Ladies Love Sea Quest Fans

[originally written for overtimecomedy.com on 10/06/06]

I'm just going to come right out and say it. As a kid, I was a crazy die-hard Star Trek fan. It was one of the few things my father and I had in common, so we embraced the shit out of it. This of course led to one of the great dilemmas of my early adolecence, how to be a sci-fi nerd and meet girls.

The answer: Sea Quest.

Here was a sci-fi show for everyone. It's set in the no-so-distant future, and it was set on Earth. It was like watching Hill Street Blues, but on a futuristic submarine that explored the depths of the ocean. Roy Scheider as captain, brilliant. If he can fight great white sharks, he could match Patrick Stewart in gravitas. The ace in the hole, though, the thing that was going to get young girls interested was former Chuck Norris sidekick Jonathan Brandis.

It worked. My middle school even had a Sea Quest club, and my sister was in it. She's a girl, right?

Brandis's Lucas was more annoyingly precocious than Wesley Crusher, but I sat through his obnoxious blond locks because I knew he was my only chance to find love. I watched him bond with talking dolphin Darwin as my hope for romance grew. I committed every adorable thing he did to memory, knowing it would help me get girls.

So I never had a girlfriend in middle school.

Great Scenes From Bad Movies: The Transporter

My first Transporter movie was Transporter 2. It's amazing. That movie is a bastion of ridiculousness. Jason Statham is white ninja. That guy rules. Before they could reach the heights of Transporter 2, they had to setup the character and all his back story, blah blah blah. It has some good action sequences, but overall, it tries too hard to be a real movie.

There is, however, one good scene.

I called it oil fight.

Statham's Frank Martin spends the whole movie fighting his way up a crime syndicate. Based on his moves, and a box some chick finds in his house full of character revealing information, he clearly knows how to handle himself in a fight. He's quick on his feet, and he knows how to use his environment to his advantage. Like I said, white ninja.

The zenith of Frank's amazingness is in some sort of workshop area. He's got to fend off a butt load of bad guys all by himself. To gain the advantage, he spills a bunch of oil on himself and the floor. Using the oil in every imaginable way, he slips out of their grip, makes them lose their footing, launches himself across the floor at them. It's fundamental scene work. Take one thing and use it in every way imaginable. Frank tops himself by taking apart a bike -- with his feet, of course -- and using the pedals, he gets a more solid footing on the oil.

This is why The Transporter movies are better than the Bourne movies. Jason Bourne takes out a dozen guys just because he's awesome for some reason. Frank has to earn every bit of kick ass. He earns it even more in Transporter 2 with "hose fight." It's like oil fight to the nth degree.

Check it out, oh, and also Crank 2, best movie of 2009.

Seriously, Someone Stop Silverchair!

[originally written for overtimecomedy.com on 01/25/07]

The following is an open letter to music:

Dear Music,

I’ve been trying desperately to reach you. Hopefully this reaches you in time. Apparently, Silverchair is playing the El Rey in LA on February 20 (contact Ticketmaster for tickets). I need you, the platonic form of music, to stop this, please, immediately.

As a society, we’ve done what we can to stop the music of Silverchair. Firstly, we stopped buying their albums. Secondly, we stopped going to their concerts. Thirdly, we dropped them from their record label. But you see, music, Silverchair outsmarted us.

They’re now on some indie record label, and they’ve found new energy and zeal for touring. With the advent of the internet, they can get us to come to their concerts (contact Ticketmaster for tickets) and add their songs to our iTunes playlists. I have six Silverchair songs from three different albums. I don’t know how they got there. I didn’t download them. Silverchair songs have a mind of their own, perhaps an all-powerful group mind.

We, the human race, cannot stop them on our own. We need you to shut them down. Perhaps remove their vocal chords or arms. If you’d like, you can make this happen at their concert on February 20 at the El Rey in LA (contact Ticketmaster for tickets). I’ll be there, and it would make the concert much more exciting.

I appreciate you taking the time to read this. Hopefully I’ll see you at the concert, preferably maiming Silverchair in some fashion.

Don’t Fight the Future

Part 9 of 12: FDR to Ike

Perhaps by now, you’ve seen a pattern. The more reforming a president, Democrat or Republican, does, the more his successor backslides. The Whigs unraveled Jackson’s reforms. Lincoln’s successors took back presidential authority. Harrison tried to undo every reform from Hayes to Cleveland. Harding tried to undo every reform from Cleveland to Wilson. This time, though, the game finally changed for the better.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Governor, Democrat) 1933-1945 (re-elected 3 times, died) VP: John Garner (ended up hating him), Henry Wallace (kind of a dick), Harry Truman; FL: wife Eleanor

FDR was a dick. I’m just going to say it. He was an effete, New York asshole. He bullied his way into office, lied to and manipulated everyone while in office, and spit in the face of tradition by getting elected four fucking times. Lucky for us, as a president, Jerkface McGee was a brilliant reformer whose wise leadership carried us through Depression and War, thereby changing the fundamental relationship between government and the people. History has proven that when the shit hits the fan, not just anyone can do the job, and we were lucky to have his service. No wonder that, despite his sweeping reforms and social programs, he’s widely and actively hated still today.

Harry S. Truman (VP, Democrat) 1945-1953 (inherited then elected) VP: Alben Barkley; FL: wife Bess

Even though he was hated at the time, Truman earned his place as one of the great presidents by being FDR’s exact opposite. He was a good man, crappy politician. With the lowest approval ratings ever recorded, it's no wonder he almost lost to Dewey. Only because he operated in FDR’s shadow could he de-segregate the government, drop food aid on Germany, evolve FDR's New Deal into the Fair Deal, drop the bomb on a couple cities, got the ball rolling on NATO, and help establish Israel. For all your great accomplishments, arigato, Mr. Truman. Arigato.

Dwight David “Ike” Eisenhower (General, Republican) 1953-1961 (2 full terms) VP: Richard Nixon; FL: wife Mamie

A funny thing happened with Ike. He didn’t backslide. After 20 years of nearly non-stop reform, the pattern would predict Ike, a member of the opposition party, would try to turn back the New Deal. He didn’t. He was a forward thinking Conservative. No major reforms. Just keep everything as it is. Sorry, no jokes on this one. Just think about that for a second, and think about how something as simple as putting country above party should be something we take for granted, but it isn't. Nowadays, it's all about vengeance for both sides, and it gets us nowhere. A man like Eisenhower can't get elected today (see: Colin Powell, Wesley Clark), so we swing back and forth in 4-8 year increments ultimately getting nowhere. You know whose fault that is? Nixon, Ike's VP. Even Ike can't be perfect.

Next Up – JFK to Ford: The Men Who Would Be King (even Leslie King)

The World Needs More... (part 2)

Seriously Deluded Politicians
(Sarah Palin, Joe Wilson, Dennis Kucinich)

Sarah Palin is the best thing to happen to American politics in years. I cannot get enough of her. Clearly, she has a bunch of guys feeding her information and she can't be bothered to fact check it. I was getting tired of politicians debating issues. What really brings the message home is when people with a microphone just stand up and throw scary made up shit into the mix. Death panels? That chick'll say anything to get elected something. What's she running for? Who knows? But she's gonna win.

Drivers
(Guy on cell phone, Lady who forgets she has a turn signal, Whoever's nearby)

It's only a couple ton piece of machinery, other people will just get out of your way. The conversation on your cell phone, way more important. Change lanes or stop to make a turn whenever you feel like it, without giving any sort of indication to the other drivers you intend to do so. God, if only there was some sort of device to communicate all that so easily. Oh, the turn signal. Fuck that. That's just revealing your plans to the enemy. You know what, fuck the other people on the road. I'm just going to honk at them whenever I feel like it. It's not like the horn was placed in cars to avoid accidents.

Pro-Lifers

Here's a secret. Liberals LOOOOOOOOOOVVVVVEEEEEEE killing babies. We get off on it. Seriously. We sit around looking for those smaller than us to wipe out, and since we're all skinny, weak intellectuals, really only babies fit the bill. I'm glad you guys are out there reminding us that we're not rapidly approaching 7 billion people strong without the resources to support even 6 billion, so people who do the responsible thing when they accidentally get pregnant should really focus on the narrow moral issue and not the big picture.

Families with 10+ Children
(Octomom, The Duggars)

Speaking of overpopulation, I love the Duggars. These people have balls. They say only-children don't know how to share, but these guys are hording all our planets precious resources for their legions of children. As a twenty-something, I'm a bit worried about my seed surviving. The Duggars have it all figured out, just freak and let the chips fall. If they keep this up, the world will be predominantly Duggar. That's bad ass. Oh, let's not forget Octomom. God told her six kids is enough, and she said, "Fuck you, nameless deity."

Pundits / Unqualified Opinions
(Everyone, even guests, on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, TV at large)

Truth is relative. It's very Zen. What is truth, really? If someone wearing a tie says something on TV, it goes out to millions of people, most of which will repeat it without corroborating evidence. Sarah Palin says, without evidence, that Obama's health plan includes Death Panels out to kill grandma. The pundits repeat it, even when they're saying, "There are no Death Panels," they're repeating it. In an attempt to be "fair and balanced" they cart out an unqualified crackpot to say Death Panels exist to counter the learned experts who say there aren't. There is actually something in writing declaring what is and isn't part of this bill (by which I mean the bill itself), and still people say they hate Obama's plan because they're against Death Panels. Pundits have the real power in this country, and if everyone on the internet acted like a pundit, we could all rule the world, every last one of us. Fact checking and giving a crap about consequences, or even other people, is for suckers.

I Love Supporting Actors: Clea DuVall

You know, this gal:
Notable Roles:

Katie Reed - "ER"

Stokely "Stokes" Mitchell - "The Faculty"

Ginny - "Identity"

FBI Agent Audrey Hanson - "Heroes"



Why She's Awesome:

I swear, I thought this girl was around forever. While looking up her career for this, I discovered only her second role was a stint on ER as the girlfriend of a kid turning 18 who wanted his mother to honor his DNR. That came before all those teen movies she was in, like Can't Hardly Wait, She's All That, and The Faculty. Maybe my teen years are all just blurring together, but I cannot believe her career is just about as long as the run of ER.

She's the kind of supporting actor whose God given distinctive look guarantee her work forever. Even in all those teen movies, she was always the one you could pick out of the crowd. That brooding darkness made her the one who got goth kids into teeny bopper films. Her best teen movie has to be The Faculty. She's like Elijah Wood, but a girl.

I put Identity on her notable roles because I wanted to mention that movie. I love it. Also, it was her first real adult role, but she wasn't quite a full adult. Our first glimpse of how she'll fare as an adult actress came in her stint on "Heroes." As much as I love her, I rolled my eyes when she showed up. Thankfully, she spent the rest of the season proving me wrong. She's really grown up, and while the distinctive look that will keep her constantly employed will guarantee she'll never headline a blockbuster, I look forward to many, many more Clea DuVall movies.

You'd Be Surprised to Learn:

She's an only child.

Check out her imdb page.

Bipartisanship is NOT Presidential

Ever since Jefferson and Hamilton argued over whether the federal government should be centralized or more of an overseer of the powerful state governments, our political system has been based on battling parties. They disagreed voraciously, even called each other names. Over their partisan mudslinging, Adams and Jefferson never spoke in person again. You know what none of them did? Reach across the aisle.

When Jackson ripped control of the government away from the Jeffersonians, he used his time in office to shift the agenda to match the values of his new Democratic Party. Then the Whig Party rose up in opposition, and when the country's values were more clearly aligned to the Democrats than the Whigs, they re-formed into the Republican Party, which was at the time, the more liberal of the parties. That's right, Democrats used to be "government is scary" Conservatives. When Cleveland became the first Democrat in nearly 30 years to get elected, he used his time in office to push through a Democratic agenda. When Teddy Roosevelt decided the Executive Branch needed more power, he didn't wait for the Congress to give it to him, he took it. Wilson didn't wait for the Republicans, FDR didn't wait for the Republicans, Reagan didn't wait for the Democrats. Presidents lead, everyone else follows.

Liberal and Conservative, both have valid points on a great many issues. Without saying which of these I do and don't agree with:

• The government has great powers to help people on a grand scale in a way that they're answerable to the voters not just those with enough money to have influence; however, our republican form of government is slow and inefficient and if we put the government in charge of too much, we're just creating a government run Monopoly.

• The money spent on the military should be spent on our amazingly lacking school systems; however, the money we've spent on the military has protected us by making us world leaders by virtue of our unmatched might.

• It is the responsibility of those who have to help those who don't, and the great wealth of the federal government mandates social programs; however, when the government becomes a permanent safety net, it encourages laziness by rewarding failure.

Obama's got the right idea, take ideas from everyone. Health care shouldn't be a partisan issue, but it is. By all means use every idea at your disposal, but stop trying to be so fucking bipartisan. It's not very presidential. You won, they didn't. For the first time in way too long, you don't need a single Republican vote to win. Sure, it would be a symbolic gesture to gain their support, but while you try to be Mr. Popular, you're giving power to the right by asking for their votes.

Fuck them, every last one of them. We all hated Bush, but even when he was dead wrong, there was no doubt he was the man in the White House. We elected a liberal leader with strong vision, a Jefferson, a Jackson, a Roosevelt (you pick which), and we're getting a wishy-washy centrist. Just write the damned health care bill how you want it, and get it passed before the 2010 election season creeps up on us. If you're right, you might get elected again, and so do the Congressional members of your party. If you're wrong, you might go down in flames. If you fail because you were more interested in being popular than getting the work done, you will most definitely go down in flames and probably take the whole party with you. Weak presidents can kill a whole party, just ask Millard Fillmore (yeah, I went there).

The Joe Wilsons of the world have proven that the ones that disagree with your health care plan will hate you no matter what you say or do. They will never like you. You will never turn Joe Wilsons or Sarah Palins into enlightened people. They will hate you, everything you do, everything you are, everything you stand for, and everything you represent. Stop trying to win them over, it won't happen.

Lead us, for the love of Pete, or make room for someone who can be the guy you said you were supposed to be. You're already president, what more do you want? Pass your health care bill, YOUR health care bill. Pass YOUR environmental protection bill. Pass YOUR social programs, YOUR education plan, YOUR whatever you want. You could lose your majority in 2010, so do it fast.

The World Needs More... (part 1)

Sports Teams with Names That Aren't Plurals
(Orlando Magic, Oklahoma City Thunder, Minnesota Wild, Tampa Bay Lightning)

Plural team names imply the coming of many together under one banner. Who needs teamwork anyway? Any dumb football or baseball team can just take a thing and pluralize it. Washington Redskins, that's just a bunch of dudes deciding they want to be racists. If I were a professional athlete, I'd want to play under the banner of an abstract concept, like magic, or a really loud bang. Which would you rather play a game of hockey against, Senators or Lightning?

Non-Horror Movies with 3+ Sequels
(Die Hard, Superman, Fast/Furious, Star Wars)

Horror movies have really nailed filmmaking. Just create a really good character and have him do the same thing in a bunch of different situations, like putting him in space. Just imagine the end of Godfather 4, so many people would die in a sweet montage. The Matrix hit a snag with 2 and 3, redeem yourselves, Wachowskis, by making 3 more movies, just to let us in on more of that sweet mythology. The X-Men took a last stand, but I think they have a few more stands in them. Die Hard 4 rocked. Superman 4 and 5, amazing. Why stop there? Spin offs galore. I want to know Anton Chigurgh's back story, don't you?

Watery Beers
(Tecate, Natural Light, Pabst Blue Ribbon, Keystone Light)

Tecate must be the best beer of all time. They sell it in 30 packs because it takes about thirty before you start tasting the beer. It's great because you can have a beverage that barely qualifies as alcohol, but you can feel cool because you're "getting drunk." Can you feel the buzz? I can. Even better than Tecate? That's right, Tecate Light.

Bars
(Pat's, Cheers, New Angle)

Bars recently have started adding things like those little touch screen game dealies or karaoke to get us to hang out there. Why? Do we really need an excuse to buy drink after drink of cheap alcohol that we can pick up at a Ralph's for half the price? Bars may be the ultimate business model. They don't waste electricity on lighting, they only need about 3 servers/bartenders no matter how big the crowd gets, and they get tons of word of mouth. As an added bonus, bars are the perfect place to find quality ladies. I met my girlfriend at a bar.

Sarcasm/Cynicism/Irony
(Your Mom, Keith Olberman, Atheists, Alanis)

Honest emotional communication is fucking hard. It's much easier to hide behind jokes. This way I can bitch and moan and insult and complain without having to take any real responsibility for it. Even harder than sarcasm is seeing the positive side of people where they're all such idiots and assholes. Once I figure out the definition of irony, I'm going to dedicate myself to replacing all honest artistic expression with it.

I Think I Hate Stephanie Tanner

[originally written for overtimecomedy.com on 10/24/07]

Jodie Sweetin’s a pretty ok broad in my book. She did crystal meth while married to a cop, pure balls. The character that made her famous, though, purely annoying.

The other night at 4:00 AM, I was enjoying a Full House marathon, but unlike other marathons, this one jumped around the order. Within 3 episodes, I got to see annoying little sister Stephanie Tanner, lonely and annoying middle child Stephanie Tanner, and annoyingly trying to be cool in high school Stephanie Tanner. In any stage of development, she just never shuts up!

They needed to find a way to combine Jodie Sweetin with a Full House storyline. Poor Danny won’t be able to hug his way through his 13-year-old’s meth addiction. Maybe Joey could find a ca-razy voice or impersonation to make her see the error of her ways. On a meth binge, maybe Stephanie would snap and finally kill Kimmy Gibbler. Either way, I think we all know how Stephanie would respond to her intervention:

“How rude!”