Wednesday, June 30, 2010

What I've Watched/Read: Restrepo/War

I'll apologize right off for the rambling/incoherent nature of this post. It's going to serve double-duty. Because in the span of a week I got to educate myself on the war in Afghanistan in two ways, both profound in their own right.

It started with reading Sebastian Junger's new book, War. Those who know my reading tastes know I have an affinity for his work. Beyond his fantastic writing for Vanity Fair and other magazines, I've thoroughly enjoyed his books The Perfect Storm and A Death in Belmont. He creates a narrative and storyline that make it impossible to put the book down, and gives such vivid descriptions of scenes and people its as if you know them personally by the time you are done.

It's this excellence that makes War such a unique book. For one year he embedded with one platoon in the Korengal Valley, by all measures the most dangerous fighting location on the planet. He hangs in there as the soldiers are getting shot at, no kidding, every single day. Now, over time things improve and the platoon goes maybe a week or two without contact, but when things hit its intense and crazy. Let's just say the way he tries to cover all the angles of a firefight quickly resemble the firefight itself: information from all directions, confusion, misdirection, massive amounts of ammunition laid down, and then the amazing quiet and shock of quiet when it's all over.

The book stands as an efficient exploration into the modern soldier; what they go through mentally, physically and whatever other descriptor you case to use. It blows my mind reading the sequences when the commanders try to relate to the local elders in the Valley. The scenes go beyond the Beltway bullshit we hear about on cable TV or radio or newspapers. Here, you read how something as simple as a cow can destroy months of "boots on the ground" work. Chapters after reading about how superhuman these platoon members are thought of as being, you turn the page and remember the reality of what a bullet can do. It's heartbreaking and emotional and real in a way that takes that bullshit TV you watch on Bravo or MTV and shames you. Or, at the very least, it should shame you. Because as much as I hate guns and I hate war, I can't deny the reality that this is happening and there are guys who are shooting into mountains at the same age that I was attending keggers and bitching about statistics classes. When Junger layers the on-the-ground scenes with military studies on the concept of bravery, and it's extraordinary stuff. In re-reading this review I can tell this sounds preachy, but screw it, I can't explain it better, this book is just powerful stuff.

Then Monday came the companion piece, Restrepo.



I got to attend a special screening at National Geographic where they showed the film to a limited audience. It was mainly Vietnam and other Iraq/Afghanistan vets, and some other VIPs. Don't ask me how I got in. Let's just say, the power of Facebook is strong.

What makes it such a critical piece to the story is that it gives you the visuals that help bring the book's depth to life. After reading about these soldiers for 300 pages, you now see their faces, and know that the reality that will hit them later in the doc is all-too real and not some novel you buy on the sale rack at Borders.

Plus, because like the book the political discussions of whether this war is right or wrong are never addressed; you find yourself plunged right into the platoon and live their life as best you can from your theater seat. And once you start watching you remember that the politics and the nonsensical talking and jostling back in Washington doesn't mean shit in there, and they don't know nor care what is taking place outside of the outpost they are defending.

The event had an awesome Q&A afterward with Junger, and two of the soldiers who completed their deployment in the Korengal, a place that is so much smaller in size and compact than I realized when seeing it on film than on the page. And you could hear it in their voices how much they struggled to come to grips with the situations they encountered or the frustrations they ran into.
I realize this is not the most eloquent of reviews. I'm just impressed by the book and the film and I wish more subject matters were tackled in such a manner. Another, better critic than myself said it best: "We owe the men in 'Restrepo,' at the very least, 90 minutes or so of our attention. If nothing else, this film, in showing how much they care about one another, demands the same of us."

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Monday, June 28, 2010

Man Card Member, No. 404431


That's right people, I sunk a boat. And it's no game of Battleship, either. I polished off a whole boat of sushi last week. There is this great Asian restaurant that I love, and if you order enough sushi, they don't bring it to you on a tray, they load it up onto a wooden boat and moor that sucked right on the table. Love it.

There's a special feeling that comes when finishing that last piece of sushi. Sure, it's not exactly the same as dusting off the Ole '96er, but I was feeling especially proud. I know John Candy would have given me a pat on the pat. Sadly, the restaurant doesn't let you take the boat home with you after you finish, which I personally think is a load of crap. I don't want some dinky T-shirt like they give you at Hooters, that is weak (although my brother once earned that T-shirt after downing 50 wings in one setting, something I'm sure his innards are still punishing him for years later). I want the boat damnit.

Friday, June 25, 2010

Friday Funnies

As most people know, I've had a soft spot for Goofy. I still drink out of a Goofy mug at work (one that I've had since high school in an homage to Clark Griswold's Marty Moose mug), and I have a different Goofy mug that I will use at home on the weekends when having a bagel.

I've always loved this Goofy episode. It rivals his numerous Olympic/athletic-themed episodes in terms of comedic greatness. But Motor Mania is always one of the top ones. They showed it when I went to traffic school in high school after getting a speeding ticket. Yeah, like a Goofy cartoon is going to teach me to stop speeding, whatever. More importantly, this video always makes me laugh, and also makes me think of Ashley, who may be one of the top 3 most dangerous drivers I've ever been in a car with. Luke and I feared for our lives once on a 10-block drive from our house to Atomic Cafe in Lexington back in our college years. According to Dan, she still hasn't learned a thing.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

My Childhood, Bastardized

After all the rumors and the stops and starts, Hollywood has indeed decided to proceed with ripping out the soul of my childhood once again. This time, they are moving ahead with the remake of Footloose.

When they couldn't find a director for the longest time, and when that Disney-fied little bubblegum boy Efron bailed on playing the lead role, I thought maybe everything would work itself out and the Hollywood brass would leave a classic 80s franchise alone. But alas, it was not meant to be, because sadly all the jackasses who run Hollywood are just old enough to remember how great all those movies were but just stupid enough to never be able to come up with anything original, and instead falling back on the classics as source material.

Damnit, I don't want another rendition of Ren. Kevin Bacon's most defining role is hallowed ground, at least when it comes to iconic 80s films. I'm not saying he's Brando or De Niro in this movie (far, far, faaaaaarrrrr from it). It's just sad how they are going to take a story that probably could only be told in that time and try to update it to modern standards.

A kid from rough-and-tumble metropolis makes his way to a small rural town where music and dancing is outlawed and the town is held sway by the weekly rantings of a bitter and emotionally distraught religious leader. Ummm, sounds like something they'd film in the Middle East, not in America in 2010. Yeah, I know I'm being a little jaded about it, but you can't make a movie like Footloose in 2010. People in small-town America know shit about big cities now. It's called the Internet and Cable TV and DVR and MTV and Facebook and blogging and a whole bunch of other shit that didn't exist in 1984.

Ren looked out of touch because he wore a skinny tie to school and drove a yellow VW bug. Kids in Nebraska are buying skinny ties at American Apparel and Urban Outfitters. Unless the new Ren shows up driving a Maybach, I don't think farm boys are going to be surprised by whatever he rolls up in.


In 2010, they won't be doing chicken races with tractors. They'll probably have them doing text-offs on their iPhones or instead just slamming each other on Facebook until one of them gets upset and cries to mommy. There are just things that make this a quintessential 80s movie and once you remove the spirit of that it's not even Footloose anymore. Think I'm being a little crazy, the populace is shelling out wads of cash over a Karate Kid remake that isn't in America, isn't karate and doesn't have Billy Zabka. Game, set, match, victory for Campbell in the argument.

Damn, I cannot believe how riled up and how much my stream of consciousness is getting the best of me. For instance, I bet it won't even be a town full of god-fearing white folk, either. Ren's best friend will probably be a misunderstood musical genius who is unfortunately a hispanic day laborer's son, whose family is threatened with jail and deportation, and only Ren and "the music" can save the day. And Dennis Quaid is playing the role made famous by John Lithgow!?!?!?!!? Lithgow's still alive for fuck's sake! I hope he comes out and bashes Quaid's interpretation and we have a Rev. Shaw Moore throwdown over burning books.

Beyond Quaid, they've announced that Kenny Wormald is playing Ren. So they're going the newcomer route, but sadly he's toured with Timberlake and competed on MTV dance competitions. The role of Ariel (classically played by the frighteningly thin Lori Singer), is now being remade by Julianne Hough. I don't know her from a tree stump, but apparently she's won Dancing with the Stars twice and is an up-and-coming country singer. Great, that's all we need, a fucking foxtrot in Footloose.

And the final dance scene. I mean, come on, you're not going to get much more hilarity than that. Chris Penn could not look more uncoordinated, and the dancing is much looser and undefined. Now we'll get big dance numbers choreographed by Lady Gaga or some shit, and instead of a classic Kenny Loggins song, it'll be something by Carrie Underwood or Justin Bieber or some other modern person that'll have a blend of country, rock and hip hop that way everyone is satisfied and yet no one is.



I'm just saying, Footloose is one of those classic movies that should have been left alone. If an older movie still holds its ground two decades later, and the entire fucking cast of that movie is still alive, there is no reason to piss on that classic by remaking it for no good reason other than being greedy and unoriginal.

Pickup Artists

Tonight continues my season of concerts. So far this summer I have seen The National for a second time and also seen Frightened Rabbit. Next up is the Silversun Pickups, and as the young folks say, they rock. I'm not a big fan of DAR as a concert hall, because it removes the energy in ways since everyone has seats and it's not a general admission type of venue, but I'm still guessing they will kick ass. This is one of the tracks I look forward to hearing tomorrow night, Panic Switch.

Sunday, June 20, 2010

My Soft Spot for Magic

I'm a big Ricky Jay fan. If you don't know him, I won't hate you for it, but you're shamed because by now you should. He's been in a slew of good movies playing minor roles but always delivering the goods. Things is, he's actually an amazingly accomplished card magician and raconteur. Yeah, I just used another word that will make Kelly rolls his eyes and call me a loser.

Jay is just a cool cat. A guy who has a great delivery style and never does overly complex tricks. He just does them with a sense of style and wit that makes everyone look like hacks. This is the kind of magic I love, not that Copperfield bullshit or that Blaine moron starving himself in a glass box for 90 days or whatever other ignorant crap he thinks up.

Here is a smattering of Jay's fine work. Many of these are from his "Ricky Jay and his 52 Assistants" performance and if you can find the full show I highly recommend it.

Again, it's a simple trick that hundreds of other magicians have done, but it's his storytelling that makes it enjoyable.



This is a simple 4 Queens, 3 Ways trick, but it's well-delivered and even after watching it about 60 times I still can't figure it out.



And last but not least, the damn coolest thing. It's probably really easy to do, but damn if it doesn't impress me. And he never says a word.

Friday, June 18, 2010

Friday Funnies

OK, so if you're not in the graphic design world or have never had to decide which font to use when typing something out in Word or whatever, this may not be funny to you. But damnit, Kelly (who sent me this) and I think this is some funny stuff. Why? Because graphic folks have their own jargon and inside jokes and sometimes they lurch over into the realm where normal people will understand it. This is one of those moments.

You need to understand, I have seen comic sans all over the place and hate the hell out of it. This mainly comes from when I worked at the Kernel (UK's college paper) and the ignorant ad salespeople though comic sans was the only damn font that existed. That, and they thought "designing" an ad meant putting a starburst on it and making it spiffy. Anyway, I hate the font and loathe its lame usage.

This guy wrote a first-person essay in the form of Comic Sans. And as this essay proves, Comic Sans has one helluva sense of humor.

I'M COMIC SANS, ASSHOLE.

Listen up. I know the shit you've been saying behind my back. You think I'm stupid. You think I'm immature. You think I'm a malformed, pathetic excuse for a font. Well think again, nerdhole, because I'm Comic Sans, and I'm the best thing to happen to typography since Johannes fucking Gutenberg.

You don't like that your coworker used me on that note about stealing her yogurt from the break room fridge? You don't like that I'm all over your sister-in-law's blog? You don't like that I'm on the sign for that new Thai place? You think I'm pedestrian and tacky? Guess the fuck what, Picasso. We don't all have seventy-three weights of stick-up-my-ass Helvetica sitting on our seventeen-inch MacBook Pros. Sorry the entire world can't all be done in stark Eurotrash Swiss type. Sorry some people like to have fun. Sorry I'm standing in the way of your minimalist Bauhaus-esque fascist snoozefest. Maybe sometime you should take off your black turtleneck, stop compulsively adjusting your Tumblr theme, and lighten the fuck up for once.

People love me. Why? Because I'm fun. I'm the life of the party. I bring levity to any situation. Need to soften the blow of a harsh message about restroom etiquette? SLAM. There I am. Need to spice up the directions to your graduation party? WHAM. There again. Need to convey your fun-loving, approachable nature on your business' website? SMACK. Like daffodils in motherfucking spring.

When people need to kick back, have fun, and party, I will be there, unlike your pathetic fonts. While Gotham is at the science fair, I'm banging the prom queen behind the woodshop. While Avenir is practicing the clarinet, I'm shredding "Reign In Blood" on my double-necked Stratocaster. While Univers is refilling his allergy prescriptions, I'm racing my tricked-out, nitrous-laden Honda Civic against Tokyo gangsters who'll kill me if I don't cross the finish line first. I am a sans serif Superman and my only kryptonite is pretentious buzzkills like you.

It doesn't even matter what you think. You know why, jagoff? Cause I'm famous. I am on every major operating system since Microsoft fucking Bob. I'm in your signs. I'm in your browsers. I'm in your instant messengers. I'm not just a font. I am a force of motherfucking nature and I will not rest until every uptight armchair typographer cock-hat like you is surrounded by my lovable, comic-book inspired, sans-serif badassery.

Enough of this bullshit. I'm gonna go get hammered with Papyrus.

-- BY MIKE LACHER

Monday, June 14, 2010

It Ain't Wonderbread

It never fails that when we have big family reunions up in New Jersey, someone will say something that gets the whole place rolling in laughter and it becomes a pseudo-theme for the weekend. What was shocking about this particular trip was that the random comment where laughter ensued came from my grandmother.

The reunion this weekend was all about her, since she turned 80 on Friday and that is just awesome. But Friday afternoon when we pulled into town, she was helping everyone make sandwiches for lunch when she came out with the doozy.

"Does anyone want ethnic bread for their sandwich?"

I'm not kidding when I say that the 6 or 7 of us standing in the kitchen halted in our places and put a collective "What?" look on our faces. She asked one more time and before we could continue our thoughts as to what the hell ethnic bread was (pita? baguette? naan?) she pulls out a plain old loaf of America's finest 100% organic wheat bread.

"Organic, organic, oh crap, I meant organic." We all instantly burst into laughter and the rest of the weekend was full of random one-offs like, "hey go into the kitchen and get me a glass of ethnic water" and the like. The Weekend of Gramma was a resounding success, to say the least.

Monday, June 7, 2010

Trailer Love



I don't remember when I first watched the Winnebago Man clip at the bottom, but it was a long time ago. But I do remember that it reminded me why I left Kentucky (with its copious amounts of RV ads for RV dealers in southern Indiana) and also that this guy may be one of the coolest cats on the planet.

Anyway, when I heard that a documentary was being made about the search for this guy, I thought it could be pretty cool. Then I saw the trailer for the doc (at the top) and I was instantly hooked. Cranky midwestern guy with a foul mouth that only I can challenge? This could be some cool shit indeed. Mark me down for a 'yes' on if I will be seeing this movie.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

'Oh Shit'

You gotta love kids. They sometimes forget where they are. Like in the case of Kenley Farace. He was the 20th speller to compete, so obviously pretty early in the competition, where at 8:20 in the morning people are still sipping their coffee and getting into the day. He walks up on the stage and gets the word "cornice."

Typically, kids start asking questions to the head judge about etymology or definitions or anything to jog loose something to help them spell it right. Kenley's response was a little different.

"Oh, shit."

Ladies and gentleman, welcome to the 2010 Scripps National Spelling Bee!

He misspelled the word, which sucks, because I was hoping for our first moral police moment when he made it to the finals and misspelled, then left the stage saying, "fuck it, I'm out!" That would have been great. In any case, to get our first curse word 20 spellers in (out of 250), I'm suddenly having high hopes for this year's crop of spellers.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Smartypants

Today begins my seventh year that I'm working with Bill on the Spelling Bee. It's been a job we started doing back when we both worked at Scripps, and even though we both left that place years ago, we've found a nice little sidejob taking photos for all these newspapers across the country (and world, even). It's always been a fun time and we see some of the same people year after year.

It's been wild seeing how much the Bee has become this little phenomenon in the last seven years. When I first started working it, there was hardly anyone there outside of the kids' parents and the workers. Sure, ESPN2 showed the finals and stuff, but it was on mainly in the afternoon and it was no big shake. We just sat back, took pictures and got wowed by how these kids knew the spellings to words I've never heard of and that they'll never use in real life ever.

About four years ago Mike&Mike showed up and did some bits. Then three years ago they moved the finals to live in primetime on ABC and Laura Bush was supposed to show up. She never did (typical for a Bush), but that was when we knew things had changed. Now Erin Andrews does live interviews, the schmuck from Dancing with the Stars does the commentary and there are tons of photogs and TV people who all act like they know how the Bee runs but they don't know. Not like we know. We're the pros around here folks, the seasoned vets who know all the tricks of the trade.

So if you have some spare time Thursday or Friday, flip on over to ESPN or ABC and look for me down in the photographer's pit. It's one of those few times in my life I can claim to be on national television. So that makes me cool. Plus, I get to be in the room for some of the fun, crazy things that happen when you put a 12-year-old on national TV and put an entire family's pressure on him/her. Sometimes they can't handle it. Sometimes they are just unfiltered and give you great laughs.

On this one, if you look when they cut to the photogs, that's me on the right. Yeah, baby, 1.5 million people have seen me. Score.



This was just a surreal moment and still to this day sets off debate amongst us insiders on whether he faked the fainting or not.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Scorched Earth

Besides kicking some ass and posting my first sub-90 golf round of the year, I spent most of the Memorial Day weekend engaged in what the wife and I called the Scorched Earth campaign. This is our first Spring in the house, and so we were curious how quickly the local flora would consume plants and trees, and hot damn they attacked with a fury. So we had to mount an offensive against some shitty stuff like poison ivy, kudzu and all other manner of spindly weeds that want nothing more than to destroy our tree cover and smother any other happy flowers and bushes we have.

So we armed ourselves to the teeth with all sorts of weed-fighting materials and went to work. The pictures aren't all that exciting because it'll take a few weekends for the treatments and weed-pulling to really show some impact. But Scorched Earth has begun.

The pictures I can show are from the Operation Front Yard campaign of Scorched Earth. Here, we dug out some damn big bushes from the front of the house and planted wee little bushes that will one day get bigger. One day. Like in 2036. But that's OK, those other bushes were weak shit that didn't serve any purpose other than smacking me in the face when I walked behind someone. And at least the piece of land on teh side of the house gets enough sunlight that we are going to try and do some test plantings of other vegetables and see if we can get some lettuces or other greens to grow there. It's just nice looking at these pictures again and remembering the ass-kicking I laid down on pulling these big bushes out by the roots.

Plus, you start kicking so much ass that you talk to the plants and weeds before you rip them to shreds. Things like, "Welcome to Scorched Earth, motherfucker, your friends didn't make it and neither will you." Anytime you can talk shit to something that can't talk back to you, you're coming out a winner everytime.