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| Sunday, September 5th, 2004 | | 11:06 pm |
Reasons to Vote for Kerry
As distinct from Reasons to Vote Against Bush, which of course are ample. Most of these are issues that went virtually unmentioned at the RNC. Also, started writing but got overly verbose, so now in bullet form. #1 Healthcare - Stem Cell Research. Could help vs. cancer, juvenile diabetes, Alzheimers, who knows what else. The only reason to oppose stem cell research is as a tie-in to abortion, but it's a tenuous connection. Nobody dies when stem cells are harvested. - Coverage for 95% of Americans and all children. Achieved by controlling catastrophic costs, importing prescription drugs, eliminating administrative waste, offering incentives for quality. Allows businesses to more easily offer healthcare (and/or higher wages) by offering tax credits. - Quality incentives. Assures better quality at lower cost. - Total cost: $653 Billion. Not just a lump investment in socialism, but real reform taking place. Easily paid for if Kerry's economic plans take off. Taking us to... #2 Economy - Against outsourcing. Exporting jobs increases unemployment. Accomplished by tax cuts for companies that keep jobs at home. - Tax cuts. You heard me. Kerry's plan would provide tax cuts to 98% of Americans, and 99% of American businesses. (as opposed to Bush's stratified tax cuts) - Push free and fair trade by enforcing existing trade laws (esp. with China). - Limit Washington spending #3 Education - Increased child care tax credit - Create afterschool programs - Service for College program - Completely paid for by eliminating tax shelters (like Enron) #4 Defense - Employ diplomatic and economic strength, not just military. - Updated military. Would be smaller, more mobile, and cheaper, ultilizing better technology and intelligence. Almost all military experts agree that a smaller, more organized army is more useful than a larger, more expensive one. Look to Israel for examples of this. - Stop the money-laundering and finance of terrorists through a "name and shame" policy. (Saudi Arabia, anyone?) - Organized international plan for controlling destructive substances. (Where did the former Soviet Union put those nukes, anyway? Maybe one will turn up in Chechnya soon - ticking.) - New energy plan to reduce dependency on foreign oil. Check out a review here: http://businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/jul2004/nf20040729_3660_db038.htmI'm going to stop here, at least for now. Most of my info comes from the Kerry-Edwards webpage, http://www.johnkerry.com. The site backs up its claims by sending links to specific speeches and statements. There is more consistency than one might expect. I also trolled www.dailykos.com to pick out the more relevant points. I'm still not a huge Kerry fan - I'd prefer a Dem candidate who actually stood for something and lost by a wide margin to a man who's kind of a weenie, and lost by a few points. Kerry has flipflopped, and he has not found his campaign message. Voters don't care about all the specifics I list above - they care about hearing a simple message, repeated ad nauseum. For Kerry, I have a few recommendations. One is "It's About Accountability, Stupid." Look through his plans, and you'll find accountability to be a common thread - in dealing with corporations like Enron, with states that finance terror, with health care providers. The other is "Ask the Tough Questions." Bush likes to offer simplistic plans. It's part of what makes him popular. Kerry can combat this by pointing out the faults in those plans (which should be easy, so he should stop pulling his punches already), and Ask the Tough Questions. On this note, I refer you to another dailykos article that outlines Kerry's finer moments, when he did just that. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/5/173442/8158P.S. One of these days I'll figure out how to link articles without pasting the address, but I don't have the wherewithal to do it now. Current Mood:  depressed | | Monday, June 21st, 2004 | | 11:44 pm |
| | Tuesday, May 18th, 2004 | | 3:06 am |
Arcadia
Bradford finally just forced me to read his favorite play, Arcadia by Tom Stoppard. And holy crap. It just might have to be my favorite play now, too. The plot is simply FAR to detailed to summarize with any success, so I'll just say that the play is chaos theory. It takes place in both the past and present, and the people in the past can't understand the significance of the events taking place, and the people in the present can't understand the true story of the what happened in the past. We the audience, however, are able to compare the past and present, and piece together the design that is being weaved through love, poetry, mathematics, science, and raw coincidence. It's going to take a few more readings before I can even begin to grasp all the causes and effects. But not tonight, because my head would explode. | | Tuesday, May 11th, 2004 | | 10:02 pm |
| | Friday, April 30th, 2004 | | 2:56 am |
The First Paragraph of My Paper On "Our Town"
Entitled, "Why I Still Hate 'Our Town'" I have read “Our Town” four times. I have seen “Our Town” three times. I have enjoyed “Our Town” zero times. I’m not about to go off on a rant about how “Our Town” is a bad play. I don’t think that it is a bad play. I do think that it is overly sentimental, too broad in scope, contrived in style, and simultaneously too simple to show any nuance and too complex to deliver its message, which is, by the way, preachy and short sighted. Okay, so maybe it is a bad play. It does have some spark of value in there somewhere, though, which makes its failure even more disheartening. It’s like a coconut – very little on the surface, with a little something on the inside that’s slightly sweet, but hardly worth the trouble. Of course, instead of hammering away at it with a rock for three hours, you sit in a chair for three hours, and then hammer your head against a wall until you fall into sweet, blissful unconsciousness. Also, monkeys like them both. | | Wednesday, April 28th, 2004 | | 11:01 pm |
Mike Friend Brian Is A Racist Fuck, And I'm Pissed Off
I'm still riled up about this, so I figure I can calm down some if I get it off my chest. It all began over at Bradford's watching "The Bridge On the River Kwai." At one point Alec Guinness's character, the British officer, makes a comment about how it's no wonder that the Japanese haven't finished building their bridge, it's time to show those barbaric savages something about modern engineering. Naturally Ben made a comment about how loaded that statement is, even for something that might be historically fairly accurate (I'm sure that more than one British officer called the Japanese savage during the war). Brian immediately begins defending the position, employing some of the most twisted "logic" I have EVER heard. It wasn't even the content of what he was saying, so much as his warped conception of reasoning that got me worked up. Once he started full out yelling, I picked up my bag to leave, because quite frankly I was getting upset and losing my own ability to think rationally, since what I really wanted to do was knock his teeth out. Just for a little sample, he used the example of how the Japanese led prisoners on death marches. Granted, that's a savage thing to do. But then again, that was WWII, and once people start dropping atomic bombs on cities densely populated by civilians, thus poisoning the land for any hope of life for decades, notions of civility have been left behind long ago. Brian gave the usual, "yeah, but we HAD to drop the bomb" argument, which is as ridiculous now as it was the day we dropped Little Boy, since there were no major battles left to be fought in the Pacific. Besides which, it's fairly useless to speculate what would have happened had we not dropped the bomb, since we did. Furthermore, we were drastically off topic by this point, as Ben and I pointed out, and tried to return to the matter at hand. Brian wouldn't have it though, and began full out shouting about how there were pockets of fighting 20 years later from people who didn't know the war had ended, so you see Japan wouldn't have surrendered otherwise. Interesting example, Brian, but then that doesn't lend much credence to your A-Bomb justification, since it obviously didn't stop the war in those areas, now did it? I'm not even sure what it was that Brian said that actually prompted me to make for the door at this point, but it was what followed that really got me. He decided to cap off his ridiculous arguments by asserting that I was leaving because I didn't like what I was hearing, and didn't have a rebuttal, and it's because I'm so close-minded and that's such a typical liberal thing to do. Very good, Brian. I'm sure your own open-mindedness is why you vehemently oppose gay marriage, abortion, and welfare, and why just the other day you explicitly told me that the only reason primitive cultures still allow polygamy is because they haven't been exposed to civilization through missionaries (That argument was about whether morality is innate or sociological). Gee, I wonder why I called you a racist fuck just now? As for the idea that I don't have a rebuttal, it's more that there are so many things wrong with that reasoning that I didn't even know where to begin. So I began to walk out, instead. Brian cooled off a little, and became slightly more civil, so I decided that maybe we could salvage this thing. He asked me why I was calling him racist. So, I began to explain, and before I could finish a single complete sentence he was interrupting, once again at full volume. So I just said, "Thanks for listening to my opinion, Brian. I'm glad you're so much more open minded," and left. The worst part about this is that it managed to undo what was otherwise a great day. After class I went with Bradford and Chris to the beach, and we flew a kite, and played frisbee, and skipped stones, and chased seagulls, and did headstands and cartwheels in the sand, and had a somersault race across the beach, and basically pretended we were 8 years old, and topped it all off with a soak in the hot tub when we got back. I was so relaxed I was almost falling asleep watching the movie before the whole fiasco went down. So, in closing, Brian is still a racist fuck. For information about other ridiculous arguments with Brian, please ask for information about the infamous "I Don't Hate Gay People, I Just Find Them Repulsive (But Not You, Scott)" and "Why I Shouldn't Have To Go To School With Minorities" transcripts. Current Mood:  aggravated | | Saturday, April 24th, 2004 | | 3:23 pm |
| | Friday, April 23rd, 2004 | | 12:09 am |
In Which Bennett Is Polish For An Evening
After class my dad picked me up to go to the gala opening of the afore mentioned event. The film was very good, which I'll detail later, and the food was tasty, but there was one thing that stood out as the highlight of the evening. And his name is Bogden. Bogden is the guy from Sharp who invited my dad to come to this event. Bogden is Polish. Bogden drinks a lot of free Polish Vodka. And Bogden is insane. "Dana! Dana come over here! Ve have to make picture, because Dana and I are of one corporation. He makes the color and I make the devices." "Have you seen your father? I have to find him and introduce him to friends, so zat he von't be alienated. If you vant a drink, go over there. Zere is vine and vodka, although ze vine is called Shakespeare." Comments like these were punctuated by rapid bursts of european kisses and candid photography, when he could get the camera to work. As for celebrities, there weren't too many that I recognized. Actually the biggest industry person there was a casting director, who cast a number of big films, including Rocky, Karate Kid, and The Power of One. Not exactly a lightweight. Other personalities included John Savage (The Deer Hunter). Leelee Sobieski and Stacy Keach were supposed to be there, but weren't. And of course, I ran into UCLA's own Prof. Michael Hackett. (If you know Hackett, this is hilarious) The first film was a short called "The Hat." Gruff old father gives his son a new smokey-the-bear style hat to go with his Boy Scout uniform. The kid keeps putting it off to one side, and the father keeps telling him to put it right. Dad gets pissed off and gives the boy a spanking. The next day they are strolling through town, and a man compliments the kid on the hat, and says "You know, that's a scout hat. You have to wear it the Scout way," and puts it crooked, the way kid has been. Dad tries to conceal symptoms of embarrassment. I'd give it a 7 for being cute, and having Boys Scouts. But I have to take it down to 6 for having a child actor. But then I put it back up to 6.5 because he gets beaten. The main film was called "The Body," and was exactly my kind of comedy. Lots of dead body swapping, murderous Nuns, Granny hitmen, and Siamese twin criminal masterminds who smuggle stolen goods inside garden gnomes. What more could you want? It had cool animated bits in between scenes, too. It had some odd and unnecessary camera work, though, with fast motion and at least one instance of gratuitous bullet-time. Reminded me of Snatch, actually, only the camera tricks didn't add as much. And the soundtrack was quite odd, sort of folky with accordion. Polka-Folk, if you will. Still, I give it an 8.5 for being hilarious, and for the theory that the father of Kanga's baby, Roo, is actually Christopher Robin. | | Friday, March 26th, 2004 | | 11:59 pm |
Brief Sampling of Samisms
Readers of lilshary already know about how my roommate shat on the roof of my apartment building, so that's a little taste of Sam right there. Most amusing, however, is his unique vocabulary. Here I have compiled just a smattering, in no particular order, with example sentences. Beefed - adj. Exceedingly full from food or drink, to the point of nausea. "Man, I ate that 27" pizza and now I'm totally beefed." Scrote - n. Either a male friend, or a generic male stranger. "I was just hanging out with a few scrotes." or "This Betty was getting hit on by all these scrotes, so I just came up and told them to beat it." Betty - n. Either a girlfriend, or a generic, attractive female. "So Bennett, when is your Betty coming to visit?" or "All I want right now is a some Betty to pork." Pork - v. Engage in coitus. Snake - v. To steal or take another's food or drink. "Hey man, think I could snake a slice of that pizz?" Pizz - n. Pizza. "Hey man, think I could snake a slice of that pizz?" This last is not really a specific word, but a verbal trend of removing syllables whenever possible, thus: Santa Barb = Santa Barbara; Compute = Computer; Apart = Apartment; Burg = Hamburger; Abbreves = Abbreviations; and so on. You will note a common theme in Sam's use of language - he's truly a man in touch with his inner urges. | | Sunday, February 29th, 2004 | | 4:01 am |
in Which Bennett Has a Strange Night
Tonight was the cast party for the now infamous "Last Days of Don Juan" at UCLA. Let's just say that I have heard nothing but bad things, lots of them, about this show since it's conception. So moods weren't the cheeriest. So then, I was looking forward to a laid back evening. Afterall, I wasn't involved in the show except for having had the good luck not to be involved in it. And yet, tonight wound up requiring far more effort than any normal night in some time. For beginners, I spent most of the night playing "reverse wingman" to a friend. We'll call him Dan Dredford. Meanwhile, I assisted him in avoiding two other girls. So if he ever complains about how hard it is to find a girlfriend, I'll sock him in the teeth. Amidst this drama, I got to shake off one girl attempting to use me to get at another, and a third who can't decide whether to murder me or to jump my bones. I pray that if she must do both, she does the latter first. Although if not, I'll be dead so I guess I won't complain. | | Tuesday, January 27th, 2004 | | 5:37 am |
In Which I Curse James Benjamin Purcell Bradford
Ben, you fucker. Why did you recommend "The Da Vinci Code" to me? Don't you know that it's the kind of book that will rob me of sleep not just for tonight, but for weeks to come? Bastard. You should have warned me. You should have told me that once I started it, I would have to read it in its entirety in a single sitting. You've robbed me of a full night's sleep, Bradford. And one day, vengeance will be mine. PS: I got very little sleep last night as well, so now I'm so tired that my vision is swimming. And I swear to God that when I turned my computer on, the sight of my Shary wallpaper almost made me soil myself, because it looked like she was leaning in closer and closer, preparing to jump out of the screen. | | Monday, January 26th, 2004 | | 3:06 am |
In Which Insomnia Still Remains
Okay, so that last post was just an experiment. You see, the protagonist in Steve Martin's "The Pleasure of My Company", which I've just finished reading, has many neuroses, and at one point he decides that he can condense his smaller quirks into one giant compulsion if he can last a week long roadtrip without using the letter e. This proves even more difficult than one might imagine, since it rules out pretty much any use of the past tense. If anyone out there has read "Shopgirl," the book is fairly similar in tone - spry, witty, elegant, and paradoxically aloof and sentimental. Plus, the descriptions of Santa Monica are downright frightening in their accuracy. Even the photo on the cover/sleeve-thingy mimics one of those hermetically sealed suburban neighborhoods, with their presidential and collegiate streetnames. And of course the curb is red. I'm going to default to my handwritten private journal, because I can write faster than I can type, and because maybe then I'll get lucky enough to nod off in time to actually get some sleep before class. I had a whole character analysis/comparison all set up in my head, but I'm doubting it will be worthwhile, since I'm pretty sure Shary is the only person who reads this thing, and I'll probably end up talking about it on the phone with her. | | 3:02 am |
| | Tuesday, January 6th, 2004 | | 4:59 pm |
| | 1:26 pm |
In Which Sleep, and Subsequently Driving Privelages are Denied
I scheduled my drive test appointment at the DMV as early as possible, figuring that they would be less backed up in the morning. This would have been fine had I actually been able to fall asleep at midnight when I went to bed, but after almost three weeks of nocturnal sleep patterns, my bio-rhythms have become irreparably readjusted. Thus, my usual state of cat-like readiness was dulled to more of a sloth-like slugishness. You may think this is mixing metaphors, but I assure you that objections will be heard from both the Albanian Sloth Slug, and the Bolivian Slug Sloth, and I suspect from jealous snail breeds of all types. Long story short, I was in no state to see the oncoming car when I made that right turn, and while the other motorist was able to slow down sufficiently, the tester had already written down the words which were later revealed to be "dangerous maneuver." So you see, my failure to acquire a license was not my fault, but Jhumpa Lahari's for writing "Interpreter of Maladies," the book of short stories that kept me awake. I freely admit, however, that mowing down the blind nun with the baby carriage was entirely my fault. | | Wednesday, December 31st, 2003 | | 7:52 pm |
In Which Elliot is Described Further
Interestign follow-up to last entry. In the car with my dad today as we drove up to L.A. to drop off rent and check on the apartment, he commented that it seems to him now that Elliot is probably mildly autistic. It makes sense. As a baby, he didn't like to be held or touched. He is easily overwhelmed by things, both sensory and mental (this is why his grades suck; he can't handle the pressure). He becomes very absorbed in whatever he is doing, and lost in the details (Dad made the error of paying him to help paint the house a few years back. Elliot worked so slowly, that Dad wound up doing all the work). And of course, he is both a musical genius and an idiot. | | Saturday, December 27th, 2003 | | 11:09 pm |
In Which Bennett Describes His Brother
So I finally got around to watching "A Mighty Wind" tonight, and while I don't have any great affinity for folk music particularly, it did make me realize how much I miss singing. I sang Freshman year in the university chorus, which was mostly classical, but what I miss the most is the jazz I used to sing in high school. A lot of it was just crowd pleasing drivel, but jazz has such tight harmony that I suspect singing it was more fun than listening to it. Which brings me around to the fact that this is the first christmas season in 5 years that I haven't gone caroling (which I used to do with the choir, and as an alumnus for $$$). At the time I really hated it; all christmas music sounds remarkably the same, and it's so freaking ubiquitous. I would cringe every time I stepped into a department store, because I knew I was the only one who knew all the lyrics. And yet, I did feel that this year something was lacking. I got my chance to sing plenty at the christmas church service Elliot (my brother, for the uninitiated) directed up in Redlands. Apparently Methodists don't believe in skipping verses, and then after the service proper there was a sing-along which consisted primarily of the same songs we had just sung. So it's not the lack of the physical act of singing that leaves me unfulfilled. I guess it's more nostalgia based, singing with the people I used to way back when in all the same places. To embark on a tangent, watching Elliot conduct I was stricken by how gracefully he looks while doing it. If you've never met E, then you can't possibly understand how contradictory the words "graceful" and "Elliot" are, but let's just say that an epileptic cripple moves with more serenity than Elliot at his most languid. I wish I could recall some of the Elliotisms that occurred these past few days, but I guess I'm so used to them that I dismiss them. I think my dad put it best when he remarked, "I understand the idiot part, but I'm not so sure about the savant..." As long as I'm on the topic, I guess I'll just turn this into an entry about Elliot. Elliot is a certifiable genius, at least musically speaking. This is compensated by his complete lack of life skills, and ambition. Elliot is very easy to please. Food on the table and a roof over the head would, in E-logic, be a luxury. Slightly-ove-minimum wage at the video store where he works is, to him, a king's ransom. This is curious, because in childhood he was always much more of a perfectionist than I. At some juncture a reversal occurred. I would love to plot a line graph of his GPA and mine, and figure out where they intersect. How E got his diploma, either of them, is a mystery to me, himself, and everyone else. My theory of how E evolved as he did is that someone somewhere took the "you shouldn't care what other people think" speech too far. Let's just say that when we went to pick him up he hadn't packed a thing, and I had to do his ironing for him. I could discuss my brother indefinitely, but I'm afraid that the lateness of the hour and the concentration of the rum and coke I've been enjoying is getting to me. Fear not; no doubt Elliot will be featured again in the future. | | Thursday, December 18th, 2003 | | 1:40 am |
In Which Many Nits Are Picked
So last night I saw Return of the King with my dad. First of all I would like to say that I loved all three movies, and Peter Jackson has done an incredible job retelling the greatest modern fantasy epic (which is an epic in need of retelling if you want to stay awake reading it). It is a marvelous trilogy, well worth the praise, the hype, and your $10. In short, it kicks ass. Now then, with that disclaimer in place, let's rip this flick a new one. For the Entire Trilogy: - Lots of low rumbling and high screeching, with nothing in between. Bring aspirin. - Extraordinarily monochromatic. P.J. may as well have filmed it in black and white. - Lots of slow motion close-ups of people giving doe-eyed stares, or glaring. Please, it's long enough already. - While the most convincing CG character yet, Gollum is still too cute. Me'sa gonna getsa my preciousss! - Cate Blanchett gives a flat performance. Even she sounds bored listening to herself. - The love triangle surrounding Aragorn still seems pasted on. Tolkien left it in the appendix, which is saying something considering some of the stupid crap he left in. (Thank god PJ left out Tom Bombadil) - On a reverse note, poetry and song played a huge role in the novels. Hearing the same sweeping orchestrations over and over made me willing to risk it becoming a musical, just for an alternative. - All the dialogue is delivered in the most grandiose of fashions, as if every word is supposed to carry some kind of deep import. The only one who pulls it off is Ian McKellan. For The Fellowship of the Ring - Uh, it's been awhile since I've seen this one. What sticks in my mind is being really disappointed in Cate Blachett. For The Two Towers - Saw this more recently, but only once, so all I remember is Legolas pulling all sort of Crouching Tiger crap, for instance: - Legolas doing crazy, spinning, jumping things on horses. I don't care if you're an immortal elf and have centuries in which to practice doing that; it still can't be done without wires and a computer to digitally erase them. - Legolas becoming the Silver (haired) Surfer at the battle of Helm's deep. That's worse than swinging from a chandelier. For Return of the King * * * Contains Spoilers * * * - Showing Smeagol's transformation into Gollum was great, but the transition from live actor to CG was pretty obvious. (Side note, was that Andy Serkis playing Smeagol, or did they just dub?) - Legolas doing more crazy, spinning, jumping things on Oliphants. No, you can't do that! You're an elf, not a ninja! - The battle of Minas Tirith is a series of mini battles as new armies arrive, and each one has to have a rousing Braveheart speech from either Aragorn, Theodon, or Faramir. Not only do they get old, they get less and less convinving. In response to cries of "We can't defeat them!" Theoden responds with "No, we cannot. But we shall fight them anyway!" Does this sound like wise leadership to you? - The Witch King talks. No. Bad. Very bad. Their silence is one of the things that makes the ringwraiths scary. It seems the only reason he said anything was to establish the Macbeth-like manner of his demise. Moreover, when he does talk it's with the same gravelly, guttural voice that every goblin, orc, or Uruk-Hai uses. If anything, it should have been a whisper. - PJ seems unsure where he wants to end this movie. Is Frodo finishing Bilbo's book the end? Is sailing off with the elves the end? Is Cate Blanchett giving another crappy narration while we look at the map of Middle Earth the end? Is Sam closing his hobbit hole door, just because PJ wanted to end with a shot of something round the end? Granted, he has to keep certain things the same to avoid a spear in the back from die-hard fans of the books, but please. The full screen fades to white THREE TIMES before we can finally go relieve our bladders. | | Thursday, November 27th, 2003 | | 10:34 pm |
| | Monday, November 10th, 2003 | | 3:04 pm |
All Joking Aside...
I am going to make a more concerted effort to write in this thing, because Shary went to the trouble of getting it for me, and it's not like I have anything better to be doing. On Saturday I got together with Ben, Ben, Lana, and Murielle (sp?) to brainstorm for some radio comedy ideas I've had. Paul will definitely be included as well, having the quickest wit I know, but he was on a trip. So we listened to some existing comedy by the Dead Alewives and The League of Gentlemen, and decided that we want to do sort of a regular series that chronicles daily life in the fictitious small town of Bumble. While there is no "main character," the series will play leapfrog, meaning that Scene 1 will be between person A and B, and then B and C, and then C and D, until we wrap around back to A. In between there will be little short interruptions with commercials, phone conversations and the like, with emphasis on whoever the person A of the week is, so that each episode isn't entirely about one character, but sort of follows them around more than the others. The first episode centers on the local radio news reporter and his coverage of the annual Beeswax Festival, beeswax being Bumble's chief export. The scenes themselves aren't written yet, because I want them to develop through improv, which means I have to resist the urge to just write the damn thing this instant, which I kind of want to do while I'm inspired. As an added bonus, Murielle's boyfriend David is involved with UCLA Next, which is a nationally broadcast TV station, and he knows some animators, which means that this could conceivably turn into a cartoon once it solidifies a bit more. And it's no secret that Bennett likes cartoons. And the third person. Current Mood: creativeCurrent Music: the rhythmic whistling of our broken toilet |
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