Passive Agressive Blog

A Few Words on Favre

2008-03-04T08:56:00.004-06:00

I'm sitting in my cubicle and it seems like the world is mourning a world leader's assassination...except this one was expected. He was old and every ensuing year promised sixteen more bouts of enduring the torture on his body, mind and psyche. Most guys in his position left the game a long time ago, yet he persisted, not only for competition, but a love of his craft.

It seems a tad pathetic to stop work and ponder the loss of a man I've never met, a man who didn't provide me much more than entertainment and the pride that I was born in the same state that he played the game he loved. But if anyone best exemplified why we love the games we love, why whole chunks of the internet, 24- hour television channels and people's livesa re devoted to a game, it would be Brett Favre. In an age of mechanical perfection and tactical obessesion, where grown men cheat with drugs and videotape, he still was stumbling around, throwing off his back foot, or underhanded or in-between four guys like he never saw them (or simply, he didn't care).

And isn't that how sports are supposed to be? Sure, numbers are always fun to analyze, use to your advantage is argument and pur hours over. But the sheer illogical nature of it is what makes it so exhilarating. It's what makes you stand half-naked in a bikini in sub-zero temps, what makes you tape your son to a chair, and what makes you fight as though the mere concession of inadequacy is like losing your soul.

And now as I approach the autumn, looking through my television to watch Aaron Rodgers, a fully capable starter because he went to the Jeff Tedford school of mechanics and the Mike McCarthy grad school of reads and tactics, a little part of me will miss the scrambling maestro, even if he seemingly was punishing me for my loyalty by making the same mistake in 2007 that he did in 1997, and that he did in 1992.

At least he made it fun.

Fuck.

2008-02-17T16:09:00.002-06:00

As of last week, the problem about the 2008 Milwaukee Brewers is that the team is very unsettled in their pitching staff and outfield. No one knows what Mike Cameron is going to contribute after his amphetamines ban, how long Ryan Braun is going to take to accimate himself to left field (a position he's never played before) or how Tony Gwynn Jr. fits into their long-term plans.

Add to that how the rotation is going to respond with their most promising young arm coming off a knee injury:

Gallardo was expected to assume one of the top spots in the Brewers' starting rotation this season after going 9-5 with a 3.67 ERA in 20 outings (17) starts last year as a rookie. He was one of eight candidates for five spots in the rotation, so that number already has been reduced to seven before the first official workout Monday.

Suffice to say, a parity-laced NL Central race is a given, and with the expected 15-day DL trip for Ben Sheets to arrive come May or June, this is about as disastrous of a start. Now, our rotation looks like Sheets, Suppan, and a mix of either Charlie Villanueva, Dave Bush, Manny Parra or Chris Capuano. In case you're wondering how an injury can affect the team, weaker pitching = more middle relievers = more staring early into the season = more blown leads after July= Cubs/Cards able to scratch into the Central with a rested rotation.

Not a good February already.

How to Fix The Milwaukee Bucks in One Step

2008-02-11T21:05:00.003-06:00

The Milwaukee Bucks lost Monday night's game to Los Angeles--which wouldn't be a bad thing if it wasn't the Los Angeles Clippers, a team so bad, it's GM would be a better player than 83.3% of the horrible team he fielded. Ironically, if Elgin Baylor could be a role model for anyone, it'd be Bucks GM Larry Harris. For Baylor's two-decade run began when the likes of Isaiah Thomas was considered an all-world point guard, an not an all-world smiling, cap-murdering, woman-harrassing asshole.

Why is Baylor allowed to keep a franchise in perpetual impotence with little to no repercussion? Mainly, it has to do with his owner, Donald Sterling. Sterling seems to revel in the role of the NBA C. Montgomery Burns, a billionaire making cash hand-over-fist off of an incompetent franchise. And most writers who even bother commenting on the Clippers seem to keep their ire for Sterling, leaving Baylor relatively safe to Dwight Schrute the booze cruise known as the Clippers.

It's an important thing to remember when thinking about the Bucks. While we all want to blame Michael Redd for his valiant rebellion against giving shit on defense, it's not only his fault. Neither is it Coach Larry K., who gives up so many leads, you'd think he was Derrick Turnbow. And neither is it Harris' sole fault. Granted, he got the job because his dad is a mediocre head coach and an above-average assistant coach in the pros. Granted, he somehow managed to copy the Atlanta Hawk's strategy of swingmen/shooters, with no defenders or post players. And granted, Harris even resorted to bringing his lucky charms for a shot at Greg Oden or Kevin Durant last year, only to take a gamble on a player he never personally saw (partially because he was not allowed to come to workouts in Yi's hope that Milwaukee wouldn't take him. It's still not his fault.
It's Herb Kohl's.

Herb Kohl needs to sell the Milwaukee Bucks. The cosmetic thing would be to trade Redd because he's a ball hog and doesn't seem to want to return from injuries. However, would you trust Harris in any trade, considering after he's finished, we're usually missing a draft pick. So you might say "Fire Harris," but Kohl's rumored replacements for Harris are Rick Sund and Doug Collins. In case you're keeping score, that's the former GM of the Sonics who ran his team into the ground and a mediocre coach who's been fired (and replaced by a better coach) every single time.

Kohl has been looking for a buyer, but he stipulated that the team must stay in Milwaukee. Which is admirable, but not preferable to most potential owners who see little growth in revenue in a city like Milwaukee and an arena like the Bradley Center. Then again, the ultimate fear in selling to a non-local buyer (like the Michael Jordan-led group of investors a couple years back) is that they'd up an move the franchise instantly. But where? Las Vegas is out of the question after last year's All-Star debacle. Oklahoma City is waiting for the Sonics. And Seattle would have to acquiesce to an owner's demand for a new arena--something which they wouldn't do (prompting the potential Sonics move in the first place). And most cities cannot support an NBA franchise in a league hard-up on fan attendence--the best example of this being a jauggernaut New Orleans Hornets team which will kill the Bucks tonight while still unable to sell out their own home.

WSJ columnist Tom Oates (in his usual I-don't watch-the-team-but-I'll-still-make-asanine-proclamations style) suggested the failure lies on the players, and that Harris has built a playoff team otherwise. What a lazy way to look at the situation: Get rid of Redd's selfishness, William's albatross contract and Charlie Bell's pouting and surround Bogut/Yi with sharing "team players" who would actually be willing to guard the perimeter on every possession. However, Oates didn't address two glaring problems:

A) Why should we trust Harris to make such a trade given his disgusting track record in trades (Magloire-for-Mason+1st rounder, Villanueva-for-Ford, 2nd rounder-for-Markota)? He signed Williams for more than $20 MILLION THAN THE NEAREST COMPETITOR! Which GM wants to take on $9-10 million for the next FIVE years on Williams when they could get a better guard for less years or less money easily? Even Isaiah Thomas isn't that dumb.

2) Why would Bogut or Yi stick around in a city they have no affection for and with a re-building franchise with no sense of direction? Bogut has two years left and there's no indication that this team will be a contender by the time 2010 rolls around. Yi actively campaigned NOT to be here and although he's going to stick by his contract, he could easily use Milwaukee as a training ground for his leap into larger market franchise **cough**Kareem**cough**

Herb Kohl needs to be stopped. At the very least, someone needs to remind him that Larry Brown (you know, a coach who actually coaches defense and wins) is available or that Doug Collins and Rick Sund offer nothing more than sad track records and no strategy aside from their name recognition. Until then, we should accept the fact that the Bucks are the fourth-best team in Wisconsin, right behind the Badgers, Golden Eagles and the Spartans of Madison Memorial High.

Further proof that Jesus hates you or at least has very little regard for your well-being

2006-11-01T18:58:00.000-06:00

Pictured: Nicolas Cage defiling over 200 years of democracy, the 2nd worst act in the Declaration of Independence's history after Sen. Strom Thurmmond ejaculated over the "3/5's of a man" clause in 1964 as an act of protest over newly signed civil rights legislation.

Although this doesn't come as a surprise, we have some more half-asses Indiana Jonesin' coming straight at ya':

"Producer Jerry Bruckheimer tells MTV that the highly-anticipated sequel to National Treasure is getting underway.

"I met with Nic yesterday, and it's getting very close," he said. "We're going to start filming in January."

Discussing the National Treasure 2 script, Bruckheimer revealed: "It's another little treasure hunt, and this time it involves [Abe] Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth and 18 pages which are actually missing from [Booth's] diary."

Teasing the plot further, Bruckheimer posed the central question of the sequel. "What was in those 18 pages?" he asked.

I don't know what's in thoese 18 pages, but guessing that the terms "Jerry" and "Bruckheimer" are involved, my best guess is:

April 15, 1865

I have done it. I have killed the President. Historians will undoubtedly paint me as a murderous assassin in pursuit of Southern succession. But little do they know that the President was, in reality, a cyborg from the future sent to secure my treasure--the treasure I personally traveled back in time to liberate from Francisco Pizzaro and Genghis Khan! Was it the cyborg who lured away the velociraptors from the treasure cave? Was it the cyborg who lost his beautiful wife to Pizzaro and Khan's ninja henchmen? Was it the cyborg who kept Caliph of Persia and Keiser Wilhelm from length with only a pen knife? It was I! And I will stop at nothing to make sure my beloved Confederate treasure will never be found by that wretched slave-freeing cyborg.

If I cannot elude the authorities, I shall dispose of these 18 pages. Hopefully, a good son of the South shall re-discover them and find my cursed treasure. If not, may the cyborg's descendants never find my well-earned Spanish-Mongolian gold. Otherwise, he might use it to fund his lord and master Pope Megamus III.

Like I said, just a guess.

Running with Scissors

2006-10-29T21:06:00.000-06:00

One of my recurring relationship problems with my family stems from where they come from. My mother is a displaced Vietnamese refugee, while my black father grew up in a depression-era rural Alabama. Which is to say that my woes would never measure up to theirs. Imagine trying to convince your parents the difficulties of being the only child in the state of Minnesota without the Charlotte Hornets starter jacket in 1993, only to hear her rebut with the time the Viet Cong took her family's lands.

That is how I imagine a friendship with Augusten Burroughs must be. Imagine you're slurring through the time you spilled a Surge on your pants at the 7th grade dance in front of the hottest girl of the school. Meanwhile, he counters with the time he fellated his crack-addicted, schizophrenic boyfriend when he was your age.

He wins every time.

And it must stick in your craw how he always wins the "best story" pissing contest all friends engage in. But then you remember the delusional mother, the alcoholic father and the bowel-obsessed caretaker psychologist him mother signed him too--and you begin appreciating your humiliations because they were contained by the semblance of discretion while his exploded all over his life like a Jackson Pollock painting.

Running with Scissors the film based off of Burrough's memoir does its best trying to make sense of the squiggles and explosions that are Burrough's cracked childhood. Played by the doe-eyed Joseph Cross, whose innocent countenance just screams perpetual victim, the writer takes us from his self-absorbed poet mother (Annette Bening) to his gin-soaked father (Alec Baldwin) whose only words for his son are ones in disbelief that they share the same DNA strain. Burroughs' mother leaves him to the care of Dr. Finch (Brian Cox) and his family who engross the Encyclopedia Britannica of dysfunction (Gwyneth Paltrow, Jill Clayburgh and Evan Rachel Wood). Along the way, his sexuality is guided by one of Dr. Finch's patient's (Joseph Fiennes) who comforts the teenager by bedding him.

A film like Running with Scissors looks great on paper: A stellar cast, a built-in audience and a narrative which comes off like a Charles Dickens' hard-luck tale set to flamboyantly gay disco tunes. And while there were award-worthy performances from the likes Bening, Cross and Clayburgh, it doesn't completely make the grade. Director Ryan Murphy should have plenty of experience dealing with the grotesque depths a human being is willing to go to in order to see their life as anything but shit. After all, he created "Nip/Tuck." But as Murphy is setting each character against each other, he forgets to connect the freak show to the audience.

Unless you were a reader of the book and can appreciate the heart-wrenching nuances of Burrough's search for worth in his adolescence, it seems like one giant pity party for the kid. In other words, the best memoir can make a person look at the protagonist and see themselves in the writer--a feeling that yes, I completely understand what this person is going through. But instead of connecting the audience to Augusten's plea for normalcy and family, he puts glass walls around him like a museum display. When you think you can sympathize with his burgeoning homosexuality, you realize you can never connect with his acceptance as a pedophile's plaything. When you see his need for a responsible mother, you see him encourage her Quixotic quest for fame. Each instance of near-connect with Augusten (and in turn, the rest of our players) brings with it another wall to segregate ourselves from the running zoo that is his life.

Running with Scissors is still better than most of what you'll find in the ticket line. And this film will give you quality perfomances and the most interesting true story you could find which didn't involve prison time or death (at least, not until later on in his life). But the one thing the film can't give you is a sense of empathy--and that's a tough hurdle to overcome on the way to true movie greatness.

Does the world need more "Saw"?

2006-10-27T06:39:00.000-05:00

Before they're allowed into the hallowed fraternity of entertainment reporting, a writer on the Hollywood beat is required to complete two tasks:

1) Combine a Hollywood couple's name for readers who cannot process enough information to use two names. In other words, "Bennifer" or "Bradgelina" are for the same people who write "LoL! WhaTevS. WaNNA meET @ tHA W-MarT?" on their friends' MySpace wall (which is hard to read anyway, since their friend's wall usually has some sort of wallpaper which obscures half of the letters and resembles something Lisa Frank used to design for Trapper Keepers of the early 90's)

2) Write why Hollywood isn't churning out the $150 million dollar film like they used to.

Most people contend it's because the public has enough patience for the movies when they come out on DVD and OnDemand three months later. I used to contend that audiences are simply smarter than they used to be and aren't as interested in seeing the same slasher films over and over again.

Then again, Saw III is coming out. And we wouldn't be subjected to this if Saw I and II weren't monstrous hits. And while you and I have dreamt of seeing a "7th Heaven" cast member meet their demise via sarin gas:

that doesn't make a good film. But sadly, in a weekend where a poignant memoir (Running with Scissors), a Terry Gilliam film (Tideland), a bonafide Oscar contender from a can't miss director (Babel), and three poignant political films (Shut Up and Sing, Death of the President and Catch a Fire) premiere, a wooden clown doll who encourages people to amputate their limbs will assuredly beat them.

I'm Back

2006-10-25T22:13:00.000-05:00

Yeah, so I've been dragging my feet on this whole "pursue writing as a career" thing. Part of it is pure laziness. The other part is that I've been dealing with anxiety issues for the past couple of..um, decades. Writing used to be the theraputic escape for my studies, and once it because my sole focus, it bcame the thing I've been trying to escape.

But, I'm back (at least until I freak out on my responsibilities again). What's more, I'm going to sharpen the focus on this blog to film,

sports,

and when the two merge and create a monstrosity more disgusting than the Island of Dr. Moreau:

So beginning tomorrow, I'll post every day. Whether it's a diatribe about how an actor or actress is not at their job or why your favorite athlete's sex crime is much more morally reprehensible than my favorite athlete's sex crime, I'll be here...

...or at least until I break down again.

At this rate, I'll be dead the next time this blog is updated

2006-06-28T21:56:00.000-05:00

OK, OK. I admit it's been awhile since I've updated this damn thing. I'll just go over a few highlights since April:

-Went to Buffalo, NY and visited my sister and the family for the first time in 1.5 years. Learned how to drive stick and speak Canadian (i.e. if you scream hockey + Tim Horton's = crazy delicious") they give you a free Loverboy t-shirt.

-Did a few tours of Minnesota, Milwaukee and Chicago. Each trip came with a complimentary helping of guilt from friends/family on why I've been so aloof.

-Saw the Da Vinci Code (see Anthony Lane's review), Poseidon, The Break-Up, Nacho Libre, A Prairie Home Companion and Click for Film Monthly. With the exception of APHC, this summer in film has been so agonizing, if you had Lance Armstrong sit through these films in a row, he would have quit midway through citing exhaustion and depression.

-Joined a health club. Spent my first five minutes overhearing a conversation between two instructors comparing their hernia surgery stories.

-Working the shit bank job. Although I did overhear a conversation as I was walking to lunch where and one guy turns to the other and says, "...So then he told me that if he wasn't dating my daughter that he'd punch the shit out of my ex-wife. To which I said, 'Punch the bitch! I don't care!'"

In all, I've been suffering a bit of a brain drain over the past few months. Don't get me wrong, I'm about as content as a person could be: ideal girlfriend, great friends, moving forward on the career, etc. But it's been one year since I've moved from Minnesota and I feel like I've lost something. Maybe it's creativity or the will to write continuously, but I just don't feel as funny as I used to be.

It's like those Miller commercials where guys are throwing away their beer bongs and ratty t-shirts for marriages, Home Depot lines of credit and an MGD to share with some friends as you discuss the new hot chick in Accounts Payable before your 8-month pregnant wife makes you come into the house to pick out Baby Einstein DVD's and their immediate child psychologist once they pop out of the womb. Miller sees this as growing up and maturing; I see it as gentrifying myself in comfort.

But hey, at least I'm not Donald Thompson. Or maybe...

About fucking time...

2006-05-08T21:59:00.000-05:00

Caption: Sen. Russ Feingold (left) showing his Senate colleagues how big his wang is

I know he's been saying the same thing about his party for about five years, but hopefully they'll listen this time. I hate getting too political on a blog without the proper research to back up what I say or believe, but I will say this--if there's one thing Pres. George W. Bush has taught us it's that people don't care what the hell comes out of your mouth as long as you're confident enough to say it. You can suffer the slings and arrows of unpopular appointments (way to go Brownie), rejected court nominees and declining ratings among even the most steadfast of your constituents, and yet when you're asked of your proudest moment as President and you say:

" The best moment was -- you know, I've had a lot of great moments. I don't know, it's hard to characterize the great moments. They've all been busy moments, by the way. I would say the best moment was when I caught a seven-and-a-half pound large mouth bass on my lake. (Laughter.) " (Washington Post, May 8th)

...yet no one calls for your resignation, you know you're safe until you're allowed to go on perpetual vacation in 2008.

That's one thing I wished more people in my political party would grasp. That issues have little to do with politics, while personality has everything. That, and not playing into Elizabeth Dole's hands...ooh, that crafty Elizabeth Dole

(And by the way, I changed the comments section so everyone can comment now. Sorry. I thought I changed it when I started the damn thing)

But where will I get my Bow Wow Fix?

2006-05-04T11:54:00.000-05:00

http://www.clubbowwow.com/

I've never had the heart to rip on the guy because even rap needs a Leif Garrett figure for the kids. That and he's far less annoying than Nick Cannon or Lil' Romeo who seems like the mouthy rich kids whose dad accumulated his wealth from owning a gigantic used-car lot.

In case any of you live in Madison and are looking for a sporting outing, Evan, Joe, Paul and hopefully some others are going to the Echo Tap for cheap beer and french fries. Tomorrow, I'll do a pre-emptive strike for Mission Impossible:III...in case anyone actually read this thing and was curious.

????

2006-05-01T19:32:00.000-05:00

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2428605

Here's my favorite part of the story:

"The passenger in the truck, who wasn't charged, allegedly got out and started to bang on the hood of Taylor's trunk. The 6-foot-6, 255-pound Taylor then got out of his car and was confronted by the 5-foot-11, 168-pound Burns, who was allegedly yelling racial insults and threatening to kill Taylor, according to a police report."

This is the best proof of how funny racism can be (outside of "Chappelle's Show"). Now we've all have made poor judgements of people based on what they look like or where they're from, but like anything else, there are varying levels of action. There's clutch-my-purse-in-the-elevator racism. There's I-want-to-move-away-from-the turbaned-gentleman-in-the-airplane racism. There's also [Asians]-can-turn-a-television-into-a-watch racism (http://my.execpc.com/~dross/aw/regwhite.html)

But special is the type of bigotry which believes you can hold your own with man who:

A) has 100 pounds of muscle and seven inches on you, and
B) is paid truckloads of cash to violently knock people to the ground.

I'd pay good money to hang with Mr. Redmond Charles Burns, just to inquire what the fuck he was thinking about when he confronted the recognizably larger Taylor. Did he just finish watching Hoosiers or Rocky? Was he listening to the Rudy soundtrack? Did he flashback to the last book he read, "The Little Engine that Could," and say to himself, "I think I can. I think I can. I think I can...knock this large nigger down with a metal pipe."

RV Pre-Emptive Strike

2006-04-28T11:19:00.000-05:00

Why is Robin Williams allowed to do this? Is there an invisible debt that we owe him? Did he secretly solve the cure for cancer or invent a faster hybrid car? Why God, why would Hollywood make RV? Well, the answer is simple: Because you touch yourself at night. So until you cease masturbating, I guess we'll have to continue humoring this humorless humorist.

In case you had any doubt how I felt about the film, I think RV will be a shit movie. You could tell before the trailer came out. In fact, I'm positive Williams received the script covered in feces with a check for $10 million dollars stuck to it. Not to say Williams is a brilliant actor, but this falls way, way, way below his standards--somwhere in between Tim Allen and the vacant spot reserved for Jim Carrey and Ben Stiller when they turn 50.

Sadly, this is a film that's indicitive of Williams' generation of comedic actors: taking the easy cash to justify the artsy flick they come out with every three years. Williams looks at himself in the mirror and goes, "I've done the 'Insomnia' thing at 10% of my usual salary. Now it's time to get attached to the front of a house-on-wheels and hurl myself through the air for the straight cash." One Hour Photo one year. Death to Smoochy the next.

Old comedic actors with some need for respectability tend to dip into shit projects to get the parts they've been dying to play. Williams' RV co-star Jeff Daniels has just come off his best year as an actor after the performance of a lifetime in Squid and the Whale and a respectable turn in Good Night, and Good Luck. Randy Quaid did Brokeback Mountain and is playing King Carlos the IV(?!?!) opposite Stellan Skaarsgard, Natalie Portman and Javier Bardem. Two years ago, he was doing a follow-up to his "National Lampoons" character cousin Eddie. Steve Martin's war on taste included Pink Panther and Cheaper by the Dozen 2 in the same year his underrated (albeit self-congratulatory) Shopgirl premiered. And so the cycle continues, fans are subjected to seeing somewhat-capable actors offer us shit in hopes we don't hold it against them until their next arthouse fare comes out. And who's responsible for this ugly trend? Some might say an unjust God, but I can only point it at one man:

It's tough to be angry at Bill Murray, isn't it? No one since Peter Sellers has been able to sustain his comedic and dramatic genius through the ebbs and flows of the business like the slump-shouldered gentleman from Chicago, Illinois. Broken Flowers, Ruchmore, Life Acquatic, Lost in Translation--they are all independant shades of the same gray Murray paints his characters. Perpetual mid-life crises, drinking problems galore, and a justification of inflicting pain with such glorious narcissism. But Bill has also done Garfield. He's also been in Charlie's Angels. He also provided a one-two punch of Larger than Life and The Man Who Knew Too Little back in 1996-7.

Granted, not every one hits a homerun. But he sandwiched the films in between Kingpin and Rushmore, which shows he was well-aware that what he was doing was for the money. He was luring us to a chamber of bad slapstick for compensation. It's kind of like the plot for Hostel, except Hostel is not like Larger than Life which is banned in 37 of 50 states since it co-stars Janeane Garofalo.

I doubt it'll ever change. But until then, I hope Williams (for the sake of his comedic bretheren) goes down hard on this one...at least enough to stave off RV 2: Tibetan Adventure.

Feel like Minnesota, Look like North Dakota, Perveted like West Virginia

2006-04-26T15:03:00.000-05:00

I just wrote an American Dreamz review on Monday. Check out the link on the side if you want to read it.

I've been trying to catch up on sleep before I go home to Minnesota. This weekend took a lot out of me, as evidenced by the injuries I accumulated in a 72-hour period:

- One finger-length burn across the back of my calf after I tried to step out of the shower and walked into the back of the heater in my cramped bathroom. In case you haven't been inside my place, it's roughly the size of a telephone booth, which is makes you realize God's sense of humor when you and your roommate combine for around 500 pounds.

- Two scrapes on my arm and knee and elbow which I couldn't identify, but I believe they occurred when I was stumbling around Gregg and Brian's pad Saturday night.

-One immovable pointer finger after I wrenched it while trying to hold on to a bottle of maple syrup Ben Schultz gave me. After the aprty I walked from Blair to Monday's and proceeded to get into a shouting match with a guy in line over whether or not I should destroy my bottle. I was adamantly against chucking away prized Wisconsin maple syrup and he was adamantly for jabbing me with his finger as he slurred, "Jshuuu should ged rid of tha' shit maaaaaan. Itzzz (gasp) from Wiscaaaansin, maaaaan."Suffice to say, i kept the syrup, but in a hasty maneuver, I bent my index backward wile trying to shield myself from my canary-shirted berater.

I'll talk more about Minnesota tomorrow or Friday. For now, I just want to sleep.

American Dreamz Pre-Emptive Strive

2006-04-21T13:35:00.000-05:00

(Every Friday, I will give first impressions, spoilers and pre-emptive analysis on a movie opening this weekend. Let's see how this works)

American Dreamz (Dir. Paul Wietz, Starring Hugh Grant, Dennis Quaid and Mandy Moore): In the genre of comedic satire, there's satire and then there's "SATIRE!!!!SATIRE!!!!SATIRE!!!!" with big neon lights and midget in a cowboy hat screaming from a bullhorn. Bulworth is the former. American Dreamz is the latter. Both can be quite effective--and in today's society where being subtle is a lost artform, Weitz's movie could be more effective as a means to connect to the masses.

A film which puts together suicide bombers, clueless politicians and fame whores, Dreamz is meant to poke fun at the dumbing down of a country which cares more for Jessica Simpson's new romance than the curbing of civil liberties. Upon seeing the trailer and ads, my issue with the movie is not in its delivery, but more in its philosphy.

When you want to make some sort of social commentary, there are inevitable questions about solutions. For instance, if you want to say "Wow, America is a land full of overweight C-students," then you have to be willing to have some sort of viable solution to make this country smarter. Weitz's most recent film, In Good Company was undeniable proof that Weitz's excellent adaptation About a Boy was a direct result of Nick Hornby's essential novel and not his personal touches to the movie.

The film was so self-important in its commentary on corporate culture (hence droves of accoustic indie fare), that I wouldn't have been surprised if Weitz walked out from behind the camera and blew himself while patting himself on the back. seriously, Weitz made more sense when he did (with his brother) American Pie. The brothers' take on the absurdities of teenage sexual conquest revitalized the teen comedic genre with a soft wit. It might be folly to say Topher Grace jogging down the California coast line has less weight than Jason Biggs fornicating with a pasty. But AP had a discernible message behind the semen jokes and tit shots--that the journey was more important than the destination. Good Company came to the conclusion that corporations suck. How deep.

So my sincere hope for American Dreamz is that Weitz doesn't focus on only one side of the problem-solution concept. Because making a smart, biting question about American is ballsy. Proposing a solution is ballsier.

In Honor of the Fraternity...

2006-04-20T15:39:00.000-05:00

http://www.wispolitics.com/index.iml?Article=59626

Yup, he's a brother of mine! But then again, so is he:

http://www.madison.com/archives/read.php?ref=/tct/2006/04/11/1539358.php

Oddly enough, they are from the same era of the Lodge. That might come as shock to some, but in my experience, the fraternity was the open-minded, diverse group I've associated myself with. This includes Church, high school, various multicultural groups, the Democratic party and the Cardinal. And honestly, I jumped through more hoops to be accepted in those groups than the Lodge. It might not be the norm across the Greek system, but I wasn't hazed, I wasn't forced to drink (in fact, I was encouraged to abstain for stretches) and I was treated as a general equal. Funny how that shit works sometimes.

Of Smog and Smug

2006-04-15T14:11:00.000-05:00

I received the new Vanity Fair in the mail today. It seems that the magazine decided to cock thrust its liberalism at the right's cock thrust towards the global warming debate. "A Threat Graver than Terrorism"? "A New American Revolution?" From the cover, I'm guessing that the left's answer to the threat by making Julia Roberts look like a green bean.

Personally, I do believe there are greater threats than Al Qaeda hating my personal freedom to do sacreligious or frivolous things-- like reading Vanity Fair. For instance, the majority's attempts at curtailing civil liberties of homosexuals and immigrants currently supercedes Bin Laden in my "Fears List 2006." Educational gaps between the wealthy and the impoverished, the looming threat of the Russo-Chinese alliance on the economic stage, the decline of American popular culture and the exit strategy of a common citizen when confronted with battling snakes on a plane round out my top five. It's just that the enviroment ranks a distant 14th in my current worries, right behind Iran's nuclear capabilities and right in front of my girlfriend leaving me for Larry the Cable Guy.

It's not that I hate the environment. I've contributed to the PIRG's and signed petitions for stricter water pollution regulations in Minnesota and Wisconsin. It's just that I have other priorities in my life: relationships, career goals, debt responsibilities. So when my political energy goes into something political, I'd rather focus on the breathing things before the non-breathing things or the soon-to-be-breathing things. And most people on either side of the ideological fence seem to focus on the latter two issues. Generally, abortion and the environment are topics reserved for people who don't need to worry about their finances. Look at the debaters. Pro-choice and pro-lifers are never cooks or plumbers. They're lawyers or housewives/husbands who don't have mortgages or family drama, and if they do, they tend to ignore them for the rights of unborn fetuses or California condors.

In other words, it's no coincidence that the Kennedys and Gores make the cover of VF as leaders of the green movement. They come from families where they can afford to be concerned about the environment. Honestly, do you think the previous generations of Kennedys gave a flying fuck about the environment? Shit, one of them used his car to hit a lake!

But I will say this about these moneyed elites--at least they're doing something aside from posing for skinmags (Hilton) or hiring Dick Cheney (Bush). Ideals and solidarity are all good and nice, but if a political movement really wants to move, then money and big names need to be involved. Sad as it is, more people are going to buy electric cars if Jack Dawson from Titanic has one. I just wished next month's VF would have an all-immigrants issue (with Hollywood and political elites) to make a statement about an issue the general populace acutally cares about.

Reason # 14,386 on why I'm going to hell

2006-04-13T16:11:00.000-05:00

The picture above does not deceive your eyes. In Spain, Catholic towns will hold huge festivals, where the penitent (the vaguely KKK-ish hooded ones) and the pious celebrate the fact that we worship the greatest magician ever, Jesus Christ. Seriously, you look at what Jesus' miracles were and it reads like a Vegas act:

1) Gasp as I turn this water into (drumroll)...WINE!

2) I will now CURE this leper from his disease! Just don't touch him until I'm 30 miles to the next town.

3) And for my greatest trick, I will now get nailed to a cross, allow myself to be mummified and buried for three days behind this immovable stone and will RISE. FROM. THE. DEAD. Thank you, thank you.

It's a shame that the Catholic Church is run by closet masochists, otherwise I'd enjoy the spirit more this week. Don't get me wrong, I fully believe in the teachings of the bearded one (not named Chuck Norris) and hope to get within his good graces by living my life well. However, Holy Week--which runds from Holy Wednesday to Easter Sunday--is a series of marathon masses, each 3-4 hours in length and usually full of bombastic repetition which brings me closer to my chiropractor than the Man Upstairs.

A year ago, I was still in Minnesota. And since I lived within swinging distance of my mother's right hook, I was enlisted in "celebrating" this week. Like most Catholic school survivors, I can usually stomach mass because I've been through the rigors so many times that I can time the thing with my eyes closed. But Holy Week is the sweeps week of Catholicism, one where the priest is a little bit more authoritative in tone and the parishoners are even more afraid of their ever-present list of trespasses. The wails for forgiveness are tinnier and the songs becomes marathon sessions where the five piece ensemble transform into a jam band: 26 minutes of song with no discernible beginning or end. In other words, it's pure fucking hell.

Which is why yesterday was particularly fun. I woke up sick, but instead of hemming and hawing my way through clogged nostrils in order to finagle the day off, I called up Brian and left a message. I slept in, but when I woke up the sun was beating through my window like I stole its girlfriend. Which left me no choice but to sit on the Union Terrace and drink beer with a bunch of Lodgers and Jason (Jess' brother). I then went to eat one of the best burgers I've had in a long, long time and on my way to the diner, I thought to myself : You know, this kind of beats Church. Thanks God." And somehow, I felt more religious on a car ride ditching The Lord than I ever did during the 12 hours I logged in at St. John Neumann in April 2005.

While I'm still up on my soapbox...

2006-04-11T11:40:00.001-05:00

Jessica Jones and her fantastic food blog is now linked to mine. In case you hadn't read her stuff in coreweekly or the Daily Cardinal, she's the best food writer in Madison (aside from Rafael--but he has 25 years on her). And I thought she was the best before we began dating, so don't think I was whipped into saying that (although I'm whipped into doing other things).

Chances are, hers will be better attended than mine anyways, because some don't like music and some don't like sports, but everyone loves food. And those who don't end up dead from starvation. I'm talking to you Mary-Kate Olsen!

Durham Blues

2006-04-11T10:43:00.000-05:00

When I was a senior in high school, a McDonald's manager accused a white senior member of our class of throwing money at him and calling him a "nigger" at the drive-thru window. The school went into lock down and our class had to hold a meeting in the chapel to root out the alleged bigot. As it turns out, the McDonald's manager had lied about the whole thing. His defense was that he knew the school wouldn't do anything about it unless it was outrageous enough to elicit a strong response. The school breathed a sigh of relief and everyone went back to their business. But no one asked why the lying manager felt he had to lie in the first place. Why the schadn't hadn't followed up on previous incidents when students talked down to employees or behaved in a way that brought shame to the school? I bring up the story because of this:

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=2404002

In case you haven't read up on the case, ESPN has links to the stories leading up to yesterday's news. In a way, I'm disappointed. Not because the DNA evidence didn't link the black rape victim to her white accusers. I'm disappointed because if the eventual conclusion is that the Duke players didn't rape her, people will forget the racial and sexual tensions that preceded the incident and the important discussions afterwards.

Sadly, rapes occur more frequently at Duke (or any collegiate campus for that matter), than we might think. In this instance, the accuser just happened to be a poor, black woman (who attends the poor, predominantly black school) who sold out her body to a group of white male athletes from an elite, predominantly white Southern school. The back stories are too important to ignore in this case, because they explain the fallout hereafter. It wasn't just the rape. It wasn't just the fact that neighbors phoned in a 911 call that night complaining of racial slurs streaming from the house. It wasn't just the fact that one of the players sent a disgusting e-mail detailing what he wanted to do to her and her kind. It was all of it. The races. The sexes. The classes. The money. The power.

So even if it turns out that in her damaged mind, the accuser fabricated the story about three men violating her, the forum should still be kept open. Why did the athletes say those things in the first place? What kind of school initially tries to cover up the incident or report it to the press? What kind of college town is this kind of behavior acceptable? Are athletes privileged to the point of getting away with rape during certain incidents? If this was Duke basketball and not Duke lacrosse, would they have cancelled the season or accept Coach K's resignation? Some have described the past few weeks in Durham as weathering a hurricane. Which seems appropriate, because when the calm arrives, you never know what washes up.

I told you that we won't stop

2006-04-10T11:21:00.000-05:00

Sorry for not posting since Wednesday. Although I'm pretty sure no one reads this damn thing, save for the five people I talk to on a regular basis.

To recap:
1) The Badgers win the men's national hockey championship, making it item number three of things I never thought would happen in my lifetime (circa my thoughts 2003). Number one being dating Jessica and number two being losing fifty pounds.

2) I spent more time at the Church Key (Make that item number 4), the Dise, the Plaza and the Karaoke Kid than i did at home. It was senior year all over again. You know what also made it feel like college?

3) Sparks, Grotte, Rosa, Mazur, Carolyn and Arvind returning to Madison! I kept on turning around and running into an old DC chum. it was like the final episode of a television show where the old cast members return for one last hurrah, leaving me to ponder whether or not this was God's way of saying my time had come. Arvind was the most pleasant surprise (I had seen the Chicago kids months ago), where he regaled me of stories about the Big Apple, being NBC sports honcho Dick Ebersol's assistant and going to Turin(o?) for the Olympics. In turn, I told him equally interesting tales of staying in Madison and looking for writing jobs for publications that wouldn't fold within the week.

4) Amos Posner. What a man. Read into that statement all you want.

5) Hanging out w/ Jessica (before she attended to family matters--the act, not the ABC/CBS Urkel extravanagnza) on Saturday, where we walked the lakes and visited puppies at the Humane Society. Yup, I do this shit now and it feels fantastic.

6) Finally, I had to see The Benchwarmers for filmmonthly.com. My thoughts about the film are pretty much in the review (it should be up tonight), but I have to say that if I had an enemies list like O'Phone Sex, I would go after the insufferable Allen Covert and Nick Swarsdon first. Rob Schneider deserves to be killed too, but at least he had those SNL years to justify why Sandler might have any faith in his ability. But Covert and Swarsdon have never done anything without the financial backing of Sandler, which makes them Hollywood's most annoying entourage, because while others might have more over-the-top idiots, at least they don't use their friendship to write,direct and star in movies like Grandma's Boy, which has now been cleared as a legal way of inducing abortions. It makes me wonder if Sandler secretly lets his friends do these films because they make him look better in comparison. Because The Waterboy looks like On the Waterfront in comparison to the Sandler entourage's sloppy-seconds scripts.

BFF's No Mo'?

2006-04-05T11:20:00.000-05:00

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=413014

Ah, better days. When the Packers were the undisputed champs, when Favre and Chmura were on speaking terms and when the Superdome had an actual roof.

I find Wolfley's column really amusing for a few reasons:

1) At one point, Chmura calls Favre a hypocrite (and rightly so) for holding out on the Packers. Which isn't hilarious in of itself, except it's coming from the same guy who refused to meet President Clinton because of his "loose morals," only to be put on trial a few years later for accidentally stumbling across a high school party and finding himself in the bathroom with a 17 year-old. What they were doing has been a source of contention between Chmura and the State of Wisconsin. Maybe they were discussing her term paper on "The Odyssey" ...with his penis?

2) Chmura (when discussing his "ordeal"), quotes Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at one point during the interview. Which is pretty poignant considering Dr. King loved having sex with underage girls...oh, wait a minute. He didn't.

3) Is it me, or does Chmura come off like one of the Mean Girls? Favre was the Queen Bee of the Packers. And Chmura was his best drinking buddy/ hanger-on, until Favre went sober and Chuwie went down on a teenage girl. Then Favre froze him out, which I guess is understandable if you want to distance yourself from your adulterous booze-buddy who was currently embroiled in a high-profile rape case. For the record, I think Chmura is right. I just also think he's bitter. Very, very bitter.

Which begs the question: If Favre is the Queen Bee and Marky-Mark is a bitter bitch, does that make holdout WR Javon Walker the Lindsay Lohan of the Green Bay Packers?

This gorgeous man taught me all about bungholes

2006-04-03T13:48:00.000-05:00

Sturday, Jess and I traveled down to "The Good Land" to visit my buddy Patty Schneeman. It was probably one of the best single days I've had in a long time.

We met up at "The Safe House," a James Bond-ian restuarant which is located in an alley and requires two seperate entrances behind a bookcase and a hidden door. Thanks to the city's construction project, it was easier to enter the secretive restaurant than to get to the fucking place. I somehow ended up with on the north side projects and Spanishville in the south before we got to the East downtown locale. Bless her heart, Jess was trying to calm me down--partially because she cares about me, but mostly because I was driving her car.

Anyway, the lunch was fun and the children's parties (there were two of them on opposite sides of the joint) learned a bunch of new words since I could sufficiently make the shift from college talk to family resturant talk. Hey, the kids are going to learn it from me or MTV and I'm far less damaging than anything that involves "Laguna Beach."

We did a lot on Saturday, from the Riverside brewery tour where they gave us four free full beers before, during and after the tour to Wolski's to the French Bistro for dinner to the lake scenery to music shopping at the Exclusive Co. I hadn't done so much in one day since the days when my activity counted towards my "Community Service" plea deal.

I didn't realize how much I missed Pat until I visited him. The first few years after high were a little on my relationships with my high school friends. But Pat was one of the exceptions--partly from the fact that we were both attending alcohol-sustained institutions at UW and Marquette, but also from our cultural tastes. Call me shallow, but it's hard to maintain a coherent friendship when you're talking The Decemberists and they're speaking Coldplay. Actually, I like Coldplay. You want to know why I'm gay? Because I like Coldplay.

Brady Street was really a part of Milwaukee that I hadn't seen before. Growing up, my dad and I made a beeline from 94E to the North St. neighbood (the shady side) to visit relatives. So this was definitely more of a Milwaukee to my speed. It's the sort of neighborhood I could see myself in a couple of years...God willing.

If you would like to read more about this pompous twit, please click on the following:

2006-04-01T07:45:00.000-06:00

http://www.filmmonthly.com/

Since coreweekly shut down, I've been itching to write film reviews again. The site is pretty neat and the editor's style is aces in my book. My review is The Lady in Question is Charles Busch. The only concern I have is that the editor keeps putting me in cities I'd want to live in (San Francisco, Chicago, etc.) as opposed to the city I actually live in (Madison). On one hand, it's dishonest. On the other hand, do I really want to say I live in Madison instead of San Francisco? I hope he picks a different awesome city for me to review from every time. It'll be like "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?". If only I could convince Rockapella to do my theme song. That, and finish each review with a conviction, like The Island's director, Michael Bay, should be put "Iiiiin Jaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiil."

I've been struggling to get a good writing rhythym since January. I've received offers from Wisconsin Sports Weekly and dane101.com to write for them, but I can't muster the confidence to do so. Which is why I'm working on the "restoration" part of my fledgling career with this blog.

Also, since KVJ won't let you read her shit unless you're a LJ friend of hers (*cough* bitch), I'm happy to report that she's receiving a journalism award from the MSU people! Who would have thought all that font talk would have actually worked out in her favor. The Vegas odds that she'd end up some sort of cat-lady were 6:5.

Jess and I are off to Milwaukee for a day full of brewery tours, music shoppin' and walking the streets as the "out-of-town mixed couple du jour" of Milwaukee.

Get steppin'!

2006-03-30T11:44:00.000-06:00

Yesterday proved to be as fine as cherry wine. I did very little at work as my workspace is currently being gutted by the Greatest American Hero, Mark (More on him for tomorrow's post).

I lost two pounds at weigh-in, which was nice since I gained two punds the previous week due to passing out on Dise' tables and NCAA basketball leading to lots of pizza rolls and whiskey.

Then, I spent the night at Jess' and we watched The Corpse Bride. I really liked it! I wish Tim Burton would do nothing but this type of storytelling because it's the only one he's good at. If you look at his filmography: Beetlejuice, Batman, Edward Scissorhands, Big Fish, etc., Burton elecits the same reaction: Visually, he's a stunning artist with a unique macabre style all his own. Literally (as in his scripts, what he gets out of his actors, etc.), he's horrible. He really can't tell a good story without his visuals. Seriously, can you give a good reason why Billy Crudup should forgive his father (Albert Finney/Ewan McGregor) in Big Fish? All his life, he's embarrassed by his father's tall tales. Then his dad is near-death, he re-tells the stories in the same tone and style, and all of a sudden, he forgives him? No conciliation from the father? Maybe it's Crudup's fault for not connecting fully with Finney, but it's Burton's job to connect the two. Instead, he's too busy setting up a field of daffodils or going, "Hey, aren't Siamese Twins awesome!," instead of sticking to the narrative.

Mark is breaking through the walls now, so I gots to go!

Today, I'm paranoid

2006-03-29T10:57:00.000-06:00

I wish I could pinpoint a certain time I had the following conversation with either of my parents. But the fact of the matter is that my discussions with both of them are always shades of the following:

Me: "Why are you so unhappy?"
Parent: "Your Mom (or Dad) is so rude and stubborn."
Me: "We have this talk every week. Why don't you do something about it?"
Parent: "We stayed together for you. That and I need (his/her) income to pay the bills."

And there's the rub. My parents equated their abundance of unhappiness with me and money. A lot of parents do this. They lost their love for each other years ago, but they don't want to fuck up the kids' world. But by staying together in a frigid existence, they don't exactly do the kids a favor either. That, or else they live out of a fear of fiscal poverty, but seem to have no problem existing in an emotional one.

It's something that I always worry about when I think about Jess and me. Every time I'm with her, I can't help but be happy. Then when we talk about future plans and goals, I bristle at the thought of beholding myself to a job I hate for a house/2.3 kid/dog combo platter. On one hand, I know I want a family and the means to provide them with a comfortable lifestyle. On the other hand, I'm afraid doing so would turn me into my parents: angry at every aspect of their life and using their children/finances as a crutch to soldiering on.

Can't I have the family fantasy while doing what I love? Am I putting too much pressure on myself and my relationship thinking about these things. Why am I thinking about this when I'm 23?

My gay co-worker thinks I should make this my "special feelings" blog

2006-03-28T13:21:00.000-06:00

Joanis has one. KVJ has one. Leif has one. Even Evan (who won't return my e-mails) has one. So what the hell, I'll get one. This will be my fourth attempt at blogging. The prior three were problematic because my friends and family had to either a) register with the site, or b) actually read the fucking thing. That, and I spent too much time trying to make sweeping commentary filled with this-idea-will-change-your-life ideas. At some points I was getting so self-aware and high and mighty, I could have written for Dawson's Creek.

So with all the confidence of a whore in church, I'm just going to flow whatever's in my head at inopportune times and see what happens. I hope you read...or at least know how to.