Gentle Reader -- You are welcome to peruse my web-based journal. I assure you that my contributions to this medium will be both infrequent and inconsequential. Read on!

SOME RULES FOR TELEVISION ADVERTISERS

1. No talking ice cream cones. If it talks to me, I don't want to eat it.

2. No babies talking with CGI distorted faces. I will never eat a Quizno's sandwich because of those freaky-ass Bob-the-baby commercials.

3. No talking pieces of cereal. See #1. Also - cereal shouldn't help me cheat during a spelling bee. Cheating is wrong.

4. No milk moustaches -- especially on people with actual moustaches. That entire ad campaign is irredeemably disgusting. It makes me want to vomit. Seriously.

5. Bring back the Overstock.com woman. She's awesome -- and she looks good in orange and white.

6. No talking vegetables -- catching a trend? I DON'T EAT THINGS THAT TALK. IF YOU WANT ME TO EAT IT, DON'T MAKE IT TALK.

Any others? posted by Carlton at 11:28 AM

RANDOMONOMICON

While I've been done with my novel for a while, it's really better to say that I've been "done" with my "novel" for a "while" -- I've been noodling around with it, especially the ending, up until the very present moment, trying to make it a little better (and failing). I'm not even sure it qualifies as a novel -- it's a pulpy action/adventure plot-twisty sci-fi book, or it would be a book if it were printed and bound (which will never happen). As it is, it's just a file on the computer. And uninteresting.

Over the course of the last few months when the book has come together, I've printed the thing out at least twice in order to edit it and make corrections. The whole file rounds out at just under 500 pages (and imagine my surprise to discover that emailing the thing from computer to computer would insert a carriage return in the header and footer, expanding it by several pages each time). So I've wasted a lot of paper and ink in the 2006 calendar year.

The last time I did the printing thing, I ended up making my corrections in the file rather than on the paper, just for kicks -- but I had this printout sitting on the side table in the living room, just sitting there. I started taking sheets of it for scrap paper -- grocery lists, telephone messages, etc. As you may know, Dear Reader, 8.5 x 11 is not necessarily the most convenient size for scrap paper. So I took the whole manucript down to the local Office Depot, where the good people there have made an industrial paper-cutter available for public use. Thirty minutes later, I had roughly 1000 sheets of 1/4 size scrap, each with one side helpfully blank. The other side, in each case, had a quarter of a page of text from my Magnum Opus, which is rendered as a little Dada-ist poem of nonsense.



(I, of course, know every page of the book practically by heart, but whatever.) posted by Carlton at 11:50 PM

NEW LINK

I have replaced the link to "Molly's Web Site" on the left to "Molly's Sketchblog", because she actually posts things to that page semi-regularly, often in conjunction with Illustration Friday. I make the occasional appearance there (in unflattering cartoon-form). posted by Carlton at 11:41 PM

AL GORE IS A DUMB LIAR BECAUSE HE'S ALWAYS RIGHT

I saw this at TAPPED and thought it resonated enough to post:

[Criticism of Al Gore's new film] reminds me of Gore's [journalism] class at Columbia. While writing my article on Gore's post-2000 activities, I tracked down some of the students in the course he created for their journalism course. The class was deeply critical of contemporary journalistic conventions -- particularly the false idol of "objectivity," namely as it translates into mindless stenography of unequal viewpoints. The students rebelled against Gore's critique, turning almost instantly hostile. Josh Bearman, who took the course, remembers that “He knew more than everyone in the room. So the class basically turned against him because he was smarter than they were, and they didn’t like that. We witnessed exactly what had happened on the campaign plane in the year prior.” And make no mistake -- we'll see it again. It's one thing for global warming to top the agenda. For Gore to put it there, however, implicitly indicts all those who mocked or sought to stymie his crusade in the past. His success is their failure, and they'll do their damndest to stop it.

Emphasis mine. posted by Carlton at 3:10 PM

WHO IS STEPHEN COLBERT THIS TIME?

This story is a heaping scoop of delicious irony with a fudge swirl of ominous portent, topped by a delicious maraschino cherry of a fascinating question.

Short version: Someone at Tom Delay's defense fund saw a segment about DeLay on "The Colbert Report," Stephen Colbert's Fox news "high status idiot" parody program:

[An email sent out by the defense fund] features a “one-pager on the truth behind Liberal Hollywood’s the Big Buy,” and the lead item is Colbert’s interview with Greenwald on Comedy Central (where Colbert plays a faux-conservative, O’Reilly-esque character). The headline of the “fact sheet”:

Hollywood Pulls Michael Moore Antics on Tom DeLay
Colbert Cracks the Story on Real Motivations Behind the Movie

DeLay thinks Colbert is so persuasive, he’s now featuring the full video of the interview at the top of the legal fund’s website. And why not? According to the email, Greenwald “crashed and burned” under the pressure of Colbert’s hard-hitting questions, like “Who hates America more, you or Michael Moore?”

I should say, in passing, that I am a great admirer of Stephen Colbert, and that I watch his show whenever I get the chance. His show is the most interesting -- and, if I can say so, dangerous -- thing on television.

1. The irony: that DeLay and Co. would mistake Colbert's ridicule of them for support, almost certainly because of their own inability to detect irony. This one eats itself.

2. The ominous portent: that one surefire defense against satire is literal-minded stupidity. Dave Chappelle famously freaked out last year, leaving his show and a contract in the tens of millions. I recall him saying that one of the factors was the realization that that HIS saying certain things on the air (racial humor, etc.) seemed to give permission to every idiotic white college kid in America to say the same thing without any of the context or self-awareness that Chappelle brought to his comedy. He felt like his words were being parroted back to him in a hateful way by people he didn't like who didn't understand what he was doing. (Of course, Colbert is parroting the conservatives' words back at them, but this whole thing has a ping-pong, self-reinforcing dynamic that is way complicated).

3. The cherry: I recently re-read my favorite Vonnegut novel Mother Night, so I am reminded of the plight of Howard W. Campbell, Jr., an American spy who communicates information from Germany to the Allies via his Nazi propaganda radio broadcasts -- which was more important, the espionage he did for the Allies, or the hate he inspired for the Nazis?

Colbert walks a very fine line in his show, in that he imitates the O'Reilly types so closely that he is often saying more or less the same things that they might, badgering his guests in the same way, using the same rhetoric -- that, plus DeLay's reptilian brain, gives you the confusion on DeLay's part. Colbert is sure-footed enough about what he is doing that I trust him to keep it together -- though Dave Chappelle seemed to have it together as well. But the question still persists: when you pretend perfectly, so that no one can tell the difference, does it matter what your intentions are? posted by Carlton at 9:13 AM

IT'S THE LAW

I mean Chekhov's Law, of course (not some silly old statute in some dusty old book in some musty old library -- BO-ring!). Simply stated, the Law is that

"If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don't put it there."

I have been thinking about that line ever since I read stories about this wacky bit of trophy-taking by our Maximum Presidente:

US President George Bush has been given a pistol Saddam Hussein had with him when he was captured and now proudly shows it to selected guests, Time magazine has reported.

The gun was taken from Saddam by US special forces when they caught him in a spider hole near his home town, Tikrit, last December, the report said.

The military had the pistol mounted, and it was presented to Mr Bush privately by some of the troops who ferreted out Saddam, Time said, citing unnamed sources.

Mr Bush now takes select visitors to see the pistol in a small study next to the Oval Office, the magazine said.

Old news, I know. What I want to know is, when do we get to the next act? posted by Carlton at 11:46 PM

CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS

Count some current Constitutional crises (unsourced and off the top of my head):

1. The President claims that Article II of the Constitution allows him to avoid or evade any Act of Congress or the checks and balances of the other two branches (See Article I and Marbury v. Madison).

2. Failing that, the President has signed 750 statutes into law while at the same time issuing "signing statements" with each one explaining how he may choose to disobey it at his discretion. This denies Congress its Constitutionally mandated power to overturn a veto (because it isn't a veto). (See Article 1, Sec. 7)

3. The President claims the ability to unilaterally classify foreign nationals and US citizens (i.e. Padilla) as "enemy combatants" and imprison them indefinitely without charge. (See Article I, Sec. 9 regarding Habeas Corpus, and Article VI -- which incorporates "Treaties made" into the US law, including the Geneva conventions. Maybe Amendment VI? What do we think? Amendment XIV -- regarding citizens?)

4. The President has assumed the authority to place wiretaps on unspecified numbers and types of telephone calls without a warrant, which is otherwise required. (See Amendment IV)

Well that's four. I'm no Constitutional expert -- no really, I know you thought I was. I haven't seen an enumeration of this sort anywhere else. This is a piss-poor one. Somebody help me out, here! posted by Carlton at 11:08 PM

FIRST ANNIVERSARY COMPLETE

Here's a taste of what life is like when you are married to a freelance illustrator.



If this is what she draws when she likes me, God forbid we ever split up. posted by Carlton at 3:16 PM

ENTERTAINMENT ROUNDUP

1. We recently saw the movie Brick (video/audio), an indie that is slowly diffusing its way around this fine country without much in the way of big-time promotion. I'm a fan of the noir genre (without really being an expert, because I am not really an expert in anything, even the things that I like), and Brick has all the trimmings: the corruption of every character, including the protagonist; the victimization of unprotected innocence; the dangers of allowing oneself to succumb to desire; and the femme fatale, the object of that desire. This all comes with rat-a-tat dialogue that stitches everything together. ("He's a pie-house rat." "You want to call in the bulls?")

The gimmick is that all this is set in a present-day LA high school, but the gimmick works. The movie takes itself seriously, and it's not a comedy by any stretch. If Brendan, the protagonist, is summoned to a meet with a drug dealer by a note in his locker, that doesn't mean that he won't get killed once he gets there. Nice touches include being served apple juice and oatmeal cookies by a drug dealer's oblivious mom, the question "where does he eat lunch" serving as a proxy for one's place in the social pecking order.

I liked this movie a lot, and it's stuck with me. Go see it.



2. I've been watching the new Doctor Who, of course, and enjoying it. The big problem, of course, is that I want desperately to remain unspoiled. We are watching season one here in the US, and they are cranking up season THREE in the UK, with a different actor playing the Doctor (if you don't watch the show, it's expected that the actor changes every so often). The interweb is awash with clips, info, discussion -- spoilers, essentially. It has been VERY DIFFICULT to avoid them. VERY.



3. It seems that Deadwood is starting its third, and last, season in June. This is distressing, as it was originally supposed to go at least four seasons, at least that's what I heard. The buzz is that it's being killed because of factors completely extraneous to the production of the show -- a dispute between money men, or something. The writers, producer, cast, crew, all are on board for more seasons, and there is more story to tell. To say that the news is too bad is a vast understatement.



I've also heard rumors that HBO is trying to get out of the Original Series business -- since The Sopranos is almost out of gas (I was so bored last week that I turned it off half-way in), Six Feet Under is gone, and Rome apparently sucked in heaps of money and only gave back twelve hours of really great TV ("Thirteen!"), once Deadwood is gone I will have NO REASON TO PAY EXTRA FOR HBO. I find that I never watch movies on any of the eight or so versions of it that I get, and there isn't anything else worthwhile on there.

This worries me, not so much because of any loyalty to a channel or even a particular show, but because I saw HBO as pushing the general improvement in television that has taken place over the last few years (see prior references to the "Golden Age"). I think that the people who make television for the networks saw HBO series (and The Sopranos in particular) as either a goad or an excuse to push the limits of the medium. I worry that, with that impetus gone, network television will sink back into the muck like the headquarters of the Legion of Doom. Call it reversion to the mean.

The Hall of Doom, naturally.

What can I do about it? Nothing. posted by Carlton at 2:27 PM

RETURNING WITH CLIPS

So, here I am, back from beyond. I have nothing substantive to say at the moment, except that I was recently informed of the existence of Aussie kids' sensation the Wiggles. Hungry to know more -- why, I can't say -- I looked them up on YouTube, and found the following moderately amusing "mash-up" clips (along with approximately 10,000,000,000 clips of little kids dancing to the Wiggles -- honestly parents, why?):

Here's one.

And another.

And a third.

And we're done. posted by Carlton at 1:31 PM