I'm on tour and I feel totally guilty about abandoning my page here for so long...
there's really no excuse... spankings are necessary I fear...
well..fear is a big word...
I had the chance to accompany the beautiful and talented James
to the SG-PETA event at the Roxy... and even though that's my least favorite club
in the world It was fun. (My second favorite is a slaughter house converted to a C&W bar - I've never
been but I'm sure I'd hate it... and only slightly less than The Roxy. The venue is cool but the security
are the biggest pricks since Altamont. And it's not like they've got a horde of ticketless teens trying to see the Beatles. The only people who ever want to get into the Roxy are people who have tickets to see the show. It's like a toll booth that doesn't charge money. Just there to pointlessly slow down your drive)
It was good to Meet Brad Werner as well. I have often read his columns...er...
and it was great to stand in the middle of the club discussing Alan Watts right before my girlfriend modeled underwear for a good cause
Now I'm off to the Chicago Improv (Feb 27-Mar 1)
Then Cobb's in San Francisco (Mar 6-9)
See you out there
there's really no excuse... spankings are necessary I fear...
well..fear is a big word...
I had the chance to accompany the beautiful and talented James
to the SG-PETA event at the Roxy... and even though that's my least favorite club
in the world It was fun. (My second favorite is a slaughter house converted to a C&W bar - I've never
been but I'm sure I'd hate it... and only slightly less than The Roxy. The venue is cool but the security
are the biggest pricks since Altamont. And it's not like they've got a horde of ticketless teens trying to see the Beatles. The only people who ever want to get into the Roxy are people who have tickets to see the show. It's like a toll booth that doesn't charge money. Just there to pointlessly slow down your drive)
It was good to Meet Brad Werner as well. I have often read his columns...er...
and it was great to stand in the middle of the club discussing Alan Watts right before my girlfriend modeled underwear for a good cause
Now I'm off to the Chicago Improv (Feb 27-Mar 1)
Then Cobb's in San Francisco (Mar 6-9)
See you out there
The Meaning of life...is living.
And I don't mean staying physically alive. I mean spending that time you
have well and experiencing the edge of your existence.
I was raised in a place where most people "tip-toe through life
so they can arrive at death safely" and when one is confronted by such
behavior there really are only two honest responses. Join in or Run like Hell.
What could you do today that would make your life today.. in this moment... Full.
I have recentlly instigated what I call the 5% plan.
I try to improve every area of my life 5% every week. That's 1 percent a day during the work week.
My Relationships
My Career
My Skills
and my Health
and the advances I have made simply in doing that are kind of incredible. It's amazing how
small growth can build on small growth and become something truly remarkble.
I had this idea and this realization while looking at the Bamboo in our backyard.
It pushes up concrete, bends the drain pipes that run along the wall and is incredibly hard to cut.
and yet it grows in the smallest increments. In small sections, one after the other, it pushes through
stone and steel. If it grew to fast, not hardening each piece before it made the next it would never be
able to do that. It would splinter, shatter and die.
And not only is it and effective form of growth. It is easy on the mind and soul. Most people set goals and
never even come close to completing them, mainly because they seem impossible at first and then get harder as we dwell on the "how?". It's a big word. Because it contains All the elements needed to achieve the goal. Better to ask "what?"... specifically "what can I do right now?" in this moment right now.
When you can focus on the step in front of you then eventually you can push through barriers that seem impossible now.
5%.... 1% a day...
And I don't mean staying physically alive. I mean spending that time you
have well and experiencing the edge of your existence.
I was raised in a place where most people "tip-toe through life
so they can arrive at death safely" and when one is confronted by such
behavior there really are only two honest responses. Join in or Run like Hell.
What could you do today that would make your life today.. in this moment... Full.
I have recentlly instigated what I call the 5% plan.
I try to improve every area of my life 5% every week. That's 1 percent a day during the work week.
My Relationships
My Career
My Skills
and my Health
and the advances I have made simply in doing that are kind of incredible. It's amazing how
small growth can build on small growth and become something truly remarkble.
I had this idea and this realization while looking at the Bamboo in our backyard.
It pushes up concrete, bends the drain pipes that run along the wall and is incredibly hard to cut.
and yet it grows in the smallest increments. In small sections, one after the other, it pushes through
stone and steel. If it grew to fast, not hardening each piece before it made the next it would never be
able to do that. It would splinter, shatter and die.
And not only is it and effective form of growth. It is easy on the mind and soul. Most people set goals and
never even come close to completing them, mainly because they seem impossible at first and then get harder as we dwell on the "how?". It's a big word. Because it contains All the elements needed to achieve the goal. Better to ask "what?"... specifically "what can I do right now?" in this moment right now.
When you can focus on the step in front of you then eventually you can push through barriers that seem impossible now.
5%.... 1% a day...
This is fun
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[YOUTUBE]http://void.snocap.com/s/T3-31324-NWFKN329R5-C/[/YOUTUBE]
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[YOUTUBE]http://void.snocap.com/s/T3-31324-NWFKN329R5-C/[/YOUTUBE]
This is fun
<embed src="http://void.snocap.com/s/T3-31324-NWFKN329R5-C/" width="425" height="300" style="background: url(http://void.snocap.com/b/T3-31324-NWFKN329R5-C/);"/>
<embed src="http://void.snocap.com/s/T3-31324-NWFKN329R5-C/" width="425" height="300" style="background: url(http://void.snocap.com/b/T3-31324-NWFKN329R5-C/);"/>
Sunshine is the Greatest Movie ever!...
And by greatest I mean..raging peice of shit
I normally don't do movie reviews but this is a special occasion.
This movie is so stunningly bad the only thing that could make it worse/better would be a cyborg monkey in a boxey robot suit. And in case you are worried about me ruining it for you...the only way I could ruin this movie for you is to buy you a ticket.
__________
Let's start with the Premise...
The sun is (Ah HAHAHA) going..ahem..Out! Yes that's right forget all you ever learned in science class in 3rd grade, the sun will not explode and then collapse into a black hole.. NO! apparently it's going to blink out like a faulty flourescent bulb in a truck stop john.
And it's up to mankind to... RE-IGNITE the SUN! With a Giant Nuclear Bomb "The size of Manhattan" - Now the idea of the Nuclear warhead as a heroic device is hardly new. This lovely plot device has been used before in movies like the Deep Impact (A title which made the porn industry's job easy when they made their version) and The Core (Which until now held the title for least plausible/extraordinarilly hilarious premise).
Okay so... the Sun is 110x the size of the earth and the earth is about 300x the size of Manhattan island, give or take Iceland, and that means that the nuclear warhead we're sending to the sun is like throwing a firecracker into an erupting volcano... correction..an erupting volcano The Size Of The SUN! That's RE-RE-RE-TARDED!<br><br>Yeah..that's how we START! then we move on to the fact that they have 7 crew members which includes a Psychologist but no Medic! And the Shrink starts the movie off with an addiction to Staring into The Sun! By the middle of the movie he's peeling pieces of skin off his face. (I was very dissapointed he didn't eat them, I mean while you're busy making the Sanest person on board a looney why not really give it the old Hail Mary) He is staring at the sun through a filter and trying to up his dosage all the time.
Now. There are moments when you can watch a movie like this and still enjoy it. You say to yourself "Self, this is the fucking stupidest idea I Have ever heard! But I've got a 8 dollar ticket and a box of junior mints so let's make the best of it."
Plus I crush really hard on Michelle Yeoh everytime I see her.
Seriously...
The only rule you have in these situations is that when they establish rules wihtin the context of the story they don't break them. And man do they make them....
- The Human torch dude is in this and he drops a wrench in the coolant that they house the Mainframe of the ship's computer in. It is so cold that it blisters his hand instantly... you're supposed to forget this.
- They make a huge deal about the limited amount of Oxygen they have but they make the ENTIRE surface of the bomb in the big chamber capable of sustaining life. Yeah. They barely have enough oxygen for 7 people to do their job but They pump enough oxygen into the bomb chamber for you to be able to walk ALL of New York City...
- And the big one is that they are getting so close to the sun that ANYTHING that gets hit with direct sunlight burns up like tissue paper. ANYTHING! Steel melts. people fry like popcorn in a fire pit.
______________________
There are a lot of people who actually like this movie and I credit the failing/underfunded public school system. Because the fact that it is well acted simply means the actors are not to blame for what a raging turd box this movie is. And the Scientific premises put forth are ALL ridiculous and completely without logic on suc h a scale that My cousin Kip and I started Giggling.. I shit you not..Giggling during all the exposition..
______________________
Spoiler warning !
______________________
The movie deviates from it's original plot direction to send the ship callled Icarus II... to slingshot around mercury and intercept Icarus I..which has been floating near the sun for 7 years. (Even though it has NO reverse engines. and the Sun's gravity would have pulled it into a declining orbit the minute it passed mercury... Kip said they must have one hell of a parking break) <br><br>Now... naming the Ships after Icarus...who flew too close to the Sun and burned up...is either completely ignorant or the WORST piece of foreshadowing Ever.
But that aside the ship reaches the Icarus I and because of a 1 degree miscalculation the sun destroys 4 panels on the sheild on the front of the ship, the radio tower AND the food/oxygen garden. This drives the navigator to become suicidal and gets the Captain killed fixing the panels. He burns alive when he is hit with a sunlight tidal wave...during which the ships Shrink is yelling "Tell me What you See! Tell ME What You SEE!"... which is beyond nuts..and NOBODY asks him about it later? Nobody goes "Hey..uh..what was all that Tell me what you see Shit? The Captain's dying and..dude..you need some aloe vera!" It's dumb.
They decide to dock with the Icarus I. The inside is covered with dust..like an inch thick.. one of the crew knobs says "90% of dust is human skin." okay 1.. Yeah - In A HOUSE! not on a space ship. Secondly for there to be this much dust there would have to be 300 people on the ship with the worst dandruff in the history of mankind. Dumb.
On the Icarus I they find that the garden is in great shape but the crew is all cooked in the sun viewing room and the mainframe is destroyed. before they can figure out what happened... the airlock explodes and the Icarus II starts to float away leaving them on the ship.
They come up with a plan to jetison 3 of the srew back to the other ship by blowing the other side of the airlock and hugging Cillian Murphy as they fly 20 yards into the open hatch of the I... This was a great scene... in The ABYSS... where it made sense and was dramatically effective.
Oh and the shrink stays behind and then goes up to the sun room and evaporates himself.
and the second in command starts acting lke a complete prick so when he dies.. we won't mind. He freezes in space, shatters his arm like glass, floats passed the edge of the ship and burns up... poof!
So now there's only 4 people left to pilot the ship to the sun and deliver the payload. <br><br>They have just enough oxygen left in the ship with 4 people.
The computer tells them there are 5 crew members instead of 4....
Someone came over from the other ship! Someone blew up the airlock on purpose!
Then the computer starts to die like a cross between HAL form 2001 and a drowsy phone sex operator.
Someone..without security clearance...has managed to get the mainframe out of the coolant... remember the coolant that burnt the guys hand? yeah the computer runs the whole ship. So The Human Torch... wait for it... DIVES INTO THE COOLANT and fixes the mainframe with a wrench so it will lower back into the coolant.... he does this 4 TIMES!!!! Yeesh! oh and I forgot...he has his eyes OPEN while he's in the coolant.. small detail but an incredibly stupid one.
Okay.. at this point we have three crew members trying to fly the ship closer to the sun and launch the payload. they know they are going to die but apparently EVERY actor in this movie had their agent call and make Danny Boyle give them a big "I'm gonna sacrifice myself for the good of mankind" moment. Usually these movies have 2 of these moments... in Sunshine EVERYBODY dies that way...except Michelle Yeoh who is stabbed to death with an electric scalpel while she craddles the only remaining plant in her hand...
>Wait... Did I stay stabbed? yes I did... but By who?
Why the other person who snuck aboard from the Icarus I of course!
You see..since trying to reignite the sun isn't difficult enough they had to y'know up the ante a bit...
So they have the Captain of the other ship...who has been living on the other ship for 7 years eating sprouts, staring into the sun, breathing skin dust...running around the ship..NAKED! SUN-BURNED to a CRISP! Driven Homocidal by the power of the Sun... by the way...even though he has been staring into the sun for the last 7 years...he's got 3rd degree burns all over his body..but he isn't blind. I mean COME ON
So the last two remaining crew members have no choice but to launch the payload and hope for the best.
alright that brings us to the mission. They are so close to the Sun that the ship will melt if sunlight hits it. But once the payload is launched they have 4 minutes to get far enough away that the sun won't burn them up... it took them 19 DAYS to get this close.
Even without the Naked homocidal sunburned Zombie captain they still would have DIED!
_______________________
In the end.. they die and the payload works and flies to the center of the sun (without melting) and reignites it and the permanent winter on earth is exposed to the first rays of light from the new and improved sun.
_______________________
Now just because Sunshine is a poorly researched, intellectually insulting piece of Sci-Fi doo-doo butter, you might think I don't recommend it.
Oh Contraire mon Fraire!
It's SO insipid that it passes through the membrane of bad taste into the realm of near perfection. Like Plan 9 from outer space, The Black Hole and the Core it enters circle of perfection.
Knowing what you now know I really hope you see it. <br><br>I plan on owning it on DVD.
just in case I need a teary eyed laugh sometime soon...
.....
............
...................Fuck!
They think they can re-ignite the sun! Wow!
And by greatest I mean..raging peice of shit
I normally don't do movie reviews but this is a special occasion.
This movie is so stunningly bad the only thing that could make it worse/better would be a cyborg monkey in a boxey robot suit. And in case you are worried about me ruining it for you...the only way I could ruin this movie for you is to buy you a ticket.
__________
Let's start with the Premise...
The sun is (Ah HAHAHA) going..ahem..Out! Yes that's right forget all you ever learned in science class in 3rd grade, the sun will not explode and then collapse into a black hole.. NO! apparently it's going to blink out like a faulty flourescent bulb in a truck stop john.
And it's up to mankind to... RE-IGNITE the SUN! With a Giant Nuclear Bomb "The size of Manhattan" - Now the idea of the Nuclear warhead as a heroic device is hardly new. This lovely plot device has been used before in movies like the Deep Impact (A title which made the porn industry's job easy when they made their version) and The Core (Which until now held the title for least plausible/extraordinarilly hilarious premise).
Okay so... the Sun is 110x the size of the earth and the earth is about 300x the size of Manhattan island, give or take Iceland, and that means that the nuclear warhead we're sending to the sun is like throwing a firecracker into an erupting volcano... correction..an erupting volcano The Size Of The SUN! That's RE-RE-RE-TARDED!<br><br>Yeah..that's how we START! then we move on to the fact that they have 7 crew members which includes a Psychologist but no Medic! And the Shrink starts the movie off with an addiction to Staring into The Sun! By the middle of the movie he's peeling pieces of skin off his face. (I was very dissapointed he didn't eat them, I mean while you're busy making the Sanest person on board a looney why not really give it the old Hail Mary) He is staring at the sun through a filter and trying to up his dosage all the time.
Now. There are moments when you can watch a movie like this and still enjoy it. You say to yourself "Self, this is the fucking stupidest idea I Have ever heard! But I've got a 8 dollar ticket and a box of junior mints so let's make the best of it."
Plus I crush really hard on Michelle Yeoh everytime I see her.
Seriously...
The only rule you have in these situations is that when they establish rules wihtin the context of the story they don't break them. And man do they make them....
- The Human torch dude is in this and he drops a wrench in the coolant that they house the Mainframe of the ship's computer in. It is so cold that it blisters his hand instantly... you're supposed to forget this.
- They make a huge deal about the limited amount of Oxygen they have but they make the ENTIRE surface of the bomb in the big chamber capable of sustaining life. Yeah. They barely have enough oxygen for 7 people to do their job but They pump enough oxygen into the bomb chamber for you to be able to walk ALL of New York City...
- And the big one is that they are getting so close to the sun that ANYTHING that gets hit with direct sunlight burns up like tissue paper. ANYTHING! Steel melts. people fry like popcorn in a fire pit.
______________________
There are a lot of people who actually like this movie and I credit the failing/underfunded public school system. Because the fact that it is well acted simply means the actors are not to blame for what a raging turd box this movie is. And the Scientific premises put forth are ALL ridiculous and completely without logic on suc h a scale that My cousin Kip and I started Giggling.. I shit you not..Giggling during all the exposition..
______________________
Spoiler warning !
______________________
The movie deviates from it's original plot direction to send the ship callled Icarus II... to slingshot around mercury and intercept Icarus I..which has been floating near the sun for 7 years. (Even though it has NO reverse engines. and the Sun's gravity would have pulled it into a declining orbit the minute it passed mercury... Kip said they must have one hell of a parking break) <br><br>Now... naming the Ships after Icarus...who flew too close to the Sun and burned up...is either completely ignorant or the WORST piece of foreshadowing Ever.
But that aside the ship reaches the Icarus I and because of a 1 degree miscalculation the sun destroys 4 panels on the sheild on the front of the ship, the radio tower AND the food/oxygen garden. This drives the navigator to become suicidal and gets the Captain killed fixing the panels. He burns alive when he is hit with a sunlight tidal wave...during which the ships Shrink is yelling "Tell me What you See! Tell ME What You SEE!"... which is beyond nuts..and NOBODY asks him about it later? Nobody goes "Hey..uh..what was all that Tell me what you see Shit? The Captain's dying and..dude..you need some aloe vera!" It's dumb.
They decide to dock with the Icarus I. The inside is covered with dust..like an inch thick.. one of the crew knobs says "90% of dust is human skin." okay 1.. Yeah - In A HOUSE! not on a space ship. Secondly for there to be this much dust there would have to be 300 people on the ship with the worst dandruff in the history of mankind. Dumb.
On the Icarus I they find that the garden is in great shape but the crew is all cooked in the sun viewing room and the mainframe is destroyed. before they can figure out what happened... the airlock explodes and the Icarus II starts to float away leaving them on the ship.
They come up with a plan to jetison 3 of the srew back to the other ship by blowing the other side of the airlock and hugging Cillian Murphy as they fly 20 yards into the open hatch of the I... This was a great scene... in The ABYSS... where it made sense and was dramatically effective.
Oh and the shrink stays behind and then goes up to the sun room and evaporates himself.
and the second in command starts acting lke a complete prick so when he dies.. we won't mind. He freezes in space, shatters his arm like glass, floats passed the edge of the ship and burns up... poof!
So now there's only 4 people left to pilot the ship to the sun and deliver the payload. <br><br>They have just enough oxygen left in the ship with 4 people.
The computer tells them there are 5 crew members instead of 4....
Someone came over from the other ship! Someone blew up the airlock on purpose!
Then the computer starts to die like a cross between HAL form 2001 and a drowsy phone sex operator.
Someone..without security clearance...has managed to get the mainframe out of the coolant... remember the coolant that burnt the guys hand? yeah the computer runs the whole ship. So The Human Torch... wait for it... DIVES INTO THE COOLANT and fixes the mainframe with a wrench so it will lower back into the coolant.... he does this 4 TIMES!!!! Yeesh! oh and I forgot...he has his eyes OPEN while he's in the coolant.. small detail but an incredibly stupid one.
Okay.. at this point we have three crew members trying to fly the ship closer to the sun and launch the payload. they know they are going to die but apparently EVERY actor in this movie had their agent call and make Danny Boyle give them a big "I'm gonna sacrifice myself for the good of mankind" moment. Usually these movies have 2 of these moments... in Sunshine EVERYBODY dies that way...except Michelle Yeoh who is stabbed to death with an electric scalpel while she craddles the only remaining plant in her hand...
>Wait... Did I stay stabbed? yes I did... but By who?
Why the other person who snuck aboard from the Icarus I of course!
You see..since trying to reignite the sun isn't difficult enough they had to y'know up the ante a bit...
So they have the Captain of the other ship...who has been living on the other ship for 7 years eating sprouts, staring into the sun, breathing skin dust...running around the ship..NAKED! SUN-BURNED to a CRISP! Driven Homocidal by the power of the Sun... by the way...even though he has been staring into the sun for the last 7 years...he's got 3rd degree burns all over his body..but he isn't blind. I mean COME ON
So the last two remaining crew members have no choice but to launch the payload and hope for the best.
alright that brings us to the mission. They are so close to the Sun that the ship will melt if sunlight hits it. But once the payload is launched they have 4 minutes to get far enough away that the sun won't burn them up... it took them 19 DAYS to get this close.
Even without the Naked homocidal sunburned Zombie captain they still would have DIED!
_______________________
In the end.. they die and the payload works and flies to the center of the sun (without melting) and reignites it and the permanent winter on earth is exposed to the first rays of light from the new and improved sun.
_______________________
Now just because Sunshine is a poorly researched, intellectually insulting piece of Sci-Fi doo-doo butter, you might think I don't recommend it.
Oh Contraire mon Fraire!
It's SO insipid that it passes through the membrane of bad taste into the realm of near perfection. Like Plan 9 from outer space, The Black Hole and the Core it enters circle of perfection.
Knowing what you now know I really hope you see it. <br><br>I plan on owning it on DVD.
just in case I need a teary eyed laugh sometime soon...
.....
............
...................Fuck!
They think they can re-ignite the sun! Wow!
Ah..the joys of Late night TV...
Oddly enough my appearance on this show led to me meeting Kerry King, the guitar player from Slayer, and having an extremely substantive conversation....go figure..
I say some silly shit don't I?
Oddly enough my appearance on this show led to me meeting Kerry King, the guitar player from Slayer, and having an extremely substantive conversation....go figure..
I say some silly shit don't I?
I just got back from Nashville. I performed at Zanies all weekend. Good Times
They have a weird thing about that club where instead of a Sunday show they do 3 shows on Saturday.
Yeah 3... I guess if you're a drift around mike to the chest comic it's no big deal. But I run around like a shaved monkey on stage and scream like a psychopath half the time.
And the weirdest thing is midway through the 3rd show you're about to do a bit and you go...
"Did I already do this one?" You have to do it for another joke to work but you don't know if you're repeating yourself.. it's wild, I tell ya, wild...
So to break up the monotony for ourselves My freind Chris and I ended the late show with a silly song...
Ah...silliness
They have a weird thing about that club where instead of a Sunday show they do 3 shows on Saturday.
Yeah 3... I guess if you're a drift around mike to the chest comic it's no big deal. But I run around like a shaved monkey on stage and scream like a psychopath half the time.
And the weirdest thing is midway through the 3rd show you're about to do a bit and you go...
"Did I already do this one?" You have to do it for another joke to work but you don't know if you're repeating yourself.. it's wild, I tell ya, wild...
So to break up the monotony for ourselves My freind Chris and I ended the late show with a silly song...
Ah...silliness
uh oh...
The following is an excerpt from a Dallas Morning News Article....
The following is an excerpt from a Dallas Morning News Article....
"What's more, there is not much real give in the administration's policies. True, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other American diplomats met Memorial Day weekend with the Iranians in Baghdad (a good first move but limited, since the Iranians have most of the power because of our incredible stupidity in Iraq). But by all reports, President Bush is more convinced than ever of his righteousness.
Friends of his from Texas were shocked recently to find him nearly wild-eyed, thumping himself on the chest three times while he repeated "I am the president!" He also made it clear he was setting Iraq up so his successor could not get out of "our country's destiny.""
Thumping his chest?!? Wild-eyed?!?...
Folks here is your "down home president"
the one who is "just like you and me"
The guy you could "have a beer with"
Yeah... this is what people wanted when they thought he would be The "lesser of 2 evils".
