Alan's Little Life Maxims #23

It's pleasant to be around a campfire. It's not pleasant being around someone else who has been around a campfire.

A Prime Turd

I saw "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" a few days ago. Normally I'd write about it myself, but I found someone who posted a review on IMDB and said it so well, that for me to write my own would be like trying to paint a sequel to the Mona Lisa. I agree with every word:

"When Shakespeare's Hamlet spoke of life being "...a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury; signifying nothing." he was actually referring to a Michael Bay film. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is the movie equivalent of a 13 year old boy who has stopped taking his ADHD meds and overindulged on caffeine, sugar, video games and porn. It makes me wonder if Michael Bay actually is a 13 year old boy--the victim of a tragic case of arrested development. 13 year old boys also appear to be the target demographic that this movie was made for.

"In Revenge of the Fallen the dialog mostly consists of people yelling inanities at each other and robots making expository speeches that attempt to provide some vague skeleton of a plot. The female characters are either soft-porn eye candy or blithering idiots. Or both. The violence is almost non-stop, interrupted occasionally by jokes which revolve around scrotums and testicles and oral sex and humping. The ethnic stereotypes are shocking. The homophobia is palpable. This film displays all of the tact, intellect and decency of a locker room full of pubescent boys.

"Once the action kicks in, it is relentless. The battling robots are mostly incomprehensible blurs of motion and color and clanging noises. The music pounds. Guns and cannons fire. Jets roar. Things explode. The characters run and yell. It quickly becomes tedious, but it goes on and on and on like this. When it was over, I walked out of the theater dizzy.

"The best part of seeing Revenge of the Fallen was when I left the theater, got into my car, closed my eyes and basked in sweet silence."

I wish I knew the author of this so I could give him proper credit.

Alas... amen, and amen.

Get-it-Yesterday Song #12: See Fernando

I don't know why I do these GIY posts so rarely. I could do one a week, and yet it's been over two months since the last one. Sorry my dear horde of readers (chuckle, chuckle).

Jenny Lewis is a singer whom I came across two or three years ago. She's been around for a while as the lead singer of Rilo Kiley. But about three years ago, she launched her solo career. I actually have to credit my wife for introducing her music to me. My wife downloaded a song off iTunes, and it instantly became a favorite of mine. And yet, that first favorite tune is not the one I'm featuring here.


No, as I became more familiar with her, I discovered "See Fernando." It's one of those tunes you swear you've heard before, but you know you haven't. It is instantly catchy and worth a download if you don't have it already.

Here is is:


For any locals in the Salt Lake area, she's playing a free concert this Thursday, July 9, at the Gallivan Center as part of their Twilight Series.

Either way, make sure you buy "See Fernando."

"Darkness Falls Across the Land..."

For me, Michael Jackson was 1983-'84. And '83-'84 was "Thriller."

I had no idea who he was before that. But here's the thing: long before MJ came around (well... a long time to a 8-year-old) I was a fan of "scary stuff" and monsters. So when I saw the "Thriller" music video, it completely changed my view of pop music. I'd say only after "Star Wars" and "The Wizard of Oz," "Thriller" was the biggest pop event of my youth.

I didn't think pop music could be that cool, and that scary. I was hooked. There was more "Thriller":
"Billy Jean,"
"Beat It,"
Good stuff.

I also liked Weird Al Yankovich's "Eat It" as much as "Beat It." "Eat It" was the first - and as it has turned out - one of the only songs I've ever called a radio station to request.

I remember MJ winning eight Grammys in '84. I remember him on some show (could have been the same Grammys) performing "Billy Jean"; he was in the trademark fedora, white t-shirt, black sequin jacket, flood black slacks, white socks, black loafers, and glove. My jaw dropped when he did the moon walk. I was not able to figure out the secret to pulling off a good moonwalk until I was in my 20s. But just because I knew how it worked, didn't mean I could do it.

This, right here...this is how I remember Michael Jackson:


Then, to me, Michael was Captain Eo. That was the sci fi 3-D movie Disney made with George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola. It was a mix between the Muppets and Ice Pirates, so it was nothing to write home about, but the 3-D effects were cool and Michael was on his game.

By the time "Bad" came out and then "Dangerous," I was definitely into other stuff, and MJ was not exactly cool among my peers anymore. He still had hits, but at that time, it was better for a young man's social status to like G&R and Motley Crue than to profess undying fanhood to the King of Pop. I still watched from a distance and while I became turned off by his increasingly odd and emasculating looks, he clearly still had the knack for creating a pop gem.

Over the years, I left him behind. As he made comeback after comeback attempt, I never really invested in him, but deep down, that 8-year-old kid who was entranced by "Thriller" wanted Jackson to pull it off.

There are two people who I feel reached the highest iconic status in their lifetime, and managed to almost destroy it with subsequent career and personal fumbles: George Lucas and Michael Jackson. It makes the Captain Eo thing that much more ironic to me. But, as with most legends, the second they pass, they regain their status in immortality. (So George, don't worry, once you die, Jar Jar will be mostly forgotten.)

A part of my childhood died with Michael's passing. Hearing songs from the album "Thriller," and particularly the song and video of "Thriller" itself shoots me back to my innocent days of my youth and being introduced to modern pop music by one of the world's greatest singers, dancers, and entertainers.

If you haven't seen it, here's a clip from Captain Eo:



Addendum: One interesting MJ observation of mine. In the last five years or so that I've started pulling Michael back into my listening library, I've found that I really like the "Bad" and "Dangerous" era music a lot. Thriller tunes are still very good and very sentimental, but his later stuff resonates with me more.

Rising Above St. Cloud

Here's my first round submission to the Creative Writing Championships (CWC2009).

Synopsis:

A school teacher in Oklahoma and the Indian Territories enlists with the Rough Riders of the Spanish-American War. More formidable than the Spanish armies is the rivalry he finds in a fellow soldier.

Rising Above St. Cloud

We held still. There was a “pop” and a puff of smoke from the cameraman’s equipment. There we stood – a group of so-called “Rough Riders” – atop San Juan Hill overlooking Santiago. We had been victorious on that pocked and trampled hill.

Amidst the group of soldiers basking in victory, I stood taller. For, while the charge had been an effort of several, I had earned an individual honor that I may very well treasure more today than the spoils of the flag & country that day. I wore a trophy around my neck that was a symbol of struggle, rivalry and singular achievement.

***

Spending my early years in Connecticut, I earned a degree from a small college giving me the piece of paper I needed to finally break out of the rock-walled estates and opinions of New England.

I traversed the west taking jobs in Oklahoma and the Indian Territory rustling and teaching poor miners’ kids arithmetic and writing. That spring, word came that a volunteer cavalry was being formed to prepare for the conflict that had risen between the Union and Spain. Men left their jobs and families to take up a rifle and chase battlefield glory bragged of by their fathers.

“Mustering in” at Arizona was when I first saw him: a slick dandy straight from the Ivy Leagues. His name was Stewart St. Cloud. He was tall, broad and the kind of handsome that left you to concede to him the best-looking woman in the vicinity. He was a decorated collegiate footballer and clearly a skilled marksman and equestrian.

I came to know him as we trained in those hot, dry Arizona fields. He showed me what was fastened to the leather strap he wore around his neck. It was a silver corkscrew. “It’s a St. Cloud tradition to drink to victory. We wear a corkscrew around our neck to keep our mind on the certainty of our success and victory. I’ll be using it myself before this campaign is over.”

In mid-summer, we shipped out to Cuba. After quickly capturing “Kettle Hill,” we were given our next charge: San Juan Hill.

There the Riders were, crouched in the grass at the base of this great hill in the searing and sticky heat of the Caribbean sun. Ants crawled on and around us. Above us popped the Spaniard guns and the boom of cannons that gouged the earth, sending rocks and sand in every direction, choking the air with smoke and drifting dust.

On either side of me were Indians, cowboys, New York policemen, Princeton steeple chasers, Harvard running backs, miners, socialites, hunters and adventurers, all wearing the Rough Riders flannel blue shirt, khaki pants, white suspenders and spat-covered boots. From out of the cluster of trees behind us rode Colonel Roosevelt. He barked orders organizing his thin blue line.

Stewart turned to me, pulling the corkscrew from out of his shirt. “You know what this is, right Tommy?” “Yeah, of course.” “You know why I wear it, right?” I nodded. “Tom, whoever gets to the top of this damn hill keeps the screw and gets first swig!” “You’re on!”

I’d never beaten him at anything. Through our training on the mainland he outrode the rustlers, outshot the redskins, outran the collegiate sprinters, and beat the hell out of the biggest man in our division.

Upon the call of “Charge!” Stewart lunged forward, nestled his rifle into his shoulder, took aim and fired; several yards at the top of the hill behind a rock wall, a Spanish soldier grabbed his throat and fell backward.

This awakened my senses. I pounced up, and lunged a foot forward charging with my rifle in both hands. Men fell on my right and left. Two Pawnee redskins crawled low to the ground, steadily, eyes fixed on the battlement at the top. On my left, a man with a thick handlebar mustache drew his pistol, aimed toward the high ground and fired off three quick shots. He took a bullet to the shoulder knocking him out of my sight.

Through the wisps of smoke I saw Stewart 25 yards ahead of me negotiating a knoll in the middle of the hill. I set off running as hard as I could. There was no time to fire – not yet. Past blue-shirted men I ran. Bullets rained down and were answered from behind me. Sweat streamed down my face, stinging my eyes. Cannons boomed and explosions scattered earth in all directions. The hill grew steeper and I had lost sight of Stewart. I continued to climb. A breeze cleared the path in front of me and to my left I saw him, and he saw me.

Fifty feet from the top, I began my last charge – the most important of my life; not for the Union, but for myself. My legs burned with exhaustion with each step, and the dry dirt and gravel skidded beneath my boots. Heads popped over the wall 20 feet in front of me. In stride, I lifted the rifle and fired enough to send the enemy ducking for cover.

My hands reached the rock wall outside of the Spanish blockade. I hurled myself over, aimed my rifle at the forehead of a soldier loading his rifle with his back against a rampart. Just then, two hands clasped the wall and over lunged Stewart. His eyes met mine.

Nothing was said. He pulled the corkscrew off his neck and immediately put it around mine.

***

After the photo was taken and the soldiers dispersed, Stewart came up from behind me smiling. “Look what I found in the fort.” He revealed a dark green bottle of Sangre de Toro. I cranked the screw into it, ripped it out and guzzled the most filling taste of victory – individual victory – I had ever experienced then or since.

Alan's Address to a Haggis

Scotland's favorite son and famous poet, Robert Burns, wrote an "Address to a Haggis." Here's mine:

Ten days ago I tried ye
At Utah's festival of the Scots.

I'd never before jostled your ground up innards
in me own. And I likely never will again....

I've never attended a Scottish festival before. But when your last name's Macfarlane, it's a rite of passage. I'll admit, it was a total blast! I plan on attending annually going forward. On my maiden voyage to the festival I had one goal in mind: eat haggis.

Its reputation precedes it. What's haggis you ask? Here's a quick definition:

Haggis - [Scottish] a steamed pudding made of finely minced sheep heart, lungs and liver.

Oh yeah, did I mention they cook it in a sheep's stomach?

I waited in the haggis line for 45 minutes before I got my own. They served it in a cardboard basket similar to what fries usually come in. They served it with 2-3 saltine crackers.


My first bite was pretty good. Admittedly, at the time, I didn't know what was in it. It tasted like hash with a lot of black pepper. I figured it was beef or lamb. I was more freaked out by the stomach surrounding it. But I ate the whole thing. I had to. I'd never be able to look at my Scottish forbears in the eye in the by and by if I didn't pound their national dish.

I barely got the last couple bites down. Ten minutes after finishing it, I was certain it would come back up. It's actual taste was not bad. The texture of the stomach was a little gross; (according to my dad who lived in Scotland for a couple years, you don't eat that part - oh well). But what got to me was the aftertaste in my mouth and the subsequent haggis burps. Damn...

No brushing of teeth or consuming of PB&J or anything else I tried would completely bury the taste for several hours. Right after getting home from the festival I took a nap and was awakened several times by the haggis taste. I had that taste in my mouth for a day and a half.

But I did it. I'm a true Scotsman now. I'm pretty sure I noticed a couple extra hairs on my chest that were not there before.

Scots wha hae! Loch sloy! I conquered yer ruddy haggis, ya mingin bawbags!

Camelot! The final frontier...

Thanks to my bro-in-law Grant for sending this my way. A funny Monty Python and Star Trek mash up:

Alan's Psychedelic Pink Floyd Post, Part 4: The David Gilmour Era

So here we are at last. The final leg of this Floydian journey. This is the final significant era of Pink Floyd by my estimation: the David Gilmour era.

David Gilmour

It is made up of four albums of note:
A Momentary Lapse of Reason
Delicate Sound of Thunder (live album)
The Division Bell
Pulse (live album)

As eluded to in my last post, it's easy to be skeptical and blow holes through the contributions from the remaining members of the band in this era, but if you take some time, put biases aside, you'll see there's quite good music here.

The band had fractured officially after, ironically, "The Final Cut." Court battles determined that, against Water's wishes, the remaining members could record and perform music under the name Pink Floyd.

With Rick Wright still officially out of the band, David Gilmour took up the Floyd banner and started recording the first post-Waters Floyd album. Nick Mason is on drums and Wright had some token session contributions and then joined the band again on tour. Gilmour collaborated with others to pen lyrics and write the music. The result is the album "A Momentary Lapse of Reason."

The music definitely takes a hard right turn from the dark, cynical contributions of Waters. The songs have hope and yearning rather than poison-tipped nihilism. With the trademark Gilmour guitar and lead vocal, which he had done plenty of leading up to this point anyway, the music still feels connected to Floyd.


I'm really hot or cold on the music on AMLOR. The song "Learning to Fly" is not just a great song from this album, but it's one of Floyd's greatest songs, period. It's catchy and ethereal. So too is "One Slip," which is a personal favorite of mine; I love the intro that morphs from digital ticks and chirps into an airy, whispy keyboard. "On the Turning Away" is an inspiring power ballad that starts out with a virtual au capella Gilmour.

The rest of the album is largely of no value to me. There are a couple other 'okay' songs, and a couple perpetual 'skip it' songs.

After AMLOR, the band released a live album from the AMLOR tour, "Delicate Sound of Thunder." My full disclosure is that DSOT is the only widely released Floyd album that I don't own. I've heard cuts from it. Through my comparison shopping, I determined that this album and the later live album "Pulse" were very similar to the point of it being mostly pointless to own both, so I opted for "Pulse" which features the band playing "Dark Side of the Moon" in its entirety.

After a long break, the three remaining members of the band came back together to record what would end up being Floyd's last studio album, the "The Division Bell." This album is very mellow, and if you're a neophyte Floyd fan looking for something that resembles the Wall or DSOTM, you'll be disappointed. The album is very bluesy and soulful. Some Floyd purists will depart with me on this one, but the album is pretty darn solid from top to bottom.

It's known for the single that got a lot of radio play - my freshman year in college - "Keep Talking" (featuring a 'spoken word' intro by physicist Stephen Hawking). Many people never got past that song. But there are other great ones here. I love "Poles Apart" which could be seen as Gilmour's version of an "Ode to Barret" (or, his own "Wish You Were Here") but he could just as easily be speaking to Waters in this song.


I also love "Wearing the Inside Out," sung by Wright. If you've not taken time to listen to this song, flip it on, lie down, close your eyes and enjoy. "Lost for Words" is another personal favorite; a song about life knocking you down, and the fight to get back up. This song is augmented by ambient boxing sounds in the background.

A couple of final notes on this album: I actually think the live version of "Take It Back" on "Pulse" is better than the studio version. Also, the instrumental "Marooned" is the only song for which Floyd was ever nominated for a Grammy. The song won the Grammy for the Best Rock Instrumental Performance.

I've already said all that there is really worth saying about "Pulse." The live play through of DSOTM is great. This album's version of "Astonome Domine" is pretty cool. It's a great live album that is a final snapshot of the band while you could still consider them together. From then on, it was just token appearances here and there.

And to me, this is where the Gilmour era ends.

Here is a summary of the few significant happenings for the band after the Gilmour era, which by my estimation ended around '96:
-In 2000, Floyd released a live version of "The Wall" recorded from their theatrical performance of the album in the '80s.
-In 2005, Waters joined the band for one last 'great gig in the sky' as a foursome at the Live 8 charity concert.
-In 2006, Syd Barrett dies of cancer.
-In 2008, keyboardist Richard Wright dies of cancer.

Whew! That's my take on Pink Floyd - a band that defined much of my twenties. I'll leave you with two pieces: first the great "Learning to Fly" then below it is a snippet from Pink Floyd's final reunion as a band playing DSOTM's "Breathe" (after 20 years of being apart with this lineup, they sounded GREAT):

The Andromeda Strain: The Extra-Deadly Terrestrial

A couple months ago, my wife and I decided to spring for a Netflix account. We got the one that allows us unlimited online “Watch Instantly” movies. To my surprise, I’ve been the one that has become addicted to this feature.

It’s allowed me to watch the more specific genre movies that I see few of when Anna and I have to find something we both want to watch. I’ve also found out that I’m a much bigger nerd than I thought I was as I’ve dived deeply into Netflix’s sci-fi, horror and fantasy offerings.

Anyway…

Netflix starts to build a library of movies they recommend to you based on the ones you rent/watch, the ones in your queue, and the ones that you rate. The one that kept coming up for me was “The Andromeda Strain.” I finally gave it a view.


Based on a book by the late Michael Crichton of “Jurassic Park” fame, “The Andromeda Strain” is another 'fact-based' or 'heavy' sci-fi movie; in other words, a sci fi that is sort of plausible and based loosely on science we know about today - opposed to movies like Star Wars or Star Trek that are based on technologies we may never harness.

Andromeda Strain starts out with scenes of government investigators looking down on a small town in a New Mexico desert where the townspeople apparently all dropped dead on the spot. It’s also the site of a recently crashed government satellite. Obviously, a connection is instantly drawn.

Upon further inspection by scientists in astronaut-looking hazmat suits, it appears the crashed satellite captured or brought back with it an extra-terrestrial disease or virus. It causes blood to coagulate almost instantly.

There are two survivors, an old man and an infant, and it’s up to a team of scientists gathered in a remote and secret underground government base to determine the cause of the townspeople’s death, the characteristics of the suspected alien virus, and potential cures. This underground research center is built with several layers of redundant decontamination processes. A chunk of the film shows the scientists just going through this several-hour and multi-step process.

I thought the film was pretty good. Let’s be honest — there are two types of sci-fi films: those made before Star Wars, and those made after Star Wars. Just assume that anything before 1977 has suspect special effects and is going to look dated (like Tomorrowland at Disneyland — sure it’s tomorrow if tomorrow is 1969, but I digress….)

My point is, there are aspects of the movie that appear dated. But, it’s still good enough to let you suspend your disbelief and enjoy the movie and watch the mystery (and the various sub-plots) become resolved.

I would definitely recommend the movie. It’s well written, holds legit suspense, and has good acting from what I assume was a cast of relative unknowns. Here’s one interesting point: the movie is rated G.

I think this rating is a little light considering the subject matter. I’d put it squarely in PG. It's not particularly offensive, but there are a couple short shots of bare male butts (in the various decontamination scenes) a brief bare-breasted female victim among the various dead townspeople. Overall, the subject matter of a whole town dying and being discovered in the positions they were in at the time of their instant death, being picked at by buzzards — including children — is probably too macabre and a little shocking for a typical G-rated audience.

But, yes, I recommend this film. It's a cool show.

Check out this preview:

Alan's Little Life Maxims #22

There are two kinds of people in this world:
Those who dig beards, and those who don't yet know they dig beards.

(There is no middle ground... usually.)