One day God sat down and said, "Y'know what would be a hoot? Take a biological imperative and cast it as a sin. Ha! I kill Me! Let's see...which one? Eating? Nah. Too many kinds of food, I'd never keep up. Those bald monkeys will eat anything that doesn't eat them first. Evacuating bowels? Meh. Too stinky. Wait! I've got it. Sex! They're hardwired to want it -- hell, they can't even stop thinking about it. And every time they pair up, I double down. Perfect! Well...better get cracking. Those sinners aren't gonna guilt-trip themselves."

Larger Than Life 3D - Movie Review

Here's what I learned from watching Gogol Bordello, Ben Harper & Relentless 7 and Dave Matthews Band in stunning 360 degree 3D on the big screen.

1. Gogol Bordello (left) are nuts. Just nuts.

2. Ben Harper's drummer needs to either drop a couple of pounds, or start wearing bigger shirts.

3. Dave Matthews sweats from back to front. But it doesn't really matter, after four songs he looks like he jumped in a swimming pool with his clothes on anyway.

Many reviewers took the position that 3D was totally unnecessary for this concert movie. Maybe. But it's still pretty cool. The technology really has gotten better, and you really do feel like you're there. And in this instance, "there" isn't in the audience, it's right up "there" with the band. I kept waiting to get tackled by security and hauled off the stage. When there was a shot from the audience perspective, you definately felt "there", too. When a beach ball came sailing past, I ducked.

Oh, and the trailer for "Avatar" in 3D is worth the price of admission all by itself, so you're covered.

My Pro-Kitchen Thanksgiving

My wife Joni loves working with Bono (not THAT Bono, the chef Bono, pronounced Bone-Oh) and Georgia, owners of Cielo Blu Restaurant in Carlton. Once again this Thanksgiving Cielo Blu was dedicated exclusively to serving Turkey Dinners with all the handmade trimmings, free to all comers, with donations cheerfully accepted to benefit Joseph's Storehouse and Share and Care -- two local food banks serving families in need in the towns of Yamhill and Carlton.

Executive Chef Bono was in the kitchen before sunrise, seasoning and roasting a plethora of plump poultry. There was hand made cranberry-orange sauce, freshly mashed red potatoes and toasted walnut & cranberry & apple stuffing. For desert -- the most amazing pumpkin pie ever, baked and donated by Tony of Quetal Creations (tonimacaroni123@msn.com).

My role in all of this: washing dishes. Lots and lots of dishes. And pots and pans -- including the ever popular "hotel pans" (like a casserole pan, only the size of an eastern seaboard state with baked-on foodstuff. Think Rhode Island that's been simmering gravy all afternoon). And glasses, coffee cups, silverware, ladles, cutting boards, and all the other various Land-Of-The-Giants cooking implements that are part of everyday pro-kitchen life in a real restaurant.

The last time I did this kind of work professionally it was legal to smoke in restaurants, so I was happy at least to find there were no cigarette butts on the plates buried in the leftover mashed potatoes.

We really didn't know how busy we would be, so Bono's regular crew was standing by, donating their time, letting us volunteer amatures trip over each other, but in case we got really busy, they could snap into action. Caesar, the regular dishwasher, turned over his space and let me figure it out, and maybe there was just a little twinkle in his eye as he was dropping off piles of dishes he didn't have to wash. He gave me a hearty handshake at the end of the evening, after I'd scrubbed the bejesus out of all those hotel pans and put them back where they belonged. There was a twinkle in his eye then, too, so maybe I did OK.

By closing time, $622 was raised for the food banks, a good time was had by all, and my delicate DJ hands could use a little moisturizer.

Guess What We're Doing This Weekend

I'll Say This for the Tomato Crop This Year - It's Got Range

M'Kay?

Them's the Rules

If a woman is wrong and she admits it, the man is obliged to graciously drop the matter.

If a man is wrong and he admits it, the woman is obliged to graciously spend the next two days exploring every minute detail and possible permutation of his wrongness and rank it in a comparative historical timeline of his prior wrongs, with an emphasis on how it made her feel.

Hey, I don't make the rules.

Neilsen Family Values

I don’t know what made me think of this episode of Family Affair, and at first I wasn’t sure if it was real, or if I’d imagined it.

Oh, it’s real alright. The classic “Weekend Hippie” episode, officially titled “Flower Power”

I hadn’t actually seen an episode of Family Affair since I was a kid myself, and the show was still in its original pre-ironic state.

Here it is, in three part harmony. Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

It got me to thinking about 50s and 60s TV sitcoms in general, though.

There’s been plenty of fuss about sitcoms from the 50s promoting unrealistic stereotypes. The white picket fences, the two parent households, the coat and tie dad solving all problems within 24 minutes, June Cleaver’s tasteful and understated string of pearls while washing dishes, that sort of thing.

But how did that lead to the unprecedented spouse-slaughter of the 60s Sitcom?

The Courtship of Eddie’s Father – starring Bill Bixby as the widowed architect raising a precocious young son.

Julia - at least Diahann Carroll's backstory came with some glory. She was a widowed single mother because her fighter-pilot husband had been shot down in Vietnam. I still remember the promo for this series, where she says on the phone to her prospective boss (gruff old white guy Lloyd Nolan) "I think you should know that I'm colored." And he says "What color are you?" Big laughs! The 60s!

The Brady Bunch, one show – two dead spouses. Carol Brady’s first husband’s demise was implied, but never explained. The original script called for her to be a divorcee, but the network wouldn’t stand for it.

Not much was ever said about the man who sired The Partridge Family, either, but evidently the strain of producing five musical prodigies in a row put him six feet under.

And then, of course, Family Affair. Both parents tragically dead in a car accident, three children sent to live with a gruff and reluctant bachelor uncle and his aloof British manservant in a luxury Manhattan penthouse. I’d love to have been a fly on the wall when they were pitching this one to the network.

So in the 50s, kids were left wondering “How come my mom never wears pearls at dinner?”

But in the 60s and 70s, kids were left wondering “How come I’m saddled with two parents bossing me around? And a different set of parents on holidays and alternate weekends? And how come my step-sister doesn’t look anything like Marcia Brady?”

Two Shows on Sunday

I've got that new song from Regina Spektor stuck in my head this weekend. That's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it. Here's the video.

Of Dragons and Garden Peas

When Les Sarnoff first told me that his cancer had returned and he was going to take a leave of absence for treatment, I remembered this article I'd heard about.

Published in March of 1981, it was written by Alice Trillin, the wife of one of my favorite writers, Calvin Trillin, after she was diagnosed with lung cancer. The essay was based on a talk she gave to medical students at Cornell and Albert Einstein Medical schools, and it is included in the curriculum at many medical schools to this day, to give students a patient's perspective of a cancer diagnosis.

I really wanted Les to have it.

To my horror, I discovered that it is impossible to find on the internet. I couldn't even purchase it from the New England Journal of Medicine, where it was originally published. I found lots of references to it, all singing it's praises, but no copies of the full article.

It drove me crazy. Of all the content that's at your fingertips online, from Shakespeare to kitties falling into fish tanks -- THIS is nowhere to be found?

Finally I gave up on the internet, and started calling. I called libraries, universities, hospitals all over Oregon. And finally, I found it -- in the archives of Providence Cancer Center, the very place where Les was getting treatment.

With many thanks to Amy Roth and Diane Wiesner...
Here it is.

Shadow Art Made From Garbage

Here's a medium for art that doesn't get much notice. But the materials are sure available. Get some bright lights, head to the nearest landfill, and get creative.

Here's a link to some more examples...

Great Album, With Caveat

The most facinating thing under the Christmas tree this year was the CD "Love" by the Beatles. It's the soundtrack for the Cirque du Soliel stageshow. It's really amazing. Beatles producer George Martin and his son Giles put it together, using original masters. Every song is remixed -- revisited is more like it. Sometimes subtly different, sometimes radically -- like when several Beatles tunes are intertwined into a "mashup". I'm facinated and enthralled by it, but I find I can only listen in short bursts. After a couple of songs, I snatch the headphones off and have to catch my breath.

Purists -- ye be warned.

Turning Japanese

Kumoricon 2006 took over the Red Lion Jantzen Beach over the Labor Day weekend, and it was good.

Kumoricon is the big convention for all things anime. Anime – the highly stylized and extremely popular form of Japanese animation that spans feature films, television, graphic novels (don’t call them comic books), video games and websites beyond measure. And lifestyle itself – one of the big vendors at Kumoricon was Uwajimaya, the giant Asian grocery store chain.

My 15 year old son is very into anime. He was dying to go to Kumoricon and worked really hard for extra money to make it happen. Fair enough. I would have been happy to drop him off at the lobby and pick him up a few hours later, but this event is very well organized, and “No Unaccompanied Minors” is one of their bedrock rules. (You should see the “No Weapons” rule – it goes on forever, on account of all the people who show up in costume. You can’t be a ninja with no sword, so the Policies section of the Official Program really breaks it down. Oaths of Honor are involved, but I digress.)

So I got to go to Kumoricon as well. In the role-playing gaming world, I guess I would have been categorized as a “Mildly Reluctant Dad”, with most of my special powers concentrated in the arenas of “Credit Cards” and “Car Keys”.

You should have seen the place. It was swarming – hundreds of anime fans, mostly young people in their late teens or early twenties, with a fair amount of fully accompanied kids and fully grown adults mixed in. And most of them were in costume. Elaborate, detailed, probably very expensive costumes, combined with makeup and hairstyling – all to recreate the look of some particular person or creature or mechanized being from the massive world of anime characters. Every other person, it seemed, was draped in satin robes and had half a pound of foam rubber fused to their skull.

But there was something odd about the way they carried themselves. It took a while before I figured out what it was.

Usually, in a scene like Mardi Gras or a big Halloween party, the people dressed up in the most elaborate costumes are also the most extroverted and dramatic people in the room. It just goes with the territory. But this bunch all seemed to be the painfully shy and self-conscious type. It was disorienting. Here were all these people who’s attire screamed “look at me!”, but their body language seemed to radiate embarrassment.

Then there was Alex, my son. He’s thin, and has long blonde hair. His favorite anime character is a thin, long haired blonde teenage boy named Edward Elric, from the very popular “Full Metal Alchemist” series. Everywhere you looked at Kumoricon, you’d see posters or coffee-table books featuring this dude. Edward wears his hair pulled back in a ponytail, and when Alex puts his hair in a ponytail, he’s a dead ringer. He looks just like the guy. If they were casting for a live action movie version of “Full Metal Alchemist”, Alex would definitely get a call-back, at least.

But he was reluctant, he didn’t want to put his hair in a ponytail. I told him, “Look around you. That guy’s dressed up like a damn robot! That girl over there is walking around in a full blown “Hello Kitty” outfit. Come on, an Edward ponytail isn’t really going to cross the line here.”

So he did it, and it was amazing. With nothing more to his “costume” than a single rubber band, he instantly looked more like his character than most of the people with the layers of fabric, foam rubber and makeup. He didn’t look like a guy dressed up as Edward, he looked like Edward.

As we wandered in and out of the various ballrooms and workshops and demonstrations, I hung back and watched people watching Alex. Heads turned. Girls swooned. Many eyes tracked his every move. And I came to appreciate the wisdom of the “No Unaccompanied Minors” rule.

We went home happy, me with my swag-bag full of only the schedules, maps and indecipherable Japanese literature that they give you at the registration desk, and Alex with his newly purchased treasure trove of books and shiny objects. And it’s starting to look like maybe next year, we’ll register early and attend more than one day.

Do-It-Yourself Mystery Science Theater

Remember the much beloved and long cancelled cult favorite TV show Mystery Science Theater 3000?

If the name doesn't ring a bell, here's the short version: an average Joe and his two robot pals are marooned in space and forced to watch cheesy low-budget movies. To preserve their sanity, they mercilessly ridicule -- out loud -- what's on the screen. Much like what anyone does, sitting on the couch in front of cheesy TV. Only here you had a team of top notch comedy writers, cutting loose with two hours worth of jokes each episode. And what range -- everything from the most juvenile humor to obsure references to Greek mythology or Pinter plays.

A great show, had a long run, won a Peabody Award, I taped every episode -- but now it's gone.


But wait! Now Michael J. Nelson, the former star and head writer of MST3K, is trying something new. RiffTrax, a website where you can download MP3 files of Mike working his old magic -- riffing away at a movie.

They don't provide the movie, or any audio from the movie, just the MP3 of Mike making fun of the movie. Once you've downloaded the file (for $1.99) you can put it on your iPod, any MP3 player, burn it to a disk, whatever. Then you buy or rent the DVD of the movie in question. Get them both going at the same time, and voila! Do-It-Yourself Mystery Science Theater. The MP3s have very good instructions on how to make everything synch up, and stay in synch.

So far there only two completed Rifftrax ready for download: Roadhouse, starring Patrick Swayze, and The Fifth Element, starring Bruce Willis. More movies are promised, and other commentators alongside Mike are strongly hinted at.

I downloaded Fifth Element -- no problems, sounds hilarious, can't wait to synch them up this weekend.

Rifftrax

The Teflon Mind

Here’s an odd little slice of life story.

This is the kind of story that reminds some people of something, and others like it because they can say “Sounds like somebody has a little too much free time on their hands…”

OK. Fair enough. Maybe so. Now, on with the story.

When I was a kid, naturally I loved watching TV. I think for quite a stretch I was banned from watching TV on weeknights, so Friday nights were almost holy for me. I’d zip myself up in a sleeping bag and watch TV till I couldn’t keep my eyelids up any longer. Then I’d just lay there and listen -- eventually, flags would wave just beyond my eyeballs, anthems would play, and then I'd wake up to the classic black and white test pattern with an Indian in the middle.

This was in the three-networks-and-a-local, pre-remote control days, by the way. I really don’t remember much about whatever junk was on the tube on Friday nights in the mid 60’s. “The Munsters” may have been involved, and they weren’t re-runs, either.

But I do have one incredibly vivid memory of something I saw one night. I was maybe eight or nine years old, and the memory of it seared itself into my brain so fully, so clearly, that ever after, and to this day, I can recall this thing as if I were watching it on a TV screen right now.

I wish I could say it was something like the Nixon-Kennedy debate, or the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, or the Apollo moon landing. Afraid not.

What got stuck in my brain was just a short scene from a cheesy low budget science fiction movie. Not the whole movie, mind you, just this one scene. The movie had something to do with some astronaut guy stranded on some harsh distant planet. Even at the time, I knew it was cheesy and low budget, possibly because even at age eight or nine, I could tell that the guy’s “spacesuit” looked suspiciously like a surplus US Air Force flight suit, and his “space helmet” looked a lot like an Air Force flight helmet.

In this one particular scene, the astronaut guy happened upon a pool of water on this hostile planet. And in the pool of water was some kind of plant life with seed pods that he could eat.

That’s it. That’s the whole thing, that’s all I remembered. I didn’t remember anything else from that movie, and I certainly didn’t remember the movie’s title. But I remembered that one scene so vividly; it just stuck to my brain like it was glued there.

And for the next forty years, I kind of scouted for this scene from this movie again, maybe just to make sure I hadn't imagined it in the first place. Any time I was channel surfing and I came across an old movie that had anything to do with any kind of astronaut on any kind of foreign planet, I’d watch the damn thing -- waiting to see if maybe this was the one.

Years after the original “Planet of the Apes” had achieved retro-cult status, I watched that movie again. I barely remembered “Planet of the Apes”, so for a brief moment at the beginning, when the astronauts had crash landed on a “foreign planet”, I was sure this was it. But it wasn’t.

Decades of casual late night TV watching rolled by – because now I could watch TV even on school nights, if I wanted to. So I always kept an eye out for this mystery movie.

I never spotted it, yet I could never seem to forget it, either.

Then it finally happened. Within a few days of my forty-eighth birthday, I was flipping through the satellite movie channels, and I landed on a cheesy vintage sci-fi movie about some astronaut-like guy in a cheesy vintage Air Force flight suit, struggling to survive on a hostile alien planet. And he found a pool of water, and….well, you know.

The point of the story being – isn’t it strange how the mind works?

I couldn’t tell you a single thing about, say, my bedroom when I was eight or nine years old. The bed frame, any posters on the wall, the chest of drawers – I must have had all those things, but I remember nothing about them. I don’t remember who my teacher was that year. I couldn’t tell you who my best friend was. I can’t recall the face of my beloved babysitter without a photograph in my hand. But for forty years I remembered that little scene from that totally forgettable old movie.

Why?

And wouldn’t it be nice if we had a little more control over that sort of thing? The ability to pick and choose which memories stick, and which ones slide off of our brains like they were made of Teflon. Oh, well.

The movie, by the way, was “Robinson Crusoe on Mars” – made in 1964, starring Adam West, but he wasn't even the guy dining on Martian seed pods. Hell yes, I taped it.


Some links to movie reviews for this timeless classic...
Sci-Fi.com
Internet Movie Database

Separated at Birt...no, wait..um, how about..Willie Nelson's Love Child?

Dave's Rock n' Roll Fantasy

(Click on image to enlarge)

TV Sweeps Wheel of Fear

Ever wonder how the local TV News decides what to scare you with each day during the ratings periods?

(Click Image to Enlarge)