Not to become political in an otherwise silly blog, but McCain’s bunch have released another “Obama is a Celebrity who Wants to Raise Your Taxes” commercial…

“Celebrities don’t have to worry about family budgets, but we sure do,” says the announcer in the 30-second spot. “We’re paying more for food and gas, making it harder to save for college, retirement.”

If that’s the case, then explain this:

…seems that the folks who are having their taxes raised by a celebrity are the same folks who have never had to worry about “How am I going to buy gas.” Seriously, does McCain’s ad campaign people think we’re stupid, or do they just hope we’re stupid enough not to do our homework?

I hate political ad campaigns. It’s like watching “Reality TV” shows without the benefit of being told “This is all just pretend, by the way. Flava Flav is not really going to marry that girl, it’s just Hollywood.”

When it comes to the Olympics, I’m more of a Winter Games kinda guy. I was introduced to them in 1980, when the Winter Games came to my “neighborhood” and we got the best possible TV coverage. I think what I like most about the Winter Games is that it is so much “faster.” I’m sure the swimmers and runners and bicycles in the Summer Games are all kinds of crazy fast, but how can you compete with a bobsled, or skeleton luge, or a ski jump or short-track skating? I think half of the Winter Games occur at highway speeds! What’s not to like about that?

The Summer Games, on the other hand, seem to lose something in the translation for me. I tune in because they’re the Olympics, and I love watching the Olympics. Always have, and I’m not going to apologize to anyone about it. However, I always seem to be let down at the end of the Summer Games, feeling like I missed something. Come to think of it, I think I did miss something. I feel like I missed the entire Olympics, even though I tuned in every other day.

Even if I watched TV for 12 hours a day, I’ll miss out on more than three quarters of the Olympics. Sure, they can’t televise EVERYTHING, but I want more. I want Olympic sports! You know what I mean by Olympic sports… I want the weird shit that nobody does anywhere in the world, save for two weeks every four years. I want to see javelin throws and high jumps and pole vaults and hammer throws. What do I get? Swimming. Swimming and beach volleyball.

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Well, maybe not to this extent (see photo), but this is the bike I’m planning to pick up (at least what lives underneath all the customization), and quite probably the direction I’m going to take it. If you don’t know what I mean by “Tokyo-Custom” you should look at THIS VIDEO (and This One and This One Too). The Japanese scooter culture is anything but ordinary, and their scoots reflect their latent desire NOT to blend-in with their fellow Japanese. LEDs, hydraulics, insane bodywork and some extremely specialized aftermarket kits mixed in with some uniquely-homegrown mods are what set the Japanese scooter culture apart from every other rod on the road.

Naturally, not being prone to blending-in myself, this kind of bike happens to be something that appeals to me. If you’ve seen the scoot I ride now you’ll know what I mean! Status-quo has never been my modus operandi in life… perhaps it’s the old punk rock values from my teenage years, too deeply tattooed into my soul to wipe away with Simple Green. Most American-market maxi scooters are fairly ordinary-looking for the most part (well maybe all save for the Yamaha Morphous), they tend to look like sport bikes that someone forgot to install a gas tank on. I’ll ride one (hell I’ll ride anything) but I know that after awhile I’ll be pretty bored with stock. “Subtle” is for pansies, my bike is going to flicker and gleam like an acid-tripping Christmas tree! If I wanted to blend in and look like every other schmoe on the road, I’d buy a Harley.
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Just like the comic book movie premise, remakes are a major part of how Hollywood stays in business. I don’t know, exactly, what the percentage is in remakes vs legitimate movies, but it HAS to be 50-50 these days. With more and more 10-plex theaters in every city and Podunk town alike, they need more movies to fill all the seats (and the pockets of Hollywood). At this rate of growth, if we were to substitute re-releases of every movie made in the 1970’s in lieu of modern movies (not far from reality), within two years’ time we would have used them all up. Naturally, there’s not enough creativity in all of Hollywood to meet with this soaring demand, so they recycle.

This recycling is just part of the world of modern movies, and it always has been to some extent, but the practice has ventured far from the realms of good taste. Following is a brief snipping of what I’m talking about (yes, this long list I’m about to lay on you is actually just a brief snipping), taken from a list of over 200 remakes that Hollywood is planning for release over the next two years…

Conan the Barbarian (2009)
–I hear they’re going to remake ALL the Conan movies… without Arnold

Red Sonja (2009)
–See what I mean? ALL the Conan movies!! Starring Rose McGowan as Bridgette Nielsen (no, that wasn’t a joke)

Rock ‘n’ Roll High School (2010)
–Howard Stern is remaking it. I wonder if he’ll be playing the part of Joey Ramone?

Rocky Horror Picture Show (TBA)
–What a classically dumb idea. I’ll be throwing random items at the screen for a very different reason

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This past weekend we hosted our first ever Vermont Scooter Rally, we had a great turn out with some fantastic scooters, and even though the rains of the weekend hampered a lot of the fun we managed to squeeze in a couple of good rides and meet some good people.

The photos of the rally can be found HERE.

The latest Batman movie is all that anyone can talk about. Another Batman movie, with another actor playing Batman (there’s more Batman turn-over than there ever was for James Bond!), and another rendition of The Joker. People are losing their minds over this movie, booking months in advance, buying scalped tickets on Ebay, and blogging about it in their self-righteous insignificant socially-negligible blogtastic bl… well anyway, apparently I’m part of the problem. I’ve not seen it yet, and I won’t lie that I’ll be interested to see it, but there’s no way possible that it can live up to the hype! The hype is enormous. I hear Barrack Obama is going to select the new Batman movie as his running mate in the upcoming elections. Three reasons that the hype is so huge (besides the obvious link of an advertising budget bigger than the school budget for all the local schools for the next ten years): it’s “dark” (huge selling point - people are miserable and want to see something brooding), it’s the last hurrah of a tragically-dead actor (”Come one! Come All! Revel in the movie that killed Heath Ledger! You’ll be mystified! You’ll be terrified! You won’t believe your eyes!”), and the most important reason: the box office power of the built-in fanbase.

Hollywood stopped trying years ago. I think they fired all their writers, and replaced them with a photocopier.More than half of the movies coming out of Hollywood are designed to do little more than make money, by harnessing the power of the built-in fan base. Sequels, movie remakes, movie versions of TV shows, movie versions of video games, and of course the latest scam - movie versions of comic book characters. No one in America makes new movies anymore, they just rehash existing characters and existing storylines, and continue the same conflicts, using a larger advertising budget and a more advanced (and less human) special effects team. Reasons are clear - “Hey look! They’re making a movie about F Troop! I loved F Troop - I’ll go and watch that movie without even questioning the validity of that movie because I liked the old TV show it was based on!”

I call fucking Shenanigans!!! Continue Reading »

For those who may or may not have checked out my Gallery pages, I’ve added a couple of new pics, and here is the latest:

…can’t have a “Gritty Vintage” series without Alice, now can we? Be sure to check out the rest of the galleries if you haven’t in awhile (or ever).

Unfortunately a friend of mine (and a reader of this blog) scooped me before I could post this, but it’s still news to you so onward we go…

The DVD “Heavy Metal in Baghdad,” a documentary about Acrassicauda, “the only Iraqi heavy metal band,” was recently released to DVD (it premeired last September at the Toronto Film Festival). The Synopsis: Heavy Metal in Baghdad is a feature film documentary that follows the Iraqi heavy metal band Acrassicauda from the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 to the present day. Playing heavy metal in a Muslim country has always been a difficult (if not impossible) proposition but after Saddam’s regime was toppled, there was a brief moment for the band in which real freedom seemed possible. That hope was quickly dashed as their country fell into a bloody insurgency. From 2003-2006, Iraq disintegrated around them while Acrassicauda struggled to stay together and stay alive, always refusing to let their heavy metal dreams die. Their story echoes the unspoken hopes of an entire generation of young Iraqis.

It looks terribly interesting, and it’s available on Netflix (for those of you who have that) - I just added it to the top of my list! For those who don’t know, heavy metal music was born in the early 70’s in Birmingham, England - an uninspiring industrial wasteland in a time of great social conflict in Britain (to get a feel for the era, read “The Rotters’ Club,” a book that comes highly recommended by myself). Since then, heavy metal has gone completely global, but most certainly thrives in places particularly socially-desolate. Scandinavia, Soviet-era Russia and other Iron Curtain countries, Florida and the Midwest, all exaamples of geographic locations ripe for metal, wherever people are angry, wherever they feel downtrodden, and more importantly - wherever younger people need an outlet to vent some pent-up agrression. It’s no surprise to me that Iraq and other places in the Middle East would have very determined metal undergrounds.

The band has since fled to Syria, and then fled further to Istanbul, and despite the turmoil that is life in the Middle East they are determined to continue to bring this musical outlet to a region where, for all practical purposes, it belongs for a certain subculture.

One of my first five roommates in this place was a cab driver that my girlfriend worked with. He was a decent enough fellow, kept to himself but was still social, he had a job, and he helped keep the place clean - a constant bone of contention with my roommates, none of them ever want to pitch in and help around the house and will do all in their power to avoid this. These are fully-grown adults, I’ll mention, and not teenagers whom you would expect this behavior from, but that’s another story unto itself. This story is about Mr. Aging Hippie, a former member of the Weather Resistance who eventually became a mild-mannered, easy-going, occasional-beer-stealing guy in quiet Vermont. So was I ever surprised that things turned out the way they did! Continue Reading »