I have seen a few articles/cartoons/blurbs about how lousy 2009 was and how people can't wait for 2010. I hope those people have a good year, but I have to say that 2009 was pretty good to me. I had two good semesters in school and a great summer internship in New Orleans in between. I've been out west to Seattle and Las Vegas and danced the night away a few times in Natchitoches. I have few complaints.
After the fall semester ended, I went off to Las Vegas for a few days. I'd never been before, and had no expectations as to what would happen. I knew that I wanted to wander in and out of casinos and hotels, do some people watching and not lose too much at gambling. I was also intrigued at the possibility of being able to bet on horse races all over the country. In no particular order, here are some observations:
Even non-posh Vegas hotel/casino combos are really nice compared to, say, a Holiday Inn Express.
Flying in at night is pretty cool if the city is on your side of the plane like it was for me.
Allegiant Air tries to compensate for low fares by selling you everything under the sun once you're on board: food, drinks, Blue Man Group tickets, shuttle passes, etc.
Betting on horses consists of long stretches of thinking and planning followed by short spurts of "Aaargh, you bastards!"
There are no stars in Las Vegas, at least when you're looking into the sky over Las Vegas Boulevard.
I can walk a city, but only if it wants to be walked. I think they set the city up to be cabbed instead.
Whatever money the buffet loses on people like me who pile masses of food on their plates, they make back on Chinese girls. There's no way on earth those girls are eating $26.00 worth of food.
A 5-cent machine with a 20 credit minimum bet is a dollar machine.
On the way to my flight home, a 19 or 20-ish pretty girl was telling her father, "...and I was hanging upside down on the pole..."
The shuttle driver told me quite a dirty joke comparing a woman to a tornado.
Sharper than a serpent's tooth, is to meet the most gorgeous waitress you've ever seen on the same day the Saints lose their first game, which leads me to:
My one weakness. Okay, my one weakness, as Homer said, is that I'm weak, but the biggest manifestation of this is my undying appreciation of a good waitress. I mentioned to one of you that one day I will commit an act so heinous that my name will be subjected to spite and slander for all eternity. When asked why I would do such a thing, my story will begin, "Well, there was this waitress..." At no time has this ever been so evident in a non-TWGW situation than the cocktail waitress at the Wynn, who was a vision of divine perfection upon whose face I am unworthy to gaze. I've been in a lot of bars and restaurants, and been waited on by a lot of waitresses. I have never seen one this pretty. Period. Ships are launched and wars are fought over girls like her. I could go on and on, but there's no point. Talk to me one day and my voice and face will tell you everything you need to know.
In non-Vegas news, I was flipping through the channels and stopped on some senators giving a press conference about the vote that passed that now permits them to do something about the health care bill. I believe "talk about it some more" is the newly available action. In the space of two or three minutes they referenced the following figures while praising themselves for such a grand accomplishment: George Washington, Ted Kennedy, Job, Solomon, and Samson. If you ever needed confirmation that some in Congress have an inflated sense of self-worth and seriously need to get over themselves, this is it.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Blind-Sided Ninja
I suppose that in some alternate universe--or perhaps even this one--it is theoretically possible for a human being--or alternate-universe equivalent thereof--to see two more different movies back-to-back than The Blind Side and Ninja Assassin. If so, I would like to know what they are. Such was the case at the majestic Parkway Cinema Theater last night in beautiful Natchitoches, Louisiana. When people used to ask me what I missed about DC, my answer was usually "free museums and Sign of the Whale." I have since amended that to include "10:15am movies on Saturday." I could go to a movie and be out by lunch and have the day still ahead of me. It also allowed me to avoid crowds of people talking, crinkling plastic wrappers, rummaging around in popcorn buckets, and checking their cell phones for text messages (I have a cousin who does this, and I'm going to be arrested one of these days).
Though Natchitoches has progressed greatly, it has not, alas, adopted the weekend morning movie. So last night I paid $7.50 twice to see movies of vastly different subject matter and quality.
NOTE: I used to be able to see an afternoon matinee and eat a small bucket of popcorn for $5.00. As I mentioned to a friend online the other day, there are things that I loved that are no longer, and I have to find new things to love. She lol'd me.
Before we get to the movies, as in real life, let's do a preview. Invictus is coming out this, which I may or may not see. In the preview they play a song that started flipping switches in the back of my head. It was the Ladysmith Black Mambazo version of a song called "Hamba Nathi", and I've heard this song a thousand times.
Though Natchitoches has progressed greatly, it has not, alas, adopted the weekend morning movie. So last night I paid $7.50 twice to see movies of vastly different subject matter and quality.
NOTE: I used to be able to see an afternoon matinee and eat a small bucket of popcorn for $5.00. As I mentioned to a friend online the other day, there are things that I loved that are no longer, and I have to find new things to love. She lol'd me.
Before we get to the movies, as in real life, let's do a preview. Invictus is coming out this, which I may or may not see. In the preview they play a song that started flipping switches in the back of my head. It was the Ladysmith Black Mambazo version of a song called "Hamba Nathi", and I've heard this song a thousand times.
I used to go to sleep at night listening to their CDs, so I was very happy to recognize it in the movie. I saw them in person at the House of Blues in New Orleans when I was in college, and the lady sitting next to me said, "You seem to know all the words." Not bad for songs that are in a sub-Saharan language, right? Some stuff I've read online says we can expect to hear it a lot during the runup to the World Cup in 2010, which is being held in South Africa. On to the movies:
The Blind Side is based on a book of the same name by Michael Lewis, the author of Moneyball, which I think is a fantastic look at baseball's economics and lesser-known stats. (At least they used to be lesser-known. Now every club probably has somebody paid to pay attention to on base percentage (OBP), value over replacement player (VORP), runs created, and defense independent pitching statistic (DIPS). I always liked secondary average, but when I emailed Rob Neyer about it he said he didn't pay much attention to it.)
The Blind Side investigates the evolution of the left tackle position into the second most important position on the field. The particular object under study is Michael Oher, the current left tackle for the Baltimore Ravens. The story is about how a kid from the poorest part of Memphis ends up being coveted by SEC football powerhouses and ends up playing for Ole Miss. the movie takes things a bit further and includes footage from the 2009 NFL draft. It also takes a little bit of poetic license with his life. One thing I heard was that he had played football for years before getting to his new school, while the movie makes it seems like he'd never put on pads before.
The movie's a lot more of a people story than a football/position/stats story, and I guess it has to be. I'd heard a lot about Sandra Bullock being really good, and I was doubtful. I was wrong. I think she actually was really good. I had to remind myself that I was watching the same woman who starred in two "Miss Congeniality" movies. I think it was the blonde hair that threw me off. Quinton Aaron doesn't say a whole lot, but maybe Michael Oher is supposed to be really quiet. The movie is touching, funny, emotional and pretty darn good. It felt like most of the teary parts come towards the beginning. I heard some people say they'd have thought it was cheesy had they not known that it is based on a true story, and I think they're right. Knowing that it really happened adds a lot to the experience. If you're looking for a Natchitoches connection, the Ole Miss coach in the movie, Ed Orgeron, is an NSU graduate.
One of my favorite aspects of the movie is how many coaches appearing for their team don't coach there anymore. Nick Saban was at LSU, then went to the Dolphins, and is now at Alabama. Philip Fulmer was fired from Tennessee and is out of coaching. Houston Nutt was fired from Arkansas and is now at Ole Miss. Tommy Tuberville was fired from Auburn. Lou Holtz retired from South Carolina and works for ESPN. Orgeron was fired from Ole Miss and coaches the defensive line at Tennessee.
I got another kick out of recognizing Kim Dickens, who was so good as Joanie Stubbs in "Deadwood." I love it when that happens.
The Blind Side is based on a book of the same name by Michael Lewis, the author of Moneyball, which I think is a fantastic look at baseball's economics and lesser-known stats. (At least they used to be lesser-known. Now every club probably has somebody paid to pay attention to on base percentage (OBP), value over replacement player (VORP), runs created, and defense independent pitching statistic (DIPS). I always liked secondary average, but when I emailed Rob Neyer about it he said he didn't pay much attention to it.)
The Blind Side investigates the evolution of the left tackle position into the second most important position on the field. The particular object under study is Michael Oher, the current left tackle for the Baltimore Ravens. The story is about how a kid from the poorest part of Memphis ends up being coveted by SEC football powerhouses and ends up playing for Ole Miss. the movie takes things a bit further and includes footage from the 2009 NFL draft. It also takes a little bit of poetic license with his life. One thing I heard was that he had played football for years before getting to his new school, while the movie makes it seems like he'd never put on pads before.
The movie's a lot more of a people story than a football/position/stats story, and I guess it has to be. I'd heard a lot about Sandra Bullock being really good, and I was doubtful. I was wrong. I think she actually was really good. I had to remind myself that I was watching the same woman who starred in two "Miss Congeniality" movies. I think it was the blonde hair that threw me off. Quinton Aaron doesn't say a whole lot, but maybe Michael Oher is supposed to be really quiet. The movie is touching, funny, emotional and pretty darn good. It felt like most of the teary parts come towards the beginning. I heard some people say they'd have thought it was cheesy had they not known that it is based on a true story, and I think they're right. Knowing that it really happened adds a lot to the experience. If you're looking for a Natchitoches connection, the Ole Miss coach in the movie, Ed Orgeron, is an NSU graduate.
One of my favorite aspects of the movie is how many coaches appearing for their team don't coach there anymore. Nick Saban was at LSU, then went to the Dolphins, and is now at Alabama. Philip Fulmer was fired from Tennessee and is out of coaching. Houston Nutt was fired from Arkansas and is now at Ole Miss. Tommy Tuberville was fired from Auburn. Lou Holtz retired from South Carolina and works for ESPN. Orgeron was fired from Ole Miss and coaches the defensive line at Tennessee.
I got another kick out of recognizing Kim Dickens, who was so good as Joanie Stubbs in "Deadwood." I love it when that happens.
At the other end of the spectrum we have Ninja Assassin, the bloody tale of a man raised as a killer who turns around and kills the killers for whom he previously killed. Good movie? No. Anybody you've ever heard of? No, but the Tattoo Master in the beginning is the same guy who played the Keymaker in Matrix: Reloaded. I'm kicking myself for missing that one. The story is simple, but the whole thing is put together terribly. I'd like to tell you the action is good. However, ninjas do all their fighting in the shadows, so you can't really see anything. Lots of blood, though, if that's your thing. I've seen worse, but save your money.
NOTE: My favorite part of Ninja Assassin was the scene with the nightingale floor, which I recognized from having read--quelle coincidence!--a book called Across the Nightingale Floor, a fantasy novel set in a place much like feudal Japan. The floor takes its name from the chirping sound it makes when anyone walks on it and steps in certain spots. Apparently you're not a real ninja until you can walk across one without making a sound. Arbiter of all truth Wikipedia says that they are also mentioned in Terry Pratchett's Interesting Times, which means I'll have to read it. Again. For about the sixth time.
NOTE: My favorite part of Ninja Assassin was the scene with the nightingale floor, which I recognized from having read--quelle coincidence!--a book called Across the Nightingale Floor, a fantasy novel set in a place much like feudal Japan. The floor takes its name from the chirping sound it makes when anyone walks on it and steps in certain spots. Apparently you're not a real ninja until you can walk across one without making a sound. Arbiter of all truth Wikipedia says that they are also mentioned in Terry Pratchett's Interesting Times, which means I'll have to read it. Again. For about the sixth time.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Rough and Tumbly
In the last couple of weeks one of the most interesting secondary stories in sports has been the case of Elizabeth Lambert, the New Mexico soccer player who is seen on video being--what's a good word here--"aggressive" with other players. She punches, kicks, charges, and yanks, among other things. After she was suspended, she apologized and said she got carried away. You can see the video of what she did here or watch it below:
Added bonus: you get to watch Julie Foudy, one of the greatest American soccer players of all time, and probably the funniest (though not in this clip).
In Tuesday's New York Times, there is an interview with her by Jere Longman. Here are a few of her comments, and I'll give my thoughts at the end:
1) "At the same time, she said other moments of aggressive play — in which Lambert elbowed a Brigham Young player in the back, received a yellow card for tripping, seemed to throw a punch at an opponent’s head and made a hard tackle from behind — came during the forceful, insistent play that routinely occurred in women’s soccer but might be misunderstood by casual fans."
2) "And she said she believed that the incident was blown out of proportion because it occurred in a women’s game. "I definitely feel because I am a female it did bring about a lot more attention than if a male were to do it,” Lambert said. “It’s more expected for men to go out there and be rough. The female, we’re still looked at as, Oh, we kick the ball around and score a goal. But it’s not."
First item: Now, as longtime readers of this blog--both of you--know, I'm a big fan of women's soccer. I've been paying attention to the US Women's National Team for at least twenty years. I played with and against girls growing up. I can vouch for the fact that play on the field is often "forceful" and "insistent." I don't have a problem with that. But to try to say that throwing elbows into other players standing in front of you, punching them in the head--I don't believe that was accidental like she says--and yanking ponytails are not routine occurrences in women's soccer. Well, maybe the elbows.
Second item: There is no doubt in my mind that this received so much attention because she's a woman and not a man. Not because it's okay for men to do these things, but because it's so rare for us to see women doing them on the field of play. Female basketball players don't rack up technical fouls yelling at referees like the men do. Softball players don't get ejected from games for arguing balls and strikes with the umpire. There's very little staring down your opponent after a hard tackle in women's soccer. The level of aggressiveness in the game is comparable, but there's just a lot less theatrics about it in the women's game.
An added bonus to women's soccer is that diving is extremely rare. A youtube search for "soccer dives" returns over 2,300 results. It's one of the least attractive parts of watching men's soccer. There's even a mocking wiki page for "How to Dive in Soccer" that tells us:
Things You'll Need
For her to claim that people criticizing her don't understand the physical nature of women's soccer is a bit silly. I played soccer for ten years, and throwing punches and pulling hair wasn't part of the game. If you don't want to take my word for it, then listen to Julie Foudy, whose right pinky knows more about soccer than Elizabeth Lambert ever will. If she says there's nothing like this in the women's game, I believe her.
Added bonus: you get to watch Julie Foudy, one of the greatest American soccer players of all time, and probably the funniest (though not in this clip).
In Tuesday's New York Times, there is an interview with her by Jere Longman. Here are a few of her comments, and I'll give my thoughts at the end:
1) "At the same time, she said other moments of aggressive play — in which Lambert elbowed a Brigham Young player in the back, received a yellow card for tripping, seemed to throw a punch at an opponent’s head and made a hard tackle from behind — came during the forceful, insistent play that routinely occurred in women’s soccer but might be misunderstood by casual fans."
2) "And she said she believed that the incident was blown out of proportion because it occurred in a women’s game. "I definitely feel because I am a female it did bring about a lot more attention than if a male were to do it,” Lambert said. “It’s more expected for men to go out there and be rough. The female, we’re still looked at as, Oh, we kick the ball around and score a goal. But it’s not."
First item: Now, as longtime readers of this blog--both of you--know, I'm a big fan of women's soccer. I've been paying attention to the US Women's National Team for at least twenty years. I played with and against girls growing up. I can vouch for the fact that play on the field is often "forceful" and "insistent." I don't have a problem with that. But to try to say that throwing elbows into other players standing in front of you, punching them in the head--I don't believe that was accidental like she says--and yanking ponytails are not routine occurrences in women's soccer. Well, maybe the elbows.
Second item: There is no doubt in my mind that this received so much attention because she's a woman and not a man. Not because it's okay for men to do these things, but because it's so rare for us to see women doing them on the field of play. Female basketball players don't rack up technical fouls yelling at referees like the men do. Softball players don't get ejected from games for arguing balls and strikes with the umpire. There's very little staring down your opponent after a hard tackle in women's soccer. The level of aggressiveness in the game is comparable, but there's just a lot less theatrics about it in the women's game.
An added bonus to women's soccer is that diving is extremely rare. A youtube search for "soccer dives" returns over 2,300 results. It's one of the least attractive parts of watching men's soccer. There's even a mocking wiki page for "How to Dive in Soccer" that tells us:
Things You'll Need
- A soccer game
Opposition players
A referee
No sense of fair play
For her to claim that people criticizing her don't understand the physical nature of women's soccer is a bit silly. I played soccer for ten years, and throwing punches and pulling hair wasn't part of the game. If you don't want to take my word for it, then listen to Julie Foudy, whose right pinky knows more about soccer than Elizabeth Lambert ever will. If she says there's nothing like this in the women's game, I believe her.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
They Call Me . . . "Leader Guy"
One of the projects I've been working on for months is a grave cleaning activity at the Catholic Cemetery in Natchitoches. I'm using it to get material for one of the components of my project thesis. I had a small but energetic turnout of people, and we got a good bit of work done in the process. I was pleasantly surprised.
One of the participants was a writer for the Current Sauce, NSU's student newspaper. A few days after the event, I saw an editorial mentioning the work we had done. Do I, your humble writer, get mentioned in the article? Let's see:
It reminded me of the Simpsons episode--"The Joy of Sect"--where Homer joins the Movementarians. Homer is impervious to their conversion efforts, eating dozens of bowls of gruel and singing the "nananananananana BATMAN!" theme song. The Movementarians counter by singing the same tune with "Leader" in place of Batman. I need to come up with a Leader Guy song that will convert people to my cause.
In other news, this was a weird college football weekend in terms of uniforms. Several teams wore custom jerseys in support of the Wounded Warrior Project. Some of the jerseys will be auctioned off. TCU's colors are purple and white, so why were they wearing red stripes on their helmets? Because the Horned Frog squirts blood from its eyes when threatened.
In the Florida/South Carolina game, Gamecock players replaced names on the back of their jerseys with warrior code values: Duty, Honor, Courage, Commitment, Integrity, Country and Service. This led to an interesting call by the CBS announcers doing the game (I paraphrase):
"So there are offsetting personal fouls on the play. In case you're wondering about the names, INTEGRITY just threw a punch at a Florida player."
One of the participants was a writer for the Current Sauce, NSU's student newspaper. A few days after the event, I saw an editorial mentioning the work we had done. Do I, your humble writer, get mentioned in the article? Let's see:
So I would go through the cleaning process a couple of times and would see some improvement, but it didn't really look clean.So apparently I am no longer Scotty Williams, but "the leader guy." I guess I could do worse.
At that point the leader guy would come up and simply say, "Come back in a week. Come back in a month. Just wait."
It reminded me of the Simpsons episode--"The Joy of Sect"--where Homer joins the Movementarians. Homer is impervious to their conversion efforts, eating dozens of bowls of gruel and singing the "nananananananana BATMAN!" theme song. The Movementarians counter by singing the same tune with "Leader" in place of Batman. I need to come up with a Leader Guy song that will convert people to my cause.
In other news, this was a weird college football weekend in terms of uniforms. Several teams wore custom jerseys in support of the Wounded Warrior Project. Some of the jerseys will be auctioned off. TCU's colors are purple and white, so why were they wearing red stripes on their helmets? Because the Horned Frog squirts blood from its eyes when threatened.
In the Florida/South Carolina game, Gamecock players replaced names on the back of their jerseys with warrior code values: Duty, Honor, Courage, Commitment, Integrity, Country and Service. This led to an interesting call by the CBS announcers doing the game (I paraphrase):
"So there are offsetting personal fouls on the play. In case you're wondering about the names, INTEGRITY just threw a punch at a Florida player."
Monday, November 02, 2009
Saving Sign of the Whale
I have told all of you, I'm sure, the story of how I ended up first going to Sign of the Whale. After a bad day, I talked myself into going to the Thursday Night Out with fellow GW students. The site that night was SOTW. The World's Greatest Waitress took care of me, and a few years and a lot of money later, I had a place I felt I could always, always, always go.
I don't know if I ever told you about almost deciding to avoid going there ever again. In 2006 I started hearing rumors that the place would be sold to a local radio personality who was going to change the name and turn it into an Irish pub--because Lord knows that DC just doesn't have enough of those. For some reason the deal fell through, and the owner of Rhino Bar, Britt Swan, ended up buying it instead. The new manager of Sign of the Whale was Vito.
(Note: the old manager was a guy named Billy, the inspiration for the Billy's Belly Buster brunch menu item: eggs, hash browns, sausage, grits, pancakes, and two slices of melon. One Sunday afternoon an Eagles fan came in and asked if they were showing the Eagles game on any of the TVs. Billy, a Redskins fan, looked right at him, pointed to the door, and said, "Get out.")
Every time I went to SOTW after the sale, Vito was there. I didn't talk to him much until my last few months in DC, but he was always polite and seemed like he had a good handle on running things. When I told him I was moving back home, he said they'd miss me, hoped I came back to see them, and wished me luck. When I was in town over New Year's, I stopped in one afternoon. He saw me and said, "You're back!" I never assume that I'll be remembered when I go back any place (except some places in Natchitoches) so it made me feel pretty good.
I'm writing about Vito because he died. I wasn't really close to him, but the work he did at Sign of the Whale allowed me to have a lot of fun when I thought for a while it would all be taken away. I really like the DC/N.VA area, and I recommend it to a lot of people, but Vito loved the city. I asked him once how long he'd been there, and he said all his life. His parents were Italian immigrants who settled there. The only time in his life he didn't live there was when he was in Vietnam.
So take care, Vito, and I'll raise a couple of glasses to you next time I'm there.
I don't know if I ever told you about almost deciding to avoid going there ever again. In 2006 I started hearing rumors that the place would be sold to a local radio personality who was going to change the name and turn it into an Irish pub--because Lord knows that DC just doesn't have enough of those. For some reason the deal fell through, and the owner of Rhino Bar, Britt Swan, ended up buying it instead. The new manager of Sign of the Whale was Vito.
(Note: the old manager was a guy named Billy, the inspiration for the Billy's Belly Buster brunch menu item: eggs, hash browns, sausage, grits, pancakes, and two slices of melon. One Sunday afternoon an Eagles fan came in and asked if they were showing the Eagles game on any of the TVs. Billy, a Redskins fan, looked right at him, pointed to the door, and said, "Get out.")
Every time I went to SOTW after the sale, Vito was there. I didn't talk to him much until my last few months in DC, but he was always polite and seemed like he had a good handle on running things. When I told him I was moving back home, he said they'd miss me, hoped I came back to see them, and wished me luck. When I was in town over New Year's, I stopped in one afternoon. He saw me and said, "You're back!" I never assume that I'll be remembered when I go back any place (except some places in Natchitoches) so it made me feel pretty good.
I'm writing about Vito because he died. I wasn't really close to him, but the work he did at Sign of the Whale allowed me to have a lot of fun when I thought for a while it would all be taken away. I really like the DC/N.VA area, and I recommend it to a lot of people, but Vito loved the city. I asked him once how long he'd been there, and he said all his life. His parents were Italian immigrants who settled there. The only time in his life he didn't live there was when he was in Vietnam.
So take care, Vito, and I'll raise a couple of glasses to you next time I'm there.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Saints and Saints
New Orleans Saints
I've been trying to figure out which Twilight Zone episode most resembles the New Orleans Saints season so far. It's got to be one of the ones where the protagonist goes to sleep or blacks out, then wakes up in a world that doesn't make any sense. The guys in the fleur de lis helmets aren't doing the things Saints fans are used to. I've never seen such a bewildered look as I saw on the face of someone who has cheered for the Saints their entire existence, and now can't fit that in with what she knows as reality: that the Saints never, ever play this well. The big stat of the moment: through five games, the Saints have not trailed. At all. Even for one second. It helps that they've had the ball first in all five games and scored on all five first possessions (4 TD, 1 FG).
Best stat against the Giants: seven touchdowns scored by seven different players.
No game has been closer than 14 points at the end. Margins of victory: 18, 26, 20, 14, 21. They've won three games cranking out points faster than their opponents could keep up, scoring 45, 48, and 48 against Detroit, Philly, and New York (Giants edition). They've won the other two with aggressive defense that never allowed the other team to get going, allowing 7 and 10 points to Buffalo and New York (Jets edition). I'd like to see them do better running the ball on short yardage plays, but that's really the only thing I can pick at right now.
I've heard some people say that they want to see how the Saints offense does in "weather", which usually means cold/rain/snow/wind. That's a valid point, since they could be playing on the road in the playoffs in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, or some place like that. In the regular season, it's not a factor. The northernmost road game left on the schedule is at Washington on December 6. It'll be cold, but it won't exactly be Minnesota-ish that early in the winter. At Carolina in January could be snowy, but Carolina stinks (STINKS). Of the Saints eleven remaining games, seven are in domes and two are in Florida. I just don't think weather is a major factor for them right now.
After reflecting on it, let's go with the only Twilight Zone episode set in New Orleans, "The Masks" from 1964. A crotchety old man about to die makes his wretched family members wear masks that reveal their true personalities. As the season goes on, we'll see if the Saints wearing the mask of a contender, or if they really are one.
Scene from "The Masks"
The "Other" Saints
Businesses that sponsor the Saints are known as "Patron Saints", which is clever. However, I wonder if those businesses know how a lot of actual patron saints obtained their patronage. The Church has a morbid streak when it comes to making such decisions.
Looking for the patron saint of butchers? One of the eight is Adrian of Nicomedia. Adrian was hacked to pieces in 304. (I was sort of hoping he'd be named Lazar Wolf)
Feeling culinary tonight? Lawrence of Rome is the man when it comes to cooks. Of course, he was cooked to death on a gridiron in 258.
Got a headache? Pray to Saint Denis, if you can ignore the fact that he was beheaded by the Romans. Statues of him often show him holding his head in his hands. The founder of Natchitoches was named Louis Juchereau de St. Denis, so St Denis is one of my favorites.
The patron of stonemasons is Saint Reinhold, who--you guessed it--was beaten to death with hammers by stonemasons.
If you ask me, the king of all these gruesomely murdered patrons is Saint Sebastian. First, he survived being shot full of arrows by the Romans. Later on, they stopped fooling around and just beat him to death. In the Dark Ages, plague victims likened the random nature of infection to being shot by nature's archers, so they prayed to Sebastian. So now Sebastian--usually depicted tied to a tree with arrows sticking out of him--is the patron saint of archers, arrowsmiths, fletchers, and plague victims (and hardware stores, for some reason).
If possible, I'd like to be the patron saint of either dying peacefully in bed, or performing heroic deeds while saving the life of a complete stranger. I'm good with either one.
I've been trying to figure out which Twilight Zone episode most resembles the New Orleans Saints season so far. It's got to be one of the ones where the protagonist goes to sleep or blacks out, then wakes up in a world that doesn't make any sense. The guys in the fleur de lis helmets aren't doing the things Saints fans are used to. I've never seen such a bewildered look as I saw on the face of someone who has cheered for the Saints their entire existence, and now can't fit that in with what she knows as reality: that the Saints never, ever play this well. The big stat of the moment: through five games, the Saints have not trailed. At all. Even for one second. It helps that they've had the ball first in all five games and scored on all five first possessions (4 TD, 1 FG).
Best stat against the Giants: seven touchdowns scored by seven different players.
No game has been closer than 14 points at the end. Margins of victory: 18, 26, 20, 14, 21. They've won three games cranking out points faster than their opponents could keep up, scoring 45, 48, and 48 against Detroit, Philly, and New York (Giants edition). They've won the other two with aggressive defense that never allowed the other team to get going, allowing 7 and 10 points to Buffalo and New York (Jets edition). I'd like to see them do better running the ball on short yardage plays, but that's really the only thing I can pick at right now.
I've heard some people say that they want to see how the Saints offense does in "weather", which usually means cold/rain/snow/wind. That's a valid point, since they could be playing on the road in the playoffs in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, or some place like that. In the regular season, it's not a factor. The northernmost road game left on the schedule is at Washington on December 6. It'll be cold, but it won't exactly be Minnesota-ish that early in the winter. At Carolina in January could be snowy, but Carolina stinks (STINKS). Of the Saints eleven remaining games, seven are in domes and two are in Florida. I just don't think weather is a major factor for them right now.
After reflecting on it, let's go with the only Twilight Zone episode set in New Orleans, "The Masks" from 1964. A crotchety old man about to die makes his wretched family members wear masks that reveal their true personalities. As the season goes on, we'll see if the Saints wearing the mask of a contender, or if they really are one.
Scene from "The Masks"Businesses that sponsor the Saints are known as "Patron Saints", which is clever. However, I wonder if those businesses know how a lot of actual patron saints obtained their patronage. The Church has a morbid streak when it comes to making such decisions.
Looking for the patron saint of butchers? One of the eight is Adrian of Nicomedia. Adrian was hacked to pieces in 304. (I was sort of hoping he'd be named Lazar Wolf)
Feeling culinary tonight? Lawrence of Rome is the man when it comes to cooks. Of course, he was cooked to death on a gridiron in 258.
Got a headache? Pray to Saint Denis, if you can ignore the fact that he was beheaded by the Romans. Statues of him often show him holding his head in his hands. The founder of Natchitoches was named Louis Juchereau de St. Denis, so St Denis is one of my favorites.
The patron of stonemasons is Saint Reinhold, who--you guessed it--was beaten to death with hammers by stonemasons.
If you ask me, the king of all these gruesomely murdered patrons is Saint Sebastian. First, he survived being shot full of arrows by the Romans. Later on, they stopped fooling around and just beat him to death. In the Dark Ages, plague victims likened the random nature of infection to being shot by nature's archers, so they prayed to Sebastian. So now Sebastian--usually depicted tied to a tree with arrows sticking out of him--is the patron saint of archers, arrowsmiths, fletchers, and plague victims (and hardware stores, for some reason).
If possible, I'd like to be the patron saint of either dying peacefully in bed, or performing heroic deeds while saving the life of a complete stranger. I'm good with either one.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Two Nights in Bangkok
Chocolate
If one night in Bangkok makes a hard man crumble, what does watching two Thai martial arts movies do? The first was Chocolate, which follows the violent adventures of a young autistic Thai girl named Zen who has the ability to learn any martial arts style just by watching it. Her ex-gangster mother is sick, so she pays visits to her mom's former clients to collect on their debts. When they refuse to pay, the fight scenes take over. Zin is played by Jeeja Yanin, who studies Taekwondo in real life. I thought the fights were fun to watch. My favorite is when she fights another twitchy autistic kid. After he knocks her around for a while, she learns his style for herself, twitching and all.
Ong-Bak
A few weeks before this movie came out, a friend of mine paid a visit to DC and stayed with me while he was in town. This particular friend is my most trusted authority on Asian movies. If it gets his seal of approval, it's good enough for me. When the 1994 version of The Legend of Drunken Master was coming to American theaters several years ago, I read some nonsense about it having a 20 minute fight scene at the end. Knowing he would have already seen it in Chinese, I decided to test Leon by sending him an email.
"Hey Leon. Should I go see the Drunken Master movie? Is it any good? I hear it has a 15 minute fight scene at the end."
"Scotty. Yes, it's good and you should go see it. And it's a 20 minute fight scene."
Now it's my favorite martial arts movie. Trust in Leon. So when he said, "Make a point of going to see Ong-bak. It's good.", I should have listened. I just never got around to it until the other night, when I watched it instantly on Netflix. It's really, really entertaining. There's not any sort of cringe-inducing injuries, just guys getting punched, kicked, kneed, and elbowed--especially elbowed--by Ting, the small village lad/Muay Thai expert who has to go to the big city to get his people's sacred statue's head back. We've all been there, haven't we?
The fights are great. Really great. Muay Thai doesn't show up much American theaters, especially compared to karate and kung fu. In addition to fists and feet, it makes use of shins and elbows as well. I don't think any of the cage fighters use it right now since their sport's more about grappling and "ground and pound" strategies than striking. (Lyoto Machida excepted) I sort of knew what it looked like, but the movie worked in a lot of athleticism and stunt work that really raised the energy level.
Ting seems like a nice enough fellow, and his fellow villagers are a sweet bunch of people. That's about all the analysis I have that doesn't involve something along the lines of "Holy crap, that was an awesome move." If you see one Thai martial arts movie this year, make it this one.
Google
Note: when I use the Google taskbar to search for something, I often stop in the middle of a word or phrase to see what the suggestions are going to be. Search for the lyrics to "One Night in Bangkok", I typed in "one n" and stopped. Three of the suggestions were about the Paris Hilton horizontal tango video, and two were for the song. A few weeks ago I put in "jon " with the space, and 8 of 10 suggestions were "Jon and Kate Plus 8" related. Now it's up to 9. The only intruder on the list is Jon Stewart.
If you have any suggestions for me to check out, let me know.
If one night in Bangkok makes a hard man crumble, what does watching two Thai martial arts movies do? The first was Chocolate, which follows the violent adventures of a young autistic Thai girl named Zen who has the ability to learn any martial arts style just by watching it. Her ex-gangster mother is sick, so she pays visits to her mom's former clients to collect on their debts. When they refuse to pay, the fight scenes take over. Zin is played by Jeeja Yanin, who studies Taekwondo in real life. I thought the fights were fun to watch. My favorite is when she fights another twitchy autistic kid. After he knocks her around for a while, she learns his style for herself, twitching and all.
Ong-Bak
A few weeks before this movie came out, a friend of mine paid a visit to DC and stayed with me while he was in town. This particular friend is my most trusted authority on Asian movies. If it gets his seal of approval, it's good enough for me. When the 1994 version of The Legend of Drunken Master was coming to American theaters several years ago, I read some nonsense about it having a 20 minute fight scene at the end. Knowing he would have already seen it in Chinese, I decided to test Leon by sending him an email.
"Hey Leon. Should I go see the Drunken Master movie? Is it any good? I hear it has a 15 minute fight scene at the end."
"Scotty. Yes, it's good and you should go see it. And it's a 20 minute fight scene."
Now it's my favorite martial arts movie. Trust in Leon. So when he said, "Make a point of going to see Ong-bak. It's good.", I should have listened. I just never got around to it until the other night, when I watched it instantly on Netflix. It's really, really entertaining. There's not any sort of cringe-inducing injuries, just guys getting punched, kicked, kneed, and elbowed--especially elbowed--by Ting, the small village lad/Muay Thai expert who has to go to the big city to get his people's sacred statue's head back. We've all been there, haven't we?
The fights are great. Really great. Muay Thai doesn't show up much American theaters, especially compared to karate and kung fu. In addition to fists and feet, it makes use of shins and elbows as well. I don't think any of the cage fighters use it right now since their sport's more about grappling and "ground and pound" strategies than striking. (Lyoto Machida excepted) I sort of knew what it looked like, but the movie worked in a lot of athleticism and stunt work that really raised the energy level.
Ting seems like a nice enough fellow, and his fellow villagers are a sweet bunch of people. That's about all the analysis I have that doesn't involve something along the lines of "Holy crap, that was an awesome move." If you see one Thai martial arts movie this year, make it this one.
Note: when I use the Google taskbar to search for something, I often stop in the middle of a word or phrase to see what the suggestions are going to be. Search for the lyrics to "One Night in Bangkok", I typed in "one n" and stopped. Three of the suggestions were about the Paris Hilton horizontal tango video, and two were for the song. A few weeks ago I put in "jon " with the space, and 8 of 10 suggestions were "Jon and Kate Plus 8" related. Now it's up to 9. The only intruder on the list is Jon Stewart.
If you have any suggestions for me to check out, let me know.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Stalking Zombieland
Monday Night Zombies
I have often said that the best time to go see a movie is Saturday morning. When I say it's the best time, I mean the best time for me, of course. Saturday afternoon and night, then all day Sunday you get the crowds. I realize that these people paid their money just as I did, but I just want to run most of them out of my theater so I can watch the movie in peace. I've been to opening weekend blockbuster movies at 10:45 on a Saturday morning at Tyson's Corner, and there's maybe ten people there.
I have less often said that the second best time to go see a movie is Monday night. There ain't nobody who wants to go to a movie on Monday night. They've come back from a long day at work and are just yearning for Friday, or at least Wednesday. Going out isn't on the agenda for most people, so there's not a big crowd.
As you might have guessed, I went to see a movie Monday night. I was curious about what Zombieland would be like. I figured it would be sort of a silly zombie-killing adventure, and that's pretty much what it was. It was a bit gruesome at the beginning, but a bit funnier than I expected, and I liked that it was made "differently." There are some creative bits to it that show that somebody in the production or writing crew was willing to add a little something special to the film's landscape. And of course, it's got Bill Murray. I thought it was a fun hour and a half.
Stalking
Earlier this week Tracee Hamilton wrote an article about being the victim of a stalker for many years. I don't have any experience in this area, so I'm not going to get into any analysis of what she wrote. I just think that it's a great piece of work that took a lot of guts to write, and I think it's worth a few minutes of your time.
Watch Instantly
It's becoming clear in a hurry that Netflix's Instant Watch option is going to be trouble. My current account plan allows me unlimited instant viewing per month. I see myself bringing up movies I like just to click forward to the parts I really like before moving on to something else.
I have often said that the best time to go see a movie is Saturday morning. When I say it's the best time, I mean the best time for me, of course. Saturday afternoon and night, then all day Sunday you get the crowds. I realize that these people paid their money just as I did, but I just want to run most of them out of my theater so I can watch the movie in peace. I've been to opening weekend blockbuster movies at 10:45 on a Saturday morning at Tyson's Corner, and there's maybe ten people there.
I have less often said that the second best time to go see a movie is Monday night. There ain't nobody who wants to go to a movie on Monday night. They've come back from a long day at work and are just yearning for Friday, or at least Wednesday. Going out isn't on the agenda for most people, so there's not a big crowd.
As you might have guessed, I went to see a movie Monday night. I was curious about what Zombieland would be like. I figured it would be sort of a silly zombie-killing adventure, and that's pretty much what it was. It was a bit gruesome at the beginning, but a bit funnier than I expected, and I liked that it was made "differently." There are some creative bits to it that show that somebody in the production or writing crew was willing to add a little something special to the film's landscape. And of course, it's got Bill Murray. I thought it was a fun hour and a half.
Stalking
Earlier this week Tracee Hamilton wrote an article about being the victim of a stalker for many years. I don't have any experience in this area, so I'm not going to get into any analysis of what she wrote. I just think that it's a great piece of work that took a lot of guts to write, and I think it's worth a few minutes of your time.
Watch Instantly
It's becoming clear in a hurry that Netflix's Instant Watch option is going to be trouble. My current account plan allows me unlimited instant viewing per month. I see myself bringing up movies I like just to click forward to the parts I really like before moving on to something else.
Sunday, October 04, 2009
"Local Man Disturbs Resting Dead"
Scotty, Media Star
I got the chance to do some grave cleaning Thursday afternoon as part of service learning for my graduate program. I cleaned my first grave about a year ago as part of a class assignment, and I liked it a lot. It's easy, mindless, quiet, and nobody asks me any questions while I do it. I can work on one thing and think about another at the same time. With the cleaning product we used, I also got to see immediate results. The marble I cleaned was dark gray when I started and almost copy-paper white when I finished. It was pretty rewarding. So when I was told I could do it again, I gladly said yes.
Cemetery preservation is the centerpiece of my project thesis, and I'm holding a cleanup activity at a local cemetery in November. Getting people to show up for it is one of my tasks, so a little publicity couldn't hurt. However, I was still very surprised when a reporter from the Natchitoches Times showed up while I was working. My committee chair had told her I would love to be asked a few questions. I've answered a question or two before, but this was the first time I can remember where I was actually the target of a newspaper interview. The reporter was nice, but she was too quick to move on to the next question before I'd completely finished answering the first. She also didn't tell me anything about why she was talking to me, or when I could expect to see something in the paper. Stay tuned for my next media appearance on "AC 360."
I've been trying to think of funny headlines that should go with the story. The title of this post is one. Send me any that you can think of.
A Pleasant Surprise
I was browsing a friend's FB page the other day when I came across something that made me pretty happy. One friend had posted the results of some survey, and an exchange in the comments went like this:
Commenter 1: "With this kakistocracy, nothing would surprise me."
Commenter 2: "I AGREE! (Ya I had to look up kakistocracy...)"
Commenter 1: "Well yeah, you're not Scotty."
Believe me when I say that I had nothing to do with this post at all. I didn't say anything, didn't comment, didn't know about it until I browsed and saw it a while later. So out of nowhere, an unusual word gets used, and I get referenced as somebody who probably knows what it means. In this case it happened to be true. Even if it weren't it's kind of nice to be used as the measuring stick for a good vocabulary. It made my day.
And now: Sports!
Don't look now, but the New Orleans Saints and LSU Tigers are a combined 9-0.
I got the chance to do some grave cleaning Thursday afternoon as part of service learning for my graduate program. I cleaned my first grave about a year ago as part of a class assignment, and I liked it a lot. It's easy, mindless, quiet, and nobody asks me any questions while I do it. I can work on one thing and think about another at the same time. With the cleaning product we used, I also got to see immediate results. The marble I cleaned was dark gray when I started and almost copy-paper white when I finished. It was pretty rewarding. So when I was told I could do it again, I gladly said yes.
Cemetery preservation is the centerpiece of my project thesis, and I'm holding a cleanup activity at a local cemetery in November. Getting people to show up for it is one of my tasks, so a little publicity couldn't hurt. However, I was still very surprised when a reporter from the Natchitoches Times showed up while I was working. My committee chair had told her I would love to be asked a few questions. I've answered a question or two before, but this was the first time I can remember where I was actually the target of a newspaper interview. The reporter was nice, but she was too quick to move on to the next question before I'd completely finished answering the first. She also didn't tell me anything about why she was talking to me, or when I could expect to see something in the paper. Stay tuned for my next media appearance on "AC 360."
I've been trying to think of funny headlines that should go with the story. The title of this post is one. Send me any that you can think of.
A Pleasant Surprise
I was browsing a friend's FB page the other day when I came across something that made me pretty happy. One friend had posted the results of some survey, and an exchange in the comments went like this:
Commenter 1: "With this kakistocracy, nothing would surprise me."
Commenter 2: "I AGREE! (Ya I had to look up kakistocracy...)"
Commenter 1: "Well yeah, you're not Scotty."
Believe me when I say that I had nothing to do with this post at all. I didn't say anything, didn't comment, didn't know about it until I browsed and saw it a while later. So out of nowhere, an unusual word gets used, and I get referenced as somebody who probably knows what it means. In this case it happened to be true. Even if it weren't it's kind of nice to be used as the measuring stick for a good vocabulary. It made my day.
And now: Sports!
Don't look now, but the New Orleans Saints and LSU Tigers are a combined 9-0.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Sundry September Itens
Quick note before we get started: I was asked by a message board colleague to be a writer for an LSU sports blog he started. He founded the blog soon after a third colleague posted that I should have my own column because my writing was "very rational and usually without a homer-slant." (I don't have to listen to these wild accusations!) You can view the blog here. Click on the ads, if you like. I don't think any of the money comes to me, but it'll make somebody happy.
Let's talk about Facebook for a bit. More specifically, let's talk about status updates. As one of the people who (I hope) reads this isn't on Facebook, allow me a quick explanation.
The top of your Facebook page has a box where you can enter a piece of text. This can say anything. You can ask a question, tell people you're leaving for the movies, say that you hate stupid people--whatever. It's called your Facebook status. Your Facebook friends can view your status in their Facebook news feed. If they want, they can click a little icon that "likes" your status. They can also enter text into a box and comment on your status. I think we're clear on that.
I don't put anything really dramatic in my status. I usually go for something funny. Maybe I'll vent now and then. I don't use it to ask God for help. He can read my mind; He doesn't need to get online to learn what I want. Mostly, I want it to be something that people will laugh at. Occasionally I'll type something, think about it two or three times before hitting the "Share" button, reconsider, and not post it. But I've usually thought it over before typing, so spur of the moment status posting is rare.
Where I think I'm going to get into trouble one day is commenting on other people's status updates. They may post something perfectly innocent and honest and true to who they are, and I think, "Ooh, this snarky, sarastic comment would be awesome right here!" Then the angel on my shoulder says, "Scotty, does the nice lady really deserve to be cut to ribbons by your razor-sharp wit right now? She's had a long day, and may not have thought things through before posting. When you stand before your maker, do you feel comfortable being able to answer for this?" To which I answer, "Yeah. I do." To which the angel replies, "You post that now, and Ima beat your ass." So I don't, because that angel don't joke around.
Having said that, it's tough not to comment or at least send a message when someone enters a status that runs along the lines of:
Other times comments are welcomed, and even asked for. With most of the things I post as a status, I want people to post comments. But with other people's stuff, there's a lot of danger here for me too. Sometimes I say too much when I should keep it short. Sometimes I get in a back-and-forth with another commenter, and we end up talking about something unrelated to the status. I also post something now and then that the person completely misunderstands or just doesn't get. Know your audience. You might be joking when they're serious, or you might be serious when you're joking, and what you say just crashes the mood of the whole thing. It's tough swallowing my tongue--or in this case, fingers--but I think I'm getting better.
In conclusion, the world of the Facebook status is an interesting, dangerous, fascinating, humorous, and good judgment-requiring adventure. Have fun with it, but be careful along the way.
Take care.
Let's talk about Facebook for a bit. More specifically, let's talk about status updates. As one of the people who (I hope) reads this isn't on Facebook, allow me a quick explanation.
The top of your Facebook page has a box where you can enter a piece of text. This can say anything. You can ask a question, tell people you're leaving for the movies, say that you hate stupid people--whatever. It's called your Facebook status. Your Facebook friends can view your status in their Facebook news feed. If they want, they can click a little icon that "likes" your status. They can also enter text into a box and comment on your status. I think we're clear on that.
I don't put anything really dramatic in my status. I usually go for something funny. Maybe I'll vent now and then. I don't use it to ask God for help. He can read my mind; He doesn't need to get online to learn what I want. Mostly, I want it to be something that people will laugh at. Occasionally I'll type something, think about it two or three times before hitting the "Share" button, reconsider, and not post it. But I've usually thought it over before typing, so spur of the moment status posting is rare.
Where I think I'm going to get into trouble one day is commenting on other people's status updates. They may post something perfectly innocent and honest and true to who they are, and I think, "Ooh, this snarky, sarastic comment would be awesome right here!" Then the angel on my shoulder says, "Scotty, does the nice lady really deserve to be cut to ribbons by your razor-sharp wit right now? She's had a long day, and may not have thought things through before posting. When you stand before your maker, do you feel comfortable being able to answer for this?" To which I answer, "Yeah. I do." To which the angel replies, "You post that now, and Ima beat your ass." So I don't, because that angel don't joke around.
Having said that, it's tough not to comment or at least send a message when someone enters a status that runs along the lines of:
- Mentioning that your child made two D's on tests last week. That's nobody's business, and only embarrasses your child. I don't need to know that.
- Posting that you are through--through--with drama/those who don't care about me/people who waste my time, etc. Then two weeks later the person is complaining about the exact same thing. I thought you were done? [Note: the best part of this is the people who type supportive comments about "their loss" and "how special you are" and "I luv u, girl!" Note #2: my unscientific analysis has shown that most of these posters are female, which means either: A) girls are drama magnets; B) guys are endless sources of drama, and if we could tap into this, we'd solve the energy crisis; C) A and B]
- Posting something about someone else's medical condition. If you get permission, fine. But so many people put things about "thinking about my mother in the hospital" or "please pray for my friend Amy's mom, who was just diagnosed with breast cancer" is way out of line. That's really not my business either.
- Talking about where your child is when they're not with you or another family member. The Internet is a wild place, boys and girls, and you don't know who's watching. I don't see how making your kid's location public knowledge is ever a wise move.
Other times comments are welcomed, and even asked for. With most of the things I post as a status, I want people to post comments. But with other people's stuff, there's a lot of danger here for me too. Sometimes I say too much when I should keep it short. Sometimes I get in a back-and-forth with another commenter, and we end up talking about something unrelated to the status. I also post something now and then that the person completely misunderstands or just doesn't get. Know your audience. You might be joking when they're serious, or you might be serious when you're joking, and what you say just crashes the mood of the whole thing. It's tough swallowing my tongue--or in this case, fingers--but I think I'm getting better.
In conclusion, the world of the Facebook status is an interesting, dangerous, fascinating, humorous, and good judgment-requiring adventure. Have fun with it, but be careful along the way.
Take care.
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
LSU in Seattle
Many moons ago, back when the world was young, I went to Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge to watch LSU play Texas A&M. I remember only two things: LSU won, and everybody booed the Aggie band when they walked onto the field. They put on such a good show that everybody cheered when they walked off. It was another eighteen years before I would see another LSU game in person. I went with my sister to see LSU get routed by Georgia in Athens in 2004. Last year I went with her again to see LSU lose in overtime to Alabama in Baton Rouge.
Saturday night in Seattle, when LSU was down 7-0 in the first quarter against a Washington team that went 0-12 last season, she said, "If we don't come back and win this game, you're banned." Happily for me, LSU did come back to win, so maybe I'm off the schneid. At one point the full moon was hanging low over the water and boats, which made a really nice scene.
I'd been to Vancouver, B.C. a few years ago, but never to the American Pacific Northwest. I was interested to see what Seattle was like, what the people were like, and how the food tasted. I was not disappointed. The city seems to be very quiet for a city its size, but I was there on a holiday weekend. The people seemed nice, especially--well, I guess this calls for a story:
In the beginning, there was the World's Greatest Waitress (Note: in this case "the beginning" would be October 19, 2000). Later on, there was the World's Greatest Bartender. On September 6, I met the World's Greatest Girl Who Works at a Chocolate Store in Seattle. An inch or two taller than me, silky brown hair, sparkling eyes, and a nice smile. I asked her if it was hard working there at the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. She looked me in the eye--time stopped, angels sang, birds landed on my shoulder, and I got a little lightheaded--and said, "Oh yeah." On our way out she thanked us, and I said, "Oh no, thank you."
I should have proposed when I had the chance. She would have made me so happy. I don't know if I'd have made her happy, but I'd have given it a shot.
I was pleasantly surprised by the food. When I was in Vancouver I was a bit disappointed. In Seattle I had a couple of good burgers, good pizza, and a nice dish of blackened chicken linguini at McCormick and Schmick's. And of course, the chocolate...
Seattle's really clean. I mean it's really, really clean. Of course, I spent the summer in New Orleans, so maybe a lot of places would seem clean in comparison. It made me wonder what sort of draconian measures are in place to keep it that way. I looked for something that I would take for granted seeing someplace else but didn't see there, and hoped I could ask "Hey, why isn't anybody doing X?" and they'd say, "Oh no, we can't do that. It's against the law!" and I'd say, "What? You can't do X? That's terrible!"
I'd like to take a trip back there to see a few things we missed this time around. It's a nice place.
Note: I'm watching the U.S. Open, and Trump was there with a woman I assume is his wife Melania. He started talking to her, presumable about play on the court. She sat there and stared straight ahead. Does anyone know if she's allowed to talk?
Saturday night in Seattle, when LSU was down 7-0 in the first quarter against a Washington team that went 0-12 last season, she said, "If we don't come back and win this game, you're banned." Happily for me, LSU did come back to win, so maybe I'm off the schneid. At one point the full moon was hanging low over the water and boats, which made a really nice scene.
I'd been to Vancouver, B.C. a few years ago, but never to the American Pacific Northwest. I was interested to see what Seattle was like, what the people were like, and how the food tasted. I was not disappointed. The city seems to be very quiet for a city its size, but I was there on a holiday weekend. The people seemed nice, especially--well, I guess this calls for a story:
In the beginning, there was the World's Greatest Waitress (Note: in this case "the beginning" would be October 19, 2000). Later on, there was the World's Greatest Bartender. On September 6, I met the World's Greatest Girl Who Works at a Chocolate Store in Seattle. An inch or two taller than me, silky brown hair, sparkling eyes, and a nice smile. I asked her if it was hard working there at the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. She looked me in the eye--time stopped, angels sang, birds landed on my shoulder, and I got a little lightheaded--and said, "Oh yeah." On our way out she thanked us, and I said, "Oh no, thank you."
I should have proposed when I had the chance. She would have made me so happy. I don't know if I'd have made her happy, but I'd have given it a shot.
I was pleasantly surprised by the food. When I was in Vancouver I was a bit disappointed. In Seattle I had a couple of good burgers, good pizza, and a nice dish of blackened chicken linguini at McCormick and Schmick's. And of course, the chocolate...
Seattle's really clean. I mean it's really, really clean. Of course, I spent the summer in New Orleans, so maybe a lot of places would seem clean in comparison. It made me wonder what sort of draconian measures are in place to keep it that way. I looked for something that I would take for granted seeing someplace else but didn't see there, and hoped I could ask "Hey, why isn't anybody doing X?" and they'd say, "Oh no, we can't do that. It's against the law!" and I'd say, "What? You can't do X? That's terrible!"
I'd like to take a trip back there to see a few things we missed this time around. It's a nice place.
Note: I'm watching the U.S. Open, and Trump was there with a woman I assume is his wife Melania. He started talking to her, presumable about play on the court. She sat there and stared straight ahead. Does anyone know if she's allowed to talk?
Monday, August 24, 2009
What I Did on My Summer Vacation
It seems odd that I've written so little about what I was up to while living in one of the most interesting cities in the country. I guess I'm not all that sure how to describe things. Either that or I'm just not very interesting. Let's go in reverse, and talk about what I did on my final Friday.
I met up with a couple of friends at May Baily's on Dauphine Street and had a drink. Then we moseyed over to the bar at the Roosevelt Hotel. After ordering a Sazerac, I asked the bartender if that bar was the first place to serve the drink, and he said yes and no. The bar had moved around to two or three other places before ending up at the Roosevelt. So it may have been the first place in spirit, if not in location.
The lady sitting next to us walked out, leaving her glasses on the bar. One of my friends ran out with them to give them to her. She said, "Oh no, my glasses are in my purse." Of course, we saw no purse on the counter. They came back in, and the lady found out that the bartender had moved her purse so it wouldn't be stolen. "It's worth more than the money that's in it," she said. She was so grateful that she bought us a round. I looked through the cocktail menu again and ordered a Sidecar. I ordered that one because there's a Japanese manga named "Bartender" and he served a Sidecar in one of the episodes.
I have to confess that over the past two plus years I've really started delving into several manga series. Sites like www.onemanga.com are very helpful. Bleach, Naruto, One Piece, History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi--all those are pretty good. The anime version of One Piece is a real joy. It helps to have a good scanlator that gives notes about sound effects and cultural customs.
After the Roosevelt we went to the Carousel Bar at the Monteleone Hotel. The bar revolves around the room (the inside, not the outside). Then it was over to a place I'd been looking forward to the whole summer, the Old Absinthe House. Absinthe has become legal again in the U.S. within the last couple of years. Some people told me that if I liked black licorice, I'd like absinthe, and I'd say they were right. I don't know if I could pound back absinthe frappe after absinthe frappe all night, but then again I'm not someone who can pile up drink after drink anyway. I'm the Florence Nightingale of Drinking--I can nurse that sucker all night long. But I think absinthe is good, and it better be at $14 a pop for the cheapest they had. It helped that the bartender was a really good looking red-haired girl.
Note: I left my umbrella there and had to go back and get it Saturday. I asked the bartender (different girl) if she'd seen it. The people at the bar said that other people usually leave something else at the bar, not an umbrella. I thought, "Yeah, like their dignity."
I had a great time. It may be strange to hear, but this was the first time I'd ever gone out drinking in the French Quarter. Most of my trips to New Orleans have been family visits. This time around, I lived in an apartment that was at the other end of a pretty short block from Monkey Hill Bar. I could close the door to my apartment and start walking, and in 60 seconds I'd be at Monkey Hill. That was a new experience.
One last thing that I noticed in New Orleans that reminded me of the Historic District in downtown Natchitoches: there are no fast food restaurant chains in the French Quarter. There are some on Canal Street, yes, but once you get into the Quarter itself, nada. I imagine that the city has zoning laws that keep them out.
I met up with a couple of friends at May Baily's on Dauphine Street and had a drink. Then we moseyed over to the bar at the Roosevelt Hotel. After ordering a Sazerac, I asked the bartender if that bar was the first place to serve the drink, and he said yes and no. The bar had moved around to two or three other places before ending up at the Roosevelt. So it may have been the first place in spirit, if not in location.
The lady sitting next to us walked out, leaving her glasses on the bar. One of my friends ran out with them to give them to her. She said, "Oh no, my glasses are in my purse." Of course, we saw no purse on the counter. They came back in, and the lady found out that the bartender had moved her purse so it wouldn't be stolen. "It's worth more than the money that's in it," she said. She was so grateful that she bought us a round. I looked through the cocktail menu again and ordered a Sidecar. I ordered that one because there's a Japanese manga named "Bartender" and he served a Sidecar in one of the episodes.
I have to confess that over the past two plus years I've really started delving into several manga series. Sites like www.onemanga.com are very helpful. Bleach, Naruto, One Piece, History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi--all those are pretty good. The anime version of One Piece is a real joy. It helps to have a good scanlator that gives notes about sound effects and cultural customs.
After the Roosevelt we went to the Carousel Bar at the Monteleone Hotel. The bar revolves around the room (the inside, not the outside). Then it was over to a place I'd been looking forward to the whole summer, the Old Absinthe House. Absinthe has become legal again in the U.S. within the last couple of years. Some people told me that if I liked black licorice, I'd like absinthe, and I'd say they were right. I don't know if I could pound back absinthe frappe after absinthe frappe all night, but then again I'm not someone who can pile up drink after drink anyway. I'm the Florence Nightingale of Drinking--I can nurse that sucker all night long. But I think absinthe is good, and it better be at $14 a pop for the cheapest they had. It helped that the bartender was a really good looking red-haired girl.
Note: I left my umbrella there and had to go back and get it Saturday. I asked the bartender (different girl) if she'd seen it. The people at the bar said that other people usually leave something else at the bar, not an umbrella. I thought, "Yeah, like their dignity."
I had a great time. It may be strange to hear, but this was the first time I'd ever gone out drinking in the French Quarter. Most of my trips to New Orleans have been family visits. This time around, I lived in an apartment that was at the other end of a pretty short block from Monkey Hill Bar. I could close the door to my apartment and start walking, and in 60 seconds I'd be at Monkey Hill. That was a new experience.
One last thing that I noticed in New Orleans that reminded me of the Historic District in downtown Natchitoches: there are no fast food restaurant chains in the French Quarter. There are some on Canal Street, yes, but once you get into the Quarter itself, nada. I imagine that the city has zoning laws that keep them out.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Hungover Transformers
Aah! Lutherans!
As I write this post, I am drowning in a sea of Lutherans, the OGs of Protestantism. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is holding their 2009 Youth Gathering in New Orleans. It is being billed as the largest service ministry ever attempted. I have seen reports that 37,000 people are coming to town as part of the ministry. Several groups of them were in and out of Basin Street Station today, and I saw more groups walking around town on the way home. As I was leaving Walmart, a bus from Hudson, WI was unloading healthy-looking teenagers who looked like they'd been cooped up just a little too long.
The ELCA has a twitter feed set up to chronicle people's reactions. Best one so far (and a frequent re-tweet): Quote from the street, "The town is filled with Lutherans, we are safe."
Another tweet: Please remember EVERYONE (adult leaders + youth) - NO DRINKING - you did sign a covenant
Good luck with that one.
I think the Archdiocese of New Orleans has put the Knights of Columbus on guard duty outside St. Louis Cathedral, just to make sure that nothing "accidentally" gets nailed to the doors.
On to the movies.
Transformers
I went to see Transformers at the Prytania Theater, which has the best sound system I've ever heard. I could go into detail about what was good and what wasn't but there's no point. The Washington Post had an article about the disconnect between the film critics who excoriated the movie and the moviegoers who bought hundreds of millions of dollars worth of tickets. I tend to think of it like this:
Film critics review films.
Moviegoers pay to watch movies.
What I will say about Revenge of the Fallen (or ROTF in the Seibertron.com universe. What IMDB is to movies, Seibertron is to all things Transformers) is that I enjoyed it a lot more than the first. I think it's funnier, more exciting, and the actors seem more comfortable in their roles. Is it going to end up on an AFI top 100 list? No. Could it do without about 15 minutes of nonsensical sex-related stuff? Yes. I just think it's fun to watch, and a better Transformers experience this time around.
One big difference between this movie and the first--and it's a huge difference from the cartoon--is that the humans are actually worth something in a fight. In the old cartoon, bullets would just bounce off anything they shot at. Now they've got higher-tech weaponry and are capable of taking down some guys all on their own. That never would have happened before.
Note: the credits at the end of the movie said it was based on characters created by Hasbro. It did not say that it was based on the cartoon. This is practically admitting that the show was just a vehicle for selling toys. As much as I liked watching it, that's pretty much what it was. There was a writer at the end who was told he had to fit in many new characters in the final season. Then the season was cut down to five episodes. Then three episodes. The new character to minutes per show ratio was off the charts.
The Hangover
A couple of weekends ago I went out to the AMC Clearview Palace in Metairie to see The Hangover. Both my sister and a coworker said it was hilarious, so I gave it a shot. It's not the kind of movie I usually go see by myself, but it's really funny. A lot of crazy stuff happens and a lot of cursing ensues. Then more craziness. The last twenty minutes sort of clunked out for me, but endings are hard. I don't think it's quite as funny as the reputation it's getting, but it's enjoyable.
Running of the Bulls, NOLA Style
I was very happy to participate in the Running of the Bulls in the French Quarter one Saturday morning at 8am. We started at Burgundy and Conti, hung a left at Bourbon, then a right on Ursulines down to Decatur. Whole thing took about ten minutes. The "bulls" chasing us were rollergirls with whiffle or foam bats. They'd come up from behind and whack us on the butt. I got whacked three times or so. You'd hear people screaming about 50 feet behind you, and that was the signal that the bulls were getting closer and it was time to start running faster.
2009 Great American Seafood Cook-off
This past Saturday I was at the 2009 Great American Seafood Cook-off at the Morial Convention Center. Fifteen chefs from around the country competed, and Tory McPhail, the chef from Commander's Palace in New Orleans, came away the winner. He had a bunch of types of corn, creole tomatoes, shrimp, sheepshead fish (never heard of it), and more shrimp. I stood in the front row and had a good view, so I can state with confidence that the secret ingredient may be love, but the main ingredient is butter. These guys use tons of butter. Oh, and he also used fresh bacon fat. He poured it over the fish during and after the grilling. I kid you not. Let me say that one more time: FRESH BACON FAT.
Note: I was reminded of when my mom gave me an old recipe for making gumbo, and one of the ingredients was blacked out and replaced with 2 cups of cooking oil. The following conversation (paraphrased) ensued.
"What did this say before you blacked it out?" I asked.
"Fresh lard," she said.
"Does it taste better with lard?"
"Oh yeah."
"So why is it blacked out?"
"Because I don't want to die."
One of the judges was Michel Richard, who runs Citronelle in DC. Tom Sietsema mentions him all the time in his chats. I was impressed that they got him to come be a judge.
Afterwards I heard some of the judges saying really good things about the chef from Alabama, a young guy who works in Orange Beach, AL. I'll have to check out Geno's Fresh Catch Grill next time I hit the Redneck Riviera.
In conclusion, I leave you with a video of LSU football coach Les Miles performing Randy Newman's song "Short People", put together by the mad farking genius known as LSUFreek, whose work is a source of pride to all LSU fans. He single-handedly took on a rabid Tennessee board before the 2007 SEC Championship game and had the natives shaking their heads in admiration.
Enjoy:
As I write this post, I am drowning in a sea of Lutherans, the OGs of Protestantism. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is holding their 2009 Youth Gathering in New Orleans. It is being billed as the largest service ministry ever attempted. I have seen reports that 37,000 people are coming to town as part of the ministry. Several groups of them were in and out of Basin Street Station today, and I saw more groups walking around town on the way home. As I was leaving Walmart, a bus from Hudson, WI was unloading healthy-looking teenagers who looked like they'd been cooped up just a little too long.
The ELCA has a twitter feed set up to chronicle people's reactions. Best one so far (and a frequent re-tweet): Quote from the street, "The town is filled with Lutherans, we are safe."
Another tweet: Please remember EVERYONE (adult leaders + youth) - NO DRINKING - you did sign a covenant
Good luck with that one.
I think the Archdiocese of New Orleans has put the Knights of Columbus on guard duty outside St. Louis Cathedral, just to make sure that nothing "accidentally" gets nailed to the doors.
On to the movies.
Transformers
I went to see Transformers at the Prytania Theater, which has the best sound system I've ever heard. I could go into detail about what was good and what wasn't but there's no point. The Washington Post had an article about the disconnect between the film critics who excoriated the movie and the moviegoers who bought hundreds of millions of dollars worth of tickets. I tend to think of it like this:
Film critics review films.
Moviegoers pay to watch movies.
What I will say about Revenge of the Fallen (or ROTF in the Seibertron.com universe. What IMDB is to movies, Seibertron is to all things Transformers) is that I enjoyed it a lot more than the first. I think it's funnier, more exciting, and the actors seem more comfortable in their roles. Is it going to end up on an AFI top 100 list? No. Could it do without about 15 minutes of nonsensical sex-related stuff? Yes. I just think it's fun to watch, and a better Transformers experience this time around.
One big difference between this movie and the first--and it's a huge difference from the cartoon--is that the humans are actually worth something in a fight. In the old cartoon, bullets would just bounce off anything they shot at. Now they've got higher-tech weaponry and are capable of taking down some guys all on their own. That never would have happened before.
Note: the credits at the end of the movie said it was based on characters created by Hasbro. It did not say that it was based on the cartoon. This is practically admitting that the show was just a vehicle for selling toys. As much as I liked watching it, that's pretty much what it was. There was a writer at the end who was told he had to fit in many new characters in the final season. Then the season was cut down to five episodes. Then three episodes. The new character to minutes per show ratio was off the charts.
The Hangover
A couple of weekends ago I went out to the AMC Clearview Palace in Metairie to see The Hangover. Both my sister and a coworker said it was hilarious, so I gave it a shot. It's not the kind of movie I usually go see by myself, but it's really funny. A lot of crazy stuff happens and a lot of cursing ensues. Then more craziness. The last twenty minutes sort of clunked out for me, but endings are hard. I don't think it's quite as funny as the reputation it's getting, but it's enjoyable.
Running of the Bulls, NOLA Style
I was very happy to participate in the Running of the Bulls in the French Quarter one Saturday morning at 8am. We started at Burgundy and Conti, hung a left at Bourbon, then a right on Ursulines down to Decatur. Whole thing took about ten minutes. The "bulls" chasing us were rollergirls with whiffle or foam bats. They'd come up from behind and whack us on the butt. I got whacked three times or so. You'd hear people screaming about 50 feet behind you, and that was the signal that the bulls were getting closer and it was time to start running faster.
2009 Great American Seafood Cook-off
This past Saturday I was at the 2009 Great American Seafood Cook-off at the Morial Convention Center. Fifteen chefs from around the country competed, and Tory McPhail, the chef from Commander's Palace in New Orleans, came away the winner. He had a bunch of types of corn, creole tomatoes, shrimp, sheepshead fish (never heard of it), and more shrimp. I stood in the front row and had a good view, so I can state with confidence that the secret ingredient may be love, but the main ingredient is butter. These guys use tons of butter. Oh, and he also used fresh bacon fat. He poured it over the fish during and after the grilling. I kid you not. Let me say that one more time: FRESH BACON FAT.
Note: I was reminded of when my mom gave me an old recipe for making gumbo, and one of the ingredients was blacked out and replaced with 2 cups of cooking oil. The following conversation (paraphrased) ensued.
"What did this say before you blacked it out?" I asked.
"Fresh lard," she said.
"Does it taste better with lard?"
"Oh yeah."
"So why is it blacked out?"
"Because I don't want to die."
One of the judges was Michel Richard, who runs Citronelle in DC. Tom Sietsema mentions him all the time in his chats. I was impressed that they got him to come be a judge.
Afterwards I heard some of the judges saying really good things about the chef from Alabama, a young guy who works in Orange Beach, AL. I'll have to check out Geno's Fresh Catch Grill next time I hit the Redneck Riviera.
In conclusion, I leave you with a video of LSU football coach Les Miles performing Randy Newman's song "Short People", put together by the mad farking genius known as LSUFreek, whose work is a source of pride to all LSU fans. He single-handedly took on a rabid Tennessee board before the 2007 SEC Championship game and had the natives shaking their heads in admiration.
Enjoy:
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Recent Events
What a run of twists and turns the world has thrown at us.
Ed McMahon died, but that wasn't a major surprise. He'd had health problems the last few years. He was the best sidekick to the best late night host of all time. He hosted Star Search, which has somehow been forgotten in TV history. It was a good show, and have you checked out the list of people who performed on it? And of course, McMahon was the face of Publisher's Clearinghouse, which led you to wanting him appear on your doorstep unexpectedly. His was an eclectic career, and as they say, "We will not see his like again."
Farrah Fawcett died today, which was also no surprise, as she had been dying of cancer for a while. Growing up, "Farrah Fawcett" was one of those "names" that I heard ALL THE TIME, even before I had any idea who she was. It was along the lines of "Farrah Fawcett = beauty." She was a reference point for hotness.
The biggest story--and the biggest surprise--is that Michael Jackson died today. I need not tell anybody who gets notified of a new blog post what it was like growing up at a time when he was the biggest star in the world. Not just the most popular singer, but probably the most well-known person on the planet. He came from a musical family, was a child prodigy singer in a very successful group, and then hit even greater heights going solo. He could moonwalk!
Somebody asked what some memories of him are, and I came up with these: 1) Seeing "Captain Eo" at Disney World (in 3-D, no less). 2) Hearing people say, "I remember when Michael Jackson was black." (you know how when you search for something on youtube and it has some suggestions as you type in the keyword? Once I got to "Michael Jackson o", it automatically suggested "Michael Jackson over the years", which is what I wanted to search for. People have typed it in so much, it's an autofill suggestion now) 3) The beat to "Smooth Criminal". 4) The "Thriller" video scared the crap out of me (not linking to it, because if you haven't seen it, you ain't never gonna see it). 5) Weird Al doing "Eat It" and "Fat" parodies of "Beat It" and "Bad."
Jackson was a guest voice on the "Simpsons" back in Season 3, playing Leon Kompowsky, a man who claimed to be was Michael Jackson. Note #1: They're in Season 20 now. Note #2: By my count, of the celebrity guest stars who have appeared on the Simpsons, Michael Jackson is at least the 21st to die. Ed McMahon was the 20th. I could be wrong on the count, but I'm not interested in going through to see if anybody from Sonic Youth has died lately. I counted at least 21.
And now: sports!
The Mighty Tigers of LSU defeated Texas to win their sixth NCAA College World Series championship. As a former participant in the Skip Bertman Baseball Camp at LSU, I feel like I deserve a little credit for the program's success. Three years ago, LSU fired a coach who was running the program into the ground and hired Paul Mainieri from Notre Dame, who had actually taken a Northern team to the CWS. For reference, the eight teams in this year's CWS were LSU, Texas, Arizona State, Cal State Fullerton, Arkansas, Southern Miss, North Carolina, and Virginia. Teams from the West Coast, Southeast, and Southwest tend to dominate the sport, so taking Notre Dame there is impressive.
Mainieri recruits well, seems like a really nice guy, and manages his players very well. Here's to him sticking around for a long time.
I won't bore you with a lot of names of who played well, but I will mention this one player: Jared Mitchell. Mike Patrick, Orel Hershiser and Robin Ventura spent a good portion of each game talking about his "tools." Mitchell is also a wide receiver on the football team who was drafted by the White Sox in the first round. He's a great athlete, and the announcers couldn't say enough about his tools, his tools, and his tools. The first two games of the 2 of 3 finals, I played a game where I had to do a shot every time they mentioned "tools" in reference to Jared Mitchell. The bottle didn't even make it to the third game.
In international soccer, the U.S. defeated Spain 2-0 on Wednesday to advance to the finals of the Confederations Cup. Spain is ranked #1 in the world, had won 15 matches in a row, and had not been beaten in 35 matches. The U.S. will face Brazil in the title game, after a late goal put them past South Africa. ESPN2 is showing the replay of that game, and I managed to catch the national anthem of South Africa. Listening to it, I was wondering if it would be in Zulu, Afrikaans, or English. The answer is "yes" with two others thrown in. It runs through Xhosa, Zulu, Sesotho, Afrikaans, and English. You can see the video here. If you ever watched the Shaka Zulu miniseries on TV--and I know you did--you heard the word "nkosi" a lot. The song translated it as "lord", but I tended to understand it as "king" on the show.
Note #3: Brazil's national team is known as the Seleção ("the select"), while South Africa are Bafana Bafana ("the boys"). A list of notable team names can be found here. Among my favorites:
The Eagles of Carthage (Tunisia)
Indomitable Lions (Cameroon)
Super Eagles (Nigeria)
War Elephants (Thailand)
The Clockwork Orange (Netherlands)
Ed McMahon died, but that wasn't a major surprise. He'd had health problems the last few years. He was the best sidekick to the best late night host of all time. He hosted Star Search, which has somehow been forgotten in TV history. It was a good show, and have you checked out the list of people who performed on it? And of course, McMahon was the face of Publisher's Clearinghouse, which led you to wanting him appear on your doorstep unexpectedly. His was an eclectic career, and as they say, "We will not see his like again."
Farrah Fawcett died today, which was also no surprise, as she had been dying of cancer for a while. Growing up, "Farrah Fawcett" was one of those "names" that I heard ALL THE TIME, even before I had any idea who she was. It was along the lines of "Farrah Fawcett = beauty." She was a reference point for hotness.
The biggest story--and the biggest surprise--is that Michael Jackson died today. I need not tell anybody who gets notified of a new blog post what it was like growing up at a time when he was the biggest star in the world. Not just the most popular singer, but probably the most well-known person on the planet. He came from a musical family, was a child prodigy singer in a very successful group, and then hit even greater heights going solo. He could moonwalk!
Somebody asked what some memories of him are, and I came up with these: 1) Seeing "Captain Eo" at Disney World (in 3-D, no less). 2) Hearing people say, "I remember when Michael Jackson was black." (you know how when you search for something on youtube and it has some suggestions as you type in the keyword? Once I got to "Michael Jackson o", it automatically suggested "Michael Jackson over the years", which is what I wanted to search for. People have typed it in so much, it's an autofill suggestion now) 3) The beat to "Smooth Criminal". 4) The "Thriller" video scared the crap out of me (not linking to it, because if you haven't seen it, you ain't never gonna see it). 5) Weird Al doing "Eat It" and "Fat" parodies of "Beat It" and "Bad."
Jackson was a guest voice on the "Simpsons" back in Season 3, playing Leon Kompowsky, a man who claimed to be was Michael Jackson. Note #1: They're in Season 20 now. Note #2: By my count, of the celebrity guest stars who have appeared on the Simpsons, Michael Jackson is at least the 21st to die. Ed McMahon was the 20th. I could be wrong on the count, but I'm not interested in going through to see if anybody from Sonic Youth has died lately. I counted at least 21.
And now: sports!
The Mighty Tigers of LSU defeated Texas to win their sixth NCAA College World Series championship. As a former participant in the Skip Bertman Baseball Camp at LSU, I feel like I deserve a little credit for the program's success. Three years ago, LSU fired a coach who was running the program into the ground and hired Paul Mainieri from Notre Dame, who had actually taken a Northern team to the CWS. For reference, the eight teams in this year's CWS were LSU, Texas, Arizona State, Cal State Fullerton, Arkansas, Southern Miss, North Carolina, and Virginia. Teams from the West Coast, Southeast, and Southwest tend to dominate the sport, so taking Notre Dame there is impressive.
Mainieri recruits well, seems like a really nice guy, and manages his players very well. Here's to him sticking around for a long time.
I won't bore you with a lot of names of who played well, but I will mention this one player: Jared Mitchell. Mike Patrick, Orel Hershiser and Robin Ventura spent a good portion of each game talking about his "tools." Mitchell is also a wide receiver on the football team who was drafted by the White Sox in the first round. He's a great athlete, and the announcers couldn't say enough about his tools, his tools, and his tools. The first two games of the 2 of 3 finals, I played a game where I had to do a shot every time they mentioned "tools" in reference to Jared Mitchell. The bottle didn't even make it to the third game.
In international soccer, the U.S. defeated Spain 2-0 on Wednesday to advance to the finals of the Confederations Cup. Spain is ranked #1 in the world, had won 15 matches in a row, and had not been beaten in 35 matches. The U.S. will face Brazil in the title game, after a late goal put them past South Africa. ESPN2 is showing the replay of that game, and I managed to catch the national anthem of South Africa. Listening to it, I was wondering if it would be in Zulu, Afrikaans, or English. The answer is "yes" with two others thrown in. It runs through Xhosa, Zulu, Sesotho, Afrikaans, and English. You can see the video here. If you ever watched the Shaka Zulu miniseries on TV--and I know you did--you heard the word "nkosi" a lot. The song translated it as "lord", but I tended to understand it as "king" on the show.
Note #3: Brazil's national team is known as the Seleção ("the select"), while South Africa are Bafana Bafana ("the boys"). A list of notable team names can be found here. Among my favorites:
The Eagles of Carthage (Tunisia)
Indomitable Lions (Cameroon)
Super Eagles (Nigeria)
War Elephants (Thailand)
The Clockwork Orange (Netherlands)
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
It's an Interesting World
Quite a few people had driven down from Natchitoches to attend, a testament to his popularity.
Father Roy could be very strident in his opinions on any topic. He would stop by the house unannounced and have dinner. If you invited him for a Thursday, he'd tell you he'd be there Saturday. He sat in Daddy's chair and commandeered the remote. He called people by nicknames that nobody else thought of using for that person. It was tough to hold a conversation with him, because at any point in your side of things he would break in and just talk right over you. All of this makes it sound like he was hard to get along with or even unlikable. So why was the cathedral standing room only?
a) He told the greatest stories you ever heard, in the most entertaining way you ever heard them. He had a great Mansura, LA accent. I don't know how to describe it, but it was really fun to listen to. He would dominate the conversation, but you'd be laughing so hard that it was okay. He was willing to make fun of himself along the way. He said that when he moved to a new town, the first thing he did was make 21 friends. That way, he could eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner at a different place each week.
He hated the song "Amazing Grace." I remember him saying that a funeral he conducted had the "Singing Fontaine Sisters", who "sang all 48 verses of Amazing Grace", who "couldn't find key in A1 lock factory", and "should have been singing tenor--ten or twenty miles away."
He was going to take a helicopter tour in Hawaii, but they charged extra for anyone over 250 pounds. He didn't mind paying the regular price, but when he weighed himself that morning, "the scale said 'To Be Continued.'"
b) Whatever he said or how he acted, you could tell that there was no malice in him. I can't begin to imagine how hard that is to pull off. He was a genuinely good man, and that made him a popular priest.
Back to the funeral. Like I said, I don't usually get upset. I would have been fine, but at the end his brother (also a priest) came out to thank everyone for coming and to say goodbye. And his brother sounded...just...like him! I don't mean that in the "yeah, they must be related" or "they must be from the same place" kind of way. I mean he spoke and sounded EXACTLY like Ken Roy. He started talking, and I actually said, "Wow" out loud. My mom said I should have seen the look on my face. The sound, the tone, the accent, the mannerisms--everything was the same. Listening to him was like experiencing a Ken Roy homily, from the sounds to the way he read from the paper in front of him, to the way he adjusted his glasses, down to how he ended his sentences. I have never seen or heard anything like it, and it really got me.
Father Roy could be very strident in his opinions on any topic. He would stop by the house unannounced and have dinner. If you invited him for a Thursday, he'd tell you he'd be there Saturday. He sat in Daddy's chair and commandeered the remote. He called people by nicknames that nobody else thought of using for that person. It was tough to hold a conversation with him, because at any point in your side of things he would break in and just talk right over you. All of this makes it sound like he was hard to get along with or even unlikable. So why was the cathedral standing room only?
a) He told the greatest stories you ever heard, in the most entertaining way you ever heard them. He had a great Mansura, LA accent. I don't know how to describe it, but it was really fun to listen to. He would dominate the conversation, but you'd be laughing so hard that it was okay. He was willing to make fun of himself along the way. He said that when he moved to a new town, the first thing he did was make 21 friends. That way, he could eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner at a different place each week.
He hated the song "Amazing Grace." I remember him saying that a funeral he conducted had the "Singing Fontaine Sisters", who "sang all 48 verses of Amazing Grace", who "couldn't find key in A1 lock factory", and "should have been singing tenor--ten or twenty miles away."
He was going to take a helicopter tour in Hawaii, but they charged extra for anyone over 250 pounds. He didn't mind paying the regular price, but when he weighed himself that morning, "the scale said 'To Be Continued.'"
b) Whatever he said or how he acted, you could tell that there was no malice in him. I can't begin to imagine how hard that is to pull off. He was a genuinely good man, and that made him a popular priest.
Back to the funeral. Like I said, I don't usually get upset. I would have been fine, but at the end his brother (also a priest) came out to thank everyone for coming and to say goodbye. And his brother sounded...just...like him! I don't mean that in the "yeah, they must be related" or "they must be from the same place" kind of way. I mean he spoke and sounded EXACTLY like Ken Roy. He started talking, and I actually said, "Wow" out loud. My mom said I should have seen the look on my face. The sound, the tone, the accent, the mannerisms--everything was the same. Listening to him was like experiencing a Ken Roy homily, from the sounds to the way he read from the paper in front of him, to the way he adjusted his glasses, down to how he ended his sentences. I have never seen or heard anything like it, and it really got me.
Saturday, June 06, 2009
Just My Luck
Last Sunday I went to St. Louis Cathedral for 11 o'clock Mass. It's a nice place, and is featured in tons of photos of Jackson Square, which it overlooks. It's been a long time since I've been there, and it's a bit smaller than I remember. It's always neat to me whenever a bishop is doing the service and at the point where a regular priest would be saying a prayer for "Sam our bishop" or whatever the bishop's name is, the bishop says, "and me, your humble servant" or something similar.
The second reading was from the fifth chapter of Galatians, and was a very ironic one for my first weekend living in New Orleans. The section in question deals with sins of the flesh. You don't have to stretch your imagination to guess the writer's position. Let's just say that witchcraft, drunkenness, orgies (there goes Tuesday), and selfish ambition are out (joke's on them--I don't have ANY ambition, much less ambition of the selfish variety) and love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control are in. I think I can handle up to eight of those.
----------------------------------------------------------
In case you missed one of my previous facebook statii, here it is:
My N.O. driving experience so far:
"S***!" "
"Aw, son of a b****!"
*maniacal laughter*
"I'll turn around he--no, that's a one-way street, damn."
Garmin: "Recalculating . . ."
"Was that a stop sign? I can't see anything."
"Can I go? Can I go? What does that line mean? I'd like to go. Can I go?"
"S***!"
It's been much better lately. It's not that people drive crazily or traffic is terrible, because neither has been true so far. I just often don't have any idea what I'm doing. As one of my coworkers pointed out, "You can't take a left turn anywhere in the city, but you can U-turn the hell out of it."
----------------------------------------------------------
I was chatting with a friend from high school the other day and stated that Hulu is much more dangerous than youtube. Hulu can give you videos of a much higher quality, the videos aren't limited to ten minutes, and they have permission to publish copyrighted material. If I miss Simpsons, Bones, or Chuck, I can just check Hulu. Lately I've been looking at a veritable tresure trove of old SNL skits. After indulging in the Celebrity Jeopardy skits (Suck it Trebek), I'm currently looking at at older, pre-1995 skits. The Chris Farley motivational speaker video had me laughing out loud, at least until I realized that 40% of the cast in that video, Farley and Phil Hartman, no longer set mortal foot upon earthly soil.
----------------------------------------------------------
I'm not doing a bunch of souvenir shopping in New Orleans, but there is one thing that I'm looking for:
I saw this handsome devil in a souvenir shop in the French Quarter in Spring 2005. I wanted to buy him, but didn't think I could conveniently transport it back to D.C. by plane. I ducked into probably half a dozen shops this afternoon, but nobody has anything close. I will find you one day, Mr. Skull. I will.
Note: this was in the days I was still getting my hair cut by the nice Korean lady who had a setup on the ground floor of my apartment building in Alexandria. Same haircut every time. More her idea than mine, but I didn't mind.
----------------------------------------------------------
In my last movie post, I forgot to mention Come Drink With Me, considered an important classic of Chinese martial arts movies. Cheng Pei Pei plays Golden Swallow, who must defeat the bad guys in order to save her brother. The movie was produced by the Shaw Brothers, who owned a huge studio they used to film all sorts of movies. The fighting is a little jerky, but they do some interesting things.
CDWM comes to us from 1966, the same year that gave us A Man for All Seasons (one of the all-time greats), Alfie, The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming (intriguing title, no?), The Sand Pebbles, and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? It's usually interesting to sort through some of the old Oscar nominations to see what was going on. Best Cinematography for that year went to Fantastic Voyage, a film where a submarine is shrunken down and inserted into a diplomat's bloodstream in an attempt to save his life. The Simpson did a takeoff on it in "Treehouse of Horror XV", titled "In the Belly of the Boss."
The second reading was from the fifth chapter of Galatians, and was a very ironic one for my first weekend living in New Orleans. The section in question deals with sins of the flesh. You don't have to stretch your imagination to guess the writer's position. Let's just say that witchcraft, drunkenness, orgies (there goes Tuesday), and selfish ambition are out (joke's on them--I don't have ANY ambition, much less ambition of the selfish variety) and love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control are in. I think I can handle up to eight of those.
----------------------------------------------------------
In case you missed one of my previous facebook statii, here it is:
My N.O. driving experience so far:
"S***!" "
"Aw, son of a b****!"
*maniacal laughter*
"I'll turn around he--no, that's a one-way street, damn."
Garmin: "Recalculating . . ."
"Was that a stop sign? I can't see anything."
"Can I go? Can I go? What does that line mean? I'd like to go. Can I go?"
"S***!"
It's been much better lately. It's not that people drive crazily or traffic is terrible, because neither has been true so far. I just often don't have any idea what I'm doing. As one of my coworkers pointed out, "You can't take a left turn anywhere in the city, but you can U-turn the hell out of it."
----------------------------------------------------------
I was chatting with a friend from high school the other day and stated that Hulu is much more dangerous than youtube. Hulu can give you videos of a much higher quality, the videos aren't limited to ten minutes, and they have permission to publish copyrighted material. If I miss Simpsons, Bones, or Chuck, I can just check Hulu. Lately I've been looking at a veritable tresure trove of old SNL skits. After indulging in the Celebrity Jeopardy skits (Suck it Trebek), I'm currently looking at at older, pre-1995 skits. The Chris Farley motivational speaker video had me laughing out loud, at least until I realized that 40% of the cast in that video, Farley and Phil Hartman, no longer set mortal foot upon earthly soil.
----------------------------------------------------------
I'm not doing a bunch of souvenir shopping in New Orleans, but there is one thing that I'm looking for:
I saw this handsome devil in a souvenir shop in the French Quarter in Spring 2005. I wanted to buy him, but didn't think I could conveniently transport it back to D.C. by plane. I ducked into probably half a dozen shops this afternoon, but nobody has anything close. I will find you one day, Mr. Skull. I will.
Note: this was in the days I was still getting my hair cut by the nice Korean lady who had a setup on the ground floor of my apartment building in Alexandria. Same haircut every time. More her idea than mine, but I didn't mind.
----------------------------------------------------------
In my last movie post, I forgot to mention Come Drink With Me, considered an important classic of Chinese martial arts movies. Cheng Pei Pei plays Golden Swallow, who must defeat the bad guys in order to save her brother. The movie was produced by the Shaw Brothers, who owned a huge studio they used to film all sorts of movies. The fighting is a little jerky, but they do some interesting things.
CDWM comes to us from 1966, the same year that gave us A Man for All Seasons (one of the all-time greats), Alfie, The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming (intriguing title, no?), The Sand Pebbles, and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? It's usually interesting to sort through some of the old Oscar nominations to see what was going on. Best Cinematography for that year went to Fantastic Voyage, a film where a submarine is shrunken down and inserted into a diplomat's bloodstream in an attempt to save his life. The Simpson did a takeoff on it in "Treehouse of Horror XV", titled "In the Belly of the Boss."
Friday, June 05, 2009
New Orleans
On May 28th I moved down to New Orleans for the summer. My graduate program requires that we have a heritage-related internship this summer, so I'm working for Save Our Cemeteries. The work is good, the people are nice. I've already traipsed into St. Louis Cemeteries 1 and 2 and Lafayette Cemetery 1. I'll see a few more before I'm done. The SOC office is a few blocks away from the French Quarter, where I ate lunch every single day this week. Johnny's Po Boys, Viola, Coop's Place, and someplace I'm forgetting right now. My parents were in town over the weekend, and I had a roast beef po boy at Mother's, the Pork Tchoup with jambalaya at Ye Olde College Inn, and a ham omelet at the Camellia Grill.
Note: There's a street named Tchoupitoulas, which is where the Tchoup gets its name. Some people just say "Tchoup" instead of "Tchoupitoulas."
I've also had pretty good pizza at a place called Reginelli's near my apartment. I'm in a good neighborhood in uptown, close to Audubon Park and Audubon Zoo.
Of the nicknames associated with New Orleans--the Big Easy, the Crescent City--my favorite is "The City that Care Forgot." I like it because it sounds sort of easygoing, but it's also a little ambiguous. Does it mean that the rest of the world doesn't care about New Orleans? Does it means that New Orleans doesn't care? Actually, I could see some people thinking it's a bit depressing. But I think it does a good job of expressing something about New Orleans that I've noticed for a long time: New Orleans lets you be who you are. You can be as uncommon or eccentric as you like, as long as you don't hurt anybody with it. And if you get a little extreme in your eccentricity, that's okay.
Jazz musician Ernie K-Doe may have died in 2001, but "thanks to his wife, he maintained a schedule of public appearances via a life-size, fully costumed, look-alike mannequin. Mrs. K-Doe referred to the mannequin as "Ernie." Link. If you want to experience New Orleans from afar, there's no better way to do it than reading the columns of Chris Rose in the Times-Picayune. Here's his story on Antoinette K-Doe's funeral.
Note: There's a street named Tchoupitoulas, which is where the Tchoup gets its name. Some people just say "Tchoup" instead of "Tchoupitoulas."
I've also had pretty good pizza at a place called Reginelli's near my apartment. I'm in a good neighborhood in uptown, close to Audubon Park and Audubon Zoo.
Of the nicknames associated with New Orleans--the Big Easy, the Crescent City--my favorite is "The City that Care Forgot." I like it because it sounds sort of easygoing, but it's also a little ambiguous. Does it mean that the rest of the world doesn't care about New Orleans? Does it means that New Orleans doesn't care? Actually, I could see some people thinking it's a bit depressing. But I think it does a good job of expressing something about New Orleans that I've noticed for a long time: New Orleans lets you be who you are. You can be as uncommon or eccentric as you like, as long as you don't hurt anybody with it. And if you get a little extreme in your eccentricity, that's okay.
Jazz musician Ernie K-Doe may have died in 2001, but "thanks to his wife, he maintained a schedule of public appearances via a life-size, fully costumed, look-alike mannequin. Mrs. K-Doe referred to the mannequin as "Ernie." Link. If you want to experience New Orleans from afar, there's no better way to do it than reading the columns of Chris Rose in the Times-Picayune. Here's his story on Antoinette K-Doe's funeral.
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Movies, Movies, and more Movies
When I posted about Iron Man last time, my intention was to do a post for each of the movies I'd seen recently. Change of plans. Instead I'll just do a short bit on each one. This will save you some reading time, as well as allow me to start writing about New Orleans sooner.
After Iron Man came Incredible Hulk, which was okay. Hulk movies have the same problem as Superman movies, in that it's tough to create real drama because you never doubt that the Hulk is going to smash the bad guys in the end. Ed Norton is solid, Liv Tyler is about as good ("meh" good) as Jennifer Connelly was in the Hulk movie they made about half an hour before this one. One advantage the prior movie had was its inventiveness with the screen, where they split it up to make it look more like a comic book. I did like William Hirt as the scheming-yet-probably-not-altogether-evil general. Tim Roth acted the part of the Hulk's opponent well, but I've seen The Legend of 1900 too many times to see him as anything but a piano player.
After Hulk came Get Smart. Expectations were low, as I'd watched and enjoyed the TV series when it ran on Nick at Nite ages ago. The show was quirky and funny, with a good deal of inventiveness to offset the standard Cold War storylines. I just didn't think the movie version would measure up in any way. I was wrong.
They managed to plug in just enough homages to the old show--shoe phone, "Missed it by that much!", "Would you believe . . ." while at the same time updating the storylines and character attitudes for today's audience. You wouldn't have had to see the old show to enjoy the movie, but you would have enjoyed it more. The villains aren't scary or malicious, but Get Smart isn't a seriously intense world. Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway are good as Maxwell Smart and Agent 99. I was very pleasantly surprised with Carell, who managed to meld the Don Adams original Max with his own quirks and personality. It was marvelously done, in fact. I laughed and laughed.
For a period of time, one of my movie buddies in DC was a college friend who enjoyed going to the theater as much as I did. One more than one occasion we doubled up and saw two movies in a day, and on one memorable day we saw not one, not two, but three movies on one day. I think one was a Star Wars movie and another a Scooby Doo. The third escapes me at the moment (and likely for eternity). After she left for another part of the country, my cousin Catie became my movie buddy. This greatly helped her case in being named my favorite cousin. (though I don't think we ever doubled up. She had things like "a life" and "friends" to take care of...)
Alas, I am 1200 miles and a whole time zone away from her now, so I've had to find a new buddy. Or in this case, buddies. Three of my Sylvester cousins are remarkably reliable on short notice when asked "Hey, do y'all want to see Wolverine this afternoon?" So off we went. In short, it's all right. I think they massaged some of the timeline to update it, but I'd have to look into it to be sure, and I don't feel like, and it's not terribly important anyway. The fight scene at the end is pretty good, and I wish it could have lasted a bit longer.
Note: I just can never buy Ryan Reynolds as a tough guy. I've seen Smokin' Aces (and regrettably heard a girl on the metro say, "That was such a good movie." No, it wasn't. It was good for four minutes, then bad for the next five. Good for three, bad for four. Good for four, bad for three. You get the point. It could've been so much better) and Blade: Trinity, and I just don't buy it. If the ladies and alternate lifestyle gentlemen want to rave about his abs, that's fine. I just don't feel the tough guy.
I Netflixed The Departed and was prepared for a solid movie that went nuts at the end. This was based on the buzz and commentary I'd heard about it. The commentary was right. "Wha...??" I don't mind twists and yowza moments to wind down a film, but my gripe is that they should always make sense within the context of what's come before. You don't have to tell me it's coming, but I should be completely blindsided by someone who's been on screen for maybe 120 seconds till now and suddenly shows up to change the whole world, either.
It won Best Picture, though I thought The Queen was better. Scorcese won Best Director, but a lot of people said it was more of a lifetime achievement award than for this one. the story's a little shaky, but on the plus side, I felt like it was extremely well-acted. It's tempting to dismiss Leonardo DiCaprio as an actor because we may think of him as a pretty boy, but he's been really good in some really good movies, going back to at least What's Eating Gilbert Grape?
Note: DiCaprio's IMDB page shows 21 titles "under development" for him at the moment. Is that high? I have no idea. Anyway, one of them is titled "Akira." As we all know, Akira is one of the classics in anime film, based on a manga of the same name. The movie is great. If they're remaking it or making a live version, they'd better strap themselves in, because they've got their work cut out for them.
Additional note: A FB friend of mine (who I didn't speak to or even know the whereabouts of for at least the last 20 years, and don't speak to now except to comment on a status update or posting--you know the drill) posted a list of movies that have remakes planned:
Alien: it's a classic of sci-fi horror and doesn't need "updating" with any special effects, and you're not going to improve on the story. You'll only confuse things if you try.
Predator: You'll never be able to replicate its Arnoldness.
Romancing the Stone: Come on! You think you can make a better romantic adventure movie than Douglas/Turner/Devito? I repeat: Come on!
Karate Kid: The ghost of Pat Morita will haunt you. Besides, there's no Japanese actor who can pull it off right now. Ken Watanabe? Too big. Mako? Dead.
Red Dawn: Don't you dare. Don't you bleeping dare. What are you going to do, have terrorists take over the town of Calumet, Colorado? I enjoyed this note from wikipedia (some of which might be accurate):
"Red Dawn was the first movie to be released with a Motion Picture Association of America PG-13 rating.[1] At one time, Red Dawn was considered the most violent film by the Guinness Book of Records and The National Coalition on Television Violence, with a rate of 134 acts of violence per hour, or 2.23 per minute."
Really? Red Dawn as the most violent movie? Nightmare on Elm Street came out the same year, Texas Chainsaw Massacre ten years before, Friday the 13th in 1980, and thousands of war movies before that. And Red Dawn was the most violent movie?
The Thing: Already been remade once. My dad tells the story of going to the theater in Natchitoches in 1951 (he was 7) to see the original. When he got home, he latched onto the housekeeper's leg and wouldn't let go.
The Crow: Cursed. Jason Lee will haunt you.
Wrapping up The Departed, I noticed that Mark Wahlberg was nominated for Best Supporting Actor, and as far as I can tell, it's for his ability to curse in rhythm whenever he's on camera. Thank goodness for Alan Arkin in Little Miss Sunshine.
I went to see Star Trek the weekend before I left Natchitoches. Good movie. Probably a really good movie. It does a great job of setting up characters and their relationships. Like Get Smart, it includes a good bit of the catchphrases people want to hear. They even have the throwaway guy go on a mission with Kirk and Sulu, so you can guess what happens to him. (I always heard him described as the "Ensign Johnson" character. "We're sending an away team to battle the hordes of man-eating monsters on Chronos 9. The team is Kirk, Spock, Bones, Chekov, and...Ensign Johnson." Guess who gets eaten?)
It's smart, funny, and enjoyable. The villains aren't terrifying, but that's sort of a secondary element in a movie like this. They did a pretty good job of tying things together without being herky-jerky about it.
Finally, Angels and Demons. I hadn't planned on seeing it, but the Sylvesters texted me at 9pm one night asking if I wanted to see the 9:30 show. As I was only busying myself by bowling perfect games on the Wii, I agreed to go. Solid movie. I don't think you'd need to have read or seen the DaVinci Code to get it, but it might help to be familiar with the Robert Langdon character. It moves quickly and doesn't get bogged down with symbolism out the wazoo. Well-acted for the most part, and it manages to use our assumptions about character types and turn them against us. It's got a good amount of excitement and daring-do to keep you entertained.
That should be it with the movies for a while, though I hear that Up is outstanding.
After Iron Man came Incredible Hulk, which was okay. Hulk movies have the same problem as Superman movies, in that it's tough to create real drama because you never doubt that the Hulk is going to smash the bad guys in the end. Ed Norton is solid, Liv Tyler is about as good ("meh" good) as Jennifer Connelly was in the Hulk movie they made about half an hour before this one. One advantage the prior movie had was its inventiveness with the screen, where they split it up to make it look more like a comic book. I did like William Hirt as the scheming-yet-probably-not-altogether-evil general. Tim Roth acted the part of the Hulk's opponent well, but I've seen The Legend of 1900 too many times to see him as anything but a piano player.
After Hulk came Get Smart. Expectations were low, as I'd watched and enjoyed the TV series when it ran on Nick at Nite ages ago. The show was quirky and funny, with a good deal of inventiveness to offset the standard Cold War storylines. I just didn't think the movie version would measure up in any way. I was wrong.
They managed to plug in just enough homages to the old show--shoe phone, "Missed it by that much!", "Would you believe . . ." while at the same time updating the storylines and character attitudes for today's audience. You wouldn't have had to see the old show to enjoy the movie, but you would have enjoyed it more. The villains aren't scary or malicious, but Get Smart isn't a seriously intense world. Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway are good as Maxwell Smart and Agent 99. I was very pleasantly surprised with Carell, who managed to meld the Don Adams original Max with his own quirks and personality. It was marvelously done, in fact. I laughed and laughed.
For a period of time, one of my movie buddies in DC was a college friend who enjoyed going to the theater as much as I did. One more than one occasion we doubled up and saw two movies in a day, and on one memorable day we saw not one, not two, but three movies on one day. I think one was a Star Wars movie and another a Scooby Doo. The third escapes me at the moment (and likely for eternity). After she left for another part of the country, my cousin Catie became my movie buddy. This greatly helped her case in being named my favorite cousin. (though I don't think we ever doubled up. She had things like "a life" and "friends" to take care of...)
Alas, I am 1200 miles and a whole time zone away from her now, so I've had to find a new buddy. Or in this case, buddies. Three of my Sylvester cousins are remarkably reliable on short notice when asked "Hey, do y'all want to see Wolverine this afternoon?" So off we went. In short, it's all right. I think they massaged some of the timeline to update it, but I'd have to look into it to be sure, and I don't feel like, and it's not terribly important anyway. The fight scene at the end is pretty good, and I wish it could have lasted a bit longer.
Note: I just can never buy Ryan Reynolds as a tough guy. I've seen Smokin' Aces (and regrettably heard a girl on the metro say, "That was such a good movie." No, it wasn't. It was good for four minutes, then bad for the next five. Good for three, bad for four. Good for four, bad for three. You get the point. It could've been so much better) and Blade: Trinity, and I just don't buy it. If the ladies and alternate lifestyle gentlemen want to rave about his abs, that's fine. I just don't feel the tough guy.
I Netflixed The Departed and was prepared for a solid movie that went nuts at the end. This was based on the buzz and commentary I'd heard about it. The commentary was right. "Wha...??" I don't mind twists and yowza moments to wind down a film, but my gripe is that they should always make sense within the context of what's come before. You don't have to tell me it's coming, but I should be completely blindsided by someone who's been on screen for maybe 120 seconds till now and suddenly shows up to change the whole world, either.
It won Best Picture, though I thought The Queen was better. Scorcese won Best Director, but a lot of people said it was more of a lifetime achievement award than for this one. the story's a little shaky, but on the plus side, I felt like it was extremely well-acted. It's tempting to dismiss Leonardo DiCaprio as an actor because we may think of him as a pretty boy, but he's been really good in some really good movies, going back to at least What's Eating Gilbert Grape?
Note: DiCaprio's IMDB page shows 21 titles "under development" for him at the moment. Is that high? I have no idea. Anyway, one of them is titled "Akira." As we all know, Akira is one of the classics in anime film, based on a manga of the same name. The movie is great. If they're remaking it or making a live version, they'd better strap themselves in, because they've got their work cut out for them.
Additional note: A FB friend of mine (who I didn't speak to or even know the whereabouts of for at least the last 20 years, and don't speak to now except to comment on a status update or posting--you know the drill) posted a list of movies that have remakes planned:
Alien, Predator, Vally Girl, Romancing the Stone, Karate Kid, Cliffhanger, Red Dawn, Fright Night, True Grit, The Thing, The Crow, and Total Recall.
I strongly advise against trying to tackle the following:Alien: it's a classic of sci-fi horror and doesn't need "updating" with any special effects, and you're not going to improve on the story. You'll only confuse things if you try.
Predator: You'll never be able to replicate its Arnoldness.
Romancing the Stone: Come on! You think you can make a better romantic adventure movie than Douglas/Turner/Devito? I repeat: Come on!
Karate Kid: The ghost of Pat Morita will haunt you. Besides, there's no Japanese actor who can pull it off right now. Ken Watanabe? Too big. Mako? Dead.
Red Dawn: Don't you dare. Don't you bleeping dare. What are you going to do, have terrorists take over the town of Calumet, Colorado? I enjoyed this note from wikipedia (some of which might be accurate):
"Red Dawn was the first movie to be released with a Motion Picture Association of America PG-13 rating.[1] At one time, Red Dawn was considered the most violent film by the Guinness Book of Records and The National Coalition on Television Violence, with a rate of 134 acts of violence per hour, or 2.23 per minute."
Really? Red Dawn as the most violent movie? Nightmare on Elm Street came out the same year, Texas Chainsaw Massacre ten years before, Friday the 13th in 1980, and thousands of war movies before that. And Red Dawn was the most violent movie?
The Thing: Already been remade once. My dad tells the story of going to the theater in Natchitoches in 1951 (he was 7) to see the original. When he got home, he latched onto the housekeeper's leg and wouldn't let go.
The Crow: Cursed. Jason Lee will haunt you.
Wrapping up The Departed, I noticed that Mark Wahlberg was nominated for Best Supporting Actor, and as far as I can tell, it's for his ability to curse in rhythm whenever he's on camera. Thank goodness for Alan Arkin in Little Miss Sunshine.
I went to see Star Trek the weekend before I left Natchitoches. Good movie. Probably a really good movie. It does a great job of setting up characters and their relationships. Like Get Smart, it includes a good bit of the catchphrases people want to hear. They even have the throwaway guy go on a mission with Kirk and Sulu, so you can guess what happens to him. (I always heard him described as the "Ensign Johnson" character. "We're sending an away team to battle the hordes of man-eating monsters on Chronos 9. The team is Kirk, Spock, Bones, Chekov, and...Ensign Johnson." Guess who gets eaten?)
It's smart, funny, and enjoyable. The villains aren't terrifying, but that's sort of a secondary element in a movie like this. They did a pretty good job of tying things together without being herky-jerky about it.
Finally, Angels and Demons. I hadn't planned on seeing it, but the Sylvesters texted me at 9pm one night asking if I wanted to see the 9:30 show. As I was only busying myself by bowling perfect games on the Wii, I agreed to go. Solid movie. I don't think you'd need to have read or seen the DaVinci Code to get it, but it might help to be familiar with the Robert Langdon character. It moves quickly and doesn't get bogged down with symbolism out the wazoo. Well-acted for the most part, and it manages to use our assumptions about character types and turn them against us. It's got a good amount of excitement and daring-do to keep you entertained.
That should be it with the movies for a while, though I hear that Up is outstanding.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Iron Man
I've seen a few movies lately, thanks to Netflix and the Parkway Cinema in Natchitoches. It was a little predictable and yet nostalgia-inducing to find that in the 20-something years (I'm estimating) since Parkway Cinema opened, they haven't changed anything about the original four theaters. They have added two theaters with stadium seating, but the original four still contain thirteen rows of fourteen seats each. If you sit in the seventh row, seventh seat, you're pretty much in the center of the room. Prime position. Seven-seven is the key to the theater. The Greeks knew it. The Carthaginians knew it. Now, you know it.
Anyway, not a theater viewing but a Netflix rental, Iron Man was rather good. It's held back a little due to one of the iron laws of pro wrestling: the good guy is only as good as the bad guy is bad. The villains are unimpressive, so Robert Downey, Jr.'s victory in the end isn't thrilling or dramatic in any way. However, it does do a good job of going through the origin of the character and his relationships, which is really the purpose of the film. I'd heard from several sources when it was out that it was surprisingly good, and I guess I'll agree with that. I really like Gwyneth Paltrow, even though she's in a decidedly subordinate role. I hope she sticks around for later movies.
As in all the recent Marvel movies, Stan Lee makes an appearance, this time playing Hugh Hefner surrounded by beautiful women (technically, he's referred to as playing himself and Toy Stark mistakes him for Hefner). I sort of like the way they just drop him in in different roles from film to film. Starting with X-Men in 2000, he's been in about ten cameo roles.
All in all, it's a good movie that sets things up for sequels, and I get the feeling that the sequels will actually be better.
Anyway, not a theater viewing but a Netflix rental, Iron Man was rather good. It's held back a little due to one of the iron laws of pro wrestling: the good guy is only as good as the bad guy is bad. The villains are unimpressive, so Robert Downey, Jr.'s victory in the end isn't thrilling or dramatic in any way. However, it does do a good job of going through the origin of the character and his relationships, which is really the purpose of the film. I'd heard from several sources when it was out that it was surprisingly good, and I guess I'll agree with that. I really like Gwyneth Paltrow, even though she's in a decidedly subordinate role. I hope she sticks around for later movies.
As in all the recent Marvel movies, Stan Lee makes an appearance, this time playing Hugh Hefner surrounded by beautiful women (technically, he's referred to as playing himself and Toy Stark mistakes him for Hefner). I sort of like the way they just drop him in in different roles from film to film. Starting with X-Men in 2000, he's been in about ten cameo roles.
All in all, it's a good movie that sets things up for sequels, and I get the feeling that the sequels will actually be better.
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