Posted on by mwhybark

All along the Watchmentower

I’ve been amusedly following the reviews for Zak Snyder’s “Watchmen.” The news, it seems, is not so good. Most of the negative reviews have been by relatively thoughtless reviewers, a few have been reviews that contained worthwhile critiques, and a vanishingly small number have been by folks who understand the brilliance of the original comic and have consequently approached the film with a strong sense of trepidation.

Only The New York Times‘ A. O. Scott, however, included this sentence:

Indeed, the ideal viewer — or reviewer, as the case may be — of the “Watchmen” movie would probably be a mid-’80s college sophomore with a smattering of Nietzsche, an extensive record collection and a comic-book nerd for a roommate.



As it happens, in 1986 and 1987, when the original series was coming out and i was hungrily devouring it (and The Dark Knight Returns and the first run of Love and Rockets, among others) I was:

  • a college sophomore

I had

  • an extensive record collection
  • a smattering of Nietzche
  • a comic-book nerd for a roomate

For the record, I preferred and continue to prefer Debord, thank you very much. Also it should be well-noted that I actually roomed with several comic-book nerds, including yours truly, and perhaps ‘nerd’ fails to capture the social and sexual dynamism of that household.

Posted on by mwhybark

Enchirito!

Years ago, Viv and I saw, once only, a bizarre ad for Taco Bell’s ‘enchirito,’ featuring the word sung by four guys singing in a circular group as the camera panned around their faces.

We both stopped what we were doing or talking about and yelled ‘what was that?“ but the hilarious strangeness of the ad was never to reappear. Struck by a thought – that YouTube is the Facebook of obscure ad clips – I took a look.

I give you: The Enchirito Boys. Note that they are, in fact, named in the context of the ad. Maybe they went on to become Comcast housemates or something.

UPDATE: MT squashed the hell out of the embed, so I just linked.

Posted on by mwhybark

Zarek Hatch

Richard Hatch on his just concluded time as Tom Zarek on BSG.

Awesome, so great to see one of the BSG folks using the internet to think out loud about what they have been doing.

I can’t wait until we hear from the others, too. It’s seemed clear to me for some time that Hatch was playing his character against the script, that as written Zarek is a cynical manipulator of discontent, but that Hatch chose to see the role as a committed revolutionary representing what he saw as the inevitable will of the people. By playing it that way, he improved the series against consistently weak writing around labor issues in particular and around weaker political writing in general.

Doing so permitted him, and the series, the luxury to elevate itself to levels of drama generally reserved for the Greeks and Shakespeare. Mr. Moore owes Richard Hatch his most sincere thanks, more more than he knows.

So, Mr. Hatch, I thank you. You transcended yourself and your character’s written role, and in so doing deepened the art of your co-workers. Thanks again for taking the time to write about it afterwards.

Posted on by mwhybark

DTV idiocy update

Andy Inahtko has taken the time to scrape the inside of my skull on the great upcoming digital leap forward. It’s a swindle, a ripoff, and a bad idea poorly implemented. I sure hope there’s a giant shitstorm of angry consumers come February. I want to see pitchforks and torches and rails!

“ATSC is a badly bungled standard, badly implemented. It puts a hell of a tax on the poorest Americans.

Why is broadcast analog TV being shut down? Because those frequencies were auctioned off for private use. Rights to that bandwidth were sold to AT&T and Verizon last year for $19.6 billion.

There are some benefits to general consumers. Like real estate, the laws of physics aren’t manufacturing any additional usable bandwidth and occasionally, existing property must be “redeveloped.” The biggest chunk of the former analog-TV spectrum (termed “Block C” in the auction) was sold to Verizon with the proviso that it has to be used for an “open” network which can be joined and exploited by any compatible device from any maker.”

Posted on by mwhybark

Xombies

Exene stumbled fitfully toward John, who had a hard time handling the bass.

Billy’s grin seemed unusually wide. DJ’s skinpounding seemed fragile, on this night. The band forgot lyrics, skipped bridges, generally seemed out of things, distracted, a shadow of their former selves.

Then the cops arrived.

(Originally written as a part of NaDruWriNi 2004.)