My Holiday Season

I am ridiculously excited for the upcoming months because of one word:

Blockbusters.

It begins in May and lasts until (generally) August. And it is a beautiful time to be a movie buff. Long gone are the Oscar contenders and the kids movies and the chick flicks and the sappy foreign bullshit films. Now, I'm not saying that I'm not a fan of all of the above (mostly) but there's something about a Summer Blockbuster that just makes you NEED to scrape those much-needed-elsewhere pennies up and sit in an over crowded theater for approximately 2 hours.

"Here Daddy... Go see Star Trek, I'll only need 3 years and half a semester of college anyway."
Driving to work today, I called a friend to happily exclaim that this time of year is my favorite holiday season. Yes, holiday. Because it is so full of surprises and gifts from people you know and love. And its about giving and receiving. I give the movie theater 12 of my dollars (plus more if I'm feeling cheeky and/or hungry for nasty treats) and (hopefully) I get a good movie in return.

I've learned in years past that much like Christmas and birthdays, that you cannot always expect that big package to be what you think/hope it to be. In fact, every parent has had the thought at one time or another to put socks in the super big box that looks like the Power Wheels box their child has been drooling over for months. Just because the wrapped package looks awesome, doesn't mean that there isn't a steaming pile of suck with it's colorful facade.

So this year you have the list already in your head:

Wolverine is going to be like that gift from your awesome aunt that always gets you the dumbest shit like a light-up globe or sea monkeys. If she's so awesome the rest of the year, why does she have to suck during the best opportunity to be awesome!?! Just like Wolverine. Comics Wolverine is awesome. Hugh Jackman, total bad ass and bankable movie star... How does this add up to absolute dookie in film!?!

Transformers 2 is that big gift you really really want, but after you get out of the package and play with it a little, you realize that it is potentially the most offensively bad marketing ever... or lack thereof.

Star Trek is from your older brother trying to make you like the stuff he does. It probably will work because your older brother is awesome.

Terminator is like that toy you want because it has a "name" on it. Think back to all those Batman toys that had Batman using awesome shit, but in a hot pink costume... A total WTF sort of thing, but it's a Batman toy, so you needed it

Harry Potter is the book in your stocking. From Grandma. Used. But gently.

Etc Etc Etc...

But even though I know there will be some real stinkers, I don't care! I'll go see them all (if my wife lets me) because last year we all learned not to keep your preconceptions. "Who wants to see Iron Man!?! Give me a A-list hero..." Everyone loved that movie!

"Man I can't wait to see Indy back on the big screen!" Most of us wish we had waited.

"The Dark Knight is gonna be so bad ass." Truer words have never been spoken.

So, in closing, Happy Summer Movies everyone! Go out and give them a chance because big movie companies need your money more than your mortgage lenders, credit card companies and family health and welfare.

National News Networks: Mainlining drain cleaner never seemed so rational

My generation -- or at least most of the wide-eyed, nervous, soda-addicted, insomniac populous that "My Generation" encompasses -- does not often watch the news. We've managed to grow up during an incredibly small window in history during which we learned to rely on tiny, texty gadgets that zip short, grammatically tragic messages from one person to another. These are our primary sources of information, even if the information we trade is mostly useless and almost completely nonsensical. Unfortunately for us I'm pretty sure this, as well as most reading, is about to be replaced by video screens implanted into your goddamn contacts or something. It took about four hundred years for Howdy Doody to supplant the Gutenberg Bible. Soon enough we'll all be getting our news directly from Youtube crotch shot videos.

But we 18-28r's don't tend pay much attention to CNN and such. For one thing, it can't be Twittered, and if you have flipped by the 24-hour news networks lately, you know that we're all apparently going fucking crazy for that shit.

Ever wanted to tweet with Wolf Blitzer? Of fucking course you haven't.

For another thing, news takes forever. Do you know they want you to watch those shows for like, an hour just to hear all of the news? That's valuable time you could be spending on something productive. Like Twittering.

I have to tell you people, you're really missing out. Remember how people used to talk about news broadcasters like they were heroes? When TV news meant something? No? Well, they did, especially guys like Walter Cronkite.

Look at this guy! He makes Hannity look like a coked-up spider monkey in a toupee.

This dude WAS the news. His breath even smelled like integrity. The strength of TV became instant dissimination of information, and Cronkite had the megaphone. He was essentially a real decent guy, too, so when he talked, you listened.

Now, however, we have the shrill harpies and idiot town cryers to report the news directly into our ears. Why? Because with your "Thousand channels and nothing's on" attitude, they have to do SOMETHING to get your attention.

So they'll do ANYTHING.

Including exploiting the dead!

It used to be that the news networks leaned more towards the whole "shining beacon of truth" thing. TV was news outlet number one, and most people -- ask your parents -- remember the most important events in that era of US history as they were reported on the news.

Now, however, the 24-hour news networks are like crowds of lawless zombie hobos. And you are wearing a bacon suit.

I bet you didn't even know it existed.

They'll do anything to get to you, too. Want an hour of Larry King devoted solely to UFO landings? Done. Same Nancy Grace topic four nights in a row? Done and done. Are you a lonely old crazy person with seven cats named after Confederate officers, a hump on your back and a penchant for antique gun collecting? They've got news for you. News so addicting, in fact, that you may neglect Little General Lee. Don't worry, they won't let you forget him -- they'll play plenty of cat food commercials. Plenty. And you should probably also get him some term life insurance.

It takes a rare breed, then, to become a voice so absolutely fucknuts that people who care admittedly very little (like, say, me) actually notice you're being offensive.

"The most used phrase in my administration if I were to be President would be 'What the hell you mean we're out of missiles?'"

--Actual Glenn Beck quote.

Glenn Beck is what happens when you fundamentally damage a 13 year old, reform him from a life of crime and then give him a microphone. Seriously. That's his life story. As a consequence of his hard luck and subsequent steps back into the light, Beck ends up having roughly the same amount of coherence as a Southern Baptist minister on a meth binge. Charmingly, however, he is about ten percent as tactful, which leads to hours of wacky entertainment for the "What'll he say next?" crowd.

Because whatever it is, it'll piss off somebody.

He is most well known for:

-- Calling the mother of a dead soldier a "Tragedy Slut"

-- Really, really despising Michael Moore

-- Belittling victims of Katrina

-- Hating the victims of 9/11 and their families

-- Equating embryonic stem-cell researchers to Nazi scientists practicing Eugenics

-- Procreating four times, thus increasing "Likely candidates for offspring of Satan" to 9

-- Generally being a cock-in-the-box.

And Beck ends up being just the tip of the iceberg. If watching the news in the 60's was like a cigarette break, in the 2000's it's like freebasing speed every fifteen minutes until your eyes pop out. Worse, it would be unfair of me to single out a network like Fox News, especially when their competitors put this thing on the screen:

I wonder if you can figure out her name.

I'm also sure that if you've watched even half a minute of any of these networks, you know all the major players. Each commercial break is a constant subliminal flash of names like Larry King, Anderson Cooper and Bill O'Reilly.

Pictured left to right.

And that's pretty much the way of things: The news networks are no longer selling you the news. Instead they're selling you anchors, who pretend to have both knowledge of every possible situation and a completely justified opinion no matter what -- despite the fact that you've probably heard more tolerant, thought-out arguments from your creepy uncle Bernie who lives in the mountains and has a confederate flag painted on the roof of his barn.

Seriously? You can find anything on the internet.

And he's probably a lot less frightening than looking at Nancy Grace.

Dear Susan Boyle: Thanks

Okay. Admittedly, I have been absent from the site for a little while. I needed some battery recharging. Now that that's all over with, though, I should be more vocal. Whether you like it or fucking not.

The reason I've decided to jump back on to the internet is Susan Boyle, newest internet mega-pan-flash and YouTube sensation. If you've been living in a cave for... well, really anything more than about 72 hours in this country, you'll have no idea what I'm talking about.

The 48-year-old, who is an unemployed charity worker from a small Scotland town, has gained fandom globally in less than half a week thanks to Simon Cowell's real job, Britain's Got Talent. The we-did-it-first equivalent to America's etc. etc., BGT has pumped out a few of these surprises over the last few seasons, and has filtered them onto the internet with greater success each time. It needed a real spark, though, to finally reach a worldwide audience, and Boyle is that spark.

I'm linking here to a very obscure little UK site, Deadline Scotland, which gives a day-after perspective to Susan Boyle's success. To her friends and neighbors, she is a quirky, unpretentious bit of playful lunacy -- a character in every sense of the word, as if she'd stepped right out of a British sitcom. She drinks lemonade at the bar, keeps her savings in empty whiskey bottles and lives alone. The children around her even sometimes call her a witch, further convincing me that she's blasted her way into reality using magic akin to Last Action Hero. I guarantee she has at least one insanely flowered bonnet in her possession, possibly with fake birds on it. And her voice, so new and apparently inspiring to the rest of the world, has echoed through the walls and the churches of her small town for over thirty years. To them, she is simply Susan.

My trend-o-graph spiked when I saw her video on Sunday morning, but being a lazy sonofabitch, I ignored it until I realized I could have been about 10 hours ahead of everyone else on this lady. (Full disclosure: the trend-o-graph is actually something I just made up. I know. Disappointing.) It doesn't matter, though, because I'd probably be writing roughly the same things about her. Boyle's importance doesn't so much lie in the realm of pop culture as it does societal self-examination: Susan, who is decidedly one of the more comely-looking faces to draw over 10 million YouTube views, is finding a nice, quiet spot in the global subconcious as a very pure example of fulfilling a dream.

Her life doesn't seem particularly difficult or particularly happy -- much like our own lives. Our daily routines almost definitely share some common banalities with her own. And, like Susan, many of us have The Big Dream -- the culmination of our greatest talent, or our most sincere love. The affirmation that of all of the things you do, there is at least one thing that you do fantastically. The show gave such opportunity for affirmation to one of the more humble, more lovable, more charactery characters the public has ever come across, and Susan Boyle fulfilled her dream and way more.

We've been lucky enough to live in a time when there is virtually no delay between live airing and viral internet spread, but her talent could very well have uncovered a sort of tipping point. Yes, South Park had their YouTube episode, and stars are blurring the lines between mainstream and internet success every day. But with a few notes and a few wistful glances from each of the judges on BGT, Susan Boyle's performance may flash across more computer screens than anything on YouTube has before. And that's saying something. This is international p0pcult, and now that Viral Video is reaching pandemic levels, worldwide Pop Culture may start to become pretty commonplace -- a concept as important to humanity as electricity was once. Or telephones. Or airplanes.

It's a small world, but it really is a big world, too. And when the smallest of us finally has a chance to be seen by everyone -- literally everyone -- in just the blink of an eye, it's time to consider that we might just be moving into some unfamiliar social territory. And it might be awesome.