Just Some Personal Thinkins

"The Bills"

2009-12-14T06:30:00.000-08:00

On a particularly frustrating bill paying day I decided to channel my anger at utilities, banks, and everyone to whom I pay monthly fees by re-writing Edgar Allen Poe's epic poem The Bells. Needless to say it was very therapeutic. :-) Enjoy.

The Bills
By Dale Morton

I

See the mailman with the bills-
Horrid bills!
What a world of deep despair their appearance doth instill!
How they crinkle, crinkle, crinkle,
As I pull them from the box!
While the rain outside doth sprinkle,
And I wish to dash them wrinkled
On the hardness of the rocks.
Losing time, time, time
From signing on the dotted line,
The numeric tabulation that is the source of all my ills,
From the bills, bills, bills, bills,
Bills, bills, bills-
Oh, the anger and the languor of the bills.

II

Now the first damn monthly bill,
Water bill!
The charges so absurd that it makes my heart go still!
How could we possibly have choosed
So much fluid to have used?
Only bath time and the dishes
Does it flow.
A little for the fishes,
For which our young’uns had expressed only gay and childly wishes
Don’t you know.
Oh, endless doth it swill,
Gushing ever and anon from the town of Rottersville,
Through the hills,
Through the mills,
And into my house it spills
With relentless pouring skills,
To the charging and enlarging
Of my bills, bills, bills,
Of my bills, bills, bills, bills
Bills, bills, bills…
To the counting and the mounting of my bills!

III

Here’s the next God-hated bill,
‘Lectric bill!
What ridiculous a figure I am paying for it still!
Yes, I do need light
In the darkness of the night,
But how can AEP
Rashly justify this fee?
Out of line!
Supplied by burning coal and connected to a pole,
From a wired metal tower from which all men cringe and cower,
Crying “POWER, POWER, POWER!"
Bowing to the sparking shower
And the life it brings unto us
And the warmth that doth renew us,
And the enormous lighted signs!
Oh, the bills, bills, bills,
I’ll have to put them in my Will
Once I die.
How the visions shout and scream
On the television screen
Oh, to shut it off, what I wouldn’t try.
Yet I know I really can’t,
All the buzzing,
And the beeping,
How the noise it raves and rants,
Yet I know I surely could,
That the sounding
And the pounding,
It would cease, it truly would
If I were standing and refusing to pay all my monthly bills-
Oh, the bills-
Oh, the bills, bills, bills, bills,
Bills, bills, bills-
If I could rip up and then burn up all my bills.

IV

And now the final cursed bill,
Mortgage bill!
When shall these dreaded payments stop, I think they never will!
Thirty years unceasing,
With my interest rate increasing,
Oh, the damned unholy menace of this loan!
For every check that goes
I am poorer, Heaven knows,
Thus I moan!
And the banker –ah, the banker-
Who infects us like a canker
In our bones!
He keeps calling, calling, calling,
Even on my pocket phone.
How he shouts at me for stalling
How beats his heart of stone-
He is neither man nor woman-
He is neither brute nor human-
But a TROLL!
And his king, the mighty dollar
That he hordes, hordes, hordes,
Hordes.
A slave unto these bills
How I want to swallow pills
And put and end to all these ills,
As I scream, scream, scream
Like a pot of boiling steam
To the horror of my bills,
Of my bills!
Losing time, time, time
Signing on the dotted line
For the paying of the bills-
Of the bills, bills, bills;
Oh, the paying of the bills;
Losing time, time, time,
As I kill, kill, kill
All the bankers in my mind.
Oh, the bills, bills, bills,
Hear them moaning, moaning, moaning
As they cry out to be paid,
And demand that check be made,
As I watch that last amount
Be withdrawn from my account,
For the bills, bills, bills, bills
Bills, bills, bills,
For the mailing and the wailing of my bills.

Bond songs

2008-12-29T13:06:00.000-08:00

I stopped by Border's on Saturday and picked up a couple CDs, the first being the film score to Indiana Jones & the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which is not spectacular but has its moments, and The Best of Bond...James Bond, which has all the songs up to and including Casino Royale. I have never owned a Bond song collection before so I was glad to find this one...and you know what? There are some really BAD Bond theme songs!!!! Gosh, especially the newer ones, it's like "what were they thinkin'???" I'd say most of the original ones are excellent except The Man with the Golden Gun, which I think is awful. Then they get good again until Goldeneye, which is really lame and they just go downhill from there until they hit rock bottom with Madonna's gut-wrenchingly terrible Die Another Day. I had never really heard that one before and couldn't believe how unbelievably bad it was. You Know My Name from Casino Royale I actually like a great deal but the song from Quantum of Solace sinks back down to Madonna level. Let's hope they do better next time out.

Just my thoughts on the subject.

We Are...Marshall

2008-11-21T11:02:00.000-08:00

Okay, since some folks seem a bit perturbed over my calling the movie We Are...Marshall "lame", let me explain a bit about that viewpoint. First off, I was calling the MOVIE lame, not the tragic events of 1970 that left 75 great Marshall University football players dead. I'm not referring to the tragedy, I'm referring to THE MOVIE. Personally, I thought the movie did a very poor job of telling one of the most tragic and horrific stories in the world of college athletics. I think the studio botched the film by placing director McG, a totally unproven director in the area of high drama, in charge of the project instead of assigning a much more seasoned talent. I felt that the movie was mediocre at best with sports movie cliches hurled at us right and left. Never ONCE does the viewer ever really get to know any of the characters in the story nor come to care about who they are or why the salvation of the Marshall sports program really mattered. Now let me be VERY clear about this....in the months following the crash the salvation of the program DID matter...a LOT. The real story, the real people, the real events were all, in my opinion, very poorly portrayed in the movie. McG never even gives the viewer time at the start of the movie for the viewer to get to know or even care about the players and coaches on that plane. I mentioned in my previous post that I felt that the film Hoosiers was one of the best sports movies of all time, and it is. But that's because by the time the film reaches its climax you have gotten to know not only Gene Hackman and Barbara Hershey's characters well, but also Hershey's mother, the school's principal, the townspeople, Dennis Hopper's character, and ALL of the players for the Hickory Huskers!!!! Now, that's an incredible number of characters to get to know and care about during the course of a two hour movie and it's a testament to David Anpaugh's incredible direction and the incredible performances on the part of the entire cast. Not to say that the actors in We Are...Marshall didn't do a credible job. Ian McShane and David Straithairn are both incredibly talented actors....I just don't think they were given much to work with. I can't say the same about Matthew McConaughey and Matthew Fox, their performances were passable at best.

Like everyone else who watches movies I am entitled to my opinion, but please understand that my opinion in this case is about the MOVIE, not the events, not Marshall athletics, not the city of Huntington. Plenty of people loved this film and I know a number of individuals that this tragedy effected personally...but in giving my opinion of a movie, whether it was about a significant local event or not, I try to separate myself from the euphoria that gripped the region over the making of this film and try to judge the film on its own merits. We Are...Marshall COULD have been GREAT. It could have been an Oscar-winner, the story behind it was that powerful...but under the helm of McG it simply didn't rise above a mediocre film that used every device in movie-making to attempt to tug on the heartstrings of the viewer, and that's what makes me saddest of all, that Huntington, Marshall University, and the people who were touched by these tragic events did NOT get the movie this story so richly deserved.

I'm not your typical West Virginian

2008-06-26T05:21:00.000-07:00

Hey, everyone! It's West Virginia Day today and I'm participating in a project put forth by the Charleston Area Bloggers to present a view that improves the typical stereotyped image of West Virginians. Let me start by saying that all states have their unique negative stereotypes, not just WV, and many of those that stick to WV like glue are the same that apply to the surrounding Appalachian states. But no stereotype survives without a kernel of truth to it (it's useless to deny it) and yes, we've all seen plenty of people who DO fit the negative stereotypes. In fact, the nation has seen a huge example of this in the form of Lottery winner Jack Whittaker...a man who is the absolute essence of the negative WV hick stereotype. But I'm not going to ramble on about Jack, plenty of others have spent countless column inches in that pursuit, rather I'm going to take a few minutes to describe something about myself and my friends, who in no way fit the typical WV stereotype. So...here goes: -I'm an artist, as are many of my friends. Those who are not artists are highly creative in many other ways, whether in graphics, writing, music, etc. My art consists mainly of three-dimensional design and sculpture, whether I'm making mascot costumes, highly-detailed make-up and masks, or just free-form sculpting for fun. I also "sculpt" in fabric, for I am a skilled costume maker, pattern maker and tailor. I know very few of my fellow WV males who sew, and to all those boys and men who would laugh at me for sewing I would say, "You try sewing for a hour and see how much of a man you are!" because there have been more than a few occasions when I've been willing to hurl my sewing machine through my second floor window. And plus, I'm about 6',2" tall and 300 lbs., married with two children, I dare anyone to call me a sissy for sewing. -I don't typically listen to country music although I have recently become a fan of Johnny Cash (I credit the movie Walk the Line with this). The only other music closest to country I listen to is Shania Twain (but she's more crossover and she's really smokin' hot to boot!). I listen mainly to classical & orchestral and my radio is set on one station only, and that's West Virginia Public Radio. I love Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, and all the Masters. But I differ from even classical listeners in that I spend more time listening to movie scores. I've always loved movie music, John Williams' eternal score for Star Wars having sparked my love for such magic. The composers of movie music are the Mozarts of our age and had Mozart lived today he would compose music for movies. I also love Irish & Scottish music, music from the Renaissance era and I LOVE Gregorian Chant! I'm also a fan of Bob Segar and Bruce Springsteen.-I don't give a hang about sports. I have never cared about football, baseball, basketball, hockey or golf (although calling golf a sport is quite a stretch, in my opinion). The rest of my family are huge Mountaineer fans, which is fine, but they have tried for years and years to get me interested in such things to no avail. I can, however, appreciate the American mythos that surrounds the game of baseball, certainly, and I do love a good, inspiring sports movie (Hoosiers is the greatest, in my opinion, and We Are...Marshall one of the lamest)...but unlike so many of my fellow West Virginians I do not look on sports as something to get fanatic over and I don't look on sports figures as "heroes" or even role models. Heroes to me are paramedics, firefighters, police officers, military personnel, and those average, annonymous citizens who selflessly sacrifice their time and personal safety to help or save the lives of others. THAT is the definition of a hero...not a guy who makes the most touchdowns, runs the most bases, or makes the most birdies. I've always held the words of Jonathan Kent to his son Clark in Superman: The Movie very close to my heart: "There is one thing I do know, son, and that is you are here for a reason! I don't know whose reason, or whatever the reason is. But I do know one thing: it's not to score touchdowns!" -I'm not a religious fanatic. I feel that belief in a Supreme Being and moral fortitude are based upon intellectual observation, not upon an outpouring of religious emotion like screaming "Amen" in church or waving your hands to Heaven while in some sort of trancelike state. Do I believe in God? Ooooh, YES!!! Indeed I do! But that belief is based on the fact that I cannot accept that this wide, beautiful world hanging suspended weightless in this vast universe is the result of chance. Do I believe in Evolution? Yep. I think that God's creation and Evolution go hand-in-hand, God Himself having set up the intial creation and then letting the mechanizations of His creation play themselves out in the form of evolutionary change. I am very sure that He derives great joy out of seeing where His creations end up and what forms they take. I don't attend any church. The World is my church and I see miracles in everyday life. -I've never seen a coal mine. For whatever reason, I just have never been around one. -I don't live in a trailer, I own a house. -I'm a voracious reader, mainly fantasy and sci-fi, and I'm a great lover of the classics: Harry Potter, Sherlock Holmes, Lord of the Rings, H.G. Wells, Tom Clancy, Jules Verne, the Dune books. And I love a good graphic novel. -I own my own business and I'm my own boss. I don't work at Wal Mart or some other dead-end job. I am the captain of my destiny. -Bluegrass music sucks. My father plays the banjo and he has always been in one bluegrass band or another all of my life so I was forced to listen to that stuff for hours on end, thus I've developed something of an extreme dislike for it. -I have all of my teeth and they are very strong. -I don't chew tobacco or rub snuff. I don't smoke either although a couple of times a year I will smoke a pipe (Longbottom leaf is the best leaf in the Southfarthing, you know). -I don't drink excessively and you'll never see me walking out of a convenience store with a case of Bud under my arm. -I do not nor have I ever been a hunter....however I have no problem with those who do, for I know full well that hunting serves a very necessary function both for the hunter as well as the wildlife population. Plus, I happen to like venison, rabbit and squirrel. -I don't give a hoot-in-HELL for NASCAR, I think it's one of the most ridiculous endeavors in existence. -Oh, and I was born here...in Charleston on August 6th, 1968 and I have lived here all of my life. To wrap this up, although I have tried to make this post a positive one, I'm fully aware that by putting my own attributes in contrast to the "typical" West Virginia stereotype, by differentiated myself and those like me I'm essentially casting a negative spin upon those who DO typify such stereotypes. This whole post may come across as arrogant, pompous or "uppity". If so, my sincerest apologies, I was not attempting to offend the lovers of sports (and they are many), country music, NASCAR, smokers, drinkers, coal miners, people who live in trailers, church-going folk, or anyone else. I was simply trying to present to my readers a vision of someone who does not in any way fit the typical West Virginia stereotype...and rest assured...we are many! Happy West Virginia Day to everyone who lives in our wild, wonderful & beautiful state!

Saviour catching a bolt

2008-03-14T05:43:00.000-07:00

"On steroids" has got to go!

2008-03-12T14:36:00.000-07:00

I often wonder how many more times in the media I'm going to hear some interviewee describe something bigger/better/oversized as being "on steroids"? This has to be one of the most overused phrases in use today and it's high-time that it be given the last rites. When the Hummer first came out I heard countless times that it was like an SUV on steroids! This new super giant airplane is like a 747...on steroids! The I-Phone is like a regular cell phone...on steroids!!! Come on, people, enough is enough, think of something new. And doesn't this rather flippant comparison of something being on steroids set a bad example for young athletes, especially since our society is trying to discourage their use? Here we have performance-enhancing drug controversies all over the world of sports, from baseball and the Roger Clemmens debacle to the Olympics to the Tour de France...and we think using the term on steroids is...funny? It isn't. Find something else to say, folks, the phrase is simply worn out...and worse...it's in bad taste.

Breaking "Wind"

2008-03-10T05:33:00.000-07:00

Okay, it came out last week that Patrick Swayze is fighting pancreatic cancer. I was sorry to hear this because I've always liked Swayze ever since first seeing him in The Outsiders, then Dirty Dancing, and finally Ghost. I don't know, there's just something extremely likeable about the man (even though it will be a cold day in Hell before I waste any part of my life watching the train-wreck Too Wong Foo, Thanks for everything, Julie Newmar, where Swayze and Wesley Snipes appear in drag...a film which, unfortunately, started Swayze's downward career spiral). HOWEVER, the song he recorded for Dirty Dancing called She's Like the Wind has ALWAYS been HORRIBLE!!! Swayze simply cannot sing and as well as the song's lyrics being ridiculous ("She's like the wind...in my trees... what?!) he is all over the tonal map, singing off-key, straining to reach certain octaves...it's terrible and I never could understand WHY that song ever received as much airplay as it did. But now...NOW...with Swayze battling cancer and the potential for his life to end prematurely we are going to be inundated with She's Like the Wind at every turn. I noticed the beginning of this trend this very morning when I got woken up to it when my radio went off. Sorry radio stations of America...She's Like the Wind....BLOWS!!!!!

The Godfather on AMC

2008-02-20T12:56:00.000-08:00

As Bill Maher would say, New Rule: AMC should change its name to The Godfather Channel. They have been showing The Godfather Trilogy or some part thereof every week for at least the last five fucking years. Sometimes they run The Godfather TWICE in one day!!! Now, yes, The Godfather is a great film, anyone with half a brain won't deny that, but COME ON, FOR GOD'S SAKE, with the thousands of great classic films in existence WHY OH WHY must they continually play The fucking GODFATHER so damn much???!!!!!! ENOUGH ALREADY!!!! GIVE THE FILM (and the viewing public) A BREAK!!!

Miracle Manna & Fake Fire

2008-01-31T05:34:00.000-08:00

I was awake this morning from about 4am to 5am and decided to watch a bit of TV until I got sleepy again. While channel surfing, I came upon the most bizarre and ridiculous infomercial I have ever seen. This supposed "reverend" was touting a product called Miracle Manna and was claiming that God Himself had given him the recipe for this bread product and that it would bring miracles to any person consuming it. He went on to say that the "manna" was "baked in an oven made of bricks over 200 years old imported from the Middle East", as if this is an essential "ingredient" to the production of this miraculous bread. I was laughing my ass off by this point. I thought that the "prayer cloth" that I got in the mail a few months ago was the lowest that these religious nuts could sink in trying to make a few bucks from nonsensical Biblical crap, but NOOOOOO!!!!! Now we have MIRACLE MANNA, a product GUARANTEED to bring you miracles in your life OR YOUR MONEY BACK, a product the recipe for which was handed down by GOD HIMSELF to this ONE preacher. GIVE ME A BREAK!!!!!!! And I thought Robert Tilton and Benny Hinn were shameless! And to make the situation even FUNNIER, this man's name is Reverend PETER POPOFF!!!! Oh, dear LORD, I LOST IT!!!!! His name sounds like a sex toy!!! I have never laughed so hard at so much complete and utter BULLSHIT!!!

Something I caught while surfing was a few minutes of nut-job Pat Robertson's 700 Club, which is always good for a laugh. There ol' Pat was, passing out miracles wholesale, with that ridiculous fire burning in the background producing that warm, comforting atmosphere. But I noticed something odd about that fire. I stared at it for awhile and realized that not only was the fire fake, but it wasn't even FIRE! It was that type of fire that you see in those flame pots at places like Spencer Gifts and Halloween Express, the fire that's made of fabric pieces cut into the shape of flames that has an orange light shining up from beneath and a fan blowing it around to make it look like real flames. I always figured that the fire was probably a gas fire with fake logs, but NEVER did I think that they would be THIS CHEAP!!! Needless to say, I shook my head and proceeded to laugh uncontrollably! Fake fabric fire. Oh, Jesus H. Christ!

Increasingly hilarious obituaries

2008-01-19T07:09:00.000-08:00

I've noticed over that past few years that the obituaries in the local Charleston Gazette have gotten increasingly creative in the way they inform readers that someone has passed away. It used to be standard procedure to simply say, "Mr./Mrs. Jon/Jane Doe died on such-n-such a date after a long/short illness", and that was it. But the phrasing of the death announcements have gotten increasingly funny of late and I feel compelled to share of few of them with whatever readers happen upon this blog. I'm not sure if it's the writer at the paper who is coming up with the wording or if it's the deceased's family who is submitting it, but whoever it is I find them utterly hilarious. I'm going to start with the more simple ones and lead up to the more egregious. Enjoy!

-"Mrs. Jane Doe went home to be with the Lord on Tuesday, etc. etc."

-"Ms. Jane Doe went home to be with her Saviour on Wednesday, etc. etc."

-"Mrs. Jane Doe was called home by her Lord and Saviour at Community Hospice of...."

-"Mr. Bob Doe went home to be with the Lord after He leant him to us for awhile...."

-"Mr. Jon "Bubba" Doe went to meet our Lord in the arms of angels..."

-"Mrs. Mary Doe, grandmother and servant of God, fell asleep in the arms of Jesus on Friday etc. etc."

-"Mr. Jonny Doe received his calling from the Almighty on Thursday..."

After reading stuff like this over the past few years I started considering how cool it would be if at some point in the future obituaries started using slang terms for death in their annoucements. For instance...

-"Mr. Jon Doe kicked the bucket at home on....."

-"Mrs. Jane Doe bought the farm after suffering a long illness on...."

-"Ms. Jane Doe bit the dust at Community Hospice Care on...."

-"Mr. Jimbo Doe keeled over from a heart attack at home on...."

Bill McGlaughlin

2008-01-17T13:02:00.000-08:00

Bill McGlaughlin hosts two programs on National Public Radio, St. Paul Sunday and Exploring Music and he is the most pretentious, most annoying, most pseudo-elitist TURD that exists in the world of classical music. Not that the world of classical music is in any way short on pseudo-elitist turds, but McGlaughlin is one of the worst. On St. Paul Sunday he has young up-and-coming orchestral musicians on and he spends the hour pandering to these spoiled little rich kids to the point where one really wants to throw up. He's basically NPR's answer to James Lipton of Inside the Actor's Studio. McGlaughlin makes a big deal out of ridiculous incidents that occur in their 12 to 15 years of life and just makes these youngsters feel as if they are the most loved, most talented, most upwardly mobile beings on the planet, and they giggle and blush and tell sickeningly sweet stories that no one really gives a crap about. Exploring Music popped up on our local Public Radio station a couple years ago as a replacement for the long-running and infinitely better show Adventures in Good Music hosted by Dr. Karl Haas, who passed away a few years ago. The station ran repeat shows for a long time and then ruined my morning by sticking Exploring Music into the 11am time slot. Now I have to turn off NPR during this hour and put in a CD because I simply cannot stand listening to McGlaughlin's soft, dulcet-toned voice, his ultra-refined diction, and his pseudo-intellectual BS. Examples of this would be his pronunciation of composers' names. Take Bela Bartok for example. Most people would pronounce this great composer's name exactly as it sounds. But Bill McGlaughlin's simply too good and too educated for that. He has to say the name as "BAY-LA BAR-TUK"...but then in the next breath he will, without thinking, say the name just like everyone else does, revealing that he's only pronouncing it differently when he's actively INTENDING to pronounce it differently. What a complete fake. Another example is the word "jig". Every red-blooded American would say that word exactly as it sounds, but pseudo-Bill has to say "zheeg", as if he's just so worldly and experienced that he knows how to say the world properly where all the other commoners don't. And don't even get me started on Bach. Most folks simply say "BOCK". But Bill has to say good ol' Johann's last name as if he's hocking up a blob of phlegm: "BOCCCHHHHGGGGHHHH". Give us a break, Bill, you're not fooling anyone. I really wish NPR would dump this pompous, pretentious idiot and just re-run Adventures in Good Music with Karl Haas. I loved listening to Dr. Haas. His voice was powerful, experienced, and knowledegable without being pretentious or overly refined in diction. His was the voice of authority. Bill McGlaughlin's voice is the voice of...of...well, of complete and utter snobbery. And unfortunately, it's this snobbish, pretentious attitude that prevents a lot of average, everyday folk from ever experiencing the wonders of classical music.

Ten Commandments of Driving

2007-06-20T05:15:00.000-07:00

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/06/19/vatican.road.rage.ap/index.html

They are encouraging people to pray behind the wheel. Hmm. Isn't this a regular ocurrence?

"OH, JESUUUUUUUUS!!!" CRASH!!!!

Here are some of our own Driving Commandments but there are so many commandments that should be considered that we really can't stop at just ten. Feel free to suggest you own as well, but make sure you couch it in pseudo-Biblical language otherwise it will lack authority:

1. Thou shalt not flippest the bird to thy fellow drivers, for it is an abomination unto the Lord.
2. Thou shalt not layest on thine horn at pedestrians.
3. Thou shalt not play thy tuneage excessively loud, lest ye piss people off.
4. Thou shalt not tailgatest, lest ye loseth thy license.
5. Thou shalt not fucketh in the back seat, for 'tis a grave and unclean sin, especially if thou hasn't vaccummed in awhile.
6. Thou shalt not leavest thy turn signal on, for it confuseth others.
7. Woman, thou shalt not appliest thy make-up whilst driving, rather keepest thine eyes upon the road.
8. Thou shalt not yap incessantly on thy cell phone, for 'tis better to be slow to speech.
9. Thou shalt not curseth thy neighbor upon the road, lest ye start a fight.
10. Thou shalt not engage in felatio whilst driving in heavy traffic, lest ye lose control of thy vehicle, thus getting thy member bitten off by the dark and sinful Jezebel.
11. Thou shall not eateth cereal from a bowl whilst driving thyself from domicile to place of employmenteth.
12. Thou shalt get thyself to a rest area, lest thine efforts to hold back thy bowels provest vain, for lo, thou canst not drive whilst clenching thine buttocks, e'en stretching forth thy legs, as ye may stand upon yon brake pedal and causeth a multi-car pileup.
13. Thou shalt not recklessly play Cannonball Run on the highways and biways of this the Good Earth that the Lord thy God hath created, for thy driving is NOT a birthright, rather it art a privilege granted to thee by the state.
14. Thou shalt not consider thyself a NASCAR driver just because thou doest watcheth it every Sunday, when thou rather shoudst be worshipping the Lord in HIS house, ye heathens of dirt!

"Silver Surfer" review

2007-06-18T05:57:00.000-07:00

Cindy made me take her to see "Rise of the Silver Surfer" Saturday night. When the commercials first hit the airwaves she freaked and said, "Oh, we've GOT to see THAT!!!!!!" Thoroughly perplexed, I replied, "Uh...why? Hon, the first one wasn't that great." Well, unbeknownst to me, she apparently has been a big Surfer fan since...well, since whenever the Surfer first appeared, whenever the hell that was. After reading some reviews of it on Thursday I was severely lamenting the fact that I was going to have to bite the bullet and sit through this dreck for the sake of my wife. So, here's a quick review:

The studios are getting very creative and a bit desperate in their efforts to promote a film these days. We went to Marquee out at Southridge and there was a VERY impressive full-size mannequin of the Surfer on his board bursting from a cardboard backdrop, in FULL action pose!!! I have rarely seen a cooler display to promote a film. That is until I rounded the corner to the bathrooms where I came face to face with a FULL SIZE lineup of fiberglass Simpsons figures sitting on a mockup of their sofa! I mean, these figures are BIG!!!!! And you can sit right down beside Homer and have your picture taken with the whole family! It was AWESOME!!!!! I guess the studios figure that posters just aren't doin' it anymore.

So...on to the movie: Uh...I was entertained, but that's about it. The acting was so wooden that Harrison Ford could've built a sunroom for Sally Kellerman out of the performances. The dialogue was incredibly juvenile and simple. Jessica Alba, who looked GREAT in the first film, now looks caked with makeup and her lips looked so pumped with collagen that I quickly understood why they listed a credit for special effects makeup in the opening credits. Okay, okay, it's mainly for the makeup work done on Michael Chiklis but I guarantee they had plenty of extra work to do on Jessica as well. The Surfer himself was pretty cool although he looked like nothing more than the T-1000 when he was on his board. Personally, I thought he was much more interesting once they got him OFF his board. His skin turned from reflective silver to more of a muted gray and he looked like more of a real three-dimensional character rather than a CG image. But the whole Surfer story line was just stooooopid. If they're following the same story as the comic then I can only say that that is just as ridiculous. Basically this film was nothing more than a Quick Cheap. There was humor, of course, and a totally uninteresting sub-plot concerning Reed & Sue's wedding. Dr. Doom was thrown in as a totally useless addition. The funniest moment was easily a quip made by Human Torch to Ben Grimm. Grimm is still dating that nice-lookin' blind black chick he met in the first film. Torch pulls Ben aside and ventures to ask how...exactly...do they...y'know...do it? Ben gets angry and screams, "That's none of your business!" to which Torch replies, "Okay, okay, I just didn't want to wake up one morning and see in the news that she'd, y'know...been killed in a ROCK SLIDE!!!!" Grimm decides it's clobbering time so Torch dashes off while the audience erupted with laughter. I can sum-up my feelings about this film by saying, at least it was short! And thank GOD it wasn't "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End"!!!!!!

"Failure of the Caribbean"

2007-06-11T05:42:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was mine & Cindy's 7th Wedding Anniversary (I mention that only to garner some cheap congrats). We didn't do anything special but we did take the boys & finally go out to see "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End". I hate to give bad reviews but I have to tell ya' I was MORE than a little disappointed with this wrap up of the franchise. At the 90 minute mark I was convinced they should re-title it "At Wits' End". Seriously, I was THAT bored with it. The plot (what there was of it) was a completely incomprehensible mish-mash of ideas that never gelled, it was just back-and-forth from one ship to another, one special effect after another, with no real semblance of a plot. Jack Sparrow didn't have much to do other than hallucinate, there was no real reason to have brought Capt. Barbosa back from the dead (thus undoing the whole ending of the first film), they SIGNIFICANTLY reduced the strength of the excellent Davy Jones character down to a lackey following the orders of that English officer dandy, and WHAT was with that "Tia Dalma is Calypso" nonsense???? And that crazy crap about the Pirate Council (or whatever the hell it was). And MAAAAN, did they screw over Will Turner or what??? I mean, they ended up making him captain of the Flying Dutchman so he couldn't make port but once every ten years??? Gosh, what a screw-job for him and Elizabeth Swann, then Sparrow gets to go free again in his little dingy. Now, there were some decent moments, as expected, and the final battle WAS SPECTACULAR, but everything up to that was a slow, torturous DRAG. At the two-hour point I kept saying to myself, "If something doesn't happen to indicate an impending conclusion REAL SOON I'm going to get up and walk out of here!" Luckily the battle finally began and I decided to stay. But my biggest let-down was what they did to Davy Jones's character. He was SOOOO strong and powerful in the last film and he wasn't even a purely evil character, which is what was so good about him. He had that untold tragedy of his lost love behind him, what with the music box and his yearning for whoever-she-was...and then it turns out to be Tia Dalma/Calypso and something about them betraying each other and them both having a love-hate relationship with each other. Weak, weak, weak!!!! Now, it was cool to see Jones as his human self there for an instant and I wished we could've gotten a bit more of that. And I was highly disappointed with how they killed him. I was hoping he would've turned human again and found redemption by the end, unlike Barbosa in the first film who was truly a despicable pirate whose curse and death were deserved and we basically cheered when Will lifts the curse and Jack shoots him at practically the same instant. It's too bad this film had to be such a muddled conclusion to an otherwise really cool franchise. Oh, well. Drink up, me hearties, Yo-Ho!!!!

Terrorist Al-Zarosie CAPTURED!!!!!

2007-06-01T11:59:00.000-07:00

Thanks to my friend John Mullins for this image. God, I hate Rosie O'Donnell.

Stupid cell phone nonsense

2007-05-31T11:11:00.000-07:00

Okay, it's official: I am already sick of seeing those ridiculous phone things that increasing numbers of the gullible are wearing sticking out of their ears. Don't they know how utterly idiotic those things look??? Does anyone...ANYONE...have to really have a phone unit attached to the side of their head? Is there anyone on this planet that's expecting calls SOOO important and immediate that they have to elliminate the few seconds it takes to reach down, pick their phone from their pocket or belt, flip it open and answer it themselves??? I saw some TV footage of some guy giving a lecture and during the entire event he had that stupid phone thing stuck in his ear. Uh, dude...are you REALLY going to answer your phone DURING the lecture that YOU are giving? Would that not be the ultimate in rudeness to the audience if he did? I swear, we're all slowly turning into the Borg.

Terrorist aircraft attacks Bush

2007-05-25T05:37:00.000-07:00

As president George W. Bush stood in the Rose Garden yesterday answering questions about his embattled attorney general, a terrorist aircraft (an innocent sparrow) penetrated the no-fly zone around the White House and managed to drop a bomb (a blob of liquid feces) right on the president's arm. After wiping the explosive residue from his arm (with his bare hand, mind you, not a tissue or hanky), the president declared this incident clear evidence of yet another Al Quaida air attack and worked it into his statements defending his decision to invade Iraq. F-16s were scrambled from a nearby air base but their sophisticated radar failed to locate the "Red Sparrow" attacker which managed to disappear without a trace...presumably back to its nest. The White House press corps simply laughed hysterically at the whole event while the rest of the nation saw it as a clear sign that Mother Nature herself had sent an emissary to deliver her own message regarding Mr. Bush's policies.

"Hotel California" SUCKS!!!!

2007-05-22T04:58:00.000-07:00

Hi, there! For my first Personal Thinkins post I thought I'd rail a bit about my hatred for the Eagles song Hotel California. This song is the most over-hyped, over-played piece of CRAP ever put over the airwaves. The lyrics have been touted over the years to have some hidden, sinister meaning or allusion that the Hotel California is some sort of obscure metaphor for Hell, even though the lyrics are really a bunch of mish-mash that don't mean a damn thing. I put this song in the same category as my MOST hated song ever written, American Pie, another piece of shit tune that supposedly has some extremely veiled reference to the death of Buddy Holly. The song sucks, plain & simple, and the only thing that has kept it on the playlist is its supposed mystique. The only other song I feel this way about is Bob Segar's Old Time Rock-n-Roll, and not because it's a bad song or has some underlying meaning, but primarily because it's SOOOOOO over-played!!!!! I'm actually a huge Bob Segar fan but this one song has been driven so far into the ground that it would take the Polar Borer from The Last Dinosaur to drill down far enough to reach it.

Spock out!