Wired.com has a short interview with Patton Oswalt, who voices the lead rat in the new Pixar film, Ratatouille. Oswalt, whom you may recognize from the TV sitcom The King of Queens, is a self-proclaimed geek who is proud of the fact that his midlife crisis consists of taking up Dungeons and Dragons instead of buying a sports car. I like how he differentiates between nerds and geeks:
A lot of nerds aren't aware they're nerds. A geek has thrown his hands up to the universe and gone, "I speak Klingon — who am I fooling? You win! I'm just gonna openly like what I like." Geeks tend to be a little happier with themselves.
Based on his definition of the term, I think I've finally reached the geek stage. During the past ten years, it seems like I've been constantly debating non-geeks and even fellow fanboys over the things that matter to me -- for example, you can search this blog for my entries on Battlestar Galactica and read the comment-war I had with a detractor of the original series -- and I've finally reached the point where I'm sick of feeling like I have to defend the stuff I love. I love the crap that I love. I admit it, and I'm not so worried about trying to justify it anymore.
Am I the only thirtysomething fanboy type in the country who couldn't care less about the new Transformers movie opening tomorrow next week? Seriously, I can hardly hear my own typing over the sound of all that saliva pouring into keyboards all across the blogosphere. Wired.com has published no less thanthreearticles and a photo gallery; Boing Boing has already posted a point-counterpoint review entry; and my good friend Steve is alternately doing the Snoopy dance over the concept of photo-realistic Autobots and fulminating against the fact that notorious crap-master Michael Bay directed the film.
Me, I just don't get the fuss. I watched the old cartoon show and found it entertaining enough, and I also think its way cool that Peter Cullen -- the voice actor who played heroic Optimus Prime on the old cartoon -- was asked to reprise the role for this new movie. But I never owned a Transformer toy, I never saw the 1986 animated Transformers movie, and the previews for this new version leave me absolutely cold. I guess I'm just a couple years too old for this particular pop-cultural touchstone to have affected me... and for some reason, that bothers me. I don't know why...
As the decade of the '80s progressed, TV action heroes began to evolve from detectives into characters we can call, for lack of a better word, "troubleshooters." These guys were less concerned with figuring out whodunnit mysteries than with helping the downtrodden find justice. Like the private dicks they descended from, these characters were mavericks and renegades who operated outside the law, occasionally working for shadowy organizations whose exact nature was never disclosed, but just as often functioning as "indepedent contractors." The good-hearted mercenaries who composed The A-Team are one example of these troubleshooter characters; the world's ultimate tinkerer MacGyver is another. But the ones I really grooved on -- naturally -- were the ones that threw some science-fiction hardware into the mix. Knight Rider is probably the best known of these. Personally, I much preferred heavily armed, supersonic-capable, computerized stealth helicopters to silly talking cars:
I hear this theme music in my head everytime I see a helicopter, especially if it's just in the process of powering up and lifting off. Of course, the fact that our local AirMed choppers are the same Bell 222 model used to protray the Airwolf probably has something to do with that...
Today's title sequence is actually a suggestion sent along by Chenopup; it's the opening from another of those early '80s detective shows we all loved so much, a Stephen J. Cannell series called Riptide. I've got to be honest, I don't remember this one very well. I know I watched it, and I seem to recall that the three leads had all served together in Vietnam (not that there's anything unique about that; all the early-80s TV detectives were 'Nam vets). I believe at least one of them lived on the boat that gave the show its name, too, but I'm not sure and the Wikipedia entry for the show is unclear on this point. In any event, it's an enjoyable title sequence and another good Mike Post/Pete Carpenter theme song (although it loses a couple of points in my book for sounding so much like the Simon & Simon theme):
So, all my blather a month ago about the early days of the Star Wars phenomenon put me in the mood to revisit a novel I've not read in probably, oh, 25 years or so: Splinter of the Mind's Eye by Alan Dean Foster.
Scalzi points the way this morning to what he calls "the coolest picture you'll see today", and I've got to agree: it's amazing. It's a shot that was taken back in 2003 by the Mars Global Surveyor space probe, in orbit around the Red Planet. Click here, then click the photo for maximum bigness. You'll see the half-phase Earth and moon at the top of the photo; scroll all the way to the bottom and you'll see Jupiter and three of its moons. That's the third and fifth planets of our system seen in the same frame, photographed from the fourth planet. And the photo has a high-enough resolution that both planets are easily identifiable, even by a non-astronomer type. With a little digital massaging, you can even tell which hemisphere of our world was turned toward the camera. Beautiful...
If you're interested in the technical details, go here. But whatever you do, have a look at the photo...
Man, the crap just keeps on coming today! Hope Cranky Robert is around, especially for this next item:
I myself seem to be immune to the allure of this particular device -- I can't help but think of how greasy and icky that nifty touch interface will get after you hold it up to your face to make a call on a really hot day -- but I know some people around my place of employment who are salivating like Pavlov's infamous pooch.
Interesting... just out of curiosity, I ran Simple Tricks through that blog rating thingie again. I'm a PG now. Apparently using the word "whore" bumps you up a notch on the offense-o-meter:
Sorry for the crass title, but that episode of South Park so perfectly encapsulated Paris Hilton's low character in that one vulgar phrase that I have a difficult time thinking of her in any other terms.
Anyhow, I've been trying to work up the dudgeon to comment on the media circus that accompanied her release from jail last night -- you'd have thought it was the biggest damn movie premiere in the history of moving pictures, the way EntertainmentExtraAccessTonight was so breathlessly talking about it -- but I just can't seem to summon the words I need to adequately convey my disgust with the media, with the SSW's stupid fanbase for idolizing this vacuous waste of protoplasm, and even with my own inability to leave this story alone while being fully aware that I'm giving the little twit exactly what she craves: attention. (oh, the hurtful prick of irony!) So I'll borrow someone else's observations instead, and let them stand in as reasonably close facsimiles of my own thoughts:
Phil Spector is on trial for murder but nobody notices. The newspapers have been filled with reports that Paris served more time than 80 percent of people accused of similar crimes. They fail to take into account that Paris was pulled over three times. That she was swerving. That she had a signed statement saying she knew she was not allowed to drive. That she failed to show up to mandatory classes. The judges have discretion in these cases for a reason. Paris had flagrantly flouted the law. Several days ago she called Barbara Walters at 2 in the morning, 11 at night West Coast time. Nobody seems to think that's strange. A call to Barbara Walters at 11 at night from a prison cell.
The jail holds 2,200 people. It is full to capacity. There are only eight medical beds. Paris has occupied one of them almost the entire time.
...we shudder and complain about the attention Paris Hilton gets but we talk about her just the same, sometimes in quiet and disparaging tones. We talk about her more than we talk about Iraq and often we talk about how we talk about Paris Hilton when we should be talking about the war in Iraq.
You don't just create compelling stories, you see them as clearly as a movie in your mind.
You have a knack for details and dialogue. You can really make a character come to life.
Chances are, you enjoy creating all types of stories. The joy is in the storytelling.
And nothing would please you more than millions of people seeing your story on the big screen!
Several people have asked me in the past few days how Shadow, the Bennion Family Dog, is doing with his cancer treatments. It sounds kind of stiff to say it like this, but I want to thank you all for your concern and interest. It really means a lot to me and my folks. The short answer is, he's doing surprisingly well.
So, I decided to participate in the latest meme thing that's sweeping the InterWebs, and I got back this rather surprising result:
A G rating? That's the kiss of death at the box office! I was hoping for at least a PG. Geez, it's not like Simple Tricks and Nonsense is the Pete's Dragon of the blogosphere... or is it? I'm so ashamed...
Just some things that have occurred to me in the past couple of days:
When you go shopping for pillows, they come in three categories, for those who sleep on the backs, those who sleep on their stomachs, and those who sleep on their sides. What are you supposed to buy if you tend to sleep somewhere in between two categories?
Why is Pat Benatar's most enduring song (based on how often I hear it on the radio compared with her other hits) "Love is a Battlefield"? If we're talking kick-ass songs about feminine empowerment in the face of male ass-hattery, I much prefer "Treat Me Right." If we're talking just plain kick-ass songs, then "Shadows of the Night" is my vote. And if it's that mushy, mid-80s, proto-new-agey vibe, then I'd rather hear -- god help me -- "We Belong." But "Love is a Battlefield"? Really?
Finally, why do Jedi dress like Tatooine moisture farmers? Or is it that Tatooine moisture farmers are a bunch of backwoods posers who dress like Jedi in hopes of seeming slightly more sophisticated? (The real-world answer, of course, is that Ben, Luke, and Owen all dress like the feudal Japanese characters in the Kurosawa movies that G. Lucas wanted to reference, and the look was retained in the prequels for the sake of continuity. But who's interested in talking about the real world?)
That is all. Discuss amongst yourselves and get back to me...
Driving home from The Girlfriend's tonight, I could see a pair of wildfires burning on the mountain ahead, the one which separates the Salt Lake Valley from Utah Valley to the south. It's a sight I've seen just about every summer for as long as I can remember -- hot weather combined with a careless cigarette butt or a dry lightning strike is a simple equation -- but it never loses its eerie, unworldly quality. That particular mountainside hasn't been developed yet, you see, so there are no street or house lights up there; it's effectively invisible at night, except when there's a fire. Then there's a glowing orange smudge that seems to float in the sky, or sometimes it backlights the hulking shape of the mountain itself. Geek that I am, I can't help but think of Lord of the Rings whenever I see this effect. All the image needs is a psychic vision of a flaming eyeball and a creepy, growling voice telling me that it sees me...
Of course, I was listening to "Every Breath You Take" tonight, so maybe that's close enough to the Voice of Sauron to count. That always seemed like such a nice romantic tune back in the Awesome '80s, before we all noticed the unnerving stalkerish overtones that linger underneath the catchy bass line like the stink of burning sagebrush...
I've been pretty dubious of the whole idea of doing a fourth Indy movie, but I've got to admit, this picture brought a smile to my lips and injected a little cheer into an otherwise crappy day. It's good to see you again, Dr. Jones...
Well, I just seem to be puttering away here today, don't I, posting up my little bits of nothing? Here's some more, courtesy of Lileks:
[Back to the Future], which I still think is a perfect little thing, was made in 1985. Marty was sent back to 1955. If they made the movie today, he’d go back to 1977.
Think about that. 1977 would look like today, minus computers. Same clothes, same Pink Floyd tunes on the classic rock station, same smear of gimcrack commercial architecture interspersed with stalwarts from the 20s. Color TV, Star Wars, angry Iran. Marty could order a Pepsi Free in 1977, and they’d think it was a sugarless brand they hadn’t gotten yet.
How's that for a scary thought? I, and I daresay most of the people reading this blog, are now the age of Marty McFly's parents in Back to the Future, a movie that came out when we were about Marty's age.
This actually parallels an equally scary thought I had the other day: in Back to the Future II, Marty travels 30 years ahead to what is, to him, the fairly distant future. That distant future was the year 2015... which is only eight years away from us now!
On the positive side, maybe this means that self-adjusting sneakers, hoverboards, Mr. Fusion, and the Cafe 80s aren't very far away. That would be nice...
The crew of the space shuttle Atlantis had better angle the deflector shields and charge up the main guns! Oh, wait... that's just the International Space Station, looking rather TIE fighter-ish with its newly symmetical shape following Atlantis's successful construction mission. Just another one of those photos that amuse me...
(For a comparison of how the ISS has changed during this mission, click here for a 2006 photo, then here for a current one.)
In light of all the talk today about the AFI's 100 Greatest Movies list, I thought this was an interesting counterpoint:
In 1995, to commemorate 100 years of film-making, the Vatican made a list of what it called "Some Important Films." The list was divided into three areas--Religion, Values and Art.
I'm not exactly what you'd call an "early adopter." I don't own an iPod or a TiVo, I've never seen the point of having a PDA when a good old notepad works just as well, I only upgrade my cellphone every four or five years, and I've wouldn't begin to know how to BitTorrent a movie. However, I'm thinking I need to get one of these new-fangled iPhone gadgets. It was the condiment-dispensing feature that sold me:
Cyberpunkreview.com has posted the specs on the upcoming limited edition DVD super-set release that I've been talking about for months, and they are impressive indeed:
So, I'm sitting here watching the AFI 100 Greatest Movies of All Time (10th Anniversary Edition) special, and I just saw a commercial for Blade Runner: The Final Cut, coming soon on DVD and (according to this commercial) to theaters this fall. Leaving aside my conviction that acknowledged classics shouldn't be revised or messed with (and also that Ridley Scott is horribly misguided in his efforts to convince us that Deckard is a replicant), it was pretty exciting to see this film being advertised again. However, something about the ad really grated on me: the obligatory slogan, "The One That Started It All."
I say "obligatory" because it seems these days that every single film that has inspired sequels or imitators uses it; for example, it popped up again recently when the original Shrek was aired on TV a few weeks back. I hate this slogan. It's hackneyed and virtually meaningless. What the hell is "it" anyway? "It" is never defined, and there are apparently lots of different "its" out there, since Shrek's "it" most likely is not Blade Runner's "it" (although it'd be interesting if it was -- imagine a dystopian future-noir fairy tale...). Really what "it" is, is lazy marketing. It's a simple, cliche'd fix for a copywriter who's staring down a deadline and doesn't have the slightest original thought in his head about the movie in question. As with all the other stuff that bugs me, this slogan will be forbidden when I become the Unquestioned Ruler of the Universe.
I swiped this image from Danger Room. Why? I dunno... I just thought it was funny. Consider it my contribution to that lolcat thing that's been sweeping the interwebs lately.
(If anyone would like to come up with a suitably bizarre and/or funny caption for this in order to make it a true lolcat, by all means, be my guest.)
The blog Indexed features curious little cartoons and musings sketched on index cards. Usually they illustrate the convergence of several apparently unrelated concepts that add up to some kind of common knowledge or meme. I have to admit that I find many of them utterly indecipherable -- or at least not terribly funny -- but today's entry (titled "Fantasy vs. Frustration") struck a chord:
Sometimes, it's really hard for me to wrap my head around the truth of just how old I'm getting to be. Maybe that's because I spend so much time writing about my younger days on this blog; keeping my memories stirred up all the time tricks me into feeling like the year 1987 isn't all that far away.
At least it doesn't seem very far away until I really start thinking about what was going on in 1987: Ronald Reagan was in the White House and Margaret Thatcher was living at Number 10 Downing Street; the Soviet Union still existed; the Berlin Wall divided east from west; Iran and Iraq were at war with each other; the names "Gary Hart," "Donna Rice," "Jim Bakker," and "Jessica Hahn" were all over the tabloids; The Simpsons were just short interstitial segments on The Tracy Ullman Show; the Fox Network had just started operation, and 21 Jump Street was its most popular show; and Richard Marx and Tiffany were two of the biggest musical acts in the land. Viewed in that light, 1987 suddenly seems pretty damn distant, doesn't it?
Here's one final salvo to really drive the point home: I've gotten word that my 20-year high school reunion is coming up this fall. It's going to be held at The Depot, a really nifty night club located in the old Union Pacific train station at The Gateway, on September 8th. There's a website with all the details here; it includes a feature where you can leave some info about what you've been up to for the past two decades (it's free, unlike that other reunion-type website you may have heard of).
I happen to know that a number of my fellow Bingham Miners read this blog, so if any of you are still in touch with any of our other classmates, spread the word, will you? And go let everybody know what you've been up to! (Besides reading my humble blog, of course...)
Last night, just before 11 PM, I walked out of my parents' back door and looked off to the northwest. It was a clear night, but living as close to a good-sized city as my parents and I do, I couldn't see many stars because of all the light pollution. Orion and the Big Dipper always stand out, and a handful of other constellations whose names I don't remember, but the sky over Salt Lake generally looks pretty empty, so I was dubious that I'd be able to see the International Space Station, as the TV weather guy had been breathlessly promising for several days. And really, I wasn't sure why I was bothering.
On Saturday, The Girlfriend and I attended a family reunion/celebration in honor of her maternal grandmother's 90th birthday. The following items are just some things that occured to me as I sat in a public park on a sweltering hot day:
This is a little after-the-fact, but I just got the news this morning:
My old school chum Keith Jensen and his wife Danielle have welcomed their second child into the world. It's another daughter, Cailee Brynne Jensen (nicely Celtic name there, guys), born May 22. The statistics are as follows, for those who are into that sort of thing (Anne, I'm thinking of you): 7 lbs., 6 oz., 20 inches long.
Mother and daughter are both fine. Congrats to the whole family, and I hope life in Jersey isn't getting you too down...
The article is actually about the Feds' efforts to stop cybercriminals who hijack home computers to use in their nefarious activities (such computers are called zombies by those in the tech biz), but damn, for a second there, I was having visions of Elliot Ness in a George Romero scenario, and wouldn't that be cool?
A couple of random factoids about my dog's cancer treatment that I found amusing and/or interesting:
In order to administer the chemo drugs, the vet, of course, needs to shave the injection site, which is located on the leg. The course of treatment will run long enough that the vet will need to use several different injection sites to avoid discomfort and/or problems for the dog, so all four legs will end up with shaved spots. Apparently, however, the fur won't grow back at those spots. I don't know if that's a side effect of the drugs or something to do with dog physiology or what, but, assuming he survives the cancer, Shadow will have permanent "battle scars."
I have asked my folks to try and convince the vet to line up the shaved bits. It will drive me crazy if my dog ends up with asymmetical bald patches.
The vet is obtaining the chemo drugs from the Huntsman Cancer Institute, one of the preeminent cancer research and treatment centers in the country, which is conveniently located at the University of Utah here in Salt Lake. Which means that the drugs used to treat dogs with cancer are the very same ones used on humans who have cancer; they just dial back the dosage to account for the differences in body size.
I don't know why that surprises me, but it does...
For anyone who cares, my dog Shadow had his first chemotherapy treatment this afternoon. According to my folks, he was a bit lethargic for a few hours afterwards, but otherwise has shown no sign of side effects from the drug. He's eaten normally and drunk lots of water and became quite active towards evening, just the way he always does on a hot day.
However, one thing to keep in mind is that his treatment consists of two separate drugs, and the one he received today was the milder of the two. He'll get the industrial-strength version on Saturday, so this weekend might be another story when it comes to side effects. But for now at least, my parents and I are all feeling much more optimistic about this process...
I mentioned Magnum, PI in the the previous entry and, as best I can recall, it aired on the same night as Simon & Simon (I think it was Thursday, Magnum first, then S&S... and yes, it frightens me that I remember that!), so why don't we have a look at the opening for Tom Selleck's best-known work?
I don't know about you, but that got my heart pounding. I think this opening, along with the one from Miami Vice, are probably the best title sequences of the '80s, brilliant pairings of exciting, memorable music with the perfect visuals.
Oddly, though, this was not Magnum's original opening. For roughly half of the first season, the show had completely different theme music, and a somewhat different montage of visuals beneath it. Have a look:
As I'm sure you can imagine with the news about my dog and all, I've been in kind of a funk the last few days. And where do I turn when I'm feeling down? Where else but to that wondrous opiate of the modern masses, television! Or, as Homer Simpson once called it, "Teacher, mother, secret lover." So, in that spirit, let's take a look at yet another TV title sequence that I've always thought was tres cool, or at the very least, entertaining:
We've had a lot of dogs around the Bennion Compound over the years. At one point during my childhood, there was a pack of five roaming our back yard. They've been German shepherds mostly, or German-shepherd mixes, as well as a couple of random mutts. All of them have possessed unique personalities, and my parents and I have loved them all while they were here and mourned them all when they died.
But none of them have generated the strong sense of attachment we collectively feel for the dog you see in that photo above. That's Shadow, the current canine member of the Bennion clan. He's a full-breed border collie, a breed that is reputed to be only slightly removed from wolves, genetically speaking, and among the very smartest of all dogs.
Oh, and if you can stand one more item on the 30th anniversary of Star Wars, I liked Javier's remarks:
at this point "star wars" is a living thing - a highly complex and still-developing universe that goes well beyond a series of films. it's also the guiding light for a great number of media professionals of my generation: while studying at usc film school, george lucas's alma mater, i used to say that there were two kinds of film school students in my age category, those who freely admitted that they were there because of george lucas's example, and damned liars.
...
if you're like me, and your feelings about uncle george are deeply mixed because of the quality of the prequels, or because of how many damned times you have had to buy the movies in multiple formats, or because of lucasfilm's extremely poor management of the original movies in their original forms, or the excessive merchandising, or because the "dark nest" trilogy of post NJO novels was kinda weak, or what have you...
...well, get over it and raise a glass [of] corellian noale - wherever you are.
some of the prequel trilogy haters have been heard to say "george lucas raped my childhood" but, i'll tell you what, george lucas gave me my childhood. my life changed the day i saw "star wars" and for that - for the moment when i saw what was possible on the screen and said "i want to do that" - i can only be eternally grateful.
Hey, kids, hope you haven't missed me too badly during my brief absence from the blogosphere. I've just returned from three days of visiting friends in Sin City. Report to follow, but in the meantime, I offer this visual commentary on the news I missed while I was driving across the Jundland Wastes, er, Nevada:
Well, rats: Connery won't be reprising his role as Indy's dad in Indiana Jones IV after all. Sir Sean issued the disappointing news in a classy statement, at least:
"I get asked the question so often, I thought it best to make an announcement. I thought long and hard about it and if anything could have pulled me out of retirement it would have been an Indiana Jones film. I love working with Steven and George, and it goes without saying that it is an honor to have Harrison as my son. But in the end, retirement is just too damned much fun. I, do however, have one bit of advice for Junior: Demand that the critters be digital, the cliffs be low, and for goodness sake keep that whip by your side at all times in case you need to escape from the stunt coordinator! This is a remarkable cast, and I can only say, 'Break a leg, everyone.' I'll see you on May 22, 2008, at the theater!"
I'm not troubled by the idea of Henry not appearing in this new Indy movie -- his character arc was pretty thoroughly finished by the end of Last Crusade -- but it now looks definite that the bleeding-from-the-eyes-awful League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is going to be the final title on Connery's filmography, and that, my friends, is an unbelievable tragedy.
The article I linked above also mentions that Cate Blanchett, Ray Winstone, and John Hurt are in the movie -- this is seconded on the official Lucasfilm Indy site here -- and that rumors that Karen Allen, Kate Capshaw, or both might be on board for a cameo remain unconfirmed one way or the other. (Personally, I'm rooting for at least a glimpse of Allen's Marion, the most logical "Indy girl" for our hero to have had a son with... assuming that Shia LaBouef is actually playing Henry Jones III, that is.)
In other Indy IV news, I've heard that John Rhys-Davies, a.k.a. Indy's favorite Egyptian digger and loyal sidekick Sallah, won't be coming back either, but depending on what Indy IV is actually about, his character might not fit into this particular story or setting, so I'm okay with his absence...
Two of my favorite stories in my younger days were Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth and Edgar Rice Burroughs' At the Earth's Core. (Notice I said stories, because, as it happened, I first knew these tales through their movieincarnations, and only came to the original novels later on, with a detour through the Classic Comics versions in between.) Both works stem from the premise that our planet is hollow, or at least contains vast subterranean open spaces, and that there is life, usually some weird mishmash of prehistoric beasts and highly advanced civilizations, in this interior realm.
It's actually a pretty common idea within a certain subset of fantasy-adventure pulp fiction. But just recently I've learned that there are apparently people out there who think it's more than just a good idea for a story. Some people really think the Hollow Earth theory is possible... and one guy aims to prove it:
So, a question occurred to me this morning as I was watching the news: when did the media stop calling people who are suspected of a crime "suspects" and start calling them "persons of interest"? Is it some kind of political correctness thing? Or maybe it's the result of some nervous nelly in the legal department who's afraid they might get sued if somebody feels insulted by being called a suspect? But isn't that what a person of interest is? Why else would they be "of interest" if they weren't suspected of being involved?
In another example of what's likely to become an ongoing feature here at Simple Tricks, allow me to gripe about yet another trivial thing that's been annoying me for some time and has finally built to critical mass: my local newspaper's use of the term "tot" to describe young children.
I don't know if anyone else is enjoying this TV Title Sequence thing I've been doing, but I am sure am having fun hunting down this stuff, some of which I haven't seen or thought about in years. Today's selection is from one of my Saturday-morning faves when I was a kid, a 1960s-vintage cartoon that continued running (I believe) well into the 1980s: Jonny Quest. If you don't recall the show, Jonny Quest was just about the perfect series ever created for ten-year-old boys (and a whole lot of girls!). It followed the adventures of the titular character, who is, not surprisingly, about ten or twelve years old, as he travels the world with his father, globally renowned scientist and inventor, Dr. Benton Quest. Along for the ride are Jonny's friend Hadji (who can be read through a modern lens as an unfortunate stereotype, but in simpler, less-uptight times would've been just a damn cool kid to have as a buddy, what with his snake-charming powers and such), the obligatory yappy-dog Bandit for comic relief (which, admittedly, was never terribly funny, even when I was ten), and Dr. Quest's assistant, driver, bodyguard, sidekick, and regular right-hand man, Race Bannon. (Modern-day po-mo ironists take note of the fact that there are no women in the series and speculate about the true nature of Race and Benton's relationship, if you get my meaning. I suppose it's possible they were lovers; I prefer to see them as brothers-in-arms who, in the words of Indiana Jones' sidekick Short Round, have "no time for love." The show is, after all, a ten-year-old boy's vision of the world, as yet uncorrupted by such grown-up things as sexual chemistry.)
The title sequence for the show plays as a montage of greatest hits from previous episodes:
Yeah, that's great stuff with the jazzy, brassy, jangly-guitary, mid-60s-style music and the whole Kennedy-era sense of derring-do and "science will conquer all" attitude. As you can see from the clip, Jonny Quest covered a lot of territory: fantasy (dinosaurs), horror (the mummy episode), high adventure (the jungle stuff), science fiction (the eyeball/spider robot -- which always gave me a major case of The Willies -- and the assorted ray-guns, lasers, and blasters), spy thriller, and just plain old two-fisted, rifle-shooting, manly-man action. I know there have been a couple of attempts to revive and update the show -- one particularly oddball version in the mid-90s featured Jonny entering a CG virtual reality in every episode, as I recall -- but none of them came close to the innocent, pulp-fiction fun of the original. This is one of the very few kiddie cartoons that I'd like to have on DVD...
Their world crumbled; the cities exploded. A whirlwind of looting; a firestorm of fear. Men began to feed on men. On the roads, it was a white-line nightmare. Only those mobile enough to scavenge, brutal enough to pillage would survive. The gangs took over the highways, ready to wage war for a tank of juice...
You know how I'm always complaining that things aren't turning out like the movies I liked when I was a kid? Maybe I ought to be more specific about which movies I'm talking about...
There were a couple of developments last week in the ongoing saga of Melvin Dummar, the Utah native who claims to have done a good deed for gazillionaire Howard Hughes back in the '60s and has spent the last four decades getting hosed because of it. Neither event was especially good news for poor old Mel.
Hm. This is curious... as John Scalzi reminds us, Saturday was the 40th anniversary of the U.S. release of The Beatles' album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
This was also the day when I decided to renounce Beatledom.
You just know there's got to be some kind of grand karmic consequences for something like that. It's like spitting in a church or something...
I realized something on Saturday afternoon as I was waxing my car and listening to the radio: "I Am the Walrus" is quite possibly the most aggravating song ever recorded. Yes, even more so than Britney Spears' "Toxic." The nonsensical, deliberately inscrutable lyrics, delivered by John Lennon in a voice that is simultaneously high-pitched, yet whiskey-raspy (two qualities which, combined, suggest to me the way Mickey Mouse might sound if he'd just smoked several bowls of particularly harsh ganja), and set to a plodding, mechanical beat... well, let's just say that the overall effect of the song is to set my teeth on a razor-thin edge.
In fact, when I'm really honest with myself, I have to admit that I really don't like The Beatles that much at all. Oh, I can't deny that they were historically significant, or that they influenced countless bands that followed, or that they did a handful of songs that only a completely joyless churl could criticize -- "Yesterday," "Norweigian Wood," and "Here Comes the Sun" are genuinely wonderful -- but, generally speaking, they just don't do much for me. I can't recall the last time I landed on one of their songs on the radio and happily stayed there without surfing on in search of something I preferred.
And as long as I'm revealing the depths of my philistinism, what the heck is the big deal about U2? Yeah, "Where the Streets Have No Name" is a great song, but why do so many people seem to think listening to this band is akin to communing with Buddha himself? I just don't get it...
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