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Conjuring up Political, Cinematic, Cultural, and Athletic Arcana since the Final Days of the Last Century

6/14/00 - You Talkin' to Me Like That? is my "Next"-door neighbor in both the weblogger and linkslut webrings. What are the odds?

While the Pacers look up for Game 4, the Lakers are imploding. New York, please, please don't try to make a trade for Glen Rice.

Considered Harmful moves to Bloggerland.

More car trouble. Our left front tire is flat, which in itself is no big deal. But we also seem to have misplaced the tire nut lock which attaches to the end of the tire iron in order to remove the last nut. Meaning we can't get the flat tire off and have the effective equivalent of the boot on our Bonneville until we can find the @$%*! lock. I spent no less than three hours today scouring every nook and cranny of that automobile with a Maglight, but no love.

Fairvue Central has created a great new portal entitled Blog.Elements, which is definitely worth checking out. In case you're interested, Ghost is listed as Osmium (Element No. 76), a heavy platinum which is primarily used in fountain tip pens, record needles, and electrical contacts. Apparently, it is not currently known whether Iridium or Osmium is the heaviest element. So, what do you have to say about that, Bird?

X-Philes will enjoy this opener to the Lone Gunmen spinoff pilot, due on Fox in the Spring of 2001.

Elaine and I at the wedding in Clemson last Saturday. Doesn't she look lovely? As for me...well, at least that's the unscarred portion of my nose.

The Post looks at Dubya's (failed) attempt to court black voters. As one onlooker critiqued, "When it became a pattern, that [Bush] would surround himself by black babies but would not go to speak to black adults, it really tipped his hand to what he is all about--trying to convince white swing voters that he is a different kind of candidate." If you really wanted to appeal to Black voters, George, perhaps you could have started by condemning the Confederate flag? Just a thought.

Now the Sox want Sammy.

BoyCaught responds to my Fight Club thoughts of yesterday, and I pretty much agree with all of his addendums. The only further comments I have is (a) I think the movie does make a compelling case in the last third that the whole Fight Club/Space Monkey thing is NOT a good way to act out your aggression, and (b) the Fight Club segments didn't seem to me to be so much about testosterone-filled rage (beating) as testosterone-filled impotence (getting beaten). "You're going to start a fight with somebody, and you're going to lose." By feeling the pain of each blow (or chemical burn) - and not retreating into your cave, your support group, or your passive-aggressiveness - you are finally experiencing life rather than having it commodified and pre-packaged for you. And, when you're getting the pulp beaten out of you, suddenly that Ikea yin-yang table doesn't seem so important.

At any rate, as BoyCaught noted, part of the appeal of a movie like FC is that is doesn't wrap up the themes and message in a tight little bow and shove it down the audience's throat. Hard questions, ambiguous answers...like he said, we could definitely use more of this type of film.

And, since this Fight Club discussion has been so fun, I think I'll switch gears and blogs and defend R.E.M.'s Green to my buddy Phish. Jonathan says of "I Remember California," "On an album of reassuringly familiar songs, this track comes as close to a "must listen" as this record could possibly boast. Unfortunately, that's not saying much. Well, no doubt "The Wrong Child," "Stand," and "Hairshirt" may be the three worst songs in the R.E.M. canon, notwithstanding "Shiny Happy People" and "Man on the Moon." All three tracks exemplify the band's - and particularly Stipe's - worst tendencies. But the rest of the album? Strictly buttah. I rank "You are the Everything" and "World Leader Pretend" as some of the band's most moving meditations. "Orange Crush" is a decent contemplative rocker, and I've always found "Pop Song 89," "Get Up," and the Untitled Eleventh Track to be just plain fun.

Then again, I may be the wrong person to ask on these matters, as I'm down with every R.E.M. album, even Reckoning and Monster. Growing up in Carolina, R.E.M. was the band of the Progressive South. I can see how people could find them tiresome, but I think they're one of the most unique and consistent bands in rock, and they're only getting better. Up was a ridiculously underrated album.

6/13/00 - First the Donald, now Lex Luthor. What's up with all these multimillionaire financiers running for President?

Springsteen ups the ante on the Diallo "American Skin" controversy. Give 'em hell, Boss.

TheOneRing.Net scores a picture of the elusive Bilbo Baggins, a.k.a. Ian Holm.

What part of "Do Not Touch" did he not understand?

Butch Carter gets the axe in Toronto.

Get well, Andy.

Has Gore righted the ship?

Jay Roach will direct Hitchhiker's, Maggie Smith will play Harry Potter's Professor McGonagall, and other good movie tidbits.

After eight months of blogging, I finally got my first search engine query...and it was for "severe itching + sun treatment." Um...ok.

While Caught in Between is definitely one of my favorite nuggets of daily reading, I must respectfully disagree with his (June 11) reading of Fight Club. Note: The paragraphs that follow are meant in the spirit of amiable, proactive debate, NOT flaming.

Boycaught says of the film, "this numbing drudgery [the working blues, rampant consumerism, what-have-you animating Jack/Tyler's schizoid break] affects everyone, so why are only the white guys allowed to vent? What the f*ck do they have to bitch about?" Well, no doubt minorities and women have more societal-induced angst to deal with on a daily basis. But, those issues are for a different movie. To my mind, the lack of any kind of racial statement (or significant racial presence) in Fight Club doesn't make the movie's sardonic critiques of consumerism, postmodern anomie, and nihilism any less relevant to anyone - white, black, hispanic, asian, gay - growing up and/or working in today's hyped up free market material-worshipping culture, in which we are conditioned by our surroundings to "work jobs we hate so we can buy crap we don't need." To my mind, that cutting take on modern consumerism applies as well to the Wazzup guys as it does to Ed Norton and co.

Boycaught also notes, "how can a film be allowed to depict completely destructive, ultra-violent, misogynistic ways of dealing with rage, and not get called for it...If [he] were a film director and made Fight Club, it wouldn't be hailed as a breakthrough movie, it would be called: "too strong, too disturbing" and never see the light of day. Well, first off, the movie barely made it through the gates anyway, and when it did, it WAS called out, bigtime. Ebert labeled it "the most frankly and cheerfully fascist big-star movie since Death Wish." Ken Turan of the L.A. Times said Fight Club was "a witless mishmash of whiny, infantile philosophizing and bone-crunching violence." The London Evening Standard said, "It is an inadmissible assault on personal decency. And on society itself...It echoes propaganda that gave license to the brutal activities of the SA and the SS. It resurrects the Fuhrer principle."

Apparently, these critics didn't watch the final third of the film, when Tyler's seductive nihilism clearly becomes too literal and spirals out of control, fostering a nightmarish cult of unthinking goons. And, as the DVD commentary notes, the scene after Bob's death - which, if I'm not mistaken, is the ONLY death in the film - when the Space Monkeys start obliviously chanting, "His name was Robert Paulson," clearly lampoons and subverts the very "Facist tendencies" that were derided by the more facile critics.

I also don't quite see how the violence in the film is misogynistic. Fight Club is clearly written by, for, and about men, and, with the exception of Marla (Helena Bonham Carter), who mainly functions as a monochromatic narrative device, there are no women depicted therein. But that doesn't make the film necessarily misogynistic. It does concern itself with the (perhaps unhealthy) sublimation of masculine aggression and hunter-gatherer traits in today's world, and the near-total irrelevance and destructive tendencies of testosterone in a civilized society.

Finally, on the subject of race, Boycaught says of Fight Club, "By Hollywood's bogus standards, when a Black man gets pissed off, he's only allowed to take it out on people that look like him. It's alright, see, if he keeps his rage bottled up in 'da hood.'" I think he definitely has a point, but I don't really see how it relates to Fight Club. Jack/Tyler spend their time beating up and getting beaten up by their fellow white and blue collar workers, i.e. people of their same social/racial strata that basically look like them. If there had been a racial subtext in which Norton and Pitt spent their time attacking minorities rather than fixtures of corporate culture (VW, Apple, Visa,) than the film would have been a fascist film and would have been universally and justifiably derided.

On a related note, I just wanted to point out that the vastly underrated Deep Cover (my second favorite "urban crime" film (for lack of a better genre term) after Menace) does include a black man (Lawrence Fishburne) exacting rage/revenge on someone other than another black man: namely, Jeff Goldblum the upper-middle-class white drug profiteer and Charles Martin Smith the unctuous and ambitious white drug war bureaucrat. If you haven't seen it, it's a great film.

At any rate, I just thought I'd come to the defense of Fight Club in the spirit of friendly discussion. No dis intended. Boycaught is still the man, I'm still going to peruse his blog everyday, and I highly suggest you do the same.

6/12/00 - Birds of a feather: Dr. Laura makes Pat Buchanan's veep short list.

R.I.P. Image the Two-Faced Kitten.

Come peruse the fourth Doctor's many scarves (Via Pop Culture Junk Mail and Pith and Vinegar.)

Sounds like the Blair Witch has struck in Kansas. A man blames the murder of his three children on a "mystical state."

Sosa in pinstripes?

AICN creates a Harry Head Archive.

The Wizards get a coach.

More bad news for DC. The Smithsonian admits their museums are approaching dangerous levels of decay.

As she moves to Nashville to better serve Team Gore, Jenn of Malapropism was more than kind enough to invite me to collaborate on A Nice Piece of Ass, her Democratic weblog. Which means I've finally used Blogger for the first time (note that I forgot to include my name in the Posted By bit.) Quite a useful little tool, all right, but I'm not sure that it would really save me all that much time, given the low-tech nature of Ghost.

Reel.com is going under? Looks like I had better hurry up and use those $10 trivia credits I've amassed.

According to an elated Harry, Christopher Lee will appear in Episode II. Sith High Priest? Corrupt Senate Functionary? Only Saruman knows for sure.

Slate assesses Eminem. Eminem is rap's version of Alan Keyes: You may not agree with anything he says, but you never want him to stop talking.

Why, yes, we are using the Internet.

Douglas Adams discusses his web-based attempt at a Hitchhiker's Guide with the good folks at Salon.

More trouble for the death penalty, and by extension Dubya.

Congrats to the New Jersey Devils.

6/9/00 - Elaine and I are off to a wedding in Clemson, SC, this weekend, so updates may be infrequent and/or (more likely) non-existent.

The teaser trailer for Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows is now online, and so far at least it scares Berkeley.

6/8/00 - Springsteen on Diallo.

Harrison Ford says No to another Jack Ryan outing for the time being.

Best wishes for Skykicker, whose lung recently collapsed. Get well soon!

The pros and cons of a Nader vote.

6/7/00 - Another funky redesign at Malaprop. That dragon burns my retinas.

I've been in a severe shooting slump all week. My outside game is nonexistent, meaning my game is, well, nonexistent.

You know, Lots of Co. is a really great weblog. I like virtually every link he puts up.

Al Gore, to noone's surprise, breaks his word on soft money. Meanwhile, Jake Tapper wonders aloud why the Gore camp is foundering so badly.

Looks like money can buy everything. Well, at least he's a Lefty: [Corzine] was a Wall Street titan running as an unabashed liberal, with ambitious, expensive proposals for universal health care, long-term care for the elderly and disabled, and preschool programs, as well as free college tuition for any high school graduates with a B average. He adamantly opposed the death penalty and supported affirmative action, gay rights and mandatory licensing of guns and registration for gun owners.

The Judge has spoken, and he wants Microsoft split into two companies. I still think Gates and Co., for all their faults, are getting shafted, particularly after AOL-Time Warner behemoth was okayed. As Jeff Bezos might say, "Only I got there first. I GOT THE LOOT, BILL!"

The axe also fell today at Salon. Looks like I can cross them off my job search.

Mike Myers walks off his Sprockets project at Universal. It is time for Austin Power 3?

6/6/00 - Picked up the ultra-stacked Fight Club DVD this evening, which according to the reviews raises the bar for special edition DVD packages. Couldn't have happened to a better film. I'm looking forward to checking it out after Elaine gets her Real World N'Orleans fix.

United diverts a flight to save a misplaced dog. You go, guys.

Jacob Weisberg of Slate reviews Dubya's sudden qualms with the death penalty.

Bill Bradley emerged from hiding today to cast his primary vote for his former archrival, Al Gore. Apparently, he's been writing a book these past few months, and contemplating what to do with his 412 delegates.

What makes a good Doctor (in the Gallifreyan sense?) Well, he must be British and well-established, for starters.

6/5/00 - It appears Ralph Nader will once again choose Winona LaDuke, a prominent Native American activist, as his running mate.

Gore responds to the slumlord charge.

In the aftermath of the Knicks defeat, Patrick Ewing gets assurances from GM Scott Layden that the team wants him back. More interestingly, rumor has it that New York will make a run at either Grant Hill (No! No! NO!) or Gary Payton (Yes! Yes! YES!). I would trade Camby, Childs, Wallace, Dudley, and, at this point, even Houston for a chance at the Glove. As for Grant Hill, why would we want a swingman that Spree already outplays every time?

Get back to the minors, ya bum.

Overseas, everybody loves Clinton, who announced in Russia today that he once "had a used comic book business." He did? I'd love to hear somebody pick his brain on the subject. I wonder if the President can jaw as knowledgably about Jack Kirby and the Golden Age as he can on almost all other issues.

Deion comes to DC. I'm not really a Redskins fan, but for the sake of the city I hope they do reasonably well. This town lives and dies by the performance of the 'Skins.

Apt #820 is now Terrapin Gardens, and the Design Girl has a spiffy new look and URL.

The Kitchens - Scott and Jen - team up for One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, SHARK! An all-new must read.

Um...thanks, Pearl. I assume referring to my "bone-headed stubborness" for the Knicks was a form of compliment.

A word or two with Bill Hillsman, ad man for Jesse Ventura and Ralph Nader.

"Monica" Mike Isikoff digs deep into Gore fundraising.