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"Sleigh Ride" by the Ronettes:

Maybe We Can Introduce Dexter to the Joker

Every week I watch "Dexter" with my dad. This week something struck me which also struck me last season. Dexter has a lot in common with the Fawcett Captain Marvel. If you actually read the old Fawcett Cap comics, those are some dark stories. His villains are some of the most truly evil and vicious nasties around, and Captain Marvel and Billy have no problem at all sinking to their level should the occasion demand it. The stories are told with cartoony art and in a light-hearted almost comedic tone. They have to be or they never could have gotten away with the stories they were telling.

Dexter is in the same boat. It's about a serial killer, and it's as black a comedy as I can imagine. Last season and this season have a character trying to kill Dexter, but I feel no tension. Why? He has it coming. He's a sociopath, like Hannibal Lector or Mr. Mind. I don't worry about him because he's evil. But also, because the show is a black comedy, I know they won't kill him. Heck, they will not even injure him seriously, because then his friends might notice. Also, every time someone takes him on one-on-one, he wins. In a way he's a supervillain, and those guys never lose permanently.

I actually found myself thinking today, when Dexter was kidnapped, "Bad move, brother." I don't think that Dexter is my first choice of kidnap victim. picture "The Ransom of Red Chief" with Shang Chi, master of Kung Fu as Red Chief.

I found "The Sopranos" unwatchable toward the end, because Tony was a monster and I did not want to root for him. I do not root for Dexter, but since it is a comedy, it doesn't matter. I would like a crossover maybe with CSI: Miami.

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The Spice Girls covered the Waitresses minor punk carol, "Christmas Wrapping." I hate to say it, but they actually did a reasonable job. I mean, they did not just do the song, the changed it up a little. Besides, if they'd started up in 1974 instead of 1994, they would have been a fabricated punk band instead of a fabircated bubble gum band. There's a certain irony to a punk band being covered by a bubble gum brit chick band... I think Patty Donahue, God rest her soul, would have laughed. Certainly, the songwriter got paid.

Okay, Just Maybe Consumerism is a Tiny Bit Out of Control

Yesterday, people decided to give "Black Friday" a whole new meaning as as shoppers trampled a Walmart worker to death. Let me repeat that, because although anyone reading this has heard the story, it bears repeating that shoppers trampled a Walmart worker to death. Did I mention that SHOPPERS TRAMPLED A WALMART WORKER TO DEATH? In fact, let me just put this in perspective: a newspaper in Belfast has picked up the story. That's Belfast as in capital of Northern Ireland. Call me a wide-eyed idealist, but if Northern-focking-Ireland thinks you are violent enough to mention in their newspaper, just maybe, you have a problem.

However, I'm not going to solve the issue of holiday consumerism, let me just point out a few things. I, myself, have gone out a couple times. Once, a couple years back, I went to a consumer electronics store and picked up a DVD. I waited in line for one and a half hours, and the line moved twenty feet. I got annoyed, put the DVD down where I was, went home, and went to sleep. I woke up at around 10 a.m. and thought, "Well, I might as well see whether it's still there." I went back to the store, and sure enough, there they were. I bought the DVDs, and even went to another store and got some stuff. At that point, I realize, that unless I was looking for an Xbox, I probably could get some sleep on Black Friday.

The next year, I wandered out at 10:30 and picked up some stuff. Lat year, I skipped it. This year, I was on my way to the gym at 10:50 a.m. I passed by a store, and I thought, "You know, if I can get in and out in ten minutes, then I win." And you know what, I did. And after the gym, I even went to another store and picked up some stuff there. These items were, by the way, presents, and also perhaps something for myself. Additionally, I avoided even attempted homicide.

Jut a Link for the Day

The incomparable Bing Crosby:

I Prefer the Bing Crosby Version Myself

This is apparently the third most played radio Christmas carol:

Just a Link for the Day

A personal favorite of mine: Stan Freberg's first Thanksgiving

God As My Witness, I Though Turkeys Could Fly

A true classic the full episode of WKRP's "Turkeys Away."


Just the turkey drop from You Tube:



Thanks to crystalcheats

Just a Link for the Day

For Thanksgiving, Arlo Guthrie performing "Alice's Restaurant.

Hit, Run and Throw

Major League baseball has this obsession with pitching. They say the game is 90 percent pitching, which makes no sense, by the way. Babe Ruth was a great pitcher. A really great pitcher. He was on his way to a Hall of Fame career. They moved him to the outfield.

However, the search for pitching continue, and now the Pirates have signed a couple of pitchers from India. These pitchers were found it a contest sponsored by a California outfit. The theory being that in a billion people, they can find a few that can hit the strike zone at 85 plus.

This is an interesting theory. I suppose they might have found Walter Johnson and Christy Matthewson but it's more likely they just found two javelin throwers who don't know anything about playing baseball. The places with the most talent for baseball do not appear to have high populations. What they have are kids who do nothing but actually play baseball. Baseball is a hard enough game that I have might doubts that you can learn to play it at a high level just because you have a strong throwing arm. Ron LeFlore was famous for never having playing organized ball until he played in a prison league, but I would imagine that he played in at least one or two games in his life.These guys threw javelin. I would imagin they played cricket. On the other hand, the Pirates saw something they liked.

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The immortal Wendell Hall sings his hit It Ain't Gonna Rain No More.

Zero Mostel said...

Romanian cooking has killed more Jews than Hitler.

So where does deli food come from?

Pastrami is actually smoked, brined beef. At Manny's, in Chicago, I believe they just smoke their corned beef. Their corned beef is just about the best I have ever had, and their pastrami is one of the transcedent culinary experiences of the world.

There is such a thing as turkey pastrami, which I assumed to be some sort of crime against food, but is apparently quite popular in Europe and in Israel. I might be forced to taste some.

Knishes are dumplings. Chopped liver kishes are my favorite, but I do not find them around here. Manny's has potato knishes, which are beef inside mashed potatoes. Manny's also has an excellent Matzo ball soup.

The Reuben, made from corned beef, kraut and russian dressing on rye, is either from New York or Oklahoma. The Rachel is made with Turkey and cole slaw.

Which brings me to the real point of this rant:

WHy are we making deli food out of turkey? Okay, we have to use chicken for the chopped liver and the schmaltz. But turkey? Turkey gives the whole exercise the stench of health food.

There are other deli staples lke franks and beans or brisket or various fish like gefilte fish. But if you walk into a deli once in your life, I recommend, pastrami on an onion roll.

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A page listing forty great magazine cover from the last forty years.

Bobby Fisher Kinda went a Little Nuts There...

What is superintelligence? We see character in comic books with it all the time, but then we see other characters in the book who seem to be if not just as smart, at least smart enough that the practical results are similar. For example, the Legion of Super-Heroes has Brainiac 5, Querl Dox. His power is superintelligence. I used to talk about this with regard to Karate Kid. His fighting ability is so extreme it's a power. How do I know? Because Batman and Lady Shiva and Richard Dragon are nice little martial artists, but none of them would last a second against a Kryptonian. Karate Kid could. Val could hold a Keyptonian. Val could train other people to fight Daxamites, as seen by Cham throwing a Daxamite around during the Great Darkness Saga. His fighting skills are a power because they are as effective as the powers of other people.

Intelligence presents a different issue. Is Brainiac 5 smarter than Reed Richards? Well, yes, and I got it straight from Jim Shooter's lips at a con, but so what? Reed Richards can still do things like MacGuyver weapons and escape plans. He still builds interdimensional gateways. He still makes strategies. Occasionally, people act like he has a superintelligence power, but the Marvel Universe is just silly with similar types of guys like Dr. Doom, the Mad Thinker and even people who are meant to be smarter like the High Evolutionary. The fact is that in Marvel comics Hank Pym and Tony Stark and Bruce Banner are all supposed to be geniuses, and the difference between them and Reed on a practical build-me-a-laser-suit level is minimal. And let's not even talk about people who are geniuses only when it suits the story like T'Challa and Spidey.

But back over at DC, even with Brainy, you have Lyle Norg and Lex Luthor. As a teenager, Lex Luthor built a time machine and took on the LSH. Is that level of intelligence a power or not?It occurs to me that it might not matter that much on a story level. Superman is strong enough to move the planet out of orbit and shrug off a supernova. Clearly he has superstrength and invulnerability, but usually he's just punching out criminals and letting bullets bounce off his chest. The fact that Brainiac 5 has a twelfth level mind and is smarter than Lyle Norg might not have anymore practical consequence than his being able to prove some esoteric theory about fractal geometry that no one else can understand. I was annoyed in one Levitz era story when they showed Brainy being frustrated by not understanding Gil'dishpan technology, because that's what Brainy is for. He should be able to at least understand anything that was built by a mortal. (I once tried to convince a LSH writer who was also writing New Gods that B5 should worship Metron. That's how he knew about Darkseid after 1,000 years. Same religious pantheon.)

But it's not just comics. Among other characters that de facto have superintelligence are Mr. Spock, the Time Lords, some Stargate characters,Data, and maybe Wesley Crusher. But there are other characters you are just plain geniuses like Will Hunting. Part of the way to get around this might be that some of those people are just really smart people, like Lyle Norg, whereas others are smart because they are not humans and Time Lords and Vulcans are just smarter than human beings the same way that gorillas are stronger than human beings, and that's all there is to it.

On the other other, hand superintelligence is just story telling short hand for "Hey, wouldn't it be neat to have a super scientist character in LSH? We'll call it superintelligence, and we won't think how that is different than what Invisible Kid can do." Because when you get right down to it, it does matter if you can prove that 1+1=2 in order to build a stun ray to take on the Legion of Doom. Maybe you "only" have to be as smart as Peter Parker for most stuff that superheroes actually do every day.

Just a Link for the Day

Chicago public radio makes a podcast of "This American Life available for a limited time after broadcast.

Who's Afraid of Elmer Fudd?

A character is given a name to make him have an affect. Giving a good name is all that separate a Lex Luthor from a -- well, I can't think of anyone which is part of the point. Anyone I could remember would have a memorable name. But take pate Pot Pete...please! In principle kind of a dumb character, but then again, a smart supervillain might not annouce his powers. They tried calling him "The Trapster," but really, who cares. "The trapster?" Paste Pot Pete has if not more charisma, at least more Q value.

Comics are actually pretty good at naming characters. Lex Luthor has a solid amount of strength to it, if not the Dickensian flair that some Victorian novels inflicted on their characters. I some of the more inane superhero definition discussions I used to have on Usenet, some moron would inevitably propose "codename" as a requirement,missing the fact that Dr. Strange was called that because it was his name. Do people really know the Thing as "the Thing" or is he "Ben Grimm." And what about Reed and Sue Richards. For a while Kitty Pride was just about the most popular X-man. They tried giving her a codename. Repeatedly. She burned through Shadowcat and Ariel and Sprite, and I forget what all else if there even were anymore. But when they spun her off into a miniseries and gave her top billing or Wolvy, what did they call it? "Kitty Pryde and Wolverine." The whole point of the series was the end wherein they call her "Shadowcat." But that name did not really stick either.

Comics are not the sole source of intriguing name. The world of science fiction television has given us a few good ones too, but they tend to follow a rather minimalist trend. "Doctor Who," the venerable British children's show solved the problem by simply not giving the big guy a name. He's the Doctor. They called him "Theta Sigma" in "The Armageddon Factor." But really, not. He's the Doctor. Julius Irving can play him next time. In fact, his namelessness became a central plot point of one of the better episodes of the new season.

My favorite name from the series was the mercenary "Sabolom Glitz," which would make a good name for a rock band, except someone is using it. "Duran Duran" was named after a character from "Barbarella." I'm sure there's a band out there named "Surok" or "kal El" or whatever.

But generic names are part and parcel to the realm of fiction. Dr. Stephen Strange and Dr. Hugo Strange could open a medical practice together. And Victor von Doom really needed to look at the peerage guide. Same with Star Trek. Mr. Spock? Isn't he a baby doctor?

Just a Link for the Day

The Chicago Symphony has been named the best orchestra in the United States.

CC Sabathia was 3-0 Against Pittsburgh this Year

I was driving yesterday, and discovered that piracy is on the upturn again. My buddy Doug Tonks, did an item on Tuesday, but when NPR does a story, you know it's the cutting edge of the news. In listening to the story, I was struck by a couple things. First, the pirates are apparently operating without fear of sanction from the Somali government, and are even kicking back the ransoms they demand for return of the ships to the Somali government. If this scenario is not government sanction, it is the next best thing, and so I put it forth that the Somali pirates are not pirates at all, but rather privateers. Second, the strategies for dealing with these pirates are contradictory in some respects.


The pirates are capturing freighters and are holding them for ransom. This process involves feeding and watering the crews of the vessels without abusing them. And once they receive the ransom, the pirates kick back some of the ransom to what passes for the Somali government and even to militants in opposition to the Somali government. Well, I feel certain that a portion of a large ransom is a whole lot of money to these guys, so they see no reason to discourage the pirates. This connivance with the pirates in my mind is either one step removed or the same thing as actually employing them. The pirates are de facto privateers then, committing acts of piracy on behalf of a sovereign nation.

Which leads to the second point, which is that people cannot seem to find effective means of dealing with the pirates. The first problem is to find someone to put them on trial. I gather from the story that Kenya has reluctantly agreed to try some of these pirates, but in the main they simply wind up letting the pirates go. Without fear of actual prosecution there is not much the "authorities" can do to stop the piracy. Another issues is identifying the pirates who appear to be normal fishermen when confronted by, say, as US Navy battleship. They only appear where the authorities are not. The ships themselves can take steps such as installing water cannons or keeping their ladders rolled up, and their are even technological options, but realistically these are not enough.

The security expert on the NPR show apparently instills three member teams on boats, which are unarmed but ready to deal with pirates. Unarmed? Apparently ships have to be careful with engaging in violence. If someone on a fishing vessel brandishes a weapon without firing it, and a ship fires on that person, the ship might become the pirate. This does seem to be a threat based on a reading the United Nations Conventions on the Law of the Sea at Part VII Article 101. However, based on the current abilities to enforce these laws, I have to wonder what the fear is. Apparently nobody will try them. I am told the cost of arming the ships might be prohibitive, but realistically, four .50 cal machine guns at strategic places could saw a fishing troller in half.

So here's my oddball theory: they do not want to arm the ships, because then the crew will take over and go a-roving. Because if you arm the ships, you have to train people to use the arms. If you don't, then you have given said to the pirates "Please, take my ship, and here are four complimentary machine guns for you to use against the next freight you take." And the ships that are being targeted are not necessarily from the most civilized nations. The pirates don't take American ships, because the US would be more than happy to invade Somalia. It would give the military a chance to write their own sequel to Black Hawk Down. To a lesser extent the same is true of countries like the UK and France. So the pirates target less militarily capable countries. But these countries do not necessarily treat their sailors well. Give them some weapons and and training and set them off to see, and they steal your boat and become pirates.

This just a guess.

Of course, recent events indicate that the countries of the world are losing patience with the pirates. An Indian warship recently sank a pirate vessel and the US has asked the UN how violent it can be in defensing the shipping lanes. MY guess is the pirates made a mistake in taking an oil tanker. Because if there's one thing the United States likes more than weapons, it's oil.

Cool Hamels

For the last two months, America has been treated to the advantages of have moderate, logical, thinking adults in positions of responsibility in two fronts. In the World Series, Cole Hamels was utterly unflappable. It's not merely that he was cool on the mound. He did not get upset when calls went against him. He did not argue balls and strike. He did not make wild demonstrations. He just went out and pitched. And he won.

Sometimes athletes are lauded for showing fire and passion. Hamels should be lauded and emulated for showing constraint and focus. Hamels doesn't whine when he doesn't get run support. He just pitches and tries to get people out. If someone hits a homerun, he tries to get the next guy out. Carlos Zambrano tries to punch out his own catcher. Hamels is not just unflappable because nothing happens to him. Thanks to the wonders of mlb.tv and the Comcast package, I watched just about every start Hamels made this year, and if anyone ever had a beef about run support, it was Hamels. Except that Hamels never had a beef about run support. He’d lose a game 1-0or 2-1 and it was water off a duck’s back.

They used to have a saying for that: “Pitches good enough to lose.” I must admit that during the season that this position when the Phillies went through one of their stretches where they all stop hitting at once. If the other pitcher is shutting down the offense, the our guy has to do the same if we're going to win. Obviously, no one can meet that standard. Hamels never tired to. Hamels never complained about run support, even when people asked him about it. Hamels never offered to pitch on short rest or bitched about being taken out of games. If he feels tired, he tells his manager. If he thinks he needs a chiropractor to pitch effectively, he says so. Why? Because he knows his goal: to help the Phillies win the World Series. This year, they did.

This post season, he went 4-0. He did not whine about the playing conditions in game 5 of the World Series. He just went out and pitched. Earlier in the season, people derided his toughness for not volunteering to pitch on three days rest. That's a bogus criticism because it ignores that the Phillies have other pitchers. He was thinking to the end of the season.. He was thinking about the World Series.

I was thinking about that in the election season.

This other guy is the more important one. In electing Barack Obama the citizens of the United States appears to have actually found a thinking adult to put in office. Watching his "60 Minutes" interview on Sunday, he looked relaxed and calm. He seemed to have a grasp of what needed to be done. In short, he is another guy like Cole Hamels. He's not going to panic. He's not going to act tough or get demonstrative just because people on Fox News or CNN shout the sky is falling. He is going to handle problems rationally. When Cole Hamels took that approach, he went 4-0. I hope the President-Elect has similar results.

Just a Link for the Day

Hey, kids! Remember the Holocaust? Well now you can never forget with the help of the handy Genocide Watch website. Darfur isn't gone yet, but it's just a matter of time.

Just a Link for the Day

Megan Fox will not be Wonder Woman. Nobody knows who will be, but I favor Rachel Wacholder.

Joe Lieberman, Friend of America

Amongst my friends a question has arisen, what to do with Joe Lieberman? I do not actually see any reason to do anything with him. My friends think that the Democrats need to punish him in some fashion, perhaps stripping him of his seniority and perhaps not letting him caucus with him. This anger from my buddies stems from his very public repudiation of the Democratic. The Democrats seem to have gotten over it. and are taking away one of his subcommittee chairs. Well, tough on him. He's still the chair of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee.

I think they all have it wrong. Lieberman was useful in the Senate, but he's a wild card. The question is what can Joe do for his country and for the Democratic party.

I think President Obama should put him in the cabinet.

My favorite choice is the Department of Homeland Security. He already chairs the relevant Senate committee. He's Jewish, so the Arab Terrorists will hate him. He's Jewish, so the Israelis will love him.. He's a Republican on this stuff, so it lets Obama keep his promise to the Republicans. He's a lawyer, so he knows what civil rights are. He's a Republican, so he does not care. Most importantly, though, it's a crappy, ill-defined job that no sane person would want, but it still looks like a promotion to the outside. Besides, there's an outside chance Lieberman would actually be good at it. He certainly can't be worse at it than the people we've had so far.

My second favorite choice is the Department of Defense, for many of the same reasons but especially to annoy the Republicans, because they could not really squawk about him as a choice without sounding like a bunch of babies. Clearly, though, someone else needs to run that place.
I say we let Joe do it.

Beyond that there are departments which would be rewards like State, which appears to be heading toward a Clinton and Attorney General which might be decided as well. There are jobs which are nice enough on their own, but would be demotions for a guy like Lieberman, such as HUD or Labor. Besides, I do not think Lieberman cares enough about poor people for either of those jobs. Of course, not caring about poor people seems to be a requirement.

The neutral positions for a guy like Lieberman would be Interior, Energy, Education and maybe Transportation. He just lost his committee spot on the Environment and Public Works Committee, so he might just be qualified for those slots. I think he would do some good in those offices, but the message would be clear: you aren't in the Senate, and we are not happy with you. However we still think you can be useful, and we need someone to deal with these problems. Tag, you're it.

The other post I like is United States Trade Representative. It's not in the Cabinet but it is Cabinet Level. The great thing is that given his experience in dealing with the Democrats and Republicans, he clearly can talk to two sides and the same time that cannot talk to each other.

Or they can do what they did. Leave him in the Senate, and wait till he comes up for re-election..

ERA or ERA

Well, a teenage girl has been drafted into the japanese professional baseball leagues. She's a side arm knuckleball pitcher.

C'ya in Pinstripes

I hope Sabathia does sign with the Yankees. I hope they sign Manny and I hope they sign AJ Burnett and I even hope they get Mark Teixeira. Why? Why do I want the Yankees to have their own All-Star team? Because, 1) they are not in the Phillies’ division, so what do I care. And B) that trick never works.

Teams have tried to buy championships before. The Yankees have tried it for the past ten years. How many rings does A-Rod have? As many as I do. How about Bobby Abreu who the Phils traded to the Yankees for absolutely nothing? Nada. The Braves won one World Series with one of the great pitching staffs in history with Glavine and Maddux and Smoltz. They had hitters too. They won once. When they Yankees won in the late 1990’s, it was not because they had a bunch of high-priced free agents that they bought, like the Marlins did in their championship years. The big stars on the Yankees were Mariano Rivera and Derek Jeter. They had Bernie Williams and Paul O’Neill. Nobody was complaining that Paul O’Neill should not have been traded to the Yankees, and the rest of those guys came up through the farm system. Yeah, they got Roger Clemens. The one year he won twenty they lost the series to the Snakes. They can sign whoever they want. Maybe it will work. Maybe it won’t. But one thing they cannot do is bat more than one at a time.

I told my friend Chris Maka a couple years ago when the Phillies wanted to low ball Ryan Howard in arbitration, “Apparently they really want to see how he looks in pin stripes.” Chris said that was a depressing thought, but the fact is the Phillies have other players. If Howard has no loyalty to the team, I do not even want him. Or at least I don’t want him after the 2010 season when he is 31 years old and will be in the position to demand 150 million dollars for 7 years, and is still fielding with a machete instead of a glove. Now, if he’s coming off another 50 homer, 150 RBI season, I might want to pay that much, but if the Phillies won’t, I darn well do not want him playing for the Mets. I’d rather take the draft pick, in principle.

In the specific case of Sabathia, however, I take a look at his record. He's a great pitcher and a good guy, but when he was traded to the Brewers, he was not setting the world on fire. He was phenomenal with the Brew crew, but his wins were mostly against crappy teams. When he faced good teams, like the Cubs, he lost. Then in the playoffs, the Phillies got rid of him in the second game before the game was even in the books. His final total record was 17-10. That includes the American League teams that the Yankees will be playing.

Also, much was made of what a horse Sabathia was, starting the last several starts on three days rest and pitching complete games like he was Wilbur Wood and shut outs like Bob Gibson. Well, while it is true that Sabathia came over in mid-season and led the senior circuit in complete games and shut outs, it is also true that the Brewers did that because they had nothing to lose. They knew they couldn't re-sign him so they had no reason not to work him like a rented mule or pitcher in this case. They tried to do the same thing to their ace, Ben Sheets, because he was in a contract year and in the era of Barry Zito and Johan Santana, they figured they couldn't retain him either. Sheets got injured. Sabathia is a horse and can and did take it, and the Brewers have tendered him an offer, but the Yankees will not use him the same way. They'll use him on normal rest with relief help.

The same thing with Manny. He's a nice enough player, but he's not always as hot as he was down the stretch and at that, the Phillies still beat the Dodgers in five. Teixeira is also great as is Burnett, but they aren't gods. The Braves had Teixeira and Chipper Jones and Brian McCann and Tom Glavine and Mike Hampton and, well, you know. What happened? They did not compete like they hoped and they traded Teixeira to the Angels, who fell to the Sawx. I do not know where Teixeira will land, but the Yankees do not frighten me as a landing spot. If they want to tie up five hundred million dollars in A-Rod, Sabathia, Teixeira, and Manny, let ‘em.

Just a Link for the Day

Since I just wrote 800 words about how ugly I am, I thought I would provide some basis for comparison. A French man and a Brazilian woman just got named the World's Most Beautiful Bottoms.

But I Don't have a Beard or a War Hammer

So, I was talking to a colleague the other day, and he said that his secretary had asked him what I look like. I usually describe myself as the big, fat, ugly guy. Though this description does enable people to find me, some people will say I am too hard on myself and the like. This has two implications. One, that I do not own a mirror or have not noticed or something. Two, that I place as heavy and emphasis on physical attractiveness as the rest of the people on this giant marble we live on and have chosen to do nothing about it. Other people walk up to me and tell me “Gee, you’re fat.” Presumably these people are under the impression that making fun of people for being larger than they are is a good idea. The last time it happened was a little over a year ago. My response was to say “Yes, I am.” And then when he made another comment, I said “Mean too.”

My colleague said to his secretary, “He’s a big Viking lookin’, mofo.” Which I suppose is sort of true. I will say this: despite the protests that I am too hard on myself -- ask me how smart I am sometime, and we’ll find out how unjustifiably healthy my ego is, by the way – my description has never failed to allow anyone to identify me. However, I will justify my description a little. People who do not know me are scared of me. Based entirely on my physical appearance. I have paralyzed small children. Literally. When we did a haunted house in college, I wore green make up and stood there. There were other monsters, but giving me green makeup I like giving brass knuckles to Superman. While children ran pat the other monsters screaming. They stopped at me, utterly paralyzed. One looked like he was going to wet himself until I broke character and told him to relax. I was told I should probably take the day off. Yes, I was fired from a Haunted House for being too scary.

Lest I attributed this incident to the costume, God decided to take steps. I was walking home from class one day and students from the local preschool crossed my path. They stood paralyzed and one of them looked like he was about the wet himself. And then another kid tried to kill me and steal my golden-egg-laying goose. See, giants are well-known monsters. When I was in high school, my friend Betsy Peterson used to run into me. I mean, literally, walk into me. She I was like a wall and she did not notice me. I used to arrive at school somewhat earlier than most people, and the principal told me I should try to avoid walking around the school because I was scaring the cleaning staff. He told me larger people had to me more sensitive to how other people react to their size. See, we have a word for people who frighten other people because of their appearance. The word is “ugly.” People say to me, “That’s just because you are bigger.” Yes, but when did size stop being part of one’s physical appearance.

o, I get it already. I’m a big guy. Over 6’3”. Over 250. Way over. I get mistaken for a wall. Seriously, it is the only way I can explain it. People keep running into to me and backing into me and leaning on me. It’s starting to make me wonder if I even exist in an odd ways.

I remember playing soccer in college. A little Pakistani guy ran into me at full speed and promptly rebounded off me to the ground. I’m not entirely certain what he thought was going to happen. I was 6’6” 300 pounds at that point. He was apparently in some sort of denial about my sheer size. Perhaps he did not believe it. He thought he was seeing something unreal.

Friends who have not seen me in awhile still ask me how tall I am. Chris Maka had not seen me in a few years and said “I forgot how goddam huge you are.” My friend Sara said “How are tall are you?” because I dwarfed her new boyfriend. Still the same size. It’s bizarre. Also, what is that? How tall are you? What difference does that make? I ask because I seem to have reached some level where I am too big to be a person. Instead, I am a building. That’s the only explanation I have. Except people still bump into me. Since people do not walk into walls, generally, I have come to a conclusion. Walls are invisible except as a sort of sensory boundary. People take note of the walls when they walk into the building and then ignore them because the walls will not move. I do move. Thus when people walk into a room, they take note of my massive size, identify me as a wall, and then take no further conscious notice of me. I then move, and they walk into me.

Or maybe I am just a natural ninja. Despite my enormous 6’6” four hundred pound size, I move with such stealth and grace that people simply do not notice. This seems unlikely to me. But I do have a working theory. People are blind and deaf.

In any event, I do have a suggestion for the next person who calls me fat: come with me to the gym, where I am six days a week. If you can keep up with my workout, fine. If not, shut your damned mouth.

Just a Link For the Day

Another trailer which is going to be making the rounds is the Star Trek trailer:

I Will Watch a Watchmen

So, the new Watchmen trailer is out. I’ll see it, but it will not be as good as the comic book. Why? Because in order for it to be as good a movie as the comic book was a comic book, Watchmen the movie would have to be on a par with “Citizen Kane” or “Godfather” or “Casablanca” or whatever your candidate for greatest movie ever. (I do not mention “Gone with the Wind” because I hate “Gone with the Wind” and have never watched it all the way through.) Watchmen is, by consensus, the greatest comic book ever.

Back in the 1980’s, when Watchmen came out, there were several contenders. Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and Maus came out at about the same time. Sandman and Animal Man came out a bit later. Twenty years later, however, it seems safe to say that Watchmen has claimed the title. It is the Babe Ruth comics. If someone picks another comic book as “The Greatest of All-Time” they have an ax to grind. I mean Peanuts and Doonesbury? Strips. And like that. Watchmen is the standard.

Given that status, well, chances are long that the Watchmen flick will be as good as the greatest movies. It is not simply an issue of adapting material to the big screen. “It Happened One Night,” “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” and “Silence of the Lambs” are the only movies to win all five major Oscars, and were all adapted material. “The Lord of the Rings” movies and “The Godfather” movies are likewise based on pre-existing material, so that does not handicap a movie. Actually, I think Spiderman 2 was a truly brilliant movie.

I just do not get that sense from the Watchmen movie that it is aimed that way. So what could the movie do? Well, to be honest, part of the reason the comic was considered so great was its cinematic sensibility. That attitude will not help a movie since movies are already cinematic all on their own. The grittiness of the Watchmen was an interesting contrast to the brightness of DC Universe comics back in the day. Now we have had quite a few gritty superhero movies, but the successful Marvel movies of the last few years, like Spidey and the Hulk and Iron Man have actually been pretty bright. So the atmosphere in the Watchmen movie could give it a touch of the different. The trailer seems almost cartoony to me, but I have not seen it on a big screen. In fact, some actual cartoon sequences might help. The Watchmen comic was also interesting because it had long text pieces for information dumps. You cannot really do that in a movie, but you can change the type of movie to play with the medium. (“Blade Runner” had computer screen info dumps, but I can’t see that working.)

Back in the 1980’s I always assumed that when they made a movie, they’d have to simply cut out the Pirate scenes. The pirate comic book, Tales of the Black Freighter, I think it was called, provided an interesting commentary on the action in the story proper. And since we were reading a comic book ourselves, it added another level of appreciation to the everyday experience of people like us – i.e. comics readers – within the course of the story. We could identify with these characters because they read comics, and if we were in their world, these are the comics we would read. That would never, I thought, work in a movie. But it turns out you can still make some terrific and successful pirate movies. In fact, if the makers had any sense of humor, they would have hired Johnny Depp or Orlando Bloom or Geoffrey Rush to play the Black Freighter guy, but as far as I can tell he’s not even in the film. I realize adding in The Tales of the Black Freighter would make the movie longer, but “The Godfather” clocks in at three hours, and if you are one the many who disagrees with my position on “Gone with the Wind,” that movie clicks in at almost four. “The Godfather II” actually does tell a parallel story with Robert deNiro playing the young Don Vito Corleone, and that film clocks in at 200 minutes. If you are trying to make a great movie, length is no vice.

Length aside, the problem is taking a truly great source material and making a truly great movie. It’s hard enough to make a great movie, and meeting the expectations of great source material is even harder. “Silence of the lambs” and “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest” actually exceeded their sources which were good but not truly great. “Gone with the Wind” paeon to slave culture, well, I’ll let someone else judge. “Lord of the Rings” worked. “The Fugitive” surpassed the tv show. “The Great Escape” surpassed the book. Just about every Disney cartoon surpassed the fairy tales.

However, how do you set out to make a movie of the greatest comic book ever and meet that challenge on its own terms as a movie? I think the answer is the answer Nabokov’s novel Lolita. How did they make a movie of “Lolita?” They didn’t. Lolita simply does not lend itself to filmmaking. I get the sense that Watchmen will be an exciting action flick, but that which makes it the greatest comic book of all time will have to remain married to the comics medium. It is the greatest comic of all time the same way the Michael Jordan is the great basketball player of all time, and could make it to the majors in baseball. It’ a comic book story, and a comic book story it shall remain. So when I watch the Watchmen I’ll be expecting to see the comic book on the big screen, but I won’t be expecting a mind-blowing cinematic experience. Which, I might add, was my expectation of “The Lord of the Ring,” and what I got was a great movie.

Just a Link for the Day

One of my favorite radio shows is Sound Opinions. It's a weekly show on modern music of all kinds and is available as a pod cast.

Hi, I'm Jimbo. Pleased to Meetcha.

Okay, James Bond. I do not ask for much from a James Bond movie, and last week when I told my buddies that “Casino Royale” was a good James Bond movie but a bad James Bond movie, they understood what I meant. James Bond has a specific brand formula now. Watching David Niven due it as a comedy is nice…once. Watching Daniel Craig due as a sort of hodge podge between Jason Bourne and a John LeCarre adaption is nice…once. We can call that the role of movies called “Casino Royale.” Get rid of the formula and let us see another kind of Bond.

Not yet having seen “Quantum of Solace,” I would hesitate to comment on whether it is a good movie or not, but the reviews I have seen are essentially an echo of what I said about the first Craig movie: good movie, bad Bond. Actually, they have not said that. They’ve said, “Bad movie. Who are you and what have you done with James Bond?” My reaction is this: Timothy Dalton. Those were some bad movies. Also, they were indifferent Bond. I mean, the element were there, kind of, but they never stripped the Bond babes down to a bikini or had Bond sleep with anyone, and the villain in “Licence to Kill” was played by Wayne Newton. Wayne Newton, who is camp all on his own, but come on.

The current movie apparently does not even pay lip service to Bond tropes. If you are going to make a bad movie, you had better make it good Bond which includes five main factors.

First, you have to start with a chase. And it had better be improbable, stupid and have nothing to do with the main plot. See “The Spy Who Loved Me,” which is the point in the Bond series where they just sort of gave up on having plots and went for the Bond tropes as a justification for the movies.

Second, you need a Bond babe with some ludicrously suggestive name like Plenty O’Toole or something. And you should probably put her in a bikini. Carey Lowell is a ridiculously beautiful woman with a rockin’ bod, and not only did they not stick her in a two piece, they named her “Pam Bouvier.” I’m not saying they should have called her “Honey Potts” or something, but this is a James Bond movie, dammit. (Maryam d’Abo is incredibly beautiful, but not terribly voluptuous, would not have looked good in a bikini. Well, okay, in real life I would probably slice off my own thumb to see her in a bikini, but by Hollywood standards…)

Third, you need a comically insane villain who is trying to do the whole take over the world shtick. “Licence to Kill” had a drug dealer. I realize that was the 1980’s, but James Bond does not work for the Reagan administration. The annoying thing was that Wayne Newton was there on set. You cannot get more over the top than Wayne Newton. He was friends with Elvis.

Fourth, you need gadgets. After almost fifty years, if James Bond does not have a pen which turns into a laser or a watch which doubles as a buzz saw, something is amiss.

Five, James Bond kills people. He has a license to kill. That’s what he is for. He racks up a body count,

Oh, and “Quantum of Solace” means “particle of comfort,” so I am guessing the plot of the current movie has something to do with Bond getting comfort for some tragedy. I do not mind that because of the scene where Roger Moore puts flowers on Diana Riggs’ grave in “For Your Eyes Only.” However, that led to someone trying to blow up his chopper and 007 killing someone. I will see “Quantum of Solace” because I’m a guy who grew up after 1965 and that’s the law. But I will whine about it if it is both a bad movie and bad Bond. (And yes, he should introduce himself as "Bond. James Bond." And he does not drink lager.)