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Lonely TV Noises

When my family's out of town (this time for eight days), my viewing habits change a little; often, I keep the noise going just for noise (so the music channels are on a lot), but mostly I watch things that I can't watch (either because of their content or because I get interrupted a lot) when the kids are around - or I just background stuff I've seen while I work on other things. I also compulsively watch infomercials which lie about products. Here's the list from this time around;

Doctor Who: The End of Time I & II (2009 - 2010) The 10th Doctor's last story - intro to the 11th.

Doctor Who: The Armageddon Factor (1979) A 4th Doctor and Romana story in six parts, and the end of the Key of Time thing which took a whole season, apparently.

Red 2 (2013) Seen at the theater with Mer & San on a rainy night that couldn't make up its mind and wasn't disappointed, though that's mostly due to my total lack of expectations going in.

Snatch (2000) Watched it the night before Dennis Farina died after having not seen it for some time; a movie I can't watch when my kids are around, and still the best movie representation of a near-knockout punch I've ever seen. Also, killer soundtrack. I know I'll catch hell for this, but I like it a lot more than Lock, Stock.

Wag The Dog (1997) I really wish this movie had a 3rd act.

Red (2010) The first and best, still a satisfying watch; will never be as good as the comic, but it doesn't try to do the same thing, anyway. Best parts are still Victoria & Ivan.

The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951) Like I need a reason to watch the best science fiction / anti-war / anti-racism / Christian allegory movie ever made. Boom.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009) Panders excellently well to fans of the comic books and the cartoon. I will never see the sequel, as I like this one and can be done with this re-hash of childhood now. This is what I watch for no-thought movies.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003) Yeah. I still don't think this is a bad movie, but it flops in the middle, and is profoundly ridiculous.

The Replacement Killers (1998) Hundreds of bullets, pretty camera angles and Mira Sorvino's smile can make you not miss John Woo. Much. Movie's also a lot louder than I remembered. I could also be getting old, I suppose - but my viewing choices don't really bear that out.

George Carlin: What Am I Doing In New Jersey? (1988) Realized that I pretty much have this memorized.

Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (1985) Have a hazy recollection of having seen this when it was in the theaters, ca. 1985 or 1986. It's terrible. Much of the cast was pretty unexpected. I really can't say anything positive about it other than Joel Grey's make-up. They make him look like an old Korean who teaches a non-existent martial art.

Karate-Robo Zaborgar (2011) Because the Netflix description said, "Superhero Damian, who rides a robotic motorcycle that knows karate, is called upon to battle the syndicate Sigma, led by the evil Dr. Akunomiya." And I thought, "Hell, yes." It is a remake of a 1970s Japanese TV show, as it turns out, and is totally bizarre and hilarious.

Doctor Who: The Movie (1996) Acquired through eBay because I couldn't find it anywhere else either intact or as cheaply. You watch this because you are compelled by the fact that you've seen ten other Doctors but not this one, who only exists here. It becomes painfully clear why this did not work as a pilot and then took until 2005 to get the reboot going.

Alias: Facade (2004) My all-time favorite episode of this show (and it's a Jack Bender) - it's got everything that I liked about the show and very little that I didn't like AND it's got Ricky Gervais playing a mad bomber. Best Jack Bristow moment since he did Morse Code by blinking.

48 Hours (1982) Because I'd never seen it, and I'm a golden era Eddie Murphy fan. It's way more sexist and racist than I'd realized. I mean, it's not like 80s action comedies are known for their sensitivity or anything, but this one seems to go the extra mile in terms of making Nick Nolte into a brute and reducing most of the characters to stock. Or maybe this is where those characters were born. 

The Cabin in the Woods (2012) Because everyone said that there was a lot more going on with this movie than what was immediately apparent. If they meant what was apparent from the poster, then that's true, but the "extras" are pretty much given away in the first 10 minutes, and after that, it's a waiting game just like every other slasher flick. It is, one assumes, an incisive and cutting analysis/satire of slasher films, a genre which does not, perhaps, deserve this level of consideration. I can't recommend this - it was smart, but ultimately pointless.

New Girl: Normal (2012) Because it's the one with "True American" in it. Repeated viewings do not clarify the rules of this game. Took the edge off the previous entry.

Justice League Unlimited: Dark Heart (2004) Written by Warren Ellis, has some really entertaining dialogue in it, and the "villain" is based on the theories of mathematician John Von Neumann. Awesome Batman, Atom, and Wonder Woman moments. We fanboys feel sorry for you people who need to see an actual guy dressed as Batman to watch stuff with Batman in it.

Hellboy: Director's Cut (2004) Consistently makes my top 10 comic book movies, if for no other reason than how true it is to the source material. There's also the make-up, Abe, Selma Blair as Liz, John Hurt, surgical addiction, talking dead Russians and Mr. Del Toro.

Eddie Izzard: Live from Wembley (2009) Because I'd never seen this one.

The Grifters (1990) Sucker for young John Cusack in the movies, plus Anjelica Huston and naked Annette Bening. Like a film noir with redemption allegories. It even has an Elmer Bernstein score. Of course, I have never watched a noir and felt really good about humanity after; you always kind of want to throw lit cigarettes at people and wonder aloud, "...what's the fuckin' point?!?" This movie is no exception.

Grosse Pointe Blank (1996) That last one made me watch this one. This one's about a hitman, and is somehow more life-affirming.

Three Kings (1999) Possibly my favorite war movie. You know, of the war movies that are actually about war. There are the added benefits of Ice Cube saying, in all seriousness, "I have a ring of Jesus fire that guides my decisions," and the camera work and lectures about sepsis and collapsed lung. All of this makes the terribleness of the horrors of war still live at home in an entertaining movie.

Russia Is Stupid

Um, before I actually get into the topic the title implies I'll be covering, I'd like to say that Pussy Riot, what they're trying to do, their music (which I have to go look up lyric translations for), what they're enduring right now, in terms of being separated from their families and freedom, and the whole DIY, illegal performances, "music as non-commodity" vibe that they put into their tunes, image, videos and everything they do is inspiring, and warms pieces of my heart that typically go unwarmed. Now watch the new video if you haven't already. It is decidedly unstupid.

A portion of the band is still in jail, you know - there was another parole denial today. She's already done something like a year and change for protesting for under a minute; if you were old enough to be missing the free speech suppression of the old "Evil Empire" red days of the Cold War era - Putin's here for you. His government is going to sock people in jail and just leave 'em there if the speak out publicly against religion, trade, patriarchy or you know, suppression. This, of course, is the first point of Russian stupidity being addressed: How many of you would even know about Pussy Riot if they'd never been arrested and tried? I'm not encouraging the old school method of simply disappearing folks from the planet, but ignoring them probably might have worked? This method has a huge flaw that I've noticed, anyway.

But the Russian government won't do that because it's stupid - next case: "Gay." Russia has an abysmal GLBT rights record; failing to take any kind of cue from the parts of Europe that are becoming more institutionally accepting, they've chosen over the last several years to go the other way entirely - wishing that they didn't have gay people in Russia anymore and refusing to let people talk about the ones that they do have. If you're a gay Russian, you can't have a pride parade (in Moscow) for 100 years, you can't serve in the military or give blood, and finally, you can't say what you are. No saying "gay." Also, they'll mask up and beat the shit out of you if you protest. Or, as in the above example, toss your ass in jail. You know, for spreading your gay propaganda.

(I was going to post links to more articles from Pravda about some of this stuff, but their website is troublesome, and also a great example of this "propaganda" stuff you hear so much about from gay people. Have a look. Actually, the more I looked, the more I became totally confused. *slaps forehead* I shoulda had Izvestia!)

Finally, the main reason Russia's stupid (we've been alluding to him all along) is President Forever Vlad Putin, Jr. Junior's the man who had the moment with Dubya Monkeyface where they looked into one another's eyes and made a connection, which is so not gay. Other stuff that Putin does that proves he's a big masculine Russian bear includes finding unburied treasure, shirtlessly camping and fishing for camera crews, flying jets and drugging wildlife, riding motorbikes, racecars and submarines and having comic books about him. None of this, of course, is remotely staged or in aid of his image, and there are people on hand to assure anyone who wonders about this that all of his acts "are completely normal thing(s) to do."

Sure, Junior. Go ahead and have your fun. Stupid bastard.

Kirk Cameron: Modern Martyr

Kirk Cameron's all mixed up again.

In the above video, in which he's promoting a movie or something, he claims to be a "recovering atheist." Saying that not believing what he does is like alcoholism or cancer - which is, of course, something else he believes. Atheists are all diseased people. He goes on to say that in order to be a "good atheist," (which he wasn't, or he wouldn't be in recovery) every atheist has to believe two things:

Let me stop you right there, Kirk. No. There is nothing an atheist has to believe, do or say. It's not a club, it's not a group, we don't have ID cards or hats or congregations. (There are probably conventions, but I'd rather not know about them.) There's no test of atheist membership; no atheist baptisms or christenings or confirmations or circumcisions or pilgrimages or pledges or prayers. It's kind of a nothing-seeming arrangement if you're looking at it from the outside, because for the most part, there's nothing to do.

Anyway, his two things: Atheists must believe there is no god. This is patently false, and is often understood in this way by people who have used their faith so much they forget how to reason. I have always thought that faith is like a hammer. A blunt tool that works great on one, maybe two things, but when you start trying to apply it to precise and elegant tasks, it breaks everything and you have to start over. Kirk has made the classic believer's error of mistaking non-belief in a god for belief there is no god. Take your time. That's a fine distinction that can't be parsed with a hammer, or in a minute and half YouTube video, and if I weren't feeling charitable today, I'd suspect he made it on purpose.

In the Book of Kirk, atheists also have to hate God. Since this is ridiculous to the point of unintelligibility, I'm going to assume for a moment that Kirk did this deliberately as a rhetorical device instead of wading into the dual impossibilities of hating something that doesn't exist while substituting an emotion for an actual belief. What I think happens here is transference; since people hate what comes out of Kirk's noise hole and would like him to shut up, he assumes they hate God, because that's easier for him to do. He goes on to assert that atheists hate God's moral standard. This is Classical Christian Condescension, because it tacitly asserts that the only proper moral standard comes from Christians, and everyone else is immoral. If that's the case, though, and Kirk's the embodiment thereof? Then he and I can agree on this - I am not enjoying this moral standard, such as it is.

The other place we find agreement is where he says that atheists hate how God (he means people like himself) are "transforming the world." He's right again - I hate the dumbing down effect conversations like this have on everyone, I hate the false martyrdom, and I hate the fact that a liar and "celebrity" like Cameron can promote his movie with an attack on a group of people and not have it called hate speech.

See what I did there? I agreed with Kirk Cameron. Twice. It's a special day.

Recycled Clothing Bins

You may have seen these.

They lurk in vast expanses of parking lot, that solidly paved hell unique to suburbia. This one sits roughly equidistant from a grocery store, two banks, a giant liquor store, a gas station, a Waffle House and a McDonald's.

They seem to be filled with clothing and shoes and coats and things no one wants anymore, freely donated by citizens and destined to be placed upon the backs (and feet) of the needy, while simultaneously funding non-profit organizations that help society like MADD, in this case. That's what they SEEM to be filled with, but in fact, they are filled with LIES!

The firm that runs these, American Textile Recycling Services (whose Tennessee Facebook page manages to fuck up the name of the state) is a FOR PROFIT firm that cleans out the bins, sells the stuff inside to secondhand clothing stores at a profit, and then sends a check for a small (though previously-agreed-upon and certainly not non-existent) percentage to their "community partners," otherwise known as the firm(s) without whose logo(s) you'd never have donated your old stuff in the first place. You'd have schlepped it to Goodwill or one of the religious guys.

So - drop your stuff in here, and a very small amount of it goes back to MADD. Most of it goes in the pockets of ATRS. Additionally, you take it out of the hands of people who actually are non-profits and run stuff like this. The problem has surfaced in Arizona and New Hampshire and here in Tennessee, and the only press otherwise I can find is self-generated or in the form of arguments about whether or not they're skimming and scamming. And then there's this person, who made it to the party WAY before I did.

So - short version: Don't put stuff in here unless it's nasty letters about inappropriate profit-making. If you have old stuff, consign it or hand it down, or take it to Goodwill, or a homeless shelter, or whatever. People need your old stuff. But not these people.

Thanks to Laura Dial (who never uses her Facebook page) for the heads-up on this.

Summer School

Going to school over the summer sucks.

I realized a couple of semesters ago that things weren't moving fast enough to suit me, and that, while looking at the requirements for graduation, I would be in school basically until the end of time itself. Or until I was 40, which felt like the same thing. So I switched advisors to someone who actually gave me advice, and we drew up a plan for getting me the fuck out of Dodge. Well, she drew up a plan. I just agreed that it was a good plan and went along with it.

(I feel like I've been over this material before. Sorry if that's true; I've been away for a while, bear with me.)

The plan involved a lot of stuff, the most recently significant of which was me going to school all summer. Man, it's been great! I mean, no, wait - I already gave that one away. I started in with what the school calls "Maymester" and what rational people would call "a travesty of education." I took two classes for six hours a day for three weeks and got 6 credits. These were Nazis and Victims (with a very depressed and angry woman who was afraid of technology, fun, and loud noises and who assigned us, no lie, something like 700 pages of reading every week, then demanded a five page paper in Arial Black at the end) and Ethics (which was awesome and I had to give a presentation on pornography. If you are female and a FB friend of mine, it's possible you know this already, as I solicited the input of a few of you). This led to weeks of people being confused around me:

PERSON: What are you taking again?

ME: Nazis and Victims and Ethics.

PERSON: What the hell class is that?

At some point in there, I lost my mind a little, and would sit in the lobby of the James Union Building in the break between classes and hand out crap advice and directions. The staff had left a lot of official-looking tables and stuff sitting around, and I would just go and set up my computer. People would wander in looking for the Scholarship Office (literally about 10 yards from my location) or other campus stuff, and I would mess with them if they weren't to my liking. Occasionally, I would hand out really helpful advice, but a lot of it contained references to non-existent swimming pools, vikings, and guys named Arthur. I did give out candy and nickels one day, so I like to think that makes up for it.

After this was the five week period (for another 4 credits) where I was taking gen-ed Astronomy (with a lab I liked a lot better than the class itself - I got to use the observatory and looked at something 27 million light years away) and Asian Thought, which is a great class with a shit name. In Astronomy I learned that I don't know as much about the universe as I thought, and that I don't like most of the people I meet. I guess that's only really learning one thing. 

Asian Thought was an experience of a different color & flavor, though; It was hard and easy and forced open jars in which I keep all kinds of more or less random things. I had to keep a journal for it, which you can read here, if you're so inclined (and you're not one of the people I let read it early). We went to a sort of ashram (a giant concrete dome with gardens all around) and did a guided kriya with a recording of a guru. I may sound flip here (because I can't help it, presumably), but I really very much enjoyed (and felt I got a lot out of) that class.

Now, I'm just starting five weeks of American Political Thought, and except for all the damn Puritians at the beginning, I'm back where I belong. I have an English class to CLEP before the Fall, and if I can get off my ass, a math class, too. So if you wonder what I'm doing in the forseeable future, I just told you. I'm trying to make a 16 credit summer happen over here.

But I hope to blog some more, too.

Racist Vodka

It's entirely possible that I'm overreacting (or at bare minimum, engaging in non-productive overanalysis of a booze advert), and it's also very possible that this doesn't matter in a world which has blatantly racist applications of shit like Stand Your Ground laws, but I think that a vodka ad populated by mostly African-Americans (the white folks herein are extremely token) and which touts GRAPE as the infusion flavor might just as well throw some chicken and watermelon on the table at the party.

This seems so obvious to me; I picture an ad exec straining the buttons of a three-piece and belching forth from a cloud of toxic stogie fog while flattening a pair of wingtips and exclaiming, "They like grape drinks, yeah? Let's put it in the booze, see if we can get 'em to drink more of that!" "Jesus, don't you think they'll notice?" Some other person who's not been paying attention to Americans for 30 years might say, and we'll call him Harv would respond with; "Ah, stick 'em in some artwork - that's classy as fuck!" "That's why you make the big bucks, Harv," they'd all then say while humping gold bricks.

Could be just me, though. Overreacting.