We have our snake wrangler hired and aboard for the production!
That is all for now.
Monday, April 26, 2010
New Coke: 25 years since big biz's biggest bomb
I'm still not entirely persuaded that this wasn't a planned stunt. Like last week's to-do about the 4G-equipped iPhone that some Apple engineer, ahem, "drunkenly" left in a bar. Sure got the Intertubes abuzz about it, aye? So yeah, mark me down as being in the "planned marketing conspiracy" column on that one.
Nearly a full quarter-century earlier, something similar happened to another American mega corporation. That time it was The Coca-Cola Company. On April 23rd 1985, executives announced that the original, world-famous Coca-Cola formula was being retired. Seems that the "old Coke" wasn't cutting it anymore in the "cola wars" between Coca-Cola and Pepsi. So the time-honored Coca Cola was to be put to pasture. In its place we would be getting something called "New Coke".
Witness anew what is arguably the lowest point of the illustrious career of Bill Cosby...
"Better than ever"?? I still remember the one time that I tried to drink New Coke. It tasted like crap! What were you thinking, Bill?! We trusted you! And Coca-Cola betrayed us! No Jell-O Pudding for you.
With a wrathful vehemence not seen since the Cabbage Patch Kid riots of '83, Coca-Cola found itself besieged with angry phone calls, letters and organized protests. Three months later then-CEO Roberto Goizueta announced - via a televised spot with all the gravitas of an Oval Office address - that the crisis was ending: the old Coca-Cola was coming back as "Coca-Cola Classic".
And within days of hitting shelves again for the first time, sales of original Coca-Cola soared. Coca-Cola Classic fast eclipsed sales of Pepsi. To this day, Coca-Cola remains the best-selling soft drink in the world.
How could it not have? By that point in the summer of 1985 Coca-Cola dominated much of the pop cultural discussion, both here and abroad. People were talking about Coke like they had never talked about it before.
New Coke by itself was a business failure... but New Coke did make people want the original Coke like never before. New Coke pulled off what had never been done on this large a scale before: it created genuine demand for something that was already so successful it didn't need demand.
I don't care what the "official" documents say: I'm fairly convinced that the New Coke fiasco in my book was brilliant and quite intentional psychological marketing. Not completely convinced though. Wanna know why? Because it does bother me, that the mass of people can be manipulated by something so simple. And so part of my mind doesn't want to acknowledge a great fear that history and human nature have perhaps confirmed too many times already. But anyhoo...
If you want to know more about New Coke, which we got ambushed with twenty-five years ago this week, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has a good write-up about it, including how Coca-Cola is now chronicling the New Coke episode at the World of Coca-Cola.
(If nothing else, it has to be said that New Coke was a product so bad that it made Billy Beer taste good.)
Sunday, April 25, 2010
How about a double dose of beautiful?
Because you asked for it (well, a lot of the masculine gender among you anyway) here is once again my too-lovely-for-words and incredibly sweet second cousin Lauryn... and her equally gorgeous mother Robin!
No wonder they've often been mistaken for sisters :-)
I would like to also show you a photo of Bob, Lauryn's dad and Robin's husband, but that would prolly ruin the effect...
(Just kidding Bob. Mostly :-P)
Teaser poster for Marco van Bergen's SHADOWLANDS
When friend and fellow filmmaker Marco van Bergen sent me the teaser poster for his upcoming film Shadowlands, I immediately e-mailed him back something to the effect of "Marco, get some therapy dude!"
But seriously: it is a rather neat image, although rather bloody. But I like how it compels the eye to dart around it, picking out grisly detail and the film's tagline...
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Pssst... hey, wanna know a secret?
Guess what? You're immortal! You aren't going to die. Your life is a quantum wave function that from your point of view is infinite. You may see others die and it's altogether possible that they may see you die but that is merely relational to the observer. The fact of the matter is, as an observer of your own wave function you can see neither its beginning or its end.
Don't let anyone else tell you otherwise, either. They're only seeing their respective wave functions. What the heck do they know?
Mind ya, immortality can be a bit boring after awhile. I can't help you there. But no doubt you'll find something to keep you occupied.
Me? I'm going off to become a shrimp boat captain.
Friday, April 23, 2010
"Death Trap": Boba Fett blasts his way back into Star Wars!
Just finished watching this week's episode of Star Wars: Clone Wars on Cartoon Network. This is one show that has gradually and without ceasing, surpassed my expectations. But I had especially high hopes for tonight's installment, "Death Trap". Wouldn't surprise me if this episode had a series' record number of people watching it.
And why? Because it's been known for awhile that "Death Trap" hails the return of Boba Fett: the most infamous - and most popular - bounty hunter of the entire Star Wars pantheon.
It will be thirty years next month since Boba Fett was first seen in The Empire Strikes Back, and fully eight since a young Boba fought alongside his father Jango in Attack of the Clones...
So he's not yet the Mandalorian-armored mercenary that will eventually stalk the galaxy. But "Death Trap" definitely gave us plenty of the up-and-coming Boba Fett in high-gear action! Heck, by my rough count this one half-hour of Clone Wars showed us Boba wrecking more havoc than everything he did in the live-action movies combined! And yet at this stage in his career (voiced by Daniel Logan, who played the ten-year old Boba in Attack of the Clones) he's still a bit uncertain of himself, still blessed with a child's conscience... albeit a child obsessed with killing Mace Windu. He's not what we know he'll be, but he's well on that path.
And then there were the last few moments of the episode: practically porno for everyone who's ever loved the Star Wars bounty hunters too much than is probably healthy. Yeah I'm speaking of Bossk and Aurra Sing but if you watched this episode then you know what I'm thinking of most of all: the return of Boba Fett's hyper-deadly space vessel, Slave I.
(I wonder if we'll ever get to see Bossk's ship, the Hound's Tooth. 'Specially that wicked automated skinning table tailor-made for Wookiee prey. Prolly not: as daring as Star Wars: Clone Wars has been this season, it's not that daring... yet anyway.)
All in all, I thought "Death Trap" was a superb episode: well-scripted, beautifully animated, and finely orchestrated as a story of both action and character. I'll likely watch it a few more times from the DVR over the next several days.
"Death Trap" will air a few more times this week, and then Boba returns for the Clone Wars season finale next Friday night. No doubt Fett-heads across the planet will be waiting out the week with baited breath :-)
"You Picked a Fine Time to Lead Us, Barack"
Here is Jonathan McWhite (accompanied by David McWhite on guitar) perfectly aping a classic Kenny Rogers tune with this hilarious song parody about Barack Obama...
Very great thanks to good friend Bethany Myers for finding this! :-)
Study finds link between autism and vaccines using cells of aborted children
Good. God.
How something like this has escaped my knowledge until now, I've no idea.
Did you know that two widely-used childhood vaccines were manufactured with cells taken from aborted fetuses?
I didn't either, until I read this article from LifeNews.com. It's about a just-published research study that has found a connection between the MMRII and chickenpox vaccines, and the dramatic rise in the rate of diagnosed autism.
From the article...
A new study conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency shows a correlation between the use of cells from babies in abortions in vaccines to an increase in autism rates. The study provides another problem from pro-life advocates who are already concerned about the abortion-vaccine tie.After all these years and several court cases focusing on the mercury in vaccines as being the accused source of cases of autism, now it turns out that it was possibly something far, far worse that might have been behind the climb.The study, published in February in the publication Environmental Science & Technology, confirms 1988 as a “change point” in the rise of Autism Disorder rate.
"Although the debate about the nature of increasing autism continues, the potential for this increase to be real and involve exogenous environmental stressors exists," the study says.
The 1988 date is significant because, as pro-life blogger Jill Stanek notes, the Sound Choice Pharmaceutical Institute indicates that's when the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices added a second dose of the MMR vaccine, containing fetal cells from aborted babies, to its recommendations.
The study found two other change point dates: 1981, two years after MMRII was approved in the United States with fetal cells, and 1995, when SCPI says the chickenpox vaccine using aborted cells was approved.
Jim Sedlak, vice president of American Life League, said today that his group is joining SCPI in calling for a Fair Labeling and Informed Consent Act to let people know of this link and the use of cells from babies victimized by abortion.
“For years the evidence has pointed toward the link between vaccines using DNA from aborted babies and the rise of Autism Disorder rates,” he said. “Parents need and deserve to know the risks associated with vaccinations made from lines derived from the bodies of aborted children.”
How does it feel, knowing that we have had our children "inoculated" with the dead remains of innocent babies?
I doubt that even Edgar Allan Poe, in his most feverish nightmare, could have come up with so horrific a thing.
Dear Ridley Scott: This is a HORRIBLE idea for an ALIEN prequel...
Ridley Scott's 1979 film Alien is on my very short list of all-time greatest and most favorite movies. I first got to watch it in 1984 and even today, after countless numbers of times of watching it, it has never failed to thrill and enthrall. Alien is the perfect science-fiction and horror film. Its 1986 sequel Aliens is one of the darn few movies widely regarded as being just as good, if not better even, than the original. But that was mostly an action movie: Scott's Alien was nearly pure unbridled terror of the classic form.
Unfortunately what happened to the Alien franchise after that hasn't been anywhere as up to par with what Ridley Scott and James Cameron did. Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection well, let's put it this way: they both had their moments, but I don't regard them as being true "Alien"-ish canon. Maybe they're just bad dreams that Ripley is having and she's still aboard the Sulaco along with Hicks, Newt and Bishop on the way back from LV-426. Even Alien vs. Predator was better than those entries (and I haven't seen that movie's sequel so I can't comment on how good or bad it might be).
Anyway, when word came that Ridley Scott was planning on returning to the series that he helped to create, I was ecstatic. I had been hoping that he could get things back on track. Maybe even do something drastic to make us forget that Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection never happened to begin with.
Unfortunately, it looks as if that is not to be. We've known for some time already that Scott was going to do a "prequel" to the original Alien... which I already thought was a way wrong approach. Now it's worse. Confirming some rumors that have been making the rounds for awhile, Scott spoke to MTV Movies and revealed some details about the Alien prequel. Including what it's going to mostly be about.
And much of it will be about this thing...
Yup, the Space Jockey. That fossilized ancient extraterrestrial pilot that Dallas, Kaine and Lambert found in the derelict spaceship on LV-426. Scott told MTV that "It's fundamentally about going out to find out 'Who the hell was that Space Jockey?' The guy who was sitting in the chair in the alien vehicle — there was a giant fellow sitting in a seat on what looked to be either a piece of technology or an astronomer's chair. Remember that?"
How could we forget a thing like that? But I for one am compelled to ask: Do we want to know everything about what the Space Jockey is? That was one of the things that most made Alien succeed as a horror story: the Lovecraftian atmosphere of the film. Here are seven blue-collar working stiffs aboard a glorified tugboat. You know: people that on some level we can all relate to. And they're earning their paycheck in the depths of interstellar space: the most unknown and inhospitable setting known to man. And they come across something that they not only don't understand, but the crazy geometry of it practically screams out "you can't understand this".
Honestly, I don't want to understand that. And I've no doubt many others feel the same way. The Space Jockey - whatever the heck he/she/it is - is part of a mystique that would forever be gone if we knew any more about its back story. It is simply... what it is. Nothing more and nothing less. But this is definitely a case of "less is more".
There is plenty of potential in the Alien franchise that hasn't been touched upon at all. 'Twould be something that fans would much more appreciate if Ridley Scott took the road less traveled than that of a prequel. Seriously, I want him to return to the series... but not like this.
Another observation about local television
It says much about a television station and its management when it apparently has nothing to fill up six and a half hours of airtime per week other than a man demonstrating that he has symptoms of syphilis.
Honestly wondering if certain people will "get" this one...
We can not define God. And we can define how God defines others even less.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
THE KING AND I: Back from the first cast meeting
I have been explicitly commanded by the director and head costumer that I shall not get that haircut that I had planned for next week. And that I am not to get it until perhaps after the show is finished in mid June.
Other than that (which I can live with, I suppose) it was a great first meeting for the full cast and crew of Theatre Guild of Rockingham County's production of The King and I. There's something like nearly sixty people in this cast, a huge technical crew, over 400 costumes (or costume pieces, one or the other, either way it's pretty darned big for a community theatre production), few more stats about this show that blew some minds. It's gonna be positivalutely gigantic! Maybe one of the biggest productions ever in these parts.
And oh yeah, this is one neat cast and crew. Lots of familiar faces from past productions, along with some new ones that it's gonna be fun to work with for the first time. I forged some very good friendships during Children of Eden two years ago, and have during every show that I've been involved with since. Looking forward to making even more during The King and I.
As always, watch this space every now and then for reports as we prepare to bring y'all the timeless tale of Anna Leonowens and the King of Siam :-)
Cookbook recalled after recipe requires "freshly ground black people"
From the story at the BBC...
Penguin Group Australia had to reprint 7,000 copies of Pasta Bible last week, the Sydney Morning Herald has reported.I wonder if Penguin is printing any cookbooks for Mexican or Chinese cuisine...The reprint cost A$20,000 ($18,000; £12,000), but stock in bookshops will not be recalled as it is "extremely hard" to do so, Penguin said.
The recipe was for tagliatelle with sardines and prosciutto.
"We're mortified that this has become an issue of any kind, and why anyone would be offended, we don't know," head of publishing Bob Sessions is quoted as saying by the Sydney newspaper.
Penguin said almost every one of the more than 150 recipes in the book listed salt and freshly ground black pepper, but a misprint occurred on just one page.
"When it comes to the proof-reader, of course they should have picked it up, but proof-reading a cookbook is an extremely difficult task. I find that quite forgivable," Mr Sessions said.
Lovers' spats are bad
Bisexual ones are worse.
When they're broadcast over local television, they're downright sick.
I'm just sayin', is all...
Southern Poverty Law Center, or: How NOT to respect a news outlet!
I've a number of criteria for judging whether a news agency is reputable or not. Usually it's a long-term process of determination but lately it's become much, much easier for me.
Wanna know why?
It's real simple: any news outlet that cites the Southern Poverty Law Center as a reputable source of information, gets a honkin' HUGE demerit and damn near an unforgivable one.
I first heard of ethnic warfare whore Morris Dees and the Southern Poverty Law Center fifteen years ago, in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing. Dees was pimpin' himself on most of the news channels, claiming his Southern Poverty Law Center was warning the feds way in advance about "the militias movement". 'Twas enough to make me wonder who this twit was. Since then I've discovered that he's not much more than the worst sort of perpetual pest: the kind that demands everyone see a "crisis" to justify his own pathetic self-imposed purpose. In the case of Morris Dees and the Southern Poverty Law Center this entails claiming that everyone who is against their wacko socialist agenda is automatically a racist on par with Hitler himself.
So it is that I have also come to sincerely believe that any so-called "journalist" who even remotely considers Morris Dees and the Southern Poverty Law Center to be creditable, should be fired automatically if not outright dragged out into the town square and locked up in the pillory for a well-earned mocking.
But don't take my word for it, dear readers! The Southern Poverty Law Center has just published a "hit list" of forty "patriots" that the organization has deemed to be a threat to American society. On the list are columnist Chuck Baldwin (he ranked #1, and that's his response at the link), Representative Ron Paul of Texas, Joseph Farah of WorldNetDaily, and Glenn Beck (somebody that I have never listened to and have no plans to, but to the very best of my knowledge has done nothing inordinately wrong). There are also a number of outspoken critics of the federal government, and especially of the income tax and the IRS.
Curiously, there is not one person on the list who could be considered an avowed "liberal". Every person denounced by the Southern Poverty Law Center is regarded by conventional wisdom as being a "conservative" or a "libertarian".
Darn. I wish that I could be on that list! Guess I'm not a big-league enough blogger yet.
Maybe if I pointed out that Morris Dees is a sexual pervert and child molester who was once caught exploiting his step-daughter, and that his Southern "Poverty" Law Center has by many accounts raked in more than a hundred million dollars by scaring the gullible with rumors of the Third Reich rising again, that maybe he would put me on his enemies list?
Or maybe putting it in larger font would mark me as a worthy adversary...
MORRIS DEES
OF THE SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER
OF THE SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER
IS A SEXUAL PERVERT, CHILD MOLESTER,
ETHNIC WARFARE WHORE,
PIMP OF THE PERPETUAL CRISIS,
AND MONEY-GRABBING HUCKSTER
OF THE UTMOST DEGREE!!!
Dear Lord, I hope that will do the trick.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Oh yeah, a few more photos from ActionFest!
Filmmaking partner "Weird" Ed Woody and I outside the Carolina Cinemas in Asheville, North Carolina at ActionFest this past weekend. Look at those nifty ActionFest t-shirts! On the back of the shirts has Chuck Norris' classic line from Code of Silence: "When I want your opinion, I'll beat it out of you."
And here is... oh Lord, why didn't I shower and shave that morning?! I look positively hideous here. But I would prolly look hideous anyway :-P Especially compared to such a beautiful lass: none other than Sheree J. Wilson, who among other roles was Alex on Walker, Texas Ranger:
For more about ActionFest and what went down there, punch here!
(By the way, Chuck Norris landed in Asheville on Sunday... and leveled all the mountains surrounding the city!)
