EVERYBODY DO THE CRYPTIC CATCH-UP!

1. Yes, that was me wandering around Geno's Cheesesteaks (8th and Passyunk) at dusk in Philly yesterday. I wasn't really wearing "mime" makeup, just a half-white, half-green painted face: (www.philebrity.com). I was flattered by the people who called out my name, and tried to shake my hand, but I really did have to stay in character -- I hope you didn't think I was ignoring any of you. Me and the camera crew needed to shoot what we needed to shoot, and then pack up and scram before the cops showed up. Come to think of it, the cops DID show up, but they were more interested in getting cheesesteaks than hassling us, so I guess we lucked out. But we booked just the same.

That's all I can say about that. It'll all make sense...later(?)

2. I arrive in Providence, R.I. by train Sunday afternoon. I'm trying to make my brief sojourn in Providence as Lovecraft-y as possible. A train arrival, a gloomy hotel, and Monday free to wander the streets.

Here's my conundrum -- part of me wants to visit Swan Point Cemetery, to see H.P.'s grave and brood a spell. The OTHER part of me, the part that's so fundamentally against reliquary and ceremony, wants to walk the modern streets, and meditate on what aspects of a corner Starbucks or a Baby Gap would still welcome visions of the Old Ones. I've still got Wayne June's readings of "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" and "Dagon" on my iPod. Maybe I'll have those grrrrrowling in my ears while I eat a sandwich at a Subway somewhere.

Then again, I've got Harlan Ellison on speed-dial on my cell phone. If I call him, while standing at Lovecraft's grave, could I call forth a shoggoth?

On the other hand, the new sandwich wraps at Subway are soooooo tasty.

Thanks for the moral test, Jesus!

3. Between March 5th and today I spent a total of 20 days in Staten Island, NY.

FOUR separate times, while driving around late at night or, more often as not, when the dawn was breaking, I saw something weird through apartment windows.

Hold on. I just realized something.

I was able to glance through so many apartment windows as I passed because there seemed to be a lot of ground floor apartments. Motel-style apartment buildings with the doors just open to the street.

That might sound kind of dangerous, except for this fact:

Through four of the un-shuttered windows, I was able to see, hanging on walls...samurai swords. Japanese combat weapons, always more than one, arranged on mahogany racks and hung on the walls. Hanging, sharp and ready, in ground floor apartments in Staten Island.

Hummmmmmm-brrrrrrzap!

Shintauro Ishimura, Humble Blade and Righteous Strike of the Peony Court, suddenly appears in a mini-mall parking lot on Hylan Avenue in Staten Island.

"By the gods of blood and honor, I seem to have stepped into some sort of time-spasm, and been catapulted forward centuries, to a strange, frightening world of the future!"

"Holy fuck! A Jap in a dress! You look like that Crouching Dragon asshole I saw in the movie!"

"Citizen, this one would know what city I find myself in."

"This is Staten Island, Mr. Miyagi. And I ain't a citrus. I'm Tony."

"Why does the air smell like breaded pig?"

"''Cuz it's lunchtime."

"Is that your domicile?"

"What, you looking at my window? Yeah, that's my Pussy Palace."

"Am I correct in perceiving a ceremonial trio of combat blades on your wall?"

"Them ninja swords? Yeah, I won 'em at the fair. My cousin worked out this killer system for when you're shooting water in the clown's mouth to blow up the balloon on his head. I also won a beer mug that says, 'If it smells like fish, eat it.'"

"What is the magical, glowing window beside them?"

"That's my plasma screen."

"Are those gods which cavort within it?"

"It's DANCING WITH THE STARS. Those ain't gods, they're fags. And Penn Jillette."

"Citizen, this one fears that sky dragons are fast approaching. Truly, this is a land of dark wonders and glittering dangers. Will you join me in blooding steel with the un-righteous?"

"Uh...heh-heh. I guess that sounds cool. But my girlfriend...my GIRLfriend, right? Who I fuck all the time? She'd be pretty pissed if I just, uh...heh-heh...went off with you. I mean, I've got a GIRLfriend and everything, so I, uh...no. I can't. Okay, I gotta go."

"Citizen, you are unaware of your destiny..."

"I GOTTA GO. Okay? I gotta go. I can't...I'm not saying you're not strong...but...girlfriend. Girlfriend!"

"Take my hand..."

"I CAN'T! LEAVE ME ALONE! I HATE ALL FAGS!"

He runs to his SUV with the Black Crowes decal in the back window. For a moment, his flailing legs cause his cargo shorts to hitch up, revealing the phoenix-shaped birthmark on his left thigh.

But Shintauro is unable to see it. As Tony drives away, Judas Priest blaring on his stereo, a sky dragon materializes behind the time-lost samurai. As the sky-beast flares its flame-glands, Shintauro mutters a prayer to the Winter Sun and draws his blade.

Vincent Faurino, manager of the Male Ego hair salon, watches from his front window, and realizes his recurring dreams were prophecies.

11:16 PM - 47 Comments - 68 Kudos - Add Comment

INDEED I DARE

Kristen Schall and I went to the Shark Fin Inn last night and ate crocodile.  It was goddamn delicious.  We also ordered a plate of chicken and cahsews, as a backup in case the crocodile was inedible.  The chicken was grey and gummy and yucky, and the crocodile tasted like tender orange roughy. 

The Croft Institute was closed.  Boo. 

Australia was fun and friendly.  I had four good shows and one horrible one.   Luckily, the horrible one was taped and is going to be televised in the summer.  I think it’s good for an entire continent to have low expectations about you, for future visits.

The Quantas lounge here in Melbourne is delightful.  Toast, tea and drunks. 

I leave at 11:25 am, but somehow get back to L.A. at 7:30 am., the same day.  Either way, in fifteen hours: Grumpus!

4:34 AM - 75 Comments - 90 Kudos - Add Comment

DO I DARE TO EAT A CROCODILE?

I was wandering the Laneways in Chinatown yesterday, here in Melbourne. I had beef and noodles at a restaurant which features crocodile on their menu.

I think I should do my last show, tomorrow night, with a belly full of prehistoric lizard. I feel like I’ll be helping someone win a scavenger hunt.

3:09 AM - 94 Comments - 81 Kudos - Add Comment

THANK YOU, MELBOURNE

This is going to be a fun weekend.

8:12 AM - 26 Comments - 18 Kudos - Add Comment

MELBOURNE, THURSDAY the 27th, MY MIND SAYS IT’S MIDNIGHT

Whoever slipped the gift-wrapped copy of The Age’s 2008 Melbourne Good Food Guide under my door an hour ago -- thank you!

There’s a French fry stand in Finbar Station called Lord of the Fries. If that’s a take on William Golding’s novel of young kids turning savage and killing each other, and the owners tried to link it to French fried potatoes, then they’ve got a new lunch customer tomorrow.

Also, the hot and sour soup at this hotel is goddamn amazing.

It rained all day so I drank tea and read Luc Sante. Now I’m going to take a nap before my show.

11:23 PM - 33 Comments - 38 Kudos - Add Comment

MELBOURNE, WEDNESDAY the 26th, 5pm

It’s tomorrow if you’re reading this in the states. I am in your near future. Or, as President Nader (spoiler!) would say, "I can’t fucking believe I won."

I’m going to try to stay up ’til midnight tonight, to get myself through this foggy jet lag. I’ve written about forty-five minutes of ROAD WARRIOR jokes, so I should be okay for my first show tomorrow.

Try to fly Quantas one time in your life. They give you pajamas and booties!

11:07 PM - 35 Comments - 27 Kudos - Add Comment

ONE WORLD LOUNGE

I'm flying to Australia in an hour. So I'm hanging out upstairs in the One World Executive Lounge. I thought it might have a cool CASABLANCA feel.

Instead, it looks like the Korova Milk Bar from CLOCKWORK ORANGE, and Huey Lewis' "Heart and Soul" is playing while Koreans drink beer and watch DEAL OR NO DEAL. I'm heartbroken.

1:06 AM - 57 Comments - 80 Kudos - Add Comment

WEST BRIGHTON, STATEN ISLAND

We filmed last night in a ghoulish, grey war zone of Staten Island called West Brighton. Made THE WIRE look like ONE TREE HILL.

Two unmarked police cars buzzed the set. The officers were agog we were out there, filming in front of a house where there’d been a drug murder two nights before.

They sent a marked car to park just off-set, to scare off the circling corner boys. They stayed ’til near-dawn. We bought them coffee, but they’d just come from Dunkin’ Donuts, and were thus full of caffeine and frosting.

And cliches.

Oh, and I read Issue 6 of SECRET INVASION before going to bed at 5:15 a.m. The last four pages (two massive, two-page center spreads) are two of the best illustrations of "It’s on!" I’ve ever seen.

12:10 AM - 42 Comments - 42 Kudos - Add Comment

ZOMBIE POISON

The April issue of DISCOVERY magazine has an extensive interview with Wade Davis, and includes the recipe for zombie poison. Here’s a hint -- if you’ve ever eaten pufferfish in a sushi restaurant, you’ve had one of the main ingredients!

8:35 AM - 55 Comments - 68 Kudos - Add Comment

A WRITHING THING

I’m hanging out with Harlan Ellison now.

Well, I’ve been to the house twice -- Ellison Wonderland, with the tower and the 5 foot door and the secret rooms and stairwells and the tens of thousands of vintage paperbacks and comics and sculpture and the charming British wife and the gargoyles overlooking the driveway and the frieze of the Lost Aztec Temple of Mars on the outer walls.

I’ve been there twice, and spoke to him a bunch on the phone. I’m not going to get into how this budding friendship started (this blog had something to do with it) because it seems too good to be true. Harlan’s been an unwitting, guiding guru in my life since the 7th grade, when I read his short story, "A Boy and His Dog", in detention. Well, in the hallway outside the classroom from which I’d been booted -- here comes an Ellisonian phrase -- ass-over teakettle.

We will return to Harlan. But won’t you take my hand, while we wander the memory corridor of the last month?

I attended Maila Nurmi’s funeral on February 17th. She was Vampira -- the original, Goth-when-Goth-meant-pariah doom-chick. As Dana Gould said in her eulogy, "Every time I drive down Melrose I see 40 of you."

Seeing her fans and friends in the sunlight around her tombstone, I realized it was the most vitamin D they’d get all year. And someone sent a jack o’ lantern filled with black roses.

The Sunday after Maila’s funeral I attended the Oscars. If Maila was Vampira, then Gary Busey is gunning to be the new Renfield. He collected a year’s worth of goody bags, gift baskets and snack trays, and ascended back into the Kodak Theatre’s rafters, where he’ll live, arguing with bats, until the next Oscar ceremony.

I know I’m zipping through the past month like a hornet but all I’m left with are fleeting sensory impressions of what I witnessed. They’re potent, though.

Like the 1st Annual Bridgetown Comedy Festival in Portland, Oregon.

It was last weekend. It was put together by comedy fans for comedy fans. I did a set on the evening of Saturday, March 8th. Two, really, in a fun, smelly rock club filled with resentful drunks wondering where the band was, and why these pasty drips with ironic T-shirts where on stage, whining about their love lives.

I love Portland...but. I love visiting there...but.

It’s Disneyland for the alternative scene. "I’ve never seen such a low testosterone level in a city," said my wife, enchanted by Voodoo Donuts and the Chinese Gardens. "I know I shouldn’t say this, but it’s hard to imagine anyone ever being raped up here."

Someone needs to set off an Ambition Bomb in front of Powell’s.

I met Brian Michael Bendis for dinner at Le Pigeon, where at least our taste buds were raped...with deliciousness!

(If the owners of Le Pigeon are reading this, feel free to put that on the message machine for your reservations).

Brian’s already let me read the first three issues of SECRET INVASION, which is Marvel Comics’ big summer dust-up.

After COUNTDOWN and CIVIL WAR, I was going to take a break from these big summer crossover thingies. But this SECRET INVASION...holy shit.

This is not a big, disposable, multi-issue donnybrook. This is a blitzkrieg from page one. Bendis basically worked out a remorseless, nothing-but-business tearing down of the Marvel Universe. And it’s clear the story has been set up...for...years. And the deaths are treated so off-handedly, with no appeal or remorse -- and this is three issues in.

So far, each issue has also ended with a shit-your-pants, ’Wait, what in the FUCK?!" moment...after, of course, about three or four what-the-fuck moments tossed off during the course of each story. As it stands right now, someone’s holding a possible key to stopping the Skrulls, and it’s the LAST person in the Marvel Universe you’d want with that info. And no, it’s not Dr. Doom.

Bendis is sending me issue 4 tomorrow morning. I can’t wait to post it over at Huffington.

Speaking of comics, one of the many wonderful things that happened when I was in Portland last weekend happened after my last show. A shy, unassuming little dude sidled up to me outside the Mt. Tabor Legacy Theater and handed me three of his self-published comics.

I get a lot of self-published stuff from aspiring artists and writers. Some, like the self-published graphic novel ALMIGHTY by Ed Laroche (http://www.myspace.com/blackhalo51) are goddamn amazing. Others, like EIGHT BALLS by this guy I met in Berkeley named Dan Cows, not so much.

But boy, did I luck out when Matthew Bernier slipped a few of his exquisite black-and-white comics in my hand. POTATO AUTOPSY was the perfect amount of sinister, sweet and funny. Don’t take my word for it -- visit his website at www.Matthew-Bernier.com. And be polite -- the poor genius has Asberger’s. And Harlan Ellison is reading his comics. I gave the copies to Harlan the last time we met, and he was bowled over.

Oh yeah, Harlan. This ought to begin and end with him. Much of who I am today begins and ends with him.

Like I said, I’ve met the man twice, and I’ve already got enough to fill a book. But I’ll give you this:

The first time I visited the house, I brought him a box of cupcakes from Yummy Cupcakes. He came to the door in a ratty black bathrobe. In the kitchen a few moments later, I struggled to tear the taped-shut box open. Harlan gently pushed me aside and, reaching into the bathrobe’s pocket, produced a switchblade.

"Kid, I’ve outlived being unprepared".

Then he cut the box open. We ate cupcakes and he told me about, among other things, Bruce Lee, the folly of religion, the importance of bedroom slippers, and the mutant residents of Great Yarmouth.

One of the top five days of my life.

Oh, and he had a little plastic plaque made for me of his favorite Gerald Kersh quote. It could not be more timely, what with the demise of THE WIRE, and all the things David Simon tried to show us about humanity in its flawless five seasons:

"...there are men whom one hates until a certain moment when one sees, through a chink in their armour, the writhing of something nailed down and in torment."

(*OH FUCK! 11:31 p.m. update -- Bendis just sent me Issue 4. Wheeeee!)

(*OH FUCK FUCK! 12:08 a.m. Just read it. Issue 4 has, so far, the coolest line, said by the most unexpected character: "Get everyone".)

3:03 AM - 82 Comments - 89 Kudos - Add Comment

EVERYTHING I’M HAPPY AND SAD ABOUT

1. Geeks Helping Jocks

FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS broadcast its last -- for the time being -- episode this past Friday. Ben Silverman, the NBC head honcho, has been making some pretty bleak pronouncements about the future of the show. Yeah, he understands everyone loves it, and it's the best-written show on broadcast television (THE WIRE is the best overall, with BATTLESTAR GALACTICA in a close second) but no one's watching it. These were the same pronouncements made about shows like FREAKS AND GEEKS and DEADWOOD.



2. BURN NOTICE is great TV

One of the things I did during the writer's strike (besides finally kicking opium and OCD) was catch up on a bunch of TV shows that various friends and colleagues (and I am not friends with ANY of my colleagues, nor do I allow my friends to become colleagues) told me were great.

Some were...not so great.

But one of 'em -- BURN NOTICE -- was pretty goddamn terrific. Well, so far. I'm four episodes into it, and I really love it. It's fun and brutal and kind of sad.

And educational! In the pilot episode alone I learned the correct way to shoot through a bulletproof door, why duct tape makes you smart, and how to defeat a fingerprint scanner (hint: no one ever wipes one off after they use it).

The cast is top-notch. Jeffrey Donovan plays the lead as a sentimental, can-do bad-ass, a former spy who's been "burned" (disavowed by his agency) and dumped in Miami, America's Sweaty Butthole of Weirdness and Grandiose Delusion. Sharon Gless is hilarious as his irritating mom, Gabrielle Anwar is his violence-prone ex-girlfriend, and Bruce Campbell is, thank goodness, Bruce Campbell -- Donovan's drunken, gleefully treacherous buddy.

I guess I like the series so much because it's also a modern riff on the Travis McGee novels. Donovan, while trying to figure out who burned him and why, passes the time (and keeps himself in rent and spaghetti) by doing "favors" for those who've been threatened, robbed, or conned by Miami's endless supply of douchebags. Fortunately, Donovan is more ruthless, clever, and just plain scorched-earth oriented than any of the thugs he bumps against. But he's heartbroken under all the deadliness. Recommended viewing.




3. I'm in a MOVIE PICTURE!

On April 4th, there'll be a limited release of SEX AND DEATH 101, the new film from writer-director Daniel (HEATHERS) Waters. I play a sort-of-supreme being in a white room (and a white suit!). The movie is very funny, very adult, with one of the weirdest endings I've ever seen in a "romantic" comedy. Metaphysical, one might say. Depending on how it does in limited release, it'll get a bigger release.

So, uh, see it.




4. One of my favorite MOVIE PICTURES is finally coming out on DVD!

On April 15th, the Criterion Company will release a bells-and-whistles edition of Allen Barn's 1961 neo-noir masterpiece, BLAST OF SILENCE. Later this week, I'm shooting a short appreciation for their website, so look for it in the coming weeks.

I wrote an appreciation of it in the back of CRIMINAL, Issue 4, Ed Brubaker's terrific ongoing crime comic. Now that I think of it, it's a review-within-an-appreciation:

"You're Cold Now" -- BLAST OF SILENCE
The Best Crime Movie You've Never Seen



I was traveling through Wisconsin in a hellish string of comedy one-nighters in life-crisis nightclubs and hotel lounges that kept closing the night before I got there. I spent a lot of time reading in garish motel rooms.

I bought a copy of Re:Search's Incredibly Strange Films. Highly recommended. In the "Essays" section of the book, Prax Gore wrote about an obscure little gangster/hitman film called BLAST OF SILENCE. "It looks cheap. It sounds cheap. It's great".

This was a year before I plunged headlong into my fascination with film noir, which started with the 1993 Film Noir Fest at the Roxie in S.F. And I figured, in those sepia-toned days before the internet, before DVDs, before Everything Being Available All The Time, that I'd just rent BLAST OF SILENCE on videotape and see if Prax knew his stuff.

Well, no. BLAST OF SILENCE, like the characters in the world it depicts, is a true, shadowy obscurity. Twelve years went by, during which I became a film-geek snob. And no sign of SILENCE anywhere.

So when I found it was on pirated video at Cinephile in Los Angeles, I refused to watch it. I was willing to hold out until it was screened, properly, in a theater.

In 2003 my patience paid off. At the American Cinematheque's annual Film Noir Festival, a pristine, vault print got screened at the Egyptian Theater in Los Angeles. I canceled a gig in San Francisco so I could stay in town and watch it. Here's what I wrote for the website AintItCool News, under the pseudonym "Mr. Molly":

Guess what, crime film junkies? Your Carnival of Souls was shown last night at the Egyptian here in Hollywood. That's right – Allen Baron's ultra-rare BLAST OF SILENCE had a screening, with the director/star/screenwriter in attendance, dishing his own flick!

Made in 1961 for $28,000, BLAST rivals SEVEN, JUGGERNAUT, SORCERER and GET CARTER in the "Bleak"-stakes. The plot is so simple it may as well not even be there – a hitman returns to his old neighborhood in Harlem to complete a contract, but is waylaid by his own personal memories crashing in on him. The "blast" in the title refers to his own, self-wished death.

Schrader and Scorsese must have caught at some time in their lives, because watching hitman "Baby Boy Frank Bono" prowl the night streets is like watching a rough draft of Travis Bickle. The voice-over narration (by an uncredited Lionel Stander, and not Baron – representing a colder, more idealized self-vision of Bono's) sounds like Travis forty years down the line.

The cinematography, by Merrill Brody, who also edited, is crisp, dark and menacing. Baron pointed out, pre-screening, that they had an early Arriflex, and no dolly (Brody had to weigh the tripod down with bags of sugar). The tracking shots, through Madison Square and Harlem, are terrific, even more so considering the resources.

There's a superlative review of BLAST in re/SEARCH's Incredibly Strange Films, which is where I first read about it back in 1991. A twelve-year wait for a 77-minute black-and-white crime film? Worth every minute. Baron himself said, after the screening, "I'd give it a 10 for cinematography, and a 2 for story".

He's wrong. 10s all around, and a plea for someone to put this thing on DVD. What a blast.

Luckily, the good folks at the Criterion Company is releasing it on April 15th. Go get one. Watch it. You'll take a disturbing trip down a forgotten alley from which there is no escape. It's a creepy, tense little cul-de-sac where film noir – personified by whiny, violent Baby Boy Frankie Bono – wandered down a few years before Kennedy was shot, and the world got so dark that Frankie and his kind got swallowed whole.




5. Roy Scheider died

I was at the VES Awards last night, sitting ten feet from Steven Spielberg, when my wife texted me: "Chief Brody died". I was sad. Scheider made that movie -- and so many others -- work just by his presence. Whether he was playing the lovable-everyman in JAWS, the driven nihilist in SORCERER, the baffled-but-delighted scientist in 2010, and the exhausted director in ALL THAT JAZZ, he was effortlessly eclectic.

G'bye, Chief.

2:50 PM - 68 Comments - 92 Kudos - Add Comment

QUIETLY ENJOYING THE PUPPY BOWL

I'm still recovering from the flu. I've got great friends over today, sandwiches, potato soup (thanks, Jenny Lennon!) Yummy Cupcakes and tea. We're switching back and forth between the Puppy Bowl and this weird thing on FOX where they're doing the Puppy Bowl, but with humans. It's fucking retarded, but it's kind of hilarious.

I am completely rooting for Scuba, the full-on mutt.

Also -- and this is not some sort of joke -- I am hard at work with my agents. I WILL referee Puppy Bowl V. This I swear.

4:07 AM - 107 Comments - 140 Kudos - Add Comment

MAKE UP YOUR MIND, FLU

Kill me or let me get better. Anything’s better than this phelgm-y, body ache-y limbo I’m staggering around in.

I got hit with this thing Friday evening, midway through a screening of RAMBO. You know how you can feel when a profound sickness is creeping into your body? Your throat and bones and skin starts to hurt, and no matter how many Burmese dudes you see get decapitated, you realize the joy you’re experiencing is going to be short-lived.

Well, Saturday sucked and Sunday...started to get better! I actually felt better. My fever broke. I could keep down solid food. My nose stopped running. Maybe it was the magical power of my 39th birthday bringing healing magic into my life.

I invited a small group of friends out to Seven Grand Sunday evening for drinks, sandwiches and cake. Well, my wife did that, ’cuz she’s awesome. And Seven Grand is equally awesome -- it’s kind of like celebrating your birthday if you were in the film THERE WILL BE BLOOD. A lot of dark paneled wood, green wallpaper and animal heads on the walls. And old whiskey everywhere.

The bartenders, loving mama-birds that they are, made me spicy hot toddies to clear up my coughing, and damn if they didn’t work. I sat against the back wall in the billiards room, holding court and sipping hot honeyed scotch and marveling at how terrific my friends are. After a day and a half of sickness, the presence and company of my friends seemed to be sending the flu on the run. "So that’s how you battle the flu", I thought, riding home. I was happy.

Well, that night my flu decided to rally itself, Winston Churchill-style. It decided to fight me in the skull, in the throat, in the stomach, the bones and the bowels.

Holy shit. I think I’ve left this bed three times in the last 48 hours. I had to cancel Comedy Death-Ray tonight, as well as Invite Them Up at RiFiFi tomorrow night in New York.

The only one who’s benefiting from this is Grumpus, who gets to lounge around in bed all day with me, keeping a sort-of bedside vigil. Actually, he’s just lying across my legs, taunting me with the fact that this fucking flu doesn’t jump from humans to dogs.

AS I WROTE THIS: I got a concerned text message from Blaine Capatch. I was supposed to write with him today, but there’s no way that’s happening now. He went through this a few weeks ago, and he asks:

"Are you Fevercrantz and Cougherstein or Captain Assblasty Pukeberg?"

My response: "Yes"

His response to my response: "How do I text a rimshot?"

12:07 PM - 93 Comments - 114 Kudos - Add Comment

MY WORDS ARE IN PLAYBOY MAGAZINE

I can't believe I'm about to use the word "piece" (one of the most annoying terms in literature) but I have a new piece in the February issue of PLAYBOY. There are also pictures of women's boobs in the magazine, if that helps your purchasing decision.

Piece. (shudder)

12:43 PM - 76 Comments - 106 Kudos - Add Comment

IN 2008

DEATH WATCH: Sean Connery, Ann Coulter (coke o.d.), and either a Beatle, Rolling Stone or Ramone.

The ever-increasing search for extrasolar planets will confirm a distant, habitable twin of Earth.

The YouTube revolution will double back in itself: one of the presidential candidates will do something outrageously embarrassing, and be caught on camera phone. It will be the kind of thing that, just last year, would end a candidacy. However, this candidate, who will have enough twenty year-olds on their staff, will immediately make a hilarious parody video of themselves doing the career-ending thing, and will turn it to their advantage. The White House will be won on a parody video.

One of the following big-budget "event" movies: IRON MAN, THE DARK KNIGHT, STAR TREK or THE WOLFMAN, will be weirdly "non-event". In other words, it will have hidden depths, be challenging and disturbing while still be entertaining, and get nominated for a shit-load of Oscars. Remember, SILENCE OF THE LAMBS is a slasher flick, and JAWS is a monster movie. But they smuggled depth and poetry in under their entertaining candy shells.

One of the nukes or chemical weapons that were carted off before the Iraq War by "persons unknown" will make itself known.

The next great comedian will spend much of 2008 struggling at open mikes, and being hated by established comedians.

An underground, on-line only cannibal restaurant will be discovered.

The Writer's Strike will end...badly.

There will be a massive urban ecological disaster in a major Chinese city.

Harlan Ellison will publish a short story without fanfare which will lead to him being sued for inspiring a murder/suicide pact.

The best album of 2008 will be a country album.

Addendum: It will be Toby Keith. I'm not kidding.

Toby Keith's last album, while not an outright apology, acknowledged that the locker room, jock mentality that got us into the Iraq War did heavy psychological damage on the heartland folks he supposedly speaks for. Plus, he tours a lot with the USO, so he's seeing the effects of his rah-rah bullshit.

I think he's due for a major breakdown, but in a good way. Just like the way John Cougar Mellencamp, who's seen his fair share of the idealistic exploited by the cynical, has become angrier and more radical than a thousand hardcore bands. Toby Keith is going to turn on his fans -- at least, the stupid ones -- and the Bush administration. It'll be the final, most vicious kiss-off to the Bush presidency.

12:53 PM - 115 Comments - 152 Kudos - Add Comment