"Dick Laurent is dead..."

One of the earlier CDs I ever bought with my own money was the soundtrack to the movie Lost Highway. At the time, I didn't have a clue who David Lynch was, I just wanted it because it had a great non-album Smashing Pumpkins song on it, and I kind of liked Nine Inch Nails' "The Perfect Drug" too. It also had Lou Reed, David Bowie, Marilyn Manson, Rammstein (pre-"Du Hast"), and all that crazy Angelo Badalamenti noir-jazz that's in every David Lynch movie. It took me another few years to really care about Lou Reed and David Bowie too, although I at least knew who they were when I was 14.

So tonight, I finally watched the movie, after it was finally released on DVD last month and after I read a couple "wait, maybe we got this wrong" articles about the DVD release by critics, who generally hated it in 1997.

It's an all right movie, I guess. It's unmistakably a David Lynch movie, like everything he does. It's got quite a few "what the hell is this person doing in this movie?" moments; Robert Blake, Henry Rollins, Richard Pryor, Robert Loggia, Marilyn Manson, and Gary freakin' Busey all turn in supporting roles. I found it to be a lot more low-key than the rest of his stuff. First viewings of a David Lynch film are always a little confusing, but they're usually not difficult to stay interested in, like this one was. I would say Lynch fans should watch it, and if you're not a Lynch fan, you're not going to watch it anyway.

Anyway, I really just wanted to show you all this clip, because it's a good example of why we should probably all be terrified of Robert Blake. This thing rivals Daniel Plainview drinkin' up milkshakes in terms of the whole "what the fuck this is insane/awesome" thing.



Supposedly Blake is completely responsible for the way that character looks and acts, which, just... yeesh. Check the huge 1997 cell phone too.

I kinda like how Phillies-Mets is a legitimate rivalry now. For a while it seems like we've really hated the Mets, but the Mets had bigger things to worry about, which fueled the inferiority complex that we Philly fans have, which generally manifests itself as loathing New Yorkers for being such fatheaded smug assholes. So there was no small amount of pleasure in the Phillies not only winning the division last year, but doing it over the New York Mets, who set a new standard for incompetence with the worst season-ending skid ever (finally getting, who else, the '64 Phillies off the hook). Even after the Phillies got swept by the Rockies in the playoffs, it wasn't heartbreaking, because the Phillies were division champs, and the Mets fans had to wallow in disgust all winter long, and we have bragging rights for a whole year. And now Phillies-Mets is a big-ticket rivalry, and Fox's game of the week.

I think that's pretty cool. As long as the Phillies start winning some damn games here.

sunshine 'n' water 'n' trees 'n' such

A couple months ago, I was sent down to Maryland to work with a pipe crew for a week when my other job was shut down to dry out (February is no good for construction). We were putting in a sewer line in a sort of village that's pretty typical of the area, a collection of houses bunched near the shore of the Chesapeake, a village in the sense that it's a group of homes that are all in the same area, but not in the sense that the homes sprung up around a central location for any reason other than that there's a large body of water nearby.

I knew the water was close by, but I didn't know how close (I figured within half a mile or so), and the first morning I was there it was extremely foggy, so I was lucky to be able to see the machine at the other end of the pipe I was standing next to. Then around noon, the fog cleared, and the sun came out, and holy shit, there was the beach 50 feet away from us, along with possibly the most beatiful waterfront landscape I've ever seen.

Anyway, I was just thinking about that, because one of the guys who was at that job got sent to mine today, and I was realizing that part of the reason I don't completely hate my job is because while a lot of people I know are staring at a computer screen in a cubicle, I'm outside enjoying the nice weather, and sometimes, nice scenery too. It was nice to not have to stare at nothing but dirt all day.

I was also thinking about the fact that the bay down there is one of the most tranquil and gorgeous places I've ever been, and I've lived most of my life 25 miles away from it, and I've been there something like three times in my entire life. I've been to Disney World that many times, and that's 1,000 miles away and also horrible. Christ.

Other random thought for today: I kind of think I'm going to listen to I Often Dream of Trains by Robyn Hitchcock every day for the next three months. It is a wonderful album and I have no idea how I lived for 24 years without it. Well... 23, it came out after I was born.

soapbox time!

You know, in Barack Obama I finally had a presidential candidate that I actually admired. If I wasn't necessarily ga-ga about the idea of him being president, that's basically because I don't think that it's actually possible for me to go ga-ga for a politician, no matter who it is.

Then he had to go and put his foot in his damn mouth. I'm not about to switch who I'm voting for next week, but I'm not going to gloss it over and pretend it's not an issue either. It's not an issue of him being "out of touch," it's about him acting like a condescending ass. He not only said that religious people and gun owners have turned to those things because of economic issues, he also put them on the same level as racism, nationalism, and bigotry. That's not exactly small potatoes when you're trying to convince those people to put you in charge of them. It's condescending at best, insulting at worst.

Being from a somewhat depressed, small Pennsylvania town myself (not coal-country depressed, but not exactly thriving either), I would like to point out that what he said is actually true for a small minority of people, but is still horseshit. I'd also like to say that for about as long as I've had a political sensibility, I've always bristled at the myth that liberals are out of touch elitists. That's horseshit, too, but the reason that Republicans are able to convince so many people that that's true is because people keep giving them perfect ammo to do it, like Obama just did, and if he keeps it up, he's going to end up just like John Kerry. Fortunately he's probably got people to remind him every day never to say something like that again.

Again, barring unforeseen circumstances, I'm still voting for Obama next week (and in November too, John McCain scares the hell out of me), but it's naive to pretend that this isn't a concern, if not about his personal views toward small town people, than at least from an electability standpoint. If you compare his comments with Hillary Clinton's deluded fantasy about sniper fire in Bosnia, I would say Obama's is the bigger faux pas, and more likely to bite him in the ass later on.

when I grow up to be a man...

When I grow up, I want to be the sad loser who watches R-rated movies with a clicker in hand to post the exact number of usages of the word "fuck" (and its variations, of course) to imdb.com trivia pages.

With some hard work and a little luck, I could be the guy who edits this Wikipedia article.


Crap, I just ruined my snarkiness by actually browsing the article and finding something I consider amusing: Apparently Good Will Hunting dropped more F-bombs than Trainspotting. Damn you, Wikipedia! Your utter banality has once again proven surprisingly alluring!

I have nothing of importance to say.

The nice thing about a wireless network is being able to waste time on your computer and sit outside enjoying the nice weather at the same time.

Suck my dick, WIRES!

I don't understand the rage directed toward Uwe Boll. If I could banish one filmmaker to Siberia, and I had Uwe Boll, Michael Bay, the guys who keep making these "Scary Movie" and "Meet the Spartans" things, and Brett Ratner in front of me, Boll would be the last guy I'd get rid of.

I can see people not liking him actually boxing his harshest critics, but I think that's a pretty funny publicity stunt. Nobody made anybody get into the ring with him, and for fuck's sake, nobody is making anybody pay attention to him, or constantly shoving his crap down our throats, which is more than can be said for whichever 80s cartoon, 70s movie, or 60s sitcom is being made into a shitty movie this week.