HEY, INTERNET, STOP BEING SUCH CYNICAL EFFING DOUCHEBAGS BLOG-A-THON!

These are a few of may favorite thing that I am minorly, secretly, ashamed of. I know better than to love either one of them, but I can't help myself.

Andy Capp Hot Fries: These are basically plasticene rectangles with no food content whatsoever. They are of no value as food. But I love them. They are spicy and delicious. They are FunYuns for lovers of spicy food. When I was 14-16 I went to a home-school co-op in a small town about 20 minutes from my house. My Mother would pack up my brothers and I every morning and drive us out to Thompson, Oh for "Co-op." We would then get our heaping helping of socialization for the week, and we did. I made friends there that I have kept for the past 14 years, so it had real value. The day was split up into periods and we had to be at different classes at different times. All the classes were taught by home-schooling mothers. It was a good time, I learned a bit, but not as much as I probably was supposed to. I think I was probably getting too old by that point.

I'm bringing this around to Hot Fries, I promise.

There was an hour for lunch. Usually we packed our lunches, and as a not wealthy at all family, we usually had things that no one would be terribly excited to eat. But I started to have pocket money at about this time and I would walk, with my brother and our friend Alex Gardner, across the Thompson Square, to a little mini-mart, and buy Andy Capp Hot Fries. I have no idea how I originally chose these little treats. There must have been something about the packaging, thought I never liked Andy Capp as a character. (I disliked the air of spousal abuse that is such a great part of the strips humor. I know, I'm a prig.) But I just remember that I loved them. I would open the package just the slightest bit at the top. Then I'd crush down then fries into crumbs and tip the bag back over my mouth, taking half the bag at a crunchy, chewy, spicy gulp. It was delicious and it made me happy each time I did it. I would occasionally buy more than one bag, to save one for when I got home. But instead I'd always eat the other bag after the first.

To this day, when I see a bag of Hot Fries it takes all my effort to keep from purchasing them, and I frequently fail. I have never understood Andy Capp, and I think of Hot Fries as an incredibly white-trash snack, but I love them.

Zombies: Is there anything of worth about zombies? I mean, honestly, anything? I don't think that there is. They are the id of American popular art. I can't think of a redeeming quality that zombie stories have. When Pandora opened the box of troubles, there remained hope. Zombie moves begin with all hope gone, and end without hope returning. (The exception is 28 Days Later, but that isn't REALLY a zombie movie. It's a horror movie with zombie-like beings. In contrast, 28 Weeks Later IS a zombie movie. It knows that there is no chance of returning the planet to a livable status quo post-zombie. It teases us, at the start, with the idea that zombies have been eradicated, but we know it isn't true. Further, it shows that zombification is not like hypnosis, you will do things as a zombie that are against your most basic intentions as a human being. Zombie nature is the farthest form of human nature, the worst of the worst.)

But, zombies are glorified evil. They are the most base, the most evil, the least redeemable or redeemed of all the villians. In zombies we see America, we see our values, our civilization and our desires perverted and destroyed... with NO hope. That is what is rotten about zombies. (If you'll allow the pun.)

But I love them. I love them staggering and slow or lightning fast. I like to see them eat humans and tear us apart. I like to see their heads explode from bullets, axes or LPs. I enjoy everything about zombies and I harbor happy little fright fantasies about the zombie menace becoming real.

JJ Abrams created the film Cloverfield in order to create an American monster. I read an interview where he talked about being in Japan with his son and noticing the Godzilla is everywhere. (I am in Okinawa, Japan right now and I have no idea what he is talking about in this interview, but I guess it must just be mainland Japan.) At any rate, he wanted to create a uniquely American monster. A monster that we could relate to our culture, a monster that is a satire for Americanism, for our form of patriotism and our national notions. He created some damn monster, I didn't see the film, but I haven't seen it grasp anyone like Godzilla seems to have grasped Japan. I would argue that the gap he was trying to fill is already filled by zombies.

Zombies are our satirized selves. They tell us about our consumerism, our fascination with media and our ability to rationalize. They tell us that we are a hair's breadth from a terrible future.

They remind us of the need to deny our natures.

People talk about their nature all the time. They talk about being born this way or that. They talk about finding themselves. They talk about the purity of the natural state. They are talking about being zombies.

In our natural state we use everything as a latrine, we eat whatever we can get, raw. We are filthy, naked, cold, and miserable. The desire for betterment and the denial of self, the denial of nature, that is what makes humans better. In zombie movies the people who are selfless are the ones who cause good things to happen. Those who are self-centered, those who seek their own desires, those who accept themselves as they are and do not strive for betterment, those are the ones who become zombies and cause the most damage.

Zombies teach us about life and nature. Zombies teach us about civilization and the need for self-abnegation.

At least, if you think a WHOLE LOT about them, they do.

If, for instance, you are the kind of person who wants to rationalize their love of a hipster fad. If you are the kind of person who likes to talk about great zombie moments and thinks the George Romero is a great master of ideas. (And perhaps has the entire tag-poem for Monkey Shines memorized.) Then you might have a really good reason for liking something with no discernable value, like zombies.

Anyways, thanks Final Girl, for letting me write about my guilty pleasures and tell the world how much I like things I probably shouldn't.

That Old Boy

If you want to watch a movie that made Margaret gag, then I recommend this one.

This absolutely has to be the best incest/revenge, comedy/torture drama I have ever seen. What a great/insane film.

The basic premise, which starts out the bax with a bang, is that a man is kidnapped, held for 15 years and when he is released he is tortured by a Big Brother-esque villian that sees his every move and is always one step ahead of him. It's kind of like a reverse Ocean's Eleven, Twelve or Thirteen. Instead of our wildly stylish and clever protagonists being one step ahead, always out thinking and out planning the bad guys, it's the wildly stylish and clever, incredibly evil villian.

There are plot twists and there are teeth pried out with hammers. There is a wonderful fight scene with 20 guys attacking one. There is a tongue removed with scissors. It's a winner, a visceral thrill ride that is said to have inspired the Virginia Tech shooter. So, if you've been thinking about going insane and shooting up your school, this could be the movie for you.

Across The Universe

I watched this film with Margaret the other day. At least, we watched most of it. I was excited to see it because it's directed by Julie Taymor, who is one of the most interesting directors alive. She love puppetry and wild imagery, she choreographs and designs costumes and scenery. If you've ever read any of Paul Johnson's histories that speak on art you will see that set design is a major chunk of art. Many of the great landscape painters were also set designers.

At any rate, I was excited about it. I am not a fan of Rachel Evans Wood, and I kind of suspected that the film would be pretty trite. A hippy-view of the 60's fueled by Beatles covers... not the greatest plan for a movie I've ever heard. I figured that if anyone could pull it off, it would be Julie Taymor.

At any rate, the film itself.

A lot of people here in Okinawa talked the film up to us, they told us it was really good. Before we saw it they would ask us what our favorite song in the film was, things like that. I have no idea how it got such a military following, but it has one. So one Saturday we popped it in.

The first scene is the ostensible hero, Jude, (Jim Sturgess) singing Girl. It's a nice scene, understated, kind of quiet and interesting. From there you have a ten minute montage of early 60's scenes to various Beatles songs. Not a new idea, but nicely done. Hard to tell what is being said in a few places. Hard to discern the ideas that are being shown, but they are being shown so prettily that you give it a pass.

As the film goes on the pastiches are more and more lovely and more and more chaotic and difficult to decipher. But that's not an issue. I would watch a Cremaster type manic dream, if it was directed by Julie Taymor and had her majestice imagery. But the characters grow more and more self-centered and less and less relatable, until we eventually turned it off, shortly after Bono showed up and depressed us.

The film is INCREDIBLY stupid in parts. The names of all the characters cribbed from Beatles songs. There is Sadie, Lucy, Maxwell, Jude, Dr. Roberts, on and on. There are the usual sops to anti-war protests and the musical revolution of the time. There is a haunting picture of the Watts Riots, but it takes about 5 seconds and then moves into some hippy glorification.

I was incredibly turned off by the characters. I tuned them out and despised them. But over the last couple of days I have been thinking about them. I think that perhaps their point was to be rotten. Maybe their irritating self-centeredness isn't some sort of miscalculation. Maybe it was a reflection of how irritating and self-centered the time really was. Maybe it's a satire on the whole hippy/Baby-Boomer self-absorption.

I like the idea that there was an intentional argument in this film. I like the idea that Rachel Evan Wood's incredibly dull, one-dimensional performance intentionally illustrated the dull, one-dimensional character of the 60's.

I would like to ask someone who was there, was part of the "counter-culture movement" to watch the film and let me know. Any takers?

Pretty Funny Stuff

For those of you who write blogs:

HEY, INTERNET, STOP BEING SUCH CYNICAL EFFING DOUCHEBAGS BLOG-A-THON!

One day, and one day only: Tuesday, March 18.

The amazing Stacie Ponder, over on Final Girl, the best horror blog on the internet invites us all to write about something that makes us incredibly happy. Any have anything to write about, but no blog? Write it here on a comment.

Uh-mazing

With my usual faultless timing, I watched tonight a film that people raved about months ago. I am adding my voice to those raves. The King Of Kong, or A Fistful Of Quarters is superb. Besides having one of the most loathsome villains to be seen on the screen in ages, it also has one of the best analogies ever, watch out for the Obi Wan Kenobi explanation, it is splendid. Absolutely heart-wrenching and hilarious, the entire effort feels staged, except for the wonderful wife of the hero, who is never less than supportive and loving. Run, don't walk.

The Age Old Trade-Off

I realized this week that I no longer have acne problems like I have for years and years. The upside of being 30 is that the acne seems to mostly vanish. The downside is that I now have thick, grey hairs growing out of my ears and nose. It makes me wonder if God is a little bit of a groomer monkey. He likes us best when we have to focus on physical flaws and tear things out of our bodies or squeeze stuff out of our faces. It doesn't appeal to me, but I guess I am not the target audience.

Yes, that's right, in the past few days I have turned thirty. It happened without my even noticing, almost. One day I was a free-wheeling, fun-loving fellow in my late-twenties, next thing I know I reach a day when there is grey hair in my ears and I am 30. How does it happen?

Again, I have to point the finger at God. It's one of those ineffable plan things. Apparently age must teach us all lessons or something. I'm not clear on the exact details, but I am sure there are some.

What else is happening that I can tell you all about? What is our news, here in Okinawa:

Margaret is slowly going stir-crazy while working on her thesis. She has come to hate the sight of comic books, except for Bill Willingham's Fables, so good thinking there, Rob. Probably don't let her downstairs at your house with matches and gasoline, though. She is also preparing to paint the old table and the new chairs that we're going to get today. We're entertaining this Sunday and we're trying to get the house together for it. I think it will be a lovely time.

I spent the 4 days after my birthday in the field. There were huge tents to sleep in and no showers and smelly bodies and ridiculous training exercises that taught no one anything. I suppose that's how the military likes to do things. A waste of time is still time spent, and that's what the tax-payers are paying for. My job looks to be getting better, though. I am, without any real effort, well-known for my ability to work with computers and I will be using my old friend, Microsoft Access, to build some databases for Charlie Co. Hopefully this will work out well and I have not forgotten everything I know about Access. I have been sold big, I can't afford to let everyone down.

Today we are going to the Okinawa Aquarium, to see the whale sharks. It ought to be wonderful, and after we get back we'll be posting the photos we have from the past couple weeks. You'll all be updated via image. Be excited!

O+M

Why have these two not combined previously...

With a girlish scream of delight at the wonderful symmetry of joy!

An Update

Sorry it's been a while, but we somehow put the neighbor's internet out of commision and have felt reluctant to ask them to let us back on, now that it is fixed.

We're doing very well. I have started work, kind of. So far I have gotten up early in the mornings, but not really done any work. It's been a lot of fun, let me tell you. I'm spending a lot of time in the library, wishing they had more books.

Yesterday was the first day I was allowed on a computer at all, and it wasn't able to get onto Blogger. Since that seems my most effective tool for getting in touch with people, I wanted to wait till I could use it. That day has come.

Yesterday evening we walked around trying to catch these huge turtles that are in a sewage ravine by a power plant, but no dice. There is a good photo of Margaret looking really grossed out by a sea-slug/sea cucumber, but I don't have it with me, so just imagine it for now.

We are doing really well. When we have internet we'll be doing better, but there are no complaints as of right this minute. We have to find a cheap car, hopefully this weekend.

How are all of you?

Margaret says to tell her family that she is alive and well and will be making phone calls the moment she is able. Sorry to everyone who hoped to hear from us sooner, we're just not making it easy on anyone right now, what with not having a phone or internet. But we still love you all, we promise.

Many little unimportant, and one pretty sad, things...

The sad thing first: Heath Ledger died. That's kind of sad. I liked him in all the movies I ever saw him in and I suspect I'll like him in movies I haven't seen yet. He seemed like a fun guy to know and I know he's got a daughter that he's leaving behind and all. Sad. I know that my side of the family is rolling their eyes at this point, but it makes me unhappy. I'm crying, but that's mostly because Margaret just made me cut a bunch of onions. (Well, it's all because of the onions. I knew the news for hours before and the onions are making me cry. Now I'm over-protesting.)

Other than that, I have some links, some recommendations and some observations.

For Tom Pitrone, a link to an interesting and positive take on One From The Heart.

For my brother Rob I have the Hellboy trailer, you may have already seen it, but I want your feedback. Margaret says the final monster scene is too much. Thoughts? (Anyone else can chime in as well, of course.)

I strongly recommend the following two Christian Bale films: 3:10 to Yuma, and The Machinist. Both are spectacular, The Machinist is so heavily dread-filled, without being at all a horror movie, that it is almost terrifying. Margaret managed to see a cat outside our window while we were watching it and then couldn't sleep till I got up and checked everything out and made sure that there were no imaginary intruders. (I recognize that this might not be high praise to many of you, but to those on my wave-length here, it's a good'un.)

3:10 to Yuma, Bale manages to make being quietly heroic both sympathetic and frustrating, as anyone who has ever attempted quiet heroics can attest that it is. Also, does Russell Crowe ever do a BAD job? Maybe in that romantic comedy with Salma Hayek? I can't remember that I ever watched that, but he doesn't seem the type to shine there. Perhaps the better question is, does Christian Bale ever give a bad performance? He really classed up that dragon movie he was in. And I think he was even good in Newsies, though all I really remember about that is a kid named Crutchie.

As for the questions that keep popping up about my work, let me just say that there is no great news in sight. I think that my friend Cornelius and I are thinking about taking over the office area. We will be the Adminjerks, but at least we'll have work to do pretty regularly. I don't know, I spent the day there today and it was depressingly dull. The suggestion from Cornelius is to make myself as useful as I can, but I don't know how useful that will be. I suppose I can teach R.A./H.F.G. house painting techniques, or refreshers on why it is important to alway have a lawyer...

Margaret's family, shame on you! Margaret just told me she's never watched Malcolm in the Middle, for shame!

As to the rest of our life, this is the proposed vehicle style:

Though Margaret is angling for this:



But fortunately there are Disney characters on there and you all know how I feel about that. I am putting my foot down.

That Ol' Library of Congress

They's gone and put up a whole host of photos on Flickr. Click the photo for the link and enjoy the photographic history.

In case anyone forgot...

There is now a FIFTH season of the wonderful QI available for... um, watching.

96 Hours+ of Liberty and our views.

Sorry for the delay. We haven't had any access to any sort of internet or phone for a few days now. We've moved into our house, the fabled New Covenant address that we had hoped for. It's gorgeous and due to the kindness of our upstairs neighbors we now have internet access. We're going to be getting fiber optic internet access, but as everyone tells us pretty regularly here, things take longer in the East than they do in the US. (Except getting apartments, we accomplished that in about 4 days.)



So, let's see, what all things can I tell you? So much has happened in so little time.

I'll try to start at the beginning. We went to the housing office with our paperwork for the apartment, in order to see if I had set it up correctly. There was supposed to be a couple of different types of downpayment, but our friend and helpful housing agent set us up so we don't have to pay them till PSD reimburses us. (Which they have done, supposedly, yesterday. I should really check that out...)

Ok, checked it out and it's fine. The question that remains is how to pay it to anyone. We get paid in dollars, which then have to be transformed to Yen, but that's complicated due to the rambling, changeable exchange rate. You never know what you're spending on anything, really. We can usually guess that Y100 is equal to $1, but it's always a little different than that. It's really a mystery, though. How do I write a check for Yen? Is it possible? No way to know today, I suppose.

This is the view from our back porch. It's amazing. Obviously this photo was taken on a cloudy day, but it's GORGEOUS today. I'll try to get a picture of it, hang on.
There you go. It's great!

The whole thing is pretty special. I was thinking this morning that everything is working out so well, that there either needs to be a big fall or maybe God is trying to show me that everything CAN work out well for people who are honest. It's probably just grace towards Margaret, but I am a lucky side benefitter.

Below is the letter I sent home, and to many of you, so it won't be news to some, but people whose e-mails I can't find, you might like it.

To one and all, whether you cared or not, I am terribly sorry for not getting in touch with any of you for the past several days. (Though some of you have been out of touch with me for far longer. That's the difficulty with this sort of long-range, wildly random, e-mailing. Those folks with the telegrams, they knew what they were about.)

My wife and I are in Japan. Well, we're in Okinawa, it counts though. Lovely place, there are some photos of it up at my blog, if you have the chance to look. There will be more up before too long. Margaret is planning on getting a Flickr.com account and there will be links to it sent to everyone, when we know what it is.

We got here about two weeks ago and we already have a place to live and all of our stuff set up. Yesterday we bought a couch and carried it a mile down the street together, before our upstairs neighbor came and picked us up in his minivan thing. (That's a point, all the cars here look like Hot Wheels. It's pretty cool. The highest speed on the whole island is about 50 MPH, so the cars don't have to have a lot of pep or be particularly impressive. As a result, we love every car that goes by. Our next purchase will be a vehicle and Margaret has her heart set on a van-like contraption that has 13" wheels.)

Our house is gorgeous, all wooden and, as Kanye West would say, Japanese-y. The drains attach directly to the sewer so they pong a bit sometimes, but there is a trick with bleach that seems to work well. Our view is incredible, the ocean is directly outside our back doors. We could, if we so desired, throw our furniture into the ocean. (We don't generally desire that.) The hot water heater is a little kerosene boiler that has to be turned on a few minutes before you want to use the water, but that's pretty cool, too. The whole place is wonderful.

A mile away is a store that we have affectionately titled, "The Everything Store." For those who know what I mean, it's like Conley's. For everyone else, it's a mixture of Wal-Mart, Home Depot, a grocery store, a Best Buy and a Pier One. Possibly the coolest store ever. We discovered it a couple days ago and have not gone a day without visiting it since. Everything is in Japanese, which makes every trip an adventure. In direct contradiction to what everyone was telling us on the way here, no one speaks English. We're as foreign as can be, which is really, really strange. Little kids look at us like we're some sort of bipedal dogs. The adults are barely more solicitous. It's pretty amazing.

Right up the street from us is a Family Mart, which is sort of like a 7-11. For reasons that, since we haven't learned a lick of Japanese, are a deep mystery, the teenagers who work there start talking, a series of rote phrases from what we can tell, the moment anyone walks in the door and then continue to chatter off slogans until the various, and also seemingly rote, cashier slogans as you leave. It has become sort of a game, trying to figure out what they might mean.

"Hello foreigners, welcome to our plus-good store with the fantastic prices and the expensive beer!"
"Enjoy your time in our frightening bathrooms, do your best to aim at the hole in the floor accurately!"
"Thank you for spending our comical coin money at our super-wonderful and extra glossy cash register, please place your money in this tray and keep your gaijin hands aways from mine and have a nice day!"

I haven't really found out what I'll be doing for work yet. I start on Tuesday morning, so I'm hoping it's good. I am a little worried from what I am hearing. It sounds like work here mostly consists of not doing much at all. Apparently we take a lot of classes on nonsense and then wait to be deployed. I want to do something a little more meaningful, but I guess we'll have to see how that works out.

How are you?

O+M

Amazing, Amusing, a Hope and a Hope

So, check THIS out:

We went and got all the stuff lined up to get our off-base housing. It looks good, we went out today and looked at a few places. We found THE place. We found a place, within, more than within, our price range. I did one of the smartest things I've ever done in this sort of situation. I had two lists of apartment listings, one from a month ago. I highlighted all the places that hadn't rented and then picked the ones that we might want from that list. What we ended up with was this place that's a second-floor apartment, it's approximately 20 feet from the beach. It's gorgeous. Really, really Japanese seeming and cool. All wood, two bedrooms, perfect. We were biased towards it from the first though, the building is called The New Covenant building. How's that for a sign?

Anyways, we'll have to see what the deal is tomorrow, but start praying for us. Margaret loves the place and I'd love to get it for her. Money is a little scary, but we'll figure it out.

Oh, and Margaret got her Okinawa license today, too.

Day Two and Photos

This morning we woke up around 8. Margaret fell asleep last night at 7 or so. We had made a dinner of pasta and bacon, with egg and garlic. It was pretty tasty, shaky cheese from the local shoppette rounded it out. It wasn't terribly Japanese, but it was kind of homey.

We got up and got dressed this morning, Frosted Flakes for breakfast.

I got a hold of my sponsor to find out what we're going to be doing today. (Answer, nothing.) and what I need to do/get ready for tomorrow. (Answer, lots of stuff.) And then Margaret and I went out to see what's around here.

It's pretty great, honestly. Everything, seriously everything is foreign. It's got to be one of the strangest feelings ever. There is virtually no English anywhere.

Ok, I just got the pictures up, so I'll try to explain a little. There are photos from the plane flight, where we went over Alaska, apparently? It's a mystery to me how that works, but I guess we did. It looks cool. There's the obligatory, Margaret thinks it's cool photo. There are a lot of pictures from today. We were walking and we found a big, huge, sand baseball diamond. There were all these little kids playing baseball. It was really cool. There is a picture of the terracing across the street from the baseball diamond. I liked number 13, who was kind of lerpy and didn't really want to be there. Margaret liked number 9, who was hefty and was completely off sync with the rest of the team. It was funny.

The photos of the gas station are to show that even in Japan, small-town gas station attendants have mullets. But also, look how small/narrow that carwash is! The cars here are so skinny! It's crazy.

More tomorrow, I'm sure.

Japonisme

When I was little Kate had a book of that name on the shelves and I used to take it down from time to time, I think it was about the influence of Japanese culture on French art, and I'd think that Japan sure would be a crazy place to visit. Well, as of yesterday evening, I live in Okinawa Japan. So far it's pretty military. We've seen two airports and been around a base, but the Pacific Ocean looks pretty wonderful and Margaret and I got some shells and things from the beach at the base we're staying at, so it's a start.

A little background, we got on a flight out of Cleveland on Tuesday afternoon, the 2nd of January, 2008. Our flight was supposed to be at 1:44 in the afternoon, but we got to the airport around 10AM, just to be sure that we got our rental car in on time and so on. (You ought to have seen me trying to navigate my 100+ pound seabag from the rental car to the rental car counter, in the snow and ice, wearing cowboy boots. For that matter, you ought to have seen Margaret trying to walk and drag two rolling suitcases, with the snow and ice, wearing cowboy boots. We were a little worse for the wear by the time we got on the shuttle to Hopkins.)

The flight was delayed out of Cleveland, due to the snow at O'Hare, so we sat around for a LONG time, talking to random people, and then, randomly, Joe Bromley, who was waiting for a flight out as well. When we got to Chicago it turned out that our connecting flight, to Seattle, had left already, so we waited a long time to get on the next one, maybe. We met a really nice guy who had just come in from Frankfurt Germany, he said that 8 days ago they'd told him there were lots of seats on the plane, so we were a little hopeful, and then there were seats, we even got to sit together. (Thanks guy from Frankfurt! Leonard Szymborski, by the way, if you ever run into him in the airport, say hi!)

In Seattle we got our luggage, got to a hotel and then got hold of Joe and Lisa Park. We went to this great place right by the airport called Roasters, which was super nice and had GREAT beer selection. Joe and Lisa, by the way, have matching tattoos that no one in their family will comment on. They are nice tattoos, though. They say something like, "If lost, please return to Yahweh," but in Hebrew. Joe and Lisa are well, and lots of fun. They look great, too. Really well and happy.

We got up super early the next morning and got a shuttle to the Seattle Airport, which was actually just right around the corner, and the really knowledgeable shuttle driver told us where to go for our flight. Then we haggled with the flight folks, so we could get our really heavy bags on the flight. Then we waited at the Seattle Airport for a LONG time. Thank God for Hudson News stores. Seriously, Hudson, your News stores are a life saver! Good work, Hudson!

The flight to Japan was LONG, very, very, very LONG. It wasn't bad, we had a pretty good time, and we hadn't really slept much for the previous few days, so we avoided most of the jet-lag, but it was a LONG flight. I read all of C.S. Lewis's Horse and His Boy, to Margaret. We also listened to a lot of The Godfather, on her iPod.

Arriving in Japan was nice. There was a sponsor there to help us out, HM3 Phillips, she is cool. She took us to the Commisary this morning, to help us get started and get some juice and things. Margaret and I have walked all over the base we're at, Camp Courtney, but I think that we'll try to live at Camp Foster and then I'll work at Camp Something With An H.

But we're well, and this blog, for so long neglected, should show some renewed signs of life, so check it out.

Part 2.1

He found that he really had a lot to say to her, but the conversation was pretty one sided.

- I can't believe you really shot me.

Not even a blink from her.

-I know I wasn't the perfect man. I know I treated you badly. I even deserved to die, but still... You look so pure and innocent right now. It's hard to see you like this. This new light you're in is too much for me. I guess I'll be seeing a lot of things in a new light.

She not only failed to respond, she scratched the inside of her thigh in a disconcertingly private fashion. Rudy knew she couldn't sense him. He was extant only to himself, which was unfortunate in so many ways.

Rudy saw the bicycle taxi a long time before Brenda did. With a great deal of effort he managed to get his spectral form up above the accident. The bird's eye view did him no favors. The way Brenda tore out of the windscreen was disturbing for everyone, but it was particularly awful from Rudy's perspective.

Brenda split into two parts, he bod and her other form. She was present for just long enough to blurt out - I killed you! How are you... OH!

And she was gone.

The bicycle taxi driver stuck around for a moment longer. He looked at his shattered cab and corpse.

- F#ck man! I just paid that shit off! I was finally going to make some money. Dammit! That sucks. I was totally not ready for another incarnation yet.

And then he started to shrink and grow younger looking. His features changed and in a child's voice: - I f#cking HATE the birth canal!

And he was gone.

Rudy's attention was absorbed by this display. He completely failed to notice the man dressed like an investment banker who was walking swiftly away, holding the bulging case of cash. He failed to notice for about 10 feet.

Part 2

Rudy hadn't lived much of a life, but he'd always thought that it would end with a whimper, rather than a bang. He'd known there were troubles between the, but when Brenda actually pulled a gun on him... well, it was a radical shift in perspective.



- Baby, what is this?



- Don't you f#cking 'baby' me, asshole! This is the way this f#cking story ends. Drop the f#cking case and move over there.



If only she'd been right. Later on Rudy had LOTS and LOTS of time to reflect on how wrong she'd been.



- I said, 'Drop The F#cking Case!' You impotent, dimebag, skinny-d!ck, piece of sh!t!



- Look, Ba..., Brenda, Brenda honey, it wasn't, it isn't like this isn't OUR money, OUR life. We're here together.



- F#ck that! I know you. You're not innocent, you're not f#cking sharing. You're looking at that money and you're f#cking making plans.



- Plans for us! Plans for US, ba.., Brenda.



- That's all I have to hear. You barely know my f#cking name! I'm just one of your damn 'Babys' Well f#ck that, and f#ck you! I'm not having that. I'm having it all.

The windmills turned over head. Oblivious to the quickly cut-off,
- Baby, NO!
and the four shots that followed.

Rudy, looking down at his corpse, reflected that she'd been too close. She was spattered, well spattered. Not like Carrie or anything, but it was a bloody mess. She stood so still that it was almost as if SHE'D died. But then her eyes moved to the case and it was like a current to a clock. Instant movement.

Rudy was a little startled. Not being a terribly metaphysical kind of guy he'd never really given much thought to what happens after death. Now it was happening. He'd been planning on checking into a hotel at around this time. Within two hours he'd planned to be showering the sex off and leaving a note. He'd given a lot of thought to whether or not he'd leave money. He'd decided not to, which had only made it more surprising to be shot. Ask anyone who has suffered a fatal gunshot wound, (consult your local medium) they'll tell you it's pretty surprising.

Rudy watched her level his body over the cliff and was impressed again at how different she was than he'd thought. She'd seemed, for the couple months he'd known her, to be one of those pretty, little bitches that one meets and discards. He'd never thought of her as something special. Clarity rarely comes to one in the full flush of rapid existence. But get to the other side and things start to clarify in a hurry.

Rudy saw that she was a little more than just a random bar slut. She was obviously better looking, but she'd also been planning this caper for a while. The ease with which she had pulled it together, the swift movements for disposal. Rudy wished he'd seen things this clearly before he'd died. With one of those goofy little smiles of his, the ones that defined his success with women when he was alive, he thought about using his new found deductive skills to, well, to what?

As Brenda started the car and drove off Rudy experienced yet another little shock. He stopped being by the windmills and found himself floating about 10 feet behind the car. With all the control he could muster over his new, apparently nomadic, dicorporeal form, he stopped in midair. But within seconds he was moving again, floating along behind the car. He considered his options. Apparently his would not be an existence of control. Something clearly compelled him.

Rudy was used to control. Not that he wasone of those control freaks or anything. He ran one of the most continually successful minor casinos on the strip for a very, very successful little syndicate, known under a variety of sobriquets and mostly feared by those in the know. The case Brenda had taken was only 1% his, and as a consequence some very, very angry men would be coming after Brenda before too long. Rudy expected to feel good about seeing harm come to her, but was surprised to find that he couldn't muster and malice whatsoever.

There was closer and there was in the car. Those were his options. By a little manipulation of the will he found that he could move in any direction, 10 feet from the car. He considered a destiny tied by a 10 foot leash to a rental car. It seemed bleak. Being in the car with Brenda, near all that blood, it was disconcerting. He found that he really had a lot to say to her, but the conversation was pretty one sided.

The New One

This is what I do while in class at Field Med.



The windmills churned round again.

On the ground the blood had almost entirely soaked into the dust. Standing by the door, like a blood-soaked gargoyle, she finally let the gun fall onto the driver's seat. As if the falling gun had restarted time she began to move. Using the tire iron from the jack she pushed the carcass off the cliff. The car started with the whisper of luxury and in the backseat the case with the 400,000 hundred dollars bills glowered accusation.

Pulling back onto The Strip an hour later she barely even glanced at the gaudy extravaganza. So focused was she on her mission, she never saw the two-seat bicycle taxi that killed her.

The collision was quick and the taxi driver barely even noticed the sleekness of her Rolls. He didn't have any customers, so it was only the loss of one resident Las Vegan. But she was through the windshield before she knew what happened and dead before the case in the backseat hit the floor.

James Lauer had given up years ago. He knew he hadn't ever accomplished anything. All his pleasures and perfections were vicarious. After High School there were a couple of years when he thought that something might happen for him, but nothing ever did and the slow movement West had finally landed him here. Vegas offered him a good disposable income. He sustained off the gullibility of tourists. The move towards a more family oriented Sin City had been a boon to him. All the brightly colored shirts and fear of looking stupid made perfect sense to a business model that covers all the angles. A suit, not a flashy one, a smile, thank God Dad was an orthodontist, and a guarantee of successful gambling skills taught in one hour increments and two hour "Intensive" courses. It all added up to money, if not in the bank, then at least under the carpet in the living room.

As he ran to the wreck though, all he could think about was the woman who's flown through the window. As the rolls had passed him, sitting on his bench, eating his late dinner ham and cheese, he'd been awed by her. She was, without question, a specimen of perfection.

It was a split second and she never saw him. His firing synapses had only just hit their receptors when her head hit the glass. Just as his heart leaped in his chest, the rolls leaped over the taxi and all the bits of perfection came crashing to earth.

So James ran.

He got to the wreck and took it in with a glance. The woman was obviously dead. She had obviously died and bled and torn all at once. The only thing left to take in was the case in the backseat. It was lying open, as if it had been placed that way, full to the top with tightly wrapped hundreds. A true child of the Media Age, the phrase, "unmarked, non-sequential hundreds" immediately tolled through his mind. He was later discouraged to find them to be both marked and sequential. Nonetheless, the case retained its emotional allure. Money does that.

Looking around him with a speed and intensity that he had rarely found before, he opened the rear passenger door and took the case. With another swift glance around, and a more tender on at the bloodied angel in the street, he closed the case against his leg and walked off.

I can't see it, but...

...supposedly this is Wes Anderson's short that will no longer be shown with The Darjeeling Limited get it while it's hot.



3:24 PM (37 comments):
Here's a link for Wes Anderson's Hotel Chevalier -- Jason Schwartzman, a yellow and biege hotel room with a great view, Peter Sarstedt's "Where Do You Go To, My Lovely?", the naked Natalie Portman (with bruises) and a great pair of lines -- Portman saying "if we f, I'm going to feel like s tomorrow" and Schwartzman saying "that's okay with me." The download is free. It's best to have iTunes open first. It lasts 13 minutes.