That Was Pretty Fucked Up Right There

While spending the weekend with my parents--my dad's 85th birthday was Friday--I caught the movie "Deadfall" on TV. It's a bit hard to explain the movie. It's sort of James Bond/The Grifters/The Hustler/Red Rock West only not as good as any of them. Because it's hard to figure out exactly what the movie was trying to do, I have to judge it a failure. It was, however, an entertaining failure, as I kept wondering which major or minor Hollywood star would turn up in a role next and how far over the top he'd go. This is the cast, which you can measure for scenery chewing potential:

James Coburn (in a dual role)
Michael Biehn
Nicolas Cage
Peter Fonda
Charlie Sheen
Talia Shire

Chris Coppola directed the movie, and the connections most assuredly helped. (The cast contains several family members, like Cage and Shire.) I shouldn't (and won't) mock too much. Francis Ford Coppola started just as shakily, shooting the abysmal "Dementia 13" around Roger Corman, who was shooting his own film on the same location for most of the day. From what I understand, Chris shoots crime re-enactments for "America's Most Wanted" and continues to look for his big break. He hasn't got it yet, but if he should find it, I don't want anything nasty I say about him to bite me in the ass.

Ech!

Majikthise points us into the direction of the magical verses of fake-nobel-laureate Dr. William Cheshire, that guy who says Tracy Schiavo is conscious despite her lack of cerebral cortex. I warn you. Should you go criminally insane and actual read that poem, you're in for a long sit full of strained rhymes and hackneyed imagery.

Okay, you twisted my arm. I'll analyze a segment of it and plum the Vogonesque depths of Dr. Cheshire's orthography:

If lost in County Rockingham,
A North Carolina mystery
Distorts one northbound exit ramp
Which enters highway two-twenty.

(The "two-twenty" in the final line throws the rhythm off and calls undue attention to itself, while adding virutally nothing aside from geographic trivia. Wouldn't "highway twenty" have served just as well? Of course the rhyme of "mystery" and "twenty" is desperately strained and ugly, and the "If lost in County Rockingham" is disgustinly faux-British, giving an olde tyme air that 'tis unsuited when tasks describing contemporary scenes there be.)

Don’t lessen your pressure on your brake
Or leave your car unoccupied,
For gravity reversed may make
Your unattended auto slide –

(Not if I set the parking brake it won't. Besides which, is there really substantial danger that I'm going to blithely decide to park on the exit ramp of a main road? You're not supposed to park on them at all, you know. Well, maybe I'm betraying my ignorance of North Carolina traffic laws. Anyway, the poet essentially breaks an ordinary sentence into two lines, then strains to find two fake poetic lines to complete the rhymes. "Gravity reversed may make"? It's one hell of a diction shift, as if some open-mic poetry slam twit had interrupted a driver's ed lecture.)

Uphill – defying Newton’s law!
Bewildered witnesses to this
Will ask, by what strange twist or flaw
Do opposite directions switch?

(The opening of the stanza is awkward. "Uphill" should have been in the last line of the last stanza. Evidently, Cheshire thinks that placing a hyphen at the end of the line indicates that the first line of the subsequent stanza is a continuation of his thought. Elipses or commas would be more correct if he wanted to place particular stress on "uphill" while signalling continuity of idea. And, again a traffic question. Wouldn't such people instead ask, who is this idiot and why did he leave his stupid car on the stupid exit ramp to roll around on its stupid fucking own? Is he out of his fucking mind?)

From slip to creep, from roll to rush,
The car let loose will plummet thus
On slopes too steep for eyes to trust.
Without true bearings, fall we must.

(First, as Mark Twain points out, there's an enormous difference between the right word and the almost-right word. "Plummet" is a verb meaning to drop straight down, in a like manner to the plummet, the metal bob of a plum line. Unless the car rolls off a cliff, the car is not going to plummet. The car can coast, slide, drift, ramble, rumble or race down a slope, but it can't plummet. Also, what is a slope too steep for eyes to trust. At what point does that take place. The vertical references surrounding the slope create the illusion, not the slope itself. Under ordinary conditions, we're pretty good at judging slopes, and well advised to trust our impressions. It's part of what's kept us alive for so many millions of years. Also, again a right word objection. Nothing in this situation is falling, things are sliding.)

Which way is up? Which way is best?
Confusion frames experience.
Whilst heavens rotate East to West,
Surrounding landscape orients.

(Which way is up is a silly question to ask? In places where such optical illusions happen, our sense of slope may be imperfect, but we still know, in a general way, which direction is up and which is down. Indeed, it's because we have a strong feeling of how gravity generally works that the slope illusion confuses us. We still know that the sky is up and the ground is down. And what does that have to do with which way is best? Sometimes up is best, sometimes down. Sometimes you're fucked whichever way you go. But why pound on that when we can hit "Surrounding landscape orients". What does the surrounding landscape orient? And why is it given agency? The surrounding landscape doesn't actually do anything. Observers examine the surrounding environment. In the biz we call it personification, and it has its uses. But because the line is unclear, it's hard to see what's gained in using the personification device.)

Our sense of vertical depends
On how the mountains shape this scene;
An optical illusion bends
Perspectives once erect to lean.

(True, but I was way ahead of you there. I learned that stuff when I was seven.)

When looming mountains lift our view
To north horizon upward nudged,
Inclining frames of reference skew;
A level path we cannot judge.

(Yuck. "To north horizon upward nudged"? "Nudged" is not a happy choice. The looming mountains and lifted views plummet back to earth in its syllables. It would be a better rhyme with "judge" (in that it would actually rhyme with judge) if it were in the present tense. But it's not, to its inclusion isn't even defensible on those grounds. Ugly. Ugly. "Inclining frames of reference" calls no real image to mind--quick, what does an inclining frame of reference look like?)

So how much more should we, therefore,
Rely on valid moral points
Of reference when we first explore
Requests oddly for death by choice?

(I'm confused. We've just been over how physical frames of reference can be skewed while appearing solid, yet now the rhetorical question wants me to rely more heavily on moral points over which people are much more likely to disagree? It is, presumably, a moral conflict that inspired this-uh-poem. If I were to stand next to Cheshire on this exit ramp, we would both experience the same optical illusion. Our senses would be fooled in the same direction. It's safe to say, however, that we experience moral questions in profoundly different ways, even though we're responding to the same event. How do I know his moral points are valid, or applicable, in the circumstances? Can't I have different, but equally valid, ideas about morality? How did morality acquire a clarity and solidity that physical experience lacks? How does he know his seemingly valid moral notions aren't, in fact, skewed by twisted frames of reference?)

The road that medicine could take
Toward doctor-assisted suicide
Would be a terrible mistake
Against which now we must decide.

(I could try to defend this stanza by saying that the use of "road" means to extend the exit-ramp-illusion metaphor, but that seems like a stretch to me. More likely he was simply using a cliche. The rest is more position paper than poetry.)

The Dutch have demonstrated well
The slippery slope along which we
Proceed once doctors cannot tell  
A lethal dose from therapy.

(If doctors can't tell a lethal dose from therapy, they're simply badly trained, not misguided. Because the Dutch generally have better health care than we do, I don't think that's the case. Slippery slope is another cliche. Maybe he could have gone British and said it was "the thin end of the wedge". Neither is especially poetic. "Proceed" is a poor word. Again, my I suggest "slide" or "tumble"? )

I think you get the idea here gang. This poem is bad. It is poorly written and thematically confused. The writer does not possess the sort of mind that would win a Nobel Prize, or even the sort of mind that should have graduated high school. My students do better than this, and for many of them English is their second or third language.

Not Modest, Just Tired

Peace, woman! I've been too busy to fool around with that. Modesty's got nothing to do with anything! Yes, true believers, my novella, "Escape Velocities" received the honor of being named a notable story by the friendly folks at StorySouth. You can read all about it here.

Don't ever claim I'm not shameless!

Raider Notes

Ira Miller of the San Francisco Chronicle caught up with Norv Turner at the NFL meetings and came away with the impression that Oakland will be going to a 4-3 defense as their primary alignment next season. That may explain their lack of appetite for new linebackers. The Raiders are heavily stacked at the defensive line positions with Brayton, Hamilton, Sapp, Washington, Irons, and Tommy Kelly, but are thin at linebacker. (If you check out their depth chart, it has lots of gaps right now.) By going to the 4-3 alignment the Raiders would be able to play to their depth, perhaps pick up a linebacker or two in the draft, and maybe another one after June 1st, and function. They may throw in some 3-4 alignments. Derrick Burgess has played at OLB in a 3-4 set, as has Grant Irons. They may also, because Robb Ryan is, after all, a Ryan, add the 46 alignment into the mix. (For the uninitiated, the 46 alignment is one in which the strong safety becomes a fourth linebacker, lining up close to the defensive line. The 1985 Chicago Bears were its greatest practitioners, employing it not only to stop the run but to rush the passer. Because four men are close to the line instead of three, the 46 combines the unpredictable blitz packages of a 3-4 with the initial surge and penetration of a 4-3. The only drawback is that the corners and safeties are under added pressure to stay with their men. Teams can beat this defense deep.)

In other news, Turner says that there are a couple of teams interested in making a trade for Charles Woodson. I doubt we'll end up with two first round picks, but given that these teams are negotiating with Al "Leave them Bleeding In the Dirt" Davis, we should see a generous package. Also, FB Robert Konrad, a veteran of the Miami Dolphins, appears ready to come to Oakland. I love a big fullback who can catch, and, though it seemed like a minor thing to some, I thought we lost a lot when we allowed Jon Ritchie to escape to Philadelphia. This move gets us a good every-down fullback, and allows Zach Crockett to return to his more traditional role as he-who-scores-short-touchdowns.

My Favorite Movie Romances

I'll list ten, in no particular order.

1. "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"--Love transcends our desire to forget. The movie struck me as a powerful example of how integral love, even failed and doomed love, is to our lives.

2. "Love, Actually"--It'll be the first of two Richard Curtis films on this list. Who knew that Curtis, who cowrote the "Blackadder" and "Mr. Bean" series, could put together such entertaining couples? The scenes where two members of a film crew up a relationship while doubling in lighting tests for an erotic movie's sex scenes are, all on their own, worth the price of a ticket.

3. "Adam's Rib"--Hepburn and Tracy at their peak skewer each other deliciously in this 1949 romantic-comedy where they play married lawyers on opposite sides in a case. It's hardly the first story where the two lovers bait one another mercilessly from beginning to end--see "Much Ado About Nothing"--but it is a very good example of the form.

4. "Arsenic and Old Lace"--And you thought the family in "Meet the Parents" was difficult. Cary Grant stars as a man making a quick stop to visit his aunts on his way to his honeymoon, when he discovers that his aunts have taken on a new hobby: murdering lodgers and having Grant's crazy uncle bury them. (The uncle thinks he's Teddy Roosevelt and that the graves he's digging are part of the Panama Canal.) In the meantime, Grant's cousin Jonathan and his little pal Peter Lorre, show a deep interest in murdering Grant and his new bride because Jonathan resents both his cousin and the stunning news that the aunts' body count matches his. Will Grant's marriage survive these shocking revelations? Will he? You'll have to watch to find out.

5. "Murphy's Romance"--Because movie romances always end with the correct couples together, there's seldom any suspense. That's the case here, but what makes the movie work is that the lovers, played by James Garner and Sally Field, are so carefully observed and smart. We know they'll get together as soon as Field clears a few complications out of her life, specifically the surprise appearance of her ex-husband. The ex-husband, who's also well played, doesn't really stand a chance against Garner's Murphy, but he nevertheless sustains the movie and gives both characters opportunities to define themselves against him. What I like most about the movie is that the characters dictate the pace of the film, instead of moving around according to the needs of the plot. There are certain advantages to working in a formula. You can get to know the characters while the plot takes care of itself, and these characters are worth knowing.

6. "Four Weddings and a Funeral"--Like "Love, Actually" this film throws a number of adorable couples into a pot and sees who gets together with whom. The coupling of Hugh Grant's and Andie McDowell's characters is made inevitable by the movie poster, but the other couples come together, as the nurse from "Rear Window" would say, like two taxis on Broadway. What works best about the film is its acknowledgement of romantic disappointment. There's a perfectly adorable potential coupling in the film that never works out, causing intense suffering for one of the characters. And of course, there is death.

7. "Victor/Victoria"--Love is strange, but seldom does a couple get together like this. Victoria is a despairing singer, played by Julie Andrews, who, with her gay friend Caroll Todd (Robert Preston), invents a new stage persona for herself--as a man, pretending to be a woman. She's a hit, and she attracts the attention of a nightclub owner (James Garner) who falls in love with her/him. She falls for him too, but can't admit to him that she is, in fact, a woman, because it would spoil her act. Caroll Todd also finds an interest, in the person of the nightclub owner's bodyguard (Alex Karras). Hilarity ensues.

8. "Tootsie"--Another gender-bending comedy, this time with the man in drag. Michael Dorsey, a despairing actor, comes up with a plan to get work after his agent tells him that no one in New York, L.A., or the Outer Mongolian Goat Theater Society, will hire him because he's so difficult. He becomes Dorothy Michaels, and immediately lands a role on a big-time soap opera. He falls in love with one of the cast members (Jessica Lange), but can't admit his true gender because...well, you read the Victor/Victoria review. Anyway, a couple of guys also fall in love with Dorothy, creating no end of trouble--especially because one of them is the Lange character's father. Hilarity ensues.

9. "Casablanca"--You know the damn story, a fight for love and glory.

10. "The Princess Bride"--I'm getting tired, so I won't go over much here. For all the special effects of Lord of the Rings, this is my favorite fantasy romance. It's light, but has genuine emotion. It's funny and wise. It has Peter Cook playing a clergyman. What else do you need? Well, maybe you need me to stop. This post has grown long. Would you like me to quit?

As you wish.

George F. Kennan Died

"American Diplomacy" sits next to my bed. I re-read it for pleasure. I'll miss him.

Other Best of the Oughts

These movies almost made it for me, and probably would make it if I were in a slightly different mood:

"Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", "The Matrix Reloaded", "The Tailor of Panama", "Finding Nemo", "A.I.", "Minority Report", "Whale Rider", "Pollock", "Chicago", "Monster", "Adaptation", "Far From Heaven", "High Fidelity", "Gosford Park", "The Pledge", "One Hour Photo", "Insomnia", "Frailty"

In Other News, Violent Cults Sadden Charles Manson

Tom Delay is upset about partisanship.

Stop Playing Nice With Pundits

Beltway Democrats would do well to read this post from Josh Marshall on why Democrats should blow off the D.C. chattering class. Bottom line, they're not our friends. These people would throw a drowning man an anvil. They take stupid people seriously and smart people lightly. They're rich enough that they don't have to care whether government is good or not, so for them it's all a giant cocktail party where caring enough to actually know what you're talking about is so uncool. It's high school with suits. The Republicans blow them off routinely, which actually makes pundits treat them better. (Like many high school kids, they're interested primarily in attracting the approval of people who don't like them.) Democrats should learn to do that. The last Democrat to have a truly cozy relationship with the press was Jack Kennedy. Lyndon, Jimmy, and Bill all took it in the teeth. It surprised Lyndon, who thought he could do as well as Jack did and tried endlessly. (The Kennedy's sabotaged many of those attempts, but Lyndon did a lot of damage himself.) The D.C. crowd blew up Jimmy Carter before he could even get started--who was this upstart from Georgia to tell us how to run things? Bill Clinton treated them all roughly because he knew he had no friends among them, and it was this, as much as anything else, that helped him survive. Now, in the era of Fox News's 24-hour pundit fest, the Democrats need to get used to the idea that, in D.C. anyway, they have no friends. It's time for a bunker mentality guys, because if this isn't war, what is?

It's Joe-ver Between Us, Mr. Lieberman

Joe Lieberman thinks his fate was sealed with blogger types--I didn't know I was a type but okay--was sealed with a kiss (from the New Yorker):

"Lieberman is a study in the dangers of steroidal muscularity, becoming an outlier in his own party. (He has edged to the right as his running mate in the 2000 election, Al Gore, has moved leftward.) His fate was sealed with a kiss, planted on his cheek by Bush, just after the President delivered his State of the Union address. 'That may have been the last straw for some of the people in Connecticut, the blogger types,' Lieberman told me."

Actually, Joe, the camel's spinal fluid was dripping out long before then. The photo of the Bush kiss was merely a symbol of how you've given this White House political cover on a host of major issues these last four years. Whether it's torture or banking dereg or the bankruptcy bill (a bill he only voted against when his vote no longer really counted, in a maneuver which makes me wonder whether his few defenders should cite his voting record) Lieberman is Rosencrantz and/or Gildenstern to Bush's Claudius and to the moneyed interests on Wall Street. What's more, he likes to go onto Fox News and bash Democrats who disagree with him. For someone who votes with the Democrats 80% of the time, wouldn't you think he'd devote himself to attacking the Republicans at least occasionally? Hell, I still haven't forgiven him for trying to give the Republicans political cover during impeachment by delivering that moralizing harangue on the Senate floor. Your president, a charter member along with you of the DLC, is threatened with impeachment and removal from office because he lied in a lawsuit deposition about a private sexual affair that had diddly-shit to do with running the country, an impeachment that would have been a disaster not only for the Democratic Party but for the country as a whole, an impeachment driven by right-wing ideologues whose personal hatred of the President was such that they wanted to put the entire country on hold so that they could parade what they'd discovered about how the President spent his free moments, and you, Mr. Lieberman, go out onto the Senate floor and give that impeachment drive a fig leaf of bipartisan respectability?

Of course, he voted against it later.

I think it was Lyndon Johnson who said of some wayward Democrat that he'd rather have on the inside of the tent pissing out than on the outside pissing in. This doesn't work with Joe Lieberman, because he has the nasty habit of pissing inside of tents that he's in. What does he do for us that any other Democrat in the Connecticut state legislature couldn't do? And what does he do to hurt us that no other Democrat in the Connecticut state legislature would ever do? Riddle me that, Bull Moose.

My Best of the Oughts

Majikthise has her best of the oughts list. Now I have mine.

1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
2. Lost In Translation
3. Kill Bill Vols 1 & 2
4. Million Dollar Baby
5. Requiem For A Dream
6. Mystic River
7. Before Sunset
8. Memento (even with the plot flaw)
9. The Incredibles
10. Sideways

Go over to the old site to see my best of the 1990s list. Bitterspice has a new review of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind here.

Update: Phoebe Evergreen asked what the plot flaw was in Memento. You can see my attempt to answer in comments, which word limits cut off. Essentially, I responded to IMDB.com's defense of Leonard Shelby's remembering his own short term memory problem by saying that true cases of the condition they're describing obliterate memories of everything following onset, diagnosis included. Some patients, who come to the condition via chronic alcoholism (the usual route, as I understand it), may remember a doctor telling them something about memory loss before their defect became profound.

Further, Leonard Shelby's coping method would probably prove more debilitating than helpful, because amnesia patients confabulate fantasies and long term memories to create false short term memories. As a consequence, he couldn't guarantee his own reaction to the tattoo that's supposed to let him know who he is and what, in general, he's doing.

That said, without this plot element "Memento" has no story. And because it was a fast paced, intelligent, witty and altogether involving story that kept me guessing until the end and haunted me long afterwards, I'll grant it the one conceit that made it all possible.

Good night, Ms. Evergreen, wherever you are.

Raiders Finally Add Some Defense

Len Panquerelli informs us that the Raiders have picked up Eagles defensive end Derrick Burgess, signing him to a five year, $17.5 million deal. He had a very good post-season with the birds this year, recording three sacks in the NFC title game and Super Bowl. It's hardly a blockbuster move for Oakland, and we'll have to wait and see whether he develops into a great DE/LB for us or is another Larry Brown. Here's what Scouts Inc. thinks of him:

"Burgess is very active, plays with a nonstop motor and is a solid one gap defender. He is not an explosive edge rusher that can beat tackles with pure speed, but he does have a quick first step and is so tenacious that he is tough to keep blocked. He does a nice job with his hands, plays with good leverage and is at his best on the move when he is involved with line stunts and penetrating inside. On the edge, he works tackles with double moves and is relentless in pursuit. He can hang in there at the point of attack vs. the run against most teams, but gets engulfed by the elite power running teams and tackles in this game. He is active, but not overly physical and if he gets locked up and you run right at him, his quickness and athleticism can be neutralized. If he gets caught in a double team, he is in trouble as he is not strong enough to stack, shed and slip through. He is a better pass rusher at this point than he is a run stopper, but he is only 27 and there is room to develop if he can remain healthy."

You Bet Your Ass I'll Endorse It, Sporty

Politology seeks to establish a coalition of bloggers from right, left, and center, who are outraged over the bankruptcy bill that will begin ass-raping consumers as soon as Bush scrawls an X on its dotted line. Count me as on board, and let me know what I can do.

The Latest from the War Is Peace File

Bush now says that private accounts are a safety net for the risks of Social Security.

George, is there a history of insanity in your family? Wait, scratch that. Is there any history of sanity in your family?

Howard Dean is Simon Templar

Episode III "Not For Kids" or Adults, or Carbon Based Life

George Lucas tells us not to bring our moppets to see Star Wars Episode III. This strikes me as a strange instruction, considering that the presence of Jar-Jar Binks and the decision to start the trilogy with Anakin as a cute little boy saving the galaxy betrays Lucas's desire to grab the kid market. We're just going to leave the young'uns hanging on this one, George? Then what the hell did we make them sit through the nauseating love scenes of Episode II for? Where's their payoff?

Well, fuck it. Lucas lost his bearings years ago. How else could he avoid recognizing that his vision for hell is not only a cliche, but a cliche Peter Jackson visited just a few years ago when he took us to Mordor to climb Mount Doom? A planet of nothing but Volcanos, George? Did you just call up Jackson and ask for his unused footage? Will Anakin also have to face a big-ass poison spider? Will you cut Christopher Lee out too, only to add him to the Special Really-Frigging-Long-You'll-Have-To-Sit-Through-Twelve-Different-Endings version of Episode III? (With that maneuver, "Return of the King" probably caused me permanent bladder damage.)

Talk like this threatens my already limited, I'll-catch-a-matinee-it-a-month-or-two-after-it-comes-out interest in Episode III. Do I need to see Hayden Christensen brood in front of hackneyed, computer generated infernos? I don't think I'm the only one out there who anticipates the new Star Wars video games more than the movies. The video games, you see, are of George Lucas, but they're not by George Lucas. They feel an obligation to keep me amused, entertained, and otherwise happy. I remember a time, a long time ago in a Hollywood far far away, when George Lucas didn't think that was too much to ask of him.

Pick Our Battles?

Citizen X is my 2nd favorite serial killer movie, mainly because of the lovely exchanges between the two leaders of the Chikatilo investigation: Fetisov and Burakov.

Burakov: You think a man is what he says, don't you?
Fetisov: He is if he talks for a living.
Burakov: A man is what he fights for.
Fetisov: I don't fight for anything.
Burakov: I know.

I bring this up because kos (Link above) provides a set of excuses for why Democrats in marginal districts are voting for this miserable bankruptcy bill. What it comes down to, for kos, is the need for Democrats to pick their fights with the Republicans, to conserve their strength for the really big fights, and all that sort of mature sounding jazz.

No.

Not only is that my response to kos on this topic, but it should be the Democrats' response to, well, pretty much everything the Republicans want to do this year. Right now, they're using our "focus on social security" strategy to push through all manner and type of awful legislation on Medicaid, the budget, bankruptcy. They're fucking over our state governments, and playing us for punks.

I remember how the Republicans handled Bill Clinton in the early 1990s, and while I admired none of it, (With my persistent cough, that national health insurance would have come in pretty handy about now. Thanks Bill Kristol for NOTHING.) I did notice their ability to oppose multiple ideas at the same time. Gays in the military, health care, the budget, the stimulus package, Clinton's nominees all in a one year span. They won some, they lost some, but they did a lot of opposing.

Democrats need to shed their fear of the "obstructionist" label. What is so terrible about obstructing bad law? Isn't that what legislators are supposed to do? Maybe if we did some serious obstructing, the Republicans might feel some need to return to the "reality based community". Maybe the Bush administration would establish a record by promoting a policy that makes sense and doesn't shaft the poor. Maybe a Democratic voter could finally, with a straight face, complete this sentence when speaking to a Republican, "I prefer the Democrats because they fight for me."

Crush the Pricks

From Matt Yglesias:

"Near the end of a long somewhat equivocal post on the pending bankruptcy bill, Jane Galt makes an important point: "easy bankruptcy is one of the great unrecognized strengths of the American economic system. Easy bankruptcy is what frees people to be entrepreneurs, to take risks without fearing that one wrong move will destroy them forever." Quite so. She should also consider taking on the point that insofar as the current system really is prone to abuse, the bill in question largely fails to halt that abuse since Republicans would never do anything to make life harder for rich people. I was a little wishy-washy on this topic as of a couple of months ago, but when you think about it the whole idea is really moronic."

Speaking as a potential victim of Bush's bankruptcy bill, I would say that it is not only a moronic idea and a sop to banks who want to gain their freedom to take huge risks by spoiling everyone else's; but it is, like Social Security, a moral issue for the Democratic Party. In this one you line up with the working people and the poor, or you line up with Citibank. There's no middle position here. Now a lot of us are already taking it in the ass with punitive fees from credit card companies, and thanks to an earlier dereg bill a lot of us are also in deep to payday loan people. (Including many troops that the administration supports--except when they need actual help.) This bill is pretty much legalized pillage, and any Democrat who votes for it needs to lose his plum committee assignment immediately. He needs to get a primary challenge. He needs to lose, and he needs to go to hell.

Critiquing A Million Dollar Critique

I had a rather better reaction to Million Dollar Baby than Jim Emerson, the editor of RogerEbert.com, did; but his essay critiquing the film does deserve to be taken seriously even if, on several points, we disagree. You can read it by clicking above, then read my responses to selected bits below:

"'Sideways' is a movie about characters who reveal themselves slowly and unexpectedly throughout the film; 'MDB' is more of a movie about familiar character types – specifically, movie archetypes. One movie is a picaresque comedy with undertones of failure, loneliness, lost youth and disappointment; the other embraces similar themes, but in the form of a surrogate-familial love story, a boxing movie, and a Greek tragedy. By temperament, I happen to be more fond of the former than the latter."

I'm not going to get into the relative merits of "Sideways", a film I also liked a lot, but I do want to spend some time on Emerson's last sentence, because I think it crucial to his analysis. His central thesis is, after all, that "Million Dollar Baby" fails when it deviates from established forms--whether F.X. Toole's short stories or their generic forebearers. He claims that "Million Dollar Baby" is "a surrogate-familial love story, a boxing movie, and a Greek tragedy." (We'll leave aside that the picaresque and the road picture are also familiar forms.) While I don't quarrel with the surrogate-familial portion, I'm not convinced that "MDB" is an exemplar either of the "boxing movie" or of "Greek tragedy".

What exactly is a "boxing movie"? If it's a genre that simply contains boxing as a central feature, it has to embrace a wide variety of plots, from "Rocky" to "Raging Bull" to "Requiem For a Heavyweight" to "Tyson" to "Million Dollar Baby" to "Great White Hope", all very different films in style, structure, and themes. In "Rocky", the fight becomes a chance for a down-and-out loser like Rocky Balboa to have one great moment, which has less to do with winning than surviving with the champ. "Raging Bull" is about a man who is a master inside of the ring but can't handle anything outside of it--the same can be said, of "Tyson". "Requiem for a Heavyweight" is about how greed breaks the bonds that hold fighter, trainer, and manager together, leading to tragedy. "Great White Hope" is about a boxer who, though a rising star, suffers the hatred of the white fans and the disdain of the black community. "Million Dollar Baby" was about how difficult, and dangerous, the obligations of friendship could become. All of these stories contain boxing, but they're not structurally similar, employ different characters, and set different tones. It's hard to how he can call movies involving boxing "boxing movies" anymore than he can call movies involving real estate salesmen "real-estate-salesman movies". ("Glengarry Glen Ross" and "Babbitt" are very different stories involving the same job.)

As for "Greek tragedy", I wonder how Emerson made the mistake of believing Eastwood intended to make one. The tragedy of "Million Dollar Baby" would not be one that Aristotle would recognize. It would be a stretch to compare Maggie's failure to heed Frank's warning to "protect herself at all times" with hubris; neither is it reasonable to conclude that Maggie's fate in the movie was in some way fated at the beginning. The movie has multiple subplots, missing all three of the unities. It does not deal in the classical devices of reversal or recognition, and its lead character is not brought down because of an inner perversion that spoils all of her nobility. If anything, the same passion that fueled Maggie's rise in the ring also fueled her suicide, a trait more familiar to Shakespearean tragedy than to the Greek (See "MacBeth", "Coriolanus", "Lear", "Romeo and Juliet", "Hamlet", or "Othello"). Indeed, with the Danger and Family subplots, and the chatter with the priest just before Frank heads off to give the poison to his Maggie, the entire story seemed to me to owe a good deal more to the Bard (whom Ben Jonson took to task for his messy plotting) than to Sophocles.

I can see the advantage for Emerson in invoking the Greeks. The plot structure suggested in the Poetics is rigid, making it easy to hold up to "Million Dollar Baby" in order to accuse it of failure. But since Eastwood never tried to make a film according to that structure, it doesn't surprise me that the finished product didn't conform to it.

This leaves us with "surrogate-familial love story". I'm not an expert in this particular form, having never heard of it until just now, so I suppose I'll have to leave Emerson that one. Of course, Emerson doesn't give us a primer on this genre's rules, so it's hard to say where Eastwood may have failed to follow them.

On to individual complaints:

"For me, that point first comes when Frankie and Maggie go to Las Vegas for the big fight … and Scrap stays behind. In a tightly woven, classically plotted film, you don’t suddenly leave your trusty sidekick character (and your narrator!) behind for the climax of the story – especially when he’s been established as virtually the only friend in the world for the two other main characters. It’s completely unnecessary (except that the movie splits in two here, with the “Frozen Water” story taking place at the Hit Pit and the “Million Dollar Baby” story continuing independently in Vegas)."

Actually, that's not the climax of the story. That won't come until later, but why split hairs? I must admit I wondered about Scrap's decision as well, but Morgan Freeman sold me that he had his reasons for hanging back and I went with it without too much thought. Further I'm dubious that he would have served much of a function in the championship fight scene if he had gone. In a tightly woven, classically plotted film, you don't bring characters to the scene who serve no purpose in it. (Morgan Freeman gave a perfectly good reaction shot from his bed while he was watching the fight on television.)

"Perhaps the corniest and most unconvincing moment in the movie comes when Scrap hauls off and punches Shawrelle for beating up on Danger. In the story, it’s not an old, one-eyed man who KOs a boxer in his prime, but the owner of the gym for whom Scrap works. That man, Curtis “Hymn” Odom, is much younger closer to Shawrelle’s age and still at his prime fighting weight. In fact, Scrap used to train him, and now he works for him. The only reason Hymn isn’t still fighting is that “he got a detach eye.” It makes a lot more sense that this guy could and would clock Shawrelle than ol’ Scrap."

Yeah, but, while it's established that Shawrelle is in his prime, it's also established that he really isn't any good. He has no heart, as Scrap says early in the picture. He can throw a punch but he can't absorb one. My impression was that Scrap took Shawrelle out because he surprised him and Shawrelle forgot what he was supposed to do in response. Mentally, Shawrelle is a poor fighter. Now, it probably would have been a better scene if Eastwood had followed the Toole story and had Odom knock Shawrelle out; but it would have added another secondary character to the piece whose sole function in the story would be to knock Shawrelle out. In a plot that Emerson already thinks is messy, why would adding more characters do it any favors?

"Why would Scrap write to this missing daughter to recount a story about another daughter-figure that Frankie loved and then was forced to help die? What is incommunicado-daughter supposed to make of that little tale? To Scrap, the story shows that Frankie was a tragic figure and “a good man” (not a “heroic” figure, as some anti-euthanasia right-wingers have claimed). But it would have been more satisfying, and less preposterous, if he’d just told us that, and let Frankie’s daughter be."

Search me why he does it. I doubt he thinks his letter will have any better luck than Frank's did. Since we don't know what separated Frank from his daughter it's hard to say. (I don't remember whether Scrap knows the reason for the estrangement or not.) Maybe he hopes it will help or will at least show Frank's daughter a side of Frank she never knew. What is she supposed to make of that little tale? I don't know, neither does Scrap maybe. Does Mr. Emerson? Also, I rather like that he was telling this story to someone, rather than talking to the air.

"Richard T. Jameson, in Variety, has written about the exemplary use of the stool in the boxing ring, as a semi-comic recurring motif that suddenly turns tragic. That’s the movie’s classical bloodline showing through to its best advantage.

"But, to me, “Million Dollar Baby” seems a little too calculated to be convincing; it’s so self-consciously “classical” and fussy in its austere design, that it seems clinical – more of an exercise in filmmaking than a fully reazlized film. At times it made me think of a paint-by-numbers masterpiece, if there can be such a thing.

"Anyone familiar with classical story structure, for example, will perk up when Maggie tells the story of her lost father and his German Shepherd, Axel. This occurs, on cue, in the movie’s second act, and if you’ve been paying any attention, you pretty much know where the movie’s going from there on (though in the book, Maggie tells this story in the hospital, as part of her attempt to persuade Frankie to help her die). In this kind of traditional picture, when a girl tells her new father-figure a fond story about her real dad who had to shoot his beloved dog when old Axel went lame … well, that’s the rest of your story, right there."

Yeah, but for me that only operated in retrospect. At the time it read to me as colorful character detail. I hadn't been expecting her to end up in a position where she might want to be put to sleep. (By the time she broke her neck in the ring, I'd pretty much forgotten it.) So if Mr. Emerson could really see where the movie was going from those lines the first time through, I must get the name of his optician. Also, why is this on cue? What was the cue? I don't remember there being an obvious cue.

As for Eastwood's treatment of Maggie's parents, I'd say it didn't strike me as outrageously over-the-top. The scene where Maggie's mother describes her as an embarrassment wasn't gratuitous. Though Maggie's mother wasn't conscious of it (most likely), it struck me as the ultimate double insult. "Imagine," her subtext goes, "that you could be an embarrassment to someone like me. Do you know how low that makes you?" From the look on her face when her mother attacks her, Maggie is more conscious of the full meaning of that insult than her mother is. It's the condition she'd be hoping to escape through boxing and through the gift of the house--and her mother tells her no, you're still there. You're still lower than me. Maggie's crime, where her mother was concerned, was in trying to be anything better than her mother. For me, the question of the hospital scene is whether these characters would be likely to act in this way under these circumstances. The answer strikes me as a yes, because their objective in the scene is not simply to get the house, but also to put Maggie squarely in her place. Greed wasn't the only emotion at work in this scene. Envy and schadenfreude showed up as well. When the mother stuck the pen in Maggie's mouth it was a final attempt to humiliate and infantilize her. Would the scene have played better Toole's way? If you decide that all Maggie's mother wanted was the money, but that was not what Eastwood decided.

Finally, there's the issue of Maggie's suicide:

"This brings me to my final major problem with “Million Dollar Baby,” which is Maggie’s transformation from a fighter (in every sense of the word) to a would-be suicide. We all bring our own baggage to the movies we see, and maybe it’s because I have fought my own battles with suicidal depression nearly all my life that I just didn’t buy Maggie as the suicidal type. Yes, we are told that paraplegics and quadriplegics often go through a suicidal phase – though, as some have pointed out, it is likely to be most serious once they have been through rehabilitative therapy and realize that this is about as much as they’re ever going to recover. But ever-spunky Maggie doesn't convey that level of despair and resignation. Her choice, therefore, seemed more a function of structural symmetry than one of human suffering, dictated by the plot rather than by the character."

Yes, Maggie's character was spunky, but she was spunky in a particular direction. Her sustaining drive was to fight in the ring. Most world class fighters have trained since childhood to do it. To start at Maggie's age would require extraordinary dedication to the trianing of her body and brain to the task of knocking another person unconscious. To lose all that, forever, to an ordinary career ending injury--detached retina, broken eye socket, torn rotator cuff, or organ damage--would be traumatic enough. To lose the entire body--to become a head--for a world class athlete would be a special kind of hell. It would mean never again doing the one thing in the world that she trained to do. Even athletes who retire from the sport because of simple age often need extensive counseling to face a life outside of their sport. (Each NFL team has an office dedicated to that.)

Hell, we're all terrified of one particular form of ruin. For me, it's profound brain injury or disease. Alzheimer's scares the shit out of me. The idea of losing memories, losing me, even as I sit there and watch, makes me physically sick. I think I could take anything but that. Cut my arms off, give me tumors, fire bullets through me, I'll fight to overcome them all and live; but show me a future with Alzheimers and I'll fight to die because I'll figure I'll have seen all I need to see.

That's where Maggie was, and as I recall she said as much toward the end of the film. There simply wasn't anything else she could think of to want in this world, and a future paralyzed scared the hell out of her. Would I have made that choice? Not under those conditions but maybe under others that scare me as much. I didn't need, as Emerson says he did, a longer period to watch her cope with it. I've written such transitional scenes many times over the years, and have always removed them later because I knew they were meant to make me feel better, not to simulate how real people make decisions. In real life decisions come quickly and often appear unearned to the outside observer. How much rehab would have allowed us to feel good about Maggie's decision to kill herself? How many tearful fights with Frank would the film have to parade for us? Three? Four? A dozen? Perhaps we could wheel in the obligatory scenes with psychiatrists and social workers. I'm sure they're stashed away somewhere in stock footage for the occasion. To bring us back to Greek tragedy for a moment, how many transition scenes were there between Oedipus's discovery that he'd murdered his father and married his mother and the time we see him blind and ragged. None. He runs off, and afterwards Creon and the Chrous describe what happened to Oedipus and Iocaste offstage. Fast forward to Shakespeare. Romeo needed no transition scenes to bring him to suicide in the crypt. He'd made the decision within seconds of hearing Juliet was dead. Othello went just as quickly after he'd leared what a fool he'd been to trust Iago. The rage he'd turned outward on Desdemona, then on Iago, he finally turned upon himself--a victim of his own passion. To use a more contemporary example, Keller in Arthur Miller's "All My Sons" kills himself within moments after a letter Keller had never read from his dead son reveals that his boy hated him for having filled planes with substandard parts. Transition scenes would have been a waste. Lesser writers stick them in a futile effort to convince himself and his audience that the person has earned a ticket out of life. Like funerals and wakes, such rituals are for us, not the victim.

The way it's done in "Million Dollar Baby", in its suddenness, stings more. It forces on us the question of whether what she wanted was justified, whether she was giving up too easily, and what Frank's real moral responsiblities were to his friend. And we're still stuck with those questions, some of the most awful that can be asked. People are still fighting about it, and will still be fighting about it, in the months and years to come. If this quality alone doesn't make "Million Dollar Baby" a great film, I don't know what does.

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

Blogging Is Dark, Terrible Work

The Ian Fleming society, speculating on the sort of James Bond we're likely to get when the next actor walks in the gun barrel, tells us that we should look for a younger, sadder 007:

"As part of this emphasis upon character development, Campbell also touched on Bond’s possible relationship with Vesper Lynd, the agent assigned to assist 007 in his struggle to defeat Le Chiffre, the main villain. Bond falls in love with Lynd, but (in the novel) she is a double-agent. When Bond discovers this, his emotions change dramatically and he quickly develops his famous cold steely exterior, referring to her as a ‘bitch’.

“'The door is open for Bond, emotionally', said Campbell. 'He’s in love with Vesper and he sees there’s another side to all of this, that life might be far more pleasurable, more gratifying, than being a secret agent. And ultimately that door is slammed in his face, which makes him the tempered steel kind of guy that we know.'"

Over the last twenty years or so, we've gone through a number of "tempered steel" disappointed heroes in movies and TV shows. Some might start with the "Lethal Weapon" series, where Mel Gibson plays a tortured cop who mourns his dead wife; but James Bond had a hand in it as well. The casting of Timothy Dalton as Roger Moore's replacement brought us a moodier, grimmer Bond, who did everything, from sipping martinis to kissing the girl, with a hint of regret. What really got the momentum going for this kind of hero, however, was 1989s "Batman".

"Batman" not only influenced set and costume design for big budget pictures, but also the leads of movie romances. It centered itself around the ultimate in tortured heroes--Bruce Wayne, who lost his parents to gunmen and dedicated his life to avenging himself on the costumed freaks of Gotham. He was a bigger hit than 007 and Martin Riggs combined. (The Bond franchise was flailing by this point. "Licence to Kill" received decent notices, but drew mediocre crowds to summer movie screens.) People paid big money to watch a hero sit in his dimly lit home, looking as haunted as the Bergman knight who plays chess with Death, until crime in Gotham inspires him to put on his costume and rev up his awesome, yet shadowy, car.

Romances function as wish fulfillment. We want to see the knight fight both the dragon and the giant, win through, and kiss the fair maiden. Indiana Jones has to get the lost Ark and the girl. Agent 007 has to kill Red Grant and get the lovely Russian defector to fall madly in love with him. We want to be these guys. They're powerful, witty, imaginative--everything that we're not. (Or, at least, that you're not.) If the knights of Arthurian legends behaved as real knights behaved--burning villages and slaughtering the peasants in ways that would make Kissinger blush--would we really want to spend time reading about them? If Indiana Jones had to spend all day sifting through dirt and cataloging pottery shards, would you want to be him? If Bond occupied his time going to blind drops where his Joes (disgruntled minor bureaucrats mostly) deposit abstruse governemnt secrets and filing reports, who'd bother?

In the past, for the most part, our heroes have carried with them a certain love of life and adventure. Odysseus certainly had his down moments. (Though for him, a down moment means being trapped on an island with a gorgeous nymph who wants his body.) But for much of his adventure he seems to enjoy being Odysseus, often to the detriment of his crew. The whole foray into the realm of the Sirens, for example, seemed to be adventure for the sake of adventure--terribly risky under their circumstances. Not to meantion that the whole lot of them would have been better off if Odysseus could have kept his damned name to himself during the Cyclopes encounter. Things ended badly for the Arhurian knights, but they had some fun along the way, wiping out giants and canoodling with maidens. And for more contemporary heroes this was once true. M's first ultimatum to James Bond was that he give up his favorite gun (the Baretta .25) or lose his "00" number and return to "ordinary intelligence duty". It took this for Bond to accept his PPK. After Superman reveals himself to the world by performing his first mighty deeds in "Superman: The Movie", his father's image in the Temple of Solitude says to him, "You enjoyed it." Even Dirty Harry seemed to like himself, even though he despised nearly everyone else. He could accept a come-on from the sexy woman upstairs without bombarding her with details about his miserable, downtrodden cop life. Stakes got high in these stories, and the heroes sometimes had their bad moments; but overall, they knew it was good to be them.

Now, it appears, our Romances fulfill a different wish. It's hard to say what exactly. Maybe the disappointments of real life don't seem disappointing enough; or maybe in order to identify with the hero we need him to be more like us: sad, lost, and frequently alcoholic. We want to believe that a person can change the course of mighty rivers while still feeling like shit. It was this attitude that Pierce Brosnan's Andy Osnard mocked in "The Tailor of Panama".

"Just between us, I'm MI6's man in Panama. It's dark, lonely work...like oral sex, but someone's got to do it, Harry."

Apparently some of us want to see ourselves, or have wanted at any rate, as dark, lonely men, battling an uncaring world, trying desperately to find in it power, fulfillment and love. I don't have any grand social theories about why this is--a greater sense of anomie in a world dominated by television and lying governments seems awfully generalized--but it's probably something along those lines. What else could explain the switch from a Bond who'd do anything to continue "00" work to a Bond who blames an old flame for his need to stay in it?

I'm not really in sympathy with that. I've had my fill of tortured, lonely heroes. Anakin Skywalker lowered the whole notion of it to camp in "Star Wars: Episode II". Give me heroes like the ones in "The Incredibles" or "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" who actually enjoy what they do, who have a sense of humor about themselves and their adversaries, and who can kiss someone without making me wonder which dead relative their partner reminds them of.

Hunger For Dictatorship

You may read this excellent essay from the American Conservative magazine by clicking the title of this post. A sample:

"It is necessary to distinguish between a sudden proliferation of fascist tendencies and an imminent danger. There may be, among some neocons and some more populist right-wingers, unmistakable antidemocratic tendencies. But America hasn’t yet experienced organized street violence against dissenters or a state that is willing—in an unambiguous fashion—to jail its critics. The administration certainly has its far Right ideologues—the Washington Post’s recent profile of Alberto Gonzales, whose memos are literally written for him by Cheney aide David Addington, provides striking evidence. But the Bush administration still seems more embarrassed than proud of its most authoritarian aspects. Gonzales takes some pains to present himself as an opponent of torture; hypocrisy in this realm is perhaps preferable to open contempt for international law and the Bill of Rights.

"And yet the very fact that the f-word can be seriously raised in an American context is evidence enough that we have moved into a new period. The invasion of Iraq has put the possibility of the end to American democracy on the table and has empowered groups on the Right that would acquiesce to and in some cases welcome the suppression of core American freedoms. That would be the titanic irony of course, the mother of them all—that a war initiated under the pretense of spreading democracy would lead to its destruction in one of its very birthplaces. But as historians know, history is full of ironies."

Bush 2005 Desperation Tour

If Bush's foreign policy reminds me of a hyperactive toddler, Bush's Social Security pitch reminds me of a desperate guy who won't stop pestering a woman for a date. He's about to go on a sixty-day, sixty-stop tour to sell a plan nobody wants, a plan that becomes less attractive the more it's sold. Now I'd have thought he'd just cut his losses and give up, but the Iraq War has taught him one thing: if he just keeps stamping his foot and screaming eventually he'll wear us all down and we'll agree to give him what he wants.

Of course, it should be amusing to watch Bush abase himself. Maybe we can be cruel and make him do humiliating things. "We might consider your plan, Mr. Bush, if you eat this bucket of cockroaches." "Oh, I'm sorry Mr. Bush, one of them scuttled away. Forget it. Although, we might reconsider, if you get naked, smear yourself with elephant dung, and run through Central Park yelling 'I wish I were an Oscar Meyer Wiener.'" "Oh, I'm sorry. You jogged past the Public Theater. Forget it, smelly."

It's official

The Raiders are now officially Randy Moss's home.

In actual news, the Raiders appear to be closing in on Jets HB LaMont Jordan. You'd have to pay to see the story, but ESPN describes the talks between the Raiders and Jordan as serious and believes they'll strike a deal within days. Of course, these deals can vanish in a hurry, and Jordan's people might be letting the word out to let Tampa and the Jets know that the train is leaving the station. If the Raiders make the deal, it should give them the durable power runner they need in the backfield, taking pressure off Kerry Collins and helping address the Raiders' abysmal time-of-possession figure in 2004. (They were dead last.)

There's no further word on a trade for Charles Woodson. Davis, Lombardi, and Turner may decide that having traded away Napoleon Harris, they can't afford to allow Woodson to leave. If Woodson begins negotiations with another club, as is his right as a non-exclusive franchise player, it should be everywhere. I'll keep listening.

What Takes Two Germans, Ultrasound, and 22 Months?

Inseminating an elephant.

The New Spring Line of Threats Is Coming Out

James Wolcott smells a rat, a big fat neocon rat:

"Couple of weeks ago on Tina Brown's Topic A, Daily News publisher Mort Zuckerman squawked about Iran's support for terrorism in general, Hezbollah in particular. Now I don't pretend to be the Mideast savant Jonah Goldberg is, but my dim understanding is that Hezbollah's fight is with Israel, they pose no direct threat to the United States; ergo, let Israel fight its own battles, for which it is more than adequately equipped.

"But Zuckerman's offhand mention got my spider sense tingling, triggering a faint suspicion that Hezbollah was being groomed for the next big scary terrorist threat to Our Way of Life now that Al Qaeda's fear factor was receding."

Let's see. We're mad at Syria, Iran, a terrorist group in Israel, Venezuela, and Canada(!). We're kind of pissed at Russia and China. The Europeans are pissed at us, and mock us for our thin efforts at making nice--strongly reminiscent of George W. Bush's efforts to make nice with the Democrats after the 2000 election. We're ignoring North Korea, even though its batty leader routinely threatens to incinerate large swaths of the Earth. We're trying to rebuild two nations, Iraq and Afghanistan, on the cheap. Weren't the Bushies supposed to be the adults who bring focus to foreign policy--unlike the feckless amateurs of the Clinton administration? Can't they finish one problem before creating another? They're wandering over the world like a todder in a department store, pulling the adults to and fro yelling "Ooh, look at that. I want that. Ooh, look at that, I want that."

No wonder I'm so tired. Living with the Bush administration is like living with a two year old who never ages and can't stay out of the sugar.

Anyway, now the neocons are looking at Hezbollah, so that they can justify going after a) Syria or b) Iran or c) (a country to be named later). They're writing their position papers saying why we must strike a,b, or c now or the world is doomed. These press releases have been assembled into a book called "Lightning out of Lebanon." The board of directors of the group releasing this book boasts several neocon names, as well as a now famous neocon kisser who thinks he still has the Joe-mentum. The media, for whom worry and shock are meat and bread, will help them as much as they can; and the lie will once again outrace the truth. Hezbollah's anger is directed at Israel. They've never shown international ambitions, though they might if the US starts fucking with them.

In the meantime, the Sudan grows even worse, the insurgents blast away in Iraq, and the North Koreans sift their uranium. And the band plays on.

Major Announcement

The Raiders tells us that we should prepare for one. I'm assuming that, in one of the great anti-climaxes of all time, they'll tell us that Randy Moss is coming to Oakland. Mercurial as the Raiders are, however, it could be anything.

Stay Tuned.

I've had lots of work to do

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.