Below are the 9 most recent journal entries recorded in jlparsifal's LiveJournal:

Saturday, January 28th, 2006
9:36 am	Switching Over... http://blog.myspace.com/50447675 This is where my blog will be continuing. It's purtier over there. (Comment on this)
Friday, January 13th, 2006
6:30 pm	And Another Thing...About Guns... And another thing... This is apparently how this blog deal is going to go down. I'm not going to update for a month, and then I'm going to sit down and do like two or three, while I wait for whoever I'm IMing to finish eating...or whatever they're doing. I can't update this sumbitch every day: I ain't no Kevin Smith...although we do share an inordinate amount in common...'boxing in the same weight class', if you know what I'm saying. Actually, that shouldn't be in quotes. We would literally be in the same weight class. I gotta start exercising. But for now, since I am sitting on my ass, I'm going to do what I usually do, and recommend you buy or rent something that somebody else made. Because, essentially, I'm a shill. There is a video game called 'Gun', and it is my pick for Game of the Year. I played (and finished) 'Jade Empire', which was IGN's pick, and I did love the freaking crap out of it. But not as much as I like 'Gun'. And I played Halo 2 and Half-Life 2 and...whatever: If you like staring at the end of your arm and going through tunnels for a bazillion hours then go ahead. Like Les Claypool once told a friend of a friend who offered him a Chef's Hat at a concert, "Sorry, kid...not my speed." No, I like being able to roam around, a la GTA...but I don't like people always trying to kill me every damn second. And I like being able to slow shit down, all Matrix-style, and shoot bad guys in the face, which 'Max Payne' pioneered, I believe. And 'Max Payne' was great, if a little short and slightly repetitive. But what I really like, and what they've never given us lowly Non-PS2-owning X-Box People, is horseback riding. Hear me out: I'm not saying I want to play one of those Portable games where you plant tulips and mince around as a little Japanese cartoon girl. No, what I mean is I want my horse to rear up and kick motherfuckers in the head. Thank you, 'Gun', for allowing me to rear my horse up and kick motherfuckers in the head. And I can see the argument that 'Gun' is just a retooled, GTA-inspired 'Red Dead Revolver'...and I have to admit, from the character design, it kind of looks like the same guy...but 'RDR' wasn't nearly as expansive in terms of storytelling or visual scope. And you couldn't rear up your horse and kick some horse-stealing, opium-smoking, card-stealing, whore-killing motherfucker in the head. I can also see the argument that the optional missions can get a little repetitive, but for God's sake they're in such a varied framework, and short enough that they don't take you entirely out of the story, like most of the optionals in other free-roamers. (I'm looking at you, you entirely shitty 'True Crime: New York'. Ya heard?) The environment in 'Gun' is gorgeous, all rolling hills and gentle streams, red clay caves and gold-studded rock formations. Buffalo roam in the field, and wild horses cavort in the background of most of your wide-angle views (and are surprisingly easy to tame...you just jump on them and ride.) Essentially, though, it's the story missions that set this one apart. Linking several small objectives into one larger mission, as 'Gun' does, makes each one feel like a separate Western-themed mini-game. Whether you're tracking down Hoodoo Brown or assaulting a Civil War Fort with your Blackfoot allies, each mini-narrative is a solid tale in itself. (I particularly liked stalking the Black-Hearted Preacher, voiced by--one of my favorites--Brad Dourif.) Don't want to hunt down your father's killer? Then by all means, hunt down a bounty, or one of the Great Beasts of the Plains, or play Texas Hold 'Em, or ranch some damn cattle. (Did he say 'ranch some damn cattle'? He sure did.) Or, as I always do, for at least a while, as I sit down to play, you can simply roam the wide-ranging prairie, on your trusty steed, jumping rocks, racing through train tunnels, and, at the occasional ambush point, rearing that trusty steed up and kicking some jackass bandit motherfucker right in the head. I love this game, and it's perfect for people who, like me, care less about how much a game challenges and more about being entertained. Good story, great graphics, fun, accessible gameplay, excellent voice work, beautiful Western score...all in all my favorite game of the year. Right now, I'm riding into the sunset. (You'll just have to take my word for it.) Oh, and eventually, I will be shilling something I've made on my own. But not yet... --Pirate Cowboy is out Current Mood: Ambivalent and Ambidextrous Current Music: 'Lazy Sunday' by Andy Schamburg and Chris Parnell of SNL (1 Comment |Comment on this)
6:05 pm	Hooray For Virgins! Congratulations to Judd Apatow, Steve Carrell and Co. for winning the first-ever Best Comedy Award at the National Critics Awards the other night. This was the first year the award was given out, so you can pretty safely say it was created for this movie. (Although 'Wedding Crashers' was nominated, and I heard that was good, though I didn't see it.) For anyone who hasn't seen it (I don't know: my parents and people who are too cool to see a movie about virgins, like that guy from Miami Vice.) 'The 40 Year Old Virgin' is about...well, you know. My parents actually walked out of this film during the poker scene, which I think is about ten minutes in. (Which means they stayed for the morning-boner joke. Good God.) It's too bad, kind of, because if they'd stayed, all the boisterous sex talk that obviously freaked them out would have been justified, at the end, as Steve the Happy Innocent becomes vindicated and rises above his Perverted Chorus of work buddies. This is a very dirty, very sweet film, and it reminds me of... It doesn't remind me of anything. 'Porky's' didn't have the heart this one did. 'There's Something About Mary' got close, but Ben Stiller is just not as lovable as Steve Carrell. (Deal with it Stiller--and hey, flex your dramtic chops more. 'Permanent Midnight' was great.) No, there was nothing before 'The 40 Year Old' Virgin' in the Vulgar Chucklefest vein that ever came close. No movie had the laughs, the unpredictability, the direction, cinematography and performance combo-punch before this one. If ever an award deserved to be created for a movie that references a woman fucking a horse, it is this sweet, lovable little gem. The Critics actually created the Best Animated Film award six years before the Academy, so maybe we'll see a Best Comedy Category at the Oscars eventually. If they do that, then they have to go back and retroactively give them out through the span of cinema history. 'Blazing Saddles'...'Clerks'...'Bananas'...'Pootie Tang'... Okay, I might be alone on the 'Pootie Tang' thing. I love that movie... sa da tay! Oh, and I know what some of you are thinking...and yes, I have known women, in the biblical sense. Probably more than you think. Current Mood: Swingin' Current Music: Beck: Guerolito (Comment on this)
Monday, November 14th, 2005
9:27 pm	Old Friends and Wierd Intersections Today I reconnected to an old friend. My best friend from Middle School, as a matter of fact. Turns out we still speak the same language. And we have the same career interests, believe it or not. We self-published a comic book when we were in High School. (It wasn't very good, but hey, we were young...and we did it.) We may be collaborating again. How cool is life, people? Google your friends. They'll thank you. (Comment on this)
Saturday, November 12th, 2005
1:26 pm	For My Conspiracy Peeps... Things the late William Cooper ("Behold a Pale Horse") has been right about: 1--Mt. Weather 2--Echelon 3--Secret Prisons 4--Satanists in the White House. (Okay, that one is just a guess, but have you ever actually looked closely at Karl Rove's eyes?) 11/20/05: My friend Keith's website (www.sanchezkisser.com/ILblog/) points out Gen. Paul Vallely and his links to Satanism. ....this will be updated as I find out/remember/am reminded of other things... (Comment on this)
1:17 pm	Why Either I or Videogames Suck Am I that bad? I love my X-Box. Aside from being a great system for gaming it's also a pretty kick-ass little portable DVD player. I really like Star Wars:Battlefront II, and I can kick some ass at it. Apparently, my true calling was to be a T.I.E. Fighter Pilot. But I also got this Evil Dead:Regeneration game, because I LOVE Evil Dead...and I have photos of me and BRUCE mugging to prove it...but the fucker is SO DAMN HARD. Which, if the game sucked, would be okay. But it doesn't. It's really cool. The cut-scenes are hilarious and totally "In The Spirit" of Raimi's Deadite Trilogy. But it's FUCKING HARD. And the worst part is: I know that some fourteen year old kid could sit down and beat it in like an hour. So...I'm old and games aren't made for me. I'm fine with that. At least, for most games. But THIS IS EVIL DEAD! This phenomena belongs to my generation! Make it possible for old farts without a year-and-a-half available to beat the damn thing! At least, for God's Sake, program in some cheat codes. Bastards. (Comment on this)
8:19 am	G-G-G-Ghost Hunters! I was just over at the Ghost Hunters website: www.the-atlantic-paranormal-society.com, (TAPS) and it's really funny that they have Plumbing terms on their "Terms" page, along with ones like 'ectoplasm' and 'electronic voice phenomena'. You should watch this show. Mainly because these guys are Ordinary Dudes, Plumbers who work for Roto-Rooter during the day and then, at night, drive their converted Rooter-trucks 300 miles to investigate--for free--a variety of "haunted" houses, prisons, hotels, and estates...for free! Apparently Jason and Grant are friends from a small blue-collar Rhode Island town who have had experiences and are tired of Glam Pyschics making all otherworldly phenomena look bogus and subject to easy ridicule. These guys are skeptics because they want to believe. If they see an 'orb', it's light reflecting off dust. Strange sounds? Rats, house settling, whatever. You won't see these guys trying to explain something AS paranormal. You'll see the opposite. In fact, their view seems to be that even IF something is "Unexplained", it means only that: that We can't explain it...yet. By refusing to be easy believers, they make the show incredibly watchable. It also doesn't hurt that they're always yelling at that one guy...you know the guy... So, on the subject of Strange Shit: My Arguably Spooky Set of Halloween Morning Experiences: I work at night, in a big office building, the small front suite of which my company rents from the building's owners, a company called Entre Solutions. I am the only one there at night. I have a key-card that I swipe across a sensor that lets me in and out of the building. (Mostly to smoke, but occasionally to take out the garbage.) Well, early Halloween morning I went out to take out the garage--it was about 5 a.m.--and when I tried to get back in, my key-card wouldn't work. I tried it again. No luck. I tried the door. No luck. I was locked out. After a few moments of near-catatonic indecisiveness--and having left my cellphone, wallet, and I.D. inside--I decided to walk toward the nearest Smile-E-Gas and see if I could remember any of my bosses' phone numbers. I got a half a block and--Coincidence #1--a cop that I've talked to before while outside smoking happened to be sitting there, in a little alley, eating peanuts. I approached him...slowly. (If you've never walked up on a cop sitting with his lights off in a dark alley--then his lights cut on, right in front of you--you should. I highly reccommend it.) So he started making phone calls to see if he could reach someone from Entre Solutions (remember?) to let me in the building. I decided to walk back over, and the cop went on ahead of me. When I got back to the office...Coicidence #2...the large South African Security Expert whose life I once saved--another story for another time--just happened...JUST HAPPENED to be there. At 5 a.m. On a Monday morning. Halloween morning. Kwesi (pronounced Kway-See) let me in and was baffled to see the security sensor was not working. "We just got these," he said, in his deep, rolling accent. "Very strange." So he let me in, I was only outside about twenty minutes, and my bosses were never the wiser... But here's the other thing: My grandfather died of Lung Cancer in 1991. We were very close and I stayed with him and my grandmother the last four months of his life. We talked a lot, and one of the things he always said was that he was 'haunt' me. He was a funeral director. He'd mastered black humor by the time he really needed it. The Lost Prelude: Earlier that night, I was leaving Blockbuster with the crapload of movies I wrote about last time, and I thought I was going to be late for work. I called the girl I was supposed to be relieving to let her know. When I dialed, for the first time in over two years, I got another number, that JUST HAPPENED to be one digit off from my work number. "Fox and Weeks Funeral Home," the operator answered. I mentioned my Grandfather was a Funeral Director? The firm he worked for, for thirty-some years...was Fox & Weeks Funeral Home. Ahem. So, I'm trying to be cool like the guys in TAPS, and admit these things only as a bizarre set of coincidences... ...from Halloween Night. Mwu-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha... Mistuh Pirate, he dead... Current Mood: Illin' Current Music: RunDmc "Raising Hell" Reissue (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, November 5th, 2005
6:25 am	Mini DVD Review for Vampires I work at night. The Graveyard Shift. That's what they call it...and maybe with good reasons. My job is not demanding. It is, in fact, answering phones. In a typical eight-hour shift, I am on the phone a total of about two hours. So that leaves me six hours, alone-and-by-myself, in a great big empty office building, to do...what? Well, let me tell you one of the least expensive ways you can kill time and even gain a little inspiration: Blockbuster. OH, NO, NOT BLOCKBUSTER! The very seat of fascism! Wal-Mart's slightly more refined and equally oppressive Big City Cousin. I know, I know. But I live in a small city and my only other option, if I want anything approaching a "good selection", is to go downtown to the 'Artsy' video store...the one owned by the depraved shut-in with the elaborate video set-up that feeds into his home, so he can watch his specially-picked Nubile Young Male Employees and...well, you can imagine. So no thank you. I'll hit Blockbuster. I'll just say a prayer first, to ward off that Beast of Homogenous Consumerism, slouching toward Bethlehem to be born... So: On to the point of this thing: The Mini-Movie Review. Somebody has probably got something like that copyrighted (or is it copywrit?) and will want to sue me for using it. Hmm. Well, I'm apparently a "blogger" and therefore my lack of credibility should be grossly evident and no questions of legitimacy should be raised, under the threat of ruthless mockery by the Critical Elite. (No, Arianna Huffington, some of us are not the new vanguard of Media Watchdogism...just egomaniacs with a compulsion to transcribe our own febrile and coptic Opinions.) I rented something like five movies last week, to get me through the slow hours when I'm not inspired enough to work on my own writing projects and when the phones are as silent as Dick Cheney's conscience, and here are a few Little Reviews of them. These are based, of course, on a strict criteria of my own devising, which will eventually be evident when you're reading this thinking "This dude has no idea what the hell he's talking about." 1) "The Final Cut"--I had seen this one on the shelf, and Ebert's blurb caught my eye. ('Rog' and I usually tend to agree on films; it's a Fat Man Thing.) And again we do. Robin Williams is perfect, in that slightly alien (MORK JOKE INSERT) and uncomfortable way he has about him. Even Mira Sorvino, who appears to have been swept off the Hollywood map by Gwyneth and Cameron and Charlize, turns in a convincing performance with not much dialogue. The film is about a future in which our memories are preserved in an 'organic implant', and then, post-mortem, they are edited by 'cutters' like Williams' character to create a 'Rememory', a kind of video memorial of our most cherished memories. Williams' 'Hakman' character's specialty is in editing the lives of Bad People, and one of these bastards--a lawyer for the Company that makes the 'Zoe Chip'--has a factor in his memory that may reveal a secret from Hakman's own past. Hakman compares himself to a Sin Eater of Ancient Tradition, and this is the meat of the metaphor in the film. A Sin Eater cannot eat his own sins, and what becomes of the weight of others' that he takes on? This is a very good film and probably shamefully overlooked. Definitely worth renting. One other thing: John Woo ('Paycheck') take note: When we are watching someone else's memories being displayed on a monitor, they really should be FIRST PERSON. When showing a video screen in a larger objective shot with the subject's memories on it, if the memories have expansive tracking shots and other 3rd Person camera gymnastics, you are showing you have more respect for the look of the film than it's logical continuity. Please. 2) Land of the Dead--It's George Romero, for godsakes! I think The Critics kind of slammed this one, but since when do they like serious zombie movies? (Unless, of course, they feature monkeys 'infected with rage'.) This is a great, fun film, expanding on the very rules-of-the-living-dead the ROMERO HIMSELF CREATED. John Leguizamo is great as the real heart of this piece, and Robert Joy's scarred sharpshooter is a little bit of cinema memory I won't soon forget. The Zombies are smarter, led by 'Big Daddy', a black gas station attendant who happens to be the first to see something in the Future of the Dead besides flesh-eating. (Maybe the Bush Administration should look at this guy's resume.) I really liked this flick, and I look forward to another installment of Romero's Ghoulology--I hope he's able to make one. Also, look for cameos by the 'Shawn of the Dead' guys as particularly 'photogenic' Living Dead. 3) Hotel Rwanda--Holy God, go see this film. They should be teaching it in schools. Cheadle, as always, is like watching the best magician around. And Sophie Okenedo is rattlingly genuine. And check this: Paul Russesabegina, the subject of the film--the man who negotiated the lives of over 1200 Rwandans, both Tutsi and Hutu, in the hotel where he was Assistant Manager while Hutu Death Squads massacred nearly a million people around the country--is on the commentary track with Director Terry George. Is that a first? The subject on a commentary track? Seriously, see this movie. 4) Melinda and Melinda--Woody Allen's latest offering features Will Ferrell and an actress that I first noticed--I swear--in "Pitch Black": Radha Mitchell (also of 'High Art', an excellent Lesbian Love Indie with Ally Sheedy). Mitchell plays Melinda in two different slants on the same story: one a comedy, the other a drama. Framed with a nice narrative echo of 'My Dinner With Andre', in which the two playwrights discuss how one set of story elements can be portrayed as either comedy or drama, 'M & M' is probably Woody's best fiction film since 'Mighty Aphrodite'. Will Ferrell does a nice tweak on the EveryWoody AntiHero, and Radha Mitchell gets to stretch her considerable skills impressively playing two equally complex representations of the same character. Nothing made me laugh as hard as almost anything in 'Annie Hall', but it was nice time spent with interesting characters, and a thoughtful, if light-weight experiment. Like I told the kid at Blockbuster who asked me how it was, "Better than the last three or four he's done, but not as good as the old stuff." 5) The Manchurian Candidate--Johnathan Demme's updated version of the Richard Condon novel features another implant idea (Prescience?), this one of the mind control variety, put into Liev Schreiber--a "genetic lottery winner"--so that he can become Vice President and control the country in the name of a supranational evil corporation...because a story about a similar candidate doing so by rigging an election and starting a phony war would be just too damn scary... This is another one that The Critics were cool on. I believe their complaint was that it 'devolved' into an action thriller from a 'complex psychological allegory'. Critics: Puh-lease. What do you think happens at the end of 'Silence of the Lambs'? Clarice and Buffalo Bill sit down and discuss the philosophical ins and outs of making skin-suits out of starved women? No, you idiots, they fucking shoot his ass. And you loved it. Denzel Washington is possibly our finest living American actor. Watch this film and watch his eyes. Johnathan Demme uses a lot of 'talking head', first person p.o.v. shots while people are talking to Ben Marco, Washington's character, as we are supposed to share in this tunnel vision brought on by Marco's deteriorating sanity--he is trying to determine why his dreams have Liev Schreiber's candidate strangling a fellow officer during the '91 Gulf War, when in his waking memories Schreiber is the Lone Hero and Congressional Medal of Honor winner. As Marco becomes more and more sure of himself, what at the beginning of the film may well be a delusion becomes, to us, more and more plausible, and therefore urgent...which culminates in...you guessed it: a feverish last-minute burst of action. Makes complete sense. So check yourselves, Critics. You should only trust people who are not getting paid for their opinions. (Heh heh heh.) And that's it. There were a few more, but this shit is way too long already. Maybe next time I'll tell you why 'Silver City' sucked and why 'D.E.B.s' kicked ass. SeaPirate Out Current Mood: quixotic Current Music: Run DMC Kings of Rock Reissue (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, October 16th, 2005
10:25 am	Really, why would anyone but me want to read this? Why, pray tell, am I coming back on this fucker to post? I only opened this account on a whim, and I forgot about it. So why post on it now? Why plaster my thoughts roughly on the well-nigh-invisible public canvas? Why a billboard for my eccentricities and borderline-worthless opinions? Ah, why the fuck not? I was listening to the new Fiona Apple CD last night (The Dual-Disc, cuz I'm so fresh and so clean clean) and I was wondering if I should hate Paul Thomas Anderson now. I mean, it's obvious to anyone who reads magazines that this is a breakup record, about him, and his infidelity...I presume with Maya Rudolph (his Baby's Caddy.) I'm that rare guy that doesn't believe in the Sexual Double Standard. Guys that "play" girls--especially nice girls--make me go all Johnny Storm...a barely controlled burn. But I once learned a lesson by alienating a black friend who I suspected of cheating on his wife: I made the mistake of qualifying his actions as "a black thing", a "playa" thing. If you can't tell yet, I'm an idiot. It wasn't until this guy stopped talking to me--the Lone Black Male in our little Barnes and Noble (Pretty ludicrous in a 60% Black City), and a man with whom I could discuss issues of race with a frankness that always freaked out customers and kick-started my brain--that I began to realize that the problem is by no means related to race. Oh, sure, I'd be lying if I said that the 50 Cents of the world aren't loading buckets of gas onto a bonfire of directionless hedonism, perpetuating the stereotype of the Man as Dog, but...is Brad Pitt black? Hollywood filmmakers that glorify infidelity and have since the days of the Woman as Prop...are they black? Does anybody watch Nip/Tuck? How's that for an all-white blueprint for the demise of Monogamy? So I was a dick to Keenan, but after some pinpoint apology from yours truly, he eventually came around and we once again resumed giving the heebie-jeebies to customers who couldn't deal with listening to a white guy and a black guy talking honestly about why Black Actors are never portrayed, in movie posters, in realistic light. (Apparently, elements in Hollywood seem to think that a realistic African-American skin tone is not "saleable".) So...should I hate P.T.? After all, I love his movies...actually discovered Fiona Apple after I fell in love with Boogie Nights and Magnolia. But her music has inspired me again and again, as well. So do I pick sides? I don't know these people. It's not like I'm going to be in the middle of some bitter War of the Ex's. So why do I even care? Why would I even consider the behavior of the artists that move me? Because that's me: I don't see the future in Polygamy, like some of my fellow Anti-Dogmatists. Why? Maybe it's because I've seen what the love between two people, nurtured over time, can grow into. But that's me...I'm a big Ol' Softie. And as for Keenan, I don't know if he really cheated on his wife or not. But I can say this: It didn't affect in any way the amount of inspiration and knowledge he provided me. And the same could be said for Anderson. So this is a matter of separating the art from the artist? The value of the personality from the human foibles? The strengths from the weaknesses? Is the danger for me--for you--in judging? Big questions. Is there possibly an invisible line somewhere between Inspiration and Pernicious Influence? And if so, do we know, at the moment, not the cross that line? Keenan and I once had a similar discussion about D.W. Griffith. He couldn't see why he was included in the Canon of Film Greats, when all he was really was a paranoid self-hating honkey with a talent for visual editing. ("Self-hating Honkey" are my words.) And what about Wagner's Anti-Semitism? Or Ezra Pound's? Could some of us ever look at (Dare I say it?) George W. Bush and say: "Well, I'm sure he's a wonderful...Uncle..."? Or something. Can we see the divide in people between greatness (whether in-born or thrust-upon) and the base cravings that we carry in each of us? We're like Kimodo Dragon People, living long lives with a multitude of poisons in our mouths...trying not to swallow. Hell, I don't know. It's a moment-by-moment thing, a constant slipping and struggle for traction. That's what trying to live a Moral life Without Dogma is. It's fucking tough, walking that Tightrope ourselves...it's even harder to see someone else do it. And to judge their performance, while we're balancing on the same thin wire? At least we can take a moment to look up, once in a while, to admire their tricks. So there. If you read this, then maybe I just wasted your time. But hey, maybe I spun one little cog in the Mind Machine, and the momentum started the operation of inpiration. If I did that, cool. If not, respond and tell me what an idiot I am. I'm always up for that. And buy "Extraordinary Machine" by Fiona Apple. It's brilliant. Current Mood: bouncy Current Music: Fiona Apple...OkGo (3 Comments |Comment on this)