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Category: Entertainment

MUST. RESIST. TEMPTATION. TO. DEFEND. COMEDIAN

When Myers appeared on “The Daily Show,” the comedian seemed genuinely upset that Jon Stewart didn’t let him set up the unfunny clip of his film. There’s something so cloying about Myers these days — it’s as if he thinks if he repeats a joke often enough, he will wear down the audience into laughing. And his kind of movie — the silly, based-on-a-skit type — seems slightly archaic in the post-“Superbad,” “Knocked Up” world, which feature characters who feel real.

Mike Myers: The antifunny?

Ack! I want to defend Mike Myers so much.  He’s a big boy, so he can stand for himself I’m sure.  I just hate when a comedian gets on the “not funny now” list like this.  It would be different if this column hadn’t pointed at Superbad and Knocked up as examples of with it comedy; then I’d have let this pass unmolested.  But to point to Seth Rogan and Jonah Hill and say “THEY ARE THE FUTURE OF COMEDY” is just wrong.

Over ten years of Kevin Smith wrong.

I liked both of these movies, just like I liked a bunch of other foul-mouthed dick and fart joke movies.  I like dick and fart jokes and can’t deny it.  I also like stupid accents and physical comedy.  Mike Myers has embraced what makes him funny and people have decided “so what else is new?”  Jim Carrey faced this when he tried to put his brand of humor into established places and failed (which made the whole cat in the hat thing kind of puzzling to me really)  Mr. Carrey tried to turn what had made “Fire Marshal Bill” “My, Myself & Irene” funny into something that could pass from movie to movie; forgetting the humanity that the Characters were hapless losers that won out in the end.

Mr. Myers might want to stretch himself more in the future though, as it appears he is going to be castigated for doing what television sitcoms do for years on end, giving the audience more of the same with the same cast and so on.  This afflicts a bunch of comedians, and kind of seperates the comedy fans from the deliatants, the die hards will accept more of the same if it is still funny and the masses just want something new and possibly shocking. Which is why “I don’t want to offend you…” by Bobcat Goldwaith was a hit with standup fans and no more than a blip on the radar of the general public.  It was more of the same, but the delivery and material was so great, who cares that you knew all the punchlines?

I like to think of great comedy like I think of great music, you can hear the same phrases and motions over and over and still enjoy it.  Sometimes you can find new textures and flavours in it.  I think that Mr. Myers has tried to put a new spin on an old act and found people don’t want a new spin, they just want new.

George Carlin was Alive and now He is Dead

“The whole problem with this idea of obscenity and indecency, and all of these things — bad language and whatever — it’s all caused by one basic thing, and that is: religious superstition,” Carlin told the AP in a 2004 interview

In a typical wry response, Carlin said: “Thank you Mr. Twain. Have your people call my people.”

Carlin told The Associated Press this year he was “perversely kind of proud” to be “a footnote in American legal history.”

Few Comedians will have the balls and chutzpah that George Carlin carried around in his pants, his stuff was portable and palatable. At times he seethed with loathing for the trappings of society, struggling to suffocate the failings of others in prosaic language and invective. Other times you could see that he wanted so much for us to understand his world view that he was a wits end trying to use crude language (crude in the sense of imprecise for the task, not crude as in vulgar) to express his point of view.

George Carlin was a man of the monologue, streaming hours of precise and cutting commentary or just sputtering vituperation at his audience.  The only real tradgedy of Carlin’s work is that the people who stood the gain the most from it, his targets, were likely to be the selfsame people who would ignore or overlook it as brash, uncooth or un-pc.

I think we might see, over the coming days a number of groups trying to claim Mr. Carlin’s Corpse for their own, whatever stripe they may wear.  They will look at his death as an opportunity to say that he was in in their Camp, shaman of their particular tribe as it were.  I think George would have said it best, “go fuck yourself!” he was his own man and walked his own path, wearing only his own stripes and speaking only his own words.

Good-bye, you crazy hippy.  May you rot in the earth and fertilize a lawn or two.

A Nice plate of Fish and Chips

A Nice plate of Fish and Chips, originally uploaded by NiteMayr.

Yes! A great lunch that wasn’t from “King’s”

Went to “Walker’s Fish and Chips” for lunch, had the Halibut and Chips.

The Fish was great, tasty and flavorful. The batter wasn’t all the taste, the fish was meaty and strong, a pleasure to eat. The Chips were also great, obviously real cut potato, soaked overnight to make sure that they are not too starchy. Great!

I didn’t care for the coleslaw, but I’m not a fan of the slaw anyway.

PLUS Beer on tap (not GOOD beer, but on TAP) and other beer selections on hand.

I can’t recommend Walker’s more.

No Gene, F**K You

There is no record industry around so we’re going to wait until everybody settles down and becomes civilised. As soon as the record industry pops its head up we’ll record new material.”

–Gene Simmons

http://www.aol.com.au/celebrity/story/radiohead-blasted-by-veteran-rockers-kiss-for-giving-their-music-away-for-free/604011/index.html

Gene Simmons has made a great deal of hay over fans downloading music, of course Gene has made millions off of the backs of his fans merchandising everything he can to add to the Simmons Coffers.

So what if music just becomes free and artists make their living off of touring and merchandise?
Well therein lies the most stupid mistake anybody can make.

–Gene Simmons responds to an honest question in a Billboard interview

There you have it, the man who is using his fame and band to sell “Kiss Branded Vomit” says that you can’t make music money without being in the “industry.”

Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead may be making money off of their no-record industry adventures, but they are established bands; so we will have to ignore them for now.  Lily Allen might be an example of indie success, but her Dad is hardly a penniless dock worker.   I don’t think I can point to an independent success that was created whole-cloth by the Internet though; but at the same time I can’t point to someone who can say they failed because of it either.

It’s fun for the entrenched types to point fingers and just say “sue em all” but I have to think that they should be looking at ways to attract people into buying the damn albums.  I know it’s difficult to add value to the CDs, but when you are coming out and saying things like “the purchaser is licensing the music” you are probably going about it wrong.

But back on the topic of Old Gene.  Gene, you are selling out your whole life to make a quick buck, it’s not even an original idea either.  Why don’t you make an honest buck that isn’t made off of your fame and we’ll take your word for it, until then go back to the kabuki makeup and leave us kids alone.

At least teh Graphs ar amozing

GameSpot:Video Games PC Xbox 360 PS3 Wii PSP DS PS2 PlayStation 2 GameCube GBA PlayStation 3

6 graphs, i wonder in what crappy pc and what vga he used as you can see in the screenshots the graphs are FAR better than brother in arms that came at the same date so tell me look at the screenshots and tell me which one looks better? hell this game got good physiques if you blow something up it will break , and boxes and corpses will fly on the air, juddgin by this game good perfomance and ageia physx high requirements fo the same physiques while i think those were amazing , eg brother in arms came out at th same time but it didnt even have physiques!, bulletholes are cool too!

Holy Cow, this anti-review needs a dramatic reading!

Shorthand for the literate reader:
graphs = graphics
vga = resolution
physiques = physics or perhaps “a physics engine”

Wow, this guy is serious. I thought at first he was some sort of sock puppet for the game’s (Psychotoxic) producers. I think I am wrong, this is just an emphatic fan.

If I remember, I will have to sit down and record this as a dramatic reading; it’s GOLD!

Free To You: A Movie Plot

I wrote this out in various forms over the years, but I can’t seem to get it down in a way that will make me money.  Maybe this will make you money.

Short Synopsis:  A middle-aged social worker is left holding the bag when one of her care in the community clients goes missing on the subway after a meeting.  The client is haunted by dreams of being a fighter during the crusades saved by monks of an unholy order, worshippers of a devil older than Christianity and darker than the black halls of their cloisters.   The social worker enlists the help of a down on his luck police sergeant and his teenage runaway son in a search through the halls of the city’s underground and the dark reaches of the tortured mind of a man lost in time. Now the homeless are going missing and body parts are being found in dumpsters all over the city.

Long Version:

Our hero is a Social Worker, she’s middle aged, single and committed to her job.  She’s smart, capable and single-minded.  She is literally married to her job and has little time for social contacts.  She splits her time between her care in the community office job and volunteering for local NGOs and social programs.  What spare time she has is spent researching the histories of her clients, she has a voyeuristic bent that drives her to delve deeper and deeper into the pasts of the lost people who wander into her life.  She keeps a telescope hooked to a webcam that she can control from her website so she can observer the streets outside her apartment at any time and from anywwhere.

The mystery man is a vagrant who drifts from care facilities to the street and back again.  Violent and disruptive, he often finds himself in trouble with the law, which suits him fine as they keep him heavily medicated and trapped behind bars; where he feels safe.  He is plagued by dreams of being a crusader, cutting down men in the middle east, only to be felled by an arrow to the chest.  He dreams of being taken to a monastary that hides a deep and deadly sect of Faustian monks, who have dealt with devils and demons older than Christianity.  He also dreams of stalking the streets of the city, unleashing these same demons on the poor and unfortunates in the alleys and subways of the city.  After his last visit with the hero he has decided to seek refuge in the deep tunnels of the city, only to find that the Monks that he dreamed of are real and operating under the guise of a Charity for the homeless in the city.

The Sargeant and his son are at constant odds, typical father-son conflicts; but the son has run away and the sargeant reaches out the hero for help in locating his son in the system.  The Sargeant is burnt out, sad that he has lost his son to the streets.  The Son left home to try and stretch his wings and gain some freedom from his “cop” father, he meets our mystery man in the streets and befriends him.  The son witnesses some of the horrors that creep from the mystery man during the night and looks for his father and our hero.

The “big bad” is a demon of the C’thulu level mythos, an old Demon who has been working with “The Order of the Whole” since before the Crusades.  The Monks are led by a charismatic old monk who is a figure in the city of ill-repute.  There is a vague air of menace around the order, but they are a generous charity who house and feed anyone who comes to their door.  They are feeding the homeless the remains of their compatriots, used in dark rituals to commune with their demon lords.

Plot arc: The Mystery man is introduced, walking into a police station and assaulting 5 police officers in acrobatic fashion, breaking at least two arms.  He is left in the care of the hero, to whom he relates some of his story (leaving out details about what he gets up to at night).  She concludes that while he is violent, he needs care and he is taken in an ambulance to a sanitarium for further observation.  Our hero looks into his past hsitry and sees hundreds of arrests.  The mystery man is “lost” en route by the ambulance drivers, who stopped for a bite to eat. This sets in motion the events that lead to the sargeant and the hero meeting.  After finding the monks, the mystery man is led by the demons to commit more and more horrors.  It is revealed that he is in fact the Crusader that he dreamed about, and he has been alive these many years, cursed by the demons after he slaughtered the whole order save one initiate (the leader of the order now).  It is the hero who in the end must face and defeat the whole order and the demons themselves.

Silverman can No Longer Help

When we asked what the rationale was, we were told, `We don’t have to give you a rationale.‘”

–Peter Silverman on the discussion that ensued when
“Silverman Helps” was brought to an end by Rogers management

Rogers has been steadily building a media empire the likes of Clearchannel or Newscorp in the US.  With that growth seems to be the ever-increasing “corporatism” that I noted in my post over on vox (http://nitemayr.vox.com/library/post/what-corporations-sometimes-are-like.html).  That is to say the culture becomes very insular and profit focused, forsaking tangible goodwill for monetized good-something.

“We have more user-generated content than ever,” argued Haggarty. “We’re not any less committed to defending the consumer. We’re reviewing and relooking at everything. This is all just a part of the process.”

–Jamie Haggerty

As if user-generated equals actual parcipitation.  I could pull a bunch of youtube video and call it user generated too.  CityTV and Much built a great deal of their cache on the backs of the kids and soccer moms that seemed to orbit the Queen and John studio in waxing and waning numbers, it appears that the Rogers folks are looking to turn that culture into a “Good Morning America” type culture where they set the hours for participation from the audience.  The death of “Speakers Corner” and “Silverman Helps” seem to be setting that path ahead with increasing clarity.

CityTV under Moses Znaimer was community-focused and accessible.  It remains to be seen what the Red and White of Rogers will do to the nigh-institution of City.

Quotes pulled from this article at “The Toronto Star”:

http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/article/441790

What games are you playing?

On My PC I’m playing:

Rise of Legends

Postal 2 (plus mods)

Turret Defense Games

Hellgate: London

On my 360 I’m playing:

Rock Band

Halo 3

Rez HD

What are you playing?

Williams College OCTET Drain PM dawn of Soul

Williams College OCTET DRAIN PM DAWN OF SOUL AND MEANING

Way to drain all merit and soul from this song and way to make it even worse crowd.

This actually made me gag, loudly.

These guys should have their ties revoked.

“C’mon now”?

Why didn’t they let someone with soul lead this?

Augh. I had to watch it twice while writing this.

Someone tell the director of this group that soul songs don’t work when the singer has no soul in his voice.

It's Commander Rick!

Some judicious Google video searches led me to some Prisoners of Gravity episodes online:

For the uninitiated, the young, the vain or the American; Prisoners of Gravity was THE genre fiction discussion program from the 80s to early 90s (it followed me through High School guaranteeing that I would never be “cool” at my rural high school). If you were a fan of any kind of Genre ficiton of any sort, with comics and sci-fi as a preference then Prisoners of Gravity was your mecca. I remember being excited when Commander Rick would interview the Cyberpunk luminaries like William Gibson and Bruce Sterling (The Difference Engine) and authors like Alan Moore (Judge Dredd) or Neil Gaiman (Black Lotus).

I strongly encourage you (if you are a fan) to check out “Prisoners of Gravity” online at google video and enjoy what us kids in the know (and not americans) were able to enjoy way back when.

I know those were their less famous works, which is why I chose them.