Intro Music (to a Film)

Never have I been happier to listen to Burrito talk and manlove for myself, but the P-Kast shit needs theme music and, preferably, a voiceover from Meathammer.

How about this shit?



Buy the elbow when I drop it.

Say K'mochi.

Methadone

The bar was long and blue. There may have been a coin-operated pool table. I don't remember much in that department, but I suppose that's to be expected when you start drinking midday on the hottest day of the year. Still, there's stuff I do remember, and vividly. I was wearing a gray shirt; just plain-old gray, but that shirt connoted power, like the drab outfit of a fascist dictator. It's been over ten years since I've worn that shirt, but I'm sure it must be around somewhere back home, lonely and forgotten. Shirts don't decompose like half-eaten apples and dead carcasses. No, you'd have to burn it or shred it if you wanted that old shirt gone, and I don't think anyone ever cared enough to want it gone from the face of the earth that badly, least of all me. It's probably bunched up and smelling like mildew in my closet back home, or maybe in the basement. Sometimes I think about that shirt. It was plain, simple, nice.

My hair was the same length all over my head, the result of growing out what I'd shaven clean bald from my scalp over half a year prior. By evening my face was crimson from sitting out all day on the cottage porch steps, drinking bottle after bottle of Miller Genuine Draft. I must have had at least a dozen and a half, but youth scoffs at such an amount, and on into the late-night hours I drifted aimlessly and drunkenly.

On our way home the next day we stopped for breakfast at a diner. I ordered a grilled-cheese sandwich with bacon and tomato. My brother -- convention be damned -- smoked a cigarette while he ate. After our meal we stopped for gas and I bought a 500ml carton of orange juice.

Conflict Resolution

This is how you solve problems, PK style.




(It also pushes the crap downward.)

Get Up

This morning, nursing a hangover with dusty air and a cloud-strewn sky with an inherent hope of greatness (it's all related), I made my second pilgrimage in less than 24 hours: first, Bundang, second, Kyobo bookstore. I almost picked up Bram Stoker's Dracula, but, word to Harper Lee-bad karma, opted instead for John Steinbeck's masterpiece of fiction, The Grapes of Wrath (aka The Angry Grapes, if you're Japanese.)

In high school I wrote an essay on the novel, and, fuck you and me both, it was purdy darn good; so much so that my teacher was offended by my accurate criticism of the third chapter, in which a land turtle climbs an embankment, gets lucky when one driver avoids it, then gets knocked -- literally -- on its ass when a second driver purposefully tries to run it off the road. Turtle = working-class foundation of the nation; second car = the mechanical nature of oppression. Duh, not that hard to figure out. But my teacher, Mr. Pupa (he's probably dead now, so I'll resist calling him a cocksucker for giving my essay an 85), insisted that Johnny S wrote that chapter as, much like the first, mise en scène.

What a dumbass.

It Mehmet ocurred to me today, however, that what I once adored as a 17-year-old (virgin) might not hold the same impact it once did, because The Grapes of Wrath, while acknowledged by smart people as one of the greatest American novels ever written, is sentimental like a motherfuck, and that trait, somehow, makes it poor fiction.

To dumb people.

Tell me -- because I'm too lazy to tell myself -- what, exactly, is so wrong with sentimentality? In this time and age (where redundancy reigns), it's clear to me that any emotion from media is treated with cynicism; and if a film, TV show, book, or astral projection makes you feel a genuine emotion, it's automatic(For the People)ally labeled as ham-handed, ham-fisted, or hammy. Or, if you're a vegetarian, cheesy. (If you're a vegan, I have no idea; tofuey, perhaps?)

Why would a person be offended if an episode of Full House makes him feel a sense of genuine human empathy? Why does Tom Joad's speech at the end of the novel continue to be called overly sentimental as though that's a bad thing?

Anything that makes you feel good is not wrong, nor is it bad drama.

(Unless it's cocaine.)

From under Someone Else's Bed

I once hung out with people (believe it or not), and did stuff like eat pizza while playing Zaxxon one-handed.* Admittedly, it seems like a lifetime ago, back when I was frightened to sleep without the comforting gaze of my buddy, the Glo Worm, to keep my hysteria toward the encroaching darkness in check. I can't -nay, won't- shy away from confessing that fear of the unknown night was merely one of my irrational childhood fears, the greatest of which was my staunch aversion toward arachnids, especially spiders and tarantulas. Fun fact: I've traveled to New Zealand (specifically South Island), but not Australia. I'll give you three chances to guess on a major factor in that decision, and no, Denz has nothing to do with it this time. Yes, I was terrified of several things in my youth, but tonight's post is about being frightened of the dark itself, and the 'new' Twilight Zone.

Any studious listener of the PKast would, hopefully after vomiting profusely, recall my verbose description of an episode from the aforementioned series, namely Ray Bradbury's the Elevator, during which I cataloged the horrific nature of Stephen Geoffrey's performance, as well as the pervasive cheesiness of the series as a whole. I recently completed my viewing of the first season, and while I do not regret my casual stroll down memory lane, I will attest to the notion that the series itself was severely flawed, almost fatally so. Having said that, I do think that the series had its high points, even if Bradbury's work really doesn't qualify as one of them. If anything, the arachnoid deus ex machina both serves, and severs its function; for anyone over the age of twelve, it rarely tingles the spine, except for an almost automatic knee-jerk 'I didn't see that coming' reaction.**

The venerable Joe Dante's contribution to the series, however, plays upon the notion of dark, fearful symmetry with his usual sardonic directorial acumen. In the Shadow Man,*** Dante introduces us to the timid, adolescent Danny Hayes, a clever, studious boy easily disturbed by the slightest jolt of morbidity. Deathly afraid of the dark, Danny elects to sleep with several lights, television, and radio turned on, until he turns thirteen, at which point his flabbergasted mother decrees that he'll just have to grow up and deal with his fear. Without giving anything pertinent away, I will state that this is where the tale becomes interesting, as something emerges from beneath his bed, much to the boy's chagrin.

As noted previously, this episode stands in stark contrast to the shock value of the Elevator not only in its subject matter, but in its presentation and outlook. In Bradbury's story, we are given two brothers that are, inevitably, prey for something wholly beyond their control, and ours (namely, a big, genetically enhanced spider). In the Shadow Man, viewers are privy to something entirely different; that the majority of viewers -whether it be in hindsight or contemporarily, nerdy males aged twelve to thirty- could identify with Danny is unquestionable. The conundrum, in my mind, is whether I, as a viewer, am supposed to fear the dark (and what it may hold), or to dread the price of becoming 'cool' with the society that helped generate Danny's fear of darkness.
---------------
Sparkles Says: It's all about the hubris!

Kmart Says: No it's not. Get the fuck out of here.
---------------
Fear not, as I am scarcely capable of waxing philosophical about anything, let alone an episode of a defunct TV series from the mid-eighties. What I am trying to imply, haphazardly, is that the genius of Dante is that he plays upon a fear of the dark with the utmost sagacity. The titular Shadow Man is a murky, nondescript shade that doesn't inspire extreme fear, either now or when I was a lad. Unlike the Elevator, I can smile watching the Shadow Man tonight just as I did twenty some years ago, albeit a twisted smile that reflects my amusement with the scenario played out.

Even so, given the gaze of a man who lost track of his prime, I can't help but wonder about the fate of young Danny with respect to projection. I am no longer afraid of the dark, but unlike that character, I recognize that there are things to fear within said darkness, things that are no more -or less- supernatural than a bag of Cheetos. By extension, I suppose that some girl walking alone on a dimly lit university campus sidewalk after hours may fear me, not because I'm scary, but due to the fact that I (or anyone else, for that matter) represent the blackened visage best described as a Shadow Man. That nameless girl was probably coming from the same collegiate party that I had been, each of us drinking extensively, trying to be cool but lamenting what the result could be, even with all the lights burning brightly. She probably scares me as much as I do her, but I can't decide if that is because she's cool, or because there may be something hidden behind her, in the darkness beyond the streetlight.

If that sounds awkward, then perhaps you should watch Dante's the Shadow Man, because that's what it is all about, in its own way. For the majority of the episode, you're wondering just what it is that should perturb you, and what it is you should be grinning about. They may be one in the same, and that is what is most frightening above all.****

All on a 13 inch, black-and-white Zenith television.

_____________________________

Rockne S. O'Bannon


* That was two weeks ago, with Sparkles at the helm. Korea still believes in classic gaming.

** Except for you, dear reader, as I've already mentioned the ending. Sorry about that.

*** For those curious souls, the episode is available for viewing at YouTube. Watch it!

**** Originally, the sentence had been written with 'salivating' in lieu of 'frightening.' Weird.

Pride (In the Name of Love)

Have the citizens of Earth -- the important ones who love the god-blessed sport of basketball -- gone completely insane?

Kobe. Garnett. James.

Chris Paul is projected third or fourth (Lebron deserves MVP like I deserve the Man Booker Prize) in MVP voting to those cats? Really?

Come the fuck on.

Prince Paul -- I refuse outright to call him CP3, 'cause my nickname is better -- has put together a season for the ages: his team is first in the DEADLY Western Conference, and my magic 8-ball says that's exactly where they'll finish the season. In first. Sure, they'll probably get bumped out of the 'offs in the 2nd round (possibly first if they face the Nuggets), but give credit -- word to Guru -- where it's due.

Give Kobe the mivip and he's this year's Dirk (first round exito); give it to KG and piss off Shaq, who did the exact same thing for the Heat in '05-06; Hold on...

If Chris Paul were white...?

Oh, I'm going there. I'm also saying that were Prince Paul in the league a lot longer than he's been (three years), he'd be a shoe-in.

But for some fucked up reason we can't set a (funky) precedent. He's too young. Don't want to blow up the kid's ego too soon.

See, the NBA, as much as I love it, doesn't reward quick progress, no matter how phenominal. And in Paul's case it's pretty fucking outstanding. And non-vaingloriously. Extra points.

Again, the Hornets didn't make the 'offs last year. This year, they're taking the tight West.

Give. It. Up.

This is exactly like the time when The Wire didn't receive any Emmys.

(I'm going to fill this post with one-sentence paragraphs until someone recognizes just how

large my penis is

remarkable the Hornets' season has been. And it's all due to Paul.)

Don't hate youth, old fuckers who report on b-ball.

Chris Paul is the MVP. And if you disagree, you've probably watched more ball this year.

Don't get it cloudy.

Someone's gonna die.

The PKast (Volume 1.5)

http://www.sitchpod.com/users/kmart/PKast1point5.mp3

Take only what you need from it.

Awake (Review)

Going to the movies when nothing good is playing is a poor excuse to visit the cinema. "What'd you see?" someone asks, and you respond, "Battlefield Earth," adding the qualifier "because nothing else was playing."

That's like eating gum for breakfast because you don't have any eggs in your fridge (yes, it's exactly like that).

So why did I agree on Friday night to see Awake? Not because nothing else was playing, but because my girlfriend, still recovering from a tonsilectomy, asked me to. Still, that alone wasn't enough to make a cold-hearted bastard like myself agree. No, it was Roger Ebert's three-star review of the film that proved the tipping point.

See, I read Ebert's reviews like your moms does Reader's Digest Condensed Books, and he postulated that the reason he enjoyed the movie was because he hadn't seen any advertisements for the film, nor the film's poster (Jesus, look at it up there; that's a crime), which he claimed gives away a crucial plot point. I read (the first paragraph of) that review around the time the movie was being advertised for release here in Korea, and, imagining that I might enjoy the film were I to go in fresh, I stopped reading it right there.

Make no mistake, the plot twist, which comes midway through the picture, is unexpected. It's also original. It's shocking, and set up very well. It is not, however, effective, because it makes an intriguing movie completely dislikable.

Dislikable because you suddenly hate pretty much every character you've been introduced to, including the protagonist, whom it's hard to feel pathos for when you keep thinking about how much of a dumb fuck he is.

(Spoiler warning from here on. I don't think I'll get many complaints.)

Awake stars Hayden Christensen (NOOOooo! Although he was pretty okay in Jumper) and Jessica Alba (whose nipple you can see beneath a wet undershirt, close up, for a couple of seconds, so maybe that alone is worth the price of admission). Christensen plays Clay, the son and heir of a

(shyness that is criminally vulgar)

business magnate. Alba plays Sam, his fiancee, though Clay's protective mother doesn't know about their engagement. Terrence Howard -- who is slowly turning into the new millenial Samuel L. Jackson, i.e. a very good black actor who won't turn down any role, no matter how shitty (see: Brave One, The) -- plays Jack, the surgeon who first saved Clay's life when he had a heart attack, and who later befriended him when he discovered that Clay needed a heart transplant.

The movie begins by informing us that out of the millions of patients who receive general anesthesia every year, roughly 30 thousand experience what is known as "anesthetic awareness," a phenomenon where a patient undergoing surgery is aware of what is happening to him or her, and feels the pain of the surgery.

Yowza. I joked to my girlfriend that it was a good thing we'd gone to see the movie after her operation.

That's a good premise for a movie, I suppose, but only in theory. See, in practice, you can't have a film about a guy having his chest cut open, his heart removed, and everything else that occurs during a heart transplant, because that would be too unsettling for an audience to bear. Admittedly, the 10 or so minutes that the movie actually devotes to this concept had me feeling pretty uneasy.

The rest of it had me feeling pretty pissed off, and the only reason I'm writing this review instead of watching season 4 of The Dark Tower 2.0 (aka Lost), is because there could have been a good movie in there somewhere had the tone been different.

Clay marries Sam on the night he finds out he's to have his heart transplant the next morning. He's rushed to the hospital where his mother, adamant that Dr. Jack, who has several pending malpractice lawsuits, doesn't perform the surgery. Clay's mother insists her doctor friend, Jonathan Neyer, who has had his "hands inside presidents," handle the operation, but Clay balks*. He's in good hands. He's got his girl, his best friend, and his Orange Crush. Fuck you, Mom, and your stuffy old medicine man.

Youth gone wild. Can't tell them nothing.

Maybe you should have listened to your moms, Clay, because it turns out the whole thing's a scam. Sam, Dr. Jack, some English bird, and Fisher Fucking Stevens (shoulda left the cineplex when THAT credit appeared on screen) want Clay dead so Sam can get his inheritance and the quartet can split the pie four ways.

Clay -- because he's AWAKE -- hears all this. I dunno, but if my chest were open I'd be like

OHSHITOHSHITOHSHITFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKAHHHHHHAHHHHHHHWHATTHEFUCKKILLMEKILLMEKILLMEEEEEEEEEE!!!

Anyway, Shooter McGavin busts them all (I'm dead serious), and Clay's moms OD's on pills so that her doctor friend, Jonothan Neyer, can remove HER heart and give it to her son.

The operation is performed, while, in the spirit world, Clay tells his mother he won't leave her. That's when Clay's moms reminds him that Clay's pops was a coke-sniffing spousal abuser whom she deaded with a fireplace poker, and Clay had ereased that memory since he was young.

Ugh.

The coup de grace, however, comes at the end. Dr. Jack, who opens the film with narration calling Clay his friend, ends it feeling sorry for the guy he tried to kill. To tell you the truth, I feel sorry for everyone involved in this monstrosity. Because there are no happy endings here. Jesus, Clay wakes up with a new heart that will last as long as the first generation iPods, his moms is dead, his fiancee conned him for his money, his best friend did the same, and now he remembers that his pops was a deadbeat.

Almost awesome enough for me to give it 2 *_*

.


* by which I mean he acts stubbornly, not that he makes an illegal motion while one or more runners are on base.

Fun(nel)

Sparkles's secretary (who looks exactly like Kate Winslet minus the chub, plus the legs): Sir, Billy Mitchell is on line two.

Spark: Who?

Sec: Billy Mitchell.

Sp: I don't know a Billy Mitchell.

Se: Well, sir, he says he knows you. He told me...

Billy Mitchell: Listen, Forbes, you know exactly who I am, so don't play dumb.

S: THE Billy Mitchell?

William "Mitchy" Mitchell: Knock it off. You better give me the respect that I deserve or I'ma take it by force. Blast you with a .45 colt, make you summersault.

s: Oh, the Pac-Man guy.

Mitch: S'right.

e: You're amazing.

Billy Mitchell: I'm okay, I guess.

o: Hey, have you ever thought about not being such a reclusive douchebag? I mean, it works for JD Salinger, but, sorry Mitchy, no one really cares about you. Nor your hot sauce. And those ties suck balls. Are you a Scientologist?

Billy: A what?

i: Maybe I spelled it worng.

n: Anyway, have you beaten Contra 4 yet?

Bill: I beat it the day I got it, asshole.

f: Beat Nanostray 2?

Bi: Matter of time. I could shoot the Sphinx's nose out of Napoleon's hand.

o: Hold on, what?

B: I'm on some bullshit, don't worry about it.

r: Yeah, I know how it is. By the way, the Internet hates you. King of Kong crucified you.

b: Well, what can you do?

b: Not much, I guess. Still, isn't there some pride at stake?

What's at stake now?

I dunno, you called me.

[Click]

The PK 27 -- Track Sitars, Pots, and Pans

Just because I'm on semi-hiatus doesn't mean you don't need to groove.



Give the Cold War Kids some love. They're like Maroon Five without the suck, Starsailor minus the suicide.

Bask in exaltation.

Harbinger: The PKast is prepped and ready. And if you think I'm aping Bill Simmons by resorting to links and podcasts because I've lost my writing mojo, you, sir, are perceptive.