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Tuesday, July 03, 2012

Mourning in Mayberry: Andy Griffith has passed away

The very sad news breaking everywhere right now is that Andy Griffith has passed away at the age of 86 at his home in Manteo, on North Carolina's Outer Banks.

Awright well, what can be said that hasn't already been during the course of his long life: Griffith was an incredible performer, whether he was acting or singing or doing comedy... like what started it all for him, his 1953 monologue "What It Was, Was Football":

A few years later Griffith was in No Time for Sergeants, considered by many to be his single funniest work...

And 'course it wasn't long afterward that Griffith was keeping the sleepy little town of Mayberry safe and sound as Sheriff Andy Taylor. Griffith first put on the badge in a "backdoor pilot" episode of Danny Thomas's Make Room for Daddy (an episode which also featured future co-stars Ronnie Howard and Frances Bavier). More than fifty years later, and The Andy Griffith Show is still playing, somewhere, throughout the world in syndication.

But if you seriously want to see Griffith shine, you have to step away from his comedic repertoire and look at what he was capable of doing as a serious dramatic actor. The first time I saw Andy Griffith as anything apart from Sheriff Taylor, it was his portrayal of real-life murderer John Wallace in the 1983 television movie Murder in Coweta County...

Griffith starred opposite Johnny Cash, who played the Georgia sheriff who brought Wallace down for murder. The final scene, showing a shaven-headed Griffith strapped down in the electric chair, would be a particularly unsettling image for anyone who grew up with The Andy Griffith Show.

But that's downright mild compared to what was Andy Griffith's very first movie: from 1957, it's A Face in the Crowd.

I've no idea how else to put it: if you've never seen it before, A Face in the Crowd will scare the hell out of you...

I first saw it about a year and a half ago when TCM ran it. Directed by Elia Kazan, A Face in the Crowd has Andy a long, long way from Mayberry as drunken drifter "Lonesome" Rhodes. It's a brutal morality tale about celebrityhood and its power to corrupt. A movie that in many ways was far ahead of its time and even prophetic. And Griffith as Lonesome Rhodes is positively the meanest son of a bitch you're likely to see in any movie. If you haven't seen it already, I have to recommend it as being perhaps the finest work that Andy Griffith ever pulled off.

But today, Griffith is mostly going to be remembered as "America's Sheriff": the chief constable of a town that never really was but we all wanted to visit.

Thoughts and prayers going out to his family.

Thursday, June 28, 2012

United States Supreme Court upholds Obamacare

What. The. HELL?!?!?

HOW in the blue f--k is ANYTHING about Obamacare constitutional?!? What the #$%* are they smoking at the Supreme Court?!? Are they high on bath salts or something?!

Well, it's not like this would be the first time that the Supreme Court screwed it up, is it?

The individual mandate just became the biggest tax imposition in the history of mankind. We are now living in a socialist state that would have made the Kremlin hardliners envious.

This country is soooooooo screwed.

Friday, June 15, 2012

BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY lip sync!

A little over a week ago I was in a rented SUV thingy riding up to Mount Hood in Oregon along with m'lady Kristen, her brother and his wife. And it just so happened that "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen came on the radio.

Well as many people know I can't help but perform along whenever that song gets played. So much so that I've developed a little "act" over the years. But Melissa had a bit of a headache so Kristen quickly asked me to "tone it down" a tad.

As you can tell, I did indeed maintain some decorum... though I couldn't help but cut loose a bit :-)

You may have to turn up your speakers to hear the radio.

Thanks to Kristen for posting this (and I'd totally forgotten that she recorded it :-)

Thursday, June 14, 2012

DALLAS came back last night

I didn't know it either until yesterday morning (yes, I can be woefully behind on pop culture at times). Not a "reboot" as it turns out but a new series on cable network TNT that's a continuation of the primetime drama that ran on CBS from 1978 to 1991 (not counting the '85-'86 "Bobby Ewing/Only a dream" season).

So I tuned into Dallas, which I rarely do for a new television series. And lo and behold I enjoyed it quite a lot! It was like the Ewings had been going about their lives all this time and we caught up with them two decades later. Larry Hagman is back as the scheming J.R. Ewing, Patrick Duffy returns to the saddle as brother Bobby and Linda Gray - lovely as ever - has come back to the role of J.R.'s on-again/off-again wife Sue Ellen. But the real action is found among the next generation: J.R.'s son John Ross and Bobby's adopted heir Christopher. John Ross is old-school Texas oilman like his daddy and Christopher is into developing alternative energy industries. There's already a great dynamic set up between the two, set once again amidst Southfork (which the late Miss Ellie had willed would never be drilled for petro).

Maybe it's not the legendary feud between the Ewing and Barnes clans that began with Jock and Digger eighty years earlier, but it's nonetheless a smart update that stays faithful to the spirit of the original. Ken Kercheval is set to return later this season as Cliff Barnes (maybe we should begin wagering on how many times Cliff gets drunk this time) and apparently Victoria Principal might be reprising Pam.

So in honor of the triumphant return of Dallas, here is one of the most classic bits of dialogue in television history. From the original CBS series, it's J.R. and Sue Ellen having it out in their own inimitable fashion...

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Back from the Pacific Northwest!

That was the most fun trip that I've had in a long, long time.

Will be posting pics in the next few days, after getting caught back up on things. I'm wondering if the excursion to Mount St. Helens might merit a post all its own.

So... did I miss anything? :-)

Friday, June 08, 2012

THE SHINING, PART II

Struggling writer Christopher Knight becomes the latest caretaker to fall victim to the madness of the Overlook Hotel...
Except it's not winter: it's early June. This isn't Colorado either: it's Oregon. And this is not the Overlook, but the Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood (open for skiing year-round) which is what was use for the exterior and establishing shots of Stanley Kubrick's 1980 horror classic The Shining.

And while we were there I just had to channel my inner Jack Nicholson for a pic (especially since there was so much snow around us!).

Wednesday, June 06, 2012

Ray Bradbury has passed away

This world is suddenly much less interesting this morning...




Ray Bradbury, author of Fahrenheit 451, The Illustrated Man, The Martian Chronicles and so much other classic fiction, has passed away at the age of 91.

Thoughts and prayers going out to his family today.

Greetings from Oregon!

Looking at Mount Hood from our chateau this morning...



And later today we are headed across the Columbia River into Washington State to visit Mount Saint Helens.

Will try to post some pics when I get back home :-)

Oh yeah, we saw a marijuana store in Portland yesterday! This place out-weirds even Asheville... but Oregon has still gotta be one of the most beautiful places that I've ever visited :-)

And oh yeah, here is Kristen and I at Multnomah Falls!



Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Watching HATFIELDS & MCCOYS on History Channel

Tonight is Part 2 of Hatfields & McCoys, History Channel's miniseries about the legendary feud between the two clans that erupted across the hardscrabble of West Virginia and Kentucky in the years following the Civil War. And I'm enjoying the heck out of it! The miniseries that is.

Anyhoo, in addition to Kevin Costner and Bill Paxton, it also stars Tom Berenger. And as luck would have it I got to meet Mr. Berenger last month at ActionFest in Asheville!

I soooo wish I had brought my DVD copy of Gettysburg along and asked him to autograph it. Or at least my Blu-ray of Inception.

Anyway, Hatfields & McCoys is pretty good so far. Well worth catching, or DVRing for later viewing.

Monday, May 21, 2012

This song won't get out of my head!!

I told y'all that I've been quite busy lately. So much so that I'm sadly lacking in recent pop culture.

Take f'rinstance, "Red Solo Cup" by Toby Keith: a song that I did not know anything about the existence of until a few nights ago when Dad and I were driving back from dinner in Greensboro. I had to turn the volume up to make sure I was really hearing what I thought I was hearing. Before very long, Dad and I were both cracking up laughing!

Except now... this song is stuck in my brain and it refuses to leave!!

Maybe if I post the music video for it, that will help to exorcise this particular demon. So here it is: "Red Solo Cup"...

Sunday, May 20, 2012

There's a brand new girl in my life!

Awright, yes, I know: I have been woefully slack in blogging of late. Didn't even get around to doing that write-up about ActionFest (I'll be brief: Solomon Kane is the purest Robert E. Howard adaptation we've ever gotten and it oughtta kick all kinds of unholy booty at the box office, Goon is a riot, ManBorg shows how anyone can make an awesome movie for less than a thousand dollars Canadian, and Comin' At Ya! 3-D 30th Anniversary was the craziest midnight showing I've ever attended). And there was also this really big ballroom dance thingy that Kristen did a few weeks ago, that I'll be posting some video of hopefully sooner than later. 'Twas the first time that our families got to meet each other :-)

Anyway, there's plenty of good reason why I've been away from the blog more than I'd liked. There's some crazy good stuff happening behind the scenes on this end of things that have demanded full-time attention.

And Lord willing, I'll get to share some of it soon.

But in the meantime, I would like to present a tale of love at first sight.

Click after the jump for the rest of the story!

Monday, May 07, 2012

Why is Jar Jar Binks helping the Iranian military?

The government of Iran is really trying to goad us into attacking them this time.

Never mind their nuclear facilities: look at what showed up in an OFFICIAL photo from Iran's government-controlled Mehr News Agency...

You may have to click it to see it depending on what device you're using. But anyhoo: there's Jar Jar Binks, the much-maligned Gungan hippie that Ahmed Best portrayed in the Star Wars prequels, amidst the clouds of exhaust from Iran's ballistic missile test (which is also obviously Photoshop-ped).

Iran had better tread carefully. I mean, Osama Bin Laden was found to be cavorting with Sesame Street's Bert shortly after 9/11... and we all know how that turned out for Bin Laden a year ago, aye?

Tip o' the hat to my girlfriend Kristen for passing this along :-)

George Lindsey, AKA Goober Pyle, has passed away

I saw George Lindsey live onstage at the Grand Ole Opry when I was six years old. Even at that young age, it was something of a surprise to hear that the man I knew best as Goober Pyle from The Andy Griffith Show could also sing really well too. He was performing right alongside Roy Aycuff, Grandpa Jones, a few other country legends.

What a performer Lindsey was. I mean, to go from playing sinister "tough guy" types (including one appearance on The Twilight Zone) to being one of the most beloved comedy characters in television history. In the past few years it was also revealed that George Lindsey was at one point seriously considered to be the actor who would play Spock on the original Star Trek series.

But it will always be Goober - Mayberry's fun-loving, ever-grinning grease monkey - who we will most fondly remember Lindsey as being. Somewhere here in North Carolina and in a better time still, Goober can be found even now down at the fillin' station. I've no doubt he'll be there as long as good television like The Andy Griffith Show is still on the air.

George Lindsey passed away yesterday at the age of 83.

Thoughts and prayers going out to his family.

Friday, May 04, 2012

Ladies show off stylin' LEGO wigs

Who wants to bet that we'll soon be seeing Lady Gaga wearing something like this on stage?

Dang! But I am soooooo going this route if I ever get hit with male-pattern baldness :-P

Artist and designer Elroy Klee came up with a rather radical notion: LEGO wigs! GeekTyrant has more pics of his work.

Great work Elroy! But I have to wonder: what was it like to tell three beautiful women "Here, I want you to wear LEGO on your head..."?

In memory of Adam Yauch: "Sabotage" by the Beastie Boys

Word breaking right now that Adam Yauch of the groundbreaking rap group Beastie Boys has passed away.

That was the first rap group that I actually found myself "liking" quite a bit.

In his memory, here is what I've always thought was one of the best music videos ever. From their album Ill Communication and directed by Spike Jonze, here in Yauch's memory is "Sabotage":

Thursday, May 03, 2012

I'm Christian. I'm called "conservative". I'm not voting for Amendment One.

I will not vote for Amendment One.

Neither will I vote against Amendment One.

Because the more I have thought about it and the more that I have seen especially during the past couple of weeks across North Carolina, Amendment One is by far the worst thing that I have ever seen on a ballot in the Tarheel State. And that's sayin' something about this place...

For this blog's readership in various and sundry places not between Manteo and Murphy, Amendment One is the measure on next week's ballot that would make the Constitution of the state of North Carolina explicitly state that marriage will only be between one man and one woman. As you can probably imagine, this is widely perceived to be a measure attempting to circumvent the legality of "gay marriage".

I've been wrestling literally for the past several weeks on how to articulate what I believe about this, and not be misunderstood. Because my stance about Amendment One is not something that could be squared away as either "conservative" or "liberal". Which will likely honk off many who can't think beyond such ultimately meaningless ideologies. But I don't care. Because that's just how I roll. I'm out to follow as best where God leads me, and not the capricious wendings of man's temporal politics.

The initial reason why I will not be voting on Amendment One is that marriage is instituted by God and is not left to us at all to define. I've no doubt that there are many well-meaning people who will be voting for Amendment One because they sincerely believe that marriage is something that "must be protected".

It's not. It's really not. Not by a political gimmick anyway. And if it must be protected that way, then we as a society have vastly bigger problems than "gay marriage" could ever be.

There is no such thing as "homosexual marriage". It's a contradiction in terms of the most obscene kind. Marriage by definition is the uniting of two entities of distinctly different yet complementary natures into a new entity greater than the sum of its parts.

What does that mean? A man cannot naturally reproduce on his own. Neither can a woman. And neither can two men unite to create new human life between themselves.

I contend that this is the essence of the universal concept of marriage: that the potential for natural reproduction exists. This is not a "biblical" concept, as I have seen many across this state argue in the months leading up to the vote on Amendment One. "We support biblical marriage"? Bah! As if only marriages performed according to Judeo-Christian standards are valid in the eyes of God. The greater balance of cultures and faiths across human history have held that marriage is between one man and one woman. Are the proponents of Amendment One willing to assert that the vast majority of people today should be legally declared whores and bastards? But I digress...

Marriage of one man and one woman is as fundamentally an aspect of moral law as is the knowledge that murder is wrong. I have seen many statues on the books defining punishments for murder: I have yet to see a constitutional amendment saying that murder is illegal. It's something that merely is not needed, or should not be needed anyway.

And "gay marriage" is already illegal according to North Carolina law. Amendment One would not be changing anything.

"But Chris, some liberal activist judge could decree from the bench that gay marriage is legal in this state and that would be it! We need Amendment One to prevent that from happening!"

If that's true, then... wow, we really are screwed. Like I said before, we'll have inherently graver issues than gay marriage if that's the case. In the mind of this writer, it will means that we as a people have surrendered that wisdom and fortitude that the Founding Fathers meant for us to have as a free people. It will be a sad acknowledgement that we no longer possess the liberty of mind that too many men and women fought and even perished that we might enjoy. If we have arrived at a place where fear-mongering and worse, fear of nebulous ideologies drive our actions, then what does that say of us as We The People?

And this brings me to the most conscientious reason why I refuse to vote on Amendment One: because as a follower of Christ, as one who chooses the renewal of the mind in defiance of the patterns of this fallen world, I will not be motivated by fear and hatred and lust for political power. And unfortunately it has been those base drives which I have long observed have been behind the push for Amendment One.

Ever wonder where Amendment One came from to begin with? You should. It originated with Return America, an organization created and headed by Dr. Ron Baity, the pastor of Berean Baptist Church in Winston-Salem.

I will not dare judge the condition of Baity's soul before God. However, I am compelled to wonder aloud about any man who revels so much in the use of the word "queers" against his enemies as Dr. Baity has done, including in a number of Renew America newsletters and publications (which I have on hand). I also found it curious that Baity is fond of referring to President Obama as "Hussein Obama" in his group's official literature. But again, I digress.

Do people like Ron Baity truly believe that God needs their "help" to protect marriage? Because if so, presuming that He does indicates horrendous pride on our part.

I am not going to support Amendment One because I'm a Christian and "expected" to look down upon homosexuals with loathing and scorn and fear. Indeed: I have many friends, some of whom I have come to trust and be entrusted with counsel, who are homosexual. They know that I cannot approve of their lifestyle, that I do believe it to be sinful.

But how as one saved by the grace of God do I dare condemn them as being more sinful and less righteous than I?

I can't. Nor can anyone else. Whether or not they feel empowered by public referendum.

A little over a year ago I went public with my having bipolar disorder. It is what destroyed my first marriage. Among other things it made me extremely hyper-sexual, even though at NO time was I ever unfaithful to my wife. However, let's just say that my own mind drove me to do things that I would have otherwise never have thought myself capable of.

I don't believe God made me do that. It was just a symptom of something that for whatever reason, He allowed me to be born with. But as a result of it I do now see how some people could very well have a homosexual drive.

I do not however believe that is what in any way should define a person, any more than heterosexual drives should define others. As a follower of Christ I must accept that we live in a broken, imperfect world that can NEVER be made right in the hands of man. We are each, every one of us, beset with temptations and thorns in our flesh (as Paul put it). I did not want to be compelled toward pornography, but it happened and I wasn't strong enough to fight it. It is only by the grace of God that I have moved forward, and allowed God to bless me with things that I could have never found on my own.

That is why I can not condemn homosexual people. I don't know what their struggles must be like, but I DO know that they struggle with the flesh just as much as I have my own. Who am I to believe that they are any more lost than I have been?

At the same time I could never accept that a homosexual relationship could ever qualify as "marriage" in the traditional, historical and natural sense. If two people of the same gender wish to live together as "civil partners" or somesuch, then fine. That's their right. Calling it "marriage" however would put us on the slippery slope toward some attempting holy matrimony with barnyard livestock (I shall leave it as an exercise for the reader as to whether or not this has been attempted within this state). And there again, there is a terrible rot within our cultural soul if that is the case, for which a "pro-marriage" amendment would be akin to placing a Band-Aid on a gunshot wound to the head.

I cannot see any legitimate Christian love and concern, tempered with the quality of humility, in regard to Amendment One. If the same people who have most pushed this ballot measure had been living for Christ all of this time for His sake, out of a meek and humble spirit, this may not even have been an issue at all. As it is however, there is an impure motivation for Amendment One. And I absolutely believe that if the motive is impure, the work will be corrupted and in the end, do much more damage than we can perhaps understand.

The biggest reason Amendment One is on the ballot is because there are some who seek to exploit our hate, for their own gain.

But I refuse to give them that satisfaction.

Amendment One is just another political game... and I for one will not be playing it.

Tuesday, May 01, 2012

Third trailer for THE DARK KNIGHT RISES

"You don't owe these people anymore. You've given them everything."

"Not everything. Not yet."

For the first time, I am beginning to warm up to the "eight years later..." aspect of The Dark Knight Rises. Mainly 'cuz it looks like Christopher Nolan really is giving us something we've never seen cinematically before: a Batman facing his own doubts and mortality. That Nolan is apparently drawing from three of the greatest Batman storylines ever - The Dark Knight Returns, Knightfall and No Man's Land - is convincing me even more that I can accept this being the closing chapter of a trilogy, instead of that ongoing Batman film franchise that I had hoped Batman Begins would have been the start of.

'Course it goes without saying that this trailer is gorgeous, in a hauntingly subtle way that I can't remember seeing from a trailer for a comic book movie.

You can also watch it in glorious high-def Quicktime in 720P or 1080P.