from Ajira Airways. I don't know if anyone out there had been paying attention to all the promotional weirdness that happened over the summer, but apparently, Ajira Airways is now very much a part of the LOST universe. Check it all out here. Anyway, what I think happened is the O6 crew landed on the island via Ajira Airways (remember the runway being built back on the Hydra Island by the work crew that Kate and Sawyer were once a part of?), took the outrigger canoes to the main island (remember Karl paddling one of them out to warn the Losties of Ben's crew making an early appearance to kidnap all the women?), and then split. When they came back to camp to find one of their canoes being stolen, they gave chase, and what's more, they started shooting. Juliet started shooting back, if you remember, and she actually hit someone. I'm just dying to know who it was. Maybe it was really the EVIL version of the Oceanic 6, and they all have goatees.

I'd mentioned previously that I hoped LOST wouldn't be venturing too far into 'Back To The Future'-type scenarios where people would be running into themselves or people they knew in the past, and judging from Sawyer's encounter with the past-Kate delivering Aaron from Claire out in the jungle, I'm not sure what to think. Sure, he saw her there, but could he have said anything if he'd wanted to? What's more, where the hell were Jin and Charlie in that scene? If you remember, both those guys were present when Aaron was born. It took place in the episode "Do No Harm" back in Season 1. Hell, maybe it was just selective editing, but my theory is this - you only get to see people in the past that have something to do with what happens to you in the future. Sawyer had no knowledge of Charlie and Jin's presence in that scene, right? What's more, he didn't NEED to know they were there, either. Kate, on the other hand, was apparently something else entirely. The island must've realized that Sawyer needed to see her deliver Aaron from Claire at that particular moment, so see her he did.

Speaking of that fateful night, it was the same one that Boone died on, and also when Desmond turned on the spotlight in the Swan to find out who the hell was banging on the hatch door upstairs. Coincidence? Probably not. This is the island we're talking about, after all. Seeing the hatch light off in the distance when Locke led his crew past it was just CREEPY.

Ben's carpet cleaning van has the names 'CANTON-RAINIER' on it. Mix 'em up, what do you get? "REINCARNATION." Speaks well for Locke's dead ass lying in the back of it, doesn't it?

Speaking of Locke, what's he going to do when he gets to the Orchid? Turn the frozen donkey wheel back to reset it? Will that stop the time jumps? Maybe that ties into why Mrs. Hawking told Ben he only had 70 hours to get himself and the O6 back to the island. I'm guess that at the end of those 70 hours is when Locke turns the wheel again, thereby re-hiding the island from the outside world. To bring in another donkey wheel theory into the mix, I'm alright with the concept of the polar bear turning the frozen donkey wheel (what a weird-ass sentence), but if that is the case, I think it was the Dharma Initiative fucking around with the wheel before they really knew what it was there for. How could they have known what it was without trying it? And who's to say that the island didn't start skipping around once the bear did turn it, and furthermore, who's to say that someone like Widmore didn't have to turn it again to make it stop? Maybe that's how he got booted from the island. I doubt his expulsion was that accidental and silly, but we'll see. However, it would explain what the hell that polar bear was doing out in the middle of the Tunisian desert. Same thing happened to Ben when he turned the wheel, remember?

"That's my lawyer" is yet another Ben-ism for the books, isn't it? It will sit comfortably alongside "You guys got any milk?" and "You know those crackers are fifteen years old." With his prowess for one-liners, Ben should drop all this megalomaniacal stuff and try his hand at stand-up comedy.

I think I've found a rhyme and reason to the island's time-skipping. It only happens after someone accomplishes something that needs to be done. Think about it - Daniel tells Desmond to find his mother. FLASH. Sawyer sees Kate and realizes how much she means to him. FLASH. Locke finds Alpert at his camp and gives him the compass. FLASH. The island is depending on these things being done so that its future timeline will be course-corrected, and it needs to put these people in the right time and place so that they will happen. This theory ties in with the season's theme of bringing the O6 back to the island so they can do what they were supposed to do all along instead of leaving. Mission fulfillment, as it were. All this theologic explanation of the island 'course correcting' itself so that time will play out as its 'supposed' to is nice, but I'm more of the mind that those changes can only take place if people bring them into existence. Maybe it's just the atheist in me saying that, but still - it has its logic. God can only exist if people believe in him, right? In any case, now that we've deduced that the flashes are signs that something has been achieved, it's going to be interesting trying to figure out what exactly that something was.

To jump away from the story being told for a moment, what of Libby's place in all this? I remain convinced that Libby's backstory will reveal itself to be intertwined with that of Faraday's. If he's going around making women crazy, then Libby very well could have been one of his "victims". Remember her creepy appearance at Santa Rosa Mental Hospital with Hurley?

I'm sure most of you are familiar with the book "The Little Prince" that this episode takes its name from, but did you catch all the hidden references to it? First off, the narrator of the story is a plane crash survivor who encounters a young, blonde-haired child who has left his home asteroid to learn more about the universe. However, once he has done so, he realizes that he cannot survive away from that asteroid and realizes that he needs to return to it. Aaron's young, blonde, and desperately needing to go back where he came from, isn't he? Additionally, the boat that Rousseau came to the island on was apparently named "Besixdouze" (see that painted on the can that Locke kicks over?), and translated from French, that reads "B612". B612 happens to be the name of the asteroid that the Little Prince came from. As various other LOST analyzers on the internets have pointed out, while it's enjoyable to make these kinds of connections between LOST and previous works of literature, I'm not entirely sure that they actually MEAN too much. In other words, I don't think a reasonable explanation for what the hell the smoke monster is is going to be found in any of the books that the writers have been referencing over the years. Thematic ties, sure, but answers? I doubt it. The creators of LOST have never been that obvious about anything, and personally, I'm quite happy about that.

Sun's got a gun! Remember the scene in the oft-maligned movie "Godfather III" where Al Neri receives his firearm in a candy box, too?

Line of the night goes, of course, to Sawyer - "Thank you, Lord!" "I take that back!"

Notes for next week - how does Ben know that Jin is alive, and how exactly the hell is he going to prove it to Sun to get her back to the island? Well, check this out. Maybe Ben has known about Jin washing up on the island for years. He had to have spent some time with Rousseau's team at some point, right? He did steal her baby Alex, too, if you remember. Anyway, as for how he's going to prove it to her, my money is on Ben having some record of Jin being alive and on the island way back in 1988 after being rescued by Rousseau. A photograph, a letter, fishing equipment... something like that.

I guess that's about it for this week. Again, I apologize for the lateness, but pretend you time-traveled back to Thursday morning and just finished reading all of this then. There. Isn't that better?

Missing Pieces - "Jughead"

2009-01-30T09:58:00.004-05:00

Welcome back, everybody. Like I told you last week, this isn't a full recap of last night's episode of 'Lost'. It's just a handful or two of random thoughts bouncing around in my brain after watching 'Jughead'. Thanks so much to pandabear and Maisy for dropping me some emails and comments, by the way. Great to hear from the both of you. Without further ado, let's jump right into 'Jughead'. More hot not-recap action follows...

So let's get right to the 900-lb. gorilla in the room, shall we? Charles Widmore was on the island as some sort of Other back in 1954! I'd had a hunch about this since we first saw him last week threatening to chop off Juliet's hand, so I was glad to see it actually turn out to be true this time around. However, here's a question for you - being that the Widmore we saw on the island in the past was little more than a lowly Other under the firm rule of Richard Alpert, how exactly does it come to be that the present-day Widmore comes to believe that the island is his? Being that we've seen a lot of history repeat itself so far this season, I'm guessing that the young Widmore's rise to power will mirror that of Ben's a few decades later.

Widmore's reveal led to my favorite line of the night, and this time, it was from Locke. "Did you say your name was Charles Widmore?" "Yes, what of it?" "Nothing. Nice to meet you." Accordingly, my favorite shot of the night came right after Young Widmore claimed that Locke couldn't possibly have tracked him back to Richard's camp. How would some 'old man' know this island better than him, right? Well, wrong, apparently. The words were barely out of his mouth when we cut to a straight shot of the back of Locke's bald head staring down into Richard Alpert's camp, having just done what he does best - track a bunch of cocky motherfuckers who don't want to get tracked. Very iconic and very, very cool.

Besides the reveal of Widmore, though, I think my favorite moment of the episode had to be when Locke basically invited Richard Alpert to come visit him as a child. Why? Because it actually took place! Remember last season when we saw Alpert come to see Locke as a boy, presenting him with all kinds of random items and asking which of them he thought already belonged to him, one of which was the compass?

Let's talk Ellie for a moment. You know Ellie - the pretty blonde girl with the great big rifle that escorted Faraday out to the hydrogen bomb on the island. Wait... a hydrogen bomb? Yes, a hydrogen bomb, but we'll get to that in a minute. The most common chatter around the internets right now is that the name 'Ellie' is a shortened version of another name. Eloise, maybe? The first name of Mrs. Hawking, the older white-haired lady from Season 3's 'Flashes Before Your Eyes' and last week's creepy Illuminati-style meetup with our old pal Ben, perhaps? Yes, indeed - the very same. Let's look at the similarities and clues. First off, English accent. Sure, lots of people in the world have them, but how many on LOST? Not too many. Second, the tied-up braided hairstyle is very similar to that of the elder Mrs. Hawking. Third, Faraday commented repeatedly that she reminded him of someone, but he couldn't place exactly who. Now, I'm fairly certain that I'd recognize my own mother if I were to travel back in time and see her early on, but what if the two haven't spoken for a while? Torn apart by an argument about the ins-and-outs of time travel, perhaps?

Desmond and Penny's son's name is Charlie! Awwwww. Anyone who doesn't find that charming clearly has no soul. But wait, let's back up a bit here. Des and Penny have a son? Apparently so, as the episode started off with his birth. Didn't waste any time at all, did you Des? Good lad. On a different note, though, before we get too cutesy-pie in here remembering our old friend Charlie Hieronymus Pace, let us not forget that there is someone else in Desmond and Penny's world that their son might have been named after. Along with destiny, it seems that irony is very much of a fickle bitch, too.

Yet another Charlie Hume-based theory bouncing around out there is that the son of Des and Penny grows up, becomes a musician, and somehow winds up programming the musical keypad on the control panel of the Looking Glass station. Remember how the two ladies stationed down there told Charlie that it had been programmed by a musician? It's far-fetched, I know, but you gotta keep those good vibrations happening somehow.

The Others speaking Latin was quite interesting. Sure, it be construed that they only do so as a way to keep themselves unique and enlightened, but what if there's more? What if Latin is the island's native tongue? You think it's been around that long? If so, what if there are some ancient Romans wandering around the island, even to this day? Juliet did say that Richard Alpert had 'always been there', didn't she? The guy doesn't seem to age too quickly, so my guess is that he really IS an ancient Roman that made his way to the island somehow and staked himself out as a leader and island elder simply by sticking around the longest. Maybe he started teaching Latin to everyone he met in exchange for them teaching him English. In kinda-sorta related news, I read a rumor somewhere earlier this summer that we'll be seeing a barefoot Richard Alpert this season, so ancient Roman or not, if he's got four toes, he's going to have some 'splaining to do.

While we're talking about stuff that has nothing to do with the episode at hand, remember those food pallet drops? What if they only keep showing up because they're part of the time loops?

Okay, the hydrogen bomb. It was explained in the episode that it's there because some Army guys showed up on the island with it, right? Well, we can also assume that it got left there because it started leaking. That's all fine and good, but let me ask you this - where is it now? We saw it on the island back in 1954, but assuming Faraday was right in his assumption that it never exploded because the island hasn't gotten, like, blown up or anything, where the hell is it? Well, there was only a single clue in 'Jughead' that led us toward a possible answer to this question, and that clue is one word - 'concrete'. Faraday asked Ellie if her people had any access to concrete, because the only way they were going to be able to contain the danger of the leaking hydrogen bomb was to encase it in concrete and bury it. Well, keeping that in mind, remember the Swan? The original station that Locke found way back in Season 2? Of course you do. Well, remember in the outer hallway of the Swan, there was that one wall that was completely sealed over with (gasp!) concrete? Hmm. Interesting, right? Maybe the H-bomb is behind that wall of concrete, and what's more, maybe the H-bomb is tied into the 108-minute doomsday button in the Swan station. Hell, let's take it one step further. Maybe the bomb has something to do with 'the Incident' that Marvin Candle talked about way back in the Orientation video for the Swan. Maybe the magnetism in and around the Swan station is somehow keeping the radiation from the H-bomb contained, and for that to keep happening, somebody has to stay in the Swan station 24/7 and repeatedly press a button that will... Ah, you know the rest. But what of the failsafe key that Desmond turned? Hmm. Did that cause Jughead to release the last of its radiation, thusly setting off the electromagnetic explosion we saw at the end of Season 3?

I know Damon and Carleton are doing their best to keep us away from Star Trek-style time paradoxes, but check this out - where did the compass originally come from? Locke couldn't have given Richard the compass unless Richard gave it to him first. Conversely, Richard couldn't have given Locke the compass without receiving it from Locke first. Confused yet? Good. This is a classic example of an unending time loop paradox, but I think I might've cracked it. There are two compasses. One that Richard (or Locke) originally had, and one that entered this weird time-loop thingamajig. What will happen if they meet? Remember the bunnies in the Orchid orientation video that Marvin Candle was so insistent to keep apart? Hmm.

Why didn't Locke kill young Widmore when he had the chance? I know he said it was because he was one of his people, but I'm not buying that. Locke's very much in touch with what the island wants and needs, and when he raised that rifle, I'm betting dollars to Dharmalars that the island told him SPECIFICALLY not to pull the trigger. The island can't have a dead Widmore lying around 50 years before all of this Flight 815 business even starts to happen, can it? As evil as he might be, Charles Widmore has a very significant role in all of this whether we like it or not.

Also, did the scene where Locke couldn't shoot Widmore give anyone else flashbacks? Remember back when Locke couldn't bring himself to shoot the undercover cop who just busted him and his faux-family at the marijuana farm? Watch that scene again and tell me it isn't a direct mirror of the Locke/Widmore standoff from this week. This wasn't exactly the first time we've seen history repeating itself here in Season 5, you know. Remember last week when Sawyer got a thorn in his foot? Reminded me a lot of the time when he and Kate were walking back from the cages at the Hydra station and he got one of the Swan's dartboard darts stuck in his boot. Keep your eyes peeled for more moments like this, everyone. Since the Lostaways still on the island are basically wandering around in their own past and seeing history repeat itself FOR REAL, I'm sure we haven't seen the last of their kind.

On that topic, you know the voices that people on the island hear when they're lost in the jungle and something's about to happen? Well, I mentioned this last week, but given that the time-traveling Sawyer sees Kate in the jungle in the next episode, I'm willing to wager that those voices have been those of our castaways all along. Have the 815ers been watching themselves from behind the curtain of time since the very beginning?

What of the women in our friend Daniel Faraday's life? We'll get to the lovely (and bleeding) Charlotte in a minute, but who exactly is this woman he abandoned in England when she got deathly ill for unknown reasons? Her symptoms were rather reminiscent of this odd time-disparity sickness we're seeing on the island, isn't it? My guess is that she was Faraday's first human experiment for his time-travel work at Oxford, and after the results went completely pear-shaped, he freaked out and split. Not exactly a noble thing for Doc Brown 2.0 to do, to say the least, but that certainly would explain it. The fact that Charles Widmore was responsible for funding both Faraday's experiments AND his female guinea pig staying alive? Well, that's something else entirely.

As for Charlotte, oh boy. I just don't know. At first, I thought she had fallen victim to the time sickness, but it's clearly more than that. She's forgetting her mother's maiden name, having blinding headaches that keep getting worse, and above all, bleeding profusely from the nose before collapsing into Daniel's arms. I'd hoped LOST wouldn't be venturing too far into Back To The Future territory with their time-travel-based shenanigans, but I've gotta say it - something has happened in this new version of the past that isn't exactly agreeing with Charlotte's very existence. Maybe because of what Daniel and company have been doing on the island, Charlotte's parents don't meet anymore. Something like that. Remember in the Season 4 finale, she kinda sorta hinted that she had been born on the island? Interesting. Hell, maybe there's a Dharma-sponsored Enchantment Under The Sea dance to get to that might just solve everything. How cool would it be to have an undersea-themed dance down in the Looking Glass? That would rock.

Speaking of Charlotte, anyone else think that the only reason Faraday said he was in love with her was to reassure her that she had a Constant? I'm all for those two crazy kids hitting it off, too, but come on - Faraday seems far more occupied with what's happening to the island than getting into Charlotte's pants. For now, anyway. Besides, his declaration of love sounded a little hollow, didn't it? Nerds don't do that kind of thing very well, I guess.

That's enough for now. "The Little Prince" is next week, and because I didn't know what the hell the title of "Jughead" was referencing this week, it's no surprise that I don't know what the little prince is, either. Alright then.

Missing Pieces - "Because You Left/The Lie"

2009-01-22T15:58:00.003-05:00

Hey, everyone. My regular recapping gig for "Lost" over at Recapist.com got shuttered thanks to the crap-ass economy, so in its place, I've decided to throw out some ideas regarding each episode right here instead. This is in no way a full recap (that would take entirely too much of my unpaid time), but merely a brainfart or two to get some discussion going. It might be only with myself, but for now, that's just fine. Alright, here we go.

So where exactly did the island go? Not in time, mind you, but in space. The actual geographic location of the island, I mean. Well, here's a thought - remember down in the Orchid station when Locke was watching the orientation video? Well, if you paid attention, it said that when the rabbit test subjects were subjected to the tests that moved them 10 milliseconds through time, it would appear for a moment as if they had disappeared. Well, I think that's what happened to the island, too. Jack and his crew up in the helicopter thought they saw the island disappear completely, but what if they actually didn't? Maybe the island subjected itself to the same kind of time-shifting that the Dharma people were testing on those rabbits, and as a result of that shift, it 'disappeared'. I'm not saying that the island doesn't move geographically, as it very obviously does. Remember when we saw Yemi's plane crash on the island as a time-displaced Locke watched it go by? Well, that plane took off from Africa, so at that moment in time, the island was located somewhere in that general vicinity. A tiny little plane like that wouldn't be able to make it all the way out to the South Pacific on its own from Africa, would it?

Speaking of islands magically appearing in random places all over the globe, wouldn't that kind of explain how the Black Rock got so far inland on the island? Land ho!

Why do the Oceanic 6 really need to come back? Well, one of two theories are running around in my brain. First, those six people need to be on the island for whatever reason so that time itself can play out as it is supposed to. Second, the Oceanic Six are the island's constants. Pick and choose either one of those you like.

I called this last season, but that baby we saw with Marvin Candle/Pierre Cheng/whatever the hell that man's name is has GOT to be Miles Straum. It HAS to be. And no, not only because he's Asian. Candle's dickish behavior towards his crew in the Orchid seemed rather familiar, didn't it? Also, not only was that opening sequence just about the coolest stuff ever, but it was practically a direct mirror of our introduction to Desmond back at the top of Season 2, don't you think? Nice to hear some Willie Nelson, too.

How bad-ass was that fight scene with Sayid and the two assassins? Death by dishwasher! It really had the feel of a Jason Bourne movie, didn't it?

So when do you think the scene where Juliet and Sawyer were captured by those soldiers took place? Right around World War II, maybe? The guns and uniforms those guys had on didn't exactly look current, and taking an enemies' hand off just for the hell of it doesn't exactly sound like anything any modern military outfit would do now that Bush & Cheney are out of office. Speaking of that scene, who do you figure the people shooting flaming arrows were? Some past incarnation of the Others, maybe?

Speaking of flaming arrows, fan favorite Neil Frogurt made another cameo! My favorite part about that guy's backstory is that his last name might not even be Frogurt. According to his Lostpedia entry, the only real reason anyone calls him Frogurt is because Bernard once referred to him as "that guy that makes frozen yogurt." Wondering why Steve Buscemi lookalike Neil kept getting so pissed off last night when people wouldn't call him by his first name? Now you know. "My name is NEIL!"

Anyone remember that 'Got Milk?' commercial with the Aaron Burr enthusiast? Watch it again and see if there's anyone in it that looks familiar.

My favorite internet theory right now is that Mrs. Hawking is Daniel Faraday's mother. Cool, right? What was even cooler was that Illuminati-type weirdness that she and Ben were up to at the end of the second hour. With all the physics calculations that she was running on that blackboard while Foucault's Pendulum clicked away behind her, it's easy to see how any son of hers might turn out to be someone like Daniel Faraday.

If Charlotte needs a Constant to stop those nosebleeds, I'm more than willing to volunteer. Man, is Rebecca Mader hot. Wow. I swear I can hear her jeans sigh contentedly every time she shows up on screen in them.

The look on Locke's face when Ethan Rom (ETHAN ROM!) showed up pointing a rifle at him scared the crap out of me. Probably out of him, too.

Whose side is Sun on here? Widmore's? Kate's? Her own? My money's on that last option, as the woman clearly seems out for blood. I think she's playing Kate like a harmonica, myself. As she pointed out this episode, it kinda-sorta was her fault that Jin never made it onto the chopper. Or was it Jack's? Or both? I'd say she's got more than a few targets to start picking through here, and her manipulation of Kate this time around was only the beginning. Once again, Yunjin Kim brings the goods.

Cheech Marin eating a caviar-and-salami sandwich while watching 'Expose'' is just about the best thing ever. You know what would be cool? If Hurley's imaginary friend Dave calls him up sometime. Dave's not here, man.

Ana-Lucia looking HOT! Wow! Boy, I bet they really had a hard time convincing Michelle Rodriguez to come back to Hawaii for a few days to have a couple drinks. Heh. I liked her advice to Hurley the most - "Whatever you do, don't get arrested!" Indeed. Cattiness aside, though, her mention to Hurley about Libby brought the tiniest of tears to my eye. Awwww.

This show's attention to detail never ceases to amaze me. When Candle woke up and put the record on, there was actually a single hair on the needle, thus initiating the skip.

Speaking of detail, anyone notice the pregnant woman walking behind Marvin Candle as he walked to work? Does that mean that the island's fertility problem only started taking place after the Purge?

I have to add that getting an up-close, in-person visual history of the island's past through these time jumps is very, very cool. I hope they use it to tell us about everything - the Dharma Initiative, the Black Rock, the four-toed statue, who and what has been on this island in the past, everything. I'm kinda hoping they don't take the 'Back To The Future' route and start having the castaways run into past versions of themselves, but we'll see. Although, I really wouldn't mind hearing Sawyer call Faraday 'McFly' sometime. Hell, I'd even settle for 'Butthead'.

Best part about seeing Hurley throw a Hot Pocket at Ben? Ben not even flinching. That's what.

You know the mysterious voices that we keep hearing out in the jungle? I'm thinking they might be the voices of the Others as they travel through time on the future version of the island. Thoughts?

There were a lot of them, but I'd say the line of the night would have to go to Sawyer - "Open up, it's the Ghost of Christmas Future!" Either that, or Richard Alpert getting all sarcastic on Locke with "It points north, John."

Obama is president AND Lost is back? Man, life is sweet.

Until next week!

It's Erection Day, Bitches!

2008-11-04T08:43:00.001-05:00

Please vote today. I'm not going to try and convince you who to vote for, but please - vote for Barack Obama today.

Thank you!

Polly want a regime change?

2008-10-15T09:19:00.002-04:00

Just in case you've forgotten, John Cleese knows a little something about parrots.

What Republicans Jerk Off To

2008-09-14T02:48:00.006-04:00

DRILL BABY DRILL! DRILL BABY DRILL! DRILL BABY DRILL!

OMG! It's President Mom!

2008-09-13T10:03:00.005-04:00

I haven't really weighed in on the Sarah Palin travesty yet, but honestly, I think Matt Damon's recent video clip about how her nomination seems like the plot to a really bad Disney movie just about sums it up for me. For the most part, I think actors should really kinda shut the fuck up when it comes to politics, but in this case, I think he's pretty much hit the nail on the head. Check it out.

Think about it - is it really that far-fetched? Sarah Palin's story could EASILY be a movie. I haven't really thought about casting yet, as any Hollywood limousine liberal wouldn't touch this thing with a ten-foot pole, but I'm absolutely thinking that Sarah Palin should play herself. Why? Well, based on what we've seen so far of her, she's obviously really good at playing pretend. Definite bonus there. Besides that, though, I'd think that any other woman with five children would be far too busy taking care of them and making sure they're not getting knocked up by braindead rednecks to be acting in a movie, for chrissakes.

Our movie opens in the Alaskan wilderness with Sarah out hunting for moose and staring menacingly out at Russia from the bank of a scenic, CGI-enhanced stream. Her husband Todd (played by political mastermind Chuck Norris) pulls up on a snowmobile and tells her that she just got summoned for jury duty. Aw shucks! That means she'll have to drive 7,000 miles into town next week to take care of it! Sarah Palin would never think of getting out of jury duty, after all - it's her duty as an American. So she rounds up the kids, cancels her wolf-hunting trip for that weekend (she never did like to fly, anyway), packs up the coal-burning SUV, and sets out on her way for the bright lights of the big city.

OMG - ROAD TRIP! Jury duty, here we come! Look, kids - a black person!

After a slapstick orientation session at the court house that features LOTS of falling down, a bumbling court clerk (played by Edie McClurg) who's just trying like the dickens to get through her first day at work finally gets Sarah all ready to go for jury duty. Unfortunately for her (but fortunate for us!), there's all sorts of kookiness going on with her paperwork. Uh-oh! Looks like the bumbling court clerk accidentally filed her paperwork in the wrong place, and now our Sarah has just inadvertently applied to be the President of the United States! Because, you know, that's totally how you do that!

A shiny, noisy, colorful montage of all kinds of crap that has nothing to do with the movie at all TOTALLY explains how Sarah goes on to win the Presidency, and from here on out, it's party time! President Mom puts a hockey rink in the Lincoln Bedroom! Everyone's allowed to totally shoot stuff in the Rose Garden now! Pyew-pyew! Jesus moves in next door to the White House! Oh, that wacky Jesus! Always doing something wacky!

The grand ol' party at the White House almost gets brought to a standstill by that scary black man that Sarah and the kids saw on their way to the big city, though. You know, the one with the college degrees from Columbia and Harvard. BOOOOO! See, the scary black man's done a lot of stuff that Sarah hasn't, and for that reason, he's just no fun at all. I mean, we can't have someone at a party who has, like, graduated magna cum laude from Harvard, can we? Heck no! I mean, he's always running his big gob about how totally lame needless, expensive wars and stuff are, too! What's up with that? Too much smart guy stuff for this fiesta, am I right? You betcha! Pass the salsa, Levi! (Levi's the guy who just won't stop fucking Sarah's teenage daughter. Silly ol' named-after-some-pants Levi!)

No worries, though - the scary black man's taken down a peg or three at the big hockey party in the Lincoln Bedroom that night. Sarah and her crew push him out onto the ice, and before long, he falls on his bottom in a great big washtub of butterscotch! HA HA HA! Not so smart now, are ya, Mr. Civil Rights Attorney? Community organize your way outta that one, First African-American Editor of the Harvard Law Review!

So with the scary black man FINALLY out of the picture, Sarah and the rest of the party carry on for the next four years, and what a party it is. Naked Twister on a giant copy of the Constitution! Monster truck rallies on the South Lawn! Hundreds of adorable little babies that look just like Levi! Awwwwww, look! Babies!

As we fade to black on our nation... I mean, on our story, a magical bunch of hockey sticks floats up towards the sky, and what is that they're spelling against the ominous grey clouds? The End? Why yes! Yes, it most certainly is. Bye-bye, ya'll!

Time To Switch Sports, Sweetie

2008-08-21T08:39:00.002-04:00

Don't ask me why this clip of my Olympic girlfriend Alicia Sacramone knocking some frat boy flat on his ass with a killer left hook even exists. I simply don't know.

I'm sure it's got something to do with alcohol, the collegiate experience, and the fact that this idiot probably didn't think that a 5 foot, 120 pound girl would get anywhere near laying him out like that, but honestly - who cares? I just want to watch it again and again.

What Makes Me Happy - Watching Courtney Watch The Wall-E Trailer

2008-07-11T09:11:00.004-04:00

I have no idea who this woman is, but check this out and try not to smile. TRY, you heartless bastard.

There there, Courtney. I'm a sucker for a robot voice, too.

What Makes Me Happy - The George W. Bush Memorial Sewage Plant

2008-07-09T23:20:00.003-04:00

If you're like me and don't think for a SECOND that The Worst President Ever deserves anything even remotely resembling his own library when he finally (FINALLY!) leaves office next January, click on over here and join the movement to get him something else named in his honor - a sewage plant in San Francisco. Personally, I think that even a big bowl of toxic shit is a little too honorable to be contributing to Captain Dipshit's legacy, but hey - if it makes people think about him every time they do something similar to what he's been doing to the country for the last seven years, then all the better.

EXTRA CREDIT: Look, I know that every president is considered a lame duck for their last year in office, but this is just ridiculous.

Happy 4th, Bitches!

2008-07-04T23:04:00.002-04:00

Just remember, kids - this great big beautiful country of ours was founded by slave owners who wanted to be free. America... FUCK YEAH!

What Makes Me Happy - Fugazi Live Series

2008-07-02T15:46:00.002-04:00

Okay, I had absolutely no idea, but apparently for the past 4 years, Joe Lally of Fugazi has been compiling something called the Fugazi Live Series - live concert recordings of his band which he then made into CDs and sold for 10 bucks apiece (cheap!) on the Dischord website. Where the hell have I been? There are 30 of the damn things for sale over there, and until about an hour ago, I had no idea they even existed. Serves me right for living out in the fuckin' sticks where truly awesome news like this apparently doesn't reach. I'm such a dumbass.

In any case, go check out some of the discs, and in the meantime, here's a clip of the greatest fuckin' band in the world playing 'Smallpox Champion'. Watch it and weep.

What Makes Me Happy - Marjorie Phelps

2008-07-01T14:24:00.002-04:00

Today is the 88th birthday of my grandmother, Marjorie Phelps. She passed away last August, and the world is pretty much of a shittier place because of it. Not that it wouldn't still be kind of a shitty place even if she were still alive, but you know what I mean. Anyway, here's a story.

Margie was a churchgoing woman, so when we were kids, my sister and I never, ever heard her swear. I mean like ever. She wouldn't say the word 'shit' if she had a mouthful, so the one time I heard the woman cuss still sticks in my brain. It was around the holidays, and as per usual, she had made an absolute shit ton of food for dinner and had stored it all in the tiny little refrigerator she and my grandfather had had since about 1950. Anyway, the thing was absolutely STOCKED with every kind of holiday food item you could name - main courses, appetizers, drinks, finger foods, desserts, snacks for later after everyone had recovered from their food coma and discovered they were still hungry... EVERYTHING.

So about an hour before dinner, my uncle went into the fridge for a Pepsi or somesuch, and in the course of doing so, he knocked a tray or two of food from its place in the refrigerator. CRASH! You could hear it all over the house, and my uncle KNEW he was in trouble. Margie worked for DAYS getting ready for the big holiday meals, so as he watched the trays of food become unsituated from their respective places in the fridge, he let loose with a mighty swear of his own. I forget what it was exactly, but I'm sure you can imagine. I'm not sure if it was a reaction to what he had just done or a precursor to the amount of shit he knew he was going to be in once my grandmother found out, but it hardly mattered.

My sister and I were in the living room doing who knows what, and my grandmother and mother were at the dining room table with their backs to the fridge. When she heard the gi-normous CRASH from the kitchen, something in her snapped. 'GODDAMNIT, JEFFREY!' she roared. 'STAY THE HELL OUT OF THERE UNTIL IT'S TIME TO EAT!'

My sister and I just sat there, frozen. The looks on our faces said it all - 'Holy shit!' we thought. 'Grandma just fuckin' SWORE!' We whirled around to look, and the look on her face was just crushed. I vaguely remember her running off into her room, and I don't think she came out for like an hour. My mother had to go in there and console her about it until she came out with apologies to us kids positively running from her mouth. Yeah, Grandma, like we've never heard anything like that. You obviously don't know your daughter very well.

Anyway, here's to you, Margie. Whenever I'm at Bob's Big Boy, I always want to be the lucky one who gets to sit next to you. Big Boy and coffee, right?

What Makes Me Happy - ScriptGirl

2008-06-30T00:43:00.004-04:00

Alright, so ScriptGirl is apparently this script supervisor in Hollywood who keeps a video blog detailing all of the newest movie scripts being optioned out there, and to be quite frank, 99% of them sound like absolute horseshit. We can only hope and pray that the majority of them never see the light of day. However, as you'll see in this example of one of her videos, the scripts she describes aren't nearly the most important thing about her blog. Yes, I'm a pig, and I admit fully that most of the words that come out of this woman's mouth never even register in my ears. Take a look.

Gorgeous. Yes, she's using her striking beauty to manipulate stupid men like me to watch her videos, and goddamnit, it's working. I would gladly listen to her rattle on about the big-screen adaption of 'My Mother The Car' starring Lindsay Lohan, Drew Barrymore, and Keanu Reeves for DAYS if it meant she'd seriously consider just one more button. Would some powerful, connected tit man out there in Hollywood please give this woman a job on television? Preferably somewhere warm? Thanks in advance.

What Makes Me Happy - Adam Carolla Bitch-Slapping Ann Coulter

2008-06-25T16:32:00.001-04:00

No need to explain further. Just watch. Er, listen.

What Makes Me Happy - Matt

2008-06-23T14:15:00.002-04:00

To clear up all the darkness from earlier today, let's talk about Matt. Matt's a guy from Connecticut that makes videos of himself dancing all over the world. When he's done, he edits them all together and makes stuff like this.

We love Matt. The world needs a billion more just like him.

Shit Piss Fuck Cunt Cocksucker Motherfucker Tits.

2008-06-23T08:22:00.007-04:00

George Carlin died. No amount of words I could put together could sum up how much of a master of comedy, language, and insight George was, so I'll just leave it alone. Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian are probably fingerbanging each other at Disneyland right now in a big pile of money they got for queefing in a midget's face on a sex tape they made as a Christmas present for the KKK, and George has to be the one to die. Fart, turd and twat.

Everyone needs to go into a gift shop today and ask for their gift.

What Makes Me Happy - Alicia Sacramone

2008-06-22T00:12:00.002-04:00

What makes me happy today is Olympic gymnastics hopeful Alicia Sacramone. You might've seen her tonight in the trials for the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing, but if you didn't, here she is. Hotness.

I know it usually seems weird to ogle female gymnasts because they all look about 12 years old, but don't worry - Alicia will be 21 this year. Besides, this chick is cut. And Italian. I have no doubt she could beat the crap out of me if I even consider having any dirty thoughts about her. Too late.

I'm a total Olympics fag, so I'm counting the minutes until 8.8.08 so I can see my girl Alicia and the rest of the amazing athletes from around the world duke it out. Go Iraqi soccer team!

What Makes Me Happy - Garfield Without Garfield

2008-06-20T15:25:00.002-04:00

What makes me happy today is the blog entitled 'Garfield Minus Garfield'. Ever wonder what kind of sad psychotic ramblings Jon Arbuckle would be having in the famous comic strip 'Garfield' if he didn't have a cat? Wonder no further.

This is my favorite -

It's basically my life story, but with more action. Enjoy.

What Makes Me Happy - Tom Waits

2008-06-19T09:35:00.002-04:00

What makes me happy today is Tom Waits. Hell, every day. Here's a press conference where he talks about his upcoming (and now ongoing) tour.

Tom is who I want to be when I grow up. Ever enigmatic, disheveled, and brilliant. Give them next to nothing, and they'll keep clamoring back for an answer each and every time. Enjoy.

What Makes Me Happy - Beastie Boys on Soul Train

2008-06-18T15:49:00.002-04:00

I don't blog nearly enough, so I've decided to start posting at least one thing a day that makes me happy. Today, it's the Beastie Boys' 1989 appearance on Soul Train. Ch-check it out.

You know why hip-hop sucks nowadays? Shadow already told us a few years back, but it hasn't changed much. It's the money. That's exactly why. Watching clips like this reminds me of why I love (or used to love) hip-hop so much, and it reminds me of being a little punk-ass kid from the suburbs, walking down the block with Josh Libertor listening to "Straight Outta Compton" and "It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back" as loud as it would go. Hip-hop isn't about how much you're making, and it's not about wanting to go fuck somebody in a club, either. This clip is what hip-hop is about, goddamnit. Usher, I hope you get syphilis.

Go Speed Go!

2008-05-12T22:27:00.003-04:00

Please, for the love of all that is still fun and worthwhile in this world, GO see 'Speed Racer'. The most brilliant summer blockbuster that isn't a 'summer blockbuster' at all is flailing badly at the box office, and it needs your help.

Trust me - you'll love it. You'll more than love it. It's not a kid's movie (well, it is, but that's not ALL it is in any case), it's not an epileptic seizure waiting to happen, it's a GREAT FUCKING MOVIE. It's the Wachowski Brothers' best film, bar none. Fuck the Matrix, fuck Keanu Reeves, and fuck all those ridiculous sequels. If I was ten years old (which I most certainly am, and also a girl), this movie would be my new God.

I flat-out LOVE this movie. It's hot buttered neon insanity, and it doesn't let up for a second. I'm sorry, but any movie where people throw BEEHIVES and LIVE SNAKES at their enemies is fuckin' aces. Real chimps! Ninja fights! Iodine-powered whosamawhatsas powering cars that go 800 km per hour! This thing is fun from top to bottom. It works extremely well as a family movie, but it appeals to so many other age groups as well. I usually hate children in movies like this, but some of the biggest, most authentic laughs in it came from Spritle and Chim-Chim (the boy and his pet chimp shown above). Their showdown with the half-assed ninja had me in hysterics, John Goodman's ass-whipping of said ninja got some honest-to-goodness applause in my theater ("It's amazing what passes for a ninja these days!"), and Spritle's flipping off Royalton (the main bad guy) as the elevator closes was a perfect bit of sarcastic humor that worked so well simply because it was so unexpected and out-of-place.

Christina Ricci has never looked so beautiful. I'd like to thank both her and the effervescent Cate Blanchett for bringing back the impeccably-manicured jet-black bob haircut this summer. Bravo! I could've done with a lot more scenes with her, but her shots as a dirty-faced, welding-iron-brandishing grease monkey? Yum! More, please. Mmmmmm. Dirrrrrrty...

I don't know much about Emile Hirsch (to my knowledge, this is the first movie I've seen him in), but he fit the role adequately. Not sure who he is as an actor just yet, so was he Speed Racer? Sure! He looked like him, acted the part well, almost got to make out with Trixie a few times... I bought it.

Matthew Fox! To be honest, I wanted him a bit more ridiculous and over-the-top as Racer X, but he's still a lot of fun. Matthew's the kind of guy who can nail within a few slight degrees whatever kind of role you put him in, and he's fun to watch, as well. He could've just been Jack from 'Lost' in this role all over again, but he just... wasn't. Not at all. I appreciated the energy and knowing amount of silliness he contributed to the role, and that's that.

In fact, no one in it really took anything too overly serious, and honestly, I think that's what I liked the most about it. Even at its most tense and action-packed, it was always wise enough to take a step back at the right moment and make fun of itself, or at least make a knowing reference to the cartoon. I loved that the ninja attack in the hotel room ended with the ninja getting squished between two couches with his feet wrapped up around his ears and a silly mock-painful grin on his face. STRAIGHT out of a '60s cartoon.

The other drivers were fun. Unfortunately there was no Car Acrobatics Team (the racing team from the original cartoon that could STACK THEIR CARS ON TOP OF ONE ANOTHER AS THEY RACED), but I loved Snake Oiler and the Genghis Khan guys. Like I said, throwing beehives swirling with pissed-off bees at each other mid-race? GENIUS. Again, a moment taken straight out of the cartoons that worked to utter perfection.

The effects? Insane. Just insane. I won't embarrass myself by trying to think up any cool-sounding metaphors to describe them, but I think my previous claim of 'hot buttered neon insanity' comes pretty damn close. ILM is two-for-two this summer between Speed Racer and Iron Man, and all I know is that my eyeballs LOVE those guys. 5 bucks on a Saturday morning matinee with that level of eye candy? Sounds good to me. Doesn't it sound good to you?

Far too often with these kinds of films, the people responsible for them try SO HARD to be as hard-edged and self-important as they can so that the "MAKE IT DARKER!"-spewing fanboys will be attracted and sated, so it was nice to get a break from that and just see some silliness for the sake of being silly. Bottom line - I know what makes me laugh, and a LOT of the comedic pieces in this movie made me do just that. For real. Not in an ironic way, and not in a 'laughing at you, not with you' kind of way, either. I laughed my ass off right alongside all the hipster douchebags like me, all the families with young kids, and a wide assortment of moviegoers of a lot of different ages, too. I know you're not supposed to admit such things these days, but it was fun, dammit! F-U-N. To be quite honest, it's really just a fan-fucking-tastic way to spend two hours, and I don't think that's really anything to be ashamed of.

So go see it, okay? Please? It does NOT deserve all the negative reviews it's getting, and especially not from that prissy little queen Rex Reed. I'm going to see it again this weekend, so if I see you there, gimme a holler and I'll totally smoke you out. Really!

In Case You Forgot

2008-04-30T21:45:00.007-04:00

If you haven't watched this scene in a while, do so. Turn the lights off, pull the shades, put your pants back on. This is serious bidness.

No Deal

2008-04-21T19:20:00.002-04:00

So what happens after you've spent your life as the silver-spooned alcoholic good-for-nothing son of a President, became President yourself, and then started World War III?

You get to be on the teevee onna game show! Yeehaw!

the good times

2008-04-20T22:20:00.003-04:00

Being allowed to stay home from school so we could go see Temple of Doom, and then walking into the theater to find no one else in there at all. Our own little Temple of Doom. We had pizza afterwards. I watched it again today.

Throwing a crumpled-up cigarette pack at you from across the room and watching you catch it in your mouth. "I cauddit in mah mouf!" you said.

Holding my head under the water in the pool in Vegas and watching you swim. I still can't do the dolphin kick. You were beautiful in the water.

The Flamingo Kid - "Gin, Phil."

Just a few. Happy birthday Dad.

Thirty-fifth!

2008-04-02T18:19:00.002-04:00

Just a placeholder for later. Today's my birthday, and I wanna make sure I get the timestamp, ya'll. I'm geeky like that.

35 times 'round the sun. Fancy that.

Booze calls. Later.

Haha!

2008-04-01T00:23:00.002-04:00

I find it very ironic and very appropriate that pretty much all of my father's worldly belongings are going to be donated to a rehabilitation center for gay men with substance abuse problems. Pause for the cause...

Oh, and April Fool's, motherfucker. No, not you. Him.

Alright, that's it. It's over.

2008-03-26T23:28:00.002-04:00

No one needs to try and make music anymore. Wendy Ho, tell these bitches why.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

2008-03-17T08:29:00.001-04:00

Be careful not to drink too much, though.

4/20/44 - 3/14/08

2008-03-14T20:22:00.001-04:00

Bye Dad. I hope that wherever you are, you still can't get the lid off the goddamn bottle.

Sorry for the plug.

2008-03-01T16:34:00.001-05:00

I think I'd probably even drink Amy Poehler's milkshake while she was wearing that outfit. Could someone please come take me away now? I'm finished!

Lightening The Mood

2008-02-10T02:13:00.000-05:00

Well, that last post was kinda heavy, so let's do the happy thing for a bit. To celebrate the all-but-resolved WGA writer's strike, (YAY!) here's an article by one of my favorite writers, Damon Lindelof, entitled 'Why We Write'. It's a fairly upbeat piece about dead 90-year-old women, trains crashing into buses, September 11th, and deceased parents.

Party time! :)

Once

2008-02-10T01:01:00.000-05:00

I once had a friend named John. John was my best friend since about 7th grade. All through middle school, all through high school, all through all of everything else that came after. He came to my wedding, I talked him down from too many ledges to even count, and then one day, he was gone. I guess he moved on, because the last I heard, he had gotten married, had a kid, and settled on down a path I always thought I'd be with him on. Good for him, I guess, but what happened? Where did you go? More importantly, what did I do?

I lose friends like you lose socks in the dryer. I have communication and intimacy issues. I don't call or write enough. I inadvertently offend when all I'm really trying to do is be nice. I have a difficult time letting people get close enough to tell me they're thinking about leaving for good this time. I smell.

Maybe it's that big bad lonely apartment that's still scaring me a bit, but I really do think that that's how it's always going to be for me. I'm sure I'll have friends and family around if and when I want them to be, but wherever I am and whatever I'm doing, I can't think of a single instance where I won't be looking out the window or under the door, wondering how long it's going to be until I can push you away and be alone again.

I'm sorry, but it just seems to be what I do. Alone is where I can breathe, where I can think, where I don't have to worry about you leaving again. Or about why you left.

Eat Me

2008-01-26T23:25:00.000-05:00

So the new job starts next week, and soon after that, I'll be getting my own apartment. I've never lived by myself before, and all that ever comes to mind when I think about doing so is the scene from 'Big' where Josh checks into the ratty hotel in NYC. There are gunshots outside on the street, scary people out in the hallway yelling at each other, the place is a dump, he doesn't have anyone or anything there in the room with him to make him feel comfortable or at home, and all he can do is lock the door, sit on the edge of the bed, and cry his goddamned eyes out because of how lonely and alienated he suddenly feels. I'm sure that my place will be nothing like that, but I just can't get that scene out of my head whenever I start thinking about it. Please don't be scary, new apartment. Please don't eat me.

Cloverfield

2008-01-18T12:21:00.000-05:00

First off, let's get this out of the way - IT'S NOT A GODDAMNED LION. HA! FACE! Also, let's get it out of the way that this movie is LOADED with shakycam. LOADED. Not a few instances here and there, not being utilized for artsy-fartsy effect now and again - LOADED. There are scenes where the character holding the camera has it at his side and is RUNNING while paying NO attention to where the lens is being aimed at all. I'm lucky enough not to get motion sickness, so for me, it took me right into the action of the movie and made it feel a thousand times more immediate and real than any conventionally-shot smash-em-up monster movie ever could. So, in my opinion, if your only opinions about Cloverfield stem from bitching about the shakycam, uh, yeah - we know. Get over it. Rant over.

The comparisons to Blair Witch Project are going to be far and wide, and most of them are going to root from the cinematography of the two movies. Personally, I feel that Cloverfield kicks the living shit out of BWP in a lot of ways, and mostly because WE GET TO SEE THE GODDAMNED MONSTER. Yes, it's alive, yes, it's huge, and holy FUCK is it beautiful. I want a great big plastic one to sit on my toy shelf as soon as is humanly possible. I seriously jumped the first time I saw its face, and the way its appearances are cut into the film are slow, gradual, and then RIGHT up in your face just when they need to be. Oh, and the lice creatures? Real. VERY real, and their screen debut is fucking awesome. Remember how disappointed you were in the baby Godzillas in 'Ferris Bueller's Godzilla Movie'? Yeah, this is nothing like that. These things want to KILL YOU.

Fear is a very real element in this movie. Near the beginning, there is a scene that so invokes some of the imagery associated with 9/11 that I was surprised it was used. Too soon? Not anymore. This movie WANTS you to be afraid, and it's not afraid itself to use some of the more apocalyptic real-life film imagery of recent memory in order to do so. I think the reason it was used is the same reason this movie wasn't released as a summer blockbuster - this isn't your average smash-em-up monster movie special effects bonanza. Its tone is lightened here and there for the sake of a little levity and showmanship, but at its core, Cloverfield wants to scare you. This isn't light-hearted entertainment at all.

What surprised me most about Cloverfield is how human it is, and what does that are the characters. You LIKE them. You feel for them. Hud, for example, is fucking hysterical. He serves basically as the narrator of the film, the voice in our own heads that would probably be reacting just like he is. He also serves as the cinematographer of the film, so if you still want to bitch, do it to him. Rob, as you know, is our hero character. He's about to leave for Japan for a new job, monster attacks, plans diverted, blah blah. You've heard all that before, but what you might not know about him is that he's in love with Beth, a girl he had a fling with a few months ago that he hasn't completely gotten over. There are layers to this relationship that we find out about over the course of the film, but I'll let you discover them for your own. The way they're played into the very texture of the film is an interesting one.

Part of me wants to call Cloverfield a Dogme 95 monster movie, even though it breaks nearly every rule of that genre right off the bat. There are killings, special effects, the most hellacious audio mix you've ever heard, and perhaps the most important rule-break of all, this is a genre movie. This is a MONSTER movie, but it's not really about the monster at all. This is a monster movie that is about all those scrambling little sockpuppets you always see running for their lives as Godzilla stomps through Tokyo. Cloverfield is about what happens below, what would probably go through your head if a giant fucking creature from God-knows-where came stomping through town to kick your ass.

It's exhausting, challenging, fun and funny as hell, and the best ride I've had in a movie theater in a long damn time. Cloverfield is a victory for Bad Robot, and it thrills me to say so. I love those guys like some people love their hometown football teams. This movie brings to life an interesting genre, and it will be fun to see what all the copycats do with it. Oh yes, there are going to be copycats. Be prepared. Be sure to stay for Michael Giacchino's theme 'ROAR!' over the end credits, too. It's a, um, monster. Heh.

Paper Planes and Movie Names

2008-01-06T06:21:00.000-05:00

Most, but probably not all, of my favorite movies of 2007, in no particular order:

No Country For Old Men - You've heard a thousand critics tell you this again and again, but yes, it really is that good. I haven't seen 'There Will Be Blood' yet, but until I do, No Country gets my vote for this year's Oscar Magnet. 2007 was The Year That Josh Brolin Built, and it's no surprise to me that two of his movies from this year are on my Best Of list. Remember Brand from 'The Goonies'? Yeah, same guy. Oh, and Javier Bardem really is hiding in your closet right now. No, really - he is.

Ratatouille - Anyone who didn't enjoy this movie is a fucking idiot. If you're still of the notion that animated movies are for children, not only are you said fucking idiot, but you're also heartless, soulless, and I don't ever want to be your friend. Ever.

Transformers - Know which part I liked best? The part where all the giant fucking robots beat the dogshit out of each other. Oh, and the extreme close-up of Megan Fox's sweaty, glistening, grease-stained hip while she was bent over the front end of Bumblebee. I would eat Rocky Road ice cream out of that woman's ass without even blinking an eye. That's saying quite a lot, if you think about it.

The Bourne Ultimatum - Remember the part in Die Hard 4: Just Fucking Die Already where McClane shoots the guy out of the helicopter with the busted fire hydrant, and after the guy falls 80 feet and lands on the concrete, he's still alive? Yeah, there's nothing like that in The Bourne Ultimatum at all. Hands down, this is the smartest, most thrilling action movie I've seen in years. It kinda sucked that Franka Potente and her sexy-ass biceps aren't in it, but at least we got to see Bourne kill a man with a hardback book and a towel. Holla!

Hot Fuzz - Miles better than Shaun of the Dead, (which I love, too) Edgar Wright shows that British people actually DO have a sense of humor. Do you miss Monty Python? Look no further. Between this and 'Don't!', his short for the intermission of Grindhouse, Edgar fuckin' killed it this year. Plus, he got to meet, shamelessly flirt with, and sing 'Eastbound & Down" with Diablo Cody while on the goddamn radio. Lucky bastard.

Grindhouse - The best time I've ever had in a movie theater. Period. Granted, I've never had sex or made out in a movie theater before, (too busy actually watching the goddamned movie, I guess) so I may be a little biased, but still - Grindhouse was the awesomes, a giant boot-shaped notch on Josh Brolin's leather-and-metal-stud-encrusted belt of asskickery. Planet Terror got a little silly after a while, but Death Proof is officially one of my favorite Tarantino movies to date. I LIKE listening to women talk, okay? Fuck ya. Besides, it's got multiple extended shots of Zoe Bell's bared abdominal muscles. If you're thinking of not seeing Grindhouse, DON'T!

Zodiac - I have a feeling this movie is going to get the assfucking of all assfuckings at this year's Oscars, and mainly because people that live in Hollywood have the attention span of a squashed gnat. Zodiac is one of Fincher's finest, but the simple fact that it came out way back at the beginning of 2007 has GOT to hurt its chances for any recognition. It doesn't have anything to do with Britney shitting her pants or Dr. Phil being there to clean up the mess or anything, so I guess I can understand why it's going to be forgotten about this year. Anyway, it rocked. Charles Fleischer (aka Roger Rabbit) needs to play the role of Terrifying Guy WAY more often, and man, that animated shot of the Transamerica Pyramid being built is seriously one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. Being homesick sucks. :(

The Darjeeling Limited - You know why Wes Anderson kinda sticks to a formula for his movies? Yeah, it's mainly because that formula works. Watching one of his movies is like when you were a kid and you used to stare into your dollhouse, just wishing that all of the tiny little toys inside of it would come alive and start playing on their own.

Enchanted - Yeah, I know. It's not a dick-swinging boy movie or a quirky indie flick or the latest Pixar masterpiece, so what's it doing on here? What are you, a faggot or somethin'? Well, no, but like Grindhouse, seeing Enchanted was probably one of the best times I've had in the movies this year. Yeah, Patrick Dempsey was annoying, and I doubt I'll be seeing it again if my 4-year-old niece isn't in the room. Speaking of my niece, though, it was her that I got to watch fight invisible dragons when we got home from the theater that day. It was her that I got to dance with in our seats during the ballroom scene, and it was her that laughed her ass off when the pigeon ate the cockroach. So that's what it's doing on here. Faggot.

Knocked Up - I happened to watch 'The 40-Year-Old Virgin' for a second time since it came out, and you know what? I didn't like it as much as I did the first time. Carrell is hilarious as ever, but Catharine Keener is as stiff as a board. A good 80% of the jokes aren't nearly as funny once you've heard them and reacted to them already, and as far as the extended DVD cut of it goes, it's just SO. DAMN. LONG. Do comedies really need to be more than two hours? Sure, Knocked Up was two hours long, too, but it's a much better movie. Not only does it manage to be far more mature and intelligent than 40YOV and yet still be silly as hell, ("There are five different kinds of chairs in this hotel room!") but it actually managed to bring a bit of fun back to the movie genre I loathe the most - the romantic comedy. Plus, you get to see a plastic rendition of Katherine Heigl's pussy. See? I told you I wasn't a faggot or somethin'.

Nancy Drew - Okay, now I've really lost it, right? Not only am I a faggot, but I'm also a pedophile. Well, not really. Sure, the movie wasn't the greatest thing ever made. The kid named Corky was begging DESPERATELY for a punch in the face, and it was about as deep as a puddle, but in a world where movies like "Bratz" can get made and essentially teach our young women how to be materialistic, jealous, subservient, boy-crazy idiots whose main goal in life is to become a pink plastic fuckdoll, I don't think that a movie about a smart teenage girl detective is all that bad of an option. Besides, as long as she doesn't inherit her aunt's horseface, Emma Roberts is going to be gorgeous. Just you watch. I just hope she didn't see "Bratz".

All the Big Summer Sequels - Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix. Ocean's Thirteen. Spider-Man 3. Unless they completely suck ass like the Fantastic Four movies, (never seen either of 'em, thanks very much) I LOVE blockbusters. I couldn't give less of a shit what all the cool kids say on all the cool kid sites. I love the size, I love the spectacle, and I don't care who knows it. I was raised on these kinds of movies. The Star Wars and Indiana Jones trilogies are the very fabric of my childhood, and I get all funny in the pants when I hear that I get to go hang out with all my favorite movie friends one more time and then go get a Slurpee afterwards. Take your indie arthouse fare and cram it up your skinny white ass, for all I care.

Juno - Speaking of indie arthouse fare you can shove up your skinny white ass, Ellen Page as Juno bugged the crap out of me. I know that this movie is the cutesy-wootsy quirksy-wirksy kissycakes movie of the year, but she grates my nerves like they were made of cheese. I get that Juno is cool and precocious, and that she runs her mouth as a defense mechanism, but OMG SHUT UP!!1! Do you need to talk that much? Don't you kids just text each other now instead of talking, anyway? GOD! Anyway, Michael Cera was the best part of this movie by a long shot. If he doesn't fuck up somewhere and become a Beck impersonator, he's going to be one to watch. I did enjoy it, though. I mean, Diablo Cody wrote it, and she's hot. Like, really hot. If you look her up in the dictionary, there's a burned-out hole where her picture used to be. So there.

Honorable Mentions That I Don't Feel Like Writing A Long-Ass Review For

Michael Clayton - Tom Wilkinson really is insane. No, really.
Eastern Promises - Cronenberg comes THIS CLOSE to delving head-first into the gay porn industry. Great, great movie. Viggo FTW!
3:10 to Yuma - Batman vs. Gladiator. Awesome.
Sweeney Todd - Edward Scissorhands: The Musical. The world needs more bloody, violent gay musicals.
American Gangster - Malcolm X vs. Gladiator. Awesome.
Surf's Up - A surprisingly-not-terrible animated movie starring surfing penguins. Whoever cast Jeff Bridges as the stoned-out surfing legend penguin is an absolute genius. My niece has ALL the toys from this movie. ALL.
TMNT - Heroes on the halfshell, bitches! Not the greatest story in the world, but the animation was straight out of the '80s RPG. Anyone who says they don't enjoy watching turtles karate-fight each other is lying.
300 - When I got out of this movie, I wanted to do two things - work out and yell at people.
The Simpsons Movie - C'mon, it's the Simpsons. You got to see Bart's dick. What's not to like?
Black Snake Moan - Christina Ricci in her underwear and Sammy Jack with a bad-ass reverse mohawk and a blues guitar. Oh, and some kick-ass barbeque. I shouldn't have to say anything else.
Superbad - Not my favorite Apatow movie, but I'll give it two things - first, Michael Cera. The guy's just the real damn deal no matter which way you slice it. Second, it was a REAL teen comedy. You know, for teenagers. It wasn't just made ironically to satisfy the nostalgic jerk-off needs of all the pissy-pants thirtysomethings who need movies to remind them of how fucking horrible/magical high school was. No matter what you think, no one really wants to rape your childhood. Your childhood was ugly, clumsy, and clogged with blackheads. Deal with it.

Okay, I guess that's it. Go watch the paper airplane again.

Because laughing your ass off is half the battle.

2007-12-20T17:26:00.001-05:00

There's a pretty cool G.I. Joe movie coming out in a few years, but you know what? Who gives a shit. No matter how cool it might turn out to be, it will pale in comparison to this -

Pork chop sandwiches, ya'll!

hAhAhAhAhAhAhAhAhAhAhAhA!!!

2007-12-14T09:50:00.000-05:00

No idea on how long this is going to be online, so check it out while you can. It's a bootlegged copy of the trailer for 'The Dark Knight'. See if you can get that laugh out of your head after you're done. I know I can't.

Suck it, Nicholson! You've been replaced.

Anyway, sorry for turning this place into a video blog as of late, but I got a ton of shit on my plate that I have to eat absolutely every last crumb of. Job-hunting, apartment-hunting, trying to avoid being dead-ass broke for the 56,729th time, and on top of all that, trying to avoid the hydra-headed, shit-spewing suckbeast that IS the Christmas season. I'm about this close to going out and buying a purple zoot suit and a bunch of knives myself. Wish me luck.

It's coming, brotha!

2007-12-12T22:20:00.001-05:00

Yes. YES. YES!

Wait... Charlie?

If only you spoke Hovitos.

2007-12-10T09:07:00.000-05:00

Well, a while back, I posted here about how cool Harrison Ford still managed to look dressed up as Indiana Jones, remember? Well, it's time for Phase 2 of that observation. Hold on to your potatoes.

That's just a tiny little piece of the fucking BEAUTIFUL poster for Indiana Jones & The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Click on it, and you'll get the full view of the thing in a separate window. It's even illustrated by Drew Struzan, the man responsible for all the other Indiana Jones-related art.

Excited yet? I am. Dun-duh-dun-duh, dun-duh-duh...

Cute Kittens: 2. Christmas: 0.

2007-12-04T12:42:00.000-05:00

This adorable kitten has nothing to do with Christmas at all. See, unlike Christmas, it's AUTHENTICALLY heart-warming, cute and Awwwwwww!-inducing. If this kitten could speak, (much like those cute kittens of a few days ago can) I'm entirely sure it would say, 'Fuck you, Christmas! You've got nothing on me! I'm the real damn deal, and all you are is a bunch of fake plastic store-bought bullshit spray-painted with gold-flecked paint! You can take all your unattainable, shamefully overpriced toys that parents around the globe kill each other for to give to their fat, spoiled children and insert them directly into your fruitcake-spewing ass! Tell Santa he can suck my tiny little lipstick-resembling kitten dick, you trademarked motherfucker!"

With that said, please to enjoy.

Awwwwwww!

ALVIN! I SUMMON THEE INTO HELL, ALVIN!

2007-12-03T08:59:00.000-05:00

One of the only Christmas songs I can stomach without wanting to set a shopping mall on fire is Alvin & The Chipmunks' 'A Chipmunk Christmas'. Not entirely sure why, really. Even serial killers make mix tapes. Anyway, thanks to the magic of the internet and a few people out on that there internet who are much cooler and in touch than I am, I present to you Patton Oswalt and his favorite Christmas memory -

Don't believe him? Check it out for yourself -

You know, it's not so much that Dave sounds like a demon from the seventh crispy layer of Taco Bell Hell that creeps me out, it's the fact that Alvin, Simon, & Theodore sound like such normal guys. Did they really have to sing that slow? What about the music? How did they time it all so it worked out so perfectly? Did doing that song get them laid? How often, and by whom?

You thought I was pissy and bitter before? HA! It's Christmastime. You don't know the MEANING of pissy and bitter. Stay tuned.

This makes me happy.

2007-11-28T12:19:00.000-05:00

That's all I know. I couldn't give a shit if the world ends tomorrow, because at least I'd have this. I could spend the rest of my life broke, alone, and lost in Nowhereland, and I'd still have the biggest, brightest, most shit-eating grin you've ever seen in your life plastered across my face. Why? Because I'd still have this.

I'm fairly certain they're talking about me, though.

:(

White meat. Dark meat.

2007-11-22T10:03:00.000-05:00

All will be carved.

Thanksgiving.

Rad, rad, rad, rad, RAD!

2007-11-13T11:57:00.000-05:00

Holy fuck, have you seen this yet? Zachary Quinto done up as Dr. Spock for JJ Abrams' Star Trek movie?

I need to go change my pants. Click on that link up there to check out some more photos of Spylar.

Bad. Fucking. Ass.

Indeed she does.

2007-11-08T15:58:00.000-05:00

I wish I could come in colors.

Oh yeah!

2007-11-08T10:52:00.000-05:00

Almost forgot.

If anyone down on the lines is reading this, drop me a comment or an e-mail. Love to hear from ya...

This is what it's all about.

2007-11-08T09:18:00.000-05:00

Yes, it sucks that TV as we know it may be shut down indefinitely. Yes, it sucks that Lost might not start airing its fourth season until Spring of 2009. I'm not even going to post a link to where I heard that, mainly because it's just too damn depressing. You know what else sucks, though? Writers getting the shaft when they honestly don't deserve it.

Here's what the WGA strike is all about -

Speaking of Lost, (2009, guys? Really?) here's Damon Lindelof and Marc Cherry from 'Desperate Housewives' telling us how much this strike means to their mothers. Gimme your hat, Damon!

And here's some footage from the picket lines with some people from 'The Office'. No Jenna Fischer, though. Damn. I'll bet she looks cute in red. She looks cute in everything.

Last but not least, here's Diablo Cody on the lines, just about ready to whack your ass with a sign that is BEGGING to be Photoshopped. Nice boots, D!

You want your TV back? Support these people. THEY do all the work on it, not some fatcat exec who only visits a set when he's passing through to get to valet parking. This strike doesn't only affect writers, either - it affects the entire crews of these shows, too. It affects their health insurance, dental plans, and income from residuals that they might actually need. We're not talking about fuckin' Renee Zellwegger here, either. I understand that it's hard to empathize for the wellbeing of rich movie stars, but to be honest, they're not who this strike is about at all. It could be, being that the actors in these shows are already talking about going on strike, too, but that's another blog post entirely.

Like Damon told you up there, the entire face of the television industry is changing, and when it does, a lot of people who created those shows are going to be getting the shaft if the archaic royalty system attached to it isn't revamped. A writer writes a book and gets paid for every single copy sold. A band produces an album and gets paid for every CD sold. Why aren't writers getting paid every single time their show is shown? It's a clusterfuck, and it needs to stop. Now.

Wear something red today and show your support. I'll bet you look cute in red, too.

It's not supposed to be happy, dammit.

2007-10-31T11:02:00.000-04:00

Just a remixed little taste of what I'll be seeing tonight. In 3-D!

Throw some eggs. Completely decimate someone's house with toilet paper. Get out there and DO something. It's not supposed to be happy, dammit.

Geeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!

2007-10-27T17:37:00.000-04:00

That's the sound I just made about 10 minutes ago when I found out that Zoe Bell, my secret Kiwi girlfriend who played herself in Quentin Tarantino's 'Death Proof', is going to have a bit role on 'Lost', the bestest television show ever ever ever. OMG!

I'm going all fangirly gooshy ridiculous on this one. Fuck peanut butter and chocolate - THIS is the new combination to beat. Zoe Bell is going to be on Lost. Zoe Bell is going to be on Lost. I need to keep repeating it over and over again to convince myself that it's actually going to happen.

Zoe Bell is going to be on Lost.

OMG!

By The Power of Dumbledore's Wand!

2007-10-20T12:29:00.000-04:00

Okay, first and foremost, because I'm a dork, some spoilers from the Harry Potter books are in this post. If you haven't read them all, there is more to life than Joan Collins. Just so you know.

Okay.

See, if you thought that Ellen Degeneres having a conniption fit on national television because she can't read the fine print was the weirdest shit that was going to happen this week, it just goes to show that you're just not trying hard enough.

Albus Dumbledore is gay.

That's right - JK Rowling made a stop on her book tour in NYC last night, (she spoke at this tiny little jazzbo club called Carnegie Hall, not sure if you've heard of it or not) and when asked if Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter's mentor and friend, had ever found love in his lifetime, (yes, you and I know that it's ridiculous to ask such questions about a fictional character who also happens to be dead, but what we also know is that having more than 3 cats is just WAY too much) she admitted that she had intended him to be gay. Not only was he gay, but also smitten over the course of his lifetime with his boyhood friend and archrival, Gellert Grindelwald, whom he had beaten in an incredibly phallic battle to determine the fate of the Elder Wand, the most powerful wand in all of wizardry.

Not really much to say here, actually. Okay, two things. First, you're telling me that Rita Skeeter wouldn't have found out about this first? C'mon. Second, I'd always thought that Severus Snape was the swishy one, myself. I mean, come on - he can usually be found in the potions closet, he was harrassed a lot as a kid, and what's more, he's goth as HELL. You don't exactly need the Marauder's Map to figure that one out.

Thumb Wars

2007-10-19T08:29:00.000-04:00

I really need to start posting here more often (I guess), so what that means is that as the frequency of posts increases, the importance and weight of what gets posted goes straight down the shitter. So here we go. I'll continue doing this until I don't give a shit anymore and go back to posting every three weeks or so.

1. I woke up this morning with a REALLY sore thumb. Like, I can barely move it. WTF? What could I possibly have done to my thumb while I was sleeping? I've never sucked my thumb in my life, and from what I know, I've never hitchhiked, either. Especially not in my sleep.

2. Do I really need to give a shit about Ellen DeGeneres' dog? I've heard lesbians get insane about their dogs, but for fuck's sake, settle DOWN. Somewhere in the world in a sweatshop, a live feed from a car battery is being placed over someone's nipple so they'll crank out a few more lead-painted pacifiers per hour, and these rich bitches are crying on television about some $1000 dog that would probably make a pretty good soccer ball. Wanna laugh? Read this. It ain't just the famous people that are insane. Hey! Crazy people on the internet! Your kids are hungry and the house is on fire!

3. You'll probably see this a thousand times by the end of the week and get real sick of it real quick, but for a good, cheap, meaningless thrill, (the best kind) check this out -

Indian people love disco! Who knew? Oh yeah - everyone. That's who.

4. LINDSAY IS ALREADY DRINKING AGAIN! HURRAY! DIE, SKANK, DIE!

Okay, it's happened - I don't give a shit anymore. Done.

I'm getting married! :)

2007-10-18T11:08:00.000-04:00

You read it right - I am officially off the market. I've found my one and only, my soulmate, the one girl in the whole world that really makes me feel like I'm not alone anymore. Sorry to smash your dreams, Diablo Cody, Zoe Bell, and Pam from The Office, but you'll all just have to find someone else. I'll still keep your numbers, though. You know, just in case.

Anyway, meet my beloved -

Isn't she wonderful? It's not every day you find a woman that can put into interpretive dance the way I feel every day at any given moment. You don't meet someone who can wear big gobs of hangy tinsel shit from her elbows like she can just any old time, and you CERTAINLY don't meet anyone with hair that ridiculous all that often. Except if you're in Jersey.

So it's official. We're getting hitched, and you're all invited! Please come and help us put this motherfucker to shame! Shouldn't really be too hard to do that, though. I mean, really - what the hell kind of Star Wars wedding can you have with fuckin' Metallica playing? In any case, I'm sure our first lightsaber duel will be WAY better than theirs. Like, WAY.

Sit down and shut up. Then leave.

2007-10-06T09:08:00.000-04:00

So I saw 'Eastern Promises' last night, and although it was ruined for me by sub-humans who couldn't or wouldn't keep their fat fucking popcorn-packed gobs shut in public for the sake of a better communal experience for anyone other than themselves, I really enjoyed it. Viggo Mortensen has really hit his stride with this one, and I hope he continues to make as many good choices in movies in the future. I'm just happy that Peter Jackson made him enough money so that he doesn't have to do 'Daddy Day Care 4' when The Rock dies of diaper rash.

First, the dumbfucks. A youngish couple to my upper left were closest. The guy wouldn't shut his yap for the entire movie, having gotten bored when he found out there weren't going to be any fag jokes or "Stomp The Yard"-esque dance numbers in it. Instead of trying to watch the movie and elevate his IQ above a fourth-grade level, he instead decided to spend the next 90 minutes ad-libbing lines for the characters and trying to make his girlfriend laugh. I don't think I heard her as much as chuckle. To think she probably went home last night and let him lie on top of her like a big pile of unfunny laundry turns my stomach.

Second, a woman in a wheelchair and her husband down in the front row. I'm not one to make fun of the handicapped at all, but come on - when said handicapped person spends an entire movie talking at full volume and repeatedly sending her husband to the snack bar for god knows what, forcing him to have to walk across the entire theater making as much noise as possible, how am I supposed to not hate them? HOW? The husband was no prize, either. Every ten minutes or so, he'd cough or clear his throat and make the most disgusting, wet, slobbering mess of a sound that I equate to what is heard when a dead seal is pulled out of a sewer pipe in the outer harbor. I made a point to chuck a handful of popcorn at their heads every 20 minutes or so. They never even blinked.

Oh yeah, I saw a movie while I was there, too. I think it was called 'A Promise Ring For Easter' or something. Like I said, I really enjoyed it. Liked the tone, all the acting, (Naomi Watts was really underused, though, and she's usually one of my favorites) setpieces, action, pretty much everything. The accents and storyline were somewhat confusing at times, though. I got the whole Russian mob/sex slave thing, but what exactly happened at the end? Did Nikolai and Kirill whack Semyon and take over? There was a lot I missed near the end thanks to the brain-dead jackasses I was fortunate enough to share a theater with, so please, if you've seen it - fill me in. I plan to watch this again on DVD in the sanctity of my living room, a place where if you talk or make a shitload of noise when you're not supposed to, I have every right to smack you in the head. You're all invited to join me, of course.

From what I saw and managed to comprehend, though, I really dug it. The sauna scene was as brutal as I'd hoped, and to all my gays and ladyfriends out there, you're probably going to enjoy seeing Viggo's viggo flopping all over when he fights those two dudes completely buck naked like his name was George Costanza. You gotta give a man like Viggo some respect when he films a scene like that in a movie like this. Talk about letting it all hang out.

A fine job from Mr. David Cronenberg. Certainly one of his more accessible films, but it was nice to see that, actually. The guy deserves a little mainstream recognition now and again. Now, if I can just convince him to put a disclaimer in front of all his films stating if you talk in the theater during them, you'll have to knife-fight a Russian mobster naked in the shower as punishment, all will be well.

Wait.

2007-10-04T08:59:00.001-04:00

So when you finish a draft of a blog post that you started a few days ago, it gets posted as if you actually wrote it a few days ago? Gee, thanks, Doc Brown.

Free Rainbows

2007-10-01T14:28:00.000-04:00

No, I'm not campaigning to get some hippie protestor out of jail, I'm just plugging 'In Rainbows', the new Radiohead album that you can buy via their website. Here's the catch, though - you can pay whatever you want for it. Don't feel like giving them a dime? Fine. Plug in a big fat zero, and away you go. Just register at their site, and stand by until October 10th when you can download it.

You can also buy the ginormous 'discbox' there, too, and that includes the album on both CD and vinyl, extra songs, artwork, and Thom Yorke's lazy eye, but that thing costs like 80 bucks. It looks pretty cool, but 80 bucks? I'll settle for an artless download for three bucks, thanks very much.

UPDATE: For those of you too sissy-ass to drop a couple bucks on music you haven't heard yet, here is a track-by-track breakdown compiled from live Radiohead recordings of what the new songs on 'In Rainbows' might sound like. Are you the kind of person who insists upon getting a sample of ice cream before you buy a cone? I'll bet you are.

Baloney on white, an orange, and 50 cents.

2007-09-26T19:54:00.000-04:00

Sound of silver talk to me
Makes you want to feel like a teenager
Until you remember the feelings of
A real live emotional teenager
Then you think again

- LCD Soundsystem, "Sound of Silver"

So I'm sitting in my Photoshop class this evening, and everyone is working away on their projects. The instructor is coming around to everyone's computers now and then to see how we're doing, and when she gets to the student sitting beside me, (a pretty young guy, probably in his first year at college, what with the unmistakable air of 'virgin' wafting from his every pore) she pauses. "Oh good," she says to him. "Your project is a perfect example of what I wanted to demonstrate next."

So she has him save his project-in-progress, and she goes back to her computer at the head of the class to open it in Photoshop on the rather large overhead projection screen behind her. Now, before I tell you what his project consisted of, I should probably tell you what the assignment was.

The project was to construct a Photoshop collage - get a background image, and then add via Photoshop layer after layer of various other images and people into it, making the assembled piece as photorealistic as possible. If your background image was a street scene, then you might start adding images of cars, fire hydrants, and strolling passers-by. That sort of thing. Nothing particularly heady, but there are a few tricks involved to make sure that everything you add looks like it actually belongs there. Those of you who know Photoshop know what I'm talking about, but for everyone else, just follow along and try not to think about NASCAR. You can put your head down on your desk if need be.

OK. So she brings his project up on the big overhead screen behind her desk, and what should Virgin Boy's project be but a big juicy wank fantasy. No pink, mind you, but the scene he'd created was about as close as you get when you're that age. It was set on a beautiful sandy beach somewhere, big blue ocean, palm trees, huge yellow sun in the sky. You know, everything he's never seen before, being that he's lived in New Jersey his whole life. Anyway, he's sitting cross-legged in the center of the scene, and situated all around him is every teeny-bopper princess known to teenaged man. Avril Lavigne. Hillary Duff. Hayden Panettiere. Pre-cokehead Lindsay Lohan. That Hannah Montana broad. Hell, the gay kid from 'Ugly Betty' might've been in there somewhere, too. Kids these days.

I didn't have the heart to laugh out loud, being that the poor guy is sitting right next to me, but DAMN, did I want to. Here you are sketching out your wildest teenagery fantasies in Photoshop, and suddenly BLAM! They're being projected 12 feet high in front of everybody in the class and dissected by a Photoshop teacher that clearly had her sympathy glands removed at birth.

Poor guy. I swear I heard his puberty being stretched out for another year with every minute that passed by. I'm not even sure it could've been worse if his mother had walked in with his lunch right then. In her underwear. And curlers.

Geek Pinata

2007-09-19T14:49:00.000-04:00

Sorry for all the video clips in lieu of words and stuff here lately, but this is damn cool. Screw that goddamned pink bunny rabbit. Screw him right in his long, fluffy ear.

Top Ten

2007-09-18T15:28:00.000-04:00

Not exactly feeling 100% today, so ignore me while I post a few YouTube clips that make me happy. Hope they make you happy, too.

1. Steve Carrell, Jon Stewart, and Stephen Colbert at the 2007 Emmys.

2. Tracy Morgan on some random talk show somewhere.

3. A deleted scene from 'Kill Bill: Volume 1'.

4. A real-life intro to 'The Simpsons'.

5. The orientation video for the Orchid Station.

6. The alien encounter jam session from 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind'.

7. Stevie Wonder performing 'Superstition' live on Sesame Street.

8. Ryan vs. Dorkman II.

9. Weezer - 'Keep Fishin''.

10. The recording of the main theme for 'Superman Returns'.

YOU BASTARDS!

2007-09-13T08:52:00.000-04:00

Alright, so that video I posted the other day of the guy blathering on about how we should all leave Britney Spears alone? Yeah, that's Chris Crocker. Here's a few words for him -

Chris, buy a plane ticket. Anywhere. Ask every person who likes your videos to send you a buck, and you'll be out of that shithole you live in by the end of the week. New York, San Francisco, L.A., Miami. ANYWHERE. Actually, you seem like the histrionic narcissist type, so maybe just make it New York. Anyway, you don't HAVE to deal with those people and you don't HAVE to keep making psychotic rambling YouTube videos to get yourself some attention. If you keep this up, dude, you're going to wind up getting your thrills raising moths from coccoons and trapping young women in your basement so you can make a coat from their skin.

Seriously - GET OUT OF THERE. You'll be better off, and what's more, the world will be better off because it won't have to listen to your shrieking about how we should all back up off dried-up skanks like Britney anymore. Total win-win, dude.

Ladies and gentlemen... Britney Spears.

2007-09-11T12:33:00.000-04:00

Please - no autographs.

Look, I said NO AUTOGRAPHS! Shouldn't you be off looking for your other half, Hedwig? Christ!

Dream Last Night

2007-09-05T12:55:00.000-04:00

Brand New Newness

2007-09-05T09:00:00.000-04:00

So I'm working on a few changes here at the ol' bloggery. There's a bunch of new links over in the 'Sites I Dig' menu, I've updated my profile with some (gasp!) ACTUAL information about myself, and coming very soon, I'm gonna have a Project Playlist playlist available here so you can hear what I've been listening to as of late. Or at least what I was able to find over on Project Playlist, anyway.

Also, I'm happy to say that one of my favorite bloggers/authors/pink-fishnet-wearers Diablo Cody has a brand-new blog right here at Blogspot. Remember when I posted about her and her pole a while back? I do.

Welcome Cody, welcome damning personal information, welcome new site changes. Welcome welcome, one and all. Shit's gettin' Dickensian up in this bitch, yo.

And Now For Something Completely Different

2007-08-28T12:06:00.000-04:00

Just because I can.

A Heartbreaking Copy-and-Paste of Staggering Genius

2007-08-28T11:34:00.000-04:00

You know, Dan Renzi keeps telling me to post more often, which I honestly do try to do. I've failed recently, however, mostly because school started, I'm job hunting, and my 87-year-old firecracker of a maternal grandmother recently passed away. I'll talk more about her when I get home from her funeral this weekend.

Anyway, what's in my craw today is an article by Dave Eggers, author of 'A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius' and lots of other cool shit. Ever checked out Wholphin? Yeah, he's partially responsible for that, too. Anyway, this article isn't really BY Dave, but it's more of a response to a few questions asked of him by the Harvard Advocate, which I'm presuming is some sort of newspaper or magazine of some sort. I'd look it up and link you to it here, but I'm kind of in a hurry because I have to go buy some good pants to wear to my grandmother's funeral. My existing pair of black Dickies have a hole in them.

In short, the Advocate asks him a few questions, and one is about the concept of 'selling out'. His response is no less than brilliant, and it completely skewers the smug, self-righteous attitudes of Generation X about 'selling out' within a few moderately short paragraphs. If that weren't enough, he even manages to use the word 'niggardly' in it. To me, that takes more literary panache and testicular fortitude than I think I'll ever be able to muster, especially in the hyper-sanitized PC playground of today's social landscape.

In any case, here's the question and answer in question. It's rather long, so get a drink or a smoke or something first. Please to enjoy. Me, I'm off to Target to buy pants and miniature toiletries that won't be swallowed up by the airport security goblins.

HARVARD ADVOCATE: My final question is a multipartite monster, so please feel free to jump in here whenever. The real issue at hand, Mr. Eggers, is whether you're on the side of the good guys or the bad guys. Certainly the fact that there's no advertising in any McSweeney's production augurs for the former; but you've motivated this several times by saying that ads are "ugly." In a similar vein, you've lavished great care on the design of the magazine, and in issue 4 you take this further still, both by creating a beautiful magazine and also devoting quite a bit of space to discussing the aesthetic wholeness of literary texts. Are you hewing a sort of politics from the scattered shards of aestheticism? George Saunders' horrifying story - the most horrifying to date - in issue 4, makes a clear distinction between the dehumanizing aspects of modern work and the humanizing impulses that remain nonetheless. Saunders is also pretty clear about equating the un-human part of the equation with murder, specifically with, like, organized mass murder. In my hopeful moments, I feel like McSweeney's is trying to carve out the human space in our culture. In moments of dark suicidal despair, I think McSweeney's is just trying to sell a lot of magazines by being so pretty and "authentic." Which do you think it is? And if it is to carve out a human space, why do you think it makes sense to do this on aesthetic grounds? And if this is more or less to the point, can you also explain the extent to which you feel McSweeney's does more than simply reverse the design formula of the glossies (black/white instead of color, text instead of image, content instead of advertising, etc.)?

DAVE EGGERS: I address some of this question in the addendum, but I want to address the "sell a lot of magazines by being pretty and 'authentic'" part here. Honestly, Saadi, what the fuck are you talking about? You're applying principles of mass-marketing to a money-hemorrhaging literary magazine produced out of my apartment. Please. No one here is trying to sell a lot of magazines. Why would we making a literary magazine in the first place, if sales numbers were our goal? And why would we be printing this thing in Iceland, and printing only 12,000 copies? Jesus, son, you have got to stop tearing apart and doubting the people who are obviously, clearly, doing good work. I mean, who the fuck do you believe in? The Baffler is nice-looking, too, and they print *20,000* copies. Does that put Tom Frank in league with Tony Robbins? I'm exasperated. Saadi, you have to trust me, and you have to trust Tom Frank, because Tom Frank, for example, matters. If Tom Frank, tomorrow, agreed to be in a commercial for the Discover Card - as Kurt Vonnegut did a few years ago, for whatever reason - you would still have to trust Tom Frank and respect him, because he has for a decade been doing work that matters, and you have no idea about his motivations or needs or state of mind when he say okay to the Discover gig. I am giving you really good advice, here, Saadi, and and offer it to other readers of the Advocate, because I wish I had the same advice pounded into my head at your age, when I was a bigger, more smug and suspicious asshole than you - I was the biggest asshole of all. To me, everyone was a sellout. Any band that sold over 30,000 albums was a sellout. Any writer who appeared in any mainstream magazine was a sellout. I was a complete, weaselly little prick, and I had no idea what I was talking about, and goddamn if I don't wish I could take all that back, because I knew nothing then, just as you know nothing now. You simply cannot judge someone, especially someone whose work you have respected, when they disappoint you, superficially, once or twice. Think of the fuckheads who turned their back on Dylan when he started using electric guitars, for Christ's sake. What kind of niggardly imbecile would call Dylan Judas when he plugged into an amp? What kind of small-hearted person wants an artist to adhere to a set of rules, to stay forever within a narrow envelope which we've created for them?

First, a primer: When I got your questions, I was provoked. You expressed many of the feelings I used to have, when I was in high school and college, about some of the people I admired at the time, people who at some point disappointed me in some way, or made moves I could not understand. So I took a few passages from your questions - those pertaining to or hinting at "selling out" - and I used them as a launching pad for a rant I've wanted to write for a while now, and more so than ever since my own book has become successful. And the rant was timely, because shortly after getting your questions, I was scheduled to speak at Yale, and so, assuming that their minds might be in a similar spot as yours, I read this, the below, to them, in slightly less polished form. The rant is directed to myself, age 20, as much as it is to you, so remember that if you ever want to take much offense.

----

You actually asked me the question: "Are you taking any steps to keep shit real?" I want you always to look back on this time as being a time when those words came out of your mouth.

Now, there was a time when such a question - albeit probably without the colloquial spin - would have originated from my own brain. Since I was thirteen, sitting in my orange-carpeted bedroom in ostensibly cutting-edge Lake Forest, Illinois, subscribing to the Village Voice and reading the earliest issues of Spin, I thought I had my ear to the railroad tracks of avant garde America. (Laurie Anderson, for example, had grown up only miles away!) I was always monitoring, with the most sensitive and well-calibrated apparatus, the degree of selloutitude exemplified by any given artist - musical, visual, theatrical, whatever. I was vigilant and merciless and knew it was my job to be so.

I bought R.E.M.'s first EP, Chronic Town, when it came out and thought I had found God. I loved Murmur, Reckoning, but then watched, with greater and greater dismay, as this obscure little band's audience grew, grew beyond obsessed people like myself, grew to encompass casual fans, people who had heard a song on the radio and picked up Green and listened for the hits. Old people liked them, and stupid people, and my moron neighbor who had sex with truck drivers. I wanted these phony R.E.M.-lovers dead.

But it was the band's fault, too. They played on Letterman. They switched record labels. Even their album covers seemed progressively more commercial. And when everyone I knew began liking them, I stopped. Had they changed, had their commitment to making art with integrity changed? I didn't care, because for me, any sort of popularity had an inverse relationship with what you term the keeping 'real' of 'shit.' When the Smiths became slightly popular they were sellouts. Bob Dylan appeared on MTV and of course was a sellout. Recently, just at dinner tonight, after a huge, sold-out reading by David Sedaris and Sarah Vowell (both sellouts), I was sitting next to an acquaintance, a very smart acquaintance married to the singer-songwriter of a very well-known band. I mentioned that I had seen the Flaming Lips the night before. She rolled her eyes. "Oh I really liked them on 90210," she sneered, assuming that this would put me and the band in our respective places.

However.

Was she aware that The Flaming Lips had composed an album requiring the simultaneous playing of four separate discs, on four separate CD players? Was she aware that the band had once, for a show at Lincoln Center, handed out to audience members something like 100 portable tape players, with 100 different tapes, and had them all played at the same time, creating a symphonic sort of effect, one which completely devastated everyone in attendance? I went on and on to her about the band's accomplishments, their experiments. Was she convinced that they were more than their one appearance with Jason Priestly? She was.

Now, at that concert the night before, Wayne Coyne, the lead singer, had himself addressed this issue, and to great effect. After playing much of their new album, the band paused and he spoke to the audience. I will paraphrase what he said:

"Hi. Well, some people get all bitter when some song of theirs gets popular, and they refuse to play it. But we're not like that. We're happy that people like this song. So here it goes."

Then they played the song. (You know the song.) "She Don't Use Jelly" is the song, and it is a silly song, and it was their most popular song. But to highlight their enthusiasm for playing the song, the band released, from the stage and from the balconies, about 200 balloons. (Some of the balloons, it should be noted, were released by two grown men in bunny suits.) Then while playing the song, Wayne sang with a puppet on his hand, who also sang into the microphone. It was fun. It was good.

But was it a sellout? Probably. By some standards, yes. Can a good band play their hit song? Should we hate them for this? Probably, probably. First 90210, now they go playing the song every stupid night. Everyone knows that 90210 is not cutting edge, and that a cutting edge alternarock band should not appear on such a show. That rule is clearly stated in the obligatory engrained computer-chip sellout manual that we were all given when we hit adolescence.

But this sellout manual serves only the lazy and small. Those who bestow sellouthood upon their former heroes are driven to do so by, first and foremost, the unshakable need to reduce. The average one of us - a taker-in of various and constant media, is absolutely overwhelmed - as he or she should be - with the sheer volume of artistic output in every conceivable medium given to the world every day - it is simply too much to begin to process or comprehend - and so we are forced to try to sort, to reduce. We designate, we label, we diminish, we create hierarchies and categories.

Through largely received wisdom, we rule out Tom Waits's new album because it's the same old same old, and we save $15. U2 has lost it, Radiohead is too popular. Country music is bad, Puff Daddy is bad, the last Wallace book was bad because that one reviewer said so. We decide that TV is bad unless it's the Sopranos. We liked Rick Moody and Jonathan Lethem and Jeffrey Eugenides until they allowed their books to become movies. And on and on. The point is that we do this and to a certain extent we must do this. We must create categories, and to an extent, hierarchies.

But you know what is easiest of all? When we dismiss.

Oh how gloriously comforting, to be able to write someone off. Thus, in the overcrowded pantheon of alternarock bands, at a certain juncture, it became necessary for a certain brand of person to write off The Flaming Lips, despite the fact that everyone knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that their music was superb and groundbreaking and real. We could write them off because they shared a few minutes with Jason Priestley and that terrifying Tori Spelling person. Or we could write them off because too many magazines have talked about them. Or because it looked like the bassist was wearing too much gel in his hair.

One less thing to think about. Now, how to kill off the rest of our heroes, to better make room for new ones?

We liked Guided by Voices until they let Ric Ocasek produce their latest album, and everyone knows Ocasek is a sellout, having written those mushy Cars songs in the late 80s, and then - gasp! - produced Weezer's album, and of course Weezer's no good, because that Sweater song was on the radio, right, and dorky teenage girls were singing it and we cannot have that and so Weezer is bad and Ocasek is bad and Guided by Voices are bad, even if Spike Jonze did direct that one Weezer video, and we like Spike Jonze, don't we?

Oh. No. We don't. We don't like him anymore because he's married to Sofia Coppola, and she is not cool. Not cool. So bad in Godfather 3, such nepotism. So let's check off Spike Jonze - leaving room in our brains for… who??

It's exhausting.

The only thing worse than this sort of activity is when people, students and teachers alike, run around college campuses calling each other racists and anti-Semites. It's born of boredom, lassitude. Too cowardly to address problems of substance where such problems actually are, we claw at those close to us. We point to our neighbor, in the khakis and sweater, and cry foul. It's ridiculous. We find enemies among our peers because we know them better, and their proximity and familiarity means we don't have to get off the couch to dismantle them.

And now, I am also a sellout. Here are my sins, many of which you may know about already:

First, I was a sellout because Might magazine took ads.
Then I was a sellout because our pages were color, and not stapled together at the Kinko's.
Then I was a sellout because I went to work for Esquire.
Now I'm a sellout because my book has sold many copies.
And because I have done many interviews.
And because I have let people take my picture.
And because my goddamn picture has been in just about every fucking magazine and newspaper printed in America.

And now, as far as McSweeney's is concerned, The Advocate interviewer wants to know if we're losing also our edge, if the magazine is selling out, hitting the mainstream, if we're still committed to publishing unknowns, and pieces killed by other magazines.

And the fact is, I don't give a fuck. When we did the last issue, this was my thought process: I saw a box. So I decided we'd do a box. We were given stories by some of our favorite writers - George Saunders, Rick Moody (who is uncool, uncool!), Haruki Murakami, Lydia Davis, others - and so we published them. Did I wonder if people would think we were selling out, that we were not fulfilling the mission they had assumed we had committed ourselves to?

No. I did not. Nor will I ever. We just don't care. We care about doing what we want to do creatively. We want to be interested in it. We want it to challenge us. We want it to be difficult. We want to reinvent the stupid thing every time. Would I ever think, before I did something, of how those with sellout monitors would respond to this or that move? I would not. The second I sense a thought like that trickling into my brain, I will put my head under the tires of a bus.

You want to know how big a sellout I am?

A few months ago I wrote an article for Time magazine and was paid $12,000 for it I am about to write something, 1,000 words, 3 pages or so, for something called Forbes ASAP, and for that I will be paid $6,000 For two years, until five months ago, I was on the payroll of ESPN magazine, as a consultant and sometime contributor. I was paid handsomely for doing very little. Same with my stint at Esquire. One year I spent there, with little to no duties. I wore khakis every day. Another Might editor and I, for almost a year, contributed to Details magazine, under pseudonyms, and were paid $2000 each for what never amounted to more than 10 minutes work - honestly never more than that. People from Hollywood want to make my book into a movie, and I am probably going to let them do so, and they will likely pay me a great deal of money for the privilege.

Do I care about this money? I do. Will I keep this money? Very little of it. Within the year I will have given away almost a million dollars to about 100 charities and individuals, benefiting everything from hospice care to an artist who makes sculptures from Burger King bags. And the rest will be going into publishing books through McSweeney's. Would I have been able to publish McSweeney's if I had not worked at Esquire? Probably not. Where is the $6000 from Forbes going? To a guy named Joe Polevy, who wants to write a book about the effects of radiator noise on children in New England.

Now, what if I were keeping all the money? What if I were buying property in St. Kitt's or blew it all on live-in prostitutes? What if, for example, I was, a few nights ago, sitting at a table in SoHo with a bunch of Hollywood slash celebrity acquaintances, one of whom I went to high school with, and one of whom was Puff Daddy? Would that make me a sellout? Would that mean I was a force of evil?

What if a few nights before that I was at the home of Julian Schnabel, at a party featuring Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro, and at which Schnabel said we should get together to talk about him possibly directing my movie? And what if I said sure, let's?

Would all that make me a sellout? Would I be uncool? Would it have been more cool to not go to this party, or to not have written that book, or done that interview, or to have refused millions from Hollywood?

The thing is, I really like saying yes. I like new things, projects, plans, getting people together and doing something, trying something, even when it's corny or stupid. I am not good at saying no. And I do not get along with people who say no. When you die, and it really could be this afternoon, under the same bus wheels I'll stick my head if need be, you will not be happy about having said no. You will be kicking your ass about all the no's you've said. No to that opportunity, or no to that trip to Nova Scotia or no to that night out, or no to that project or no to that person who wants to be naked with you but you worry about what your friends will say.

No is for wimps. No is for pussies. No is to live small and embittered, cherishing the opportunities you missed because they might have sent the wrong message.

There is a point in one's life when one cares about selling out and not selling out. One worries whether or not wearing a certain shirt means that they are behind the curve or ahead of it, or that having certain music in one's collection means that they are impressive, or unimpressive.

Thankfully, for some, this all passes. I am here to tell you that I have, a few years ago, found my way out of that thicket of comparison and relentless suspicion and judgment. And it is a nice feeling. Because, in the end, no one will ever give a shit who has kept shit 'real' except the two or three people, sitting in their apartments, bitter and self-devouring, who take it upon themselves to wonder about such things. The keeping real of shit matters to some people, but it does not matter to me. It's fashion, and I don't like fashion, because fashion does not matter.

What matters is that you do good work. What matters is that you produce things that are true and will stand. What matters is that the Flaming Lips's new album is ravishing and I've listened to it a thousand times already, sometimes for days on end, and it enriches me and makes me want to save people. What matters is that it will stand forever, long after any narrow-hearted curmudgeons have forgotten their appearance on goddamn 90210. What matters is not the perception, nor the fashion, not who's up and who's down, but what someone has done and if they meant it. What matters is that you want to see and make and do, on as grand a scale as you want, regardless of what the tiny voices of tiny people say. Do not be critics, you people, I beg you. I was a critic and I wish I could take it all back because it came from a smelly and ignorant place in me, and spoke with a voice that was all rage and envy. Do not dismiss a book until you have written one, and do not dismiss a movie until you have made one, and do not dismiss a person until you have met them. It is a fuckload of work to be open-minded and generous and understanding and forgiving and accepting, but Christ, that is what matters. What matters is saying yes.

I say yes, and Wayne Coyne says yes, and if that makes us the enemy, then good, good, good. We are evil people because we want to live and do things. We are on the wrong side because we should be home, calculating which move would be the least damaging to our downtown reputations. But I say yes because I am curious. I want to see things. I say yes when my high school friend tells me to come out because he's hanging with Puffy. A real story, that. I say yes when Hollywood says they'll give me enough money to publish a hundred different books, or send twenty kids through college. Saying no is so fucking boring.

And if anyone wants to hurt me for that, or dismiss me for that, for saying yes, I say Oh do it, do it you motherfuckers, finally, finally, finally.

-----------

There. Are you happy now, Dan? Jeez.

Justice.

2007-08-17T14:26:00.000-04:00

Anyone catch this last night?

Priceless. Only thing that could've made it better is if a water buffalo plowed through the wall of the house, picked that arrogant little fucker up by the throat, and then dragged him back to the herd to be gang-raped. Good riddance.

Hot for Teacher

2007-07-27T11:09:00.000-04:00

Doesn't Mary-Louise Parker and her white-hot hotness make you think of that grade school teacher you used to have a crush on? Older, cooler, nicer than any of the other fossils you'd had as teachers in the years before, and causing some terrifying brand of weirdness and despair deep down in your Toughskins? I still can't convince myself that this woman is 42.

I know that picture has been 'Shopped quite a bit, but you know what? Big deal. I have no idea if she's had any kind of plastic surgery or not, but to me, what makes her so gorgeous in pretty much every other picture of herself that hasn't been altered is that she looks REAL. She doesn't have that high-grade plastic sheen that so many "beauties" in Hollywood have, and I think that's what I appreciate her about her most. Sure, Biel's got it where it counts, but for some reason, I imagine her having to plug herself into the wall when she goes to sleep so that she doesn't deflate overnight.

Anyway, snakes, naked women, and marijuana? Count me in. I've only seen a handful of episodes of "Weeds" so far, but if the third season continues this whole nudity/giant reptiles angle, I might just have to watching them again. Come on - you think Britney's going to be able to pull off the snake thing at age 42? Doubtful. With the rate she's going, I'll be surprised if she's even able to stand up on her own at that age.

Behold! THE FUTURE!

2007-07-24T16:09:00.000-04:00

For those of you who are sick to death of The Worst President Ever making the United States look like it's populated by a bunch of retarded cowboys on a Friday night bender, let me further infuriate you with this.

They all look like a bunch of little kids playing dress-up, don't they? It's almost kind of cute. I wonder how many of them will be imprisoned later in life for disemboweling a teenage hooker.

Sickening. What's the matter with these kids? Do you think that if any ONE of these dimbulbs had to pay their own way through the big fancy colleges that they all seem to be from, they'd still label themselves as Young Republicans? If you think this is sad, imagine the conversations with their rich, white-bread parents that made them all this way. See, that's the worst part about this brand of fertilizer - it keeps perpetuating itself, generation by generation. These people are like gonorrhea-infested luggage - they're going to be with us FOREVER and EVER.

What strikes me the most about them is how clearly and succinctly ALL of their cute little talking points line up - I have an injury, so I can't enlist. Fight them over there, so we don't have to do it here. I support the war because Elisabeth Hasselbeck told me to. Oh, and also because I just LOVE the idea of our government wasting billions of taxpayer dollars a month for no apparent reason other than because they have no idea how to STOP.

For as blatantly stupid and self-involved as these little bastards seem, you've gotta admit - they're organized. I bet all their socks are lined up nice and neat in their sock drawers, too. It's odd that a group of people obviously priding itself on being organized and communal would associate itself with the current Republican Party. It's like a tiny little army of Felix Ungers joining forces with the Dadaists.

Now, I'm not saying that each and every one of these kids is lying through their teeth about the enlistment thing, but honestly - would it be SO detrimental to their future political gains to just come out and ADMIT that they simply don't think they'd make a very good soldier? The profession is clearly not for everyone, so why blatantly lie about it? The only one of these kids that I even remotely respect is the one that said he has more of a business career in mind for himself. I can at least respect him for being honest about his vile, greedheaded douchebaggery.

It strikes me as some twisted new addition to political correctness - to say that you'd join the armed forces 'if you could'. It holds about as much warmth and authenticity as 'Charmed, I'm sure.'

It's ironic that someone looking to protect their future career goals in politics would choose to do so by telling a blatant lie to a video camera while attending a political event. Think about it - these types of people WONDER why they always find themselves suspender-deep in political scandal. Then again, I guess we're talking about young, new-wealthy, highly impressionable Republicans here, so what else did I really expect?

Oh, and the guy in the white t-shirt? Gay. Definitely gay. It's okay, though - I'm sure he's a Log Cabiner.

Gayest. Jail. Ever.

2007-07-24T13:45:00.000-04:00

I knew some crazy shit happened in prison, but this thing takes the cake AND the file baked inside of it. Check it out. Oh, and yes - that's a guy.

That's right, kids - just in case the Thriller dance you performed at your wedding goes horribly wrong and lands you in the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center in the Philippines, just know that it probably won't be all that bad in there. Hear that, Lindsay? Bottoms up, buttercup! Maybe you'll get a part if they ever re-make 'Cry Baby'.

Harry Potter and the Psychotic Racist Blathering

2007-07-13T11:47:00.000-04:00

Took in the new Harry Potter flick this week, and you know what? I liked it! Once I got over the fact that they had cut and consolidated a LOT of the book to just continue the storyline that is being told in the movies, I enjoyed it quite a lot. I figured the whole 'Where's Hagrid?' backstory was going to be cut, but I hadn't counted on some of the other stuff. Neville's encounter in the hospital? The centaur that replaced Madame Trelawney? How Harry and his crew got into the Ministry of Magic at the end, and their trevails in getting to where they needed to go? I have to say - I missed that stuff, and a few other things that were chopped, as well.

It's missing a lot, (at least from a total Pothead's point of view) but it's not a bad film at all. It's really quite enjoyable. All of the acting and visuals were spot on, of course, (the set pieces and special effects looked like they stepped right out of the book) and I LOVED the Voldy vs Dumbleydore brawl. Albus surrounding Voldemort with that big ball of water was SO beautiful.

I got to see the movie in IMAX 3-D last night, and I'd have to say I give it a 9 out of 10. Problems? For one, I found it a bit rushed and a little short. I could've sat there for another 30 minutes quite easily. If Pirates 3 can be 2 hours and 45 minutes, why not this? The book is definitely one of the more intricate and detailed of the series, so I understand the filmmakers' position, but they could've accentuated the adult themes of the book by presenting a slightly more adult film. The ending reminded me of the whole 'It's about love, Harry' speech from Dumbledore at the end of the first flick. Might've been intentional, but still - it felt a bit improvised and slim. I appreciate it for what it is, though. Prisoner of Azkaban is still the reigning champ by a long shot.

Like I said, all the acting was spot on. I loved Oldman, Gambon, Radcliffe... pretty much everybody. My girlfriend Tonks was GORGEOUS, thanks very much. Mmmmm - punk rock witches! Sign me up. Speaking of which, Helena Bonham Carter should just shave her head permanently. Her Bellatrix Lestrange is like Marla Singer had a baby with Stephen King's 'Carrie'. Just so EVIL and WEIRD. Hurray! I also thought that the girl who played Luna Lovegood was brilliant, as well. I read that she got the part after entering an acting contest to find the best girl for the role. They picked well - she nailed it.

So anyway, after it was over, I stepped outside for a smoke, and this black guy comes up to me on my right-hand side. 'Excuse me, do you speak English?' he says. I just kinda look at him. 'Sorry to ask,' he says, 'but I've talked to a hundred people this morning, and every time, I get all these CULTURES coming at me.' Yeah, that must be a bitch. Especially for a black man living in a white man's world. If that's a James Brown lyric, I'll pay the damn fine.

I'm trying to ignore him, but he won't quit. I haven't said much to him in response, so he says, 'You DO speak English, right?' I just look at him again and say, 'Yeah'. I figure the nasty look I'm giving him at this point will shoo him away, but no go. He introduces himself and sticks out his hand, and I shake it for some reason. I'm just not programmed to be rude to people, I guess.

So we shake hands, and right as I pull my hand away, I regret even touching him. All these 'cultures'? Is he crazy? He drops some blatantly racist bullshit on me, and I'm just supposed to take it, shake his hand, and accept him as a normal person? It's weird how that works sometimes in life - people are so immersed in their own twisted little ways that they don't even consider running an ethical spellcheck on themselves before they speak. I can't stand political correctness or self-censorship, but when it comes to shit like racism, I'm running at your ass with a gigantic red pen.

I'm looking for somewhere to wipe off my hand, and he's still running. It's all just blather to me now, and I've actually started to take a few steps away from him so he'll get the hint. I get a few moments of silence, so I look over to see what he's up to. I do so at EXACTLY the right time, because not only does it seem that he's given up, but I also get the money shot of him growing as exasperated with his rude, creepy, bigoted ass as I have.

'DAMMIT!' I hear and see him yell to himself, his arms flailing towards the heavens and his head dipped low, the frustration of blowing yet another conversation with a complete stranger who hopefully won't mind his unsolicited spew of racial epithets written in the air all around him. He walks off and I turn away, not really interested in who his next lucky victim might be. With his luck, I'm betting that it was a cop.

Walk it out, bitches

2007-07-05T23:06:00.000-04:00

You know, I still have a big-ass blog post about my trip to the National Aquarium to finish, and a big-ass blog post about all the movies I've seen in the past week to finish, too, but once again - fuck them. It's time to walk it out.

I think the one on the left is my grandmother.

And Now For Something Completely Different

2007-07-01T15:49:00.001-04:00

I'm taking a class in internet and computer literacy as a pre-requisite for my Digital Media Arts degree, and for part of it, I need to create my own blog. Um, needless to say, I'm a little ahead of the game in that respect. Hmm. Extra credit?

So anyway, this post is serving as part of a class project, so to those who only read my blog for entertainment, you can pretty much just skip right over it. To Michael Sullivan and all those from my class who may be reading this, however, welcome!

Anyway, here are a few questions I'm supposed to answer as part of my class project.

1. Write about yourself.

Not really all that much to tell. I enjoy reading and writing, as well as graphic design, drawing, painting, and just being as creative and imaginative as possible whenever I can. I think my entire personality can be summed up by just saying that I try to make every day as enjoyable as possible. Oh, and I really like peanut butter. It's the most perfect food ever created.

2. Name a favorite vacation spot that you have been to, or are going to.

My favorite vacation spot has been the island of Maui, where I went for my honeymoon back in 2002. If you've never been, Hawaii truly is paradise on Earth. I could easily imagine myself just disappearing into the culture and spending the rest of my days holed up on a beach somewhere, forgetting what the words 'rat race' even mean and laughing at those who haven't.

3. Write what the best day of your life was.

I think the best day of my life was when I finally settled into life outside of my parent's house when I moved to San Francisco in 1995. I was terrified when I first moved out, like many of us are, but once the fears had subsided and I had settled into a life that I actually looked forward to living on a day-to-day basis, I can't remember being happier.

So there's my assignment. I hope all of you unaccustomed to my blog before this assignment are brave enough to read some of the other entries here. Enjoy them if you can, but if not, please don't contact any authorities. I've got enough problems as it is.

Adieu.

I'm in love.

2007-06-27T23:43:00.001-04:00

You know, I don't usually fall for the facelifted soccer-mom-haired newscaster type, but this woman is surely my soul mate.

Come with me, O Frosted One. Together we will scamper off into the mist of the electric blue evening light, hurling epithets and naughty naughty curse words at all the spoiled children of the whole wide world...

I've got a bad feeling about this...

2007-06-22T09:16:00.000-04:00

...and when I say 'bad', I mean 'good'.

Yes, you're seeing that correctly - it's a brand-new shot of Harrison Ford dressed up as Indiana Jones. Actually, no - that IS Indiana Jones. To me, anyway.

According to those grave-robbing scum at IndianaJones.com, the shot was taken by Steven Spielberg himself, on set of next summer's fourth movie in the Indiana Jones series. No title yet, but according to a few sources, it's set in the 1950s, and focuses on some kinda cool-ass sci-fi plot, maybe something that even involves UFOs or something. How cool is that? Get this - John Hurt is playing Albert Einstein. Cate Blanchett might be the villain! There are even rumored secret signings-on of Marion from the first movie, and for a tough-girl-loving guy like me, that's just music. I'm your goddamned PARTNER!

I remember my dad taking me out of school for the day to see 'Temple of Doom', and for some reason, I was really scared to see it. I WANTED to see it more than anything, but from what I'd heard about the dude getting his heart ripped from his chest while he was still alive, I was a little weary. My dad calmed my nerves by telling me we'd go get pizza afterward. Heh. So we went, and when we walked into the theater, there was no one else there. NO ONE. Big empty theater that was about to show a movie that had a REAL GUY getting his HEART ripped from his CHEST. I was both terrified and excited beyond belief. My own personal Temple of Doom. Two hours later, I was the happiest 11-year-old boy on Earth. I had just seen a man getting his heart ripped from his chest, and I was eating pizza. Life was good.

Welcome back, Indy. I'm not exactly 11 anymore, but I sure couldn't tell when I saw that picture this morning.

Pictures Of Me Getting Blown On The Internet

2007-06-21T00:11:00.001-04:00

Yeah, like I could get that lucky.

No, what I'm talking about is that brand spankin' new picture of me over there in the right-hand margin. Yeah, that's me. Sorry. I was trying to make it appear as if my face was being blown right off my head, but instead, it just looks like some rejected special effect from 'Max Headroom'. Just wanted to brighten the place up a bit, is all. Please to be enjoying.

Meanwhile, I'm $200 overdrawn in my bank account. I've got 11 bucks to last me until either a) my next paycheck rolls in, or b) I graft some mechanical arms onto my spine and rob a bank like Doc Ock. At this rate, all those girls at my college who are decades too young for me aren't EVER going to want to get in my Benz. It's probably a good thing, that.

Love Train

2007-06-20T08:44:00.000-04:00

If the kids in this video were speaking English, it wouldn't work even remotely as well. Bad-ass!

Mural Moral

2007-06-19T23:40:00.000-04:00

Okay, so according to TMZ.com, they've got an excerpt from the O.J. Simpson book that was supposed to come out last year, 'If I Did It'. Like to hear it? Here it go. It's a little out of order and context, but you'll get the jist soon enough.

I'm going to tell you a story you've never heard before, because no one knows this story the way I know it. It takes place on the night June 12, 1994, and it concerns the murder of my ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her young friend, Ronald Goldman. I want you to forget everything you think you know about that night because I know the facts better than anyone. I know the players. I've seen the evidence. I've heard the theories. And, of course, I've read all the stories: That I did it. That I did it but I don't know I did it. That I can no longer tell fact from fiction. That I wake up in the middle of the night, consumed by guilt, screaming.

I looked over at Goldman, and I was fuming. I guess he thought I was going to hit him, because he got into his little karate stance. "What the fuck is that?" I said. "You think you can take me with your karate shit?" He started circling me, bobbing and weaving, and if I hadn't been so fucking angry I would have laughed in his face. "O.J., come on!" It was Charlie again, pleading. Nicole moaned, regaining consciousness. She stirred on the ground and opened her eyes and looked at me, but it didn't seem like anything was registering. Charlie walked over and planted himself in front of me blocking my view. "We are fucking done here, man-let's go!"

I noticed the knife in Charlie's hand, and in one deft move I removed my right glove and snatched it up. "We're not going anywhere," I said, turning to face Goldman. Goldman was still circling me, bobbing and weaving, but I didn't feel like laughing anymore. "You think you're tough, motherfucker?" I said. I could hear Charlie just behind me, saying something, urging me to get the fuck out of there, and at one point he even reached for me and tried to drag me away, but I shook him off, hard, and moved toward Goldman. "Okay, motherfucker!" I said. "Show me how tough you are!"

Then something went horribly wrong, and I know what happened, but I can't tell you exactly how. I was still standing in Nicole's courtyard, of course, but for a few moments I couldn't remember how I'd gotten there, when I'd arrived, or even why I was there. Then it came back to me, very slowly: The recital-with little Sydney up on stage, dancing her little heart out; me, chipping balls into my neighbor's yard; Paula, angry, not answering her phone; Charlie, stopping by the house to tell me some more ugly shit about Nicole's behavior. Then what? The short, quick drive from Rockingham to the Bundy condo. And now?

Then something went horribly wrong, and I know what happened, but I can't tell you exactly how. I was still standing in Nicole's courtyard, of course, but for a few moments I couldn't remember how I'd gotten there, when I'd arrived, or even why I was there. Then it came back to me, very slowly: The recital-with little Sydney up on stage, dancing her little heart out; me, chipping balls into my neighbor's yard; Paula, angry, not answering her phone; Charlie, stopping by the house to tell me some more ugly shit about Nicole's behavior. Then what? The short, quick drive from Rockingham to the Bundy condo. And now? Now I was standing in Nicole's courtyard, in the dark, listening to the loud, rhythmic, accelerated beating of my own heart. I put my left hand to my heart and my shirt felt strangely wet. I looked down at myself. For several moments, I couldn't get my mind around what I was seeing. The whole front of me was covered in blood, but it didn't compute. Is this really blood? I wondered. And whose blood is it? Is it mine? Am I hurt?

Right. So... on the planet I come from, O.J., what you experienced is called a 'black-out'. When they don't involve alcohol or drugs, black-outs happen when you are under such extreme duress and psychological emergency that your conscious mind basically shuts down. You might still be able to carry on physical actions, but you might not remember any of what you did during the black-out once it passes. Did you watch 'Hell's Kitchen' two weeks ago? Yeah, that's what happened to Aaron the Catatonic Cowboy. Now you know.

O.J., look - if this thing is actually a confession, fine. Say so. Turn yourself in and do the time you deserve to do. I'm not even sure you'll go to jail at all, actually. You've already been acquitted of the damn thing, but it's worth a try, right? I mean, shit - this was your wife you killed. Don't you think her life was worth at least that? You might be in the can for the rest of your life, dude, but that's a fair exchange for the two lives you took that night, isn't it? It certainly fits the crime better than playing golf and dreaming up ways to get paid for admitting that you killed some people, doesn't it?

O.J.? You still with me, man? Or are you having another black-out?

You know, there's a restaurant in San Francisco called The Connecticut Yankee, and right across the street from it is a wall. Yeah, it's in the Potrero district, right around where you grew up. That wall's got a mural on it, and you're in it. Yup, there you are in your football uniform, looking far more innocent than you do now. The mural of you isn't looking too good these days, either - someone went and scrawled the word 'GUILTY' across your likeness in red paint. They even put devil horns on your head and a bloody knife in your hand. It wasn't me, but I sure as hell wish it had been. I make up for that fact by spitting on the mural whenever I walk by it.

Well, not the WHOLE mural.

Big in Japan

2007-06-19T12:18:00.001-04:00

Because of my perpetual man-crush on Johnny Depp and my total wide-eyed fascination with the complete and utter weirdness of Japanese television and pop culture, I had to bring this clip your way. It combines everything that I love about both Depp and Japan, so strap on your ADD-defeating strap-on again and check out these glorious eight minutes.

WARNING: MAY CAUSE SEIZURES.

I think the little Japanese kid with the pirate costume and Hitler moustache is my favorite. Is helium cheap over there or something?

A Shameless Whore

2007-06-15T23:59:00.000-04:00

No, it's not another Lohan post. It's what I would willingly become to see even a second more footage from the new trailer for Pixar's 'Wall-E', due in 2008. This thing gives me the chills. Check it out here.

E.T. much?

Clitoris Leachman

2007-06-14T09:13:00.000-04:00

That is what my drag queen name will one day be.

Anyway, I'm working on a gi-normous picture-packed blog entry about my trip to Baltimore's National Aquarium, but in the meantime, I think you'll all be happy to know that even in her 80s, Cloris Leachman is perfectly capable of doing a five-minute keg stand.

Is there anything cooler than this? No, there isn't, so don't even bother answering. That doomed little coke whore Lindsay Lohan can't even drive two blocks after having a few drinks without shoulder-rolling into a hedge, but here's Cloris hefting a keg over her head for the paps after sucking on a beer tap for FIVE minutes straight. I hope that after the cameras stopped clicking, she threw the thing through somebody's windshield and then stole the cameraman's girlfriend.

Cloris, may you live to be a thousand years old.

Lions and buffalo and crocodiles! Oh my!

2007-06-04T14:49:00.001-04:00

You know, I was going to blog about my recent trip to the National Aquarium in Baltimore, but before I do that, (which I will - I got some great photos) I'd like to share this little YouTube gem with you all first. At 8 minutes, it's fairly long, but get your ADD in check and watch it all the way to the end, okay? Okay.

It's like a little movie, isn't it? Beginning, middle, and end. No matter how difficult you think your life is at times, (and don't get me wrong - I'm sure it is) just be thankful that you've never had to fight your way out of a situation where a crocodile is pulling you to your death in one direction and a pack of lions is doing the same in the other. It makes gas prices and toothaches look like absolutely nothing at all, doesn't it?

I'll be back soon with my trip to Baltimore. Regardless of what one might think, it was actually a very lovely place. Well, the rich part of town was, anyway.

Sneakin' Out The Hospital

2007-05-22T09:20:00.000-04:00

If there's one thing in my life that has been anywhere near constant, it's been those three guys right up there. I've lived all over the country, seen far too many friends come and go, lost far too many relationships to stupid, selfish bullshit that usually originated from me, watched my possessions slip through my fingers, and seen pets die, but you know what? Those three Jewish kids from New York have made my life pretty much what is right now. I mean that in a good way, just so you know.

I wouldn't dress, talk, act, laugh, think, write, create, or do much of anything in quite the same way if it weren't for them coming into my life 22 years ago. I've grown up with them, and they with me. They've never sold out, gone solo, or broken up. They've never overdosed, had sex on a reality show, leaked pictures of their genitals onto the internet, or guest judged on American Idol. (Speaking of which, those cats really need to get Tarantino back. He was awesome.)

Thanks, guys. I'll see you in the Catskills in about thirty years. From the front row, of course.

She Said I Am The One

2007-05-01T10:04:00.000-04:00

I'm all for dancing birds, but I'm even more for weird jungle women impersonating dancing birds.