So in the last week I've seen Wanted and Kung Fu Panda, both of which had Angelina Jolie. I liked Panda better. Wanted was a good vehicle for a lot of special effects, had a solid cast, but in the end, there really wasn't anything about the story that distinguished it from any other revenge movie. Kung Fu Panda, however, was entertaining, had a solid cast, and was the best animated movie I have seen in a while.

Atticus fell asleep in the theater watching Kung Fu Panda, and I carried him out to the van. It felt good, and... natural. Shannon isn't the first mother I have dated, but I think in my wasted youth, I never connected with the kids because I always perceived those relationships as being temporary. It's different with Shannon, though. We've been seeing one another for a while, and things seem so good. I hope the other shoe never drops. I'd be crushed to lose the opportunity to see Atticus grow up as much as I'd be hurt if Shannon dropped me.

Shannon also has three teenaged children (and no, Shannon doesn't have four ex-sperm donors... just two ex-husbands, who she's on relatively good terms with now). I haven't really connected with them as well, but then they are all discovering who they are. I fucking hated being a teenager. My classmates were jackasses, and I was a goof for ever trying to fit in with them. It's a hard time, and I don't envy them. Still, despite the fact we're not buddy-buddy, and they probably view me as just the guy who their mom happens to be dating, we all get along okay. Chelsea, Shannon's oldest, has Down's Syndrome. She's totally cool. She is very high functioning, and has a boyfriend named James and ambitions of getting an apartment with her best friend and her own job. I hope she makes it.

Wow. Reading where this blog entry started and where journaling here has taken me is a profound metaphor for my relationship with Shannon and her family. I start with time-honored Rob traditions of criticizing or talking about pop culture and it ultimately comes around to me thinking about her and the kids. Great. I'm not turning into my father. I'm turning into Roger Ebert's dad. Heh!

Anyway, that's all for now. Later, mean motor scooters.

The neighbor, Marla, invited me over for a bottle of Rolling Rock after I got off of work tonight. I met her some of her other friends and talked about Kurt Cobain and my Courtney hate. After a while, Marla had to take a pack of cigarettes to her brother, Gary, and I rode with her across town. She's interesting to listen to. The beginning of another RoB- cool chick friendship? Y'know, I wasn't the harmless friend in high school, so I'm a bit bewildered why being articulate, attentive, and a big fuckin' dork is now, just a few months from my 35th birthday, gaining me these friends. Good Nurse Shannon has an ugly jealous streak, and this is not going to alleviate it. Still, I like being trusted. The fact that there is something about me that women can relate to gives me hope that perhaps I am not a total douche.

So, that said, my lucky bamboo plant looks like I might need to transplant it in another pot. Finally, I have a plant not on its last legs... I don't water my airplane plants enough. I'd look into a cactus, but I do not relish the idea of picking quills out of Ewok's paws.

I am the least important person in my own life. My dreams are financially impractical, and everyone else's needs are generally more significant because theirs are more selfless than mine. I'm not posting this to fish for compliments, because regardless of who I affect and who has affected me, to the readership here, I'm still just a digital response on a monitor. You'll never meet me, and it's probably better that way. I don't want you to see me as I see me.

Hollywood is a joke. Even the natives are aware of this. Some like to pretend that Hollywood is an institution that should be respected and revered, but those individuals are part of the joke and should not be respected or revered. No one is more quick to point out the joke than Joe Queenan.

Confessions of a Cineplex Heckler is an anthology of Queenan's essays and articles, some of them having originally appeared in Movieline magazine. In some parts of the book, the audience is treated to a print version of Mythbusters; the author follows Al Pacino's example in Scent of a Woman and crosses a busy New York street while pretending to be blind, and tests the likelihood of Leonardo DiCaprio's death in Titanic, timing himself while talking and fully dressed in the Atlantic Ocean. Other articles in the book scrutinize aspects of film that I can't recall Roger Ebert or Access Hollywood ever examining, like Hollywood's attraction to mutilated ears, trauma to male genitals, bad hairstyles, and Irish stereotypes. Queenan even adopts the alter ego of the Bad Movie Angel, offering cash refunds to audiences of Gone Fishin' and Steel.

Queenan's writing is very good. There are a couple of instances when he seems to cater to the lowest common denominator, utilizing what amounts to bad dick jokes, but mostly his wit is razor sharp and his observations are dead-on. The index even provided some laugh out loud moments.

The anthology is not timeless, collecting articles apparently written throughout the mid to late 1990s, but anyone who was a movie-goer during that decade, like myself, will appreciate this book as much as they appreciate a good joke.

I quit my position as a Storyteller for the Sunday night Vampire: the Masquerade LARP. I miss just playing. I have been annoyed with some of the players and former players, but I wrote all of their angst off weeks ago. This LARP, started by Jeff and Dave last spring, is one of my favorites just because of all of the enduring friendships I have made since it started.

Iron Man, the film based on the Marvel character, hits theaters on Friday, May 2nd, 2008. Iron Man, for the uninitiated, is about alcoholic millionaire industrialist Tony Stark (ironically, played by Robert Downey, Jr.) who uses a suit of advanced battle armor as a superhero. Merchandising has already started; Iron Man-based toys are available through Burger King. Here are some Tony Stark soundbytes I'd love to hear come out of movie merchandise.

10. "I said on the rocks!" [accompanied by the sound of someone being backhanded]
9. "My shpider shenshe is tingling, warning me of impending kidney failure." [hiccup]
8. "Weird Science isn't the prequel for Iron Man, stupid! Less Than Zero is."
7. "Pour me another drink before I Repulsor blast you to Cleveland, jerkstore!"
6. "I'm the Juggernaut, bitch!"
5. "I'm sorry, baby... I didn't mean it. You're a fine woman... a damn fine woman... I'm not the Juggernaut, either. I'm just a big loser."
4. "I'm Batman... [whispers] bitch."
3. "Throwing up inside of my helmet was a mistake."
2. "Throwing up inside of my gauntlets was a mistake."
1. "Man, I wish I'd built an iron liver."

You Are Ani Difranco!

Honest, real, and well liked. You're not limited by any boundaries. "And you can call me crazy But I think you're as lazy as white paint on the wall"

Chuck Palahniuk's novel, Choke, is coming to theaters soon. This makes me very happy. I don't recognize screenwriter-director Clark Gregg's name- I'm off to imdb.com after I get done blogging here. Palahniuk also wrote Fight Club, which turned me on to Edward Norton's genius acting.

In other news, my hard drive died. A private visitation will be held in my home, with funeral services to follow in my kitchen trash. Hopefully, a new hard drive is in my future so I don't have to rely upon stolen moments between calls at work for my Internet needs.

This means "We're still alive" in German. Wir Leben Noch. Someday you may need to know this, words to shout out through boarded planks where windows used to be to let our German rescuers know that you have survived the US government's zombie experiments gone terribly wrong. Wir Leben Noch.

Sorry, no. You can't be anything you want to be in America. Your credit check shows unsatisfactory credit

I went to high school with Good Nurse Shannon's cousin. He lived down Normal Street from my grandparents, where I frequently visited. So Shannon was discussing this with her mom, and GNS's youngest daughter interjected, "That's situational irony." Y'know, that her second cousin and I grew up on a street called Normal. Har de har.

It occured to me as I was responding to another Multiply user's Bjork post by telling her what my favorite Bjork video was, "It's a bit strange, really, for a 34-year old male to have a favorite Bjork video." This thought passed and I returned to murdering reality with fantastic words.

I was reading an article in a back issue of The Nation about "Post-Abortion Syndrome," when I remembered: we are responsible for America's apathy in regards to our country's political system. The article describes how men have become the new focal point of the Right-to-Life movement, Post-Abortion Syndrome counterfeited like so many Florida votes, based on "a combination of deeply flawed original research- featuring tiny samples and lack of controls- and the manipulation of large samples into correlations from which pseudo-researchers claim causation." In other words, Post-Abortion Syndrome, at least for men, is bullshit, but it is gaining momentum because it creates martyrs for men who ordinarily would regard abortion as being "a female issue" to empathize with. It's a political tool, nothing more.
Don't get me wrong: if Good Nurse Shannon and I were going to pop out a little oDD RoB or a little GNS, and she terminated the pregnancy early, I would be depressed. I imagine I would be excited by the prospect of fatherhood and, even if it was because there was a health risk to Shannon, I would still be sad at being denied that opportunity. Not mad at Shannon, mind you. Sad. Melancholy. Depressed. Still, I would not entertain the possibility that I have a mental disorder like PAS, and would just assume I am down because of the bad situation, which would lead me to a therapist for to get help. My sadness would be nothing next to what Shannon, the mother- the person who had felt the life growing inside of her- would be going through, and so, rather than make a spectacle out of my pain like PAS proponents are doing, I'd be there for her.
The article goes on to say that "those who treat PAS in men appear to be leading them to blame their abotion experiences for pre-existing or subsequent problems." Insidious. The conservative right is using family tragedy as a means to attract men to support their anti-abortion views. Man, I'll bet someone got the full benefits package at an exclusive country club for thinking this one up.
It's the misuse of the media to promote transparent and vaguely evil agendas like the PAS movement which is creating a generation of disaffected youth who do not trust the government and aren't interested in voting or being involved in their country. Of course, that's probably the plan. Complacent couch potato kids are preferable to the socially conscious, rebelious youth of the 1960s. Let them practice killing foreigners with their X-Boxes, and after we have made the decision for them to send them to die overseas, they will be much less objectionable.
EVERYONE NEEDS TO VOTE. Everyone needs to be involved in the process that is allowing men in expensive suits to make their choices for them. Thinking is better than surrender, my friends. Thinking is better than surrender. Please don't be a sheep anymore.

I want to drop out of society and walk the streets, unemployed and unloved. Hot showers and freshly murdered steaks would be heaven. The wind is blowing and the sun is shining today. I don’t want to return to work. EVER.

"Hospitals and jails and whores: these are the universities of life. I’ve got several degrees. Call me Mr."

Charles Bukowski
South Of No North

My neighbors were running the vacuum at 4:30 AM. I know this because Ewok woke me up for an early spot of kibble, and I could hear their machine ravenously sucking up dirt. I wonder if the vacuum woke them up as the cat had woken me. Ewok is my partner in insomnia. Invariably, after I have gone to bed at around 1:30 or 2 AM, I will wake up at least once, a victim of my own anxieties. The cat, aware of this, thus feels no shame in pawing at my head or jumping up on my chest and meowing loudly until my eyes blink open at her drowsily. I will shamble into the kitchen, pour some Friskies into her bowl, and then channel surf for half an hour until I get tired again and go back to bed. Last night, however, it wasn’t until 5:45 that I went back to bed. My eyes were stinging and red; I could not concentrate enough to read the Bukowski book I recently picked up. There was nothing on television. The neighbors are new and had just moved in a couple of days ago, so I didn’t pound on the wall or go ask that they resume their cleaning later in the morning because it’s my hope that this nocturnal vacuuming is not a regular activity.

Enough of this. A hot shower, to be followed by Bukowski over breakfast, beckons.

I saw 10000 BC this past weekend, and have decided that screenwriters should not stay up all night drinking Red Bulls and watching the National Geographic channel before pounding away on their keyboards. In a nutshell, mastadon-hunting prehistoric homo sapien lives within walking distance of a rain forest which in turn was just another couple of days' hike away from Ancient Egypt, where one of the surviving Atlanteans was using Egyptians to domesticate mastadons and enslave prehistoric Africans and Europeans to build the pyramids. With more historical inaccuracies than a Disney film, this movie would have driven me to walk out of the theater had I been alone and not in the company of Good Nurse Shannon and her children. Like an attractive date with no conversational skills, Hollywood has once again taken my money and left me disappointed.

Untitled
by oDD RoB (utilizing Magnetic Poetry on his refrigerator door)

I dream of a delirious trip
rain and storm lathering the road
an iron tongue licking my skin
shadow lusts for moonlight
cool water whispers in the mist
I love you
to the black goddess symphony

Sunday was Good Nurse Shannon's 38th birthday. We celebrated the night before, roadtripping with friends to Branson, MO to take in the sights of the Hollywood Wax Museum, before engaging in window shopping at Branson Landing and dining at an upscale Mexican restaurant (I had a spinach enchilada). It's nice being in a relationship with a date that doesn't end in, "I love you... Cab fare's on the nightstand."

Do not settle for anything less than your dreams. Live an exceptional life TODAY. The establishment thrives upon even the hint of banality in the life of the common man. Discard their paradigms and be free.