Snakes on a Plane

It'd been a while since I'd heard Samuel L. Jackson yell four letter words, so when my roommate brought Snakes on a Plane home the other night, I watched it with them.

What a terrific B-movie! It had all the B-movie elements: from cheesy dialogue and gratuitous boobs to hilariously unrealistic special effects and a flimsy plot. This movie should be applauded for harkening back to horror movies that were more funny than they were scary.

Now that I've seen it, I wish I would have wasted the money to see it in the theater. The snakes didn't just bite people: the bit people in the genitals and on the eyeball. They crawled in and out of the dead bodies. The four of us gasped out loud and shouted in surprise and disgust dozens of times. Imagine how much fun it must have been to be with a huge theater audience?

Thank you, Snakes on a Plane. Every now and then it's refreshing to see a deliciously bad movie.

Counsel This

I think this trend of fuck-ups seeking counseling is really annoying. The most recent case, of course, is Isaiah Washington, a star of Grey's Anatomy. He called his costar a f*gg*t, and now,

[w]ith the support of my family and friends, I have begun counseling. I regard this as a necessary step toward understanding why I did what I did...

I'll tell you why you did it, Isaiah. You're a prick! That's why.

Why can't people just accept that they're assholes? Mel Gibson, I'm talking to you. Just admit to us that you're an asshole. Michael Richards, you too.

Don't run to counseling, acting like you're some kind of victim. It's insulting to the people you've berated. You're not a victim, you're a loser. Say you're sorry. And mean it. And move on.

The Grandchildren Card

This article examines Hillary's recent photo-ops with small children, playing up her softer side.

This kind of publicity/image thing is necessary, I guess, but it risks downplaying her ability to be a strong leader. For example, superficial maybe but worth mentioning is how Nancy Pelosi was described in a Washington Post article:

After Nancy Pelosi's historic election as Speaker of the House, the Washington Post described her as a "grandmother of five."

The Post didn't refer to her as a "20-year veteran of Congress," which probably had more to do with her election.

Meanwhile, the Post described Harry Reid, the new Senate leader, as the "son of a hard-rock miner" with no mention of Reid's 16 grandchildren.

I don't know that there was ever a time that real parenting, and nurturing, was considered weak. But somehow, the opinion, by all its omissions, implied just that.

As Hillary's campaign moves along over the next two years, it will interesting to see how the news reports her political moves and PR-planned photo opportunities and how she is portrayed her in comparison to her running mates.

Foster Cats

It's been over a year since I began fostering kittens to help local animal rescue missions. In that year, 17 cats and kittens have been through my apartment. Now we're in a condo and Kitten Season '07 is about a month away from beginning.

It's discouraging to think that even though the group I'm working with now has found homes for almost 200 kittens in their two short years of operation, this doesn't even register when compared to the stray problem that still exists in most places. We focus on two towns in Massachusetts. Some entire counties don't even have a group working to reduce the cat population by spaying and neutering.

Anyway, I am looking forward to having more crazy and destructive kittens come through our new place. It's fun to have them, relieving to see them go, and exciting to get new ones.

Here are some of our favorites:

I don't know how the two women who run our group haven't burnt out yet. Even so, I wish I could do this full time. How long until I retire?

One Year Anniversary

Last Friday was the one year anniversary of the launch of Let's Call It Nothing, originally titled Esther's Porn Stash.

It's been a lot of fun to collect our book, movie and political reviews and views here and we look forward to another year of musing and amusing.

What's Left?

I'm about as liberal as they come but recently I've realized that ending the war as fast as possible isn't the best thing. It seems obvious now and I can hardly remember the time when I felt otherwise, but this feeling has been a long time coming.

I think of myself as almost a 60's-era hippie: peace only, no war for any reason. Doing anything that will hurt or kill anyone is wrong. But we're in this war now and to pull out and leave as quickly as possible is not realistic. I believe doing so will result in increased terrorist activity.

Even just a few months ago, I would have scoffed at the idea of sending more troops or letting them stay there for as long as it takes, but if we really want to accomplish something, and to have the lives lost count towards something meaningful, we can't just change our minds and leave. We're there for better or for worse and we have to see that through. Hopefully that will involve better guidance a clearer plan.

The democrats won the House and Senate because we are so pissed off at the Republicans for the war and so many other transgressions. The democrats got in by preaching against the war, but I'm hoping they don't make the error of ending it before some stability has been reached. It's idealistic to say we want to end the war but is it rational?

Buy One Get One Free

While I haven't been as wild about Hillary in the last year as I used to be, I was excited to hear about her announcement to campaign for the presidency. We've seen it coming ever since she started to inch slowly closer to the middle on certain issues. (Her move away from the left is what caused me to like her a little less, even though I understood why she was doing it.)

Immediately I was told by people that she'll never win. That may be realistic, but I don't care. She has to at least try, or she wouldn't be Hillary. And yes, it is in part because she's a woman. Women have hit the campaign trail before, of course, but I've never had a sense that any one of them could even come close to receiving the nomination. I think Hillary can.

On Good Morning America today, they were talking about getting two for the price of one when it comes to the Clintons. As first lady, Hillary was an inspiration because of all the work she did. How beneficial would it be to have Bill as the first man? It would be like electing three people: the president, her husband and the vice president.

Obama/O'Brien 2008

Conan: You have the best name. When I first heard it I was sure it was Irish.

Barack: Yes, there's an apostrophe after the O.

Time Enough At Last

There was an old Twilight Zone episode -- you probably remember it -- about a busy man who longs for the chance to read books. Then there's some kind of global catastrophe and he finds himself the last person in the world. He also finds that the only building to survive the catastrophe is his local library, full of, you guessed it, all the books he's longed to read. As he blissfully begins his first novel, his glasses fall off. Blind and fumbling, he steps on them, crunching them to bits. Rod Serling walks onto the screen to point out the bitter irony. All the books in the world, and time enough at last to read them... and the poor guy can't see.

Similarly, I've been out of work for a while, and stressed about finding a job, and hating every moment of my idle time. But now that I have a job lined up, I'm angry that I wasn't able to appreciate the longest vacation of my life. And I want more, so I can appreciate it better.

On second thought, I'm not sure my situation bears any resemblance to that Twilight Zone episode. Except that Rod Serling just appeared in my kitchen.

Prison Break Follow-Up

After writing about Prison Break and Lost, I found this brief snippet in which Wentworth Miller proposes a Lost/Prison Break cross-over.

MLK Day

In its 30+ year history, the gay rights movement has so far been unable to produce a leader of this caliber -- or of any caliber, unfortunately. So I kind of co-opted the leader of another cause, because his ideas seem so universal. How can the "I Have A Dream" speech not ring through your ears when you're protesting for your rights on the State House steps?

Still, it wasn't exactly a speech written for me. It was a speech for blacks and whites, when there was nary a rainbow flag in sight. At best, I was just borrowing it.

Maybe that's why I was always glad to hear when his wife, Coretta Scott King, had given another speech in support of gay marriage or talked about the similarity between the civil rights and gay rights movements. "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere," she would say, quoting her husband. And his wife's words are enough to make me believe that if MLK had written his speech today, in his famous list of black and white, Jew and Gentile, Protestant and Catholic, he would have included gay and straight.

It's a good speech, and a good dream. For everyone.

Songs That Boost My Energy Level

(and are also pretty good to sing to)

1. Don't Call Me White - NOFX
2. Turning Japanese - The Vapors
3. Crazy Little Thing Called Love - Queen
4. Sheena is a Punk Rocker - Ramones
5. King For A Day - Green Day
6. Out the Window - Violent Femmes
7. Eat the Rich - Aerosmith
8. Dancing By Myself - Billy Idol
9. Mellowship Slinky in B Major - Chilli Peppers
10. Money For Nothing - Dire Straits
11. Down on the Corner - Creedence
12. Call Me Al - Paul Simon
13. Viva Las Vegas - The Dead Kennedys
14. Seether - Veruca Salt
15. Flagpole Sitta - Harvey Danger
16. Atomic Dog - George Clinton
17. Wellington's Wednesdays - The Weakerthans

Prison Break

I just finished watching the first season via Netflix. Prison Break seems to be Fox's answer to ABC's successful series Lost.

Both are meant to be exhilirating and suspenseful serialized shows. Lost (at least, the first two seasons) pulled this off better than Prison Break. While Lost was entirely unpredictable in its first season, plenty of the twists in Prison Break lost their potential because they were so foreseeable. If it had been crafted in less of an oh-my-God-what's-next way, it would have been better because at least then it wouldn't have felt like a let-down moment when something more exciting should have happened. And yet, I'm just as into Prison Break as I originally was with Lost.

Both series have a sizable group of characters who need to rely on each other, no matter what their personal disputes, to survive. Holding onto the mystery is part of what kept Lost exciting for so long. So far, Prison Break has kept a few of its cards unplayed. We know plenty about the main character's brother, but not a lot about Michael himself.

Both writing teams (or maybe marketing teams) also set you up with the good guy and the bad guy. In Lost, the stereotype is ridiculously played out: the doctor is the handsome good guy and Sawyer is bad but sexy guy. The safe type and the dangerous type. The type you'd marry and the type you'd just love to... well, I have the Catholic-bred desire for bad boys, so I'll move on.

Prison Break gives you two brothers: the one who is a criminal and probably deserves to be in jail and his brother who cares about others, is incredibly smart, and oh so sexy. The choice in Prison Break is not as hard to figure out as the time-honored juxaposition in Lost. But that doesn't matter because there is something incredibly attractive about Michael, played by Wentworth Miller.

There is a website dedicated to him called The First Chuch of Wentworth Miller. (A little over-the-top but hardly moreso than all of the forums speculating about Lost.) I even found this bizarre tribute article from Maclean's magazine, a general interest publication based in Canada:

Once a week, in season, Wentworth and I hang out, for slightly less than an hour, in my living room. He talks, emotes, and shoots me and the camera the occasional white-hot, knee-buckling stare. As boyfriends go, he's very low-maintenance: all I have to do is sit back and enjoy his company. Went is my guy not just because he's got great facial bone structure, a lovely tall, lean build, and gorgeous blue-green eyes. He's also smart and cultured--he's a Princeton grad, thank you very much, named after a character in a Jane Austen novel--and he consistently comes across in interviews as charming, thoughtful, and articulate.

Some viewers felt that the first season of Prison Break dragged on for too long without an escape. I don't agree at all but I have to wonder if it's just because I was too transfixed by Wentworth Miller's eyes and arms and pecs and tattoos.

If only Jack or Sawyer had the sex appeal to make this past season of Lost less painful to endure.

BEN, HE AUDITIONED FOR THE ROLE OF SUPERMAN/CLARK KENT IN THE RECENT MOVIE SUPERMAN RETURNS.

Blame New Jersey for The Smell

The stench of gas that panicked Manhattanites and caused evacuations yesterday is being blamed on New Jersey.

Yahoo News had the best headline about the confusion: "New Jersey eyed as source of stench over NYC."

Cover art

My brother did up a cover for my novel.

Plutoed

The American Dialect Society has chosen 'plutoed' as their Word of the Year.

In a reflection of this year's planetary reevaluation, to be 'plutoed' means "to be demoted" or "devalued."

The runner up word was 'climate canary': a species whose declining numbers are a signal of a coming environmental catastrophe.

Last year's word was the Stephen Colbert-coined "truthiness."

Melt

As nice as it was to be able to go outside in short sleeves today, it was hard to appreciate it when it seems so wrong. In Boston, flowers that shouldn't be open until April are blooming in January. Ski resorts are laying off staff. It's even worse for polar bears.

Members of the Polar Bear Club will soon be joining their Arctic cousins on the endangered species list, mutual casualties of global warming. Today in New York City "the Polar Bears held a moment of silence, turned their backs on the Atlantic and headed toward the boardwalk, a protest, albeit an underdressed one, against global warming."

It's hard to be a winter daredevil when it's 72 degrees out.

Everyday's a Holiday Somewhere

Today, for example, is National Bird Day.

Tomorrow is Three Kings Day in Mexico.

Sunday January 8th is the Prodomition Revivial in Greece, Christmas in Russia and Old Rock Day.

Crazy Radio

Every Saturday in Argentina, mental patients at the Jose Borda hospital run a six-hour radio show. The residents of the psychiatric hospital talk about politics or read poetry or sing.

Radio La Colifata, or Crazy Radio has 12 million listeners, more than half of what Howard Stern had when he left terrestrial radio.

The popularity, not to mention the therapeutic value to patients, has inspired 20 other psychiatric hospitals in Argentina to launch their own radio shows. Germany and France followed suit. The La Colifata group has now set their sites on creating television shows.

The Last Man

I took a detour from watching classics to rent The Last Kiss, because I do enjoy me some Zach Braff. It was a bad move. I ended up hating The Last Kiss so much it may have actually tarnished my love for Garden State.

The problem was the premise. Zach's character's girlfriend is pregnant, they're about to get married -- his whole life is plotted out in front of him and he freaks out and self-destructs. OK, I could get on board with that... Except that he's freaking 29 years old!

If he were just out of college and saddled with "real life," a la Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate, fine. That makes sense. But 29? 29?! I couldn't generate an ounce of sympathy for him. In fact, it made me depressed and nostalgic for a time when I imagine there were real men.

Maybe it's because I've been watching so many old movies lately, but it seems to me that once upon a time, men were men, not boy-men who can't/won't grow up. What would Clark Gable say about Matthew McConaughey's recent Failure to Launch, about the 40-year-old who still lives with his parents? And if The Odd Couple was made today it would star Ashton Kutcher and Topher Grace and have a pop soundtrack.

People probably haven't changed. I'm sure in 1935 there were plenty of irresponsible boy-men just like there are today. But now we celebrate it and project it onto the silver screen as the standard and the ideal. And that blows.