Wednesday, February 28, 2007

HEADLINE: Destiny

I found him. He is beautiful. He is everything I remembered and MORE.

BUT.

Let's not count that egg before it hatches. He still has to be gently wrapped and delivered. Ohpleaseohpleaseohplease get here soon. I cannot believe I finally found my precious.

More to come. In the meantime, I need to buy a mop. And some lemony smelling Pine Sol. The apartment must be spotless for his arrival.

(shit. I'm counting my egg. I cannot help it for I am so very HAPPY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! shit shit shit)

Monday, February 26, 2007

It's an Honor Just to be Nominated...

...so why don't you just shut the fuck up?

It's as though these people have never seen nor heard of the Academy Awards. Nobody cares about your art, your craft, your vision. Thank your wife, thank your mama, kiss your trophy and get the fuck off the stage.

Also, if you are in a group, stop looking surprised when they start playing the music after just one of you has spoken. They do it every year. Be aggressive. Push Larry out of the way and say your two cents. Or, hey, maybe come up with a game plan before the show? Discuss who will say what? It has been done before. Don't stand there yelling "I love you, Tiki!" while they cut away to the next riveting, straight-from-junior-college-film-class, dogs-kissing-clowns montage. Don't you know that a five minute skit on global warming in John Travolta's pants is ten times more important than how you owe it all your 9th grade math tutor?

Thank God for those montages, by the way. I don't know how I lived before seeing Michael Mann's vague, badly edited, meandering, blowhard medley of stereotypes. Now I know what it is to be an American. Time to go put a boot in somebody's ass...now that would have been a hot montage.

Friday, February 23, 2007

The Holy Trinity

Everyone who's anyone knows that I love classic rock. It is in my blood, baby. They also know that the holy trinity consists of Journey, REO, and Styx. And, because I am a wee bit pagan, I suppose Moses would be Foreigner. Stick that in your pipe and suck it.

But why? Why why why? If you do the math (don't. don't. it hurts me) you would know that my prime years for musical influence were 83-90. So what is the story?

Well I was thinking about all of the bad influences in my life (there were good ones, too, but not nearly as exciting, sorry to say) and I have to say that I would not be what I am today had it not been for Debbie Evers. She was my perfect, gorgeous, teen aged babysitter waaaay back in the day. Debbie was tall (I was seven and eight, so that's subject to memory), blue eyed, with white blond hair and cool clothes. She had two older brothers who were, in my grim estimation, raging assholes. One had a Camaro (I think) and the other had a hot, red Firebird. Influence number one: that car was sweeeeeeeeeeeet. Of course if I touched it he'd have bounced a brick off my head. So, I looked, coveted, seethed with jealous hatred, and learned the sorrow of love for a hotrod car. But that was nothing.

Debbie had a boyfriend who was nothing like her brothers. Once he carried me 10 blocks through a snow storm. I remember thinking he was probably the greatest guy I'd ever meet. He did it for her, not for me, but considering that he could not have been more than 16, you have to give him credit. I wish I could remember his name. Let's call him Steve. Aren't all high school boyfriends named Steve?

Influence number 2: Steve often sneaked into Debbie's bedroom window. I was there, so I should know. I would hear the window slide up, then a lot of whispering and giggles and the soft shuffling of blankets. Indeed. I knew they were making out, necking, sucking face, what have you, but I don't think they actually did the hustle. Maybe they did. I probably would never have known. I would just go back to sleep. I thought it was incredible that she would defy her parents this way. Wait. Not incredible...phenomenal. She was like a rock star to me, with her thin gold chains and feathered hair. She was magnificent.

Influence number 3: Tony. Debbie's on-again, off-again best friend. Tony was dark-haired and full of mischief. She was exactly the kind of friend your mother wished you'd never found. Tony was into parties, boyfriends, smoking, drinking, truancy, whatever. Tony had something like 10 brothers and sisters; the house was teeming with kids, friends of kids, cousins, dogs, cats, strangers, friends of strangers. It was a regular learning annex for life. I think everything short of murder probably took place there. Good things, bad things. I saw my first horror movie at a party in that house. Halloween. I recall thinking "This is not a regular movie" when the guy was shoved up the wall and pinned there with a butcher knife. Meanwhile, in the dark, drunk teenagers yelled, fell, smashed things, and had a grand ol' time. Tony taught me that the future was full of possibilities for evil, bad fun. Thrilling sin, happy naughtiness. And that if you are a very good liar (she was brilliant) you could get away with it all.

Influence prime: With all of these elements combined, everywhere we went, every place we were, the soundtrack running on and on was Styx, REO, Journey. Back in the day, the best radio station for rock was T-95: they played everything worth anything: Supertramp, Led Zeppelin, The Eagles, Steely Dan, Blue Oyster Cult, Boston, Peter Frampton, Foreigner, and so on. I remember "Keep On Loving You," "Lights," and "Come Sail Away." These songs, and so many others from the holy trinity, are stitched into every memory I have of that time. When we swam at Minisa pool, hung out in the rocket at Riverside park, watched the boys do cannonballs off the diving platform at Crystal lake, sweating in the heat of summer and tromping through the dunes of snow that winter.

When I hear that music, I am happy. It reminds me of those gorgeous girls and everything they meant to me then. Listening to them, being with them, watching them and trying to learn how to be a grown up--my whole adolescence was informed by Debbie and her shining satellites.

For me, the holy trinity is Wichita in '78: a Firebird, Crystal Lake, dark parties, the smell of beer, the blast of a radio, and my favorite babysitter caught in time with her blond, feathered hair, and blue eyes smiling down at me.

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

The Lep Says Happy Valentine's Day, Suckas!


Bringin' On The Heartbreak Lyrics
by Def Leppard

Gypsy, sittin' lookin' pretty
The broken rose with laughin' eyes
You're a mystery, always runnin' wild
Like a child without a home
You're always searching, searching for a feeling
That it's easy come and easy go

Oh I'm sorry but it's true
You're bringin' on the heartbreak
Takin' all the best of me
Oh can't you see?
You got the best of me
Whoah can't you see?

You're bringin' on the heartbreak
Bringin' on the heartache
You're bringin' on the heartbreak
Bringin' on the heartache
Can't you see?

Oh whoah
You're such a secret, misty eyed and shady
Lady how you hold the key
Oh you're like a candle, your flame slowly fadin'
Burnin' out and burnin' me

Can't you see?
Just try and say to you

You're bringin' on the heartache
Takin' all the best of me
Oh can't you see?
You got the best of me
Whoah can't you see?

You're bringin' on the heartbreak
Bringin' on the heartache
You're bringin' on the heartbreak
Bringin' on the heartache

Can't you see?
Can't you see?
No no no
You got the best of me
Oh can't you see?
You got the best of me
Whoah can't you see?

You're bringin' on the heartbreak
Bringin' on the heartache
You're bringin' on the heartbreak
Bringin' on the heartache
You're bringin' on the heartbreak
Bringin' on the heartache
You're bringin' on the heartbreak

Friday, February 02, 2007

Dominic Purcell Cannot Be Collared

The man is allergic to collars and must expose his shiny chest at all times. Thank you, Jesus, for banana cream pie and Prison Break. And maybe someday both together at once. Amen.

Thursday, February 01, 2007

I Hate You I Hate You I Hate You!

And now that the commercials are running for your new lobotomy, it is hard to keep believing that you did, indeed, DIE, before writing that twitching abortion called HANNIBAL. It was the only thing I could believe after reading that idiotic, narcissistic, five-dollar handjob that was created for the sole purpose of the nickel-slot porn climax of getting the evil doctor and Clarice Starling together. Take notes, kids: this is how you go from and exciting and creative artist to money-grubbing hack job with one whiff of a gold-plated Oscar. Little bitch.

I read Hannibal once. My stomach started sinking sometime after the first part when Harris switched from straight third person to over-dramatic second person with no reason, other than a need to step in and say, "Hi! Lookit me! I'm a famous storyteller! Hi!" Through the course of the book, it just got worse, and predicting the inevitable bullshit ending became painfully easy. Part of the exhilaration of Silence of the Lambs was the indefinable relationship between Starling and Lecter. It was an uncomfortable intimacy with shades of sexuality, mentoring, paternal love, and a deep undercurrent of fear. After all, Lecter is a crazy fuck. Right? Not that it mattered in Hannibal. Suddenly "crazy fuck" equaled "sexy beast." Right.

Other things that made it all go wrong:

  1. Krendler. Clarice screws up on the job and a bit character from Lambs becomes the Evil Villain in Hannibal. Krendler is just one of the many characters who comes back for Hannibal, and he's not just an annoying, power-hungry bureaucrat anymore, he's like some kind of comical study in "bad guy" overkill. Except the author isn't joking. Krendler's demise is ridiculously gory and the sign of an author who is overcompensating from the pressure of too much success.
  2. The emasculation of Agent Crawford. His wife is dying, his loses the will to go on, can't help Clarice with her problems, and eventually dies of a heart attack. By removing Crawford--another source of conflicted feelings for Clarice in Lambs--from the equation, the path to Lecter is cleared. This isn't at all transparent.
  3. The forced cameos of just about everyone from Lambs. Barney from the institution shows up, even Senator Martin has a small bit. Ardelia Mapp is there, too, of course. It is clearly difficult for Harris to come up with new characters; when he does, they are over-the-top and completely unbelievable, for instance...
  4. Verger. Great idea at first. This is the guy Lecter put in the hospital all those years ago--a curiosity in the first two novels and now, finally, the reader learns the extent of his injuries. And that he is also a Crazy Fuck. Yippity-do. It's a crazy town throw down. But then we learn his method of revenge and it all gets very silly. It's like reading a screenplay for Friday the 13th Part 14--what new and inventive ways can we think of to kill people that will involve buying lots of cow intestines and buckets of dyed syrup? Throughout the book, Harris delights in playing "What's grosser than gross?" If only his audience consisted only of 12-year-olds. Maybe it does now.
  5. The Ending. What can be said of the fumbling, infantile leap in logic that brings Clarice and Dr. Lecter together? Drugs, the end of her career, and her dead father's bones drive Clarice straight to crazy town, apparently. Not to say that Lecter can't find love somewhere...I suppose even crazy-killer-fugitive-cannibals can find love...but not with Clarice. She was special because she was a real, honest, flesh and blood girl--what he valued in her also rendered her untouchable to him. I think Lecter would have seen it exactly that way. It is true that they felt something for each other, but not THAT. And to take it there felt dirty and cheap...like fumbling in the backseats of cars with those once mentioned boys. Cheap.

Needless to say, the sight of Hannibal Rising makes my skin crawl. Not for fear, but for rage and, ultimately, simple disappointment in an author I once admired.