Top ten surprises in the new Batman film.

I recently had the chance to see the new Batman movie. Don’t ask me how. Or why several movie executives continually call my house asking for more sexual favours.

What matters is that the movie is surprising. And I, being ever generous, have decided to relay these surprise to you in an article cleverly called: Top ten surprises in the new Batman film.

10. Due to long delays, contains frequent references to ‘those damn commies’

9. Batman’s new sidekick is The Negotiator, adept at haggling for the cheapest possible price.

8. Due to budget difficulties, Utility belt now called the “Save 40% by switching to Geico” belt

7. Is actually a parable about the reunion of the Police

6. Due to rising fuel prices, Batmobile now has a carpool.

5. Crime fighting now interferes with Batman’s true passion- writing fan scripts for Lipstick Jungle. Am I right ladies?

4. To distract from his death, humorous sound effect is played every time Heath Ledger is on screen.

3. Homosexual overtones are now so thinly veiled you can see them protruding from Batman’s suit.

2. Due to obesity, Batman’s main weapon now the ‘stomach of doom’

1. Several theater goers die due to overzealous viral marketing.

Thought processes that inhabited my brain. June 25th 2008.

I could have used Beat It, but I think could have been a bit too much.

Here are some songs I’ve been listening to recently.

Ben Gibbard- Couches in Alleys

Death Cab for Cutie- Bixby Canyon Bridge

Red House Painters- Revelation Big Sur

You have three guesses at what writer I’m currently obsessed with. Go on. Have a guess. Yes, that’s right, Jack Kerouac. Well done, why didn’t you tell me about him earlier?

My boredom (and the wonderful essay Gibbard did for Paste magazine) lead me to On The Road and Big Sur. I’ll be damned if I can find anymore of his work around town, but I’m already in love. A disposition that’s equal parts sentimentality and self-destruction? Now there’s something worth drinking to.

Huh? Forty Seven you say?

I could go on talking about Jack (first name basis), but I think people are starting to get sick of me. I’m a Ker-i-ac (does that work? No? Sorry.)

Due to his roaming nature, my cat has been renamed ‘Sal’

I’ve taken to saying ‘Dig This’ in everyday conversation.

I now want to travel to Mexico so I can hit on teenage girls.

Oh please. Like you don’t try to do that everyday.

Rejected Conor the Magnificents:

A: Condi rice and the Hurricane Katrina.

Q: Name two things Bush wishes he'd got a man on sooner.

A: The Kebab I had for lunch and episodes of House of Ten

Q: Name two things that keep repeating on me.

Some quiet reflections from the music world’s first six months of ‘08.

1: Slightly irrelevant fact: Despite it being a good song off a very good album, I have never listened to Black Mountain’s Angels sober.

Slightly sad fact: It’s one of the most listened to songs in my iTunes.

Devastatingly sad fact: I’m listening to it now.

2: Biirdie’s Catherine Avenue is a wonderful CD that deserves some applause.

3: Sun Kil Moon and Tyler Ramsey are battling it out for the ‘Person who sounds the most like Neil Young award.’ Ladies and gentlemen, no matter who wins, we all get to share in the prize.

4: For the record, Sun Kil Moon is winning, and Mark Kolenzek is a genius.

5: Best rapper to rapper insult: “Ice-T is so old that he was born when cars were made out of wood.” Soulja Boy*

*I don’t know how to spell it, and I refuse to bother looking.

Conor the Magnificent.

It's alt country. It's shtick. It's more shtick then you could point a alt country stick at.

It's Conor the magnificent.




I am receiving some cosmic energy that tells me the answer is:

Most people don't get past the first episode

May I please have the envelope?

I am opening the envelope, and the question is:

What do heart attacks and every David Spade sitcom have in common?

HI-YO!



Okay, that's enough of that. But seriously, that Mystic River band album sounds like it's going to incredible. You should listen to the songs on the website. I stayed two hours late at Uni so I could listen to the songs over and over. A girl tried to talk to me but I said I was listening to Conor Oberst and to come back when she could break my heart with the simple flick of a pen. She later came back and tried to stab me in the chest with a Biro. I said she was cheating, as was she was using a stabbing motion, and not in fact flicking. I think that made her even more into me. True story.

Huh?


Oh, right. A link.


http://www.conoroberst.com/


See. He's pretty magnificent. I say that in a totally hetero-I-wish-I-could-scoop-his-brain-out kind of way.
It also says he's touring in October. Which makes me wonder if it's worth catching a plane to fucking Melbourne to have to sit in a room of teenage girls idolizing mopey dudes. I mean, I hate planes.

Plane girls that is. Haha, someone stop me!

Also, that new Mates of State CD is pretty good. You know, if you hate having a penis.

A few words on Tim Russert.

Yesterday I had a conservation with someone. As it went on longer (and I had less and less to say about the history of Fleetwood Mac) the conversation turned towards deeper and less important (and interesting) subjects. On this this occasion, the discussion eventually gravitated towards death (in the sense we talked about Death, not that the conversation itself died).
Now, we had to be careful. Death wasn't there to defend himself, and I hate to talk to someone behind their back, but that's just the way that the conversation went. It wasn't an intentional 'Hey, let's be morbid because we're young and have a romantic notion of dying.' kind of thing, the conversation just kind of turned that way.

Anyway, eventually one of us (probably me, as it was exceptionally stupid) posed a question. Basically, once my fumbling over words finished, it leveled out to something like 'Upon hearing of their death, what people who you don't personally know would you cry over?' At the time, it sounded like a nice kind of pie in the sky way to pass time while we walked. I could have kept talking about how the currently touring Fleetwood Mac isn't technically Fleetwood Mac (No Christie Mcvie? No thanks.), but I think that may have bored even myself.

In retrospect, it was a stupid question, which is probably why I didn't really answer it with much thought. I didn't think for more than thirty seconds- I just rattled off the names of a few people who I admire and tried to change the subject to something that wasn't as crappy (luckily, a van with a pro-Abortion sticker drove right on past, opening up a whole new can of worms). I didn't think about the question. Honestly, I was more concerned about how pissed off/relieved I'd be if I died, not some stranger who is hot/makes me laugh/makes me jealous.

So, imagine my shock when the first thing I read on the internet today/tonight is this:

http://www.avclub.com/content/newswire/rip_tim_russert

I'll admit, I teared up a little bit when I read this. That's sad for two reasons:

a) Tim Russert is no longer alive. That one really sucks on any number of levels. His family, informed debate and the television community have suffered a great loss.

b) I didn't even think of him when answering that question yesterday, which makes me think I'm an asshole.

Although he never made me hot/laugh/jealous1 , he was a brillant journalist and orator, and- from what I've see in the limited interviews where he was the subject of the questions- a total stand up guy with a acute understanding of both politics and life.

As a cornerstone of Sunday Morning 4.00 AM T.V in Australia, Mr Russert was right up there with Jim Lehrer in teaching me about coping with insomnia (and also American politics). Without his polite and tolerant demeanor and austere methods of questioning, then I'd probably have failed every Political Science class that I ever took.
Plus, as much of my viewing occurred during the 'glory' days of the 2nd Bush administration I'd have no idea who all those 'Rock against Bush' musicians were so pissed at.

My viewing of Meet the Press eventually faded, but I'd always internally smile when I saw him verbally kicking the ass of some Left/Right Wing Lunatic with a big mouth and shitty disposition on some news highlight reel. Russert was the quiet assassin- adept at cutting any adversary down to size. They wouldn't have to go back to Washington with their tales between their legs, as once Russert was finished, they would have any to stand on2.

If I were a little more religious then I could make a crack about how he could now moderate debates between God and Abraham over the merits of killing your first born. Sure, both sides may not have the best arguments (potential lack of existence may be defining factor in that) but I'll still tune in.


1. Okay so maybe a little to all three of those. I mean, the man had a sense of humour, and looked damned fine in a Pinstripe.

2. As your can see, I never quite grabbed his grasp on the English language. Fuck, I did it again.

The Absence of God (and rationality. Just what the fuck am I on about?)

I think Lost is one those shows that I half feign interest in because of its popularity.

It’s certainly not a bad show. It’s more interesting than endlessly watching a show to determine if Katherine Heigl is hot or not (current status: still inconclusive) or to continue my eventual transformation into Fry off Futurama (Friends, any other 90’s sitcom), but it’s probably not in my top ten.

I’m probably described as a casual Lost fan. I could probably hold a conversation with someone about Lost long enough to decide if I will continue talking/being friends/ beg for me to let them sleep with them, but any longer and I’ll be exposed when I start confusing Michael with Ben (or something similarly stupid).

I sporadically watched the first three seasons, then gradually got more interested in it and watched about three quarters of the fourth. Maybe it’s because I got more interested in it, but whilst watching I always felt that this was the most enjoyable. Now that I just got done watching the season four finale, I feel that I was (for once) right.

For those too bewildered/intelligent to both bother watching, the finale revolved around four of the initial crash survivors finally escaping/leaving the island. Of course, other stuff happened too, but talking about is like, as Rapper Lil’ Wayne so wonderfully put it, ‘sucking your dick and not letting you cum’

In other (non-Homoerotic) words, E-mail me in two years time, when we might be able to discuss some concrete answers. Now, what actually happened to the characters for the first hour and forty minutes of the show is kind of irrelevant (critics may say that has happened during the show’s entire run is irrelevant). Insane crazy stuff happened, but in the last twenty minutes, there were two moments that got me thinking.

1) The first was when the survivors, after leaving the island for but twenty minutes were kind of explicably rescued.

2) Then, for some reason, the island that the survivors where ‘Lost’ on disappeared into the fucking ocean.

These events- and my reactions to them- are why Lost is the most fucking subversive show on television (apologies to Boston Legal, the show written by a thousand pissed off DiGG users).

Deus Ex Machima, for those not in the know, is Latin for ‘The hand of god’. Those who didn’t waste their life reading about pointless subjects may be more familiar with its place in television. There it’s known as the fucking impossible happening with no explanation. Think people waking up to find a defining episode was ‘only a dream’ or when we discover an important character is inexplicably immune to virus that’s killing everyone else. My most recent experience with it came while re-watching Supernatural (what? It’s a valid show!).

Start of season one: There’s no way to kill a demon! Dean and Sam (the shows Demon hunting protagonists) are fucked.

Midway through season one: Oh, actually there’s this way old gun that can kill them.

Midway though season two: Oh, and this exorcism.

Start of season three: And there’s this knife that kills them as well.

Now whatever, I like Supernatural’s On the Road/American Gods/Dad Rock kind of vibe, but it’s steeped in traditional TV thinking[1]. Its metastory- although enjoyable- is a collage of rushed out solutions and “Huh? Who knew?” moments of confusion.

Now, compare this it to the two moments I mentioned in Lost. In Supernatural (or any other show) these two moments would feel like divine intervention, but they don’t in Lost. When I saw the island disappear into ocean, I didn’t think ‘Awesome. Now there’s more water for the circling shark to swim around in’ , instead, I couldn’t wait to see how the writers[2] would explain it. To anybody unfamiliar with the show, it would seem like insanity, yet I had complete faith in the writers explaining what exactly was up. Sure it might take a couple of years, but I knew that I was going to be given satisfactory answers. I was expecting a rational explanation.

In essence, doesn’t this mean Lost has killed god?

Okay, so maybe they haven’t killed him- maybe negated is better word. J.J Abrams and the Lost writers present their narratives in a way that make god feel irrelevant. Instead of creating quick fixes, they seem to thrive of digging themselves into a hole- then taking two seasons to claw their way back out. It’s a show that’s built of doing things the hard and satisfying way[3] instead of the quick and easy.

I could go overdramatic and say that the immense popularity of Lost is some kind of implicit approval of secularism (or maybe Communism!), but I think that’s taking things a bit too far. However, I don’t think I’m the only one who thinks that Lost has killed god- hell just look at other what folks are saying.

The internet contains what interests me about Lost most of all- the way that people talk about it. Sure, this is all anecdotal- but Lost is one of those shows that is universally accepted as being totally bewildering. The same things that are attractive to fanatics- the lore, the frequent fuck yous to the viewers and the plain stupidity of characters- are the same reason that people hate the show.

It’s this combination of things that make hearing people discuss Lost a great experience. For an article discussing the absence of god, it awkward to say that there’s a kind of unwavering faith that people put in the writers of the show, but that’s what it is. Even if they don’t realize it, the theories that fans post online are evidence of the absence of god. Would the kind of conjecture raised when discussing Lost be possible with Prison Break? A show with a ‘fly by the seat of your pants, next week be damned’ kind of philosophy. By posting theories, fans are unconsciously approving the story that Lost is presenting. The shows’ deep lore and history of leaving clues in previous episodes makes fans think that the writers no what they’re doing- so it’s at least possible to try predict what they’re going to do next.

Now, I’ve read enough of these theories to know that most of the time they’re wrong, but they’re wrong for the right reason. When the whole ‘island disappearing’ plotline is finished, I’m hope that people who incorrectly pontificated on it will be able to say ‘See, here’s why I thought X was the solution, but looking back, I can also see that Y is also valid.’.

Lost is giving the power back to the average person. And isn’t that what the whole religion/god thing is about?

---

[1] Which again, is fine. It’s traditional TV, so why the fuck shouldn’t it be steeped in traditional TV thinking?

[2] Writing this makes me realize how much I hate the term ‘writers’ when referring to the story of a TV show. It sounds so fucking conspiratorial. It’s up there with ‘The Jews’, ‘The Muslims’ or just the ever present and mysterious ‘They’.

[3] There was got to be a better way or putting that.

The best thing that anyone has ever said. Anywhere.

I'm just going to give context, there is nothing more that can be said: Said by Rapper Lil' Wayne regarding the mixtape situation in Hip-Hop.


“I am anti-mixtape. I don’t know no mixtape DJ’s. If you’re a mixtape DJ, f**k ya. I am pissed off at the mixtape game. They suckin’ my d**k but won’t let me cum.”


Link: http://www.avclub.com/content/node/80763

Egads. This old thing.

So, over the weekend it was speculated (yes, speculated) that Bob Dylan never actually crashed his motorcycle way back when. Instead he faked it and went to rehab.

Now, making statements like this is fine, but Bob Dylan never actually denied going to rehab. It was nobody could figure out what the fuck he was saying.

Even worse, now they're saying that Stevie Ray Vaughn faked his Plane Crash so he could do and learn how to write lyrics. Still waiting Stevie...

Did you hear about those poor Prostitutes in the US? They had to keep working after their Brothel caught on fire.


Yeah, they went down in flames. (Hi-YO!)