Hola de Bolivia!

I'm in Bolivia for two weeks. It's a landlocked Andean country rich in ancestral tradition. For example, as part of some sort of ritual related to the beginning Carnivale, groups of young boys roam the streets with bags of water balloons targeting mostly groups of young girls or passing cars that have the windows rolled down. One group in a car tried to pelt me with a balloon as they drove slowly past but missed by a mile. Kind of proves why there are no Bolivian baseball players in the majors, right? I mean, how could you miss me?

I walked around this town square in Cochabamba for almost three hours, and this dude never moved once. I hope to be him someday.

The Dark Knight made nearly $470 million in foreign box office. Half of that had to be from the guy who put this on the hood of his car. ¿Por qué tan serio?

My favorite piece of graffiti so far. I like anyone who equates the police with some sort of marching death squad. This is my kind of place.

Random Acts of Beauty

The Ghostvillage Project from Agents Of Change on Vimeo.

I think this video is appropriate here because it illustrates just one of the cool things that people can do with all this trash.

But what's with the eerie 2001-ish background music/drone going on throughout the video? It creates a very creepy atmosphere.

Movie Reviews! Best Of 2009 Edition

I ran across this picture today and it reminded me how much I loved Up. It also reminded me how much I adore fat preadolescents of Asian descent.

Up – I’m in the bag for Pixar. Aside from Cars, they haven’t made a bad movie. And I don’t mean, “for kids’ movies, they’re pretty good.” No, as films, as perfectly constructed pieces of art, Pixar is damn near perfect. They have perfected the kind of concise story and character development that immediately engages an audience, and their meticulously crafted and perfectly lit animation brilliantly illustrates how much can be accomplished within a film frame. Up was my favorite movie that came out in 2009. It’s sad and funny and incredible.

Inglorious Basterds – It’s difficult to separate the artist from his art, especially when that artist is so full of himself and is so painful to listen to, but Quentin Tarantino made a super fun movie that plays with history, idolizes both movies and violence, and shoots Hitler multiple times in the fuckin’ face!

Observe and Report – This may be the darkest comedy I have ever seen. Not in terms of content, but in terms of characters. Not one person in this movie is good or likable in any way. Everyone is a dick, everyone will stab you in the back, and even your mom is just a drunk trying to stave off blacking out so she can drink some more. Even with all that, this movie is incredibly funny in a really pessimistic, gloomy way. Made by the dudes who made Foot Fist Way and "Eastbound and Down."

In The Loop – A brutal British comedy about the impotence and incompetence of politicians. Funny and frightening at the same time.

The Hangover – Las Vegas shenanigans, Zach Galifianakis, and this.

Big Fan – I wrote on this earlier. Awesome movie.

I think that’s it. Don’t let anyone tell you that District 9 was the best movie from last year. Anti-apartheid allegories that shoot its own message in the foot with racist content aren't all that great. I’ll see most of the year’s other top films, like that George Clooney thing and the Coens’ new one, sometime by summertime 2011.

Questions Brought Up By The New “Lost” Promotional Photos That Will Most Likely Also Go Unanswered

Where’s Desmond?
Will the character of Desmond face the same fate as Walt, Mr. Eko, Libby, Matthew Abadon, and that lady who was the Others’ “sheriff” in exactly one episode (interesting characters who we’re led to believe are important to the story arc but that are abandoned haphazardly)?

What’s Claire Doing Here?
Isn’t she dead? I mean, she is, right? I guess this leads into the whole “what happened when the bomb goes off” conversation: will the series reboot to the beginning, meaning everyone who we’ve seen die will be alive again? I hope not. I may finally have to call bullshit on this show.

The Last Supper? Really?
I know this show is rife with religious iconography and subtext, but this seems like overkill. Interesting to see that Locke is Jesus in this scenario and not Jack, but not very interesting.

God, Are We There Yet?
Honestly, I love “Lost” without reservation, but there are many lingering, bothersome questions I have that I doubt will be answered by these final 17 episodes.

Get ready to be befuddled, people.

2009, I'm Glad You're Dead

This was a difficult year. I lived most of the year in an insect-riddled cave; I started doing cooler stuff at work, which meant way more work, which also meant a heavy measure of much-avoided stress; the fledgling production company I started hasn’t made anything of quality in a long time, making me question my talent and leading to sleeplessness and more stress; I grew disenfranchised watching Democrats get in the way of progress because they were now the ones getting fat on lobbyist cash; I bristled when Obama continued two bullshit wars; and my poor health has caused kidneys troubles that persist = more stress.

I’m glad you’re over, 2009. For a year that was supposed to be so filled with optimism and potential, you sure were one motherfucker of a taint kick.

So, to usher in a new year, my favorite toast:

Every saint has a past; every sinner a future. Here’s to the future!

R.I.P. George Michael (aka Over-sized 'Play' Button Pushing Sports Machine Guy)

I just wanted to take a little time to remember George Michael, D.C.-area sportscaster and host of the Sports Machine, who passed away several days ago at the age of 70.

In the past, we have made fun of George Michael not only because of his pollyanna-ish views on all local pro sports teams, but also because of the way he stood in front of ridiculously gigantic A/V equipment (a 'sports machine', if you will) with equally gigantic play, stop, forward, and rewind buttons. Even as the technology advanced and video playback devices got smaller and smaller, those buttons always remained disproportionately big--prompting questions such as, "Does George Michael have poor motor skills?" and "Why can't the Sports Machine use free-range child labor instead of sweatshop child labor for all of its novelty button manufacturing needs?"


But perhaps we were too hasty with our relentless cajoling of George Michael and the Sports Machine. I was watching ESPN yesterday and somebody said that without the Sports Machine there wouldn't be any ESPN, there wouldn't be any SportsCenter. After the beer I was drinking shot out through my nose, I started to realize that this person had a pretty good point. While no ESPN would mean never having to experience the baneful Stuart Scott, I began to see that George Michael's overall contributions to the field of sports' highlights were, after all, pretty damn significant.

So... here's to you, George Michael.



P.S. Arch Campbell, don't think for a second that you'll be getting off this easy.