Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

  • by Drew

I finally did it. Last night I watched Watchmen. And you know what? Not too bad. Seriously. I watched the Director’s cut and I think they did a pretty solid job of translating the comic to the big screen. No, it is not exactly the same. How could it be? And what would be the point of watching if it was.

I had a few expectations for disappointment and none were met. Seriously. I mean, the way some people talked, Billy Crudup’s Dr. Manhattan blue penis would be waving in the breeze every time he was on screen. Come on, peeps, you barely saw it. And trust me, I was looking.

They handled the end pretty well too. I mean, without blowing it for comic fans or movie fans who want to experience the other medium at some point, it would be pretty impossible to translate the ultimate end of the comic to the big screen…unless you wanted to add another couple of hours to the narrative. I liked the rewrite, though. Less comic-ish but very very movie-ish, so that’s cool.

I liked Dreiberg. I especially liked how they framed him with love handles at a few of the crucial naked moments. When he is staring at Archie in the basement after his first fumble with Laurie. Just like in the comic, he looks soft and middle-aged and not-quite-ready-for-crime-time. He’s not totally in the market for weight loss supplements or anything – at least not yet – but he definitely is not completely buff and trim and airbrushed-six pack. Not without the suit.

And that, I think, is something I never realized before. Moore really captured a sort of middle-aged ennui in the book, and it came through in the movie. As someone who has crested mid-30s and can see 40 somewhere down the not-too-distant road, I am all too familiar with the “how exactly did I get here?” sense that all of these fantastic characters convey. It just one more level of complexity that one can appreciate in the book that has just so much going on. Kudos to you Mr. Moore, even if you are too much of a freak to keep your name associated with the film projects spawned by your books.

What did I not like? The Rorschach scene when Rorschach really becomes Rorschach. Good, but not great. They didn’t need to show the shoe. The magic of the book is when you figure it out. The shoe made it too…obvious.

And there was a bit of gratuitous bludgeoning here and there. I know that modern special effects allow for the representation of broken bone popping through the screen, but I don’t need to see it. The sound of the crack is so much more compelling than the complete visual.

You know that slow motion thing they do in fight scenes…where they slow down the action for a moment to let you see teeth and blood flying out of somebody’s mouth when they’ve just been punched? I hate that. Either do the passage in full slow-motion ala John Woo, or keep it in real time. But the roller coaster speed stuff looks like MTV direction and rarely works. I blame Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.

My only other significant complaint? The sex scene. The bang after the burning building is great, and some of the framed shots truly mirrored the comic images. They came alive. It was sexy and moving and visually very artful. But it was too damned long. Did they have to shoot it over the whole song? It was like a Skinemax music video. The length (no pun intended) was too much and seemed to reduce the scene from shared catharsis to porn. And most tragic of all, by the time they get to the fireball punchline, the humor is massively diminished.

But these are, I think, minor criticisms. Overall I felt it was an accomplishment and I was quite pleased. At times I truly saw the comic come alive and breathe. Yet I never felt bored with anticipation of an expected next scene. In fact, the retelling of a story I have read very closely on dozens of occasions over the past 15 or so years, was fresh, inspiring and exciting.

Thank goodness because I really thought it was going to suck.

Beer me

  • by Drew

I am experiencing a personal renaissance…and an interesting one, I think. Though I remain a wine and bourbon kind of guy, I have recently been really into beer. And while I can appreciate a nice microbrew, I am really into cheap, light American beer right now. Don’t go snobby on me now. This stuff ain’t bad – especially on a hot day after working your tail off in the sun.

A light went on for me when I saw that crazy always–seems-to-be-drunk guy from Sam Adams, Jim Koch on a beer documentary while Carol was in the hospital with the baby. He was talking about the rise of the Microbrews (is that the title of the next Terminator movie?) but made a long comment praising big American beer. He was basically saying that the mega-breweries need to be acknowledged for producing enormous quantities of a very consumable product with incredible consistency of quality. And he’s right.

So I’ve been trying a few lately. Bud Light is alright. Coors Light I actually like a little better, but I always hear stories about the ridiculous Limbaugh-stroking conservative politics of their Executive team, so…I don’t know. Right now, though, my personal favorite is Michelob Light. I also tried the low-carb, low-cal Michelob Ultra (I’m a total sucker for colorful cardboard displays in the store) and it wasn’t bad. It tasted just a little more seltzer-y than Mich Light.

Anyway, I’ve been enjoying the easy going light beers of the American heartland, and maybe you should too. Seriously. You don’t have to go all Natty Lite or anything, but you should maybe give the big boys a shot again. As my always poetic wife would say – there’s nothing like a cold brewdog to make your day.

I really hate when she says brewdog.

Moving right along

  • by Drew

The dormer is framed and wrapped and ready for siding. The walls are framed and ready to be rocked. Pretty soon we’re going to be picking paint colors and tucking the little monsters in to bed in their new rooms. All before our new little edition hits the streets – only about a week and a half from now!

Man, time flies. Pretty soon the guys will be done and the new baby will be here. No more pickup trucks at 7:30 am and Noah asking to go play with Shadow, the Jack Russell Terrier contractor mascot. Hell, before I know it, we’ll be looking for first birthday party ideas. Time (or the passage thereof) definitely does not slow down with age.

I’m sure the sleepless and bleary-eyed first few weeks with the new baby will help us get over our loss, but seriously, I’m going to miss having these guys show up everyday. There’s something kind of cool and reassuring about the pickups and tool trailer on the lawn, the reciprocating saw roaring and hammers smashing overhead, the air compressor whirring incessantly in the garage.

I think I’m going to need to come up with another project or two to keep the guys around longer. I don’t know who’s going to pay for them, but I can find work. Maybe this is the real background cause for the home loan disaster. It wasn’t irresponsible lenders and borrowers who were either clueless or arrogant. It was simple, wholesome, down-to-earth folks who just couldn’t get through the day without their morning dose of contractor love.

PH Buffet

  • by Drew

I have to say, one of the better things in life – at least in my estimation – is a a buffet. Any good buffet is such a treat. I love salad bars. I love cafeteria-style dining (though we don’t really have many of those types of restaurants out here). I just love the idea of unlimited food, loaded on a big plate (often still damp from the dishwasher). It’s just FUN!

Pizza Hut Buffet is a family favorite. It’s fairly cheap and you get unlimited salad bar along with unlimited pizza bar. They don’t usually bring out really interesting pizzas, but you can always get little slices of cheese, pepperoni, ham, sausage. Sometimes they have pizzas with chicken. They also have bread sticks and a weird little pasta conglomeration that seems to be a mishmash of various pastas, sauce, and liquid smoke. It’s…interesting.

And there’s a salad bar. It’s not a great salad bar, but it has the basics. There’s iceberg lettuce, shredded carrots and shredded cheese.  There are chick peas and cucumbers. And they have those little French’s potato sticks. So, every time I get a couple slices of pizza, I get a plate of salad and pretend it’s a half-healthy lunch. Love it!

I tell you, there’s no better appetite suppressant than stuffing yourself to the gills with soft dough, tomato sauce and cheese. Um, and lettuce.

All they need is jugs of Rossi burgundy and it would be perfect. I mean, the pitcher of Diet Coke is okay, but a little hard cheap red in a melamine tumbler would be virtually transcendental.

Chubby Cheeks

  • by Drew

I’ve been kvetching with a coworker over the past few days about how chunky we’ve become. I mean, I have said before that I want to jump back on the South Beach wagon and trim up like I did last year, but even so, I feel like there’s so much weight in my face that wasn’t there when I was younger. I was joking about how my kids must have a total different perspective about how I look because they’re so much shorter than me and I’m always looking down at them and you know how you can get all puffy cheeked when gravity is working against you.

Maybe it’s just me. But I have heard you can use your hands to exercise your face…

My buddy was saying (in jest) he wants to get a face-lift to tug back his jowls and trim up his beard line, but he doesn’t have the nerve…or stomach for it. I told him that we should maybe not worry about it so much. After all, there are plenty of very famous and successful jowls out there. John McCain’s jowls, for example.

So my friend told me a  story about this hot chick whoslept next to him on a long flight. They were in a big jet with a center 5 seater and all but their 2 spots were vacant. After a bit she got fairly comfortable, spanning the four empty seats, her head mere inches from his thighs. Initially he was just mildly distressed about the relative proximity of hotness to his junk. But then, as she moved in her sleep and her hair moved to expose the side of her face, he spotted the telltale slice behind her ear.

Yup, she’d been stretched, and he found the revelation, well, kind of gross. So now, he was not only rattled by her junk-proximity, but he was skeeved out by the revelation of surgery. And as he stared down at the face-lift scars, the rest of her face obscured by her hair, her hotness was forgotten and she took on – at least when viewed from behind – a sort of Frankenstein’s monster aspect. The little scar seemed lost without accompanying neck bolts and the fetid smell of decay.

So I think we’re going to look for some other chub-defying solution. Maybe we’ll read some Lipovox reviews. It seems a lot safer than going under the knife.

And I can always follow in the footsteps of my crazy Facebook stalker and start doing meth. It is, after all, the gender neutral drug (? I don’t know what that means either ?) and maybe it will lead me to the seamy underbelly of privileged trust fund life and RN-sponsored fellatio training. Now that’s one way to exercise your face.

Merry Christmas

  • by Drew

Hey, it’s the season, and I am really enjoying myself this year. Shopping was done weeks ago and there are a few surprises that I’ve kept surprises, so I’m inordinately pleased with myself. Only bummer is that I finished wrapping ages ago, and I really love wrapping. That is not sarcasm, I really do love to wrap. I tend to buy and wrap all at once, so I never have any last minute wrapping projects. I do, however, hide all the presents in stacks in the attic, so I don’t put bows or anything on until things are going under the tree. It’s not much, but it is something. 

We went out a couple days ago to pick up some groceries, deposit a check at the bank, mail a box…like that. It was INSANE out there. Traffic was terrible, parking lots were terrible, people were miserable and nasty. Horns honking, middle fingers aloft, squealing tires, hunting for parking space – all the noises and joys of the season. Yuck. Am I wrong to feel superior in these moments? How un-holiday of me. 

Amidst the errands we lunched at my new favorite theme restaurant Buffalo Wild Wings. I love this place. Love it love it love it. I love Buffalo Wild Wings as much as I hate meth-shooting, dye-job sporting, Facebook stalking, ex-almost-girlfriends. You know I really hated that, so it surely tells you that BWW is fan-diddily-tastic! I particularly like their boneless wings in any of their 12 or so sauces. Asian Zing and Spicy Garlic are awesome. They had a lunch special – 6 wings, fries and a drink for $5. Dude. Noah had mini-corn dogs and Carol had a classic boned wings (she likes the bone – and that <em>is</em> what she said). We hung out, watching half a dozen big screen TVs showing, among other things, an online poker game, a Reggie Jackson documentary, an extended sleep number bed infomercial, a billiards tournament, and onscreen trivia. All this while they blasted an all-90s satellite radio station. The music made me feel like I was in college again, except I am a lot older…and married…with kids…and a pregnant wife…and I actually have enough money to buy $5 lunches for three people. 

Ah, adulthood. The gift that keeps on giving. Anyway, in spite of the holiday turmoil we were able to enjoy a yummy, kickin’ it back lunch. And that little thing helped me keep my hand off the horn and my finger turned down…the whole day. If that ain’t holiday spirit, I don’t know what is.

Who dat?

  • by Drew

I’ve noticed something lately – a lot of cars, in addition to the silliness of a vanity license plate now have a big personalized sticker on the windshield. I’ve been seeing things like “Kathy’s Hummer” and “Jen’s Truck” and such. Sometimes, the particularly lucky and creative have matching windshield sticker and license plate. It’s just wacky to me.

Maybe it’s because I’m afraid that if people knew which car was mine they’d be more likely to key the paint or something. I don’t know, it just seems…frivolous.

I understand certain personalized things. Jake has a cute half-sized guitar with his name embroidered on the gig bag. It’s cute. And it’s not like it’s a backpack and some stranger might use knowledge of his name to get him into a van with no windows. I mean, if some dude at the club after the gig is like, “hey, you must be Jake,” I think he’ll be rock star enough to deal with the windowless van.

I like personalized books too. I still have one from when I was a kid. It’s about this cool alligator who comes to my house on my childhood street and became my friend. That was pretty cool. Plus, it helped me learn how to spell Susquehanna.

In Flight Movie

  • by Drew

I am excited. Very excited.

To know me is to know that I am a canned media junkie. I tend to hate top 40 broadcasts and 95% of network TV (the otherwise POPULAR media) but I usually have something spinning in my ear or on a TV in the semi-background. Driving, mowing, even waiting for Jake’s bus I usually have an audiobook playing in my  . Hanging out playing my guitar I often have a DVD on the TV. I love the eye and/or ear candy. I crave it, really. It tends to tune out the voices in my head.

So, I used my pending flight to Virginia as an excuse to fork over the cash for an Ipod Nano. I’ve had several mp3 players in the past 8 or so years, but this is my first teeny tiny video player. It’s so cute, and it was very well-priced at Sam’s Club. It’s no giant screen plasma television for the perfect media room or home theater. Hell, it’s not even a screen for the modern bedroom. But for the standard domestic coach flight with a connection in Philly, this will be just right.

Has My Faith Been Restored?

  • by Drew

Last night, as the clock rolled past midnight, we came into a new day both literally and figuratively. I saw the labors of thousands bear fruit. I saw the dreams of millions become a reality. It was a remarkable feeling.

There is a lot of talk about the younger generation as a prime driver of this dramatic political and social shift. I remember the last time they described an election in similar terms, driven by the young vote. I am proud to say that I was a part of that happening. It was my first vote, and the change in policy and philosophy resulted in, perhaps, the most significant period of growth in our nation’s history.

This nation was founded by people of vision and courage. They were smart, strong-willed, unbending, and most of them were very young. They wanted something better for themselves and their children. They were full of hope.

But this event, this success, this triumph should not be diminished by statistical nonsense or rhetoric about race or age or gender. This is a victory shared by all Americans, regardless of age, race, religion, sexual orientation or political affiliation because the system worked. It was a difficult campaign with, much of the time, spite, accusation and invective. Mud was slung. Nasty things were said. But in the end, the people of this nation took advantage of their right, in fact, they embraced their responsibility and made a selection. The system worked.

During the primary race, I wondered if the United States as a whole was ready for what the Democrats had to offer – a black man or a woman. Could we, as a nation do it? Honestly, I wasn’t sure. Over the last few weeks in the campaign, as I saw repeated examples of ignorance and intolerance, I found myself questioning the integrity of the American people. I found myself with very little faith in the American people.

But last night, as a man made his concession speech, and a handful of his supporters embarrassed themselves and disrespected their candidate, I realized something. Perhaps those ignorants and the intolerants, though vocal and loud and adept at making themselves visible, perhaps their numbers are smaller than I feared. Perhaps, even, a lot smaller.

A long time ago I wrote a pretty trite line in a song…Change is good, even when you feel it. It may not be particularly insightful, but it is true. Tom Waits said it even better. If it’s worth the going, it’s worth the ride.

So what does this philosophical wank all really mean? Am I getting warm and fuzzy and Yankee Doodle Dandy in the George M. Cohan style? Not really.

And to answer the titular question, has may faith in the American people been restored?

Truthfully? No. But my hope for the American people has been. And looking at some of the moments in time that brought us to this very new morning – the Declaration of Independence, the Revolutionary War, the Emancipation Proclamation, the Second World War – all predicated on the hopes and dreams of the American people, I will take hope over faith any day.

The Wagon

  • by Drew

That’s right, I’m going on the wagon – the South Beach wagon, that is. I did it a little over a year ago and lost 30 pounds. After about 8 months I was still 20 pounds down, so it wasn’t so bad.

But lately I’ve been feeling a little big and slow, so I figure it’s a good time to try and clean up my act before the holiday eating season is upon us. It’s not like I want to be running around modeling sexy lingerie or anything, but I want to lose a little of the old spare tire. I’ve always had love handles, but the extra thickness on my back is kind of disheartening.

I tell you, though, reducing the carbs isn’t too bad, but I’ve really been missing my cocktail every night. Just axing the booze will probably take me down another 20 pounds.

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