Timwulf

Every now and then I feel a surge of testosterone and get the urge to watch films that appeal to the warrior guy in me. Braveheart was one of those films and 300 (the film about the 300 Spartan warriors) was another. Pop those puppies in the DVD player and you immerse yourself in some good old fashion sword slashing mayhem. I say, "hoo yah."

So when I saw the film Beowulf was available on Netflix, I slapped it into my list thinking I was in for a macho treat of blood and guts in the Braveheart tradition. Okay, there was plenty of blood and guts, but Beowulf is really nothing more than a computer-generated comic book.

Bummer.

The film had some well know stars like Anthony Hopkins, Angelina Jolie and John Malkovich. You can recognize them in their CGI (or whatever technology it is) doppelgangers, but they are freakish in the same way the characters in Tom Hanks Polar Express were. They are lifelike in a not lifelike kind of way. These characters were like Shrek on steroids.

I watched this film in the same way you'd watch a train wreck. And then I watched the Making of Beowulf segment in the DVD's special features section. And I discovered the really disturbing part of the film. The actor who plays the megabuff Beowulf --Ray Winstone -- is a middle aged man with a major pot belly.

Okay, on one level this gives hope to the rest of us middle aged dudes with pot belly's who want to be buff heroes without working out. But on another level it creeps me out royal. This Beowulf spends half of the movie prancing around nude with his tally whacker hanging in the wind and having sex with Angelina Jolie. It was kind of okay when he was a mythic hero with major abs. But to find out he really is just a blob with more chins than Jabba the Hut is kind of like pulling the curtain back on the Wizard of Oz.

Okay and don't get me started on the guy who played Grendel the monster Beowulf slays. It's Krispin Glover (Marty McFly's father in Back to the Future). Grendel looks kind of like a cross between a zombie Popeye and the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Freaky as the monster is, it is still less freaky than Krispin Glover in real life. Nuff said.

Oh well, I suppose this was pretty cool technology, but I don't really get the point of having real actors doing all the work only to turn them into moving mannequins with spooky eyes. I can see computer generating monsters and mythical sets, but why real people when you have them right there creating the scenes?

Though it would be sweet to have a six pack belly, major bicepts and being able to slay a dragon without having to do a single sit up. I guess I'll just have to settle for my own Photoshopped world.

Getting along famously

With the plethora of programs like American Idol, Survivor, Last Comic Standing, America's Got Talent, etc, it dawned on me that there will probably come a point when everyone in America is famous. Then what we will we do? What's the point of being famous if everyone else is, too? Who is going to take your photo, ask for your autograph or stalk you?

Perhaps we need to start developing reality programs that promote obscurity. How about Who wants to be mediocre?, Biggest Loser (literally), America's biggest victim, or Who can't can't dance, sing or tell jokes?

Just a thought.

Butt, who nose

I am well aware that many of my posts tend to be on the negative side. But let's face it, negative stuff is much more funny than the positive stuff as long as it doesn't get too mean spirited. Okay, sometimes even the mean spirited stuff is funny, too.

Other than calling Gary Busey a whack job and occasional jabs at George W. , I try to confine my insults to categories of people and things and not personalize it too much. And I try to balance things out a bit by beating up myself.

But enough apologizing. I get sick of apologizing for potentially offending someone. Perhaps it is a side effect from living in Seattle. This land of political correctness has so many special interest groups that you can't swing a dead cat without offending someone. Now I've probably offended PETA, cat owners, vetrinarians, and swing dancers.

Jesus Christ on a crutch. Now I've offended Christians and people with disabilities. Sometimes I think if I haven't offended someone, I'm doing something wrong.

Obviously I struggle a bit with this issue. Because part of me has always wanted to be liked. But you can't always be liked, especially when you point peoples foibles. Fortunately nine times out of ten, most people with foibles don't know what the word means.

Insults just come naturally to me. Ironically, more often than not, I insult people I like. It's kind of my way of letting people know I like them without actually revealing I do.

Wow, that sounds pretty messed up. And I called Gary Busey a whack job. Maybe it's my dogs who have treed the invisible raccoon in the wrong tree.

But, who knows?

Too loose law trek

I have never been real good with other languages, including English. I took two years of German in high school and a semester in college. If I am ever in German speaking country I am confident I can find the library as long as it is "um die Ecke" (around the corner). Unfortunately, once I am there, I will be unable to read a single book.

Spanish would have been a much more useful language for me considering all the time I've spent in Spanish speaking countries (including Texas). And I love the way Spanish sounds. German always sounds as if you are shouting while gargling. Spanish sounds like poetry...very fast poetry, but poetry nevertheless.

Don't get me started on French. French is incomprehensible and unpronouncible. Plus it reeks of arrogance and assholes. And I say that with the utmost respect.

English is blah. Americans got the short end of the stick when they got stuck with English by default of colonization. It is not an exciting language. Perhaps that is why we mumble so much.

Though I don't believe many Americans speak English English. We pepper it with slang and accents that identify what part of the United States we hail from and what our economic status is. If someone uses the phrase, "Wellll, sheeeeIt" alot you can bet they are from Texas.

Of all of the American accents, I think New York accents are the worst. Even hello sounds like "fuck you" coming from a New Yorker.

I'm not sure what kind of accent I have. It meanders through the English language with educated white trash overtones that defy geographic pigeonholing. Idaho has no accent it calls its own. Most western states don't. Our accents are the eroded ones from our east coast and southern ancestors migrating towards the west. Half the time I think we just mimic sounds we hear on television.

So I suppose it is a good thing this is a written blog and not an oral one.

ShheeeeIt, yes.

Stop making sense

I was always a good headline writer. It's an art few outside the journalism realm appreciate. Because you don't catch a fish with the pole, you catch it with the hook. And a good headline hooks a reader into a story.

Or not.

Headline writers are notorious punsters. And not everyone appreciates (or gets) a pun.

It was my ability to write headlines that drew me to advertising and eventually marketing. Because I think good advertising is headline writing on steroids. Think about it. A good copywriter has 60 seconds, a sentence or one quarter page to attract you, reel you in and stun you with a fish whacker. It's like writing the Lord's Prayer on the head of a pin.

Think of the ads that endure and how deceptively simple they are: Got Milk? The Real Thing. Just Do It! Be all that you can be! Where's the beef? Who made the salad? Have it your way! My weiner has a first name...You are in good hands...King of Beers...How do you handle a hungry man? Plop, plop, fizz, fizz.

Obviously I am a child of television.

My days as a headline writer and copywriter are pretty much over these days. I am what they refer to as a "client side" advertising manager. I pay other people to be clever and sit back and bite my tongue to avoid blurting out puns and clever sayings to the ad agency people who work for me. Because there is nothing more annoying to a copywriter than for someone else to give them suggestions. So I just smile and nod at the clever things I'm presented.

Sometimes I wish I was just a copywriter again. It didn't pay squat, but it was sure fun.

Oh well, my 60 seconds are up.

Blogging: So easy a caveman could do it

Technically, I suppose it should be that blogging is so easy that even a Neanderthal could do it since caveman is pretty much a generic term and lumps all prehistoric or early man in one big primeval ignorant stereotypical ooze. Regardless, the point is that it is so easy to blog that just about anyone does. Blogging turns writing in to one big paint-by-numbers kit for non-writers.

Okay, it's nice to have a hobby. But do we really need to cast Aunt May's paint-by-number masterpieces into cyberspace to float around in the ether when they should be in a trunk in the attic?

The problem with millions of people blogging is that we are numbing the judgement receptors that normally would allow people to tell "shit from Shinola." If Shakespeare was alive today and blogging, I imagine he would be struggling for hits and comments on Hamlet while some some illiterate S&M goat lover in the hinterlands amasses a small but significant following.

Such is blogging. It trades art for memes and nearly naked Thursdays.

But what should we expect from a country that thrives on reality television and celebrity fuck ups.

Og's head hurt. Must stop now.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah

Today I blah, blah, buh blah blah blah. Then I blah, buh bah, blah blah blahed. It's not that I blah, blah blah. It's just that I blah, blah blah.

But I blah.

Blah, buh blahed, last night. The blah is still blahing the same old blah. It's as if I never blahed the blah blah. Then I stopped by blah. Same blah.

Why does everyone blah the blah blah? They blah blah blah and blah blah blah. I blah, they say, blah and blah. But they never really blah.

I refuse to blah, blah blah the same old blah, blah, blah. "Blah you, you bloaher," I say.

Sorry for the blah, blah, blah. It's just that blah blah blah really gets me blah.

That's blahging for you.