Unquote

This week, Janet asks her readers for favorite quotes. But could I think of any?

Inconceivable! Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line! The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Criminals are a superstitious and cowardly lot. With a dry cool wit like this, I could be an action hero! Knife-Wrench! For kids! Kids! Kids! Kids America! When Captain America throws his mighty shield! Protect ya neck. I got more rhymes than the bible got psalms.

Hey Look! It's Enrico Pallazzo! Have you ever danced with the devil by the pale moonlight? I always ask that of all my prey...I just like the sound of it. You can't handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that has walls. And those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? Because deep down, in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall. All in all you're just another brick in the wall. If you don't eat yer meat, you can't have any pudding. How can you have any pudding if you don't eat yer meat? You! Yes, you behind the bikesheds, stand still laddy!

I want you to go in that bag, and find my wallet. Which one is it? It's the one that says Bad M*th*rf*ck*r. What the f*ck is this world coming to? You didn't leave a message. At least I could have heard your voice one last time. It's a pity you Autobots die so easily, or I might have a sense of satisfaction now. I went to a shrink, to analyze my dreams. She said it's lack of sex that's bringing me down. I went to a whore. He said my life's a bore, so quit my whining ‘cause it's bringing her down. Easy, miss. I've got you. You...you've got me? Who's got you? I like pink very much, Lois.

I wish I was a neutron bomb; for once I could go off. I just want something I can never have. So, Lone Star, now you see that evil will always triumph because good is dumb. We got no food...we got no jobs...our pets HEADS are falling off! One shall rise; one shall fall. Why throw away your life so recklessly? I know Kung-Fu. Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?

Dear God, this parachute is a knapsack! There must be some kind of way out of here. There he is my little guy. There he is my little guy. Isn't he cute? That's not what I wanted to hear. I'm getting too old for this. Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn. I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Well, nobody's perfect. Gravity is a harsh mistress. For some, shyness might be their El Guapo.

I got nothin'.

Disremembered

The brain is a powerful mechanism. It's the computer that regulates all other systems in our body. It processes pain and pleasure. It controls heartbeat and respiration. It's capable of remembering things that are real, and imagining things that are not.

As good as memory is, occasionally forgetting is better. This week, Janet raises the question, ”What are a list of things you wish you could disremember?” The first thing that comes to mind are my recently resurfaced panic attacks, notably while driving. One could argue that driving itself is the cause, that traffic, near misses, and actual collisions collaborate to put me in a foggy state of not quite getting enough air. Ultimately though, I've isolated the cause to be concern over the attack itself. “What if this happens when I'm in X situation?” No sooner did I remember that, something I'd managed to disremember for a good four years, then I reopened the door.

It's not a terrible problem, a shadow of what it was years ago when it first developed. I don't need a copilot, and I've yet to pull over. Most of the time, I get that lightheaded need-to-yawn-but-can't feeling, my heartrate starts to go up as I wonder if I'll remain conscious long enough to reach the next traffic light, and I try to think of something else. I pay attention to the radio. I think about the things I have to do at work. I can't force myself to be distracted, but when I relax and allow myself to drift naturally, I suddenly find miles have passed and I'm okay. Oddly enough, this takes more effort driving to work in the morning. Coming home in the afternoon, it doesn't seem to be as much of a problem. It's easier to get out of my brain and think about other things. Maybe it's the exercise I get at lunch, getting my circulation going again, or maybe it's the increase in mental stimuli. I reflect on my day. I think about what movies or shows might await me at home. And before I know it, I am home.

I've always thought it important to remember, to learn from the past. When I was a kid, I actually used to recap my life as I drifted off to sleep at night. Sometime after college, I stopped doing that, either because the real world gave me too much to think about, or because I couldn't stay awake long enough to relive the years I'd accumulated. But there probably are things we should forget, or at the very least details that should be allowed to wear with time.

The most important “detail” to disremember is pain. We should know at an early age not to grab the handle of a pot on the stove. In time, we might remember that there was pain and avoid doing the thing that caused it. But do we remember the pain itself? I know for a fact that weeks of my life went by with sharp, stabbing pains in the right side of my abdomen. I know I ate less during this time, and slept on my left side in a fetal position, the only way to sleep at night. I remember pins and needles, ringing in my ears, and evidence of internal bleeding I could no longer ignore. But these are faded memories, words rather than sensations. I don't wince when I think about it, or even get a twinge reminding me. I did for months after the surgery which corrected the birth defect causing the near-fatal problem, but now I can't even imagine it. The brain forgets to protect us, to keep us sane and functional.

The imagination is a dangerous thing. I can see something sharp like a knife or a pen, worry about poking myself in the eye, and sometimes physically flinch. I usually put the potentially dangerous object away when this happens. I've never actually jabbed myself in the eye. Once in high school before a final exam, I reached for my shirt pocket and my hand came back with a freshly sharpened pencil sticking out of my palm. To this day I still have the tip in there and I can see the graphic deep in the meat of my hand. After that I remembered not to have sharp objects sticking up in my pocket.

We remember the cause of physical pain even if we can't, thankfully, recall the exact sensation. But what of emotional pain? Perhaps there lies the things I wish I could disremember. I wish I could disremember kids laughing and pointing in second grade when they identified the handwriting on a love note to a girl I liked. I wish I could forget the people who made fun of me, the feeling that I don't belong and shouldn't talk to people unless they talk to me first so I know it's “okay”. I went from being open about my feelings and expressing myself to closing myself off and guarding myself. Instead of being outgoing and making friends, I became shy and withdrawn. I actually used to go up to strange kids and just start talking. I'd make friends whether I was shopping with my parents in a store or sitting in a waiting room at a hospital. By the time I was in high school, my neighborhood friends were “blackmailing” me to play the games they wanted to play. If I didn't comply, they'd shout out the name of the girl I had a hopeless crush on in middle school, whom I never told. Most of all, I guess I wish I could disremember distrust and be the full human being I should have been.

I think the only emotional pain I wouldn't want to forget is that of loss, which differs from the crippling pain of the fear of rejection and mockery. I don't want to forget how upset I was when various pets died, or my grandmother, my Uncle Armand, my music teacher, my Aunt Irene, or my mom's cousin. The thing is, the brain works the same way with emotional pain as it does with physical pain. I miss these people, but I don't break down every time I think about them. I remember jokes my aunt told or life lessons my music teacher imparted along with music lessons. I remember that they all existed, and were important to me. I might forget the emotion of loss, the lump in my throat and stinging at my eyes, but not the ones who are gone.

Janet asked for a list, but as usual I rambled into prose. To sum up:

• Being made fun of for being me
• Getting beat up
• Being laughed at for liking various girls
• Anxiety
• Phantom sensations of imagined pain or past actual pain
• Anything from my past that causes me to hold back in the present

And finally,

• Various things people have shown me on the internet, ranging from a guy at my old job that showed me footage of one of the beheadings in the Middle East to maligning links Rey has concealed behind a TinyUrl. Most importantly, and I can't stress this enough, if B13 ever sends you an unspecified animated gif or any link with the word “party” in it, exercise extreme caution in clicking.

Ultimately, time is our greatest ally in disremembering, and our greatest enemy in holding on to the memories we'd rather keep.

So Far, So Good...

I have two uncles on my mother's side. Her oldest brother, at 80, is sharp as a tack with a good head for financial matters and good organizational skills. Though he became a widower last year, he's remained strong for his son and his family, as well as his brother. The other uncle never married, and after some wild years as an alcoholic in his ‘20s and ‘30s, he went on to survive cancer and stay sober. 40 years later, I think damage from his youth is finally taking its toll. At my cousin's the other day, after dinner he looked around the table and asked my mom, “Where did Chris go?” She looked at him for a moment before answering, “I'm right here.”

I've often looked at life the way I look at role playing games. Our experience strengthens us, and every little bit contributes to help us gain a new level. In video games, we can just get stronger and stronger the longer we play. It's scary to realize that at some point, some of our mental and physical abilities will decline. Genetics and our lifestyle will determine how long we last. Do we smoke? Drink? Exercise? How well do we eat? I've never eaten well nor in moderation, difficult in an Italian home, but in my childhood I was constantly on a bicycle or climbing a tree or just running around the neighborhood. Then one day I graduated college and sat in front of a computer for 12 years with limited weekend or vacation interruption. Worse, weekends and vacations also consisted of sitting in front of a computer.

It's easy to think we're immortal, and hard to break bad habits when we're aware of our mistakes. Initially, we have adults warning us. We don't believe them. Then we see the toll time and hard living takes. We watch our family cope with heart disease, diabetes, asthma, obesity, senility, and more. Maybe we decide to make a change, and while any time is good and today is better than tomorrow, we all pick tomorrow. We make New Year's Resolutions, but no one ever keeps theirs, do they? Some years I didn't bother. Other years I made grand, life-altering promises, leaps that no human being could make in a single bound.

The key is small steps and measurable progress. It might be easier for me to get into some semblance of physical shape again now that the holidays are over, but the cupboards will be well stocked with snacks for weeks. One night this week I had a slice of chocolate cake, left over from my Aunt's birthday party. Raiding the refrigerator for a late night snack isn't terrible, but at 2 AM I wondered what the hell I was doing even as I kept going. I've done a little bit of exercise this year, but jogging for five minutes means nothing if I inhale cake in the middle of the night.

There are a lot of good things in life I thought I'd never get, and I was surprised when I actually did. A college accepted me? A girl wanted to go out with me? A major company hired me? If I couldn't imagine something in my future, I figured it would never happen. “Never” is a strong word, a self-defeating word. I view my life's milestones as probable or improbable events, yet I'm quick to accept absolutes. I lose before I play. The perfect example was my dread of returning to work in the new year. A lot of people were on vacation, and I was certain I'd face impossible hurdles upon their return. The most challenging of individuals was not only in a great mood, but praised the work I'd done and made minimal changes. I had accepted defeat before I had any reactions, and assumed I'd have a late night ahead of me. Instead I had a productive day and left work at a normal time.

The truth is, life will always throw us things we don't expect. Some are bad, and some are good. If there's one single thing I can work on this year, beyond losing weight or dropping bad habits or any of the other things people try and fail, it's my defeatist attitude. We should be prepared for the worst. We shouldn't expect it. I know my attitude has to change, and if I keep repeating this fact maybe it will finally stick.

When I had homework in school, I thought I'd never finish and was relieved when I did. When I was certain I'd failed a test or a quiz, I'd be pleasantly surprised upon receiving a near perfect score. On some level, it was all psychology, but I'm too old for that now. Stress takes its toll and subtracts from my enjoyment of life. It's selfish, but I need to enjoy my life while I have a few decent decades remaining. This year, my only resolution shall be positive thinking. I need to listen to a different voice in my head:



Thank you, Cajun Rob Schneider. I can do it. And if I can't? **** it.

They Pull Me Back In

Someday I'm going to have a real life, with real adventures. I'm going to turn off my television, my computer, and my cell phone, get in my car, and drive West until I get tired.

Today is not that day.

Every year I say I'm going to cut down on television, and not add many new shows, if any. I'm enough of a Couch Potato with all the shows I regularly watch, and so far this year those shows have continued to deliver, with my favorites being Heroes, How I Met Your Mother, The Office and Prison Break. But have I added any new shows? Janet asks her readers that very question this week.

The new show I watch really appeals to me. It's protagonist is someone gifted and special, who leads a normal, everyday life with a perfectly ordinary job and some good friends. The cast of characters range from their mid-20s to mid-30s, and they're always quick with a pop culture reference especially significant to my generation. The blend between action and humor is great, and I confess to laughing aloud more than once. Every time I think I'm done, television pulls me back in, especially when this new show I'm describing is actually four shows.

Chuck was your ordinary nerd, working in a Best Buy style store, heading up the computer department's “nerd herd”. He's awkward around women, brilliant around machines, and plays a lot of video games in between hanging around with his MCF-ish buddy. Then an old college friend sends him an e-mail that somehow downloads all the government's secrets into his brain. He can't consciously access this information, but occasionally gets flashes, sometimes with hilarious results(I couldn't believe he mentioned Oceanic 815 in one episode). I wasn't sure I would watch the show since it airs against two other existing series I've already mentioned, but Rey made enough of a case for it that I've managed to keep up either by catching encore presentations or online versions, and this week a baseball game knocked out the Prison Break conflict. There's a really sweet romance blooming between Chuck and the female agent assigned to watch over him, played by the gorgeous Yvonne Strahovski. If that's not enough, it has Adam “Jayne” Baldwin as a tough, deadly government agent posing as an appliance store employee, scowling through it all and occasionally firing off some trademark sarcasm. Somehow, I'm going to find a way to keep watching.

Bionic Woman is a show I've been on the fence about. I think people have been too critical of Michelle Ryan's looks. I find her attractive, but her acting less so. She's often overshadowed by an evil bionic woman played by Katee “Starbuck” Sackhoff, who gets the best dialogue despite being saddled with cliché supervillain dialogue in the pilot. Each week has been marginally better than the previous one, though logical holes still pervade the plot and the script needs polishing. I think part of my problem is that I'm looking for a new Alias, and this show isn't even close. As of the latest episode, they've introduced an interesting element, that the very bionics which saved the lead character's life and gave her enhanced abilities, will likely burn out and kill her in a few years. Suddenly, there's more at stake and a doomed heroine is more interesting than a snarky barmaid delivering flat lines while trying to maintain an American accent. It's still not Alias, but I'm not giving up on the show just yet. It has potential.

Reaper is a lot like Chuck, except the young main character is a little cooler and works in a Home Depot type store. Also, instead of having a head full of secrets and being forced to work for the government, he has the onus of capturing escaped souls and returning them to hell for the devil, because his parents sold his soul before he was born. Its got action, effects, comedy, sidekicks, geek references, and a pretty girl. It follows a bit of a formula, but I see them breaking away as the show develops. Each week Sam(Bret Harrison) discovers some unusual temporary ability as well as a “vessel”, some ordinary object like a toy car or a toaster that will help him catch the soul of the week. The controller for the toy car acted as a lighting rod to contain an electrical soul for example, while sparks from the toaster zapped a woman who could turn into a swarm of bees. Ray Wise is evil, charismatic, and hilarious as the devil. Forget his turn as a thug in RoboCop or as a vice-president on 24; this is the role he'll be remembered for. There was a great exchange this week when he waves traffic around his car, and someone shouts “go to hell!” He pops his head out, shouts back “I'll meet you there, BRUCE!”, then informs Sam that the mole on Bruce's neck? It's not a mole.

I also enjoy catching all the nods to Ghost Busters that Reaper makes, even though there's a good chance the twenty-something target audience might not have actually seen that movie. In the pilot, there are jumpsuits and backpacks reminiscent of Ghost Buster gear. In the aforementioned insect queen episode, the way they throw out the sparking toaster and hold the cord reminds me of the ghost traps. This week one of the characters names a dove Winston, and coming attractions for next week show them fighting a green slime monster. I may be looking too closely, but there seem to be a lot of parallels.

Finally, I'd have to say Pushing Daisies is fast becoming my favorite new show. It's bright and oversaturated, with a warm narration, yet it infuses some of the darker elements of classical fairy tales. The subject matter could be very dark, yet it's bright and optimistic. Sometimes it's like a Tim Burton movie directed by Coen Brothers, but mostly it feels like Barry Sonnenfeld is bringing his film sensibilities to the small screen.

Once upon a time, there was a little boy who discovered he could bring dead things back to life with but a touch. His gift came with a price however; should he touch a reanimated being, he would kill it again forever, beyond his power to resuscitate. Even worse, after 60 seconds of a life restored, another life would be lost to maintain some cosmic balance. This boy grew up to be a pie maker, played by Lee “I was in The Good Shepherd” Pace. He leads a lonely existence, and harbors the secret that when he brought his mother back to life, it caused the death of his childhood sweetheart's father. Anna Friel plays “Chuck”(there's that name again), his aforementioned childhood sweetheart. When she's murdered, he revives her, and gives in to the temptation to not touch her again and keep her alive. As a result, a corrupt funeral director played by Brad “you might know my brother from Heroes, Alias, or Felicity” Grunberg dies instead.

So now the pie maker is reunited with his true love. She can never see her aunts again, who believe her to be dead. He can never touch her without killing her, and a new kind of tension is born. Here we have a show where the two main characters already share a mutual romantic interest; they just can't act on it. Chi “I've been a fan since The John Larroquette Show” McBride often steals the show for me. He plays Emerson, a grumpy private investigator who, upon discovering Ned's talent, partners with him to solve murders. Ned wakes up a victim, asks who the killer was, then reverses the process within the one minute limit. When Chuck joins the team, Emerson isn't happy, especially since he was in proximity when Ned kept her alive and he could have been the one to die instead of the funeral director. He has a hilarious moment this week when a coffin lid is stuck and he fears Ned can't get to a reanimated body in time. He runs, crossing himself and screaming “Oh HELL no!”

The show really is unique, a fairy tale and a black comedy. It appears wholesome and innocent, but it's made for adults. I won't repeat one double entendre that worked its way into the last episode, but I was sure it was my own warped mind until characters referenced the term again later in the episode with the same perception I had. In the same episode they find a way to call McBride Pooh and have Ned declare his desire to become a Jedi. It's awe-inspiring. With intelligent dialogue and vocabulary, phenomenal plot and storytelling, and a charming cast, this quirky show should appeal to both men and women, and I hope it sticks around for a few seasons and maintains the quality of the first three episodes.

In the end, the similarities between these four shows are only at the surface, common elements that attract my taste. The specifics that set them apart will keep me watching. I've added four new shows to my week, and shows I already watch will still be returning over the next few months. Television, will you ever let me be free?

Recycled TITMT

When I started this blog, I checked things like Statcounter, Technorati, and the TTLB Ecosystem daily. I was happy when my numbers spiked, sad when they dropped, and content when they remained consistent. At some point, I enjoyed the steady collection of readers and friends I had gained, and numbers were less important. I checked less frequently, and eventually not at all.

This week, Janet asks her readers “What are some of the weirdest searches that brought people to your site?” I remember incorporating the phrase “demon lesbian consorts” into an early film review, a post that still gets hits from related keyword searches. I remember when Rey and I figured out a way to mess with Curt, picking words out of context in order on various pages of his site, enough that his page would come up first in a search and he'd see an unusual sentence or five when he checked his logs. It's been a while since I looked at that stuff otherwise.

So, in order to answer this week's question, I'll have to dust off my Statcounter access. It took a few tries to remember my password, but I'm in. I'm not sure why I only average about 6 readers a day right now, but that could explain why I haven't gotten many responses for next week's Cloakfest. Maybe something's off with the site's algorithm, or maybe I need to promote more. In any case, that's a tangent to deal with another time. Here now are the weirdest keywords currently bringing folks to the Nexus:

”funniest movies of all times”

“hey there delilah is the song legit”

“muse black holes and revelations blogspot”

“where do i get spider scents in dragonfable”

”smallville kryptonian symbol burned yard”

”dragonfable online no screen door”

“SNL mock commercial for spray on hair kit”

”that new song about superman?”

”"four years" without dentist”

“meaning of broken wheel flower arrangement”

Huh. Note to self: Write more weird shazbot to bring in more readers via random searches...

I Got What Power?

I can think of any number of M.C.F.A.T. questions that have dealt with being a superhero or living with special abilities. The topic certainly isn't limited to those posts though, and I touch on it often. Still, when Janet posed the question, ”If you could have any super power, what would it be and why?”, for this week's ”Tell it to Me Tuesday”, I couldn't resist delving into my favorite realm of escapism.

Of course, these things always go the same way. I go through various powers from the mainstream comics I read predominantly in high school and college, consider flying but, like Rey, realize I'd have a problem with heights, and ultimately settle on super speed because it would mean getting to work on time and, more importantly, leaving work on time. I don't feel as overwhelmed and crushed as I did at my last job, but I do feel like there aren't enough hours in the day. I have my regular job, my weekend musical jobs, things to work on around the house, and thousands of movies and television shows to catch up on. I've even fallen behind in my reading. I have a blog to maintain, photos to take and someday I'll have to, you know, add a life to the mix. Getting married, buying a house, raising kids, helping them with homework, meeting with teachers, seeing them through college, babysitting my grandchildren, and all that other stuff would require more time and money, so things like movies would have to fall to the wayside since quitting a few bands or working less hours during the week would never be an option. Super-speed would be super-handy.

Since this is a topic I've already covered in depth, I'm going to take a different approach to the question. Since Janet was inspired by the Heroes season premiere, I'm going to look at some of the characters and abilities on that show, and determine how such abilities would make my life better or worse.

(•) Mohinder Suresh
While he doesn't possess any superhuman abilities, Mohinder does have the natural ability to be really smart, and yet at times be a complete moron. If I had that power...oh, wait, I already do.

(•) Matt Parkman
I never know what people are thinking. I speculate, and whether positive or negative, I always seem to be wrong. It's rare that I confirm this, when I do, sometimes years later, it catches me off guard. It would be great to read people's minds, wouldn't it? What problems could I anticipate at work by knowing what people want from me? Which girls should I pursue and which should I avoid? How can I avoid fights with my parents? Ultimately, knowledge comes with a responsibility to act, and I'd have to live with the guilt even if others had no idea I knew what was expected of me. Worse, what if all the negative opinions I read in people's eyes were confirmed? I'd rather live with the possibility that people genuinely like me than confirm that they don't. Mind reading? No thanks.

(•) D.L. Sanders
I don't know if I'd have much use for the ability to pass through solid objects. I'm not often locked in or locked out of things, and while typing such a statement guarantees leaving my car keys locked in the car within the next 24 hours, I still see more cons than pros. What if I lost the power in mid-phasing and solidified within a solid object? What if I couldn't turn it off and was unable to eat or touch another human being? What if I fell through the ground and kept falling? How do characters with this power keep from sinking or floating off into the atmosphere? I'll keep my mass just the state it's in.

(•) Niki Sanders
Oddly enough, I'm still not fully clear on her powers even after a whole season, but I've probably read too much into the show. While she struggled with a split personality, we eventually saw that she had the same super strength as her mirror counterpart. So assuming she was just crazy and the strength was her main ability, I'd say that would have come in handy, especially growing up when I needed to be able to take punches. Maybe I could have dished some out. Maybe someone would have gotten seriously hurt. Maybe super strength isn't so great...

(•) Micah Sanders
Niki and D.L.'s son is a technopath, able to talk to machines and fix anything. It's a passive ability, but it would probably come in handy. I spend a lot of time talking to computers and troubleshooting problems as they arise, and it would be great to keep my car running without troubling my dad or any of his mechanic friends.

(•) Nathan Petrelli
Unless I had super strength, invulnerability, or healing powers in addition to flying, I don't think it's an ability I would embrace alone. I sometimes pretend I'm flying when I'm trying to fall asleep at night, but while my mind soars my body is definitely meant to stay in contact with the ground at all times.

(•) The Haitian
While there are plenty of things in my past I'd like to forget, and even a few that I've forgotten or put on the back shelves, it would be really great if I could make other people forget my past. Yes, I do appreciate the irony of such a statement on a blog in which I upload every detail of my existence except for my real name and appearance. Still, “Remember the time...?” and “Aren't you that guy who...?” are two conversation-starters I don't always enjoy hearing at parties.

(•) Peter Petrelli
From a superhero standpoint, mimicking anyone else's ability just by observing them makes for a super advantage. Do I risk an overload? Could I be too powerful? And would I end up with powers in the mix that I don't want? As a Hero, Peter has the best ability. As an average guy, I'm not sure I could handle it.

(•) Sylar
Sylar's original passive ability was to see how stuff works. He employed it against other people with powers, isolating the parts of their brain responsible, removing those parts, and somehow making them a part of himself. Sylar can gain other powers like Peter can, but he needs to cut out brains to do so. I'll pass.

(•) Claire Bennet
Claire can rapidly regenerate tissue and heal any injury. For someone as accident prone as I am, this would definitely come in handy. It would be nice to face the world without my scars. Of course, even though she can heal, she still feels pain. In some ways, scars serve to remind us of pain and prevent us from making the same mistakes.

(•) Hiro Nakamura
Time manipulation may be a better asset than superspeed. I wouldn't have to go fast if I could slow everything else down. Then I could move along at my own pace. Manipulation of space as well as time could also improve my life. I could be anywhere I needed to be, at any time. Traveling to the past or the future and changing events would be a little messier, and I'd probably avoid creating too many divergent alternate realities. If I had enough time to do things right, I wouldn't have to do them over. This power would be my first choice.

Angry Again

Janet is looking for “angry” music this week. Maybe wedding planning is proving frustrating, but more likely it's just a random topic from her endless vault. Personally, I'm not finding a whole lot to be angry about this week, and though a combination of dropping temperatures and a lack of exercise has made me vulnerable to germs and left me with a pesky sore throat, I still feel like whistling the Andy Griffith Show theme wherever I go. I'm enjoying this mood as long as it lasts.

Still, it is a good topic. Just last Friday, when my friend Sparkplug asked his brother the musical value of the Slipknot song he'd selected in the jukebox, I pointed out that sometimes music isn't about technical skill or lyrics. Art expresses emotion, and occasionally rage is called for, accomplished with screaming and atonal guitar chords. My first selection below isn't as angry as I remembered, but I felt it appropriate to include given the title. The others definitely fit the bill, and as Darrell pointed out, music can be therapeutic in releasing anger. Therefore, the following singers are probably a lot more well-adjusted than they appear, and not “all on drugs”* as my parents would say. I'm also wondering if I would have whistled more back in college with cheerier tunes...

1) Megadeth, “Angry Again”:

”Enraged my mind starts to smoke.”

2) Smashing Pumpkins, “Bullet With Butterfly Wings”:

”Despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage.”

3) Pearl Jam, “Porch”:

”What the f*** is this world coming to?”

4) Metallica, “One”:

”Darkness! Imprisoning me...”

5) Korn, “Freak on a Leash”:

”Something takes a part of me...”

6) Nirvana, “Territorial Pissings”:

It's not what he sings; it's how he sang it.

7) Nine Inch Nails, “Something I Can Never Have”:

”Just a fading f***ing reminder of who I used to be.”

8) Alice in Chains, “Angry Chair”:

”I'm a dull boy, work all day. So Im strung out anyway.”

9) Rage Against the Machine, “Killing in the Name”:

“F*** you; I won't do what you tell me!”

10) Public Enemy, “Fight the Power”:

“Our freedom of speech is freedom or death. We got to fight the powers that be!”

*(OK, maybe some of them were on drugs)

Sing Like Hell

I learned something on Wednesday. When B13 asked me whether Pink Floyd's Echoes preceded The Phantom of the Opera or vice versa, my gut response was that of course the play preceded the rock song. As it turns out, the opposite is actually true and Roger Waters is quoted accusing Andrew Lloyd Weber of using both the same chord and time signature in his song, though he never pursued any legal action. Who knew? Personally, I like the music of both.

In life, especially in any creative pursuit, we're judged whether we realize it or not. “Life is one ****ing beauty contest after another. School, then college, then work...**** that.” proclaims one of the characters in Little Miss Sunshine during a moment of epiphany. It's not always a bad thing when the things we do are recognized, and on rare occasions a positive response might catch us by surprise, especially when we think no one is looking. Whether you try or not, people will categorize you and put you in lists, so there's no point in worrying about it either way. I'm no different, but while I started out talking about Broadway musicals and psychedelic ‘70s rock, I'll be composing a slightly different list today.

It's been over a week since Janet posed the following question, but better I respond late than never:

”What do you think are the most powerful songs vocally and/or by topic? What songs really get to you? I'm talking about the songs where the singer sung the HELL out of that song. You know the type I'm talking about.”

I know exactly what she's talking about. My choices are likely more vocal than topical, but this is the stuff that gets me out of my seat at a concert, or singing in my car, or running on a treadmill. This is by no means every song that fits that description, but these are some where the singer really wails and/or pours his or her heart into it.

Bon Jovi's “Runaway”:

(I figured Livin' on a Prayer is too mainstream and went with one we don't hear 1,000 times, even though he does sing the hell out of both)

Pearl Jam's “Porch”:


Natalie Merchant's version of ”Because the Night”:


AC/DC's “You Shook Me All Night Long”:


Onyx' “Slam”:


Bruce Springsteen's “Glory Days”:


U2's “With or Without You”:


Skid Row's “18 and Life”:


Danzig's “Mother”:


Metallica's “Wherever I May Roam”:


Night Ranger's “Sister Christian”:

(A staple of every Karaoke adventure I've ever been on, especially the ones that aired on NY public access back in the ‘90s)

Guns n' Roses' “Paradise City”:


Green Day's “Basket Case”:


Urge Overkill's “Sister Havana”:


Audioslave's cover of ”Seven Nation Army”:


Nine Inch Nails' “Something I Can Never Have”:


Eagle-Eye Cherry's “Save Tonight”:

(Suddenly I know where Rey spent his Summers back in college.)

Boston's “More than a Feeling”:

(Here's the “Scrubs” version.)

Aerosmith's “Cryin'”:

(Yeah, I know it's from the era where all their songs sounded like this one, but it's pretty powerful on its own. Besides, it's nostalgic to see Alicia Silverstone at the start of her career, before Reese Witherspoon proved to be a better actress and got all the roles she might have gotten. Blink and you'll miss Stephen Dorff and Josh Holloway.)

Blues Traveler's “Hook”:


I'm sure some of these songs overlap with previous lists I've compiled, but hopefully I threw some new ones into the mix.

Summer Dreams

It's definitely Summer, so Janet's Summer Memories inquiry is a timely one.

I've never cared for the really hot and humid days. My neighborhood friends were athletic juggernauts, a few years younger than me and undeterred when the thermometer hit 100 degrees. When I would have stayed in to play video games, they forced me to play basketball. I really should have kept in touch with them after I started going to college. Summer was an eternity, and I cherished every minute outdoors, whether sweating on a field or reclining under a shady tree with a comic book.

I remember my first real Fourth of July party as an “adult”. At 23, I thought I had it all. I had a real job and a steady girl, and homework and exams were things of the past. Granted, I'd soon realize the job paid practically nothing once I realized how much the real world cost, and the girl would leave after a few years, but that moment, that blissful naiveté of youth was a good one. We laughed with friends and enjoyed a barbecue, then had to leave early because it was a Friday night, and back then my dad and I still played with a Summer band by the shore, every Friday in July. My girlfriend and her sister watched the show with my mom, and afterward the three of us tried to return to our friend's party. We sat in traffic for an hour, trying to get into a beachfront town with only one road leading to it. We saw most of the fireworks from the car, and arrived in time to walk to the beach and meet up with party stragglers and relax.

Some of my best Fourth of July weekends were spent out in Montauk, when a high school pal's parents moved out there. They let him and his friends stay out there for a long weekend of beaches, beers, bikinis and bonfires. Depending on what days my parades fell, I'd either show up a day later than everyone else or have to leave a day earlier. The tradition only lasted two or three years, but sitting around a fire on a beach in the true middle of nowhere was an amazing escape to forget about work and life's problems. Reality resumed soon enough, but for two or three days I had sort of a vacation from it. Even the year I almost drowned in the ocean was a good one. Sure, a wave slammed into me just as an undertow yanked my feet from under me. And yes, I can't swim and wasn't wearing a vest, and when I tried to swim I was so disoriented that I hit sand before I realized I was going the wrong direction. Somehow I found my footing, and standing on the tips of my toes I could keep my nose above water. I saw the shore, and shaking all the way I trudged forward, praying another big wave wouldn't hit before I reached shallower waters. It was a good year because I almost drowned, but lived to tell a pretty good tale about it. Sometimes I wonder if I did die, and every memory since then has been a dream occuring in the fraction of a second before my last breath.

Barbecues are always fun. Some of my best memories are of college gatherings on campus, relaxing by a grill, kicking a soccer ball around, or climbing trees. Those annual shindigs heralded the end of classes and the start of Summer, and just before it was time to go back I'd have a gathering in my parent's yard. I always overdid things, buying nearly $200 worth of food for less than twenty people. I ate well for weeks after those gatherings, and always had plenty of dessert, turning our kitchen table into a make-your-own-sundae bar. Eventually, it became harder to coordinate. Friends got busy with work, marriage, or starting families. My girlfriend broke up with me, and for a while I simply wasn't in the mood to socialize. I joined more bands, and found more weekends booked. As for my trusty grill, after the lighter broke, other parts went as well. It still sits somewhere in the yard, but my dad strongly recommends that I don't trust it not to explode. Someday I'll get a new one, or get my own house and, when I finally do, a barbecue will be my first priority.

Camping trips were always fun. I went on three major trips with my friends back in college. The first time, we really roughed it, sleeping in tents. There was one structure in the middle of the woods, a brick building with broken screen doors and functional sinks and toilets. At night, unspeakable insects coated the screens. It wasn't as rough as some campers go, but it was rough enough for five city boys and one Long Islander. The next two times, we rented trailers with full plumbing and electricity. There aren't many people who can associate playing Soul Edge with a camping trip, but I fall into that group.

I also fell into some classic MCF moments. I almost always had a bad sunburn. My friends tormented me with water pistols. Once we rented bikes. I was the only one with a flat tire, and when they loaded up our van I had to walk a few feet behind, rolling my bike. My friend would go slow, then speed up when I almost caught up. The most infamous incident is the now (unfortunately) legendary “I want answers!” tale. After staying up all night to see a friend off who was leaving very early in the morning, I decided to get an hour or two of sleep before we left. As everyone was packing, one of my friends decided to try the old hand-in-a-bucket-of-warm-water trick. He used nigh scalding hot water, and when nothing happened, he apparently took the pot of water and just dumped it on me.

I was so out of it, I still didn't wake up, at least not right away. As warm water seeped through my jeans, dreams of being on fire seeped into my subconscious. I leapt up disoriented, screaming about burning and almost hitting the ceiling as I fell out of a bunk bed while my buddies in the hall just fell about the place laughing. I ran out into the living room, a normally quiet soul now livid. I was shouting, and everyone was laughing, and in a move that will haunt me to my grave, I whipped off my belt in one fell swoop, slammed it into a table and screamed, “I WANT ANSWERS!!”

All but one stopped laughing, and I think Rey even edged toward the door, because as he told me years later, he thought I was finally going to snap and kill people. Every time we all got together since then, one of my friends would recount the tale, embellishing it every time with language and metaphors but never changing a detail or fact. Now he's married with a kid, Rey's married with 2.5 kids, and even the guy who poured the water on me and continued to laugh in the face of a psychotic breakdown is married with a little girl. I keep in touch with most of my college friends, occasionally even see two or three of them, but it's been years since we've all been in the same room at the same time, and laughed at that story. I used to hate it, but actually miss it now.

Life is change. The best times it seems are often in our youth, though we don't realize it at the time. “Youth is wasted on the young,” as an elderly trumpet playing friend of mine always says. Time moves on, but our memories remain. I'll always remember water parks, tubing, being towed by a speedboat, camping trips, barbecues and more. And just because a lot of those friends and adventures are in the past, doesn't mean new ones aren't in the future. I've been to air shows in recent years as well as countless photography adventures exploring the world around me. And the last barbecue I attended resulted in a video posting that's actually starting to piss people off. “Okay, why the XXXX do you guys think we care what you think of Cloverfield???“ asked one irate YouTube patron. I actually didn't expect anyone to care over there, so 15,569 hits later I find it all hilarious.

As always, Janet posted a great topic, and this was a fun trip down memory lane. What new memories await? Keep reading, CloakFriends, keep reading...

Soundtrack Slices

This week, Janet asked her readers, ”What are your favorite songs that have come from movie soundtracks?” I thought she might have asked this before, but the last time she prompted me to write about soundtracks, it was in the category of albums that time forgot.

I do have plenty of soundtracks in my collection of tapes and CDs, and I can think of a few songs that originated in films. I'm going to go with a broader definition though, and include tunes that may have existed prior to a film's release, but were either made popular by the movies they were featured in or, on a personal level, those movies brought those songs to my attention. I can't list every song or list them in any preferential order, but I can provide a sampling of what I like.

Let's rock:


The Faculty
The Offspring
”The Kids Aren't Alright”


Donnie Darko
Gary Jules
”Mad World”


The Cable Guy
Primitive Radio Gods
”Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in My Hand”


Spider-Man
Chad Kroeger
”Hero”



Pink Floyd: The Wall
Pink Floyd
”Mother”
”Comfortably Numb”
(I'm only going to list two here, but honestly the entire soundtrack qualifies.)


The Departed
Dropkick Murphys
”I'm Shipping Up to Boston”


Desperado
Antonio Banderas and Los Lobos
“Canción Del Mariachi”


Judgment Night
Onyx and Biohazard
”Judgment Night”


Demon Knight
Pantera
”Cemetery Gates”


Singles
Screaming Trees
”Nearly Lost You”


Singles
Pearl Jam
”State of Love and Trust”


The Transformers: The Movie
Stan Bush
”Dare”
(There wasn't actually a video for this, but someone combined it with the trailer for the new movie.)


The Transformers: The Movie
Spectre General(Kick Axe)
”Nothin's Gonna Stand In Our Way”
(Again, no original video and I couldn't find the specific scene in the movie, so we'll have to settle for a fan vid.)


The Transformers: The Movie
Stan Bush
”The Touch”

TV Dads

From time to time, I'm reminded that my dad and I are more alike that I realize. He's an avid sports fan, particularly of baseball, and once coached his own team. I could care less about sports, and describing me as athletic would be hyperbole at best. My dad fixed cars while I watched cartoons about cars and played with toys. I've always seen my dad as strong and a man while I was weak and immature. He's bold where I'm afraid, but I think boldness is something that increases with age. As we get older, we care less about what people think, for better or worse.

As I drove us home from a parade on Saturday night, he reminisced about old times and old friends. A fellow band member in his fifties had earlier explained that he never got married because every girlfriend eventually wanted him to give something up or do something her way, and he wasn't willing to bend to someone else's will. I brought this up again as my dad was venting over the fact that he finally found a carpenter to do some work on our house, but my mom didn't like the guy, and if it were up to my dad he'd have taken care of things and hired someone already. Marriage is compromise, and the challenge is yielding to someone else's wishes when you might have made different or faster decisions on your own.

This discussion prompted my dad to tell me about an old friend of his who, during a period in his life when he wasn't talking to girls or asking anyone out, told my father, “Girls go to the bathroom too.” I found this funny on multiple levels. First and foremost, isn't that a great selling point? But what the guy was trying to convey was that females weren't magical, unapproachable angels, but human beings with feelings and problems like anyone else. On many occasions in my own youth when I confessed my paralyzing shyness, my dad actually gave me the same advice, but I never realized he was quoting something that had been said to him. By the time I was born, my dad was a married guy in his mid-forties. I grew up seeing a tough mechanic who spoke his mind and talked about sports. He had his act together and I always assumed my dad was some confident jock who didn't settle down until he was 40, not someone who was actually bashful and spent more time on his work than his personal life. We might have different interests, where he'd enjoy a baseball game while I'd have fun at a comic book convention, but in some ways we're the same person. Someday, when I have a teenage son and he can't ask a girl he likes to the prom, I might impart the same advice in spirit, if not the same crude words.

I know who my favorite real-life dad is. This week, Janet asked us who our favorite television fathers are. In no particular order, I would choose these five:

Henry Rush (Too Close for Comfort)
He could be blustering and scary at times, but he clearly loved his family and, most importantly, had one of the coolest jobs as a stay-at-home cartoonist. When a guy sits around sketching with a cow puppet on his hand, you know he's not so bad and I list that mental image among the reasons I pursued an art career.

Philip Drummond (Diff'rent Strokes)
I just remember him as one of the nicest dads on television. It was rare that he lost his temper with either his daughter or his adopted sons, and despite his wealth he was still a down-to-Earth guy. I haven't watched the show in about twenty years, so I wonder how it stands the test of time. In many ways his mannerism and willingness to impart lessons and morals hearkened back to sitcom models from earlier decades.

Al Bundy (Married...with Children)
“Let's Rock.” At the other end of the spectrum, Married...with Children promoted a more cynical and realistic view of family life. Al would come home from a job he despised, cheered for by only the audience, to a shrill wife, a loser son and an idiot daughter. He was a downtrodden everyman with his glory days left behind when he graduated high school. Yet, as the series went on, beyond four people living together and not getting along, at the core they were also a family. It was a characature, but more realistic than it appeared. Any one of them could annoy the others, but if someone on the outside threatened them they joined forces with a “Whoa Bundy!” From hurling his daughter's boyfriends out the front door to escaping angry mobs during a two-part vacation in Britain, at the end of the day Al took care of his clan.

Homer Simpson (The Simpsons)
Homer's another one who evolved, much like Al, and his character has had 18 years to be refined. I remember the early, crude animation, and how Homer was more of an angry father than a comical simpleton. He's an idiot and he screws up, but in the end he makes things right and his family loves him. More importantly, we love watching his antics and I can't wait for the movie.

Jack Bristow (Alias)
Jack Bristow may be one of the coolest dad's on television. He's aloof, and has trouble relating to his daughter, but we join the series just in time to learn why: he's a secret agent working undercover to infiltrate a bogus CIA operation. Once spy daughter and spy daddy learn how much they have in common, his facade begins to break down. He's still a badass, and sometimes protecting his daughter involves torturing or killing people, but beneath the cold exterior is a human being burned once, betrayed by a wife who turned out to be an enemy spy. He achieves his missions, but his daughter is his most important one and he makes many sacrifices for her over the show's five year run.

* * *

Honorable mentions go to Heathcliff Huxtable, Harry Weston, and Hank Hill whose nuclear family bears a similarity to my own.

Casting MCF

This week, Janet wants to know who would play me in a movie, and what the title of the film would be. My mind is reeling with possibilities. I think that at different stages of my life, different actors would be appropriate, not so much for physical appearance as the type of characters they play.

”Hold the Broccoli” would tell the tales of my college misadventures, improbable things I said and did as I acquainted myself with the outside world. Jason Lee would be my first choice for such a comedy, but Rob Schneider is who I could afford.

John Cusack would be perfect as the star of ”Fancy Restaurants”, a romantic comedy/drama about a young hotshot who gets a job, gets the girl, and has it all go to his head before he gets the message from reality.

In ”He's Not Heavy...”, Samm Levine would play a high school student who suddenly finds himself transferred to a school run by strict Marianist brothers. Can he make new friends, survive psychological bullies, and keep his tie out of his pasta at lunch?

”Off Key” would feature Zach Braff as a young geek who escapes a dead romantic life and the tedium of office work by pouring himself into karaoke. The drunker you are, the better he sounds.

Finally, ”I've Wasted My Life” would star Danny DeVito as a single writer on his deathbed, looking back on his life and wishing he had done some things differently. Enter Morgan Freeman as a guardian angel who appears and transports his consciousness back to his younger self, played by Paulo Costanzo. Armed with knowledge of the future, will he still make the same mistakes or allow the same opportunities to drift by? The film would jarringly flip between past and present, and neither the viewer nor the protagonist would know if it was real or his imagination until the stunning twist ending in which...well, you'll have to buy tickets once it gets made. I'll probably make films about my friends first, starring Daniel Stern, Daniel Radcliffe, Alfonso Ribeiro and Nicholas Turturro. Can you guess who's who?

Underdogs

Why are underdog stories so great? Sure, many of us identify with those nice guys who always finish last. Maybe we're inspired or motivated to see someone overcome impossible odds. Honestly, it's a little boring when a person is equipped to face his or her challenges and accomplishes things with ease. It's so much better when someone is pushed to the brink of failure, or actually fails, and then makes a recovery no one expected, even the underdog himself. It's why I get out of bed every morning, and possibly why I maintain an audience here. One day there's going to be a post where I get the girl, score a high-paying and secure job, get my own place, and generally break out of my shell and achieve the restrained potential no one, including myself, is aware of.

Today is not that day.

Instead, I'll be reviewing some more famous underdogs, in response to the latest Tell It To Me Tuesday from fellow Blogger's Choice Award Nominee Janet. In addition to the things I normally write about, I can also be considered an underdog in the Awards at this point, but things may yet change.

Here are my underdogs:

5) Why is Scrubs an underdog? It's a popular sitcom with a huge fan base and a great cast, with Zach Braff well on his way to a successful film career. It's lasted six seasons, and may in fact gain a seventh. However, due to being owned by its creator, Bill Lawrence and not the network on which it airs, the show has always been treated like an unwanted stepchild. The timeslots would change constantly, and it aired on at least three different days for five years before finally landing on Thursday nights where it always belonged. It was rarely advertised, and episodes were shown once, with no reruns available before it finally became syndicated. And even though ABC will grab it and air its seventh season, the current network keeps talking about its “final episodes”. For a show to move around a lot and get poor advertising, and still attract a loyal fanbase who followed it wherever and whenever it moved is truly the story of an underdog overcoming adversity.

4) Not every underdog story is going to end in success. Sometimes fiction imitates reality. I always rooted for Marc Price's Skippy over Scott Valentine's Nick on Family Ties, but Justine Bateman's Mallory could never see Skippy as more than a friend with a puppy dog crush. Nick at least wasn't a bad guy, but he was a complete moron. Looking back, I can see how he was a better match for the equally dim Mallory and Skippy could definitely be better off with someone more his intellectual equal. Nevertheless, I went through a period in my life where I greeted people with Nick's “aaaay!” and tried to dumb myself down. It's a shame my parents never let me wear leather jackets or grow my hair long, although I did ultimately become an artist. I'm starting to wonder if television ruined my life...

3) I'm now going to ruin Major League for anyone who hasn't seen it, and if you don't want to know the ending, feel free to skip ahead. I'm not a sports fan. The only time I followed a team was in college when I played in the pep band for basketball games. Watching baseball, blasphemous as this may be, bores me. At least in basketball or football there's constant movement in one direction or another, and not a lot of running in a circle. My friends had a hard time convincing me to play as a kid, and I usually had to be coerced. When I saw this movie with them for the first time however, I was motivated to get out on a field as soon as possible and play ball. It might not be most people's idea of a great movie, but a comedy about a bunch of screw-up ballplayers assembled to fail, only to prove their owner wrong and make an amazing winning comeback had me cheering every time. Besides, you get to see future “president” Dennis Haysbert curse out his voodoo idol and find the strength within himself to finally hit the ball. The characters in the film prove themselves by the end, and even actors like Wesley Snipes became well-known and went on to bigger things.

2) I guess I should put at least one real person on this list. I'm tempted to go with Joss Whedon, because who knew how big Buffy would become, or the kind of credibility a former Roseanne scribe would get from taking a film that had suffered changes imposed on him before making it to the big screen and making it into a series true to his original vision five years later? Instead though, I'm going with Judd Apatow, who might be well on his way to a Whedonesque following of his own. I've never seen Freaks and Geeks, though I'm sure it was the kind of series that would either resonate with me positively or hit so close to home as to be painful. It was his next short-lived series, Undeclared, that I got hooked on. It was a quirky comedy about college life, complete with losers and underdogs and cute girls. It did lose some steam when the geek actually got his dream girl, but maybe Apatow knew FOX wasn't a network that might give him a chance to tell that tale over more than one season. Yes, it's among the many great shows that network cut down. Remember when they let underdogs like The X-files actually have a chance to gain an audience? Undeterred, Apatow moved on to movies, and while Anchorman at the very least had some hilarious moments I appreciated, his first great movie is The 40-year Old Virgin. This guy's career is definitely blowing up, and his new movie Knocked Up not only looks funny but stars Undeclared alums Seth Rogen and Jay Baruchel. Like Whedon, Apatow has built a reserve of good actors that frequently appear in his projects.

1) With all the talk of Spider-man 3 lately, I doubt choosing Peter Parker here will surprise any of my regular readers. A nerdy high school orphan lives with his aunt and uncle, gets picked on by kids at school, and can never get girls to notice him. After being bitten by a radioactive spider, he gains the proportionate speed, strength, and agility of arachnids. In the comic books, he used his natural genius to create wrist devices that spun an artificial webbing, but after the movies included web spinning among the abilities he inherited from the spider, he gained this power in the comics as well. In both continuities, he learns a hard lesson after trying to use his abilities for personal gain, and his uncle is killed. He becomes a hero, but while he does all these amazing things in costume, he's still something of a loser without the mask. Even with the mask the public fears him, including his own aunt, and the newspapers call him a menace. Eventually he uses his freelance photography career to get a college degree and become a teacher, and he marries his dream girl. It's the best possible underdog story, the classic ”Ugly Duckling” scenario. A glasses-wearing loner geek becomes a leader for the next generation, husband to a super model, and a superhero. Of course the thing about Peter Parker is that when things go really well for him, something bad is always around the corner. Will Spider-man be alone again after an upcoming storyline potentially negates the existence of his marriage, as some fans speculate? I hope not, but I know that this is one character who will always pick himself up, dust himself off, and start all over again.

That's just what underdogs do, and the distinction between an “underdog” and a “loser”.