Damnit, Hollywood; You Suck.

Brewing for a couple of years, the live-action G.I. Joe movie project is starting to gain momentum, as the Transformers summer blockbuster gains steam even before its release.

At first, there was hope that producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura was preparing for something great. We children of the ‘80’s waited with fevered anticipation for any word. Rumors abounded that Mark Walberg would likely play Duke, and that the movie would be some sort of “origin of Cobra” story. Sweet.

Then, our wild-running imaginations were fueled in late 2005 by El Mayimbe’s review on Latinoreview.com of a bootlegged script, previewing a fantastic film sure to satisfy any G.I. Joe purist:

The six G.I. JOE’s that made the cut for now in the draft are – Duke, Scarlett, Snake Eyes, Hi-Tech, Heavy Duty, and Wild Bill. [Assuming sequels, more could come in later films.]

The antagonist of the piece is DESTRO…THE BARONESS is in this thing along with STORM SHADOW.

Yes folks, there is the Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow rivalry in this draft and they duke it out in the 3rd act. Strom Shadow has a cool back-story. In the script, he is considered the greatest hand-to-hand fighter in the world…

…Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow were trained by the same master and were rumored to have fought once. They fought for two days before a single blade landed. Storm Shadow made a mistake and was defeated. However, the rage induced by Storm’s disgrace and has fueled ten years of further study in South America under a different master, under a weapons-free discipline of Brazilian Jujitsu.

Speaking of Snake Eyes, [he] and Scarlett are in a relationship in this draft and are in therapy because well, Snake Eyes doesn’t talk and has taken a vow of silence as a way of furthering his martial arts training and discipline! I thought the therapy scene on page 26 was hilarious. Very creative.

There is a COBRA in this draft. He is not COBRA COMMANDER, he is simply COBRA and he is a former G.I. JOE named REX. This story is a Cobra origin story of sorts…

…the Joes carry out the mission and something goes horribly wrong. Rex is horribly scarred as a result…

…Destro wants Cobra to lead his army of super soldiers. The super soldiers are the best mercenaries from around the world that are also being injected with the same juice as Rex is. So basically that is what G.I. JOE is about - Duke and the Joes must stop Destro, Cobra and the chemically enhanced super soldiers…

I’m practically salivating. This is on par with the epic struggle that raged on my family room floor for years.

But, as with all good things Hollywood takes a bite of, there must come the inevitable shit.

Finally updating on the situation last week, El Mayimbe informs us that di Bonaventura ditched the sweet-assed script and commissioned a new one. Low-lights of the new one include:

-- A buddy-film between Duke and Alex Mann from Action Man. Never heard of them? Of course not – they suck. They were the cheap international version of G.I. Joe.
-- No Cobra, no Destro – a villain named “Cool Dude.”
-- A host of cheesy lines and corny quips

This blows. Hopefully, di Bonaventura will see the light. Maybe he’s just shopping around for different ideas. I can only hope.

But really, El Mayimbe is right: the least they can do is stay faithful to the few basic premises that lie at the core of the franchise. If they’re not going to do that, I hope they scrap the project. Better to leave G.I. Joe at the height of his glory, as I left him on my family room floor a few decades ago.

Any producer seeking to recreate a classic story should know that. “And,” as Duke always said, “knowing is half the battle.”

The Wildest Story Ever Told, Part 5

Here it is; my conclusion to the completely wild story of the Bible. Here are the previous chapters:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

With Jesus, God had created a human that was fully trained, the way he wanted the rest to be. God liked humans’ ability to choose to respect him. No one wants to be surrounded by mindlessly devoted bootlicks. So, he’d worked long and hard to train a set of humans to respect him and acknowledge him the way he deserved.

With Jesus, God had left the final blueprint for appropriate human behavior. He’d certainly put plenty out there, so far. So, from there, God left the humans to develop and exist on their own. As they died, he kept their souls in storage, marked for sorting day as being good enough to being into the house or bad enough to simply destroy.

The one extra thing God allowed was for Jesus to teach one final lesson to his last surviving disciple, John. In a dream one night, he showed John what was going to happen. John wrote of this revelation (in heavily symbolic language) in the last book of the Bible.

From there, humans then existed for some indeterminate period of time – let’s say at least a few thousand years. Did you hear it? That whooshing sound was this story shooting through the present day.

One day, long after God had first set Jesus on the humans, he sent Jesus back to finish the experiment. They gave the humans no warning.

Out of nowhere, God pulled out a bullhorn and, with Jesus charging out into the human world, he pronounced that this was the end of the exercise. God had spent enough time outside with the animals. It was time to sort out the quality humans from the bad.

Jesus was now a vicious attack dog, and it was a good thing. Many humans were all-out hostile to him and God. Many had been corrupted by evil forces out in the distance, off of God’ property. God hadn’t messed with these forces previously, but Jesus came and tore them to shreds.

Amongst the remaining humans, one human rose up with what appeared to be a lot of power, given to him by evil forces out in the wild of the universe. This was all a sham, though, and Jesus ripped him apart, too.

In the process, all of the souls that had been in storage were woken up and thrown in to the mix. Those God liked get called into the house almost immediately. Of those not yet dead, God gives one last chance to by torturing them. In this quick test way, he could see who would really behave, and who would not.

In the end, the good humans were brought into God’s house, and the bad ones were destroyed entirely, while the evil forces of the universe were left to suffer for the rest of time.

The moral of the story, of course, is that God is ultimately badass. Humans were given the power to acknowledge this, but also the power to ignore it. In making humans this way, God made something better than the rest of creation.

Those who paid the right respect were taken to a place they could have never conceived.

The fate of the rest was not punishment. It was the simple judgment that they were useless to the universe. As with all useless junk, they were disposed of. Their feeling of self worth, without paying respect to their creator, wasn’t enough to save them.

And in the end, God kept on being God, in his totally badassed glory. He was badass before humans, and he was badass after humans. End of story.

The Wildest Story Ever Told, Part 4

I feel it important for this chapter to again remind you – I’m telling you the story of the Bible, as a story. What you believe is irrelevant, here. This is just the story that I got out of reading it.

When we left off, the Jews had gotten back to the Land of Milk and Honey and rebuilt the Temple. They weren’t free, though – they were occupied by one invading ruler after another, ending with the Romans.

During this time, God started working on his end game.

While it had previously appeared that segregating out the one group would work, he now knew that his special gift to humans – the higher ability to understand and respect his bad-assed-ness – was producing random results. Some in the special groups were ill-behaved, while others outside the group behaved just as he wanted them to.

All along, as humans died, God had been keeping them (their souls) in storage, marked according to how loyal and good they were. Eventually, at the end of the experiment, he’d take them all out, trash the ones he didn’t like, and take the rest into the house.

So, God gave some warnings to his prophets during the exile and rough years of the Jewish people – he’d be sending someone to lead them and fix everything.

And with that, God stormed into his house and didn’t come out until he had constructed a super-human human. This human, he named personally – Jesus.

At this point, I have to jump ahead – throughout the rest of the story, humans (that unfortunately includes you and me) have no idea exactly what Jesus is. This controversy will come up again. I like to think of it as part of humans’ inability to understand how God operates.

Also, suffice it to say, God didn’t have a wife and have a kid, who he named Jesus. The whole “son” business is a term of art, meaning that he’s LIKE God in many ways.

So, I’ll gloss a bit, here, though just the Jesus alone desrves explanation of what is in there, as opposed to how some people retell it. God artificially inseminated a human, Mary, with his new creation. She gave birth to him, and he grew up able to look over the heads of all human existence and see God, standing on the front porch, looking out over all of them. He could even hear anything God happened to shout to him.

Jesus bided his time, and at about the age of 30, started going around teaching humans how to be type that God would choose to bring into the house eventually. These lessons had been told to Jesus directly by God. Most of his message was simple: human rules of how to worship God meant nothing compared to just behaving the way God wanted you to and giving him the respect he deserved.

Part of the message included the whole “be decent to other humans” thing. Another part included giving up on all the human-constructed parts of life, given that they lasted only a moment in the grand scheme, and getting God to pick you out as one to be brought into the house was far more important.

The Jewish Temple leaders had some bad seeds amongst them, who tried to stir up the Romans against Jesus. He was going around disobeying rules that were hard and fast in the human perception of reality – healing people instantaneously, changing matter from one form to another at whim, healing bodies through sheer willpower, and even reinstating souls to their formerly broken bodies.

Jesus’ behavior simply didn’t fit in the scheme of those who’d given up on God and sought the only power they could see – power among humans. So, this group of powerful, ill-spirited folks conspired to have Jesus arrested and executed.

Jesus went along with the whole charade. He was told to by God. When he finished his teachings, he allowed himself to be executed. Then he rose from the dead, all on his own, showed himself to those he’d chosen to continue the lessons, and walked right out of human existence, back to God’s house.

For the rest of the humans’ existence, they debated what the point of this was. To keep it simple, I try to avoid the greatest theological debate in history, if I can help it. I’ll focus on Jesus’ teachings, which seem to be the most important part of his legacy.

Let’s also suffice it to say that, by rising from the dead and stepping out from the crappy human existence back to God’s house, Jesus legitimized that he was fairly badass, himself (though not to the full extend that God was). God was going to use him in his final plan for humans. Jesus had proven himself a very effective proxy.

Form there, a group of exceptionally well-behaved, understanding humans, Jesus’ disciples, spread his lessons, as instructed. Emboldened by witnessing Jesus’ ability to ignore being killed (not exactly something any regular human could do), they spread the word of the basic ways to be good humans who God would choose to bring to his house at the end of the grand human experiment.

From here, I have one last short post, which I’m just going to write right now – this has been heavy stuff, and I’m anxious to get back to posting stupid crap like cartoons and music reviews on my blog. I dare say that those of you who still read this will agree.

The Wildest Story Ever Told, Part 3

On to Part 3 of the story of the Bible. If you haven’t read up to here, check out the first two chapters, below. I’m still on track to finish in 5 posts. Really.

Part 1
Part 2

When we left off, the Israelites had invaded the Land of Milk and Honey and set up shop with no leader but God. They had figured that the rules he’d given them would keep them in line, and the Judges appointed by God took care of any little problems that arose.

After about 350 years, the Israelites started looking for a leader. God wasn’t spending much face time with his chosen flock, and with conflict raging with their neighboring countries, the Israelites began to want a leader amongst themselves.

God heard this and understood, even though it pissed him off. After all, the flock didn’t seem to have much “faith” in him as leader – disconcerting, given his goal of training these humans to be the special ones who really got him.

So, God asked one of his prophets (Samuel) to officiate a sort of vote for king, and the Israelites chose Saul. Saul was popular, but not quite ready for the responsibility of a heading a religious government. He wasn’t even very partial to God, and was kind of a dick, when it came down to it.

Although he did a fairly decent job leading his people in defending their borders, it wasn’t long before Saul figured he was all the leader the Israelites needed, and he decided to ditch the whole paying respect to God thing. So, God got personally involved and chose an obedient and smart guy, David, to be the next king.

What followed was an operatic-in-scope epic civil war between David and Saul, consisting of war, deception, drama, and love worth any other three books. Seriously, someone should make a movie of this stuff – there’s great material there. It’s the Sopranos of the Bible.

Suffice it to say, David came out on top and became the shining example of a king who led his people both on their own level, and as an example of an obedient subject of God. He did screw up a few times, but took his punishments like a man.

Amongst David’s greatest achievements, he had a son, Solomon. Solomon was really, really smart. His intelligence made him massively popular. God was pretty happy at that point, so he had Solomon build a temple – a place to put the Ark and be focal point for his humans to remember to keep following God’s rules for paying proper respect. It seemed God’s plan was coming together.

Unfortunately, Solomon eventually deteriorated into loving his own power, too. He was quite satisfied with himself and forgot about paying respects to God. God basically stood at a distance, arms folded, shaking his head.

After Solomon, a series of other kings followed over about 200 years. Civil war broke out amongst the Israelites, and the country broke into two (Israel in the north, Judah in the south, including Jerusalem, the former capital of both). Generally, they all got worse and worse at behaving properly. Concerned with their own issues, they forgot the major point – pay respect to God, who is, after all, totally badass and the reason they were all there.

God continued to stand by and watch. He covered his face with his hand. All that work, down the shitter again.

But then, God came up with a plan. All the other humans, who God had let do as they pleased without him, had become fairly aggressive. Why not let them attack his special flock? Then, he’d take back the ones who managed to make it through the experience and still come back to him (that temple seemed like a good beacon to watch!).

Start musical montage (covering about 700 years)…

The Assyrian Empire (covered Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Israel, and Egypt) attacked the northern kingdom, Israel, carting off most of the Israelites (let’s switch to “Jews” now – I’m sick of mistyping Israel as Isreal), who ended up in slavery.

Then the Babylonian Empire got powerful and conquered the Assyrian Empire (same territory, further down into Saudi Arabia). The Babylonians, led by Nebuchadnezzar, pummeled Judah until it, too, fell. They burned Jerusalem to the ground, including the Temple, and they carted off those Jews into slavery, too.

In the meantime, God whispered to prophets, like Elijah, saying that those who made it through this were in for a treat – some level of redemption from all their troubles.

Next, Cyrus the Great led the Persian Empire to take over the Babylonian Empire. (They came out of Iran, but took the rest, including into Greece – I’ll get to that in a second). Cyrus allowed the Jews under his control to go back to Israel/Judah (the “Holy Land”). Those that returned built a new Temple and continued to pay their respects to eternally-badass God.

Here’s where the movie 300 comes in. When the Persians tried to conquer Greece, they weren’t as successful as they had hoped. At the Battle of Thermopylae, Leonidas and his boys held off the Persians long enough for the Greek culture to evacuate Athens before the Persians invaded there, too.

As a result, the Greeks became a united nation and eventually, led by Alexander the Great, conquered the known world (every territory discussed so far and more), including the lands inhabited by the Jews.

Quickly after Alexander’s death, his empire started to weaken, and it eventually fell to the Roman Empire, which controlled the Holy Land up through the time of Jesus.

And oh, what a turn the story takes from there. Next time, I’ll start with commentary on the years of foreign occupation of the Holy Land, including the treatment of the Jews and God’s thoughts about the whole thing. Then, I’ll spend a disproportionately large time on J-Dawg, because the Bible does, and that’s the story I’m telling.

The Wildest Story Ever Told, Part 2

On to the next installment of the wild story of the Bible. Remember, suspend your perceptions of it as a basis for religion. I’m just telling the story, as a story.

So, we left off with God and his great little pets, humans. He was getting annoyed with their behavior. For example, they were starting to work together at a place called Babel, deciding that by doing so they could rule the universe. Too bad for them that’s God’s job. So, he did what anyone does when confronted with a threat to their job – he sabotaged it (by making the humans unable to speak to each other).

Here’s where things start to focus on mankind itself, like the camera sweeping from behind the zookeeper into the cage to zoom in on the playing tiger cubs.

A guy named Abraham lived in Iraq. God asked to him to move to what is today Israel, so he did. Abraham was pretty good at respecting his keeper. They spoke sometimes. Abraham even almost convinced God to spare some folks, hanging out in Sodom and Gomorrah, from total destruction. But, God decided that whole cities of bloodletting rapists probably could be cleaned up before getting to evaluating the rest. Abraham was that cool, though, so God started to think this could be his next Patient Zero, so he gave Abraham a son at the age of 90.

Just to check Abraham’s loyalty, God asked him to kill his son with no explanation as to why. Realizing that he couldn't think on God's badass level enough to get his plan, Abraham was willing to do so, though it obviously sucked. So, God let him off the hook. He decided to use Abraham’s family line to breed a special line of humans, which he’d keep when he eventually got rid of all the crappy, untrainable, ill-behaved others.

Later, Abraham’s grandson, Jacob (a/k/a Israel) had some little shits for kids – 12 of them, who’d become the 12 tribes of Israel. They sold the only cool one, Joseph, into slavery. Too bad for them, Joseph became Vice President of Egypt, the richest land around, by psychoanalyzing the Pharaoh (obviously not a Scientologist). When Abraham’s family got poor, they went to Egypt for help. Joseph was nice enough to take them in. A better man than I.

400 years passed, and things didn’t go well for Abraham’s family. Now numbering in the hundreds of thousands, they were slaves, or something close to it (much like Mexican day laborers today – living in a great society, but unable to enjoy it).

God didn’t like his favorites getting beaten down by the Egyptians, who ignored him entirely. So, he picked one out and hooked him up. This guy, Moses, was lucky enough to be raised among the Egyptians and get all their secret knowledge. He learned magic, politics, and war, among all sorts of other things.

One day, though, it occurred to Moses that his own people were getting crapped on by the Egyptians he hung out with, so he took off. He and God chatted, and he went back to get his peeps. We all know how this went. He asked God to kick the crap out of the Egyptians, which God did, ending with killing the firstborn son of every family in the country, and the Isrealites picked up and left, via the parted Sea of Reeds (nope, not the Red Sea).

Moses and company fled into the desert of Saudi Arabia, where God decided to do a little training. He threw them food (manna) and brought them to a mountain, where he gave Moses rules to teach to the others (not just the Ten Commandments, but a couple hundred pages of the Bible’s worth of rules and regulations on how to acknowledge the simple fact that God is badass, by which the Jewish faith has lived for thousands of years).

God also told them how to build a radio transmitter to God; the Ark of the Covenant. As long as they followed the rules and kept in touch with him through it, he promised them a great little spot he’d picked out – the land of milk and honey (roughly modern day Israel; it's a great climate - prime real estate - part of the reason it's always been fought over).

This training was slow, hard work – 40 years’ worth. These “chosen people” – the Israelites (Jacob’s family), on repeated occasions, forgot about God and went to the same shitty habits of the rest of mankind (like acting retarded enough to worship their own jewelry).

In a really dramatic scene, Moses then brought the Israelites to some mountains overlooking the Promised Land. It was gorgeous, just the kind of place you’d want o raise a family, and a nation. And there, as his goal came into view before him, Moses died, as punishment for not training his folks better (and, admittedly, he was like 150 years old, and had just climbed that mountain).

Then, the Israelites entered the Promised Land. Sounds so serene, right? Yeah, too bad people were living there. This was prime real estate, remember. So, they proceeded to do the only logical thing – slaughter everyone there, town by town. God didn’t have a beef with this. His focus was on getting this group of his pets to behave. He’d just wipe out the rest on his own, anyway.

After this long, bloody invasion (that’s the only way it can accurately be described), which included great feats like the fall of Jericho, the 12 tribes of Israel got settled in. Their home stretched through what is today Israel, Lebanon, and much of Syria and Jordan.

From there, Israel hung out for about another 400 years, living without a human ruler. Their ruler, after all, was God, so they tried to just live by God’s rules. To deal with human failings, God would tap on the shoulder of especially cool people from time to time. These people – Judges – settled disputes and inspired the people when they needed to be led into battle defend their lands from invaders, etc. (let’s not forget – prime real estate).

That's it for this post. Next time, I’ll get into Israel asking for a king and then get into some more familiar history. I’ll even relate the movie 300 to Jesus. Frighteningly, it’s not a metaphor – they’re connected.

The Wildest Story Ever Told

I spent the last year reading the Bible, front-to-back. I wanted to read a classic, well known, influential book. Idiotic me went for the most classic and influential book I could find.

It was agonizing at times (And unto Eber were born two sons: the name of one was Peleg; for in his days was the earth divided; and his brother's name was Joktan., Genesis 10:25), but I’m glad I did, because it’s an absolutely bizarre and amazing story. And I want to tell it to you. Because, for more than any other reason, I read it just for the story. I was not disappointed.

So, forget what you already know and believe about the Bible, and let me tell you the story, just as a story:

In the beginning (familiar, right?), there was God. Think on that for a second. He was a deity, the one and only. He was God, in the most fundamental meaning of the word – the all-powerful Supreme Being. He operated on a level beyond human understanding in the way that hacking a Tivo is beyond a goldfish’s understanding, but on an even larger scale. God was, under all circumstances, totally badass.

Being industrious, God created everything. Isn’t that what you’d do if you were all powerful? He finished his project off with humans. Adam and Eve. He set up a lush pad for them. Eden. They were basically living on the front lawn of Heaven; God’s personal domain, but not quite inside the house.

God had some of his things lying about; the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. He told them, “Go ahead and eat from any tree here, except the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.” Don’t touch my stuff.

A serpent rolled by one day and convinced Eve to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, anyway. She did, and so did Adam. Oops.

Apparently, this freaked God out, so he kicked them off the lawn and out into the world. C-ya.

Either through this event or because of how he designed humans, God did something he had never done with anything he had created. He gave mankind a little piece of himself; an ability to see existence in a way nothing else had.

You see, everything in the universe instinctively got the concept of how hugely badass God is, except mankind, who now needed to actually think about it. This was a product of mankind’s extra little ability - humans were God's first creation capable of consciously acknowledging him for what he was, instead of assuming it as part of their design.

Of course, since he was God, such an acknowledgment needed to come with a certain level of respect (most faiths call it worship). In this story, that’s not God being egotistical. Remember, God was badass, in the most ultimate sense.

Having a real sweet spot for his pet humans, Adam and Eve, God didn’t obliterate them for their misbehavior. He just kicked them out into the not-so-pleasant part of creation that God wasn’t squatting on.

Now Adam and Eve had to live the hard life and go to work. I doubt I’ll ever forgive them for leaving me that legacy. They had some kids, and there was a whole murder plot thing. It’s a bit of a side note, except to show that humans tended to do things their own way.

In letting mankind wander around like this, God had started an experiment, to see if he could train mankind to do what only it could – acknowledge him on their own.

The problem was, mankind wasn’t acknowledging him very well at all. They were running amok, convincing themselves they were as powerful as God, and trying to rework everything of his. They were clearly going to totally eff up creation by ignoring God and trying to do better on their own (which they most assuredly could not).

So, in another mentionable side note, God got upset with the way humankind was turning out. This wouldn’t be the last time. His favorite pets were killing each other and threatening to wreck the place. So, he restarted the experiment, using nice-guy Noah as his new Patient Zero, trying to engineer humans he could train and get along with.

A few more generations, and God reevaluated mankind once again. Unfortunately, they still weren’t quite going to plan. These pets of his were awfully unruly. God needed a new tactic to properly train his favorite pet.

I’ll pause here until my next post to continue. The whole story won’t be too long (I’m aiming for 5 posts total).

Next time, I’ll tell you about how, since God thought his new pets were super cool, he made a hard choice – train a few to behave, eventually sort them out, and dispose of the rest.

Apologies to the Cold War Kids

Furthering my belief that professional reviewers are fucking idiots, I got a listen to the Cold War Kids ("CWK") abum, Robbers and Cowards this weekend, and they're not half bad.

Essentially, the Amazon review I had read said that CWK was just an average example of a merely average genre of pop music today, touting that upon listening to it "you realize that Cold War Kids is just another mainstream band over-mining a once fertile underground sound is short enough that you can cut your losses and find something more worthwhile."

I'l agree to a certain extent that there is something of a genre of grainy rock bands "fascinated with the first Strokes album and bent on expanding the promise of that artistically ill-fated group." Tied to them is the Modest Mouse hopefuls and pretenders out there. It's a crowded field, and to be sure, there's little there to excite the senses.

CWK isn't necessarily a great band. But, they do pretty well with some good beats and fun vocals. The singer's voice is a bit whiney, but so is Billy Corgan's, and Corgan can rip the devil out of hell and beat him senseless with his vocals. A number of the songs on the CWK album are forgettable, but I’m a believer that a band who has pulled half of a good album out might deserve my money, if it’s a slow release month.

If nothing else, CWK are a decent example of the "genre," if such a thing exists (I'm not a fan of such categorizations, myself). I can’t definitelyely tell you to buy their album, but I don’t want to say not to, either. A number of their songs absolutely rock, and the rest may grow on you.

I think it might depend on your view of the genre, or your belief that this genre even exists, as described.

Give their song Passing the Hat a listen (click the pic here - slightly lower quality recording than on the album). If you like it, you'll probably like the album.

Softball Was Fine, Everything Else is Dumb

Well, they put me in right field. Where else would you stick the new guy? I didn't totally suck. I even managed to hit the ball, catch it, and throw it - those basic motor functions that I'd had no faith in.

I can't believe it's been a week since I posted. I've meant to tell you so many things.

Year Zero (NIN) has refamiliarized me with alternate reality gaming, resulting in my utter disappointment. What horrible irony, having kids pretend to be part of an underground resistance that is really part of a coordinated marketing campaign. At least the music is pretty good, and the disc itself is hypercolor!

Allergies suck ass. Do does bronchitis, as well as the sinus infection.

I was shocked to see the first negative review I've ever seen on Amazon (not the user reviews, but the critic ones Amazon provides). Apparantly, don't buy the new Cold War Kids Album, because they're a great example of what's wrong with music today. Thanks for saving me money, Amazon!

I finally saw Dr. Strangelove. Don't you dare try to tell me that the underlying background premise of Spies Like Us wasn't a direct appropriation of the Kubrick film.

Well, it's not much, but that's me today. I've been having nightmares and just finished reading the entire Bible, so expect to hear from me soon.

Fast Pitch Emotional Scars

It’s the top of the 5th, and there are runners on first and third. My team is up by two, and there are only five innings in the game, given that gym class is only 42 minutes long. The opposing team is at bat, and there are two outs. One more, and we win.

I’m playing catcher in eighth grade gym class softball. What can go wrong? I’m practically a spectator, here. Even the kid in right field has seen more action than me.

Basically, I’ve been watching this game, not playing it. And that’s fine by me, because I suck at softball. Why? Because I’m left-handed. Because no one will teach me. Because I’m lazy. Something.

Two strikes. It’s all over after this pitch. Jeremy launches a wobbly softball in my direction. Pete swings wildly – I think his eyes were closed – and I hear the crack of the bat connecting with the ball.

Still not my problem, right? Wrong. The ball goes straight up in the air. Deep down, I know this, but that’s not where it was supposed to go. It was supposed to travel either to my glove, or far away from me. But it didn’t. Returning to Earth, it lands on the ground right next to me and bounces a few feet away, rolling down the hill behind our makeshift home plate.

I’m still staring into the outfield. Why isn’t the ball out there? Damnit. I turn around with all the speed of molasses rushing out of the bottle. I see the ball, and all at once, reality rushes back, carried on the voices of my classmates calling me names that actually amuse my gym teacher. Even he barks, “What the hell are you doing?”

My team won that game, in the bottom half of the sixth. But no thanks to me. We had to come back from a tie. Two runs were scored off of my error – the last guy stopped just past third, only because I was standing on home plate with the ball, holding back adolescent tears. It was months before I was picked anything but last in any sport in gym class.

This is my relationship with baseball and softball. I’ve since found aptitude with other sports and count myself as a fairly confident, athletic person. But to this day, the notion of swinging a bat or trying to catch a ball with a glove nauseates me. So, why the hell did I just join a rec softball team?

It’s all because someone I respect told me I should. I’ll call her Betty. The conversation went like this:

ME: “I have emotional scars from softball and baseball in gym class as a kid. I suck, and haven’t played since then.”

BETTY: “No way, I’m sure you’re at least competent. You should join our softball team. You’d have a lot of fun.”

And what do I say, before my brain can catch up with my mouth? “Sure, that’d be great.” Well, hello, you mental midget. I haven’t seen you since you decided to ignore the pop fly that wounded you for life! Welcome back.

I just couldn’t show weakness in front of Betty. I respect her personally and professionally, and she was showing signs of respecting me back – the thing I’ve been striving for ever since that eighth grade softball game. I was too scared to tell her I didn’t deserve it.

(OK, this is a bit of an exaggeration, but the principle I’m describing IS why I couldn’t bring myself to say no. How do you, as an adult, tell someone with a straight face that you feel incompetent at something? Me, I just don’t. I plow ahead and hope they’re not looking when I do it.)

So, I have to buy a glove and a bat this weekend. And a ball, I guess. I haven’t done this since high school. And the first game is next week. A little practice can’t hurt, right? I’m going to have to find someone to throw the ball at me and see if I can catch it or hit it. It needs to be someone I trust not to reopen old wounds with snide comments.

I’m sure it’ll all be fun and drinking. The team takes a $10-per-head booze collection for each game.

Then again, I can still hear my classmates and gym teacher, mocking me.

Hell, I’ll give the team $20 for the booze collection, for all I’m going to suck down to calm my nerves.