THE TONGUE COMMANDMENTS

This morning I woke up and declared myself a God. Why not? It beats a cup of coffee.

Anyway, now that I’m a God, you have to follow all these rules …

1. Thou shalt not Twitter. Twittering art for tools. Twitter not.

2. Don’t forget to breathe.

3. Thou shalt not read Shakespeare, rather, thou shalt speak it, for that was the purpose for which it was wrote.

4. Do something else.

5. In matters of art, do not condemn thyself as a fool by claiming that thou “couldst have done that”. If thou couldst have done it, thou wouldst of done it. Thou did not. They did.

6. Thou shalt devote at least one day of rest in a year to the watching of Marx Brothers movies. Give sport a rest.

7. Melancholia is not an illness. Take brief occasions of time to be so afflicted and reflect upon regrets on the things that may have been but were not, or the things that were that went wobbly. It will pass.

8. Place thy words upon, and speak with and through thy breath and not through thy throat for thy breath is open and thy throat is closed.

9. Forsake all ideologies and indulge not in belief. Be lief what thou art and only what thou art and be no other.

10. Enough with the shoes or shirts already. Buy thyself a very nice hat and wear it often. Thou shalt feel splendid and rather spiffy.

These rules work better than all the other rules do, so obey these ones and not those other ones. Those other ones are shit.

I’m a God, so I should know.

You need to go and find me some girls now and send them to me so that I may bless them. I’d like to bless them somewhere private, so go and build me a big shed or a barn or whatever. With big heavy doors.

Yes. A dungeon would be nice. I’ll pick out some shackles.

A nook? I can’t bless girls in a nook. I’m a God. God’s don’t lurk about in fucking nooks … Oh, alright. If it’s only temporary. Leave some towels out. And a bowl?

Why are you eating fish? You should eat fish tomorrow.

…

…

…

That’s a nice lamp.

I’ll have that.

BY THE WAY, HAVE YOU HEARD? ...

A song in 10 verses from today’s hymnbook …

1. (i) NATIONWIDE RECESSION.

1. (ii) GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS.

1. (iii) GLOBAL ECONOMIC DOWNTURN.

1. (iv) MASS UNEMPLOYMENT.

1. (v) MARKETS CRASH.

1. (vi) BILLIONS LOST.

1. (vii) TOTAL FINANCIAL COLLAPSE.

1. (viii) AND THE DEAD WILL RISE … and rip the flesh from our wombs and feed upon the organs of the unborn and the skies shall become black with demons whose wings shall rain poison upon the earth and scour it of skin. Women will tear the heads from their children and use the flayed and ragged face skins for boot-cloth, and the men shall use the excoriated skulls to adorn their weapons and boulders shall fall from the sky.

1. (ix) AND NOSFERATU’S MINIONS, … riding upon a litter of fire-licked hellhounds, will spread through the barren desanctified lands to do the bidding of the black agents of darkest night, to gather the living and render them dead, so that soul after soul after tortured soul can be tumbled unto the flaming red maw of Hades, whilst their mortal bodies are drained of each final drop of thickening blood which shall then plenish the thirsts of the damned.

1. (x) AND A FURIOUS DARKNESS SHALL BOIL … the very skies to dust which shall then cover the earth and blind a defeated God’s eye to all that once reigned upon it, and man and all his works shall be rendered unto oblivion and the ignorance of history, whereupon the planets shall align themselves to the triumphant orbit of an annihilating Anti-Christ and hurl themselves towards this desecrated rock so that it may be blasted beyond the dimensions of all known and unknown time.

After which, things get really bad.

VAMPIRE'S KISS

Ah, bless the bluster of the blockbuster* and all those who act in them. Right down to their no doubt outrageously expensive little designer cotton socks.

Now …

Nicolas Cage has been doing bugger all of late but turn up in these horridly bloated crapfests and undoubtedly takes home an absolute shitload of cash for doing so. Good for him, I guess. I don't have to watch them and I don't. Unless they’re on free-to-air and I’ve got a six-pack in the refrigerator for company on a Saturday night.

And yet, and yet. It is the actor's prerogative to choose those roles he or she may wish to play, and choose them they do. And, if the actor in question decides to plump for a piece of shit for a shitload of cash over a "little" picture that will play nowhere and do nothing but earn a few worthy plaudits from some obsessive film-stock sniffers, who are we to say they should not?

As I have noted elsewhere (here and here), both Robert De Niro and Steve Martin now spend an enormous amount of their time and energies appearing in rubbish. And by doing so, I do not believe they are tarnishing the legacy of the good works they once saw fit to grace us with. For the dross will take care of itself and will soon be forgotten while the gems shall live on to inspire and astonish generations to come. Robert Duvall, for example, will be forever remembered for his sterling work in “Apocalypse Now”, “Tender Mercies”, “The Apostle”, “Lonesome Dove” and many, many others, and not for the likes of “Let’s Get Harry” or “Deep Impact”. Bet on it.

And Nicolas Cage will always have “Leaving Las Vegas”, “Birdy”, “Raising Arizona” and “Vampire’s Kiss”. For these and these alone (and a few others, “Matchstick Men” perhaps), should he be regarded and held in some large measure of respect and gratitude.

“Vampire’s Kiss” is not a horror film. There are no vampires in it. It is a “black” comedy, but not “black” in the sometimes nihilistic fashion of, say, a Todd Solondz film (I absolutely adore Solondz’s “Happiness” and highly commend it to your attention if you’ve not yet seen it). But it is certainly “black”. In a bleakly comic and ultimately quite disturbing way.

Cage plays a complete arsehole business executive whose grasp on reality is going seriously pear-shaped. Having met a woman at a discotheque (Jennifer Beals … drool), he takes her home, whereupon she bites him (perhaps), and he begins to believe that he is turning into a vampire.

One of the funniest scenes in the film, and one that reduces me to helpless fits of giggles just thinking about it, is when Cage’s character, in the full throes of his delusion, dons a black cape, shoves some novelty store vampire teeth in his mouth and goes chasing pigeons in the park for a quick snack. Yet, despite moments such as these, if the film could claim to be the antecedent of similar explorations of corporate psychopathy and its degenerative effects on our souls, Mary Harron’s astonishing adaptation of “American Psycho” would be its closest cousin.

And this sadly under-rated, neglected jewel of a film contains a performance by Cage that is so BIG, so HUGELY BIG that it essentially takes every rule from the various bibles of performance art, that is, the received wisdom that “less is more” in film acting, and turns it thoroughly arse over tit. It’s a major “fuck-you” to the dreary twaddle peddled to the eager and impressionable by so many drama teachers still stuck in their Actors Studio ruts of psycho-dramatic self-indulgence … “Mumble, mumble, mumble, scratch face, mumble, mumble, cry, scratch face, scream a bit, scratch face, mumble, mumble”.

“Over the top” can’t even begin to describe the type of thing Cage does here. For example, the scene with Cage and his therapist. B.I.G. HUMONGOUS. HUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGE, understand?

I recall, upon seeing the film on its initial release in the late 1980’s, a great deal of publicity attached to the truth that, in one scene, Cage ate a real live cockroach. I understand it required a number of takes, that scene.

Well, it would, wouldn’t it?

And why am I talking about this movie now? Because I hadn’t seen it in over 20 years, and it turned up in J&B the other day for 10 bucks.

So, go spend some pennies. Understand?



* Try saying that three times fast when you’re off your knob.

PONDSCUM

Malcolm Turnbull. Sharman Stone. Kevin Andrews. Colin Barnett. Alexander Downer.

You are filth.

I pray you die. All of you. For yours is not the type of blood that should run in the veins of any other human being upon this earth.

And that, in what you may think are your final moments on this earth, you are confronted with visions of such torment, such pain, such interminable hell, that your internal organs burst from your pudgy, puffy little bodies in fear, that blood runs from your ears and your eyeballs, from every orifice and pore, and that the screams you make, the howls of anguish that escape from the scabby, wounded slits that are your reeking word-holes, rattle the very stars in their firmaments, shake planets from their orbits and extinguish the flames of suns, that the torture you feel in these moments will seem like an eternity, will be an eternity, will draaaaaaaag itself out to the bitterest end, an end that will never come, and, in flailing desperation, you reach for the nearest, the sharpest, the heaviest, the most damaging instrument you can lay your hands upon and plunge it deep, deep, deep into your eye sockets to puncture the withered, sucked-out spastic organs, those buckets of rancid sponge that are your gonorrheaic riddled brains and, as it goes further, harder, deeper, ever deeper, your pustule ridden flesh is rattled and wracked with involuntary bone-snapping spasms and you befoul yourselves, your moans and cries reaching such a fever pitch of wailing horror at the fate that has befallen you, that the sands on beaches and the sands of the deserts all turn to glass and shatter into a billion-billion shards, and that green rancid shit, bile, and clotted acid-pus dribbles and runs across and over your prone, shuddering, shattered bodies, burning gaping, festering black holes down to the marrow of your shattered, broken bones and that it goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on ...

AND THAT IT NEVER. EVER. EVER. ENDS.

You are filth.









God, that felt good.

And now that I've got that off my chest, I shall resume my normal, happy, well-adjusted widdle self ...

La de da …

Oh, look, butteryfly!

Is Puuuuuurty …

THE MEANING OF IT ALL or THE PIG. THE POKE. AND SO …

So.

So I'm poking about this bookshop at lunch, do you see?

Just poking about. Nothing specific, do you understand?

This bookshop.

Something to do. There is always something to do. And so …

I pick up some books. To look at. To see. Are they worth the investment. Of time. Of money. Do you see?

So.

I look at this book by Alain de Botton, “The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work”. It is $45.00. This is money in the bank. From my wallet to their bank.

For a book about the “pleasures and sorrows of work”. I could buy this book. Yes. I could buy it because it is $45.00 less 20%. For they, the sellers, are having a sale. 20% off.

That is good. Do you think? Yes.

No.

Another time. Perhaps. The “sorrows of work”. I am acquainted with these. The “pleasures”? No. The pain? Yes.

I need a dump.

Fuck.

So.

I pick up another book. It is called “Handling The Undead”. The author is John Ajvide Lindqvist. I have read his work. I have read his other book, “Let The Right One In”. It was fine. Very fine. It was a good book.

Good.

Do you understand?

And this other book. It is $32.95. Less 20%. Therefore, $26.36. I could buy this. This thing.

And, upon reading it, I would place it upon a shelf. Next to the other book. And, after a period of time, a brief passage of time, I would dust it.

For that is what one does with things.

We gather them. In the grand and oft onerous traditions, the customs of old, passed down to us (why down? Can things not be passed up?) from our fathers and to them from their teachers, their fathers (perhaps mothers, if, perchance, the fathers are conspicuous in absence, and thus by their absence do they bring shame upon their forebears and all those who follow in their wake) those in whom wisdom resides (or so we can but hope, the vanity of hope in which we persistently, foolishly, if not impotently indulge ourselves), who have been taught well in the ways of this world, the expectation of consistency in the maintenance of stuff, things have always been gathered. Ordered. And so, arranged.

And thusly, having been so gathered, must they be dusted.

Swish.

Do you see?

Swish.

And so. Here we have what demands be called a “progression”. A “progression”, from one state, one state of being, of order, to the next. Hence …

To sneeze.

And to sneeze again.

Do you see?

We are all naught but trains.

Choo.

DISCOMBLOGUMALATED

It's not that I couldn't be arsed, it's just ...

Not having a computer at home, I write and blog during lunch or whenever I get the chance for a break. However, a whole bunch of things now appear to have been blocked for access and Blogspots are one of them, so I can't log in to Blogger from work or make comments on Google Blogspots anymore.

Which is fine, I guess. I don't mind. What am I going to do, complain? "Hey, let me log in to Blogger from work during lunchtime or whenever so I don't have to waste an hour reading the type of trivial drivel that passes for news these days".

I don't think so. I just couldn't be arsed.

Perhaps it's about time I did get a computer at home. Thing is, I can't see the point of paying close to a thousand bucks for a lump of machinery that becomes obsolete within a year of purchase. And then there's all the ancillary costs, such as broadband connections and software and shit.

I did have a computer at home when I first moved up to Brisbane, but it went belly up about 2 years ago. It was old. And I didn't really care when it went belly up. There was nothing on it of tangible worth. That's the thing with computers. We just fill them up with shit and think all the shit we've filled them up with means something.

It doesn't. It's just shit. Lots and lots of shit.

And I spend my entire working day staring at a fucking computer and I'm not sure I want the temptation of spending entire weeknights and weekends staring at a fucking computer when I could be reading a fucking book or watching a fucking movie instead. Or playing with the next door neighbours fucking cat. He can be quite the entertaining little feller, the next door neighbours fucking cat. He likes to eat bugs.

So.

I moved over here.

See? I can't decide on a template there, either. They have a limited number and they're all fairly static. Can't change colours and fonts and stuff.

And I sorta, kinda couldn't be arsed there. Not right now, anyway. Because I sorta, kinda grew comfy with the way things looked and felt here. You see? It's red and swollen here and if you stare at it long enough, it throbs. I like that.

So I'm blogging from the local internet cafe. Next to the train station.

Shit, eh?

I guess if I had a girlfriend, I'd be out doing useful things. Those useful things that couples do.

But I don't want a girlfriend. I'm old and tired and cranky and I have commitment issues.

George Clooney has commitment issues.

If I was George Clooney, I'd be fine with that. Who the fuck wouldn't want to be George Clooney? With commitment issues? So you're George Clooney and you have commitment issues? Such a life you have. I should have such a life, he writes with the slight, but distinct inflection of a Bronx mensch.

Did you know there’s a company in Michigan called “Mensch Manufacturing”. They make manure vacuums.

Shit, eh?

I understand women have problems with men who have problems with issues of commitment which must be a problem if you’re a woman looking for commitment. I guess if you’re a woman and you want kids with a man who has commitment issues, you’d have cause to have a bad case of the shplikes. Unless you’re a yutzi meeskite, in which case your lot in life is bupkis.

But I’m not a woman. So I don’t care. You think you have problems? Your problems I should have.

A klog is mir, you should try living with a shmeckle.

Feh.

F*CK OFF, FIELDING

I like the idea of a Senate where the balance of power is held by a mix of smaller parties and independents. I've liked the idea ever since the late Don Chipp formed the Democrats with the concept of "keeping the bastards honest" being high priority on their initial agenda. And so I’ve split my vote in the Senate on a regular basis, at least since the mid 1980’s, with only a couple of exceptions.

It used to be I’d split it to the Democrats but, since Meg Lees did the deal with John Howard over GST, I began to split it to the Greens. Fuck you, Meg.

And, for the most part, aside from a few crackpots and embarrassments over the years, having a Senate where no one major party holds an absolute majority seems to work okay most of the time. Regardless of the central ideologies and platforms of those who hold the deciding votes, most have managed to be adult enough in their dealings and negotiations to realise that their job is to review and revise, and advise and assist in the implementation of government legislation, the government having a popularly elected majority in the House of Representatives to implement legislation as was either flagged in an election campaign or as it is generally known as a matter of policy. Certainly, many of these minor party and independent senators will “earmark” certain pieces of legislation in such a way that furthers their own policy agendas to their favour, and we’d be fools to think they would not – if they didn't, they’d pretty much fully negate their reasons for being there in the first place.

But Steve Fielding really is a fool. He’s Forrest Gump gone full retard. A village full of idiots in one goofy little package.

If life’s a box of chocolates, he’s the Ram’s Bladder Cup with Lark’s Vomit.

This simpleton appears to be under the impression that he has been charged with some sort of sacred duty as Protector-General of the People and that, in this position, he and he alone will decide which legislation shall pass in the upper house and what form that legislation will take. This, despite the fact he represents 2/5ths of fuck-all of the population and has done little more than engage in witless stunts and babble incoherently on occasions in the manner of a Pentecostal preacher with Alzheimer’s on speed.

Bob Brown’s assessment of Fielding as “silly and immature” is just a trifle timid, I think …

… Out of his depth, naïve, ignorant, willful, childish, unintelligent, dimwitted, selfish, self-absorbed and awe-inspiringly, jaw-droppingly stupid, dense and thicker than a two-by-four decking plank are a few more suitable terms that come to mind. Among many others …

Regardless of what one may think of the Federal Government’s obsession over alcohol and the endless reams of studies, reports and findings on its allegedly horrid effects or the lurid headlines about drunk teenagers fucking and fwowing up, the tax hike on ready-mixed booze wasn’t exactly unpopular with some and seemed to be having the desired effect, according to some others.

Was it just a tax grab as Fielding claimed?

When is a new or increased tax not? Let’s not kid ourselves.

Do I care?

No, I don’t.

I don’t consume these drinks but I’m also not inclined to buy the breathless hysterics and increasingly dire warnings about this allegedly overwhelming crisis of teenage binge-drinking that’s supposedly sweeping the nation. As David Marr noted in his book about the Henson case, it’s the media’s business to maintain a constant sense of crisis about something, whatever that thing may be. If it has to do with “thinking about the children”, you’re assured a winning ticket that’ll run for months if you play your cards right. And it’s a governments business to maintain an illusion of crisis management by being seen to do something about it.

The current “crisis” fad just happens to be alcohol. It’ll be coffee and tea next. Or we’ll go back to pot and fat people again. Everything has its cycle and all these are proven hardy perennials, a hunnert-percent guaranteed to generate a comfy snuggle of horror-story headlines whenever we run out of “foreign threat” things to ‘lert and ‘larm ourselves about.

But what outs Fielding as an infantile loon of the first order in this business is his inability to grasp the concepts of “negotiation” and “bargaining”, to understand that in affairs of government, “all-or-nothing” holdouts of the type Fielding is indulging in are not the mark of men or women holding steadfast to a cause, but rather the mark of idiot children who, when asked why they won’t eat their vegetables, simply reply, “Don’ wanna!”, then pout like cane toads and kick their legs under the table.

Poor Steve wants to be consulted with and listened to. He wants to be seen as an important fellow, a man to know, and he wants to be taken seriously and he wants to be thought of and paid attention to. In a nice way, that is. He wants to be invited to a few Christmas parties and Easter egg hunts and get birthday cards from his classmates and have a jolly old time with everyone all together on excursions to the zoo.

It’s just that Steve hasn’t quite cottoned on yet that his classmates think he’s weird ‘cause he tucks his singlet into his underpants and keeps his snot in jars and he still has stuff stuck to his teeth from last Thursday’s play-lunch. And he smells like curdled milk and cat poo and makes weird noises in the toilet blocks on sports days.

As Bob Brown remarked on ABC, “He has to be much more communicative. You can't get a good outcome without the flow of information open. And, yes, it's very testing.”

Fielding can’t just issue ultimatums and expect the rest of the cast and crew to throw down their guns and toddle off to the county jail with nothing more than a shrug and a chorus of “aw-shucks”.

For the Senate is not about Steve Fielding. Government and governance is not about Steve Fielding. The country is not about Steve Fielding and what he may want.

Many people seem to be making that fact perfectly clear to him right now.

He should either grow up and learn to accept this and live in the world or simply shut up and fuck off and stop giving everyone else the shits.

THE REMAKING OF PELHAM ONCE-TWICE-THRICE

Curse you, Richard Widmark! Curse you to hell!

The giggling psychopath, the smirking sniper, the chuckling chopper of children, all these and more have been trademarks of the various villainous characters of screen ever since a hugely amused Richard Widmark shoved a woman in a wheelchair down a flight of stairs in Henry Hathaway’s “Kiss of Death” way back in 1947.

“I am bad. I tee-hee at your torments. Let us banter to and fro’ a while as I red my herrings and lace my deadly threats with urbane witticisms and clever punning, the pith of which is sure to convince you I am no mere common criminal, but, rather, a mastermind, an evil genius to be seriously reckoned with in a seriously sweaty and urgent fashion. Bwah-ha. Ha-ha. Ho-ho.”

For God’s sake, give it up now. We’ve seen it. It's been done. Okay?

The latest actor to make this rather hackneyed and silly choice (judging by the trailer, below) would appear to be John Travolta, taking the Robert Shaw role in Tony Scott’s theatrical remake of Joseph Sargent’s 1974 “The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3” (there was a television remake in 1998, about which, the less said the better).

Either Travolta’s made one of the laziest choices an actor could ever make with such a character, or else he’s been directed up that weedy little dirt-trail of cackling cliché by Scott, which would come as no great surprise given Tony Scott has been making fucking awful films most of his life, the barf-worthy “Top Gun”, “Days of Thunder” and “Beverly Hills Cop II” three items among the many in his oeuvre that I can offer up as evidence to his spectacularly crappy (but, to be fair, successful) career in film to date.

And if there’s one surefire thing you can always count on in a Tony Scott movie, it’s GONNA BE VERY FUCKING LOUD, OKAY?!.

WITH LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS OF JUMP-CUTS AND EDITS, OKAY!? BUT MOSTLY, IT’S VERY, VERY, VERY, VERY FUCKING LOUD!!!

In the trailer below (which is VERY, VERY, VERY, VERY FUCKING LOUD, OKAY?!!!), you will notice Denzel Washington’s character, the good-guy, has been given a partner who asks him to bring home some milk at a somewhat inopportune moment of frantic activity, and, like a loving husband is wont to do, he agrees, but he’ll only bring home this much, not that much. And then, off he skedaddles to do some good.

Awwwwww.

What a good guy ...



From 2009, “The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3”, Directed by Tony Scott

... Well, of course he’s a Good Guy, he’s DENZEL FUCKING WASHINGTON AND HE’S PLAYING A FUCKING NEW YORK TRANSIT OFFICER TRYING TO STOP A BUNCH OF WHACKO’S FROM PLUGGING A BUNCH OF PEOPLE ON A FUCKING TRAIN!!!!!

I know it’s grossly unfair to critique a film based on nothing but a trailer, but for Christ’s sake. Enough with the padding. It’s just silly.

So what else may we expect to be thrown at us from the scummy slush bucket of colour-by-numbers Hollywood ooze-making that seems to be on display here? Some flashbacks perhaps? Something to help us understand the Travolta character’s icky badness and its genesis?

He accidentally sat on a kitten and killed it when he was 4 years old.

It was all downhill from there.

What’s the point of this movie? Why bother? It’s not as if great leaps and bounds in technology and effects work demanded an update of what is, essentially, a pretty basic and very efficient and economical heist film. The only thing you could conceivably do with it is make it longer by filling it with shit as per that stupid milk dialogue. And make it louder. MUCH, MUCH, MUCH FUCKING LOUDER, OKAY!?

No one could ever claim that Joseph Sargent, the director of the original 1974 version, was, or is now, a visionary or exceptionally original talent. He directed “Jaws: The Revenge” in 1987 and won a Razzie for worst director (the film was nominated for 7 altogether), and he’s done little else but television movies since. In the early 1960’s, Sargent cut his teeth on television shows like "Gunsmoke", "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." and, of all things, "Lassie". And an episode of “Star Trek”.

Yet perhaps it was this background in the economies of scale, the tight schedules and turnarounds of sixties television production that helped drive Sargent to direct what is arguably his best work. There’s not an ounce of fat on it. From start to finish, it bullets along, tight, taut, perfectly acted, a first class exercise in pulp at its prime. It has a 100% fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes. How about that?

Remaking this movie is completely pointless. There’s nothing that can be added to it that would improve upon the original, nothing at all. You can bring a different technique, but big fucking deal. You can add gadgets. You can bring big name star actors. And you can make it VERY, VERY, VERY FUCKING LOUD, OKAY!?

But there’s nothing you can do to the story to make it better, unless you introduce a bunch of new twists and turns, throw in some additional characters and change the ending in some way, in which case, you’re making a whole different movie.

What’s next, a makeover of “Dirty Harry”? With Vin Diesel?

Sshhhhhhhhhhhh. Don’t let that get out.

Oh.

Fuck.

I’d almost bet money that, when this rehash of “Pelham” is released locally, David Stratton will begin his review something like this ... “This pointless and unnecessary remake …”

Go on, David. Make my day.

Make me a clairvoyant. I could do with some extra cash.



From 1974, “The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3” Directed by Joseph Sargent.

DANGER! WHITEGOODS!

Noted in today’s New York Times ...

“The Last House on the Left” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). Characters are raped, stabbed, shot, mangled and fed to labor-saving devices.

Sweet.

NORMAL SERVICES SHALL RESUME SHORTLY ...

AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

GGGGGGGGGGGGAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!

PTOOPFHHTPTOOEY!!!

BLERK ...

Sorry about that.

I WISH I'D WRITTEN THAT ... PT.2*

Never a truer word has been written …

From "The Onion"'s article of August 6, 2008 "Local Idiot To Post Comment On Internet" ...

HAZEL PARK, MI—In a statement made to reporters earlier this afternoon, local idiot Brandon Mylenek, 26, announced that at approximately 2:30 a.m. tonight, he plans to post an idiotic comment beneath a video on an Internet website ...

... Mylenek, who rarely in his life has been capable of formulating an idea or opinion worth the amount of oxygen required to express it, went on to guarantee that the text of his comment would be misspelled to the point of incomprehension, that it would defy the laws of both logic and grammar, and that it would allege that several elements of the video are homosexual in nature ...

... "We are blessed to be living in an age when we have a global communications network in which idiots, assholes, and total and complete wastes of fucking human life alike can come together to give instant feedback in an unfettered and unmonitored online environment," Mylenek said. "What better way to take advantage of this incredible technology than to log onto the Internet and insult a complete stranger?" ...

According to media critic Judy Turner, this type of behavior is not uncommon among idiots.

"Brandon's comments in particular contain a degree of unoriginality and stupidity that you only see in the most muttonheaded and imbecilic Internet commenters," Turner said. "In fact, I've seen him use at least a dozen variations of the word 'gay.' Suffice it to say, Brandon Mylenek is a truly stupid, stupid idiot."

Mylenek concluded his press conference with a solemn vow to uphold the awful, unintelligible, anger-inducing quality of his past Internet comments.

"I promise everyone that this post will be exactly what you have come to expect from an idiot like myself," he said, "and that I will check my comment regularly so that I can call everyone who says it's stupid a fag.

Sums up the so-called "blogosphere" quite nicely, don't it?

Interactive technology. Feedback. Your say. Your comment.

…

…

…

…

…

…

IT ALL SUKS G!R!E!E!N!I!E FAGGETS WHAYLE DIK!!!!!!!!.

LOLS!!!!!!!!!!!#!#!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)D




*Part 1 is here, if you could be arsed. I couldn’t. That’s why this is such a lazy bloody excuse for a blog post. Anyway, I’m very busy …

… Well, it’s my fuckin’ blog! Oh yeah? Fuck off. Go on!? Fuck off! You can’t answer me, can you? You’re a fucking liar! Come here and say that! Oh, yeah? YEAH?!!!

Cross this line. Come on, cross it …

_____________


You won’t, will ya?

Gutless cunt.

Huh? Who? Your mother?

Lol.

OUT OF OFFICE, OUT OF MIND

"Office 2" from Catch The Fire Ministries writes ...

I know President Obama is not Muslim, but I am tempted nevertheless to think that he is, as are most Muslims I know.

Most of the Muslims you know are Muslim?

Well, bugger me. What a shock.

The things you learn from the interwebs.

IT’S ONLY A MOVIE, GERARD DEAR …

Writes Gerard Henderson in the Sydney Morning Herald of February 3rd, 2009 …

Anthony Beevor is one of the leading historians in the English-speaking world ... Writing in the London Sunday Times on January 18, he complained that "over the past dozen or so years television and movie-makers have managed to blur the border between fact and fiction to an unprecedented degree" while pretending "increasingly that their film is based on a true story" ...

... Beevor argues that "it should be the duty of not just every scientist and historian, but also of every writer, publisher, movie-maker, TV producer and ordinary citizen to fight all attempts to exploit the ignorance and gullibility of audiences".

Well, it should be. But, clearly, it is not.

Bullshit.

Firstly, let's dispense with Beevor's arrogant and elitist assumption that cinema audiences are ignorant and gullible, that is, dumber than a box of hammers (unless of course you happen to think David Spade is the 21st century equivalent of Groucho Marx, in which case, you are dumber than a box of hammers).

"Based on" on a thing does not mean it is the thing.

I know that, have always known that, and do not believe I am unique in that respect.

People go to the cinema to be entertained, not educated. For an education on a topic, that's what books are for. And universities and schools. We go to cinema to sit in the dark with strangers and involve ourselves in the lives of characters, both fictional or drawn from and based on history, and the events and experiences those characters find themselves a part of. This is called “storytelling”.

As David Mamet writes in his book of essays about the movie business “Bambi vs. Godzilla” …

“The film’s precursor is the story around the campfire. In that story we hear and we imagine; in the film we see and we imagine. The structural nature of film allows the imagination to reign. When the film turns narrative rather than dramatic, when it stands in for the viewer’s imagination, the viewer’s interest is lost. The dramatic structure relies exclusively upon the progression of incident … The rule, then, in filmmaking, as in storytelling, as in writing, is “leave out the adjectives”.”

If films based on historical incident were made according to Henderson’s preference, they would come in two parts: Part 1 would last 600 days, and Part 2 would be a 600 day forum of debate about the accuracy, or inclusiveness, of Part 1, a back-and-forth wankfest comprising tediously elitist trainspotters such as Henderson and Beevors. And possibly Robert Manne.

And no one would bother to go for fear of dying of boredom.

A filmmaker has one primary responsibility to his or her audience, and that responsibility is to evoke the desire to know, to demand to know, as Mamet has written many times, “What happens next?”.

If a filmmaker is basing his or her work on historical incident and historical characters, he or she must leave out the adjectives if it is to succeed.

The filmmaker must distill and compress all that is known about the events and people portrayed in order to present us with the essence of the thing. I could not give a flying fuck at the moon if, as Henderson writes, Richard Nixon in “Frost/Nixon” “is presented as a binge drinker who consumed so much liquor during an evening that he had memory lapses about phone conversations the following day” and that the scene is a fiction.

As Anthony Summers revealed in his book “The Arrogance of Power”, Nixon was a drunk and an abuser of prescription drugs. Bringing this facet of his behaviour into play in the film and the scene in question goes to establishing “character” which leads us, the gullible and the ignorant, to an understanding of the man as a “character” and becoming interested in his actions.

And if we become sufficiently interested, we may find ourselves encouraged to learn more about the man himself by reading books about him that present us with facts that are history, and not based on history.

Mamet again:

“The garbage of exposition, backstory, narrative, and characterisation spot-welds the reader into interest in what is happening now. It literally stops the show.”

I suspect that Henderson, as well as lacking a sense of humour, also lacks the imagination necessary to suspend disbelief while watching a film and simply enjoy himself.

In which case, he should stick to running his ballroom dinners where toxic bores can deliver toxic lectures to a toxic and boring cluster of middle-aged stuffed shirts and leave the rest of us well enough alone.

Frankly, I’d rather go see a movie.

They’re fun.



From 1983, Steve Martin "The Man With Two Brains" (not based on fact)

DEPP DOES DILLINGER

Do you ever find yourself randomly clicking about the intertubes and all of a sudden you wind up clicking something that leads you to a trailer for a movie you knew nothing about but when you see it the hairs on the back of your neck stand up in anticipation?

Fuck "The Watchmen".

I practically busted a zipper when I learnt this is gonna hit our screens in July ...

TENDER MEMORIES OF MERCIES SHOWN

If I were to nominate my favourite film of all time, it would be Bruce Beresford's "Tender Mercies" from 1983, a film I must have seen now about 30 or 40 times since its initial release.

I would not argue it as the best film ever made, as such arguments are only for the stupid to puddle about in, but, for me, watching it is akin to slipping into a warm bath after a ragged day of listening to, and reading about, the bizarre obsessions of the multitude of imbeciles we seem forever besieged by.

Robert Duvall won an Academy Award as Best Actor for his portrayal of Mac Sledge. The rest of the cast are faultless, not a false note struck, no mawkish slips into cheap sentimentality, no displays of flappy histrionics, no "acting" in other words.

Horton Foote wrote the screenplay. He, too, won an Academy Award for his work.

Mr. Foote died on March 4, 2009 ...

Mr. Foote, in a 1986 interview in The New York Times Magazine, said: “I believe very deeply in the human spirit and I have a sense of awe about it because I don’t know how people carry on. What makes the difference in people? What is it? I’ve known people that the world has thrown everything at to discourage them, to kill them, to break their spirit. And yet something about them retains a dignity. They face life and don’t ask quarters.”

His inspiration came from the people he knew and the stories he heard growing up there. “I’ve spent my life listening,” Mr. Foote once said.

And my life has been made far better by listening to him. Thank you.

NETWORK NINE ... STILL THE SCUM PT.2

So I'm flicking around the glass teat last night to see what variation on the usual themes of frauds, freaks and fatties our so-called "current affairs" programs are going to bang on about when Channel Nine's "A Current Affair" begins and host Tracy Grimshaw starts a story about the Lahore attacks with ...

"World cricket's underbelly ..."

Are there no depths these shitheads will not plumb to promote or link a story to their crappy fucking television series?

No. No, there aren't.

Honestly.

Belief beggared.

WE'RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER OCEAN

Oceans are big.

…

And they're full of water.

…

Fish live there.

…

Sharks are very big fish.

…

Learn to fucking live with it, okay?

UPDATE: The above was published in the Sydney Morning Herald March 3rd (minus the dots and expletive.)

CORPORATE PSYCHOPATHY

In view of news such as this, and this, what an apt time it is to revisit the excellent Canadian documentary from 2003, "The Corporation" ...



From 2003, "The Corporation" Part 1 of 23

WHEN BULLSH*T PRACTICALLY GALLOPS

My emphasis added to this report from the SMH courtesy of the "American Journal of Preventive Medicine" (????!!!!!!) …

A new US study has found that kids who listen to music with raunchy lyrics are more likely to engage in sexual activity than kids who don't.

The study, to be published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, did not find a causal link between crude music and teen sex, but indicated that "people who are exposed to certain messages in music are more likely to copy or emulate what they hear", said study author Dr Brian Primack in a statement ...

... The research in 2006-07 asked 711 year nine students around Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, about their sexual activity and the songs they liked to listen to ...

...The researchers found that youths who listened most to "degrading" songs were more than twice as likely to have had intercourse as other kids in the study ...

“Do you have sex Otis?”

“I rooted the teacher on the football field last week, Doc. So did Buster. And Randy too. Then we went and ate some Twinkies and watched “Iron Man” again.”

Former Fairfax writer and “Daily Truth” blogger Jack Marx had this to say on a similar topic in 2007, addressing Joan Sauers claims about teenage sexuality in her book “Sex Lives of Australian Teenagers” …

Testimony-based science is vexed at the best of times, human beings so prone to bullshit - both the agenda-driven variety and the seemingly pointless - as we all know they are. The risk is amplified when the theme is sex, a topic upon which everyone can be relied to either lie through embarrassment or embellish through boast. Add to that capricious brew the fact that your interview subjects are such notorious opponents of exactitude as teenagers, their respect for scientific endeavour so often overwhelmed by a lust for pranks and the crush of peer pressure, and you've got a pile of "data" that might easily be mistaken for a pile of something else …

… Allow me to provide some preliminary conclusions of my own: the data in Sex Lives of Australian Teenagers is, for all academic purposes, frivolous junk, which no serious "specialist" should regard as having any more academic credibility than the Logies.

Yep. Reckon so.

DEVINELY STUPID, PART 2

Sent to the Sydeny Morning Herald this morning, prompted by this crap from Australia’s answer to Rush Limbaugh (minus the man-boobs and hard-on pills) …

"If you don't like the rules, start your own church" writes Miranda Devine (February 26, 2009). But they did, Miranda. They're called Mormons, Scientologists, Pentecostals, Exclusive Brethren, Moonies, Christian Scientists, Methodists and Jehovah's Witnesses among many, many others. There's also the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and The Invisible Glovebox Turkey. Confusing, isn't it?

KITTY LITTER

Once upon a time and not so very long ago, the Saturday edition of The Sydney Morning Herald used to take a few hours to read from cover to cover, all sections, including the supplement magazine (excepting the sports section, about which I couldn’t give a flying fuck, and the car and real estate stuff).

However, of late I've noticed it's taking about an hour, maybe a little longer if there are a few reviews of books people might actually like to read rather than reviews of 800 page lumps of over-priced academic twaddle devoted to analysing Adolf Hitler's laundry lists.

Take the edition of Saturday, February 21, 2009 ...

The "news" section, that is, the main section, comprised 14 broadsheet pages. Taking into account that Page 14 is a half-page (and a half-page of ads) about so-called "society events" and the comings and goings of various celebrity grubs and butterflies which is not "news" of any sort, and Page 13 is a half-page (and a half page of ads) comprising reviews of current concerts and theatrical shows (also not "news"), that's 12 pages of national and international reportage. Then of course, take out the rest of the space devoted to advertisements, another 2 pages.

That's 10 pages, 5 bits of paper. Everything that has happened or is happening, nationally and internationally, summed up on 5 bits of paper.

It's almost enough to make a person start reading the Courier Mail.

...

Almost.

HUGELY CONFUSED

From News Ltd …

From Fairfax …

Dis litle bloger is all confussed.

HALLE-F**KING-LU-OFF

Having watched the Sunday edition of the ABC's "Insiders", I left the television on whilst I busied myself with a few random household chores (as one does on a Sunday). All stations gave blanket coverage to the memorial service for those who died in the recent Victorian fires, a duly serious and sombre affair attended by the usual dignitaries, officials and politicians, all of whom wore duly serious and sombre clothes and serious and sombre expressions.

Duly serious and sombre words were spoken, the national anthem was played, and so on and so forth. So far, fair enough ...

And then they went and spoiled it all by playing something stupid like "Hallelujah".

I swear, if I never hear this fucking song again for the rest of what remains of my life, I shall give thanks to the entire pantheon of Roman and Greek gods and sacrifice a few live chickens on the balcony in gratitude.

Shoving the word "hallelujah" into the lyric of a pop song does not a sacred hymn of praise make and why this bloody tune, which has had the living shit thrashed out of it by anyone and everyone with a half-decent set of pipes over the last God-knows how many years should be considered appropriate for such an affair or anything similar to it beggars belief.

Let's have a look at a verse ...

"Well, your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah"

Relevance - FAIL.

Although, I guess we can be a mite grateful they didn't go and dust off "Candle in the Wind" instead.

Or did they?

I got the shits, turned it off and went up pub.

ELLEN (NOT THAT ONE, THE OTHER ONE)

In Darren Aronofsky's excellent feature film from 2000, "Requiem For A Dream", Ellen Burstyn offered up a performance so exquisitely nuanced, so beautifully played out and so ultimately tragic that, by its conclusion, any viewer would have to be either dead or comatose not to be shaken to the very core of their being by it.

She was rightfully nominated for an Academy Award as Best Actress for her efforts. Julia Roberts won for "Erin Brockovich".

Moving on ...

Last night (February 19, 2009), on the often hackneyed and incredible (in the true sense of that word) "Law & Order: SVU", a franchise of the original "Law & Order" series that should have had its plug pulled when Jerry Orbach died, Burstyn turned up as guest star playing the mother of Christopher Meloni's character Elliot Stabler.

Armed with a mostly pedestrian script, and only a few key scenes, Burstyn threw herself into the role with such extraordinary flair, energy, precision and emotional commitment that her co-stars, solid performers all, were left floundering in her wake gasping for just a little spare oxygen, any oxygen at all that could allow them to wrest even the tiniest sliver of our attentions back to their own characters and their respective dilemmas. They couldn't and didn't.

The poor buggers.

In stagework, performers often refer to "hotspots", a hotspot being that space on the stage where an actor has so effectively chewed up the scenery and stolen the show from under everyone else that the space feels so charged with residual energy from the performance that other actors go out of their way to avoid it lest it diminish their own efforts in that space by comparison.

Whether the same applies to film and television performances I do not know, but, so commanding, so riveting, so high-energy was Burstyn’s performance that, at one point, I fully expected my sad old ex-rental 66cm cathode ray tube teat to blow itself into the farthest reaches of the stratosphere to play footsies with Wall-E.

There should be no criticism made of any actor, nor should it be considered a diminution of their stature and talents when they decide to pop up occasionally on an episode of some colour-by-numbers television show. For Burstyn, it may have amounted to a week’s worth of work with a day in post for a not inconsiderable sum of money. And then of course, there are always residuals and royalties from DVD sales to consider, something denied Australian actors in Australian productions.

But, for God’s sake, will someone, somewhere, please please please give this marvelous actress a role worthy of her exceptional talents?

Can we give Meryl Streep and Judi Dench a rest for a while and start casting our nets a little farther afield, beyond these usual suspects? We’ve just seen Debra Winger slam her way back into the public eye with gusto after an extended absence from the screen in “Rachel Getting Married” …

Please sir, can I have some more?

Can we have more of Julie Christie and can we have more of Sissy Spacek and can we have more, lots, lots more of Ellen Burstyn? And can we give them all something very, very good to do?

Can we put them all in a movie together? With Robert Duvall perhaps?

Now, that would be a beautiful thing to behold.

"It's unfortunate but our society is such that, for women in Hollywood, you get to a certain age and just fall off a cliff. But in my case, I refuse to die. I will hang on, by a little finger if necessary." Ellen Burstyn

"I thought it was fabulous. My next ambition is to get nominated for seven seconds, and, ultimately, I want to be nominated for a picture in which I don't even appear." Ellen Burstyn, 2004, regarding her Emmy nomination for her performance in “Mrs. Harris”, in which she appeared for 14 seconds.

Quotes sourced from IMDB

NETWORK NINE ... STILL THE SCUM

Courtesy of Channel 9 News via iinet...

Incest dungeon slave Elisabeth Fritzl believes she has been sold out by a close family member, with leaked photos and personal details about the 42-year-old and her children splashed across a UK tabloid.

"Incest dungeon slave"?

Here is a woman who endured two and half decades of horror, abuse and deprivation of her freedom at the hands of a coward and now, as she attempts to build a life for herself away from the glare of the public spotlight and the gleefully ghoulish voyeurs of the mainstream press and their "readers", the best descriptor some hack at Network Nine news can come up with is something that sounds straight out of a fetish p*rn magazine.

Whoever wrote it should be stabbed in the fucking head.

POLITICAL STAFFER TELLS JOURNO TO F**K OFF!

World asplodes!

JULIA Gillard's office was in damage control last night after a staff member inadvertently told a western Sydney journalist to "f..k off" in an email on ABC Learning.

Opposition childcare spokeswoman Sophie Mirabella said: "This is a real insight into what (the ALP) think of the real world, into how they operate".

Things were way more civil back in olden times, weren't they? ...

JEFF KENNETT: He said to me, “I didn’t like the way you kept me out of the campaign”. I said, “Wouldn’t have you in it, and I didn’t have any federal people in it.”

ANDREW PEACOCK: Well you didn’t have me. Didn’t have anyone.

KENNETT: And I said to him, “Tomorrow, I’m going to bucket the whole lot of you”.

PEACOCK: No! Don’t do that Jeffrey.

KENNETT: Hold your flow. I said, “Tomorrow John” and he said, “I know where your sympathies lie”, and I said, “I couldn’t give a fuck. I have no sympathies any more. You’re all a pack of shits and tomorrow I’m going berserk”. Well he went off his brain and in the end I said to him, I said, “Howard. You’re a cunt. You haven’t got my support, you never will have and I’m not going to rubbish you or the party tomorrow but I feel a lot better having told you you’re a cunt.”

PEACOCK: Oh shit!

KENNETT: And the poor little fellow didn’t know whether he was Arthur or Martha.

Yep. Way more civil. Reckon so.

A POST ABOUT NOTHING AT ALL

My father was admitted to hospital on Sunday, February 8th after suffering a minor stroke, no doubt exacerbated somewhat by the extreme heat of the day (43, 44 degrees in Sydney). He's been there ever since.

They run tests. Constantly. "How are you?", I ask. "They're running tests", he replies, barely able to speak through his horribly strangled breathing. "What tests?", I ask. "I don't know", he says, "they get me to swallow things and run tests and take x-rays."

I thought about flying back to Sydney for a couple days, but was discouraged from doing so, my mother thinking it would make him paranoid in an "end is nigh" type of way.

Fair enough.

And, no doubt many of his current health problems would be as a result of smoking cigarettes for most of his adult life (he gave up about 7 years ago) and I'm sure many snitty little twerps, the usual suspects, would take great pleasure in thinning their lips and narrowing their eyes to slits and bending over his prone body to mutter, "Serves ya right."

In which case, I would happily and most enthusiastically shove a chainsaw up the arses of said snitty little twerps and take them for a quick spin.

For he started smoking in an age (early 1940’s) where smoking was acceptable in all walks of life, in all professions and places and, as a commercial artist/signwriter, spent his entire working life in barely ventilated factories surrounded by wood dust and shavings, asbestos (very probably) and fumes from paint of all varieties, methylated spirits, turpentine and so on. Back in the days when "O.H & S" sounded like an honour dished out to the upper classes from a King. Or a Benson & Hedges knockoff.

I spoke to him this morning. He sounds awful. Not deadly, or quite knocking at that door, but not too good.

A friend of mine, someone I've known for 20 years now, had a friend of his die of lung cancer a few weeks back. He was 28 years old.

He'd never smoked a cigarette in his life, and worked outdoors, in the leisure industry, farting about on boats and such.

And he was 28 years old.

My father was born in 1928. He's 80.

What may we glean from this?

...

...

Nothing.

Nothing at all.

ALL THE NEWS THAT PRINTS A FIT

Here is the main page of today's world news (February 19, 2009) from The New York Times (click image to enlarge) ...

Palestine, Israel, China, Zimbabwe, etc.

Here are the world news headlines from the home page of today's (February 19, 2009) News.com website (click image to enlarge) ...

Chimpanzee goes nuts. And a tantric sex video clip.

Current standards of Australian journalism and reportage : FUCKED.

THE ROCKS IN CHERIE’S HEAD

As we all know by now, Michelle Obama is poised, articulate, self-confident and highly intelligent. She's also very fucking hot.

And I do have the impression that, if you were to get into her bad books or piss her off by assuming that she is none of these things that she would simply tear you twelve new arseholes and play ping-pong with your eyeballs.

So I very much doubt the First Lady needs any advice of any kind from some stupid addle-brained bint who thinks this type of brainless bollocks makes sense.

A "Homeopathic dowser healer" who, for £85 “will sell you a pile of stones and instructions on how to lay them out in the garden”?

Imbecile.

Just shut up and fuck off, Cherie. Go eat a wafer.

VIRTUAL PANADOL FRIDAY

Last night, my first real meal in six days after retching sickness. A six buck takeaway of soy-steamed chicken in noodle soup. And a can of Guinness.

My, it was good.

And now, to another matter entirely ...

I didn't catch the original UK version of "Life On Mars", but I've managed to catch the first 2 episodes of the US edition and so far I like what I'm seeing. What can you say about Harvey Keitel that hasn't already been said? The man's a fucking legend. And Gretchen Moll is practically unrecognisable from the last role I saw her in as Betty Page. Anyway, the theme song has been rabbiting around my head all day, so I thought I may as well plonk it down here ...



From 1973, David Bowie "Life On Mars"