Wednesday, December 31, 2008

THOUGHTS ON THE ILIAD AND OTHER THINGS

Virginia Ledoyen was once described as "ridiculously beautiful," and Diane Kruger could not be described so, which I think is a requirement to be Helen of Troy.

On the other hand the ancient Greeks were a highly gay people, so it’s possibled that Helen was a simply fabulous drag queen. Six foot two, mustache, adams apple, and a clownishly made-up face that launched a thousand ships.

It always seems like whenever we try to talk about the good points of Nazism, somebody always has to bring up the Holocaust.

I hate Ted Haggard, and his shitty song Okie From Muskogee, and it figures he’s a meth head

Kate Winslet plays a concentration camp guard trading sex for reading lessons from a 15 year old boy. I could make that movie perfect wih those ingredients.

I was the most interesting and successful person at my high school reunion. I envy my classmates who had the opportunity to interact with me.

Happy New Year!

Saturday, December 27, 2008

HOLIDAY MOVIE OBSERVATIONS

Chasing someone out of the house with a scythe is a sure way to cure agoraphobia.

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Friday, December 19, 2008

More wisdom from the crazy bastard who does the signs on the 45th Street Chevron.

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Snowman coming soon...

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

BUSH LOOKS BACK

Turning to domestic matters, on the Supreme Court, the president expressed happiness with his picks of John Roberts and Samuel Alito. “My regret is I didn’t get to name a third judge,” [Bush] told us.

Translation: "I wish John Paul Stevens had died."

Thursday, December 04, 2008

AND A MOTHER FIGHTS.... TO SAVE THE LIFE OF HER OWN CHILD

Tonight on ER. Seriously, this show is still on?

Wednesday, December 03, 2008

"TEAM OF RIVALS"

Now Bill Richardson is rumored as Obama's Secretary of Commerce. John Edwards the only Democratic primary contender left without a job in the administrative branch. I'm trying to think if this sort of thing is unprecedented.

Friday, November 28, 2008

Permanent wave machine

Thursday, November 27, 2008

ACTUAL GOVERNEMENT ORDER

“An Administrative Review Board has reviewed the information about you that was talked about at the meeting on 02 December 2005 and the deciding official in the United States has made a decision about what will happen to you. You will be sent to the country of Afghanistan. Your departure will occur as soon as possible.”

"[T]he information that was talked about the meeting" doesn't even sound like legal language, It sounds like something I would say in traffic court. I wonder if Bush wrote it himself.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Tranny hookers?! Sign me up!

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Hope even finds its way into public restrooms.

Tuesday, November 04, 2008

FUCK BRIAN WILLIAMS!

FUCK BRIAN WILLIAMS!

I bet Savannah Guthrie likes

I bet Savannah Guthrie likes to rock the party. I sure wish I were in Phoenix tonight.

Just to be clear, I

Just to be clear, I Called the election for Obama like ten minutes ago before it became obvious.

As I write this, Obama

As I write this, Obama has 200 electoral votes. When you considr that the entire west coast is in the tank, then that's it. I'm calling it. Obama

DEMOCRACY!

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Sunday, October 12, 2008

What I did after Yonder.

Saturday, October 11, 2008

And that's a wrap!

And that's a wrap!

Big time producer Dave Miller spends his final night of Yonder production engaged in what we'll charitably call prop management.

Friday, October 10, 2008

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

MARCH OF THE PENGUINS



In this video, mankind launches a valiant rescue effort, and hundreds of penguins march hilariously into the sea.

Sunday, October 05, 2008

Saturday, October 04, 2008

More from the dream factory.

Monday, September 29, 2008

SNOW ON MARS


I don't know why this story made me tear up a little. Probably because I'm tired. But still, snow on Mars, that never touches the ground...

A laser instrument designed to gather knowledge of how the atmosphere and surface interact on Mars has detected snow from clouds about 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) above the spacecraft's landing site. Data show the snow vaporizing before reaching the ground.

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Making a movie is like fighting a land war in Asia.

Today I am wrangling ants

Today I am wrangling ants for a major motion picture.

Friday, September 26, 2008

Thursday, September 18, 2008



For a music nerd, I discovered the 1968 Rolling Stones masterpiece Beggar's Banquet far too late -- like a few months ago. This song, No Expectations, is a beautiful wail of exhaustion and resignation.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

RICHARD WRIGHT 1943-2008


And I am not frightened of dying. Any time will do; I don't mind. Why should I be frightened of dying? There's no reason for it—you've gotta go sometime.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

LET US NEVER FORGET LET US ALWAYS REMEMBER

I almost let the anniversary of the Iraqis bombing Pearl Harbor go by without some commemoration. Let's link to this classic post of two men too in love with Al Quaeda's power.

My favorite quote unsurprisingly comes from me at my most articulate:
Fuck, this shit is crazy.
Hard to believe this is the same iconoclast who once wrote so eloquently about french-kissing George Bush.

Saturday, September 06, 2008

Is there any reason to

Is there any reason to hold off on the nuclear option?

Sunday, August 31, 2008

Monday, August 25, 2008

Saturday, August 23, 2008

SO I WAS RIGHT AGAIN

Biden it is.

I hope McCain picks Mitt Romney for his VP, so they can continue the house debate, with two homes versus 17 or whatever.

Friday, August 22, 2008

MY VP PREDICTION


Okay, I've a new one. I've become really excited by the possibly of... Hilary Clinton! It would be exciting. It seems like all of Obama's options are unexciting, and Clinton sure would keep things exciting. And this race needs more excitement!

Thursday, August 21, 2008

MY VP PREDICTION


Guiliani. Our country needs unity, and a transvestite ex-mayor. Do it, Obama.

Saturday, August 16, 2008

THIS HAS BLOWN MY FRAGILE LITTLE MIND

Imagine a form of life so unusual that we cannot figure out how it dies. That’s exactly what researchers are finding beneath the floor of the sea off Peru. The microbes being studied there — single-celled organisms called Archaea — live in time frames that can perhaps best be described as geological. Consider: A bacterium like Escherichia Coli divides and reproduces every twenty minutes or so. But the microbes in the so-called Peruvian Margin take hundreds or thousands of years to divide.
I don't appreciate it when bloggers I like make fun of John McCain for being a fan of ABBA. I like ABBA. They're great. I think the world would be a better place if McCain used "Take a Chance on Me" as his campaign song.




Check out the hilarious showmanship in that video. They really don't look like they know how to perform live, in their awkward attempts to work the crowd. I love the silver -- is it mesh -- that Benny and Bjorn are wearing, and it's pretty cool just how sweaty Frieda -- and yes, I had to google which one was Frieda, but my hunch was right.

I liked this comment from something called "Movie Guy" at Matt Yglesias' blog (this part of it, at least): "It was [in Florida] that he met his next wife, Cindy, while still married to Carol. Of course, he remembers this song well as it happened in 1976, the year that Abba released Dancing Queen." The rest of his comment is dickery, but he understands why people like music.

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

See more funny videos at Funny or Die


This is amusing. If Paris Helton started making massive ad buys, I'd start tp respect her.

Monday, August 04, 2008

Thursday, July 31, 2008

BARACK HITLER OBAMA

I laughed out loud at this line from Ross Douthet:
Here's a tip for liberals: If your candidate is going to stage enormous rallies in front of tens of thousands of chanting Germans (with monuments to Prussian military might in the background) in the middle of his Presidential campaign, it isn't the GOP's fault if the footage comes out looking a little like Hitler at Nuremberg.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

A CYNICAL CRACK ABOUT THE LAST LECTURE



I haven't watched the video, because it is so very long, but today my boss gushed about this line: "'We have these ideas, we have a couple of ideas. This idea here is very safe. This idea here is risky.' He said, 'Go for the risk. It's better to fail spectacularly then to pass along and do something which is mediocre.'"

I replied, "that's a pretty ironic statement from a man who made his living as a college professor."

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Not that you can tell from thiss picture, but seeing an elephant in the morning is considered good luck in some cultures.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

WHERE CAN I GET ONE OF THESE $500,000,000 BILLS?



Not one of these, obviously. One of the new ones. It'd sure be nice to be a billionaire.

Friday, July 18, 2008

I'm at The Dark Knight

I'm at The Dark Knight waiting for the 8:15 screening to start. Sixty years of superhero movies reach their culmination tonight!

Thursday, July 17, 2008

What does this mean?

Monday, July 14, 2008

Tuesday, July 08, 2008

MY NEXT FILM WILL LAST 200 YEARS



More than 1,000 music-lovers showed up on Saturday, July 5, in a German town to hear a change of note in the longest-running and slowest piece of music ever composed. Eccentric US composer John Cage (1912-1992) planned his composition to last 639 years, meaning more than a dozen generations of musicians will be needed to play it on an automatic, as-yet unfinished organ at Halberstadt, Germany.

Entitled ORGAN2/ASLSP, it began in 2001 and has so far reached its sixth note. The second part of the name means "as slow as possible."

Neighbors have got used to the monotonous tone coming out of the former Church of St. Burchard, which was used as a pig-sty in the communist years of East Germany. At first the all-day-and-night tone sounded something like an air-raid siren.

The audience hushed on Saturday as two more organ pipes were added alongside the four installed so far and the tone became more complex at 3:33 p.m. local time. The second of the new pipes is set to kick in this November. A machine keeps the sound coming out.

Since some notes will not be needed for decades, pipes need only be added when donations suffice.

Organizers in Halberstadt rejected questions about what it all means.
"It doesn’t mean anything," one of them said. "It’s just there."
Other works by avant-garde composer Cage include one piece that consists of four minutes and 33 seconds of silence.

Sunday, July 06, 2008

MY NEW JOURNALISTIC CRUSH



Marie Colvin. She looks like Cate Blanchett and lost an eye to grendade shrapnel. Bad ass.

Friday, July 04, 2008



The joy I felt upon reading the news of Jess Helms' death -- I actually cheered -- was quickly lessened by this sickening observation from the article:

He joins the second and third presidents of the United States – Thomas Jefferson and John Adams Jr. – who both also died on Independence Day.


I actually uttered, "Ugh."

Wednesday, June 25, 2008


Kudos to Matthew Yglesias for accompanying what I'm sure is a fascinating blog post about the economy or something with the above photo of U.S. Air Force Capt. Sheila Carlson, who is attractive enough to fight in the Israeli Defense Force.

UPDATE: Dammit, the link in that old post to the "Hot Women of the IDF" thread at Israel Military Forum is gone. How could those monsters have nuked that thread?

UPDATE 2: The thread is gone, but the pictures are there, is a less user-friendly format. Probably the best way to find them is to search for "women," but that is pretty creepy.

Friday, June 20, 2008

OTHER THAN THAT, HOW WAS THE PLAY?

"With the exception of the cross-burning episode ... I believe John Freshwater is teaching the values of the parents in the Mount Vernon school district," says Freshwater's friend Dave Daubenmire, presumably in Freshwater's defense. Actually, the cross-burning episode, in context, is not what you'd expect, but it still doesn't make him look any better.

MY HOPES ARE RAISED AND THEN DASHED

I was briefly super-excited when I heard the Mars Phoenix rover was sending Twitters from the red planet. Could this be a spunky artificial intelligence? The future is now, right?

Wrong. A plucky NASA flack named Veronica McGregor is behind the messages, which bare sent from somewhere on Earth. Drat.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

This is some pathetic graffitti right here.

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Monday, June 16, 2008

OVERHEARD AT THE HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION


As I was buying coffee this morning, I attended a few minutes of Center School's 2008 commencement ceremony. It's an alternative school. Which apparently means everybody gets an award. Including the teachers, weirdly enough. A couple teachers were given an award for "making sure there were enough condoms for everybody." Yes, I am certain I heard that right.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

HOW PC ARE WE?

In this Politico article about the Right's pounding on Michell Obama, there's a curious evasion:

... [Obama] was forced to respond to rumors of a video showing his wife using a derogatory term for white people.


I'm sorry, is "whitey" such a loaded word that it can only be alluded to in polite journalism? I mean, come on. There's nothing offensive about calling a honky "whitey." Wake me when Michelle starts railing against "ice mutants."

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Are there witches in Wallingford?

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Is this a penguin or a member of the Klan?

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Friday, June 13, 2008

ALLEGED VICTIM WATCH

This time Slate comes through, in this wrap-up of the R.Kelly "peeing on a pre-teen" trial:

The defense, I'm guessing, will also send Lisa Van Allen a thank-you note. Van Allen, who testified that she had multiple threesomes with Kelly and the alleged victim, was supposed to be the state's star witness. Whatever the prosecution gained by calling a woman who says she saw Kelly and his goddaughter have sex, they lost a whole lot more as the defense chipped away at Van Allen's credibility. Rather than keeping the jury focused on the tape, state's attorneys Shauna Boliker and Robert Heilingoetter found themselves having to explain away their witness' ample character flaws: relationships with two men convicted of federal bank fraud, her admission that she stole Kelly's Rolex, an alleged attempt to solicit a bribe from the defense's private investigator. The legal lesson here: If your star witness is the kind of character who would have a threesome with R. Kelly, you probably need to find yourself a better star witness.

"HULK" IS INCREDIBLE SMASH!


I review The Incredible Hulk. Spoilers follow:

I was prepared for the worst when the movie began with the upteenth encore of Marvel's standard twisting chemical reaction opening credits. Not only was the Stark scene shit, it's placement in the movie was lousy -- what a deflating way to end the film. And I think I'm just going to have to accept that CGI will never produce a convincing giant green man. I kept thinking about how much better it could have looked with competently executed in-camera effects, like Peter Jackson sometimes acheived in Lord of the Rings.

But I ended up liking it all the same. I thought the cinematography was surprisingly interesting and beautiful -- almost painterly in some shots. I certainly wasn't expecting THAT from a Marvel movie. And most importantly, I thought the chase scenes were enjoyably tense, and they were the bulk of the film, so I give it a passing grade. Not gonna see it again, though.

THE BOYWATCH CONTINUES

I guess the Fox News "Baby Daddy" controversy qualifies for the Obama Boy Watch.

I wasn't going to bother blogging about it, but I found this quote amusing:

Here’s a quick test on whether Obama should be considered fully black: Poof! Barack Obama has been magically transported to a KKK meeting in deepest, whitest Klanistan without his Secret Service detail. There’s a rope and a tree nearby. What happens to Obama? If you say, “why, Barack Obama walks out of there alive, of course” then sure, he’s biracial. Also, you’re a fucking idiot.
I'm getting fucked over by the IMDB.
This article from Forbes is really old, but contains new ideas.

...the big problem today for large insurance companies is Russian businessmen who buy $5 million to $10 million insurance policies, go to Russia on business and fake their own deaths by a Russian mob hit. Perpetrators of these big-ticket frauds go to the trouble of finding real corpses to use in the scam.


I once bought a book about how to fake one's death, and they never suggested procuring an actual corpse. I think that touch would make the plan flawless.

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

1) I've been awarded a grant of $2,500 from 4Culture for my short film Love in the year 2000. I've raised more than $5 million in my time, all for other people, so it's a good feeling to have some come my way for a chance. So far, I've raised $10,000 for L2K -- about a third of the way there! Which means...

2) I'm throwing another party! Matt Wilkins, director of Yonder, the other project I'm producing, and I decided to co-opt the Seattle International Film Festival to promote our movies, so we'll be throwing a kegger at Theater Schmeater next Wednesday, June 11th from 6:30 to 9:30. By all means, come join us, and tell your friends. Click here for details.

3) A Little Crab with a Package, the dvd extra I shot with Pat Moriarity and Hans Hollstein for Crustacean Records' 15th Anniversary DVD, is now up on Youtube. See it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7k5Bg4vq8M


4) This coming Thursday (First Thursday, don'cha'know), I'll be making a six minute presentation about Love in the year 2000 at an Artist Trust fundraiser called Pecha Kucha ($10 suggested donation at the door). It'll be at Ouch My Eye Gallery at 1022 First Ave S in Pioneer Square. Doors open at 7, and the presentations begin at 8:00. There'll be 8 other artists presenting as well. I go on at 8:30. Details here.

That's it.

I'm sitting in the doctor's

I'm sitting in the doctor's office looking at a guy who literally has a Wolverine-style haircut. Seriously, what is this world coming to?

Tuesday, June 03, 2008

LIVEBLOGGING THE HILLARY SPEECH

6:28 Hilary is almost moving as she builds toward what I hope is a concession.

6:30 Jesus, is she going to concede or not? She's like Alfred Hitchcock up there. The suspense is killing me.

6:40 Um, guess not...?

6:41. Christ, I feel naive. I was almost ready to forgive her for everything.

6:43 Now I'm just bored.

6:48 DENVER! DENVER! Oh, goddman it.

6:49 I'm going to bet that Obama can't recite every state HE has won. That's to his credit, by the way.

6:50 NO DECISIONS!!? Come on!

6:51 ... I WANT TO CONCLUDE TONIGHT TOO!

Saturday, May 24, 2008


I just saw INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL, and was disappointed.

Lotsa spoilers follow:

The film lost points with me from the start by having the opening be part of the main plot. I preferred the openings of the first three films, which other than introducing new characters, were unconnected to the rest of the plot. It felt like there were two Indiana Jones adventures that way. By jumping right into the main plot right from the beginning, I felt like I'd been shorted.

It bothered me that Indy was knocking out the Russians with single punches, when one considers how much trouble he had when he was twenty years younger. And it was weird seeing a CGI Harrison Ford in fights.

I really felt like Lucas and Speilberg didn't bother filling in the details. In TEMPLE, Indy often survived through unbelievable luck; in SKULL, he just survived.

Taking an amphibious vehicle over three progressively massive waterfalls seems like it would be an ideal Indiana Jones action set piece, and yet Spielberg and Lucas didn't add any texture or suspense. Boat tumbles over, characters survive to go over the next waterfall. Repeat.

It wasn't suspension of disbelief that was at issue -- I wanted to see Indiana Jones and company improbably survive a hundred foot drop onto the rocks below. But I wanted the way they survived to be fun and surprising, and instead, the scene showed them fall hundreds of feet, and then get up and walk away. Lazy.

Compare to the opening of TEMPLE OF DOOM, where Indy and friends (and the audience) were treated to a rollercoaster ride on the way down, with all sorts of improbable terrain, improbably saving their lives. If TEMPLE had used the approach SKULL did, they would have rolled all the way down the mountain, then brushed themselves off and walked away unmarked.

How many movies now have used the improbably structure-shifting Mayan pyramid now? Is that a real thing, or have we reached the point where George Lucas is cribbing ideas from ALIEN VS. PPREDATOR?

And I can't believe Shia Lebouf had an entire action sequence to himself. That was insubordinate. A sidekick should know his place.

I did like some of it -- some great stuff resided side by side with the lame, even within scenes. Speilberg and Lucas can craft some great excitement. It was fun to see Indian Jones in a scifi adventure; it's a natural genre for the character. Was I imagining a reference to ANIMAL HOUSE? I thought the final destruction off the city was nicely understated and elegiac. I want to applaud the Wilhelm Scream in this movie, though. Very inventive. I also liked who the Russians weren't out for world domination -- Cate Blanchett's character was genuinely interested in the skull. And the film conclusively demonstrated that if there's a nuclear war, the only survivors will be cockroaches, Keith Richards, and Indiana Jones.

I wonder how successful it'll be? I saw a 9:30 am matinée, at the Cinerama here in Seattle, which is a destination theatre for a movie like this, and it was less than half-full. I remember seeing THE PHANTOM MENACE there in 1999, and the crowd was like Woodstock. Lucas has really damaged his brand.

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Hold on a minute. Is

Hold on a minute. Is this really Memorial Day weekend? Wow.

This looks like a skull, right? Or am I just seeing thins?

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John McCain would be wise to never make this face again.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Saturday, May 17, 2008

This patch of concrete bears the likeness of the Virgin Mary

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Friday, May 16, 2008



One wonders why Chris Matthews would have such a buffoon on his show, but it's pretty amusing to watch a right-ringer rant for five minutes while not actually knowing anything.

Thursday, May 15, 2008


Will Elder has passed away. He was one of the first artists of MAD.

It amazes me that a bunch of people who went to high school together -- Harvey Kurtzman, Will Elder, Al Jaffee, John Severin -- were able to come back fifteen years later and create a culturally-transforming magazine like MAD. I'm not even in touch with as many people from my high school, let alone anyone with such talent.

My only contact with Elder came about a decade ago, when I wrote him asking for his thoughts if I were to create a bootleg reprint of his supressed story "Goodman Beaver Goes Playboy." I received a stern letter that advised me that intellectual theft was no way to start a career. God bless Will Elder and all his works.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008



What kind of world are we living in where Karl Rove admits racism exists? Crazy world. that's where.

This is where I work. God help me.

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