Steven M. Finkelstein

Last night I went to see Les Claypool at the Brooklyn Bowl. I’d never been to the venue before, but essentially it’s a combination night club and bowling alley, with sixteen lanes, a full-service bar, some T.V.’s showing the Mets and Yankee games, and a stage with a dance floor in front of it. For those that were bowling, there were monitors up above the lanes so they could see what was happening when the show started. I liked the setup, and I had a great time. Les Claypool is the bass player for Primus, when they’re touring together, and he’s had a very successful solo career as well. In addition to bass, he also plays several less easily identifiable things, and he’s backed up by two percussion guys and a cello player. His band comes out in tuxes, and animal masks that are really pretty grotesque; they remind me of the masks that the ghosts are wearing in The Shining, during the last third of the movie where Nicholson is going insane. Claypool starts out the show dressed in his traditional silk shirt, vest, and bowler hat, but during the show he’ll periodically leave the stage and come back out wearing a pig or a monkey mask. It’s a concert, but it’s also a bit of a burlesque show and a carnival attraction. All in all, it’s a pretty wild ride, and Les and all of his band are undoubtedly great musicians. This is the third time I’d seen him, I think, the previous two times being the High Sierras Festival in ‘05 and Summer Camp in Illinois in ‘08, and he’s never disappointed. He’s a freaky guy, and he always draws a freaky crowd.

I was coming home on the N train when it all went horribly wrong. I’d transferred to the N at 14th Street/Union Square, in Manhattan, and since it was past midnight the N was running local, which means several more stops and at least an additional half hour added to the trip. I had my I-Pod with me, though, so I was listening to some tunes to pass the time. I’d managed to snag one of the handicap accessible seats; they’re two seaters, four of them in each car total, and they’re the best seats to get, since oftentimes you can have the seat to yourself and not be crammed in with a bunch of other passengers. I had my feet up on the seat next to me and was sort of huddled against the wall, dozing, when, at 36th Street, about fifteen minutes from home, I was rudely awakened. I was yanked off the train by a police officer, who demanded my driver’s license, checked to see if I had any warrants out for me, then proceeded to write me a fifty dollar ticket. The charge? “Taking up two seats on the train.” Because I had my feet up on the seat, I was issued a citation.

Now, granted, the officer was perfectly in his legal right. You’re not supposed to have your feet up on the seat. But couldn’t he have let me off with a warning? There were actually a total of four cops there on the platform, and they were doing sweeps of each train as it went by. They were looking for other people who had their feet up on the seats, just like me, and man, the bounty was good. There were people on each and every train with their feet up on the seats…because you know what? That’s just what people do late at night. It’s not like the train was crowded. There were plenty of seats available, if someone had gotten on and wanted to sit down. I was committing a victimless crime, and I’m sure these officers were aware of that. What they were doing, in my opinion, amounted to a flagrant misuse of manpower…especially in light of the fact that more serious subway crimes, like murder, for instance, are up significantly since last year. Just as a suggestion, why could these officers not have been assigned to the areas of the subway where violent crime is up, not busting people because their feet are up on the seat? It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.

Worst yet was the fact of how much the officer was clearly enjoying my anger that this was happening. He was fairly grinning the whole time, knowing that he’d caught me red-handed and that he could hit me with the fine or let me go as he so chose. I was entirely at his mercy. And there’s no two ways about it, having that power over others is why the majority of people become cops. They want the rush; they want to be able to swagger around in uniform and count themselves as being above the average citizen. Much as I wanted to mouth off at the guy, I also didn’t want to spend a night in jail. So I was the bigger man; I kept my trap shut, took the ticket, and waited for the next train to come. I sent the check off today. I could have disputed the charge, but what was the point? I’d rather not take the time. It’s easier to pay the fifty dollars and move on, but man, what a lousy end to what had otherwise been a really nice evening. It’s not like I’m using money for toilet paper at this point in my life; this came at a really inopportune time. The only consolation I take is that the M.T.A. is trying to close a huge budgetary gap, and they’re slashing jobs, train lines, and student discount cards left and right. I know I did my part now. I contributed fifty of my hard-earned dollars to the problem. But make no mistake, I hate cops. I’ve never had a good encounter with the police. I see right through them. The only ones they’re ever out to serve and protect are themselves, and last night was just another example of that. Police, know this. You’re going to be on my shit-list, always and forever, every motherless rat-fuck one of you, and I wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire…or if you paid me fifty dollars to do it.

Okay, so the oil rig explosion and subsequent spill in the Gulf this past April has been referred to as possibly the single most ecologically damaging event in U.S. history, and that’s probably justified. The impact to multiple ecosystems can’t be underestimated, and it’s only getting worse, what with plans A,B,C, and D not having worked so far…and B.P. now admitting that they might not be able to get a plug on this thing until August. The ramifications of this aren’t certain yet, but one thing’s for sure, it’s not going to be pretty. All forms of life that this cataclysmic cock-up touches…aquatic, land-based, animal and man…we’re all in for a rough go of it. And, as citizens of this country, we deserve to know how this happened, and somebody needs to be held accountable. Is B.P. to blame? There is some talk of cutting corners as it relates to safety, but this has yet to be established conclusively. But you know who’s not to blame? President Obama.

Obama didn’t cut corners; he didn’t scrimp on safety. There are those who said he didn’t act fast enough when news first hit of the disaster. Well, that’s probably because B.P. tried to downplay the significance of the crisis. They said it was only a matter of time before the leak was contained, and they also said that significantly less oil was being released than was actually the case. Obama had other things on his mind…like, oh, I don’t know, ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a controversial new policy regarding illegal aliens in Arizona, and Iran trying to establish nuclear capability, to name a few. It was only when B.P. failed repeatedly to stop the leak that it was revealed how bad the situation actually was, and then he responded accordingly, as he has throughout this entire crisis. But there are many that feel that he should have done more, reacted differently. To them I say, what exactly did you want the man to do? Swim a mile down and plug his body into the pipe, thereby stopping the leak? The only reason Obama is being blamed for this is because he happens to be in power right now. He wants to stop the leak, believe me. It’s just that nothing like this, nothing on this scale, has ever really happened before in human history. That’s why B.P. and every scientist in their employ…and everybody else, for that matter…has been trying to come up with a solution. Hell, Kevin Costner volunteered a suggestion, (though, to be fair, there are few more qualified to speak out about water-related disasters). What bothers me about all this is that people seem to be saying that Obama is just sitting there with his thumb up his ass while all this is going on. I know that everyone is frustrated and angry, but to blame Obama for these technological failures just isn’t fair, or logical. There are those who are even comparing this administration’s actions to Bush’s during Hurricane Katrina, and that’s flat-out absurd. There were about a million things that Bush could have done that he chose not to…not for many weeks, anyway. In Obama’s case, there just isn’t really anything else that he, personally, can do. That’s the difference.

There are those that no longer approve of the job that Obama is doing, at least according to the latest polls. I, for, one, don’t trust those polls too much anyway, but assuming that his popularity and approval rating is dipping, if it really is just because of this, that’s just sad. If you’re going to disapprove of what the guy’s doing, that’s one thing. But if it’s his perceived inaction that bothering you in this particular case, you need to realize that, unfortunately, there’s limits to what the man is capable of. He’s not a scientist. He’s not an engineer, or an oceanographic expert. He’s not Superman. Blaming the guy in charge when something bad happens that he is in no way responsible for is irrational, and I just hope that everyone involved can disassociate themselves from their anger long enough to acknowledge that.

It seems like, when I was a kid, there were a lot of things that I would hear people talk about that sounded particularly “adult” to me…and whenever I heard about them, I didn’t understand exactly what was meant, or how these concepts worked. I didn’t let it bother me. I just figured that when I was old enough I would learn about them and come to understand them. That’s certainly what happened with a lot of things. As you get older you begin to either learn about whatever difficult concept it might happen to be through association, or else you find someone who’s an expert who’s willing to explain it to you. But it seems like, regardless of how old I get, there are certain things that I still just don’t understand, and in some cases, don’t want to. Take the stock market, for instance. For the life of me, I still don’t get exactly how it works, and from what I’ve gathered through my own observations, it seems so absurdly idiotic and the way it fluctuates seems so arbitrary that I would never want to. What, exactly, are stocks, anyway? Well, from what I understand, they’re shares in a company. But they don’t actually “exist,” per say. You can’t hold a stock in your hand. It’s little more or less than an idea…an idea of how much controlling interest you have in a company. But how is it that the value of stocks go up and down? It seems to be in accordance to how much faith people have or don’t have in the company, but here’s where it seems to get so arbitrary to me. You can look in the paper and read about how, since Obama made a speech saying that he was going to impose stricter Wall Street regulations, how the Dow dropped fifty points, and the Index dropped this many…leaving it at some number rather than some other larger number…and oh, what dire ramifications it’s going to have on the country! How the foreign markets crashed because of little faith in the Euro, and how thousands of people are going to become poverty stricken because of it…does anyone else not know what the fuck it all means? Well, I don’t, and I’m not afraid to admit it. I don’t care if it exposes my ignorance, I think there are a lot more people out there than you might think that are in the same boat as me, they’d just prefer that it not be exposed. How is it that stock brokers make millions upon millions of dollars, and are able to afford sports cars, and boats, and luxury condos, when what they seem to be trading in is, well, nothing? They’re trading in ideas, ideas whose value can be determined by people who are continually sticking a finger up in the air to test which way the wind is blowing, and if they think there’s a storm coming, there’s a flurry of activity and millions of more dollars are made…or lost. Stockbrokers seem to me like Chicken Little and his followers. One of them says “Holy Jesus! I just got a reliable tip that the sky is falling!” And one and all they take up the cry “Sell off all our stock! Sell, sell, sell! So-and-so has a reliable tip that the sky is falling!” And then if nothing happens (as is so often the case), the next few days you’ll hear about how the markets are making a gradual recovery, modest gains, until the next crisis, when it all happens again…does anyone else think all of this sounds like complete and utter nonsense? But like I said, these people are making scads of money, so maybe I’m the jackass for not trying to get in with them…if I could ever be made to understand just what exactly it is they’re doing anyway.

Of course, there are some things I don’t know about that have a much more direct impact on me. I still know next to nothing about how computers work, for instance, and, as a writer, not to mention someone living in the modern era who wants to be able to sort of keep up with technology, thereby using email and watching shows online and whatever else it might happen to be, it behooves me to know at least slightly about how they operate. But I hate technology; I’ve always resisted it, and I think I have pretty good reason to. My computer is always crashing because of some worm or virus that I let into it, God only knows how (and its not from watching porn, if that’s what you’re thinking). I might ask someone for advice on how to fix a computer problem I’m having, and I’ll say something like “the thingy at the bottom of the screen won’t light up, and my documents keep disappearing, and it’s making a hissing noise like there’s a nest of vipers curled up inside it!” And then they’ll say, “well, it’s probably because you only have a 2000 volt hard drive, and your CPU motherboard needs more Ram.” And I’ll be at a loss to explain any more clearly what the problem is, and I’ll be equally mystified by what they told me, and I’ll end up just having to pay whatever they ask of me to fix the damn thing.

The bottom line is, some of the things I don’t know don’t bother me, and some of them do. If I never figure out the stock market it’s probably not the end of the world. I’m still not convinced that everybody who has direct dealings with it understands what it is they’re doing either. As far as the other things go, things that I don’t really understand and must continue to ask others about and try my hardest to comprehend their answers, and I usually fail- computers, car maintenance, generally anything to do with banking, etc- I have to just kind of stumble through my life and get by with the limited knowledge that I have. I feel like I was kind of gypped sometimes, like when I got to a certain age the “adult” knowledge that I was supposed to receive was denied me for some reason. But I flatter myself by thinking that just maybe, there are others in a similar situation to myself, and they don’t understand some of these concepts any better than I do, and they’re just nodding their heads and saying “uh-huh” at the appropriate moments…just like I am. I really hope that’s the case. Because if it isn’t, then maybe I’m the only stupid one, and that would be a really disheartening thing to have to accept.

In the age of big-budget Marvel movie releases, the pressure is always on to produce a hit. Some of them have been rousing successes, spawning yet bigger sequels that are then in turn expected to make even more money to justify their over-inflated budgets. Spiderman worked, and the second was better than the first, and then by the third installment they had suffered franchise exhaustion and it was God-awful, forcing the miscast Topher Grace into retirement for three years. The first two X-Men were great, and then they brought on Brett Ratner for the third one and it sucked my ass. Then you’ve got stand alone episodes from the Marvel Knights series that were doomed from the start: Ghost Rider, Daredevil, and both modern Punishers, and Hulks. The formula has been pretty predictable. The first one is good, the second one is better, and the third, which has the highest expectations, is the worst of the three; either that, or the first one is so bad that it doesn’t warrant a second. Where does Iron Man fit in? John Favreau seemed like an odd choice to direct, but the first Iron Man was really a breath of fresh air, due largely to the pithy performance of Robert Downey Jr., a perfect choice to play the wealthy, devil-may-care Tony Stark, and also Oscar winner Jeff Bridges as his nemesis. But with the first one being so unexpectedly excellent, how would the second match up, especially with the knowledge that a third (and possibly fourth) must inevitably follow?

Well, it’s good, but not great. This time around, the plot is a bit more convoluted, as Marvel tried to fit in as many tie-ins as possible. We get more of Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, as the “Avenger’s initiative” picks up steam. We get more of the witty-banter-that-eventually-results-in-breathless-kisses between Stark and Pepper Potts. And then we get Stark’s daddy issues…a new villain in the form of Mickey Rourke as Whiplash…yet another generic would be despot in Sam Rockwell…the inclusion of Scarlet Johansen as Black Widow for nothing more or less than sexy window dressing…the emergence of War Machine…it’s all a lot to keep track of, especially crammed into two hours. It feels like a pizza with too many toppings slathered on it. Sooner or later it’s going to get weighed down by all that extra stuff, and lose it’s integrity. While I’m not saying that happened here, what I will say is that perhaps two of the “extra” story lines…the ones that didn’t really feel integral to the plot…could have been done away with, and I think the result would have been much crisper and cleaner. Personally, I would have nixed the Stark with Daddy issues storyline, and also the Pepper Potts romance angle, or at least pared it way down. It’s extraneous, and the “witty” banter between Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow felt really flat. The fact that they kept on saying their lines on top of each other so it was difficult to understand what they were saying didn’t help matters either.

There’s more good than bad here. The “franchise exhaustion” that doomed SpiderMan and X-Men isn’t in evidence yet, but I feel like it’s lurking, not too far from the surface. If there was any leading actor in Hollywood these days that I would have pinned a franchise tag on, it’s Robert Downey Jr. As a guy who’s come back from the brink in his personal life, plagued by very public drug struggles, there’s a kind of eerie sincerity to all his performances these days. He lends a much-needed vulnerability to Tony Stark, and I buy him as a reluctant superhero much more than Toby Mcguire, Nick Cage, Ed Norton, etc…and backup from Don Cheadle and another resurrected youth actor, Mickey Rourke, doesn’t hurt either. This episode (and it is difficult not to view it as an episode, rather than a stand alone film) feels a little cluttered at times, but the action sequences, when they come, are worth the price of admission, particularly the first run-in with Whiplash at the Grand Prix. The first Iron Man was better, but there’s enough energy to power this one too. We’ll see if the magic has died out by 2013 or so when the third one comes out, but in the meantime, I know that Avengers is in the process of casting, so we should have that to tide us over in the meantime…it’s sure to be bigger, longer, louder, and stuffed with five or six times as many heroes, villains, and explosions, in the mighty Marvel way. My rating: 6/10.

And no, I’m not talking about marijuana. Today’s topic…is prostitution. The past week, New York papers were abuzz about L.T. (that’s Lawrence Taylor, not New York Jet Ladanian Tomlinson), supposedly raping a sixteen-year-old prostitute. Now, whether it was actually rape or not has yet to be established, but if sex between L.T. and this girl took place, it would automatically be statutory rape, since she’s a minor. All the facts of this case have yet to be revealed, but it seems like this girl, who was a runaway, was found on the streets by a man who gave her a place to stay, then pimped her out…it’s the same old story. She was delivered to L.T.’s hotel room, and what happened next was anybody’s guess, although I’ve got a fairly good idea.

What happened to this girl was awful, and L.T.’s conduct was irresponsible and reprehensible, though not really surprising. After all, the two-time Superbowl winner and hall of famer has had drug problems going back the past couple of decades. When L.T. isn’t in the news, you know he’s doing okay. If you’re hearing about him, he’s as likely to be tarnishing his reputation some more as Dancing With The Stars. But I don’t want to talk about L.T. I want to talk about this young girl, and so many others like her, who get into these situations because people who want to have sex for money aren’t able to do it legally in this country.

What kind of sense does that make? Prostitution has been referred to as the world’s oldest profession, and with good reason. It’s been around since the dawn of time, and it will never, ever go away. Why should it, when people continue to want sex, and others continue to want money? The point is, prostitution doesn’t hurt anyone, provided it’s consensual. The only reason it’s illegal in this country is because we’re still a bunch of prudes. We allow kids to see excessive violence on television, but not a pair of exposed breasts. What kind of a message does that send? The human body is somehow “taboo” or “bad” and must be covered up, but blowing someone’s brains out is perfectly acceptable? In Europe or Asia, racy ads in papers or on T.V. are fine. Kids are taught that there’s nothing wrong with seeing some skin…as indeed there isn’t. And how about in extremist Muslim society, where women must cover their entire bodies, with only their eyes peeping out? Does anyone think that maybe it’s this kind of psychotic repression that’s leading to suicide bombings?! I mean, without seeing a naked woman every once in a while, I’d probably want to kill myself too!

But to get back to prostitution, trying to “wage war” or “crack down” on something that the general public wants is always doomed to fail, just like the “war on drugs.” People like drugs and want them, just like people like sex and want it. The difference is, some drugs are harmful and dangerous to the point that they should be illegal. But if a grown man (or woman) wants sex but not a relationship or the necessity of going through small talk, then who in their right mind would deny them, if a sex worker is only too willing to supply the service…for money? These are both consenting adults, and there’s simply no good reason that their transaction should be illegal. Making it so causes these situations like what happened with L.T. He’s a troubled man, yes, and misguided. But if he’d been horny one night, and said, well, instead of running the risk of bedding some indigent, underage runaway tonight, I can call any one of the thousands of qualified sex workers  that would be only too happy to fulfill my whims…for money, in a neat, clean business transaction. And think of all the cops that run around, undercover or otherwise, trying to catch hookers; they’d finally be free to solve some real crimes.

There’s a lot that America, great nation that is is, got right. This is something they got wrong, and there’s no logical reason for it. Sometimes to make society better, it is necessary to step back from it and take a long, hard, objective look at what’s working…and what clearly isn’t. This really seems like a no-brainer to me. Let’s take a page from the book of a lot of other sensible nations around the globe, who know that there are always going to be people in need, and others willing to service them. Let’s stop being prudes, and give people like L.T. options, if only so girls like his unfortunate victim stand less chance of  becoming a statistic next time around.

Well, it’s that time again for Hollywood to unload all of its big-budget summer popcorn gobblers on the overfed, overstimulated American public. Let’s take a peek at some of the fare that will be on the menu over the next few months, and I’ll tell you which ones I’ll be attending, which ones I’m still undecided on, and which ones I wouldn’t lower myself to seeing if you paid me.

May 7: Iron Man 2- I’ll be there. The first Iron Man movie was one of the better opening chapters of a Marvel franchise in recent memory, better than the first Spider Man, and certainly better than Punisher, Ghost Rider, Daredevil…basically all of the Marvel Knights. Mickey Rourke has really resurrected his career with The Wrestler, and it’s great to see him land such a high profile role. Robert Downey Jr. has also fought back from drug problems and seems to have a good thing going as Tony Stark. I just still have some vague misgivings that he’ll relapse and spend the gazillion dollars they’re paying him on an aircraft carrier loaded with coke. We’ll see. John Favreau didn’t seem like the most obvious choice to direct the first I.M. but he did a great job…there’s no reason to think he won’t with this one too. This movie has had an absurd amount of advertising dollars thrown at it, but I have no doubt it’ll make it all back and then some. Look for this to top $500 million domestic, easily.

May 14th: Robin Hood- Ridley Scott plus Russel Crowe is usually a good combination. Gladiator was just a great all around action/adventure epic. But Russel Crowe is getting up there in years, and the addition of Kate Blanchett, Academy Award winner though she is, doesn’t do much to sweeten the deal for me. What I keep coming back to is that the previews remind me a lot of ‘King Arthur” from a few years ago, that went a long way toward launching Clive Owen’s career, but overall wasn’t that great. I’ll wait for the reviews.

May 21: Macgruber- even though this movie does feature some of my favorite WWE wrestlers, no. Not a chance in hell.

May 28th: Prince of Persia- this feels miscast. Jake Gyllenhaal has shown me something from time to time, but I don’t think I buy him as an action hero. Also, Ben Kingsley, oh, I’m sorry, sir Ben Kingsley, what the hell are you doing?! Will you just take anything these days? I’m not going to completely write this one off till I see the reviews, but I’m leaning strongly toward no.

May 28: Survival of the Dead- is it time for George Romero, the master of horror, to hang it up? Maybe. I saw Land of the Dead and pronounced it watchable. I mean, who doesn’t want to see John Leguizamo as a zombie? I missed Diary of the Dead, which didn’t get very good reviews, and I’m on the fence with this one. Romero can pretty much be credited with the creation of the zombie genre, one of my horror favorites. The original trilogy still stand out as some of the best horror movies I’ve ever seen. But he still seems to going more or less by the old formula, while the genre has moved on. His movies are kind of like the old car that you keep driving for sentimental reasons, despite the fact that it desperately needs a new transmission. I’ll wait for the reviews.

June 11: The A Team- jury’s still out. I never saw the show, but I do like the cast here. Sharlto Copley really showed me something in last year’s sleeper hit District 9. Liam Neeson is always a plus, and Bradly Cooper is an up-and-comer; I liked his performance in The Hangover. I’ll wait for the reviews, but I get the feeling I’ll probably be checking it out.

June 30: The Twilight Saga: Eclipse- what am I, a twelve year old girl? Fuck no.

July 2: The Last Airbender- I’m not sure that giving M. Night. Shyamalan a huge budget and creative control was the best way to fix whatever the hell is wrong with him. I just can’t wait for the twist ending, when it’s revealed that the Airbender is a ghost/alien/Lady in the Water. Never was that one coming, did you! Skip it.

July 9: Predators- sigh. I loved the first two Predator movies, and it’s just gone to hell since then. Alien vs Predator was…not exactly unwatchable, but definitely disappointing. The one after that was a step in the wrong direction, but I still got excited when I heard there was a new one in the works. Then I heard the name Topher Grace, and I died a little inside. They should have called this new one Eric from That 70’s Show vs Predator. Topher Grace ruined Spider Man 3, being poorly cast as Venom, and this isn’t going to go any better. I guarantee it. Adrian Brody isn’t really going to help, in my opinion. I’ve seen the preview, and him talking in a growly voice and trying to be a bad-ass is just funny. He showed his action chops in King Kong, and I wasn’t impressed. I’ll wait for the reviews on this one, but sometimes you just know going in when a movie is going to blow chunks, and this one has all the makings of it.

July 16: The Sorcerer’s Apprentice- the Sorcerer’s Hair Plugs. If I want to see Nick Cage chewing the scenery, I’ll watch Gone in 60 Seconds on TBS. Skip it.

July 23: Salt- I don’t see movies where Angelina Jolie is the headliner. Maybe if she came out with a porno. Five years ago, before all the kids.

August 13: The Expendables- wow.  Sly Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Mickey Rourke, and even an appearance by Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger?! This sounds like the blood splattered orgiastic kill frenzy action flick that I had wet dreams about…seventeen years ago, when all these guys were in their prime. Where the hell did this come from? I thought they were kidding three years ago when I heard that new Rocky and Rambo movies were coming out, but this is just getting ridiculous. This line up in 2010 sounds more like a Viagra commercial. I was and will always be a fan of most of these guys, but this is just embarrassing. This was ill-conceived from the start, and no, I will not be there to see these guys limp around the screen. I get the feeling no one else will either.

I have to say, it really seems like I’m skipping the majority of the “blockbusters” on tap for the next few months. There just isn’t anything I’m incredibly excited for…not until The Hobbit hits theaters, and that’s probably not till 2012. Hollywood just doesn’t have a lot of goodness for me at the moment. I’m sure there will be a couple of sleeper hits, though, there always are. That’s it for now, folks. To steal someone else’s catch phrase,  see you at the movies.

The idea with Kick Ass, as I understood it going in, was that it was based on a comic where the premise was something to the effect of “what would happen if a kid without any super powers tried being a superhero?” The protagonist, a nerdy high school type and comic book aficionado, orders a scuba suit and a couple of batons, and takes to the streets to fight crime. So far so good. In his first encounter with a couple of toughs, he is stabbed, then, bleeding profusely, wanders into an intersection where he is hit by a car that looks to be doing about fifty. Here’s where all the realism ends, and also where the movie loses just about all of its credibility for me. The kid recovers fully; in real life, if we are in fact going for “real life” as a premise for this comic and movie, he simply would have died. Instead, he’s basically fine. In fact, he thinks it’s a good idea to go back for more, and the next time he manages to fight off four muggers by himself, despite the fact that he’s supposedly never had any martial arts or combat training of any kind. A passerby takes camera footage, posts it online, and bingo, Kick Ass is born.

This is a movie that thinks it’s real, real clever. It’s passing itself off as kind of a “going against type” super-hero flick, but aside from the fact that the premise, after the first ten minutes or so, doesn’t hold water, a typical super-hero flick is exactly what it turns into. Kick Ass is recruited by a pair of real superheroes, ex-cop Big Daddy (Nicholas Cage) who looks like a cut-rate Batman, and Hit Girl, his foul-mouthed daughter who has no compunctions about shooting, stabbing and otherwise putting the hurt on thugs, all while swearing like a sailor. They’re waging a vendetta against the criminal syndicate responsible for the death of their wife and mother, respectively. Why do they sign up Kick Ass, seeing as he has no superpowers or abilities? Beats me. A bit later another wannabee hero is thrown into the mix, Red Mist (Christopher Mintz-Plasey), who turns out to be the son of the mob boss upon whom Big Daddy and Hit Girl have sworn revenge.

My biggest problem with this movie I already mentioned; it’s the fact that it’s supposed to be banking on “realism;” the superheroes don’t have powers, and they fight crime with weapons and wits. But if this were really true to life, Kick Ass would have simply died after being stabbed and run over in the first few minutes. Then it’s supposed to be an anti-superhero movie, an alternative to the X-Men and Spidermen of the world…but then that’s exactly what it turns into when Big Daddy and Hit Girl show up. It becomes exactly what it’s trying to play off of. I don’t know if the comic book was the same, since I’ve never read it, but in any case…maybe I wouldn’t have had as much of a problem with these issues, were it not for the way the whole concept was being presented. I suppose I could just dismiss all of my earlier gripes, and enjoy this on a very much surface level, but I don’t think that approach would do much good either. Aside from everything I just mentioned, the movie is incredibly derivative. We get, just off the top of my head, a line from Scarface, one from Batman, the mangling of a line from Spiderman, and the theme from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Oh, and three, count ‘em, three Pepsi product placements. Ugh. Over it all, we get narration from Kick Ass that gets tedious after about fifteen minutes. The action sequences are nothing that I haven’t see in, well, several other superhero movies. The only “novelty” is that some of the ass kicking is being done by Hit Girl, a twelve year old shooting up baddies while calling them cunts…is this supposed to be shocking? I’m sorry, but I’ve long since been desensitized to profanity and violence.

Bottom line, all of this has been done before. If they hadn’t tried so hard to make this so tongue-in-cheek, I think I would have had a much easier time swallowing it. As it is, this movie is mired in the very mediocrity of the average, ho-hum super-hero genre that it’s trying so hard to parody. It’s not awful, but you’d be a lot better off renting one of the “real super-hero” flicks Kick Ass ends up being in the end, despite its best efforts. My rating: 5/10

Lately, there have been some articles in the newspapers about nuclear disarmament, and how, gradually, the U.S., along with other countries that have nuclear capability, are going to be scrapping their weapons and getting rid of their weapons grade uranium. At the same time, Iran, and its psycho president, Ahmadinejad, have continually ignored the demands of President Obama and Hillary Clinton that they stop enriching uranium. It’s a disturbing situation, when you think about a nut-bar like Ahmadinejad having nukes, despite the fact that he keeps insisting that’s not what the uranium is for; he’s obviously lying, and anyone who thinks differently is a fool. Here’s the thing, though. Obama and company can keep on threatening sanctions and embargoes, but at the end of the day, it’s got to come down to two choices, words or actions. Words haven’t worked, and the only action that is really going to get Ahmadinejad’s attention is to invade Iran. Obama won’t do it. Not unless he really has no other choice, and things are nowhere near that point yet. With the big O’s popularity in the tank right now because of Obama Care, he’s going to try and avoid just about anything that’s going to piss off the general public any more than they already are.

But America is a country that likes to have its cake and eat it too. Yes, it’s dangerous for Iran to have nukes. There are plenty of militant crazies over there, and we wouldn’t want them to have that sort of power. But are we really going to kid ourselves and say that there are fewer militant crazies right here in America? We’re a country of “let might make right,” to some extent. We’ll do anything we can, short of invading Iran, to keep them from getting nukes. But are we willing to give up all of our own? We say that we’re “scaling back” our stockpiles. But will we disarm every warhead, even if every other country in the world, not just Iran, has agreed to do likewise? Don’t count on it. America thinks that we know better than everybody. Because of that, any leader this country has- black,white, male, female, Republican, Democrat- will want to hang onto that ultimate power. Our excuse would be, “well, it’s because there might still be some country out there that has nuclear capability that we don’t know about. We still need to hang onto a few warheads to protect ourselves, in case we’re attacked!” Hillary Clinton was asked, just a few days ago, if we would respond with a nuclear strike if an enemy used a chemical or biological agent here in the U.S. She was noncommittal, but basically she was saying we wouldn’t rule anything out. She knows good and well, just like the President does, just like any citizen with any common sense does, that if we had proof that some country…like Iran, just as a for instance…was directly responsible, we’d launch nukes at them in a hot second and blast them back to the stone age. That’s just the simple truth.

We talk about disarming, but I don’t believe we’ll ever do it ourselves, not totally. There is that paradoxical saying “if you want peace, you must prepare for war.” And with nuclear weapons being the “final solution” available at this stage of history, we would never, ever give up that power. Not completely. We’ll keep on talking about Iran, and we’ll keep threatening them. But even though Ahmadinejad is a power-mad dictator and a religious fanatic, I still have a lot of respect for the guy. He’s basically telling Clinton and Obama to go fuck themselves, and can we really blame him? We’ve got the best toys in the sandbox, and he wants some for himself. Are we really that high and mighty, that full of ourselves and sure of our own superior knowledge and wisdom, that we can say “we can have nukes, but no one else can?” We’re hypocrites, and that’s something that I hope isn’t lost on Hillary and Barack. I mean, does it make you feel any more comfortable knowing that the U.S. has these weapons? We’d never use them on another country without irrefutable proof of their wrongdoing, would we? Right. Just like we didn’t invade a country that our commander-in-chief told us was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction.

Wow. Holy God in heaven did this ever suck. Granted, I saw this atrocity on bootleg DVD rather than on the big screen, but you could have had a screen a mile wide and it couldn’t have saved a film with virtually no redeeming features. If you’ve seen the 1981 version of Clash you should have a general idea of what’s going on, but if you haven’t, fear not. The plot, such as there is of it, can be strung together in a few minutes of dialogue that alternates between campy and idiotic, and never comes close to achieving the level of epic it strives for. Perseus (Sam Worthington, also seen in Avatar and Terminator: Salvation) is thrown into the middle of a war between the Gods, featuring Liam Neeson as Zeus and Ralph Fiennes as Hades, and men, featuring a bunch of interchangeable idiots with spears and shields. If you’re looking for mythological accuracy, forget it. It’s sort of like all of the better Greek myths were thrown together into a Boggle cube and shaken up, then tossed out across an hour and forty minutes of screen time with the hope that something compelling would come of it. And a vain hope it is, because even the three or four major battle scenes, which, lets face it, are the only reason you’d go to see something like this, were better done in Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean, or even Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. There’s so much that bothered me here I’d be up all night if I listed everything, so, in no particular order, here’s what boiled my brain inside my skull the most: Perseus starts out as a fisherman, unaware that Zeus is really his father, and then, after literally a one minute lesson in the use of a sword, masters the weapon to the point that he’s twirling it around like he’s been a soldier all his life. Fiennes and Neeson are appearing in their second movie together. The first? Schindler’s List. Why did these guys agree to sign on for this project? Was it the money? Whatever it might have been, I’d be ashamed to show my face around Hollywood ever again after being associated with this train wreck. Zeus decides at the end of the film to release the Kraken, the sea monster from Norse mythology that last appeared in the Pirates trilogy. Did they just decide to completely ignore the fact that the creature never had anything remotely to do with Greek legend, or did they just see it in Pirates and think, hey, you know what? That looks pretty cool, steal it!

Bottom line? This was a catastrophe of epic proportions. Sam Worthington I thought did a serviceable job in Terminator: Salvation. I thought he didn’t do anything wrong in Avatar, just didn’t add anything significant. Here, it’s just laughable when he delivers his lines with a scowl, trying to add some intensity to a film that was destined from the first five minutes to be on Mystery Science Theater 3000. This really wasn’t the next best step as he tries to firm up his standing as one of the new Hollywood action go-to guys. The action sequences and creatures are similar to what we’ve seen in multiple other films over the past few years, but so much better elsewhere. And the dialogue is so bad that, set against the heroic battle music in the background, I really have to search my memory for another film as unintentionally funny. Sometimes you just get a flick that’s doomed from the very beginning, and this was one of them. A movie this bad could have easily spelled the end of  Greek civilization, or any other. My rating: 2/10.

Well, we do winter right, here on the East Coast. We had three major blizzards over the past four months, and also one of the rainiest months of March on record for NYC. But it’s over, for now, and when I went outside today it really seemed like it had skipped spring and gone straight on into summer. It was about eighty degrees, the sun was bright enough to hurt my eyes, and there were the tinkling bells from an ice-cream truck rumbling down the street. And, like I usually do at these times, my mind started drifting away from the cities and out into the woods…looking to camp, role on the grass, get filthy, listen to some music, and drink till I pass out. Then get up and do it again. It’s coming up on festival season, and besides that, there’s about a million and one things right here in the city to do in the next five months or so. We’re getting to the best time of the year, that includes Memorial Day weekend, July 4th, and my birthday, the spring-summer months with their days that stretch off into eternity, where the cold gusts of the winter wind are a distant memory.

Of course, when you work 43 hours, five days a week, 53-55 hours if you count the commute, it’s a little hard to enjoy such things. If you’re getting up at six in the morning, then the brilliant days happening outside, and all of the things that you could be doing, are just a cruel tease, especially when you’re working a job that you find so unfulfilling. I’ve been thinking recently about quitting. It’s not just because the weather is getting nice and I want to go goof off and go camping and to festivals and ball games and concerts either, though I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t a part of it. I need more time to work on my writing; I’m banging away on the fourth novel, as I’ve mentioned here on the site before, and it’s damn hard to work up any momentum when I can only steal a few minutes for it here and there. It’s frustrating, and I know that at some point, it’s going to become necessary to get a longer stretch of days that I can devote to the new project, not to mention working on new short stories, sending stuff out to lit mags to try and rack up more publishing credits, looking for an agent again, reformatting the screenplay…the list goes on and on. But it probably wouldn’t be in my best interest to quit this job now, the one that, let’s face it, boring as it may be, isn’t the worst one that I’ve had in my life. In addition to the steady paycheck, there’s the issue of health and dental coverage, which is, of course, so crucial at any age. I’d be a fool to give it up…and yet, at some point, I need more time to work on the writing, and on promotion. That’s just reality. I’m not going to be a security guard forever.

Questions abound. I will quit…I think it’s a matter of when, not if…but I need to do it at the right time, for the right reasons. When it happens, I need to do it with the understanding that it’s not so I can grow my hair out, have Jack Daniels for breakfast, and find some event in the city- ballgame, parade, concert, whatever- to keep myself occupied. When it happens, I need to be disciplined, and I’ll need to use my time wisely. It’s time that I’ll be quite literally paying for. I’m an adult now, like it or not. I demonstrate it to myself in a variety of ways every day, some of them quite unexpected. Not long before my twenty-ninth birthday, I find myself more mature and more mindful of the future than people I know who are several years older than me. That’s not me bragging, it’s just how it is. I’m not the same person that I was ten years ago, or five, or even two. My priorities have changed; what hasn’t is my determination. But all of that being said, my id, the component of the psyche that wants to eat, fuck, fight, and get stoned, is just as healthy as it ever was, even if my body is a little more beat up every year. The id wakes up and stretches as the winter snows melt away, and it’s ready to be reckless and wild again. I just need to find a happy medium between pleasure and responsibility.

There are people I’ve seen that are slaves to their id. They do what they want, when they want, and in some ways, I admire them for it. But there’s something inherently selfish about these people; in most cases, since they indulge themselves, it’s themselves that they most care about. I used to be like that, but I’m not anymore. Then there are the people that I see on Park Avenue when I go in to work. They’re dressed to impress, with five hundred dollar ties and hundred dollar hair cuts. You put them out in the woods in flip-flops and a pair of shorts and they wouldn’t know what to do with themselves.  I’m not, nor have I ever been that way, and I’m so very glad of that. I don’t think a point will ever come that I’ll find myself completely at one extreme or the other. I’ll just walk the line between pleasure and duty, and I would advise others to try and do the same. With the days warmer and so many things in the mystical, magical city of New York to take advantage of, why not indulge every once in a while? And then, when you’re done indulging, go back in to work. I might be there…or then again, I might not. It all depends on whether the id has won out that day.