Tag Archives: film

How many Finns have finished fins päädyssä “le fin”?

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While I wait for an inspiration to hit me or simply rub up against me and go, “Me now!,” I wait.

I wait for a style, a period, an influence, to work its magic upon my video clips of a trip to Alaska.

I have given up wanting a lead candidate to get my vote, now that the two leading candidates for U.S. President have declared themselves alike and equally adept at being either a wolf in sheep’s clothing or a sheep in wolf’s clothing as the situation requires.

C’est la vie.

I had given up reading books when my mother in-law got real sick and died.  I resigned myself to not reading a book again after my father got real sick and died.

The complexities that I wished to weave in brainwave pattern matching/synching/syncopating have dissipated.

My vocabulary shrinking.

My wry, sarcastic sense of humour intact, mild but biting.

My automatically-correcting grammatical radar falling into disuse.

‘Tis me, here, though, isn’t it?

Not another.

Time…time, time, time…time to consider new possibilities.

My country is no longer my own — it belongs and has always belonged to the wealthy alpha leaders.

My sights are set farther, out there in space and time.

I want to go further.

See a furrier.

Tell PETA, “Look, I slowly squeezed the main artery to the brain so that the animal went to sleep and died before I skinned it for my wife’s warm coat to wear to the opera, a more humane death than being eaten alive in the wild, or hearing your ranting chants.”

Look through my “complete” collections of National Geographic, MAD magazine, the New Yorker and other desk reference volumes.

Read my father’s copy of Pyle’s “THIS IS YOUR WAR.”

Stop thinking while this moment of memories with my father rushes through my endocrine system.

Stop feeling this pain.

Stop wanting to lash out and attack others for their successes, knowing death gets us all, no matter how far or short we got relative to fellow members of our species, dead or alive.

Your struggles and successes are not mine.

I slow down, soaking in the mixed emotions, the son standing here in place of his father, regardless of historical significance one may have or may not have had more than the other.

I cannot eat memories but they can eat me.

I can rewrite memories but not the events on which they are based.

The molecules, atoms and subatomic particles have moved on.

Why can’t I?

The animated graphic novel will have to wait.

So, too, the Alaskan travelogues, new and old.

I have only myself at the centre of this known universe in this current version of a dream/illusion/fantasy I try to get you to align with, just like everybody else.

How can I be different from and yet the same as you?

I wait for an inspiration.

Earth spins on its axis.

Our solar system spins around the centre of the Milky Way galaxy.

Toward or away from what are we expanding?

When time is meaningless, what are dreams about a future on another world?

I can crush the crystal ball with one hand, the shards opening fissures, wounds, tears in the fabric of spacetime.

We all know we have to eat.  Most of us reproduce.

The moments we spend in-between, here, there, any/every where, what are they?

…so this is what it’s like to float in weightlessness…how long can I stay here?…do I have to leave?…there is no waiting when there is neither time nor space that waits for the me that is not-me which does not exist…

The older I get…

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Seems like the confusion just gets worse, the older I get and the longer I’m retired.

Just the other day, I went to see the movie “Moonrise Kingdom” with my wife.

Boy, was I disappointed!

I mean, I saw that a guy named Wes and a gal named Coppola had cowritten the film, Wes had directed it.

So, I assume it’s going to be another Wes Craven story, something along the likes of a gangster horror film.

I don’t know, maybe zombie gangsters, or gangsters that know what you did last summer and haunt your dreams.

Not a single gangster!!

And the closest there was to any real horror was a leftie scissors stabbing, a dead dog, a hurricane, a flood and two lightning strikes!!!

Is that the best they could do to try to scare us?

No scarab beetles stabbed on fishing hooks, coming alive and eating their way into kids’ brains?  No fog rolling in off the sea and stealing souls?  No talking snakes or revengeful Indians on the warpath?

Instead, we get cute, cuddly, fun-to-watch, coming-of-age story about two misfit 12-year olds on an island off the northeast coast of the U.S., shades of “Blue Lagoon” hanging in the air not far from “Lord of the Flies” and [pick your favourite summer camp story on celluloid]?

With a soundtrack based primarily on the scores of Benjamin Britten?

Not a single reference to “Apocalypse Now” or ‘”The Godfather”?

Does Wes or Sofia hope to have a successful film director/writer career based on these facts?

Will the actors in the film survive this debacle?  Has anyone ever heard of Bruce Willis or Harvey Keitel in anything but a good, mindless, testosterone-filled action flick?

Why, when I was a kid, these guys would’ve sliced off an ear or yelled, “Yippie-kai-yea, [Mister Falcon]!,” while machinegunning the bad guys, and then spoken a few clever lines to give us the mere whiff, a subliminal suggestion, of a plot to tie the bloodshed together.

Now they’re sleeping in tents, popping pills and snoring in fifth-wheel campers that aren’t part of the portable dressing room sets that belong to major studios.

I guess we all get old, left to reminisce about our first loves, the perplexity of so-called adults and our invincible belief of being in charge of our lives as soon as we started thinking for ourselves…

If someone recommends I see “Brave,” forget it.  I’m going to watch a marathon run of “Braveheart” ten times in a row to earn back my mancard!!!

= = = = = = = = = =

Thanks to Josh, JoNathan, Cathy, Coldwater Creek cougars, Justin, Robbie, Mr. Thigpen, Spencer and others.

Fast Food News

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Hey, movie fans, this is Neau Tahm Toulouse here with Entertainment Tweetly.

In political news, the governor of Tennessee today signed legislation banning scratch-n-sniff cards in children’s toys.  The legislation is called the “gateway drug prevention” bill by the press.  The governor countered that the new bill also contains subsections that approve the issuance of government IDs like social security numbers and voting cards but not driver’s licences to online personalities, keeping kids more strongly glued to their gaming devices in the hope that obsessive video gaming will act as a form of abstinence from physical contact with other humans, let alone any gateway sexual activity such as breathing the same air as another young adolescent in the room with you.

The Solicitor General has already posted a notice that the new Tennessee bill will probably be challenged in lower courts, so the Supreme Court took the preemptive move to issue an immediate comment about the Tennessee legislative act, stating that with one state recognising the legal right of virtual citizens, corporations now have the right to vote in elections, the corporations’ voting power (i.e., number of votes per voting district) proportionate to their monetary size, number of employees, superPAC donations and former legislators/judges/executives on their consultant/lobbyist payrolls and/or board of directors.

The governor, son of the founder of a large corporation, responded, “He who laughs last usually has his vast wealth in offshore accounts and trust funds.”

I caught Julia Roberts in a moment of regret and sadness during a recent interview, who was bemoaning the fact that she’s almost forgotten and reduced to playing the role of mean, wrinkled witches because she’s considered past her prime.  She admitted that she had wanted to perform nude or topless scenes in film but had been discouraged by her agent because Julia’s breasts are asymmetrical in shape and audiences weren’t ready for mainstream stars to have imperfect bodies displayed larger-than-life.  I only had my cell phone, which has a lousy microphone but I believe she also said, “younger actresses are lucky — audiences are so jaded they don’t pay attention to nudity anymore, as common as it is on the Internet — exhibitionism is expected, not shocking.  Getting a job via the casting couch has changed, too, now that women are sitting in the director and producer chairs these days.”  Julia wouldn’t elaborate when I asked her for details about that last comment.

This is Neau Tahm Toulouse, returning to his hopping spot in the French Quarter.  I gotta take a break and read some real literature.  This pop news reportin’ is ruinin’ my vocabulary and eloquent speechmakin’.

Lookie, lookie, lookie

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In the continuing saga of “life finds a way,” we take you into a town called Sauceburg, where children are hooked up to indoor gaming devices or texting tablets, well protected from the scorching ultraviolent rays of the hot sun.

Deep into the labyrinthine lanes, streets, courts, roads and sidewalk-lined, curbed, cobbled, paved and concreted vehicle access paths of suburban housing estates.

Where, except on Mondays and Thursday, when lawn maintenance crews cut, sweep, mow, and blow landscape material, hauling the unapproved composting contents away, babies are raised, teenagers tolerated and adults get their weekly five-minute breaks from the horrors of reality.

Otherwise, during the day, relative quiet hangs in the air, hardly a soul in sight of patrolling drones.

At night, sleep.

Occasionally, a raucous sound pierces the peaceful dreams of parents, driving the stake of fear through their hearts!

Oh my God, Jasmyn!  Drunken young adult drivers weaving through the neighbourhood!!!

Quick! Press the button that lowers your curbside mailbox into its protective underground vault, safe from the screeching tires and solid bumpers of SUVs out of control!

What did you say?

You didn’t follow the Joneses and buy the latest in home protective services, including the Postal Service Access System 3000 that only allows preauthorized, certified delivery of mail and small packages to the pop-up mailbox, activated by the security badges worn by prescreened postmen (and women! (and robots!)), which, after delivery, lowers itself automatically and attaches to the underground conveyor that passes your mail through metal detectors, bomb sniffers, white powder zappers and pest control fumigators to the comfort of your home, your castle, the virtual womb that encases you and your family, well out of reach of those who intend only harm and malice?

Well, that’s too bad.

Because, in that case, this is you:

The Mailbox – Chapter Two

Stay tuned to what happens when your neighbours are in too big of a hurry to investigate the manufacture of mailboxes they stick into the ground because the suburban covenant says they have to have one despite all their correspondence flying back and forth electronically.

Texting While Driving

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If local laws ban texting while driving, how does that affect my habit of writing messages/journal entries in a notepad while I’m sitting behind the wheel aiming a two-tonne machine on tires powered by an internal combustion engine through traffic?

Depending on the part of the world/country in which you live, you might have a preconceived notion about the driver of the vehicle below:

I don’t.  I have seen men, women, boys, girls, Caucasians, Asians, Hispanics, blacks, young and old behind the wheel of dubbed-up rim jobs like this rolling down the highway.  I’ve never seen a homeless type person or an Amazonian tribal member driving one, though.

Makes me wonder…

If we’ll spend fifteen thousand dollars on a set of wheels, would we spend fifteen large on annual healthcare or a ride 100 km above Earth’s surface?

I am a childless, dying person so I don’t have to worry about leaving a legacy behind.  I can say what I want and do what I want while deciding if I want to obey local traffic laws when scribbling personal observations and notes to remind myself to thank others for their kindness to me throughout the day.

There are 13,883 days to reach the next milestone.

Thanks to Shannon at Arby’s, Liz at Beauregard’s, Michelle at Dreamland BBQ, the busy staff at Gibson’s BBQ on the last free pie day of April, Nichelle at PVA, Joe and Jenn at KCDC, Irina and Julia, Hannah at Shaggy’s, Danny at Walmart, Jonathan at Anaheim Chili, Ian at the Rave, Lynn, Sarah and Dr. Pugh, and many more.

Pause for thought of the day.

On a personal side note, I’ve found that recent stress has greatly increased my desire for sex.  Very interesting as well as disruptive, as if I’m creating vast stores of testosterone in order to take on and conquer the world.  Makes me not want to look into a person’s eyes because I feel like all the lust inside of me is pouring out through my face.

Spending time on self-examination takes away from building scenarios for the story of our lives told in this blog.

For instance, my dreams have reached vivid proportions.

In last night’s dream, while my wife and I traveled through snowy country on a tandem bike, we topped an icy hill and were suddenly sitting in a car.  Topping the next hill, we happened upon a set of railroad tracks.

We stood by the tracks.  I was holding the reins of a rope harness attached to a cow.  The cow was pulling a set of railroad cars which had big wooden wheels like you see on a child’s playtoy set.

The cow was very tired.  It wanted to get into a hot tub.

I climbed into the hot tub with the cow so it could warm up its legs.  Sitting in the tub was a woman with orange hair and ivory-white skin covered with freckles.  She was a cow whisperer.

My wife asked the cow whisperer to interpret what the cow was saying.  The cow rubbed its head against me like a cat, making low mooing sounds like a cat’s purr.  The cow whisperer said the cow was weary of the ways of the world and wanted to quit pulling the railroad cars.

The cow, tub and whisperer disappeared.  I was standing by the railroad tracks with the rope in my hand.  My wife wanted to go on to the hotel/chalet where we had a reservation.  I pulled hard on the rope and finally got the railroad cars rolling in parallel with the railroad tracks.

We entered the chalet and walked the halls looking for our room.  I kept pulling the rope, wondering if the railroad cars would fit in the hallways and stairwells we walked and walked for a while.

Finally, we found our room.  Inside was a man who looked like the character of Mr. Ripley played by Matt Damon.  The man kept telling us one different story after another about why we had this particular room, including why I had the rope in my hand.  He promised to tell me if the railroad cars would fit in the chalet hallways when the phone rang.

I jerked awake.  The bedside phone rang, disturbing the cats sleeping next to me.  My wife had already left for work.

I answered the phone.  My mother was on the line giving me an update about my father’s stay at the VA.

My wife decided to interpret the images of my subconscious thought for me during dinner at Dreamland BBQ tonight:

  • The cow was my mother and the railroad cars were my father.
  • The man in the hotel room was my alternate egos.

While she told me her interpretation, TV screens around us featured talking heads analysing the recent suicidal death of Junior Seau, a former fearsome NFL player.

While I dreamt, a blind man proved he can change the course of history by standing between the governments of China and the U.S.

If a parrot can live longer than the average member of our species, then a dream can live longer than one civilisation cycle.

And texting while driving is a matter of interpretation.

Time to give my dreams impetus/motivation and transportation!

Gems and Nuggets — Part Two

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More in what-reading-the-local-news-makes-for-entertainment department:

And last but not least, a kid’s perspective (which reminds me, my wife liked the film “John Carter” better than the film “Hunger Games”; at the least the first one was quasioriginal, as opposed to the hackjob hodgepodge of the second (“Running Man” meets “The Truman Show” meets “Survivor” meets…)):

If it weren’t for the battery life…

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If it weren’t for the battery life I’d keep using the resistive screen of the 7-inch Sylvania Android 2.31 tablet, which meets my basic needs for checking email, listening to Internet radio, looking at some of my favourite websites (as well as a few random ones for edification) and maintaining a daily blog.

That sums up the life of one mortal human being tied to the electronic social network as defined/updated by us in this moment together.

I believe we have arrived back at a blog entry in which the storyline we’d left where the reluctant leader steps back into the picture and tells us how things are going on the Committee, don’t you?

Either that, or release random ASCII character sequences that represent the latest cracked password of a heavily-guarded secret location and let the world of script kiddies have fun for a day.

Sold by Jennifer Nye — independent consultant — the wax of a block of Amber Road ™ Scentsy wax melts in a bowl atop a Morocco warmer which sits in the place where a spider web/dropping covered book by Paul D. Ackerman used to collect dust.

As the room fills with the hints of smells of an exotic bazaar, let us step into the shoes of the reluctant leader and see what’s going on…

Hi there!  Reluctant Leader here again!  Just the other day I was nibbling samples at a shoppe called Nothing Bundt Cake, remembering the scene in some Greek-themed film where a character tries to pronounce the word “bundt.”  In front of me, an eager man watched my every move.

You know the type, always gauging the customer’s desires, trying to meet the character’s needs, catering to the curmudgeon’s every whim, no matter how surly he may be while stroking his curly, unkempt beard.

That was me, the Reluctant Leader, in ordinary disguise, acting upon my urge to Manage By Walking Around.

You see, the Committee is back in crisis mode (is there ever a moment we’re not?).

As you’re fully aware, we coordinate the activities of people you would say are aligned with major political public business entities called nations.

It’s our policy to leave pretty much well alone the individual decisions of those who feel they have been destined to reach the highest offices of their politically-oriented business paths.

For instance, we could predict when the leaders have to use toilet facilities very easily but we’ve learned it’s best to let the leaders think they’ve decided on their own, unpredictably, when they feel the urge, regularly or irregularly (in fact, it was one of my predecessors who won a wager because he accurately predicted when and where George Bush deposited his meal in the lap of another dignitary).

Do you consider yourself one of those average citizens who is mentally engaged in silent conversations with or makes extemporaneous, expository speeches to the people around you about the goings-on of the elected or appointed officials in your geopolitical zone, and get emotionally involved in the actions of officials outside your geopolitical zone?

Chances are you will, if you don’t.

In addition to herding all seven billion of us toward establishing offworld colonies, I have the assigned goal of keeping you believing that world leaders are not actively talking to each other about the apparent rogue actions they take.

Some of you know better.

The Committee is composed of direct representatives of major trends in motion, including the most common sociopolitical movements about to change your life forever.

Because trends range in age from a few fleeting milliseconds to many centuries, the Committee membership varies accordingly.

Just the other day, I found an ancient-looking mummy propped up into a dark corner of the Committee Conference Center (sounds formal, but the room is really just an old cave in, at this time, an undisclosed location near some of you).

I started to ask if any of the Committee members knew where the mummy had come from when it spoke.  Turns out the mummy is an old member of a line of Celtic leaders who’d hope to take over the world a dozen or so centuries ago, but when the vote came up, the mummy had fallen asleep and did not awaken until I started poking around in his pockets for spare change.

He gave me some wisdom that I’ll share with you as soon as I translate the curse words he had for me into something more family-friendly.

Always trust your Mummy to tell you the honest truth about yourself!

Anyway, it’s getting close to lunchtime and I’ve got a few errands to run.  Afterward, I’ll sketch out the plots, subplots and false trails we’re planning to place in the popular news media to keep you clenching your teeth or nodding your head in your belief that subpopulations are out to get you or out to support you, depending on your mood we’ve set at the time.

It’s seems silly spending so much of my time making sure your idle moments are filled with what we want you to think, but if it gets us closer to permanent settlements on other celestial bodies, I’m game.

Does that mean I have to stop calling myself the Reluctant Leader?  It’s not like I completely relish all the fine details of putting subcommittees in action to plant ideas in blogs, tweets and street protests which inspire editors and producers to send their reporters out to fill columns and video screens with the news we want you to use and spread…

But I’m just a character in a blog and that’s my only choice, isn’t it?