Emesis

I am caught in one of the few situations that exist wherein I consider it a detriment to be Californian. Southern, specifically.

Were I from a more mundane locale, such as Idaho or Montana... or one of those other brown states... I would no doubt have a much clearer conscience on what I must do or, perhaps, might even have no choice to make, lest the region of my origin prove to be answer in itself. Of course, were I from somewhere else, I may not be in this predicament to begin with... but I extrapolate without exposition.

The Mrs. and I took a trip to Santa Catalina island this weekend, three days all told, and it was a great time. The fact that an island community lies just off our coast and yet is so often overlooked for more exotic destinations is something of a sin in itself, but we were there for the first day of the flying fish, we went shopping and rowed kayaks... we did many wonderful, touristy things.

We even... sampled the food.

Now, anyone who really knows me will understand that I am, by knack and by nature, a garbage compactor. I am not picky when it comes to the food I eat. Saturday night, we happened to have dinner at an Italian joint on the island called Villa Porto Fino. I had the King Crab "Special," which (despite what the epithet promised) ended up costing 45 dollars. Jesus. Add drinks, appetizers, and the Mrs.' meal, and you have the makings of a fairly expensive dinner (think me cheap if you wish, but I find that rather fucking expensive).

So we ate, we paid, we went back to the room, and around 2 a.m. I woke up feeling wretched and proceeded, for the next day or so, to vomit and shit all over the beautiful island of Catalina. To such an extent, in fact, that I was made to go to the damn hospital. On. The. Island.

Food poisoning. I don't believe I've ever had it before, and I don't want to ever have it again, but that isn't the point. The point is, were I to eat at a Chili's or an Outback, I would expect the possibility of being poisoned. That's fine. But when I go to a nice restaurant where my very eyes are plucked out for payment of their delicious meats, I expect not to shit out of my mouth for the following 24 hours, you know? Call it professionalism, call it customer service, I would like it if the management of finer dining establishments could find it in their hearts not to attempt to kill me.

I remember at one point in particular, sitting in a toilet stall on the pier, feeling my body shaking and faltering, wracked with a cold sweat, I thought, "When they find people who died suddenly and without warning, is this what their last few minutes consist of? Pulling a Kyle's Dad on the Green Pier and expecting to pass out at any moment, wondering about the thoughts of those that came before you?" Luckily, the Mrs. was there to put me in a cab to the emergency room, otherwise I likely would have continued in my denial and conga-lined my way into a sandy pit that after choking on my own vomit or drowning in my own liquid feces would become my grave.

So, my point is this. I obviously feel we should be compensated for the meal, but the fact of the matter is that we missed out on that day's activites (which represented a significant investment), and I was unable to go to work today due to the illness (which, while not significant, still represented money that should be mine) and neither of these considerations should be too unreasonable to ask of the restaurant... but then there's the question of my statehood.

Being Californian, and of my own generation, I have this sense of entitlement, and I'd hate to make trouble for the restaurant past what they legitimately owe me. I worry how much of what I think they owe me is fair and just, and how much is my Californian side trying to get me to sue the pants off of them. "Sue the pants off" being itself a phrase that I would never use, I wouldn't think, and yet when it comes time to talk about suing, that's the one that comes out. It's in our civil animus. We all hear the beating song of the lawsuit, "Serve them... serve them... serve them..."

At any rate, I'll be calling them today to begin negotiations... now that I think I know the extent of what they've cost me by serving me tainted meats... so we'll see how it goes.

Other than this little hitch, however, the weekend was pretty cool, and I now have a bee-line on a new hat that must be mine. Have a real one, chill-doggos!

Chill-doggos?

Conveyance

For the first time, driving to school the other day, I witnessed with my own two globes my first commercial use of a Segway. I honestly believed, when they first came out, that we had entered some fantastic Jetsons-like future, where everyone would be riding a Segway within the year, and everyone would have flying cars by the time we were out from under the shadow of 9/11.

Of course, conventional society has chosen again to spit in my face and make the "mini" the hot choice of transport and the "flying car" the musings of idiots and Dungeons and Dragons fans. My future, the future that was to become my present, has been robbed from me by cynicism, and I've never felt like more a part of the problem myself.

The other problem I had with this first sighting of Segway-usage didn't surface until much later when, reminded only of my deep disappointment concerning the state of personal conveyance, I began to think of what kind of person would actually need a Segway. They don't move all that fast, you can not take them into the street (unlike the supersonic bicycles of today, which are completely allowed road access for some driver-torturing reason), and they're almost prohibitively expensive to purchase. So who would use such a manner of travel.

Answer: The morbidly obese billionaire.

Really one of my favorite characters in the canon of American culture, the morbidly obese billionaire (having inspired such great literary images as Jabba the Hutt, Dr. Moreau, that weird info-vampire in the first Blade, and that other guy in that Monk episode) is known for having reached such a state of sedentary affluence that, in lieu of any fitness regime, simply allows himself to bloat to the point of nigh-immobility. In the event of their deaths, the room they die in will be cut into like a can of sardines, and their body will be lifted out via crane to be buried in a plot that is conveniently, and thankfully, not that far away. Unless, of course, through will or consciencious family, hook or by crook, somebody goes Gilbert Grape on their fat, dead ass.

However, in life, they are forced with the very real problem of simply getting around. Thanks to modern technology, most of their social and, indeed, physical needs are taken care of to a degree that, fifteen or twenty years ago, they simply wouldn't have been. The morbidly obese billionaire of today enjoys the social interaction and access to any and all consumer products that any citizen can hope to expect, but if he wished to nip down to the corner store for a pallete of Funyuns, he is sadly out of luck.

In comes the Segway, a machine specifically designed to serve the fashionable and financial elite in their quest to eliminate the tedium of walking from their lives (and the more I think about it, the stupider an idea the Segway seems to be. We are becoming, more and more, a complacent and weak society). Your normal morbidly obese billionaire can easily afford a Segway, have someone forklift him from his concrete-reinforced recliner into the more personal means of getting about, and off he goes on his sturdy little companion. No more pains and trials of ambulation for this go-getter! He's out to conquer the world, one creaking escalator at a time.

It only made me more depressed, having thought this through, that the person I saw riding his Segway the other day was some pudgy, middle-aged broker with a black satchel, a short-sleeve button up and an off-the-wall MP3 player. Boo.

So, sadly, I have yet to personally see the wild morbidly obese billionaire, but I think, with my age and zeal, I will see this magnificent beast before my time has come to pass into the clearing. Maybe he'll be riding a Segway. Maybe he'll have a monkey. Perhaps... I'll be happy.

...

In other news, the Mrs. and I have been imbrolio-ing for the past couple of days to a pretty alarming degree, especially considering how well we'd been doing before this, and I feel much better now that we're geting along again. Point of fact, we're planning an extremely romantic and cliche getaway to an island off the coast of our beautiful California next weekend, and considering my pasty self, I'm really surprised to be excited about it.

We're leaving Friday, coming back Sunday, and considering I'm now officially finished with all other educational and occupational obligations (having taken a well-deserved week off after a solid year of faithful servitude) I should be able to enjoy the outing without too much anxiety. I always get nervous whenever I have to plan anything myself without counting on other people to do it for me (read: take the blame should something go horrifically wrong), but we got a pretty good deal considering the weekend and the weather and we're going to have a pretty good time considering the amount of time we'll be spending in what is essentially a PARADISE!

Another fine vacation, for me, would be Greece. I'd love to go back there sometime, be treated to another banquet by my unsung and unknown family, show the Mrs. the Parthenon and the Erectheum (what I made a straight-up model of in grade school using only foam, spray paint, and dismembered Barbie dolls), the Olympic stadium, do all the things I love doing while simultaneously not being able to understand the derogatory slurs thrown at me by other-language-speaking countrymen. I'd like to stretch out on the beaches of Mykonos again. It's been a while since I did that, and I didn't realize what a taste I had for it until I'd done it.

Why do I like the beach? Is it something that has been socially ingrained into me? Do I, underneath my computer-geek, film-student facade harbor a deep sun worshipper spirit? Has years of watching MTV's Spring Break finally warped my mind to a degree only seen before in straining houseplants leaning toward windows for the smallest splinter of filtered sunlight? Have I finally become "too cool for school?"

Yes. Yes I have.

This update was weeks in the making. Enjoy it.

Interference

So... couple of things.

This morning, after having been roasted in a shower that had no cold water (and my personal cleaning closet being something along the ways of "awesome," so one can imagine me bathing on the SURFACE OF THE SUN), I had the door to the backyard open (as my bathroom shares a wall with the outdoors that coincidentally contains a door) and was privy to the most unearthly squeal in recent memory. Imagine this, if you will. A man takes some time to floss with the door open to the elements, and he's rewarded with the screechings of demon pig bastards outside his door. I hate naturalists... we moved out of the trees for a reason.

I went to the door to investigate the source of the wailing and was treated to the sight of Jenner, one of the cats that has fallen by the social wayside since going to The Outlands, in the process of killing a mockingbird, which was not at all amused by the prospect.

Before I go on, I want to explain about Jenner. When a cat goes from being an Inside Cat to an Outside Cat, there are basically two reactions. 1) Cat adapts quickly, cat enjoys life, cat remains friends with owner despite blatant rejection, or 2) Cat develops mean streak and harbors deep grudge against owners for remainder of its natural life, and probably a few years beyond that as well while it tried to get used to kitty heaven not having much in the way of catnip (kitty heaven doesn't have catnip much in the way human heaven doesn't have crack-cocaine). Jenner, a daughter of Pangea, our first cat, who has served pretty much as queen within the cat hive we have cultivated, is of the latter variety.

To look into the eyes of Jenner is to see hate in its most raw, seething form. Even her voice has become warped and twisted by the ire she maintains for us; a low, rumbling caterwaul usually reserved for cats feeling indistinctly threatened, but expanded in her case to cover any and all social interaction.

Imagine now, if you will, my surprise at seeing this flabby feline trying to still its newly caught quarry, when I thought all it was capable of was disliking the whole of humanity. I suppose it could have killed the bird with pure hate... but I'll never be sure.

Here's the thing. The bird was still alive when I saw them. Kicking and screaming, pecking and biting, the bird was not even slowing down. If anything, it just seemed very upset about what was going on. So, thinking I was doing the right thing, I decided I'd save the bird. That's what I do, I see natural interaction, and I save the damn bird. So, being the alpha male around my particular little harem of kitties, I started to walk toward Jenner, thinking that she'd leave when I got too close and the bird would fly away. As I got closer, Jenner got noticeably nervous, seeming to not even regard the constant pecks to the head she was recieving, and when I finally got too close she ran away, leaving the bird behind. All had gone according to plan.

Except the bird wasn't flying away.

The bird, hurt worse than it let on (which, I suppose, is a fine survival mechanism, UNTIL THERE'S SOMEONE TRYING TO HELP YOU, BIRD!) coudl not fly away, and, instead, wings spread to either side as if to say "Woo-hoo!" hopped off into the bushes.

Well shit. Now I just feel bad. The bird's not going to survive, not like that, and now it doesn't even get the solace of a quick death. It's going to rot in a bush. I tell you, if I could have killed the bird then, I would have; but it was a very large bush, and it as a very quick bird.

I thought I'd retreat back to the bathroom, stand in the doorway, and let Jenner finish the job she'd begun. She came back quickly enough, driven mad by her newfound bloodlust (I guess sleeplust and loathinglust had become mundane for her), but was unable to go into the bushes as we'd recently had some pool trouble and, as a result of some overflow, there was a whole inch os water under the bushes. Jenner stod there for a while, occasionally tapping the surface with a paw to see if she could somehow walk ON TOP of the water, but categorically refusing to step in, regardless of the little splashes and squawks I could see her homing in on.

And that's how I left the scene, Jenner unsatisfied, mockingbird slowly dying in the muddy water under a hedge. Before I left for work, I checked back on Wild Kingdom: The Home Game, and saw only a bush shaking violently every now and then, along with the same harsh screaming I'd heard when this entire slice of life had begun.

You know how when someone is filming a nature documentary, say about baby turtles, and something attacks their subject, say the passing seagulls, the documentographers (or whatever the hell they want to call themselves) are not allowed to interfere with the course of nature? How, no matter how much they want to help out the baby turtle or the cheetah cubs or the flying marmosets, they simply aren't allowed to butt in?

It's because they'd fail. They'd step on a turtle or they'd snap a kitten's neck. It has nothing to do with the circle of life or letting nature take its course. Nothing like that. It's because we have become so disconnected with nature, after having come down from the trees, that we no longer have any idea what we're doing when it comes to it. People spend their weekends or weeks at a time journeying off into nature, doing hikes and camping trips, trying to regain some semblance of their lost instincts, their missing connection to their ancestries. Thousands upon thousands of people feel the urge to go off into the forest and try to come close to dying, but of course never without their parkas, warming packs, and precious propane stoves. Sure, we can rough it, we can show the world that we're still in tune with Gaea, but I'm not going to do it without my scramby eggs in the morning.

Stay at home. Live the lives that humans have made for themselves, or go totally natural, just running into the woods completely naked one day with nothing at all to help you. Either or, no middle-ground.

...

Words to the chorus of a particular Andrew W.K. song off of the album "I Get Wet" :

"We're gonna have a fun night! (fun night x3)
We're gonna get off! (gonna get off x2)"

Thing I have thought Andrew W.K. was saying other than this:

"We're gonna have a Bud Lite! (Bud Lite x3)
We're cutting it off! (cutting it off x2)"

"You've gotta fun light! (fun light x3)
We're turning it off! (turning it off x2)"

"We're gonna have a fun life! (fun life x3)
Get the tourniquet off! (tourniquet off x2)"

So yeah. I'm an idiot.

The Wolf.

42

In addition to the absolutely obscene amount of films I've been watching lately (in my efforts to disprove the theory of film scholarship only coming to fruition laster in life, having watched many films leisurely rather than the 2 or 3 I'm watching a damn diggidy DAY) I've decided to start writing a review on every single film I watch. If nothing else, this ought to at least hone the tools I'm in possession of, and maybe it will grow some I don't yet know about. At any rate, I thought I'd post one of the recent ones, as most of the reviews I'm writing are about the films I get from Netflix or from the library at Awesome U, and are therefore my attempts as playing catch-up to the lexicon of film. Needless to say, older films that most people have never heard of. Not all, but a lot.

At any rate, I don't get to go out to the theaters much anymore (much to my and the Mrs.'s chagrin) so when I had the chance the other day to not only go see a theatrical release but then, of my own volition and under my own steam, write an analysis of it... well, it wouldn't have mattered what motivation I did or did not have. I was going to see this film one way or another. You'll understand.

It's been a while since I've reviewed any films here. I'm going to try and change that now that the semester's almost up. This is as good a re-immersion as any. Hope you like it.

...

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

O, to add to a dynasty, to translate an epoch. To undertake the tremendous responsibility in the creation of and paying homage to what has become not so much the work of the past but the property of the present. The public that adores and pays tribute to this seminal work, this is its true master. It’s true owner and servant. These are the idol worshippers of the 21st century, and to think to act in a way that might rouse their fury in a way nothing else could is either brave beyond understanding, or intensely stupid from a career perspective.

Ironically, what I found to be the funniest part of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (true to its satiric and comedic roots as the film is) was the part that immediately but momentarily caused me not only to regret showing up for the film, but dread the following two hours. Before the story gets started, before we even meet the main characters of Arthur Dent or Ford Prefect, names canonical to anyone who’s lived through the Douglas Adams novels, we are treated to a song presumably written specifically for the movie called, “So Long and Thanks for All the Fish,” which, as any Hitchhiker could tell you, is the last message the dolphins gave us humans before leaving the planet for good.

Visions of an attempted musical flashed through my head. The fright of the director’s sense of humor revolving so much around tongue-in-cheek musical numbers that one needed to be in the opening credits was palpable, and I froze in my chair thinking that, here it was. Here was another Lord of the Rings, here is the death of Star Wars in its latter two films reborn. I have come to bear witness to the death of another treasure of society, and all I can do is sit here and laugh.

It was only then I realized that, yes, I was in fact laughing. The concept of starting off a film version of Hitchhiker’s is almost sacrilege, and yet one could imagine Adams cackling maniacally over the concept. Not one to shy away from the ludicrous and, in the proper dosage, the kitschy, Adams may himself have added a note to the script calling for some manner of Broadway show tune. I could imagine him writing the lyrics, and, in a way, I like to. Adams, as most of us know, is gone from us now, but before he left he managed to pen his own last version of the screenplay that, with the post-morti help of Karey Kirkpatrick, is what we see on the screen today. The fact that Adams is gone is a tragic thing. I won’t bother explaining why.

It comforts me to know that Adams’ script, when he had finished with it, involved new characters and changes from the original. It seems to give me license to enjoy the film’s dalliances from the novel without angst toward the raping of a dead man’s contribution to history. But he’s the one who did it, so jolly good then. It also comforts me to see Garth Jennings (given the job of director from seemingly little else than a relatively auspicious career in commercials and a sterling referral from Spike Jonze) as a real fan of the novels, as he went out of his way, where he could, to remain faithful not just to the novel, but to the concept of the novel, and to what the readers of the novel ultimately and, in a Campbellian sense, unilaterally loved about it.

The actors themselves, I think, do a fine job. The only glaring problems were an awkwardly improvised feel to the first scene between Zaphod and Trillian (Sam Rockwell and Zooey Deschanel respectively) and the general lack of talent fuming from Mos Def, who luckily can attribute his fear of dropping a rapper’s image and lack of any true passion for the craft to being FROM ANOTHER PLANET! Everyone else nails it, and Bill Nighy actually brings a little more to the role of Slartibartfast than I would have attributed to him.

The visuals are fantastic and unrelenting in their faithfulness to the feel of the novels, the creatures we meet in our travels are not the muppetagerie of Lucas nor the austere realism of Speilberg, but an appropriate cross-section of a surreal population, the inhabitants of a universe of infinite possibilities, and just as many improbabilities. The integration of the Guide itself’s commentary is natural and not at all shoved down our throats (is, in fact, used artfully as a narrative device), and the fact that the filmmakers (and I hope you’ll forgive me this moment of quivering fan dementia) left in the entire sperm whale scene, bowl of petunias and all, is a testament to their devotion to the source material.

But, like I said to start with, the opening song is the funniest part of the film, both a blessing and a curse. Perhaps I’m jaded having grown up with and practically memorized the books, reading them now only as I watch reruns of Monty Python, but reading them now all the same. The film does a good job delivering the humor Adams was famous and infamous for, and even adds the obligatory level of its medium in an attractive way with its small flash vignettes within the Guide. However, in the end, we are relying on actors and filmmakers to spout the dialogue and narration in ways that many of us have already solidified in our minds, and while enjoyable, runs the real risk of not being wholly satisfying. For example, in my head, I never pronounced it Zay-fod, and I never pictured Mr. Prosser sans-furry-hat.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy ends up being a buoy, but it’s hardly the filmic equivalent of its legendary and revolutionary literary predecessor. Try as it might, the film simply cannot pull off what the book did, partly because the book already did it, yes, but mostly because choices were made in the interest of selling (as is always the case) rather than appreciative accuracy, and, while not crippling, were far from facilitating. Hitchhiker’s is a fine translation, a fine homage from a lesser artisan to a respected mentor, and a film that’s a lot of fun. So it’s not the best movie ever. It’s not the end of the world.

It's not a great film... mostly harmless.