Does My Ass Look Fat?

Was that a little too "Chuck Norris?" I was going for Michelle Rodriguez as The Wolf from Pulp Fiction. Sure, I'd hate to Ctrl+C something that was on the Tony Danza Show. But I'd really hate to Ctrl+V into your heart.


It's still funny.

Call Michelle Rodriguez

This is sort of a speculative fiction/magazine clipping collage. It's compelling and creepy all at once, but most of all, you know, who could know you better than your stalker. Okay, I have never stalked you. I'm barely a faithful watcher of Lost and really, other than Girl Fight, it's really just always you, Michelle Rodriguez. But Michelle Rodriguez is hot. I mean filthy wonderful hot. Of course, this is all 100% true.

I just wanted you to know, baby, that I know why you opted for jail. It's obvious to me.

There was probably a Yakuza crime boss in the same jail, being held under an alias for some geedunk charge like public intoxication or something, and you knew the only way you could kill him was by yourself becoming an inmate.

Honestly, for purely selfish reasons, I wish you jumped bail. Michelle Rodriguez vs. The Dog. That should be a network.

Live the movie, girl.

I can imagine you on Celebrity Poker, and yeah, bored as hell, you fall asleep. And Dave Foley, a funny motherfucker, well he gets too cute. He wakes you up, "Put your shoes back on, we're at Gammie's..." Throat punch. That should be a whole other network.

Somehow you just know that James Woods is working out a plan for you and Michael Madsen join him and break Katie and Suri out. Leave the baby, Michelle. Babies just slow you down. James Woods can't say it, but I can. He has to seem all caring because he want's to tag Katie, but this mission is going to fail if we bring that kid. Honestly, that kid's eyes glossed over when Xenu inspired Tom to name her. That first syllable... "Let's call her Su..." This should be a trilogy released each winter, but for four years because you could beat 3 into 4. You hear that 3? She's coming for you.

It's just that if somebody in Hollywood needed to kill somebody, I know that you'd be the first call. That's a huge responsibility. I bet once you get an agent, they give you like a checklist on a laminated card, for when the shit really hits the fan, and the last item on that checklist is 'Do NOT call your agent! Call Michelle Rodriguez.' Hell yeah, babe. Bold, underline, caps, except that I can't underline here because people will think it's a link, and they'd break their mouse trying to get you to clean up their messes. But you're no hero. You're no angel. You're not equipped to solve regular problems. You're not some sort of Everyman's Everytool. You're a Swiss Army Scapel. You're finely crafted and singular in purpose. Unlike the unicorn in The Glass Menagerie, you're special exactly because you don't have a corkscrew.

You protect our heroes and angels.

iPod Kool-Aid

I want to hate my iPod. Man, my whole book is chock full of iPod love, and at work, when I was at some leadership seminar, and they asked me what "leader" I would like to meet, I worked my way past my obvious controversial choices to Steve Jobs, because, like my Shuffle, he's safe and shiny, and more interesting on the inside, because fuck a sweater. It's a whole other issue, but really, there aren't too many leaders I would really want to meet. George W. Bush, maybe, but that wouldn't be too pleasant an exchange.

Anyway, here's another person I'd like to meet, and again, it wouldn't be too pleasant an exchange. What an ass. Man, can you imagine the shite music on there? If anybody read this, I'd say we list all the bad songs he must have in there. But it's me and my friends, and we can figure that out on our own time.

But that does remind me of a story idea I had. Sort of a Bruce Sterling dealie, where people make some sort of spiderweb fragile connection because of technology, or some shit. A guy that could phreak people's playlists, and sell them to people, like in GATTACCA, when they check their partner's DNA outside the club. Of course my guy would be sort of sketchy, because I do sketchy well. He'd tell girls outside clubs about their men listening to a little too much Poison, or whatever. And hell yeah, ladies. Those super secret slumber party playlists, public domain.

And thus concludes my iPod riff. Btw, I still love my Shuffle. It has been to Cabo with me, and it helped me learn to dance, or at least to be comfortable flailing about, and it's cooler than yours, song for song. I guarantee it. Saturdays at the Duck, between Peter's sets, we'll compare.

Einstein... Hack.

So last week, NASA came up with a computer model to simulate two black holes crashing into each other. Well first of all, that's not Photoshop. That's some computing. Second of all, according to their model, there would be shockwaves of gravity that would radiate out from the collision at the speed of light. Apparently this was Einstein's thing. Well, looking back, I think we need to do an audit on old Alberto. At least on two of his biggies now, at least to us, the layperson, he found a way to wedge the speed of light into the equation (literally and figuratively). I'm starting to think that the speed of light was the bullet time of theoretical physics for a while there.

Also, I just, while I have the attention of our theoretical physicists, want to point something out. Now the current theory is that you wouldn't be able to alter the future if you travelled back in time. This has bugged me for a while. Now, apparently there is theoretically empirical evidence that time has inertia, so like every stoner ever has pointed out, after they were done saying Animal House stole their theory on planetary motion vs. atomic structure, if you stopped John Wilkes Booth from shooting Lincoln, he would get run over by a carriage outside, or something. But he'd still die.

Okay. But wouldn't the universe make for the shortest path to preventing history from changing? How about that the fact that time has inertia means that time travel is impossible. The easiest way to prevent somebody from changing the future by changing the past is to prevent them from going back in time in the first place. And even better, all the hip theoretical physicists who read my stuff can laugh when their friend's time machine is on the blink, because I bet, universe, incorruptible cockass that it is, wouldn't make it seem impossible at all. It would make it seem sort of possible, then they'd kick a plug out or some shit. As they got closer, the fuckups would become increasingly funny to other nerds.

Soon Sandia is going to look like an episode of I Love Lucy. Hell, it makes me want to go back to school. I bet the speed of light is the same way. Imagine Chuck Yeager 3000 approaching the speed of light, and something little breaks or something. Man, I wish I could be around for that. It's going to be hilarious, because you know they're going to try over and over. It's going to be like Tin Cup.

Everybody has Something to Say

This doesn't even warrant a headline. It doesn't even warrant a title. It barely warrants a mention. But sometimes people get bored here on this internet thingy, and if that's you, and man, getting here from bored is either a short step or a giant leap, and it ain't for mankind, well I got something that can take a little of your time.

Cruise on over to IMDb and check out the Snakes on a Plane discussions. First of all, the savvy commentors, time constrained as they are, discussing Snakes on a Plane, simply refer to is as SoaP. Well that's adorable to me. And I abbreviate/acronym-ize movie titles all the time, since I talk about them a lot. But none has ever spelled a word. More importantly, if one did, I probably wouldn't abbreviate/acronym-ize it.

Second of all, I want to emphasize, it's probably going to be a terrible, terrible movie that is awesome, and it won't get an advance screening for critics, and deprived of a goody bag full of snake related tchotchkes and a free movie, the backlash will be severe. Oh well. When Samuel L. Jackson, who really likes movies, even bad movies (otherwise, how could he get locked into the whole second, really first, Star Wars trilogy? And don't tell me about contracts. Do you really think that George Lucas could make Samuel L. Jackson do anything he didn't want to do? George Lucas's nightmare scenario is a similar movie called Samuel L. Jackson on a Plane). Anyway, his motivation was "I want to be in a movie called Snakes on a Plane." Well guess what. America wants to see that movie.

And when the box office is down again, critics will point to this gem. Well it probably cost the price of cross pacific airfare for a skeleton crew and Samuel L. Jackson and a bunch of digital snakes to make. Seriously. I bet if you watch closely, the people not directly involved with the plot will change. Maybe the airlines will even change, depending on the whims of kayak.com or expedia, or whoever. But the point is that's a long ass flight. You could have made this guerilla style, and most people wouldn't even notice. Some guy sleeping. Put a couple red dots on his cheek. Yeah, he got bit. Easy peasy, and no bullet time.

And with that budget, it's going to make $70 million. Easy. Box office goes down. Profits go up. Also easy peasy. Just for accountants this time. And international box office... it will absolutely crush.

Anyway, all that was just to establish that I am an ardent supporter of our truly independent film makers. Fuck, a movie called Snakes on a Plane should at least win an Independent Spirit Award for the title. Just based on titles, just titles, which would you rather see? Snakes on a Plane, or American Dreamz. See, the second one. It's clever. That's a 'z' instead on an 's.' American Dreamz is the inflight movie on the plane in SoaP.

It's a B-movie, and good for it. Hell, I wrote a B-book.

So I am not coming from some cynical, elitist place here. And what I want to talk about isn't even really about the movie. All I want to point out is that the SoaP discussion boards veer wildly between typical "this movie will suck/rule" debates to, I shit you not, "Republicans would kill the snakes/Democrats would placate the snakes," and even better, somehow, in a Houdhini spasm of anti-genius, some sort of an Intelligent Design debate.

Fuck yeah.

I know that I'm not special. I can make a point or two, and hopefully it's at least funny. But I'm not trying to change your life. I'm not even trying to change mine. These things change on their own. Me having that perspective, having written a whole book, and having a couple MB online now, makes it even more hilarious that people are debating about politics and god, or the lack thereof of either, on a SoaP discussion board. That's fucking awesome.

So here, cool person, is my thought for the day. What would we do when we are bored and the Marlins aren't on TV and the Heat are crushing the Bulls, if it wasn't for the crazy people that operated under the gross conceptual error that is their precarious sanity. They have gibberish to say, and it's not just funny to babies anymore.

Why I Go Out (HINT: It's Bill Maher's Fault)

This post is going to take the form of the traditional two pronged attack... On your mind. It's going to seem like a single prong attack. You are going to be like, hey, that guy is in my bean and he's got a prong. But there's two prongs. Trust me. So here's the timeline. I was just waiting for Bill Maher because there is fuckass on at 11:00pm on Saturday night, and I'm in relaxing mode, but waiting for Bill Maher is hardly helping the relaxing. He's cool and all. But he's always seemed like sort of a low rent Dennis Miller. Except now Dennis Miller is cloaked, and you can't fire when you're cloaked. Let's just say I feel betrayed, Dennis. And Bill Maher doesn't cover that wound.

He just says stuff nobody else will say, and waits for the audience to either scream with joy, or occasionally boo when he goes too far. Well first of all, can you go too far? Fuck, South Park just had Jesus crapping on the American flag and George Bush. And that's only because Viacom was afraid that the Arab world would explode. Hopefully, in a hundred years you'll be able to walk through Soho when the dykes aren't leaking and see caricatures of Muhammed drawn on Karen Finley's mummified, cryogenigally preserved ass cheek (it's what she would have wanted). But for now, construction paper Mohammed is too offensive.

As somebody who could give a rat's ass about religion in general and expect change, I gotta figure our Christian friends are amazed. Talk about the enemy of our enemy being our friend. "Look, they blew up KFC because the Danish Bill Waterson drew Calvin pissing on Mohammed instead of a Ford logo. Man, they should go see a cross in real piss." Never has a whole culture lost more credibility with me, a liberal, relatively informed cat, than when some schmo shopkeeper said that he hoped Al-Quaida should attack Denmark. He didn't have a gun. He didn't have a bomb. He was wearing an apron. That's Islamic Joe Blow.

I can't trust anybody without a sense of humor. Which is why Dennis Miller hurt me, and Bill Maher has failed to cure me. Sure, I got the Daily and Colbert, but that's different. Or maybe it isn't. I guess somehow Jon Stewart, smug with his lack of an 'h,' is the new voice of reason. Or my reason, at least. But that isn't helping me on Saturday night before I go out.

Which leads us to prong number two. This is straight up hit and run prong. Nothing to it, really. Just, if you are bored one night and the Bruce Willis movie Hostage is on, you should watch the first fifteen minutes. Or if you can get a hold of the DVD, or better yet, the bootleg, because sometimes, MPAA, bootlegs are the only reasons people even see your shit movies, scroll up to the part where Kevin Pollack is driving through the gate into his house. It might even be a chapter title, "The House." Who names DVD chapter titles?

Anyway, crank up the stereo. It's the least appropriate, most overblown soundtrack cue ever. I'm not kidding. This guy is driving into his house in the mountains, and the music is straight up James Bond makes the first act visit to the enemy lair. "Your submersible water fortress is quite impressive, Stromberg. Of course I am just a marine biologist..." But it's just a guy's' house. Don't buy the DVD for this. Just find a way to watch it. It absolutely rocks.

It made me forget about Bill Maher, and then that was a rerun anyway.

Idle Threats

I just want to point out that in spite of what Maxim DVD reviews convey as a message to movie studios, sometimes extras really aren't necessary. Really. Isn't "over four hours of exra footage" sort of a threat when we're talking about Stealth? You'd think that maybe they could actually cut a bunch out. Or provide a way to have just the dogfights. Or better, put all their dogfights into Firefox, which was a movie before it was a browser.

I guess fighter scenes that could be an intro for a PS2 game would be a slight upgrade over some really, really bad blue screen work. Clash of the Titans looked better than Firefox, and it was supposed to look more fantastic...and clay. Of course as a movie, and not just a bunch of tenuously linked special effects, the Clint Eastwood product comes out on top.

Stealth looks like a tie in to a fighter plane based card trading game.

I'm naive, and proud of it. I'd like to think that even Stealth was a product of love. Somewhere, probably deep, deep inside a second draft is something that somebody was really proud of. I'm sure if anybody read my book, and then it somehow got made into a movie, it would get fucked up. They'd probably make it like The Fast and the Furious IV: Deerield Drift. Yeah, it would suck. And don't come at me with the indy angle. Independent like what? Like Brokeback Mountain? Cause I could swear Annie Proulx wrote it, and Larry McMurtry adapted the screenplay, and Ang Lee, who has NEVER been indy directed it, and yeah, that was the guy from A Knight's Tale. Apparently the only guy that got paid an indepentent wage was Randy Quaid, and HE WAS IN INDEPENDENCE DAY!

But independent or not, at some point a movie, or any project, probably, switches gears from "I love the project" to "I have to cover my ass." And that's how you get 4 hours of DVD "bonuses" for Stealth. There's a commercial playing down here in Florida for Lexus pre-owned. And the announcer says, "..A literary agent finds the next best seller in a stack of manuscripts." I guess they are trying to parallel their pre-owned program with EVERY HERBIE MOVIE. Funny. But it just bugs me, because no matter what, I'm in the club now (I feel a strange allegiance to palatino linotype, because that's my font...), and I feel like "literary" and "agent" are just about mutually exclusive. And it's not their fault. I'm not going to tell you not to support crap. Hell, I like crap. We're the gran mal-ing focus group that demands Stealth, because it's as interesting as a strobe light.

Just for now, let's pinky swear. Let's not support crap all the time, at least. And the crap litmus test is simple. Does it turn the paper brown? Let's just try and figure out when something switches from a product of love and respect to a giant marketing web of CYA. That's the new standard.

Page Numbers? We Don't Need No Stinking Cliche...Ooops.

Dear Paul,

I just got your book from Lulu.com, and man, I was really impressed by the quality. It's like a real book. But they left the page numbers off. I know you are very strict about your Ask Paul page, and I guess this isn't really a question, so I'm just going to ask you, what's the deal?

"Chad"
Topeka, KS


Dear Chad,

I hope you are enjoying the book. When somebody tells me they got the book, I usually like to ask what part they are reading. I love talking about my book. Of course, this isn't Ask Chad, so I'll save the questions. I just want to point a couple things out, as far as page numbers.

In the history of writing stuff down, page numbers have been pretty important. In the Bible, it is pretty important (apparently) to be able to be able to be a complete cock and reference any sentence and point out my transgressions, or inspire me, or whatever. The Bible took it much farther than page numbers. When my favorite biblical scholar, Jules Winfield quotes from the Bible, he is very specific. "Ezekial 25:17..."

Jesus, Chad. It's a Pulp Fiction reference.

Somewhere along the way, monks probably, decided we could rely on common sense and find stuff on a page. The Bible is all about being very specific, and like most other aspects of religion, it supposes that humans like you and me, Chad, can't be trusted. Eventually, with just page numbers and reasonably good writing, the idea of the book, coupled with a reasonably competent reader, well it became the perfect way to move information between people. A person writes a book, and another person reads a book. That person tells his friend, who hasn't read the book, about what he read, and his friend calls bullshit, and voila, it's on page 312, monkeyboy.

But here's the thing. People even used to write serious scientific essays in verse form. Then they decided they could write about flowers and the sun rising, and death and stuff, and poetry was good for that too. Oh, and girls. And then they decided that they didn't even need to write in verse. Yeah, you could talk about a girl dying as the sun rose, and you didn't have to write in iambic pentameter, rhymed or not. The story was reborn.

Not all novels or stories are serious. Everybody likes to think they are, but they aren't. Hell, even pseudo-informative novels like The Hunt for Red October, or The DaVinci Code, aren't really that important. The first few, I'll admit that those books, they needed page numbers to ease us through the transition. But even the Book Club people have to admit that if they read patiently enough, they shouldn't need to reference a work of popular fiction by page number.

Even moreso, I contend that not having page numbers increases discussion, because referring in a fuzzy way brings more into the conversation. There are much better chances that a discussion will branch off, whereas the finality of "It's right there on page 53, Dan Brown says Jesus was double jointed" just ends it. It's like debating with an accountant.

Another thing that bugs me about page numbers is that people immediately look to see how long a book is. Why? I do it too. I'm not judging. I just want to know why. And once you know how many pages, well every turn, or at least everytime you stop for a while, you look down at that page number. Mmmmmmm... 134 pages to go. 133....132...131.

One of the best things about The X Files, was that there were plenty of episodes that messed with the traditional concept of time in television. People used to say Chris Carter made most episodes seem more like movies. That's something to love.

They can call them scenes or parts, but the commercials really just divide the shows into those whatevers. But the fact that somehow Carter and his team worked with those, and the eventual end every night is a wonder of pacing. The X Files often felt like a movie for one huge reason. The clock rolling from 9:00PM to 10:00PM wasn't part of the drama. I was always impressed that that wasn't part of the drama. That you never sat there and asked yourself how the hell they were going to tie this up in the last segment.

But a clock counting down on Mulder and Scully would totally ruin it. Same for Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And BtVS is much more traditional in structure. Joss and his gang never played with time. They did everything inside the classic Barnaby Jones/Perry Mason/Quincy format, and the only clock is the commercials. Ask me and I will tell you, and you can ask my friends to verify this, the second season of Buffy is Shakespeare on steroids. But every episode was too. You almost expect a rhymed couplet before each commercial break.

To me the only real problem with Entourage, is exactly the opposite. You know it's short. You know nothing's going to be resolved. Part of the drama is waiting for the end. It's a great show, but that is such an artificial thing. It shouldn't always feel like the Daytona 500. Oh no, there's just ten laps to go.

And that's where we are as far as "art." The page number, even the passing of time has become a literary device. And yeah, especially to me, it's getting pretty blurry as far as reading and watching. Reading just takes longer. So I have no page umbers in Focus vs. Vespa. It's in journal format with dated entries, so time passes. But why let the format dictate how progress is made. Some days are three pages, some are four. I didn't let a format dictate how it was written. I never said to myself, I have to write 4 pages a day. I'm just trying to let the reader, like you Chad, in on the immersion.

And I couldn't get Open Office to not number blank pages and it looked bad, so I opted against them in general. It's supposed to be fun, Chad. Fun to write, fun to read. You're not in a race. Not to finish my book. So relax and enjoy. I did.

Caitlin Till She Dies
(P. Gilberry)


Her big old purse,
those little girl knees.
How can a girl
named Caitlin be
older than me?

Tire Kingdom,
flat tire swings,
nice hands, no rings.

Her car, her business,
she thinks about
her big girl things.

"DaVinci Code."
Baby doll tee.
How can a girl
named Caitlin be
older than me?

A young girl's pants.
A young girl's thigh.
The girl's not in
those clothes, those eyes.
Getting aligned,
you know, you know
she's gonna be Caitlin
till she dies.

Her big old purse.
Those little girl knees.
How can a girl
named Caitlin be
older than me?

A young girl's name.
A young girl's sighs.
The girl's not in
that hair, those eyes.
Getting aligned,
you know, you know
she's gonna be
Caitlin till she dies.

The Best Rock and Roll Band Ever

SO I haven't been doing this for a while, because it has become not too painfully evident not only that not too many people read me online, but not too many are reading my book either. I know I could double the bytes I have online, and there’s already a whole book there, and it’s just like buying another lottery ticket. But I can seem cool and more useful than a food and beverage purchaser.

BUT I want to get back into it. I have for a while, but I'm going to ease into this like The Who easing into "I Can See for Miles and Miles." What a kickass song. And it hinted at absolutely nothing that was to come for The Who and their fans. Yeah, the drumming went from implied to straight up "Happy Jack" slapping them bitches around, and the guitar playing allowed for some serious Mod posing. Bass line...solid like every British bassline ever. But the smooth part that would so soon fade away was Daltry. Fucking Daltry. It's right there with The Kinks. It's McCartney smooth, well not quite. But it's not the fucking rock and roll roar that would inform my fucking heart, my stomach, my viscera in general, that 'every shotgun sings a song.'

SO here I am, my own groove. Forever more about the rhythm section, never the lead. Never the howl. A more persistent kind of passion. Love. Yeah, I'm feeling pretty fucking important right now, and I'll try and be funny in a second, but fuck man, I'm talking about The Who here. The goddamn motherfucking kings of me. The Who.

JEFF Rauscher did a book report on them in 9th grade. Google that, Jefe. Hola.WELL like it did last time, this starts with a song. Amazing. Creepy. Not nearly as inspired. Not neary as anything. But a better song. Slower life since then, but fuck if I didn't write a better song.

SO that was me rambling, posing. All that. Everything after I stopped talking about The Who. Waiting for the beat for Pete to jump onto his Fender and start it like a Triumph on a cold, cold day. Waiting to beat the ever loving shit out of my drum kit. I think that's the thing about The Who. They loved music more than their instruments. That's a transcendant moment, when you can just with absolute certainty know that you don't need that guitar. That wearing away that drum kit is the noblest pursuit. I think to Keith Moon, it was the drums standing between him and rock and roll. That it's the means and not the end, or all the means to a sweeeeet fucking ending. It's like Paul Atreides not needing the Weirding Module. Oh hell yeah I can keep it rock and roll, gang. Just like when Sting got himself split and rended by Kyle McLaughlin. "Muaaaaaaaah Dib!" No no. Growl it out. Yeah. Ladies can purr it. Chani.

OKAY, so all the fucking Dune references. That was me being Townsend. Cigarette dangling waiting for the beat again. Waiting for the Loon. That's it Roger. Lure them in. They have no fucking idea. We're all going to jump them. Roll them like they need it. Keep it sweet. Keep it sweet. You think they see "Baba O'Reilly" over the horizon? They don't. They don't.