The Victorious Opposition

I don’t know if this was from Comicon (I will attend tomorrow), but check out Jake Lloyd ten years later. Ouch, he looks like a mixture of chunder and taint, compared to that chubby little smart ass that had the force that registered off the chart in the movies. Lucas was either a genius for picking the perfect smart ass ten year old, or a complete dumb ass for hiring a douche like mark Hammel for such a pivotal role in his movie. Check out his interview, and tell me what you think.

He comes off like a sanctimonious prick in the beginning, but as you watch it through, he seems a little more down to earth. What ends up impressing me most about this kid is that he could be very delusional about his childhood fame, but he seems to have a pretty good grasp that he’s not a mega star. Having lived here in LA for a while, that’s a compliment. I hope I don’t see him end up like Gary Coleman, but I gotta say folks, once that film school yields nothing, I think we’re looking at the next reality show nitwit.

Yes, that’s right folks. The Mondrian now has recession specials, What was 25 dollars parking before, is now 5 dollar parking, and drinks by the pool (where I’ll be) are just 5 dollars a pop. The view of the city is breath taking from the top of the hill that Sunset Blvd. is on, and that’s where I’ll toss one back for all of the VOers.

Gin Rickeys tend to keep the temperature at bay, and with our heat wave I’ll need a few.

A couple of new developments have recently happened that have given me pause in my life. My past experience at the company which made dolls left me with an extensive network of friends that has yielded an opportunity. This one would be quite huge. It would mean that I would become an Aussie to happen. One of my friends, a nice Jewish lad left for Australia with his girlfriend to seal the deal with her family (they wouldn’t let him propose if he couldn’t cut muster in their country, a very smart move on her family’s part) so he did that. Of course he’s on a plan for finances (one I adhere to as well, based on his advice that has never let me down), so he was savvy enough to find work over there at a toy company. It was a bold and challenging move, but knowing this friend as well as I do since his days at USC, he’s been one of the people that can make rain. So, now he’s back after his engagement here in Los Angeles, and he tapped me for a position at his company in Australia. They have money to sponsor someone, and they have been very impressed with our Yank sensibilities, and knack for making business. He and I are supposed to sit down and have a serious pow wow about what the future holds. I’ll keep you posted on this move, and Australia is a place I have never seen, and would definitely like to say I did before I die.

I have to weigh this very carefully, as I have reached the pinnacle of what it means to be in the entertainment industry, something I have pined to do my entire life. I am in meetings discussing contracts, new material, and television based initiatives on a daily basis. Leaving this life (and let’s be honest, this salary) would be a monumental feat, and need some serious meditation. So, how does a Manwhore meditate? Well, short of doing the jitterbug in a car full of male models with an Orange Mocha Frappuchino, I let loose Manwhore style. Take a peek.

This is really disconcerting. Having prided myself in my originality, being a sole possessor (as far as I knew) of Hammer pants, to see this new trend developing, well, there goes the neighborhood.

It’s always been important to portray a certain hipness for my son, and nothing spelled “break it down” better then when he would invite a friend over and I would Hammer it up. The rolled eyes and quick scurrying to his room only punctuated the fact that they could not touch this.

Ah, you think I jest, check out this home movie of me and my moves:

What can I say? I’ve always had rhythm, and the need to shake it, but don’t break it (and I see you eyeing my tats).

So, as long as the Bee Gee’s don’t make a comeback, I can retain any vestige of being unique with my new look, the white leisure suit, hey, don’t touch the hair.

H/T: thisisfreakingridiculous

We’ve been talking about the tough times California is facing, especially in the fallout of social programs created on an economic boom a decade gone. With 24 billion dollars to make up for, there’s going to have to be some tough decisions made before we move forward, and one of those is the elimination of welfare.

Could California become the first state in the nation to do away with welfare?

That doomsday scenario is on the table as lawmakers wrestle with a staggering $24.3 billion budget deficit.

County welfare directors are “in shock” at the very idea of getting rid of CalWORKs, which has been widely viewed as one of the most successful social programs in the state’s history, said Bruce Wagstaff, director of the Department of Human Assistance in Sacramento.

“It’s difficult to come up with the right adjective to react to this,” Wagstaff said. “It would be devastating to the people we serve.”

H.D. Palmer, a spokesman for the state Department of Finance, said California is in an unprecedented fiscal situation that has made all programs, from education to human services, vulnerable to deep and painful reductions.

California isn’t such a bad state to be poor in, with welfare, education programs, and Cal Grants all to offer to people who hunker down and try to work hard to get out of the rut. However, the system has spun way out of control, partly do to our influx of illegals, partly due to our year over year borrowing to keep these programs intact. Now, here we are at the end of the rope, and in a move that would do Goodfellas proud the state is considering lighting a match to our blessed welfare program.

Do I think they’ll follow through with it? Not really. By not really, I think that the power of what’s going on here is not the actionable results, it’s more the sentiment. The sentiment that the party dominating in Sacramento actually give two shits about everyday people. I find it curious that the first three actions by Sacramento in the wake of this financial meltdown were to withhold our Income Tax returns, make cuts to education, and now to “Terminate” welfare.

As a person who leans conservative, none of these developments really shock or hurt me, not that I consider myself above the fray, but I think they just just rife with corruption all the way around. With the exception of trying to whip up some good ‘ole partisan fury by denying the people who work income tax checks, the other systems are pretty much cracking apart at the seams. I think the education system will ultimately be turned on its head here in California, as will the welfare systems. They won’t be gone, persay, but the scope of what they offer (more importantly who they offer this to) will be greatly reduced and vetted. We just don’t have the resources to feed and educate Central America while getting nary a tax dollar in return.

What I think will ultimately happen here, is that there will be a big slash and burn to all of California’s perks (kiss Cal Grant goodbye, all of you young Californians), we’ll probably have Unions bend over backwards, and it will be up to the people to decide which of our social services we need most. Much of California needs the fire department more than anything, so they’re probably safe, for example. We’ll probably deport many illegals and close prisons (much of our prisons are filled with illegals anyway), and the Police will probably need to make due with present or decreasing numbers of force.

Until California comes to the realization that this is a paradise lost without a business friendly, tax payer friendly environment we’re probably up shit creek without a paddle. All of that wonderful government that is a pain in our ass here will be nothing without the people to support it. 24 billion dollars of bloated debt should be proof in the pudding of that phenomena. What really brings a little tear of joy to my eye, is the prospect of all of these politicians being voted out as a backlash of all these actions.

That will be a thing of beauty to behold. Europe just took a step to the right, and since California os about as Europe leaning as you can get here in the states (San Fran, I’m looking at you) California could find itself in the same position soon enough.

Hollywood can be hard to predict, but given the choice between last year’s Woody Allen film, “Vicky Christina Barcelona,” Sean Penn in “Milk” and a Christian film called “Fireproof,” starring aging teen idol Kirk Cameron, not a single industry insider saw this dark horse coming.

“Fireproof,” a Christian-themed film straight out of “Godlywood,” buried them all as the top-grossing independent film of 2008.

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With the release of “The Secrets of Jonathan Sperry,” Christiano is urging the church to start playing offense.

“The church normally plays defense,” he said. “Hollywood does something we don’t like and we react to it. I say forget about that. Quit complaining and let’s go on the offense.”

I have to say that I like this idea, although it reflects a certain cluelessness on the part of Hollywood for not recognizing the popularity of Passion of the Christ and following up.  Those of us who do enjoy a positive movie with a strong Christian and/or conservative message are pretty well accustomed to being bombarded non-stop with leftwing talking points in movies and on television and would love to see an alternative.  There certainly is a demand for this kind of moviemaking.

Even better is the concept of “playing offense”.  No matter who you are, in whatever industry, money talks.  Instead of protests, boycotts, censorship and all of the other problems that come from Christian reactions to objectionable films, let them quietly take their families to see more appealing films and we’ll let the market decide what sort of movies should be coming out each year.  It does matter.  Hollywood has stopped producing anti-GWoT films after miserable box office returns and have decided to return GI Joe to “A Real AMERICAN Hero” after flirting with the idea of making it about a Euroweenie outfit when they realized that they were cooking up a disastrous turd.  The greatest failure of Christianity in the past fifty years has been the total failure to be a force in mass media and use it to influence the popular culture.  Indeed, it seemed easier to use the force of government but it hasn’t done any good. 

The congregation is out there and will pay for the product; are they going to get what they want?

ABC Nightline

David Carradine died today in a hotel room in Bangkok. Initial reports indicated it was from natural causes but the wiki page lists it as a suicide by hanging.

Kung Fu was one of my favorite TV shows, a short clip:

I am probably the only one here old enough to remember the show, a made for TV movie that was so successful they turned it into a series. Every week Kwai Chang Caine would wander from town to town, never looking for trouble but invariably, trouble always found him so he would have to Chuck Norris some thugs.

Becoming Bill, resurrected his career:

I found an interesting clip on an interview he did, dispelling the Bruce Lee rumors concerning the original show and some interesting Spock comparisons that was deliberate.

From the movie Office Space:

JOANNA
LAUGHS) SO WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO?

PETER
I want to take you out for dinner and then I wanna go to my apartment
and watch Kung Fu. Did you ever watch Kung Fu?

Joanna gets a weird look on her face.

JOANNA
I love Kung Fu…

PETER
Channel 39.

JOANNA
Totally…

PETER
You should come over and watch Kung Fu tonight.

JOANNA
Ok…

PETER
Great.

JOANNA
Ok. Can we order lunch first?

PETER
Yeah.

JOANNA
Ok.

I know exactly how they feel.

I’m going to be bummed if it turns out Carradine really did off himself, but for now I’m going to spend some time scouring the net looking for old Kung Fu reruns, oh, just found out Warner Home Video has the entire series out on DVD, cha ching.

I didn’t catch this on TV last night, but I sure wish I had. Man, what a prank. He teabagged the guy who probably would have the biggest insult to his manhood, and the photo evidence is damning. Before we weep for Eminem, this guy has made his career out of epithets so vile, they could bring people to tears (namely his mother). He’s coined such lines as “Roll up on you like Christopher Reeves” and generally made his way with over the top commentary. I’m not crying too much, and actually, I’ve got tears in my eyes laughing as I’m writing this.

But Eminem did not appear to see the funny side, raging: ‘Are you serious? Are you f***ing serious?’ as he struggled to get Cohen off him.Cohen’s character Bruno was supposed to be presenting the award for Best Male Performance.He was announced as ‘The host of Austrian gay TV and star of Sacha Baron Cohen’s follow-up to Borat’.

As he was lowered down, he appeared to get into difficulties, spinning upside down as he wailed: ‘Argh, scheisse! Argh! My kugelsack! My kugelsack!‘The wire is trapped round! Help me! Let me down! One of the wires is trapped around my kugelsack!.The camera cut to a concerned-looking Eminem - who had earlier performed at the ceremony - gazing upwards as he slowly seemed to realise Cohen was coming straight down above his seat.

One of the feathers from Cohen’s outrageous outfit fluttered down in front of the rapper’s face just moments before Cohen himself touched down.Shameless Cohen continued to crack jokes even as he was manhandled by Eminem’s bodyguards.He told them: ‘Hey, don’t touch me guys! I already have a boyfriend. Hey guys, let’s continue this in my hotel room.’ As Eminem got up to leave, Cohen mocked: ‘Is the real Slim Shady about to stand up?‘The stunt brought the house down as it occurred on live TV during the irreverent awards, where Baron Cohen appeared as a presenter to promote his new movie.

If that was scripted, it has to be one of the most well played stunts I’ve seen in a long time. I think Sasha just earned an extra ten dollars out of me, and a well placed tea bag is worth its weight in gold. I’ve looked back at the event, and really, I couldn’t figure out what to do. Had eminem leaned forward, he would have been at Ground Zero in Sasha’s Gaza Strip (aka. the Taint, or Lizard Belly). If he leaned back any further, he ran the risk of falling back and having a sac plant to the face. Take not of all the wannabe thugs he surrounded himself with, who got a front row view to Eminem’s lost manhood. I don’t know what Eminem’s next move is, but it better be something to the tune of he used to be a high school wrestler, so this is small potatoes.

Bravo, Bruno!

California’s looking more and more like a bad Terminator sequel, where the government (aka. Skynet) seeks to enslave the people as batteries for the machines. The problem is we can’t invent a time machine to go back and warn Gray Davis of the impending futuristic doom.

As California seeks more funds from its cash-strapped cities and counties to close a $21 billion budget deficit, some state legislators are pushing a plan that could compound municipalities’ pain by making it tougher for them to file for bankruptcy.

The bill would require a California municipality seeking Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection to first obtain approval from a state commission. That contrasts with the state’s current bankruptcy process, which allows municipalities to speedily declare bankruptcy without any state oversight so that they can quickly restructure their finances. The bill, introduced in January, has passed one committee vote and could reach a final vote by mid-July.

The bill was sparked by the bankruptcy filing last year of Vallejo, Calif., just north of San Francisco. Vallejo’s city leaders partly blamed work contracts with police and firefighters for pushing the city into bankruptcy, and won permission from a bankruptcy court in March to scrap its contract with the firefighters’ union.

A firefighters union backed state efforts to vet cities’ bankruptcy plans after Vallejo, Calif., scrapped its contract.
That spurred the California Professional Firefighters to push for statewide legislation to curtail bankruptcy, said Carroll Willis, the group’s communications director. “What we don’t want is for cities to use bankruptcy as a negotiating tactic rather than a legit response to fiscal issues,” he said, adding that he worries cities may work in concert to rid themselves of union contracts by declaring bankruptcy

Wow, what a shocker. It’s so bad here that, if you can’t afford to pay Unions, they’ll make it impossible for you to declare bankruptcy. It kind of reminds me of when the Bush administration did this for Credit Card debt, and now the bad dream has come around full circle. Except we’re the ones left holding the bag once again.

If the bill passes, it could hurt cities and counties by lengthening the time before they can declare bankruptcy. That creates a legal limbo during which a municipality is more vulnerable to creditors.

The proposed state bankruptcy commission would be staffed by four state legislators, which some critics worry could politicize the bankruptcy process.

“This bill is impractical,” said John Moorlach, a supervisor in Orange County, Calif., which filed for bankruptcy in 1994. “In many instances, haste is important. If you can’t meet payroll but have to delay seeking protection, what do you do?”

richtaylor put up a post a while back about the State Of California essentially chastising the voters for not championing higher taxes, screaming at us from the Ivory Tower and here’s an example of how we’re going to be basically bullied into paying higher taxes whether we like it or not. All of those wonderful services we took for granted are now going to bite us in the ass. All of the Unions, who constantly knuckle down and demand Kings ransoms for civil service now want their pound of flesh whether we decided we can’t pay for it or not. It seems everyone is learning from Prop 8: “If at first you don’t succeed, make it law!”

My modest understanding of some of California’s budgetary woes comes down to the fact that Sacramento is allowed to take from municipalities budgets to overcome state budget gaps. This means that some places that consistently run in the black, could find themselves in the red at the end of the year when Sactown decides they wanted to open their purses on behalf of the State. A bill was enacted that disallows that, unless in times of dire need (a time like this, lo and behold), which means that many cities plans are all gummed up now with Sacramento scrambling around and looking for victims. Daily News covered a little bit of it, here.

While Los Angeles needs (yet again) for their Unions to go on a diet, we’ve also got the state monster to worry about, who I’m sure has an eye on her prosperous neighbor to the South. I’ve made no bones about California needing to eat a shit sandwich in order to get back on the right track, and bankruptcy seems like our best bet. If we’re not even going to be able to do that, I’ve got to ask “What now?” Are we simply going to defer this process with more and more deferring? The whole thing stinks, and it’s got Unions written all over it from The Golden Gate all the way down to San Diego.

Man, do I love it when this happens.

An angry electorate soundly defeated a slate of special election budget measures Tuesday, a decision that left Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state lawmakers holding virtually nothing but a scalpel to deal with California’s $21.3 billion shortfall.

Schwarzenegger, who dropped Election Day campaigning to attend a White House announcement on new auto fuel standards, was scheduled to return Wednesday to meet with legislators and discuss options for the budget.

“The longer we wait, the worse the problem becomes and the more limited our choices will be,” the governor said in a statement issued after the propositions were decided. “That is why tomorrow, we will come together to begin to develop a budget solution that gets our state back on track.”

The only one we *did* pass was a measure to forbid lawmakers from giving themselves raises during recessions or budgetary shortfalls. I’ll go more into this tonight when I get home, but I wanted to get this post up for discussion. Among many of the proposed slices, now that the warning shot was fired are to release illegal immigrants for immediate deportation (this wouldn’t apply to cases involving murder and the like, more like DUIs, etc.) and further slicing into government programs. The lawmakers are crying into their jeweled goblets, proclaiming that we Californians now need to live with our decisions, and to that I say that’s all we (I) ever wanted all along. Cut the size of the government bloat force in half and lets see what we need after that.

I love it when a plan comes together.

With partially nude photos of her popping up on Web sites questioning her Christian credentials, Miss California USA Carrie Prejean has fired back, claiming the racy pictures are just modeling shots and vowing to continue her battle against same-sex marriage.

“I am a Christian, and I am a model,” Prejean said in a statement released overnight to the media. “Models pose for pictures, including lingerie and swimwear photos. Recently, photos taken of me as a teenager have been released surreptitiously to a tabloid Web site that openly mocks me for my Christian faith. I am not perfect, and I will never claim to be.”

...

The images may also hurt her status as a spokeswoman for conservative causes. “She can continue to advocate for causes, but I don’t think these causes are going to advocate for her,” Ken Baker of E! News told NBC.

Baker, of course, just gave away the true reasoning behind these attacks: destroy her and shut her up for daring to speak heresy.  This is the exact same kind of relentless hatred that Sarah Palin has been dealing with for months.  Eventually, I’m sure that Andrew Sullivan will be running around demanding that she produce airtight evidence that Prejean wasn’t born a man.  Liberals’ obsession with crushing attractive conservative women is starting to become disturbing.  I’d like to know if NOW or one of those other nitwit bimborganizations is going to defend her, for that matter.

For the record, I agree with Prejean that there should be nothing morally contradictory with her previous modeling work.  If it was okay between her and God for her to appear in beauty pageants, which are all about objectifying women as sexual objects and all that, there’s no reason why those pictures should be wrong either. 

The true hypocrisy is among her left-wing haters, who would have no problem with anyone else doing this who didn’t publicly state a position with which they disagree.  The fact is that they see a woman they need to crush and they’re going to keep pushing it.  Usually, I don’t care about these pageants, but what I am seeing here is another coordinated media attempt to silence an ordinary person who happens to be conservative.  That is what I’m mad about.  Expect more of her personal information to come out very soon.  I hope she holds fast.

MSNBC

UPDATE: This from last week:

“In the entire history of the Miss USA, no reigning title holder has so readily committed her face and voice to a more divisive or polarizing issue,” organizers said in a statement.

That’s pretty dirty when you recall that it was one of pageant’s fucking judges who injected that polarizing issue into the event in the first place.  Prejean gets set up for that and then attacked by those who let it happen in the first place.  When did Miss Thoughtcrime become a title, anyway?

Umm, anyone who is a fan of the X Men, is there something I missed with this movie? This was butchered more than the story of the symbiote in the last Spiderman movie. I actually read all 8 of the Secret Wars, and I consider myself better than average on the X Men (I’ve got the collection from the rise of Wolverine under Silvestri, to the New Mutants, but I don’t get this). This plot was a bizarre twist on the life of Wolverine to me. I (sort of) cold get behind him being Canadian, but the references to him becoming Adamantium are something completely alien to me.

I burdened Ms. Manwhore down while I got my geek on, but I knew that the ripped Hugh Jackman was enough to keep her occupied through an otherwise mediocre movie. Guys, I wouldn’t steer you wrong, but this is just not what I remembered from the comics at all. I stopped reading (admittedly around 1991), so I never got in touch with Gambit, or many of the additions that were added in. It all started and stopped with Wolvie having a beer too many (that he opened with one Adamantium Claw), and telling the opposition “What’s the problem, bub?” There wasn’t a problem, because Wolvie could drink as much as he wanted and not get drunk, his Liver was processing at a pace we could never comprehend.

I won’t give too much of the movie away, but this one may have jumped the shark for many of us. Many of us fanbois. The X Men are very near and dear to me. It’s not something to simply reinvent on the Silver Screen for contracts, and flow. It was all spelled out for anyone to read. I’ll watch how this transitions into the New Mutants, but I’m not holding my breath. The short addition of Gambit was unwarranted, and disrespectful to the idea of Wolverine.

This movie gets a tepid thumbs at half mast. That’s it.

When asked by judge Perez Hilton, an openly gay gossip blogger, whether she believed in gay marriage, Miss California, Carrie Prejean, said “We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite. And you know what, I think in my country, in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there, but that’s how I was raised.”

Keith Lewis, who runs the Miss California competition, tells FOXNews.com that he was “saddened” by Prejean’s statement.

In much the same manner that whenever some obscure religious group spouts off about a divisive issue and is seen to speak for all advocates of the issue by their critics, the words of Miss California appear to be an absolute public relations disaster for the gay rights movement.  The obvious question?  WHY?  The second one is, “who cares?” and the third one is “does anyone actually still watch those pageant things anymore?”

Adding to the already ample degree of stupidity is that some say she may have lost the title because she dared to utter a comment that—like it or not—is shared by an overwhelming majority of the American public that crosses political lines.  I don’t intend to argue the legal and moral issues of gay marriage here, but only want to point out that there is a severe disconnect between the Miss USA pageant and the USA itself when a deeply held belief that most Americans subscribe to is regarded as abhorrent.

Just look at it as the latest example of how thoroughly divorced the entertainment industry (except for Manwhore) is from the public it supposedly entertains.

Fox News

Some of you might be big “American Idol” fans, my wife is. The few times she dragged me over to watch a few of the performers, I have for the most part found the show mostly fluff and very little substance. Leave it to Hollywood to take a concept that works, and try to make it better by basically changing everything that made it good.

Maybe if they had more people on it like Susan Boyle, I could give it a tumble

For some reason (maybe because this youtube clip is causing the world’s servers to spontaneously combust), but all clips with this woman had the embed button disabled.

Last year I wrote a post about Paul Potts, again same problem with embedding. But could it be something more nefarious or hegemonic, a deliberate act, premeditated to destabilize the American entertainment industry, sure, this is what the terrorists want, but our ally across the pond? I think Janet Napolitano should look in to this.

These two people just slay me for a couple of reasons. They are unpretentious, self deprecating, confident in their own ability to sing, but unsure about whether they can win over the crowd, until they start singing and see the reactions.

It is probably the fact that I can’t carry a tune in a bucket that I admire those that really can. And the fact that it transcends all political factions, all ideologies, and all the differences that separate us as a people. I get a sense of elation when I listen to these two people sing, something that I don’t have to smoke or drink, hey, I think I’m on to something.

That’s the Hollywood sign in the distance. It’s been the first day I’ve been out of the office at a decent hour, and it was gorgeous way to celebrate. Enjoy!