What's he on about now?

In case the articles, essays and opinions throughtout this site just weren't enough for you, here's my online diary (a.k.a. 'blog'). It's as close as you'll come to the inside of my head, so don't say I didn't warn you
(and remember, you can always e-mail me if you love or loathe anything you're about to read)...


   Monday, March 29, 2004

OH, I GIVE UP

How, I wondered, can I have any hope for the future of the human race when today's entertainment news covered plans for a Chinese version of Maxim magazine? According to Kerin O'Connor, international licensing director for the magazine's publisher, "Guys are very similar worldwide. They have the same kind of aspirations for the way they want to live their lives, and they have the same kind of interests." And they all want Maxim magazine, apparently. Sigh.

Factor in the real news on this ongoing slander-fest between George Bush's White House and Richard Clarke, former counter-terrorism director under the previous four presidents (gee, which has more credibility?) and you've got me in a tunnel looking desperately for that light. According to Clarke, in the months preceding September 11, 2001, the Bush White House virtually ignored every small warning about al-Qaida activity in favour of slowly developing a massive inter-departmental plan with initial meetings set for September 4th. Too little, too late.

And now? Richard Clarke, the whistle-blower, is the one standing before Congress and saying, "I failed you. We tried hard, but that doesn't matter because we failed. And for that failure, I would ask...for your understanding and for your forgiveness." There's no guarantee that anything would have turned out differently if Clarke had been heeded but...well, you don't see George Bush making that speech, do you? I don't know about the rest of you but the world doesn't seem any safer after three years of Dubya in charge.

So, in the midst of such aggravating hypocrisy, I look for the little things, like Bill Mahar's attempt to find an acceptable middle ground on the gay marriage issue or Julianne Moore's attack on "insane" Hollywood facelifts. Reading stuff like this makes me realize that sane, snarky people are still out in the world, trying in some small way to fix it.

Labels: George W Bush

CONFESSION

I'm an urban gay man with leftist politics, an agnostic-to-Buddhist faith, a post-secondary education and feminist sympathies. In short, the classic liberal pinko.

Why, then, have I've just rented The Rundown?
Yes, that action movie starring The Rock and Stifler.
What is wrong with me?

HAVE A COKE, BIG THIRD-QUARTER EARNINGS, AND A SMILE

A terrific account on Slate today about the money woes of Coca-Cola. Seems the shareholders are concerned about the lack of big growth in the company's fortunes. Basically, Coke is just too popular -- everyone drinks it, everyone knows about it. How can the company get any bigger?

This is the kind of story I love. Instead of being able to sit back and celebrate the fact that they're making a massive and steady fortune on hawking sugar water to every country on our planet Earth, the Coke execs are freaking out because it's not enough. It's never enough.

If sales are steady but not increasing, no one will buy their stock. If no one buys their stock, they can't get capital to create the badly-needed lemon-flavoured, caffeine-free Diet Coke (oh wait, that already exists...bad example!). If they don't keep growing, they'll -- what? -- go broke tomorrow and end up living in alleys, eating cat food and having to wash it down with Pepsi?

ONE CROWDED POLICE BOX

Following on from that "Doctor Who" bit the other day, I couldn't help but feel a bit sorry for Richard E. Grant. This most arch of British character actors appeared last year in the BBC's first animated Doctor Who episode as the new Ninth Doctor. This of course meant that, in a strange bit of small-world-isn't-it, he was replacing his good friend and "Withnail and I" co-star Paul McGann, the Eighth Doctor.

McGann apparently found out about his replacement during a call from his agent and announced, "[Richard] never mentioned it...the bitch!" At this point, McGann had only played the Doctor in one TV-movie -- a marvellous performance stuck with a lousy script -- and now refers to himself as "the George Lazenby of the Time Lords".

But he gets the last laugh as, with the new casting of Christoper Eccleston as the official Ninth Doctor, Richard E. Grant is now referred to on the BBC website as "the, er, online Doctor." Apparently, the BBC website department was never told what the BBC television department was planning. Nice to see that corporate miscommunication occurs absolutely everywhere.

So, to sum up, Paul McGann is an offical Doctor while friend/rival Richard E. Grant has only his online cartoon. Fortunately, it's a very fine online cartoon and one where his Doctor halts a monster's attack by singing "Cabaret." What is not to love?

Labels: Doctor Who

28 WEEKS LATER...

Thanks to all of you who love your geek pal enough to have passed along the BBC press release on Christopher Eccleston. The -- shall we say -- intense star of "Shallow Grave" and "28 Days Later" has been cast as the new Doctor Who.

The silly/scary series that began in 1963 -- becoming an icon of my childhood (and beyond, yes) -- is getting a splashy revamp next January. Fans hope that Eccleston will bring the sort of gravitas to the old blue police box that Patrick Stewart brought to the starship Enterprise, but that's a tricky comparison. While Eccleston has a lot more edge, he's still travelling around in a phone booth, for pete's sake.

Any bets on me getting cable back in January?

Labels: Doctor Who

CUT THE CORD!

My good friend Darrell has convinced me. After reading my last post, he wrote to tell me that I should definitely cut off my cable and his reasoning was air-tight. As he says, I can pull in Jon Stewart's show with an antenna and everything else I enjoy is coming out on DVD.

The bigger question here, however, isn't just about television itself, it's a question of not being bullied by corporate monopolies.

So take that, Rogers -- the revolution starts here.

FOUR MORE YEARS OF ROGERS PAYMENTS

From the Good-News-Bad-News department: just when I was reaching the point of cutting off cable in my home altogether, Comedy Central announced today that they've extended Jon Stewart's contract as host of "The Daily Show" until 2008.

"A lot of people like to get out when their show's still going well," Stewart says. "This gives me the opportunity to beat this thing into the ground."

With the exception of the occasional episode of "Will and Grace," the final episodes of "Sex and the City" and "Angel," or a peek at the ever-handy Weather Channel, I just don't watch television anymore. How can I when the network schedules are full of ideas like "Gilligan Island: The Reality Series"? I weep for the future.

Not to mention the mafia tactics of Roger Cable. They bill you for the current month of services AND the upcoming month (is there any other business that can bill you for future service like that?) and, if you don't pay it all fast enough, they leave messages letting you know that "a technician will be stopping by" on a given date. Stopping by? For what? Tea and cookies? They're thugs, pure and simple, and someone's got to call them on their embarrassing behaviour over something so utterly trivial as television.

But then I think of that "Six Feet Under" promo again...
Rogers bastards.

IT WAS INEVITABLE

You can only browse the Internet for so long before you hit this.

SUPERMARKET CHECK-OUT

There's no such thing as too much Nina Simone.

So I must insist that those of you with video-worthy internet connections check out the promo clip that's got me all giddy...

June can't come fast enough.

LET'S ANSWER TOM

My co-worker Tom interrupted yet another "Passion of the Christ" discussion at the store yesterday with an exasperated, "Why does everybody care so much about this Jesus movie?" He's right in that the movie geeks within and without Sunrise records do tend to go on about this film (just like Stephen King, by the way, who's written an interesting take on it in this week's Entertainment Weekly). Before I go any further, I must say that the fine folks at Killing the Buddha have written what I believe is the definite account of the whole debate.

But as for my own contribution, I suggested to Tom that the real reason everyone is so, well, impassioned over this movie is because it functions as a lightning rod for our charged cultural atmosphere, if you will, and all that electricity comes from defensiveness. People are literally afraid of what this movie may do. There's quite simply a large but generally (thankfully) quiet group of Christians who believe that the Jewish people are solely responsible for the killing of Christ. (Why are Italians always let off the hook? The Romans did all the dirty work...) Mel Gibson is rumoured to be one of those believers and he has poured a lot of money into making a movie that's got Jews very, very nervous.

Meanwhile, many Christians in the southern U.S. are often found going on about their own oppression at the hands of a secular society and "the liberal media". They're flocking to the big Jesus movie because they're thrilled to see their faith finally represented in the multiplexes (and this makes a certain sense to me as a gay man -- I've paid good money to see some dreadful movies in my time simply because they had a lone gay character in them).

So you've got nervous Jews and nervous Christians watching the box-office totals with nervousness. Personally, I thought the movie tried for glory and left out the 'L' but I'm pleased to see it make money, because a) the film's smarter and better for you than, say, "Bad Boys II" and b) we would never have heard the end of the blaming if the thing had flopped.

Look at it this way: "Passion of the Christ" is making a fortune and ranks at 145 on the list of highest-grossing movies, three spaces below "American Pie 2." Meanwhile, "Schindler's List" ranks much higher at 105 on that list, while coming in at number 3 on the list of Greatest Jewish movies (latkes on me, everybody!).

The stately "Kundun" is sadly nowhere on that top-grossing list but the humanism-spouting mutants of "X2" come in at (wow) number 59 so, as neither a Christian or a Jew, I'll just watch the fuss over "The Passion of the Christ" with no nervousness at all.

Labels: religion

McSTRANGE

The McDonald's on Yonge Street south of Wellesley has a poster in its window featuring two images: on the bottom, a Big Mac (or Big Xtra or some other Big Burger) and, above it, two young white guys in t-shirts flexing their biceps. The text reads, "Seasoned to perfection."

What does that mean? I've no clue, other than the vague fear that McDonald's is chasing the gay market and the sure belief that this poster is their strangest ad ever.

STILL NOT GOING AWAY, THANKS

As the gay marriage debate continues to plod awkwardly forward, it looks like those against are out-and-out declaring war.

First, George Bush's napalm-the-village tactic of a Constitutional amendment to ban gay weddings outright; now, this story about a Tennessee county that wants to re-criminalize homosexuality.

Rhea County, FYI, was also the site of the infamous "Monkey Trial" for Robert Scopes, arrested for teaching the theory of evolution in school. Nice to know that nothing's changed in Tennessee since 1925 and, by the looks of things, nothing ever will.

Fortunately, there are sensible people like Donald Sensing, Pastor of the Trinity United Methodist Church in Franklin, Tennessee. Sensing doubtless disagrees with me on the desirability of gay marriage but agrees with me that it's hardly our most pressing issue. Check out his opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal to see for yourself.

IT'S A BIG OLD-FASHIONED SHOUT-OUT

I had coffee with my friend James Anok last night, who's in the midst of some seriousness involving his partner of five years. He's handling it all with grace, humour and wisdom so I of course must hate him for making my romantic travails seem trite by comparison.

James is a lovely man, inside and out, and I'm pleased to be able to lend an ear and some advice while trying to learn from his example. Isn't that why we do all this talking amongst ourselves, anyway?

Labels: friends

BOOTY CALL

To those of who who haven't been able to ask in person (as others have), "So what happened to that guy you were seeing?", I can let you know that he called me last Friday. Feeling the beginnings of a cold, I'd decided to spend a night in and was completely surprised to hear from him. Keith asked if I wanted to go out for a drink. I told him I wasn't feeling up to it -- the truth -- and he said that he hadn't really seen me since that night he brought over some food. "Yes," I said evenly, "that was three weeks ago."

He again suggested that I should come and have a drink, adding that he'd already been out with some work colleagues. He then told me he'd be "real easy to take advantage of." At that moment, after weeks of neglect from this guy, there just wasn't an 'ew' big enough, so I suggested he call "some other time and we'll do a raincheck." My friends think that was too wishy-washy but he's a friend of Danielle's and not a bad guy, really, so I was feeling political.

Irritated beyond belief but still political.

Labels: oh l'amour

LIBRARY OF FEAR

One of my latest kicks has been the joy of making CD's for myself and friends. It's been fun finding 20 or so songs to
fit any given mood but a little frightening when I wade into the brambled forest of my own musical tastes. I have way too many discs for any reasonable person. How else to explain the following two collections:

The first was for a classic-rock-lovin' co-worker:

Led Zeppelin -- In the Evening
The Guess Who -- American Woman
Three Dog Night -- Joy to the World
The Doobie Brothers -- China Grove
Alice Cooper -- No More Mr. Nice Guy
Deep Purple -- Smoke on the Water
Bachman Turner Overdrive -- You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet
Golden Earring -- Radar Love
Lynyrd Skynyrd -- Free Bird
America -- Sister Golden Hair
Steve Miller -- Rock'N'Me
Boston -- More than a Feeling
Queen -- We Will Rock You/We are the Champions
Warren Zevon -- Werewolves of London
Cheap Trick -- I Want You to Want Me
Foreigner -- Hot Blooded
E.L.O. -- Don't Bring Me Down
The Knack -- My Sharona
Cheech and Chong -- Earache, My Eye!

The second was conceived as a peppy music-for-the-morning-shower disc for myself that I thought my friend Robert would enjoy:

Peter Gabriel -- Growing Up
Touch and Go -- So Hot
Perry Como -- Papa Loves Mambo
Dee-Lite -- Groove is in the Heart
Apache Indian -- Boom Shack-a-lack
Lords of Acid -- Am I Sexy?
Outkast -- Hey Ya!
Mint Royale -- Shake Me
Joey Dee -- The Peppermint Twist
Kylie Minogue -- Love at First Sight
Spice Girls -- Who Do You Think You Are?
Pet Shop Boys -- Flamboyant
Carole Pope -- High School Confidential (remix)
Britney Spears -- Toxic
Bloodhound Gang -- The Bad Touch
Offspring -- Pretty Fly (for a White Guy)
Dandy Warhols -- Bohemian Like You
OK Go -- You're So Damn Hot
Bif Naked -- I Love Myself Today
Chumbawamba -- Tubthumping
Chris Isaak -- American Boy

Even as I thoroughly enjoy each and every song on these lists, I'm a little bit afraid of myself.
And I haven't even mentioned the "hymns for agnostics" I came up with for Darrell and Josh...

Labels: friends

EASING UP

Whew, glad that's over with. I hate these emotionally-fragile spells.

Keith is apparently gone and increasingly forgotten, and I made up with Ruby last evening, so things feel back to normal. Everything I whined about on Monday still applies, of course, but I'm trying not to be so hard on myself. I remember the mantra that if you can't be compassionate towards yourself, you can't have any compassion for anyone else.

But still none for the freaks upstairs -- they were playing "Truly Madly Deeply" by Savage Garden very loudly at 4 am the other morning, and that song is eternally unforgiveable.

Labels: oh l'amour

SPIRAL!

Is there a chapter for Mopers Anonymous? Where people could get up and say, "Hi, my name is Scott and I am a moper"? Where others with the same affliction could nod in sympathy? (Nodding sadly, of course.) No, I don't think there is -- only Paxil or some other garbage.

My landlady -- the delightful Ruby -- let me know today that I've apparently not said one positive thing about the building since I've moved in. This is probably true. I told her that I was very happy with the new place and that my attitude is just coloured by the noisy idiots upstairs keeping me up all the time. I didn't realize how personally devoted Ruby is to her building and I'm blue over offending her.

But how to fix it? That is, after all, where most of this comes from. If I seem negative or irritable or whiny or any other label I've been tagged with in recent months, it's because I'm a problem-solver by nature. I'm trying to fix what's wrong -- focusing on negatives all the time is an unfortunate side-effect. What's really grating at me these days is the feeling of being entirely unable to fix anything or, in this case, actually making things worse. It's depressing.

I'm not scoring many victories lately, that's for sure. After a solid start with Keith, things took a nosedive when he just stopped calling for a week. I couldn't leave any messages on his cellphone and wondered what had gone wrong. We finally talked last weekend and it turned out that a) he lost his phone for a couple days, b) he was terribly busy with work and c) isn't "very good with multi-tasking". In my head, I understand all of this but, even now, I'm still irritated at feeling like a "task" on some to-do list. If you don't want to call me, then please don't. It's better for everyone. I tried to shrug it off and chase him down later that week, only to have him finally respond on my machine with, "Wow! Holy message assault!" Assault? Sorry, you have to me feel like I'm neglecting you OR stalking you -- not both.

When I feel low like this, however, it begs the obvious question of who would want to call me? I can't abide feeling this kind of self-pity when there's so little warrant for it. I'm a smart, capable, healthy, thirty-something man -- there's no reason for me to be or feel this useless. Maybe I need to get back into volunteering -- working with people with actual problems, rather than self-created ones, might be what I need. Anything to shake this horrible feeling that I radiate sadness. Hell, even by typing all this, I'm throwing out my woes on you, my dear reader, and that's not helping anyone. Yet doing the 'stiff-upper-lip-put-on-a-happy-face' schtick makes me feel so phony and disconnected.

I feel like that kid in 'The Sixth Sense' -- I see sad people. Everywhere. And I don't know how to help them. I used to think that just trying to keep my own self together and happy would allow me to help -- or at least not add to their woes -- but it's not working either. I just still keep believing, however, that good advice is out there -- that people can help me with my concerns and I with theirs -- if we can just talk about it in the open. Facing the possibility that I could be wrong about that -- that the simple-minded mantra of "Don't Worry, Be Happy" really is the best advice -- is what's keeping me up at night. Well, that, and the upstairs construction projects.

Labels: oh l'amour

AND NOW, THE BARON

When people ask me why I've chosen to waste my life working in a Yonge Street record store (and they do, really!), I respond that, more than anything else, it's the unpredictability I love. Today, for instance, I received spontaneous visits from an acquaintance I haven't seen in about two years, my friend Christopher on his way to a movie, and all 6'2" of Baron Marcus von Zipper, lead singer of the Vampire Beach Babes.

Marcus is a big strapping fellow with platinum hair, a black-leather-goth wardrobe and the most disturbingly jolly personality I've ever encountered. He's just so damn happy -- it's the most unnerving thing about him. He was thrilled to see me again after a year or so, gave me a wince-inducing hug and promised to send me samples of the new album when it's done.

Sure, I'd make more money in an office, but I'd get less visits from surf-guitar goth-rock singers.

SPACE: $1,999,000,000

Despite being a space and science buff, I immediately hated George Bush's grandiose plans for NASA without really knowing why. Fortunately for us -- and US fiscal policy -- the legendary John Glenn has explained exactly why Bush's scheme should be grounded.

LOOK WHAT I HAVE TO LIVE WITH

Here's the text of a letter I've had to deliver to my upstairs neighbours:

Hello Robbie and friend,

Since my conversation in person a couple months ago seems to have been forgotten, I thought I’d drop you a line. Like you, and Jason below me, I work late into the night but, unlike the rest of you, I also work in the afternoon. I’m a busy guy, and one who likes and needs to sleep. Usually, it’s between 3:30 am and 10:30 am.

I say ‘usually’ because, on far too many occasions, I’m awakened at 8:30 or 9 in the morning by someone upstairs coming home and clomping around in heavy shoes. Sometimes – like yesterday morning – I’m awakened by loud construction projects going on upstairs. If I bang on the ceiling with a broom handle like I did yesterday and twice before, it’s because I’ve been rudely yanked out of sleep and am therefore very, very angry. Telling me to “fuck off” doesn’t solve anything, either.
Is this hard for you to understand?

I had an overnight guest two weekends ago who was woken up at 7:30 on a Sunday morning by the sound of sawing upstairs. Sawing! Somehow, I managed to sleep through that but I was embarrassed and angry on my friend’s behalf.

I’m not trying to tell you how to live, just how to show a little common courtesy to those around you. Believe it or not, I’m far more patient than most others would be.
I don’t complain about noise in the evening – it’s expected when you live in a building.
I don’t complain about your yappy little dog – I like yappy little dogs.
I don’t complain about your very loud country music – I just turn up my own stereo.
But I WILL complain about excessive noise from 3:30 am to 10:30 am – I’m just trying to sleep, right?
Think about that next time you pull out the saw and we’ll get along much better.

Too condescending? I sure hope so. The landlady got a copy and thought it was perfect, as she loathes these guys. My friend Tara is afraid a "noise war" will break out. Crossing my fingers...

Labels: friends

THE BASHIN' OF THE CHRIST

Everyone else has an opinion on what Josh calls "the big Jesus movie" so here's mine:

Ugh.

I don't go into a film about the death of Our Lord and Saviour looking for the feel-good hit of the summer, but this movie is the grimmest, goriest, ugliest thing I've seen (and I own "Dawn of the Dead" on DVD). A priest who shops in our store was annoyed by my dismissal of this film, insisting "that's the way it happened. What do you expect?" To me, this is like saying we need a movie about the bombing of Hiroshima that spends half its running time on lovingly-filmed shots of melting, dying Japanese people. No thanks.

What frustrated me about the film was that the relentless brutality was occasionally broken by brief flashbacks of a pre-whipping-post Christ tending to his disciples and his followers. The audience gets a fleeting glimpse of the grace and compassion of this great prophet before being yanked back into Catholic torture-porn. Wouldn't this have been a better, more valuable, more educational film had that ratio been reversed? A film that celebrates Christ's life and teachings before the inevitable (and briefer) scenes of horror?

I told Father John that I still consider "The Last Temptation of Christ" to be the film to see. Martin Scorsese's film is thoughtful and complex, wrestling with the dual nature of Jesus as both God and man. The priest rolled his eyes and said, "It's humanist tripe!" Perhaps. But it still felt more true to me, more real, than this sickeningly cruel, context-free death-of-Christ epic from Mel Gibson that shows us too much but teaches us little.

Labels: friends