RevSpork

Spoiler traps everywhere!

I can't get away from them!  Everywhere I go, all over the internet, I trip over a "Harry Potter Spoilers Alert" note, and I have to run away to another part of the info superhighway.  But the spoilers are there, too.   They're EVERYWHERE.  I suspect I'll be on, say, cnn.com next week, and something big will be happening, but they won't be able to resist dumping more spoilers.

President Bush shot!  (Warning: Harry Potter spoilers follow)

I refuse to touch any spoilers until I'm at least reading the sixth book.  As I noted earlier, I'm re-reading the entire series because it's been a long time since I last read any of the books.  I'm midway through Goblet of Fire right now, but it's slow going, mostly because I need to devote some time to my job and my chores.  But I feel like 90 percent of the world population has finished the book, and they can't wait to spill the beans. 

So you folks keep chatting about the book.  I'll turn off my computer, the TV, the radio, close the windows, hide in the closet...

The Harry Potter chore

Like a few zillion others, I picked up my copy of the new Harry Potter book during the weekend.  Unlike zillions of HP fans, I read a dozen pages and stopped.  I had no freaking clue what was going on.  It's not that the book is bad, but it had been two years since I had read the fifth book, and four years since I'd read the fourth book.  So I stopped reading about the Half-Blood Prince and decided to start all over again. 

Soon after I put my copy of the sixth book down, I pulled out my copy of the first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone(I buy the British editions) and started reading it.  As is my habit when reading HP, I finished it within a few hours.  By Sunday, I had finished Chamber of Secrets and dove straight into Prisoner of Azkhaban.  As of tonight, I'm 150 pages into Goblet of Fire and expect to finish it in a few days.  I suspect I won't be ready for the new HP book until well into next week, so I've had to hide myself from many blogs for fear of spoilers. 

So if you don't see my blog being updated for a week or so, I have good reasons.  No, I'm not cleaning the apartment or saving the earth or doing anything remotely useful.  I got my nose in a book. 

Spit and run

History has not been kind to Jane Fonda, perhaps justifiably so.  But is it really a honorable act to spit tobacco juice in her face during a book signing and run away? 

Let's get this straight, bubba: You spat into the face of an old woman who has openly and repeatedly apologized for her Vietcong photo shoot during the Vietnam War, and ran away?  Whatever happened to standing your ground, shouting some slogans, daring the police to arrest you?  No, you scooted out of there faster than Tom DeLay at an ethics hearing. 

Cowardice is hardly a "debt of honor."  Stick to bitching about Hanoi Jane in your local bar, bubba.

Pretty quiet week

I'm sure a lot has been going on, but folks aren't busy reporting it.  This is my first post in four days, but many bloggers and lj-ers I read haven't posted much, either.  There's news out there - an earthquake here, a war there - but it *feels* quiet.  It's as if everyone's waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Speaking of the Shiavo case, anyone watch South Park last night?  One gets the feeling that Trey Parker and Matt Stone rushed this one onto the air.  Kenny (as usual) gets killed again, but with a special twist - his presence in heaven is required (thanks to his expertise in a video game called "Heaven vs. Hell") to help defeat Satan, who is planning an invasion of heaven.  However, just before the battle, Kenny is revived.  Unfortunately, he was dead for so long, most of his brain is dead, leaving him in a (you guessed it) persistent vegetative state.  So we have a typical South Park twist: heaven trying to get Kenny's feeding tube removed so he can defeat Satan, hell trying to keep Kenny alive to prevent "Heaven's Keanu Reeves" from the battlefield.  Thanks to Cartman (who wants Kenny dead for his video game), Kenny has his feeding tube removed, dies, and defeats Satan.  Happy endings for all. 

Of course, there is much demented goofiness included: Cartman's "BFF" medalion, the angel Gabriel's addiction to sniffing dry-erase markers, and a Republican politician's speech being whispered to him by a minion of Satan.  It was CNN, Trey and Matt-style.

I should go put the laundry in the dryer now.  Ta-ta.

So...what's your pop song?

I got lucky, I think.  According to the Popstrology web site, my pop song (#1 the day I was born) was:

Smokey Robinson and the Miracles - Tears Of A Clown

Not bad.  It's a good Motown song by a classic R&B group.  Tragically, had I been born just five days later, my "pop sign" would have been the much cooler "My Sweet Lord" by my favorite Beatle, George Harrison.  I shouldn't complain, however: if I were just ten days older, my song would have been (ARRGH) "I Think I Love You" by the Partridge Family.  So I'll keep my mouth shut and accept ol' Smokey as my astrological pop star.

Of course you're asking yourself, "Gee, what's the Girlfriend's pop song?"  Good question, as her birthday is coming up soon.  My Girlfriend's pop song is: [drum roll]

Janis Joplin - Me And Bobby McGee

Hmmmm...I'll call it a coolness tie.

Life and Death of Hunter S. Thompson

"I read the news today, oh boy, about a lucky man who made the grade."  The lyric, of course, had nothing to do with Hunter S. Thompson, who no doubt would sneer at the description.  But that's the first thing that entered my mind when I read that the writer shot himself in the head yesterday.  He was 67 years old.

My second thought was, "Sounds like the logical end to Hunter's life."  Thompson, in death as in life, lived on his own terms and honored or broke them as he pleased.  Why he blew his head off, I have no clue, and whether a motive emerges or not is immaterial.  America has lost its last great rebel and a voice for the disaffected of all nations. 

As logical as the mode of Hunter's death seems to me, I didn't really see it happening.  (Well, duh.  Who does?)  I expected a William S. Burroughs-type demise, an old age spent in the semi-rural Heartland where freaks of all stripes would gather and get chased off by a warning blast from an unseen shotgun.  This, of course, would go on for another twenty years until the spirit decided upon other endeavors and went on its merry way.  Suicide makes an ugly exit, but again, Hunter S. Thompson lived and died by his own rules.  All one can do is honor his memory by reading one of his books and seeing through his eyes for a while.  It is rarely a boring trip.

Let me end with a quote from The Man Himself:

My life has been the polar opposite of safe, but I am proud of it and so is my son, and that is good enough for me.  I would do it all over again without changing the beat, although I have never recommended it to others.  That would be cruel and irresponsible and wrong, I think, and I am none of those things. 

Whoops, that's it, folks.  We are out of time.  Sorry.  Mahalo.

How to tarnish cultural legends

How many more permutations of Bugs Bunny do we need?  The most famous cartoon rabbit in history will soon turn 70 years old, and he's spawned more remakes, spinoffs, and "next generation" - type shows than any other cartoon character, including Mickey Mouse.  He's had at least three female versions, several dimunitive versions, and now this new cartoon will completely merge him, commercially and artistically, with the current round of superhero rehashes. 

My verdict?  The characters look absolutely awful, like angular blobs from outer space.  I honestly can't see this most recent version succeeding more than a year or so, which is just fine with the corpos, who make just enough money off the deal to pat themselves on the back for being so original, then go back to the drawing board and see what other old cartoon characters they can resurrect and mutate.  "How's this: Magilla Gorilla finds this magic banana that turns him into a superhero, spouting silly ironies while battling villians, who are defeated despite Magilla's incompetance with his magic banana, thanks to his sidekicks from the Groovy Ghoolies.  Whaddya think?  It's retro-Hanna-Barbara meets Greatest American Hero meets the Tick and Inspector Gadget!  It'll kill with the thirtysomething set!"

Now, this isn't old fogey talk.  I was a kid in the 70's and early 80's, and there were ripoffs of classic cartoons galore.  They've been rehashing Scooby-Doo since 1973, for crying out loud, and the 1970's versions of Tom & Jerry and Woody Woodpecker were as inferior to the originals as today's attempts at remaking cartoons.  And rehashes can succeed if done right (I thought Tiny Toons was hilarious, and at least some of the redone superhero cartoons are entertaining), but simply remaking a cartoon character and giving it a "modern" look does nothing for the character beyond making teens scratch their heads and adults long for the original characters.  It's the same as remaking old TV shows into horrid movies.  I mean, how many more old television shows are they going to convert to bad cinema?

Hmmmm...Magilla Gorilla the movie...it could work! But would he look good on a Burger King cup?

New Sensation!

I have never wanted a cigarette after any event...until now.

I damned near wet my undies, especially after the eyebrow- wriggling moment.  I'm a sucker for eyebrow- wriggling.  I have no clue when this was made or where, but the fact that it made Eric Zorn's blog at the Chicago Tribune web site indicates this performer has a happy and renumerative future ahead of him.  Now if you'll excuse me, I must now get a web-cam. 

Note: this link might change, so let me know if it does.

My Super Bowl party is ruined!

The girlfriend and I decided to invite a few football-loving friends (and a couple of football-hating friends, to provide balance) to our place for a Super Bowl party this Sunday. I figured those who weren't into the football game would at least enjoy the commercials that have become a Super Bowl staple, or the extremely annoying halftime show which I've made a tradition of skipping because other networks put out better halftime show product.  (Not this year, however; a pay-per-view station is showing a Girls Gone Wild party between halves.  Does anyone watch the Super Bowl for the football game anymore?)  Much to my disgust, however, the Fox network has guaranteed that if you don't like football, don't even bother watching the game, because the commercials promise to be the most boring part of the show.  I may have to set up my own wardrobe malfunction just to keep the guests from falling asleep during the first quarter.

The crack cocaine of the masses

As you noted in my previous post, eating lots of sugar on Christmas Day is not a good idea, especially when you're trapped in your apartment.  And another thing: Don't watch VH1's "I Love the 80's" marathon.  It's just...a bad idea.  Really, really bad idea.  Especially for the Reverend, whose nostalgia for the 80's is something of mystery, being that I HATED THAT FUCKING DECADE.  And most of you did too.  Don't deny it.