TMS Roundtable: Ghostbusters.

Unsurprisingly, my love of ghostbusters ended up on TMS.

Or, THIS Is What We Do When We’re Not Writing Blog Posts

I'm actually so furious with the last couple of weeks of Cubdom that I can't think straight about the Cubs. When I learned that AAron Miles' OPS+ is like 20, I had to lay down for a minute. When I learned that even Neifi Perez in 2006 had an OPS+ of 53 I almost punched a hole in the Space-Time continuum to kill Jim Hendry before he was born.

So, I'm having trouble writing about baseball.

Instead, I thought I’d give another, much more lucid account of what goes on when TMS bartenders hang out in the break room (Per TMS Head Bartender Chip Wesley: “Well it's not Cubs-related so I don't see why it wouldn't be suitable for TMS”)

You may or may not know this, but the TMS staff is in constant communication via the miracle of email. That’s how we decide whether or not to endorse players like Randy Wells, or excoriate players like Miles. What follows is a transcript of that conversation, cleaned up ever so slightly (I apologize for the length, but you can always skip the boring comments, just like I do in a real email thread).

To set the scene: a couple of weeks ago, Chaim Witz came out with a shocking statement…

Chaim Witz:
I'll probably catch hell for this, but after watching it last night for the first time in years....while it was by no means terrible, and would certainly qualify as 'mildly amusing', I gotta say:

Overrated: Ghostbusters

Wolter:
Chaim, you couldn't be more wrong on the wrongingest day of your life with an electrified wronging machine.

Lingering Bursitis:
"Pompous PR flack slanders Ghostbusters unprompted; loses cushy job and all credibility regarding movies"

Arcturus:
Chaim: Gotta disagree with you on that one, although to be fair, Wolter and I probably got to experience the movie at a much younger age. Ghostbusters is one of the first movies I remember seeing in the theater.

Chaim Witz:
Defend it for me then. Sure, it's a nice piece of nostalgia, but unlike a movie like Back to the Future, it doesn't hold up to me. The plot is threadbare, even for what it is, it's only intermittently funny (courtesy mostly of Bill Murray) and the special effects are atrocious unless you view them in an 'awww, isn't that cute' way.

*****

Have you guys seen it recently though? Just because it was good when you were a kid doesn't mean it's still good today. There are a lot of 80's movies that are that way.

The only time I LOL'ed was the 'dickless' joke.

*****

Note, I didn't say it was "bad", just overrated. No way is that one of the best movies of the 80's. Dan Akroyd? Just not funny, sorry. Neither is Harold Ramis. If not for Murray (and sadly, Rick Moranis), that movie would be as forgettable as most of my posts.

Brant Brown:
"PR lackey shocked by firing; maintains that 'I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell' is better than 'Ghostbusters'"

The Hundley:
Chaim is guilty of "Pulling a [INSIDE JOKE WITH THE POTENTIAL FOR A LIBEL CHARGE EXCISED]" here. I disregard it all.

Brant Brown:
I have a strong feeling that I would agree with Chaim on Ghostbusters, so I intend to keep it locked away in my memories. I do always remember thinking that the marshmallow man was out of place, even when I was young.

Wolter:
I watch Ghostbusters on a surprisingly regular basis, Chaim. I love it oh-so-very-much.

Arcturus:
I've seen it many times, Chaim, most recently about a month ago, and I still enjoy it immensely. I'm not going to say it's the greatest movie of all time, but I think it’s held up pretty well, special effects aside. Those were good for their time and are now outdated, although I find they have a kind of charm.

I think many of us have gotten spoiled by CGI, but GB has action sequences I can follow without giving myself a headache. I watched the first Transformers movie and everything moves so fucking fast I have problems telling who's fighting who and who's doing what. In GB, when they're shooting the streams at the ghosts, I can actually tell what the hell is going on. I kinda like that.

You're certainly entitled to your opinion, but I love the movie. Bill Murray is the best part of it, but the way the rest of the cast interacts is pretty solid.

Wolter:
I love Aykroyd's pseudoscience. Also, the Moranis Lewis Tuttle party sequence was largely ad-libbed, which is massively impressive.

Arcturus:
Ernie Hudson has probably the most under-appreciated role in that movie. I fucking love Winston.

Wolter:
I think Ghostbusters is probably the movie (outside of maybe the original Star Wars trilogy) that I have quoted the most in my life. It's my Casablanca.

*****

Or, I should say "my Caddyshack?"

Former Bartender Jordi Scrubbings:
I'll admit Ghostbusters is a different movie from a kid to an adult, especially after you experience college. As a kid you are amazed at the idea of catching ghosts and the photon pack, etc. As an adult you get more into the relationships - the Ghostbusters with the college (awkward and forced at best), Peter with Dana (completely unprofessional), and the Ghostbusters with the city. Keep in mind, too, that it followed Caddyshack and was a reunion of some of Second City's greatest alumni. Why it is based in NY and not Chicago is beyond me - maybe as a response to Blues Brothers?

Although random, what I am trying to say is that I still like Ghostbusters. It’s just for different reasons.

The Hundley:
Yeah, after I got to college I said, "That's it; I'm done trying to catch ghosts".

Wolter:
The Hundley just made me laugh out loud. Hard. A coworker just peeked in.

One thing I never noticed as a kid that I do as an adult: everyone smokes like a fucking chimney in that movie.

*****

The reason it's probably not a huge ode to Chicago is that Aykroyd (the main force behind its original creation) was from the Toronto Second City, where Ramis had also done a lot of work. The Firehouse base is based on the Toronto Second City's location, and that scene was very much homage to the early days there.

White Chili:
I still can't wrap my head around Belushi playing the part of Peter.

Wolter:
What about John Candy in the Moranis role? If it weren't for Splash conflicting, it would have happened.

Chaim, you have inadvertently strengthened my resolve to watch Ghostbusters again, post-haste.

Hey, Arcturus. Here's some Ernie Hudson love: a remixed trailer with him as the star of a much darker supernatural thriller:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Olfn5LvcnnY&feature=player_embedded

Jordi Scrubbings:
Interesting for gb1, but I could not see Annie Potts being turned on by a geeky John Candy in gb2. No way.

Actually Candy and Sigourney Weaver is kinda unbelievable as well.

Arcturus:
Murray was perfect for Venkman. I have a hard time seeing Belushi in the part. He's sleazy enough, sure, but Murray makes the part. Dana says he's like a game show host. Murray really makes that aspect of the character shine through.

Loved the Ernie Hudson vid, Wolter. He's one of the best parts of that movie for me, despite the fact that he really has very little to do.

Ghostbusters II is utterly horrible, though. I did just recently watch that on TV the other day and it's godawful.

Wolter:
Ghostbusters II is terrible.

[We talk about other Bill Murray vehicles for a while. But SOMEONE can't let this go.]

Chaim Witz:
Back to Ghostbusters for a sec: Ernie Hudson is under -appreciated? That's because he doesn't come until halfway through the movie, has nothing to do and has maybe 10 lines the whole movie. They might has well have just called him, 'black guy that smokes'.

Wolter, you're right about the smoking. Just chain smoking throughout.

Wolter:
No small roles, Chaim.

Chaim Witz:
Another thing you don't notice as a kid is how basically everything is superficial and they don't even make an attempt to explain anything, save for a few lines of mumbo jumbo spouted off by Aykroyd.

Not that I wanted the movie bogged down with a lot of unnecessary exposition that sucks the fun out of it, but you do notice how they go from Point A to B to C rather quickly, while skipping over how they got to each point.

Trivial qualms I suppose. It was still fun, just not nearly as good as I had hoped it to be.

Wolter:
Man, if they actually tried to explain the Ghost Science, I suspect I would love that movie significantly less.

White Chili:
It's easier to explain using Twinkie logic.

Arcturus:
There is a ton of smoking in the movie.

And who needs scientific explanations for all the crazy shit they do? I don't want it to be like Star Trek, where you've got every nerd under the sun debating on whether or not warp drive is possible.

Egon says, "Hey, there's a good chance we could capture and hold a ghost indefinitely." They have a big red box they put the ghosts in, which works until the EPA shuts off the power. That works pretty good for me because it's basically a comedy and it doesn't really matter how any of it works.

And the Twinkie explanation is fucking brilliant.

Chaim Witz:
Ok, scientific explanations wasn't what I meant. I guess I'm just a sucker for a "plot". We'll just have to agree to disagree. There are a lot of movies I like that I can't really explain why as well.

White Chili:
You're claiming that Ghostbusters suffers because it's not realistic? Really?

Next you're going to say that Chain Reaction was bad.

Arcturus:
It's all right, Chaim. My wife isn't real big on Ghostbusters either. It's one of those movies that I can't seem to help watching if it happens to be on TV. She'll roll her eyes in disgust and just shake her head. I get that a lot.

Chaim Witz:
That's ok. The Burbs is one of my Top 5 movies ever, and I can in no way defend it or even explain why I like it so much. I just do, dammit.

[With that, the talk gradually subsides to other, even less interesting topics, interspersed with randomly inserted barbs about Ghostbusters from Chaim…who is still horribly, horribly wrong.]

Imagine if we harnessed all that time wasting ability for good, instead of evil.

P.S. - Only 30 pages further into Mason & Dixon. Damn you Pynchon.

Oh. Your. God.

I just learned this, courtesy of the ever delightful Mr. B:



http://www.dailymotion.com/swf/x7lkn0



June, 2009, eh? I have a birthday around that time...



I'm just saying.



Meanwhile, the Citizen Kane game is still mired in pre-production.

Zen and the Art of Procrastination

Or, Is Anyone Still Even Writing This, Much Less Reading It?

Holy hell, my poor Slog is on life support. I’ve just been too drained of purpose and direction and energy to update of late, I guess. Damn this ADHD, for getting me to make promises I can’t keep!

Here is the running tally of things I have utterly failed to blog about:

• My facial hair Odyssey
• My exciting trip to the Bristol Renaissance Faire^® in Wisconsin and the extension of my streak of personal intoxication
• The utterly ridiculous nutpunch end to the baseball season
• My career and education goals update
• My attempt to replace baseball with hockey in order to ensure the winter months are just as depressing for me as the MLB Postseason
• My return to Appetite Theatre, this time sans beard
• My near complete conversion from apathetic Taoist Atheist to apathetic Rinzai Zen Atheist with Taoist leanings
• My conviction that, though not undoable, Sarah Palin isn’t altogether that hot
• The new ongoing series: Comics Ideas That Never Were
• Will Wolter ever buy the Clash Shea Stadium live CD, or is it too much of a cash-in?
• The Dark Underbelly of the Eighties, Part 1, Section C (Subsection ii) – will it be out before Chinese Democracy?

I suppose I should work on making that list more manageable, in an attempt to get caught up and provide anyone who still bothers to check what passes for a blog in my neck of the woods. So, I will provide a status report/brief entry:

My Facial Hair Odyssey
On the way. Honest.

My Exciting Trip To the Bristol Renaissance Faire^® In Wisconsin
…and the extension of my streak of personal intoxication
Also pending.

The Utterly Ridiculous Nutpunch End To the Baseball Season
I am still far too pissed and sad to formulate anything worthwhile from the experience. Again, this isn’t a baseball blog for a reason.

My Career and Education Goals Update
I am still trying to make this possible, but I am very seriously considering going back to school for an MFA in Biomedical Visualization.

Screw you…I’m not joking.

I’ll need a several undergraduate courses to catch up, as well as a decent GRE score, and probably some serious help with letters of recommendations and some form of financial assistance (if I can even get that – given my previous woes with student loans). But this actually seems like a very cool, and very fulfilling, career path for me, if I can actually jump through the hoops.

My Attempt to Replace Baseball With Hockey In Order To Ensure the Winter Months Are Just as Depressing For Me As the MLB Postseason
My adopted “home” team is now 0-3 – but I haven’t actually watched a game yet. Still, Chicago sports is nothing, if not consistent. Go Blackhawks! I think!

My Return to Appetite Theatre, This Time sans Beard
You can find the info here. I am in the first show of the evening. I will be playing the part of "Peanuts."

My Near Complete Conversion from Apathetic Taoist Atheist To Apathetic Rinzai Zen Atheist With Taoist Leanings
I also can kinda gloss over the Zen/Taoism stuff, as I am far too mystified and new to the processes and ideas to be an apt explicator – and I’m already driving Ali crazy enough. Anyway, my buddy Gene is a hell of a lot better at talking about the processes and he’s pretty much on the same path as I am right now. The most I can say is that it actually appears to be completely compatible with my Atheism and my love of the Tao, while giving me a sensible (or at least sensibly nonsensical) process to a state of understanding and living in the world that might just be what I need to keep from wanting to murder Ryan Dempster.

My Conviction That, Though Not Undoable, Sarah Palin Isn’t Altogether That Hot
Though not undoable, Sarah Palin isn’t altogether that hot.

The New Ongoing Series: Comics Ideas That Never Were
Soon, my dear Reader (can I call you Reader? ‘Cause I already did). Soon.

Will Wolter Ever Buy the Clash Shea Stadium Live CD, or Is It Too Much Of a Cash-In?
The answer to both parts of the question is: probably.

The Dark Underbelly of the Eighties, Part 1, Section C (Subsection ii) – Will It Be Out Before Chinese Democracy?
The answer to this question is: probably not.

So, my new to-do list is as follows:

• My facial hair Odyssey
• My exciting trip to the Bristol Renaissance Faire^® in Wisconsin and the extension of my streak of personal intoxication
• The utterly ridiculous nutpunch end to the baseball season
• My career and education goals update
• My attempt to replace baseball with hockey in order to ensure the winter months are just as depressing for me as the MLB Postseason
• My return to Appetite Theatre, this time sans beard
• My near complete conversion from apathetic Taoist Atheist to apathetic Rinzai Zen Atheist with Taoist leanings
• My conviction that, though not undoable, Sarah Palin isn’t altogether that hot
• The new ongoing series: Comics Ideas That Never Were
• Will Wolter ever buy the Clash Shea Stadium live CD, or is it too much of a cash-in?
• The Dark Underbelly of the Eighties, Part 1, Section C (Subsection ii) – will it be out before Chinese Democracy?

I hope that was helpful. See you in 3 months when I realize that I have not updated The Slog since this entry, and do this all over again!¹

---

1. This is the longest Slog entry I’ve ever done without a footnote.²
2. Shit.

Another link dump after a long hiatus...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7599824.stm

Oh. Your. God.

Somebody up there likes me.

Unless this is as disappointing as the last one.

Red, Gold, and Green

So, Ali and I were sitting at a gay bar in Boys Town a few Tuesdays back, drinking some fruity¹ blender drinks, while watching videos for some of the gayest² music ever made. That probably requires some backstory, but you're not going to get it, because The Slog always hits the ground running.

Most of the music was of the generic thumpa-thumpa-thumpa repetitivo crap, but mixed in were a few 80s songs that had, oh, I don't know...a rudimentary song structure. The best of the night was "She Blinded Me With Science," if that helps you get a notion of the range of quality I had to work with. I'm not quite the nostalgic 30-something that some are about the 80s. I know they have a dark underbelly, best left unexamined.³ But, man-oh-man, each blessed slice of pre-1986 music played was like an oasis between large stretches of single-word-named women with pitch-shifted voices warbling over a drum machine.⁴

One such song was the ever popular "Karma Chameleon," by Beauregard Quentin "Boy" George, Esq. When its familiar strains of relatively inoffensive pablum hit my ears, I was overjoyed that for at least 3 minutes I wouldn't have to see The Undead Corpse of Madonna kickboxing Justin Timberlake on a car. Or whatever the hell I had just witnessed. By this point I was in some sort of stupor that was only marginally caused by the booze slurpee I was nursing.

At this point Ali, who wasn't nearly as tanked as she would later get,⁵ asked me: "So, what the hell is this actually about?"

Me: "The song?"
Ali: "The song. The video. Everything. It's kind of like Showboat, but..."

I fumbled about for an answer. I spouted some junk about it being about Boy George singing about nothing because he was Boy George (or something like that - I forgot to bring my stenographer with me. Again.)

But you deserve more than that, Alexandra. Not much more, but a little more. So here goes. My half-assed analysis of "Karma Chameleon."

To begin with, I will unfortunately have to gloss over the video aspect. Yes, the video is basically Showboat mixed with Roots mixed with "The Safety Dance" mixed with what appears to be Adam Ant's⁶ Wedding Party. But that actually makes it one of the more cohesive videos of its time. So, I can't help you there, Alibear.

I also can't help you with any musical questions, as you well know I am tone deaf and essentially unable to learn the simplest information about composing. But this is Boy George we're talking about here, so I'm going to assume that no one reading this gives a wet fart about his song structure.

So we move to the lyrics. Now you're talking my language. English. More or less. So with only a little further ado, I give you:

The Annotated "Karma Chameleon"

The words of B. George are blockquoted in "Arial," the Official Blog Font of the New Romantic Movement.

Desert loving in your eyes all the way

Clearly, Mssr. le Georges' is having an encounter with a lover that withholds affection, analagous to the way a desert withholds adorable kit foxes from the rest of the world. Either that or the lyrics site I visited has a typo and the proper line is "Dessert loving in your eyes all the way," which could mean that the song is an ode to what's left of Val Kilmer's career:

I suppose I should not throw stones, as that could well be me in a few years, if the McRib is ever put into full seasonal rotation.⁷

Moving on, let's look at the rest of the stanza, which really needs to be parsed out. Here it is in its entirity:

If I listen to your lies would you say
I'm a man without conviction
I'm a man who doesn't know
How to sell a contradiction
You come and go, you come and go

Ok. Now lets look at this line-by-line.

If I listen to your lies

We've hit our first genuine snag. One interpretation (the one I personally subscribe to) is that this desert-eyed rogue is an inveterate liar, and therefore never to be trusted. Under this implication, it is clear that Boy has never really listened to his lover's words. Which makes the relationship a hollow lie, and reveals a truly dark and hideous worldview that would be better reflected if it came out of the mouth of William Atherton, or some other bearded functionary. The other interpretation is that said lover is occasionally dishonest, as we all are.⁸ However, to read this into the song is to say that somehow Chico Jorge⁹ is subconciously aware of the lies, and filters it out. This is evident, because the second half of the line,

would you say

proves Steve¹⁰ has no idea what this person says when lying. So I must ignore this interpretation as needlessly convoluted.

I'm a man without conviction

Steve's lover is saying that Steve is a man without conviction. However, as established in the the first line, Steve's lover is lying (either situationally or constantly, this holds true for both interpretations above). This is a clear case of Material Implication, which is as close to a logical truth as anything, as shown in the following syllogism (wherein A=Steve's desert-eyed lover [hereafter DEL] is making a statement, and B= The statement is a lie):

If A, then B
A
Therefore B

So Steve is making a claim that DEL is actually claiming Steve is a man of convictions. Clearly, Steve is an arrogant ass. Note I put the syllogism in Courier, the Official Blog Font of Logical Verities.

I'm a man who doesn't know
How to sell a contradiction

Again, DEL is a liar, so Steve is, in truth, a masterful salesman, who knows exactly how to sell a contradiction. However, in a very strange way of recursion, that means that Steve himself sells conflicting truths in the same manner as DEL. Which means nothing Steve says can be trusted. And it also means that you can trust Steve implicitly. Which means this song is either profoundly stupid or the pinnicle of Sincere Irony^TM.¹¹

You come and go, you come and go

The first of Steve's contradictions for sale. Who knows who's coming and going at this point? Well, Steve does. But that aint for sale.

Now we hit the very crux of the dilemma:

Karma karma karma karma, karma chameleon

This is indeed fascinating, as it clearly combines High Medieval Christian numerology with Hindu mysticism and herpetology.

Note that Karma is repeated five times. As anyone who read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in High School knows, it's got a lot of alliteration and is really hard to read, so you might as well skip it and copy off the D&D nerd who actually read it. And as anyone who read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in college, where they actually had to write a paper on it knows, five is a highly significant number, which represents (in the form of the Pentagle on Gawain's shield):

Fyrst he watz funden fautlez in his fyue wyttez,
And efte fayled neuer þe freke in his fyue fyngres,
And alle his afyaunce vpon folde watz in þe fyue woundez
Þat Cryst ka3t on þe croys, as þe crede tellez;
And quere-so-euer þys mon in melly watz stad,
His þro þo3t watz in þat, þur3 alle oþer þyngez,
Þat alle his forsnes he feng at þe fyue joyez
Þat þe hende heuen-quene had of hir chylde;¹²

Okay...um...that really didn't help my point. Let me provide a translation for those of us who don't speak the Midlands dialect of the 14th century (italics mine):

For first he was faultless in his five senses; and his five fingers never failed him; and all his trust upon earth was in the five wounds that Christ bare on the cross, as the Creed tells. And wherever this knight
found himself in stress of battle he deemed well that he drew his strength from the five joys which the Queen of Heaven had of her Child.¹³

Much better, right? Right? Note that there are four "fives" in the quote, much like the four "Karmas" before the comma separating them from the fifth in the lyric above, this is a nod to the notion that perfection of fives is only allowed for Christ.

Add this numerology to the concept of Karma, which I believe any of my readers should be familiar with, and you see that Steve is playing a deep game about the nature of inner gifts versus outer pride. And all of this will soon come back to haunt both Steve and DEL as Dame Fortune Spins her Wheel.

And really, who doesn't think chameleons are neat-o?

For the record, both of the preceding quotes were in Verdana, he Official Blog Font of Arthurian Source Material.

You come and go, you come and go

Oddly, this line is now redolent with the meaning missing from its first occurence. Fortuna lashes against Steve.

Loving would be easy if your colours were like my dream

Per Wikipedia, the Official Source of All Truth and Knowledge In Our Current Dystopian Climate, red-green colorblindness is prevalent in roughly 7% of the male population. It's a somewhat safe bet to assume both Steve and DEL are male (This is Boy George we're talking about here), so it is not a large leap to assume that one or both of them suffer from some inability to percieve color¹⁴ in the same fashion. It is also safe to assume that Steve and DEL both dream in color,¹⁵ despite Old Wives Tales To the Contrary.

Red, gold and green; red, gold and green

Note two of the three colors are red and green, the most commonly confused hues in colorblind subjects. They are also the traditional colors of Christmas, a holiday originally founded on the notion of generousity and giving, but since given over to the Gods of Commodity Consumerism. The third color, gold, which is clearly equally discernable to both parties is so obviously symbolic that it is almost an insult to the reader's intelligence to note that this verse is clearly a counterpoint on the failure of modern consumer culture to meet the spiritual needs of the participant. Everything is indeed for sale, and Steve (like his spiritual predecessor, Willy Loman) is being crushed by Fortune's Wheel, as evidenced by the events that spiral out of his control.

Of course, the repetition of the phrase within the line is simply to make the song catchy.

There are alternate interpretations that suggest that the colors relate to the mercurial nature of the chameleon's own outer coloration or that "red, gold, and green" is a veiled reference to the Rastafarian religion. On the first point, after being so lyrically astute, would Boy George be so damn obvious in the chorus? I think not. And as for the second, no amount of pot smoking would make someone want to dress like this:

Oh Jesus (no pun intended)...there's more to this song? Another frickin' verse? And a bridge? Ok...

Moving on:

Didn't hear your wicked words every day

As mentioned before, Steve refuses to hear what DEL says, deciding long ago that all is lies.

And you used to be so sweet

DEL once worked for a renowned Belgian chocolateer. You can look this up.¹⁶

I heard you say

Ah, selling us contradictions again, eh Steve. I'm beginning to doubt that you're even named "Steve."

That my love was an addiction

This line is troubling. How can love itself, as a concept, be an addiction? Love can be addictive, in theory. And an addiction can be mistaken for love. But Love qua Love <> an Addiction. Even Homer nods, so we must assume this is an error on the songwriter's part.

When we cling our love is strong

Clearly Steve (or Boy George himself) is being either naïve or disingenuous. Love clings when it is at its weakest. A strong lover can relax, confident that the object of his or her affection returns this affection. Another strong signifier that Steve's reality is a dangerous and shifting thing.

When you go you're gone forever

The mix of a Christian afterlife and the notion of of Karmic retribution from the chorus are suddenly and violently belied by this sudden rejection of the spiritual. I suspect this isn't meant to be a simple statement of an Atheistic or Agnostic worldview, achieved through soul-searching and application of science and/or logic to empirical data, but rather an expression of the nihilism inherent in what Steve likes to pretend is his soul.

You string along, you string along

Petty bitching from the now very unlikable Steve.

At this point the chorus is reprised. The juxtoposition of new knowledge on Steve's character and personal ethos adds a harrowing note to the original message.

Then we are taken to the bridge.

Every day is like survival
You're my lover, not my rival
Every day is like survival
You're my lover, not my rival

This is the point in the song where I differ from nearly all interpreters. As I have stated previously, Steve is a truly unreliable narrator when relating his relationship to DEL. The reason for this is clear to me, and can be truly grasped by following the simile:

Every day is like survival

to its logical conclusion and then juxtaposing it against the plaintive cry:

You're my lover, not my rival

Is every day like survival? If you define "survival" as the arc of a human life, then yes. The ancient Greeks were aware of the concept, in which the Ages of Man were converted to times of the day in the Sphinx's great riddle.

In the beginning of the day, the Sun (Son?) rises, and begins its arc to full Physical Maturity at Noon. From this point, though the height of Emotional Maturity (the Afternoon, the brightest part of the day), in to Decline (dusk) and Death (Night). And all of this is repeated, ad infinitum, as Vanna spins the Wheel.

Steve cries desperately to get this diurnal cycle to end with words, but the words:

You're my lover, not my rival

Are not really addressed to DEL at all.

For there is, in point of fact, no DEL to cry out to. Or rather DEL is a construct, a conflation in Steve's mind of his own vivid livng soul (as he percieves it) and the mortality of his body. He is, ultimately, trying desperately to learn to love the decay inherent in his own body and life, and not compete. The lines are repeated as The Wheel turns, in the vain hope that Fortuna will hear those words and stop long enough for those twin facets of Steve's shattered psyche to join in a "Lover's Embrace."

But Dame Fortune is as deaf as she is blind, and the cycle continues. Verse follows chorus again, like the waves crashing endlessly against the rocky cliffs of endless Time.¹⁷

So, I...hope that helped, Ali.

---

1. Fruity as in flavored like fruit, not in the sense of a slur.
2. This is also not meant as a slur, but the night's playlist was, objectively speaking, super-duper gay. Although the dance music cover of Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb" bordered on Sincere Irony^TM in its brash awfulness.
3. And that's my excuse for leaving the Goonies entry so-half-assedly incomplete after so long.
4. Which, when put that way, sounds oddly awesome to me. It isn't, however, when put into in practice.
5. As evidenced by her baseless accusations of Slogger Self-Urination on my previous post.
6. The most beloved person in the history of Laos, and the face of my Destroyer..
7. I also aopolgize for the not-so-funny alt text. I'm just pleased as punch that I actually figured out how to do alt text.
8. I really did break that mirror, Mom.
9. Okay, I'm officially out of ways to say his name. From now on I will refer to the narrator of the song simply as "Steve."
10. Hope you've been checking the footnotes as you go. The saps who haven't have no idea who Steve is. Losers.
11. You may ask yourself, "Can't it be both?" Well: yes and no.
12. Taken from the e-text of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight as edited by J.R.R. Tolkien and E.V. Gordon, and Revised by Norman Davis, which can be found here. The Slog provides credit where credit is due.
13. Taken from a modern translation of the same by W. A. Neilson, which can be found here.
14. Or "colour" as many of Our Friends In Foreign Lands Dealing With a Surplus of Vowels insist on spelling it.
15. Ibid.
16. This blatant untruth should be the canny reader's first clue that the nature of his-or-her own reality is suspect in this narrative. Perhaps The Slog itself is not the Dispenser of Ultimate Truth that it has to-date advertised itself.
17. Well, that ended a little differently than I had originally planned it when I started this blog entry two weeks ago...

The Dark Underbelly of the 80s - Part One, Section C (Subsection i)

Well, Spring is finally sort of here in Chicago,as one can tell from the following harbingers:

• The Cubs are currently 0-2 (as of 9:16am CST). Chicago baseball overall is 0-4, if you count the White Sox, which I assure you, I don't.
• There is hardly any snow remaining on the ground.
• Construction has replaced icy roads as the main reason traffic moves at a snail's pace.
• The Slog's thoughts are once again turned to the effects of 80s movies on the fragile psyche of The Slogger.

Oh yeah. That's right, Slogophiles.

It's our time. It's our time down here in...

The Dark Underbelly of the 80s - Part One,¹ Section C

CLASS WAR, RACE BAITING, AND CHILD ABUSE...NOW WITH DICK JOKES!

Parts one and two are avaiable in the Slog Archive for your reading convenience. Unfortunately, I have so much to say on this vast topic (this movie contains multitudes), that I believe it wise to split this behemoth into more manageable chunks. Hey, it's been about a year since I promised this. What's a few more days among a readership of 7 people?

Anyway, on with at least 1/3 of The Show:

..................................................

Oh, Goonies. You hurt me so.

Not in the same way that say, Monster Squad² or Dragnet³ (the movie) hurts. No. And to understand why, we need to get a little more "retro" than the occasional Garbage Pail Kids or Sectaurs⁴ reference the average Slog post might try to cough up. We need to go back to a person most people first hear about in a book of knock-knock jokes they found at their grandparents house: Euripedes.⁶

I. Something's Rotten in the State of Oregon

You know what would be a great cliche to do now? Talk about the Greek conceot of κάθαρσις.⁷ I might get back to that, probably in Subsection III. I can't guarantee that, as I basically just make this shit up as I go along.⁹ But it's not the Glorious Purging of Negative Emotion¹⁰ that I am interested in here. It's the element of social criticism. Masked as it is by cheap ethnic stereotypes and dick jokes.

Euripedes' masterpiece, The Trojan Women, is, among other things boring as hell a stern warning to his fellow Athenians about the fact that the horrors of war do not end with the last battle, and that a lust for vengeance and lack of mercy in victory is a scourge on even the victors. In stating this, he became one of the first in a long line of artists that couch their social criticism in their tales. And Goonies is so obviously a continuation of this lineage that I'm amazed there is less scholarly material on this than on other, far lesser films.

Astoria, Oregon is, like similar 80s towns such as Kingston Falls, Hill Valley, and Duckburg, a dystopian nightmare brought to the present day, where cruel (and yet oddly beardless) developers (Fig. 1) worshiping the crassest form of Mammon drive the innocent and hardworking from their homes. And, they're totally dickweeds about it, man. Especially Elgin Perkins. Seriously, when you've broken a man's livelihood and emasculated him in front of his family, the least you could do is not mention he's only one of 50 others you're going to do the same to. Even the consummately evil and malicious Iago¹¹ had the decency to go after Othello alone, and not pencil in a few other Moors to destroy later that afternoon.

Fig. 1: The Plutocracy

And this same wretchedness extends to the reprehensible Troy, who manages to turn much of the first half of Goonies into a really confusing sequel to The Outsiders. Thankfully, he's dispatched in a Mrs. Deagle-esque fashion via explosive toilet¹² at around the midway point, because frankly, the 80s were littered with jock douches already.

Unfortunately, the Goonies doesn't take the logical next step, and advocate the overthrough of a corrupt system through Propaganda of the Deed.¹³ No, like most decadent societies, they expect us all to hope for a deus ex machina¹⁴ like pirate treasure hidden 3500 miles (mostly across a landmass, no less) from the most common trade routes of the Golden Age of Piracy. Keep buying those lottery tickets, folks! You'll be able to pay off that mortgage one day!

So, in hindsight, the Goonies are a Cassandra that not only is not believed, but is not to be trusted. A cynical servant of power that masks a genuine contempt for the lower classes under a false populism (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2: Age-progressed photo of The Gerber Baby.

Now, this photo of Lou Dobbs will provide the perfect segue to my next section, to be posted within a fortnight, or your money back!

---

1. How much hubris do I actually have in implying that this series has more than one part after this?
2. Yes, I know Wolfman's got "nards." That doesn't make this movie any higher than the low bar Citizen Kane sets.
3. "Hey, I've got an idea? Why don't we allow the downward arc of Dan Ackroyd's career to intersect with the upward arc of Tom Hanks' career at the exact Suckiest Point in the Universe?"
4. You don't even remember these, do you? You probably forgot "Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light" and "Battle Beasts" as well.⁵ Well, the 80s weren't all cool shit like The Transformers and The A-Team, Sunny Jim. They were mostly pain and misery. Like The Go-Bots and Rip Tide.
5. Holy crap. Was there any dumb toy idea in the 80s the inclusion of a hologram couldn't solve? Battle Beasts were essentially a fucking game of paper/rock/scissors in collectable form.
6. ...pants, you mend-a these pants. Hiyo!
7. Like all quasi-intellectuals, I like to put the occasional Greek term in, in the original Greek alphabet. This is despite the fact that I've never taken Greek, and therefore my airs to Classicism can be considered quite a praetensus. For the record, it's just the same damn mention of catharsis you'll always get when Greek theatre⁸ is mentioned.
8. Also, for the record, the fact that I spell "theatre" in this fashion is a little praetensus as well.
9. Just like Our Current Administration's Foreign Policy. Zing! That's right, W, you've been Slogged!^TM
10. The debut album from Trinity of the Damned
11. It goes without saying that everything I say about the Shakespearian character of Iago also holds true for the animated parrot of the same name voiced by Gilbert Gottfried. Or really anything Gilbert Gottfried has ever done.
12. Oh, sure. He survives this accident, unlike Deagle. But c'mon, you know Richard Donner totally pussed on him getting killed in an Hilariously Juvenile Tragedy.
13. Trinity of the Damned's difficult third album.
14. The third reference to common Greek theatrical terms in this, Our Most Educational Slog Post, to date.

MySpace Archive: The End of an Era

For the first time in the history of The MySpace Archive, I am not going to begin with the boilerplate intro. This is not just because this is the last one of these I'll ever do, but also because I just don't feel like looking up an entry to copy-paste it.

Besides, now that I have pictures of New Romantics, I've got sevens of readers from Developing Nations,¹ so I need not explain myself anymore.

So this was my response to learning that roughly 50% of my DNA found my MySpace blog while apparently engaging in self-research. There were footnotes in the original,² so I have italicized all of my Special Edition Commentary...and hey, for a lark, I will put them in Arial, that most delicate of fonts.

[Originally posted on Tuesday, January 22, 2008]

So, I have a new reader...

Sorry. No 80s update. Not yet.³

I just had to welcome my blog's newest reader:

Hi, Dad!

Apparently, someone was searching for himself on Google, and my MySpace page was the number three best match. No worries, Dad. We all do that. Some redheaded geek at Purdue⁴ is all over my name's searches, so I feel your pain.

You should have done an image search for your name, man. They're a lot more fun. This guy pops up loud and clear:

Figure 1: David Wolter

I had that hairstyle in 1994, so I can only assume this is a picture of a German guy from 2007. Eep.

Anywhoo, Dad, I suspect you're worried since my last blog mentioned I might write about "my shitty childhood."⁵ Or at the very least Al Davis's ragtag team of roided up cheat-monkeys. Maybe there's some apprehension that I might air out some long-buried grievances or blurt out something unseemly.

Nothing could be further from my goal. Which is, of course, to spew out some random gibberish about some 80s movie in a pseudointellectual manner, toss in some photos and footnotes,⁶ leave in a few typoes so my "friends"⁷ can "gently" correct⁹ me, and then make some tenuous claim about how it influenced my psyche. Which is what 90% of the blogosphere¹⁰ is about.

Anyway, I save all of my genuine trauma and pain for where it belongs: the bar.

So rest assured, this is just simple, good natured idiocy. The kind you've come to accept from Number 1 Son. No malice will you encounter here.

Up next: the thrilling conclusion to The Dark Underbelly of the 80s - The Goonies, or How My Dad Totally Ruined My Life.

There, that wasn't so bad, was it? Admittedly it wasn't so good either.

At any rate, I have heard nothing else from my Dad about either the blog or The Slog. If you're reading this, Dad: I love you. I swear those Christmas gifts are coming soon. At least, as soon as I can finish that damn Goonies post.

---

1. Canada counts as a "Developing Nation," right?
2. Big surpise, huh?
3. Possibly not ever. We'll see, Data fans. We'll see...
4. If you are that geek, and stumbled on this site while googling yourself, well...sorry. There can be only one.
5. Well, my last "MySpace Archive." Obviously my last blog was more concerned with making a lame "Ruptured Chiklis" joke.
6. Like this.
7. By friends, I mean whatever random porn spammers have stumbled upon this page.⁸
8. That really only applies to MySpace. Here, I get people from the Hinterlands searching for "slog in rabbit urine," "Armenian Genocide," and the ever popular "midge ure breathe blogspot."
9. Blog pedantism is one of the few growth industries under the Bush adminstration
10. Don't worry, Dad, it's a made up word. Just roll with it. I did.¹¹
11. Says the guy who used the term "slogosphere" yesterday. God, I'm an ass.

The Whole World Loves Adam Ant, Damn It!

Man, this site's getting image search hits from all over the world just because I put a photo of Gozer the Destructor (in the form of Adam Ant, circa 1981) in one of my posts. Who knew the demand was so high? Apparently, Southeast Asia and large swaths of Africa long for photos of the leaders of the New Romantic movement.

So, in a shameless attempt to boost my hit count (and become The Next Big Thing in Malaysia), here you go, Third World. A trip down Synthpop Memory Lane:

First up is the ever stylish Midge Ure and his fabulous moustache. Ultravox is the probably the first band to have a hit on the pop charts with a lead singer that looks like a maître d' in a Peter Sellers comedy.

"Would sir care to see the wine list?"

Who doesn't love Spandau Ballet? Apparently their hairdresser. Who was probably the guy from Flock of Seagulls. This actually looks disturbingly like a yearbook photo.

"TRUE!!!!"

Remember Japan? I'm sure anyone searching from Manchuria does!¹ Trivia: judging by this photo, a cane-brandishing Melanie Griffith joined the band in 1980.

A Candid Moment on the set of Working Girl

What the hell happened to Boy George? Seriously. What. The. Hell? I'm hoping someone in Senegal wants to know.

I DEFY you to name everything wrong with this picture.

Okay, Duran Duran. I'm not going to make fun of Duran Duran. Their name comes from a softcore sci-fi skin flick starring Jane Fonda. Which, conceptionally speaking, rules. Also, two words: Seven. Andtheraggedtiger.² The only real downside is, thanks to A View To A Kill, they occasionally make the image of Roger Moore schtupping Grace Jones pop into my head...³

"Sorry about that, Wolter"

Also, I have recently become aware of a little known requirement by blogger.com: if you have a blog, and you mention baseball, you must post a picture of Alyssa Milano in her cutesy little Dodger gear at least once a year. So this is as good a place as any:

There. Are you satisfied, Blogger?

Which reminds me, I have a lot of issues with the show "Charmed," which I may⁴ address here at a later date. Or in therapy.

---

1. Everybody loves a good relatively obscure War Atrocity joke! Right, guys? Next entry, I'll be referencing the Armenian Genocide under Ottoman Rule!
2. Sorry. I know. I cheated. It's technically one word and a number.
3. Yeah. I know. It probably wasn't fair for me to mention that. I apologize for putting that image in your mind.
4. I hate to make any promises, as I already feel like I've let down every single fan of The Goonies.

Search logs.

I've seen a few other blogs comment on the paths people have used to find them. This is my contribution to the tradition. The only search query that ever ended up here, to date:

"Mrs. Deagle" Cats

This is it. If anyone used this to find me; congratulations. I love you.

EDIT: I just learned the woman who played Mrs. Deagle was Polly Holliday. Flo from Alice.

Kiss My Grits, Mogwai!

About Me, Addendum #2

So, a coworker and I were discussing Ghostbusters earlier today (big surprise, huh?), and he asked me what form I would want my Destroyer to take.

I thought about this for less than three seconds, and promptly replied:

"Adam Ant."

Adam. Ant.

Less. Than. Three. Seconds.

I guess it beats a large and moving Torg or giant Slor. But not by enough.

MySpace Archive: The Dark Underbelly of the 80s 1b

In an attempt to beef up this blog's appearance before I actually tell anyone about its existence, and also to relive some of my wacky antics over on MySpace, I am archiving all of my old posts over here at The Slog.

This is probably the most "me" of all my posts. It's convoluted, strange, discursive, and combines laziness and "trying too hard" in paradoxical ways. Plus, it has a paean to Dick Miller, and a slam on Christopher Hitchens.

It's also the debut of my exceptionally confusing philosophy, Sincere Irony^TM, which is the culmination of a lifetime of giving half-assed presentations of half-baked ideas (The Supremacy of Ghostbusters, The Nonexistence of Madagascar, The Godhood of David Bowie, etc.)

Strap yourself in for my rootin'-ist, tootin'est, footnotiest adventure to date.

[Originally posted on May 17th, 2007]

The Dark Underbelly of the 80s - Part One, Section B

SINCERE IRONY^TM AND THE NATURE OF GOOD AND EVIL

Anyone who sees the title above knows I could only be writing about one topic: Gremlins.

That's right, folks. My own personal Chinese Democracy, "The Dark Underbelly of the 80s - Part One, Section B, Movies That Begin With G (continued)" has arrived. And not a second too late, as our culture needs its soothing balm. Already, the Beatification of professional douchebag huckster/anti-Semitic elephant seal/decomposing corpse Jerry Falwell has begun. Any society whose news media can describe that bargain-bin racist carnival barker as, at worst, a "polarizing figure" is on a rocket sled to hell. And when the only pundit on CNN who speaks with half a brain about how much of a conniving toad that man was is pompous asshead Christopher Hitchins¹, then we are² in deep trouble (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1: Asshead.

But I digress.

Like all 80s movies, Gremlins posits a bleak and terrifying worldview. Unlike Ghostbusters, whose Lovecraftian scope is the vast and uncaring universe run by elder gods whose reign of unfocused terror (Fig. 2) is abetted by the vast and uncaring bureaucracy on earth, as embodied by a bearded man with no dick³, the enemy in Gremlins is the evil elements of our own culture. We are hell-bent on our own destruction here in the West. If September 11^th has taught us anything⁴, it's that jaded, hipster irony is insufficient to stem the forces of evil, doubt, and televangelism in our world. The only thing that can defend us from these elements is Sincere Irony^TM.

Fig. 2: Cthulhu.

To take the long way to my argument: recently, I have been a fringe participant in numerous online discussions on the nature of faith, religion, and how that relates to the Boston Red Sox and the drumming ability of Terry Chimes (do not question this – suffice to say that Deep Clash Theory^TM is a broad and all-encompassing area of debate). The general consensus reached is that faith is genuine, it must be held in concert with doubt. For certainly and the belief in finite answers is theologically untenable, and reveals the non-doubting believer⁵ to be an intellectual coward⁶. Sincere Irony^TM operates under similar lines as genuine faith.

Fig. 3: Way better than Apocalypse Now.

Simply put, Sincere Irony^TM is a genuine love of the otherwise indefensible. It's watching Spider-Baby because you think it is a genuinely good movie, while being aware that it's also exploitive trash. It's being a dyed-in-the-wool baseball fan while hating jocks. It's believing with all your heart that Ed Wood is a better director than Francis Ford Coppola (who honestly peaked with Dementia-13) (Fig. 3). It's listening to Wesley Willis and genuinely believing he saved Rock'n'Roll while being aware that in the long run the majority of his "fans" are patronizing jackasses, and that you were too the first time you heard him. It's arguing from the heart that the Spice Girls are more genuinely punk and less contrived than the Sex Pistols. It's B-movies, outsider culture, primitivism, and junk food. It's basically everything the Cramps have ever done. It's Orwellian Doublethink for a new generation not afraid to create a reality in opposition to what we're being force fed by Sinister Outside Forces⁷.

And its Messiah is Dick Miller. (Fig. 4)

Dick Miller is the lynchpin of Sincere Irony^TM. Like the Danube snaking its way through Europe, he snakes his way through All That Is Right About Pop Culture. He is Mr. Futterman. He is the cop at the end of Rock'n'Roll High School. He is the guy who realizes Audrey, Jr. is a big deal in The Little Shop of Horrors (not the musical, so stop checking imdb now). He is WALTER-FREAKING-PAISLEY⁸, for Chrissakes. He is the Alpha and the Omega of Movies Decent People Need To See To Be Complete Human Beings. And he isn't flashy about it. He's not some trust-fund crybaby. He's working class. He's blue collar. He's probably a great guy to have a beer with. Every time he gets a part in a film, an angel gets a Ferrari. Of course, that self-same angel probably rolls it, but Dick gets pretty steady work, so there's another Ferrari on the way, Gabriel.

Fig. 4: Our Lord and Savior.

Gremlins posits our Dick (and the worldview he represents) against the forces of evil. And to the observant, that isn't the Mogwai, even if they have eaten after midnight. The forces of evil in this movie are the bland and uncaring modern world, full of hateful machines, alcoholic cops, and Mrs. Deagle.

Mrs. Deagle is perhaps the finest example of what is wrong with America. Miserly, cruel, and humorless, she embodies all of the pettiness of crass consumer society⁹. She lives to wreak havoc and revenge on Billy Peltzer for the twin crimes of youth and dog-ownership. She is the modern (well '80s modern) incarnation of Raskolnikov's pawnbroker. As a villain, she reigns over such lesser film heavies (Fig. 5) as Ivan Drago, Cruella DeVil, and Adolf Hitler¹⁰. Actually, footnote 10 is more on point than I meant it to be, as Mrs. Deagle is very analogous to the Nazis in the first and third (or "good") Indiana Jones movies: you can kill them without arousing any pity.

Fig. 5: The Vienna Boys Choir.

The death of Mrs. Deagle¹¹ is one of the oddest of film anomalies. In an ostensible kids movie, a sad and pathetic old woman in a house full of cats is systematically taunted, then launched out of a window with cannon-like force by a motorized chair (thus indirectly saving the Peltzer homestead). This should be seen as a heartless act of depravity, but instead seems delightful and justified. If anything, the gremlins themselves are acting as agents of righteous vengeance (much like the mythical Furies, in their guise as the Eumenides, or Kindly Ones – but with more kickass mohawks). I don't know anyone who grieves over the sad demise of Mrs. Deagle. But if I ever meet someone who does, I will know that they are, at best, a pussy¹².

Other victims of the gremlins' rampages include the cold, analytical science teacher who takes secret delight in tormenting his test subjects, the alcoholic cops who pervert their promise to serve and protect the community, and Corey Feldman (for obvious reasons). In fact, Corey (Fig. 6) is largely to blame for the nightmare occurring to Kingston Falls, and should be fired out of a cannon-chair himself. Just because…

Fig. 6: War Criminal

Back on topic:

We are all slaves to our modern devices. Gremlins practically screams this at us. All it takes is a hideous army of reptilian saboteurs to render our orderly society a chaotic nightmare. During Christmas no less! This supposed time of brotherly love and familial celebration has been cruelly mocked by its own crassness and commercialization¹³. And yet, the seeds of our destruction are the seeds of our redemption. For every malfunctioning traffic light, roller-coaster chair, and wacky shaving kit, there is a juicer, a microwave, or a nifty remote control car that represents our salvation. These contradictions are inherent for any follower of Sincere Irony^TM, and only bolster our belief in its value.

FLAWS IN THE DIALECTIC

Okay, having said that, Gremlins is not a perfect movie. There's no reason to compare it to works of sheer cinematic majesty like, say, Ghostbusters. There are two major flaws in the movie:

1. Corey Feldman
2. The Rules of the Mogwai

Feldman goes without saying¹⁴, but I would be remiss if I didn't point out a few problems with the other point. I will be brief, as I will be venturing into bad stand-up territory¹⁵.

1. Do not expose them to sunlight – what the hell kind of crazy evolutionary dead end are Mogwai? I could understand skin sensitivity and light sensitivity, but melting like Velveeta¹⁶ at the slightest exposure to the sun seems to be a bit of a hurdle to overcome for the whole survival thing
2. Still, I suppose if the main goal of evolution is to survive until reproduction, the rule of Do not expose them to water cancels that out. However, given that water covers 70% of the earth's surface, falls from the sky on a very regular basis, and makes up something like 90% of all living creatures, the world should be alternately covered with either Mogwai or the goo left over after a sunrise. And what about condensation? Wouldn't morning dew guarantee an army of gremlins? Or the snow that covered Kingston Falls? What is the minimum viscosity of a fluid that would create more Mogwai? Gremlins look a little shiny; could their own slime self-pollinate them?
3. Don't feed them after midnight – holy Hell, this requires a subset of points:
   1. Midnight where? As the earth is a sphere, doesn't that mean a roving line of demarcation where Mogwai mustn't eat?
   2. Or is it based on time zones? Like, if a Mogwai in Chicago eats at 11:59 central, at the same time as one in southwestern Indiana. Would one remain cute and furry while the other grew a cocoon?
   3. And is daylight savings taken into effect?
   4. When is it safe to feed a Mogwai again? Shouldn't Key Luke have narrowed the criteria? Because Gizmo would have starved to death in my house.

POST SCRIPT

Assorted other observations that did not fit elsewhere:

1. I would be remiss if I didn't mention part of the reason I realized Gremlins was fighting the good fight in the culture war is a cameo by one of the single greatest humans in history. The Mr. Jones who compliments Billy's cartooning skills is none other than the legendary Chuck Jones, the single greatest director in history. Oh, sure, bring up Citizen Kane again…look, you film school jagoff, Chuck Jones was working with techniques, camera angles, and characterization that live action directors would take years to integrate. So take your fat, pompous, fishstick-and-wine-shilling hack Orson Welles and cram it. Chuck Jones is on the side of good. And I would rather watch "What's Opera, Doc" 18 times in a row than see tham damn snoozefest about the sled.
2. As a child, I thought Phoebe Cates was hot. I kinda still do.
3. I am one of about 6 people who enjoyed Gremlins 2: The New Batch. I'm not bragging or apologizing. Just stating a fact¹⁷.

Tune in whenever I feel like making Section C. I'll give you a hint: it'll be about "OUR TIME!"¹⁸

NOTES

1. The fact that everything Hitchins has said on this topic is fantastic does not make him any less of an asshead.
2. For some reason, MS Word has told me that this should be "is." As in, "we is in deep trouble because MS Word is a shitty program that can't speaks good grammar. Also, the joking "speaks" in my precious sentence was not flagged as bad grammar. AUUUGH!
3. It seems that the beard is the pinnacle of evil in 80s culture – Walter Peck, James Brolin (he stole Pee Wee's god-given role, dammit), ZZ Top – the list is seemingly endless).
4. It hasn't.
5. I resisted the urge to write "believer^TM"
6. Suck it, Falwell.
7. Patent pending.
8. I'm not going to automatically dismiss you for not knowing who Walter Paisley is, but if you don't watch the classic Bucket of Blood as soon as you can, you are less than human to me.
9. For anyone who thought my Falwell intro wasn't germane to the topic: Wolter-1, All Y'all Haters-0
10. I am of course, speaking of the Hitler from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, whose major crimes seem to be burning books and autographing diaries. The real Hitler was probably at least somewhat nastier than Mrs. Deagle. But I bet he at least liked dogs.
11. Ok, I'm making an assumption here. Maybe she didn't die…somehow Mr. Futterman survived into Gremlins 2: The New Batch despite being apparently run over by a bulldozer. Nah. She's dead. Futterman had to survive because Joe Dante will never make a movie without Dick Miller. Joe Dante is on the side of good.
12. And at worst a Neo-Fascist Class Traitor.
13. If I were a more profound thinker, and less anxious to finish this ever-expanding monograph, I would point out that this whole crisis can be seen as a parable against commercialization, as it all began with the need to come up with a better, flashier Christmas gift, in lieu of spending more time with one's family. Shame on you, Hoyt. Shame on you.
14. Indeed, after a landmark ruling made in Geneva in 1992, his inclusion in the cast of any movie is considered a War Crime.
15. Why don't they make the whole plane out of the black box? Am I right? Who are these people?
16. Actually, per the commercial, I guess they actually melt like cheddar: lumpy, oily, and dribbling onto your doily or other placemat material.
17. I also liked Drop Dead Fred. With Phoebe Cates….
18. However, to date, it hasn't been your time to read it. 9 months and counting since I made this promise. Maybe I'll have the next installment done before the world ends in 2012.
    

MySpace Archive: The Dark Underbelly of the 80s, 1a

In an attempt to beef up this blog's appearance before I actually tell anyone about its existence, and also to relive some of my wacky antics over on MySpace, I am archiving all of my old posts over here at The Slog.

This is part one of my so far two-part exposé into the
movies that shaped my life. Part two followed some time after, and part three will probably come out some time around The Second Coming (or the First, if you are Ali).

I suspect I will have minimal commentary on this one, as though this is flawed, I have a soft spot in my heart for these entries, especially given that is the beginning of my one-man war against The So-Called Greatest Movie Ever. This war has not really touched any of my other entries to date, but is a major part of any given day.

Any footnotes not in italics are from the original post.

[Originally posted on April 12, 2007]

The Dark Underbelly of the 80s - Part One, Section A

Movies that begin with G.

NOTE: I have abandoned my initial practice of starting all blogs with "Well." It seems to be making me unable to come up with new blogs, is a little too precious, and has outlived it's usefulness (I really only set it up that way so I could whip out a "Well, I have cancer" blog, but silly me, I had to be healthy).

Anywhoo.

Where was I?

Oh yeah.

I am a child of the 80s. Scratch that. I hate that term. I didn't spring fully formed from the thigh of the 80s. That's lazy, cliché-riddled writing to say that. But I did spend the ages of 3.43 to 13.57 years of age living in that Reagany, Syth-laden, and Acid-washed time. Somehow, despite spending the entirety of the decade in South Carolina, I never had a mullet, barely wore Jams, and...well I fucking loved Guns'n'Roses. Fine. I admit it. I still love Appetite For Destruction. But that's neither here not there. The point is, I missed out on some of the finer and more embarrassing points of the 80s.

But I did watch a lot of movies.

And a lot of them began with G.

Well, three of them began with G (not counting sequels). Those three were very important in the process of forming my worldview. It's tempting to say that without them, I would be a happier, more trusting human being. Of course, that would be a lie, as what I'm about to write is pure BS-driven hyperbole. However, the fact that such darkness exists in what are ostensibly comedies is proof that we are in the grip of unnamable dread.

The first of the movies in my Trinity of the Damned¹ is the aptly named Ghostbusters.

Ghostbusters, in and of itself, is a fantastic movie. Probably the greatest ever made. You know that's true. Don't even fucking try to lie to me or pull that "Citizen Kane" junk with me. You know you've watched Citizen Kane maybe one time, and you probably dozed off for part of it. But you've seen Ghostbusters so many times that you know what to say if someone asks if you're a god, you know better than to step on a Church in Venkman's town, and you know good and damn well not to think of anything when asked to choose the form of your destroyer (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1: Your delicious, fluffy doom awaits you.

But, of course, underneath the cheery and wise-assed exterior beats the thousand-tentacled eldritch heart of Lovecraftian terror. And that's a good thing. Ghostbusters taught me that, no matter how successful your life is, there's always a chance that a 3,000 year old Sumerian god will eff your world up for no damn good reason. Also, the Babylonians certainly knew a hell of a lot more about theology than Rome does (Fig. 2), no matter what Lenny's Archbishop buddy says.

Fig. 2:The Church isn't gonna save you from Gozer.

So, if god ain't gonna save you, who can you turn to? The state? Hardly. The government (Fig. 3) is, if anything, a total douchebag. Any tinpot bureaucrat with a hard-hat and a government I.D. can set off a nuclear chain reaction that unleashes the full fury of the Elder Gods on an unwitting soundstage that looks sort of like New York. Is it any wonder that I gravitated to Left-leaning Libertarian Socialism² as I grew older? No. It's a wonder more people didn't. If Walter Peck weren't already dickless, Bakunin would have ripped his junk off in a nanosecond.⁴

Fig. 3:The U.S. Government.

Ghostbusters II also taught me a lesson: no matter how anxiously you await a sequel, there's a good chance it will suck on toast. Also, that no matter how good a person you've been in your life, there's always a chance you will have to see Peewee from the Porky's movies paw all over Sigourney Weaver.

Okay, I think I've run out of steam about Ghostbusters. I promise I'll have more meaningless crap to say in Section B: Gremlins.⁶

Surprisingly, I think Section B actually DID come next. But don't hold me to that.

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1. Wouldn't that be a great horror movie title? Or maybe the name of a Goth power trio? Is there such a thing as a Goth power trio? I bet they would really suck.

2. Secret euphemism for Anarchism. Used to describe people without huge beards and round cartoon bombs with fuses that find all control systems to be anathema. See, you learn something every day. ³

3. I must have been rereading No Gods, No Masters when I wrote this. Jeez, Wolter, way to bring politics into a blog about Ghostbusters...

4. This is the truest sentence I have ever typed. No foolin.'⁵

5. I bet people who read all the way through without checking footnotes thought I screwed up the numbering.

6. The fifteenth greatest movie of all time, for those counting.