CleverDonkey.com …Musings, Commentary, Opinions, and Drivel

First and foremost, go into this movie with the realization that it is Rated R, and heartily deserves it.  If you are easily offended by nudity and/or sexual situations then you probably want to skip this film.  The scenes in question are not gratuitous and are germane to the plot, and are also some of the funniest scenes in the film.

And that's the key to this movie…it is funny…damn funny.  Judd Apatow and his ensemble have created another winner here, and it's looking to be a habit (Drillbit Taylor notwithstanding).  The screenplay was written by Jason Segal, who is also the star.  His character is a journeyman composer in the film and TV industry, but he happens to be dating the hot, blonde starlet (named, of course, Sarah Marshall) of a TV crime drama.  However, between her success and his professional mediocrity, she decides that they're "just going in different directions" and dumps him.

Peter Bretter (Segal's character, above left) tries several methods to cope with his broken heart, including sobbing, eating cereal, acting out at work, and nailing anything that moves.  Nothing helps – then a friend suggests that a vacation might be just the thing to break the funk.  Peter heads to a resort in Hawaii that Sarah had mentioned, and when he gets there who does he find?  Sarah (above, middle), of course, along with her new beau, the preening pop star Aldous Snow (above, right).

He also meets Rachel, who works the front desk of the resort.  As you might imagine, he and Rachel fall in love, but not without complications, of course.  All of the characters in this film seem like they would fit stereotypes from a hundred other romcoms, but they all seem to defy expectations by being more real and quirky than I expected.  Aldous Snow the pop star, in particular, really ends up differently than one might presume from his initial scenes.

And that seems to be the key to the Apatowian juggernaut – characters that feel real, that develop, and that are funny and poignant in ways that don't seem to be contrived for a film.  Now, I'm not saying that people in the real world would ever act exactly as these characters do in all situations – but it's close.  The characters also draw our instant empathy because of their familiarity, even Sarah.  She's not a demonized vixen, she's more like a confused person who let success go to her head, and now isn't sure how to act "normal" any more.

Jason Segal is the only credited writer for the screenplay, and if wrote all of it himself then it's an astonishing debut.  It was surprising and refreshing to hear snappy, funny dialog that didn't feel recycled or derivative – and he keeps it up throughout the entire film.

I'll wrap up by reiterating my opening warning – if you are offended by nudity and sexual content, you may want to skip this film.  I'll say no more other than to give you a quote from the film's producer, Judd Apatow:

"America fears the penis, and that's something I'm going to help them get over."

Don't say you weren't warned.

 

• Leave a comment... (0)

There is much to like about this new generation – their concern for the earth, their desire for world peace, their continuation of the legacy of horrible teen musical tastes.  These Millenials, also known as Gen Y or the iGen, are beginning to enter the workforce and public life, and are bringing with them a demand for meaningful careers, work/life balance, world betterment, and the guts to stand by their principals, even at the expense of risking their socioeconomic status.  I find that refreshing and much more admirable than the conspicuous consumption of the 80's and 90's.

I don't agree with everything they do, however.  The proclivity for tattoos, piercings, and other body modifications confounds me.  Part of it is a matter of taste, and there's no accounting for taste.  Also, preferences are not absolutes, and although I unequivocally dislike their self-mutilation (my interpretation), I also realize that it is, for the most part, harmless in the larger scheme of things.  Will most of them end up regretting their youthful indiscretions?  Undoubtedly.  But the long-term consequences aren't dire, particularly since it will be an entire generation.

I also lament, as all older folks do, their tastes in music, books (if they even read them), film, art, and culture.  But that's the same song our parents sang, and their parents before them, ad infinitum.  Again, no dire long-term consequences.  Same with drug use (who am I to talk, I grew up in the 70's, man!) and casual sex (who am I to talk, I grew up in the 70's, man – er, but without rampant AIDS/HIV/Hepatitis/etc).

In short, the older I get the truer the statement "youth is wasted on the young" becomes.  They waste their time on things that are of no import, and ignore the real stuff of life.  Just like I did.  Just like all young people do.  That's part of life.

But there is one area with which I take an absolute exception, and that is that they are continuing the horrible legacy of smoking.  What in the name of all that is true and good are these kids doing perpetuating such an absolute evil in the world?  They want to halt global climate change, save the environment, move to cruelty-free foods and products, feed the hungry, and do all sorts of absolute good things.

But they support tobacco companies.

They either refuse to accept or don't care that tobacco companies are merchants of death.

They either refuse to accept or don't care that even the United Nations sees tobacco use as a human catastrophe as big as, or even bigger than, global warming.

They either refuse to accept or don't care that while they support a better environment and less cruelty to animals, they blithely fund tobacco companies, whose executives and scientists routinely test their products like this:

Poor smoking beagles.

A short non-smoke break for one…

Smoking monkey…

A monkey and a rabbit take a smoke break (and break your heart)…

Sad little puppies…

Stop for a moment and put yourself in the place of one of these animals.  A little beagle puppy, bred to trust and love humans unconditionally.  Ripped away from your mother by callous scientists (doing the bidding of their tobacco executive masters) who immobilize you in little holding pens, ignore your wagging tails and imploring eyes, day after day, week after week, year after year, and strap devices to your head, forcing you to breath tobacco smoke day after day, week after week, year after year, until you either die or get sick enough that the experiment ends, then callously toss you aside for a fresh batch. 

You know they aren't testing the flavor, because why would a Beagle being forced to smoke care how it tasted?  What they're doing is testing to determine just how dangerous their products are to health.  And so they force these poor animals to smoke, sometimes until death, so they can learn from the autopsies of their poor, imprisoned bodies exactly how many toxic chemicals they can put into their products while still allowing their human customers to live long enough to provide the maximum profit.

Okay, I get it.  You don't care about the harm you're doing to yourself.  You don't care about how nasty and offensive smoking is to those around you and the world in general.  You don't care that tobacco companies are evil and make their profits by hooking the young all around the world, while killing off their parents.  It's all about choice, right?

In the above pictures I see tobacco companies choosing to torture and kill innocent souls, and I see poor, scared animals who have no choice.

Enjoy your cigarettes, you rebels.

 

 

• Leave a comment... (0)

I haven't been this happy about the outcome of a football game in a long time.  The cheating New England Patriots *LOST* to the Giants in the Super Bowl.  They did *not* achieve their undefeated season.  They did *not* join the 1972 Miami Dolphins in perfection.  They lost, like all cheaters eventually do.

Belichick didn't even have enough class to stay on the field to see Eli Manning take the final knee.  This from the coach who ruthlessly ran up the score unnecessarily against opponent after opponent.  From the coach who cheated his way to victory, including rumors of filming the Rams walk-through before the 2002 Super Bowl, which the Pats "won" in an upset.  But could he stand there like a man and take the loss when it was him on the losing end?  No, he slunk off like a pouting teenager to go cry in his room.  Go cry, emo coach.  Classless to the bitter end.

And frankly, as that last second remained on the clock, as confusion reigned on the field, and as Belichick slunk off, my one thought was that he was trying to somehow create a technical issue with the end of the game so that he could file some kind of complaint with the NFL about the outcome.  Given his actions in the past that type of conniving seemed to fit his style.  But the refs cleared the field, got the Pats players to come back out and officially ended the game normally.  Ha!

Now it's time for the federal government to bring the hammer down on these cheaters.  For those who question why the US government is involved, the answer is that the NFL has been granted a special exemption from anti-trust laws and are allowed to operate as a virtual monopoly.  As such, the government reserves the right to ensure that the NFL is presenting pure, untainted sporting events.

So the NFL needs to break the back of these losers, including (in my opinion) a lifetime ban for Belichick and the GM.  They have tainted the sport with their flagrant, blatant, indefensible cheating.  And if the NFL doesn't act then Congress needs to step in and do the right thing.

Oh, and congratulations Giants on the great, great win.  Eli Manning enters legendary status with that final drive, and his scramble on the long pass to David Tyree was nothing short of miraculous.  And then the top-of-the-head catch by David Tyree was almost unbelievable even though I watched it with my own eyes.  He *wanted* that ball and went up and got it.

And in so doing drove a stake through the heart of the bloodsucking, evil-doing Patriots.  And, at least for today, all is right in the world of sports.

 

• Leave a comment... (0)

Click here to see our recap of this week’s performances by the men.
Click here to see our recap of this week’s Idol eliminations.

The Girls (Wednesday Night)

Well, tonight it was the girl’s turn, continuing The Sixties theme. All around there were quite a few lackluster performances, and only one standout – Carly Smithson. As for the rest, was it nerves? Bad picks by the judges? Poor song choices? Bird flu? Who knows, but the fact that the judges said as many positive things as they did leads me to believe that they’re scrambling to recover from a poor batch of lady contestants this year.

Kristy Lee Cook

Sang “Rescue Me” in a very uninspired performance. And maybe this was because she’s a horsewoman, but she stood with a Larry-Craig-worthy wide stance throughout her performance…was she trying to dazzle us with misdirection? It didn’t work.

Joanne Borgella

Performed “I Say a Little Prayer for You”, and it was a very flat and forgettable performance. The song has a lot of orchestration and backup singers and her voice kind of disappeared in the mix – which she may have done purposely to hide her nerves, perhaps? All in all very disappointing.

Alaina Whitaker

Covered “I Love You More Today Than Yesterday”. Her performance was technically pretty good, but completely soulless. The judges liked her, but perhaps they see potential there…you can teach performance skills, but if you can’t sing you can’t sing.

Amanda Overmyer

Sang “Baby Please Don’t Go”, which included one of the great performances by the Idol band, but only honky-tonk-screeching from Amanda who also seemed to be hiding any singing ability behind the band – you could only hear her during the screamed parts. We still like her but her voice was too small tonight to take on the song and front the band, but we hope she sticks around so we get to hear more from her.

Amy Davis

Sang “Where the Boys Are”, and one hopes the boys were somewhere else during this performance. It was simply terrible – flat and off key from the first bar to the last. She was so good in tryouts, flawlessly covering “Blue Bayou”, which is a singer’s song of the first degree. Perhaps she was one of the ones with the flu tonight, but she barely managed to squeak and squawk her way through it to the end.

Brooke White

Covered “Happy Together” in an uncomfortable mess of a performance. What is it with the ladies tonight? Flat, pitchy, nervous, and definitely uncomfortable during the bah-bah-bah-bah scat part. But yet again the judges liked her. So far not one of the ladies tonight showed any star power of any type, and Brooke simply blended in to the mediocrity.

Alexandrea Lushington

Sang “Spinning Wheel” in a completely awful mess of a performance. Her wheels spun right off, she ran out of breath and ended up barely pushing out the last few lines of the song. Yet again Paula and Randy liked it, in the face of all reason. Simon had it right…he didn’t get it, and neither did I.

Kady Malloy

Performed “A Groovy Kind of Love” with a country twist. It wasn’t bad, with some pitchy parts, but she definitely can sing. But, again, just completely soulless. I think that people like Michael Bolton and Celine Dion have tainted the music business with their success – each has a big, powerful voice and zero soul. That’s a soul temperature of absolute zero. And Kady’s performance was wooden and she looked a bit medicated, to be frank.

Asia’h Epperson

Oh my god, did she actually try to cover Janis Joplin’s “Another Piece of My Heart”?!?? OMFG, where do these chiclets get the nerve? I think I’m going to have to stop watching 60’s week on Idol because these young pup contestants simply have no idea of the magnitude of the songs they are singing. They don’t do the songs justice and it seems like it’s because the songs are meaningless to them. That may be the nature of things, but to watch these tyros prance around as if they’re worthy of singing some of these songs is infuriating. Oh, and Asia’h’s performance was simply lackluster. But the judges liked it. Oy.

Ramiele Malubay

And another one, this time covering “You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me” by Dusty Springfield. Listen, I’m very okay if someone wants to update a song, make it fresh, and/or make it their own. But, if you take on a classic by a legend you better bring your “A” game. And Ramiela did not. Again, another barely tolerable performance for this stage of Idol. But yet again, the judges loved it. I can’t figure out if I’m crazy, the judges are crazy, or if the judges are simply making the best of it because their ultimate goal is to sell records.

Syesha Mercado

Sang “Tobacco Road” in a completely horrible performance. Her voice was way too small for the song, and the end was completely off-key, horribly so, so bad that I got goosebumps but not the good kind – the kind you get from fingernails on a blackboard. But the judges *loved* it. Maybe my sound system is busted? I don’t think so because the backstory parts with their original auditions and Hollywood week contain a lot of good singing.

Carly Smithson

Covered “Shadow of Your Smile” originally done by Nancy Sinatra, and this was my favorite performance of the night. It was by no means a star-making turn, but it was the best of the lot tonight. Kind of torchy and jazzy it showed what a strong, pure voice she has. I’m not sure it was the best song choice, but she sang it with feeling and power.

• Leave a comment... (0)

1/15/2008 – Season Seven Premiere, Philadelphia, PA

Well, here we go again with another season of American Idol!  Tonight’s premiere got things started in the traditional style, with wildly varying singing skills, as well as a large standard deviation on the sanity scale.  The shtick of putting through painfully untalented contestants for either tragic mockery or pitiable foolishness is growing old.  This is a singing competition and the things that count are voice talent and charisma, period.  It’s also nice to get the backstory for the contestants, such as the young lady tonight whose daughter had a neuromuscular disease – she sang her heart out, made it to Hollywood, and couldn’t have had a brighter or sunnier personality, in spite of the challenges she must face as a young mother.

I’m not sure if I respect or detest the AI producer’s decision to stick so closely to the show’s formula.  On the one hand, it’s nice to see a show that doesn’t have a neurotic need to be “new” and/or “different” and/or “revolutionary”.  AI has a good formula and they stick with it.  On the other hand it is also a bit predictable.  But in the grand scheme of things, given a choice of something “new” (and probably stupid) and “old”, I’ll take the tried and true, even if it is a bit stodgy.

Overall the contestants were what you would expect for the opening tryouts.  A dash of crazies, a handful of pathetically misguided souls, a whole lot of mediocrity, and the tiniest pinch of really good singers.  It’s still too early to spot any great ones, but there was some great potential and we’re looking forward to seeing the rest of the tryouts and getting to freaking Hollywood!

• Leave a comment... (0)

One of the enduring mysteries of the series “South Park” are the muffled lyrics sung by Kenny in the opening theme song. For those unfamiliar, Kenny is a young boy character on the animated show who constantly wears an orange parka that is cinched tightly across his face so that it muffles his voice. The lyrics he sings at the end of the theme song are almost completely unintelligible (and also change every couple of seasons – even if the words are difficult/impossible to make out, you can tell that what he’s saying changes every couple of seasons).

In the Wikipedia entry for the series it is claimed that a FAQ on the South Park Studios site revealed the lyrics, but that FAQ is no longer (or never was??) online. That leaves the lyrics in doubt, from my perspective.

Now to the revelation. I regularly fall asleep watching television wearing headphones (so as not to disturb Mynagirl). We also have a TiVo in the bedroom, which means that through the course of the night it will switch channels to record the things with which we’ve tasked it. One of those things is our Season Pass for South Park, which airs at all hours of the night.

So the other night I fell asleep with the TV playing and my headphones on, and the audio from a South Park episode crossed the ear/sleep barrier and invaded my dreams. In my dream I could understand the line sung by the muffled Kenny in the South Park theme song. This realization was so profound that it woke me up, with the newly understood lyrics clinging to my consciousness. I quickly rewound the TiVo to the opening theme and re-listened to it, and I’ll be damned if I haven’t figured it out, at least for the season in question (Season 2).

The episode in question was Gnomes from 1998. And the specific words that Kenny sings in the opening credits are:

“Alligators eat potatoes, alligators eat potatoes…”

Above is the video/audio evidence for your perusal – Kenny says the line starting about 24 seconds in (right near the end, click the play arrow in the lower-left corner of the video window to play).

The Wikipedia entry claims that the lyrics are “I love girls with big fat titties, I love girls with deep vaginas.” Those are certainly South Park-ian lyrics, but my take is that what was actually sung was the nonsensical and poetic “Alligators eat potatoes” and that the more scatalogical decode was released later as disinformation by the South Park producers to build the mystique of the show.

Play the video, give a listen and decide for yourself. Enjoy!

• Leave a comment... (11)

Michael Clayton is an old-fashioned movie, which means that the movie is built on a great script, great directing, and great acting.  It is exciting with minimal special effects.  It is tense with little or no blood or gore.  It is funny without gross-out humor.  There is a hero, but he is a flawed human being.  There are strong male and female leads, but no love story.  There appears to be some type of redemption at the end, but it is of cold comfort.

George Clooney (above, right) plays the title character, who is a cleaner at a high-powered law firm.  When one of the firms big-wig clients gets dirt under their fingernails, the firm sends in Michael Clayton to clean up the mess.  He’s not a trial lawyer, he’s a fixer.  He greases the right skids, spins the right stories, smartens up the clients as to realistic expected outcomes, and then moves on to the next mess.  He’s highly paid, but not a partner, and apparently never will be given the…distasteful…nature of his specialty.  He’s a mercenary fighting for the side with the most money, and rightness and justness are left for children’s fairy tales.

And despite his high wages, Clayton is broke.  He started a bar with his brother as a partner, but his brother fell off the drug wagon and took the business with him.  Clayton also spends too much time at back-room poker games, and also funded the failing bar with loan shark money.  This pressing debt makes it very difficult for him to see that he is mortgaging his humanity for money.

His latest mess involves one of his own firms star trial attorneys, Arthur Edens (Tom Wilkinson), who for the last six years has been leading the defense of one of the firms clients (a gigantic food company a la Con Agra or Archer Daniels Midland) against charges that one of their farming chemicals kills said farmers and their families, and the company knew about it and did nothing.  But Arthur has snapped his cap, stripped naked during depositions, and chased the opposition around a parking lot in nothing but his socks.

Arthur’s madness is not random, it is a breakdown brought on by the fact that while sifting through tens of thousands of documents during discovery he uncovered a report from the client’s own scientists…stating that their product will kill people…escalating the issue to executive management…and with an acknowledgments page containing the signature of the CEO.  In other words, not only the smoking gun, but the gun, the bullets, the motive, the opportunity, the blood, the body, the microbes, the fingerprints, the gunpowder residue, the security cam footage, and the confession. The signed confession.

However, all Clayton knows is that the lead counsel for their largest client has gone off his rocker, and as the fixer he needs to get him under control and not jeopardize the upcoming settlement.  However, as Clayton digs into the facts he begins to learn the truth, and the enormity of the wrongdoing manages to pierce his debt-clouded, mercenary sensibilities and give him a crisis of conscience.

Even further gone in the soul-mortgaging department is Karen Crowder (Tilda Swinton, above left), who is the Chief Counsel for food corporation.  Her character is a vicious dragon lady, or appears to be so, but the film allows us to see her gearing up for battle…rehearsing…nervous…unsure……alone.  In a stunning surprise for a film this major, she is kind of normal sized and kind of normal in appearance.  But when she’s fully prepared and dressed for battle she is quite formidable, as Clayton finds out.

And in this film we get to see both Clooney’s and Swinton’s characters approach the same border…the border between immoral ruthlessness and actual, pure evil.  One of them teeters at the edge, while the other pauses for only the briefest moment to ponder the line passing underfoot as they rush to the dark side.

The performances are remarkable in this film.  Clooney plays Clayton in a $400 haircut, wearing $3,000 suits, driving a $100,000 car and flashing a $1,000,000 smile.  But he has dead eyes, all his smiles have a purpose.  Tilda Swinton plays Karen Crowder as the woman who got it all, then wonders wtf she was thinking by wanting it in the first place, but it’s now too late to turn back and become Betty Crocker.  Tom Wilkinson inhabits crazy Arthur as a latter-day Howard Beale, the mad prophet of the courtroom.

Deserving special mention is the legendary director (and noteworthy actor) Sydney Pollack, as the law firms managing partner.  His role is small, but it is powerful, and he imbues his character with the combination of gravitas, threat, and humanity that all great CEOs have.  You can tell that he truly does care about people, but not quite as much as he cares about money and power.

Put this all together and you get a tense, exciting, wild, and enjoyable ride, well worth the visit to the multiplex.  The ending is exciting and a bit unexpected (and maybe implausible, see below for question with spoiler), and be sure to stay through the end credits to see a Clooney acting tour de force.  The minimalist credits roll in the corner of an extended, uncut scene of Clooney’s character in the back of a cab leaving the climactic finale.  As the cab crawls through New York, Clooney sits and stares and thinks for several minutes.  Much like Marlon Brando’s back in the opening scene of The Godfather or Clint Eastwood’s sneering stare in any number of his films, Clooney conveys pages of dialog and exposition by not doing much of anything except completely becoming the character in that moment.  Clooney continues to amaze, both by transcending his pretty-boy roots and showing that he truly is an actor, and by continuing to make interesting, risky, and challenging career decisions (interspersed with “Ocean’s” films…a man has to eat…and have a villa in Italy).

Please note:  ending spoilers below — do not read further as the ending is revealed!!!!

Please note:  ending spoilers below — do not read further as the ending is revealed!!!!

Please note:  ending spoilers below — do not read further as the ending is revealed!!!!

Please note:  ending spoilers below — do not read further as the ending is revealed!!!!

Please note:  ending spoilers below — do not read further as the ending is revealed!!!!

Please note:  ending spoilers below — do not read further as the ending is revealed!!!!

Please note:  ending spoilers below — do not read further as the ending is revealed!!!!

Please note:  ending spoilers below — do not read further as the ending is revealed!!!!

Please note:  ending spoilers below — do not read further as the ending is revealed!!!!

Please note:  ending spoilers below — do not read further as the ending is revealed!!!!

Please note:  ending spoilers below — do not read further as the ending is revealed!!!!

Please note:  ending spoilers below — do not read further as the ending is revealed!!!!

Question About the Ending:
Can someone explain the ending to me?  There is a final confrontation between Clooney’s and Swinton’s characters where he asks her for money to go away and take the incriminating document with him.  She finally agrees, and when she does the police swoop in and arrest her and/or the CEO, as Clooney had his phone on so the cops heard everything.  However, as far as I can tell, neither Swinton’s character nor the CEO did or said anything on the call that would cause them to be arrested.  The authenticity of the report certainly hadn’t been established from a legal perspective, and Clooney merely had a copy of a copy.  Even if it were legitimate, it could fall into the legal realm of stolen intellectual property and inadmissable without further legal proceedings.  Clooney asks Swinton for money to go away and not make trouble, and she agrees.  That is the essence of corporate legal representation…make the judgement call of when it makes more sense to pay than to fight.  If anything, Clooney entrapped her into agreeing to the offer.  In any case, Mynagirl and I have discussed it quite a bit and can’t figure out what triggered the arrests.  If you know what it is, please enlighten us by posting a comment below.  Thanks!

• Leave a comment... (0)

Update 9/1/2007: For those of you who feel that Michael Vick is being treated more harshly because he is black, and that a white person in such a scandal would be getting off easier, please see the case of US Senator Larry Craig. He’s resigning after being caught attempting to entice another adult into consensual sex, which is a victimless crime, particularly when compared to the torture and brutal killing of innocent dogs. And Senator Craig could not be any whiter…he’s the Senator from from Idaho, for crying out loud, what’s whiter than that?!!????

Original article appears below.

---

Michael Vick has pled guilty to some of the charges against him, and held a press conference today where he made his first public statements. What I wanted to hear from Vick, the only thing he could have said that would have given him a glimmer of a chance of redemption in my eyes, was to state that his personal enjoyment in the torture and killing of dogs was a mental illness and that he would be seeking therapy for his psychotic behavior. However, he did not.

He tried to be contrite, but referred to his behavior as “bad choices”. However, the choices are not the issue, the issue is that he has a psyche that can torture and kill helpless animals for pleasure. A “bad choice” is getting behind the wheel after you’ve had too much to drink. A “bad choice” would be attending one, single dog fight.

Michael Vick did not make a “bad choice”, he suffers from a mental illness that needs treatment. His affliction is similar to alcoholism or abusive behavior in this regard. A single instance of getting behind the wheel tipsy, striking out in anger, or participating in animal torture are “bad choices”. However a pattern (or in this case a recreational lifestyle) that regularly includes such behavior indicates mental illness.

During the press conference Vick constantly referred to himself in the third-person, one of the surest indications to me of a runaway ego and not of a contrite confessor. This press conference stank of public relations spin, and I got zero sense that Vick actually believed what he was saying. I believe that he is sorry – sorry about losing his NFL salary, sorry about losing his endorsements, sorry he got caught lying to the league, etc. But I do not for one minute get the impression that Vick thinks that there is actually anything wrong with dogfighting – it appears to me that he accepts that society (and the legal system) condemn such actions, and he’s sorry for wrecking his gravy train.

Also, his plea deal is carefully crafted to allow some hope of returning to the NFL. He says he funded the dogfighting enterprise, but didn’t actually place any bets. Please. Even more obfuscatorily, he says that dogs were killed through the combined efforts of the three defendents. He doesn’t come right out and say, yes, I electrocuted, shot, hanged, and drowned dogs for fun. His plea and his press conference lack the full truth and show that Michael Vick is simply playing the odds.

And it appears that the NFL and the Atlanta Falcons are in cahoots with Vick in this endeavor. Shortly after Vick’s press conference, Arthur Blank (owner of the Falcons) held his own conference where he stated: “Cutting him today may feel better emotionally, for us and many of our fans, but it’s not in the long-term best interest of our franchise.” Mr. Blank also said, “We don’t know what the future holds for Michael. Having said that, I do believe in redemption.” That says it all, to me. Mr. Blank is letting us know that Michael Vick will be coming back to the Falcons, eventually. One presumes that he would not have made such a statement without the knowledge and approval of the NFL itself, so it looks like a done deal.

But Michael Vick still needs to stand up and take responsiblity not just for his actions, but for his psychological disorder. Get treatment, Mr. Vick. Deriving pleasure from the torture and abuse of helpless creatures is one of the clearest signs of mental illness that there is. It is particularly reprehensible with dogs, as we have spent generations domesticating dogs to be our trusting companions, to depend on us for shelter, sustenance, and companionship. We have an implied contract with dogs, that they will be our faithful companions and in turn we will take care of them. Turning that dependency into sadistic torture for personal pleasure is a mental aberration of astonishing magnitude.
Michael, I know that you’re sorry you got caught and lost your money train, you didn’t need to say that in your press conference. Now tell me (and the world) that you actually realize the horrific nature of your “hobby” and work to heal yourself.

Short of that, this dog won’t hunt.

• Leave a comment... (0)

Update 8/7/2007 – Barry Bonds hits #756 to become the all-time home-run leader.

Well, the anticlimax has arrived – Barry Bonds hit #756 tonight. I think Sports Illustrated summed it up perfectly with this visual on their front-page:

I couldn’t have said it better myself. Barry Bonds has achieved an undeniably impressive milestone and proven that he is indeed a great home run hitter. It’s sad that his legacy (and baseball’s legacy) will be tainted by his involvement in the steroids scandal.

Original article appears below.

---

Here is the simple solution to the controversy surrounding Barry Bonds’ pursuit of Hank Aaron’s all-time home-run record in Major League Baseball:

• Barry finally snaps his slump and hits number 755 to tie Aaron’s record.
• Barry Bonds circles the bases, doffs his cap, waves to the crowd, smiles, and immediately retires from baseball.

Think about that for a moment. Love him or hate him, you know that if Bonds becomes the all-time home run leader in baseball it will be a bad thing for the sport. His “achievement” will cast a pall over baseball until A-Rod breaks his record. Does anyone want that? In this age of declining interest in baseball the last thing the sport needs is to have its most illustrious record held by a dickwad cheater like Bonds.

But, if he hits number 755 to tie and then walks off the field for the last time, he will immediately be embraced by everyone on all sides of the argument, including people who normally could not care less. It would be the classiest of classy gestures – getting number 755 to show that he *could* do it, but then voluntarily stopping short of being the sole, all-time home run leader.

And, quite frankly, as reprehensible as I find his (alleged) use of steroids, there’s no denying that any artificial help he got was merely to enhance his undeniable, god-given natural ability to hit the ball. Drugs don’t perfect a swing or refine an eye – Barry Bonds did that himself. Unfortunately he chose to juice himself up to make himself even better. But I think it would be fair for him to share the record with Hammering Hank Aaron.

Given the competitive nature that drives people to the levels of excellence requires for pro sports, I doubt this will happen. On top of that, given what I know about Barry Bonds’ ego and class, there’s an almost zero chance of it happening.

However, a man can dream. Can dream of Barry Bonds having enough class to not only stop the runaway train wreck that is his chase for the record, but to launch baseball back into being the classy, revered sport that America deserves.

• Leave a comment... (1)

We recently moved from a patio home in the big city (Houston) to a cottage in a small, country town (Brenham). In Houston we didn’t really have any outdoor living space as we shared a common courtyard with neighbors, but here in Brenham we purposely bought a house that could provide a nice outdoor lifestyle. We purchased in the fall of last year and since then we’ve made improvements to the backyard, such as putting up an 8′ privacy fence and driveway gate, giving us a private, shady retreat to enjoy.

However, this being the southern half of Texas, the coming of spring and summer meant that the mosquitos ended up taking over and driving us back inside most mornings and evenings. Also, since we have two permanent dogs, and one temp dog that we’re babysitting, our backyard has a certain amount of…how to say this delicately…um…organic….err…excretions? Natural…fertilizer? Canine compost? Okay, dog poop. And with dog poop come flies. We’re excrutiatingly uninterested in policing the poop, and we feed our dogs a very high grade of dog food, so the volume isn’t huge, particuarly for the size of our dogs (80lbs, 80lbs, and 25lbs). Nevertheless, the flies were also annoying and gross, but fortunately not the biting kind.

So we started on a project of figuring out the best way to take back control of our backyard. I won’t say that money was no object, but we weren’t going to penny-pinch and were willing to spend into the low four figures for a good solution. We first looked at the wide variety of mosquito traps out there, such as the Mosquito Magnet, SkeeterVac, Mega-Catch, etc. What we found was that while the underlying concept behind these devices appears to be sound (catching mosquitoes with CO2 and other lures), the implementations were horribly unreliable and the results were spotty.

These devices almost all work by luring the mosquitos in with some set of attractants, such as CO2, lurex, octenol, lights, and/or heat, then using a fan to suction the little buggers into a holding net where they remain stuck until they die. Also, it seems that most of the mosquitos in your yard actually live in your yard, meaning if you can trap and kill the ones in your yard, you break the cycle of population and then only have to deal with ones that stray in from the surrounding area.

But for every story of success, there were three stories of device failure, with most failures occurring at the start of the second season of use when trying to get the traps to start up again after having been stored away for weeks or months. I wasn’t able to find a single personal account of anyone using one of these devices for more than one season without having issues. Also, the company that originally introduced the product and concept, American Biophysics with their Mosquito Magnet, had gone bankrupt and their acquiring company seemed to be completely disinterested in any type of customer service. This reinforced my take that while mosquito traps could work in the short term, and the scientific concepts appeared sound, the engineering has fallen short. And at $300-$1,000 per device it was a little too expensive to roll the dice and deal with a string of lemons year after year. We’re keeping our eyes peeled and will probably buy one if/when somebody proves they can make one that both works and lasts.

After ruling out these devices, the field of possible solutions became much less clear. We knew that we didn’t want to fog our yard with insecticide or any other toxins. Bug zappers seemed particularly useless. We were so desperate we even considered the SkeeterBag, which appears to be one of the Seven Wonders of the Redneck World (and, truthfully? we’re still considering it because of its simple and logical design). We also didn’t want to have to slather anything onto ourselves, even if it were natural and safe, as having to get gooped/slimed up every time we wanted to enjoy the cool of the evening just seemed like a zen-kill.

Then we came across the CedarCide site. The site itself looks kind of rough around the edges (note to the folks from CedarCide if you read this – we do web site development and would be willing to barter web services for cedar oil goods!) which made us skeptical that they were not a “real” company. But the more we read the more sense their story seemed to make. The basic concept is that the majority of bugs out there are repelled by cedar, including mosquitos and flies. The folks at CedarCide extract the oil from red Texas cedars and package it in various liquid and solid forms for consumer use.

Also compelling was the long, long, list of testimonials on their website. Now, normally, I place no stock in testimonials for products that are placed on the site selling said products, as they are handpicked and in some cases seemingly falsified, as they quote company prose as they describe the wonderfulness of their purchase. But I don’t know how to describe it, these rang true and seemed “real”, for lack of a better word.

The bottom line was we figured that we could try their products for no great cost, cedar oil couldn’t really hurt anything, and if it worked then great, if not then lesson learned for small number of dollars (compared to propane-based mosquito traps). So we ordered the YardSafe concentrate ($49.95 for a gallon, including a hose-end sprayer attachment) and the Vet’s Choice ($99.95 for a quart, but dilutes quite a bit) bath/dip.

We first tried the YardSafe by spraying our whole backyard. I included the wooden fence and the sides of the house as well as the part of the driveway the extends to the back, and I also gave the lawn furniture a light misting. That night we went outside in the late evening and encountered zero mosquitos or bites, whereas previously we would have been chased in with dozens of bites within a few minutes. We still had a few flies hanging around, but greatly reduced from the previous evening. The beneficial effects lasted for several days, then it rained for a couple of days, and on the next non-rainy evening we went out and the flies were back in increased numbers (but still less than before the treatment) but still no mosquitos. I gave area a quick refresher spraying and that chased off all but a few flies.

We’ve been using the spray now for a couple of weeks and we have only a few occasional flies, and after about a week after spraying (or two or three days of heavy rain) the mosquitoes start to return (but only a few). Our general process is to give the backyard a good spraying every weekend after mowing, and then to do quick spot sprayings as needed if the rain interferes with effectiveness.

And that process has given us back our backyard!! It’s actually amazing how quickly and effectively it chases away the mosquitoes. In fact, even if at some future date we get a propane mosquito trap, we’ll probably still use the CedarCide because it is *immediately* effective and it doesn’t take weeks like the propane traps to have an impact.

We also dipped our dogs in the Pet’s Choice and they smelled really nice. Not sure if had any effect on fleas (not sure they had any), but it didn’t hurt them and they smelled really good. Not sure the Pet’s Choice is worth money, but we’ll use up this batch and see if it has a better cumulative benefit.

All in all, we’re going to be buying a lot more YardSafe over the years. If you have a backyard plagued with mosquitoes, flies, and other bothersome pests, you may want to give it a try!

• Leave a comment... (9)