A Quick One While He's Away

Hey y'all. Two postings in one night? Shocking. Anywhoski, here's just a bunch of quick little notes, hope you enjoy them:

--Is it wrong that I prefer the episodes of the television show Made when the kids DON'T get "made"? I love that they've been working their ass off for six weeks with trained professionals, and they get expert help and hooked up with all of this sweet (and free) shite, and still it's not enough. I mean, it rocks that they were on MTV (I guess) and that they met so many cool people who end up invested in their lives. But I just love that it shows that nothing's a safe bet in this world. I mean, as much as I love it when the Johnny Football Hero becomes Captain of the Chess Club, I love it even more when that Prom Queen Plastics Princess bitch ate shit when she tried to learn how to BMX bike. How great was that? And I'm sure it's just schadenfreude, the unabashed joy of seeing these people who have everything handed to them, and then they just drop it all. At least, I hope it's that and not just a singular perverse love of seeing children fail...cuz that might make me a really creepy uncle. I think I also love the failure episodes of Made because there's always that awkward moment with the coaches. Where they say "Well, she's already a winner in my eyes", and they shake the hands of the kids and make up some excuse, and hand them some sweet lemons (the opposite of "sour grapes"). It's like a captured moment of adults trying to sell the world, full of broken dreams and dashed hopes, to teenagers, and teenagers trying not to lose it just cuz they're on camera. It's absolutely brilliant. Really, though, I should just stop watching MTV.

--Speaking of Television, there's two ads I have to talk about:
1. That Army Commercial where a Young Girl who is Obsessed with Tornadoes ends up figuring out weather patterns for the army. Now, I get what they're going for, and kudos for showing women not just in the Army but also involved in the sciences. But, do you really want someone who wanders out of shelter to stare enviously at a tornado to be helping out our guys when trouble's brewing. Clearly she ain't right. Everyone's yelling at her to come in, but instead she stands there transfixed. Now maybe she loves weather, and that's good to be passionate about something, but to the point where it could get you killed, and it jeopardizes your family members that have to come out and save you, well then maybe you shouldn't be on our side. I don't want you to direct a platoon of men into the eye of deadly hurricane just so you can get some sweet pictures. That's all I'm saying.
2. Those new Anti-Smoking ads from TheTruth, this new campaign centers around a fictional sitcom entitled "Fair Enough" which shows how Tobacco Companies are ruthless evil monsters that eat babies and shit on the retarded cuz it helps pass the time. Firstly, I hate anti-smoking ads and laws. I'm no longer a smoker, although I'm sure it's just a brief interlude before I take it up again. But I just hate how now these ads use the same means (half-truths, appealing to youngsters, trying to be hip) as the Tobacco companies, with the Tobacconists' money, and yet they're not evil. Maybe it's my Batman upbringing, but once you stoop to the level of your enemy, you've already lost. So there's that. But what I really don't like about this commercial, is when I first saw it, I thought it was going to be a real show. And I thought that it was brilliant. Let's be honest, how darkly funny would it be to have sitcom set in a tobacco company? Very. Lots of good cancer jokes. Some flipper babies. Occasions for political humor. So when I saw it was just another ad put out by those assclowns at TheTruth, I was so bummed out.

--Whenever anyone talks about receiving The Gift of Flight, they never talk about the drawbacks. Such as, if you're the only person in the world with this gift, and everyone knows it's you, you're bound to have to give people rides. And there'll always be that persistent, nagging thought in the back of your mind whenever your with a significant other, if it's you she's into, or is the flying? Also, do pigeons move out of the way for you during flight? Or is it their understanding that the air is their domain, so YOU better do the moving? I see a lot of awkward and messy entanglements with birds. How fast can you go? And will you get a punch of bugs in your face and teeth? What about the hair sitch? And can you stop as easily as you can accelerate? Cuz otherwise, you'll slam right into a mountain or the side of a building if you're not paying attention. You see what my life is? I'm finding a bunch of worrisome complications in a fictional GIFT that I don't, and will never, possess. This is why great adventures don't happen to me, because I would have a plan for any contingency, so therefore it would become boring. It's always the lucky schmuck who doesn't suspect that maybe one day aliens will pick him to fight in their intergalactic boxing matches to see who will rule the universe. C'est la my vie.

--I have 5 different versions of the song "Rocket Man". I have the original Elton John version. I have the punk rocked version by Me First & the Gimme Gimmes. I have the eclectic mix of musicians that This American Life pulled together for just one day to produce a great original rendering of the song. I have the William Shatner sing/talk thing he did at that Sci-Fi convention in the 70s. Which is AWESOME! And then I have the Stewie parody of the Shatner version from "Family Guy". Does anyone know anymore versions out there? Please find them and send them to me. There's either a great soundtrack or a great musical experiment hidden amongst all of these songs, I just know it.

--Listening To:
Albums:
Ratatat, "Ratatat"; King Gheedorah, "Take Me To Your Leader"; "This American Life" compilations and online here (it's great, and for some reason I feel very sophisticated to listen to the radio for an hour); Sufjan Stevens, "Greetings from Michigan, the Great Lakes State"; Calexico, "Convict Pool"; The Trachtenburg Family Sideshow Players; Bonnie "Prince" Billy & Matt Sweeney, "Superwolf".
Singles:
"Rocket Man" Variations; Straylight Run, "Existentialism on Prom Night"; Trick Daddy feat Twista & Lil Jon, "Let's Go"; Merle Haggard, "Theme to Dukes of Hazzard"; Fiona Apple, "Sleep to Dream"; Bonnie "Prince" Billy & Matt Sweeney, "My Home Is the Sea"; Interpol "The Specialist". They Might Be Giants, "She's An Angel".

--Reading: The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem. And Pure Prattle, of course.

--Watching: "Lost", "The Venture Brothers", "Arrested Development", "The Daily Show", Crappy Horror Movies, "Carnivale", Takashi Miike films, "Scrubs", very little but still way too much MTV, my life slipping away, the video for Interpol's song "Evil". Hoping to (finally) see Sideways and Constantine.

--Lastly, Hunter S. Thompson has died. At the moment, it appears as if he shot himself in the head. He was 67. You can read the local paper's account of what transpired here. And here's the NY Times quick recount of the man's life and work. I only read a handful of his books (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72, Hell's Angels, some of The Rum Diaries). But of the books I read, I liked. Of course, I loved the Terry Gilliam adaptation of Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. And I thought Where the Buffalo Roam (the little seen movie based on his life starring Bill Murray) was OK, but that's neither here nor there. The man was a pioneer in writing, although no one I know has really taken up the mantle of gonzo journalism. However, I will point out that I believe his stream-of-consciousness, drug and frenzy fueled writing style (itself partially inherited from Neal Cassady and Jack Kerouac) has gone on to influence a lot of today's hot stars on the fiction scene. Read some of The Corrections and tell me you don't hear a little Raoul Duke screaming through an acid dipped nightmare. Or check out Augusten Burroughs's work, and see if the world doesn't seem to be constructed around him, only to be knocked down in one fell swoop. Even Chuck Klosterman, and most of the new reviewers (especially at www.pitchforkmedia.com), have taken on this style of going off on ill conceived tangents and writing about the insanity in their own heads along with whatever the topic of the article just happens to be. Hell, look at how I write. Reading his stuff was always like talking to my friend, Jake N. (who also was/is a drug addict): It was always entertaining, often educational, seldom logical, occasionally scary, and usually laced with some sort of hallucinogen. But you walked away from it changed, a little episode of weirdness in a usually dull and forgettable day. Such was Hunter S. Thompson's influence on the world. The man was insane. The man was an artist. The man was a Dick. The man was a poet. The man was a slob. The man was a genius. The man was a rebel. The man was an addict. The man was a punchline. The man became a pedagogue. The man became an institution. The man will sorely be missed.

--There's a great poem Yeats wrote in 1903 called "The Old Men Admiring Themselves in the Water". I always think about it whenever I hear about someone's passing. Hope you enjoy it. See y'all on the flip side.

The Old Men Admiring Themselves in the Water

I heard the old, old men say,
'Everything alters
And one by one we drop away.'
They had hands like claws, and their knees
Were twisted like the old thorn-trees
By the waters.
I heard the old, old men say,
'All that's beautiful drifts away
Like the waters.'