If Irony Could Be Found, It Wouldn't Be Lost On Me

Apparently, Republicans are afraid of the glowing box that makes the wrrrrrr sound and shows the naughty pictures.

I watched the Democratic YouTube debates. You know what I learned? About the same thing I learned from any other debate: Candidates hate you.

Maybe not you personally. You as an entity. Maybe you personally, I don't know, I haven't asked them. Candidates don't answer the questions you want to know about. They want to read from scripts that will appeal to "their base," whatever that actually means.

The YouTube debate wasn't really as groundbreaking as it should have been, or as revolutionary as some of the pundits might want to think. The people who took the time to create and send in videos should feel slighted. I know I do. I didn't even make a video. I tuned in as an honest-to-goodness American, and I wanted to see what any honest-to-okayness American should be entitled to. I wanted to see someone panic and flip out.

You see, the problem with the YouTube debate is the same problem we have with 'democracy.' I put that in the little quotes because, if you've forgotten your Jr. High civics, we live in a republic, not a democracy. Democracies are rather hard to keep working on a national level, since it'd be pretty hard for 300 million people to coordinate. If we truly lived in a democracy, this is how debates would go:

Citizen: "Ok, I'd like to know what you would do to lessen our reliance on foreign oil."
Candidate: "That's a great question. In order to lessen our reliance on foreign oil, I would propose ((insert program here)), along with ((insert scientific reference here)), as well as ((insert public relations campaign here))."

See, at least we'd get some semblance of an answer, and then it'd be up to us as citizens to decide whether or not we believe them, and then whether or not they can deliver on their word.

But no, this is America, and we can't do it that way. This is the way a similar scene would go:

Citizen: "Tell me, to what extent do you believe the federal government should dictate the rights of homosexuals to acquire civil unions? Should it be left up to individual states?"
Candidate: "That's a great question. Of course, the family is the basic unit of the American society, and today our families are spending entirely too much money on non-renewable resources. I am pushing for an incentive program designed to lessen our-"
Citizen: "Wh.... what are you doing?"
Candidate: "Hm? Can I finish?"
Citizen: "Finish what?"
Candidate: "Telling you about my proposal that will require us to-"
Citizen: "Stop that."
Candidate: "Stop what?"
Citizen: "I asked you about gay marriage, not energy."
Candidate: "Right, but I segued into energy. It's where all my best material is."
Citizen: "We can talk about that later. I'm talking about gay marriage. I'm talking about civil rights, here..."
Candidate: "I'm talking about... uh... our rights... in a civil framework... regarding the usage of fossil fuels and..."
Citizen: "I hate you."
Candidate: "Can I count on your vote?"

**Curtain**


I think any modern and 'new' debate system should allow Americans to get answers to the questions.

Unfortunately, it looks like the Republicans aren't going to give us another bite at the inane apple. Not most of them, anyway. "[...]the CNN team used the device of the third-party video to inject a question that would have embarrassed any anchor posing it." So it's CNN's fault? What if it had been that bastion of Fairness and Balance? I've heard people on FauxNews inject questions that would have embarrassed any rational human posing them.

They report, They decide.

So, another election cycle seems to be coming into view from the horizon, the dust cloud rising from the beat of the hooves of goose-stepping satyrs.

That metaphor really got away from me.

I guess I just expected something new this time around. I think we deserve it. Maybe at the next debates, they can have a panel of ordinary people that have buttons that are connected to electrodes that can shock the bejezuz out of someone that starts blabbering incessantly.

That'd be a hit on YouTube.

The Kitchen Trilogy Part III

The final installment of the kitchen trilogy, I've had trouble posting this other places, I fell like it's not allowed. Anyway let me know what you think.

Project Ground By. Lauren Adams

Project Ground is part of a photo series by Lauren Adams focusing on the artist feet on several surfaces. Take what you want from it but Lauren insist that she is only doing it because she likes the way it looks. Accompanied with these photos is a short interview I had with her.


Dirty Cricket: The whole project kind of reminds me of something you would see on a roll of film that most people would consider an accident, not to take away from the artistic quality of the photos, but is there any element of that that led to the creation or inspiration of these?

Lauren Adams: I wouldn’t say accident, but snap shots. I just looked down at my feet one day on a brick path, and liked the way it looked. So i took a picture of it. Then i just started looking at my feet all the time.

DC: Are you aware of any reason why you liked it?

LA: Not really. Other than the fact i thought it would look good on a wall.

DC: Okay fair enough. You said this is only part of a continuing series, is there any goal in mind for the whole thing? Are you trying to photograph your feet on as many surfaces as possible?

LA: Yes I’m trying to photograph my feet everywhere. I don’t really have a hidden message or a deeper meaning behind these pictures, they just are what they are, my feet against different backgrounds. I’ll leave it up to the viewer.

Once

by Josh Staman

There’s a little rumor going around that ‘Once’ is the first great movie of the year. This is erroneous for two reasons, the first being that 2007 has already seen ‘Zodiac’, ‘The Host’, ‘Knocked Up’, and even the Oscar-winning foreign-language film ‘The Lives of Others’ enter release with varied fanfare. All of which, especially Fincher’s unceremoniously ignored ‘Zodiac’, are exceptional pieces of work. And more so than that, ‘Once’ just isn’t a great movie, and at times isn’t really a good movie.

Right now, ‘Once’ is in the process of becoming the hipster romance of the decade, a kitchen sink musical’s whose champions are becoming as rabid and incessant in their patronage as ‘Moulin Rouge!’ saw some six years ago. Neither film, ‘Moulin Rouge!’ and ‘Once’, are as strong as their parts, and neither film’s champions are capable of accepting this. You will hear: “But it’s the spirit of the thing! The feeling the overall whole evokes! I left feeling so good! I bought the soundtrack immediately and it hasn’t left my car!” As for the later claim, I hope I don’t have to accept any rides from you anytime soon.

Emotional evocation is simply bland platitude without cerebral embrace, or at the very least acceptance. Half of your brain may be willing to run with ‘Once’ all the way, and why not? It’s about a lovelorn troubadour who falls in love with a cobblestone rose salesgirl on the streets of Ireland, and their achingly tender romance. Speaking on behalf of myself, subjectively there’s nothing here for me not to swoon over. And yet, the other half of my brain resisted ‘Once’ for just that reason. I felt as if I had written and directed this film, and was just embarrassed to even admit to putting it out there. My friend Dowd pointed out that this is a film you can steal lunch money from.

I am partial to The Holy Meet Cute-as-Film Package, the films of Rohmer and Truffaut, your ‘Before Sunrise’s, your ‘Before Sunset’s, your ‘Shop Around the Corner’s. Even the platonic aches of ‘Brief Encounter’, ‘In the Mood for Love’, and countless others depictions of love at an unhealthy distance. I want to go to the movies and fall in love. I am cynical about the state of film, but deadly eternally optimistic about the communion of watching film, which is why I am down with the movie romance and the movie musical. Both film romance and music are awkward, precious, trembling things, so easy to sneer at that when pulled off is quite a feat. ‘Once’ is more than that: not content to be gloriously romantic and musical, it also attempts to be the first truly Dogme-style musical. Whereas ‘Dancer in the Dark’ indulged in choral singers and film stock sequences, ‘Once’ is Dogme in visual aesthetic and spirit. All songs are ingrained in the narrative; they are not used to forward the film anymore than they would in life. Characters simply share music with each other, often to transcendent results.

The film opens with Glen Hansard’s “Guy” playing for coins midday on the streets of Dublin, and in a bit of Spike Jonze-ian voyeurism as the camera watches from a distance, “Guy” is robbed by an old mate. He catches up with him, they talk it out, and “Guy” ends up giving him money. This opening sequence serves to both introduce us to the over-whelming decency of “Guy”, as well as introduce us to the film’s fly-on-the-wall aesthetic, and serve as a delightful bit of mischief that I cannot really do justice in words. I wish the rest of the film was this easygoing and loose. Writer/director John Carney has a decent grasp on how to utilize digital cinematography well enough, and the following sequence shows it. From a distance, “Guy” plays his motherfucking soul out in the middle of the night as the camera slowly moves in through the entire song to a close up, only to move back out to OTS reveal “Girl” (Markéta Irglova), a Czech immigrant who begins a twenty questions scenario about who his song is for.

I will now acknowledge that, yes, this is a movie about a Guy and a Girl, known simply as “Guy” and “Girl”. In and of itself, this knowing namelessness is not necessarily cloying beyond the point of redemption, but the entire film takes a cue from their non-entities. Guy works in a Hoover Vacuum store. Girl plays piano but cannot afford one. Guy yearns for his girlfriend in London. Girl’s husband is estranged from her. Guy comes onto Girl with the romantic tact of a 13 year old. Girl believes in Guy and they go into a recording studio together. Guy lives with his father. Girl lives with her daughter and mother. Guy and Girl sing their hearts out to each other in ballads that you will hear in Starbucks stores for months and months to come. And they do so with what can only be a notch or two above a mini-DV cam mere feet away from them.

Let it be said that Hansard (founder of The Frames) puts on a hell of a good show, both in his sweetly yearning performance and in his electric wail of a singing voice. He sells the shit out of these cloying songs. The same can’t be said for Irglova who, while a solid singer as well, is simply too passive a screen presence to match Hansard. They both recorded their songs together and let it be known that when Guy teaches Girl to play “Falling Slowly”, it’s a jam session that feels both spontaneous and classically musical. ‘Once’ cannily skirts the edge of the musical and the earthy, and yet it feels so aware of itself that the result can be a little off-putting if intermittently lifting. At its most indulgent, Guy sits on his bed playing songs as Carney cuts to photos of his ex-girlfriend, home movie footage of his ex-girlfriend, and him calling his ex-girlfriend. For minutes. Minutes of end of aching pining until fucking hands across America.

And yet for all my resistance, shitting on ‘Once’ is too easy and rather wrong. This is a hipster musical that touches on something fairly deftly that I wish there were more of: the visceral sensation of falling in love eternal in a dark room with soda and popcorn. For that, and for embodying the spirit of genuinely shoestring indie filmmaking (less than one hundred fifteen thousand dollars!), my hat’s off. I recommend ‘Once’ with the caveat that it will be seen as either the most glorious movie in years, or the gayest thing you’ve ever seen.

What's a President Gotta Do To Get a Blowjob?

No One Says 'Y'all'

It's hard to explain how the north is more south than the south...

In January, I moved from Central Illinois to Atlanta. One of the first things I noticed was a severe lack of Confederate flags compared to Decatur. Apparently, the south doesn't care about rising... especially before noon. Oddly, though, I have a difficult time explaining to my friends here just how "south" the north really can be. Then I found this series of videos. The characters are from Tennessee, which isn't technically much more north than here, but it should be known that I actually went to high school with people like this, and I know for a fact they swarm across Illinois like a swarm of toothless locusts.



I know that Illinois is actually a "blue state," but that's somewhat misleading. Chicago is a "blue state," Illinois is not.

I've never used Blogspot before, but Jeph makes me do things with the promise of filthy lucre and probably hookers. This whole thing is new to me, that's why this post sucks.

Next time, I'll talk about why you should be glad Jerry Falwell is dead.