That's yummy

I just realized that I hate the word "yummy". I also hate the word "tummy", but not as much.

I also hate when people use "drug" as the past tense of "drag". Whatever happened to "dragged"? Yeah, I'm talking to you, Carrie Underwood! Don't forget to remember that dragged is the past tense of drag!

Hate hate hate! It's a day of hate.

I AM...Star of India!

Another San Diego shot, wherein Courtney Lamb IS...the Star of India. I'm fighting crime here, or I'm just about to fight crime, or at the very least, I'm thinking about fighting crime. At any rate, crime will be fought.

Eli Roth, director of "Cabin Fever" (2002)

I used to take a class near a movie poster store that uses elaborate window displays for upcoming movies to lure you into their store. When "Cabin Fever" came out, the window was full of tree bark and limbs and lots and lots of blood. This is not normally the sort of thing that makes me say, "Yes. I must see that movie."

But four years later I hear Eli Roth on the Treatment, and he is so erudite and interesting and good-natured, and so obviously passionate and serious about his movies, that I immediately put "Cabin Fever" in my queue. Roth articulated all these feminist impulses behind the story of "Hostel", and I was like, right on, brother!

"Cabin Fever" is excellent -- it's extremely funny, it's an example of great movie storytelling with plenty of truly unexpected twists, and its structure is perfect. Film schools should make their students watch this one and break down it's beats -- yes, we get it, "Tootsie" and "Kramer vs Kramer" are great movies, but can we study something from this millennium, please? Something that might be in the same universe as our first films? Oh, no, you want me to watch "Big" instead? FINE.

Roth is also great with his actors -- there isn't a false move in the bunch, and he had the good sense to cast Rider Strong in the "Cabin Fever" lead (could Rider -- I call him Rider -- be this generation's Glenn Ford? Same strong jaw, same general store handsomeness? Let's hope!). "Boy Meets World" was a good show and that's all there is to it.

Every moment counts in a Roth movie, every character has a life of his or her own and a stake of his or her own (sometimes literally).

And Roth is a feminist, or a post-feminist, or whatever we're calling it these days so that it doesn't make us uncomfortable. There's a great fingering scene in "Cabin Fever", and lord knows most filmmakers never consider that side of things.

"Hostel" is well-told and really well-acted as well, with a story that unfolds beautifully, but it was all about the boys, and that just isn't as interesting to me. And I got the sense that someone got to him and made him have a more conventional action hero and "happy" ending. The movie was more gory but just wasn't as ballsy as "Cabin Fever" (though much much more boobsie).

At any rate, Roth is the man, he's got a strong viewpoint, and I can't wait to see some of the forty films he has upcoming according to IMDB.

Stephen King's It

Wait, you're only supposed to do the name above the title for tv movies, right, not books? But King's books ARE tv movies, so whatever.

Major, extremely gross SPOILER ahead. If you haven't read this book yet and haven't seen the tv movie and want to remain in suspense, do not read ahead in which I talk about the end of the story. In which the children of the town besieged by the evil spider defeat the Arachnid of Evil by gangbanging the girl in the group.

And here I was foolish enough to think that King had a girl as one of the gang (pun!) because he knew it was more interesting than a group of all-boys, but really he only had her in there because he didn't have the balls to depict boy child circle sodomy and pass that off as some bullshit about love conquering spiders and clowns.

I read this book as a teenager and loved it right up to the child gangbang. You lost me forever with that one, King. So that's really all a girl is good for in a group of friends, huh? Defeating the forces of evil with her VAGINA. I never knew those things were so powerful. And keep in mind it was her PRE-PUBESCENT VAGINA. Yum.

I loved all those actors in the movie, too, especially my beloved Dennis Christopher. Funny how they glossed over the child sex.

I might've just made up the term "circle sodomy"; it's got a real ring to it. Pun!

The Original Hybrid Car

Part car, part truck, ALL MUSCLE.

This is a very photogenic car. Although it has big muscles, I hope it doesn't also get a big head.

"Sexual Healing" by Marvin Gaye

I've never met anyone who didn't like this song. There's something magic about this one that it manages to be totally groovy without being skeevy. You can hear it in a doctor's office or a hardware store (where I heard it today) without feeling weird, unlike with other sexually frank songs that you can't hear without feeling like you can't look at the people around you without them thinking you're coming on to them. Like, say, Warrent's "Cherry Pie". I don't want to hear freakin' "Cherry Pie" when I am anywhere around other people. (I'm kind of horrified that that was my counter-example song, but it's the first one that came to mind.) Or, okay, "I Touch Myself". Did people stop writing songs like that?

I was a prudish child, but even I loved this song as soon as it first came on the radio.

Maybe it's a shame that Mr. Gaye's most accessible song is his least challenging, or maybe it's a complement to his ability to expertly convey a feeling everyone has sooner or later.

I still can't go over the fact that his own father shot him to death.

Niagara Falls

Niagara Falls acquired a reputation for being rather corny and rather dull, most interesting as the setting for one of the best scenes in the original Superman movie. Too many weddings turned it into a punchline, and it somehow became lost in the list of American splendors, obscured by the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone and the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge. If only some rich Republicans with their hands in the oil industry wanted to drill by Rainbow Bridge, maybe we'd bring some tragic glamour back to the Falls.

But Niagara Falls is special. It's awesome in the true sense of the word without being overwhelming, unlike the Grand Canyon. It's accessible without being commercialized. You can visit it without being crammed into endless tourist lines. You can walk around. Take a load off. Go over the bridge and visit Canada. Think about what this country and this world have to offer, the wonders that we take for granted. The opportunities for stupidity that we never, as a species, seem able to pass up. Wouldn't it be weird to go over that giant waterfall in a barrel? Yeah, it would. I'll bet it would hurt. Let's try it. Okay.

I drove from Boston to Niagara Falls on my 25th birthday, just to check it out. I never expected to fall in love with it. The town of Niagara Falls, NY is surprisingly grubby, but hold on, there are wonders up the road. Drive into the Park, park your car, then wander around. Niagara is for wandering, and for listening. The sound of the Falls reminds you that this world is bigger than you are, and probably more interesting. And probably less anxious, in the long run.

Buy a ticket and take a ride on the Maid of the Mist. Wear your complementary cheap blue slicker as you ride under the waterfall. Buy another ticket for the Cave of the Winds and wear yellow this time as you walk down into the water, or just lean over the railing and watch the yellow figures stumble their way through the spray. These mild "rides" bring you closer to nature, like a water safari, and force you to feel small.

I visited Cooperstown on my way back from that 25th birthday trip, but found it sleepy and pointless after the excitement of the rushing water. I'll bet no one ever locked herself in a barrel and went rolling through Cooperstown.