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

8/28/00 - Berkeley and I have each other's back in Shenandoah State Park.

The suddenly infamous Dubya wedding tape, which Matt Drudge previewed as Bush being "sarcastic, obnoxious, and possibly intoxicated." All I can say is, if Drudge thinks this is intoxicated, he's clearly never seen me drunk. It's an interesting piece of video, to be sure, but don't believe the hype. I mean, how exactly are you supposed to act at a wedding reception?

Cluttered talks up Icewind Dale. I've been meaning to pick it up for awhile now, but I've been fearing the 96-144 hour void it will no doubt create in my life.

Timmy Hardaway to the Pacers? Just what they need in the backcourt...Another aged, streaky trash-talker.

Hmmm...this sounds like the plotline for Tremors 4.

Unsurprisingly, Ventura was a Rudy fan.

In true mutable fashion, Mutability has become SemiStatic.

The Atlantic Monthly tackles Napster and file sharing.

Lance Morrow of Time ponders the infamous(ly opportunistic) Gore kiss and the new standard in political PDA that it sets. Maureen Dowd gets into Dubya's head about the aforementioned smooch.

"The Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, not freedom from religion." Oh, really? Lieberman gets sanctimonious again. Remember when Bradley refused to discuss his religious beliefs in the political sphere? Now, we have Gore-Lieberman flaunting their religiosity like they're gunning for the 700 Club vote.

In related news, the NY Times delves into Lieberman's record and discovers a Corporate-backed centrist much different from the pseudo-populist currently campaigning on the Democratic ticket.

After he finishes mangling Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Chris Columbus will unfortunately take on one of the more interesting scripts I've heard of recently: Sherlock Holmes and the Vengeance of Dracula.

President Clinton arrives in Colombia this week to bolster the War on Drugs, despite the growing number of human rights abuses and civilian casualties involved.

Mutombo, Baker, Rice, Sprewell, Ward...the proposed post-Ewing trade Knick lineup. I must confess, if that had been the '00-01 Knickerbocker squadron, I would have had a hard time rooting for them. Elsewhere, the Lakers sign Isaiah Rider. I think it's definitely a good pickup for the Lake Show - in my book talent almost always trumps a troubled past.

FCC Chairman William Kennard on the US satellite market.

8/25/00 - Plans to turn Mr. Toad's Marsh Meadow into a parking lot have enraged Wind in the Willows fans.

In the interest of the historical record, the Washington Post reprints Survivor Susan's speech in full.

More signs of a salt-water ocean on nearby Europa.

Obi-Wan appears to be having a bad day.

8/24/00 - Bring me the head of Benedicto XIII.

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

Richard wins, proving that - as in "real" politics - the venal, scheming, unprincipled, and duplicitous are usually the ones who get rewarded. Ah well, I guess I can't complain. Rich played to win, however much I would have liked to see Greg, Gretchen, or Colleen get paid the big bucks. Until Survivor 2...

Doc Ock gets the axe. Excellent move...I never understood the two villain thing Warner Brothers had going with Batman.

Barbelith is dead. Long live PlasticBag.

A survey of our solar system's most interesting moons.

If you go out to this lady's yard, you're in for a big surprise...

Han and Leia reunited.

A NYT profile of Governor Gary Johnson of New Mexico, the highest-profile political official calling for an end to the drug war. And a Republican to boot!

8/23/00 - Medley points out this Nader hack piece by notorious Clinton-Gore shill Joe Conason, who's made a career recently carrying water for the Vice-President. He wrote basically the same piece about Bradley during the primary, claiming then that the only true liberal choice was (surprise) Al Gore. (As you can imagine, I felt compelled to respond.) I was also going to send in a response to Conason's Nader piece when I read it a few days ago, but I subsequently decided his argument was already well-refuted by Barbara Ehrenreich of The Nation.

Speaking of the pro-Gore cottage industry, Ralph Nader personally penned a compelling rebuttal to some recent Gore Republic articles attacking the Green Party candidate.

Survivor comes to a close tonight, and I'll be one of the many Americans watching. I think Rudy's got it, although Kelly makes for a solid dark horse, if she wins the immunity bids. We'll see tonight...

My good friend and Best Man Jon is in town from San Diego for the rest of the week, and here I am in the worst shooting slump of my life...if my B-ball A-game doesn't make a return in the next few hours the call will go out around the group that my game is slippin'...

Speaking of which, the Knicks are still vainly trying to piece together Monday's mega-deal for Patrick Ewing. Give it up, fellas, and let the big man do his thing for another year. He may miss a couple more than he used to, but at least he won't choke (a la Vin Baker.)

Gore, thanks once again to the magnamity of Janet Reno, dodges another fund-raising bullet. Which is sure to extend his recent run of remarkably favorable press coverage.

An eleven-year-old gets the nod to direct an upcoming Hollywood film. Hey, maybe he can save Harry Potter from the Chris Columbus schmaltz machine.

8/22/00 - Dubya gets even more tang-tungled than usual.

The Star Wars Episode II Random Title Generator. Kinda lame, but oh well.

Lost amid the Ewing shuffle, the revived ABA conducted its first draft. Among the drafted players were Dennis Rodman, Timmy Hardaway and Dominique Wilkens. Like the ABA of old, this league will be playing with the rules a bit - including adding a player who can't foul out and an extra point for scores off of turnovers.

Aristophanes gets nasty.

Boy, I take a long weekend to celebrate my one-year anniversary and what do I find upon my return? They're trading Ewing! The first deal may have died, but it sounds like another will follow shortly in its wake. Now, I guess I don't mind seeing the big fella get traded - as this article points out, if they traded Walt Frazier they can surely trade Pat - but why on earth would we want Vin Baker or Glen Rice? Vin Baker is softer than the top of a baby's head, and Marcus Camby is already occupying the ultra-soft big man slot for the Knicks. As for Rice, he's an ornery head case who can't create his own shot, and our backcourt is already packed! This deal makes no sense.

At any rate, Knicks news notwithstanding, Elaine, Berkeley, and I had a lovely time in Roanoke-Salem, VA, where we were able to check out some caverns, walked some trails in the Blue Ridge, and returned by way of a scenic drive through Shenandoah National Park.

Nader tells Gore where he can stick his faux populism.

Caught The Cell on Saturday night. Pretty grisly stuff. I'd say I preferred it to The Bone Collector, but it's not going to go down as anything more than a visually stylish popcorn film. Oh well...maybe the fall will see some better cinema.

U2 picks a release date. All That You Can't Leave Behind, their new album, will be released on Halloween.

R.I.P. The crew of the Kursk. I was really hoping they'd make it somehow...what a terrible way to go.

8/18/00 - David Edelstein critiques political films.

Salon on Maher.

Misleading evidence? Perjured testimony? The FBI always gets their man.

Ang Lee directing The Silver Surfer? What a great idea. The surfer should be less comic book hijinx and more Zen introspective, particularly if they go the Herald of Galactus route.

Well, perhaps I'm biased being (a) a speechwriter and (b) a Bradley-Nader supporter, but I thought Al Gore's speech last night was really terrible. I had low expectations for the man which I honestly was expecting him to exceed. To my mind, though, his text came off like a mind-numbingly bland list of unrelated and randomly organized talking points - they could have replaced Al Gore with one of Charlie Brown's teachers and I'm not sure I would have noticed the difference. And I found his attempt to straddle every possible centrist position singularly pathetic. "Free Trade! Fair Trade!...I will reduce the crime rate every year! But I'm against racial profiling!" Please.

Reading the press coverage today, though, most people seemed to have liked Gore's speech. So much for my opinion - I thought Bradley would win a few states too.

Nader responds to Mastercard. "They should lighten up. They're taking their name 'Master' too seriously. This is America."

8/17/00 - Sigh. Here we go again.

Being Al Gore, a Spike Jonez film? That picture to the right looks like something out of The Matrix.

Will Bradley become the new Olympic chair? Frankly, I think it depends how long the gig runs. He should spend some time readying for 2004.

Lieberman gives a pretty good speech, followed up by Tommy Lee Jones and Karenna Gore (who, full disclosure, I met a few times back in college) insisting that Al Gore is not from Mars. He goes canoeing! He hugs his kids! What was he supposed to do, eat them? I'm reminded of Chris Rock's riff on folks who brag about their everyday obligations: "'I raise my kids! I've never been to jail!' What do you want, a cookie?"

Finally, citizens get a piece of the pie. A Maryland resident sells his vote on E-bay. Asking price is apparently at $10,100.

From a USA Today poll of last week:47% of the likely voters surveyed said there was no chance whatsoever that they would vote for Gore, a higher negative rating than Dole received at the same moment in 1996 or the elder Bush received in 1992. Hate to beat a dead horse here, but the party knew this when we dismissed Bradley for Gore. The silver lining here is that a Gore loss might break the DLC's grip on the party.

Memo to myself: Get more sleep.

Artoo takes a tumble.

Fight Club auteur David Fincher chooses his next project - The Panic Room.

The Boston Globe analyzes the Republicratic ticket.

66 Ways to be Annoying at Monopoly (courtesy of The Other Side.) There's a longstanding house rule in the Murphy family that if Person A lands on a square owned by Person B, and the next person after Person A rolls the dice without Person B having said anything, Person A doesn't have to pay the rent. Moreover, if a Person C were to alert Person B that Person A has landed on that square, Person C has to pay double the rent to Person B instead. The rule was designed to keep the game moving and people paying attention (not reading, watching TV, etc.) I should add that Elaine is not down with the Murphy rule at all.

British scientists inadvertently stumble upon the cure for road rage, but will they own up to it? (Via Caught in Between via Unknown News.)

Send in the clones.

The newest trailer for O Brother Where Art Thou?, the long-awaited new Coen flick, is now online. Now this is the type of film that will get me going to the movies again...the last thing I saw was X-Men on July 15, and so far I've passed on Nutty Professor 2, What Lies Beneath, Space Cowboys, Hollow Man, etc. etc. I do believe this is the longest I've ever gone since reaching cognizance without seeing a movie in the theater...particularly in the summertime. Unfortunately, none of these offerings have grabbed my attention, although I do expect to return to the nearest Multiplex this weekend to see The Cell.

Wasabi!

Salon examines Ring fever sixteen months away from the premiere of Fellowship.

"To all those young people who believe that America can be just, I say: Never give up and never, never sell out," said Bill Bradley while in the midst of selling out to Gore. Ah, well, at least he didn't sound as fawning as poor McCain did about Dubya. I do wish he had followed his friend (and one of my old professors) Cornel West in endorsing Nader, though ("This [election] is two mediocre men against two mediocre men.") Or joined his buddy Paul Wellstone (not to mention Democrats Russ Feingold and Jesse Jackson) in speaking at the Huffington shadow convention instead (repeated link.) Speaking of the Shadow Convention, I also kinda wish that was being televised in place of the official show.

By the way, Cornel isn't alone on the Intellectual Left. Author and essayist Gore Vidal has also come out for Nader, although by way of some pretty strange familial reasoning.

Jesse Jackson also took a hit for the Gore team last night. "We must fight for protest and progress to make America better. We must fight to include all Americans. We can not keep fighting a failed war on drugs; it must be a war against drug addiction. We can't keep spending more on prisons than on colleges. You tell 'em. I can't believe the Dems didn't give him a primetime slot. It's just pathetic.

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