Friday, April 28, 2006

New Posts This Weekend

Sorry so slow on posting. I've been working on www.SactoFly.com a-lot and also a super secret project that I'll reveal a little bit of soon, it's pretty crazy.
I will post pictures of my latest skate board related road rash this weekend. Woo hoo.
I'm able to ollie over parking curbs, other skate boards and various kinds of roadkill now. One small step for me, one insignifigent happening in the overwhelming history of the universe.

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

The Fly Guide Returns!

My pal Francois Fly started The Fly Guide, but then he went to Hollywood to sleep in a higher class of dumpster.
We convinced him to do the guide again by agreeing to do all the work for him.
So, check out www.SactoFly.com to sign up for this weekly e-mail of all that's good to do in Sactown for people with good taste.
I will now be posting Jason Ally's film reviews there instead of here, but maybe sometimes at both places and you can always find them at Jason's site; http://www.xanga.com/jason_alley.
Please sign up, leave comments, post your own events, and tell your friends. We have close to 400 subscribers at the present time and look forward to this being a powerful vehicle for indy music, art, comedy, film and poetry types to spread the word about what they're doing. Thanks.

Sunday, April 23, 2006

Me and You and Everyone We Know

This is the most perfect movie since Sideways. Funny, awkward and at times poetic. I was laughing out loud at bizarre beautiful scenes that would not translate so I'll not even try to describe them. The movie if full of uncomfortable moments, but not in a trying too hard sort of way and the film never goes of the deep end into gross-ville. It's only as disquieting as most of our actual lives are prone to be at least once in awhile. Yes, this is perhaps the most vague film review of all time. Ah the pleasures of The Blog! I can get away with murder. What I really want to say is just, check out this unique, beautiful film. You'll be glad you did. Oh, and I'd also like to say:

))<>((
Forever

Friday, April 21, 2006

Why lie... I need a pie!

New post at whylieineedadrink.com.
It seems I'm inspiring others to panhandle now. Please forgive me for what I have unleashed upon the world.
Read the story here.

Mexican Fly Porn?

Somebody found my site after google searching for Mexican Fly Porn. Rad.
Check it out here!

Punching Disabled Homeless Kids for Fun and Profit

New story on my fight story blog. Click HERE!

RockAss.net's Greatest Hits

My favorite and the most popular RockAss.net posts-
The links on the right, which take you to my stories, my panhandling blog, etc. are the meat of this site. Go there. (If you don't see the links I mentioned, go HERE!)
But I do put misfit articles here, mixed in with my daily diary type stuff. Here's a guide to my favorite of these posts. Enjoy.

My Videos: Lots, more added all the time.
OR, My YouTube Page: Includes my videos and my favorite videos.

Francois Fly Photoshop Contest: Amazing how much work you can get people to do for a measley $20 prize.

Live Links and North Korea
: Google News and Late Night TV news collide with sexy singles and a low credit card limit. The North Korean missile crisis fits in there somewhere as well, and a talking duck too.

Nascar Drive Thru: A cockeyed.com prank that I was swindled into helping with.

Why KLJ Rocks Ass: A silly but quite popular parody of the Chuck Norris, Jack Bauer lists.

Rapture Letters: Just a link to a website I liked, but I wrote them a letter and folks seemed to find it pretty funny.

Footprints In The Sand: Probably the most popular thing I've done.

The Birth of Francois Fly: I'm most proud to host this. Underground comedy legend Francois Fly caught on tape at his first performance EVER!

Atheism: Hit or miss, but a few gems hidden in there.

Bob Newhart Interview: Yup, I interviewed comedy legend Bob Newhart.

Richard Pryor RIP: Saying goodbye to a legend.

Homo: A comedic look at Homophobia.

Porno: I review some pornorific flicks.

Shtick: Some bits from my stage act. Mostly pretty dorky.

Thursday, April 20, 2006

Hipster Jokes I heard

Q: How many hipsters does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: (Snootily) You mean you don't know?

Q: How many hipsters does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Dude, the light bulb was cooler before it changed.

Thanks Nick, and Niki

The Flaming Lips; At War With The Mystics

“The W.A.N.D.,” a single teasingly released over a month in advance of the Lips’ first full album since 2002, signals the new album’s direction; it adds ’70s-style vocals and crunchy guitar riffs to the band’s signature mix of ambient sounds and digital-effects wizardry. At War with the Mystics matches sounds borrowed from a wide variety of rock sources--prog, Sly Stone, Sabbath and Zappa--with wild arrangements and heartbreakingly earnest vocals. Wayne Coyne allows a bit of political anger into his lyrics but in a weird, introspective and variously interpretable way. It’s a third success in a three-album winning streak. A downloadable online version of Mystics features several extra tracks, including a brilliantly executed cover of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Now that’s ambition

Read more of my News and Review articles here.

The Best Butt Rock Comp Ever

I just put together a comp of really good hair rock/butt rock.

Aerosmith- Toys In The Attic, Walk This Way, Sweet Emotion
Ozzy Ozourne- I Don't Know, Goodby To Romance, Suicide Solution
Kiss- Christine Sixteen, Detroit Rock City
Quiet Riot- Cum on Feel, Bang Your Head,
Alice Cooper- Eighteen, Welcome To My Nightmare, Is It My Body, I Love The Dead, Elected
Motley Crue- Shout at The Devil, Too Young To Fall In Love
Ratt- Round and Round
Twisted Sister- We're Not Gonna Take It, I Wanna Rock, Burn in Hell
Guns and Roses- Welcome To The Jungle, It's So Easy
The Stooges- Now I wanna Be Your Dog
The New York Dolls- Personality Crisis, Trash, Frankenstein
T. Rex- 20th Century Boy, Life's A Gas
Billy Squire- My Kind of Lover, In The Dark, The Stroke
Ted Nugent- Cat Scratch Fever
Cheap Trick- Surrender, I Want You To Want Me
Rush- Tom Sawyer
Judas Priest- You've Got Another Thing Coming, Breakin' The Law
Motor Head- Ace of Spades, Eat The Rich

I know I stretch the definition in places, and I'm sure I left off some bands that you would have included, but Def Leopard, Cinderella, Warrant, Bon Jovi, they just don't do if for me. I call them power ballad butt rock.

Damn W

You can't tell countries not to get nukes or you'll nuke 'em!
You want non-proliferation, you make it clear that you will never use nukes.
But we all know why he won't rule out the nuke option with Iran. He's overextended our millitary on his bad idea called invading Iraq which has been executed poorly even in the opinion of those who supported the invasion to begin with. So, the nuke is the only realistic threat he has left. I hope we make it until we can get rid of this guy.

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Still Skating

Had a great session today. I'm able to drop in on friends short half pipe now. Small stuff but I'm stoked.
Click Here to read a post from my first day back on my skateboard. It's pretty funny what a rough start I got off to. I got hurt everytime I got on my board. Within a few months I'd gotten a mean swellbow, a broken collar bone and a broken arm. You'd think that would be it but I just couldn't quit. Stubborn maybe, afraid of being an old man, whatever it was I stuck with it and now I'm getting better and I'm done breaking bones, knock on wood.
My skate buddies are a nine year old boy and a fifty year old vegan, lesbian artist. They're both rad and I couldn't ask for a better crew. I love skateboarding.

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Tears for Tears for Fears

I just got back from Jamba Juice, and felt compelled to write:

Please, oh overlords of Corporate World HQ, please stop making me listen to Tears for Fears and their song of unbridled passion over nothing, for people who like folk music sensibilities without confusing politics or views. This band should have been called XTC2-Neutered. Click here to see a Google search of Tears for Fears images. Can you find one where they don't look ready to cry? I just wanted to get my free smoothie. Damn!

Speaking of Free, if you live in an apartment or you use a PO box and you get a coupon for a free burrito, smoothie, what have you, be sure to look in the trash can near the cluster of mailboxes. My friend John Ross scored like 9 free burritos that way. Check over the next few days too. Not everyone checks their mail every day.

Sunday, April 16, 2006

Ten Reason's Keith Lowell Jensen Rocks Ass.

1. If Keith Lowell Jensen invented Kung-Fu it'd be called Keith-Fu. Though actually, if Kung-Fu didn't exist yet the Fu part would make no sense, so it'd probably be called Keith's Great Ass Kicking Technique.

2. Guns don't kill Keith Lowell Jensen, existential angst does, or Ulcerative Colitis does, or maybe the drugs that are prescribed to treat the Ulcerative Colitis do it, or maybe a gun after all but only if it gets to him soon, before that other stuff.

3. If Keith Lowell Jensen were a president he'd be Keith-adoor Roosevilt, or maybe John F. Keith-edy, but probably he'd keep his own name, because it's Keith Lowell Jensen, and that rocks.

4. Keith Lowell Jensen isn't the Lizard King, but he CAN do anything, or at least a great number of things, too many in fact to list in one post. He can a) Stand on his head. b) The robot c) Eat soup while watching television d) never mind, too many things to list. I told you.

5. If Keith Lowell Jensen were a rooster he'd say cock-a-doodle-death.

6. Terrorists have never attacked an American City after Keith Lowell Jensen visited it, except for New York and Oklahoma City, but in both cases it was a long time after Keith visited and they couldn't possibly had known he'd been there. The overwhelming majority of cities that Keith has visited have never been attacked by terrorists.

7. Keith Lowell Jensen is so straight that if he had sex with a man he still wouldn't be gay, the other guy would be a woman trapped in a dude's body. No, seriously.

8. The only reason you'd ever beat Keith Lowell Jensen at chess on the internet is if he was distracted by watching 15 second clips of amateur porno and even then you'd better be a fairly decent chess player, or the porn had better be above average porn. And it would be straight porn, because as I've made perfectly clear Keith Lowell Jensen aint gay!

8. Keith Lowell Jensen, who isn't gay, doesn't make mistakes in numbering. If you think he did, you'd better learn a new numbering system, or else just don't worry about it. Dang, it's really not a big deal. Get a life Mr. Mathematician.

9. Keith Lowell Jensen doesn't have to go to ten. He's not gonna let some dumb numbering gag cause him to write an extra joke. In fact he'll use it to cop out of the last joke. Ha ha. (Not Gay!!!)

The Brothers Jensen

My brother John and I have been working on stories about growing up in our household of Five hyper boys. Here are some notes I made when putting together story ideas. They're fairly entertaining I think.

Edward caught up with me as I walked home with my report card pinned to my shirt. He informed me that only kindergarten babies had their report cards pinned to their shirts. I was in first grade at the time. I’ll forever appreciate the humiliation I was spared.

We boys were home alone when a stranger showed up at the door. “Hi. I’m your Uncle Herb. I just came from the hills. Can I have a beer.” We had never seen this man before, so of course we let him in and gave him a beer. He did turn out to be our actual Uncle, thankfully.

Gene-Gene the dancing machine would come on the TV’s The Gong Show and all five Jensen brothers and the Jensen dad would jump to their feet and dance in their best Gene-Gene shuffle. The only guest that excited us more was the one and only Unknown comic.

While playing street hockey, my brother Erick announces that the losers will have to kiss the winners asses. I’ve never played as hard at any sport in my life. I was less afraid of kissing an ass than thrilled at the promise of humiliating the poor bastards who’d line up to kiss mine. Turns out is was just a figure of speech. This was the first of many of life’s great disappointments.

My brothers and I would spend hours in the garage, boom boxes blaring an exciting new music called rap as we practiced our break dancing moves, including intricate routines and formations that we’d do together.

I took my little brother’s favorite toy truck and buried it in the backyard. I then handed him a shovel and a map and let him spend quite a span of time digging many holes before my mother happened upon the scene and forced me to return the truck from it’s shallow grave.

We dug a hole in the backyard. We all worked together, just to do it and dug a whole deep enough for even the tallest of us to disappear completely in while standing. It was so narrow that only one of us could fit in it, standing, at a time, and I required assistance getting in or out. Mom made us bury it once she discovered it.

I didn’t know why the Mexican men hid when I yelled La Migra. I only knew that I, a mere kid, could make grown men leap into bushes and with this came feelings of great power.


Tortures I endured:
Three older brothers standing around the toilet crying. “What’s the matter” I’d ask.
“Mom fell in” they’d answer tearfully. “And when she tried to climb out she accidentally flushed.”

I tell Edward and Erick of a poor dog that I saw out in the rain. They run outside and Edward swings a shovel at whatever is behind the garbage cans while Erick makes yelping noises. They were only putting the poor dog out its misery they explained.

I try to go vegetarian for animal rights reasons. My brother John decides to be uncharacteristically generous and buy the whole family Ice Cream, for the express purpose of excluding me as he explains that it has gelatin in it and so isn’t vegetarian.

After I was accepted in the GATE program my three older brothers stood shoulder blocking the entrance to the kitchen in their interpretative dance depiction of a Rusty GATE, my new nickname.

To get to the school in Norco that housed the GATE program I rode on a short bus with six mentally retarded kids who were taking advantage of the school’s other programs. “Yeah Keith, their parents tell them that they go to a special school because they’re smart too.” John taunted me. To this day I harbor a deep psychological fear that he may have been right

Erick and Edward, fine actor’s they were, would speculate over who was the toughest kid in third grade. I’d of course have to beat up whoever they named in order to defend my title. But there was always another kid that they figured might be tougher. It finally ended after I beat up Steve, the sweet, heavy set bookworm who taught me how to play chess.

Your Mama

Your mother is so fat.
How fat is she?
She is so fat, that her cholesterol is dangerously high and she is at risk of developing diabetes.

Another new story

http://www.rockass.net/fightstories/
Click the link to read my latest fight story. Matt was a jerk who picked on me relentlessly when I was the new kid in high school, finally culminating in fists being thrown.

Tofu Jerky

Oh man, tofu jerky is soooo easy to make and yummy. I made a marinade from apple juice, honey, hickory flavoring, soy sauce and black pepper. I let strips of tofu soak and then put them in my dehydrator (thanks Robert) for about 8 hours. Man oh man it came out good. Next time I do it I'll get picutres of the whole process. Mmmmm. I'm going to try portabello mushroom jerky too.

Saturday, April 15, 2006

The Violent Femmes

I finished the story this morning about going to see the Violent Femmes in S.F. and getting stuck at a punk rock crack house for a few days. Read it HERE.
I finished the other story I mentioned too. You can find it if you try. If you're related to me, I ask you sincerely to please not try. Thanks.

Friday, April 14, 2006

Great Skate

I had the most amazing day skating. I did at least three things today that I couldn't do before today. I'm learning really fast. Having the pads and the helmet helps because I'm not afraid to try new things, less afraid of falling on my ass. I'd tell you the new things I did, but I don't know the names of skate moves any more. I had a great time though. I wish I had a ramp in my back yard so I could go skate it all the time. I'd never get anything else done.

I started two new stories. One about a wild adventure me and friend Ryan had when we were teenagers and went to see the Violent Femmes in S.F. and didn't get home for three days. The other is about going on an insane, neverending ride with my friend "Robby" to buy acid in Berkely. All of my most messed up stories involve "Robby". Someday I'll publish "The Robby" chronicles. I use the quotes because it's not his real name. I should have those done in the next day or two. And watch next thursday for my review of The Flaming Lips new album.

Vomit Flavored Jelly Beans

My nephew suckered my fiance out of four bucks for vacuuming the living room. The Jelly Belly corporation then suckered my nephew out of four bucks for a little bag of jelly beans. Four Bucks! For jelly beans! Almost as bad as Pokemon charging $15 for a magazine.

I will admit the jelly beans were pretty cool. They were Harry Potter themed and came in the most disgusting flavors incuding vomit, earwax, sardine, booger and spinach. Mixed in with them are tasty flavors like cinamon, toasted marshmallow, sardine, booger and spinach.

Watching him pop a bean in his mouth without looking and then go running to the kitchen to rinse his mouth out with water was hillarious and well worth the four bucks. It's also mighty nice to have the floor vacuumed. I abhor the vacuum, naturally.

Thursday, April 13, 2006

Sunshine

Sunshine, beautiful blue skies, totally unexpected. The weather report said rain through next Tuesday. This is a wonderful and needed surprise. Went for a walk on my lunch break and will try to squeeze in some skating tonight. I'm taking Antonio to Skate Camp tommorow since I have a half day at work and I'll definately get some skating in then.

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Pony, a short comedy film

Below are links to Pony, in three parts. This is a skit that ICBINC performed at our sold out show at The Crest Theatre. The skits not that long, but we decided to cut it up into three parts for quicker downloading and to make streaming possible. Just click on the link, it should open in windows media player, or whatever your default player is, and then come back to hit the next link when you're ready. Or right click on each link and save it to your hard drive.
This is one of my favorite of our skits.

PONY Part One


PONY Part Two

PONY Part Three

More videos HERE and HERE.

Sunday, April 9, 2006

Thank You For Smoking - Film Review

Reviewed by Jason. More reviews at his site, HERE!

THANK YOU FOR SMOKING ***1/2
Sharp, quick-witted satire about a tobacco lobbyist named Nick Naylor (Aaron Eckhart), whose job is to do spin work for the tobacco industry and do his best to convince the public that smoking is a good thing. Nick is a bullshitter of the highest order, so good at his job that in the opening scene (as a guest on a talk show), he manages to convince a teenager with cancer that the tobacco industry is on his side. Like all the best satires, "Thank You For Smoking" doesn't let either side off the hook, and as someone who thoroughly disapproves of smoking but also hates the lame, fake "edginess" of those "Truth" anti-smoking PSA's, I highly appreciate that. Speaking of PSA's, if the makers of this film missed one opportunity, it was the chance to parody stupid, over-the-top PSA's (like "Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle" did so excellently).

Eckhart is nothing short of amazing in the lead role, playing the role he was born to play. Nick can be a slimeball, no doubt about it, but there's also no denying that some of his arguments have a seductive logic, and he comes across as far more honest and likeable than, for instance, the sanctimonious environmentalist Senator played by William H. Macy. The awesome cast also includes Robert Duvall, J.K Simmons, Rob Lowe, Kim Dickens, Todd Louiso, and Katie Holmes (showing the kind of verve she regularly displayed before she was abducted by Scientologists and replaced by a pod person). Best of all (besides Eckhart), are Maria Bello as an alcohol lobbyist and David Koechner as a firearms lobbyist. They are Nick's only friends, and the three of them meet weekly for lunch, calling themselves (half self-deprecatingly, half proudly) the M.O.D. (Merchants Of Death) Squad. If you ask me, they both deserve their own spin-off films.

Lots of movies get called "subversive" and many of them actually aren't. This movie gets you to really, truly like and root for a guy who says at one point that if his 12 year-old son wanted to smoke, he would buy him his first pack on his 18th birthday. Now that's subversive.

A post about pooing

So, if you don't want to read about pooing, just move on.

I'm feeling much better. As I'd mentioned before my cold triggered my Ulcerative Colitis, or something did at any rate and suddenly I was spending all my time in the bathroom poopin' soup. Sorry to be crass but how does one gracefully describe Niagra Falls coming out their ass. I was eating mostly nothing so it was amazing how much kept coming out of me. Where the hell was it coming from. The worst part is the blood. Since developing symptoms of U.C. I've had to engage in the lovely habbit of looking when I wipe and looking before I flush, and now that looking was letting me know that my colon was bleeding again.

By day two I was rushing to the bathroom and finding that I was indeed empty. It felt much like dry heaves as my colon tried to expel what apparently was not there. It hurt and it exhausted me. The drug that I take for this condition, amusingly called asacol, is coated in a hard shell meant to not disolve until reaching the colon. I started noticing whole pills in the toilet. It was skipping right through me. How could it disolve in my colon when nothing would stay in my colon. The doctor prescribed the same medicine in enema form. My colon wouldn't hold onto it, no matter how it got there.

I decided to try this whole foods approach from a book I got written by some flakey foont. I figured it was worth a go, what did I have to lose? So bananas and pears became my breakfast and steamed vegetables my dinner. At first it was nice. I appreciated the subtle flavors of these foods with no sauce, garlic, salt or anything else to distract from their natural flavors. That lasted through one meal. by day two I was thoroughly sick of it all. I never wanted to see another vegetable.

I had an accupuncture appointment but it offered no relief.

I was running out of alternative therapies to try and this needed to stop. I did not, and do not want to go on the 6MP drug that is at the bottom of my list of treatments. Harsh pharmaceuticals are not my thing, but something had to be done and soon. I couldn't go on like this.

Depressed, frustrated, angry and desperate I finally gave in and paid the $70 for a ten day supply of a probiotic called VSL#3. I'd been trying to get my insurance to cover it and after a snotty operator informed me that her supervisor wouldn't do anything for me (Never tell me what your supervisor will do. I want to hear it from the supervisor. That's why I asked for them.) the supervisor was very helpful and assisted me in filing an appeal for coverage. It would be some time until I got the results. For now I marched down to Safeway and had their pharmacist order me the VSL#3.

It seems to be working miracles. I was almost instantly feeling better. Of course it could be the diet starting to work but I don't think so. I'm staying to the diet for a while though, to be on the safe side. Yech.

I had my first solid poo in days on Friday. I was at work so I told my boss about it and got a high five. I had some explosive movements later the same day but nothing like before. Since then I've seen a little blood and I've had monstrous flatulence but things are definately improving. And the asacol pills now have time to disolve so the medicine is being allowed to do its job as well. In a few months, or maybe a year I'll decide if the VSL#3 is the miracle worker that it seems to be. For now I'm happy to be makin' logs and feeling better.

Update December 3, 06: The VSL 3 didn't continue to work for me. It may for you, it's worth trying. My doctor doesn't understand what makes it worth any more than a really good strong probiotic from the healthfood store. I don't know. I suspect that mold in my apartment is complicating my condition, so I will try all theses "remedies" again after I find a new place to live.

I'M SO DAMN HUNGRY. I WANT GARLIC FRIES AND PIZZA AND OTHER YUMMY THINGS THAT MAKE COLONS CRY! ! !

Friday, April 7, 2006

RetroCrush Favorites

So, as promised, I will do my part in celebrating five years of RetroCrush.com by listing some of my favorite articles. But first I'll list some done by me! HOMO was an article that Robert was stoked on, but he couldn't get anyone to link it, lest they be the homo. Fetish Glossary was a silly bit of nothing I threw together, and Classic Porn Showcase was awfully fun to research.
My pal Francois Fly got an interview with my comedy hero, The Unknown Comic.

Now the hard part. (I said porn and hard part in the same post. This will get some interesting google results.) It's not easy to pick my favorites amongst the TONS of mediocre crap that Robert puts out there for us to sift through, but here's what I've come up with.

I Was A Black Poet
. DAMN, this is a hillariou prank. And Robert was ballsy to do it. Many who don't know him were bound to yell racist thinking he's making fun of blacks. Of course it would actually be more racist of him to exclude any one race from his scathing satire, yes? He saw a target in the form of this way over the top poetry rag and he shot a bullseye.

No Eyelid Man
. This one had me wishing Robert would do more comics. Then he did, and I learned the meaning of the phrase "Be careful what you wish for."

Robert's insane family and his total lack of shame in exploiting them has given us several great articles, including, A House Scarier Than Ammityville and the beautiful and tender Masterbating Pipecleaner Man.

Welcome Back Otter. How could I not love this one? Robert pays homage to Otter Pops and gives us tons of great photos of my fashion hero best pal Amber Kloss. Be sure to scroll all the way down on this one to see Robert's concern for real life Otters. He amazed (and maybe disappointed) me by writing the whole paragraph with no sarcasm or crass otter humpin' jokes.

It was pretty interesting watching Robert deal with a U.K. Tabloid stealing his writing. The article went out on the wire and suddenly Robert's material is appearing in major papers around the world, credited to someone else!

I decided to focus on Robert's articles, but RetroRandy turns in some awesome retro-celeb interviews and when him and Robert get together to review old home decorating mags, well, they just shouldn't be allowed to play with each other.

There's plenty more to enjoy. Really, you could lose hours perusing the archives and that's before checking out Robert's excellent podcast. Congratulations on five years RetroCrush.com. Here's to five more.

Happy Birthday RetroCrush

Retrocrush.com, one of my favorite sites turns five years old today.
Retrocrush's Robert Berry is a good friend and he's done some great things with the site, mostly featuring my writing. That's always a good move. I'm back at work, so later, when I have more goof off time I'll post links to some of my favorite RetroCrush.com articles.

I'm feeling quite a bit better. I try not to get too excited, because I've been dissappointed before, but this probiotic is maybe doing the trick. Oh God I hope so. Anyway, I started it yesterday and I've had a pretty good morning so far, so cross your fingers, or think good thougts or light a candle or light yourself or whatever you do. May the great colon gods bless me.

Thursday, April 6, 2006

I'm In Hell

Oh My GAWD! I got that awful cold that's been going around and it triggered my stomach problems. For four days I've not dared venture far from a toilet. I'm quickly exhausing my list of alternative therapies, including a special whole foods mostly raw diet that I'm currently on, accupuncture and I just started a regiment of uber strong probiotics today. Wish me luck. If I can't get it under control this way I'm going to have to look at taking an immune suppressing drug that I am desperate to avoid.

I know it's not all that cheerful or exciting to blog about my unhappy colon but it's what's happening in my life at the moment. I've watched lots of movies while ill. Maybe later I'll write about some of them, and I'm still going to write about the three raw restaurants I've recently eaten at. Yeah. Soon. Okay bye.

Tuesday, April 4, 2006

Two DVD Reviews

Jason has pledged to stop watching EVERY movie that comes out. This is sad news, as I was really looking forward to his review of Larry The Cable Guy:Health Inspector. Guess I'll have to suffer through that one on my own, or shoot myself. I haven't decided which yet. I'll let you know. In the meanwhile here's two DVD reviews. And visit Jason at his site.

DIG! ***1/2
Surprisingly absorbing and powerful documentary about the turbulent seven year love/hate friendship/rivalry between The Brian Jonestown Massacre and The Dandy Warhols, two underground indie rock bands who almost "made it" but never quite did. I say "surprisingly" because I'm not even a huge fan of either of these bands - but ambition, triumph, conflict and failure are inherently interesting, especially when part of a film this entertaining and well-made that involves people this memorable. The two bands began as friends and peers (both 60's rock revivalists trying to channel bands like the Beatles and Love), but were already quite different. The Dandy Warhols liked to party but were also relatively "together" and distinctly style-conscious and business-minded as soon as record companies starting sniffing around. The Brian Jonestown Massacre, led by a cranky, highly volatile mad genius/junkie named Anton Newcombe, were more interesting artistically, but with Newcombe fronting the band they were a complete mess. "Dig!" is a remarkably intimate chronicle of the seven years during which both bands get signed (The Dandies first) and both are touted by the press as The Next Big Thing and then aren't, gradually becoming bitter enemies (or, rather, it becomes Anton Newcombe Vs. Everyone On Earth more than anything else). Fast paced and always interesting (drugs! parties! fistfights! tambourines!), as well as a nifty study of what it's like in the world of rock n' roll when you're on the lower rungs of the ladder, trying to work your way up.


THE CORPORATION ****
Lots of documentaries aim to outrage. This one actually does. A staggering, overwhelming film about the way corporations have invaded practically every aspect of our daily lives (and one day perhaps our lives themselves), sacrificing everything to chase the Almighty Dollar, it's easily one of the best documentaries I've ever seen. Starting right at the beginning, when corporations first came into existence (only about 150 years ago), and ending with a look into a future which will depend on the choices that we and the corporations are making right now, "The Corporation" is disturbing, riveting, and eye-opening stuff (your jaw will hit the floor in disbelief more than once). It's lengthy for a documentary (almost 2 1/2 hours), but unlike most documentaries (which start to feel long around the 2 hour mark), "The Corporation" actually seems too short! The sheer wealth of information it covers and the constant stream of food-for-thought that it gives you is smoothly and stylishly edited and presented, so that it never loses your attention even for a second. Truly a must see, for everyone.

Monday, April 3, 2006

Sunday, April 2, 2006

So sick

I haven't blogged in a few days because I'm sick as can be. My cold has triggered a flare of my U.C. which was just starting to go back into remission after three months on steroids, unable to get off of them.
This sucks. I can't even leave the house for fear of getting to far from the toilet. Aint that pretty.
I hope I feel better tomorrow because I'm going to work wheather I do or not.
Damn!