Thoughts On I'm Still Here

I got another letter from the barackobama.com hacks yesterday. In this one, they were touting how effective the new health care debacle has been in only six months time. Pure distortion and no doubt gross exaggeration on their part. I was a little surprised they are hyping this up 6 weeks before the election. Nobody wants it. And the Democrat Party folks running for various congressional and senate seats aren't talking about it as some awesome accomplishment to entice undecided voters into making the terrible mistake of reelecting them. In fact, they seem to be making a calculated decision NOT to mention it. At all. It just goes to show, once again, as I mentioned in Monday's post, how out of touch these failures are with what's going on.

Speaking of clueless people, Brandon and I were out at some joint on Westridge last night watching his Thugs destroy Dave Wanntedt's mustache, and a guy at the bar said something very telling. There was a 4th down and 5 situation, and the guy said "They have one of the 3 options here, they can go for it, they can punt, or they could fake a punt." I told Brandon there was no point in saying a word to the idiot. People like that are hopeless. And I made an analogy to drive home my point. I told the kid, "It's like when someone tells you, with a straight face, that the stimulus bill worked. There's nothing to say to folks like that. They have lost all sense of reality." Brandon was laughing at that one.

I mentioned undecided voters earlier. Which reminds me of those telephone polls you see on local news shows. You know, a question like: Do you approve of douching in public places? And what I have always found fascinating about these local call in polls is that when they give the results at the end of the broadcast, it's like 70% yes, 23% no, 7% don't know. And for the life of me, I can't understand why people would go to the effort to dial in for a telephone poll and answer don't know. Wouldn't not calling in and expressing an opinion at all make more sense than dialing up the news station to express that you don't have an opinion on a important topic like douching in public? Why do they call and answer don't know? Why? It drives me to the brink of suicide. People - they're the worst.

I turned some work in yesterday. Stuff I've been writing up for the last few weeks. I won't go into details, confidentiality and whatnot. Anyway, when I finished up, I told them that I wrote the stuff up in the same style I write this blog. Somebody laughed...

I went to see I'm Still Here late yesterday afternoon. And I highly recommend it. It is genius. Almost no one will get it. But smart readers of this blog should. Back when the whole Joaquin Phoenix has gone crazy stuff was happening about 18 months ago, I never mentioned it on this blog. I wasn't sure what was going on, but I knew there was no way that it was real. I mean, you could tell there was something fishy about the whole going into rapping, looking like a bum, and retirement stuff. When I heard a few months ago that a movie was coming out about Phoenix's attempt to break into hip-hop, that's when I figured out that the whole thing is a huge hoax. And I was really looking forward to seeing the film. As I said, I'm Still Here does not disappoint. Joaquin Phoenix should win an Oscar for his portrayal of a fucked up, delusional version of himself. The rapping itself is so terrible, it's awesome. There's a scene where Phoenix performs at a club in Miami that is worth the price of admission. He's so terrible and the poor idiots in the audience are reacting to him in various ways. The scenes with Sean Combs are also brilliant. Watching Combs reaction when listening to a demo CD is funny as hell. Combs is great in this. Also, Ben Stiller comes by Phoenix's house at one point, ostensibly to offer him a part in some movie, and the conversation is awkwardly awesome. I won't ruin the stuff with Phoenix's assistants - you'll like Anton though, I promise. The whole thing would have to be unnerving if you thought it was real (as a number of movie reviewers did). But, if you watch it with the knowledge that it's all an elaborate hoax, I think you should come away with having experienced a spot on examination of the celebrity driven media culture in this country. As I've said many times on this silly blog, the fixation with celebrity and the media that cover the fixation are both ridiculous. In I'm Still Here, Joaquin Phoenix and Casey Affleck (the kid directed the thing) make that point as well as anyone can make it. Brilliant. Yes, it's fake. But isn't much of life itself basically fake? And if you operate under that premise, then something fake can shine truths on life. Right? And this does.

Survivor Update - Geilfuss & I are still alive. And after lots of debate, we are taking the easy way out again with the Ravens. It is a division game, but Baltimore is off a loss and it is their home opener. We looked hard at Houston, but they might have some major issues slowing down the Dallas pass rush, that and the fact the Cowboys are desperate for a win. We're hoping that some guys go with Cincinnati and Minnesota - I think they both have a chance to get upset.

I have no time for write ups. But I could really stand to have a big week. I really could. Picks - College: BGSU, NW, Purdue, Wyo, Stanford, Temple, Oregon St, Utah. NFL: Ten, Det/Min Over, Car, Seattle, Denver, Arizona, NYJ.

I'd like to meet his tailor