I...I HAVE NO EXCUSE

Swear to God, I have no intention of turning this space into an endless, tedious recitation of the previous night's dreams. But...

So I dreamed I was watching Jay Leno's new show (which right away suggests this is something more closely resembling a nightmare), and he had a whole panel-ful of guests. There was some anonymous black guy who never said anything and received no camera time, Billy Bob Thornton and Dan Aykroyd. Thornton rambled on and on, making some psuedo-philosophical point in a rather belligerent manner, then kind of ran out of steam, and sat in awkward silence. Aykroyd brought up a bullet-ridden death scene Thornton had in a recent movie, and asked what gauge wire he used to set off the squibs. Thornton started raving incoherently, and as he did so, began frothing at the mouth, great waterfalls of some chalky white substance cascading from his mouth with every word spoken.

Aykroyd tried to stifle his laughter, but Leno, Anonymous Black Guy and the studio audience roared with laughter. Finally, as Thornton realized what was going on, he smiled, reached into his jacket and produced the bottle of Mylanta he kept gulping during commercial breaks. Aykroyd announced, for viewers at home "and the olfactorily-challenged here in the studio," that one of tonights guests reeked of cheap booze, "but decorum prevents me from saying which one." Thornton began laughing so hard he pissed his pants, and Aykroyd and Anonymous Black Guy dragged him off stage.

At which point, sadly, Leno was left with nothing to do but mug for the camera and launch into a pretaped comedy bit. Such a prospect was so horrifying, I had no choice but to wake up.

Is this what my life has come to? My dreams involve Billy Bob Thornton peeing his pants in front of Jay Leno? What the hell is wrong with me?

BABY, THAT'S THE WAY IT'S GOTTA BE

Wow, posting has been even more sporadic than expected. Apologies, and I'll try to do better, but honestly, things are kind of wacky around here, and it's going to be awhile before any kind of normalcy settles in, so wait and see, I guess. Not that it matters, since a helpful article in a recent Des Moines Register article explained some easy tips for blogging--keep it short, and never write about personal matters--that I violate routinely, so maybe I'm doing this wrong. (But probably not. Don't all authors, web-based or otherwise, mostly write about themselves? Then again, if you've ever read The Register, you'll quickly realize no one on staff knows jack about writing.)

Anyway, the point is...well, there is no point, I just wanted to put up some new content. And for me, that usually involves a clip job, and when resorting to such things, who better to showcase than Noted Cult Rocker Marshall Crenshaw, from back when he still had a full set of hair. So here's everyone's favorite erstwhile Beatlemania star with a cover of Soldier Of Love. Oh, and Fun Fact about this song: If you use selected lines from this--"surrender to me," for instance--while arguing with your wife and/or girlfriend, you will only make the situation worse. It's true!

MAKE LOVE TO THESE WOMEN, LANGUID AND BITTERSWEET

She reaches to the floor, picking up her boots, pulling them on over her black-and blue striped tights, which, combined with her sky blue minidress and emo-girl haircut, suggest she is trying to look much younger than she is. Not that she's old--mid-thirties, maybe--but her age is too advanced to be parading around like this. "Good morning," she smiles. I have no idea who she is.

I actually slept well, I say.

"Then we both got what she wanted." She smiles again, mechanically, and says, "It's time."

Yeah, I say, even though I have no idea what she's talking about.

"I wish it didn't have to be this way. But..." Her voice trails off as she looks at her watch. A second ago she wasn't wearing a watch. She rises from the bed and heads into another room. I follow.

Turn out it's the bathroom. She sits on the toilet, removing the boots she just put on, pulling her dress off over her head. "I really do like you. I wish you weren't a patient. If the clinic knew I was here--"

Yeah, but how are they going to find out?

"Well, exactly. I can't wait until next week." She rises from the toilet and backs me out to the living room. She is very thin, almost skeletal. A skeleton with sweet, sweet breasts, which press against my chest as we share what I fear will be one last kiss. "Take care," she says, and walks back through the bathroom door.

Again, I follow. Only this is no longer the bathroom. I'm standing in the hallway outside of the apartment, all glass and sunlight, and she is nowhere in sight. Must be a nice apartment, whoever lives here. I turn, walk back through the door, and for one split second all is sweet oblivion, nothing but darkness and this familiar sound.

MWOR! MWOR! MWOR!

My eyes open.

MWOR! MWOR! MWOR!

Delmar sits at the foot of the bed, facing away from me, yowling his heart out, his stumpy tail furiously thumping the mattress. My eyes shift to the clock--4 AM. I have to be at work in three hours. This, regrettably, is not a dream.

I CAN'T REMEMBER THE LAST TIME I WORE A WHITE SHIRT

1) Ah, yes, the capriciously-chosen Larry King quote signifying another fresh-baked batch o' Random Thoughts. I've upgraded; instead of recycling Larry quotes from his old USA Today column, I'm using fragments from his Twitter page. Rest assured, the title of today's post makes no more sense in context. In fact, there is no context.

2) Since the Interweb tells me it's what Everyone's Talking About, I should probably make some mention of Mackenzie Phillips' claim that she had a ten-year sexual relationship with her dad. But really, what is there to say? Beyond ICK, I mean?

The thing is...well, there's two things, actually. The obvious one is, Is this even true? Not that it couldn't be--Phillips' dad was noted satyr and drug vacuum John Phillips, as morally reprehensible as any man could be (although kudos to his great score for The Man Who Fell To Earth!)--but, well, he's conveniently dead, nobody else can verify the claim and Phillips is most famous as a wackjob and publicity whore who has regularly used her image as a perpetually recovering junkie as an opportunity to score TV gigs she'd probably never receive otherwise. A look at her filmography reveals more guest appearances as herself (inevitably offering yet another hard-luck story designed to make us feel for her) on TV talk shows than as a character on dramatic TV. She's told us far too much about herself already, yet she's only bringing this up now? Sounds...suspicious.

But fine. Even if it's true, why does anybody need to know about it? She's the former co-star of One Day At A Time, for God's sake. Does anyone care? Yeah, she says she's trying to put a human face on the very real nightmare of incest, but there's such a creepy air of opportunism and desperation about everything she says and does that Phillips is actually only perpetrating the myth that incest survivors are damaged goods. Not to sound insensitive, and I'm sure she's had a plenty fucked-up life with or without her dad's sexual advances, but she really needs to just go away and deal with it in private.

3) Anyone remember that brief post-election period of optimism, when Obama seemed to be making all the right moves, including the announcement of his plan to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay? Seems like a long time ago, doesn't it? Especially in light of his decision to use a half-assed law enacted by the Bushinistas to continue holding 50 prisoners at Gitmo without bothering to obtain congressional approval for doing so. True, Obama's people are putting some kind of touchy-feely bullshit trimmings on this, claiming that the detainees will be granted full habeas corpus hearings, blah blah blah, but it's still a blatant reversal of his stated intention, not the first and surely not the last. Possibly the most depressing, though.

4) Wow, I guess I had fewer Random Thoughts floating about my head than expected. Maybe the only reason I structured today's post in this particular fashion is because I simply didn't want to devote an entire piece to Mackenzie Phillips. That, and I was pissed about the whole Obama thing, and just wanted to mention it. But beyond that, I got nothing. Oh, except to note that this week's run of Mary Worth has been action-packed, and how often can you say that about Mary Worth?

5) And the cats, of course, because I always mention them when I write one of these. Monika's her usual self, but Delmar--I'm kinda worried about Del. He's taken to snuggling up with me when I sleep, and he curls up on my lap and purrs, and he's far less prone to violence or odd behavior than he used to be. He's acting...normal, almost. If you didn't know him, you'd think he was an ordinary cat.

Mother of Mercy, is this the end of Psychokitty?

IT WILL COME BACK TO YOU

I suppose one of the reasons I've stayed with the same insurance agent for many years is because anytime I have to deal with her one-on-one, it means a trip back to my old home town, which somehow turns into a different experience every time I return. This weekend involved a vehicular misadventure which prompted just such a trip, and I found myself lost in time, shuttling back and forth between past lives.

I took the back way to Perry, from through Waukee and Adel, a route I used to drive every day when I shuttled children from all over Dallas County to Head Start in Adel. There weren't that many kids on the route, and they weren't too talkative, so they were forced to just sit there and listen to whatever music I liked, Siamese Dream and Melon Collie-era Smashing Pumpkins, Automatic For The People-era REM, and lots and lots of Beck. None of that shows up in my personal playlist these days, but I could hear it all in my head as I drove down the hill along Highway 6, 1995 fading into early '96, a period where I could feel it in my bones, that finally my life was building to something, when anything seemed possible.

In a sense, that was true. The spring, summer and autumn of '96 were marked by my belated efforts at a libertine period, living life with an abandon I'd never known before, and early in '97, I met what I thought was the perfect woman, and embarked on a whole new life, far away from the places and people I'd always known.

But that life fell apart, and the only safe place to pick up the pieces seemed to be back in Perry, where, due to dire financial straits and a period of unemployment, I moved in with Mom, who had returned to the house I had briefly called my own in that wild period in the mid-nineties. It was many years down the road, but Mom hadn't changed the alterations I'd made to the house: The walls in the living room were still painted gray and the ceiling black, and the chalky white image of a sword-wielding skeleton continued to welcom you into the bathroom, where the walls remained adorned with favorite quotes from James Joyce and Hunter Thompson.

Lord knows why Mom hadn't had somebody paint over all that (though I believe she was particularly tickled by the Thompson quote, which I'd illustrated with a garish charcoal crayon scrawl of a nightmarish clown), but when I found myself back in the house in the late summer of 2002, all those signifiers of my previous life seemed to mock me, to remind me of the person I was, the person I'd never be again.

Life continued there for several months. I got a job, put away some money, made plans to escape. But unlike before, I couldn't quite imagine a future this time. The person who'd painted those walls was someone who pounded out endless streams of wordage, for payment or for his own amusement, while draining six packs of Rolling Rock as The Replacements blasted in the background. But he'd been replaced by a person who no longer felt the ability or desire to write, and who hardly even listened to music anymore. Joy was a thing of the past. Mom tried to keep my spirits up, but I was too old to be mothered, and after striking out in the world, this small town seemed like nowhere.

Perry had nothing to offer me at that point in my life, no comfort to give. Yet today as I drove away from the insurance office, I ate at the Chines buffet at the strip mall by the bypass, then drove through downtown and stopped at the library. And it was all exactly the same, but the feeling was different. For maybe the first time, I remembered that brief period with some measure of fondness. My situation then seemed so hopeless, all I could see, all I could feel was negativity. But now I remembered how good the food was at this particular restaurant, and as I walked through the library, I noticed the shelves still held a copy of Jamie Farr's autobiography Just Farr Fun, which I had checked out once as a joke, and wound up...well, not enjoying, but at least reading. (Skimming, actually.) It was a pleasant memory of a more pleasant time, or at least more pleasant than I'd ever allowed it to be.

I ended my trip by stopping into Alco, the discount store that opened with much fanfare back in '76, part of a regional chain that was once seen as a threat to Main Street businesses, much as Wal-Mart is viewed now. And at the time, Alco was something new for a small town, offering one-stop shopping for everything, toys and electronics and clothes and hardware. You couldn't find everything there, but you could find most of what you'd need for day-to-day living.

Alco today is much like it was then. The clothes they carry are still mostly from Wrangler and Haggar, the electronics are still manufactured by Emerson, and even the piped-in music hadn't changed: Peg, Steely Dan's inescapable radio hit from '77. That was the summer I started really listening to music, and began writing and drawing a comic strip solely for the amusement of my brother, and where, in this very store, I bought a paperback of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, and LPs of Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring and George Gershwin's Concerto In F, and of course, the novelization of Star Wars, and I was struck then as I am now by the fact that this place, so mundane and provincial, contained so many things which would point me to another, better world, which would take me away and, ultimately, bring me back home.

ANOTHER REASON TO HATE CANCER

Just wanted to note the passing of one of my all-time favorite character actors, Henry Gibson, who lost a brief bout with cancer at the age of 73.

He shot to a weird kind of fame as a cast member of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, the popularity of which seems almost incomprehensible today. But Gibson had been around before that, of course--his movie debut came under the direction of Jerry Lewis in The Nutty Professor, and he had a hilarious part as a hipster Indian in the late-period Three Stooges epic The Outlaws Is Coming.

He was one of the few Laugh-In performers to have a career beyond that show, mostly courtesy of Robert Altman, who cast him as a sinister "wellness expert" (and probable Scientology rep, though that isn't explicitly stated) in The Long Goodbye, and gave him the role of a lifetime as Haven Hamilton, a powerful, ego-crazed country star who inadvertently rediscovers his humanity in Nashville. Right there Gibson gave outstanding performances in two of the greatest films ever made.

He found himself a working character actor, doing everything from sitcoms to cartoon voiceover work, and he could play sinister as well as sweet. He became a member of Joe Dante's repertory company--he was the best thing in The 'burbs and was hilarious in a Dante-directed episode of Eerie, Indiana--and will always be beloved as the head of the Illinois Nazis in John Landis' The Blues Brothers.

He was one of those people who could make any movie or TV show better just by being in it, and he will be sorely missed.

PAIN DON'T HURT

The headlines have all been pretty much the same: DIRTY DANCING STAR PATRICK SWAYZE DIES AT 57.

Honestly, I've never even seen Dirty Dancing, but even if I had, I'm still pretty sure I'd still think of Swayze first ande foremost as Dalton, his iconic character from Road House.

Ah, Road House. That movie has been ironically appreciated by hipsters everywhere ever since its release in 1989, celebrated for its goofy dialogue and outrageous characterizations. But as so many internet chat boards this morning seem to reveal, maybe the joke was on us the whole time, or better yet, maybe our appreciation was never wholly ironic.

Maybe the endlessly quotable, easily mocked dialogue in Road House ("Do you always carry your medical records around with you?" "Saves time.") amounts to its own deconstructive text, even as the philosophical beliefs ("Man's search for faith, that sort of shit") of our mullet-sporting, tai chi-practicing hero are entirely sincere. And after all, as an action movie, it's extraordinarily well-made. And Swayze...dammit, Swayze is great.

In fact, Road House wouldn't be the action movie of choice for Gen Xers everywhere were it not for Swayze's perfectly-judged performance. He's nicely self-aware but perfectly serious, even sincere, and he single-handedly keeps the whole thing from tipping over into parody. No matter how silly the situation, Swayze utters every line as if he means it, and we believe him. Dalton's a man of action anyone would want on their side.

Just as Swayze himself would ultimately become one of the few celebrities anyone could admire. He stayed married to the same woman for decades, a rare feat for a movie star, and he never let fame go to his head. He took his life and his work seriously, and by all accounts was a great guy.

And then, of course, there was his well-documented battle with pancreatic cancer, during which he became--corny as it may sound--a real-life hero. Told he had less than five months to live, he handily outlasted his grim prognosis, determined to fight a battle he ultimately couldn't win, all to enjoy the beauty of one more day, one more sunrise, one more moment on earth.

Dalton himself couldn't have done any better. Pain don't hurt, indeed.

ENSLAVED TO EVERY CRUEL WHIM AND DESIRE OF A RUTHLESS MADMAN!

Whatever else I may have been planning on writing about is significantly less important than this breaking news: Roger Corman is getting an Academy Award!

True, it's one of those lame-career achievement Oscars, and presumably mostly in recognition of all the people (Martin Scorsese, Jonathan Demme, Joe Dante, Peter Bogdanovich) who toiled in Corman's exploitation factory early in their careers, but I'd like to think the Academy is finally coming around to appreciating real movies. Which would you rather see? Some lame thing with Gwyneth Paltrow in a corset, or this?



The choice seems clear.

WHY DON'T YOU SPEND YOUR WHOLE LIFE SLEEPING?

3 AM, and maybe I can get another half hour of sleep, a half hour of quiet and calm--

WUMP! patpatpatpatpatpat SKRETCH SKRETCH SKRETCH patpatpatpat

Pause.

patpatpatpatpat CRASH!

Monika again, the pitter-patter of her feet echoing loudly in this small apartment, and punctuated by sounds of God knows what. She's taken to leaping about wildly, getting into everything then moving quickly on, and generally acting like an inquisitive kitten.

But according to the cat age to human age conversion chart, her equivalent age would be eighty. How many eighty-year-olds go running and leaping like this? Mall-walking, sure, but Monika is jumping on everything in sight, caroming off the walls like Donald O'Connor. It's kind of cute--hell, it's adorable--but it's also incredibly irritating, because she leaves an inevitable path of destruction in her wake.

Also, she's very loud. And she insists on doing this now, when I'm trying to sleep.

And what can I do to stop her? Pick her up and hold her? She'll squirm out of my arms. Throw her in her carrier? She'll yowl furiously and tip the thing over. Shut her in another room? She'll scratch at the door.

So I get up and go about my morning business, a bit earlier than I'd like to. She continues to leap and cavort. I fill her water dish, and she sticks her front paws in and splashes the floor. I change the litter box, and she hops into it and starts literally punching the litter.

Finally, I sit down, figuring I might as well relax and watch her play. Naturally, she picks that moment to hop up on the bed and go to sleep. Was this all some elaborate plan to get me out of the bed, just so she could have the whole thing to herself?

Knowing Monika, I'd have to say yes.

WALK ON, WALK ON

As recently as ten years ago, Jerry Lewis' labor day telethon extravaganza still had some sort of cultural relevance. Sort of. The local stations carrying it--The Love Network--were network affiliates, willingly bumping ad dollars in prime time, giving themselves over to Jerry through the night and all the next day.

True, it was a far cry from the glory days of the sixties and seventies, when top singers and comedians would stop by and entertain live, and big-name stars would join Lewis on stage. Still, you'd get to see imported performers from lesser Broadway shows and second-tier musical acts like Ringo Starr's All Star Band, and co-hosting duties were handed to the likes of Ed McMahon, Tony Orlando and Norm Crosby, who admittedly failed to amuse or enlighten on any level, but at least they were there, familiar TV faces you had seen in the past, providing some level of comfort by their very presence. More importantly, the whole furshlugginer ball of wax still showcased the awesome spectacle of Lewis himself, cranky as ever, lurking about the stage like an aneurysm waiting to happen, self-righteously lambasting any critics who failed to appreciate his work, routinely chastising anonymous assistants who failed to cater to his whims with all due speed.

Things had already gotten pretty dire in the past decade--for one thing, few network affiliates bother carrying it anymore, and those that do seldom run the whole thing--but the program this year was absolutely painful to behold. Third-rate Vegas magicians were introduced with embarrassing superlatives, and much of the show was given over to sub-America's Got Talent singers and dance troupes, many of which the co-hosts couldn't even bother introducing by name.

Ah yes, our co-hosts, Jann Carl and Nancy O'Dell, perky blond "correspondents" from rival TV infotainment programs, here united by both their fealty to Lewis--expressed over and over and over again--and their utter vapidity. This was it? This was the best they could get? Sure, Ed McMahon is shilling Budweiser in Heaven, but what about Tony Orlando? Did he really have better things to do?

Saddest of all was our host, a shambling, pathetic old man, rambling incoherently, blinking incessantly. Jerry Lewis was once one of the most famous men in the world, and dammit, he really was a great comedian and a brilliant filmmaker. But he was also always an arrogant prick, and this year his telethon seemed to represent some sort of ironic come-uppance: All his friends have either died or deserted him, and he had nothing to fall back on but his increasingly frail comic gifts, and they simply weren't enough. In that sense, his final, ritualistic performance of You'll Never Walk Alone took on an unexpected poignance: Lewis seemed to be singing to himself.

YOU WOULDN'T ACT SO ADULT NOW

I'm not too proud to admit I just spent way too much time searching for clips from some of Mitzi Gaynor's variety shows from the seventies, ostensibly to use as illustration for another of my ongoing explorations of how weird, inexplicable things from my childhood take on other forms in adulthood.

Such an urge may have been inspired in part by a trip back to my hometown yesterday, a place I've managed to avoid for probably a year or so. Whenever I do this, I'm always visited by ghosts from my past, apparitions I'd prefer to avoid, thank you very much. And more often, I find myself struck by how nothing is quite as I remember it, how memories distort reality, how everything is subjective, how nothing is objectively true.

Which, you know, is kind of a bummer.

And while Heaven knows I'm more than willing to write about incredibly depressing things around here, hey, it's a holiday weekend (even though I have to leave for work in forty minutes or so) and, really, who wants to spend it brooding? It's been awhile since I indulged myself with a good old-fashioned clip job--and by "awhile" I mean since my last post--so let's enjoy, shall we?

Here are The Replacements with Kiss Me On The Bus. Sure, Paul Westerberg will never be this great again, but the good news is, since he's found some measure of sobriety, he's less likely to go out in public with hair like this.



Beastie Boys with Hey Ladies.



Bernard Herrmann's magnificent title music from Hitchcock's underrated Marnie.



And a strong contender for Favorite Song Ever, Marvin Gaye's scarily intense Trouble Man.

IF YOU CAN'T TALK LOVE THEN YOU BETTER GET OUT

Ah, it's been awhile, hasn't it? I had a day off last week, and usually on days off I can devote time to writing, but eh, I was busy. And today's a day off as well, and I'm not particularly busy, but I've got a lot on my mind and...well, posting isn't exactly a priority these days.

Not that I haven't had things I wanted to discuss. In particular, I wanted to explore my sneering reaction to Teddy Kennedy's death to how I felt upon hearing of the death of songwriter Ellie Greenwich. She was best known for the teenage symphonies she and Jeff Barry wrote for in the early sixties, particularly The Ronettes' Be My Baby, which has to rank pretty high in the annals of Greatest Things Ever. And not to downplay Greenwich's contribution (she wrote the music, Barry the lyrics, and God knows the music is appropriately dreamy), but what makes the record isn't the song, or Ronnie Spector's haunted vocals, or the brilliant arrangement by Jack Nitzsche or the awesome drums of Hal Blaine--it's all these things together, as they were so awesomely assembled in the studio by genius producerPhil Spector.

And Spector was a genius, no doubt--if his Wall Of Sound masterpieces didn't prove it, the stark, intimate sound of Plastic Ono Band confirmed it. But he was also notoriously psychotic, abusive and, finally, murderous. And yet...everything horrible about him doesn't make his work any less great. Why, then, can I forgive him, and not Kennedy? Is it simply because we kind of expect artists to be terrible people, but politicians, being in charge of our lives, should be held to a higher standard?

An interesting point to ponder, but hey, I'm not gonna take the time to explore it in depth here. In fact, things may be more sparse around here than usual, since major changes are underway. (In my life, that is. Not at this site. Hell, I haven't even changed the format in all this time.) Well, "major" may be too grand a way to state it--it's not like I'm getting married or anything--but it's something that will keep me occupied for the next month or so.

Appy polly loggies, then, for such an uneventful post, but hey, I'll try to provide some entertainment. Here's the hilariously deadpan video for Gleaming Spires' Are You Ready For The Sex Girls, which should have been a smash but somehow wasn't. The Spires were an offshoot of the early eighties incarnation of Sparks, and anything affiliated, however tangentially, with Sparks is automatically aces in my book. A great song, plus pie and coffee...what more could anyone ask for?

DO YOU HAVE A PICTURE OF THE PAIN?

As a lefty in America, I guess I have to say something about the passing of Edward M. Kennedy at the age of 77, but really, does anyone want to wander down the sainted paths of the Kennedy Myth again?

We all know the legend of JFK, tragically struck down in his prime, and Bobby, killed by an assassin's bullet before he even had a chance to bloom. And so poor Teddy, the Kennedy who lived, whose memory could not be preserved in amber and revered as a symbol of something that might have been, had to deal with the consequences of living in the real world.

Where, not surprisingly, people are less forgiving. JFK's presidency was largely undistinguished, and sometimes regressive, and the True Believers who speak in hushed tones when they conjure visions of Bobby's imaginary presidency conveniently ignore his erratic youth and shadowy associations. (How a guy who went Commie hunting with Roy Cohn could ever become a liberal icon is beyond me.) But they died young, and nobody had to watch them compromise their supposed ideals, or come to terms with what awful people they were.

Because that, sadly, is Edward Kennedy's true legacy: All the progressive legislation in the world couldn't erase the fact that he was a horrible human being, who took privilege as his birthright and never felt the need to play by the rules enforced on lesser mortals. Mary Jo Kopechne's watery grave is but one of many reminders that Kennedy may have dearly wanted to fight the good fight, but he ran like a coward when the fight involved him personally.

So yeah, it's sad in a political sense that Kennedy's vote will no longer be cast in an increasingly conservative senate, but the death of this American aristocracy does not deserve the inevitable mourning it will receive.

SEPARATE WAYS

Despite my hyper-ironic hipster tendencies, I try not to be the type of douchebag who denigrates the tastes of others. If people want to enjoy the likes of Transformers 2, hey, fine, whatever. My life-long love for the art of film kicked into place during a pre-teen viewing of Where Eagles Dare on The ABC Sunday Night Movie, about as meat-and-potatoes a movie as you can get, and not dissimilar to a typical Hollywood blockbuster of today. (Guns! Explosions! A third-billed actress with nothing to do!) My tastes expanded and deepened, but I don't believe that I myself am a better, smarter person than somebody who has never even heard of Cutter And Bone.

It's an attitude I sometimes see in others much like me, an attitude perhaps latent in myself, to view those with different tastes or beliefs as somehow inferior, less enlightened. And I hate that attitude; all points of view are valid, and if someone sincerely laughs at a Sandra Bullock romantic comedy or finds some comfort in Sarah Palin's public persona, why question the sincerity of their response? I may disagree, but I can certainly appreciate the legitimcay of their reaction.

Having said that, I'm from Iowa, and this is August, so the question most frequently asked around here is, "Are you going to the fair?"

By which they mean the storied Iowa State Fair, a source of inexplicable pride for the Hawkeye State since 1854. Pretty much everything in Des Moines comes to a screeching halt while this thing goes on, and everyone attends, people from all over the state and all levels of the socioeconomic spectrum. Hell, many folks plan their entire years around the damned thing.

And as open-minded and accepting as I try to be, I've got to say, I don't get it.

I mean, it's a fair. There are rides on the midway, there's livestock on display, there are games of chance and tons of overpriced food. And really, that's about it. Sure, there are more rides on the midway than your average parking mall carnival, but it's the same basic thing. And the livestock competitions showcase the finest overstuffed pigs from the entire state instead of just, you know, one or two counties. But why should I care?

Again, different strokes and all, and I realize that people who receive blue ribbons for growing enormous eggplants are sincerely thrilled by the prize, but isn't that a relatively small subset of humanity? It's like my Mystery Science Theater 3000 obsession; if Joel Hodgson and Trace Beaulieu were in town for some reason, I'd be bouncing off the walls with excitement, but I'd still recognize that my reaction would not likely be shared by everyone I meet. I wouldn't ask casual acquaintances if they were attending, or reroute traffic on the freeway for it, or showcase endless tedious coverage in the local media.

And so, since I can't imagine the vast majority of attendees at the State Fair genuinely care about the winners of the Tall Corn Contest, or even know a guernsey from a holstein, the only conclusion that can be reached is that most people go to this thing ironically.

Not that they are consciously doing this, necessarily. But the thing most fairgoers tend to claim they enjoy most is "people-watching," and considering the mulletted, badly sunburned and regrettably-garbed masses of humanity passing through the gates, "people-watching" is essentially a euphimism for "watching the freaks," an excuse to feel superior to those of lesser tastes and, most likely, fewer brain cells. It's like half of the state has somehow transformed into overly sarcastic poseurs, the essence of hipster douchebaggery.

Sometimes it seems like the whole damned thing is a Magic Christian-like scheme dreamed up by some cornfed Guy Grand, designed to showcase just how gullible the rubes really are. Big ticket shows at the grandstand this year include performances by not only the likes of Brooks And Dunn and Kelly Clarkson--not my taste, but whatever--but Peter Frampton and, God help us, Journey. That would be the current incarnation of Journey, of course, showcasing That Guy Who Isn't Steve Perry alongside a bunch of other guys who may or may not have played on all those hit songs no one ever really liked. If they were performing on a free stage--alongside graduates of local dance schools, fifties cover bands and State Fair perenials Head East (apparently The Lamont Cranston Band was booked elsewhere this year)--I could maybe understand the appeal (again, in an ironic way), but asking people to pay money for this shit? And the kicker is: This show sold out! In these fragile economic times, people shelled out good money to see a hastily-cobbled-together assemblage of musicians churning out the songs of a band that was faceless and bland in the first place.

No matter how much I try to accept and respect the tastes of others, I can't help it: Anyone who would pay to see Journey is an idiot. And when I think about so many other things associated with the fair, such as deep-fried Twinkies on a stick, or that one of the livestock prizes is awarded to something called "Beef Of Merit", I can't help but chuckle derisively. As somebody who tries to appreciate the human race at its best, I avoid the Iowa State Fair like a plague, for it seems like nothing so much as a showcase for humanity at its worst.

ON THE CLIFF BY THE SEA

Just a few quick words to express how utterly gaga I am over Hayao Miyazaki's stunningly beautiful animated children's film Ponyo, just released in the United States in a somewhat shaky English dub. If nothing else, it is a crash course in all that we've been missing since hand-drawn animation has largely been replaced on screens by blandly representational CGI. Miyazaki is an artist--he's famous for retouching his films drawing by drawing until he's completely satisfied--and his preferred medium is pen and ink, handpainted cels and, oh, those gorgeous backgrounds, largely remdered with charcoal crayons. As much as I love Pixar's work--and I do--they can't do anything like this:



That was a French trailer for a Japanese movie newly released in American theaters, but of all the publicity material I could find, it was the one that best showcased another of Ponyo's formidable assets, its gorgeous score by Joe Hisaishi, which perfectly complements the wondrous visuals conjured by the wizards at Studio Ghibli.

But to concentrate solely on the visual and aural beauties is to sell short Miyazaki's magnificent script, which is the most successful attempt I've ever seen at putting a child's view of the world on screen. The story in Ponyo doesn't just revolve around a five-year-old; it seems to have been written by one. It has a naive simplicity, a belief that wondrous things can happen all the time, that magic is everywhere, that brewing tea and receiving a hug from your mom are just as amazing and wonderful as prehistoric creatures casually swimming below your feet, or the moon coming closer to earth. Miyazaki knows that the very young are able to view the entire world with a sense of awe, and he captures that fleeting innocence with a heartbreaking precision.

A great movie, is what I'm saying.

OWEN WILSON HAS TO BE ONE OF THE GREATEST COMEDIC ACTORS OF ALL TIME!

1) And with yet another pointless Larry King quote as title--this one a typical over-the-top blurb for a deeply uninteresting movie (Larry was waxing rhapsodic over You, Me And Dupree, in case you're interested)--we see the return of everyone's favorite placeholder, the Random Thoughts post. Or, to put it more accurately, Things I Wanted To Mention But Didn't Feel Like Actually Researching And Writing About In Detail. But that doesn't sound as snappy, does it?

2) The supposedly liberal press that Republicans so endlessly decry only briefly mentioned the revelation that former Bush administration scumwad Karl Rove was indeed one of the driving forces behind the firing of nine U.S. attorneys whose politics didn't square with the Bushinista's views of the world. All along, Rove has denied involvement; other former Bush/Cheney lickspittles like Harriet Miers and Alberto Gonzales also proclaimed Rove's innocence. That they were all lying--sometimes under oath--should, in any fair world, lead to federal perjury charges.

Instead, Rove gets hired to do a cameo on Family Guy. In the immortal words of El Brendel, it's a vacky vorld.

3. Speaking of evil machinations cooked up by insane Hollywood types, word is Blair Witch Project directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez are contemplating a sequel. In other words, the creators of a well-known but widely-reviled movie that was notable more for its marketing than its content have done nothing of consequence in the last ten years, and are desperately making a quick grab for some easy green. Way to keep following your muse, guys.

4) This week's latest adventures in rib displacement led to a prescription to Soma, the U.S. brand name for carisoprodol. According to Wikipedia--which, of course, is never wrong--carisoprodol is similar to (but in a different family than) hydrocodone, which was the dangerously unstable drug I was prescribed last time I was in excrutiating pain. Apparently, carisoprodol has been taken off the market in Sweden because it easily leads to addiction and abuse, and though my Swedish heritage usually leads me to assume anything the emotionally distant, sex-crazed inhabitants of my forefather's homeland decide is for the best, I've got to say, this stuff hasn't been making me bounce off the walls the way hydrocodone did.

Of course, I've had unusually vivid dreams lately. But hey, who hasn't sat bolt upright in bed, covered in cold sweat, after dreaming of receiving a severe beating from Bill Cosby?

5) What's the only thing sweeter than yet another Yankees win? Knowing that the Red Sox lost! Not to gloat too much: Though they seem to be a mighty, unstoppable force, much as God intended, it's almost time for the Yankees' inevitable late-season period of suckage to kick in. Sure, they'll make the play-offs--and without resorting to any wild card shenanigans like those dicks up in Boston--but will they make it to the Series? And how will the Steinbrenner clan gouge the fans if they do?

6) Beloved kitty Monika was flopped in front of the door yesterday, on her back with her feet sticking straight up in the air, looking for all the world as if she'd found a quiet spot to expire. I was alarmed, and ran over to make sure she was okay. She seemed confused by my attention, and responded by following me around for the rest of the day, always watching me, always at my feet. It was weird, and seemed to suggest Monika has neurotic tendencies I'd never previously suspected.

Still, she has a long way to go before becoming a full-fledged Psychokitty. That's Delmar's job, and he performs it quite well, thank you very much.

7) While assembling yesterday's piece on Les Paul, I did a YouTube search for How High The Moon, and while Paul and Mary Ford's version was the first one that popped up, there were also covers from Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett, Diane Reeves and many, many other people blessed with voices that don't make me want to stick my head in an oven.

And there was a version from Toni Tennille.

Naturally, I felt the urge to post that here. After all, that could be as awful as any Lynda Carter clip! But honestly, even I couldn't bring myself to sit through it...and I paid money to see Glitter. There's a fine line between laughable, unintended camp and sheer, unbearable pain, and I think we can all agree, Toni Tennille crossed it long ago.

This clip, though, is on the right side of that line--Joey Heatherton singin' and dancin' her heart out, accompanied by two useless tambourine-wielding appendages having what Crow T. Robot once referred to as a mince-off. Enjoy! Or whatever!

SOMEWHERE THERE'S HEAVEN

While driving down a crowded street, the news was blandly announced over the radio: Les Paul has died at the age of 94. Suddenly, I found it necessary to pull over and have a bit of a cry.

Not that tears are necessary, I guess. After all, 94 is a pretty good age, and he remained active until the end. And no once could have lived a more productive life--single-handedly changing the soundscape of the twentieth century is, after all, no small achievement.

It's not just that Paul's invention of the solid body electric guitar made the very existence of rock and roll possible, or his development of multi-tracked recording, without which (to name only one example) The Beatles' brilliant studio albums would never have been possible, or his discovery of how feedback, delay and reverb could be musical techniques in and of themselves--well, okay, it was all these things. But more, it was how in Paul's hands the guitar became a primary instrument, the primary instrument, of the coming musical revolution. Sure, there were great guitar players before him, but nobody else could coax the range of sounds Paul could from his Gibson. Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly, George Harrison and Eric Clapton, Richard Thompson and Jimmy Page, Frank Zappa and Pat Metheny, Thurston Moore and Tom Morello--hell, everybody who ever picked up an electric guitar owes a debt to Les Paul that they can only pay back by making it sing like he could.

Here's one of Paul's most famous recordings, How High The Moon, which shows his astonishing technique on his chosen instrument, but it's also a great showcase for his brilliant production techniques. He didn't just multi-track the vocals of his wife, Mary Ford, but experimented with putting the microphones in different spots while recording her, transforming her voice--good, but not great--into the sound of angels. (I particularly like the wordless "Aahh-aahh-aahh" in the middle of Paul's solo, ringing like a force of nature.) This is, essentially, the same process used to make contemporary pop tarts like Britney Spears and Miley Cyrus sound better through amplifiers than they do in real life. Which means Les Paul's legacy lives on in not so good ways as well, but let's not blame him for that.

WHAT? ME WORRY?

So I started feeling back pain again, similar to but less severe than the stabbing sensations that led me to an Emergency Room visit a few months ago. A visit to the doctor led to mostly similar results, a diagnosis of a displaced rib and a prescription for a muscle relaxer. (But a different muscle relaxer this time around, Soma, and, by the way, Big Pharmaceutical: Really? You're naming a drug after the fictional narcotic of choice in Brave New World? Is that, um, a good idea?)

Since I was seeing my regular doctor instead of an anonymous ER functionary, he suggested a further course of treatment: "I could try manipulating your back." He led me to a separate room, where I flopped down on a massage table, but as soon as he laid his hands on my back, the doc realized there was nothing he could do. "There's too much tension here," he announced. "Your muscles feel as if they never relax."

Me? Tense? Just because I live by the motto A Day Without Flying Into An Apoplectic Rage Is Like A Day Without Sunshine? Just because I've never relaxed a day in my life? What fun would that be? Without tension, my life would have no meaning. Or so I must assume, since I've never been free of it.

Look, it's not that I don't want to be happy, calm and relaxed. Honest! I just...don't know how.

DONUT RUN

Walking back from Quik Trip, Paul begins musing on the nature of our relationship. "It's weird. I never used to have grown-up friends. My friends were other kids. Now I spend more time with grown-ups. It's weird that we're still friends."

Yeah. Especially if you remember how we started out.

"What do you mean? Didn't we like each other when we met?"

No, I didn't mean it like that--

"I remember my mom didn't even introduce us at first--"

Yeah, but she got around to it eventually. And I'd kind of figured out who you were. But what I meant was, we didn't start out as friends so much as...I mean, I was dating your mom. Remember the second time we met? We barely knew each other at that point, but you still talked me into buying you a root beer and kept asking me when I was going to marry your mom.

"I don't remember doing that. Did I say that in front of her?"

Yeah, she was right there.

"What did she say?"

She just laughed. And I told you you'd have to ask her about the whole marriage thing.

"And what did she say to that?"

She still just laughed.

"It might have been nice if it had worked out with you guys."

Yeah, well.

"Was I the first kid...I mean, were there other kids...I mean--"

Had I dated other women with kids?

"Yeah."

Sure, but either the kids were older or I never even got to meet them because the relationship never lasted that long. But with your mom, it was different, because we--

"--Talked about getting married?"

Talked, yes.

"And did you know about me? When you first started dating her?"

Oh yeah. Of course. She talked about you quite a bit. She loves you and she's very proud of you.

"She yells at me a lot."

That's because you never help her clean up.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. But...so you didn't care that she had a kid?"

Evidently not, since I kept seeing her. But it's weird. I'd never...gotten as far into a relationship with someone with kids as I did with her. We were...it's weird.

"You already said that."

Yeah, I know. What I mean is, we were calling each other 'boyfriend' and 'girlfriend' before I'd even met you. If I'd met you and hated you...Who knows?

"It's a good thing you didn't hate me. You didn't, right?"

Are you kidding? I couldn't stand you. As a matter of fact, I don't like you now.

"Yeah, right. You just don't like me because I hate the Yankees."

That's as good a reason as any. At least you're not a Red Sox fan. Then I'd have to kill you.

"No, you couldn't."

Why not?

"Because I'm going to kill you first!"

(Suddenly we grab sticks off the ground and begin zapping each other with magic spells, chasing each other down the sidewalk, screaming with manic enthusiasm, not caring if we wake the neighbors. After all, they should be awake, and enjoying this lovely Sunday morning right along with us.)

WILL YOU CALL MY NAME?

If you are of a certain age, the very name John Hughes meant something to you once. Hughes, who died Thursday at the age of 59, later became the hack writer-producer of indefensible comedies like Home Alone and (shudder) The Great Outdoors, and directed treacly crap like Curly Sue. But for a three-year run in the mid-eighties, he was the go-to guy for teen angst, a trusted brand name for the Clearasil set.

He achieved this primarily with three movies he wrote and directed--Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller's Day Off, as well as Pretty In Pink, which he wrote and produced and essentially ghost directed. Taking their characters and their all-too-common travails seriously, whether they were going through first love, negotiating high school cliques or dealing with parental pressure, Hughes elevated teenage life to the stuff of high tragedy; his films were especially notable since most depictions of teenagers on screen at the time either depicted them as the noxious horndogs of the Porky's series or fodder for masked killers in slasher epics.

The Hughes formula was hugely successful and amazingly influential--spiritually, he helped father everything from My So-Called Life to Buffy The Vampire Slayer to Superbad. The thing is, though, all three of those things are so much better than anything Hughes ever did. However significant his work seemed at the time, it wasn't really very good.

Oh, Sixteen Candles and Ferris Bueller are still watchable, though they have many wince-inducing moments. But my God, has anyone actually watched The Breakfast Club lately? It's painfully bad, with scattered moments of insight undermined by an embarrassing sense of self-importance. One of the genuinely admirable qualities of Sixteen Candles was Hughes' insistence on casting real, gawky teenagers like Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall, a virtually unheard of tactic in American movies at the time. Ringwald and Hall returned for The Breakfast Club, but the other actors had clearly passed their high school days, especially Judd Nelson, whose hilariously overwrought performance (the finest actor since Elmo Lincoln!) is unfortunately showcased by Hughes--Nelson gets all the big dramatic moments and the final iconic freeze-frame.

I have a certain fondness for Hughes' teen ouevre because, well, I was the right age for it. But today's teenagers would most likely sneer at the whole shebang, wondering why anybody bothered. And they'd be right to do so. For somebody who once burned so brightly, Hughes disappeared fast. He hadn't directed a movie since 1991, and honestly, had anybody even noticed he was gone?

5, 6, 7, 8

It would be way too obvious to point out that the wonderful new documentary Every Little Step, which follows the audition process of the recent Broadway revival of A Chorus Line, eerily reflects the very theme of that musical theater landmark. So obvious, in fact, that directors James D. Stern and Adam Del Deo feel no need to stress it. They know they've got great material and need do nothing more than stand back and watch.

Yes, they do focus too much at times on one blandly pretty semi-professional dancer just starting to make her way with a lot of pluck and moxey, and its thumbnail description of A Chorus Line's genesis is a bit too well-scrubbed. (Director-choreographer-genius Michael Bennet is presented as a genial good guy, when pretty much all of his collaborators would describe him as an egotistical, credit-grabbing monster, though they'd undoubtedly agree about the genius part.) But mostly they just let the cameras roll as the grueling process of making a show grinds along, with a lot of pain and a lot of joy along the way.

The pain is there in the bodies of dancers who can't quite make their limbs do what they need to do, in the voices of singers who can't quite hit the notes. It's in the faces of the show's director, Bob Avian, and choreographer, Baayork Lee--two former Bennet who didn't come to hate his guts--as they relive some painful memories watching fresh-faced talent recreate moments from their own lives. And mostly it's in the reactions of actors who don't get the job, who feel as if they've been cut for entirely arbitrary reasons, as if their professional careers, their very lives, have been judged and found wanting.

The joy, of course, comes when the bodies and voices do exactly what they're supposed to do, when everything snaps into place with clockwork precision. (One of Every Little Step's highlights is when auditionee Jason Tam reduces the entire casting staff to tears with a recitation of a monologue they've all heard a thousand times. The film doesn't even bother trying to milk suspense over whether Tam would get the gig; it's just assumed we'll understand he had it then and there.) But even that joy is bittersweet and fleeting; all these people working so hard for something that is, after all, ephemeral. In that sense, perhaps it is appropriate that the revival of A Chorus Line had already closed by the time the film opened--nothing lasts forever.

Of course, we know that, don't we? A soon as the movie ended, I felt the overwhelming urge to share my enthusiasm for it with the one person in the world who would most appreciate it--Mom, of course. For one brief moment, I forgot that I can't do that anymore, and when the realization that such a conversation will never, ever be possible again passed over me, I hurried from the theater to the privacy of my car, where the tears began to fall.

Mom's life--like all of our lives, or like a dancer's movement or a first, awe-struck viewing of a profoundly moving work of art--was temporary, here and gone, never to return. Yet without her, I never would have seen Every Little Step, because I would have had no interest in the subject matter. But I do care, of course, because throughout my life, she introduced me to things she must have instinctively known I'd love. (She pointed me toward tomorrow, you might say.) Movie musicals, the novels of Ross MacDonald, the music of Roger Miller and Spike Jones, even the comic books she picked out for me when I was a kid were all perfect, were all ideally suited to me, the person I was, the person I'd become, the person I have yet to be.

A Chorus Line may have closed, but its original run is still legendary, and it is still revered by dancers and actors everywhere. Mom may be dead, but every time I reflect on her, when I remember everything she did for me, she is still somehow here. Nothing lasts forever, but maybe everything lasts long enough.

WAIT AND SEE, CRAP, DESPAIR AND UNBELIEVABLY AWESOME

One of the weird things about going to the movies these days is sitting through the trailers for upcoming releases. Sometimes they seem to be actively attempting to turn you away from the movies they're ostensibly promoting. In most cases, they're so formulaic you never want to go to the theater again. Often they're jaw-droppingly awful. And once in awhile, they actually make you think, "Holy crap, I can't wait."

Consider this.



I have very mixed feelings about this. As a huge fan of stop-motion animation, my initial thought is that I hate this--the characters move in a generic, uninteresting way, as if the animators were only interested in moving the models from Point A to Point B and didn't care about such niceties as characterization.

On the other hand, this movie is a unique case: the first animated film directed by Wes Anderson. The acting in his films is always particularly stylized, designed to be part of a larger aesthetic, coordinated with his very particular use of settings and camera set-ups. That seems to be what he's going for here, in a radically different context, and there's no way of knowing whether his experiment will be successful until we see the final film.

This trailer, however, is mostly awful. From the generic "Based on the book by the author of Charlie And The Chocolate Factory" credit--Really? They think nobody will recognize Roald Dahl's name?--to the emphasis on the big name voice cast to the forced light-hearted tone, this is made to look like a standard issue Dreamworks animated picture, full of wacky action and zany characters. But it's a Wes Anderson picture, which means it will most likely be more melancholy than anything else. I understand why the studio may not want to promote it that way, but I can easily imagine lots of pissed-off kids and parents complaining about this movie when it opens, feeling that the movie advertised wasn't the movie they were given.



Two thoughts on this one. The first time I saw this in the theater, I was with Paul, who, when the title appeared, asked, "Are they actually saying all this is going to happen in 2012?" When I told him yes, that's the idea, he shook his head and said, "I don't think so." When a nine-year-old is mocking your very premise, you're in trouble.

But my other thought is, if you look at old school disaster movies, the two that work best--to the extent that they work at all--are The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno. The reason for that is, they are about very specific situations: A cruise ship turned upside down, a skyscaper on fire. Everything that happens follows from that premise: How do we get out of this ship? How do we put out the fire? Another movie from that era that tried to ramp up the disaster formula to near-apocalyptic levels was Earthquake, and aside from terrible acting and a laughable script, its main problem was that there was so much going on, floods and fire and falling debris and runaway elevators and collapsing houses, that it became too much, and the sheer overkill became laughable.

Multiply that problem by a million and you have 2012, the movie that boldly assumes that, when the whole world is ending, we actually care what happens to John Cusack.



Oh, dear God. This, more than anything else, is the type of trailer I hate sitting through. It's utterly generic, reveals all the plot points, robs the movie of any and all surprises. And worse, it's for a movie that will clearly be utterly generic, have an easily-predicted plot and have no surprises to reveal. It's the type of competent, formulaic crap (and, of course, a remake) that seems to be the only thing Hollywood knows how to turn out anymore. There's not a hint of wit or originality to be found here, and enduring three or four similar previews in a row is enough to make anyone want to never go out to the movies again.

Ah, but then there's this.



Look, I could go on for days about Joel & Ethan Coen (Have I mentioned my theory that they're the cinematic equivalent to Steely Dan? Have I mentioned that's the highest praise I can muster?), but what's worth talking about here is the trailer itself: Whether it was put together by the Coens themselves or farmed out to some boutique, it's a thing of beauty. It has its own rhthym (literally--the thump thump thump against the wall), it shows plenty of footage from the movie itself and yet somehow reveals nothing of the plot, it is funny and disorienting and a little bit sad. And more than anything else, it makes me really, really want to see the movie.

Which is what a trailer should do, of course, but as we can see, almost never does.

RISIN' UP TO THE CHALLENGE OF OUR RIVAL, OR SOMETHING

A good weekend spent mostly hanging out with Paul, which I mention mostly for one reason: As we tooled down SE 14th (which, due its abundance of used car lots, fast food joints and quickie motels, is by far the most endearingly tawdry major thoroughfare in Des Moines, and thus an entirely appropriate setting for anything involving Sylvester Stallone), we suddenly and inexplicably started singing Eye Of The Tiger. Actually, Paul started it, but he didn't know any of the words beyond the first line of the chorus, so I chimed in with the one additional line I actually know, and we just winged it for the rest.

I asked him if he'd ever seen any Rocky movies and he said no, and I pretty much decided, Well, that's it. Sure, he's not my kid, but there's no way any boy should enter his teen years without having seen Rocky. Well, okay, Paul's not even ten yet, but that's not important right now: The point is, Rocky is common currency among guys. You can't have not seen it--that's like saying you hate America.

And of course, you can't just see the first one and be done with it. Even aside from the fact that Eye Of The Tiger doesn't even get played until the third entry in the series--that alone makes it essential viewing for those with a taste for cinematic red meat--you have to at least sit through Rocky IV because at some point in life, someone you know (another guy, obviously) will quote that stupid speech our hero makes after he clobbers that Russian guy, and it will be important to know what the hell he's talking about.

I would have just sat him down and forced him to watch my copy, except I don't own any of the Rocky movies. (I don't own any Stallone movies, which is kind of surprising, since I can easily imagine myself enjoying regular hyper-ironic viewings of Over The Top.) Owning them is kind of redundant, since they play endlessly on cable, and they're exactly the kind of movie that actually benefits from frequent commercial breaks. (They provide regular opportunities to grab more beer and scrounge up additional snacks. Also, they allow regular respite from the punishing stupidity of too much Stallone-authored dialogue.) But since the time I spend with Paul isn't actually coordinated according to basic cable movie schedules, I'll probably wind up renting or buying the stupid things. For a hardcore cineaste, that will be kind of like buying porn--I'll need to pick up copies of Two Or Three Things I Know About Her and Last Year At Marienbad and throw Rocky in the middle, hoping no one will notice.

And what if I go through all that trouble, and Paul fails to be properly swayed by the macho poetry of Sylvester Stallone? Or worse, what if he really likes it? Rocky is just a gateway drug; soon, the poor kid could be needing some Rambo.

WHY, I ASK YOU--WHY?

Remember about a week and a half ago, when I inexplicably decided to write about the mostly forgotten, hugely unloved 1983 film Krull? Sure you do, just as you'll recall only a few days ago, when I sadly revealed that my subconscious is so unspeakably dull I actually had a dream about turning on my computer.

So last night I woke up, rolled out of bed and, to my horror, realized an awful, awful truth: I JUST HAD A DREAM ABOUT WATCHING KRULL.

Specifically, I dreamed I watched Krull as I sat at my computer, noting what actions take place when because--apparently--I had some website devoted to the damned thing. Yeah, there's a good idea! If I wanted to get even fewer hits than this site already generates, I should start detailing Krull minutia. That way, I'd be guaranteed no readers at all.

Dammit, if I'm going to have dreams about watching movies I really don't care about, couldn't I at least be viewing American Beauty? That way I'd have topless Thora Birch to sidetrack my imagination, and it might turn into an entirely different kind of dream.

A LONG, RAMBLING DISCOURSE THAT DOES NOTHING TO DISPROVE THE THEORY THAT I'M WAY TOO NEGATIVE, AND A SEPARATE QUEST TO SEE HOW LONG A TITLE CAN BE

For years, people have told their tales in hard time, stories of broken childhoods, of cold, unfeeling step parents, of crazy, dysfunctional families, and my reaction tended to be the same: Thank God my life wasn't like that. I came from a happy family, all rooted in solid Midwestern values, growing up together on a farm, no hint of discord, no sign of trouble.

Of course, my older brothers refused to talk to each other, and occasionally got into fistfights. The girls in the family overachieved as the boys proudly, perversely underachieved. Dad was emotionally distant, and my only solid memories are of him kicked back in his recliner, a dirty magazine in one hand, a can of Grain Belt in the other, utterly disconnected from whatever was going on in the foreground. At least Mom was always there, the center of things, so relentlessly cheerful, a tireless booster for all of her kids...yet somehow it wasn't surprising when she revealed, much later in life, that her role as child bearer combined with the terrible isolation of country life often resulted in thoughts of suicide.

Still, for me, an idyllic existence: All the toys and comic books I ever wanted, and the entire farm to call my playground. True, I was always tense and withdrawn in social situations, especially family get-togethers, and my hatred of school resulted in terrible grades, and by even my third year I was well on my way to being a total burn-out. And there were the headaches, and the overwhelming depression; by eighth grade I'd started seeing a therapist. Later, there'd be multiple suicide attempts, a decade spent in emotional oblivion and a resigned feeling that life was something to be endured, not celebrated.

But, um, Mom and Dad didn't get divorced, so, you know, everything was great!

Since my mother died, the remains of my family have largely scattered to the winds. I've lost touch with or am actively estranged from most of them, just as they have largely disconnected from each other. And the sad thing is, I don't care. I faintly recall making a rambling speech at Mom's funeral, the last time all of us--brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews--were all together, and I remember telling them all I felt the need to say I loved them. A nice sentiment, but was it true? Did I? Do I? Have I ever? How can you love people you barely know?

All this has been weighing heavily on me recently because...well, I'm not sure, actually. But I've noticed lately how most of my childhood memories are of places, not people, and of quiet moments spent by myself, maybe accompanied by the dog as we ran along the creek, maybe watching John Wayne slaughter Indians on TV though no one else paid attention, maybe taking solace in the cathedral quiet of the row of evergreens behind the machine shed. Where are the other people in all these recollections?

Even in more recent memories, the times and the places are recalled more vividly than the carbon-based life forms who presumably inhabited them. The exact layout of the apartment in Iowa City is vivid in my mind, even as the wife with whom I shared it fades into an abstraction, a vague blur of something non-specific that coulda been.

Maybe that's why I've been thinking of family lately, as one relationship after another goes down in flames, another shrug, another cause to wonder why bother. Is my inability to form a lasting bond with a woman, to love and be loved, is this related to the family that spawned me? The fact that I don't even know the phone number or current whereabouts of most of my family members--Is that a problem? What does it mean that I haven't even bothered trying to track them down, or they me?

A couple of years before Mom died, I asked her about a story I'd heard on the radio, about a study suggesting mental illness was a genetic trait. Yeah, she said, she'd always wondered about that. She was speaking of my problems, and her own, and all of ours. Sometimes, she said, she saw us as a doomed family out of a Hawthorne novel, forever destined to skulk down endless dark hallways, cursing the wider world we'd never know, a world untouched by madness. (Granted, she phrased it in a slightly less overwrought manner, but she did invoke Hawthorne, so the purple prose is justified.)

But she also said, What's normal? Anxiety, despair, sorrow--who doesn't feel these things? And the depression she suffered when she was younger, which may have had unspoken and untold effects on her children, lifted as she got older. It didn't go away, it just...lessened. Eventually, she realized the daily rituals which had seemed so tedious, so soul-draining, had instead become comforting, and she experienced something she hadn't known before: contentment.

I try to hang onto that conversation, and I try to remember it whenever things get rough. But still there are questions: What were the rituals she found so comforting? Did they involve people, or things? In other words, did she take comfort from her children, or the things she did for them, like preparing meals and sewing clothes?

Because if it was the latter, it suggests that I'm bound to her in deeper ways than I imagined, that she preferred solitude to company. But that wasn't Mom at all: She was nothing if not gregarious, willing to talk (or listen) to anybody for hours at a time. And I'm...not like that. Or maybe I am, but it doesn't get me very far: I don't talk, I babble. And while that can be amusing in small doses, it ultimately becomes wearying, which explains why women who proclaim their love for me ultimately move on.

Ah yes, women. Even the ones I barely know, who are only there to fulfill basic biological needs, tend to have the same complaint as the long-termers: I'm too touchy-feely. That is, I want to hold them, even after the obvious physical acts have been completed, even when all they want to do is sleep. And it's no doubt true: I want to take them in my arms, embrace them and never let go, feel something, anything, a connection I will otherwise never know.

JUST BEFORE THE DAWN

3 AM or some such, stumbling out of bed, shuffling to the desk, hitting the button to turn on the computer. For a second I stand, watching the Compaq logo appear, signifying the start of the lengthy booting-up process. As I think how much I hate the phrase "booting-up," I hobble back to the warm, inviting bed.

And sleep. And wake, abruptly, blinking. The computer is dark, not even its comforting green power light shining with the promise of hours of time-killing hope. I look at my clock, my answering machine, all the potential signifiers of a power outage. They're working fine. Again, stumbling out of bed, shuffling to the desk, hitting the button. The light comes on. The screen illuminates. And suddenly I realize I had not powered up the computer earlier. I only dreamed I had.

In their dreams, many explore unreachable erotic idylls, or imagine unlimited wealth and power. Some confront truths too terrible to parse in the real world, or explore the farthest reaches of their consciousness. Some know joy they'll never never know in the waking hours, and some happily encounter friends and family long gone.

Me, I dream about hitting the ON button of my computer. Crap. Man, I gotta get a life...

MY BRAIN HURTS!

Here's the deal: I was killing time in a Barnes & Noble yesterday when I happened to glance at the New Releases display, and there it was--At Last, a new album from Lynda Carter!

So, just to clarify, a well-known national chain store prominently displayed this as an item people might actually want to buy. Unlike, say, David Hasselhoff albums, which we all know exist but have never actually seen, this was there for the world to, uh, enjoy. And though I was tempted to take the damned thing over to a listening station so I could luxuriate in the sweet sounds of a large-breasted TV has-been desecrating the Harold Arlen songbook (there are covers of Come Rain And Come Shine and Blues In The Night), common sense overcame me. After all, I was in public.

But we're all alone here, aren't we? Thankfully, I couldn't find any Lynda-does-Arlen clips, but possibly worse, here she is having her way with Stephen Stills. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

A GALAXY NOT AT ALL FAR AWAY

Honestly, I have no particular intention of turning this site into a series of grumblings about movies recently viewed on cable, but while sitting through the fiercely bland 1983 fantasy epic Krull, I had...well, not an epiphany, but a blinding flash of...something. Let me try to explain.

The early eighties will be remembered by many filmgoers as the time of The Great Sword & Sorcery Scare, when studios as one felt the inexplicable need to cram stories of Mighty Warriors, Fair Maidens, Lusty Peasants and Strange Creatures down our throats. It was the time of Conan The Barbarian, Dragonslayer, Beastmaster and...well, okay, those are the only titles I could come up with off the top of my head. But there were more, trust me. Sword & Sorcery epics were as common then as comic book-derived movies are now. It was impossible to go to the multiplex without walking past several bad Frazetta knockoff posters for some upcoming extravaganza showcasing a pec-flexing hero and barely-clad heroine. (Oooh, I just thought of a couple more: The hilarious Lou Ferigno vehicle Hercules and the unimaginitively titled The Sword And The Sorcerer.)

Since this it the type of thing that was being made, people were going to be hired to make them, whether they had any affinity for the genre or not. Which brings us to Krull, a movie as uninteresting as its title, and, like many of its ilk, a pretty transparent Star Wars imitation. (The opening credits even feature an enormous spaceship gliding majestically past the camera, a de rigeur shot at the time.) The by-the-numbers script is credited to Stanford Sherman, who has done nothing else of consequence. But the director was Peter Yates.

Although uneven, Yates has a filmography that included Bullitt, The Friends Of Eddie Coyle and Breaking Away. A sure hand with actors and a guy who knew how to stage a solid action scene, Yates' greatest strength has always been his ability to let each project find its own personality, to let the substance dictate the style. But what could he do with a script that has no substance whatsoever, that barely seems to have been written at all? Krull can't even be bothered to find a variation on its premise: A beautiful princess has been kidnapped by sinister nonhumans, and its up to our white, white hero (the non-legendary Ken Marshall, sporting a can't-commit-to-it beard) to gather a plucky band of followers to rescue her and...You could pretty much write the rest yourself, though likely you'd come up with something more interesting than what the filmmakers did.

The only thing interesting about Krull is the disconnect between the talent involved and the movie that was made. The cast includes Liam Neeson, Robbie Coltrane, Francesca Annis and one of my personal favorites, Freddie Jones. They hired the great Peter Suschitsky to photograph, John Huston mainstay Stephen Grimes to design the quasi-surrealist settings and Ray Lovejoy editor of 2001--2001, for God's sake!--to cut the thing together. Yates, apparently finding nothing to interest him in the script, finds time to reference everything from Cocteau to The Thief Of Bagdad to, incredibly enough, Mario Bava's Planet Of The Vampires. The whole thing is never less than professional, but never remotely interesting.

And the non-epiphany but nonetheless interesting thought that struck me as this thing ground on and on? Krull would be the future of movies: Lots of smart people lavishing huge amounts of time and care on projects they really didn't care about. Even those other sword & sorcery pictures I named earlier had something to recommend them, some slight twist in the formula. Not Krull; it delivers the most basic level of entertainment possible. Its talented director could leave not a single fingerprint to mark its individuality. The floodgates of mediocrity had opened: To survive, the great directors of the sixties and seventies would have to crank out absolute junk: Brian DePalma would jumpstart a franchise for Tom Cruise, Francis Coppola would direct Robin Williams in full-out man-child mode, Walter Hill and Joe Dante would do some of their best work for television.

Like almost every major studio movie cranked out these days, Krull isn't bad, not extravagantly, punishingly bad, not Xanadu bad. It just sits there, something to watch as you eat your popcorn, something to forget as soon as it ends, of no interest whatsoever, except for the little piece of your soul it steals as you watch.

NON-THRILLING DAYS OF YESTERYEAR

With an unexpected day off yesterday, I divided my time between sitting slack-jawed in front of the computer and sitting slack-jawed in front of the TV. Two hours of that TV time was spent reacquainting myself with the 1976 comedy-thriller Silver Streak.

This movie seemed enormously entertaining back when I was eleven, and I remember enjoying it a couple times since, but I hadn't seen it in years. It doesn't have much of a reputation, except as the initial pairing of Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor, and it was made by a team of familiar hacks, including director Arthur Hiller (the auteur of Love Story) and writer Colin Higgins (of Foul Play and Nine To Five infamy). Nonetheless, I thought it would be a pleasant time-killer, and I thought it might be further proof that even the most routine pictures from the seventies had a basic quality of craftsmanship, a respect for the audience, that you simply don't see today.

Boy, was I wrong. Absolutely nothing about Silver Streak works. Its racial attitudes seem to come from the pre-civil rights era (Pryor character is a petty thief, and every other black actor with a speaking part plays a porter, waiter or shoe-shine guy!), its sexual politics are wince-inducing, its comedy is rooted in stereotypes (Clifton James plays a variation of the dumb redneck cop he so unamusingly portrayed in Live And Let Die) and the suspense sequences are so maladroit all you can do is sit there and marvel at the sheer incompetence.

About the only fun to be had is counting all the seventies signifiers, from a briefly glimpsed Alka-Seltzer "Plop, plop, fizz fizz" ad to Wilder's flared pants and ankle boots, which are treated to an almost fetishistic series of close-ups. There's also some fun to be had for fans of seventies James Bond pictures, since in addition to James, we also get a pre-Jaws Richard Kiel as another lurching henchman with weird dental work...but when a movie has nothing to recommend it other than how it reminds you of other, marginally better movies, something is very wrong.

Yet Silver Streak remains a typical movie of its era. Critics like to view seventies cinema as some sort of lost Golden Age, when the likes of Robert Altman and Martin Scorsese were free to follow their muses wherever they would go. In fact, most films of that time were Big Dumb Entertainments like Silver Streak--or like so many movies now. The only difference is, however mind-numbingly silly something like Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen may be, it at least trusts its audience to follow along. With Silver Streak, a good fifteen minutes could be shaved off its protracted running time if you cut out all the endless re-stating of expository dialogue. (Wilder has to explain the premise of why he's taking a train instead of flying at least half a dozen times!) How stupid did they think viewers were? Did they think anyone cared about the plot in the first place?

Unfortunately, since there seems to be some newly-enacted law decreeing that every single movie from the seventies needs to be remade, we'll no doubt someday get a new version of Silver Streak that will combine the lazy plotting and stereotyped characters of the original with the quick-cut shaky-cam aesthetic of modern action cinema. I'd jokingly suggest it as a vehicle for Adam Sandler and Chris Rock, but I have a feeling that could actually happen, and I don't want to give anyone ideas...

DAYS LIKE THESE

Apologies to all regular readers (I'd do the "both of you" gag, but even I'm getting sick of it) for the lack of activity around here. It's just...I feel like I have nothing to say, and no particular desire to express whatever it is I'm not feeling. My financial situation gets worse by the day, the future of my job seems somewhat in flux, my sleep patterns are all out of whack and I have no desire to do much of anything, really. Another bout with depression, in other words.

So why foist my misery on you? Well, I haven't been, and have no plans to do so. Sure, this site is all about mining my personal life for the amusement and possible edification of others, but there's just nothing going on here. I come home from work tired and filled with a vague despair, sit glassy-eyed in front of the computer for a few hours (even watching movies or listening to music seems like too much work), then go to bed, where I'll sleep for maybe an hour or two, then toss and turn for the rest of the night, dozing for a few minutes, then waking violently just as I begin to dream. The next day, the same pattern is repeated, and the next, and the next...

Maybe I'll be here occasionally with the random observation about...I dunno, whatever. If I'm not, it's all good, I'm probably half-heartedly reading comments on some animation site, comments about a movie I can't even force myself to watch because it's just too much work. Not much of a life, but for right now, it's all I've got.

PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN

I know when I came back to this space I vowed to reduce the number of clip jobs, but the thing is, it's the Fourth Of July, so as an American and a writer, I felt a weird obligation to make some kind of statement about national identity, or patriotism, or some damned thing.

Originally I was going to write about Westerns as a great and wholly American art form, and when I realized that was too wide-ranging for a relatively limited space, I thought I'd narrow it down to Sam Peckinpah's Westerns as an expression of a Great American Artist, and then I realized since I'd likely make some mention of The Ballad Of Cable Hogue, I'd be obligated to mention Stella Stevens' nude scene, which I decided I needed to watch again, which got me, um, distracted.

Which wasted too much time, so instead I decided to do a grab bag clip job of some of the music that makes America great. I found a killer version of Where Or When by Benny Goodman and Peggy Lee, and figured I'd toss in some Roger Miller, Art Blakey, Beastie Boys, Marshall Crenshaw and, what the hell, even some Weird Al.

But mostly I wanted to include something by Harold Arlen, because he's surely one of the greatest songwriters this country has ever produced, but which song to showcase? Come Rain Or Come Shine? It's Only A Paper Moon? Blues In The Night? A Sleepin' Bee? The Man That Got Away? Seriously, I couldn't decide--the guy just wrote too many great songs.

Then I realized time was getting tight, and it's time to head off to work. So here's something that really makes me proud to be American--Jerry Lewis! And sadly, this is pretty much what it looks like when I dance.

GUESS THAT'S JUST THE WAY THE STORY GOES

It's good right now, the back door of her apartment open onto the fire escape, affording a view of the neighborhood, of people out and about on this perfect summer evening, the long shadows and the azure sky, the smell of backyard barbecues wafting all the way up here into her kitchen. And she looks so good, her robe undone, her black skin still glistening from the bath, her smile so fucking inviting. When she pauses to rub her chest against mine, I indicate the open door. "Let 'em watch," she laughs.

A perfect moment, then, but as always, the spell fades quickly enough. She's playing that damned Mariah Carey CD again, and she starts to sing along to Without You. Her voice is loud and off-key--the sound of a drunk--and she turns around and reaches into the refrigerator for the second can of Natural Ice she's had since I've been here.

I sigh. "It's really not a good idea to drink when you're on antidepressants."

"I like to drink." She shrugs. "I think it relaxes me. I'm a happy drunk. Aren't I? And I'm more fun when I drink. Right?" She reaches down the front of my boxers.

I pull the robe from her shoulders, letting it drop to the floor, and we press together. "You know the door's still open, right?" I ask.

"Maybe we should go to the bedroom."

We've been seeing each other for...what? Two moths? Three? The rules should be clear here, since she's just a rebound, an in-betweener, the first woman I've been with since my marriage dissolved. Whatever we have, it's essentially meaningless. Right? Though we've spent so many nights together, shared intimacies in so many different ways, we remain strangers in each other's lives, connected only for the moment.

Still, she feels so good in my arms, and it's so comforting to wake up beside somebody, it's tempting to just give in, to ignore all the warning signs: the drinking, the mood elevators, the irrational behavior. Just the fact that I'm here, relaxed and safe in her presence, seems as though it must mean something. When she speaks of her feelings for me, of the future we could have together, I'm tempted, I want to believe that somehow the stability that has so far eluded me is somehow attainable, and she is somehow the key.

Then my foot kicks over an empty can of Natural Ice while we're in the middle of our vigorous if somewhat desultory lovemaking, and I realize once again this is not the person I'm meant to be with. Still, there are rules, and I try to play along. She gazes deeply into my eyes and murmurs, "You're so good for me, Edward. You know I love you, don't you?"

And I say, "I love you, too," and wonder if she knows I'm lying.