For a Limited Time Only (Restrictions May Apply)

We accept her, one of us, we accept her, one of us Gooble, gobble, gooble, gobble We accept her, we accept her Gooble, gobble, gooble, gobble! 'They're going to make you one of them, my peacock!' -- Todd Browning's Freaks

Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. -- Ferris Bueller's Day Off

I am about to find myself, in a few months, on the wrong side of 30. Which I can accept. I would rather be 36 than 46; and I'm sure that, when (or if), I turn 46, I'll be thankful that I have a decade left until I turn 56, and so on. But what I can't reconcile with is the ostensibly faster passage of time as I age. Until my late 20s, everything seemed to move at an agreeable pace. It's only when I am reminded that 2007 was seven(!) years ago that the cruel momentum of time's passing becomes a fearsome locomotive, gaining speed with each passing year, until last stop...

...Willoughby?


I am going to die someday, later rather than sooner, Plinko God willing, and hopefully not painfully. I have accepted this idea. But only in theory. I'm not at peace with dying, because I want to keep doing stuff: talking with people I love, getting nudged (not mugged, though) on the subway by some impatient guy, cleaning the grease off of a bicycle chain, eating a burrito at 4 AM with a group of carousers, throwing a snowball at a snowman and appreciating the weird irony, sitting in a movie theater as hundreds of -- or dozens, or a few -- people stare rapt at a white screen and share a communal experience in silence...

Laughing at fart jokes despite myself...eating French-fried potatoes...pretending to not cry at movies...getting indignant when someone notices I'm pretending to not cry and calls me on it...the pretty sound of women talking in hushed tones on the phone...Mario Kart...fucking dachshunds...

I don't want to stop living. One day, though, I will; and the biggest rub is that I won't be able to complain about it. That fills me with terror. If I am no longer Me, how will I know? Everything will vanish. Nothing will be all. How will I know if the Bills win the Super Bowl? How will I know my friends and family are happy when I won't know anything?

I can't fathom nonexistence. I don't think that's an unreasonable statement. Smile, flashbulb...gone.

Souvenirs are 50% off in the gift shop. Tell your friends.

Finish Line

I'll tell you what, I'm never eating at Benihana again. I don't care whose birthday it is.

 February is the cruelest month when it comes to Hollywood movies. After all the jockeying for Oscar votes has been completed, the studios dump their flotsam and jetsam on the movie-going public. Shit like I, Frankenstein gets released*. Combined with all the snowfall in the northeast, where my heart always resides, it makes for a pretty shitty time of year.

This dearth of quality films does however serve as a time to reflect on the feast that was served before last year's nominations deadline, to pick at the leftovers. I've reexamined most of the notable films** and performances, and I've come to two conclusions.

1

The Wolf of Wall Street would be my vote, if I had one, for Best Picture. Darkly comic and enormously enjoyable, only Martin Scorsese, with assists from Thelma Schoonmaker and Terence Winter, could craft such a remarkable film about absolutely horrible human beings. Marty did on purpose what Brian De Palma did accidentally 31 years earlier with Scarface: he made his protagonist a litmus test to examine the character of the viewer. Jordan Belfort is not a person anyone should ever want to be like. But a lot of people want just that: to be a villain and consider themselves the hero.

2

Rush, directed by Ron Howard***, is my personal runner-up for the best movie I watched last year. That it got completely shut out of Academy Awards nominations is borderline criminal. It is, perhaps, the finest movie ever made about a rivalry, and Daniel Bruhl's performance is stunning. It got shut out, but, like the dinosaurs on Isla Nublar, nature finds a way. Rush will be discovered and rediscovered over the years. It is so good.


* The only exception in recent years to this rule of thumb, in terms of both box office and critical success, was Taken in 2009.

** I still haven't seen American Hustle.

*** "Cloying" is the term I used to use to describe Ron Howard after A Beautiful Mind and the Da Vinci Code movies. But Rush is as honest a film that someone can make. I would love more from Real Ron Howard, less from Studio Robot Ron Howard.

Wait. What Now?

Honestly, I'm not quite sure what to say about this video... I'll say that a person probably shouldn't watch it at work, but to those that do, hats off to you, sir or madam, as there are some brass balls clanging between those legs of yours. I'll also say that this video isn't family friendly, but again, if one chooses to watch this video with children present, hats off to you, sir or madam, as traumatizing your children is part of being good parent.

The Fifteenth

Stabbing that which isn't meant to lie dormant seems pretty dumb to me. On the flip side, do carry on.

Alanis Morissette - Hands Clean

Where Countries Come together, to Hate Each Other in the Name Of Sport

The Olympics medal rankings and which country is "winning" is truly stupid, yet fixable. The total number of medals should not define a country's overall performance. Just being pretty good -- albeit on an exceptional level -- all around shouldn't amount to the same thing as being unquestionably great. Six pennies plus 3 nickels plus a sole 10-cent coin equal 31 cents; Six dimes plus 3 nickels plus a single penny equal 76 cents. I made you math.

It's ironic that the value of precious metals is easily disregarded every 4 years. Norway (6), the United States (6), and the Netherlands (5) currently have more bronze medals than they have golds, yet they sit, at least on Yahoo! as the top 3 "winners" so far of these Olympics. I find this very petty, like a child going around picking up detritus just so he can say he is its sole owner. To paraphrase the man, you can't turn shit into Shinola. There is much to respect in an Olympic participant: the skill he possesses, the dedication; but to reward in a 3rd -or 2nd-place Olympic athlete the same as a Gold Medalist (proper noun) is wrong. I'm all for equality, but not at the expense of cheapening greatness.

So, how to judge each country based on its medal count? It's easy, like Sunday morning and shoplifting. If you've ever played Mario Kart or have a logical working brain, you would assign points to medals as follows:

Gold: 3
Silver: 2
Bronze: 1

Based on this radical supposition, here is the true Sochi Olympics current rankings (top 5):

Germany: 26 pts*
Norway: 24 pts
Netherlands: 23 pts
Canada: 22 pts
Russia: 20 pts

* Germany collected 7 gold medals in like a day or two (!), yet the Western media, as far as I've seen, have been dumb on the achievement. That shit ain't right. Credit where it's due!

Double Dip

More than a decade ago, I was seated on a rickety chair at an unsteady table in a dilapidated bar of an unsound college town. A young man sitting across from me reached across the table to a pack of Marlboros lying next to my pint of Guinness, removed a cigarette, lit up, and said, "Some people are givers, and some people are takers."

I laughed, mostly because he was a simpleton in the truest sense of the word, and said, "If only I were interested in people." He was a bit too stupid to figure out he'd just been taken, but that's a given.

---

Occasionally, people will ask me for something, such as, "Are you going to eat those cheese balls?" and whether someone is asking for food, requesting permission to lay hands upon that which is mine, or simply offering a pleasantry as premise to pilfering a plate is irrelevant as well as perplexing, for the people who ask are the ones that needn't. Folks are funny like that. 

Stars / Alignment

"A bag of black licorice jelly beans just saved your friend from a fiery death, so shut the fuck up and smile already."

"What's that supposed to mean, anyway?"

"It means that magic still exists within this world even if it isn't seen as magic, and what we do isn't who we are even if the stars are in alignment." 

"Yeah, yeah."

"Precisely."

Morningwood - Nu Rock

Six Shots till Summation: Taekwon! Taekwon!

Miami Connection (1987)

It's a film about friendship, family, cocaine, ninja bikers, a truly international band, rock music and taekwondo, sometimes all at once. Oh, and breaking boards, that too. In other words, Miami Connection is the film you've been dying to see your entire life.

Trivia

Not that a viewer would notice, but none of the guys involved with this film are professional actors.

Bonus Round

Have I mentioned the killer soundtrack? You can find it here. 

Old as Ice

Last night, I found myself pondering the likelihood of Kim Yuna becoming a 2-time Olympic figure skating gold medalist*. I have no real anticipation for the Sochi Games, but I thought I'd try to muster some**. A friend on Facebook commented that Kim is past her prime, and, disregarding the existential shock that anyone could be past their prime at 23 years old, it turns out he's probably correct.

The facts (I did the research myself!):

Since Dorothy Hamill won the gold medal in Innsbruck in 1976 in Ladies' Figure Skating***, the average age of Olympic Ladies' Figure Skating gold medalists has been 19 years old.

If Kim wins gold in Sochi, she would be the second-oldest Olympian in the event to win (again, since 1976) after Shizuka Arakawa, who won in Turin/Torino at the age of 24. The sole repeat gold medalist since 1976? Katarina Witt (in 1984 and 1988, at ages 18 and 22, respectively****). The youngest? Tara Lipinski, 15, in Nagano.

But! Kim's biggest rival, Asada Mao, is no spring chicken either at 22. It's a wonder that, at her age, she can even remember to take her gym bag to the rink when she practices, but apparently she's improved her triple axel, which is the figure skating analogue of dunking from beyond the free throw line in basketball. The problem is, she lacks grace, like a family of atheists eating supper with shovels in place of spoons.

We'll see what happens in a month's time. I'm just ruminating now because I'm actually interested in the competition. I'm looking forward to watching these two seasoned veterans battle for one last round, before they're rendered into glue.


* Tomorrow I'll be curious about something else. It's how my flitting brain works. What's the Guinness record for longest eyebrow hair? Whatever became of John-John the Leprechaun, who went to school with nothing on? Where the fuck is Wallace, String?

** As does everyone, even those Coca-Cola polar bears. Especially those Coca-Cola polar bears.

*** Man, that's a lot of ins...with no easy way out.

**** That "respectively" is redundant and annoying, I know. I'm keeping it in because I've been editing medical analysis documents all day, and those dudes love that fucking word for some reason. Almost as much as they like single sentences that run on for three pages; almost as much as They like randomly Capitalizing lEtteRs without any rhyme or reasOn.

Uneasy Lies the Head That Wears the Crown

Ayo listen here, Bey. You come at the King, you best not miss.

-- Omar Little, The Wire

But you've survived because you've been protected by the strong. But they're not strong anymore.

-- Sgt. Nathan Leckie, Animal Kingdom

The Miami Heat beat the San Antonio Spurs in a Sunday afternoon rematch of last year's amazing NBA Finals. Everybody clap, roll on snare drum. The Heat are 2 games improved on their regular-season record of this time last year, yet questions linger. Can the Heat three-peat? My sources -- a Magic 8-Ball that I stole from a homeless man's bindle and the three dollars I won at scratch tickets -- say "maybe."

Ingredients required:

1) Health. Can Wade's knees hold up? Can Greg Oden's*? The Heat's success is predicated on its roster being 100%. That's a house of cards.

2) The Heat have to make it to the Finals to try to win a third straight championship. That's not guaranteed. Everyone is predicting a Heat-Pacers Eastern Conference Finals, and that's not guaranteed, either. As of right now, the Heat are the No. 2 seed in the East and the Nets are No. 7. That possible match-up in the first round of the playoffs terrifies me, not only because of the Nets' combined veteran talent, but also because I suspect the officiating in Brooklyn has been influenced by outside factors.

3) Home court advantage. Jeff Van Gundy said during the game that the Pacers have the first seed locked barring a "huge setback," which, as much as I love JVG, is one of the stupider things -- no, make it the stupidest thing -- he's ever said. The Heat are 2 and 1/2 games behind Indiana. Midway through the season. Surely that's insurmountable. /s

Can the Heat beat the Pacers without home-court advantage? Maybe? Hopefully, if that's the case. I expect the Pacers will swoon a bit over the next two months, but that's just a guess.


* I think the Heat can win another title without Oden -- I just want the guy to be able to play and be productive.