This is an interesting discussion that I get into from time to time. Is the law/should the law be the legislation of morality? Well I’ll preface this by saying that I am certainly in no way a lawyer or really qualified to discuss the law in any meaningful way. But this is my soapbox and if you don’t like what I have to say or disagree with it we have a forum where you can air those differences of opinion.

      Let’s begin by examining the dictionary definitions of law and morality. According to Webster, law is “a binding custom or practice of a community: a rule of conduct or action prescribed or formally recognized as binding or enforced by a controlling authority”, while morality is “a doctrine or system of right and wrong in behavior”. So on the face of it, it would seem easy enough to say that the law could be defined as the community coming together and making a binding decision on what constitutes good and bad behavior. Simple right? Not so much.

      Things begin to get complex when the concept of personal harm comes into play. Let’s say that I like to smack myself with pickled herring. When said smacking occurs no one gets hurt but me (especially when I smack my sensitive bits, not that I ever do this you understand) as the herring is beyond caring. Now suppose my neighbor learns of my pickled perversion and is deeply, morally disturbed. According to her beliefs I am desecrating the corpse of said piscine and causing myself all sorts of undue spiritual and emotional abuse. She gets together with a bunch of her friends and they all petition to have this behavior outlawed. If successful them their particular brand of morality has been legislated and I’ve been robbed of my ability to have a good time on Friday nights. Of course if this law were ever passed then it would get overturned faster then you can say, “Whackin’ my fish!” No one got hurt and it would seem that if that were the case then no law should be enacted. Two consenting adults or even one consenting adult should be able to do whatever they want as long as no one gets hurt or so some logic would have you believe. Of course that’s ridiculous because more of these sorts of laws have been passed than one would care to admit. It’s against the law to carry an ice cream cone in your pocket in Lexington. In some places it’s illegal to wink at a woman you don’t know. In Michigan, a woman isn't allowed to cut her own hair without her husband's permission. (More here http://www.main.com/~anns/other/humor/sillylaws.html) “But,” you say ” certainly these laws aren’t enforced anymore.” However at one point they were. Once upon a time a group of people looked at this behavior, saw that it was “bad” and enacted a law against it. The issue is more complex than that, yet it does happen. The concept of harm and what constitutes it is so incredibly vague I’m not quite sure why anyone would cling it as a basis for the formation of laws.

      I think things get even stickier (as someone pointed out to me) when organized morality enters the picture in the form of religion. One thing that religion is famous for are its laws. Judaism isn’t limited to the Ten Commandments. There are over six hundred laws in the Old Testament that make up what constitutes a good Jewish person. Christianity supposedly boiled that down to “Love God” and “Love Your Neighbor”, but not content with that we added all sorts of things like “Hate Rock and Roll”, “Cut Your Hair.”, and “Imagination Is Wicked.”. I have studied a host of other religions and they all have their own rules. One of the simplest religious rules I’ve heard and yet one of the most complex is Wicca’s only command that I know of, “Do what you will and harm no one.” And yet what does it mean to harm? Again we’d have to add more rules. It could be argued that “harm” is common sense, not successfully argued mind or not without yet more layers that blow the concept of common sense into splinters. So to stick with the fish whacking example, if it is against these ladies’ religious moral code should they be able to put a law into action based on those grounds? Well thanks to how most interpret the First Amendment the answer would seem to be no. We are unable to make any law respecting the establishment of religion, even though that’s not exactly what’s happening here. Now if the majority of law makers decide that that their constituents want a law that protects the dead herring from me or me from myself and it gets voted through, then we may be in business. Of course I could claim that my religion requires this behavior and get some sort of exemption and the ball goes round again.

      What morality all boils down to is this. It’s all personal. You get to decide what is moral for you. If you want to whack a fish, jay walk, or eat a piece of cactus that makes you vomit and hallucinate then by all means do. If you believe it is moral behavior then have a party. You do have to be aware though that the majority of people in your zip code may vehemently disagree and reserve the right to put you in a concrete and steel box. That’s their prerogative as members of a society. If a bunch of religious people want to pass a law and you disagree, I have some advice. Listen to them. Try not to immediately jump to the conclusion that they are stupid or insane just because they believe in something that they can’t see, hear, or touch and that this something has handed them a book with all of the “rules”. That’s easy to do. I know and I’m one of these kooks. We are all generally trying to get through this great thing called existence in a way that does the least damage to our neighbors and insures that our kids will have cable TV, X-Boxes, and bicycles. If we can communicate and air our differences maturely perhaps we can make laws that will be based on a moral common ground rather than hitting each other with insults and rotten produce. Now if you’ll excuse me I’d better eat this ice cream cone before it stains my pants.

TARGET: BEACHFRONT PROPERTY

          The subject of this Firing Range is brought about by a current event that may just impact my family in a nasty way. It seems that there’s a monster three hundred miles across barreling towards my parent’s residence. They live in the coast of North Carolina on a spit of land called the Outer Banks. These small islands serve as a barrier for the mainland against whatever the ocean feels like throwing up. This part of our nation’s coastline is a massive ship’s graveyard thanks to some wicked currents and absolutely phenomenal storms.

          In spite of this ugliness people decide to go and build multi-million dollar homes. Something else you need to understand about these kinds of islands is by their very nature they move. They’re really just incredibly big sand dunes sunk into the ocean. If you look at a map of the coast from a very few generations ago you’ll see that the geography has undergone some serious change. Houses that had yards of beach in front of them fifteen years ago are now practically falling in the water.

          It boggles my mind that someone looked at these mosquito infested, hills of shifting silica with tides surrounding them that have dragged many a professional sailor to an untimely demise and thought, “Hey, what a cool vacation spot!” And yet a few dozen years later and that’s what it is. They’ve drained swamps, dredged canals, and put up sandbags and it actually is a very cool place to go for the summer. I suppose I just don’t understand the desire of man to “conquer” something that is ephemeral by its very nature.

          And so I return to the hurricane that I mentioned at the beginning of this article. Isabel is on her way and if she hits she could very well wipe all of these careful preparations away. Billions of dollars of property damage and no doubt some numbers of lives lost and all so you could live somewhere hot, humid and buggy that isn’t guaranteed to be here in thirty years. Up until now a great deal of luck has prevented this sort of tragedy. A hurricane this powerful hasn’t made landfall in a number of years and it still may not. Isabel could be blown off course and simply dissolve in the ocean. In my opinion though this is merely a reprieve. It’s only a matter of time.

          Of course this whole mentality stretches beyond the present example. Whenever I see forest fires or earthquakes happening to folks out west the same thoughts come to mind. Why build somewhere you know undergoes periodic geographic cleansing? These things are all God’s way of Etch-a-Sketching the planet, taking out the garbage if you will. And we as a race believe that we have the right/power enough to withstand this or prepare for it. I know that we have to build somewhere, but to do it in a place where you know this sort of thing happens with a fair amount of regularity smacks of hubris.

          Well all I can do now is pray for the people that are packing trucks and cars with their valuable belongings. I pray that they have homes to return to. I pray that their places of business will be able to re-open on Monday. I pray that they all have the brains to leave well in advance of this behemoth if it continues on its present course. But I would be remiss if I didn’t say that a small part of me was praying that they would be smart enough not to return.

TARGET: BINGE DRINKING

      I was talking with a young man in college just a few days ago and he remarked that he had bonged five beers in ten minutes. Now for those of you that have no clue what this is I will elucidate. A beer bong (in my day) was made from a length of tubing sufficient to hold twelve ounces of the cheapest beer available, a large mouthed funnel in which to pour said beer (the larger the better because the pourer is usually drunk and to spill a drop of “Milwaukee’s Best” is criminal), and some sort of clamp to hold the two together. The “bonger” puts the tube in his mouth once it has been filled and the “bongee” lifts the funnel high above the other’s head. The object is to swallow all of that crap in one long go without puking. You can also shotgun a beer. To do this you merely punch a hole in the side of the can towards the bottom, put your mouth over the hole, and open the beer. Shotgunning is cheaper but can be messier. In any event, I don’t know of a stupider thing to do involving beer. Well OK, there was that experiment I tried with chocolate ice cream, but I digress.

      Binge drinking is and has been all of the rage on college campuses for many years and so is nothing new but the above youngster got me to thinking about drinking. I like a good beer now and again. I’m also not adverse to a little liquor on occasion. When I was in school I certainly engaged in drinking more than was healthy and I drank while underage. The question I guess is why? I have no doubt that these kids know that drinking that much is bad for them. In fact when I told this young man how stupid this kind of behavior was, his reaction was “I know”. They are constantly bombarded with information on how much real damage this kind of drinking can do. Young people have died doing just these sorts of things and all because it’s “cool”. Well I think it’s because drinking underage is taboo and it’s a hard one to resist. The peer pressure is phenomenal.

      That got me to thinking about the drinking age again. You know in this country a man can buy porn after leaving the Army recruiter’s office on his way to vote, but he can’t buy a beer. I think that if you’re old enough to vote then you should be able to drink. Heck I know how many times I’ve felt like drinking after leaving the voting booth. It’s my understanding that once upon a time our men and women in uniform could at least buy beer on base if they were eighteen, but I don’t think this is the case any longer. Now how far is that I ask you?

      I brought this up to my wife and she said that drinking can really screw up your life and so that’s a good reason to push it off ‘til twenty-one. “While were at it”, she opined “perhaps they should push up the voting age too.” Well even if that happened then you know they wouldn’t bump the legal age to enlist. We like our soldiers young in this country by gum.

      I say that we should level the playing field. Make it all legal at eighteen. At least then we don’t have to worry as much about policing the colleges. Then if these young ones still get drunk even though there is no illusion of the “forbidden fruit” at least we know that they’re just hard-core alkies. We need to start treating college kids like the adults they think they are. In fact it might not be a bad idea if they made the criteria for legal intoxication a voter’s registration card in addition to being eighteen. It wouldn’t get them to the polls but at least they wouldn’t have any excuse if they didn’t like the government, but that’s a Firing Range for another time.

TARGET: MOVIE CLASSICS

      It seems to me that the concept of a classic film has gotten blow all out of whack. I see some of the younger film buffs I know calling movies like Deathrace 2000, Dune, and Blade Runner “classics”. Now don’t get me wrong. I love the last movie a great deal and the other two have their moments to be sure, but classics? No, no, no!! Merriam defines a classic as something; serving as a standard of excellence, of recognized value, traditional, enduring, historically memorable. None of these movies qualifies given these definitions.

      To me a classic should be at least thirty years old. That would prove that it is starting to stand the test of time. Granted that number is pretty arbitrary, but I like it. It’s a bit more than a generation and I think for a movie to truly be great it should be seen as such by the next generation of moviegoers. I also believe that it should be considered excellent in terms of writing, acting, cinematography, and directing. That would make it the total package. However, the most important thing is that it should tell a good story. Writing something that can be appreciated by audiences for decades if not generations to come is a daunting task, but without that all of the rest will fall apart.

      Having set that definition up I suppose it would be a good time to share some classics that fit the bill. The Wizard of Oz is a no-brainer. All of the technical aspects are excellent. It deals with human themes that are indeed timeless. It has entertained audiences for over sixty years. I believe that Psycho also qualifies as a classic. It set the bar for later horror movies fairly high and no one questions Hitchcock’s direction. The acting is good but I think that the cinematography itself is the real star. In a lighter vein and something that just squeaks under my age limitation, I would add MASH to the list of classic movies. The horrors of war are thrust into the audience’s face and the comedy serves to somehow simultaneously soften the blow and sharpen its edge. It also managed to spawn the long-lived television series, which used the same tools to comment on the conflict in Vietnam.

      There are quite a few films that are on the cusp of becoming classics. I have no doubt that E.T. will be a movie that will stand the test of time well. I can’t wait to share it with my children and see the same sense of wonder in their faces that blossomed in mine. One of the finest dramatic movies of my generation was The Elephant Man. Everything about this movie screams classic. I also believe that The Shawshank Redemption and The Iron Giant will also be around for a long time to come. Of course only time will tell. There are a number of other movies that will no doubt be lauded by everyone from film students to casual viewers that may surprise us.

      The thing that annoys me to no end are the people that will say that X movie is a classic when it hasn’t even left the theater yet. Who knows what people will remember in three months much less forty years? Some people don’t remember what they saw in theaters last week much less a year ago. It doesn’t hurt at all to believe that Return of the King will join the ranks of Casablanca or Citizen Kane, but to declare it as such this early on seems to cheapen the title for me. Those films have truly accomplished something by being not only remembered fondly but also truly studied for what they have brought to the medium.

      The other faction that sets my teeth on edge are those people that say any movie made in black and white or screened before they were born sucks. In order to understand where we are it is important to know where we have come form. Filmmakers have resources available to them that a Ray Harryhausen or a Lon Chaney could only dream about. They used what they had and pushed the envelope when they needed to. To reject the movies they made simply because of the limitations they had is short sighted to say the least. If I hear one more person say that they need to remake Kong because the effects suck, I am going to go postal. So we need to view older classics with an eye towards what they did with what they had and how much they accomplished.

      I think in any serious discussion of what makes a movie a classic you need to keep two things in mind. First, this is all just opinion and thus is very subjective. Second, I believe that if you don’t like a movie just because you weren’t around when it was made that you are a brain-dead idiot. Thanks you and good night.

TARGET: PUBLIC SCHOOL

          I was sitting on my front porch the other day warding of the occasional interloper (the neighborhood kids must think that “Keep off the grass.” means “Trample my wife’s pertunias.”) using my trusty Daisy air rifle and thinking about the fact that these little hooligans would be heading back to school soon. Ahhh, how lovely that will be for them. Back to the hygienic, brightly lit, and unchallenging halls of our nation’s “school system”.

          I’m by no means as old as many of my observations seem to make me but I remember a few things about school that our dear halls of education sorely need today. I’ll start with the letter F. When I was a wee lad it was possible for you to flunk and actually be sent back a year. A more enlightened school that I attended in Florida could do that for just one class while you advanced in the rest of your classes. That would be acceptable too. What I find more than a bit dismaying is linking how much funding a school receives to how well it does academically. In theory this sounds like a good idea, but we know that school districts have doctored figures to let athletes pass just so they could win a football game. How much more likely will this cheating be when salaries and jobs are on the line. And in addition there’s the whole concept of teaching to the test. Teachers get an idea of the beginning of the year as to the content of the end of grade test and tailor their lesson plans accordingly. This scares me more than a little bit.

          Something else that I think is missing from our schools is the idea of discipline. Where I went to Elementary school you were still allowed to use corporal punishment. That gradually changed to be possible only with a parent’s consent. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not an advocate for letting teachers administer physical discipline. In high school a student could receive suspensions, both in-school and out-of-school, for inappropriate behavior. That works for me, leave any physical discipline at home. Unfortunately thanks to lawsuits I’m not sure it’s even possible to hold a kid after school nowadays. So there is almost no real consequence for being a bad boy.

          When I was doing poorly or even when I was doing well in school, my teacher would let my parent know. As a parent you used to really know your child’s teacher. You were allies in your child’s education and discipline. The depressing fact is that now teachers and parents are no longer the tag team they once were. Teachers are encouraged to be watchdogs and listen carefully for any whisperings of morality that goes against the norm. They also have to watch out for any potential parental abuse. These may be excellent safeguards but it changes the parent/teacher dynamic drastically.

          The final thing about the schools today that really annoys me is the lack of a real education. I read some figures that show how much catch-up time kids need to spend in the three R’s once they get to college. When I was a senior in High School I was pretty much allowed to take whatever I wanted so half of my schedule was fluff. That’s when someone should’ve really been preparing me for college. Thanks to the overall dumbing down of secondary education, college is almost a necessity. The final problem of course is the fact that a lot of these very same problems are rearing their head in post-secondary public education.

          Are there any good solutions? Should we return to the one room schoolhouse where the schoolmarm has a ruler and a will to use it? I don’t really think so. I think we need to focus on teaching our kids real world skills. Make the kind of reading and writing that they’ll have to do in the real world a necessity for graduation. Hold then back until they get it right. Take away the summer vacation and go to year around school. Kids forget too much over the weekend to have two plus months off. Require that parents volunteer a certain amount of time in schools and if they don’t then have them pay an extra tax. Pay teachers more than just a basic living wage. All of these are ideas that various people are trying and the levels of success vary. The point is that our kids are our most valuable resource and they deserve the best education we can get them. Plus, maybe if Johnny could read I wouldn’t have to shoot him in the butt when he steps where he shouldn’t.

TARGET: BODY MODIFICATIONS - PART II
          A few of the Pearls Before Swine comic strips (here, here, and here) as well as a friend who read my last Firing Range who told me I should right a part two on plastic surgery got me thinking along these lines.

          Kids aren’t the only ones who do incredibly stupid things to their bodies. Adults are just as foolish if not more so. These adults actually pay large amounts of money to have their bodies mutilated in the hopes that they can attract a mate, keep a mate, or stave off impending age. In the comic strip the pig gets a pair of breast implants inadvertently. This sparks two thoughts in my mind.

          First, it seems that paying to get bags of saline implanted so that you are more attractive is silly. If your current mate likes big breasts then he shouldn’t have married you, dump him. If you are looking for men then find one who likes them small. They’re out there. I’m married to a woman who is well endowed. According to her, these things are no fun. She has back and shoulder problems and finding clothes that fit is a challenge to say the least.

          Secondly, why go under the knife and risk the surgeon making a mistake. Sure maybe the odds are slim. Maybe you won’t wind up with your nose in the middle of your forehead. But why take the chance. The surgery isn’t necessary. Anything involving anesthetic could KILL you and it’s expensive to boot. Big boobs aren’t worth dying for.

          Let’s move on to wrinkles. We basically have a few options here. On the low end you can get a chemical peal or dermabrasion. One is basically putting acid on your face. The second is the equivalent of using a belt sander on your skin. Do I really need to say more here?

          Another option is to get collagen injections. These can take away small divots but more often it is done to give you fuller lips. Full lips can indeed look sexy but if you don’t already have them then it’s likely that when you have them it won’t look right. And even if it does you have to go back periodically and get it done. But that’s not the worst offender.

          People actually pay to inject botulism into their face. This is beyond stupid. All right so it isn’t active botulism, it is a “cultured protein”. I’ve even heard it compared to champagne in one radio spot for a local clinic. Bullshit. The purpose of it is to paralyze your facial nerve so that a wrinkle can be smoothed away. Sounds like they’re turning your face into Silly Putty. To make it worse you have to go back and keep getting shots. That is until it kills the nerve completely.

Finally for the really lazy person we have permanent makeup. This is basically a tattoo where someone would ordinarily put cosmetics. Is putting on makeup REALLY that hard? Yes it takes time (been married eight years) but at least a little Noxzema takes it right off.

          “Why all the fuss Scott? After all, it’s their money.” Well sure. People can do whatever they want to their bodies. It’s a free country after all. But let me tell you something, you are going to get old and die. It happens to every one of us. This won’t change it and I figure you might as well enjoy your wrinkles, sags and grey hairs. You earned them. If you had exercised and stayed out of the sun then you might have less to worry about. And I think that all of this surgery sends bad messages to our kids. After all you can’t very well say “Now Johnny you shouldn’t go out and get a piercing/tattoo/tongue bifurcation. You should enjoy who you are.” And then go out and get a tummy tuck. Do some freakin’ sit-ups! Like I told the kids, respect your body and treat it well and maybe people will respect you.


TARGET: BODY MODIFICATIONS - PART I
          I’ll start this rant by saying that I myself have a pierced ear. I got it when I was twenty-nine and it is in my right ear. It was basically a “What the hell, I’m working at an art school and they won’t care.” kind of thing. I have zero problem with an adult getting an ear pierced or a tattoo because they understand that these things can limit your employment options. This is leveled at those stupid kids who get a face full of metal or a Tweetybird on their forehead and then complain when they can’t get a job.

          I have a great deal of respect for people who get a tattoo for cultural reasons or a deep seated need to express themselves. As long as a great deal of thought and reflection goes into it then we’re cool. Tattooing is a very painful process and it is permanent so that should be a given. Yes you can get them removed but that is expensive and doesn’t always work. THINK PEOPLE! If your whole upper body is reminiscent of the fifth circle of hell or you have twin dragons crawling up your arm then the only job you should be applying for needs to be one where the floor is covered in sawdust. If you have last months Penthouse pictorial inked on your belly to assist you in wanking, PLEASE don’t come to the beach. If you’re that guy who got his face tattooed and bewhiskered like a tiger or if you admire him in any way then you need to look into therapy and a job that allows you to work from home.

          There are some mighty good-looking women out there who have those waist tattoos that peek out of their low-rise jeans. Is this sexy? It can be, but so is a nice pair of lacy drawers and you can take those off in seconds. When they turn fifty it won’t look good. Of course I hope they won’t be wearing low cut jeans them either. Oh and for goodness’ sake don’t get somebody’s name put on you in any permanent fashion. Marriages these days last about as long as a pop song.

          A good rule of thumb could be, if the thought “Maybe I shouldn’t.” ever enters your mind then don’t. If you are drunk, then don’t. If it involves a cartoon character or something you would find on a VW Bug, a personalized plate, or a bumper sticker, DON’T!           Piercings also have a long tradition behind them. That’s fine if that’s your culture. If not then STAY AWAY. It HURTS to get pierced. Anyone who says otherwise is LYING. There was a jackass that got pierced a record number of times and then had them all taken out immediately because he didn’t want to look like the moron he is. He almost passed out part of the way through from pain and shock and he KEPT GOING! Maybe he should have kept the piercings in so people would be able to spot him. Tongue bars make you sound like an idiot and if it gets infected you could probably lose your tongue, which wouldn’t be so bad in some cases. If you are a waiter or work in any public service venue, don’t go there. I would also recommend staying away from nose rings. If you get a head cold that stuff is just NASTY. I don’t want to look at that while I’m trying to decide what I want on my pizza.

          Some would argue that a tongue piercing could increase the receiver’s pleasure during oral sex. If it doesn’t feel good without the pierced tongue then you aren’t doing it right! And having been on the receiving end from someone who knows what they’re doing, I don’t know that I’d want it to feel better. And while we’re down there, anyone that gets a piece of metal jammed through any part of their body as packed with nerve endings as our genitals are deserves the pain. I hope they find out that this causes sterility. The only good thing about getting something pierced is that if you take it out, it heals back.

          In closing I would like to say this. I have no idea what kids will do next to try and make themselves look different. Maybe there will be holographic 3-d tattoos. Perhaps they will coat their bodies in molten metal. I know, lets just cut off random body parts! Whatever it turns out to be I just hope that there is some old geezer like me who can stand around and tell these kids just how stupid they are. Respect your bodies and maybe someone will respect you.


TARGET: CUSTOMER SERVICE
      I was watching the old Twilight Zone where the chick is driving across country and she keeps seeing this hitchhiker. Eventually it turns out the she’s really dead and he’s some kind of spirit of death or something, we’re never really told what. Anyway, she goes into a gas station and the guy pumps the gas for her! Now this doesn’t amaze me too much as I earned some money that way for a bit, but it got me to thinking. There are very few places left now where you get your gas pumped for you and even where you can they don’t wipe your windows and they sure as heck don’t check the oil. “Self–service”, which is really no service at all, is the rule of the day.

      Equally frustrating is any trip I make to Wally World or Tar-gay. I could wander around for hours, see ten “sales associates”, and never get asked once if I need any help. (As a side note if you ever see me wandering around your local bargain bin store, please cap me in the head because I have been Remero-ized.) Now I’m a smart boy so I actually probably don’t need any help but it would be nice to be asked you know? I did a turn in one of the large office supply chains for a couple of years (I’ve had more jobs than Bruce Campbell.) and it was drilled into our heads that if we passed a customer, we were to ask them if they needed help. Did that bug the heck out of some? Sure, but at least they couldn’t complain that they couldn’t find something.

      Now a place where I could occasionally use some help would be my local super chain bookstore. Those places are a nightmare and they frequently shelve things in the STUPIDEST of places. I mean I’m almost certain that I saw a copy of The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty in the kid’s section (not that I was looking for it you understand). There, instead of your friendly neighborhood “booksellers“ lending assistance, they have a desk where someone can look up your titles. I might as well shop online if they’re going to do that.

      That’s what I really think will cause the brick and mortar store’s demise if anything does. I’d rather buy my books or DVD’s online than try and find them myself. If I want an espresso, I’ll pull it myself at home rather than let some kid who couldn’t tell you what crema was and who hasn’t washed his hands since the Clinton scandal do it. So to my fellow shoppers, REBEL!! Refuse to bow down to Korporate Amerika and their desire to make you accept bad service from underpaid teenage wage slaves!! Shop online and at least you won’t have to pay for the lack of service, or go to privately owned business and spend another coin for great service. Remember that like He-man, you have the POWER!!


TARGET: HYPE
      Office Coffee – Coffee is the nectar of the gods. That stuff that sits in my office break room in a glass carafe is more like the stuff that gets scraped up from the movie heaters they have in Hell (where they only have a double bill of Jackass and Throw Momma from the Train).

      Any Kevin Costner movie – This man has been handed some scripts that should have blown the doors off the theaters. I mean come ON. A movie about Robin Hood with Morgan Freeman, Christian Slater, and Sean Connery, that should have been the best movie in HISTORY.

      Thongs – I love to see me some butt. I also like things that leave just a little bit to the imagination. Why is it that the only people that wear these things in real life are cast members from the Huge Ugly Redneck Show (the next reality series on UPN)?

      The Internet – Free information sharing world-wide, streaming video and audio, the ability to learn new languages and meet interesting people and EVERY SEARCH I DO GIVES ME BACK GOAT PORN?!?!?! Why is it that something that should display the some total of human knowledge and experience seems to give me nothing but reams of drivel about what Buffy is doing this week?

      The Star Wars Prequels – OK I like many geeks my age worshiped at the alter of Lucas, had/have all of the toys, and memorized vast swaths of the dialog if not the entire frickin’ movie. The he gives us this PAP? I mean OK they aren’t horrible but I haven’t been this let down since my Dad gave me a dead puppy for Christmas.

      Windows – Micro$oft has spent uncountable millions of dollars on writing an operating system that gives us previously unknown levels of safety, security, stability, and cool bells and whistles. All I want is an OS that doesn’t lock up when the wind changes and that doesn’t decide when to hide a program from me that I haven’t used in a while.

      Cable/Satellite TV – Yeah!! Thanks to digital cable/satellite I have over a hundred channels. I don’t need a TV guide because they build one into my TV set. I also don’t need one because there is nothing on worth watching. It seems like every show is about somebody trying to marry somebody else for money or a bunch of people in the middle of nowhere trying to bump each other off. If I want to see that I’ll go to a family reunion.

      Pay Phones – Well here’s a seemingly good idea. You’re in a public place, you have yet to give in to the evil entity that is the cell phone, and need to make a quick call. Hey there’s a phone attached to the wall over there! Great idea until you realize three things: the cord is only twelve inches long, the phone book has been ripped off of its steel arm so a homeless person could have some toilet paper, and the last person to use this made Typhoid Mary look like Richard Simmons.

      American Idol – Hey a massive talent search to find and give an opportunity to artists that have been having a problem getting a break. That sounds really cool. The problem here is that the people who sit on the judge’s benches are talentless hacks and the voters are the same people that think Britney is the epitome of vocal ability.


TARGET: CELL PHONES
          I carry two of the damn things at times, thanks to my work. My wife carries one with her at all times. I can’t go to a bookstore or movie theater without seeing someone talking on one of these contraptions. Don’t get me wrong; they are incredibly convenient and I use mine quite a bit. Case in point, I was at Wally World the other night buying tights for my daughter’s dance camp and couldn’t find exactly what my wife told me to get. Now as anyone who’s been married more than thirty seconds can tell you, if you go to the store on an errand for your spouse you had better not come back with something different than requested. Thanks to my ever present cell a quick call and the problem was solved. In my youth I would’ve had to find a pay phone and drop a dime in (yes pay phones once cost a dime).

          I have to admit that I am guilty of the sin of talking on my cell while driving. I know, that’s dangerous and I should be ashamed. The temptation here is to get on a sidetrack about women driving SUV’s, talking on their phones, while applying make-up and smoking a cigarette but I won’t. I try to keep the driving and talking to a minimum though as my motor skills are envied only by epileptic chimpanzees. My wife has developed a “Praise Jesus” reflex on those rare occasions where she lets herself be a passenger. Whenever I take a corner her hands shoot up like a Pentecostal, only her search is for a handhold and not the Almighty. Perhaps these people who seem to do it all the time have more skills than I do but judging by their swerves I would guess not. So in an effort to avoid meeting my Maker any earlier than the appointed date I usually let it go to voicemail.

          So as I was saying these devices do have their place, but as I watch the commercials for them I am beginning to believe that they are trying to take over the world. That’s right, I believe that cell phones are really miniature aliens who are bent on global domination. Bear with me here a while. Once they were necessary only to make phone calls more convenient, a blessing that has saved many a marriage no doubt. I have uttered the words, “What did we do without these?”. But it hasn’t stopped there, now you can not only receive phone calls on them you can also get email. That’s right, just in case you can’t wait until you get home or to your office to check mail you can do it on the go. Confession time again, I am an email junkie. If I don’t get at least nine or ten non-Spam emails a day I begin to doubt my self worth. So this is perfect I think, how convenient, instant gratification anywhere on the planet.

          But even that isn’t enough, now we have commercials showing that you can take, send, and receive pictures with these little things and you can get VIDEO GAMES. Soon I’m sure you’ll be able to get television on them too. Then there’d be no reason not to carry one of these little monsters around. Who doesn’t want to be constantly connected to the world, with the ability to amuse yourself or do business anywhere on the planet? Oh sure, there are a few die hard Luddites around who will try and resist, but ultimately they will fall prey to these things too. And then when everyone on the face of the planet has one of these precious little chunks of plastic and deception, only then will the code be activated. At that point they will all come to life and overthrow our governments and the entire infrastructure of the planet. Or maybe not.


TARGET: REMAKE FEVER
      It seems that Hollywood has been bingeing on remakes lately. I know that foreign films like Ringu, Trois Hommes et un Couffin, and Travolti da un Insolito Destino Nell'azzurro Mare D'agosto (bonus points if you can name the movies they were made into, without IMDB) were just begging to get remade, because God forbid anyone should have to read subtitles. But this doesn’t explain the necessity of making things like Shaft, Planet of the Apes, or Rollerball, all originally masterful pieces of cinema in their own right. OK, OK any excuse to see Mr. Jackson as a badass is a good one and I’ll admit that I found Helena Bonham Carter strangely attractive as an ape. Still you just have to ask WHY?!?!

      Looking forward of course we have examples of more of these sorts of things coming down the pike. I have recently heard that they are planning on remaking King Kong with Peter Jackson at the helm. My first thought was that this was going to be a huge disaster. Why remake one of the most classic monster flicks of all time? It was then that I remembered the huge geekgasm I had when I watched his most recent masterworks. That put most reservations I had to rest. Some geek-a-zoids wish he would return to a smaller film along the lines of his zombie movie. I say why let the folks at WETA get flabby, but I digress. Other remakes await us including a Chan-starring Around the World in 80 Days and Bellboy, yet ANOTHER Phantom of the Opera, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (which pisses this Danny Kaye fan off righteously), and two of my favorite indulgences THEM! and Walking Tall. These remakes may or may not be crappy, personally I think most of them will be but again that begs the question WHY?!?!

      I suppose the first reason could be a lack of new ideas, but that doesn’t hold water. There are a million writers out there with a billion “original” ideas. Any monkey with a keyboard can sit there and bang out fresh stuff so there’s no lack of talent or new material. I suppose another reason could be that it’s cheaper to do a remake. However, even with a remake the studio still needs to get someone to update the story so there’s no resource savings there. In fact it’s probably cheaper to get an unknown to write a script than it is to get rights to a flick that’s already been made. Then there are risk factors, but that’s bunk too. No way is a remake is a guaranteed success, especially if the original was crap and that’s the ONLY reason I like for a remake getting done in the first place. If the original was great then just re-master it, print it, and put it out there. The old prints need to be re-mastered to save them anyway. While it may be a risk to say put my novel on the big screen, I guess to some degree it is a lesser one to put all of Michael Caine’s flicks on new celluloid. Hey I guess that’s fine as long as they redo crap like Billion Dollar Brain and The Hand and stay away from The Man Who Would Be King. All I’m saying is that they are taking a gamble either way. So in this man’s humble opinion Hollywood is just lazy and stupid. Get off the remake train and give us something new and fresh!





(C) 2003 Captain Eucalyptus