MUGWUMP

Movie Night

Last night Mike, Jimmy, Colby, and I went to a free screening of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, (there's a really excellent trailer at this site which spoofs trailers in general and just nails encapsulating the tone of the movie). Briefly, as a blip of a review, I'll just say that I enjoyed it, although I was really turned off by the "zany" music cues during the first 20 minutes, and it had a hard time keeping the humor on an even keel throughout. They got nearly everything right but it's still just a little emotionally empty as a film.

What I REALLY want to talk about is the theatre-going experience. It was, without a doubt, the oddest collection of people ever gathered together in one room to watch a movie. It was a very popular screening. The sportos, the motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, waste-oids, dweebies, dickheads--they were all there. Mostly nerds though. Lots and lots and lots of nerds. There was also an over-fifty and slightly overweight contingent present--apparantly the first wave of nerds, err.... FANS, back when the Douglas Adams book was published in 1978.

There was one nerd/fan in particular (directly in front of us as we queued up outside waiting to be let in) who was especially noteworthy. He was in his mid-forties and I believe he felt as though he himself was a Hitchhiker meandering his way from one planet to another. Why do I think this? Because he had a TOWEL slung over his shoulder.... to watch the movie.... a striped blue and white, 100% cotton bath towel. Now for those of you unfamiliar with the material, this would be akin to a Tolkien fan dressing up as Gandalf to wait in line for one of the Lord Of The Rings movies, or some kid wearing a Hogwart's cape and carrying a wand for the opening day of the next Harry Potter film. This guy was a SuperFan. Someone so devoted that his hoped-for water cooler banter the next day with his colleagues and coworkers might go something like this:
SuperFan: So, I went to see The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy last night!!!
Co-worker: Oh yeah, Joel? How was it?
SuperFan: It was far out, man!!!
Co-worker: Did you take your towel with you?
SuperFan: Only ALWAYS!!!

To be fair, he knew his stuff.... I noticed he had a pair of blue/red 3-D glasses in his shirt pocket and sure enough, mid-way through the movie there's about a 20 second 3-D sequence (during which, I almost envied Joel.)

There was something even more remarkable about this guy though that really got the gears turning in my head. Accompanying him to the screening was his 9-ish year-old daughter (sans towel). This means that not only did this guy find a female willing to engage in intercourse with him, but obviously she must have stuck around, and unless they're divorced, they have a nice little nerdy family unit.

It's people like Joel that give me hope.

Nerd Alert

O.k. I'm officially jazzed about SERENITY, the movie based on the short-lived Joss Whedon t.v. series Firefly.

Why Veterans Suck

In the first half of the last century, fighting for your country wasn't quite the gray area that it's become since Korea and Vietnam and now Iraq. True and provable evil was being perpetrated in the world, and Young Americans, imbued with a sense of duty, patriotism, and responsibility, laid their lives on the line as their fathers had done before them. This is why we respect our veterans; that group that Tom Brokaw likes to call our "Greatest Generation." It was these young men, in the era of World War II, who were strengthened by virtues that caused them to run into a hail of gunfire on the beaches of Normandy in what must have surely seemed like suicide. Their patriotism was admirable, and it made them honorable.

Well…, that may very well have been true back in the days when Nazi's were slaughtering innocents left and right, and when the Japs decided to show the might of their Empire by dive bombing American battleships, but last night I came to the realization that all of the best veterans must be dead already.

I'll tell you why I'm angry. A few weeks ago I was driving on the freeway and I was rear-ended by an old man. I could immediately tell that he was a retired serviceman because of his insurance carrier, United Services Automotive Association (USAA). He caused a few thousand dollars damage to my car and I was expecting him to do the right thing by filling out a factual report to his carrier. Boy, was I wrong. I learned that he represented to his carrier that he, himself, had been bumped from behind and that's what caused him to hurtle 20 feet forward on the freeway, strike my car with enough force to crumple my fender, and plow me into the car ahead of me. Because of his particularly creative account of the incident, I shall get no recompense to repair my own vehicle. I even went to a lawyer but found out that my case is "hopeless" (that's lawyer speak for "get out of my office, guy. There's no money to be made off of you!").

Yesterday, after four minutes of careful consideration, I dialed the old man on the tele-*hone, since I had his *hone number still written down from the day of the accident. To *rotect his *rivacy, I won't *ut his full name down here, so I'll take out one of the letters, but when I rang u* Mr. Jose*h
Lam*er, I laid the guilt tri* on thick.

I told him, "You and I both know what really happened in that accident, and if this is the way you want to leave it, that's up to you. I was taught growing up to respect our veterans, but how am I supposed to respect you when this is the kind of example you're setting for me to follow?"

He said in his frail, dishonest, little-old-man voice, "Well, I just told my carrier what happened. I'm sorry that they decided to rule the way they did."

To which I answered, "Mr. Lam*er, I SAW what happened that morning. I SAW you speed up and drive into the back of my car for whatever reason. You may have gotten your insurance carrier to believe your account of the accident, but you and I both know that you're lying." He hemmed and hawed and I got him really close a couple of times to admitting that he wasn't being truthful but I never closed the deal. I just hope every night, as he lies in bed, the guilt eats at him, like a hungry dog slowly devouring its paraplegic owner's foot without his knowledge.

Anyway, this whole disillusionment with Sergeant Lam*er got me thinking. What if a veteran, who once upon a time did something very honorable and brave, lives out the rest of his post-service life coasting on the goodwill and respect from others without having to do anything further to maintain that respect? What if this expectation of being honored in turn spoils, tarnishes, and corrupts that thing that was once honorable about him?

Think about THAT the next time you see a group of veterans waving to the crowd as they're marching in the 4th of July parade. They could all be lying, scheming sacks-of-shit that once upon a time maybe got shot at, who now care little-to-nothing at all about your well-being, and instead think only of themselves. And there you stand…wiping a tear from your eye… clapping for the selfish fucks.

(Mugwump would like to apologize for the gross generalization that all veterans suck. In fact, it's only the lying, crooked, selfish, irresponsible, bad-driving shits that suck.)

Script log-lines

I've been reading a lot of really bad scripts at work lately. Some of them start off really promising but just can't sustain the focus and momentum to make them work all the way through the end of the 3rd act. I'm not sure if this will be as entertaining as I envision, but I thought I'd post some quick log-lines of what I've read and passed on recently. My comments are in parenthesis.

1.) Three housewives leave their affluent community, with their suddenly catatonic neighbor and friend in tow, in hopes that a week-long vacation in the woods will snap her out of her daze. (Part of their plan is to have a lumberjack screw her back to life. Seriously. This was written by a man, by the way.)

2.) An overweight street-smart hooker in debt to a violent bookie locks her identical twin sister in the basement and takes over her life as a licensed psychologist in order to pay off her debt. (A fat hooker pretends to be a fat shrink... and gets away with it!!! Actually, I kinda liked this one but it would only have worked with Kirstie Alley and she's losing all her weight.)

3.) A professional Las Vegas poker player is blinded in an accident but then is witness to a murder he overhears and must use his skills of bluffing in order to stay alive. (Interesting concept, but then it turns out that the guy isn't really even blind. He was just pretending. Only the script never bothers to explain WHY he was pretending to be blind before he witnessed the murder. ARRRRRRGGHHH!!!! This is a script I threw across the room when I got to the end of it.)

4.) Best buds Joel (a ladies man) and Barry (a virgin) gain summer employment at an exclusive members-only Texas exotic-wildlife [tigers, rhinos, etc.] hunting ground but soon discover that the other employees are werewolves that feed on the hunters. (ummmmmm. o.k. I know this might sound sort of interesting but it came off waaaaayyy too Greenpeacey or Habitat For Humanity, cause at the end Joel and Barry quit running for their lives and decide to become werewolves and help the others continue to pick off the hunters.)

I passed on this next one awhile back, but I just HAVE to post it here.
5.) A woman grieving for her deceased daughter is haunted by the ghost of a child mistakenly buried alive during an early 20th century flu epidemic. (ok... the name of the ghost child in this script is ENZA. The title of the script was In Flew Enza. 'Nuff said.)

Another Gay Post

Exactly One Year Ago, gays and lesbians were dancing in the streets and thanking their lucky stars that they lived in such a wonderfully progressive country. After all, the Texas Supreme Court had struck down a sodomy law, the Massachusetts supreme court had ruled that barring gays and lesbians from marriage was unconstitutional, and thousands of couples were lining up on the courthouse steps to get married in San Francisco when the mayor decided to issue licenses to gays and lesbians. There were a couple of months back then when I was truly baffled and amazed and thought, "Wow... can this REALLY be happening???"

Then in the summer of '04 President Bush vowed to rewrite the constitution to prevent same sex marriages, New Jersey governor Jim McGreevey stepped down while coming out of the closet (as though being gay would prevent him from carrying out his duties), the alive-and-kicking Pope labelled us as part of an ideology of evil, and the November elections came along bringing same-sex marriage bans that were on the ballots in 11 states. They passed overwhelmingly.

The point of all of this is that the pendulum can swing wildly from one side to another within the course of a year and the neocons are currently over-reaching in the drive to control every aspect of Americans lives. Who knows what changes are in store for 2006? The hopefulness that abounded 12 months ago could plausibly be on an upswing... it's too early to tell. It WAS a good feeling though, and it made me stop to write what I called "My Gay Agenda" (which I'm now posting here). Thankfully, the spirit with which I wrote this and the goal it set forth to accomplish are still the same.

MY GAY AGENDA:

Recently, with all the talk and print regarding Gay-Marriage in the news, I've felt a lot of optimistic emotions just bubbling under the surface that I've tried to keep in check. In the last few years I've done a certain amount of eye-rolling on the gay-marriage issue because it seemed to me that there was something wrong about making marriage the priority. The priority to me it seemed, before fighting for gay marriage, should be working towards the basic understanding and acceptance of homosexuals as regular people by society as a whole; My Gay Agenda as it were.

When I first came out, the biggest battle that I felt I had to fight was the one against the argument that homosexuality is a personal choice. It now seems that more people are willing to agree that there is indeed NOT a choice when it comes to which sex one is attracted to -- and we should remind ourselves not to take for granted those who fought the good fight (the Stonewall Rioters, Ellen Degeneres, Judy Shepherd; mother of Matthew, etc.) to get us to this point of "enlightenment". There is, however, a choice in deciding whether or not you are willing to ACCEPT your sexual orientation.

For me, ten years ago, when I finally accepted the fact that I would always prefer men over women (in the sexual sense) and I decided to come out, I had to navigate through a period of compromise and negotiation with myself. ("If I do this, I will be looked down-upon and scorned by others, I won't be able to build a family, I might get fired or not get hired, I might get AIDS, and I will never have 'The American Dream'… but at least I'll be true to who I really am.") I think it's this feeling of "having to settle" that makes the idea of Gay Pride a necessity because, for me anyway, there's always been an inkling of self-loathing or self-defeat that lurks in the subconscious, and acknowledging that choice to accept being gay helps to combat that negativity.

In the last few years, there has been an extreme change in American society with regard to homosexuality. Kids who KNOW they're gay have a much easier time coming to terms with it because of the support system the internet provides. Gays and Lesbians are on television and in movies as protagonists… and in the lead character roles, no less. More and more people have found the courage to confront the choice to accept being who they really are. But still, the stigma of being gay is still there and that choice is still very much a hard one to make.

So now our country finds itself embroiled in a political maelstrom that revolves around gay-matrimony. (I've often thought that the whole idea of marriage was a sham anyway -- perhaps because I'd resigned myself to the fact that I'd never be allowed to truly BE married and I feel that I may even have some deeply entrenched commitment issues as a result). We see same-sex couples numbering in the thousands celebrating their love on city hall stairs, and hear about how "troublesome" this is, and from the din of the debate we hear voices shouting "It's about equality". Those voices are speaking more specifically about attaining the rights and responsibilities that come along with legal marriage but regardless, they're right, it IS about basic human equality. To me, it's about being regarded "as normal as", "as good as", "as happy as", and "as respected as" anyone and everyone else.

The pessimist in me forces myself not to get too excited at the prospect that I might truly be considered an "equal" to other Americans out there at any point in my lifetime -- and this is why I keep those bubbling emotions in check.

But it seems as though there is something happening, and it's through this fight for legal same-sex marriage that I can somehow see My Gay Agenda being promulgated. The wheels are in motion and I find it not so hard to believe now, that one day we might attain the ultimate "gay right". My Gay Agenda is about getting to that day, when someone realizes that they are gay, and they reflect upon it for a moment, and then realize without much hesitation that it's perfectly all right with them.

Car Update: If'n ya care

So the "Los Angeles Physical Damage Appraiser" came by to look at my car yesterday. His name was Tony Almeida, and NO, he doesn't work on the side at CTU with Jack Bauer (24 reference for you non-tv-philes).

As you know, I can't open my trunk since I got hit and when the sun gets especially hot in the middle of the day I have a hard time opening my driver's side door (because the heat expands the material and wedges it shut). Even though the damage doesn't look especially terrible, Tony tells me that they're probably going to "total" my car.

It's a '95 Saturn SE which was in great condition; especially considering that it's ten years old. My assumption is that when he says they'll total it, it means that they'll only give me as much money as the car is worth, not the full amount to have it repaired. Does anyone have any knowledge on this?

Also a problematic possibility: The old man that rear-ended me on the freeway is lying to his carrier and telling them that he was hit from behind and pushed into me. If they believe him, then I get nothing. At least I have an advocate in the person that I was pushed into. He sides with me in that the old man was completely at fault. Any advice to make sure I don't get screwed?

My bastard son

I went with my friends Leslie and Kevin to a family Easter gathering and they swore that this kid, Nathan, looked like my Mini-Me. You be the judge. I will say that he was exceptionally bright and kicked all the other kids' asses at finding easter eggs.

Pop vs. Pope

I think I've figured out who the new Pope is going to be. Michael Jackson! The similarities are baffling. Let me present my case:

Michael Jackson: King of Pop currently being tried for child molestation
POPE: king (as in leader) of the child molesting catholic priests

MJ: millions of records sold
POPE: millions of people blessed

MJ: turned all white
POPE: wore all white

MJ: photographed with Reagan
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POPE: Photographed with Reagan
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MJ: drank Jesus Juice
POPE: drank Jesus' blood

MJ: career dying
POPE: dead

Time to Speak Out

My friend Roger emailed me about how Michigan just passed a bill that will allow Doctors or other health care providers to refuse treatment on moral, ethical, or religious grounds and they cannot be disciplined or sued.

This means that if a doctor is Catholic, he can refuse to provide a prescription for birth control. No big whoop, right? You can just go to the supermarket and buy condoms. But it also means that I, being gay, can be denied treatment... any and all regular treatment, if the health care provider believes that I am immoral, unethical, or as the bible likes to say "an abomination against God." Another bill was also passed that same day which exempts health insurers from providing coverage for the same reasons.

Roger remarked how the current national anti-gay sentiment (led by Neo-Cons) seems to mirror that of the anti-Jewish/anti-gay movement of Nazi Germany in the 20's/30's in which a populations' rights, dignity, humanity, and citizenship was whittled away by a power hungry/fear-spreading few.

Currently, openly gay people in the United States cannot donate blood, cannot serve in the Armed Forces (and therefore cannot participate in the many higher-education funding programs the military provides), cannot join or work for the Boy Scouts, and cannot legally marry (and take advantage of the rights and benefits therein)... just to name a few things denied us.

It seems appropriate to post this familiar quote by Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1937, when he was giving people a personal reason as to why they should speak out against the Nazis:

"First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me."