Alcatraz Awakes from 1963; Has Not Yet Searched for New Apartment

The dreaded television slump.  Because of you, during that deluge of emptiness, we’re willing to add all sorts of stuff to our queue once shows start again, as a reactionary attempt to not suffer through the drought again.  Sure, we might watch a lot of tv… but if you’re not huge into a lot of reality TV, and not a fan of network sitcoms, there’s not always a ton of stuff out there.

And that’s what led us to watch Alcatraz.

On the outset, you know they’re throwing old Lost fans a bone.  It has Hurley, an island, a mystery, and some cagey behind the scenes guys who operate outside of the mainstream.  It’s not spectacular, but it fills space.  It’s entertaining, every week focusing on a simple crime investigation of yet another old Alcatraz prisoner, reappearing inexplicably the same age as they were in 1963, hell bent on doing the same stupid shit that got them there in the first place. 

It’s missable.  It’s passable.  It’s nothing to write home about.  But… being as though I used to live in San Francisco, and in fact, on the “other” rock, Treasure Island (half real island half landfill, looked out onto Alcatraz from the same section of the bay), there’s always that appeal based on familiarity. 

And here’s why it sucks.  WTF DO YOU MEAN THE HOUSE HE GREW UP IN IS STILL FUCKING ABANDONED, DO YOU HAVE ANY CLUE WHAT PROPERTY VALUES ARE AROUND HERE????

Yeah.  Some fuckwad that got himself thrown in prison in the 1960’s is not going to have the chance in 2012 to wander back into his childhood home complete with torn wallpaper and cutesy Fallout-esque pastille candy tins on the shelves.  You claim he lives in Daly City? Still a no-go.  Land costs too much to go sitting around, like that abandoned school or hospital.  At this point it’d be a bad restaurant location that got sold every 9 months with a few dismal apartments above it that charged extra because it was walking distance from a BART station. 

I like that they had episodes taking them to Walnut Creek or other surrounding areas, and that they don’t do stupid shit like “ooh, let’s drive to Marin” and show footage of them driving the toll direction on the Golden Gate, back into the city.  These things annoy the shit out of locals.  Like that terrible 2000 movie Boys and Girls (with Jason Biggs and that weird looking girl you can never remember her name), where they drove back and forth over the Golden Gate Bridge, NEVER GOING THE RIGHT DIRECTION.  Fucking irritating. 

I suppose that isn’t my biggest criticism of Alcatraz, it’s an okay show, it tries hard to have an over-arching mystery stringing them all together which only occasionally outweighs the fatigue of generic detective show from episode to episode.  And sometimes it tries too hard for that, and really, it’s just an episode of Charlie’s Angels without the cool synthesizer music during chase scenes. 

I can suspend a lot of belief, but unoccupied real estate in San Francisco area…not a chance.    

Modern Advancements Are Making Us Weak!!

A few hundred years ago, necessity was a fucking awesome motivator, for inventions that actually made a huge difference in our every day lives.  Early settlers in this country were doing shit the hard way.  Outhouses, butter churning, fuck, forget about refrigeration.  Salted meat and a fucking huge bonus to the whole inventors of canning (the French military! Who knew!!).   Sure, a lot of inventions were dependent upon progressing technology/electricity, but the difference between having and not having could actually be measured in days.  Weeks.  The amount of work one had to do before said invention.  Or, I suppose in some instances, you just went without.  

She's old and tired and sure as fuck not going to 

teach you how to do this.

I do actually think about these things more often than I should, especially when I think about the likely Zombocalypse, what skills we’re all going to need to survive.  And if you’re one of those “zombies will never happen” naysayers, then fine, in the event of an outbreak that kills 99.99% of the population, there, are you happy, Mr. Buzzkill?  You know who you are.   At least with an outbreak, the chances of outliving it exist.  With zombies it’s all just a nail biting matter of time unless we can figure out what it takes to make them starve.

Back to my point, when’s the last time you heard someone say, “I’m a blacksmith!”  “I know how to forge!”  “Hey, I can totally figure out where to start a quarry!”  “OMG, cheese?  Yeah, like I can totally do that without making everyone sick!”  “If the plumbing stopped working?  Yes, I could totally make a pump and I know where to find the right chemicals to make an outhouse something other than a festering bacteria filled germ pile!”  And hell, these are just some of the basic luxuries that I think would be the hardest to let go.

"I bet I'm looking pretty sexy to you right now, what with you needing my skills and all..."

And that’s the rub, isn’t it?  If the world as we know it ended tomorrow, what are you going to struggle not to give up?  Certainly eating has to be high up on that list… but just like the unhelpful phrase “I vow to lose weight!” unless you outline how you’re going to do that, it’s not enough.  Sure, foraging… breaking into the houses of the dead, because THAT will most likely occupy a lot of time… but eventually… All the inventions in the world aren’t going to suddenly teach you what you’d need to rebuild.  All this invention around us, making it easy for us to buy food and survive, and we know dick squat about animal husbandry, agriculture, carpentry, plumbing, irrigation, forging, making tools… (yeah, I know some of you have a few of those skills, but how many of us have packed our own bullets???)

There’s a lot to making your every day familiar, and still a lot to making it remotely livable.  I know what you’re thinking, we’ll be able to get into these facilities and keep shit going.  Like The Stand, we’ll figure out how to get Denver’s electricity up and running again, only we’ll have do-gooders on hand to go turn it on and not charge us for it!  Yeah, because there’s no way a power plant employs dozens of people with some sort of training or important job duties that make all of it happen safely, hell, there’s no way one of those pipeswould just accidentally explode, right?    And we’ll maintain indoor plumbing!  You think someone’s going to decide their number one job is to head down to the sanitation department and make sure shit is getting properly processed?  That process most likely requires chemicals that didn’t originate in that spot.  Someone delivered them.  Someone, who would most likely be dead/living dead.  All of that amazing technology, and it’s going to come down to heinous sewage, drinking water, decomposing non-survivors, a resurgence of natural predators (zombie or mountain lion, you pick).  Everything that is so easy now is going to suddenly be a monumental task.

Like it or not, current inventions won’t be any help after the apocalypse.  They’ll be way too technological for the basic needs we’ll have once the world falls apart.  Who’s going to need a heart surgery splint when all the doctors who know what to do with it are dead?  And the flip side of current inventions, the As Seen On TV variety, those are going to be part of a distant past where all we worried about was making our cush, First World Problem lives even that much more cush.  Omg! Every brownie is a side brownie!  I can strain pasta!  I no longer have to chew my food, thanks to the magic bullet food processor!  My Stopdrop™ is just a sand filled tube that keeps shit from falling between my car’s driver’s seat and center console…but if an apocalypse hits, and I can’t maintain the car or the gas… wtf is that going to be useful for?  NOTHING.

And the danger in all this is that we no longer have an understanding of the simple things we use every day, let alone the crazy cutting edge things.  We’ve crested a hill.  We’ve gone from the every day innovations that make life easier like indoor plumbing, water heaters, and mattresses that weren’t made out of straw, to developments that require specialized knowledge to refine the technology we have.  The average person can schedule a program in a DVR, but has zero survival skills to survive any -pocalypse, zombie or viral!  Sure, some people have random awesome skills, like that kick ass show, The Colony, where that pansy-ass metal working artist actually had this incredible viable skill and helped them make a forge and solder shit and all sorts of crazy awesome inventions in their little survival community.  Ugh, all the shit that would have to be done on a daily basis to survive; foraging, hunting, purifying water… you’d have to work as a group, AND THAT WOULD TOTALLY SUCK. 

We’ll be forced to gather together like  a group of MTV’s Real World survivors: hunters, metal workers, carpenters… naturalists to tell you what the fuck was poisonous… you’d better hope your back doesn’t go out, because chances are you’re going to be a worker ant, not a foreman. 

Douglas Adams was right, we’re all going to die from the germs spread on public pay phones. 

...It's Just That I Judge A Kid Like Anyone, And I Don't Like Just Anyone PART 2

 

The presumption that all kids are great or all kids are terrible is as inaccurate as saying the same thing about people.  Though, depending on mood, sometimes those can be true too… sometimes we really do just hate everyone.  I will jokingly say that I like animals, I hate people.  I will further say, to simplify things, that I hate kids.  The first statement has a lot more truth to it than the second one.   I instantly like most animals, because hey, they’re often so busy doing silly animally things, they have little purposeful lives of seemingly important things to do (hey, survival is no joke) and them doing their little jobs of stealing food or taking a bath, well, I find downright adorable.  Perhaps being a People, I don’t think we’re nearly so cute doing the same things.  I mean, FUCK, people, is it so hard to have a proper bath sometime recent BEFORE you get on the treadmill next to me at the gym?  Must I breathe in that level of mustiness? Yikes.  Even animals fucking bathe, you hobo.

Saying I hate kids, well, it’s an exaggeration.  It’s easier than saying I specifically hate irritating, tantrum throwing, over indulged, poor mannered, selfish, whiny, screaming, smelly, dirty, lazy, dull, annoying children.  Kids that stay on repeat and throw things and scream to be heard over you. Kids unfamiliar with being told no, or having to handle consequence.  Kids that do their best to be annoying because, like a poorly trained dog, any attention is good attention.  Can’t stand them.  I feel my tubal ligation scar tingle when I’m around them, an overwhelming urge to drink, and usually get an instant headache.  I’m not a fan of that.  So, yes, put simply, I hate kids, when kid is defined as the above underlined.  And to be even more specific, it’s not even always just a “hate” that’s happening, it’s that I’m not built to find any of that cute, nor to have patience for it.  It gives me an instant headache.  Honestly, who lies and says they like stuff that instantly gives them a headache and makes them want to punch a wall?     

I once had a 5 hour flight in a predominantly muslim, conservative country with a first born male lap child seated behind me...who screamed, hit his mother, and kicked my chair the ENTIRE five hours.  I watched as that woman was literally helpless to shut that little fuck up, all she could do was yell at her daughter to behave.  Yeah.  Sounds fair.  That kid? That kid was an asshole.  And maybe so was the dad for not giving her the go ahead to smack the Family Heir for being a little jerk. I'm pretty sure fear of whatever local laws existed kept me from snapping. 

Everything about this sets my teeth on edge.

First of all, I have a lot of nieces and nephews.  I like them all based on principle, they are “my people.” You know, we're from the same village.  They are being steeped in the things of my childhood, and I "get" them. When I have good friends, and they have kids, their kids will most likely fall into that same category.  I don't mean to make it sound like a bigoted conservative who says "I have gay friends!" but I do actually know quite a few kids that I think are pretty awesome.   I have found it is about 70-80% compulsory that I will love and adore those kids.  The attachment I have to their parents can't be the only hook, but I realize it's a significant part of it.  However… there’s a 20-30% chance that compulsory or not, I will realize that there’s just something about that kid that… hmmm… not a fan.  And this got me thinking… to be honest, that 20-30% could just as easily refer to the number of friends or family that for one reason or another, I am not always excited about sharing their company, either.  Maybe that connection gives them a leg up, but when it comes down to it, an douchebag is still a douchebag whether they're related to you or not, and whether they're 5 or 45.

It seems like such a taboo thing to dislike a specific kid.  It’s simply obnoxious when I say, hyperbolically, that I hate kids.  But it feels somewhat uncomfortable to say I hate THAT kid.  Maybe hate is too strong a word… ‘do not care for’ fits a lot better, but still makes me feel sort of rotten for admitting it.  I mean, what did that kid do to me? Other than demonstrate in action his parents' utter lack of attention for making that kid a civil, decent human being...

I don’t hate kids on principle any more than I hate anyone on principle, which is to say, not much, or maybe a lot, depending on my mood and the circumstance.  When I’m out and about, I could care less about the people around me.  I actually enjoy people watching.  When I’m at Costco (or Sam’s Club for you people further east, or Giant Wholesale Market for those outside the U.S.), when it’s crowded full of stupid fucking people that bring 3 generations of useless human beings to shop, push the carts in a different direction than where they’re eyes are looking so they crash into you and generally just take up space that would be better used as landfill… yeah, I hate people pretty fucking out loud. You don't need 7 kids with you.  They wander off.  Hell, in the parking lot, you have so many kids you don't even seem to notice when one wanders into traffic.  I guess you'll still have 6 so who cares, right?

I’ve begun to notice something, though.  Really, dumb phrase or not, kids are people too.  And we have no hesitation to admit when an adult rubs us the wrong way.  That guy is stupid, that woman is vapid, her friends are kind of stuck up, all that guy does is complain, that guy is rude to waiters, she’s just kind of… boring.  There is someone, somewhere, that hey – maybe you don’t hate them – but you have nothing in common with them, or find whatever their interests, sense of humor, or habits kind of off putting.  It happens!  We’re programmed to find and surround ourselves with people we like!!

Why are kids any different?

I have a group of friends that in all seriousness, I’m glad to be counted among them.  They’re all extremely smart, clever, interesting, creative.  As it turns out, as they have all started to have kids, they’re kids are like mini-versions of their parents.  They reflect everything that’s awesome about their parents, it’s like seeing brand new shiny soft versions of my friends that are still growing into their unique angles.  

Now this kid appears to have some personality.

Aaaaand then I have friends that while I adore, perhaps they’re my friends for one big area we have in common, and then we differ on a lot.  Or jwe're friends with them, but their spouse is just one of those things that comes with the relationship, not quite an option I’d have chosen if I had a choice.  Or it’s the a family member I don’t always mesh with very well.  What about those kids?  I’ve discovered in one such friendship that the little darling is becoming the spitting image of the spouse.  In fact, so much so, that you know what?  I really don’t like the kid all that much.  Reminds me of the spouse.  The kid is annoying, rude, obnoxious, and is one of those kids who finds herself so amusing and believes she must be adorable when acting out that I hate her even more. 

You can’t expect a kid at that super young age to reflect a personality completely outside his limited experience.  There are some people that are just so fucking irritating, how could they possibly have a child that rises above it at the ripe ol age of 3?  Hell, I even have some adult friends that, after meeting their parents, I now get where their terrible, not-funny jokes come from and their really annoying habits.  Dear ol mom and dad.  From an old person, it can be kinda endearing… "oh god… he’s telling jokes again…” From someone your age, it’s something that should have been beaten out of you on the playground.  Oh fuck, I think our friendship will finally be able to die if they have kids, I could not handle a room with 3 generations all asking me if it’s “hot enough for ya??”  Oh god no.

It’s taken me a while to come to grips with it, there are just certain kids that I don’t like that much.  And unfortunately for the kid, it appears to have a lot to do with how they were raised, or at least by whom…because even somewhat annoying kids raised by people I adore… I seem to give a lot more wiggle room too, and have some sort of giant cognitive dissonance that whatever behavior isn’t bad when coming from THIS kid, it’s just an off day… but put a smirk on that other kid, and I’m just certain he’s being smug on purpose, that rotten little brat.  

Notice the emblems on his shirt? Classy!!

But I suppose there’s still hope.  I can certainly think of a few people that I got off on the wrong foot when I first met them, and they grew on me.  And as far as kids being people too, I suppose the adults I liked most when I was little were the ones that treated me like an adult.  It's just the moment a kid starts to be a little jerk, it's soooo hard not to start flipping through my roladex of  “why I chose not to have any” reasons.  With most people, if they annoy you you can decide to avoid them.  If it's someone's kid that drives you nuts... well, I suppose the hope is the bond with the parent is enough to make it through those rough years and just hope the kid grows into a nicer person.

It's Not That I Hate Kids... PART 1

I know a lot of people with kids, but not having any of my own, I admit that can limit what I have in common depending on the person. 

Having hung out with some of my friends while they had a baby sitter, I noticed two things.  One, we had a great time, conversation was uber enjoyable, and the evening was a lot of fun.  Two, they made a big effort to avoid talking about their kids.  I suppose they’re on to something… we really didn’t talk about their kids, but… is this such a bad thing?  Well, I mean, to some degree?  Stick with me.

Usually you have friends that fall into different categories –work friends, family friends, sports friends, shopping friends, whatever.  You either met or fostered the connection based on some commonality.   I know plenty of people that when you ask, “how did you meet X?” will say from a Mommy’s club or as parents of kids in the same school/activity.  That’s a perfectly grand way to meet people!  In fact, if it wasn’t so fucking creepy, that’s almost an ideal way to branch out and meet some people that at that point, 3-4 years into the isolation of having a new kid, are BURSTING to meet new people and use words with multiple syllables.  You have so much in common, right?  Kids going through the same type of stuff… same age… and the friendship comes enriched with the benefits of sharing carpools and playdates, each giving the other a welcomed dose of OMG NO KID FOR A FEW HOURS.   Which, of course rules out trolling for new friends there as a childfree individual, either you have no interest in watching or hanging with their kids and therefore offer none of those benefits mentioned above, or you do, and that’s just inappropriate to be so obsessed with someone else's kids.

It makes sense to talk kid-shop with other kid bearers, and the friendships have a mutual pay off that makes them invaluable, something childless friends don’t often deliver.  One could argue that if you’re prepared for it, having your own kid and throwing them at another kid almost makes watching them easier.  You become referee instead of teammate.  However, kids fight dirty, and if you miss a call the other team’s owner is going to do more than ask you if you need your eyes checked. But at least the kids might occupy each other and give the parents a moment of rest?

I don’t mean to be a bad friend, it’s not that I don’t want to know what’s going on in your life.  Especially when it matters to you.  But let’s just say, I never went on and on about the achievements I earned in a video game to my professional work friends.  Somehow I doubted they’d be impressed that I had 126 companion pets and ranked second in my guild for achievement points… just really unlikely.  Likewise, without being rude, am I really the relevant audience for potty training tales?  I can nod and smile, but let’s be honest.  If you subject me to a conversation 100% full of stories that I will either have nothing to relate to or no real interest in, what have YOU just done to our friendship?  It’s one thing to ask me to take an interest, and I DO!  At least…well, I suppose non-parents have a lower tolerance for biological waste type stories… But it’s another to expect someone to develop an unnatural interest in something that is completely irrelevant to them, ie, child rearing.  Think about it – I made a serious life decision, getting my tubes tied.  I chose to specifically not lead the life that has some of those issues.  I’m not trying to be an ass about it, I'm not.  Really.  But you and I both know that there comes a sphere of problems where I'm a bad friend because I probably don't know how it is, and...to be honest, I enjoy not having to know.  Not that I won't take enjoyment hearing stories about it, I just... I guess there's no easier way to say it.  All those stories that make parents feel at the end of their rope, secretly, inwardly, stack up in the "why I didn't have them" column.   *sips coffee on quiet morning*

It might sound rude, but…it’s honest.  It’s not like someone put a gun to my head and said YOU CAN ONLY SEE ONE OF THESE TWO AWESOME MOVIES WHICH IS IT??? And I was terrified and I chose one and I enjoyed it and it was great… but I desperately want to find someone that can tell me all about the other one that I’ll never get to see, because I feel like I missed out.  No, this was a choice… I’m interested in hearing about why YOU liked the movie, sure – you’re my friend!  But… don’t try to get me to love it like you do.  Appreciate and Want are two different things.  I appreciate that my spouse enjoys certain literature, and love to hear why.  I don't want to read it myself.

But, going to an extreme example, wouldn’t it be weird if, after having my tubes tied, I was breathless, hanging on every word of someone's childcare stories?  I nodded excitedly anticipating OMG THE DIAPER GENIE WAS FULL!! WAS IT? I BET IT WAS!!  Go on!!!  If I sat on the edge of my seat, already laughing, because I just know how terrible and comical it is when you can’t get the fucking baby wipe to untwist and you’ve got a major explosion going on.  That I just KNEW the moment you finally got little timmy ready to go out the door, he’d throw up on your suit or fill yet another diaper.  It’d be weird, plain and simple.  (I have babysat before, I am aware those stupid twisted pull ones are terrible if you've only got one free hand.)

But, onto a more difficult subject… when you find that person that talks incessantly about your kids, and that person who wants you to become their kid's best friend...well, those are two totally different issues.  The first, well, it’s just a matter of etiquette and knowing your audience to know when one topic has become exhausted or over employed.  The second…getting me to love your kid…now that one is a whole other can of worms. 

My Obsession with (Bad) Plastic Surgery

Litigation has really gotten in the way of what is otherwise an enormously gratifying past time.  There used to be two websites, www.awfulplasticsurgery.com, and it’s corollary, www.goodplasticsurgery.com.  They were well organized sites, you could go by what were essentially dated blog entry scrolling, or you could look up specific people alphabetically.  I think even lovers of the website occasionally sent in pictures to help with the search, but it was usually some side by side comparison with some pictures – some better, some awesome, some eh… could be makeup, I’m not seeing it.  I liked the blog layout, then you could see what’s most recent.  The current metamorphasis is simply the list of names which you then click on, which a bunch of irritating ads that pop over the page and get in the way.  And the list is only about 20 people long, mostly filled with people that either don’t care or don’t have their shit together enough to organize a complaint. (That’s you, Courtney Love, and nothing could save that coke nose.)  Currently the “good” version is still set up like the blog.  

But the website was AAAWWWESOME.  Now, the websites have been scaled down, moved around, and turned to crap.  They’re not nearly so gratifying.  Celebrities and their stupid lawyers are ruining what really should be some good light hearted fun.  I don’t care when someone gets plastic surgery, but I do however get really bent out of shape when it’s obvious and they’re denying it.  So what, you had something done.  You can be vague about it.  But don’t tell me you had nothing done.  I’m not an idiot.  There were several girls in my high school that all had the same bargain basement nose.  It was a slight variance on the Tori Spelling nose, I think it was the standard removing-hook-nose surgery in the 1990’s.  This pic is to show the nose, but I must comment, why post a before/after pic about her breast size when your before pic is an amorphous black shirt that shows nothing?  Seriously, I'm sure Teen Beat had a better pic to use in comparison...

 

But at least one other girl had one after high school, and it only irks me because of how much denial she is in.  She had her mother’s fairly solid potato nose – similar to Gisele Bundchen’s original nose.  I have taken the liberty of saving these pics rather than links, because these most likely won’t stay where they are forever.  Enjoy.  Yes, that really is her in the before pic. 

She rather looks like Claire Danes in the before, I think (Bundchen, not the girl from high school).  No doubt that in the before shot, she still has a smoking hot body, and I think done up all super modelly her nose might not have been so obvious.  The girl in question that I know… her second nose is so tiny and low profile, if she wears too much under eye cover up, her face very nearly disappears now, because there’s very little on it that sticks out to any degree.  When she poses next to her mom now, who still has the same nose, it’s just awkward.  And don’t get me wrong, she was pretty in the before, but the after, well, it’s drastic.

I think noses are the most often thing tweaked.  They take something sort of bulbous and Muppet feature and make it more chiseled and angular.  And hey, the end result is usually pretty good.

The things that I don’t understand, though, are the fillers, cheek/chin implants, and face lifts… your skin grows in a certain direction.  Facelifts, to my knowledge, come in at least two types – cutting around the hair line and pulling that skin tighter, and “thread” ones that sound totally gnarly where they actually attach strings to parts of you and pull it taught to another spot.  Imagine one of those strings breaking and suddenly you go stroke victim on one side.  Egads gross.   But back to skin direction… the facelift pulls aren’t in the natural direction, so as an end result, everyone gets the same eye stretch.  From Jane Fonda, to Kenny Rogers, to Bruce Jenner, they’re eyes get the same fucked up squish look that just makes the whole thing not worth the effort.

The fillers puff them the fuck up – to smooth out wrinkles – but instead they look like what happens to a corpse when it’s stuck under water – that nasty bloated look that distorts their features and rather than making them look young, makes them look like raging alcoholic fat versions of themselves that have been beaten too many times about the head and shoulders.  Not a good look. 

Filler:

Facelift:

If you go to far, you end up looking nearly exactly alike.  There’s a branch of aging Hollywood that now all look alike, and it’s creepy!

Plastic surgery can totally make a difference in some subtle way, but jesus, the moment you tip the scales from tweaking a small percentage of what you naturally have to a large chance to what is barely original face, well, you’re going to fuck things up.  

Terrible Review of a Terrible Movie

Warning, boring review of a really boring movie.  No hard feelings if you read no further.

I don’t go into a movie full priced unless I think that I’m going to enjoy it.  I refuse to spend money on any Tom Cruise slop for this very reason.  While he did make some very entertaining movies, he is becoming one of those embarrassments that occur from time to time in Hollywood, when age sneaks up on an actor and steals his bravado away, replacing it with that soft, suburban warrior look that just makes you shake your head when you see him try to exude sex appeal.   I remember hearing an interview with the iconic William Shatner, in which he was asked about his sex appeal.  He remarked that when he was younger, women used to swoon “oooh, Bill…” with this kitten like purr, and he claims he got slipped a lot of panties.  He said later on in life he heard women say the same thing, but… inflection is everything.  “Oh, Bill.”  Haha.  Funny old man.  Pat on the hand.  You funny guy, you.  Shatner is a man cut from the same clothe as Betty White, reinventing themselves into an ever relevant version of themselves.  Someone like Tom Cruise, well… even Michael Douglas recognized when it was his turn to play quiet, calculating, devious,  and not boastful testosterone.  Cruise will be our generation’s Baby Jane, and he’ll do it with that overachieving barrel chest flanked by love handles that belie his age.

Warning, dissing Tom Cruise is a lot more fun than reviewing Tinfoil Turnkey Tophat Spy. 

I don’t expect anyone to read this, because I’m not a good enough writer or movie reviewer to make a boring movie seem interesting in attacking it.  Whatever, I’m doing it anyway.   It was like this movie never wanted you to get too excited.  Several people in our theatre fell asleep.  The old lady next to me amused herself by spitting out and flipping her dentures around in her mouth.  Honest truth.  The movie was attempting to seduce the audience with it’s own indifference… as though somehow it is slinking closer and closer to something interesting, but feels it must maintain a bored expression so it doesn’t give too much away.  He is the watcher.  Just taking in details.  You have to like watching “knowing glances” for 2 hours for this movie to rock your world.  The more they seem to circle the drain, the less story there seems to be to tell.

How do you know this is going to be painful? Every review has to tell you the plot of the movie: spy world of the 1970’s, the understated hero, the world of intrigue and layers of bureaucratic murkiness, there’s a mole in the upper layers and WHO IS IT!!??  They tell you this because it’s what called a “talky” with no talking.  Long shots on random things, things which apparently tell a story, things which in my mind are a director’s direct insult to the audience which says “haha, you’re a captive audience.” 

The movie begins on a note that warns you, this is going to be shit, and it’s going to only get worse:  Movie begins: check watch.  2:16 p.m.  We follow our main character on errands in his typical day.  Walking, visiting the eye doctor, wandering around… set to a rather irritating jazz score with too much…clarinet?   A real nasally whine of a tune.  And this goes on for some 15 minutes.  The credits keep popping up.  Credits that last longer than 2 minutes make your audience feel like you could give a shit they paid money to see your movie.  Get on with it.

We’re not watching a shell game of intrigue being set up, we’re not watching him make ‘contact’ with secret people on his side.  No, we’re showing you how fucking mundane and casual the life of secrets can be from the outside, let alone once you get on the inside.  He was touted as being the anti-Bond, and they show you this redundantly.  I understand from the book it is based on that the character has been doing this for so long, he could barely remember all the enemies he had if he tried; they give you none of this in the long, 2 hour and 7 minutes.  They just make him seem on to something, but not something he’s going to tell anyone in range of a viewing audience.

To further hammer home the tone of this movie, they use techniques to colossally waste time in an effort to give, what one review called, “personality.”  He visits woman who was also fired from spy stuffs.  They visit in one room.  Small talk (yes, I know, establishing their history a teeny bit)…then he asks her about some spy stuff.  SO WE FOLLOW THEM GET UP AND MOVE TO A NEW ROOM.  I’m sorry, 2 hours and 7 minutes says you might have been able to cover some light stuff at the door, and… and then just have them fucking be in the room with the action in it.   

You actually only learn 2 spy things in this whole movie; the first is intel from an asset the Boss Spies get.  The second, that the intel is a ruse to make them think the asset has been feeding them secrets, rather than the truth of the matter, that one of their own is feeding the asset their secrets back to Moscow.  That’s it.  These enormous, incredible secrets that they’re protecting, and not a moment of this entire movie involves discussing the crazy shit they are keeping from each other. 

In fact, the main character goes on to investigate who, of the inner circle, might be the spy, he squeezes one guy into talking and you find out that he’s a ‘wanted man’ wherever he’s from.  That’s it.  Nothing else of interest.  Let us allude to the fact that these people might have layered relationships and connections, but let’s not actually tell you about them, because THAT MIGHT FUCKING BE INTERESTING.  Holy FUCKING bejesus of a waste of time, if this is compelling, I’d hate to see what happened if they went into depth anywhere.  I get it.  Nuanced.  Intriguing.  But I’ll say it out loud.  Boring.  Not enough pay out.

There are 2 side plots involving a heinously uglified Tom Hardy, broke my heart to see him in that terrible Lord of the Dance meets Kato Kaelin blonde wig and creepy mustache.  And a second side plot involving Andy Garcia’s British Doppleganger who goes on a mission in Hungary where he’s snatched and tortured.  I’m sure if I listened closer it might have made more sense, but I was left with a “wait, that’s it?” as it was.  His only real purpose appeared to be providing a scene with the main character telling him about his abduction and torture in retrospect, and reveal that he probably only survived to be let go because of a close tie to the mole who used to be his friend. 

I’ve been reading reviews of this movie, and there are only 2: OMG BRILLIANT DETAILED THRILLING… and “dull.”  I have a lot of trouble believing the ones who find it devastatingly layered and enthralling….I could possibly have agreed if it was 40 minutes shorter…and less time spent following him swimming, at the eye doctor, or sitting on his couch in thought.

Its Not Progress To Invite Those You Hate; Progress Is Realizing Not To Hate At All

So, I came across this article written by a minister, regarding his suspicions on church decline, and his opinions on what churches need to do to survive.  You can read the whole article here, if you like.   

I at first found this article very interesting.  First off, apart from the whole article, I really liked this portion: 

"Many churches are trapped in traditions that have died or are dying along with their aging populations. Traditions are good but, when traditions harden into institutions, as of course they almost always do, the traditions die with the people who cling to them."

It might not be that profound, but I found it poetically written.  Traditions are those simple, common things that help a community find it’s feet – they give it identity, purpose, and make it feel cohesive, warm, embracing.  Traditions make everyone involved feel like they are part of something greater.  But then just the same, once the traditions become outdated, it makes the room full of young people feel awkward to go through the motions performing a tradition that is meaningless to them, carrying the weight of it, simply to make their parents/grandparents happy.  It is a perfect statement of the rise and death of what gives people a sense of belonging, knowing eventually that as the pillars of a community die, those that take up the banners of traditions may take a new form that the elders don’t recognize and feel lost trying to follow.

And then the article just pissed me off, and I found the author stupid, clueless, and part of the problems he identifies.  He’s writing about the problems churches face, essentially what is making them outdated and useless; what they need to do to stay relevant.  But in one paragraph, he appears to fully admit he has no clue his church is as much a part of the problem as any other, and he’s doomed to the same demise. Consider when he writes this: 

"I'm a Baptist by upbringing and training and I'm a member of Highland Baptist Church, in Louisville, Kentucky. It's one of those rare -- and I do mean rare -- bright lights. It's a Baptist church that truly seeks to live out the teachings of Jesus. And, because the church does, it has become, among other things, an LGBT friendly church. It is known and respected across the city as truly a Christ-honoring church. What makes it so rare is that the congregation truly seeks to "love enemies," "to do good to those who are evil" and so forth." (emphasis mine)

What a fucking asshole.  What a complete, absolute, douchebag.  How dare he make such a statement, so bluntly - it's like he wrote in code for any fundy christian reading this, "it's okay, we're doing our part loving the evil, the broken, the outright wrong, in hopes they find god and mend their ways."  

Seriously, fuck this guy.  He thinks his church is so fucking different because they allow gays... it's like the lame movie scenario where the popular kids decide to have one of those parties where everyone brings the most embarrassing or ugly person they can find and the winner will be the one that brings the biggest loser (who in the movie inevitably turns out to not actually be ugly, so whatever lesson they teach about learning to accept someone from the ‘out crowd’ is lost by the discovery that this person should have been in the ‘in crowd’ the whole time).  This idiot priest thinks that by opening his doors to the untouchables, the gays, the evil, the enemy… makes them better than most churches, rather than just accepting that there is nothing wrong with these people from the get go.  

I honestly can’t believe he wrote that, after talking about how some churches need to stop talking about ending the world and instead be relevant to living in the world… the idea that people are leaving churches that have become nihilistic in favor of finding places that are still committed to fixing the world we’re in, not ending it… and then he goes and declares that they’re only admitting gays to satisfy that backhanded compliment of the bible, sure we’ll let you in, but we assume that in doing so you will recognize your wickedness and repent, you scum.  

What an arrogant, misled, insulting, pathetic apologist.  I got to that part of it and realized he's exactly the reason his church and any other SHOULD experience a decline, they still manage to justify their hatred in a way that we in the "real world" realize is arcane and impractical for survival in our day to day experiences.