Time …. Flowing like a river…

It’s taking forever to load my Queimada post. I’m two posts later in MS Word – post post-post, you might say, and it’s still uploading. Is it even POSSIBLE to blog 35 entries in one day? In an hour? I’m stalled at 75%. Well, at least I got a post out of it.

The Big Dog

Bloodhound continues to rock, by the way. It’s one of my favorite comics. Hopefully, the new issue will be out soon. I think Travis Clevinger is the best character comics have seen in years. Whether he’ll survive low sales is anybody’s guess. I hope he turns it around.

Queimada

The other night, when New Jersey Transit shut down for a while due to a transformer explosion, I decided not to squeeze onto the Path with ever other commuter in the city, but instead to go see a film. I caught Queimada, which was released in the US as Burn! in 1969. It was a terrific film. Brando plays an enigmatic Englishman who comes to the Carribean island of Queimada to foment a revolution against the Portuguese. Having doen that (and establishing British foothold in the new government and its sugar business), he leaves. Ten years later, he’s called on to go back, to put down a second revolution, led by Jose Dolores, the same revolutionary he trained years ago.

Brando is dubbed into Italian (the language of the production), and still his performance is vibrant. He’s amazing as he slowly begins to realize he’s the villain of the piece, and wants to make restitution, because he doesn’t have a villain’s heart.

The music is by Ennio Morricone, who did all those creepy whistly soundtracks for Sergione Leone’s westerns. The soundtrack to this is haunting in ways I can’t fully describe, although it probably won’t affect people who haven’t seen this movie the same way it did me.

Man, what a cool movie.

Native Food

There’s a place in NYC that sells the food of my people. I’m talking about Carl’s, which does a damn good cheesesteak. And even with trying to eat heathier food, I broke down today to have one and some cheese fries for lunch.

Heritage is important.

Headlight Savings Time

I can’t wait for Daylight Savings Time. When is it? Because when I drive home from the Y after working out, the sun is so completely in my eyes at one point that I can’t see a damn thing. I’ll rear-end someone for sure. Or someone equally blind will rear-end me. Neither is an acceptable option, so if we could just all agree to move dawn back an hour, I’d appreciate it.

Lightning in my Brain

I was at the gym today. It was a cardio day, and I decided to use the treadmill. At one point, I flipped the discman to Jim’s Big Ego’s “The Ballad of Barry Allen,” and started to run. Listening to a song about the Flash while jogging? It felt like my birthday.

And yes, I can’t stop talking about this band.

If you sucked down a lot of helium

What would you say or sing? Leave your suggestions here.

Damn.

That could a been three. Oh well, back to work.

Lynx

Lemme link to a couple of friends who have blogs that are worth paying attention to. Jeri Smith-Ready’s Seething in the Wilderness is consistently a good read. Her posts always turn out more literate than mine;I think that’s because she actually puts time into them. She’s got more of the do-gooder impulse than I do, or at least she doesn’t suppress hers as successfully. Her chief concern has always been the environment, whereas mine has been making snarky comments from the sidelines. So the fact that she can do both is astonishing and worthy of respect.

Jack Curtin has been blogging a lot longer than me, but his concerns (politics and beer) tend to line up with my interests pretty well. He’s a comic reader, too, or at least he was years ago, and the things are like crack, so I can’t imagine he gave ’em up. I met him when I used to edit his Liquid Diet column at The Suburban and Wayne Times. Drop by.

Mark Evanier is one of the fathers of blogging, at least to my mind. His News from Me site is chock-full of Hollywood history, comics, politics, and just plain stuff that he amazes me. He’s a fantastic writer, and you’ll be hooked quick. Even on his supermarket reports. Really.

Cold Turkey

A very conservative friend of mine is thinking of giving up politics after the election. Just stop thinking about it, stop talking about it, all of it.

It’s an interesting idea, one which might save my stomach lining. But I don’t think I’m quite there yet.

Best. T-Shirt. Ever.

Y’know, Greg (or He Who Blogs Only At the Full Moon) gave me the best T-shirt ever years ago. It shows a Calvin Klein ad with Homer Simpson on it. On the front is Homer, shirtless, with his Calvin underwear peeking over the waist of his pants. The back shows the same thing, but a read view.

And I can’t remember the last time I wore it when someone hasn’t told me how much they love it.

So thanks Greg.

By the way…

This 35 @ 35 thing was a complete spur-of the moment decision. I had no idea that I was going to do it until I sat down. So I got nothing planned.

Just so you know. Enjoy with without-a-nettiness.

Therefore...

I've been thinking I'm halfway to 70 all day long.

Times Tables

When I was a kid, comics were 35 cents. Consequently, I learned the 35 times tables quicker than just about any others. 35 x 2 is 70, x3 is 105, x4 is 140, which leaves me a dime for Lemonheads.

35

So. I'm 35 today. and one way I'm going to celebrate is with 35 quick little posts. Think I can't do it? Me neither.

Rob

God, I love this band...

So a fan made a new flash animation of a Jim's Big Ego song. And being the cool guys they are, they put a link to it in their mailing list email.

Like so.

Enjoy.

Rob

Outlook Murky. Try Again Later.

I’m curious. Did Dick Cheney’s suit look sorta blurry-fuzzy on anyone else’s TV during the debate? I talked about it with Kathy, and decided the insubstantial black murk around him was his “shroud of evil.” But a friend suggested it might have been the result of Cheney actually being a hologram beamed in from an undisclosed location.

Did any of you notice this? If you have any other explanations, I’d love to hear them.

Rob

The Elephant in the Room

Check out this transcript (courtesy of Wampum) of a post-debate interview with Aaron McGruder (creator of Boondocks) on CNN's Newsnight.

Rob

One bad mutha...

My favorite moment of the debate came at the very end, where Kerry, in his closing argument, said:

... who's the person who could be a commander in chief who could get your
kids home and get the job done... and win the peace.

And in that pause, I turned to Kathy, and chirped: "Shaft!"

Damn right.

Rob

Post-Debate Post

Okay, it probably comes as no surprise to most of you that I think Kerry won the debate. For one reason, I’m pretty virulently anti-Bush, so I was rooting for Kerry anyway. Second of all, because Kerry flat-out won it pretty handily.

Really, though, the winning conditions weren’t all that high. Heck, Bush beat the same conditions last year – to be a plausible candidate for President. To not be the caricature that the other side says you are. And, in Kerry’s case, to hold the same stage with the President without being diminished by him.

Kerry handled it wonderfully. He spoke clearly, and kept on-message without using the same words over and over and over again. (Kerry would repeat himself once or twice; Bush sounded like … ah, what the hell is it that he sounded like now that technology has made broken records obsolete? A macaw. A well-trained macaw.)

Granted, there were times that Bush held his own. The discussion about what to do about Korea really impressed me – not so much because I agreed with him, but because he actually seemed engaged in what he was saying. But in general, Bush looked peevish, and completely unaccustomed to someone standing up to him. (Which is probably because he is – he hasn’t held a press conference for months, and his public-speaking stops are carefully screened so that no one who disagrees with him can get in.)

But Kerry was in control. He jabbed at Bush, and Bush deflected most of his criticisms, but not all. (The fate of Osama bin Laden was a major source of contention, and, I thought, one of Kerry’s most effective attacks.) Bush tried to nail Kerry on the flip-flopper thing, and Kerry turned it right back around on him – “I made a mistake when I talked about the war, but the President made a mistake by taking us to war. Which is worse?” Bush didn’t land a punch.

Kerry didn’t knock Bush out, to continue the boxing analogy, and I don’t think Bush was every really on the ropes. But there were times where he looked like he thought he was on the ropes, and in those moments, he looked decidedly unpresidential.

I think Bush will be better prepared for round two, in the town-hall-style debate. But frankly, this was his strongest subject. He needed a win here, and he didn’t get one. Suddenly, Kerry is as plausible at national defense as Bush is – and Bush’s defense numbers were really what’s been keeping his campaign afloat in the polls. If they drop, Bush drops.

And we all might actually start becoming safer come January.

Rob