Work was fairly quick today, but really ass annoying. Maureen, who is a very nice and helpful older woman, left at 6 leaving just me and Scott to do all the film organization and such. This would normally not be a problem but Wednesdays blow, because its when all the film left Saturday after 4, Sunday, and Monday morning comes in. Since you take your pictures Friday and Saturday you don't drop them off until Sunday or Monday morning, meaning that tonight we got around 600 orders to scan or sort and file etc. Its a gigantic ass pain, and I think the colonoscopy crowd can back me up on this motherfucker up in here.
Yesterday was arguably my most productive day off in a long time. I got up fairly late, but I figured that was legit. I was planning on hitting a movie around 2:00, but we will get to that. Before I considered my options there I wanted to have a leisurely breakfast and watch Sportscenter in the way I never get to when I am rushing to the Wal-Mizzle. So I enjoyed Mike Hall's second day as the Dream Job winner and anchor. He's actually fairly good, not phenomenal, not Chris Berman, not Linda Cohn, not Stewart Scott, but pretty good. At this point I think I really enjoy his teaming up with Linda, mad props from me. I don't know what the likelihood is that he will be on the show any later than his one year deal, but I would imagine he is good enough to pull it off. He's got some solid quips, he lets Linda get her banter on, recognizes that he is still the junior partner, so on. Anyway, I whipped up a delicious can of corned beef hash, fried some eggs up on that shitty, made some toast, and plopped on the ciznouch. It was awesome, that perfect time where you are up to watch a full espisode of Sportscenter but have also slept until you bioligically decided to wake up. I get to do that so fucking rarely, even when I get a good nine or ten hours I am woken by the fucking blurting assishness of the clock.
After breakfast I checked the situation for the movies. I had two possibilities, the first was seeing Anchorman again. This was not out of the realm of possibility and in fact would have rocked. Pete, who embodies everything that I have always wanted to be in more aspects than just this one, has already enjoyed a bowl of chicken soup and a reuben three times, meaning that he kicks my ass on im Anchorman quote relays. Anyway, literally the only reason I opted against this was because I had not seen Farenheit 9/11 yet, really wanted to, so I could at least discuss it, and Katie had already seen it. If these had not all been the case I could have waited, Katie and I could have seen it when she came home from Wyoming (three days! woohoo!, not to be confused with yoohoo! which, while a delicious and rich chocolate milk like drink, is not as cool as the fact that I no longer have to live a married bachelor lifestyle) but since she saw it one day when I was slaving away to pay the automo-bills I wanted to do it then. I was shocked to discover that of all the showings, there was no variety of times. It was 1:30 and 4 at every theater in the area that showed the film. Anyyway, I got ready in a hurry and left. I haven't yet mentioned of course that I had to make a stop off at Verizon on my way. My fucking phone was again fritzing like a German poodle and I had to have them look at it, say I don't know what is wrong, open it up, clean it, tighten a screw, and give it back to me working. I am glad that the people are able to get my phone to work whenever I ask them, I'm just pissed that I need to go to their fucking store all the time instead of gettting a phone that operates properly. I suppose I should be pissed at Kyocera for making the ass-talk-machine or even myself for buying one of the cheapest phones and complaining about it, but I'm going to remain upset with Verizon instead, because their name rhymes with horizon, and that pisses me off. What about the Prime Meridian? Whats your problem with longitude huh.
Regardless, I had all but decided to skip F911 when the woman at Verizon had my phone up and running in less then 20 minutes. I had the directions to the theater which I had never visited waiting in my car, and I figured that the place should be dead enough at 1:30 in the afternoon that I could arrive, get my tickets, p-corn, and into the theater on time even if I arrived at 1:35. I nutted it notably, I think I missed the first couple sentences Michael Moore itterated about the inability of the black caucus to get the support of a single senator, I don't know how much this was for sure. I know that I was there well before any of the explicit build up to 9/11 or anything, so I think I missed very little. Regardless, I was psyched with myself. The first thing I noticed about the joint was that although the place was not jammed, there were a fair amount of people there to see what many people would have thought would be a fringe liberal documentary at 1:30 in the afternoon on a Tuesday. The more interesting thing, at least to me, was the fact that I was the youngest of these viewers by at least 20 years. There wasn't another person in the theater who I would imagine doesn't have kids old enough to be in high school. The people closest to me were senior citizens (I heard them get their discount right behind me in the ticket line) and the threesome in front of me must have been at least 50. Thats not to say any of these people are old, or that they wouldn't be interested in politics (obviously they tend to be more involved than people my age, lets say) just that I was amazed they were watching Michael Moore's polemic against Bush's dictatorial use of 9/11 as political justification. They seemed to be enjoying it too, they were laughing, they were crying, most of them seemed to be genuinely impressed by the film.
While I could certainly speak in depth about the various arguments that Michael Moore makes and their levels of veracity, I would rather just mention how effective I think this film could be for democrats in November. Obviously the film does not let the democrats off without criticism, there is some recognition of the fact that the Patriot Act, war funding, and other measures were let loose without a peep from the boys and girls in blue, and the glaring lack of Congressional family-members in the service was obviously non-partisan. Thats not really the point however, since everyone knows Michael Moore is left of the dems in congress, he pushed Nader and directed Rage videos in the 2000 election, and would do so today if he didn't (reasonably) suspect that to do so would endanger the world as we know it. The point is that this film is much more thought provoking than Bowling for Columbine because it doesn't just make fun of redneck gun owners and conservative hypocrisy, the film combines a beautiful and heartfelt compassion for the people of this country with the question "what were they doing while we were recovering, and what have they been doing since." The question, if you want to call it that, in Bowling for Columbine or other Moore films is "why are these people so dumb" (I know thats a simplification). There Moore attempts to show things that we don't normally see and force us to see them (the easy access to guns, the way guns and economics are intertwined) while here he asks instead why don't they see the things we see so fucking easily. Take the shots of Flint and the obvious comparison of these urban areas to bombed out sections of Iraq.
In my mind one of the best moments in the film was the series of shots initially after the credits (of the 9/11 aftermath, papers swirling, smoke, etc.), and besides the obvious emotional seriousness of this moment, and the great use of music (which is true throughout the movie, not just here, take the Firewater Burn segments or the much publicized "cocaine" snippet) the most incredible part is that there is not one piece of news footage, not one shot of the towers burning or collapsing, no shots of the flag in the rubble, people falling from the towers, planes crashing, etc. Every shot is of paper blowing and people staring up into the sky. In many ways this reminds me of the classic horror technique that Hitchcock was most famous for, things are scarrier when you know what something is and you can't see it. Everyone in the audience knew what those people were staring at in horror, there was never a question in their minds. Right from the beginning, this film makes it very clear that the reactions to this event are twofold, emotion, compassion, and love (the people crying in disbelief on the streets of Manhattan) versus the question of what can be done. It takes alot to ask people to believe that Bush is an evil stupid fuck who has tried to lie cheat and steal to enforce an evil stupid agenda. It takes alot less to ask them to believe that someone tried to capitalize on their love. Anyway, when I have seen it more than once I'm sure I will have more to say. I really liked this movie though, I think everyone should see it. I think that even those who aren't Michael Moore fans will be impressed by what he has accomplished here and the complexity of his integation of filmmaking and argument in a way I don't think his other documentaries (or atleast the ones I have seen) acheived. Finally, on this subject, I think that its a good sign I was the youngest person in this theater by 20 years.
The movie actually ends on a really strong "we can overcome" note, probably, if for no other reason, than so that the people of Flint and every other similar town in this country (say, Buffalo) don't just off themselves rather than get in their cars and go home. I stayed and thought about the flick while listening to Neil Young and then got up for the drive. On my way home I noticed that I was passing the ASPCA and since I had no plans for the rest of the afternoon, I stopped in to play with some kitty cats. This was one of the rura SPCAs and so there were a fair amount of really young kitties, not like the city shelters where you've got surrendered 2-3 year old cats, cute cats, but fully grown cats nonetheless. These were little fuzzy big headed meow boxes and they were adorable. There was a grey tiger striped guy and a black and white brother and sister set, and a black puffy cat that looked like it would probably be a big poof-ball at some point in time. Luckily for me the adoption fee was 100 bucks, which I could not afford, and I know that I really can't get a kitty until Katie is home, so at least the poor thing won't have to be alone all the time.
I have also to decided to begin a comprehensive review of the World's Greatest Candy Bars. I will work up to defending a full list, maybe top 5 of all time, but for now we will be doing certain honorable mentions and related categories. To begin, Rookie of the Year:
Winner: Triple Chocolate Kit-Kat
I suppose this bar may not be around forever and some of you may not have tried it at all. Katie and I simply happened upon it near the checkout of our local groceriatarium. It was fairly obvious that this was going to rock, since, you might imagine, I would believe with a fair amount of certainty that the Kit Kat itself is going to make the final top 5 list. Here is the scenario, make the stuff inside the Kit Kat chocolate coating (ie the layers and other layer like stuff) chocolate instead of, well, instead of whatever its current flavor or lack thereof is. The triple chocolate Kit Kat does not suffer from the drowningly chocolate flavor of some of its predecesors like the Milky Way dark or the thick version of 3 Musketeers, whatever that thing was called. Instead the combination of crispity crunchity and velvety smooth gives some relief to the flavors, allows them to stand apart briefly, before folding together in the sugary abyss of your tongue. While my technique for eating the original Kit Kat is to break off each stick and bisect it with my mouth (ie: eat it in two bites) I find that the double chocolate Kit-Kat really benefits from being attacked as a complete unit. Something about the way these chocolate wafers dissolve (seemingly a little quicker) benefits from having more of its compadres nearby to surrender their sugary perfection. I understand that this means there is probably a little less eating time overall, but the solution is quite simple. Buy six and eat them all at the same time. My recommendation: the chocolate Kit Kat may not surpass its big sibling and who knows if it will stay on the market for too long (it is marked limited edition after all) but in this age of carb-hating the efforts of the people at Kit Kat to give us all a break by forcing the dual dangers of sugary wafers and coco-riffic flavor even further together deserves my applause.
CongratulationsTriple Chocolate Kit Kat!!
Peace,
MB-K
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