Warning: Nerd Alert

If you will indulge me for a moment, this blog is about to live up to its name.

As some of you might be aware, one of my absolute favoritest movies of 2005 was Batman Begins. If you've seen the movie, you know that it ends with a little tease about what might be coming next in this new series of films. Since then, the nerdverse has been aflame with speculation regarding the Big Question of the new era:

Who will play the Joker?

Many names were floated around with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Names like Paul Bettany, Crispin Glover and Lachy Hulme appeared in almost every post on the subject. Sam Rockwell showed up occasionally, as did Adrian Brody. My personal favorite suggestion was Christopher Eccleston, although that idea never seemed to catch on. Not that it matters. Christopher Nolan, the director of both Begins and the upcoming, untitled sequel, seems to have hit all of us nerds with a surprise jab by casting a well-known actor whose name was somehow left out of all the speculation.

It appears that the Joker will be played by Heath Ledger.

My first reaction upon learning this news was (and I quote), "Huh." Note that I did not say, "Huh?" It wasn't a question. I was just a little surprised, is all. The reaction from other fans across the internet seem to range from puzzled to appalled. After some consideration, however, I have decided to treat this casting choice as good news. Here's why.

First of all, Mr. Ledger is a pretty good actor. I haven't seen Brokeback Mountain, but whether people liked it or not everyone seems to agree that his performance is quite good. I didn't know much about Ledger before I saw him in Monster's Ball. Before I saw that movie I had written Ledger off as another one of those teen heartthrob types who would disappear after he could no longer believeably play a high school student. His turn as Billy Bob Thornton's son in Monster's Ball made me think there was more to him.

Second, if Nolan had cast anyone on the fans' short list, we would have known without ever seeing the movie what the Joker was going to be like. I can honestly say now that I have no idea what to expect from the next movie. And that makes me more excited to see it. I mean, Nolan gambled a little on the first film, casting Gary Oldman as Gordon. Not that Oldman is a bad actor ('cause he sure as hell ain't), but he was definitely a left-field choice. And it worked out great.

In conclusion, I enjoy having things like upcoming Batman movies to distract me from current events. Now I'm gonna go spend twenty minutes wondering who would win in a fight, Christian Bale or Brandon Routh? I'm gonna go with Christian, I think. But that Brandon is pretty damn tall.

And I Call Myself a Writer

Jeez. Would you look at this crap? My last post was last freakin' February, for christ's sake. Have I really had nothing of interest to say in all that time? Has nothing of note occurred? Haven't I at least seen a movie to blog about, which seems to be the thing to do when you have nothing else to say? It's been so long I wonder if anyone is even going to bother to check here anymore.

Sadly, the truth is that I have no life. It's true. Nothing has happened. I don't even have anything to write about right now, except for the fact that I haven't written anything. Pathetic.

Okay, wait. So, Mandy and I found a groovy new apartment, and we're moving at the beginning of next month. That's cool. Also, work on the novel I started for National Novel Writing Month last November progresses, albeit very, very slowly. I still haven't reached the end, although I think I know how it's gonna end. Part of the problem is I've got this other story idea that I want to get started on, and it's distracting the shit out of me. Also, I'm feeling pretty lazy.

I did recently discover the wonder that is the SciFi Network's updated version of Battlestar Galactica. God bless Netflix for bringing this gem to my door. This show is like crack, seriously. That's all I'm gonna say about it.

Oh, also, I finally saw Garden State, written and starring Zach Braff. I was curious about this movie because there are these two guys I know, one of whom wants to marry Natalie Portman, and the other wants to kill her, both based on her performance in this movie. Also, I heard the soundtrack was the bomb. Well, now that I have seen it, I can safely say... Meh. The movie was okay. Not awesome, not crappy. It probably would have been groundbreaking in 1989. Today it's just... meh. I'm glad I saw it. Don't need to see it again. Don't really even need to think about it. As for Natalie Portman, I thought she was completely... adequate. Not awful, not brilliant. I liked her better in V for Vendetta. Actually I liked that movie better than Garden State all the way around, but the movies are so different that you can't really compare them.

I am still looking for a new job, as well, although that has currently stalled. I have had exactly no success so far, and it's getting pretty discouraging. I've sent out probably a hundred resumes by now, and have heard back on exactly two of them--one of which was actually sent to a placement service, so it almost doesn't count. Anyway, I'm starting to think that going back and finishing college is really the only way I'm gonna get out of my current position. Yikes.

All right, enough complaining. It's summer. The windows are open, the sun is shining. the cats are yelling at the pigeons. I'm gonna go for a nice long bike ride today, and drop off the first month's rent for our awesome new apartment. Y'all should come visit some time!

Al Franken Hurt My Feelings

Al Franken is a douchebag.

I like to think of myself as a fairly smart guy. I don't claim to be the genius my parents always say I am (which is a subject for a whole other therapy sess--I mean, blog entry). But I believe I can say without fear of perjuring myself that I am not a complete idiot. It distresses me, therefore, when my intellectual shortcomings are pointed out by people whose opinions I respect.

Like most of the people I know, I am a good and devout liberal. I am less afraid of terrorists than I am of the Bush administration. I think it is funny if a sitting President gets caught receiving a hummer in the Oval Office, but I find it distressing to have a President with a cocaine addiction and DWI convictions, along with a First Lady who killed a guy with her car (swear to god! Look it up!), and a VP who not only has DWI convictions of his own, but recently MISTOOK A MAN FOR A SMALL BIRD AND THEN SHOT HIM IN THE FACE. Furthermore, as a good liberal, I believe that rich people should pay more in taxes than poor people because the Reaganesque "trickle-down" analogy is fundamentally flawed--money is not water; it is the cream that floats to the top. I believe it is the government's job to give the jar a stir and keep things as even as possible, not skim the cream from the top and give it to Halliburton in exchange for building "detention camps." (Again, not kidding. Check it out.)

I could go on. Perhaps I will, later. But to the subject at hand.

As a person of the liberal persuasion, I read Al Franken's best-seller Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right, and it brought me great joy. I knew in advance, of course, that Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh were all full of shit, but now I had it explained in concise terms. The book even had empirical facts, like dates and names and charts and graphs, and lots and lots of dollar amounts. I remember none of them, but I sure was impressed when I read them. And, as an added bonus, Mr. Franken included many funny, funny jokes. Oh, the times we had! The handful of bus rides I spent reading that book just flew by. When I finished, I felt invigorated, justified in my liberal beliefs. I even donated fifty dollars to General Wesley Clark to help him in his campaign for President. Alas, the good General dropped out of the race before the Illinois primary, depriving me of the opportunity to actually register a vote for the man. I want my fifty bucks back.

Like many of you, I was disappointed, although not actually surprised, when John Kerry lost the election in 2004. To be honest, I wasn't completely distraught; I was on my honeymoon, and didn't think too hard about the election until we got home. But eventually I had time to register the fact that a handful more than half the population of the United States had bought into the idea that George W. Bush is actually making us safe by invading random countries for made-up reasons while chipping away at the civil liberties--the actual reasons for which this country was founded--we enjoy here at home. But I had to be honest: The election was the Democrats' to lose, and they did a bang-up job.

In 2005 we liberals got to enjoy a certain schadenfreude as the Bush administration traipsed from one fuck-up to the next. Iraq just kept getting worse, Osama still hasn't been found, Bush learned that they won't let just ANYBODY sit on the Supreme Court, and, lest we forget, we basically misplaced New Orleans and a number of other Gulf Coast communities for about six months. Oops.

And then I learned that Al Franken had a new book out: The Truth (with jokes). Yes! I thought. Kick 'em while they're down! Put 'em out of our misery! Little did I know that among the list of targets Mr. Franken had selected for his book I would find none other than myself. To be sure, at no point does Mr. Franken mention me by name, but I cannot help but take his comments as anything less than a personal attack.

In spite of all the fun I had reading Lies, I had one complaint. I did not think it was major, but it stuck with me enough that I would mention it when people asked my opinion of the book. My complaint was this: I didn't get all of the jokes. Mr. Franken's medium is humor, which is fine. He's a funny guy. But some of his jokes confused me. You see, occasionally he would make a statement, site a fact, or present a quote which turned out to be completely made up because Mr. Franken thought it was funny. Maybe it was. The point is, I could not always tell when it was a joke and when it was real. It annoyed me a little, but I still enjoyed the book overall and recommended it to friends. Furthermore, I expected more of the same in Truth, and I was fine with that. What I did not expect, after one of these jokes, was this:

"After my last book, some of my younger and/or less bright readers complained that they couldn't tell when I was joking and when I was merely reporting true things in a comedic manner."

Ouch. Burn. As I will be turning 32 this year, I don't think I qualify as one of Mr. Franken's "younger" readers. I must, therefore, fall into the "less bright" category. I will not lie; that stings a little.

In response to this unwarranted attack on a loyal reader, I shall now discharge my mind in regard to certain observations I have until now kept to myself regarding the role Mr. Franklin and others like him play in the American political landscape. I submit to you that the Presidential election of 2004 was lost by the Democrats, with the help of Al Franken, Michael Moore, Robert Greenwald and others of their ilk. Their smug, smarter-than-thou pseudo-journalism became the face of the liberal movement in America, and the all-important swing voters took one look and said, "They may be right, but do they have to be such assholes about it?" And in this image-obsessed culture of ours, that was all it took.

I will admit that the right wing has its own media dickheads--the afore-mentioned Coulters, O'Reillys, Limbaughs, etc. But the Republicans have somehow managed to use these idiots to spread the message without directly associating the party or the movement with them. It helps, too, that the administration has a cast of characters we all know like we know everyone in Star Wars. Unfortunately for us liberals, all we've got are these comedians. The roles that should be filled by star-quality powerhouses--the Democratic Presidential candidates--are being filled with B-list character actors. And sure, the play you go see in a thirty-seat house in the middle of nowhere on the North Side of Chicago might have ten times as much passion and truth as the show playing at the Cadillac Palace downtown, but who the hell is gonna go see it?

I think I've lost track of my metaphors in there somewhere. All I really wanted to say is: Al Franken is a dick. I was going to put his book down and never pick it up again, but that would be stupid, because while he may be a total jag-off, he's still usually right.

But I'm not going to buy his next book. Mr. Franken won't get another penny from me. Instead, I'm going to find someone else who has it ... and I'm going to borrow it.

That'll show him.

Fart-Around Time

What genius came up with the idea that days should have but four-and-twenty hours? And furthermore, was it the same fellow who thought that I should be overcome with the need to sleep for almost a third of those hours? What a twit that guy was.

I lament my lack of time not because I have so much to do and so little time to do it, but rather because I have so little time in which I get to do nothing important whatsoever. My fart-around time, if you will. I have this thing on my computer (or rather, Mandy's computer, because it works on hers but not mine - but the thing itself is mine) called GarageBand. You Mac users out there have probably heard of this. You use it to make songs. I have an electric guitar. With GarageBand I can plug my guitar into the computer and record it. And then I can use the computer to make drums, or a piano, or whatever the hell I want. I can write and record songs that I make up. I have, in fact, recorded a couple already. I think they sound sort of Pixies-ish, but that may be because I'd been listening to the Pixies a lot when I made them.

The songs are terrible. I know that. And I didn't make them for other people to hear anyway. It's not something I take seriously. I just find it relaxing. And it gives me a small thrill when I'm using the Shuffle Songs option on my iPod and one of them pops up. I just think it's kinda cool.

The problem is that recording a song, even a simple one with just a couple of chords and changes, takes a long-ass time. I mean like weeks. At least, it takes ME weeks. I find that I need to record the same riff a couple dozen times before I get a take that doesn't sound like I accidentally bumped my guitar with a garden tool. And then I need to create a drum track, which is meticulous work, and usually I create a bass track as well, which is almost as meticulous. If I owned a bass guitar as well it would make things a little easier, but I don't, and I don't take it seriously enough to actually save up several hundred dollars to buy one. Hell, the electric guitar I've got now is borrowed.

This is such a lame thing to write about. I don't know why I'm even bothering, except that I haven't posted anything up here in a few weeks. I wish I had something more interesting to comment on. Sorry.

Anyway, my point is, if days were longer, or if I didn't feel the need to sleep as much, I'd have more spare time. Would I do anything of value with this spare time? Hell, no! I'd spend it plugged into GarageBand. Not very productive, I know. But I think I would be a much more relaxed person, and therefore more capable of handling the various tasks and challenges that make up the rest of my day.

Or, maybe I'd just starting posting blogs that whine about how twenty-six-hour days aren't long enough, why can't they be twenty-eight? Or thirty? I find that my fart-around time grows more and more precious to me as I get older.

If only I could teleport to and from work. That would free up at least an hour and a half per day right there.

Call Me 'Rev'

So, Happy New Year, everybody. I hope you all had an exciting evening of drunken debauchery. (I know some of you had a little more drunken debauchery than others. Hah? Hah? Am I right? Am I right? Hah?)

I debauched nothing, and I was only a little drunk. I was too busy being puffed up by my own self-importance whilst officiating my friends Dan and Vicky's wedding. It went off without a hitch. Or rather, one hitch, that being Dan and Vicky. Getting hitched. Get it? Oh, never mind.

Really, though, the ceremony was awesome, an only partly because I rule. It took place at Live Bait Theatre, which is a small, intimate theater space. The bride and groom had three attendants each, and all six of them gave small readings that they each wrote themselves. There was an equal amount of laughing and crying. The best man, Dan's brother Robb, brought the house down with a poem about Legos. You had to be there. I was proud of my own work -- I managed to work in references to seventh-century Druidic pagans, Shakespeare, and Vanilla Ice. Again, you had to be there, or at least know Dan and Vicky to understand how appropriate this was.

The reception was a good time, also. The happy couple picked every song that was played, so we were not forced to suffer through the Macarena, or anything that might be defined as "Country Western," or "Adult Contemporary." The food was awesome, and yet was perhaps my only complaint as well, because it took an immense amount of willpower to get off my fat ass and dance after eating. I really felt like I should just unbutton my pants and find a couch and a TV with a football game on it.

But dance I did. Mandy and I cut a rug like nobody's business. I was quite thoroughly sweaty and disgusting by the time the party ended. We had a lovely champagne toast at midnight, which was immediately followed by Me First & the Gimme Gimmes' rendition of "Auld Lang Syne," which, if you are at all familiar with that band, pretty much sums up the night.

The trek home was something of an adventure. The reception took place way the hell out by Midway Airport, which is basically the opposite end of the city from where Mandy and I live. We'd asked the staff at the reception hall to call a cab for us, but being New Year's Eve, available cabs were thin on the ground. In the end, one of the staff ended up driving Mandy and myself, along with another couple, over to Midway, where we snagged a cab out of the arrivals line. We spent the ride back discussing the Bears' playoff prospects, which means that a good time was had by all.

Happy End-of-the-Gregorian-Calendar-Year Festivities!

Hi. Been a while. Sorry.

Let me just get this out of the way real quick: Rex Grossman can hold onto my seventy dollars for a little while longer. At least until his next boo-boo makes him sit out another 80 percent of a season.

In the few weeks since my adventure in X-Treme Hardcore Novel Writing, not a whole lot has happened. If it had, I might have more to write about today. I am ashamed to say I have not really even begun my Christmas shopping this year. Mandy? She's all done. Figures. And of course the weather this week has gone all Arctic, which will make the actual shopping oh so much fun.

There is one bit of interesting news: Mandy and I have joined in on a new business venture. We (and a handful of close friends) are starting a theater company. Now, we attempted this about six or seven years ago, with HILARIOUS results. Really. Friendships were destroyed. But last night we had our first meeting for the School of Night, wherein we outlined a business plan for 2006, and we accomplished more in those three hours than we did in six months' worth of pointless meetings for the old Accidental Theatre Ensemble. I am still amazed at just how little we understood about what we were trying to do back then. This time, however, it's very different. Everyone involved is a little older, a little more mature, and we all have some genuine experience to bring to the table. Mandy is providing her graphic design expertise, and I am applying my writing and research skills to grant-writing and development.

In the more immediate future, my good friends Dan and Vicky get married in less than two weeks, and I am hard at work composing sound words of wisdom and encouragement in my role as officiant. For those of you who are curious to know how an average schmoe like myself can be given the awesome power of joining two people in holy matrimony, more information can be found through these guys here.

Anyway, if I get something exciting to mention in the next week and a half I'll post it here. If not, merry whatever and Happy New Year!

Bragging Rights (Part 2)

In my delirium and exuberance, I forgot to thank a couple of people without whose help I would not have reached my goal.

First, my writing buddy Dan made Mondays and Thursdays fun, and kept me motivated. Thanks, dude!

And second, my lovely wife Mandy was kind enough to leave me alone when I needed to plug in and get some typing done. Thanks, sweetie!

I feel like I just got an Oscar. Yeehah!