Review of WALL-E

This past December during Butt-Numb-A-Thon 9 in Austin, Texas (read my full report here) two people from Pixar Animation came and showed us some footage from WALL-E. And I remember telling someone at the time that if any movie deserves to be the first to make a billion dollars at the box office, WALL-E would be it. Even then, it looked that amazing.

I wasn't able to catch it opening day ('cuz I was busy all weekend with our local Theatre Guild's production of Children of Eden) but yesterday Lisa and I went to the new Four Seasons Station 18 in Greensboro, and I finally got to watch WALL-E.

So what did I think of it?

Best. Pixar. Movie. Ever.

And if it's not the best movie that Disney has ever done, it certainly ranks up there somewhere along with The Lion King and Aladdin (those are my personal favorites anyway). It's so good that I want to see WALL-E... at least six more times while it's still playing at the cinema!

But you know what? The day after, and I can't put my finger on any one reason why WALL-E is so good. This is a movie of very utter extremes: one one hand, this is the finest work that has ever been done for a computer animated film. WALL-E looks real. The cockroach looks real. Those huge pylons of trash that dot the landscape look real. The only thing that doesn't look realistic are the humans aboard the Axiom, and when you follow the story you can understand why that might be, anyway. But at the same time, for all the raw rendering power that got poured into WALL-E, this is a story so simple and accessible that for most of the movie there is not any dialogue at all. And I think that is going to be one of the reasons why WALL-E will appear on many others' lists as Pixar's best effort to date. It is Pixar at its purest... but it's also a movie that dares do something the animation house has never done before: implement footage of real humans (clips of Hello Dolly and Fred Willard's role as the President of Buy 'n Large are the most prominent).

The movie is about WALL-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth class), the last robot still functioning on an Earth buried beneath wasteful consumption gone amok. A few hundred years in our future a Wal-Martish corporation called Buy 'n Large has come to provide for every material human desire and is now the world government. Unfortunately all that needless purchasing has made Earth unfit for human habitation. So all the people leave on starships for a few years while Buy 'n Large dispatches millions of robots to clean up the place.

Seven centuries later, WALL-E is the only one still operational and following his directive. He wakes up every morning, recharges via solar power, then spends the day cleaning up the garbage and collecting the odd treasure like lighters, videotapes and brassieres. Then he retreats back to his "home" for the night, with a cockroach to keep him company.

Sounds like the movie I Am Legend, doesn't it? Well, whatever went wrong with that film, WALL-E succeeds so far as impressing us with a character that not only has a soul, but also with the sense that he is lonely. All without a single spoken word of dialogue.

And then, one day, a ship lands near WALL-E's home. It dispatches EVE, a sleek, slim "female" robot. Immediately, WALL-E is smitten with affection for her. What happens from there eventually catapults WALL-E off the Earth and into space to discover what happened to humanity: now a race of morbidly obese, perpetually lazy blobs of flesh (is this the future of America? I cringe to think that it's possible) that are constantly barraged with advertisements to buy and spend and eat and play. It's like THX-1138 as conceived by Pixar. And I'm gonna kick myself if I don't mention my favorite line of the whole movie: the Captain of the Axiom comes to his senses and declares that "I don't want to survive! I want to live!" I can't remember when so much truth was said with so few words. The human race almost a thousand years in the future not only needs a purpose, it needs a savior... and this squat little droid that looks like a cross between E.T. and Johnny 5 might be it.

That's all I dare say about the plot of WALL-E, 'cuz I went in pretty unawares about the movie's story and everyone else deserves the same pleasure, too.

WALL-E might be the best movie that I've seen so far in 2008. For years I've heard a lot of people complain that the problem with computer animation is that it can't adequately express emotion like live action or even traditional animation. If Pixar hadn't erased those doubts already with recent films like Finding Nemo, then it certainly does with WALL-E. And if WALL-E represents Pixar's fine tradition of continually raising the bar from its previous work, then I cannot begin to imagine what wonder and delight the studio has in store for us over the next few years (Pixar has four or five big movies that they are working on at any moment and at the time of Butt-Numb-A-Thon 9 their slate was filled with projects going all the way to 2012). In fact, I would even say that if WALL-E is any indication, that Pixar might someday soon give us a film that is in every way as believable as any live-action science-fiction epic. Dare I say it? Pixar going back to its Lucasfilm roots to give us Star Wars Episode VII? As doubtful as I am about the upcoming Star Wars: The Clone Wars computer-animated feature, I would gladly buy a ticket for one by Pixar.

I can't say enough how good WALL-E is, folks. You really do owe it to yourself to check it out in theaters. And along with WALL-E you can also enjoy Pixar's new funny short Presto.

Read More

All kinds of DC Comics video goodness hits iTunes!

In the words of Geoff Gentry who first passed along word of this: "Get your debit card ready."

iTunes has just added the DC Comics Collection to its vast video library. You can now purchase and download the first several episodes of Batman: The Animated Series, Batman Beyond and Superman: The Animated Series. It's also got Max Fleischer's animated Superman shorts from the 1940s, the first season of The Adventures of Superman starring George Reeve, the first season of Super Friends and the complete 2008 Aquaman series. Geoff adds that hopefully iTunes will soon add Justice League and I heartily concur.

But in the meantime, if you've never watched "Heart of Ice", the episode that first hurtled Batman: The Animated Series to critical acclaim, you can now enjoy it for two bucks via iTunes. And as soon as they make "Apokolips... Now!" Parts 1 and 2 from Superman: The Animated Series available, I'm gonna be acquiring those, too!

Read More

"The Stolen Earth": First part of DOCTOR WHO season finale one of television's most intense and cataclysmic episodes EVER!

Sometime this past year, the head accountant at the BBC's headquarters in London must have looked at Russell T. Davies' budget request for the episodes of this season's Doctor Who, especially the two-part finale beginning with "The Stolen Earth", then broke out in laughter before incredulously asking Davies "ARE YOU NUTS?!?"

This single episode was probably one-third of the entire season's funding. And there's still the conclusion next week.

But first, a look at "The Stolen Earth", beginning with the standard screencap and select quotes...

"Martha, look at the sky. Just look at the sky!"

"You get back inside Sylvia. They always want the women."

"Do you like my gun?"

"I'm receiving a communication from the Earth-bound ships. They have a message for the human race."

"There's nothing I can do. I'm sorry. We're dead."

"Soon the Crucible will be complete."

"Clom... Clom's gone?! Who’d want Clom?"

"He is coming... the three-fold man... THE DOCTOR IS COMING!"

"My vision is NOT impaired!"

"I came here when I was just a kid. Ninety years old."

"You never give up!"

"Captain Jack Harkness shame on you! Now stand to attention sir!"

"She won't let me. She said they're naughty."

"Mister Smith, make that call!"

"You know nothing of any human. And that will be your downfall."

"WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN?!?"

"It's like an outer space Facebook!"

"Welcome to my new empire, Doctor."

"Why don't you ask her yourself?"

"It's starting..."

If you're waiting to see it when it airs here in the states on the Sci-Fi Channel in a few weeks, let me assure you that nothing that I could write about "The Stolen Earth" can prepare you for this episode. It starts out hot on the heels of last week's "Turn Left" (reviewed here). The Doctor (David Tennant) and Donna (Catherine Tate) arrive back on Earth on a Saturday, with nothing particularly amiss. But with barely a minute into the episode, the TARDIS is rattled and The Doctor is shocked to discover why: Earth - as in the entire planet beneath them - has vanished.

Cut back to Earth, wherever it is: Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) at Torchwood, Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman) in New York City and Sarah-Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen) in England all try to summon The Doctor for help. But someone else has arrived: Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), back from the parallel universe and toting the biggest personal firearm in the entire four decades-plus run of Doctor Who. Her return marks the first of many "money shots" for this episode: Rose looking up from the street and gazing with the rest of humanity at the twenty-six planets that now fill almost every point of the sky.

And then, things start to go bad.

Just about every good guy (and gal) from the pantheon of Davies's four-year term as Doctor Who's helmsman - including characters from Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures - is thrown into the thick of a massive attack on Earth by the Daleks. This is the last story that Davies will do before Steven Moffatt takes over, and the man went for broke in every conceivable way and some you wouldn't possibly conceive. This is absolutely the most terrifying that the Daleks have ever been in the entire 45-year history of the show, from their repeated transmission of "EXTERMINATE!" to the humans, to their devastating attack on New York City: depicted with such horror that had this aired a few years earlier the BBC would have been slammed as being "insensitive".

And of course, there is the return of Davros, who has not been seen since 1988's "Remembrance of the Daleks".

This is the character considered by many to be the greatest villain in all of fiction. And it's hard to argue with that, considering that he is the creator of the Daleks, that his single useable hand is stained with the blood of trillions of innocent lives scattered throughout the universe, and that his goal is nothing less than to become God.

This time it's Julian Bleach in the chair, and his performance as Davros is nothing short of magnificent. Bleach's portrayal definitely hearkens back to Michael Wisher, who was the first to play Davros in "Genesis of the Daleks" in 1975, but there is also a bit of Terry Molloy's Davros here (which I've always liked). But after one episode, and I think that Bleach's take on Davros might be fast coming my all-time favorite. The scene where he shows The Doctor just how far he has gone to care for his "children" may go down as one of the all-time most iconic moments of Doctor Who: if that didn't send little kiddies scurrying behind the sofa, nothing would.

A lot of stuff that's been hinted at and mentioned during this past season (and a bit before) is addressed here, like the Shadow Proclamation and the mystery of the bees, and we finally get to see what the Medusa Cascade is. Dalek Caan, who was last seen in "Evolution of the Daleks", is also back... in body if not in mind. Wilfred and Sylvia also reappear, and I for one can not get enough of Bernard Cribbins as Wilfred! This guy is one of the most endearingly fun things about Doctor Who lately, and he and Jacqueline King's Sylvia have some great scenes... including one that is already a classic involving a Dalek. Harriet Jones (again played by Penelope Wilton) returns, and it might be a good idea to rewatch "The Christmas Invasion" if you can because refreshing yourself on the last time we saw Jones will certainly lend toward appreciation for her in "The Stolen Earth".

Yes, it is a lot to shoehorn into a single episode of any television series. But nothing in "The Stolen Earth" comes across as just "tacked-on" or mere cameo. Everyone has an important part to play in the story. This could have turned into a very clumsy story, and instead it's one of the most elegant dances that I've seen attempted on a story of this magnitude.

Then there is the ending.

The next few days might be the most maddening wait in the history of Doctor Who. "The Stolen Earth" ends on a cliffhanger of... heck forget Lost proportions, we're now talking territory rarely seen since The Empire Strikes Back. I actually screamed twice in those last few minutes of watching "The Stolen Earth"... and I'm not gonna dare spill the beans to anyone who hasn't watched it yet but if you have, you know what I'm talking about.

I swear, the past few months have given us better television than we possibly deserve. First there was the entire fourth season of Lost. Then there's all the amazing things I've been hearing about Battlestar Galactica. Now this. It's almost enough to make you believe that after sixty-some years, the medium has finally begun to grow up. Little wonder that The Wall Street Journal just sang the praises of Doctor Who and compared the show to its two American colleagues.

"The Stolen Earth" gets the full Five Sonic Screwdrivers!

Next week: if you thought that a lot transpired in 45 minutes with "The Stolen Earth", what could possibly happen with sixty-five full minutes of Doctor Who?! It's The Doctor and his faithful friends versus Davros and millions of Daleks for the fate of reality itself. "Journey's End" begins this Saturday on BBC One in Great Britain, on Sci-Fi Channel in the States in a few weeks, and anywhere you want it on the Internet in between! :-)

Read More

Don S. Davis has entered the White Lodge

Wondering how many people will get the reference. If you did, buy yourself a cherry pie...

Ain't It Cool News is passing along the sad word that Don S. Davis, who had a real-life military career before turning to acting and becoming one of the best-known character actors of the past twenty years, has passed away at the age of 65.

A lot of folks will remember Davis as Dana Scully's father on The X-Files. About the same time in the Nineties, Davis played Major General George Hammond on Stargate SG-1, a role he would have for the duration of the show. His repertoire included mostly "authority" types like principals and judges and doctors, although he could also be spotted in other roles... like the driver of the car that Pinball's body crashes onto in the movie Con Air.

I will most remember Davis, however, for the role that may have started it all in terms of his success: United States Air Force Major Garland Briggs on the ABC television series Twin Peaks. And had that show gone into a third season, I've no doubt that we would have really seen Davis shine. It was obvious throughout Season 2 that there was some very heavy stuff being set up for Briggs, and that this most kind and honorable man was being revealed as a Gandalf-type "elder soldier" in the spiritual warfare against the Black Lodge. That's kind of the direction I thought the show was going into, anyway. Too bad we'll never know for sure. But regardless of what happened to the show, Davis's moments on Twin Peaks were amazing. The scene with son Bobby in the first episode of Season 2, where he shares his dream... okay, 'nuff said. Even as a high school student, I thought that was an especially powerful scene.

Very sad to see him go. We don't seem blessed with many actors of his caliber anymore.

EDIT 2:10 p.m. July 2nd 2008: Here is Major Briggs's "vision speech" to son Bobby from Twin Peaks second season premiere...

"A vision, I had in my sleep last night. As distinguished from a dream, which is a mere sorting and cataloging of the days events by the subconscious; a vision fresh and clear as a mountain stream, the mind revealing itself to itself. In my vision I was on the veranda of vast estate, a palazzo of some fantastic proportion. There seemed to emanate from it, a light from within this gleaming, radiant marble. I had known this place. I had, in fact, been born and raised there and this was my first return, a reunion with the deepest well-springs of my being. As I wondered about I noticed happily that the house has been immaculately maintained and there had been added to it a number of additional rooms, but in a way that blended so seamlessly with its original construction that one would not detect any difference. Returning to the house's grand foyer, there came a knock on the door. I opened it, and my son was standing there. He was happy and carefree, clearly living a life of deep harmony and joy. We embraced, a warm and loving embrace, nothing withheld. We we're, in this moment, one. My vision ended, and I awoke with an overwhelming feeling of optimism and confidence in you, and your future. That was my vision Bobby, it was you."

That was one of the most powerfully delivered monologues in television history. I think even Dana Ashbrook, who played Bobby, was floored by it. And only Don S. Davis could have done it with such power and gentleness.

Here is the scene itself...

Very incredible stuff. And once again I am regretting that Twin Peaks never made it past its second season. But on the other hand it definitely paved the way for Lost and Battlestar Galactica. Those would never have had a chance at success had Twin Peaks not first shown the way.

Read More

Microsoft stops selling Windows XP today

Today is the final day of widespread sales of Windows XP. After today, it will no longer be possible to purchase a new computer from any major manufacturer with Windows XP installed on it.

The operating system first went on sale on October 25th, 2001. So it lasted with full support for nearly seven years: not bad for any software product but especially one from Microsoft, a company notorious for pushing updates on customers.

I was working at a Best Buy store when Windows XP was rolled out. Everyone associated with computers or media sales had to come in one Sunday morning prior to Windows XP's release for three hours of what I have since come to call "Microsoft religious indoctrination". We had to learn all about what Windows XP could do, what made it different from Windows Me and Windows 2000 Professional, all that jazz. I remember thinking at the time that this was so much ca-ca. That's not a knock on Best Buy at all: they're one of the best companies on the scene today. I just couldn't help but think that it was a little ridiculous to spend so much time being inculcated with the virtues of a bloody operating system...

(That I had to give up the weekend, which I could have spent driving down to Athens from Asheville to see Lisa, did not make me feel better about it either.)

And then sometime later, a few months before getting married, I wound up with Windows XP on my own system. And I promptly decided that the "indoctrination session" we'd been made to sit through was woefully unfair. That in fact, Windows XP was far better than Microsoft was making it out to be.

Windows XP was the most stable version of Windows that I've worked with since Windows 3.1 many moons ago. Not once did Windows XP crash on me or give me a reason to have to reboot. In fact, the only time that I lost any productivity with Windows XP came in January of 2003, and that was my own fault for failing to take precautions: a story that I was writing for the newspaper I was working at was lost because an ice storm knocked out the power and I hadn't saved it to disk. The next day I bought an un-interruptable power supply, and it hasn't happened again since.

And hey, it was Windows XP that I did my first forays into filmmaking. Now I'm working on Windows Vista and if it weren't for all the useless gimmicks like Aero being turned off, I wouldn't get any work done at all. Windows XP was not only stable, it was lean and mean. It respected its users enough to trust them with knowing whether or not something needed to be hogging precious resources. Let us hope that Microsoft has learned its lesson with Vista... but I cannot help but feel doubtful about that.

Anyway, let us raise a toast to Windows XP: the operating system that, whether it's widely appreciated or not, did most of the driving in this first decade of the new millennium.

Read More

The Godfather Trilogy coming to Blu-ray

It's an offer die-hard movie buffs cannot refuse: The Godfather Trilogy is coming to Blu-ray on September 23rd. As in, this September 23rd!

Francis Ford Coppola himself supervised a frame-by-frame digital restoration of the first two films, and The Godfather Part III received a full remastering treatment for the project. The set will cost $119 but will include gobs of extras.

Other than the Star Wars saga coming out in the format, this might be the only other thing that would make me finally break down and get a Blu-ray player. Will have to see what others say of it first but I would love to have the entire Godfather saga in lush, violent high definition.

Read More

CHILDREN OF EDEN: The final performance and out-of-control strike party!

This is the way the world begins: not with a whimper but with a bang!

Yesterday was the final performance of the Theatre Guild of Rockingham County's production of Children of Eden. After the amazing reaction that the show got on Saturday night, could Sunday afternoon possibly be any better? Judging by the approval of the packed auditorium at Rockingham Community College - the biggest audience of the entire run - the answer to that is an emphatic "yes"!

The show went great! One funny thing that happened came during the scene where Father (Neil Shepherd) is banishing Adam (Stephen Hale) and Eve (Rose Cutuli Wray) from the Garden: when Father smites the Tree of Knowledge, the special effects crew had the tree rigged so that there was a very loud flash of light and smoke,as the tree splits in two. Well, they must have put some extra powder in the flashpot 'cuz it was a way loud "BANG!" yesterday. And while those of us who were Storytellers were looking wrathfully at Adam and Eve, we heard one guy in the audience say that "I thought that I'd been shot." I think everyone had to fight hard to not giggle when that happened :-)

Act I continued, and I took to the stage for the last time as Seth in the act's final scene, and this time... I don't know how it happened but I had a ton of tears streaming down my face as I approached the dying Eve when she gives Seth the Staff of Adam. Maybe I was holding back for this final show and I didn't realize it. People in the audience noticed it too.

Then Act II began, and "Generations" seems to have been a big hit. But then later on came "Ain't It Good", which really had the audience rockin'! I think that might have been the most enthused response for a single song during the entire six-show run.

Well, not long after came the show's final song "In The Beginning". We took our bows and fled up the aisles to meet the audience members as they were leaving. And then a very funny thing happened: it started to rain hard. You see, because of the weird way the auditorium is designed, during the show everyone in the cast has to walk around the auditorium to get from one place to the other, and for those on stage left this means exiting the building and running around outside. It has been a bigtime worry that during a show it might be raining and that the audience would wonder why our costumes were so wet. Lo and behold it didn't rain during a single performance... but immediately after the final one, the bottom fell out of the sky and this whole area got drenched. Was that God's way of saying He approved of our performance? That's what most of the cast said they liked to believe :-)

All the while it was raining we had to strike the set. My task was to help take down the risers and the "God perch" that Neil stood on most of the time during the show as Father looking down on the world. After all that was done (in less time than we'd originally anticipated) we were supposed to go to one of the crew members' house for a poolside strike party. But the rain and lightning kinda canceled that plan. So then Rose had the idea of having all the catered food delivered to the student center at Rockingham Community College, since we were all already there anyway.

So that's where we were from 7 last night on 'til almost 10:30, munching on hot dogs and hamburgers after being treated to the backstage crew premiering their new show "Children of Eating".

And then there was the karaoke...

I'm not going to post all the pictures of what happened last night 'cuz some among the cast and crew have threatened me with litigation if certain photos ever show up on this blog, but I can at least post the ones of myself acting crazy...

The first is what happened when I took the mike and belted out a rendition of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody":

And then came the new group Mama, Papa and Seth (Roses Cutuli Wray, Stephen Hale and Chris Knight) singing "Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves" by Cher:

The "Bohemian Rhapsody" performance got a standing "O" and most of the audience even waved their opened cell phones. It was hilarious!

Then not long afterward the party had to draw to a close, and after being together for two months we had to say our goodbyes for now. But not goodbye forever, because just about everyone is now a Facebook or Myspace (or both) friend with each other, and we're already talking about doing more shows together in the future.

And right now, on the day after... I definitely feel like a better person for having done this. I tried out for Children of Eden almost on a lark, not expecting to land a role because frankly, I can't sing well. I even told the directing staff that I would have been happy to just help backstage if they needed it. I ended up not only in the show but also playing a fairly important character. This is a musical that I've wanted to be a part of for almost ten years, since first seeing it performed at Elon in 1998. Most people have no idea how big a dream that has been for me. Two months later and I get to say with a lot of pride that I not only got to live that dream, but I'm taking from it a lot of precious memories and very many people who I feel like are not just friends, but family. And it's going to be an experience that I am going to be forever thankful to God and a lot of good people for happening as it did.

(By the way, special thanks to Mike Jerrell for the amazing modification that he made to part of my Jedi Knight costume, that is going to make that a much better outfit for me to wear from now on!)

"For every moment of our life is the beginning..."

Now we begin. And I like to believe that the best days are yet to come.

Read More

QUANTUM OF SOLACE teaser is online

So this morning, after waking up following an awesome final performance of Children of Eden and the very crazy strike party last night (write-up and pics coming soon), I got an e-mail from Phillip Arthur. He's gone positively bonkers over the teaser for Quantum of Solace, the next James Bond movie (see it in high-definition on Moviefone). You can also find it all over YouTube. I watched Casino Royale (which also featured Daniel Craig as Bond) last summer and I was completely blown away by how great it was. And so far as this first glimpse at Quantum of Solace goes I have to agree with Phillip: "It looks frakkin' AWESOME!" Can't wait to see this new one in a real theater :-)

Read More

Ron Price's "complete and factual account": ADMITS to stealing signs! Alleges conspiracy by Teamsters! Plus: Price's science crusade!

In case anyone believed that Yours Truly had some kind of obsession about "getting" Ron Price, bear in mind that it has now been well over six months since I've posted ANYTHING about him. And if I never did write about him again, I would have been happy. In fact, I've rather enjoyed not having anything new to write about the disgraced Rockingham County Board of Education member.

Alas, all good things must come to an end.

Here now is another chapter in the bizarre and twisted tale of...

The last time we peered into this sordid drama, Price had dropped his lawsuit against local publisher Richard Moore and his wife for trying to hold Price accountable for all the campaign signs that Price was caught stealing on the night before the 2006 election (which saw Price taking fifth place and getting the last of the new at-large seats on the board). Price said on live television on the night of the election that he had taken the signs, wrote about it on his blog and then that disappeared, before the following appeared on December 7th, 2006...

Well, it only took him about 19 months, but Ron Price has finally posted the "complete and factual account" of what happened on the night of November 6th, 2006, which caused what he called a "commotion". But instead of making it an entirely separate post, Price edited his original post where he promised to make available his "factual account" and published it THERE instead! The result signifies either very sloppy blogging skills... or perhaps a deliberate attempt to make sure that the account was buried and kept off the front page of his site.

In any case, someone found it. And guess what? Ron Price admits that he stole the signs! But not only that: Price makes it out to sound like everything that happened to him was the result of a conspiracy involving the Teamsters Union!

Price also claims that he was going to call the campaign that he was opposing, to let them know where they could find their signs (you know, the ones that he had hidden in the trunk of his car). And as if to add insult to injury, he closes out his "account" by stating a desire that the kind of shenanigans that he pulled during the last election don't happen during this election year, and kindly offers advice (including use of GPS systems) to stop this kind of behavior.

What the #%*$?!?!?

Here, read it yourself. I'm going to post it exactly as Price has it on his blog, in case he ever decides to send it down the ol' "memory hole". And remember: this account only appeared on his blog in the past week or so, in spite of the 2006 timestamp...

Thursday, December 07, 2006

As Paul Harvey would say- Now for ‘the rest of the story”

The last week in September 2006 the Business Agent of the Teamsters, Local 391, invited me along with other candidates for a screening. Because this was a scheduled school board meeting night I requested that the meeting be rescheduled which they did. The meeting was rescheduled until the following Monday, the first week of October. When I entered the union hall that evening the lobby was filled with hundreds of signs for the opponent of the candidate I was supporting. This remained in my mind as I answered the questions that were asked by the Business Agent and his colleagues. There were other candidates there that night that also saw the lobby full of these campaign signs.

November 6, 2006 while traveling home along RT 14 from Eden, I noticed that several signs for a candidate that I was supporting were missing and that signs for his opponent were now set up. As I proceeded along I observed that near the base of each sign lay a sign of the candidate I was supporting. As I backtracked several times to confirm the status of these signs I found there were dozens of signs taken down and they were lying at the foot of the newly erected signs of my candidate’s opponent. Based on the number of signs taken down and their proximity to the newly erected signs I felt it was an orchestrated act and blatant evidence of the attitude of the perpetrator(s).

As I restored my candidate’s signs to an upright position I placed the opponent’s signs in the trunk with the plan to take them to the DOT location in Wentworth and let the opponent’s campaign know that they were there. This would accomplish two things: it would delay whoever was taking down my candidates signs and putting up the opponents signs because they would have to get additional signs or go to Wentworth to retrieve the signs that had been moved. As I was getting into my car the Teamster’s Business Agent pulled up beside me yelling threats at me from his car. Because of the hostile manner I did not answer but drove on down the road. I was not going to get into a confrontation with this very hostile individual.

Deductive reasoning begs the question was the Business Agent there by coincidence? Since there was a plethora of my candidate's opponent’s signs at his facility was there some connection? Was the person who started following me, when the Business Agent turned off in communication about a handoff? If so why were they working together?

A number of people called me about similar problems they had with their signs. Relating the same type of orchestrated events. I finish this account now because we are now approaching a new election, which could be hotly contended if the same type of events surround this election as they have in the past before my arrival in Rockingham County? If there are signs pulled down or destroyed it will be an assault on good politics. They will undoubtedly be taken down during the late hours of the night in lightly traveled unlighted areas. Obviously signs are important but cannot be the highest priority for law enforcement as they are there to protect life first. If you see evidence of sign tampering and have access to a cell phone call 911 from the location, the call will be automatically routed to the respective law enforcement department. If you must wait and call from a landline, do so, however, in both cases give as much information as possible such as: the GPS location, location markers and if possible return or wait for law enforcement to arrive.

If we all keep a watchful eye and keep on the alert for any shenanigans it could make this year’s politics better in Rockingham County.

Words fail.

Also on his blog, posted in the past few days is a very strange, rambling screed against evolution being taught in schools to the detriment of creationism. If you read The Knight Shift on a regular basis you know where I stand on this issue: that neither the people behind evolution or the people behind creationism give a damn at all about children. I've no doubt that both camps are after political affluence and that's it and unfortunately as happens all too often, it's the children that are being used as weapons by both sides against each other. Personally, I do believe that God created the universe. I have a lot of problems... scientific problems, mind you... with evolution. And if it stopped right there, Price and I would be on the same page. But when he signs on to a political agenda, ignoring the fact that this is the kind of thing best left to families, religious institutions and personal inquiry, then I do feel a moral obligation to call him out on that too.

I honestly don't know what else to say. In fact, I don't know what else could possibly be said as additional commentary for this foolishness. A school board member admits to illegally removing (some would call that "theft") campaign signs and then hints that the Teamsters made him do it, then has the gall to tell the rest of us to "do as I say and not as I do" for this coming election.

And some people wonder why I've lost hope in America...

Read More

Damn good dog: Uga VI has passed away

The first time I saw Uga VI was a bit of a shock. It came during me and Lisa's first year of dating (she was a grad student at University of Georgia) and after months of seeing the graven image of this stalwart bulldog idolized all over Athens, I thought Uga VI would be... bigger! But if there was any letdown it quickly passed after I saw Uga VI in person: this lovable mascot, along with owner Sonny Seiler (yup the one made famous by Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil if he wasn't famous enough already) heading up the University of Georgia homecoming parade in the fall of 2001. You'da thought he had just won Best in Show at the Westminster Kennel Club, with all the adulation he was getting.

That's when I realized something: that in a world gone mad, just a few weeks after 9/11, Uga - whichever dog is the one that holds the honor - was one of the few tangible symbols of something good and pure still left from what we like to think is the America that once was, and could still be again.

Uga VI had come to the throne after the retirement of his daddy Uga V in 1999. Seiler had hoped that Uga VI would be the mascot for one more season, before enjoying retiring after the tenure with the most wins for Georgia.

Uga VI died of heart failure on Friday night at the home of Sonny Seiler. He was just one month shy of his tenth birthday.

Per tradition, Uga VI will be buried next week in the southwest corner of Sanford Stadium, in the marble mausoleum devoted to all the bulldogs that have borne the Uga title. A successor will be named at a later date but there's little doubt that he will be one that Uga VI sired himself.

Farewell Uga VI. Like those before him, a damn good dog.

Read More

CHILDREN OF EDEN: Performance #5!

Tonight... we brought down the house!!!

Our best performance yet, playing to the most packed audience so far.

Okay, off to celebrate now :-)

Read More

CHILDREN OF EDEN: Performance #4 and wild cast party!

Last night we had our fourth performance of Children of Eden. Widespread consensus is that this was the one thus far most plagued by mishaps. A keyboard went out, there were problems with the microphones early in Act I, at least one cast member fell ill (but bounced back and rejoined the show), Noah's Ark almost crashed, and I tried hard to hold back a sneeze immediately following "The Flood" and just when I was about to leave the stage, it happened anyway.

But all things considered, the audience seemed to have really enjoyed last night's show!

Following the performance, just about all the cast and crew met at Pizza Station in Reidsville for a party that stretched well on into the night and may have gotten a little too wild for anyone's good...

All suspects are presumed innocent until proven guilty. Names and identities have been withheld to protect reputations and careers.

Don't worry: nothing immoral or illegal or otherwise illicit happened last night. Good heavens, there were children present! About the worst thing that happened was me dancing to a Barry Manilow song...

Children of Eden has another performance tonight at 7:30 at the Rockingham Community College Advanced Technologies Building Auditorium, and then its final show tomorrow afternoon at 2:30.

Read More

Fifteen years since...

"Dear Lord, am I really doing this?!" A Few Good Men. Red eye over England. Bennie and her mom. Mayhem in the marketplace. The brothers. Lots of wine. The village countryside. The pissing statue. The dark hospital. The odd pizza. "Coke is better than beer!" The American compatriots. A prophecy fulfilled. The peculiar picnic. A strange place to celebrate the Fourth of July. The haunted ruins. The jibber-jabbering Belgian lady. Helping the three Russian students. A kiss on the hand for a real queen. "Le stupid American!" The Piano. Andre's crazy cop cousin. The towering fortress on the river. The blood of Jesus Christ. Real magic. Cows at 150 miles per hour. The Eiffel Tower. The Bosnian refugees. The dead body in the alley. The Maquisard. The hunt for the Hard Rock Cafe. The singing drunk Frenchman. The four Dutch lasses. The unicycling saxaphonist. The Canadian Richard Petty fan. The two Valley Girls. Alive with medical commentary by Bennie. The long walk straight up. Gazing toward Hamburg. "She's out there somewhere." The canal tour. The carnival. Going home. Business class. Discussing Napoleon with a fellow passenger. Home Alone 2. Seeing the World Trade Center towers for the first and last time. The missionary family. Touchdown at Raleigh-Durham. Back.

And there was more, much more, that I am still leaving out from what was my first big adventure in the great wide world, that started fifteen years ago today.

Just the first. There have been others since then. And there will no doubt be many more in the years to come.

Zavel, if by some chance you ever read this: I found Christy. It took me over ten years, but I found her and she was every bit as sweet and beautiful as you described her to be. And I passed along your message to her, too. I don't know if you will get to know that but when I think about how it was that I found her, anything is possible.

Shawn, if you ever read this, I still have the flag that you gave me, dude!

Amazing how something that happened fifteen years ago can still impact one's life.

Anyhoo, it was one of the greatest times of my entire life, and I thought it was worth making a note of here :-)

Read More

CHILDREN OF EDEN: Final weekend of performances begin tonight!

The Snake (left to right: Jessica Reed, Ashley Meeks, Marlo Nall, Brittany Thompson, Samantha Toney, and Tisha Owens) tempts Eve (Rose Cutuli Wray) with knowledge during "The Pursuit of Excellence" in the Theatre Guild of Rockingham County's production of
Children of Eden

Tonight begins the final three performances of Theatre Guild of Rockingham County's production of Children of Eden. The hit musical takes to the stage tonight and tomorrow night at 7:30 and then one last performance on Sunday afternoon at 2:30. All shows are in the auditorium at the Advanced Technologies Building at Rockingham Community College. So far the show has been a huge success, and many patrons are swearing that it's one of the best musicals that the Theatre Guild has ever done! Word is that the shows for the next few nights are selling fast so if you wanna go, get yer tickets now and get ready to enjoy Children of Eden. Or, don't see it, and perish in flame. It's your choice, but not really.

(Hey if nothing else will entice you to come, how about getting a chance to see Yours Truly dressed old-school biblical in tunic and sandals as Seth, the third son of Adam and Eve? :-P)

Read More

Wilkins Coffee ads: The dark side of Jim Henson

Yesterday this blog reported the passing of Kermit Love, longtime Muppet designer and operator. His work on commercials led me to look around YouTube for any other examples of Muppets used in advertising.

That's what led me to re-discover the spots that Jim Henson made in the late 1950s for Wilkins Coffee.

Over fifty years ago, Henson was hired by Wilkins Coffee to create some commercials for their product. The result was a series of clips starring Wilkins and Wontkins. These are not only some of the earliest examples of the Muppets on television, they are also the longest-running campaign to feature the Muppets and certainly the most violent! Poor Wontkins dies by cannon, by point-blank shot from a pistol, run over by a bandwagon, not to mention threatened with a guillotine! In one of the commercials he's also shown smoking a cigarette (try doing that nowadays!). Definitely an indication that Henson in his younger days had some 'tude.

Enjoy the mayhem! And remember: People who don't drink Wilkins Coffee have bad things happen to them, muthah! :-P

Wilkins Coffee Commercials #1

Wilkins Coffee Commercials #2

Wilkins Coffee commercials #3

Read More

Review of GET SMART

This evening a lot of the cast and crew of Children of Eden got together at the Carousel Grande in Greensboro to catch Get Smart, the new movie starring Steve Carell, Anne Hathaway, Dwayne ("The Rock") Johnson and Alan Arkin based on the classic 1960s television comedy.

I must say, Get Smart the movie was a very pleasant surprise! From the very beginning, we were laughing like crazy. Carell plays Maxwell Smart (played by Don Adams in the television show), an analyst with the U.S. Government agency CONTROL. After an incident at CONTROL Headquarters, Smart is given his first field assignment alongside the beautiful and dangerous Agent 99 (Hathaway). The two are soon thrust into action in the heart of Moscow, where they must stop an agent of KAOS (played by Terrance Stamp) from unleashing nuclear terror on the unsuspecting world.

Plotwise it sounds like your standard Robert Ludlum or Tom Clancy story. But Get Smart is also very faithful to the spirit of its television antecedent. Right from the getgo, all the classic Get Smart elements are introduced: the series of sliding doors, the phone booth, the Cone of Silence (look for the original as well as the updated version), the memorable theme music... and of course, the shoe phone (two of my fellow Children of Eden cast members said that I was laughing real hard when we got to see that). I thought that Carell was terrific as Maxwell Smart, and though he doesn't try to ape Don Adams' inimitable style, he certainly does channel Adams here while enhancing it with his own unique persona as an actor. Hathaway too is great as Agent 99. Alan Arkin as The Chief is a hoot, especially in one scene where he does something that he's wanted to do "since Nixon". Also look for cameos by Bill Murray and James Caan (as the President of the United States!).

So if you're in the mood for a good comedy, not to mention one of the better movies that I've seen lately to have been inspired by a television series, you should give Get Smart a try. Definitely one to catch while it's playing in theaters.

Read More

Why Johnny Can't Spell

In spite of not having actively posted about it for two weeks, this blog is still getting visits (and the occasional comment) from people who've been following what's been going on between Yours Truly and the local cult calling itself the "Church of Christ", especially its power-mad leader Johnny Robertson of the Martinsville Church of Christ.

Speaking of which, lately I'm hearing it asked quite a lot: Why won't these guys, with all their money, buy airtime on any other television station besides WGSR? Especially when there are other stations in the area with both better studio facilities and broadcast reach? The general consensus is that WGSR's management was the only one desperate enough to sell airtime to the cult, and that every reputable and "real" station in the market wouldn't touch The Three Stasi (that's my latest nickname for Robertson, James Oldfield and Norm Fields) of the so-called "Church of Christ" with a nine-foot cattle prod. I didn't originate that sentiment, folks. That's just what others have been telling me.

Maybe with good reason: I haven't caught most of his more recent broadcasts but the word I'm consistently hearing is that Robertson has appeared "rattled", that the other week he looked like "a deer in the headlights" and that he was practically begging people to call in and pay him attention. I happened to watch a few minutes of his show this past Sunday night and he was ranting about how church bake sales and car washes were tantamount to mortal sin because they weren't mentioned in the Bible. I watched for five minutes then tuned Robertson out and instead began playing BioShock on the Xbox 360. There's more profound wisdom to be found in that video game than there is in the live television broadcasts of three real people during several hours each week: sad, but true.

Meanwhile, y'all wouldn't believe the stuff that's come into this blog over the past few weeks that I can't print yet about 'em. Suffice it say, "Christopher Knight, investigative reporter" is back in the saddle again. More regarding this when I feel like it's time to publish it.

I still stand by what I said on TV a few weeks ago folks: I don't care what Robertson tries to do to me. But as one wise friend told me a few days later: The Lord may yet have some work for me to do so far as these loons are concerned. However, regarding Robertson's boast that he had turned "the community" against me...

We've had three performances of Children of Eden so far. When the cast was greeting the audience following our opening night show one gentleman told me that I was "a hero" for "taking on that nutcase Johnny Robertson". A few days later at our third performance another audience member said that my words during the live appearance had "the love of Christ" and was "what being a real Christian is all about". Not one person has told me that I was wrong for those thirteen minutes, but a lot of people have told me - both in person and via e-mail, and not comments posted to this blog - that Johnny Robertson and Charles Roark are, in so many words, "a disgrace to this area". Again: their sentiment, not mine. I'm just reportin' it, folks. Parse all this as you will.

(Heck, the comments that I'm still having to delete every now and then about WGSR general manager Charles Roark have been more than a little, shall we say, "colorful". And I never knew that Roark had been convicted recently of theft and had served time in jail, or that he was banned from all Wal-Mart stores, or that prior to that he already had FOUR larceny convictions, or that he lost a defamation lawsuit leveled against him... parse all that as you will.)

In the meantime, I couldn't help but get a chuckle out of something that I noticed on Johnny Robertson's website...

You may have to click on the image to read this heading from the What Does The Bible Say? site. It declares in bold red font that...

"The church of Christ is the intellectual center in this region. No one else will take on the issues."

Whoa! Big boast there! The "intellectual center" of this region? I had no idea that the Martinsville Church of Christ was a subsidiary of the RAND Corporation!

And "No one else will take on the issues"? What does that supposed to mean?! If you read this blog you know that I take on "the issues" all the time. So do a dozen or so other bloggers in the area, not to mention many other writers and clergy members of various perspectives. So to say that "No one else will take on the issues" is a bold-faced lie. Granted, few of us would claim that we agree 100% with what someone else might believe... but I don't know of anyone so brazen as to proclaim that they are the "intellectual center" of anything.

Heck, I'm a pretty smart guy, and not even I would say something like that.

But wait, it gets better. Also from Robertson's site...

It says "Polgamist May Come to the Tent".

How the heck does Johnny Robertson expect us to buy into the notion that he is the "intellectual center" of the region and that he is the sole inviolate authority of the Word of God... when he can't even SPELL his OWN words right?!?

He has had "polygamist" mis-spelled for over a year now on the front page of his website! Tell me again how this is supposed to be "intellectual"?

This is far from an isolated incident. If you've ever read Robertson's hysterical ravings on the Answering the Church of Christ blog, you know already that he has atrocious grammar and spelling. He also has the tendency of shooting from the mouth before he really thinks about what it is he's saying. Although I tend to believe that when Robertson boasted that "we are here to defeat destroy you" he was being more truthful than he possibly realized.

But I am not here to "defeat destroy" anyone. Instead I choose to take the course of action that the wise sage Mel Brooks has discovered is the best way to destroy Hitler, along with any other evil person in this world...

I choose to make people laugh at Johnny Robertson, James Oldfield, Norm Fields, and their twisted cult that never does anything but hurt others.

More soon. Some will be serious. And some will be different.

Read More