Midnight TV
Now Playing: The Voices in my head
Topic: Mysteries of Life
Was flipping through the channels the other night, past the channel that sells you 150 spiffy looking knifes for $19.95. Past the mostly naked women with phones in their hands imploring you to call their number to talk to actual women in your neighborhood who are desperately anxious to hear from you. Past the ab lounge, the ab cruncher, the thigh blasterino, the pretentious female telling me that the 150 dollar a bottle snake oil they are selling is actually worth 150 dollars and that they sold millions of bottles of it at that price but are now feeling the upwelling of human kindness and willing to sell their bottles of denatured hamster urine for only $29.95 until the government finally takes notice, takes the company to court and fines them out of existence, the Time-Life songs of the sixties. Then there is the other half of the stations being various Bible thumping preachers with varying levels of disdain for the viewer, although it may just seem that way to me since I zap right through them before they get their spiel going. Just those accusing, knowing eyes of guys in Nehru jackets, mature stern female preachers and those ubiquitous waving Bibles given the brief time it takes to press the forward or backward button before they disappear into the next channel full of amazing offers or semi naked females. It's enough to send a person up out of bed and into the kitchen to bake an apple pie. :-)

This and that
Topic: Politics
Well let's all hope the casinos get opened up in Atlantic City now that the budget crisis is winding down. So quiet, you could almost hear the slot machines from outside, I mean, if the slots were being played that is.

The recent crisis with the North Koreans shows again how fundamentally inept the foreign policy of the US is. It's a crisis only on CNN where the 'Situation Room' busies itself with graphics of missiles and interviews with their bureau chiefs in China, Japan, Korean and Moscow. The US itself can do nothing and merely flails around talking about strongly worded motions at the UN which they can't even get passed. When morality, ethics and democracy were taken from foreign policy considerations and we allowed ourselves to slide into bed with the Communist Chinese for the sake of Wal-Mart we not only lost the moral highground, we also forgot to elect people who even knew what that high ground used to be. We can't 'allow' North Korea to get nukes or missiles and there they have them for all the world to see. We can't 'allow' Iran to have nukes or missiles and everyday we see them successfully stall us out on the pretend negotiations. We have no leverage with China or Russia over anything since we have decoupled foreign policy and trade policy so what exactly are we going to do if either or both decides to not support us in Korea or Iran? Here' what we're going to do. See it? It's a whole lot of nothing. A lot of nothing interspersed with flag burning amendments and other red meat things that get the base voters up and excited but do absolutely nothing with respect to any of the real problems that need to be addressed. Sad isn't it.

Fourth of July Movies
Topic: Art and Poetry

The two best patriotic films, two films I'll pull out the DVDs for tomorrow to watch (after the Tour de France) are Yankee Doodle Dandy starring James Cagney and 1776 starring Howard Da Silva, Ken Howard and William Daniels. Both represent what is good and idealistic about America.

Yankee Doodle Dandy is a biography of George M. Cohan. Starring James Cagney, the movie shows Mr. Cohan as a vaudeville performer born into show business as part of the Four Cohans. He rises up, in the true American way fights his way up and and brings his family up the ladder of success with him. He writes many successful plays and is remembered to this day for the songs Over There, Yankee Doodle, Me and My Gal and Give My Regards To Broadway. When you say 'John Q. Public' that's a phrase he coined. It's a great movie, an emotionally satisfying movie and after watching it you'll choke right up when Cagney says for the last time, "My mother thanks you, my father thanks you, my sister thanks you, and, I assure you, I thank you" A genuine flag waver for you.

The other movie. 1776, is a musical made near the time of the 200th birthday of the United States. It tells the story of the creation of the Declaration of Independence during the time of the Continental Congress. With humor, warmth and song it follows the struggles of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin as they manage and maneuver their way through stubborn southerners, loyalists and a New York delegations that abstains 'courteously' until the very end. The songs are smart, witty and honest with songs even dealing with the slave trade (Sugar to Rum to Slaves) and with the song of a dying soldier who hopes his mother finds his body in the field. This movie has everything you would want in a movie. And if at the end when the signers of the Declaration of Independence sign to the tolling of the bell, if you aren't having goose bumps well then you might want to check your pulse.

Those are the best movies for the Fourth of July and if you haven't seen these movies then you need to put them on your list.

Cool Hand Luke
Now Playing: Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral
Topic: Mysteries of Life
Was watching Cool Hand Luke today, a movie about rebellion and I guess about how cool rebellion is. I watched carefully the act that got the character put on a Florida chain gang and you know, the dude deserved to go to jail for that. Social order is a high priority, it's what keeps the majority of us safe from those who have no problem going against that order and whose actions make us all less safe. I don't know that two years is the best sentence for that, I would think a bit more creative sentencing would serve the purpose of justice and help steer the rebel in a right direction. Of course, the character, played by Paul Newman, was self destructive to begin with, directionless and one to question authority and might not have been put off his slow ride to suicide by cop but who knows. I saw through the first part of the movie the character was sort of getting along pretty well and not causing a lot of trouble. When his mother died and he wasn't allowed to go to her funeral is when he went over the edge and escaped a number of times. Well, you know, the character had nobody to blame but himself for his situation and when the one guard character was putting Cool Hand Luke in the box and said he was only doing his job Luke said 'Well that still doesn't make it right' and that pretty much is the character removing blame from himself and putting it on 'society' Sorry, Cool dude, it might not have been right but it was the rules. I remember reading on occasion when someone is released from prison 'doing the right thing' so they could go to a funeral or see their dying mother and then lighting on out escaping. It's those folks who make the rules harden up not the evil prison wardens or guards. If someone who is released from prison to go to a funeral or other humanitarian reason and that person goes out, commits more crimes, hurts others, then it necessarily falls on whoever let him or her out before their time was up. So the character of Cool Hand Luke, who fights against impossible odds with a whole lot of nothing as the signature of his character's behavior, never does get his 'head right'

Other than that, the whole sweaty prison ambiance was a little hollow. No bugs crawling everywhere as they would be, the prisoners were a lot less vicious and evil than you'd find in reality. In all, a lot less real than when I remember seeing it lo these many years ago. But still a good movie which I won't be watching again for another 20 years.

Soccer - Effete European Nancy Boys in Short Pants
Topic: Mysteries of Life
And a hearty good riddance to men in short pants running around for ninety minutes, chasing a ball for usually no discernable reason. The game every other country is mad over, and the game which churns out more stories of people burning their houses down because they paid rapt attention to some goofy match between Chad and the Azores, more stories of husbands killing their wives for making too much noise when a general overkill in boring stories about english soccer fans this or german soccer fans that. Oh sure, the whole thing is still going on and craptastic stories of shocking soccer stupidity will continue but at least we won't have to listen about how the US can get to the next round if only they beat Botswana and Nigeria beats Alsace-Lorraine. So pick up the phone to tell it to the three people who give a crap and let the rest of us hear stories of genunine interest or import. Like when the heck is football season going to start?

Stupid List of Noninspirational Films
Topic: Art and Poetry

The American Film Institute came out with another insipid, uninformed and illogical list of films they say, in this case are the 100 most inspirational films. AFI's listA tricky catagory here. "Inspirational" means imparting a divine influence on the mind and soul. And even if the influence they seek to impart is actually divine or not, it's somebody's agenda and somebody's ideas of what is good for us. It's a lot of social commentary and a lot of movies nobody sees more than one time if they see them at all. I see a list here that has an agenda on it's mind. It should be called the "NPR List of Movies approved for their content and social message that you should believe in with a few 'inspirational' movies thrown in."

To Kill a Mockingbird is a movie they made us watch in school, Schindler's List is probably a movie they make you watch in school now as well. The Grapes of Wrath is social commentary, Saving Private Ryan, Bridge Over the River Kwai, The Best Years of Our Lives are antiwar movies. The business is bad, government is bad and people are noble movies include, Norma Rae, Silkwood, Erin Brockovich, Grapes of Wrath, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, Meet John Doe. Prisoners are noble and prisons are bad - Cool Hand Luke, Birdman of Alcatraz, Shawshank Redemption. Glory, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, In the Heat of the Night, Color Purple, To Kill a Mockingbird and Raisin in the Sun teach me that rascism is bad. Dead Poet's Society and Philadephia teach me that gay people are people and homophobia is bad. I don't find any of those movies particularly inspirational. Preachy maybe with their own agendas and some of them were effective when I was younger and didn't know that I was being fed a point of view. I particularly remember Meet John Doe, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and the other Capra movies where Jimmy Stewart or Gary Cooper would fall in love with women who are more 'worldly' then they are and sort of risked everything on a hoped for change of attitude and opinion by Jean Arthur or Barbara Stanwick to save them. Beautiful women, inspirational shows I'd eat up every time. I'd admire Gary Cooper just being able to sit there not defending himself because it was the woman he loved who put him in that situation. Of course, in the end of those movies the woman would stand up and start defending Gary Cooper and in the end a happy ending would emerge just in the nick of time the way it always used to happen in those old black and white movies. Reality of course is more like that horrifying show you flip over through on Discovery or A&E which tells about the woman/man who plots and kills their spouse/partner and the process of getting enough clues to arrest them for it. Definitely not inspirational, like most of the films on that list. Bah, I hate lists.

Sex with Robots
Topic: Mysteries of Life
I see this story going around, originally a story from Times Online and of course since it's robots and sex it's a big story at Digg and Slashdot. It's funny really, seeing some folks get all roused to wonder and work on the robot 'ethics' that they decide they need to develop and spit out for the rest of us to follow. I think anything that you might be worried about is going to be taken care of by product liability laws. Like the nonsense of the Asimov's 'Three Laws' there is no need and more importantly, there is no earthly way to take what a bunch of naive scientist types decides to throw up on the wall and make it universal law directing a potentially billion plus dollar industry. It's a laugh really. If Segway or Ford decides to build your sex robots in the future they are going to be ass deep in the same sort of regulations they deal with to bring any other product to market. Any scientists who want to anguish over the implications of the ethics and morality of the Johnny Ready Robot or the Susie Sensual Robot will be doing so from the novels, articles and protests they might be inclined to indulge in.

If somebody is worried about sex with inanimate objects then I'm afraid that train left the station a millennium ago. If somebody is worried that some folks might become obsessed with their robot sex buddy then they should know that it's already there with rubber girlfriends ( I remember seeing it on HBO) and besides, people get obsessed with any number of things so what's the problem. If you program Johnny Ready for rough sex and don't like what happens, well then operator error but even that will be decided in the courts. If you get a butt load of money from the jury cause you failed to operate your robot safely then the manufacturer will have to spend time and money making the thing idiot proof. Heck, I bet even some medical insurance will cover you getting your very own sex robot.

Spam avalanche
I don't know what happened or who I pissed off but man oh man, the cialis/nigerian/russiangirlsforyou/etc crap is really bashing against the spam filters. The good news about the spam senders is that they are getting sent to jail with some frequency now. And I can't think of a better place for them.

Hair Paintings and Chicken Marsala


An important lesson I've learned is that not all Chicken Marsala you get in various Italian restaurants is the same. I've had great Chicken Marsala off a hot grill, the mushromms simmered and in the tasty sauce with the alcohol burned off in the cooking and I've had it with soggy chicken, uncooked hunks of mushrooms and what tasted like wine simply poured in at the end, along with the uncooked mushrooms. Bleech. That was nasty and so I'm in search of a good recipe that tastes more like the first experience than the second. Humm, I don't even know if Olive Garden has a Chicken Marsala or not so I'll have to take a peek at their menu when I get around to it. And I wonder of course if the first one I liked was the not good one and the second version I didn't like was supposed to be the better version. My ignorance of what is proper has to take a backseat to my own sense of taste in this one.

Not a day goes by that I take a shower and don't remember hair painting. When those tangled strands find their way into my hands while rinsing I put them up on the shower tile and find another day that I haven't forgotten.

clouds
Topic: Mysteries of Life


Looking at clouds move and change we can see in the blink of the eye how things transform and are not permanent. Transitory in fact. You can see beauty and images of terror pass before your eyes and before your imagination in a blink of an eye. You'll naturally try to hold onto the image you just saw in the clouds but it's impossible. The image is gone, the flying demon or the vase of flowers lived there for you, only you, in your mind and then the visual evidence of it is gone. Soon even the memory of what you saw passes from your mind as you continue on your day. Kind of like life, you experience it in passing and every joy and every terror passes eventually from your thoughts and from your mind. Some things may last in your mind but when you go so goes those thoughts and memories. Transitory, ephemeral and gone. Like the clouds in the sky swirling and floating above your head.

Boom Goes the Dynamite
Topic: Politics
It's interesting to note that the last thing heard by Zarqawi was the sounds of the United States Air Force delivering it's ordinance and on the same day the Israeli Air Force delivered the same sort of package to Semadhana, a commander of Hamas security. Two folks who decided to live lives of violence, who found violence an acceptable answer to their grievances and who died by explosive violence. Karma delivered by airmail. Brilliant. Perhaps it will have been an important signpost for the eventual end of the war but in isolation there is no good way to know.

The Sun emerges yet again
Topic: Mysteries of Life
Well, except for a couple of History Channel and A&E programs about the devil and all of that there wasn't anything major happening. By major I mean a bunch of kids, shoppers or drivers killed by a madman or madmen. However, evil was there making it's usual appearance as witnessed by the video shots of the bald headed, neck tattooed, bikini top murderer as he was brought in front of a judge and having his mug shot taken again. He looked shocked that he was receiving so much attention. A blinking, confused, everyday garden variety personification of evil who didn't appear to have the presence of mind to look evil beyond the evil that was defined by his deeds. Sometimes you wonder what is going on in the head of someone like that. Doing the evil, committing the crimes he did commit, naturally lead you to the handcuffs and the police. That behavior leads to the striped pajama clothes and confinement and loss of every choice ever again. There he was, seemingly surprised by his surroundings and uncomfortable. I don't see how he didn't know he would end up back in jail and I don't understand how he could even look surprised. I just don't get any of it. Like trying to imagine in five or six dimensions, I just can't form a framework in my mind to understand why a person would kill another or why some claim to even get pleasure from doing it. It's just beyond me. I start to pass out at the first sign of injury, blood or anyone or anything is in pain. Heck, the idea of someone boiling a crab or lobster even if they are frozen bits, makes me have to lie down. This guy they keep showing on the news was supposed to have driven around looking for random victims which although I know it happens, still boggles my mind. Here's a big cheer for DNA as well as fingerprints as part of the records for every sex offender. It made for a quick identification and a quick capture. Now if only all the surveillance cameras were of high quality then we'd be able to catch every child molester and rapist and murderer out there. Here's hoping.

666 - Numerology Gone Wild
Topic: Mysteries of Life


Well it's that time of year, it's those numbers adding up and down and across to form the number of the beast. The beastly number of fear, that number by which he shall be known. The antichrist. June 6, 2006. Or 6-6-06. Please try to ignor that number zero in there, it's zero after all and therefore doesn't exist. It's 666 time! Woohoo. A new Omen movie opens on 6/6/06 and the new book in the "Left Behind" series goes on sale on the same date. Time to get your numerologically driven, Book of Revelations based fear of the unknown and unknowable on and party like it's the time of judgment. As Yul Brenner says to Charleston Heston in the Ten Commandments, "Where is your God now Moses?" Prepare to have the fiery pit of doom open up and brace yourself for the mewling, howling demons of Cthulhu to chew on your flesh. Doom is at hand. Dante's Inferno has just had a number of new circles built and ready just in time for the tourist season. Heck, if you didn't make the last comet out of here with the rest of the Heaven's Gate bunch you've missed your last ride out. Yes indeed, great fun for one and all. I of course plan to stay up all night so I don't miss the start of it all. Well, maybe not actually. The mini hype for this date is rounding up and it'll be like any other day when it's all said and done.

Perhaps somebody might mention that you shouldn't worry and be nervous since well let's see, where to begin. Ah let's start by saying that the calendar isn't and wasn't a thing set in stone at the time of Christ or even at the time that the Book of Revelations was written. So, all things being equal you really really aren't here on 6/6/06. Who knows what day it really is based on the calculations of the writers of the Book of Revelations. That part doesn't even really matter anyways since nobody is really certain what the dudes writing the Book were talking about. Perhaps they were talking about the Roman leader of the time, doesn't matter which time, they were mostly quite nasty to Christian folks and other nonroman folks. I mean, long before black folk in Africa were keeping slaves and selling other black folk to white folk on ships or to arabs or wherever they could find a market the Romans were carting people of all colors off as slaves to you know, slave away, die in mines, die in the gladitorial ring and the like so to folks who weren't Roman citizens life ws pretty spotty. Spotty enough so that when your local mystics and writers of holy books got together they would naturally make their version of the most evil person on the earth the antithesis of Christ and probably make him a Roman leader. But it's all a matter for a good argument which you can see on the History Channel tonight or in the near future.

The antichrist has been variously named throughout history and you'll recognize many of these guys. Napolean, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, George Bush. Yup, anyone who has done anything has been called the antichrist once or twice. The fact of the matter is that people like to have labels for things. They want to know who the bad guy is and they want to feel that there is some order in the world. So labels and stories about the end of world and how it'll turn out alright in the end for the good guys is all anyone every really wants. So we get to scare ourselves with stories of devils and demons and antichrist dudes and we device ways to identify him and them. Some folks, usually of the mentally ill variety even claim to be the devil, a demon, the antichrist, santa clause. It's all about being not right in the head.

Now June 6, 2006, which isn't as potentially evil as was June 6, 1966 or even June 6, 666, anyways, that day would be a good day to not go to the Mall or the subway or be hanging around in any gathering of people. Seems to me that it's the sort of day and idea that might prove too tempting to your random crazy person or deluded bunch of crazy people. It wasn't that long ago that some nutjob thought he could be a vampire if he killed somebody and drank their blood. So the idea that some folks might go into a Mall and start shooting people in the name of the devil isn't that far fetched. So, a day to stay home. Perhaps I'll even see if any of the news networks will even remember that June 6, 1944 was D-Day, the day that the Allies invaded Hitler's Europe. Probably be a day where the 'news' will talk about the new Omen movie, the new book from the Left Behind series and the party in Hell, Michigan. Such is life.