On Standup Comedy, Reality Television, and Hypocrisy

I do not like reality television. Whenever it comes up in conversation, I never hesitate to let others know of my disdain for the genre. I think it's an easy out for the networks who are too lazy to come up with creative original programming. I think it appeals to the least common denominator of society. However, due to my longtime love of standup comedy, there is one of these programs that I am hopelessly addicted to: Last Comic Standing. (Season Premier tonight!)

I started watching the show regularly in Season 2 when it came on as a Summer replacement series on NBC. And now here it is in its forth season, and still a "well, it's better than showing re-runs" show. That hasn't deterred me at all though, and honestly I'm pretty impressed a Summer show has managed to stick around for four seasons. Outside of The OC, which itself began life in the same circumstances, most Summer shows are unmitigated disasters. Sometimes I think this may actually be intentional on the networks' part.

Network exec: "According to Jim will seem downright brilliant compared to this one..."

The premise is really quite simple, and nearly identical to everyone of the other reality shows out there - a large number of initial applicants is narrowed down to a manageable number through a preliminary screening process, the lucky few to make the grade get put up in a house together, during which time their day-to-day activities are documented, and each week's events culminate with a competition of sorts that sends one contestant home. In the end, it comes down to one, and that person gets the money, contract, prize, spot in the band, etc.

It's a formula that's been used again and again.

Yet, here I am, eating up every moment of it. What can I say? As much as I loath Survivor, I'm just a sucker for standup.

I also thought this would be a good place to mention my new favorite comedy CD: Daniel Tosh's "True Stories I Made Up." This guy is out of his mind, and it's completely hilarious. I highly recommend it to anyone else looking to get their comedy fix.

Maybe It Was Frodo Climbing the Stairway to Heaven

This may be one of those things that everyone already knows about, but I just found out about it and I thought it was pretty cool. Anyway, I had the ol' ipod on random play yesterday when Led Zeppelin's "The Battle of Evermore" came on. Great song, and one I've heard literally hundreds of times before, but this time I caught something that I had never noticed before. The verse goes like this:

The pain of war cannot exceed
The woe of aftermath,
The drums will shake the castle wall,
The ringwraiths ride in black,
Ride on.

Wait...did Robert Plant just say "ringwraiths"?

Yes, he did.

The evil horsemen/dragon-riders from The Lord of the Rings?

Yup.

After googling the lyrics to make sure I wasn't just imagining this, I found out that there are actually several websites devoted to establishing links between the music of Zeppelin and the writings of JRR Tolkien. In fact, it seems somewhat-widely accepted that "The Battle of Evermore" is about the final battle against the forces of Mordor in Return of the King. Even Wikipedia mentions the connection.

Here's the link to one of the better sites I came across, covering not just "The Battle of Evermore," but several other Zeppelin songs: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/2406/index.html

Maybe it's not Dark Side of the Moon/Wizard of Oz, but I thought it was pretty interesting.

So Who Is It Exactly That Still Supports Bush?

These past two days I've been in the car even more than usual for work, and both days my radio dial found its way to the conservative talk station. Not that I'm a huge fan of conservative talk radio, but I was curious to hear the rightwing reaction to President Bush's immigration reform speech on Monday night. I personally thought it was OK....I don't think he really said anything that hadn't been said before or made any groundbreaking statements in general, but as far as "I'm aware there is a lot of concern on this issue, and I promise to work to fix it" speeches go, I thought it served its purpose.

Apparently hard-line conservatives didn't feel the same way. The general consensus among the GOP "party base"- a term they like to throw around a lot - seems to be that Bush really screwed up on this one. The main concern is basically that a comprehensive approach (trying to tackle everything in one bill) is a big mistake, and that sealing off the borders should be priority number one. Dealing with the immigrants who are already here should come later, the argument goes.

But what really surprised me in everything I heard was the viciousness of the attacks on the President over this one issue. During Bush's entire presidency there has been what I would call extreme reluctance among GOP'ers to criticize ANYTHING the President has done. Even the glaring mistakes (such as the Katrina aftermath) have generally been downplayed by the hard-liners. But not this one. There was so much Bush-bashing going on, at times it was hard to tell whether I was listening to Sean Hannity or Al Frankin.

And that got me thinking about the question I posed in the title: So who is it exactly that still supports Bush? It's no secret that the President's poll numbers are completely in the tank as of late, but what demographic is it that comprises that 30% or so of the nation that is still standing strong with W?

The hard-line liberals have never been with Bush. The more moderate liberals stood at his side after 9/11 but generally bailed in the build up to the Iraq war. The moderate-moderates were on board until Katrina, Harriet Myers, and Valerie Plame (which is also about the time it began to look like there was no end in sight in Iraq). Then came Jack Abramoff and Dick Cheney shooting someone in the face, and the moderate conservatives begin to back off. That pretty much ONLY leaves the "party base," right?

But now, based on what I've heard the past few days, this last stronghold is as permeable as our unprotected border with Mexico.

What does that mean for the next poll? 20% support? 15%? 10? Will Republicans running for office in the mid-term elections this November try to distance themselves from Bush the way Democrat politicians did following the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal?

I really don't know where this will lead, but I think it is intriguing.

(Wow, this post ended up being about 5 times longer than I meant for it to be.)

**UPDATE**
And it looks like I'm not the only one interested by this latest trend...
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/05/17/conservatives.gop/index.html

No Surprises Here.....

Miami was named the worst city in the US for road rage. I imagine I'm not the only one who wasn't shocked by this announcement.

Some Things I Noticed Today....

1) You will never find a more colorful cast of characters anywhere than at the county courthouse. It doesn't matter where you live. Don't believe me? Take a ride down there someday. Just hang around outside the clerk's office....you don't even have to go into an actual courtroom. And to me, this just begs the question: Why are there not more court-related sitcoms? Sure every show has that episode where a main character has gotten in some trouble and has to go to court, but I'm talking a series centered around the courthouse. I guess nobody wants to tread on Night Court's territory.

2) Lately my inner monologue has starting cursing a lot more than it used to. I'm not sure why or exactly when that started, but it has become quite noticeable to me. Where before it was "What was that guy thinking?" now it's "What the fuck was that guy thinking?" Maybe it has something to do with actually having a real job and being in the "real world." Maybe I've just grown bitter with age.

3) Today was a good day at work, but not because something good happened, but instead because nothing bad happened. I left work on Friday thinking I may have inadvertently royally screwed up something related to a new foreclosure my firm is handling. All weekend long I was on edge, anticipating the shitstorm I'd have to face today if I had really messed up as bad as I had feared. As it turned out I had done everything correctly, and it was merely a computer delay at one of the backwoods county courthouses I deal with that was the root of my apprehension. So is good simply the absence of bad? Is bad just the absence of good? That's way too philosophical for this blog, so I'll just move on.

4) I have a full-blown, middle-school-like crush on this woman than works at the courthouse. The only reason that's a little weird to me is because she's at least 10-15 years older than me, and I've never been one to stray too far from my own age in either direction. Now I don't think she's 40, but she's probably knocking on the door. But whatever. I don't care. She's hot, and she always flirts with me when I come in. You don't even want to know what my inner monologue has to say about her.

And Here's Why I Don't Have a Girlfriend....

The other day I received some awesome news courtesy of the brewer patriot: George Lucas has decided to release the original theatrical versions of the Star Wars Trilogy on DVD. This is obviously great news for anyone who wasn't thrilled with some of the changes Lucas made in the "special editions," which include the theatrical re-releases in 1997 and the DVD releases in 2004. Hearing this news, I started thinking about all of the changes that were made, and which ones I liked and which ones didn't really do it for me. And although it started with a short comment to the brewer's post, I soon realized I needed a much larger forum to fully explore this topic.

But don't think I'm gonna let the nerd factor stop at just discussing the changes. I'm gonna take it one step further. Prepare yourself. I've come up with an idea that may just blow your mind.

With the original and special editions readily available in digital format, and with the current generation of consumer video editing software and DVD burners, it will be entirely feasible to make your own cut of the films. Want Han to shoot first, but you like the Jabba hanger scene? Make it happen. Like the addition of digital starships, but you're a fan of the smaller, grittier-looking Mos Eisley? Do it. The possibilities are endless.

And the chances of me actually doing this is somewhere between "definitely" and "absolutely."

What stays and what goes? Here are my picks:

Episode IV: A New Hope

From the Special Edition: The digital starships are a huge improvement over the scale models used originally, most notably in the lead-up to the Death Star attack. The expanded Mos Eisley was also a good move to me. It actually makes the city seem like a bustling spaceport instead of a backwoods outpost. The added "Jabba hanger" scene really only gives Jabba some early face-time and introduces Boba Fett, but I'll keep it, too. The revised Death Star explosion is also an improvement.

From the Original: Han shoots first! I'm not going to get into the morality of the scene (I believe that's why it was changed...Lucas didn't think a hero character should attack unprovoked), because that is irrelevant to me. I just think they did a crappy job editing to make it look like Greedo pulled the trigger first. It's like all the action freezes for a brief - but very noticeable - moment so Greedo's blaster can go off. I can't stand the way it looks.

Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

From the Special Edition: Empire was probably changed the least of the three movies in for the 1997 theatrical release, but got a much-needed upgrade with the DVD release. The holographic Emperor who contacts Darth Vader in the original was clearly not played by Ian McDiarmid, and that caused a huge continuity problem. Thankfully this was corrected, and new scene will be the one in my cut. The extended Wampa Cave scene aren't essential, but I'll keep those. The expanded Bespin was also a good move to make Cloud City actually look like a thriving metropolis.

From the Original: I think I'm going all-special on this one, although it speaks to the quality of the original that so few changes needed to be made in the first place.

Episode VI: Return of the Jedi

From the Special Edition: Here's where it gets hairy. Much like A New Hope, the space battle scenes are better off with the digital ships. But that's only a small change, and there were some big ones here. Most notably, the ending. Instead of just showing the Ewoks and Rebels celebrating their victory, the special edition introduces a montage of creatures celebrating all over the galaxy. This I like, mainly from a continuity standpoint as it incorporates worlds such as Naboo and Coruscant that were only shown in the prequels. The problem is that by extending the scene, the original song would no longer fit. Not that the new song is bad, but for nostalgia purposes I say keep the visuals but lose the audio.

From the Original: The musical number in Jabba's Palace was an amusing distraction in the original. In the special edition it became a mind-numbing debacle. This scene in the revised version takes me right out of the movie. Original definitely stays. Then there's the most controversial change in Jedi: the appearance of Anakin's Force ghost. In the original, the ghostly image was portrayed by Sebastian Shaw, who played Anakin/helmet-less Vader. In the revision, Shaw was replaced with Hayden Christensen, who of course played the pre-Dark Side Anakin in the prequels.
There are a couple of problems here. First, let's look at Shaw. One running theme of the entire saga is the redemption of Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker, and that redemption is complete when Vader saves Luke from the Emperor. Thus for a few brief moments - between tossing the Emperor down the bottomless shaft and his death after the heart-to-heart with Luke - he was Anakin again, and died as older man on the good side of the Force. However, as Shaw appears in the ghost scene, he is unscarred, has all his limbs, and generally appears in good health. Anakin may have been redeemed spiritually, but he was never redeemed physically.
Now look at Christensen. Having young Anakin appear as the ghost seems to indicate that he completely ceased to be Anakin when he turned to the Dark Side as a young man, and implies that he was never fully redeemed in the end. Even though this interpretation validates what Obi-wan told Luke during their first meeting, I think it kind of destroys a central theme of the film. So ideally, for me at least, Anakin should appear older, but scarred and dismembered. This isn't one of the choices though, and probably wouldn't work very well cinamatically.
With that said, I'd have to go with Shaw here. Even though Anakin never existed as an able-bodied middle-aged man, I just like thinking that in the end Anakin overtook Vader and existed once again free of the Dark Side. Plus, it's a ghost, so it can probably take any form it wants.


September 12th is the date, folks. Mark your calendars!

Tales from the Road...5/3/06

Today I was working in Carteret County, NC, and after finishing up a little research in the Register of Deeds' office, it was lunchtime. Subway seemed like a solid choice, so I pulled in, got my food, and sat down. Uneventful so far.

Then a group of ladies entered and made their way to the counter. The first two seemed normal enough. They made polite small talk with the girl making the subs, and everything was going smoothly. Then the third lady placed her order.

A six-inch veggie.

The girl started to make the sandwich, but all of a sudden she was interrupted by cry from the lady which, by its tone would seem to convey a message such as "the oven's on fire!" or "there's poison in the mustard!" But those were not her words. What did she say?

"I'm supposed to get more cheese than that!"

The lady then proceeded to tell the poor girl "how the Subway Corporation makes its veggie subs," which, according to her, "requires twice as much cheese on veggie subs as on subs with meat."

From my seat, I couldn't tell whether the girl caved in a gave the lady more cheese. Honestly, I probably would have just to shut her up. I just couldn't believe someone would make such a big deal out of something so stupid.

I wish my life was so carefree that my biggest worry was the amount of cheese on my sandwich.