ME NO LIKEY.

The Straight Gin...

2009-05-16T13:20:00.008-04:00

This was already covered over on Greg's site but we did another Howcast video. This puts us at two total videos for them. Not sure if we'll do a third or maybe just concentrate on our own homegrown projects now, but I think this is the best thing we've done together so far. I directed and shot, Greg edited and actually acted as well (he is in the Speakeasy hat), and our good friend Hank Offinger did a great job in his tuxedo. Check it out.

HILARITY WILL ENSUE...

2008-11-12T14:02:00.005-05:00

David Cross is one of the funniest men alive, and the new red-band trailer for "Demoted" proves it. Oh, it also stars hobbit/caveman owner/goonie, Daniel E. Reuttiger (figure it out). Double prove. What!

WOW...

2008-11-05T17:28:00.010-05:00

So we have a new president - Barack Obama. What a feeling. My vote seemed to count for something. This was the first time in a long time that I have been proud to label myself as an American citizen. I am sure that many people are saying that today, and I have no doubt that most of us feel a pseudo-relief, at least for the time being, that change will eventually come.

One thing that I noticed about yesterday's election, and though it might be a minor detail, sums up exactly why Obama won and McCain didn't. Hundreds of thousands of eager people gathered in Chicago's Grant Park, irregardless of whether or not Obama was victorious. If he had lost, I suppose that most of them would have stuck around to see his concession speech nonetheless. The "hundreds of thousands" is key to this statement, as an open-door policy was in effect for the victory rally. EVERYONE was invited.

In Phoenix, hundreds of people showed up at the McCain rally, however, the festivities at the Biltmore Hotel were BY INVITATION ONLY. Friends, big money supporters, and party representatives were the only ones invited, and we might as well have called it "Club McCain at the Biltmore". His exclusion of the common man and inability to connect with the people became the downfall of his campaign. It was not the current economic crisis, nor was it his vice-presidential candidate, however they did contribute. Again I say, John McCain did not know how to reach the people, and the people did not reach out for his hand in rescue. The common man does not run in the same political circles that McCain runs in, and we sure as hell don't limit our societal victories to a chosen few. We share them with everyone - blue or red, white or black.

My countrymen/women have risen up and have signed a new lease on American life, hopeful and proud, but not forgetting that the road ahead will be full of tumult and reparation. This road, which has quickly eroded into rubble and ruin, needs to be built back up using the hands of Americans, a people who have built countless roads and have blazed paths through the wilderness of continuing freedom. We need to return to the ideas and values that brought us so far, but not forget to be progressive in mind and soul. We need to dig deep into the soil, grab ahold of some of the freshest earth, and mold a new road for our future to rely on.

I truly believe that Obama will lead us to constructing this road, but we have to build it ourselves. The United States of America was once ruled by the people, and it will again be soon enough.

FOOTBALL CAN BE INTELLIGENT...

2008-10-20T11:56:00.005-04:00

Last night I saw a new Nike commercial during the Buccaneers-Seahawks game that really jumped out at me. I knew there was something special about it, even after the first 10 seconds of watching. The spot follows NFL stars LaDanian Tomlinson and Troy Polamalu, paralleling their rise from birth to fearless children, to high school heroes, into the college years, and it finally culminates in a huge, crushing NFL-sized tackle involving the two players. The spot is driven by an inspiring hip-hop version of Ennio Morricone's "The Ecstasy of Gold", and the storytelling methods could be equal to that of "Citizen Kane", if Orson Welles had made short pieces. I'm actually suprised that this wasn't saved for a Super Bowl timeslot, it's that good.

I looked for it on the internet when I came into work today, and to no suprise, found out it was directed by David Fincher (Seven, Fight Club, Zodiac), one of my favorite directors of all time. Even if you are a fan of this man (which I hope you are), its hard not to connect to the spot without even knowing he was behind it. So I present to you one of the better commercials that I've seen in a really, really long time.

WHO PUT THIS DICK ON MY BACK...

2008-10-17T19:49:00.003-04:00

http://view.break.com/589473 - Watch more free videos

END O' THE WEEK MORON...

2008-10-10T17:28:00.007-04:00

In an effort to make this web-log into something a little more interesting, adding stories with a weekly purpose might just do the trick and get you back here to read occasionally. So I'm instituting the "End O' The Week Moron", an oxymoron which I somehow can connect to something fucked up that happened to me this week. It doesn't have to be an earth-shattering event, or even something of newsworthy acclaim, but I think its fun to connect conflicting words to a objective topic. Simple enough.

Kicking off the first moron is:

CONVENIENCE STORE

Not convenient at all. I've never felt convenienced after walking into any small grocery store, because I HAVE TO DO MY OWN SHOPPING. How is that convenient? Have you ever been to 7-11? It's a mess. Get me a blue raspberry slurpee with a twisty straw, make me a nice and gooey salisbury steak sandwich, and deliver that shit to my house! Now that's convenience.

Another inconvenience with these places is that you might have to talk to someone that doesn't even speak English. The other day I went into a one of those stores with a shady name like "GHB Incorporated" over on 1st avenue. I walked up to the counter and a nice young Asian lady greeted me and asked for my order. I told her that I would like an egg and cheese breakfast sandwich, and she began to reach for her ladle, which confused me. She turned around to face the kitchen, and ten seconds later I had a to-go container full of split pea soup in front of me. Not really sure how she confused "egg and cheese" with "split pea", but maybe that's what they call it in Rangoon. Who knows. I was hungry so I just took it and left.

A couple minutes later, I was sitting on the subway next to some really annoying old lady that looked like Cruella Deville and kept on breathing heavily out of her nostrils. It honestly sounded like a wet noodle being blown by the wind against a piece of drywall. Even weirder was that she kept on touching me by accident with a prosthetic hand! As we were getting into Union Square, the train jerked to a halt, and I ended up spilling the soup all over my pants, and the old lady's creepy plaster hand. She didn't even notice. Lack of nerve endings in her fake hand maybe? I guess that's convenient.

SO THERE WAS THIS CAMEL SMOKING A CIGARETTE...

2008-10-06T17:31:00.005-04:00

Animals seem to amuse me, especially those that have human characteristics and physical movements. So, hoping to get some chuckles out of seeing a monkey act like George W. Bush, I took my nephew to the zoo over the weekend. It was a small local zoo, but big enough to see all the animals that you’d like to see in a typical visit. We spent some time with a couple of bears that seemed to be more interested in scaring the children by pacing back and forth in front of the viewing station and licking the saliva from their lips. Or maybe they had hunger pains and were just looking for a tasty suburbanite treat.

There were also some kangaroos that actually boxed each other, which entertained us all. We are sick. All of us. I stood there as two gladiators of the marsupial world battled it out for all of our pleasure. Yes, I believe they were doing it for the enjoyment of their captors, and not because some primal instinct told them to duke it out because one of their noses got too close to the other’s butt. They’ve been brainwashed, or roo-washed, whichever feels better on the tongue.

Kangaroos suffer from the same stresses and emotional shipwrecks that humans do. Kidnapped from the deepest and darkest interiors of Australia, they too know what it’s like to sit for months shackled in the hull of a boat while feasting on nothing but grool and eucalyptus leaves. Their plight is on par with the Amistad travesty, yet they never get to go back home because they are stuck in a cage and forced to fight on the grand zoo stage for the amusement of a few hundred knuckleheads a day. Get angry fellas. Fight fire with fire. Ride the lightning. Or something like that.

Ok, so maybe this is a little overdramatic, and maybe I was the one who wrote “animals seem to amuse me” (see the beginning of this post). But, we must stop the anthropomorphism of today's animal kingdom and take any actions necessary to make sure that we stay on top of the food chain. Humans can't allow llamas to spit in our faces while holding AK's and garnering arm patches. Whatever. Welcome to Thunderdome.

ONE TIME AT BAND CAMP...

2008-10-02T17:44:00.010-04:00

Here's a little something for you all before the big VP debate tonight:

Maybe she'll bust out some Jethro Tull after she gets flustered and avoids the questions by comparing polar bears to pigeons and declaring that the new Alaskan state bird is a "Meese". Well, if this whole VP thing doesn't work out for her, it looks like she might be first in line for a grammy, especially since Metallica is in the running once again. "Death Magnetic" is no match for what I hope will become a flute-driven powergrind outfit called "PalinDrome". Alaska does rock after all.

HEY AL, THE JERK STORE CALLED...

2008-10-02T11:52:00.001-04:00

Al Davis should be spanked. And not like a latex dungeon fantasy with a whip and ball-gag type of spanking. He needs a spanking with a wooden-handled spatula that will discipline his 7-year old-like business sense and flux-capacitate it 72 years ahead to his real age. What a jaded and immature old man

this guy is.

If you haven't heard by now, Mr. Al, the owner of the Oakland Raiders, recently fired his head coach, Lane Kiffin, for "cause"; or in Raider-fan terms, "failure to get shit done on the motherfuckin' field." Davis, in a press conference the other day, publicly accused Kiffin of actions that were detrimental to the team, including speaking negatively to the media regarding his players and coaches, and not cooperating with the organization on a fundamental level. Ok, so that's acceptable. Airing your grievances in a public forum is fine...to a point. The problem here is that Al Davis and his pillory party for Kiffin became a huge vaudevillian circus, and the only clown in the whole place turned out to be the septuagenarian himself. He read aloud a letter that he wrote Kiffin back at the beginning of September that warned him of his impending firing if Kiffin didn't improve. He not only read it, but he displayed it on an overhead projector for all to see! What a child! Again, I call for a spanking!

I understand that Lane Kiffin might have sucked as a head coach. Maybe he did talk alot of smack about his staff and players, and maybe he did only win 5 out of 19 total games with the Raiders. But there's no way in hell I can support Davis' public trashing of Kiffin. Well, unless they changed his name to Ray Handley. But that's not important. What is important is the fact that no one of caliber - not players, not coaches, not executives - will ever go near the Raiders until Al Davis retires or winds up buried under the 50-yard line of the Oakland Coliseum, Hoffa-style. The stink is too strong for anyone to take this organization seriously under the reign of AD. You've got to seriously be down on your luck or just suck as a person to want to join up with this squad. Hey Michael Vick, there's gotta be a job opening for you in Oakland when you get out of the pen.

So Lane Kiffin, you will have a job somewhere else eventually. The list of fired Raiders coaches prior to you will guarantee that: Mike Shanahan, Jon Gruden, Norv Turner, Art Shell...the list is abundant with proven coaches who are still in the NFL today. Just take the high road for now and let your lips rest. Don't respond to the tactless taunts of a dinosaur. His vestigial business techniques will gain him no points, and hopefully Commissioner Goodell will deal with Al Davis the way he has dealt with so many other man-babies in the NFL. Put a frickin' pacifier in his mouth, Goodie.

AND THE NEWSIES SUPPORT...

2008-10-01T15:48:00.000-04:00

This morning as I was on the elevator up to my 17th floor gulag, I caught a headline on one of those newfangled built-in news tickers that provide us all with useless information before entering the huge black hole of American bureaucracy that we call our jobs. The headline read: "Boston Herald Backs McCain For President". It seems like a common practice these days for a media outlet to support a certain candidate for office. But why? We've all seemed to accept this fact, which has violently changed from its original Thanksgiving-loving puritan form to a rape-and-pillage invader of public soil. How has journalism evolved this far to influence politics and government in such a direct and somewhat predatory manner?

I took a Journalism class in college, and I what I gathered from the course was that the whole point of the job was to teach us to be "fair and unbiased" in what we presented as news to the public. Now I know that Fox News has taken that phrase and run it through the mud wrestling ring of eye-catching news reporting, but you'd like to think that one news source would have the ethics enough to actually uphold it. It just doesn't make sense to me. Why are we relying on our news outlets to tell us who to vote for? Isn't that why we have something called political campaigns? I'm an Obama supporter, but I would be disappointed if The Washington Post declared him their choice for president. I'm just not for it. The common citizen puts way too much stock in the media, and for one person to be able to make a free-thinking decision, without influence from their preferred source of information, would be an ideal thing. The candidates are the ones that need to convince us to vote for them, not some editor or producer at The New York Times or MSNBC. I need to know that Sally from Seattle or Mookie from Mississippi based their votes on clear and truthful first-hand information rather than an op-ed paper written by a jaded wordsmith.

The current news source that all Americans should definitely "fear", Al-Jazeerah, has an interestingly familiar code of ethics. In particular, their first rule:

"Adhere to the journalistic values of honesty, courage, fairness, balance, independence, credibility and diversity, giving no priority to commercial or political considerations over professional ones."

I'm sure that's how our American version of ethical code started out, and then quickly started to crumble under the Orwellian style of control that technology has allowed the government to operate with. But its definitely refreshing to see that the Arab-based network, which survives within a "backwards" Islamic society, seems to have a better grasp on news reporting than do our own outlets. Even if it involves airing beheadings and executions.

So I'm predicting that this issue will be repetitive dribble that most people have thought about in the past with a dismissive eye and ear, and will continue to think about in the future, but will do nothing in regards to it - including myself. But that seems to be the problem with most people.