Mister Comedy

A seldom reported consequence of this week’s election will be an inevitable spike in unemployment figures, as thousands of tv commentators, campaign strategtists, and bloggers become suddenly irrelevant. There’s a whole new economic class of people whose job description consists of talking about things that happened, but who make nothing happen themselves. This year, and certainly for the last month, it’s been as if the election consisted entirely of commentary about commentary, while discerning voters (all eighteen of us) have had to strip off layer upon layer of analysis to get to the actual candidates. It’s what I imagine it must have been like to finally be alone with a  woman in the Victorian era–by the time you’ve stripped off the dress, the petticoats, the girdle and the bloomers, the passion’s gone and you’re just wondering what you were after in the first place.

“Meet The Press” is a great example of this tail-chasing dog. This venerable show elegant in it’s simplicity–someone in the press talking to someone in the news. Now we get to watch some regional campaign strategist from one side arguing with someone else’s deputy campaign chairman about a video clip of a senior campaign advisor reacting to…something–by that point I’ve forgotten who I’m voting for.

Other victims of this imminent politico-depression will be the companies that make the high-tech polling/tracking gadgets. Now I think red state-blue state maps of the United States are as cool as the next guy, but how will we retool them to be useful until the next election. Maybe, since Americans are dunderheads about geography, the nightly news can have a segment where the anchor simply points at a state with his telestrator and asks viewers if they can call in to identify it (”43 percent of you correctly guessed North Dakota”).

The whole ‘red state’/'blue state’ paradigm has started to sound a little too Dr. Seuss for my tastes. Red State, Blue State, Old State, New State. It reminds me too much of USA Today, with it’s colors, and pie charts, and simple upbeat headlines. If a nuclear bomb killed millions of people in this country, I imagine their headline would be “Lots of Us Still Left–And We’re Shopping More!” Their masthead should say “Not Too Much News At One Time.”

The ripple effect of the upcoming post-election economy will be tragic. Late night monologues gutted…MSNBC going off the air entirely, with Keith Olbermann calling ESPN to get his SportsCenter job back and Chris Matthews left to just yell at random people on the street…C-SPAN running eight-hour marathons of ‘Booknotes’…We can’t let this happen, people, so l suggest we make this election best three out of five, and on November 5th, start ‘Campaign ‘09–The Rematch.’ Do it all over again. Have another round of primaries, and this time let Ralph Nader and Ron Paul start with three or four hundred delegates. And more debates–one every couple days.

There’s been a lot of talk about the ‘Bradley effect,’ which describes how some people will tell pollsters that they’re comfortable voting for an African-American and then when they step inside the voting booth it turns into a time machine and suddenly it’s 1958 and they realize that they’re rednecks. There are of course other ‘effects’ that could cost Obama the election.

THE KEGGER EFFECT: in which thousands of newly registered young voters sleep late on Election Day, and by the time they’ve finished uploading videos of their favorite band to their MySpace pages, the polls have already closed

THE SNL EFFECT: in which voters decide that since ‘Saturday Night Live’ hasn’t been really funny since 1982, the country will be better off if the show can keep bringing back Tina Fey to do her Sarah Palin impression

THE 7-11 EFFECT: in which people believe that the cup they choose for their coffee actually counts as a vote

I plan on spending the days before the election deciding which country to move to if McCain wins. After some preliminary research, I’ve narrowed it down to Canada (easy to get to), the Netherlands (great art and architecture–oh, who am I kidding…marijuana is legal there) and the Kingdom of Tonga. Although I’m pretty sure if I moved to the Kingdom of Tonga it would be even harder for me to find a day job than it is now.

Wherever I end up after November 4th, I need to get laid. The last time I was in a relationship, Heather Locklear was starring in a series. Turns out, my sex life actually parallels Heather Locklear’s career. I got laid a lot from 1981-1989 (’Melrose Place’ and ‘T.J. Hooker’), not so much from 1999-2002 (’Spin City’), and once in 2004 (’LAX’).  So until the lovely Miss Locklear gets another gig, I’m gonna have to find some way to get back in circulation. Thought about placing a personal ad, but I’m not sure I’m very ‘marketable.’

Forty-eight year old struggling writer and standup comic with limp seeks partner to share drafty studio apartment. Does not drive. Hobbies include playing the clarinet and blogging.

Supposedly you should look for romantic connections in places other than bars. But where? I’m Jewish, so I could cruise synagogues, but it always felt a little weird flirting with someone at a house of worship–I mean, God’s right there , for God’s sake. I’ve heard that grocery stores are possibilities, but I’m not sure how you start that conversation (”I see you like food, too. Maybe we should hook up.”) My best chance to meet someone new would be if they happened to accidentally wander into my apartment, but that doesn’t happen as often as you might think.

It’s not news that this country has gotten dumber. What’s frightening to me is how we’ve become a country that embraces dumb. I think most people would agree that a country is best judged by its tv game shows, and today, the three most popular are “Wheel of Fortune,” “Deal or No Deal,” and “Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?”. The last one gives out huge sums of cash to adults who have to prove they know more than eleven-year olds. They’ve got it backwards–”Fifth Grader” should in fact punish the grownups who don’t win–if you’re not smarter than a fifth grader, you should be put in an internment camp so we can isolate the dullards and prevent them from breeding.

Throughout this election year, much has been made of the ‘average’ American. As if that’s the group upon which we should be building our future. Let me tell you something–the ‘average’ American is an idiot. We should be aiming for the top, and by definition, ‘average’ means somewhere in the flabby middle. The average American is that guy working at Target who is baffled by any question that doesn’t involve the particular section of the store for which he’s been trained. The average American is the woman on the bus who doesn’t understand that by standing in the front of the bus, she’s actually preventing other people from getting on the bus. The average American is that person who sees a ‘push’ sign on a door–because it’s at freaking eye level–and proceeds to pull the door…not once, but twice.

This naive notion that our country would be better off if the average American were running things, or that our elected officials should explain things in terms the average American can understand, is why we will someday be ranked somewhere between Sri Lanka and Chad on the list of world powers. Not that the average American would know where Sri Lanka or Chad are. I sorta think the people in charge of the dumb people should be smarter than the dumb people, but maybe that’s just my elitism talking.

It’s too bad a candidate for elected office can’t say things like “My opponent is a good person with a beautiful family, but the fact is I AM MUCH SMARTER THAN HE IS.” Or, “I’m not worried about attacks from my opponent, because THEY’RE STUPID.” Read the speeches of great leaders from the past–they didn’t speak like the average Americans of their time. They used nuanced concepts, polished turns of phrase, and really big words. Lincoln never felt the need to sprinkle in some ‘you betcha’s and ‘darn right’s just to connect with people who are ‘average.’ Not to offend any dactylonomists reading this, but this country needs to start celebrating smart people. Why do we think it’s good to be average? In game show terms, that’s the $64,000 Question. To paraphrase Barry Goldwater, elitism in the defense of intelligence is no vice, and commonality in the defense of mediocrity is no virtue.

Haven’t been able to post this week, because my computer had taken ill. First came the odd noises, then the screen just went blank. Turns out the tiny fan died that keeps it from bursting into flames, and since then I’ve only been able to use it for ten minutes at a time. Now I’m up and running with a shiny new laptop, and my apartment is filled with that wondedrful new computer smell. Of course I had to spend hours configuring and personalizing and asking myself why the hell I didn’t get a Mac. And transferring files–including sixteen hundred forty-seven songs. I’m glad iTunes tells me exactly how many days of music that comes to–now I know that I could stay inside my apartment for four and a half days without hearing the same song twice, which is valuable if you’re broke, depressed and trying to figure out how long you can avoid actually doing something productive.

I also got a new phone this week. My old phone didn’t die, but it will be killed soon. Seems that T-Mobile and I had a difference of opinion–they wanted money, I didn’t have money…I guess I thought what they were sending me every month was just a handy record of all the calls I had made. You know, for my convenience. Amazingly, there was one cellular provider to whom I didn’t owe money. The beauty part is that I’ve always wanted a phone number that spells something related to me, and I was able to get 388-JOKE, which is much more useful than my last number, which was 375-ULKY (which would have been useful if I went to the University of Louisville, Kentucky, or–and I did google this–if I were the Brooklyn dentist Ulky St. Vil).

I had the option of getting a phone that can work with a Bluetooth, but they simply look too Orwellian for my taste. The fact that they attach directly to your skull makes them seem a little too close to being a chip implanted in your brain, or some sort of tracking device. Just wait, we’ll find out in fifty years that that the government has been transmitting coded messages through Bluetooth devices.

Anyway, now that I have technology on my side again, it’s time to write, but I’m a little blocked. A quick internet search yesterday revealed that everything has already been written by someone. I suppose I could try my hand at more traditional media. For instance, I could write poetry, but that hasn’t been a marketable profession since the seventeenth century. Or I could write a novel, but–that’s just too much work. Have you seen how long those things are? I guess I’ll just stick with this blogging thing for now. Besides, I’ve got four days until the music stops.

In the hours before the seven hundred sixty-third presidential debate, McCain’s campaign chairman was asked about William Timmons, the guy their campaign has announced will run the transition team. The interesting part wasn’t that they’re talking about a transition prematurely since they’re (searching for the right word here) losing, it’s that when asked about the fact that Timmons once lobbied on behalf of Saddam Hussein, the man speaking for the campaign said “I haven’t really looked into his history.” Really? The guy running the campaign that picked a running mate their candidate had barely met now says he hasn’t looked into the history of the guy who they’ve picked to lead the transition? Do these people look into…anything? Or are they just randomly choosing names from Who’s Who?

The other weird pre-debate news was that Major League Baseball is willing to delay the start of the sixth game of the World Series to make time for an Obama infomercial. Seems amazing that a tv network would agree to this, until you realized this year’s World Series will likely Tampa Bay versus Philadelphia–most people don’t even know Tampa Bay has a baseball team, and the only people who care about the Phillies already live in Philadelphia–you could show their games on local cable access.

The Bill Ayers connection matters so little at this point. Barack Obama could join the Weather Underground and we wouldn’t care as long as it meant that we didn’t have to hide our money in mattresses. But this was McCain’s chance to confront Obama with him sitting across a table from him. By the way, how is it that McCain looks stiff even when he’s sitting down? At least one visual worked in his favor–the moderator this time actually made McCain look young and vigorous.

The winner of the debate was clearly Joe the Plumber. Now, I’m not sure whether Joe the Plumber is related to Joe Six-Pack, or whether Joe the Plumber is actually Joe Six-Pack’s secret super-hero identity, or whether the two of them spend Friday nights hanging at the Iconic Symbols Lodge, but I do know that McCain intends to make this one man in Ohio the entire focus of his presidency.

I like how McCain accused Obama of instigating class warfare–like we don’t already have that. In fact, I think the next revolution will be the mother of all class struggles–the homeless rising up to revolt. Armies of homeless people with carts careening up Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, finally doing the math that says “We don’t have shit. They have lots of shit. Let’s take their shit.” And they’d have nothing to lose, because if they get arrested, they go to jail, where they get…food and housing.

I’m not the only one who thinks John McCain needs to stop smiling. Maybe when he’s with Cindy he looks warm and nurturing, but on camera, it looks like his thorazine just kicked in, or like he’s forced to pose for a picture with an ex at a tacky resort he only went to because he already paid the deposit on the time-share. He also seems to be one question behind in every debate. At one point in this one, he was asked whether he wanted to address an Obama comment, and he actually said no, and went on to re-answer the previous question. This is actually part of his bigger plan to defeat Al-Qaida by…confusing them. “Every time we make a new demand, President McCain answers our last demand. It is just aggravating–like blowing yourself up and not getting any virgins out of the deal, Allah be praised.”

Now to the substance–here are a few things I learned about John McCain’s core beliefs:

• If there are ‘bad teachers,’ we need to find other jobs for them. Because that’s a marketable skill set (previous experience: bad teacher)
• We can’t let people get ‘gold-plated’ insurance policies that allow for “cosmetic surgery, and transplants.” Damn straight–we can’t keep paying for people to have frivolous…transplants.
• We’ve got to drill, despite “extreme environmentalists” who say “it has to be safe.” And though we don’t want to ruin our coastline, “Canadian oil is fine.”
• He opposes abortion, and doesn’t believe exceptions should be made because the phrase ‘health of the mother’ has been ’stretched to mean a lot of things.’ He actually used air quotes around the word ‘health,’ people.

To be fair, there were clunkers for Obama’s side. When he answered a question about a woman being denied vital care, he said “If it sounds unbelievable, that’s because…” and then he paused like Ryan Seacrest announcing who made it to Hollywood before giving us the reveal of “…it’s not true.” Thanks, Barack–you rhetorical tease. I hope he doesn’t do this in major speeches: “I propose that with regards to Iran, we will…wait for it…wait for it.”

I thought moderator Bob Schieffer did a fine job, but when the debate got to the subject of negative ads, it veered a little toward therapy, complete with hurt feelings. You know, if we want our president to seem strong when facing down evil dictators, he probably shouldn’t seem too ‘touchy-feely.’ Putin never looks like he needs a hug. Even Schieffer’s tone shifted when he asked them if they would say their attacks “to each other’s face–he sorta sounded like a high school vice-principal talking to two kids who had just gotten into a schoolyard fight.

I only threw my remote once, when McCain said that the alleged voter registration fraud by some members of ACORN might be “one of the the greatest frauds in voting history” and that it could “threaten the fabric of democracy.” Listen John, if that fabric wasn’t ripped to shreds in the last two elections by the attempted disenfranchisement of African-American voters, rigged voting machines, and blatantly political tampering with the highest court in the land, then I guess the ‘fabric of democracy’ can withstand a few thousand bogus voters. But then I live in Chicago, so that’s not even news to me.

Obama also had two major Wuss Moments. First, when asked directly whether he felt that Sarah Palin is qualified to be president, he said “That’s up to the American people to decide.” Wait–it’s up to US to decide what YOU feel!? The other point where I think some righteous anger would have been justified was when McCain said of Colombia “Why don’t you visit down there and you might understand a little better.” I’m sorry, but that’s when Barack should have reconnected with his south side Chicago background and gotten a little less academic and a little more ’street.’ A “Hell, no!” moment, if you will. Tell me it wouldn’t have been entertaining for him to stand up and yell “Look, cracker! You wanna throw down about global knowledge? I was born in Hawaii, my daddy’s from Kenya, I went to school in Indonesia and I live in Chicago, bitch! You and your patronizing bullshit can kiss my multicultural ass!”

I guess I still feel like neither candidate is speaking to me. They keep tossing around the notion of forty-two thousand dollars a year as some sort of magical benchmark for the average American. Excuse me, but where are the plans to help those of us who make, maybe, fifteen grand a year? Where are the specific policies that you have for me? Where are the federal subsidies for growing my own pot? I’m a cornerstone of my neighborhood’s economy, and where’s my bailout?

One last note for Senator McCain. If you don’t want to be perceived as old and out of touch, you probably shouldn’t describe your opponent’s poicies as “cockamamie.” I’m just sayin’.

Not really sure why I still watch the U.S. presidential debates, since they’re essentially irrelevant, and, with the way the economy is heading, the U.S. itself may become irrelevant and we’ll all end up speaking Mandarin. But, there I was, at a friend’s house with a bottle of cheap vodka watching the ‘town-hall’ format. Now, this wasn’t a real town-hall meeting. That always implies passionate townspeople shouting pointed questions about their specific concerns. This was like a ninety minute focus group, and the questions were so carefully scripted that they could have been asked by the moderator, but they audience at least looked like real Americans. Hell, they even let a black guy ask a question. Some questions were emailed, and I was really hoping Tom Brokaw, with that stentorian voice of his, would have gotten an email from someone with an embarrassing screen name–”Our next question comes from jiggybutt69 in Palmyra, New York.”

At least the Cult of Palin couldn’t accuse Brokaw of ‘ambush’ tactics or ‘gotcha journalism.’ This, of course, was the charge levelled at notoriously hard-hitting journalist…Katie Couric. Somebody needs to explain to Miss Wasilla that it’s not technically an ‘ambush’ when YOU KNOW YOU’RE GOING TO BE INTERVIEWED! If you look at your to-do list, somewhere between ‘take kids to hockey game’ and ‘ try to scare voters with manufactured claims that Obama supports terrorism,’ you might see ‘CBS–interview w/ K.C.’ That’s not a ‘gotcha.’ See. it’s part of the media’s JOB to ‘get’ you, if in fact there’s something to ‘get.’ It’s not like the diabolical Mainstream Media is popping up from behind shrubery with these questions.

So, after not directly answering questions from the moderator in the first debate, this format required the candidates to not directly answer questions from real voters like you and me. My buddy and I thought we would score the debate, which lasted about four questions (or three shots of vodka). I did take a few notes, though.

Obama’s biggest weakness is that he sometimes sounds too ‘professorial,’, and since this debate looked like it was set in a big lecture hall, I started thinking back to college. Maybe the question should be, if these two guys were teachers and you were a freshman making out your schedule, whose class would you take? Now Professor Obama seems like the kind of teacher whose class you should take, but you’d probably get bored around mid-terms and just buy the lecture notes. Professor McCain, on the other hand, would be popular because his tests would be simple, just memorizing some key phrases.

Current Affairs 101 — Professor McCain

1. What is another word for ‘reformer’?

2. The U.S. economy consists of Wall Street and which other Street?

3. Should the U.S. ever sit across the table from evil dictators?

At least Obama can pronounce things correctly. I know this is nit-picking, but IT’S NOT PRONOUNCED ‘EYE-RACK’!!! It’s two syllables, for chrissake! I’m sure this isn’t the biggest obstacle to stability in that region, but I don’t think it helps, either.

There were times when McCain approached full-on creepy. When talking about how to fix Social Security, he said “We know how to fix that”–and that’s it! When asked about Bin Laden, he said “I know how to get him” and nothing else. Uh…John? If you do know how to ‘get’ Bin Laden, could you…tell some of the people currently looking for him? It would save us a lot of trouble if you could tell the U.S. military.

A stylistic note for all the candidates–stop trying to be funny in a debate. Last night, when asked who he would appoint as Treasury secretary, he looked at Brokaw and said “Not you, Tom.” It didn’t sound comical, it sounded crotchety. And while we’re on style points, McCain’s handlers should tell him that when he tries to convey righteous indignation, he hunches over into a little angry ball and starts to look like a troll stomping his feet under a bridge.

I also thought it was weird when McCain brought up for the second time in a debate the notion of forming a ‘League of Democracies.’ Yeah, let’s form a club with only countries who share our beliefs–that’s the way to solve international problems, you diplomatic Luddite. I’m pretty sure McCain knows there’s already an organization of countries the get together and talk about stuff (the United…something?), so I can only assume he’s thinking of some sort of intergalactic body–maybe like the Legion of Superheroes (in their first battle, the Legion fights the Axis of Evil!) Frankly, i wasn’t bothered when McCain referred to Obama as “that one.” Their campaign is so desperate and out of touch right now that I’m just happy he didn’t refer to Obama as ‘the colored fella.’

It got toward the end of the debate, and I wasn’t paying as much attention–I started hearing the questions I wanted to hear. Brokaw set up one question with a ponderous introduction about the Manhattan Project designing the ultimate nuclear weapon, and I thought his question was “Should we in fact create some kind of death ray we can simply aim at countries we don’t like?” My favorite moment of all came when McCain sat down to answer a question, and put the microphone he was holding in his lap. At this moment, my friend said “The microphones are fake!” It was as if he was at a magic show and saw the mirrors–like in that one moment all the lies and deception holding up the house of cards that is our entire system of government had collapsed around him. Of course, we were drinking.

I haven’t been posting the past few days because I’m preparing for a lawsuit. I intend to sue the Chicago Cubs and their parent company for breach of contract and mental anguish, pursuant their recent embarrassing loss to the Dodgers. When I moved to Chicago, the Chicago Cubs clearly implied by word and action that this would be ‘the year,’ and (you’ll excuse the technical legal terminology) they choked. Since I watched at least 100 games on tv this season (note to self: add WGN and Comcast to the lawsuit–without their incessant promos during the season I might not have watched any games), at an average of two and a half hours per game, I want compensation for the two hundred fifty hours of my life I’ll never get back. And ten bucks for a new remote to replace the one I threw against the wall.

That’s how society works, after all. Any grievance, no matter how picayune, can be solved by tying up our already overburdened court system with a lawsuit. Stub your toe in your apartment, sue your landlord. Get falling-down drunk at a bar and stumble into the street, sue the driver of the car that hit you. The extent to which we’ve removed personal responsibility from the equation is stunning.

There’s a family suing Disneyland because they were on the Pirates of the Carribean ride, and the little freaking boat they were in got hit by somebody else’s little freaking boat. They’re suing for two million dollars, apparently trying to recoup the money they spent at Disneyland that day. And people suing tobacco companies–are you kidding me!? Unless you started smoking in 1920 most rational people have been clear on the fact that inhaling smoke is a health risk. Maybe I’ll sue Dunkin’ Donuts because I’ve put on a few pounds.

Companies are so terrified of litigation that every single item sold seems to require a warning label. This is backwards, people. The warning labels should be tattooed on the foreheads of any idiot who needs these warning labels! ‘WARNING! THIS PERSON IS NOT INTELLIGENT ENOUGH TO REALIZE THAT THE HOT COFFEE THEY JUST ORDERED IS HOT!” ”WARNING! YOU ARE LOOKING AT SOMEONE WHO IS NOT BRIGHT ENOUGH TO KNOW THAT SHAMPOO IS FOR EXTERNAL USE ONLY!” The government is now trying to insist that Smith and Wesson, makers of fine handguns and handgun accessories, put a warning label on their products. What would this label read–’WARNING–THIS…IS A GUN”?

The best examples of our litigious national character are the disclaimers that are on the bottom of the screen in car commercials. ‘Professional driver–do not attempt.’ Whew–thank god the wise ones at Chevrolet stopped me from driving up the side of a cliff while pulling a mobile home at sixty miles an hour. There is a Ford truck ad I especially love. In the ad, through the miracle of computer technology, at one point the truck appears to be driving through the clouds, and underneath is the word ‘dramatization.’ What the hell kind of litigation is Ford afraid of here?

Dear Ford Motor Company:

My husband was recently killed when he attempted to fly his F-150 through the sky, as your advertisement clearly indicates is possible.

Enough ranting for now. If you didn’t enjoy this post, you know what to do.

As political theater, the first presidential debate was about what you would expect. These affairs are never about policy, because it’s impossible to elucidate policy in two minute chunks. But as entertainment, it was a huge disappointment, and that’s what I’d like to address. I haven’t felt such a combination of boredom and irritation since I watched ‘Gigli.’ Face it, with a little over a month left before W and his clan get outsourced to Crawford, Texas, anyone who wants to know where the two main candidates stand has all the information they need (maybe the debate should have been between the candidates who don’t have a chance–I think it might be cool to watch Ralph Nader and Ron Paul go at it, like watching cranky relatives get into an argument at a wake). So, since we’re not watching for some political revalation or new insight, the bottom line is this–we watch debates for the same reason we watch auto racing–because we want to see someone crash.

A few format changes would go a long way toward making the debates more fun. First, get rid of the podiums–this isn’t a Toastmasters meeting. Instead, place each candidate in a harness above a dunk tank. Then attach electrodes to their nipples, and every time either of them repeats a catch phrase or says something deliberately misleading, give ‘em a little jolt. “Senator Obama doesn’t underst–OWW!” (now that I think of it, that might be an unfair advantage to McCain).

We should also get rid of the moderator. Jim Lehrer did a fine job in that avuncular way of his, but he ended up just looking frustrated. My favorite moment was when he told Obama to talk directly to Mccain–”Say it to him” like he became a family therapist. “Use your words, Barack.” As much as I appreciate Lehrer, if we’re gonna look at it as a competition (almost every analyst spoke in terms of points in a prizefight), lets have judges. In fact, let’s have the ‘American Idol’ judges.

Randy: Yo yo yo McCain–you my dawg! I ain’t mad at ya, dawg!

Paula: Barack, I just thought you looked wonderful–you’ve shown nothing but class and love through this entire competition.

Simon: It was like watching a dreadful high-school debate in a gymnasium at an underfunded school.

For ninety-six minutes, I kept hoping Jeff Probst would come out and convene some sort of ad hoc tribal council–’Survivor: Ole Miss.” Give a candidate immunity if he can describe his economic plan without mentioning ‘Main Street.’ The only classic gaffe, the kind of ‘oh no he didn’t’ moment that could turn an election was when McCain tried to attack Obama for saying that he would take military action in Pakistan if we could get Bin Laden there. McCain said (and I’m adding the emphasis here) “You don’t say that OUT LOUD. If you have to do things, you have to do things…” Huh??? So his problem isn’t the idea of unilateral military action against an ‘ally,’ but the fact that Obama is telling people? I also was a little worried John wouldn’t have the chance to remind us that he was in a Viet Cong prison, but thankfully he worked that into his closing statement. McCain was criticized at one point for not knowing the name of the new Pakistani president, but isn’t that a little unfair? If McCain were president and he…i don’t know, drew a blank in some high-level meeting, wouldn’t he be able to simply turn to his well-read, foreignpolicy savvy vice-president to bail him out? Wouldn’t he?

As a poitical junkie, I also watched a lot of the ‘post-game’ analysis, and I have a couple of questions question for MSNBC. Why is Pat Buchanan still giving his opinion on ANYTHING? Buchanan wasn’t relevant when he was RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT! And the stupidest, most inconsequential comment–one of the reporters at the debate suggested that Obama might want to lean forward a bit more. Yeah, I may not agree with his stands on the issues, but at least he leaned forward. He gets my vote.

Ultimately, as much as I pride myself on tracking the issues, I gotta admit that the real reason I can’t vote for John McCain is that he SO reminds me of the old pissed-off guy in the neighborhood whose house I didn’t want to ride my bike past when I was eight years old. I’d love to see a snapshot poll on that.

I don’t sleep too well these days. I think it’s because I’m a news junkie. I am addicted to news. I have bookmarked thirty-five online newspapers (current favorites include the North Korean News Agency and the Moose Jaw Times-Herald ) and on cable I’m usually flipping between Headline News and MSNBC. I’m also pretty sure that my news addiction is to blame for my astounding lack of productivity–yeah, I may not have updated my blog in four days, but I have a good understanding of the forces underlying the global market collapse.

There’s really too much to process. I swear CNN Headline News should be called ADD–on the screen is the guy telling the story, a caption underneath the guy telling you what the guy is telling you, the weather for forty-seven cities, basketball scores, and I’m pretty sure I saw someone in a small box doing an interpretive dance about the story. The worst thing about network news is the teaser ads. Like, “Coming up at ten, we’ll tell you about a common household substance that can kill”…NO, TELL US NOW! There’s people dying in their kitchens and your sitting on a story! And reporters on the scene aren’t any more Pulitzer-worthy. The other night, a reporter at the scene of an accident said “details are sketchy.” THEN THEY’RE NOT…DETAILS!!! The most ludicrous news cliche is “police are baffled.” Really? ‘Baffled’ seems a bit strong, don’t ya think? I’ve never seen a bunch of cops walking around a crime scene shrugging their shoulders-”Jeez, I got nothin’ here–not a clue. I better call someone, because I am thoroughly confused.”

I lived in L.A. during the Rodney King nightmare, and it led me to this conclusion. The next time L.A. burns (because it will happen again), I hope the first buildings torched are tv news studios, for being the accelerant. I would love to see video of some smug, self-righteous anchor sitting at his desk reading off the teleprompter “We’ve got reports of a fire at–MY DESK! MY DESK IS ON FIRE!”

Seems like there are two extremes in broadcast journalism. There are talking heads that yell a lot and interrupt each other, and there’s Charlie Rose. I think Charlie is great. He never seems fazed by a subject–frankly, he never seems all that interested, either. Every time he puts his chin in his hand and leans forward, I expect him to either nod off, or start quietly chuckling as if to a joke he heard once. But I’ll take his disinterest over the yelling any day. I half-expect the host of one of these roundtable discussions to just start screaming “Shut up! Shut up all of you! I will turn this studio around if you people don’t shut up!”

As if it’s not bad enough that stories on tv news are all too short to be useful (Now I understand fundamentalist Islam, thanks to that sixty second feature) , time that could be used for thoughtful analysis is given instead to entertainment news. Now I’m as grateful as anyone to learn that Clay Aiken is actually gay (Whew! I won my office pool!), it’s not news!!! When you only have thirty minutes to give a rundown of the news of the day, maybe you should prioritize. I’m guessing the day Clay came out, there were at least one or two things that could have been mentioned about Darfur, or AIDS, or, oh, I don’t know, the election that will determine the future of the country.

So I think for an entire day, I’m going to avoid the news media. If a crisis happens somewhere in the world for the next twenty-four hours, it’ll still be a crisis tomorrow.

I love movies, but I don’t get to many of them. Too much money for marginal product–spending ten bucks for a comedy movie with ten laughs is like spending fifteen bucks for a cd with four good songs. The reason people illegally download music is because buying music is too freaking expensive! In fact, if studios want to stop piracy, they should make movies cheaper. I think you should pay when you leave the theater, whatever percentage of the ticket price you think the movie was worth. You think the studios would keep turning out crap if their average take per person was eighty-three cents?

Major studios are relics. I actually think the days of the Zanucks and the Goldwyns, as much as they may have squelched some visionary work, were better for the movie industry–for the fans. I don’t if any of you remember the Lily Tomlin-John Travolta vehicle (a poor word choice, since it implies it went somewhere) ‘Moment By Moment,’ which featured a horrifying hot tub encounter between the two leads. In the days of the big, mean studios, a guy in a suit would have taken the writers to lunch at the Brown Derby, and said “Interesting idea–but Lily does comedies, not romance.” The movie would have never happened.

Part of the problem is the deadening of the American film palate.  Some of the greatest films in history would never be greenlighted (greenlit?) today–too ‘talky’…too ‘complicated’…not ‘high-concept’ enough. Basically, the male American movie-going public likes two things in their movies–breasts, and explosions. I suppose that’s three things, because I’m not sure how well a movie featuring only one breast would do. But two breasts and some explosions–that’s box-office gold. If someone could made a movie about breasts that explode, it would be more popular than ‘Star Wars.’

I personally think that if a movie isn’t deep, it oughta be fun. If it isn’t deep or fun, then it’s just fifty million dollars that could have gone to Habitat for Humanity.  And if I’m watching at home, I usually give a movie the twenty minute test. If a movie hasn’t captured my attention in twenty minutes, I turn it off. I have seen five to fifteen minutes of more movies than I can count. Which is why I love surfthechannel.com.

Apparently Sweden has comparatively liberal copyright laws, because a site there called SurfTheChannel has every movie and tv show ever filmed available for free. Okay, maybe not every, but oh my god do they have a lot. I’m not sure I should even be telling those not ‘in the know,’ but it’s THE GREATEST WEBSITE IN THE UNIVERSE. Missed a movie that came out last month? It’s probably here. Now some of them were recorded by a dude with a cell phone in the front row, but it’s free! Just know that if you see a new movie has been added, watch it right away or you will see the dreaded phrase ‘removed for infringement.’ And before you start saying ‘Hey–you’re a creative artist…aren’t these people just stealing? Shouldn’t the people who did the movie be paid?”, let me just point out that for the VAST majority of movies being ’stolen,’ the people involved have already been paid. A couple of times. And there’s stuff you can’t buy, even if you wanted–I’d love to have a dvd of the first season of the second remake of ‘Twilight Zone,’ but I haven’t seen that at Blockbuster yet. And if I want to have a few friends over for a marathon of “Lou Grant,” I don’t think Ed Asner will have trouble paying his mortgage.

Since I discovered surfthechannel.com, I haven’t been sleeping a lot lately. It’s been sensory overload–like an epileptic on Red Bull in Vegas. And I’ve been having strange dreams. Here’s the weirdness: I’ve had more than one dream which featured a celebrity–IN A CAMEO! Famous actors appear in my dreams, but they don’t have speaking roles. I’m in some surreal library/delicatessan/army recruiting office, and there’s Corbin Bernson! Understand–he’s not part of the ‘plot’ to my dream, he’s just…there. A couple nights ago, the thing I remember is that Christopher Meloni was in my dream–for no apparent reason. He wasn’t a part of the story–he just showed up in some of the scenes. Any amateur shink wanna take a shot at that?

The Chris Meloni dream is not the strangest dream I’ve had lately. When I was still working the day job, one night, in my dream, I woke up to my alarm, took the train to work, sat at my desk, took the train home, and got ready for bed. I had a dream in which nothing happened. In a world of infinite possibility, my mind created a dreamscape identical to my actual life! Now that’s wasted time. I felt almost cheated when I actually woke up.

my favorite film genre–movies where entire cities are destroyed, by aliens, some space virus, or some combination of cataclysmic natural disaster. Not sure why, but I get a real kick out of seeing places I’ve been to slapped around, and I find myself strangely inspired when all of society’s hopes rest on the shoulders of a b-level movie star, like Tom Skerrit, or one of the Quaids.

‘Volcano’ was great, simply because a volcanic eruption is one of the only horrible things that hasn’t actually happened to Los Angeles. And ‘Earthquake In New York’–if cars blowing up are cool to watch, it’s exponentially cooler to see the Guggenheim Museum crumble, or the Statue of Liberty slowly topple into the bay. Unfortunately, that movie screwed up by wasting the first hour giving us the personal back stories of the people who would ultimately be buried in the rubble. Just get to the destruction–let’s see some iconic landmarks collapse already! The best of the bunch is, for my money, ‘The Day After Tomorrow,’ which manages to include multiple natural disasters, a cautionary tale about global warming, AND Randy Quaid! Tell me it wasn’t great to watch a tornado turn the Capitol Records building into a bunch of building-sized frisbees.

I’m also a sucker for old-school monster movies, but I’ve always been curious. Before CGI, when aliens were actually hard-working, unappreciated working actors in green costumes, one thing was a given. It was always “Attack of the Fifty-Foot” something. What I want to know is how was it decided that fifty feet was the height at which a genetically-mutated, nuclear-fallout-created anything becomes threatening to mankind? Did studios say “Well, a seventy-five foot tall broccoli stalk is just silly–nobody’s gonna buy that. Make it fifty feet tall and you’ve got yourself a movie.” I mean, wouldn’t a twenty or thirty foot tall thing that’s not supposed to be twenty or thirty feet tall be just as scary?