IT WON'T BRING YOU DOWN DAY AFTER DAY

My friend Howard once suggested I should try finding a girlfriend by randomly walking up to women and saying, "You look like a real Marshall Crenshaw fan." Sure, I'd endure endless rejection, perhaps the occasional macing, but if I finally found someone who said, "Why yes, I am"...Well, presumably everything else would fall in place.

In other words, any woman who is a hardcore Crenshaw fan probably wouldn't make me sit through shit like Must Love Dogs or Because I Said So or the awful, awful romantic comedy of your choice. I know an alarming number of women who are drawn to this sort of thing. Why?

I hate the term "chick flick" and I'd like to think it's meaningless. There are only good movies and bad movies, and we're not drawn to certain things because of our gender. I mean, sure, give me a bag of popcorn, a bottle of Heineken and a screening of The Dirty Dozen, and I'm happy. But that's a good movie. Okay, a good movie with Lee Marvin, Jim Brown and Charles Bronson blowing up Nazis, but still...

If I'm going to watch a bad movie, I'll do so because it's bad. (Neil Diamond IS The Jazz Singer!) And if I want to watch a particular type of movie, I'll go with a good example of its type. If I want bone-crunching action, I'll watch The Dirty Dozen, not some lame Van Damme crap. And if I want a romantic comedy, Jeebus, I'd stay the hell away from anything involving Kate Hudson, Mandy Moore, Sandra Bullock...anything made in the last twenty years, basically.

My point is, just because Hollywood marketeers target your demographic, you don't need to cave in.

NEVER BEFORE, DEAR READER, HAVE YOU BEEN WITNESS TO A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS SO UTTERLY RANDOM

1) Posting will undoubtedly be kinda light this week. I have tentative plans for this evening, and I'll be gone from Thursday through the weekend, so don't expect much. A bad time to leave, actually, since my stats are kinda sorta up--instead of two regular readers, I now have four!

2) Never watched the show, don't really know much about it, but for some reason, I had a dream about that Sex And The City movie. No, I'm not gay. Why do you ask?

3) Many recent articles attempt to explain the American economy's slide into recession, as if the fact that this is happening is something that couldn't have been foreseen, as if cutting taxes while spending billions, possibly trillions on a pointless, unending war hadn't doomed us from the get-go. Not to play Cassandra, but I could have told you this was coming all along, and I'm just some working-class schmuck, not a hot-shot economist.

4) That "hot-shot economist" line was originally going to lead me into a discussion of Paul Krugman, and the annoying tendency of this site to be New York Times-centric...but screw it, I don't wanna get that introspective.

5) Delmar and Monika are again sticking their noses in the air when I feed them. I bought this Friskies Select crap they'd gone gaga over previously, now they're tired of it. Oh my God...perhaps they'll only be satisfied with the taste of HUMAN FLESH. AAIIEE!!

Nope. Turns out they'll eat Cat Chow. Whew!

6) Since I suspect any postings this week will tend towards clip jobs, let's kick this trend off right, shall we? Here's an all-time favorite MST3K sketch.



7) There is no seven.

LUMINOUS BEINGS ARE WE, NOT THIS CRUDE MATTER

The surprise isn't how many articles and mournful farewells have appeared online following the death of Dungeons & Dragons creator Gary Gygax, since we know who rules cyberspace, but it is astonishing how thoughtful and touching many of them have been, particularly Jason Heller's piece at The AV Club and this essay by Adam Rogers in The New York Times.

Me, I never played D & D. Or cared much for Star Trek. That was geek stuff to me. Sure, I had a Space: 1999 lunchbox (which I carried even after the show's cancellation, even into junior high, which...pretty embarrassing) and regularly read Starlog and the now-forgotten Fantastic Films and was briefly into Tolkien and, of course, pretty much had an out-of-body experience the first time I saw Star Wars.

But even then, I had other obsessions. Doc Savage and The Shadow, for instance. Sure, they're part of the pulpy origins of Indiana Jones (which leads to its own level of geekery), but I loved them as much for the cool art deco worlds they moved through as for the adventures they led. Many Doc Savage novels served as virtual travelogues of thirties-era New York City, which seemed like the coolest place in the world. And The Shadow flat-out killed guys ('twin automatics speak as one"), usually two-bit hoods whose lives weren't living, at least according to the twisted moral code of pulp fiction.

These things led to film noir, and the novels of Dashiell Hammett, and dark landscapes of the soul, which seemed so much more interesting than, say, Middle Earth. I watched movies and read novels of all types, and my obsessions spiraled and became more all-encompassing. I don't care much about Tolkien anymore, and a recent attempt to watch some episodes of Space:1999 resulted in stultifying boredom.

On the other hand, I found myself killing time in a bookstore yesterday, and instinctively picked up a copy of Star Wars Insider. The 100 Greatest Things About Star Wars, and Number One is...The Jedi Order? The hell? Everyone knows the single greatest thing about Star Wars is...

NOTHING EQUALS THE SPLENDOR

I'd have been twelve when Carry On Wayward Son by Kansas first hit the charts, and I'm forty-two now, so I've had plenty of time to nurse a grudge against it. On one hand, the stunning banality of its lyrics, totally generic "heavy" guitar work and utterly anonymous vocals are kind of harmless, almost endearing.



If you heard this song once, you'd feel like patting it on the head, smiling and nodding as you might when your girlfriend mentions she really liked The DaVinci Code. You try to overlook it even as you realize this relationship is doomed.

But what if you stay in the relationship, metaphorically speaking? What if Carry On Wayward Son is played constantly on the radio, day after day after miserable day? What if it's on the mixtape your boss plays EVERY FUCKING DAY and you have no choice but to stand there, letting that cheeseball organ solo and those whiny vocals pound your head like a meat tenderizer?

And those lyrics--omigod, the lyrics! "I set a course for winds of fortune"? "If I claim to be a wise man/It surely means that I don't know"--Whoa. This is the type of crap jocks knock out in comp class to show how sensitive they are, and maybe score points with that black-clad "artsy" chick they secretly think is kinda cute even though they'd never admit it in front of their buds.

I just spent more time than I'd like to admit reading Wikipedia entries on this stupid song and the faceless, uninteresting band responsible for embedding it in my subconscious, and it hurts. It really, really hurts.

RIP HER TO SHREDS

A recent piece in The New York Times revealed Team Hillary's "endgame" plans to seal the nomination by any means necessary, a byzantine plot out of a John LeCarre novel. By implementing this scheme, they may well be handing the presidency to the Republicans.

I'm not a big fan of Barack Obama--at this point, I don't think I'd believe a word uttered by anybody affiliated with the Democratic party--but he at least appears to offer a viable alternative. Clinton is more of the same, a professional insider, somebody who assumes the presidency is her birthright. Kinda like the guy we've got now.

So, God knows, is John McCain. He's all about continuing the U.S. presence in Iraq, continuing to run up massive debt while cutting taxes. The differences between McCain and Bush are so slight as to have no meaning...but for some reason, when he hauls out the straight-talkin' maverick shtick, people buy it every time.

If he turns on the twinkly, avuncular warmth and presents himself as the common-sense alternative to that cold, castrating bitch, how many moderates of both parties will fall for it? Clinton would be unable to respond without appearing to attack a kindly old man, and another Democratic nominee would go down in flames. That's the real endgame.

I HEARD SOMEBODY SINGING SWEET AND SOULFUL

Sorry, woke up late, filled with outrage and bile over Hillary Clinton's primary victories yesterday, depressed over the continuing battle between who-cares Democrats, and...the usual.

But hey, here's some music. It's long been my opinion that Warren Zevon's 1976 major label debut must have crushed the aspirations of a generation of would-be songwriters, who must have realized nothing they could ever do would ever touch it. Every single song on that album is a marvel of craft, and here's one of the very best.

WE TAKE YOU EVERYWHERE...BUT GET YOU NOWHERE

1) It turns out Love And Consequences, a critically acclaimed new memoir about growing up in the middle of South Central gang territory, is pure fiction. Author Margaret B. Jones, subject of a recent fawning profile in The New York Times, is actually Margaret Seltzer, well-to-do product of Sherman Oaks. Her story fell apart when her sister saw a photo of "Jones" in a magazine and called foul.

Um...Aren't publishing houses supposed to have fact-checking departments? Shouldn't the background search for someone peddling a supposedly true story be more extensive than what a temp agency would run for someone hired to dig ditches? Didn't The Times do any research of their own before they ran their story on "Jones"? Doesn't anyone remember James Frey?

2) Speaking of The Times, they ran a puff piece last week on the HBO series In Treatment, specifically on the slavish fan base surrounding Gabriel Byrne's fictional therapist. Diane O'Rourke, identified as a medical writer from Chicago, explains her attraction to Byrne's character thusly:

"Paul is attractive not because he has great youthful biceps but because he's vulnerable--a real person who wakes up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, worrying, 'What the hell am I doing here?'"

Really? That's what makes a man attractive? Because by that standard, I am the most desirable fella on the planet!

3) Clinton, Obama, Ohio, Texas, whatever. Sorry, folks, I'm contractually required to mention that somehow.

4) There are plans afoot for a sort of updating of John Hughes' The Breakfast Club, only instead of being about high school kids stuck in detention, this will be about twenty-somethings stuck in an airport, and instead of being a fondly-remembered piece of eighties effluvia that doesn't quite stand up when you actually rewatch it, this will suck from the get-go.

5) Here's all ten minutes of the "Air-rotica" sequence from Bob Fosse's All That Jazz, which seems more and more like one of the most perfect movies ever made. Nobody ever filmed dance better than Fosse, and his attention to detail--the squirming producers, the fidgeting stagehands--amazes. The performance of the late Roy Scheider, though only briefly glimpsed here, is perfection, as are the awesome breasts of Sandahl Bergman. In an artistic sense, of course.

WALK BETWEEN THE RAINDROPS

It begins, as it has so many times before, with talk and touching, and it continues, who knows where?

Katie and I haven't known each other that long, but already we see each other nearly every day, always talking, hanging out, even doing laundry together. It doesn't get much more intimate than that.

She's great, I enjoy being with her, yet I confess a wariness to my pose.

Scroll back a year or so into the archives here, and read, scattered among all the anti-Bush screeds, of my infatuation with Tabbatha, of the great wonders and delights awaiting me when she and I moved in together, when we married, when I became a father. My life had finally acquired some faint patina of meaning.

So it seemed.

What ended that relationship? What ended my marriage? Are all my relationships destined to play out the same way? Do I somehow make these hesitations manifest, does the fear of failure result in failure?

But...I didn't expect my marriage to fail. I took the whole "for better or worse" thing seriously, but the fact that it all fell apart seems to have instilled in me a sense of impermanence. Nothing can be started that can't be ended, so really, why even start?

So where am I now? This feels different than it has before. Too soon to say if it's better or worse, just different. Which is good. I can't just go through the motions when I'm learning brand new steps.

HASTEN DOWN THE WIND

All the people I knew, all the people I saw on TV, everyone came from loving homes, everyone's parents stayed together. Widowhood might occur, but divorce? That was something only whispered about, but never fully understood.

My parents exemplified this. The quintessential married couple, a farmer and his wife, knocking out kids at fairly regular two-year intervals, facing down whatever problems came their way with pluck and good humor.

So it seemed.

Dad sprang from fairly hardscrabble circumstances, the product of Swedish coalminers, isolated from the wonders and ways of the larger world. With only an eight-grade education, he sought employment at an early age, and his life may have gone in an entirely different direction, except...

He found himself in Europe during World War II, working in the motor pool. What a change that must have been! His whole life had been lived within the range of a few miles, he had no idea what the rest of the world looked like, and now here among the splendors of the Old World, he confronted death on a daily basis. His division somehow wound up with clean-up duty at Dachau, and this vision of ultimate, incomprehensible horror surely numbed his senses.

He came home with no ceremony, and no counseling to help him process what he'd witnessed, and worked and saved, and tried to bury the memories, determined to lead a simple life.

But though the girl he married willingly became part of his life, she was smart and well-read, with a curiosity about the world beyond the little bit of it she'd seen. She'd get no help in that regard from her husband; he'd been there, he'd seen too much already, and never wanted to go back.

So Mom stayed home, helped on the farm, slopped the hogs, beheaded chickens, raised the kids, all the things expected of her. She drove into town once a week to buy groceries, chatted endlessly with the neighbors, built her days around her soap operas.

And again, she did this willingly, with no complaints. Mostly. Although many years later she'd admit sometimes, when the kids were in school and isolation overwhelmed her, she'd stare out at the sun-dappled trees lining the lane and think about getting in the car and driving off a bridge, ending her life just to relieve the boredom.

All this, of course, I found out later. As a kid, Mom and Dad seemed as perfect as Ward and June Cleaver, albeit without the suits and pearls. I knew nothing of any serpents lurking in the garden. Life could not have been better.

Could it?

SO LET'S SWITCH OFF ALL THE LIGHTS AND LIGHT UP ALL THE LUCKIES

Ordinarily, there'd be no reason for anyone outside the industry to care that Warner Bros. has essentially dissolved New Line Cinema, folding the erstwhile indie studio into its own corporate tent and firing many of its employees, including New Line founder Robert Shaye.

But New Line had something unusual for a studio these days: a personality. Shaye founded it back in the sixties, when he resurrected the old thirties scare picture Reefer Madness and played it to audiences of stoners. He was an enthusiastic early supporter of John Waters, and kept such cult items as Night Of The Living Dead and Texas Chain Saw Massacre in distribution through the seventies and early eighties.

Shaye loved exploitation filmmakers, and he made a name for his studio with Wes Craven's Nightmare On Elm Street and its infinite sequels. The serious money made by this series gave New Line entry into the big time, and the massive success of the Austin Powers and Lord Of The Rings series.

Shaye made many mistakes along the way, and New Line hadn't had much artistic or commercial success for a few years, but as a production or distribution entity, they gave us Pink Flamingos, Desperate Living, Wise Blood, Gregory's Girl, The Hidden, Menace II Society, My Own Private Idaho, Short Cuts, In The Mouth Of Madness, Boogie Nights and Magnolia. All these movies have a very specific, off-beat point of view, and are serious and fun in equal measure. If made now, none would see the light of day in the corporate world of today's Hollywood. With Shaye's ouster, the future of the movies seems even less interesting.

HERE I STAND, HEAD IN HAND

It's not that I'm happy about the death of the lizard-like arch-conservative William Buckley. In fact, in the current neo-conservative landscape, in which the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter are allowed influence beyond their station, Buckley's preening intellectual act would seem like a breath of fresh air.

Nonetheless, Buckley thought Joe McCarthy was A-OK, believed whites were genetically superior to other races and was an unapologetic imperialist. When, late in his life, the conservative movement he had helped found turned on him, it had some of the ham-fisted irony of an old EC comic book. I, for one, won't shed a tear, largely because his noxious views continue to inexplicably shape political discourse to this very day.

If you want to mourn someone, mourn the death of cinematographer David Watkin. He was the brilliant eye for director Richard Lester on a string of amazing films--The Knack; Help!; How I Won The War; The Three Musketeers--that are some of the greatest things cinema has to offer. His use of available light was highly influential--Steven Soderbergh rightly regards him as one of the greatest cameramen of all time--and in addition to his superlative work with Lester, he worked with Ken Russell, Sidney Lumet, Tony Richardson...a long, distinguished list.

He also shot Yentl, but we won't hold that against him.

GREET THE BRAND NEW DAY

Okay, for those of you who are wondering when this site will stop being so unbelievably depressing, good news. Are things looking up? Well, I'm sitting here writing this with Katie sitting next to me. That would be my new--what's the word?--acquaintance Katie.

She, it should be noted, objects to the word "acquaintance". Oh, I ask her, so how would you describe our relationship?

"Um, dating..."

Yeah. And?

"But. Don't move too fast or you might scare me away." Pause. "Well, not scare me away...Just...Don't overthink it."

Me? Overthink things? Clearly, she knows me well already.

NUMBERS TOO BIG TO IGNORE

You might think of Geraldine Ferraro--if you think of her at all--as Walter Mondale's vice-presidential candidate, half of the ticket that lost so spectacularly to Ronald Reagan, a typically hapless Democratic match-up.

But Ferraro's using whatever cache she believes she possesses to stump for Hillary Clinton at every given opportunity. She wrote an op-ed piece for The New York Times defending Clinton's threat to count delegates from Florida and Michigan, in violation of rules established by her own party, and I heard her yesterday on NPR, defending her chosen candidate and bashing Barack Obama:

"For Mr. Obama to say he was against the war--excuse me, he was a state senator. He had no vote at the time. Hillary did exactly what she was supposed to do. Based on the evidence presented to her, she voted to give the president authority to deal with a threat posed to our nation..."

Uh-huh.

Just because Obama couldn't vote against the war doesn't mean he wasn't opposed to it. He rightly smelled a rat, and said so at the time. Clinton, despite the claims of Hans Blix and so many others that no WMDs existed, that Iraq was no immediate threat, chose to believe what she was told to believe and signed on to the war. She can frame it however she wants, but if she and the other quislings in the senate had demonstrated the capacity for independent thought, so many of the horrors the Bushinistas have wrought might never have come to pass.

There are many reasons to oppose Clinton's nomination, but to Ferraro and others any objections automatically smack of sexism. True, old prejudices die hard, but on the other hand, no one but Clinton seems to have a problem with the notion of a black president. Clinton's record shows nothing but pure opportunism and naked ambition, and she seeks the presidency not for a desire to, lead but as a sort of right. She can't even pretend she cares about ordinary people, and yet feigns surprise when people don't care about her.

I'M HAPPY

What? Tex Avery was born one hundred years ago today? And I've done nothing to celebrate?

Better fix that!

I NEVER SEEN YOU LOOKING SO BAD MY FUNKY ONE

I realize I've said this before, but I'm going to say it again: I suspect postings around here will become a bit less frequent.

My job requires me to get to work fairly early, and I respond by waking up three or four hours earlier than I really need to, all so I can allow myself plenty of time to ruminate and research whatever it is I choose to write about on any given day. And it's not like I'm doing God's work here; I allow all this time, and wind up posting clips from a Lynda Carter special.

I'm spending too much time here, is what I'm saying. This space is a good, valuable and, at times, necessary part of my life, but I'm allowing it to dominate me for reasons I don't fully understand. It's time to step back. Daily postings may or may not continue, but if they do, they may appear in the late afternoon or evenings. Mornings are killing me.

Of course, in the past, whenever I've claimed I'd post less frequently, nothing really changed. We'll see...

SOMEDAY YOU WILL ACHE LIKE I ACHE

For those of you still shaking your heads and muttering curses over that Lawrence Welk clip I put up the other day, you should be aware, it could have been worse. Much, much worse.

Boys and girls and kids of all ages, gape in silent bemusement or twitch in astonished horror as you behold the alleged versatility of Lynda Carter:



I would merely add that if your fantasies--rock & roll or otherwise--involve Bette Midler, you may want to seek professional help.

SAWDUST AND TINSEL

It's not like I went out of my way to avoid watching the Academy Awards last night, it's just that I don't care anymore.

And I very much doubt I'm alone on this. If the Writer's Guild strike had continued, and the ceremony itself hadn't happened, would anybody have cared? Anybody outside of Hollywood, that is?

The awards themselves have no meaning, as pretty much everyone acknowledges. In past years, the ritual itself was enough, the chance to see Hollywood's finest parading around on the home screen, a bit of big-time glamour in our own living rooms. That's all gone now, partly because there are almost no real movie stars anymore (George Clooney would qualify, if he wasn't such a publicity whore and if any of his movies actually did well at the box office), and partly because...again, who cares? Movies are merely one more entertainment option in a world already overloaded with choices, and celebrities fascinate the public only when they're in some sort of state of permanent collapse.

As for this year's ceremony, well, I didn't watch it. I had been pulling for Brad Bird to actually get the screenplay award for Ratatouille, but he lost to Juno's Diablo Cody, though her moment has surely passed. It was nice to see Joel and Ethan Coen win (though I'd have given their awards to Paul Thomas Anderson), but I wonder if receiving such a pure Hollywood award will rob them of some hipster cred.

Oh, and Transformers, August Rush and Norbit all received nominations. It's all about quality, you see.

ANY WORLD THAT I'M WELCOME TO

A lazy Saturday morning-into-afternoon. Paul told me two weekends ago he planned on hanging out with me, staying here the night, if his mom would let him. Okay with her, okay with me.

He spent last night watching Hannah Montana and, even though he refuses to admit he thinks Miley Cyrus is hot, he does seem to go on about her. A lot.

He's watching TV now--the miracle of cable, which his mom doesn't have--and later, we'll be heading off to a movie. Probably The Spiderwyck Chronicles, although there's also a possibility of opting for Jumper, because it has Annakin and Mace Windu. (Needless to say, Paul and I are both jazzed about the new Star Wars movie, which opens just in time for his ninth birthday--surely the best present ever.)

Bummer that his mom and I aren't a couple anymore (though, according to Paul, he believes we "are meant to be together"), but it's nice that he and I have stayed buddies. This is exactly the kind of laid-back hangout day everybody needs.

STILL I REMAIN TIED TO THE MAST

A creeping sense of despair seems to have taken up residence in my soul. Various reasons, some concrete, some nebulous, most impossible to deny. It's been a long, cruel winter, and if spring ever comes, I'm not sure I'll be able to fully embrace it.

Wow, that came out even more depressing than intended.

But hey, the good news is, at least I barely feel like writing, so no long nihilistic screeds, no figurative howls of pain. Brevity's the key word around here, otherwise this site could be as tough a slog as a Bukowski tome.

So when words fail, how can a poor boy share his pain? Simple:



Oh, Good Lordy, no. Sorry. I'm not that depressed. Or wasn't...

OH, YOUTUBE, WON'T YOU SPARE ME THE BURDEN OF ACTUALLY WRITING SOMETHING?

And, as usually happens, YouTube comes through. Have I mentioned we're huge Chuck Jones fans around here?