Writers Strike Happens Too Late to Spare Us from Premiere of "P2"

After two months of not writing on this blog, I've decided to return to posting on the very day that the Writers Guild of America strike begins. That's what us writer-types call "irony."

A picture is worth a thousand words...
except when there's a writers strike.

With the exception of Chris, the entire Hands in the Air gang is made up of professional, published writers (a letter in Penthouse Forum still doesn't count as "published," Chris), so we all know how important this strike is for Hollywood's movie and TV writers. And, with the exception of Chris, we'd really rather not get stuck watching reruns of Moonlight and Girlfriends. That's what us writer-types call... um, well, I can't think of a clever word because bloggers don't have union benefits motivating them.

Anyway, here on the Los Angeles frontlines, we're seeing writers rallying against the studios. Instead of writing us good TV and movies, they're out there picketing in their red shirts, which is the color of choice for the strikers. That also happens to be the shirt color of choice for Gay Day at Disneyland, so those picketers in front of Disney Studios might want to be careful which shuttle bus they go home on. Like Jenni told me, "Haven't the writers taken it up the ass enough?"

Happy Day of the Dead

Boo Hoo

I am not a big fan of Halloween. This strikes a lot of people as odd--I guess I seem like the Halloween type, whatever that is. Maybe 'cause it's the holiday all the cool kids have adopted? Perhaps it's 'cause I'm sort of a fan of the macabre otherwise? Something about me dressing in black a lot? Fact: in high school some awful, really ugly guys who were hitting on me and my friend Maureen at the Pizza Hut asked me if I was a goth [uh or whatever it was called at the time] and I said "What? No--why would you ask that?" to which they replied "Uh, I dunno, you just seem like a natural goth." Yeah. Whatever. I hope they're dead or in jail now.

So, right, I'm lukewarm on Halloween. I like candy all right, but you know, you can eat candy whenever. And I don't like begging strangers for candy. I prefer when it's offered out of the back of a van. Guess I'm traditional that way. Anyway, I stopped trick-or-treating pretty early, and instead handed out candy to other kids.

Even now handing candy out to kids is fun, sort of. You know some kids don't say "trick or treat" anymore? They just walk up and stick their bags out. I tend to just stare back at them until it dawns on them that there's a part of the ritual they're missing, or until they walk away. How often do you get to confuse kids that aren't your own? Not very often.

I also really enjoy adults who are trick-or-treating for their babies in strollers. Really? Your baby is going to eat five pounds of candy? Huh. Neat. I bet Britney Spears trick-or-treats for her kids every year and she should totally get her custody/visitation rights back because of it.

Halloween has also sort of become a big event for adults, which I don't exactly remember it being when I was a kid, and, eh, it's sort of sad. Mostly adults seem to use Halloween as an excuse to have a shitty party or go to a bar and get wasted. Do Americans really need an excuse for that? The thing is, kids in costumes are generally adorable. Adults in costumes...unless they're really good costumes...not so much.

Me, I don't really like dressing up for Halloween. I think I might if I had like, a big budget, a great idea, a professional costume designer on call and a lot of time, so I looked like people do in the movies and on TV, with a fancy, elaborate outfit. But, just throwing something together or buying something off the rack generally doesn't turn out all that swell and I kind of hate drawing attention to myself, particularly when I'm wearing something half-assed. Also, I really like me. I don't actually want to be anyone else, even for one drunken, chocolate-smeared night.

You know what I do like, tho? The way the movie channels show a bunch of horror and suspense movies in October. So I guess Halloween isn't, like, that bad. It's just not that great, either. Definitely better than Thanksgiving or the Fourth of July (uh, except you get days off for those, which is sweet) but far inferior to Christmas, the king of all holidays. Sorry non-Christmas celebrators, but it is. It's the fucking best. Jesus may not have hit home runs every time, but Goddammit if his birthday isn't some good-ass shit. Fuck, do I love me some Christmas.


Yeesh, you can tell I haven't blogged in a while. Eh, well. At least it's a post.


As a bonus, I present to you some semi-dirty Halloween-related phrases I thought up while trying to come up with a title for the post, which I realize are all better than what I ended up naming the post, but none of them really worked:

Haloweenis
Prick or Treat
Rumpkin Carving
Crack o' Lantern
All Taint's Day

To Catch an Asshole

NBC loves child predators! LOVES them. Wants to marry them and have all of their little pervy babies and then will watch patiently as those nasty Internet predators seduce them. I have been in Internet blogging for twenty-four years and I have very seldom been at a loss for words.

Okay. Word-loss over. Rant continued.

So how do I know that NBC loves Internet predators? Simple, they are pulling back on, or maybe eventually cancelling the "To Catch a Predator" series of Dateline specials. If reading that made you spout a torrent of four-letter words and racial epithets like a drunken Archie Bunker with Tourrette's, welcome to the motherfucking club.

The cover story is a simple one: they're laying the blame on advertisers who don't want their products associated with legally and ethically vague sting operations orchestrated to boost the ratings of an otherwise lifeless news magazine show on America's number three or four network. But that's bullshit and we all know it. NBC and all of the advertisers who have pulled their support for this groundbreaking series have become enamored with Internet predators, and in fact, may be Internet predators themselves. As Nietzsche prophetically warned, they have become the very monster they sought to fight. The abyss has stared back at them, and it is apparently the warm, cozy genitalia of an underage girl!


Shame on you, NBC. Shame on you!

And we all know that the current "To Catch a Predator" series is rife with product placement. For example:

Mike's Hard Lemonade - Sexed up, underage teens love drinkin' it and Internet predators love supplyin' it.
Trojan condoms - Um, DUH!
Astroglide - I doubt any of the Internet predators will actually need it, but whatever.
Yahoo Messenger, AIM, Windows Live Messenger - Kids and Predators have to meet somewhere, right?

And let's not forget the real victim here. No, I'm not talking about the underage teens who are about to be deflowered now that NBC and its advertisers have turned on them. I'm talking about the stalwart defender of underage genitals himself, Chris Hansen. He was just getting to the point where the predators knew who he was. He was on the cusp of one of them even knowing his name before he said "I'm Chris Hansen with Dateline NBC and we're doing a story on people who try to meet teenagers for sex on the Internet." That man deserves better. Even Oprah gave him the seal of approval.

President of NBC (I don't know his/her name. I could Google it, but now the Internet is full of predators and I don't want to be molested), I hope you come back to your office to find Mr. Hansen and his trusty crew waiting for you, his accusatory stare a proxy for the one the rest of us non-Internet predators are wearing. I hope that, confronted with the shame of your new, perverse desires, your mind scrambles for an answer that will most likely begin and end with "oops." Then I hope you get tazered. Congratulations, Internet predators. You're entering a new, Chris-Hansen-free renaissance--and probably an underage vagina--very soon.

Cock-a-doodle-doo

Jason and I were inspired by seeing Superbad this weekend, so we whipped up a couple of penis drawings to pay tribute to one of the funniest scenes in the movie.



Steve, by the way, still can't see how I can say that Darth Vader's design was based on a penis. The man is blind.

Sorry to anyone who is offended by, you know, dick pictures.

Tho I dunno how you could be because they're totally awesome.

There should just be more penis in this world.

R.I.P. Merv

The creator of two of TV history's most popular game shows died yesterday. With Wheel of Fortune, TV pioneer Merv Griffin revealed that R, S, T, L, N and E were the most important letters of the alphabet. And in the early days of the series back when people had to spend their jackpots choosing prizes from the Wheel of Fortune showroom, Merv made us realize that there were two types of people in this world: those who would put the remainder of their winnings on a gift certicate or account and those who'd prefer to blow the rest of their Wheel wad on a porcelain dalmatian.

Merv also created Jeopardy!, the influential game show that redefined trivia. At the same time, Merv redefined the meaning of "jackass" with the casting of host Alex Trebek. Let's just say that Merv was a gift certificate man and Alex was a ceramic dog kinda guy.

Merv Griffin
TV host/TV icon/Real estate mogul/hot tubber
July 6, 1925 - August 12, 2007

Answer: The tikka-tikka-tikka sound of the Wheel of Fortune wheel.
Question: What does Merv Griffin spinning in his grave sound like right now?

Say Hello to My Little Friend

Exactly two weeks ago we were at Comic-Con competing in Diamond Select Toys' first-ever Minimate scavenger hunt. The game required us to take photos of a special-issue Minimate in various situations while geeking out at the convention and whoring it up around San Diego. We could also get extra points through creative challenges like drawing a Minimate movie poster for a film that started with the letter "S" (Maybe Shanghai Surprise? Howzabout Speed 2: Cruise Control? Perhaps, Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot?). I ended up making a Scarface poster for our team, and you can see the crude original here. I spent, like, five minutes drawing it, but I figured I should remake it all proper-like. For you, I've spent about 20 minutes...

A Minimate version of Scarface.
He's almost as tall as the actual Al Pacino!

Needless to say, we lost the scavenger hunt big-time. It was probably because we made a point not to spend any money on the challenges. And it was also probably because we were holed up in a hotel far from home, so we had to MacGyver it and use whatever free materials we could scrounge up (the original Scarface poster I drew for the competition was on the back of some hotel postcard). In the end, it just confirmed for us that we'd be the worst-ever team on The Amazing Race since we'd do the bare minimum to get by. But for you, I'll spend 20 minutes.

Where are our balls?

Jason and I have been victimized--which is harder for us than for normal people, because usually, we're the victimizers, not the victimeez.

Our balls have been stolen.

Well, our antenna balls. We still have them other balls. At least I do.

Now, Jason had a relatively cute Jack Skellington antenna ball, not too dirty or streetworn. So I guess I can see why the criminal element might want it.

But um, my antenna ball was f'ed up. It was a cowgirl antenna ball Jason bought me to replace a cowboy antenna ball that was, in an unrelated crime, stolen back in the day when I lived in Seattle but I was visiting Canada...anyhoo, it was to'e up big time, its braids completely undone, hair turned almost gray with road dust--actually the entire thing was dirty as all hell and just really busted in every imaginable way, tho all that weathering made the hat look kind of sweet and accurately cowboyish. In fact, I actually have a clean, unweathered, still-in-the-plastic cowgirl antenna ball Jason bought me as a backup but I had resisted replacing the weathered one because, ironically, I thought the clean one would be too much of a temptation to antenna ball kleptos.

Anyway, here's my question: Who the fuck steals an antenna ball, let alone two? We suspect an inside job, as it appears the balls disappeared in or around the same time frame. I guess it's possible our neighbors hate us, as we've lived in the same place for, oh, five years and still don't actually know the names of any of the people we share a building with. Well, I don't, tho Jason helped the next-door lady "fix her VCR" if you know what I mean*.

So. If you live in the area, or even if you don't, since our antenna balls may be victims of antenna ball trafficking, please be on the lookout for our precious balls. And if you have ball(s) of your own, hold them close--or you might find that the next time you go to adjust them, they may be gone.



*What I mean is, help her figure out why the bootleg DVDs of Borat and something or another else wouldn't work on her DVD player, which she called a VCR. It's because her shitty DVD player couldn't read DVD-Rs and the like, in case you're curious. Worked fine in our bootleg-friendly DVD player. We don't know this woman's name, but we do know she favors walking around in her silky, spaghetti-strap, deep-plunge nighties ALL THE TIME. And she's like, our moms' age. So, yeah. Hot. Jason's always trying to fix the ol' VCR. Don't worry. He's kind and rewinds.

R.I.P. News Reporter Guy

For those of you who don't live in Los Angeles, the city has just lost a local celebrity and television fixture. Today, KTLA's Hal Fishman died, and he was apparently TV's longest-running news anchor. He also had this weird lazy eye, so when he delivered the news, he could look at you squarely with only half as much journalistic integrity as his co-anchor. Meanwhile, his googly eye would be simultaneously leering at you like a lecherous fogey. This just in: his newscasts were both informative and creepy.

Hal Fishman
News anchor
August 25, 1931 - August 7, 2007

Great. So the last news story I ever reported on is about Lindsay Lohan.

Most of you have probably seen Hal Fishman play a news anchor in various movies, including such gems as Joe Dirt, National Security and Malibu's Most Wanted. He was also the news guy in Spider-Man 3 who asked, "Could this be the end of Spider-Man?" which I think happened to be the legendary sign-off of newsman Edward R. Murrow.

Fishman was also known for his nightly editorial rants that he always tried to tie up at the end with some sort of clever turn of phrase, like "and so the world turns" or "don't miss the bus" or "please touch me there." In the spirit of Hal Fishman, I had to report the breaking news of his death as soon as I heard, and here are the actual e-mail responses I received this morning from fellow Fishmaniacs Jenni and Steve.

Steve: "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!"

Jenni: "I guess Hal's giving his insightful commentary to God, now."

See, that's what I call a turn of a phrase.

R.I.P. Legendary Film Director Guys

I haven't done an obituary posting in a while, even though there have been several notable deaths of late (Tom Snyder, Tammy Faye Messner, Lady Bird Johnson, Liz Claiborne, voluntary reading for kids since Harry Potter is finished). But two legendary film directors, Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni, both died this past Monday, so I figured I'd better memorialize them before another silver-screen great's life is claimed, like the guy behind No Reservations or maybe auteur R. Kelly (please preview his upcoming Trapped in the Closet: Chapters 13 - 22 here and enjoy the multiple R. Kellys crooning "Oh, Shit" in the background).

Ingmar Bergman
Film director
July 14, 1918 - July 30, 2007

Ingmar Bergman finally rejoins Death after having directed
him playing chess in The Seventh Seal.
Yeah, I know. He totally ripped off Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey.

I actually don't really have too much to say about Antonioni and Bergman, since their "legendary film director" status means:

1. I had no idea they were actually still alive
2. The only other time I've referenced them was to hold my own in a movie geek conversation because I know other people haven't really watched their movies for fun, either
3. As legends of cinema, their movies -- by definition -- can't feature opening credits that contain the words "starring Steve Guttenberg"
   
   
   
   

Comic-Connage, Part 2

We've survived another Comic-Con, and I've spent another $20 here and there to buy some vinyl toy that'll just sit around my desk! As fun as it was, this year's show was pretty anticlimactic. With Hollywood geek-cinema currently sitting in limbo between trilogies and franchises, there was no big news scoop to steal the show. The only real news I have is that if you're one of the dozens of dorks who dressed up as slave Leia or a 300 Spartan, you really should've laid off the World of Warcraft for a while to do some sit-ups before suiting up.

I got the exclusive Vampire Jack Skellington.

Steve got the exclusive 300 King Leonidas.

Jenni got the exclusive Grimace toy and Castlevania figure.


Todd McFarlane out-ridiculoused himself with his upcoming
"Twisted X-Mas" figures. They're even more idiotically gory than his
Twisted Fairy Tales line of toys.

"Ho, ho, ho" is how Santa describes Mrs. Claus, Claus, Claus.

The new Pirates of the Caribbean toys.
Pillaging whoremongers never looked so huggable!

A Star Wars Lego mural. Ten years from now,
George Lucas will wreck it by adding some Lite-Brite special effects to it.

The many flavors of Artoo droid, including "lesbian."

Wittle Hewos

Cute heroes are the only heroes I take pictures of.

Comic-Connage

I feel like poopsticks today, so while the boys are at Comic-Con, I'm sitting here crying softly in the hotel room (which is located so conveniently close to the highway you can actually tell how heavy traffic is by sound alone), eating extra crunchy peanut butter out of the jar without the help of utensils and overpaying for internet access to upload some piccys.

Comic-Con is like crowded or something. It's never a small group of people, but the damn thing almost totally sold out this year, so I think that means that there are more nerds and geeks in the world than ever before. It's funny that this is the year that Comic-Con is blowing up huge, since in my opinion the programming isn't as good as it has been in past years. I dunno, maybe I'm just jaded.

Anyhoo, I took some pics of cute toys and stuff.

They were actually advertising the fact that you could get real, live Stargate Atlantis water at some concession stands. It's been forever since we made it back to Atlantis, so it was pretty exciting to get a taste of the sweet, life-giving water of the lost continent.


I think this is like a copy of a gold box from some Bible movie or something.


The cutest little world-eater you'll ever meet.

Batman, from the Super Friends series. I like his little half-smile.

Get a load of these huggable heroes. I really like the idea of superhero toys for little kids. I don't know why.

Blogger is being weird so I'll do more pics in another post.

Almost as Good as Doing "The Bartman"

D'oh! This week, everyone's favorite weirdly-complected ne'er-do-well misfit will be starring in a big summer movie, so I decided to honor the film's Friday opening with a special illustration. But then my Lindsay Lohan caricatures of her as a stripper in I Know Who Killed Me turned out too creepy, so I decided to focus on Homer and The Simpsons Movie instead.

The Hands in the Air gang as The Simpsons.
From left to right: Steve, Jenni, Jason and Chris

I actually "Simpsonized" our caricatures on my own and I hand-drew the above picture with pen and ink and then colored it on my computer, but you can get Simpsonized by using Burger King's nifty photo upload system. I think that's what Ashlee used to get her new nose and chin, but I've never actually been able to get the BK program to work.

Steve vs. The Spider

No, that’s not the title of the latest summer blockbuster currently thundering at the multiplex next door while you’re trying to enjoy your relaxing romantic comedy. If only. No, this is LIFE people, the cruel bitch of existence slapping me in the face with an arachnid invader in my very own home, nay, my very own private bedchamber! Needless to say, I could not let this intrusion, this unprovoked attack, stand.

Jenni noticed it first, skulking in the corner, its hairy appendages tucked neatly beneath its bulbous body. When she led my gaze to the creature, our eyes locked hard, its innumerable, dark orbs radiating malice. Quickly I shoved Jenni aside, getting her out of the line of attack. The little beast sat there, a coiled spring, plotting some form of vicious plan of assault it had trained long for in one of those many human-killing camps you hear about spiders starting all of the time. I couldn’t be sure at the time, but I think it was some sort of spider-terrorist.

As a freedom-loving, red-blooded American, I had no choice but to declare war. A lesser man or perhaps a very brave toddler might have gone for some sort of spray attack, but not I. Actually, I was informed by Jenni, no stranger to insect-disposal herself, that the Neutra-Air we had on-hand was too light for spider-killin’. I thought about spraying the stuff anyway and using a cigarette lighter to incinerate the foul thing, but then I remembered I’m afraid of fire and I can’t use a lighter (they hurt my gamin’ thumbs). I turned away for a few seconds to look for some other weapon which could slay the beast.

That was a few seconds more than the spider needed.


With a blinding speed that would make you blind if you tried to look at it because it was so blinding, the arachnid darted across the ceiling, positioning itself to strike at one of my vital organs, probably the jugular. The creature looked down at me menacingly, licking its little spider-lips (look close, they have them), assured of its kill. I’m sure at that moment it was dreaming of victory, webbing me up and dragging me back to its spider-friends and devouring my succulent flesh as I writhed in futile agony. Oh it must have tasted so sweet to that mean creature, the thought of sinking its fangs into me. Oh how its rotund belly, surely full of the heads of small puppies and the legs of helpless babies, shook with anticipation.

But as it prepared to lunge at me, perched over my very own bed where I lay my head to sleep at night, I struck first. Oh how its bravado quickly vanished, for not many spiders can resist the “paper towel pinch of death.” There is a Bolivian spider so quick, no human hand can contract fast enough to secure it. There is a Scandinavian spider so large that no human hand can pinch it hard enough. Luckily for me, this was no such beast. My hand, paper towel protecting me from its poisoned shell, closed around the wicked thing like the grasp of death itself, sure and swift. I smote my enemy’s ruin upon the wastebasket.

I emerged victorious, realizing that I had gotten lucky, hopefully not for the last time. I offered my fallen enemy a final, grudging salute, knowing that only by testing myself in the fires of his mortal combat could I emerge as tempered steel ready to cleave through challenges yet to come. That night, I drank a cold Coke. It never tasted sweeter.

Mario Spazzmatazz

Nintendo gamers in the U.K. will have to wait a bit longer to play Mario Party 8 after the game was recently pulled from shelves because of its use of an offensive word. Was it a reference to Mario's "plumbing" or something about "Peach" fuzz? No, the word in question was "spastic," which in England is a very un-P.C. term generalizing that the physically challenged are also mentally impaired.

"Whew! That-a was a close-a one!
Nintendo almost-a perpetuated a negative-a stereotype-a. Mamma mia!"

Mario Party is actually the second game to be pulled because of spazz sensitivity. That's just plain retarded. It's lamer than a Special Olympian's gimpy, shriveled-up legs. This mental-deficient decision will severely handicap sales through a massive product recall and seizure (of the non-shaky variety) that'll require thousands of games to be shipped back on to a short bus bound for the video game factory. I think these marketers need a special education on the topic of words, because it all comes down to intent and no harm was actually meant by the use of "spastic." What a bunch of drooling window-lickers.

Maybe someday the overly P.C. overreactors will learn. Until then, like they say in that one show with that one guy, "Life Goes On."

Mmmm... D'oh Nut!

Since I don't have a Camaro that I could use to hang out in parking lots while blasting Dio from the car stereo, I don't usually find myself at 7-11. In any case, while humming "Holy Diver," I decided to visit the Burbank, California location after it became one of the few to be remade into a Kwik-E-Mart to promote The Simpsons Movie.
There's actually an employee working the front door and handling crowd control to make sure that only a handful of customers can be inside at one time, because you don't want too many people running off with those $8 cartons of milk and overpriced Twinkies. Anyway, when I got in, they were already sold out of almost all of the exclusive Simpsons merchandise.



I did manage to get a Squishee (which tasted suspiciously like a Slurpee) and I also made off with one of those pink, sprinkly donuts that Homer loves so much. The Squishee didn't survive the hot, summer ride home, but the donut made it all right, so I had the Hands in the Air gang give it a taste test.

"Pink." "Creamy." "With a hole."
The Simpsons donut comes loaded with sugar and innuendo.

Jenni:
Very pretty bright-ass deep pink color. Nice lookin' purple and blue sprinkles. The donut is glazed and also frosted. It's a bit much. Very sugary, tho the donut itself is moist and tasty. And I never like eating sprinkles because all I taste is the horrible, chemically, bitter flavor of the food coloring with a touch of sugar paste. Ick. So nasty. Pretty, tho. And the effect wouldn't be the same without them. I'd rather look at than eat. I feel that way about a lot of things.


Jason:
It doesn't taste as scary as it looks. You know what flavor pink is? Diabetes. This donut is a big pile of sugar with a hole in it. Maybe all that sugar will make you all yellow and jaundiced like the actual Simpsons. Well, it still tastes good and looks just like the cartoon version.


Steve:
Mmmmm... donut. The frosting is pink, which reminds me of the episode where Homer is committed for wearing a pink shirt to work, (thanks to Bart washing his lucky red cap with the whites). It's sweet like later in that same episode when Bart teams up with a guy who thinks he's Michael Jackson (remember when he was cool? The Simpsons does!) to sing a birthday song to Lisa. The whole breakfast confection is tempting like that episode where Homer was tempted to cheat on Marge with a hot co-worker voiced by Michelle Pfeiffer. Of course he didn't, which went against the strict instructions of a fortune cookie. I'm still awaiting the fallout of that in a future episode. Anyway, as Kwik-E Mart donuts go, not bad.