My friends and I have cooked many completely ridiculous meals. From deep-fried turkeys to your basic chocolate-chip cookies, we've made some pretty amazing meals. The best meal we'd ever created was, by far, the meal we cooked up for New Years which involved deep-fried everything. That meal's dominance was challenged last night, however, when we took on a whole new culinary challenge: sushi.
Here's a sampling of our spread: Avocado, cucumber, smoked salmon, gyoza, and raw tuna.
I had never rolled sushi before but, as it turns out, I'm a natural. Here I am making a tuna roll.
Note, also, the soy-sauce stains on my shirt. Those are the result of some abrupt gravitational fluctuations and were absolutely not due to the fact that I'm a very sloppy eater.
Of course, celebrations are fun, but they're even funner when you're actually celebrating something. So we dedicated our sushi evening to the birthday of our dear friend Mr. Utah, since Saturday night coincidentally coincided exactly with the tenth day since Mr. Utah turned twenty-seven.
When all was said and done, we were full as fuck and we only went through about half of our supplies. And we didn't even get to the cookie-dough egg rolls. But no one minded because the sushi was so fucking awesome. And so was the night.
Albert Einstein didn't like the theory of quantum mechanics.
See, the universe Einstein believed in was rather deterministic--if you knew all the pre-existing conditions, then you could reliably predict the outcome. But quantum mechanics posits a universe in which things can happen completely at random. The electron is spin-up or spin-down, but, until we look at it to find out, it's neither. So we're lead to question how far that reality goes. If we all close our eyes, does Earth still have a moon? Yeah, it seems stupid, but the fact is that, on some level, we create reality when we observe it.
So how do we resolve that with our universe? One theory is that every possible outcome happens in its own universe. So there's a universe where the electron you're observing is spin-up and there's another where it's spin-down. And there's a universe where the cat is alive and another where the cat is dead. And there's a universe where Hitler won World War II and others where he didn't.
And there's some universe somewhere where you never left. There's this world where the forces of gravity and destiny did not conspire to tear us asunder. There's a reality where you were my first kiss and I was yours. Somewhere, there are versions of you and me that hold each other as they fall asleep.
When all is said and done, I guess I've got something pretty simple to say. I know who my first kiss was and, all things considered, I wish it had been you.
I originally got two cats, Smash and Buttercup. They were brother and sister and got along really, really well. Unfortunately, I had to put Buttercup down. That left Smash the sole feline ruler of my apartment for a while, but I could tell that he was vaguely bored and lonely. So, after what I thought was enough of a mourning period, I got another cat, Lily.
I had never before noticed such a huge difference in personality in an animal as the difference between Buttercup and Lily. Buttercup was the sweetest cat ever. She'd want your attention and she'd sit on top of my monitor and just watch the room for hours. And she was all about having people pet her. While I love Lily, she's much more . . . cold. She doesn't particularly like being pet, and she feels no need to brush up to people or show off. In fact, if you're not holding a laser pointer, she doesn't really have any use for you. Most of the time. Every now and then, she'll wake me up at 6am with incessant whining. So I'll check the food and the water and the litter box, and she'll be right at my feet the whole time, and everything will be as it should be, and I'll look down at her and she'll whine and I'll pet her and she'll just revel in it for a few minutes before walking away and going back to sleep. She's a strange cat.
Anyway, Smash and Lily have really bonded. They chase each other around all the time. They groom each other. And they huddle together into a little call of crazy cuteness all the time. Bluebunny's picture of them sleeping would be appropriate here.
But lately I've caught them fighting a lot. I'm pretty sure it's play fighting since there isn't any hissing or claws. But it seems to be happening more often than it used to. At the same time, though, they have continued to cuddle and groom each other. And I found them sleeping together in their little cat carrier the other morning.
Still, Smash is way the fuck bigger than Lily, and she's always in a prone position when I find them fighting. So I'm wondering whether they're actually fighting or if they're just roughhousing. Do they still love each other, or is the whole thing on the rocks? Is this the cat equivalent of the seven-year itch? Or just play?
Even before I went to law school, it seemed to me that electing judges--the people in our system that are most supposed to make decisions based on something other than what they happen to believe personally--is stupid. The federal system, at least as it was explained to me in sixth grade, made a hell of a lot of sense: in a representative democracy, you have to strike a balance between giving the majority what it wants and protecting the rights of the minority. Electing the legislature makes sense, then, because it means that the people that write the laws are, at least theoretically, directly responsible to the People. Write laws we like and you keep your job; don't and you don't. Electing the President also makes sense, since he enforces the laws the legislature makes and is the face of the nation in many respects. Having taken care of the majority, we then turn our attention to the hapless minority: how do we ensure that they are protected. In steps the judiciary. The fact that they're selected by the President and approved by the Congress means that they receive, albeit in a roundabout sort of way, the approval of the People. On the other hand, the fact that they are not directly elected and have life terms means that they are free, at least in theory, to make decisions based on the law and, above all, the Constitution. Where Congressmen regularly shovel pork into their home districts in order to gain favor with their constituents and the President has to be mindful of opinion polls if he wants a second term, the judges in the federal system are free from those concerns.
That makes sense to me. It seems like an exceedingly good idea to me. What makes absolutely no sense to me at all is to throw the whole judiciary to the wolves and just have the whole thing work in the exact same way as the detestable elections we've all come to know and--well, we know them, anyway.
Senators and Assemblymen don't have a duty to be impartial. To the contrary, it is their duty to represent the interests of the people that elected them. You are allowed to propose legislation that benefits your constituents to the detriment of people outside of your district. You are allowed to be vehemently and absolutely against criminal defendants, gay people, the UW Law School, or guns. We elect our representatives because we believe that they represent our own interests, at least to some degree. Same goes for the Governor.
But the job of a judge is fundamentally different. It's not that all good judges would reach the same conclusions--there's certainly plenty of room for differing interpretations and opinions. But judges, at least ideally, shouldn't be vehemently and absolutely against criminal defendants, gay people, the UW Law School, or guns. Rather, judges should approach each case with an open mind and, above all, remember that the best judges are those that bring nothing but their intelligence and legal skill to the case at hand.
Moreover, it is crucial that judges be able to issue decisions based on the facts and the law, not out of fear of how their decision could be used against them in a future election. It will always be unpopular to overturn a known murderer's conviction because of a "technicality," but in instances where police willfully violated the Fourth Amendment, that is the only proper decision.
As I said, I've thought that electing judges is stupid for a long time. I was convinced my position was correct after Annette Ziegler--rather than Linda Clifford--became the newest Wisconsin Supreme Court. But I'm reminded of it again now that Justice Louis Butler and Judge Michael Gableman are running for the Supreme Court. The ads I've seen on TV are emblematic of the problem with the whole judicial-election thing. Here's an anti-Butler one:
To be fair, Judge Gableman's campaign did not pay for that ad, but that doesn't make it any less ridiculous. What does it mean to say that a judge should "stand up for victims, not technicalities," anyway? Would the ad's writers have Justice Butler write opinions like this: "Well, there are some technicalities here, but I'm pro-victim, so we can forget about the Constitution and stuff."
I looked up the case the ad refers to. It's State v. Jensen, 2007 WI 26, Wis. 2d 267, 727 N.W.2d 518. (Brief aside: God, it feels so good to write out a complete, correct citation again.) The issue is fairly complicated, but it comes down to whether there is an exception to the Sixth Amendment, which guarantees a criminal defendant the right to confront witnesses against him, when the witness is unavailable because the defendant killed her. The majority finds that there is, and Justice Butler disagreed. I disagree with Justice Butler's conclusion, too, but that doesn't change the fact that he had solid legal reasons for believing--and voting--as he did. And it absolutely does not justify dismissing one of the rights guaranteed to us by the Bill of Rights as a "technicality."
Ultimately, I understand not wanting an entire branch of the government that answers to no one. But an unelected judiciary does not have a blank check. Moreover, judicial elections run counter to the whole idea of the judiciary--if you wanted elected interpretors, why not just have the legislature interpret their own laws?
The last hour and half has been a ridiculous whirlwind of communication. My cell phone, office phone, e-mail inbox, and physical mailbox have been inundated with various requests, questions, and myriad other demands for my time.
It's as if everyone in the universe who has any reason--personal or professional--to contact me decided that they were gong to do it right after lunch on Tuesday. That's fine with me--the time's absolutely flown by, and I've actually gotten a lot of things that were floating in the air above me taken care of. And I was able to actually help a few people in there, too. But it was just sort of crazy, especially considering that a few months ago the biggest demand on my time was the five hours of Star Trek I watched every day.
Things are really looking up. I can't tell you how awesome it feels to be really busy again--even if it's just in small spurts.
I have these vague memories of some conversation I had, probably in college, possibly with a hippie. Anyway, the hippie or whoever told me that he often meditated and asked if I did. "What the fuck are you fucking talking about, you smelly fucking piece of shit?" was probably my response. And the hippie went on to explain that mediation was awesome or some such. And I asked him what the hell he meant, exactly, by meditation--"Like, sitting there saying 'ohm' over and over again?" And he said that he just tried to clear his mind. And I was like "You stupid fuck, that's not hard." And he said "Really, you can clear your mind of all thought at will?" "Fuck you, of course I can. I do it all the time." And I walked away. And the hippie probably laughed at me.
I'm thinking about this because it's nearly 2:30am and I have to be up in less than five hours, but I can't fucking fall asleep. It's not that I'm sick--I'm feeling much better, thank you. No, it's that my mind is racing at a thousand miles an hour from topic to topic. First, it's thinking about people I knew when I was a little kid that I haven't seen in over a decade. Then it's on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Then it skips to World of Warcraft. Then sushi. Then the story behind "Layla." Then all the work I have to do tomorrow after slacking last week because I felt like shit the whole time. Then about how it sucks that it snowed on the first full day of spring. And, of course, that fucking hippie fuck from college.
So I finally decided "Fuck this, it is imperative that I go to sleep right now. I'm going to close my eyes and shut my mind. No more thinking or stressing or worrying or anything." Then my mind flashed to that scene from the beginning of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon where Li Mu-bai explains that he thought he had reached enlightenment but actually hadn't. And then I remembered watching that scene with some of my friends and X-tina saying "Oh, so he's enlightened?" and me saying "No, keep watching."
And while all of this is going on in my head, I keep hearing the hook from The Rolling Stones song "Happy."
And I couldn't shake that fucking little piece of music.
So I decided that the best thing to do was blog about it because if it's going to all be rattling around up there, I might as well share it, right?
A friend of mine once described U2 as a band that people who know absolutely nothing about music really like. I think she meant that it's an easy enough band to enjoy but that they're really not all that special. I tend to agree, which means that the fact that some people call U2 their favorite band.
I mean, ok, U2 was the biggest band in the universe at one point. But that point was twenty-five years ago--I think we can move on. I mean, sure, The Joshua Tree, and Unforgettable Fire were decent albums. But the fact is that, as Mr. Morenononsense has pointed out of numerous bands, you can put together an amazing twelve-track U2 best-of compilation. (Mine would include "With or Without You," "Mothers of the Disappeared," "Staring at the Sun," "In God's Country," "Sunday Bloody Sunday," "One," "Love Comes Tumbling," "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me," "Bullet the Blue Sky," and that's pretty much it. So I guess I could make a nine-song best-of CD. Which just proves my point more.) But when you take a look at their whole career, it's sort of pathetic. And when you consider that at least their last two albums were completely worthless (I'd say their last three albums, except that Pop has "Staring at the Sun" on it), it starts to be pretty obvious that they're a mediocre band at best.
And, also, I don't know how many of you have actually seen a joshua tree, but they're ugly, stupid things. And Joshua Tree National Park is a desolate, hideous place.
And that's all ignoring the fact that one of the most obnoxious people of modern times fronts the fucking band. Bono is one of the biggest douchebags out there. Seriously, he's so fucking full of himself, I don't care if he singlehandedly cured both AIDS and cancer and then eliminated poverty, I'd still beat him up if I got the chance. And then I'd wipe my ass with his sunglasses which, while probably uncomfortable for me, would be a huge moral victory for the nondouches of the world.
My point is this: why the fuck is this band still relevant? Why do people still give a shit about them? As far as I'm concerned, they're only marginally better than, say, those guys that sang that song about walking a thousand miles for something.
So let's all just resolve to ignore U2 from now on. Maybe that way they'll go away.
I think that I'm generally a well-spoken and articulate person. And I think I can be funny and, every now and then, charming. I also realize, though, that these qualities tend to manifest themselves over time rather than during first impressions. For some reason, I often get flustered or something when having meaningless, casual conversations--small talk--with people I don't know. Or, fuck, even with people I do know.
For example, I was at the DA's office today picking up some discovery in one of my cases. The secretary there was really nice, and I handed her something I told the DA I'd drop off for her and asked the secretary to make a copy for the DA. She did, and then she was going to leave a note for the DA telling her I had dropped this thing off so that she'd know what the hell it was. Anyway, this conversation happened:
Me: Oh, and could you please make a copy of this and make sure [DA] gets it, please?
Secretary: Sure. What was your name again?
Me: Huh?
Secretary: What's your name, so that I can leave [DA] a note.
Me: Oh, it's Ismael Tapia II--sorry, this cold I've got has been messing with my senses all day.
Secretary: Oh, I understand--I'm old and that messes with my senses all the time!
What I almost said: Well, thank god I don't have that!
I didn't say it. I think I just sort of smiled, which was awkward enough. But I almost said it.
My throat started feeling scratchy and raw last night. When I woke up this morning, I knew I was getting sick. All day at work today, I knew things were going to get worse. By the time I was driving home after my last court appearance, I was feeling full-on terrible.
I called my mom tonight because I had forgotten to make my weekly call on Sunday. As soon as she heard my voice, she asked me if I was sick. I told her that I was. And I haven't missed my mommy more in months.
Anyway, it's just a cold and it'll be gone in a few days, but I hate being sick. And while one of the theoretical advantages of being your own boss is setting your own schedule, one of the drawbacks of being an attorney is that your schedule is often dictated by the courts and your clients. That's why I'll spend tomorrow not resting at home as I'd like but, rather, driving almost two hours each way to see a client that has a hearing next week.
I don't know why, but I almost always like unplugged versions of songs more than the original, plugged versions. I mean, that might be a bit of a stretch, but I almost always really like unplugged versions, even if I like them in a completely different way. For example, "Cherub Rock" is one of my favorite songs generally, but I especially like it if I need to get excited or pumped up--it's a great song to listen to at the beginning of a night out, I think. On the other hand, the acoustic version is awesome in a whole different way; it's mellower and almost soothing, but still sort of angry. I think it's a great song to listen to before bed. There's a similar sort of dichotomy between the original and unplugged versions of "Rocket." (The unplugged version I'm linking to here is one that Billy's apparently doing on the current tour, but there's an older version out there that's way better.) But I don't just love acoustic versions by The Smashing Pumpkins. I mean, I prefer the unplugged version of "Layla" to the original, although I admittedly don't like the original very much at all. But the acoustic version of "Everlong" is amazing (again, I can't find a video of the best version, which is the one that includes another guitar).
Part of the reason I love unplugged versions is that I've always sort of thought that one of the ways you can tell you're dealing with a great song is that it works in an acoustic, two-guitar arrangement. That format forces you to eliminate any extraneous elements and deal with the essence of the song. So if it works, it's awesome, and if it doesn't, then there probably wasn't enough substance to the original to make it more than catchy. Another advantage to the two-acoustic-guitar thing is that, because there isn't all this extra stuff going on, the harmony and interplay between the two guitars really shines. It's like the string quartet of rock music.
And, of course, there's the fact that some songs' emotional impact is heightened by being presented in stripped-down form. There's something about the relatively mellow, soothing sound of two acoustic guitars that really lends itself to contemplative, sad, or lonely music. And since that's the kind of music I generally tend to like--when I don't feel like listening to stuff that rocks so hard it breaks your bones, that is--the acoustic thing is something I can really get into.
I'm thinking about all of this because of a video JLee posted over at her blog. Snow Patrol isn't a band I generally like at all. But the acoustic version of "Spitting Games" really got under my skin. Check it out:
Anyway, there's nothing else going on, so I thought maybe you'd enjoy some of these videos.
For some reason, I've always been a stickler for only having certain types of food at certain times of the day. Like, usually the concept of having a fried egg after 10:30 am seems wrong--unless the egg is on top of a burger, of course. And the concept of steak for breakfast frankly baffles me.
Still, I was unsatisfied with my breakfast this morning, mostly because the chorizo in my chorizo and eggs was woefully inadequate compared to what my mom used to make. And, also, it was really, really unspicy, which is bullshit. That, together with the fact that I had nothing but breakfast food in my apartment tonight, meant that I was open to the idea of making breakfast for dinner.
So I chopped up some potatoes and cooked them up with some butter, garlic, and salt. And then I made some eggs, sunny side up, with super-runny yolks. And the whole thing was awesome.
And I started thinking: I love eggs benedict, so I'm going to have to learn how to make them. I mean, they seem really easy, except for the hollandaise, which frankly scares me: I might be a halfway competent cook when it comes to simple recipes, but I don't know if I'm ready to tackle one of the mother sauces.
I don't know why, but I've been thinking of something I did when I was a kid a lot lately.
I think it was around Christmas, back before having Christmas parties at public schools was evil. I think it was early elementary school, maybe third grade. Anyway, I think it was Christmas, and we were doing this class-wide Secret Santa thing. Only you knew ahead of time who you were exchanging gifts with.
Anyway, my mom bought the present I was supposed to exchange, obviously. And I can't remember what the hell it was, but I vaguely recall that it was something I sort of wanted. And I remember thinking that I had damn well better get something extremely cool in exchange. Well, when this other kid and I exchanged gifts, I saw that I had been shafted: his gift to me was a really, really, really cheap chess and checkers board with flimsy plastic pieces. It was the type of thing that you could get at a dollar store. The thing I gave him was not expensive, but it wasn't as cheap as a cardboard square and some stupid pieces of molded plastic.
This kid's parents were pretty poor, I think. I don't know that for sure, but I'm pretty sure that was the case. I think the kid realized that, and I think he felt bad. When I think about it now, I'm sure that this kid's parents could have opted out of the whole thing if they had wanted to, but they didn't. Instead, they spent some money on a gift for a stranger's kid. But I didn't realize any of that then. All I thought about at that moment was that, but for these people, I would have gotten the cool toy I had just given them instead of an incredibly cheap game board. I took the whole thing as a personal affront. I don't remember exactly what I did or what happened, but I know that I wasn't nice to the kid. In fact, I know I was fucking horrible to him.
I've done a lot of things that could be considered mean in my life. And I've been selfish on numerous occasions. And, although I hate it in other people, there have been plenty of times when I've been blindingly self-centered. But, of all the terrible, selfish, mean, fucked-up things I've done in my life, this is one of the things I most wish I could take back.
A lot of people I know that know comic books complain that Superman isn't a very interesting character because he doesn't have any weaknesses. He's faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. His skin can't be broken even by a nuclear explosion. No poisons can even slow him down. And, if the movies are to be believed, even time is but a mere inconvenience to the Man of Steel.
Yeah, yeah, there's kryptonite, but what kind of a fucking contrivance is that? Superman's foes never outsmart him--he has super intelligence, too, remember?--and he's never has conflicts of conscience. The only thing that can stop him is some external substance.
In short, many portrayals of the character fall short because the only thing that can come close to beating Superman is an inanimate piece of mineral. So lazy writers can write a Superman story pretty easily: There's a problem, Superman sets out to do the right thing, fights his way through some henchmen, meets the Boss, the Boss pulls out some kryptonite, Superman almost loses, then he doesn't. That kind of storytelling entertained me when I was a kid, and it entertains me now to a certain extent, but it doesn't make for the best fiction. No, the best fiction, I think, involves some character progression. It involves a character bettering himself in some way. Since you can't improve on perfection, starting from the premise that your protagonist is perfect will always leave something to be desired in the final work.
Compare the typical Superman story to the story of Frodo and the Ring, for example. Yes, the One Ring is something external to Frodo, but the ultimate conflict is not between the Free Peoples of Middle-Earth and Sauron's forces or between Gandalf and the Witch-king. The conflict is between Frodo and himself; the ultimate purpose of the story is to answer the question of whether Frodo has the strength--or, more accurately, whether he can find the strength--to carry the One Ring to Mount Doom and cast it into the fires there. Ultimately, Frodo failed, but he went further than anyone else could have gone, and he was brave--or naive--enough to take on a task that even Gandalf feared.
In the end, I think, Frodo is more admirable because, even though he failed, he struggled against seemingly impossible odds and came much, much closer to success than anyone could ever have reasonably expected. But, more importantly, Frodo is more admirable because he held his fate in his own hands. His success or failure depended entirely on his choices and his strength of will. It was Frodo's choice to bear the Ring that lead him to Mordor, and it was his strength of will that allowed him to resist its power for so long. Superman, on the other hand, is a prisoner of circumstances. He will invariably do what is right, but it is inevitable that one day, kryptonite will overcome him. Neither his superpowers nor his strength of will will be able to save him. In the end, Superman cannot win, regardless of how much he tries and suffers.
I had a point when I started, and I think it was something along these lines: Frodo lived in the Shire and could have ignored Sauron and the Ring. But he didn't and, instead, chose to do something extremely difficult; he chose to find within himself the power to destroy a powerful enemy. And because of that, his story is infinitely more compelling than the many mediocre Superman stories out there.
I wouldn't have made it to Mordor. I wouldn't have made it to the Minds or Moria. I probably wouldn't have even made it to Weathertop. But there was a time when Frodo wouldn't have, either.
So, on days like today, days when I feel completely worthless because of stupid things that I've brought on myself, I hope that I'll be stronger some day. But I recognize that strength isn't just something that happens--it's something you build.
My greatest weakness, as it turns out, is that I'm an idiot. And now I've got to do something about that.
We are fucked. Oil prices are breaking new records every day. We are mired in an endless war. Our President doesn't seem to mind torture. Our leaders are more corrupt than ever. Or perhaps they're not, which is even scarier. Yes, it seems that at almost every turn, we are confronted by evidence that our entire civilization is heading for the shit can.
But the most compelling evidence that our culture is (rightfully) doomed comes from Hollywood. Yes, at a time when the entire entertainment industry seems to be completely out of original ideas and left with no option but to rape the fuck out of nostalgia, movie producers seem to have set exactly one criteria for what they'll develop into a movie: They'll produce anything as long as they don't have to bother making it up. So classics are, with very few exceptions, robbed of anything that may have once made them appealing and projected onto the screen with about as much respect as you'd have for a two-bit whore. I'd like to blame the douchewads that run the studios, but they're only giving America what it wants. And what it wants is fucking stupid. Let us examine two movies that people seem to excited about even though they will certainly suck more than anything has ever sucked before.
Ironman
When the trailer for this movie came on at the theater a while ago, people seemed excited. This confused me. Had they forgotten that Ironman sucks? Ironman is a cheap Marvel Comics' Batman knock-off. I mean, look. Billionaire industrialist? Check. No actual super powers? Check. An expensive suit? Check. Only Ironman is devoid of the things that make Batman interesting: a dark, borderline crazy personality; an unbelievably keen detective mind; and a strict--if enigmatic--sense of morality. Bruce Wayne acts like a douchebag as a cover; Tony Stark is a card-carrying member of Douchebags International.
But aside from the fact that Ironman is a crappy character, a crappy comic book, and a crappy idea in general, look at the movie itself:
This movie looks like a piece of shit! It looks like a terrible RoboCop parody (as opposed to a great RoboCop parody?)! What is there in that movie that makes someone excited? The fact that they don't see how sadly obvious it is to use the Black Sabbath song "Ironman" in a trailer for a movie called Ironman lets you know the kind of people you're dealing with here.
Speed Racer
Simply put, if you are a Speed Racer fan, you owe me an apology. Whenever someone tells me that they like Speed Racer, I can't do anything other than ask them whether they've ever actually watched the show. Because it is possibly the dumbest show ever. And this movie looks just about as bad. I'd like to try to think of some clever insults, but I don't have to. The worst thing I can possibly say about the movie is that it seems to be a faithful adaptation of both the story and the style of the Speed Racer cartoon. Watch the fucking trailer and tell me it doesn't make you want to throw up. And if, after watching that bizarre whirlwind of color and shiny objects, you still want to watch this fucking movie, then you seriously better apologize to me and America.
I'm going on record right now: if either of these movies opens at number one at the box office, Pax Americana will end within one-hundred years. If both open at number one on their respective opening weekends, then you'd better start stocking up on canned food and toilet paper, because the nuclear bombs are about to start raining down on your head.
There Will Be Blood, but it's OK--I'm Going to Graceland
My friends and I watched There Will Be Blood tonight. I'm going to discuss the plot, so if you haven't seen it and don't want it ruined, skip down.
Actually, nothing I could tell you about the movie could ruin it. See, the entire concept of ruining a movie stems from the assumption that there's, well, a plot. Like, if you hadn't seen The Sixth Sense or The Empire Strikes Back and I told you that Bruce Willis was a ghost all along or that Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's father, then you could say that I ruined the movie for you. By telling you some of the crucial plot points in those films, I've robbed you of the opportunity to watch the plot unfold on your own. So if there's no plot, you can't ruin a movie. And There Will Be Blood came as close to having no plot at all as possible. I can sum the whole thing up in one sentence and still leave almost nothing out: A man goes from being bad to being monstrous, then he kills a priest with a bowling pin.
I suppose that the fun is supposed to be in watching the man devolve. But I wouldn't really call that "fun." I had the same problem with this as I did with Scarface: the main character is an unabashedly bad person for no particular reason. In the end, both characters end up seeming childish and stupid, which means that I neither sympathize or loathe them--I just wish I hadn't wasted my time on them.
In any event, the movie confirmed something I had suspected for a long time: I hate Paul Thomas Anderson. I've seen three of his movies: Magnolia, Boogie Nights, and There Will Be Blood. Boogie Nights was bad and stupid, not to mention ludicrous. Magnolia is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. I'm not exaggerating here. That movie was excruciating to watch. I mean, it fucking rained frogs. What the fuck is that? And now There Will Be Blood was an unentertaining exercise in nihilism that I'm not eager to relive. So, yeah, Paul Thomas Anderson sucks.
On a more cheerful note, I find myself unable to stop listening to "Graceland" by Paul Simon. This song is fucking amazing. I really like the melody and the lyrics: "But I've reason to believe we all will be received in Graceland." Awesome. Still, although Paul Simon apparently thinks this is the best song he's ever written, he's wrong. The best song he--or anyone else, for that matter--has ever written is "The Boxer." That song is just about perfect.
As some of you may or may not have noticed, I love curse words. Although I have lately attempted to cultivate the ability to curb my use of swearing in certain circumstances, I nonetheless talk like a sailor in normal circumstances. It should come as no surprise, then, that I find South Pasadena's attempt to ban cursing to be, well, fucktarded.
South Pasadena's City Council passed a proclamation making the first week in March "No Cussing Week." It's a largely symbolic gesture aimed at increasing civility and "elevat[ing] the level of discourse." Because there's no better way to elevate discourse than to reduce the number of words we can use. Right.
Ordinarily, I'd be up in arms about the blatant First Amendment issues--you can't outlaw certain words regardless of context. But I don't think the First Amendment applies since the council's proclamation seems to be the equivalent of a nonbinding resolution--it doesn't appear to have any legal effect. While that might serve to make it constitutionally cool, it only makes me angrier: doesn't the fucking City Council have better shit to worry about than voting on a piece of legislation that everyone's going to ignore and that no one's going to enforce? Why not just pass a law saying that elephants must use turn signals before changing lanes? And if the council doesn't have anything better to worry about, then why the fuck does it exist? Everyone on that body should be fired or recalled or whatever. Asshats.
But the thing that pisses me off the most about this story is that the whole No Cussing Week thing got started because of some self-righteous fourteen-year-old boy. Here's what McKay Hatch has to say:
I finally told my friends, 'I don't cuss.' And I said, 'If you want to hang out with me, you don't cuss.'
Well, someone certainly has a high opinion of himself.
Young Mr. Hatch, apparently not content with having regulated the behavior of people stupid enough to want to be friends with him, started a little club: the No Cussing Club. And that ridiculous idea grew, and now we've got this No Cussing Week thing.
If you don't want to curse, that's absolutely your right. If you don't want to associate with people who do curse, that's cool--you can pick your friends on whatever criteria you want. But that doesn't give you the right to impose your beliefs on other people, regardless of how well intentioned or young you might be. Perhaps I'm expecting too much of Mr. Hatch, but it seems to me that this should be fairly obvious.
So I guess I've only got one thing to say to this little fascist in training: Fuck you, you motherfucking assclown.
So, Hilary Clinton won the primaries in Texas, Ohio, and Rhode Island. Barack Obama won Vermont and is still ahead by about ninety delegates, according to CNN.
I did not see this coming and, frankly, it angers me. Not only have I never been as excited about a candidate as I am about Mr. Obama, but it's been my feeling in the past several weeks that many others feel the same way. And it's not just people who comment here, either. I've heard many commentators on TV compare Mr. Obama to JFK. And he definitely had the momentum--he had won eleven straight contests.
On the other hand, Ms. Clinton appeared--to me, at least--to be increasingly desperate, which lead to her being even more unappealing than usual. She went negative, attacking Mr. Obama's record more aggressively than she had before. And she also turned up the fear mongering, airing a ridiculous ad reminding us that our children will die if we don't elect her. She kept harping on and on about how she'll be ready on "Day One," which is some of the most infuriating rhetoric I've heard in a long time. I'd like to list more things, but I can't even remember them. But she's done several things in the past few weeks that have left me even more convinced than before that she's nothing more than a petty, power-hungry politician.
But the voters in Ohio and Texas seem to think she'd be a good president. Either that, or way more people do what Rush Limbaugh says than should be allowed. Although it looks like more Republicans than normal crossed over, it's not clear how much of an effect that had. And I don't even know if it's possible to do that in Ohio.
Still, the result is the same: the Democratic nomination is still in the air, and that pretty much sucks. While John McCain gets the benefit of the entire Republican machine and gets to take shots at Obama and Clinton--who are admittedly very similar as far as policy is concerned--the Democrats get to waste time and money fighting amongst themselves rather than getting anything done.
I'm not really sure why, but pretty much as soon as I started caring what I wore, I wore almost exclusively black. In high school, I had so many black Smashing Pumpkins t-shirts that I could--and often did--wear a different black SP shirt every day for two weeks without repeats. It was pretty awesome. Eventually, I expanded to include Marilyn Manson shirts, too. Black ones.
That whole "wear a lot of black" thing persisted through my early college years. My friend Morenononsense likes telling the story about the first time he saw me: I had a green mohawk and was wearing black from head to toe, including a t-shirt that said "Everything I ever needed to know I learned from porn." I just thought it was a funny shirt. And that reminds me--lots of people commented on my "I hate this town" shirt in high school. Man, that shirt was awesome. And so was Hot Topic. Fuck you.
In any event, I eventually lightened up on the all-black dress, but only a little. My first real suit was black. And I wore it with a black shirt and a black tie and a black vest. And black pants or--sometimes--a black floor-length skirt. With ridiculously impractical black boots. And then, of course, there's the black top hat, which is still the most awesome clothing accessory I own.
In the past few years, I've lightened up on the whole thing a lot more. I mean, you can hardly be both a respectable lawyer and a goth light. So I've expanded my color palette significantly. Most shockingly, I wear a lot of pastels. In fact, almost all of my dress shirts are pastel shades. And I wear purple with shocking regularity. And I think I look pretty spiffy in it.
Still, I prefer my black suits, be they plain or pin-stripped. Imagine how hard it was, then, for me to buy a gray suit this weekend. I mean, I have a black suit. And I refuse to buy a navy blue suit because I refuse to wear brown shoes. So what other options were there? None. So, when I tried on that gray suit--with just two buttons!--and my friends all insisted that I looked good, I didn't really have a choice.
So what's next? I really don't know. But I do know this: I'm not caving on the brown shoes.
It seems like lately everyone is lying about everything. First, there was the whole A Million Little Pieces thing. Then, there was Kaavya Viswanathan, the "prodigy" novelist and Harvard student whose novel was discovered to be riddled with blatantly plagiarized passages. Then Marilee Jones, Dean of Admissions at MIT, admitted that she had completely made up several degrees she listed on her resume. And, perhaps most damaging to Mr. Utah, it was revealed that Bear Grylls is a fraud.
And just today, these stories are on CNN's front page: Misha Defonseca, the author of a book called Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years has admitted that her book about how she survived the Holocaust after her Jewish parents were killed by living with wolves for years is a complete fabrication. I've never read the book, but given the plot outline, I would have thought it would be obvious that it was a lie. I mean, wolves? As it turns out, the author isn't even Jewish, but she claims that her crappy home life made her "feel Jewish." She also claims that the story in the book is a story she made up for herself so that she could deal with her situation. That's cool if you're a four-year-old. But now she's an adult, and writing a book that's completely made up and presenting it as the truth is bullshit. And the fact that she chose to present herself as a victim of the Holocaust is nothing short of absolutely and completely revolting.
Then, it turns out that celebrity chef Robert Irvine completely made up stories about having worked on Princess Diana's wedding cake and working as a White House chef.
And finally, Tim Goeglein, a fucking adviser to the fucking President of the United States of America, admitted that a column he wrote took several passages directly from another writer's previously published article.
This kind of shit makes me really angry. First of all, how fucking stupid must you be not to know that you're going to get caught? If, as in Ms. Defonseca's case, you want to make up some story about your past in order to make yourself seem more important or to gain unwarranted sympathy, I guess that's fine. But how can you write a ridiculous story, knowing that perhaps millions of people are going to read it, and not think "Gee, I wonder if anyone's ever going to look into whether this story about me being raised by wolves is true?" I mean, wolves for fucks sake! Or, if you're going to write a chick-lit book, don't you think you might want to lift material from something other than other fucking chick-lit books? That's like--I'm going to write a sci-fi book. Here's the plot outline: Lucas Sunstrider treks through the galaxy in his spaceship, Calmness, and, with his laser sword and rag-tag group of friends, including a giant ape, a woman in lots of leather, a wise and balding older gentleman, and a guy with a shoot-first-ask-questions-later attitude, must evade the evil Cyclons while trying to overthrow the Machine Empire and its leader--there would be a big reveal here--who is actually his father! It's totally sci-fi and, best of all, it's completely original! Or, well, no one would ever discover that it's totally not. Right? Right?
The degree to which people fail to understand that they're going to get caught has always baffled me. During my time on Law Review, I helped with cite-checking. For those of you not in the know, cite-checking is the ridiculous process by which law students go and look up every single source in an article to check for correct citation, accuracy, and lack of plagiarism. You go through that process as a 2L while simultaneously writing an article that you know will be subjected to that level of scrutiny. So how could someone write an article that consists entirely of unattributed word-for-word copies of paragraphs from the sources and not know they're going to get caught? I don't know. But someone did it. And I'm sure it happens with disturbing frequency at all levels of education. And that's sad.
And then there's lying on your resume. Again, I have no idea how you could think that you could lie about having a degree from a school you've never even visited or working on something as high profile as a royal wedding cake and not know that you're going to get caught. It's fucking infuriating.
I have no sympathy for these people. I want them stripped of their royalties, thrown off of TV, and blackballed in these professions forever. There are millions of aspiring authors, administrators, and chefs in the world who are working hard every day to achieve what these people have without needing to rely on theft and lies. The fact that the jackass I talked about here robbed the honest people of an opportunity is just infuriating.
that reminds me of a week or 2 ago when there were 3 people in jorts outside the local kfc picketing with poor homemade signs. it actually made me really hungry for kfc, except that dominique and i already had dinner plans. mmmmmm crispy strips.
These losers on the corner do this same protest on a set schedule and have for years. I'm not sure if it is every Monday or the first Tuesday of the month or what, but I've been ignoring them for years.
Reminds me of a loser I've seen in DC. If you go to the Whitehouse, there has been a lone protester camped out across the street for almost 30 years protesting nuclear weapons since the Reagan years. Yeah. Way to accomplish something with your life. At this point probably no one even knows why the person is there. Probably most assume they're a homeless person. Might as well be one now.
When I was an undergrad, this group of students organized a "box city" to raise awareness of homelessness. They all went out and got these big appliance boxes, filled them with sleeping bags, pillows, soda, candy, and CD players. And they spent the night having a big-ass slumber party on the lawn next to the Humanities Building.
Meanwhile, just a couple miles away, there were actual homeless people filing through the downtown homeless shelters, waiting for soup and a shower.
Now these kids could have gone and volunteered to make and serve soup, or to sort donations at the Salvation Army, or to do paperwork at the free clinic. But that would be hard, and no one would notice.
So they went with the much more entertaining option, one that allowed them to have a party with thousands of students looking on, admiring their humanitarian work.
...I'm consulting the stars in order interperet your dream...ah yes, the cosmic influence upon your subconscious are unravelling, becoming clearer...yes, a theme, constantly repeated throughout your existence...here it is, it's...it's...bad customer service. You should buy less stuff.
I love it! You play so beautifully and I really like the chord progression. The only thing I would do is add some harmony, but I'm a "harmony whore" lol
March 2008
