But wait; things get worse. Since their appearance in Super Bowl XXXVII against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (a 48-21 shellacking that was not even remotely as close as the final score indicated; at one point, it was 34-3 Tampa Bay), the Raiders have a regular season record of 26-78, which is worse than the Lions, Bengals, Browns and any other rotten NFL franchise you can think of. Think of that: as soon as the final gun of the Super Bowl ends, you nose-dive to worst fucking record in the league.
This is the fourth consecutive home game that will be blacked out, but to me, there is no mystery in this. People aren't paying to watch horrible football. Would you? To put it another way, this would be like the Oakland A's going 41-121 for seven years in a row. Even the Washington Nationals would look like a powerhouse by comparison.
I have actually encouraged my fellow fans to boycott the games.
This is what it is to be a fan of the Oakland Raiders in 2009... and 2008... and 2007... and 2006... and 2005... and 2004... and 2003.
Pathetic. Utterly pathetic.
EDIT: I forgot to mention, but this game also had two weeks to go for a sellout rather than the typical one, because the Raiders had a bye week recently. The fact that the snippets I have seen of the Coliseum being (generously estimated at) two-thirds full should tell you all you need to know.
- Soundtrack:CSI: NY - "Main Theme"
You know me, people. I believe in plain, simple talk. So believe me when I say that I'm one of those people who'd love to get an extra pound of flesh or two from Vick, and my implement of choice in removing it would be a pair of rusty vice-grips.
For the last two months, I have listened to some of the most inane arguments ever leveled in print, radio or television, and the one that crops up over and over again is as follows. Dante Stallworth, another player in the league, served a 30-day jail sentence and will serve a lengthy stint of probation as well as dropping a 2-5 million dollar settlement against the family of a man who, while Stallworth was high and legally drunk, struck and killed with his Bentley. Vick did 23 months in federal prison for dogfighting, animal cruelty, racketeering and conspiracy to commit felonies across state lines. How then, these people ask with perfectly straight faces, can one man do less than five weeks of league time in the pokey for causing a human death while the other kills dogs and is confined to a federal institution for 23 times as long?
The answer is distressingly simple, and the gall it takes to even pose the question in the first place speaks to a vast ignorance the likes of which I will never personally experience. What Stallworth did was a tragic accident. His actions resulted in the death of another human being, true, but he did not get into his car that night with the express purpose in mind of slaying somebody. The last time I checked, intent is the difference between accidental vehicular homicide (five years if the judge is feeling peckish) and premeditated first-degree murder (in Florida, you ride the lightning). That's intent, people. It's the difference between being a passenger in your buddy's car when the cop's dope-dog starts going nuts and being the driver of said vehicle. Intent makes all the difference in the world.
Stallworth did not intend to cause a death. Vick did.
In fact, Vick went quite a bit further. There are so many things associated with the gruesomeness wrought by Bad Newz Kennelz and the monsters running the joint that many of the details were reported once and never spoken of again. People seem to find the particulars of this case unpleasant; therefore, it's better to simply not talk about them. It's better and more palatable for most to talk about this case as the question of how much the life of an animal is worth against that of a human being, and by that simplistic assumption, it's a cut-and-dried case.
This case is something different. Maybe we don't like talking about the "rape stands," the devices that female dogs were tied onto in order to facilitate matings to produce more puppies, lashed into place so they had no choice but to submit. We definitely don't like talking about the metal bars and devices used to pry apart the jaws of dogs who had locked a death-grip on their opponents, or the fact that blood was sprayed nearly up to the ceiling in the fighting room with the subterranean pit. Ditto with the dead dogs buried on the property, or that dogs which didn't cut the mustard were simply killed outright, and not in allegedly humane ways like with the gas chamber. They were beaten against the ground, or electrocuted, for starters. Didn't I say something before about riding the lighting?
Oh, and we definitely don't like thinking about the concept of bait animals. It's just--
Bait animals? Yeah. See, this is where the arguments breaks down for me, the comparison these empty-headed clowns try to make between Vick and Stallworth being reduced to utter nonsense. This is where the story tales on a whole new horrifying angle, one that has never been brought up by any of Vick's so-called "defenders." The thing is, even a pit bull doesn't always want to get the motor running for a gladitorial match to the death. You have to get them psyched up for the event. Sometimes you do it by starving them. Sometimes you do it by beating them. And other times, you take a dog, cat or some other type of animal, you duct tape its jaws shut (or file down its teeth) so it can't fight back, and you throw it, alive, into the pit to be torn to shreds.
If you're Michael Vick, you do this despicable act with your own household pets. Now you see why the argument has become so simplistic. You can't defend this with a straight face if you know all the facts. When you get to the subject of bait animals, you have officially passed the event horizon.
Look over at your cat or dog right now and imagine them, terrified and doomed, being thrown to a rapacious monster who will eviscerate them alive without even a puncher's chance to fight back or at least get in one solid bite. See that person throwing them in the pit? Now, try to see that person as being one of your friends or co-workers. That's not enough.
To truly appreciate how vile this, you must visualize the monster doing this as yourself.
That's why Vick deserves a lifetime ban, and that's just for starters. What he did was not a mistake. It wasn't a tragic accident, done by a person under the influence who didn't have a straight head on their shoulders. It was deliberate. It was premeditated. It was carried our with cruel intent and callous disregard for life. It was some of the worst of human behavior, done in the name of a barbaric "blood sport" whose supporters should die a slow, cancerous death in a part of the world where morphine does not exist.
We have a word for acts like what Vick did.
That word is evil.
- Soundtrack:My Own Heartbeat
I know, I know. That's not being positive. That's hurtful. That's making a blanket statement about people who are all unique snowflakes, all of which are God's creatures and each brings something special to this world we live in. It's a close-minded statement.
I repeat: our neighbors across the street suck.
Allow me to don my Superiority Hat for a moment and explain the situation. I have already posted in the past about the general suckiness of our neighbors, and this is the third set that we have rubbed elbows with since buying our house. To be brutally frank, there has been virtually no difference in the first awful collective and the current terrible one. Neighbor Set Two was a nice woman who worked as a teacher, but was unfortunately forced to move all-too-soon due to cutbacks in the district she lived in making her unable to afford the rent. Trust me when I say that it was a sad day when she moved out, because she opened the door for the current mob we are forced to deal with.
This is being posted because as I arrived home at just before 9 AM, there was a full-bore yelling match going on in the front yard where the lady of the house (nattily attired in a sports bra and cut-off sweatshorts that were not even remotely up to the desperately-needed task of covering her woefully substandard body) was stomping off down the street while her man took off in her car. At least, I think it's her car. I don't know. Anyway, he took off in a squeal of tires, groaning of fan belts, clatter of gaskets and merry shouts of "BITCH!" while she walked two houses down, stood in somebody's front yard to yell about what an ass he was, and then went back inside the house across the street that I have christened The Crap Zone.
Now we start getting mean. You've been warned.
( Not Too Late To Turn Back, You Know... )
- Soundtrack:Blessed, Blessed Silence
The weekend was great.
The game... eh, not so much.
I should start off by stating for the record that we didn't really have any illusions about this game. The Colorado Rockies are currently the hottest team in baseball, and the A's... well, we love our A's. Even when they do the baseball equivalent of knocking us down a flight of stairs. In case anybody thinks I am shoveling dirt on my team, I am most assuredly not, but I also don't believe in gilding the lilly. There's a reason why going into last Saturday's game we were the third-worst team in the league, lording it over only the Cleveland Indians (Tom Berenger can't save these stiffs) and the Washington Nationals, who are so grotesquely inept that when they recently had Teddy Roosevelt Bobblehead Night (WTF?), they handed out a bunch of awful plastic statues that said ROSEVELT across the bases.
Also, this was not the first time they had terribly misspelled something in the public eye. I shit thee not.
Anyway, we knew that there was a good chance that we were going down in defeat, but we were okay with that. We even managed to get over the minor gaffe of leaving the sliced tri-tip for sandwiches at home; thankfully, my dad had put it in the fridge before we left so it was delicious when we got home. And boy, we needed those sandwiches to wash the taste of defeat out of our mouths.
The A's sent young Trevor Cahill to the mound and I would remiss if I didn't point out for the record that young Mr. Cahill is just that; young. As in, he recently celebrated being old enough to grab a beer after a game in a legal manner rather than having it slipped to him outside the back exit of a liquor store. Young, folks. The thing about young pitchers is that they have a hell of a lot of potential and can throw lights-out sometimes... but when things go wrong for the young bucks, it usually snowballs with amazing speed. The major league game is at least fifty pecent mental, and it takes time to develop the strength of will necessary to rise above such things as serving up a home run in each inning for four innings.
Once again, I shit thee not.
The Rockies are a hard-slugging team, so the dinger rapped smartly over the wall in the first inning was perhaps to be expected. The Oakland offense retreated to its typical prone position (once again, there's a reason we're in the cellar, folks) and after going meekly down before a Colorado pitcher with a 3-7 record and an earned run average somewhere between five and a half and "holy shit, what are you still doing in the rotation," the Rockies came back up again.
CRACK! Out went home run number two. This provoked a general muttering from the crowd, since now it was 3-0 Colorado and the A's have demonstrated as much ability to come back from early deficits of this type as Marcus the Backup Kitty does in resisting a fire hose. However, one never knows, until it gets grinded right in your face by once again having the A's batters go three and aout as though they were trying to patent the concept. This brought young Mr. Cahill back to his own personal Waterloo, aka the pitcher's mound.
I'm sure you can guess what happened next. At least, you'd better be able to. After all, I alluded to it four paragraphs ago.
The home crowd stopped muttering and began booing instead. I, however, had gone right for the throat last inning and began to yell such inspiring things as "Bullpen doormat!" There was also a "Fire Bob Geren" chant I attempted to lead (with as much success as Cahill had in keeping the ball in the yard), the "If I had paid full price for these seats, I'd riot!" blast, and after the next inning...
...aw, you know what happened the next inning, right? That's right. Another dinger, A's are now down 7-2 in the fourth inning, and I completely lost it for about as long as it took to scream:
"DAMN YOU TO HELL, TREVOR CAHILL!"
Whereupon I then sat down and buried my face in my hands.
Good thing those seats were only ten bucks each, right? For love of the game, folks. For love of the game.
- Soundtrack:Aerosmith - "Eat The Rich"
I was having a talk via Verizon text with a friend yesterday and after the usual catching up she told me that she was enjoying HBO's series Trueblood quite a bit. If you're not familiar with that franchise, it's based on a series of books by bestselling author Charlaine Harris, who works in the same urban fantasy genre as L.A. Banks, Tanya Huff, Jim Butcher, Rachel Caine, Kim Harrison and a host of others whose names escape me at this moment. She asked me if the books that Trueblood are based on were any good, and there followed a brief, uncomfortable texting silence where I debated whether to tell her...
"Ummmmm, well, there's better stuff you can read," I finally hedged.
Yes, that was a temporary cop-out. Hey, it was a text conversation; space is limited, even with a smart phone. Fortunately, I've got a bit more room here.
In case you're wondering who I do endorse from that list, it's Butcher and Caine. Unfortunately, they were the only ones I felt positively about, and it's not for a lack of trying their offerings. For whatever reason--
Ah, crap. Actually, that's not true. It's not "for whatever reason," it's for some very specific ones. Every genre of books has a set of built-in pitfalls that has the capacity to ruin even the best-laid plans, and while some of the more common ones will cross-pollinate, there is at least one unique trap that a well-meaning author can spring. Too much guts and gore (horror), talking too much about livestock and leather (westerns), plot twists that seem to come out of nowhere and make the reader wrinkle their brow (thriller), inherently unlikeable lead characters (romance) and so on. For the urban fantasy genre, it's the very supernatural element that can distastefully set it apart from other aisles of the bookstore... or, as I like to call it, "Attack Of The Kewl Powerz Band-Aid!"
( Warning: Meanness And Truth )
- Soundtrack:The Who - "Baba O'Reilly"
Should you wish to find me on Facebook, here I am:
http://www.facebook.com/jesselcairns
Add if you like.
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mermaidinparis and she gave me a pep talk by telling me that I was sure to get published soon because, after all, if a version of Jane Austen's boring-as-fuck polemic Pride And Prejudice combined with zombies could be dropped into the local bookstores--"Wait a second," I said aloud, before remembering she couldn't hear me. "Wait a goddamn second," I then gagged for my own benefit. "Okay, this has to be a joke. After all, she loves zombies as much as I do and this is probably her way of... oh no, oh my God..."
It is not a joke: Pride And Prejudice And Zombies really, really fucking exists. Reading the Wikipedia entry on the alleged plot of this book (and I had to make several attempts and two alcoholic drinks to successfully navigate the blocks of text that are now seared into my brain with carbolic acid) has now caused me to be aware of several things concerning this project that I desperately wish I could un-see... but as those cute lolcat kitten know all too well, what has been seen cannot be unsaw'd.
1) Not only does the book contain zombies, it also has ninjas.
2) It has reached as high as the number three slot on the New York Times bestseller list, further proof that looking to this publication as an indicator on what is good at stirring your literary cauldron is most likely a bad idea... or at the very least, lends a slimy air of legitimacy to this whole fuckfest that makes me want to take several boiling-hot baths, and...
3) Film rights for the novel have been purchased.
4) The book is essentially a printed version of the concept pioneered by Steve Oedekerk in Kung Pow: Enter The Fist, for all of you who remember how well that worked out for everybody involved. I believe I lost the ability to do long division. Roughly 85% of Austen's book is retained, with the project mastermind (you can break my fingers and I won't call him a writer) inserting his own bits to flesh out the story, as it were. So not only is this awful, he didn't even spend the time banging out the whole book himself.
You know, I thought it was a horrible literary idea when Stephenie Meyer announced she would be doing another story set in the Twilight-verse where the whole story of the first book was retold except this time from the vamp's perspective, but right now that bout of self-plagiarism looks like the Nobel Prize for Literature. This is the sort of crack-smoking dreck I expect from the really deranged members of National Novel Writing Month, and the fact that a whole bunch of critics have creamed in their collective jeans praising it makes me uneasily wonder if I have not in fact died and awakened in my own grotesque corner of Literary Hell. I'm thinking of a quote from Event Horizon...
"Do you see? Do you see? DO YOU SEE?"
Yes. Unfortunately, I see.
- Soundtrack:ZZ Top - "Sharp Dressed Man" (via "Cold Case")
Yes, you read that correctly.
Self-publishing is an amazingly freeing idea for unknown, unpublished authors that has unfortunately resulted in some truly head-shaking moments. There are times, certainly, when after running your soul through the woodchipper in the traditional outlets for a decade or so it becomes necessary to entertain the idea of thinking outside the box. There is always the very real possibility that you are correct and the industry is the one in error, rather than the distasteful idea that is more likely the reverse. After all, Robert M. Pirsig was shot down a mind-numbing 121 times for Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and that book went on sell over four million copies. When dealing with a subjective field, even the awful may have a place among the stars (and as stated in this blog many times, it has certainly been very unfortunately proven correct in Pirsig's case).
However, one of the unspoken benefits of dealing with the ivory tower of a publishing house is that generally they have every bit as much invested as you do in not allowing something truly horrible to slip the literary leash and run amuck at the local bookstore. For all of the typical whining by authors about how editors don't understand where they are coming from and how they are always trying to reel them back in from their personal Cloud Nine, without their guidance and occasionally forced intervention many writers would happily build their own tiger pit lined with punji sticks and dive in headfirst, all the while thinking they are being dreadfully clever and edgy. What seems like a great idea to the writer can come across to the average reader as... well, dumb.
( Serious Literary Beatings Happen Behind This Clicky )
- Soundtrack:Led Zeppelin - "Kashmir"
lesliemoniot for inspiring this.For the most part, my movie radar is pretty decent. I have of course seen many more horrible movies on DVD than I have in the theaters, many of these due to ill-advised Netflix surfing expeditions in the wee hours. For the record, having three glasses of wine and a Vicodin in your system is probably not the best way to go movie shopping, in case you ever wondered.
However, there have been a few times when my dish points due south and I end up shelling out upwards of ten dollars for the biggest wastes of film since my parents' wedding pictures... both editions of them. This is one of those disasters that I wish to dissect here.
( Now That The Knives Are Sharpened, Let's Dive In )
- Soundtrack:Metallica - "Mercyful Fate"
Specifically, I was in demand.
I know how fucking egotistical that sounds. Trust me, I know. However, it doesn't make it any less true. Whether it was the fact that minimal standards have now become the norm or because I am just naturally a flaming hot ball of tuna, I had a lot of things going for me. I wasn't an asshole (stop laughing), I had all my teeth, I had a job, I had a car and my own place and was not an idiot. Basically, I was what you are supposed to be, and this put me several cuts above most of the other man-boys I knew and associated with.
Yeah, that sounded pretty egotistical. By the same token, filler people suck. Sometimes, it is what it is.
I soon realized that while my bed was empty for now, it did not have to remain this way for long and there were some ladies who were wondering if applications were being submitted yet to be the next Mrs. Could-Be-Goat. Faced with this selective process and feeling good about possibly having some sex with a real person in the near future (remember, the EOF and I didn't have sex during the last nine months of our relationship), I decided to see what my options were. In a word, plenty. I also knew, in a rare moment of actual logic when concerning interpersonal relationships, that thinking with my cock was exactly what had landed me in such a poor position last time. Therefore, something new needed to be added to the recipe. No, not two chicks at the same time... I mean criteria.
I henceforth resolved that the next woman who got my affections would need to bring some things to the table herself. Specifically, there would be four categories she would need to measure up in.
1) She needed to have a job. Broke chicks are lame chicks. Period. I know how cruel and heartless that sounds, but I had just spent almost two years and nine months footing the bill, for the most part, and that gets old very fast. Two incomes can face the future better than one, and lack of a will to find a job speaks of a serious character flaw that you're better off not getting involved with. In a nutshell, that person may be a slacker, so don't even bother kicking them to the curb; just give them the Heisman Trophy pose, and move on.
2) She needed to have her own car. Bus dates suck. Always driving across town to pick somebody up sucks. This adds up very quickly, and it's amazing how many times people without jobs don't have vehicles either, isn't it?
3) She needed to have her own place or be very close to getting one. Meeting the roommates is all well and good, but it's something that loses a lot of charm on the other side of twenty-five. Not everybody can hack their own place, and that's understandable, but if you're completely cool with the idea of living with six other people and not having cameras placed around so you can be paid for it, you may looking at being an upper-class slacker.
Are we noticing a trend here, yet?
4) Finally, and very importantly, she needed to be able to buy herself a drink legally. Nineteen-year-old hardbodies are outstanding for sweating up the sheets with, but if I'm going to go into a certain section of the all-ages club, she needed to be able to follow me. I can't always be picking up the cocktails, and while it may be that age is only a number, it also bears mentioning that a larger number usually will bring a few more nuggets of wisdom to the table that a smaller one. Usually.
Everything else was negotiable. Instead of having a "basic type" and finding the closest example of such to try to squire into bed, I went out with these four bullet points alone. Hair color, smoker/non-smoker, drinker/non-drinker, religion, chosen profession, ethnicity... all that could be handled later. If she didn't fulfill the basic four food groups, she didn't get a second interview. When I tallied all these criteria up, I realized that I wasn't looking for a girl. I was seeking a woman. A confident, stand-on-her-own-two feet kind of gal who handled her own business and wouldn't allow me to bring her down. A person who didn't need me, but would accept me, if you can see that difference.
So I resolved not to date again until I found somebody who filled this criteria. One of my friends said that my standards were "too draconian." However, this woman eventually did come along. So you know what happened next?
I married her. Scoreboard.
Standards matter.- Soundtrack:Fleetwood Mac - "Don't Stop"
The concept of the movie Failure To Launch is a simple if increasingly more commonplace problem. Matthew McConnaughey is Tripp (awful name, by the way), a 35-year-old man who drives a Porsche, works as a boat salesman... and still lives at home with his parents. Played gamely by Kathy Bates and Terry Bradshaw, the parents smile on the surface and say all the right things when Tripp is in the room, but privately gnash their teeth and bewail the fates that have brought this problem upon them.
Myself, I paused the movie right away. "What the fuck is wrong with these people?" I asked of my wife. "Why don't they just change the locks and say, 'You've been a loser long enough, and it is now time for you to find some place else to have your shallow relationships with attractive women'? He's thirty-five goddamn years old. What the fucking fuck?"
( Grab That Shovel And Start Shoveling )
- Soundtrack:Joe Satriani - "One Big Rush"
As a brief side note, I have to mention that this happened quite a bit today, which leads me to wonder greatly (and darkly) about just how fit for living in our modern world many people are. If you make a habit of leaving this item at home, what the hell do you do when it comes time to pay your taxes? Just wondering.
Anyway, I made it up to the end of the line and decided to unwind a little bit by perusing the magazine rack at the store. The selection absymally sucked. Unlike the vapid portion of our population, I don't give a fart in a high wind about if Suri Cruise is having her style gaffled by other celebrity babies, and I equally don't care about what Cosmo says is the seven things in bed guaranteed to drive him wild. The book rack was also gone, so in sheer desperation, I started reading GQ's article about Seth Rogen... and walked out of there grinning ear to ear.
If you don't know who Seth Rogen is, I was in the same boat until two months ago. He had a hand in The 40-Year-Old Virgin (which I loathed), co-wrote Superbad (haven't seen it yet but I intend to) and was the doofus with a heart of gold lead in Knocked Up (which I thoroughly enjoyed). He's 26 years old, red-hot and slightly bewildered by it all. What had me laughing out loud was something he said about the early days of being in the writing business... so forgive me, Mr. Rogen, while I paraphrase what you said:
"It's just amazing. Those were some pretty dark times. I mean, I'm sitting around with my friends and we're writing and turning stuff out and we think it's pretty good. It seems like it's really funny. Then you get shot down, and later on you're sitting there saying, 'Okay, you don't think that I'm any good, but you think Entourage is really great stuff? Am I missing something here? It's enough to really make you doubt yourself."
Rogen violated a major rule of engagement there: while you may think that something that another person did is nothing more than raw sewage on toast, you are not supposed to call them out by name... especially if that product happens to be popular and the critics seem to enjoy what they do. If they're considered hacks then everything is fair game, which is why Stephen King gets lambasted all the time and nobody says boo about Tom Robbins, even though he is an absolutely horrible writer. Plus, I'm not too sure about Entourage. While many people seem to like it, they are usually also the same people who get a major boner in their sweatpants for The Sopranos and to be honest, I never got that one, either. In fact, I thought their slavish devotion to bad Italian accents and faux tough-guy rhetoric was a little sad. Then again, I also think we could have stopped making organized crime films and shows after Miller's Crossing, so I am a wee bit biased.
However, the thing I really enjoyed about what Rogen said was the fact that ,just like me, he'd had that moment of walking in on something absolutely horrible and saying, "You're kidding, right? Right? This is what they say you people want? Seriously? You want America's Top Dog rammed down your gullet with a cake decorator? You crave more Danielle Steele? I'm over here knocking myself out just to get a shot, and you're turning me down for this crap? That's like saying you don't want to date me, then going out with the president of the local Smelly Cats Of America chapter. What the fuck ever."
I am now a big Seth Rogan guy. Thanks to him, the rest of the day was good. Good thoughts.
- Soundtrack:Primus - "American Life"
I tried out for Jeopardy! when the "Brain Bus" rolled into Jackson Rancheria Indian Casino and Hotel on a day when I was out from work due to my knee feeling like hell. Since it was feeling moderately better in the afternoon, I went on up to try my luck because I have always said that I would gladly try out for the show (and go through it like shit through a goose, the unspoken subtext whispers), but I am unwilling to drive down to the cauldron of Hell commonly called Los Angeles for the opportunity. However, give me the opportunity to stand outside in line, on asphalt in the sun for three hours, and I'm there.
Yes, it was not exactly the most well-designed plan on either part; the producers fucked up by having us stand outside in line in the sun, and I fucked up by bombing miserably. Everybody got a ten-question test, which was allegedly the same one only on different-colored sheets of paper. Uh-huh. My nightmare had been that I would get horrible questions in categories I had no clue on, such as Accounting 101, Vice-Presidents Before 1840 and Beloved People From Denver (there aren't any, so don't bother Googling). As it turned out, I was enormously correct on this prediction for the last time that day. Mine included such gems as:
In 1962, Doctor A (don't remember the name) and Doctor B (ditto) shared the Novel Prize with a third doctor. Who was this third doctor?
The half-mile square country that includes Monte Carlo is called what?
The Roman Emperor (don't remember the name because I honestly don't give a tin shit) was famous for building columns; his successor was famous for building walls. What was his name?
This actor won an Emmy for roles he played on both The Practice and Boston Legal. Who is this actor?
Finally, I thought I had one. After all, there are only two actors I know of who have been on both shows, being William Shatner and James Spader, and Spader is light-years ahead of Shatner in terms of acting ability. I gleefully put down Spader... and was once again incorrect. I don't know what's more shameful; that I got it wrong, or that William Shatner actually has two Emmys. At one point, I glanced up at the girl watching me taking my test, smiled and said: "I'm doing my best to at least spell my incorrect answers correctly."
So I drove for an hour, stood in line for another three hours and flunked the test in less than five minutes. In virtually any flavor of scorecards, that counts as a colossal failure. However, my saving grace is that I didn't chicken out. I was very tempted to; at point I had to pep talk myself as I cruised along the winding road leading to the place where people usually just lose their life savings rather than their aura of invincibility, but I managed to stay the course and ride it out. I didn't hit the EJECT button, and because of that, my wife says I am a winner. One who flunked the test while everyone around him apparently passed, but at least I took that fastball to the dome and didn't jump out of the batter's box.
Oh, and I got my Cooperstown Collection Dennis Eckersley jersey from South Korea today.
Tonight, guitar and zombies. Forward!
- Soundtrack:Suspiria - "No Respect"
1) High gas prices
2) The hot as hell weather
Both of them bore me to tears and I've begun telling people out loud that with absolutely no trace of self-consciousness. Big surprise. #2 is the one that causes me to roll my eyes the most; when somebody begins talking about gee whizz, sure is hot out, I give them my best deadpan look and say (without a trace of perceptible sarcasm), "Odd that this time of year would bring high temperatures. I mean, what is it, July?"
I mean, honestly, folks. I realize that talking about the weather has been a staple of the conversationally challenged for centuries. When all else fails (sports, politics, entertainment, law, economics, oh hell's bells, you get the fucking point) I guess you can always fall back on the condition of the biosphere. However, acting like it's in any shape, manner or form a surprise or noteworthy that the temperature was 102 degrees in the Sacramento valley in the month of July makes you... well, it makes you appear a little thick, as the Brits would say.
- Soundtrack:Rush - "Fly By Night"
The third subject was a young woman who wished to be a musician and had found a kind of celebrity doing performances in the video game Second Life. Now, this is not meant to come off as an anti-SL screed, because Lord knows I have certainly spent enough time over the years pouring spent neurons into one franchise or another. Video games are fun. I am totally good with that. What I'm not good with was the fact that this woman who wanted to be a musician so badly found it virtually paralyzing to stand up at a local open mike night at a cafe and perform a song. If you wish to be a performer and find the very idea of performing to be a frightening one, you may have picked the wrong career path. While she was a big deal for the SL'ers, nobody in that cafe knew who the hell she was and consequently when she performed, she was treated like virtually every other open mike night warm body being tossed to the chattery masses. Essentially, she had built up a false sense of security that was ripped out from under her by that experience and left her reeling.
I am pleased to report that she was able to get over that initial experience, come back and kick ass. She was almost hyperventilating when it was all said and done, and I seriously doubt that any of her online concerts ever provoked a reaction as visceral as that one. So to Amy from San Francisco; good job, kid. One gig down, a thousand to go. Good luck to you.
This would have been little more than fodder for the compost heap if I hadn't had a revelation a few days ago which I felt compelled to share with my long-suffering and patiently-listening wife. I have finally figured out why it is that I loathe American Idol so much, and it has nothing to do with the fact that it is a dumb-as-a-box-of-rocks popularity contest that is overproduced, over-glammed, overhyped and shoved down the public's throat as if it were something IMPORTANT. Well... yeah, all that stuff figures in, too. However, it has nothing to do with my main reason for despising this show and others of its ilk, the newest candidate being one where a Broadway show is looking for the girl to play Elle in a stage production of Legally Blonde. I am just as hot for Reese Witherspoon as any other red-blooded American male, but really, a fucking stage play? Are you serious? Are you--
Whoops, sorry.
Anyway, the underlying reason behind my lip-wrinkling concerning this odious flavor of reality television hell is that it completely takes away the valuable, teeth-grinding process of paying one's dues. It does. Look, in order to get yourself onto the marquee at the local arena for a concert, there's a certain path you have to follow. You have to spend a long time slogging it out in various dives, clubs and shitholes that would normally make you run for cover. You have to network, to smile at sleazy promoters and endure stupid questions you've heard a million times from cub music reporters writing for poorly-produced local rags. You have to tour, with no frills and even less comfort, for a ghastly long period of time. You've got to live in shitty accomodations, having more people in a place than it was designed to hold, and brothers and sisters, that's the life.
If you want to make it in the music world, that's the path you take. I remember a college girlfriend putting on a cassette she had gotten at a club from an unknown artist and after listening to the scratchy, badly-recorded tape, I said, "That woman is awful damn good and I think she's going to be a big star." As it turned out, this plucky troubadour had been driving her van around from gig to gig for years, selling tapes and giving generously of her time to anybody who wanted to, because she knew it would be those same people that would carry the word of mouth that would eventually--maybe--get her to where she always wanted to be.
Jewel paid her dues. The Clay Aikens, the Fantasia Barones, the Carrie Underwoods? No. They won the popularity contest on television, and now they're going to get their shot. I give Taylor Hicks and the newest member of the club, David Cook, credit for actually having earned their stripes via years in the club and indie music scenes, but the majority of the people on these shows get some voice lessons, sing the church choir, live at home and then go to Holly wood.
I can't respect a shortcut to the finish line, folks. I just wonder what the seasoned Broadway pros are going to think of the next Elle Woods.
- Soundtrack:The Black Crowes - "My Morning Song"
Dear God, vacation is almost upon me. This week I went into "x days until I'm free" mode, which is a sure sign that I need some release from the normal routine... the other and darker sign being that I have regularly begun referring to just about any group as "those fucking people." It doesn't matter who. Polygamist cults. Students of any stripe. Politicians. Athletes. Republicans, Democrats and just about any other group of humans under the sun. Those fucking people need to mind their own business--
Sorry, where was I? Oh yes, vacation. Yes, it's definitely time for a break. Without getting into any kind of details about the home situation, my wife and I need some time away from our house. We really, really need some. If we weren't getting out of town for the week, it's very possible that the end of our vacation could be used as a shooting script for an episode of CSI, and not one of those funny ones like we got last night.
Getting closer.
Can't get here soon enough.
- Soundtrack:The White Stripes - "Seven Nation Army"
nanci_raygun's request to hear my screed on fanfic, Internet lulz and a bizarre, fucked-up horse trough of insanity known as Nicky The Goth. This isn't meant to offend any of the f-listers who do fanfic, as you know how I feel about your efforts. This is meant for the general pool at large. Charge!When it comes to fanfic, I am of two minds. First, as I have stated in the past, this was the arena that I got my start in. For every writer out there getting published and making lives brighter throughout the world, there was a moment when they were inspired to pick up whatever tool they use and start writing. Usually, this was a book, movie or whatever that really rang their bell and as a result, they most likely produced at least a few stories set down in that 'verse as a form of starting to pay their literary dues.
That's fine. In fact, that's better than fine. The old saying goes that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and as the original author, if you come up with something that stokes somebody's furnace so hard that they voluntarily want to spend a large part of the rest of their lives sequestered away from humanity with a laptop, you may have just written a winner. Buy yourself a beer and toast your own coolness.
- Soundtrack:The Bangles - "In Your Room"
- Soundtrack:Elvis Hitler - "Crush Your Skull"
Popular culture is so anti-minivan today that driving one is so counter-culture, so in the face of popular biases, so keeping-it-real, that it's almost punk rock. In a utilitarian way, anyway.
Um, no. It isn't.
Reality check time in the old corral, kids. The minivan is not, has never been, and never will be cool. Period. There is quite a movement underfoot these days to try to convince us that really, this laughed-at and put-down six-cylinder suburban transport vehicle is actually a great thing to have, and that people who scorn these contraptions simply "don't get it." Actually, we do. We get it, all right. Minivans are fucking lame.
At first, the minivan was seen to be a terrible choice of vehicles by its association with the dreaded Soccer Mom, the dumb suburban bitch who helped put Bush in the White House (twice) because "he seems like a regular person." As a quick aside, it should be pointed out that a "regular person" is the absolute last person you'd ever want to have holding the job title of Leader Of The Free World. I know regular people; hell, I'm a regular person. You know what I would do if I were the President of the United States? I'd hook up all my friends with high-paying jobs involving doing no work that they are qualified for, spend as little time as possible in the office and be vague and evasive when asked what my glorious plan for the future is. You know, just like this jackass.
But I digress, as usual.
The minivan is a crappy vehicle because of the main elements that makes every bad vehicle laugh-worthy. Aesthetic-wise, it's absolutely terrible. At least a standard van has a sort of boxy charm, not unlike that of a Volvo, that can't be denied. It's nice if you liked The A-Team, awesome if you're a budding serial killer and gets a thumbs-up from contractors who work in rainy climates. Plus, if you were really industrious, you could outfit your van as a kind of rolling No-Tell Motel, which my wife did back in her teenage years, much to her frequent delight. You can't do this with a minivan. In fact, the only thing you can do with a minivan is cart around obscene amounts of children that you and your baby-drunk spouse have unleashed on the world and go buy equally horrific amount of groceries to feed your awesomely terrifying brood. If you don't believe me, look at the comments left at the end of this product review and ask yourself if this doesn't seem like a Uterus Wagoneer testimonial ad nauseum.
Okay, next point. People have this wacky idea that having one of these symbolizes that any cool factor you once possessed has now been torn away, along with your manhood/hot chick status, and guess what? It's so true, it should be bronzed. It's really not so much the vehicle as it is the class of people being scorned, because in the 1970's the station wagon was the Devil incarnate, and in the 1980's it was the minivan, and in the 90's it's been the SUV. However, guilt by association is still guilt. As a result, there are really only two types of minivan drivers:
1) People who drive so carefully and slowly, due to the astounding amounts of over-caffeinated and under-educated children bouncing around inside that they make bluehair grannies in their Lincoln Town Cars scream "Get out of the way, you pussy!" out their power windows, and...
2) The guy who in his early 20's had the barbed wire tattoos, Limp Bizkit CD's and now, due to his never-ending quest to get laid, today finds himself in his early 30's with a receding hairline, pot belly, a hefty mortgage, three kids and a once-hot now-frumpy wife yet desperately clings to the inner image he once had of himself as a badass. Consequently, this douchebag is the biggest menace on the road as he tries to prove to the general public that no, his manhood is still intact.
The thing is, it's not, brother. It's not. You're a minivan driver, and therefore, you are a dweeb. Suck it up and face reality because really, there's nothing more pathetic than trying to hold onto an iota of cool that gave up the ghost years ago.
Oh, and last of all, I love this quote:
People rightfully rave about the cargo-carrying flexibility of wagons, hatchbacks, crossovers, SUVs, and even oddballs like the Honda Element and PT Cruiser, but all of those pale in comparison with the humble minivan.
Um, no. My Dodge Ram 1500 quad cab will bury your Kid Wagon every time, pal. Can you say "half a ton carrying capacity and 6,000 pound towing ability?" If you're talking about carrying capacity with one of those yutz vehicles, get even a small pickup and watch how fast your friends start to beg, "Can you help me move?"
Minivans. Even the very word makes my tongue squirm. Long live the sedan and pickup.
- Soundtrack:Dexter Freebish - "Leaving Town"
To that put that into some kind of perspective, consider this. At an average of eight bucks a ticket, to allow for matinee prices and discrepancies between various movie chains, this means that four million, six hundred and twenty-five thousand people voluntarily went and saw the biggest wastes of film since my parents' wedding photos. Unfortunately, we don't have a law on the books stating that anybody who could be proven to have seen either of these movies in the theater would thereby surrender their voting rights in perpetuity... but it's nice to dream.
Now, what was it that P.T. Barnum said about the abnormally high rate of reproduction concerning suckers?
- Soundtrack:Van Halen - "Panama"
Bear in mind, my devoted peeps, that until this happened I was a huge Roger Clemens guy. He was hard-nosed, unafraid to take a stance, fearless and didn't back down from anything. Crowding the plate or trying to show up The Rocket on the baseball diamond invariably had a terribly painful ending, and woe be to he to decided he was going to try to get over on Clemens.
Then comes the allegations of steroid use and human growth hormone use during his amazing career, and... nothing public from the man? What? From Clemens? It takes a month before he gets before a camera to say, "No." What? The same guy who had a war going on with catcher Mike Piazza and actually threw part of a broken bat at him, during the World Series, no less? You gotta be kidding me, Virginia; there's no way that Roger Clemens would have less of a public stance on somebody throwing pig shit on his legacy than I would.
Well, unless he did it, of course.
See, being called a cheater in baseball is about as bad as you can get in that sport. In my arena, that of the written word, the worst thing you can be called is a plagiarist... and if that gets proven, you are as dead as last year's playoff hopes, my friends. To the best of my knowledge, the only time somebody has done this and gotten away with it to continue their career is Janet Dailey, who repeatedly plagiarized from Nora Roberts until she was finally caught. For the record, I give Roberts major self-control points for not breaking Ms. Dailey's fingers with a bat. I'm not so sure I could resist. People, that's about as bad as it gets.
Your reputation is everything. I put Jim Butcher over like a madman because the guy is amazingly good and compulsively readable. I recommend him to everyone based on those qualities, the same way you shove the books by your own favorite authors into the faces of others.
So Clemens takes a month before going public after being called the worst thing in baseball you can... because it's probably true. As a counter-example, here is the prepared statement I would read at my own press conference if somebody accused me of being the literary equivalent of a cheater, the dreaded plagiarius nospinus:
- Soundtrack:Slayer - "Killing Fields"
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