Gerald Ford: The 20th Century's Millard Filmore

I guess I am supposed to write something about Gerald Ford... Um, okay... As far as President's Go you were as useless as young, willing vagina placed in front of Tom Cruise...Yeah. That sums it up.

Keep it Sexy, America.

The Nintendo Wii: Not Just for Rich, White Moms!

On Christmas Eve LA Times had a fairly interesting article on Nintendo's new marketing strategy for the Wii (Or WEE!). Basically Nintendo has given up on anyone who likes video games and is instead going after that untapped market of Desperate Housewives.

You a Gamer that still thinks the Wii is cool? Take a look, because so does she:



Oh, yeah, the Wii is cool. And after a round of Wii-Sports Workout you and your new friends at the Lagune Beach Country Club can chat about pubic hair removal over a couple of Vodka Screwdrivers.

Me? I am going to go kill more shit in 'Gears of War'. Have fun with your new WEE! Friends.

Keep it Sexy, America.

Titus Pullo Never Forgets a Favor

I survived Christmas by firmly ignoring it when possible. As my reward I was graced with a copy of the First Season of "ROME" on DVD. And since I'd rather not sp[end today watching CNN's holiday spending wrap up its found its way into my DVD Player.

I forgot how much I truly dig this show. "ROME" stirs although lusty notions and dreams of Empire, the Domination of Pure Will, and Absolute Power. Oh, the days of blood conquest rewarded by gold and slaves. The worse instinct in my genetic codde cry for the blood Gaul and the thud of the Legions Footsteps.

Keep it Sexy, America.

This is Probably a Bad Idea

Years ago I was a Co-Founding partner in a start-up production company, MARULLUS PRODUCTION. My interest in starting a production company was so I had a "Home" from all my Great and Glorious Ideas and a monthly paycheck.

Eh, didn't work out, for...well, one reason named Gerhard Schwarz, but another blog another time. Anyway --

When I was working at Marullus Productions as the Head Screenwriter and mostly silent Vice President I had this wild idea for a script set in the 1980s. I think I had just come off a jag of playing "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City" and it dawned on me that the 80s were coming back in Style. New Wave was back as New New Wave, some but not the worst fashion trends of the 80s were jogging around again, and even Flock of Seagulls was cool again...

So I wanted to write this giant homage to the 1980s. A crime film, a music video, a political commentary, a religious and social polemic, and just...a cool movie. After a month and a half what came out was a 240 page monster script, "Frankie Goes to Hollywood".

I can't say its good or bad or what the hell "Frankie Goes to Hollywood" is as a script. A mess is probably the best word to use. I had a couple of good ideas and one or two great ones. Then I got swept up in my own self-referential brilliance. There's still the nugget of a great story in there if I ever could bare to read the thing again.

So why I am placing "Frankie Goes to Hollywood", my best and worst script, on my website for the World to Read? Totally un-corrected, un-edited, un-touched since I typed "THE END" at the bottom?

I have no clue. But there it is for the world to read and go, HUH!? at.

Keep it Sexy, America.

P.S. Yes, I know its littered with typos and misspellings; I never worked up the courage to read it after it was finished, let along proof it, so no emails

Where Have All the Inserts Gone?

Last Friday night I went a bit nutso at Target with a $100 Gift Card. Not in need of anything from the Great Bullseye I headed to the Electronics Department and picked up a bunch of DVDs.

The plan called for the First Season of Battlestar Galactica and some individual movies with whatever was left. Well, no First Season BSG so I just got...a bunch of DVDs. From Sin City and the special edition of The Maltese Falcon to MASH (the movie of course) and South Park: The Movie.

As I've start wading through my new discs noticed something. About Eighty Percent of the DVDs I bought (new and old) don't have those nice little inserts with the track listings and artwork anymore. Hey, I'm all for saving trees, but maybe getting rid of the Slash-and-Burn Brazilian Farmers is better way to accomplish saving trees than denying me the 5x5 cardboard inserts with the chapter headings.

Part of the attraction of having a DVD collection is all the sweet packaging Studios used to wrap DVDs in. Whats next? Paper sleeves. Don't give them ideas.

(Yes, I am That Bored that I am blogging about Packaging.)

Keep it Sexy, America.

Here I Sit...

Bored out of my mind.

I remember now why I hate the Holidays. Not for the Holidays themselves or the rampant commercialism or any of the normal list of jeremiads made against the Christmas Season. Nah, I actually like Christmas on principle and all that crap that comes with it.

Why I hate the Holidays ... when I don't have anyone to spend it with, when I'm not gone back to that place called Home, and all my friends have disappeared to Elsewhere is there is about a three week run where I have absolutely Nothing to Do. Work and life dries up and hits Pause. And maybe mixes metaphors...

So I half to work really hard to keep myself entertained and mentally busy less Bad Habits completely overtake my existence. Hell, even TV fails me this time of years with a constant spate of reruns.

So much easier when your life is controlled by Work You Have to Do, and Relationships You have to Maintain, and Must See TV that Needs Seeing. Distractions, that is the fruit and fodder of productive life, distractions.

And all those distractions cease around the Holidays. Now I have to come up with my own. Thank the Deities for a decent DVD collection.

Keep it Sexy, America.

Harry Reid and the Half-Hearted Catastro-Fuck

I'm not surprised but there was a half-heart hope, perhaps a spark lit by an Electorate that has decided finally to no longer tolerate a pointless war in Iraq, that the Democrats taking over Congress would... You Know... Do Something DIFFERENT.

Perhaps stand up to a President who clearly now has no Metaphorical Clothes and say the most intellectually honest thing... that being there is no victory in Iraq and there is no way to "Win". The best thing to do now is pull our military out before more Nineteen year olds die.

I don't know why I harbored this hope. The Democratic Party is after all a Political Party, and whether its Lenin or Lincoln the one true statement about Political Parties is that once they have seized power their primary focus is not on using that political power but instead maintaining political power. At all costs.

So why would the Democratic Leadership and the Democratic Party do the "Right Thing" in Iraq by calling for an immediate draw down of troops in country if that meant that could jeopardize the Party new found power in Washington. Instead the elderly Corpse -Zombie that is tenanciously holding onto the post of Majority Leader in the U.S. Senate calls for more soldiers to be sent to Iraq to die... Temporarily, of course.

In Case you missed it, from the L.A. Times and Associate Press this foul morning:

"Incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Sunday he would support a temporary troop increase in Iraq only if it were part of a broader strategy to bring combat forces home by early 2008.

"If the commanders on the ground said this is just for a short period of time, we'll go along with that," said Reid, D-Nev., citing a time frame such as two months to three months."

Is Harry Reid really clueless, or is the Mister Burns of the Old Non-Left think everyone else is stupid? When was a troop increase of any kind at anytime during any war "temporary"? Has everyone in Washington forgot the war we fought forty something years ago called Vietnam? Where every troop increase was most likely thought of as "temporary" in order to "win" a war?

In the very same article the Associated Press quotes Retired General Jack Keane, who is advising the Bush Administration and wants to send more troops to a Iraq, called Bullshit on Senator Harry Reid use of the word temporary:

"It's impossible," Keane said, responding to Reid's suggestion that the troop surge be limited to two months to three months.

"It will take a couple of months just to get forces in," he said."

General Jack Keane also added that "securing" Baghdad will take at least 1 1/2 years. Just call it two and don't forget the modifier of "at least". There is no "temporary" here. There is no victory.

What this is here is a backdoor way for the Democratic Leadership in the House and the Senate to continue to do Nothing about Iraq (a war most of them voted for, by the way, and never forget) while appearing to do Something.

In fact, its even worse than that. This is essentially letting George Bush send more people to die in His War while Harry Reid and the NeoCon sympathizers in the Democratic Party stand by and shrug, 'Hey we thought this was temporary! Sorry your Son died. George Bush's fault, you know? Vote for me so I can go back to Washington and do some more nothing.'

I cannot say I feel betrayed because the nature of all politics is the consistent knowledge that the Average Voter will be both screwed and betrayed by the political system. The betrayal is constant, a fact of life, when one steps into the Voting Booth.

However ending the War in Iraq was the One Thing that everyone who voted in the last election wanted. The one thing that, despite all the political posturing and proclamations of Doom and Defeat, that is also relatively easy to do... Want to end the War in Iraq? Pull our Troops out and let the Iraqis figure out their own political destiny. That's it. War is over... And that's the one thing that the politicians who were ostensibly sent to Washington to do refuse to do because some George Bush sycophant, sitting on a trailer park porch in Alabama, will call them Cut and Runners right before he goes into a voting booth and votes for the Republican douchebags he was going to vote for in the first place.

GAH! Drives me crazy. Days like these I lament the absence of a true American Left and the absence of a Progressive Backbone that isn't slaved to some useless Hippie notions of Peace and Love. Excuse me while I go plunge an Ice-Axe in the back of my skull.

Keep it Sexy, America.

Apocalypto, or THE JEWS ARE COMING!

For those that missed it (which was probably the majority because who seriously watches Saturday Night Live anymore) I give you the Apocalypto trailer the way Mel Gibson really intended it (sugartits).




Keep it Sexy, America.

Thoughts From The 110

I was in bumper to bumper somewhere on the 110 Northbound Saturday night, listening to XM Radio. I had it set on "Lucy" (Xm Channel whatever...) which plays mostly alt. rock from the 90s.

And listening to some song from my teenage years I just thought to myself, Ah, remember the 90s when there always seemed like something better was right ahead of us and Hope was just around that next corner... Remember when there was something to wake up for back then.

Sad-ass thoughts... Sad-ass state of affairs we find the world now not even ten years later.

Keep it Sexy, America.

By-GOLLY! Rummy is Drunk

Someone should tell Donald Rumsfeld, by-golly, that George Washington won his largest victories, by-golly, with the assistance of the French Army and Navy, by-golly, and a fake Prussian General who liked boys, by-golly. By-Golly, if it hadn't been for diplomacy, by-golly, the American Revolution would've failed, by-golly. By-Golly, it was because Benjamin Franklin, by-golly, sought out the support from France and Europe, by-golly. And, by-golly, there weren't any Communist during the American Revolution, by-golly!

And, by-golly, who uses a fake swear word from the Forties? Don Knotts, by-golly.

(Sorry if I misspelled by-golly. Not so great at Mid-Eighteenth Century slang.)

Keep it Sexy, America.

The 79 Suggestions of the Iraq Study Group...

Yep, right here for your reading I have condensed the 79 Suggestions of the Iraqi Study Group into a neatly arranged list. Plus a SUPER SECRET 80th Suggestion.

79 SUGGESTIONS FOR PEACE IN IRAQ

1. Blame the Jews

2. Secretly Replace the Sunnis with Gungans and see if the Iraqis notice

3. Rename Iraq Tatooine

4. Some sort of Asian Death Ray...

5. Blame the Huguenots

6. Have the Yankees trade A-Rod to Iraq for two pitching prospects and a suicide bomber to be named later.

7. Blame A-Rod

8. Secretly replace Iraqi Insurgent's C4 with Play-Doh and see if they notice.

9. Dangle shiny things in front of the Iraqis.

10. Appoint Paul Bremer Dark Lord of the Sith

11. Blame the Dutch East India Company

12. Send in The Wolf to Chill those Niggas Out

13. Rename the Iraqi People Klingons and declare that there is a giant neutral zone around the country now.

14. Send in Ambassador Spock to negotiate a peace with the Romulans if the Romulans agree to wipe out the Iraqis.

15. From a joint venture between civil and defense contractors to build a TARDIS. Then travel back in time and sell the State of Florida back to Spain thereby winning the 2000 Election for Al Gore.

16. Two Words: Kevin Federline

17. Two More Words: Celebrity Adoptions

18. Blame the Cathars

19. A three phased plan of withdrawal: A.) Start construction on a Death Star, B.) Move the Entire United States to the Death Star, C.) Destroy Earth with the Death Star.

20. Blame the Jews Again

21. Get the Iraqi Population hooked on Crack.

22. Train the Iraqi Army and Police in the use of the Picard Maneuver

23. Assist Prime Minister Maliki in getting his swerve on.

24. Instead of killing each other encourage the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds to debate openly and honestly the merits of Lord of the Rings versus Eragon.

25. Blame the Irish

26. Stop referring to Insurgent by the name Insurgents; instead use their proper Grey's Anatomy name: McBomby.

27. Put Pete Rose in the Hall of Fame

28. Blame Monica Lewinsky

29. Create a new initiative, Leave No Iraqi Ride Behind, and send out a crack team of ghetto mechanics to pimp each and every Iraqi Ride

30. Blame the Jews Again

31. Send in a Specialized Squad of orcs and cave trolls.

32. Ask the Iraqis why they got to be like dat?

33. Blame Mel Gibson

34. In an attempt to distract Iraqi Insurgents litter the Sunni Triangle with photos of Brittany's vagina.

35. Start smoking a lot of weed

36. Give Iraq an automatic BCS berth.

37. Live Aid Nine: This Time Its PERSONAL

38. Blame the Gnostics

39. Send in a Platoon of Hippies to charm the Iraqis with Festive Tribal Music

40. Blame the Jews Again

41. Extend the Stop Snitchin' Campaign to Baghdad

42. Send Yoko Ono to Iraq to stare at Nouri Al Maliki and take credit for writing Muqtada Al Sadr sermons.

43. Break up Iraq into three ethnically based states and then blame Yoko Ono for the break up.

44. Open three way talks with the United States, Iraq, and the Trade Federation

45. Get Those Motherfuckin' Snakes Off that Motherfuckin' Plane!

46. Blame the Red Menace.

47. Take Bill O'Reilly seriously – NAH! We just playing fool.

48. Hold an international peace conference at Rivendale

49. Wet Burka Contests

50. Blame the Jews Again.

51. From the Phil Collin's File: Send the Iraqi People a Fax telling them we've left the country four days after leaving the country.

52. Take Saddam Hussein Bowling and have Camper Von Beethoven write a catchy Emo Tune about it.

53. Blame Keith Olbermann

54. Offer the Iraqis an NFL Franchise if they'll stop the civil war...then send them the Oakland Raiders.

55. Monorail! Monorail! MONORAIL!

56. Have Bravo Channel makeover Iraq -- “Queer Eye for the Insurgent Guy!”

57. Blame Turkey (the bird)

58. One Word Malapropism: Brangelina!

59. Blame Turkey (The Country)

60. Blame the Jews Again

61. Invade Poland to Distract Everyone

62. An Army of One: Wookies

63. Move the entire Iraqi population to the Fourth Moon of Endor and let them wail on some Ewoks.

64. Re-Animate the Corpse of John Wayne and have him make a flag-waving epic in the style of “Green Berets” that proves we are really winning the war.

65. Blame Michael Richards

66. Have Dick Cheney shoot someone in the face after two beers

67. Blame the Holy Roman Empire.

68. Shoot 100 Insurgents and get a free PS3

69. Have Aaron Sorkin write and producer a horrifically unfunny television dramedy about a weekly skit television show that comes live from the Baghdad Green Zone, starring former cast of The West Wing and some dude from friends. Thereby putting the entire television viewing populace of Iraq to sleep.

70. Blame the Jews Again

71. Find a Jedi

72. Have Tony Snow admit that the entire Bush Administration lied to go to War and then screwed up the war effort... APRIL FOOLS!

73. Blame the Huns

74. Wake up and find Saddam in the shower, pretend like nothing has happened

75. Use more buzzwords like “Pro-Active” and “Self-Motivated” and have plenty of Powerpoint presentations with charts and graphs.

76. Blame the Carthaginians

77. Declare Car-Bombing the new Iraqi National Past Time

78. Two Words, One Name: Stamos, John Stamos

79. Sack Constantinople to make ourselves feel better.

    (And the SECRET EIGHTETH SUGGESTION IS!)

80. Blame the JEWS AGAIN!

Keep it Sexy, America.

Sketches of Los Angeles

On Wednesday I had One of Those Days.

You know, Those Days when you get up and you really don't feel like doing much of anything. You look at the dishes that need doing and go Eh. You look at the laundry that needs washing and go Eh. You look at the work you should be finishing and go Eh. You know, one of Those Days.

The nice thing about being self-employed is that you can transform Those Days into, you know, That Day. Unless you turn Every Day into That Day and then you are nowhere in two months. But I had been a good little worker bee the past two weeks so I turned the key and flipped the toggle switch.

Yep, leaning back into my chair with a yawn and an over-acted stretch of the arms, one of Wednesday was just one of those days...I sank into the first season of "The Wire" I grabbed off BitTorrent and tuned out until I got hungry around four. For whatever non-chemically induced reason I felt like chocolate pudding and a Krab Louie salad; hey one of those days...I wasn't going to a real grocery store so I steeled me'self for a short jog across Franklin Ave to the Mayfair Market.

For those not in the Loop. Mayfair Market is a grocery store that sits near the Hills of Holly. Its convenient and walkable and wickedly over-priced. And the crazy odd thing is that no one buys groceries at that grocery store. Get in line and most of what you see is alcohol, munchies, prepped salads and sushi, that awkward box of 11:30 Tampons...But hardly anyone buys "real" groceries there even though the Mayfair keeps putting out $40 pieces of chicken breasts and $5 avocados in some kind of odd pretense.

But its There and Convenient.

Busy for a mid-day...The Usuals were there...The cast-offs and apartment dwellers from my section of Tamarind Avenue, the glassy-eyed Scietologists who buy the most random things (like a can of Comet, a donut, and two slices of Ham) and never smile, the Industry folks mingling with other Industry folks as they buy cheese and crackers, the Old Jewish Ladies who can't their own money and can't slide the credit card the right way, the Friends of Friends who met and start babbling in line right for forty minutes, and, oh lord, kids...

Kids -- especially the small variety that go darting between your legs and scream for that box of Trix -- scare me. Really. Scare me. Not like BOO! scare me, but like, Oh Great This Now I Got to Deal With Scare Me. Like I am going to step on one of them reaching over their heads for a bag of Chips. Or I am going to knock It down because It was running down an aisle and I forgot to leap a story to avoid someone's precious legacy.

Telling, no good can come off Kids in a Store. Nothing. Screaming, shouting, tears, weirdness, and possible strange confrontations with bourgeois Breeders.

I pulled in behind one, following loosely down one aisle to a next. For whatever reason he was on the same food trajectory I was. Might've been the Pudding. This poor follow reeked of Overcompensating Divorce Dad; the sensitivity Nineties Man who acknowledges the feelings of All and reaches consensus. Yeah, a pussy basically. He had his kid, a Son, with him.

L.A. Kid up and down. Nine going on Thirty...a vernal sophisticate in boy's designer clothes. When Divorce Dad gave L.A. Kid-Son the choice of Sushi or Shrimp the Eager L.A. Kid jumped up and down, declaring, SHRIMP! What happened to frozen pizza and gummie bears?

Towards the vegetable aisle Divorce Dad and L.A. Kid-Son dove into a sharp right and ducked into Baking Goods. As I passed I caught a glimpse of something so Hollywood. Divorce Dad and L.A. Kid-Son ran straight into another Happily busted family. Divorced Mom in her Forties and probably some Exec somewhere. Her own clone of L.A. Kid-Son at her side.

Corner of my ear heard exclaim a name. Polite but not inviting, like, get the fuck outta of her, let me buy my flour in peace. And L.A. Kid exclaims to L.A. Kid 2 in his best diction, "Oh, Hello, Raphael!"

Who the HELL names their kid Raphael unless you are dead certain he will become a 15th Century Sculptor or a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle? (Otherwise that's just a curse waiting to unfold on that young thing...) Rhetorical of course, because people in Hollywood name their spawn Raphael of course.

Ah, Hollywood, gotta love it.

(And the Pudding was Great)

Keep it Sexy, America.

"The Wire" Makes Me a Better Citizen

I posted this over on IMDB and I thought it was mildly blog worthy:

Must be the mark of good Art and (dare I utter it?) good TV when a fictional TV show like "The Wire" can get you thinking about policy and politics you never paid mind to before.

Like Community Policing and focusing police power on smaller, irrelevant crimes. Out here in L.A. William Bratton has been the Police Commissioner...I don't know how long, since '01.

A lot of the reason he was brought in to the LAPD was his perceived success in New York City; his entire concept of law enforcement was that if you focus on the small crimes (loitering, public drunkness, vandallism, etc) and "clean up" the vagrants that you also drive down the big crimes (murder, theft, etc) because (or so I've heard) the people that commit smaller crimes are also commit a lot of the big ones and you also give people in a community a greater sense of respect for where they live.

(Sure there is more to it than that, but just trying to be simple.)

Bratton hasn't had all that much luck out here, doesn't seem like. Mostly because unlike New York Los Angeles is spread out every and the LAPD is just too small for the city. I mean, there also seems to be a lot of institutional problems within "The Force" and the not un-wrong perception by regular folks that the LAPD is just dirty to the core. But Bratton keeps trying, like cleaning out the Downtown area, moving and removing the tent cities of homeless people down there, and down Buy-Bust sweeps for drugs...

I never really cared all that much either way. I am law-abiding and, hey, arrest the homeless dude that just pissed on my Forenza, I'm okay with that.

But after watching "The Wire" and especially this season I wonder if that whole idea really works. Or if its just a way to drive down crime stats and showboat for the public. Make everyone think that something is being down about crime when you are just locking up the Homeless and some low-level 'banger for a week. In the meantime manpower gets sucked away from real investigations and the community you are "policing" gets pissed because you are just harassing them more than anything.

But you never really hear anyone say that (outside of the ACLU, which is ignored by 80% of everyone 90% of the time). The whole idea of community policing is more or less touted as the model solution by politicians and the police power structure.

I still don't have a real opinion. "The Wire" didn't change my mind per se, but did get me thinking ... about something I never thought about much before. "

Keep it Sexy, America.