Monday, September 17, 2001

Americathon

There's gonna be a network telethon Friday night, apparently featuring George Clooney and Jim Carrey.

I'd comment, but right now I hate pretty much everything.

posted by at 9/17/2001 09:20:16 PM |shoot|

Saturday, September 15, 2001

Keen

Keenspot is offering a three-pack of comics, the proceeds of which will go to the Red Cross. And we've talkin' one hundred percent, folks. Buy two. If you're, say, an unemployed slob who's down to his last unemployment check, it's a good way to offer a little support.

posted by at 9/15/2001 06:37:05 AM |shoot|

Friday, September 14, 2001

Hymn To The Fallen

There will be no updates today.

Except this one.

Support freedom

Thursday, September 13, 2001

Lemme Try This Again...

This is something like the fourth time I've changed this entry. I made a really bad analogy in this space comparing the Timothy McVeigh case and Osama bin Laden. This article from Salon makes the point much better.

posted by at 9/13/2001 05:24:26 PM |shoot|

Son Of A Bitch Must PAY

Spamming motherfuckers capitalize on tragedy. Just shoot them. Shoot 'em like looters, because that's all they are.

posted by at 9/13/2001 01:12:01 PM |shoot|

We Are All Interested In The Future...

"...because that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives." -- Criswell

That Nostradamus quote about "the city of York" is bullshit. Frankly, I say bollocks to Nostradamus anyway. Any megalomaniac worth his salt has burnt all his blue turbans by now.

Allow me to clarify this... The "blue turban" reference is to another Nostradamus quatrain, one which claims that the third anti-Christ will come from the Middle East, and will wear a blue turban. This will fill you in.

posted by at 9/13/2001 10:51:59 AM |shoot|

A Contradiction In Terms

"I know we're all going to die - there's three of us who are going to do something about it."

These were reportedly the words of Thomas Burnett, a passenger on Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania on Tuesday. This article gives the details.

I hope it's true. I'd like to think that somebody stood up to these fucks.

By the way, the title of this entry comes from G.K. Chesterton. "Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die."

posted by at 9/13/2001 09:11:12 AM |shoot|

There Is Only One Law...MCCAIN'S LAW

I heard a quote from John McCain this morning, regarding the terrorists:

"God will have mercy on them. We will not."

I love that guy.

And I'm kinda glad he didn't get elected, too.

posted by at 9/13/2001 08:59:59 AM |shoot|

Wednesday, September 12, 2001

Peg Has A Cunning Plan

My associate, the lovely and talented Peg, asked me to pass along a suggestion of hers.

She believes that New York should take the World Trade Center rubble, once it's been searched, and use it to build an island just off the point. On that island, they should construct a memorial to the victims of Tuesday's tragedy. As she says, "Land prices being so high in Manhattan, making a new bit is about the only way to get it."

Think about the cost of rebuilding the World Trade Centers.

It's gonna be a long decade for New York.

posted by at 9/12/2001 07:40:38 PM |shoot|

Let's Get Something Straight

If I could have a word with the Prez, our Attorney General, and indeed most of the people I heard from today...the terrorist attacks were not "an act of war." See, a war has rules. No, really. Clearly defined ones at that. If this was an act of war, every nation in the Middle East wouldn't be saying "What? Us? Fuck you, we didn't do that. Flying planes into buildings? That's fucked up. If we wanted to fuck with you, we'd just cut off your oil like we always do."

This is a crime.

This is the work of a group of psychotics.

This is an irrational, violent, stupid act.

This is the equivalent of a man walking into a restaurant and opening fire on the customers.

This is Columbine on a global scale.

Referring to this as "an act of war" gives the perpetrators more credit than they deserve.

This is a crime. And they are criminals.

Glad I could clear this up.

posted by at 9/12/2001 07:08:03 PM |shoot|

The Truth Is--Wait, What?

This is interesting. Everybody's been pointing out the similarities between the tragedy and Tom Clancy's Debt of Honor, but it looks like Chris Carter hit it closer to the mark. The pilot episode of The Lone Gunmen featured somebody trying to crash a plane into the World Trade Center.

posted by at 9/12/2001 02:18:55 PM |shoot|

This Just In: Tragedy Does Not Make People Smarter

So the cops were just surrounding the Westin-Copley Hotel; apparently the terrorists stayed there before catching the path to paradise. Ambulances. SWAT teams. Riot gear.

Hordes of people crowding around.

"Hey, let's get a good look at this! Because after all, there's no chance that the building will explode and cover us with flaming debris!"

I'm just sayin', people.

posted by at 9/12/2001 02:07:19 PM |shoot|

Silver Lining

There are reports of survivors emerging from the wreckage of the World Trade Center. Keep praying. It's working.

And go look at this. Nice one, Chris.

posted by at 9/12/2001 07:44:43 AM |shoot|

It's Oh So Quiet

An odd moment from yesterday...

I didn't turn on the TV until about 9:45, so I came to this kinda late. I watched. I bugged. I cried. I prayed. I wrote the only person I know in New York (who is okay, but she had the bad luck to be speaking on a panel five blocks away from the WTC).

After about an hour and a half, I turned off The We're All Doing To Die Show and walked down to the mailbox.

The sun was shining. There was a gentle breeze. Birds were chirping. No cars on the street. I picked up the mail and started walking back up to the house in a kind of daze.

That didn't--that didn't really--nahhhh. Of course not. I'm hallucinating. That's it. Much easier to believe.

But you know the rest.

posted by at 9/12/2001 07:17:08 AM |shoot|

Bad Craziness

Yeah, it's me again. Twenty thousand dead and I'm Chatty fucking Cathy.

Well, since the best way for me to deal with this lunacy is to make snarky comments, you can pretty much expect this site to become your Gallows Humor headquarters. Believe me, there's so much weirdness surrounding this, I'll have plenty of material.

F'rinstance, didja know what one of the central pieces of evidence against Osama bin Laden is? It's a video designed to entice young Muslims into joining one of his terrorist camps. The video shows terrorists in training, running drills and firing automatic weapons into pictures of Bill Clinton.

Terrorist infomercials. "But wait! There's more! Reserve six months in the Osama bin Laden training camps and receive absolutely free a lifetime supply of Rice-a-Roni! Now how much would you pay?"

There's a terrorist cell operating out of Boston? Christ, it's fucking Bizarro World. And we got this information from a guy who argued with several Arabic men as they were trying to park. Remember, kids, shitty Boston drivers are good for something. Unbelievable.

Ahnuld's latest masterpiece will probably be postponed. Yeah, I don't think too many people are gonna be in the mood to see something called Collateral Damage. I'd start looking into an Ibsen revival or something, Arnie. (Too bad about Big Trouble, though. What the world needs now is comedy. And the crucified corpse of whoever did this.)

One of the people who crashed into the WTC was an executive producer of Frasier. As was former Boston Bruin Ace Bailey and Daniel Lewin, the founder of Akamai Technologies. Poor bastards...

By the way, I love the top two headlines in AP's Entertainment section... "Devastating Attacks Unfold On TV." "Linda Gray Comfortable In The Nude." Heh. Stay the course, guys!

Have a good day, all of you. Try to keep your spirits up. Whistle through the Blitz...

posted by at 9/12/2001 05:57:51 AM |shoot|

Tuesday, September 11, 2001

Shock And Dismay

Box cutters?

No, seriously. Box cutters?! Are you fucking kidding me?!

Sheesh.

Anyway, I watched Bush's address to the nation, and...Lord save me...I agree with the direction he's taking. I fully expected him to charge ahead guns-a-blazin', and instead, he seems more interested in setting our house in order first. Nice one.

'course, he could have said it a little more forcefully. I mean, he didn't look pissed at all. Just once, I'd like to hear a President say something like "We will retaliate in the strongest possible terms by finding you cocksmokers and pounding the shit out of you, along with anything else that happens to get in our way. Just ask the French Embassy in Libya about that shit."

Yeah, I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.

This tragedy is affecting us all deeply. For instance, I saw Congress out on the Capitol steps, singing "God Bless America," and I couldn't bring myself to make a single smartass comment. (I know. I'm shocked too.)

By the way, if I sound glib about all this, it's because the only other alternative is paragraph after paragraph of "KILL THE BASTARDS, KILL THE BASTARDS." No one wants that. Believe me, inside I'm fucking outraged. If the death poll is below twenty thousand people, it'll be a miracle.

posted by at 9/11/2001 09:11:02 PM |shoot|

Welcome To Interesting Times

I'm torn.

On the one hand, I want to post something calm and hopeful. I want to say that no, war isn't going to come from this, because we need another nation to go to war with. You're going to see a shitload of surgical strikes and maybe a whole lotta ground troops, but once we blow up enough desert real estate... I'd like to say that we as a nation will survive this, that we need to pull together...

But then I see fucking Palestinians dancing in the streets celebrating the deaths of 10,000 Americans, and I hear that we had a three-week heads up on this from bin Laden, and I see the footage of the plane hitting the tower over and over and over again, and I just want blood. I want to find these motherfuckers and bathe in their blood. I want to take them out Braveheart style. I want to bring bin Laden's corpse back to America and skullfuck his head at the Statue of Liberty's feet. I want to find those responsible and burn them alive and laugh as them as they scream for mercy.

I imagine that's how a lot of you feel as well.

That is what they want, you know.

They want us to get paranoid and irrational. They want us to distrust. They want us, in short, to give in to terror.

They want us just as crazy as them.

Don't.

Pray. Give blood. Help people whenever possible.

'cause as a wise man said...fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.

And laugh when you can.

posted by at 9/11/2001 05:40:56 PM |shoot|

Thursday, September 06, 2001

K C U F D N I M

There's nothing I like more than a twist. A twist ending is good. A twist in the middle is good. A whole bucked of twists throughout are kind of exhausting, and will psoilt he story if overdone, but if it works...

In Menento, it works. I've seen three movies this year where I truly feel like I got my money's work. Memento, Shrek and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. (A.I. and The Others come close, but they fall short by plot and performances, in that order.)

Here's the deal: Leonard Shelby is searching for the man who killed his wife and assaulted him, causing him to lose the ability to form new memories.

I'll finish this later. Rant above.
posted by at 9/6/2001 04:04:48 PM |shoot|

Because Life Is Too Complicated...

I give you Logan Whitehurst and the Jr. Science Club. Or, as I like to call them, "crack in audio form." I literally cannot stop listening to "Calculator Love."

posted by at 9/6/2001 12:32:05 PM |shoot|

Wednesday, September 05, 2001

The Madness...

...it's starting to happen again.

It starts like this, you know. A click here. A click there.

Just something to spend the time, right?

But now...now I can feel it coming on, like a bottle of bourbon calling out to an alcoholic...

Spoilers for The Show That Must Not Be Named.

I can't help myself. I read a little piece of information, and that leads to another, and that leads to another, and next thing you know I'm muttering "Well, that's stupid. Why would they even do that? What do they mean they're really going to get married?"

Need medicine.

Help me.

posted by at 9/5/2001 04:39:57 PM |shoot|

Wednesday, August 29, 2001

Clown Fucker, Clown Fucker, That's What They Said

What? The droves of tourists and marauding drag queens aren't enough to keep you out of Provincetown? How about this. A DRUNKEN CLOWN STALKS THE STREETS! AHHHHHH! AHHHHHHH! AHHHHHHH!

posted by at 8/29/2001 10:00:58 PM |shoot|

Aw, Ray

Ray Bradbury is interviewed by Salon and bums my ass out. Ray, Ray, Ray...the only thing Bush the "education president" has taught us is how fast a budget surplus can disappear.

I mean, you're killin' me, man.

posted by at 8/29/2001 09:37:04 PM |shoot|

Body Shots

Being a freelance writer, I'm pretty used to rejection. Notices that say things like "Does not suit our present needs," "Not at this time" and "Die, die, you miserable hack" are nothing new to me. Generally, I shake 'em off and prepare for my next rejection. Which is why it's odd that the rejection I experienced yesterday hit me as hard as it did..

I knew going in that it would probably be Shaqed, of course. I was prepared--or thought I was prepared--for that. Maybe it's the fact that I had awakened at 3:30 am and was more than a little crusty at the time. Whatever it was, I sent in the pitch...and in less than 120 seconds, it came back.

It was polite, hardly a condemnation...it was a simple "thanks but no thanks." But damn if it didn't sink me into a funk for the rest of the day.

Huh.

Maybe my inability to come up with endings to my stories accounts for all these rejections.

Oh, well. At least I made it through this entry without using the word "fuck."

Wait.

Fuck!

posted by at 8/29/2001 05:04:32 PM |shoot|

Monday, August 27, 2001

An Open Letter To The Two Women In Allston Who Offered To Show The Lady An Apartment, Then Never Called Back To Schedule The Meeting, Despite Several Phone And Electronic Messages

Fuck you.




posted by at 8/27/2001 09:35:15 PM |shoot|

All Arty And Shit

It's been a long time since I've been to the Boston Film Festival. Come to think of it, there's only two films I remember really clearly seeing there...Quiz Show and In The Bleak Midwinter, later renamed A Midwinter's Tale, also known as The Kenneth Branagh Film That Nobody Has Ever Seen, Ever.

This year...well, I'm interested in seeing Brotherhood of the Wolf. Hearts In Atlantis looks pretty good. Iron Monkey, just because it's called Iron Monkey. Maybe Lantana. Definitely Novocaine. For God's sake, not Porn Star: The Legend of Ron Jeremy. And what the hell is Training Day doing on this list?

posted by at 8/27/2001 07:36:56 AM |shoot|

Sunday, August 26, 2001

Evil Things Come In Small Packages

There's another new recap up at Mighty Big TV. The Gift. Come and enjoy the Suthuhn Angst.

posted by at 8/26/2001 08:54:23 PM |shoot|

Friday, August 24, 2001

Oooooh

David Fincher to adapt Frank Miller & Geof Darrow's Hard Boiled.

No, not the Chow Yun-Fat film. That's totally different.

posted by at 8/24/2001 08:34:13 AM |shoot|

Tuesday, August 21, 2001

The Lost Long Weekend

It is, sadly, nothing unusual for a few days to pass by without an update to this page. But I can tell you all that this time, it wasn't my fault.

See, I own an HP Pavilion 4530, an ancient piece of machinery which has grown increasingly sluggish in recent weeks. I was of a mind that perhaps reformatting the hard drive was in order.

Which I did.

What I didn't reckon on was the fact that I had installed a Voodoo 4 card some months previous, and that while at the moment, there was a tenuous piece between the card and the onboard video, formatting the drive would flare that up into a Gulf of Tonkin incident.

I was left with no recourse but to take the thing to Best Buy and have it fixed. Disabling the onboard video was, I knew, the thing to be done--HP tech support had told me as much--and I fancied it would be a quick in-and-out.

Again, I failed to reckon for the unspeakable...that is, the fact that every schmuck in the state of Massachusetts would be in front of me with computer trouble.

They took the computer overnight.

They took my baby overnight.

Those filthy swine kept the machine which keeps me connected to the outside world into their sweaty lab and did unspeakable things to it with whips and chains and--

I'm fine. Really. Needless to say, I was jonesing by the time Tuesday rolled around. I considered lurking outside the store and howling for "My Preciousssssssss!", but that seemed counter-productive. Instead, I killed time by going to see a movie--Rat Race. Quick capsule review--it was hit and miss, sometimes funny, sometimes not, incredibly weak ending, another summer movie that disappoints, what the fuck else is new.

That done, I headed back to the store, where I was informed that it would be another hour or so. Which meant that I would have to kill time...IN THE MALL. (Crack of lightning, howling of wolves, babies crying, old men kicking dogs, etc.)

The next hour was a blur. All I know is, I ended up back at the store covered in blood and muttring "God is dead" under my breath over and over. I found my guy and asked what the deal was.

"Uh, yeah," the pimply-faced drone said. "I got hungry...and I ate your computer."

No. Seriously. He actually said that. Little fucker tried to use The Kids In The Hall against me. I kept my face blank as I repeated a mantra inside my head: YOu can't kill him, he's got your computer. You can't kill him, he's got your computer.

Eventually, they relinquished my lovely back to me. I ran out of the store shrieking "MIIIIIIIIIINE! YAH HA HA HA HA HA!"

Of course, now I'm gonna be downloading stuff for the next three days, so who knows when the next update will be...

posted by at 8/21/2001 11:20:57 PM |shoot|

Friday, August 17, 2001

And In The News

Science offers proof that global warming is killing people. The government is expected to look at this information, shrug and say "Hey, they're just brown people. Whitey's still okay."

The White House says Federal officials discriminate against religious groups when handing out grant money. In other news, a kindergarten teacher broke down in tears after six hours of attempting to make Dubya understand what "separation of church and state" means. "When he asked why he couldn't make Jesus the chairman of the Fed, well, that was the last straw," she was heard to say.

Tim Burton Refuses Apes Sequel. "I hate you," Burton was heard to say. "All of you, you fucks. I depise all humanity. Can't you tell from my fucking films? Haven't you figured out that what looks like quirky sensibility and ironic detachment is, in fact, complete misanthropism? I hope you fuckers all get eaten by locusts. So take your twist ending and kill yourselves. Leave me alone." He then ran away crying.

And on a lighter note, The WB prepares to air an updated series based on L. Frank Baum's Oz novels. Meanwhile, Tim McCanlies drinks himself into a stupor wondering why all these other shows get made, but his Bruce Wayne show, which everyone seems to like, languishes in limbo. Warner Brothers--We Own Batman, So We Can Hate Him If We Want To.

Yeah, I'm the teensiest bit cranky this morning.

All right, here's one item that doesn't make me want to smack anybody around: Carl Hiaasen To Develop TV Series?. Kick ass.

posted by at 8/17/2001 06:39:33 AM |shoot|