untitled.

the only dynasty im interested in supporting right now rhymes with 'duh matriots.'

in the lead of his times op-ed today, nick kristof writes, 'In a presidential campaign that has involved battles over everything from Iraq to driver’s licenses, one sweeping topic has gone curiously unexamined: Does it diminish American democracy if we keep the presidency in the same two families that have held it since 1989?' he follows with an elegant examination of the subject, including a reference to a website i hadnt known about: Bush & Clinton Forever.

i just want to take this opportunity to pat myself on the back. for months, ive been spraying this dynasty question on anyone who will listen to me, and even many who wont. and i raised most of the key issues kristof raises, in this very spot, earlier this month. (search for 'pancakes' here.)

i am a dorkus molorkus.

last night i caught lebowski on one of my roughly four billion movie channels, and for the first time, i noticed a glitch in the film.

as the dude and walter walk through the parking lot of the bowling alley, after the latter gentleman has 'flashed his piece out on the lanes,' the pomeranian is scampering by walter's side. but when the pair reach the dude's car and walter begins putting his bags in the backseat, all of a sudden the dog is nowhere to be seen. and neither character acknowledges its absence in any way. just seems like an editing error.

quickly after i realized this i realized that i had apparently become one of those star wars losers who can tell you the exact moment when luke's lightsaber disappears for a nanosecond, or how chewie is left handed in one scene, but in the next one, he's right handed.

(belated) happy 29th to palm: a modicum of class.

they sat across from elsa weiss
his coat did not smell very nice
that leap day went a little diced, but together they would frolic
joffee dropped in for ms. pollack; that woman would eat glass
so they made sure to have a modicum of class

a rabbi entered a silver vator
they wrote an archday song a little later
the world was fresh, it was before ralph nader – bro didn’t have to run
now no one’s having fun, with this texas horse’s ass
but obama could bring a heady bit of class

they finished schooling in different places
but every summmer, in randy's good graces
the wetlands crowd with chelsea faces, and an edelman in the park
yes things were getting dark, when they saw that chotchy mass
so they made a shield of salty pretzel class

a sammy ting drew up a lease
shiny read it and was sufficiently pleased
the penne vodka came with peas, and the rancho would not shake
a time for terror and getting baked, and garbage cans to pass
so they sprayed the flat with a modicum of class

they worked together at a house of loans
trail of tears, potato, the epic tomes
canet was sitting all alone, polishing his knives
libor dropped and he took lives; don’t give him any sass
bobby's view displayed not a little class

then one august day the land was hot
possession of keys, he had not
miller would not get off the lot; to strangers, he said goodbye
sweat poured into their eyes, but the beamer did move fast
a day for tribute, and a surprising amount of laughs

finally he met a classy hales
the dowry would be in the mail
he was at a new helm, with his destined sail; the bean would make a toast
better than a moroccan could ever boast; in the desert, sand is grass
he’ll shed one when you stomp down on that glass

modern times: i am not a stackhead.

early friday evening i was talking with signor ipsum about 'unread' emails piling up on his crackberry, and the similar phenomenon of unread articles piling up in his google reader web feed.

this conversation made me think of a story i read a few years ago, about a bronx man who was almost buried alive under a heap of books, magazines and newspapers which he had been stockpiling over the years. the dude was trapped for two days and had to be rescued by firefighters, who were summoned by his landlord after he heard disconcerting moaning from inside the apartment. (read the incredible tale here.)

anyway, it's interesting to me that now that we have things like google reader, people can stockpile all the articles they want, without making a mess of their place, let alone risking life and limb.

the pack rat: yet another animal that was meant to flounder in natural selection, but will now flourish thanks to technology.

modern times: a short story.

rosco was very much a product of his times. before his cab went over the side of the manhattan bridge that night, his life didnt flash before his eyes. but prior to the accident, throughout that fateful day, his ipod played a biographical set of songs for him, in perfect chronological order - despite being in shuffle mode.

meta van susteren.

i cant believe i didnt make my palindrome post a palindrome itself, by adding a backwards copy of the entire post to the end.

billy ray sighrus.

uh oh.

cola causes kidney kerfuffles. (i really like the graphic with the article.)

rip heath ledger.

4.4.79 - 1.22.08

the word 'palindrome' should really be a palindrome itself, no?

i mean, why not? i cant believe ben johnson, a poet of all people(!), didnt get this right.

the greeks called them crabs, which is definitely better. (wiki says that the greek word 'allud[ed] to the backward movement of crabs,' but i think it also works b.c of crabs' highly symmetrical physiques.)

prescient quote 1.

id like to think i might have made this connection eventually.

(recently, i did make another natural coming to america connection, immediately. [and while we're here, they were rose petals, not splotches of blood.])

to my chagrin, i didnt think of this before i heard max kellerman make the link on the radio this morning. but it's still well worth posting.

prince akeem: Sir, did you happen to catch the professional football contest on television last night?
cleo mcdowell : No, I didn't.
prince akeem: Oh sir, the Giants of New York took on the Packers of Green Bay. And in the end, the Giants triumphed by kicking an oblong ball made of pigskin through a big "H". It was a most ripping victory.
cleo mcdowell: Son.
prince akeem: Yes?
cleo mcdowell: If you want to keep working here, stay off the drugs.

-coming to america

quote marshall faulk.

there are smiles born from manners. and there are smiles born from an understanding of how bad things can get. im sure i dont have to tell you which i find more attractive.

-f. brill

quote 27.

used to be i imagined time as something with an order and a flow. like sand through an egg-timer. but now id have to say it's like gumballs in a penny machine. all mixed together, jumbled up. rubbing the colour off each other.

-f. brill

quote 26.

im so tired of this subway slot machine:
every day, a new face and a new scene.

-the great mistake of 1898, ghost

(the great mistake is playing a show tomorrow night in b.burg, as their website indicates)

nyc transits.

courtesy of my sis. you GOTS to click on it, see it large.

the kiss of death.

apparently, john kerry endorsed obama. every time this comes up on the radio, it sends a shiver down my spine. i cant think of ANYONE whose endorsement id rather NOT have. kerry is the personified albatross of the democratic party.

was walt mondale not available?

i think palm summed up kerry's endorsement best: 'I wish he was literally, at this moment, in a swift boat on the meking 50 clicks north of denang, dead.'

best. thing. ever.

for some reason, i had this song in my head this morning. was this not the best video and catchiest song? looking back, i think sesame street has to go down as one of the top 5 tv shows, of any kind, ever.

pickup game.

like harry chapin sang, 'im not much of a mover, or a pick-em-up easy guy.' but i think i discovered a relatively good ploy for picking up waitresses (or waiters), who, along with bartenders, would seem to me to be the most hit-on professionals, and therefore, the most difficult to pick up.

this past saturday i had lunch with my dad, and i charged the bill to my amex. when we got up to leave, in my absentmindedness, i took the server's copy of the receipt - along with the tip i had added on it, and left the customer's copy - with the tip line blank, on the table. (very few restaurants use carbon receipts anymore, have you noticed?)

anyway, serendipitously, i was cleaning out my wallet yesterday, and i came across the aforementioned receipt. i checked my charges on the amex website, and sure enough, i had been charged only for the price of the lunch. luckily, the receipt had the server's name on it; i called the joint, and they said i could come by and give her a tip, or drop it off for her in an envelope.

she wasnt my type, so i went with the envelope, but i think im on to something.

if youre being waited on by someone attractive, and you want their digits, stiff em on their tip 'accidentally.' when you come back days later to 'rectify' this 'egregious mistake,' youll come off as super thoughtful and whats more, youll have a better entree to a convo with them than you ever could while theyre serving you food.

(this is also the first post im ever gonna 'label!')

boo hampshire.

bwahaha!

ok, i guess this is gonna be a longer battle than i thought/hoped.

o. ba. ma. self. i wanna vote, oba, maself!

ershnaps you remember my barackaway beach homage back in may, ramone. am i a prescient bastard or what?

anyway, i know this glowing endorsement is coming on the heels of his iowa victory and the toes of today's nh primary - which he seems primed to do well in - but i did mention, at least on facebook, that i was throwing my hat in obama's corner (is that even an expression?) prior to iowa, so i am in the clear vis-a-vis any accusations of fair weather fandom. b's iowa victory speech just got me extra-invigorated, is all. im extrigorated!

i mean, watch that clip (and, while were at it, whoop that trick). does this dude seem presidential or what? i think he might even be a better speaker than bubba. he has that whole 'they sayy-d this day would never come' mlk jr-black-preacher-pronunciation-thing goin on - how can you not want this man as our leader, repping this whole fachachta country?

ill make no secret of it; i generally cast my ballot based on generalities. like, generality one: with few exceptions, im gonna vote democratic. my top concerns are the biggie, broad issues, like being pro-choice, and not giving tax breaks to the wealthy, and supporting things like stem cell research and the protection of the environment, and for the very most part, the democrats fall on my preferred side of these issues.

generality two: i dont pour over the deets of the proposed policies of the candidates. for one thing, im fairly lazy; for another, when everything shakes out, i doubt one democrat is gonna be able to enact such different (read: better) policies than another - as gail collins eloquently wrote in a recent op-ed:
The critical “it” is not really about reforming health care or getting out of Iraq or stopping global warming. We all know there’s only the thinnest of lines between Obama and Clinton on these matters — a line that would instantly be obliterated by the mangle that is known as the United States Congress.

so i basically have a choice between obama, clinton (who im gonna call hilary now and again just to differentiate her from bill) and edwards. and i choose obama.

to buttress this endorsement, i present you with three litmus tests, each of which say obams away:

red. the who-would-i-want-as-my-boss test.
i place a premium on the likability of a candidate. sure i do. why not? doesnt the question 'would i want to break bread or take a stroll or play scra with or follow the directives of this person?' count for something? yes, yes it does. b.c the president is gonna have to negotiate, face-to-face, with the aforementioned congress, governors, foreign leaders, et al. and all other things being equal (as per collins), the more appealing person is gonna fair better in these negotiations than the one who is a black hole of charm. and the more likable person will be a better overall leader, of us all. who is gonna follow or listen to someone they wouldnt even want to split a sandwich with? im talking to you, hil. and edwards seems nice enough, but a bit phony. bottom line: id want obama as my boss.

white. the we-need-the-exact-opposite-of-bush test.
sometimes i think that, simply speaking, we just need a qualified* person who is the exact opposite of g.w. bush as our next prez, above all else. dubya has been such an unmitigated disaster, that it's not that much of a stretch to think that the anti-dub would be a great success. so who is most opposite of bush? here i present each of the major candidates with an 'opposite of bush raiting,' (OBR). and im gonna include the republicans in this one, just to be fun.

note: to be both as fair and expedient as possible, i used the very first pic that popped up in google images for each candidate (as of today, 1.07.08).

hilary.
OBR: a small tree, which may grow inedible berries.










edwards.
OBR: a rare, delicate flower, which requires constant care and still usually ends up dying.









obama.
OBR: a really nice sweater.










huckabee.
OBR: a lopsided shrub.










romney.
OBR: an obtuse hedge sculpture.










mccain.
OBR: a little nasty weed.
comment: i dont mean shwaggy herb, nor am i using 'nasty' in the janet jackson positive sense, like 'joba chamberlain's slider is nasty.' . i mean, a straight-up weed. i mean, mccain is a nasty little sumbitch whom we cant seem to get rid of. (my spiel on the hypocrisy of hanoi hilton john mccain is legendary in some parts.)





blue. the pancakes & croissant test.
this test is fairly simple and self-explanatory:

pancakes. years from now, when im serving pancakes to my kids on a lazy saturday morning, and we get to talkin bout the ol' days, and they ask me who i voted for in 08 - for whom could i be proud to say i cast my ballot? well, for one thing, i couldnt be proud to tell them i voted to solidify a second political dynasty, on the heels of another one. i dont want to tell them i did my part for the executive branch to be held, exclusively, by two nuclear families over a 24-28 year span. i mean, are we a republic, or a monarchy? what's the pt of term limits, if we go father-husband-son-wife? (in that case, why not just declare or import an 'official' fam, like the tudors or the hapsburgs, and save all that federal money spent on 'elections.' )

secondly, i dont want to tell them i voted for the rich cherub (edwards), b.c to my kids, he's gonna look exactly like every other prez weve had.

croissant. this past april, the french elected nicolas sarkozy as their prez. this really struck me, and eveyone else obv, b.c, among other things, sarkozy has such an un-french name, and i believe had said that the french were getting lazy and needed to work more, and has jewish roots (joots?). my pt is that even though i knew little about him, it was clear the french, just by electing him, had chosen to shake up their country, go in a different direction than usual.

the morning after our november election, i want some french dude, looking over his croissant to the newspaper below, to see that we did the same. that we elected someone with such a different name, and look, etc. that we showed the world we had chosen to completely change course from the past eight years. the only candidate who can show the world that, literally just with his name and face at minimum, is obama.

ok, this post got totally unwieldy, but i think i made some good pts.

* - some people say obama is not 'experienced' enough. this is nonsense. the only 'experienced' candidates for the presidency are incumbents. nothing else can properly prepare someone for that job. any first-term prez is gonna learn on the job. so maybe hil would have slightly less of a learning curve. who cares? id rather have obama learning on the job for a year, then tearing sh*t up, than hil learning on the job for six mos., before she makes her madcap dash to the center, just like bill did.

commercial, clown and quote immemorial.

hey, im giuseppe franco. im not putting my name on the line for something that doesnt work.

-giuseppe franco:

movie musings.

daniel.* fairly recently, i saw 'bee movie.' were not gonna get into what i was doing seeing bee movie; the details are far too embarrassing. and suffice it to say, as i have in fact been fond of saying, it's not a pun; this really is a b movie. anyway, while i was watching all these personified bees flyin around and what's worse, talkin a blue streak, and additionally, observing the frankly uncomfortable relationship btwn the jerry seinfeld bee and the renée zellweger human woman, i realized something: they are using this computer animation all wrong.

dont get me wrong - i like the animation. sometimes i like it a lot. i just dont think it's being used for good.

starting off with the toys and the ogre was fitting, but do you realize that in a span of about seven years, weve had (by my count) computer-animated films about anthropomorphized chickens, ants, other assorted bugs, cars, fish, penguins, cats, rats, mammoths, sloths, smilodons (i kid you not; twas a prehistoric saber-toothed cat, and, needless to say, my new favorite animal.), various and sundry zoo animals, friggin vegetables, and a goddamn house. at least.

we. get. it.

using computer animation, you can animate inanimate things in ways you never could before. but as chris rock says about teenage girls havin babies, just cuz you can do it, doesnt mean it should be done.

i mean, what are we going to see next? here are some ideas that will, god willing, never come to light:

all the king's pens - a ragtag crew of office supplies, led by a courageous ballpoint voiced by gene hackman and a hilariously self-deprecating pink highlighter (rupert everett), travel through unknown rooms and hallways to liberate a long-lost post-it pad from the supply closet (pad voiced by emma thompson).

all about leaves - a merry gang of colorful leaves, having fallen due to, well, fall, make their way, and much mischief, through new york city. (red leaf: christian bale; yellow leaf: angela basset; brown leaf: chiwetel ejiofor)

the book, the thief, his wife, and her cover - neville, a worn-out reference book for podiatrists' assistants, is coming apart at the seams - until he's stolen by a tap dancer badly in need of a pedicure, whose wife takes pity upon neville and introduces him to a dust jacket named dusty. (book: heath ledger; dust jacket: dustin hoffman) (there are homo-erotic may-december overtones in this one...)

goodbrellas - from the five-dollar disposable eloquently voiced by bruce willis, to the 200 ducat parasol given breath by vanessa paradis, you better have 'protection' from one of em when the rain starts comin down.

on golden pon - three generations of maxi-pads reunite at their family's old summer cottage, which the audience knows is just some old broad's na-na. (elder tampons voiced by jack nicholson and faye dunaway, reprising their 'chinatown' pairing; next gen pads voiced by julia roberts and dennis quaid; youngest: dakota fanning)

you see my point, no? (i mean, i have beaten it to death and all.)

to me, bee movie was best when it featured its animated humans. it's far more interesting to see how an animator portrays a portly, or angry, or cool, or pitiable, or cruel, or tall or short person, than a talking bee. there's just so much more room to say something in the former category. (i particularly liked all the human facial expressions.)

i understand that these studios have to do movies for kids, and this necessitates all the anthropomorphizing, but there have been great animated kids' movies based almost entirely on humans (sleeping beauty, cinderella, charlie brown, etc).

i wanna see more comp-animated movies about people. waking life and its ilk are so great b.c they use animation to get us to take a fresh, perspective-changing look at human and human issues, not a needless look into the world of singing asparagus. (chaz brown, btw, was particularly adept at this, both in those movies, and in the strip.)

day. on an unrelated note, not too long ago i saw a screening of youth without youth, which, interestingly enough, is about metempsychosis. im not gonna get into the movie, or that term, b.c for one thing, im already bored of writing this post. but i will say why i bring it up:

before the movie, francis coppola, who directed the beast, got up in the front of the paris theater and, among other things, told us that he hoped the film would be like a meal for us. paraphrasing, he said, 'i dont want you to have to go home and think about whether you liked the film or not. i want it to be like a meal, where you eat it, and you know you enjoyed it immediately.' (he cooks a lot apparently.)

anyway, guess what followed? the QUINTESSENTIAL 'what-the-hell-was-that-about-and-did-i-enjoy-it-or-hate-it' movie, that's what followed. i mean, in an audience of roughly 300, i doubt there were 3 people who, after the flick ended, didnt have the exact reaction coppola wished us not to have.

(and of course, weeks removed from the event, i can now say the movie is dressed-up garbage.)

but what i loved about this experience was a) that it confirmed this psychoanalytical maxim that people are always giving themselves away with what they say. see, coppola knew his film was too inscrutable and lifeless. he couldnt not. and he also couldnt not confess this to us, via his little 'meal' disclaimer, before we saw the film. it was like a preemptive apology. b) it's nice to know that even the guy who made the friggin godfather is insecure about a new movie he makes. just makes me feel a little better about my own insecurities, ya know?

lewis. oh, lastly, i just love daniel day-lewis, and im very much looking forward to seeing him in there will be blood.

* btw, have you realized daniel is an anagram of denial? actually, you need only switch the a and the e. i love that.