Tag: actor
the three I's of current
I grew up a fan of the WWF and I re-acquired my fondness for wrestling late int eh 1990’s during the WCW/WWF wars. One of the performers for the WWF (now WWE) was former Olympic gold medalist Kurt Angle who played a pompous and crass patriot who embodied everything that you could dispise about an athlete. Selfishness, arrogance, etc, etc.
Kurt had a good “angle” though and played the part well. Still does in fact. One part of his repetoir was talking about his three I’s — three words begining with I that were his guiding principles — of Intensity, Integrity and Intelligence.
You realize that the country currently has it’s own three I’s? These aren’t principles that are guiding us but they are factors in our daily lives:
Inflation – you will not hear the Federal Reserve chairman talking about inflation, nor will you hear the Bush administration talk about how costs have skyrocketed over a short period of time. Everyone knows about gas prices, but real estate prices, durable goods, groceries, insurance premiums, medical care — everything is spiking for the common person. The federal governent is just concerned with the mega-ultra-large corporations in how they deal with this. Corporatiosn are going strong right now while workers wages are stagnent. It’s been almost a decade since minimum wage was increased in the United States and instead of promoting better treatment for employees, the Bush administration has worked vigilently to repeal work laws so corporations can profit and not be stradled by the costs of labor.
Intolerance – you reep what you sow and that is the case with the Dubai Port World deal and George Walker Bush signing off on the deal. Bush made Arab’s into the boogeyman of the 21st century with his rhetoric after 9-11. The propoganda coming out of the White House tied Iraq to 9-11 in order to justify the invasion of Iraq. People were scared and reacted to just that, signing off on the war because those damn Arabs attacked us first! (wwhich is a flat out lie and ignorant assumption by the citizens of the US)
So the Dubai Ports deal comes through and Bush has no problem with it — it’s a furtherment of his pro-big business agenda. Bill Clinton signs off on it and does what he can to help out behind the scenes (as Slick Willie has always been a proponent of Globalization — as is New York Times writer Paul Krugman). Everyone expects a free pass over this as that is how the country has operated since 9-11 (allowing Bush to get whatever he wanted)…
…Until the public learns about the deal.
Everyone cries foul — Republicans and Democrats alike. The Xenophobia of the Arab Boogeyman that Bush’s administration has so well played rears it’s ugly head. An Arab country in charge of US Ports?! An Arab country with ties to 9-11?!?
And yet, Krugman had a good point in a recent article which denounced this intolerance. The United States should be an active player in the global economy and we cannot run scared from a country in the middle east because of the ignorant and arrogant propoganda show that was put out by the Administration to further it’s agenda.
Of course I could go on about intolerance — everyone beign afraid of homosexuals, blacks and whites in the continued racial war of poverty, faux-Christians sullying Christian ideals and justifying hatred, violence and greed in His name, etc…
Isolationism – Go it alone, “with us or against us,” and the country trumping the world in matters of global politics (be it war, peace, treaties, signing off on elected officials in other countries or dispatchign elected officials in others)Â The US has become largely islolated with thanks to it’s policies while being depedant and indebted to cheap foreign labor and despot oil suppliers.
Movie Trivia – Star Wars edition
Seeing that Revenge of the Sith is out there right now….
Who were some of the actors that were offered the role of Han Solo in the Original Star Wars before Harrison Ford got the role?
Movie Trivia – Round 5
What Virtual Reality ovie of the 1990’s featured two future Best-Actor Oscar winners?
Less Defense, more Beauracracy
Beside George Tennet, I wonder how many people see the proposed breakup of the CIA as a step backwards instead of a step forward?
There are already a handful of security and intelligence agencies int eh United States and a handful of Investigative agencies as well. The 9/11 Commission cited lack of communications/cooperations between agencies as part of the reason 9-11 happened.
So why is it that breaking the CIA into three is supposed to be the way to mend the problem? You have more agencies that need to answer to other agencies and more groups that may or may not share data. It’s taking the wrong approach to finding a solution.
Just like the Department of Homeland Security is giving the Defense Department a day off from defending the United States of America so that they can go ahead and be the Offense Department and take War elsewhere, changing the CIA to three different agencies doesn’t rectify the problem – it just adds bureaucracy so that other groups can focus on other things instead of solving the real problem — the glut of agencies and the lack of coordination with them.
I’m not totally opposed to the dismantling of the CIA but then again? I want to see the FBI and ATF factored into this group. I would think one super agency with divisions for national Investigation and law enforcement as well as international intelligence is going to be more beneficial than adding more groups to an already crowded field of agencies that are only loosely connected… And of course, having one person overseeing those agencies is not going to help cooperation and coordination between them…. It’s just going to add to the mess.
And what are other politicians going to tell you? That dividing and confusing is going to make America safer? That’s hardly a way to protect America… It’s more likely a way to contribute to more trouble – both Political and Geo-political – in the future.
Denial and Dehumanization
Saturday, letters were published in the St. Petersburg Times trying to justify mistreatment of those detained at the Abu Ghraib prison. They tended to be immature, at best, and evidence of how Americans will see only what they want to see.
One letter writer thinks “I’ll take a leash without any close compared to” being dragged through the streets and hung and burned. Of course, everyone is going to chose humiliation over death, but the letter writer neglects to bring up the sodomy and other mistreatment of prisoners, nor the duration of how long these people were exposed to such treatments. Death over long term humiliation is a tougher choice to make. The fact an exact date hasn’t been put on photos showing also factors in.
Another letter writer also makes the comparison to security personnel being dragged and hung last month and then claims, “how easily people forget.” The problem is, no one forgot that happened. We, as Americans, are supposed to be better than what has been revealed at the Abu Ghraib prison. Can you so easily justify sinking to an unmoral level?
One last letter writer states that last month’s horrid events in Fallujah need to be placed in front of these horrid events in a time line sense. I believe this is to justify the attacks against prisoners as “an eye for an eye”. Well, L. Paul Bremer stated on Friday that he had heard of abuses in Abu Ghraib by American Soldiers beginning in January… January certainly comes before April.
Don’t try to justify what US Soldiers have done in Iraq. We’re supposed to be better than that as a country. If our soldiers and citizens can justify dehumanizing citizens of the world for selfish reasons, than I want to know what happened to the America I grew up in and the land that I love?
Painful to watch, pleasure to have seen
There was a movie I rented before I went in for surgery in August — and it’s also a movie I put off watching… And continued to put off watching after someone told me that they had seen it and it made a profound statement to them.
It’s not because the movie made a difference, it’s because other things and such. Pay no heed to my whining, lets go back to the movie that I am talking about, and that is Michael Moore’s Bowling For Columbine which just about everyone has seen or has heard of and has an opinion about.
Part of the reason I put off watching it was because I felt like shit at the time. Won’t go into the rest of it. Moore’s film brought up a statement or two that I totally agree with. One is a statement that a cartoon tried to underline and another is a statement that Marilyn Manson – Home I am no fan of – made to Moore. There were also plenty of other things (Matt Stone’s thoughts about high school – how I only came to realize that a year after I got out of High School… That’s just one example) but these two statements that were made were what sold the movie to me most.
The first statement I will re-convey is Manson’s statement that we are a nation driven by consumption and fear. Our fear drives our consumption and our consumption is what drives our fear. You see a nation that is over-weight and yet you see commercials telling you to drink beer to get laid. Cause – effect. You see commercials telling you how to act and how many teens and young adults are terrorized because they are not the actors with the polished skin in these commercials? How many are driven to buy products slung by these actors in commercials because they think it will help them fit in?
Goes for smoking too — Peer pressure? Sure… Image conscious is peer-pressure to another degree – the desire to fit in. To be cool. To be popular…
The second statement that made the largest effect on me was a statement Manson already made but a Cartoon illustrated best – we are a nation driven by fear. We’re afraid the big black man walking down the street is going to get us. We’re afraid that if we don’t stop the government from taking our money, they will just blow it on crack-whore welfare and pork barrels, we’re afraid that if we don’t bomb the living hell out of a country, they’ll bomb the living hell out of us. The fear drives us, the fear catapults us to acting without thinking, acting in retaliation before there is anything to retaliate about.
Are we a country with an inferiority complex or insecurity complex?
Bowling for Columbine doesn’t offer us solutions to our problems – it just look sat our problems… That itself might be part of the problem… If we have no framework of the alternative to what we know, there is no reason to look at an alternative. Of course, the alternative to owning a gun is to go with out – scratch one. Then there is the idea of having to have a license and knowledge of how to handle a fire arm to own one… The NRA would never go for that (even though the only thing it is doing is making sure gun owners are EDUCATED). Scratch two.
More of the same is the other alternative that comes to mind and hope society changes it’s ways. Ha! Like that will happen? Scratch three. :sad
Wow — the SAG's shock the public — RE: Jonathan Brandis' Death
Well, you find out sooner than later and in this case it’s later instead of sooner.
I’m looking at my logs and everyone was searching Sunday Night for the news of Jonathan Brandis’ death after Brandis was mentioned during the Screen Actors Guild awards to have departed this world last year….
…And everyone ended up coming to der Stonegauge and the ongoing Brandis thread.
Don't Chat For America
What does the word MODERATOR mean? What is it’s definition. Our good friends over at Dictionary.com have it defined as this:
mod·er·a·tor ( P )
n.
One that moderates, as:
One that arbitrates or mediates.
One who presides over a meeting, forum, or debate.
The officer who presides over a synod or general assembly of the Presbyterian Church.
Physics. A substance, such as water or graphite, that is used in a nuclear reactor to decrease the speed of fast neutrons and increase the likelihood of fission.One who, or that which, moderates, restrains, or pacifies.
The officer who presides over an assembly to preserve order, propose questions, regulate the proceedings, and declare the votes.
That’s just some of the definitions of the word moderator. In esscence, a moderator is supposed to step in and stop things from going to shit. THey are supposed to keep the fighting from happening. They are supposed to keep the balance.
I know this first hand, I administrated on FanHome.com, I moderated there before I administrated and got plenty of first-hand experience.
Why the hell these chat-heads can’t get the fucking clue what it means to moderate is beyond my. They don’t want to step in when one of the chat regulars starts blasting other regulars in the room. They “aren’t your parents” and they think everything should be dealt with in private.
Right, like someone who says “Fuck off, fuck you and don’t send me private messages” is going to deal with problems?
Lack of moderating shows cowardice by anyone on any web site that doesn’t want to be made to look like the bad guy. It’s just a fucking online world, people! You think some nitwit shoudl be allowed to bash the very people you are trying to coax into using your service? What are you, retarded?
This goes for any message board / chat room that you go into. You may tell me that “to go and stifle someone even if he isn’t being the best person in the world is censorship” is also something I believe is complete and utter horseshit. Censorship is when the first ammendment, in a public area, is silenced. To tell someone to restrain themselves in a PRIVATE web site, to step in and shwo someone physically that they are wrong for how they are acting by suspending them or booting them isn’t censorship either – it’s trying to kepe things worthwhile for everyone else.
Cops are supposed to be moderators. Constables of the Peace are supposed to keep crime down, keep the world livable for everyone else… Surely someone can’t complain that they are censoring you if you get arrested for a crime you commit… They broke the law, they infringed on someone else’s life.
Same goes for online chat. Or message board useage. If you break the law or infringe on someone else’s life, someone coming down on you should be expected.
And if moderators don’t have the balls to do it, then they should be canned.
It’s outrageous and ironic that htis is happening with Howard Dean’s campaign. He complains that the beltway boys in Washington won’t step forward and say / do shit against George W. Bush because they don’t want to look like bad guys. It’s the exact same with these nitwits who are overseeing chat. If they won’t step in and do something — why the fuck are they there in the first place? They sure ain’t moderating.
Lives
We’re all born into the world and take on a physical life for ourselves. Through the course of our existence on the planet, we live thousands of lives even if we aren’t aware of them.
Different personalities show up at different points and they tend to have a life of their own, for example. The smart ass, the looker, the jock, the know-it-all, the slut, the crybaby, the actor, the liar, the whiner, etc, etc… All these different personality traits alone have lives of their own and you live them as you go from the day you are born to the day of your demise.
It doesn’t stop there.
You live your life – your life changes before you and you tend to adjust to the new conditions. These adjustments change you as a person and it can be said that you start a new life under these new conditions. You strive for a goal in this life, perchance, and when you achieve it – your life changes again and a new goal is set… Or perchance you have something taken away, an injury, a social malignancy? Again, your life changes — you start living a NEW life as you try to come to grips with these new parameters that surround you.
And of course there are social lives. With every single person you interact with, you forge a tie that can be called it’s own life. Only ones that you are close to you tend to create a more intimate life with them (significant others). The catch to the entire thing is that you don’t have to have things in common for this life to be born. You don’t need to be going in the same direction in life… Your connection is a life that the two of you create together. It’s your commitment to that life that could alter your other lives or not.
Lives are all around us – Physical lives, emotional lives, psychological lives and the like… The question to you is, are you willing to see a life through, or will you kill it if it stands in the way of another life? Will you abort a life that doesn’t fit the moment? Or perchance embrace it and see other lives come crashing down because of it?
Big event today…
Big things are happening today, I mean really really big things… Great things that will make the entire world happy…
Willy Wonka is opening his factory up to the kids who found the Golden Tickets and he will let them tour the factory before….
Oh wait, that was just a movie? Never mind
Hold Me, Thrill me, Kiss me, Kill me
So I forgot to bring up Thursday Night and what I was up to to keep myself busy but not keep my mind off problems entirely…
Michelle and Josh came around. They had both stopped by during my hospital stint and were a refreshing change of pace from the day to day. We just watched some flicks together and had a good time…
…And up until this movie-watching stint, I didn’t know how GAY the opening of Reservoir Dogs is… :tongue
There we are, sitting and watching the flick (Michelle had never seen it) and Tim Roth is going nuts because he’s been shot in the gut and in a lot of pain… Well, Tim and Harvey Keitel share a few intimate moments as Keitel tries to comfort Roth and Tim (Mr. Orange) ends up telling Harvey (Mr. White / “Larry”) to hold him… And Mr. White starts trying to build up Mr. Orange’s confidence and calm him down by combing Mr. Orange’s hair and asking him “Who’s a tough guy.,..” in a rather serene voice…
The entire fucking movie I am cracking jokes about that when Roth is on screen. “Hold me, Larry! Hold me! I’m a tough guy! I’m a tough guy!” There’s that cop who gets his ear cut off (:puke), Roth wakes up after passing out from blood loss and takes out Mr Blonde…
“Hey… Hey you… What’s your name?”
“Marvin… Marvin Nash…”
“Hold me, Marvin! Hold me! Don’t leave me, Marvin!”
I mean, I apologize to Quentin Tarantino and the guys in this movie because I absolutely love Reservoir Dogs and the work of some of these actors (Tim Roth especially)…. But that is the funniest, most closet homosexual shit I have seen. I started cracking jokes about having a Reservoir Dogs drinking game too. “When ever K-BILLY comes on, you take a drink…. Whenever Mr. Orange says ‘Hold me!’ you take a drink… Whenever Joe acts like an asshole, you take a drink… Whenever someone says ‘Dick’ you take a drink…” (that last word alone would have you drunk before the opening credits)…
We ended up watching Southpark later on and of course my entry on Southpark is up — you can read my take on that.…
At any rate, I got a first hand taste of the sick sorta need of having someone special in your life — well, sorta. I started missing what I have had in the past by watching Josh and Michelle together. It made me long tenderness. I haven’t had it in the past, per se, just someone to imagine it with… even that non-physical experience that I have had, I started longing. Living on the concept of emotion between two people is a very tough thing and I guess that’s one place I had faith… Faith in the emotion and pursuing it any way possible until things finally align so that the physical could be pursued. One way street though…
Getting back to the subject of Thursday… Michelle is determined to have another movie night sometime soon and get me to watch Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Now, I’ve never been a horror buff but then again – when you’re watching movies with friends, you can watch about anything and enjoy it… :smile
Like Dreamers Dew
I controlled my dreaming last night / this morning. i don’t mean one or two degrees of it, I mean I totally controlled my dreaming (or so it felt like).
It’s hard for me to remember anything at this point besides certain details – Vincent Lecavalier putting salmon (dead salmon) on plants as fertilizer, him having a bigger, better house than my brother Andy who (in this dream) drafted by the Lightning. He wasn’t burying the dead fish, mind you – he was just throwing them on top of where the seeds / plants / sapplings were.
I also dreamed about the gap between myself and others physically and a voice said “Just dive in” — I was on the edge of a cliff and where I wanted to be was far below… the land then shifted and everything was high above me and I figured it’d be easier to get there in a plane….
…enter the prop plane and what seemed like Microsoft Flight Simulator
I’m in control of this plane and I’m getting the feel for it while on the runway and I start taxi-ing into position and then things got clouded (trying to understand the dream)
I know Brian Dilenge was in this dream, he and one of the actors from An Officer and a Gentlemen for that matter…
There ain’t no friggin’ way I’m going to dissect this dream apart like I have in the past so I’m just posting it in order to get it out.
Johnny's Screwed
Finally
I get some help after bitching about falling forward.
I turn out
the lights and I fall forward. I cover up my eyes while I am free standing and
I fall forward. I pull off my shirt and I fall forward or backward.
My leg may
not have "given out". I may have suffered a falling-forward spell.
Last night
I had another loss of balance with the lights off — I’ve dealt with them on
and off since 1997 and this time something happened that scared me — after
grabbing a hold of something and steadying myself (the doorframe to the bathroom)
I felt a jarring in my head. You see, every time I upset a benign tumor somewhere
in my body, I end up getting a bit of a jarring sensation from it. This time
it came from my head.
It pissed
me off and upset me greatly because I was willing to deal with this back in
APRIL, let alone wait, and wait, and wait, and wait, and wait. My parents encouraged
me to wait with money and other things becoming a factor.
Now my back
is taking away sensation from my legs. My head gives me aches and has thrown
my balance off. My motor skills (my legs) are awkward at best. Things are deteriorating.
After everything
happened last night I sat down and I actually started sobbing to myself because
I felt walled in. If I told my parents about it they may very well do the putting
off again. "But the doctor said…" — The doctor said MONTHS ago!
MONTHS ago for Christ sake and I’m falling apart right in front of you! That’s
how it’s always felt with my family – I made a case for something with me, they
downplayed it or played ‘ignore it, maybe it will go away."
That’s just
another reason why I get pissed when people put off (or when I procrastinate
and put off) — you let things sit and feaster they get worse. Not better.
So after
I sobbed to myself I wrote my father an email (because it was something like
1:30 in the morning) before sitting down to read The Gunslinger (edited
version which wasn’t as good as the original)] telling him that we can’t keep
putting off and that something has to be done.
I got up
this morning and presto – he told me I had an MRI Wednesday at 1 (tomorrow where
I sit) and see Dr.
Bartels ont he 25th. I just wanted to say "What took you so fucking
long?" but that would have been pushing my luck. I honestly would have
dealt with this in the spring instead of letting myself rot as I’ve been forced
to. I can’t walk well, I couldn’t run for a while (and I blamed it all on the
back stuff — HA! I knew better!). I can’t stand or keep my balance and I get
headaches as well as other minor things… And yet everyone can put off because
it’s John and he bitches and whines like that.
In other
news I edited Assignment 2 from Der
Long Ridge though I may have already mentioned that in a recent journal
entry. It comes off a bit stiff still but it’s hard to present charisma in under
1000 words. It’s also not the most flattering piece but at the same time —
it really demonstrates the perception of knowing something and wanting something
and then realizing you can’t have it even though circumstances present themselves
that give you that perception.
Futility and Film Wise
Well, I’ve
been out of touch and out of taste with my journal entries lately because of
what is becoming very futile with my Moveable Type transition. Complex coding
and greater HTML know-how is required in order to successfully use the alternate
journal (I don’t know Cascading Style Sheets and that factors in – sorry to
give the average user a bit of confusion there if they don’t know what that
is) and I’ve just thrown up my hands with even trying with it for now
For now.
SO here
I’m sitting on Monday evening and I’ve been cleaning off my desk which further
needs to be cleaned after I shuffled several of my papers and folders somewhere
else. In other words — I’ve done a very unconvincing job of cleaning even though
I claim that i have been cleaning
I got a
lot of props for my entry about Adaptation
because of the fire and emotion I showed in the entry. Well, at 2AM all you
are going to do is show fire, emotion and perhaps incoherent rambling. The latter
is what I was afraid the entry would turn into when I wrote it and in a lot
of ways – it is.
But I was
truly impressed with the movie.
I’ve watched
a few flicks the last few days – Catch
Me If You Can (that really made my heart ache over Frank W. Abagnale
Jr having to run form the girl he was in love with because she hadn’t been strong
enough to deal with the feds), The
Animatrix, and a few others that I can’t think of right now. In fact
I’ve been keeping tabs on my
Netflix Profile and I have rated and viewed a LOT of movies over the years.
So anyway,
I’ve got to finish cleaning here and I’ve got to sit down and write again…
Need to keep that trend. Need to drown reality in the figment of my imagination
or I will go insane.
