This post goes out to my good friend and musical colleague Neal Hutto. We were hipsters back in the day and remained good friends throughout the 90s and beyond till his death in 2010.
Our History
To occupy the resources of the Federal Agents I now offer the Filibuster.
-Neal
Neal and I went to Carver Middle School together here in Tulsa Oklahoma. He was a talented musician then…And a hipster… I was a dork. But with his help and the influence of other hipsters I sorta became hip myself.
We drifted apart and I did not see him again until the early 90’s when he was the MC of an open stage night at the Eclipse club in Tulsa. I used to get up on that stage every Tuesday with my guitar and cheap beer and sing my little heart out.. Ya know? Memories
Neal had always been the free spirit kinda guy….. He lived out of his car for over 11 consecutive years… And was fine with that. He lived within his means and always had money and the stuff he needed… His car was insured and he was totally legal. This was the life he chose and he enjoyed it, folks… His method of living under good Karma was his code.
A lot could be said about Neal. His concerns with government interference in his life were quite the puzzle to me…Still, his stories and adventures in his car were always quite entertaining and it was always a good time when he would roll by my house to see me and do some jamming.
Hutto Hippies
Hutto was a talented guitar player, singer, songwriter, and piano player. He would often get up and do a set at the Eclipse himself and was always a hit with the crowd. His music was exciting and complex. I have recently found a demo of his songs and am in the process of digitizing it and will share that on my music site.
In the 90s we attempted to put a band together and wrote a few songs… We could never seem to get out of the basement stage of the band but did manage to get a few things recorded. It would have been fun to actually get out and play some shows… But our lifestyle at the time seemed to prevent this… If you know what I”m saying?
Free Download
I have recorded a song that Neal wrote with our band back then. I am offering it here to honor Neal and our great friendship his talent and legacy. It was fun recording it and I hope I do his song justice. Actually, it was co-written by K-Lor over at Funjob. A mutual friend of ours.
The Lyric
Why won’t you deal with me? Instead you… Flee…. That’s fine……
Rest in peace Neal P Hutto… You are missed my friend… See ya on the ‘other side’ YOU DIG?
The Judd Apatow-produced Bridesmaids (2011) is a dandy comedy finally marred by sentimentality and the repulsiveness of the character played by Melissa McCarthy. Oh, and there’s also Kristen Wiig’s mugging as she enacts Annie, a nigh fortyish woman whose life goes to pot now that her bakery has gone out of business and her best friend (Maya Rudolph) is engaged to be married. Annie, you see, has neither husband nor actual boyfriend.
It would be unfair, however, to ignore the ardor in Wiig’s acting. She believes in what she’s doing; she ain’t lazy.
Bridesmaids is raunchy but not excessively so. And a great deal of it is certifiably funny, albeit Apatow can’t help imposing the most pointless scatology on the film in order to attract nasty-minded male viewers. Karina Longworth in The Village Voice knows there’s a rub here: “Comedy of humiliation is one thing; a fat lady shitting in a sink is another.” (The lady in the sink is Melissa McCarthy.)
Skillfully directed by Paul Feig, penned by Wiig and Annie Mumolo, the picture works pretty well as a middlebrow adult farce until its last 15 minutes. Then it’s chick-flick time.
Question: Did Wiig write the scene in which her character has her breast fondled by Jon Hamm?
Xavier Beauvois’sOf Gods and Men (2010) tells the true story of several French monks in Algeria who were taken hostage and later murdered by Muslim terrorists. (It happened in 1996.) Two of the eight of them escaped.
The monks are very admirable, truly Christian men living among and ministering to the rural Algerian people. Indeed, they are First World men helping folks–Muslims–living in a Third World area. If the film has a fault, it is that the monks are practically without fault. Christians come off looking very good here (although I dislike the abbot’s use of the expression Inshu’Allah [“God willing”]). Of Gods and Men is not terribly hard on anybody, however: the Muslims too are usually sympathetic characters. In some measure even a bloodthirsty Islamist called Ali Fayattia (Farid Larbi) is.
Lambert Wilson provides the abbot, Brother Christian, with intelligence and, like the other French Caucasian actors, a true spiritual dimension, a convincing devoutness. Beautiful but not lush, the film is visually rich.
Des Hommes et Des Dieux is a French picture with English subtitles.
The playwright Kenneth Lonergan has written and directed the 2000 You Can Count on Me, a decent motion picture about a brother-and-sister relationship. Pleasant Sammy (Laura Linney) is a churchgoing small-town resident who works at a bank and is a single mother. Her brother Terry (Mark Ruffalo) is a cordial if somewhat neurotic drifter, occasionally in trouble with the law, now paying a visit to Sammy and her 8-year-old son. Since the two have long been orphaned, Sammy more or less wants to cling to Terry, her only sibling, and is troubled when she doesn’t hear from him. Now, however, she is troubled by his ordinary irresponsibility, especially with respect to her son. For one thing, he fails to pick him up from school on a rainy day. Sammy, even so, unexpectedly turns into a moral wretch by practically abandoning a dating partner and carrying on sexually with her new, and married, boss at the bank (Matthew Broderick). When she summons her pastor, Father Ron (Lonergan), to counsel the ne’er-do-well Terry, she is attempting to hide from her own need for spiritual service.
But such a thing can only be short-lived. Sammy herself seeks counsel. But Father Ron is a Protestant softie who offers theological wimpiness. He is not quite what the adulterous Sammy needs, although he is right to put the following question to Terry: Do you believe your life is important in the scheme of things? Apparently he does, but will he ever behave in a way that confirms this view? The movie is resolution-less, which is rather too bad. It’s not about to try to answer any questions. What it does try for, here and there, is a certain tidiness which is better left alone, even though–happily–it little mars the picture. You Can Count on Me is a winner.
Lonergan’s script makes sense and its dialogue shines. Linney and Ruffalo never make a misstep , though Rory Culkin, as Sammy’s son Rudy, is uninteresting. As for Broderick, he is, I think, what John Simon called him in his review of the stage musical The Producers: “endearingly artful.” Like many other American flicks, the movie is a bit too foul-mouthed but–bravo–it’s certainly far from foul. Count on it.
You hipster’s like Star Trek? Have you ever thought what would happen if Captain’s Kirk and Picard had a fistfight? So do you have some time? Let’s consider these old Star Trek debates.
Space Debates
Star Trek vs. Star Wars
Who’s the hottest? Counselor or Doctor. (next generation)
Best engineer – Scotty or La Forge
Do the ‘red shirts’ always get killed?
Did they break the ‘Prime Directive’ AGAIN???
Fist Fight – Kirk or Picard?
This has been a very old debate
I remember this fist fight stuff being discussed on the internet way back when the internet was young. I don’t frequent Star Trek forums or chat’s or anything… But here I am tonight *thinking* about it again. Yes folks which one is better??
On the original series Kirk was throwing down all the time. He was always just taking the bull by the horns and beaming on down and taking care of stuff… You dig? Picard liked to stay in his ready room and read Shakespeare. Hey…Whatever works, right?
I’m sure Picard had plenty of hand to hand combat training too… Back at star fleet in his college days.
So which is it huh? Kirk or Picard? I just gotta know.
Hey, wait a minute here. I just found something. Never mind the fistfight…… How about and all out:
SPACESHIP BATTLE!!
Hey. I won’t spoil it for ya! You just gotta watch it. Well, if ya got the time 🙂
I need to see Atlas Shrugged, Part 1 (2011) a second time before I can make a suitable judgment about it. I believe it to be weak in many ways, but as a motion picture it’s also unique and possibly acceptable. (I have no interest in reading the Ayn Rand novel.)
“The business man is only tolerable so long as his gains can be held to bear some relation to what, roughly and in some sense, his activities have contributed to society.” So wrote Lord Keynes, and the U.S. government in Atlas Shrugged, Part 1 must be espousing this view and seeing American businessmen as not contributing enough to society. Hence it has turned to an anti-business crackdown.
Directed by Alexander Amenabar, Agora stars Rachel Weisz as the philosopher, mathematician, and martyr Hypatia of Alexandria, whose history has long been muddled and contested since the limited release of the film. Many Christians including Catholic evangelist Rev. Robert Barron, condemn Amenabar for the film, calling it an “atheist agenda” despite the fact that the director insisted on a multi-faith cast and crew and the distributors insisted on a preemptive screening by the Vatican, which reported no issues with the film.
Synopsis
History buffs already know how the movie ends, so I won’t worry about spoilers. Agora is a about a woman mathematician, philosopher, and scholar in Roman Egypt. We, the audience, see Hypatia teaching men of prominent families, including Orestes, who admires her but cannot attain her because she loves philosophy first. Davus, one of her father’s slaves (whom she pities), also loves Hypatia, but the latter is oblivious and the former is burdened by his lower status. He begins to turn to Christianity for solace.
I’m not quite sure why French author Michel Houellebecq put a lot of sex in his novel, The Elementary Particles (2000) except that the book does impart the familiar message that no salvation lies in either sex or science. Houellebecq’s two main characters are Michel, a scientist, and Bruno, a hedonist. The author has no faith in liberalism or humanism either. As for religion . . . well, he’s not without a certain respect for it (he gives Michel the insight that “materialism, having destroyed the religious faiths of previous centuries, had itself been destroyed by recent advances in physics”), but neither can he embrace thoroughgoing belief.
Mr. H.’s plotless novel is highly intelligent and occasionally funny but, all things considered, not one I can finally accept. I’m rooting for him, though.
Do you fear Wasp’s? They are miniature flying dragons you know? Out terrizing society and fools like me… They like to come come fly down and land in your pool while your swimming to cool off for a bit.. What happens? RUN! (swim fast)
Yes folks..Wasp are scary stuff..
So what’s it all about? I thought I’d take a look at it.. Ya know? Just to try and discover exactly what the deal is. I found a Video clip that explains it…Well, sort of….
HEY! The below video don’t werk? HUH?
Sure man…. Sounds good to me.. I assume he is some kind of wasp counselor… He says it’s “learned behavior and that it can be “unlearned” Hmmm?
The problem remains… I’m still learning to fear them!
Wasp Fearsome Memories
I remember a neghbor kid swatting at some wasp. Fighting those flying dragons. They came buzzing about and one stung me right on the face. I haven’t been the same since. She apoligized for getting me stung… Of course I forgave her… But the Wasp…. He still haunts me.
Wasp in The Car
Isn’t it fun when your sitting in your car at a stop light and one comes flying in your car just as the light turns green. You hear it’s evil buzzing..
That’s when the panic starts.
It’s hard to drive down the road when your under attack. I wonder how many wrecks those demons have caused.
And the pain they inflect on a guy. The Pink Floyd song “Comfortably Numb” always had meaning for me with the lyric…”My hands felt just like two balloons” That cat must have been stung with both hands…OH the HUMANITY!
In 2003’s Bruce Almighty, God, played by Morgan Freeman, explains to Jim Carrey that if only people realized that not only God but they too possess power, they wouldn’t need to pray as much as they do and everything would be . . . whatever. Never mind Bruce‘s theology: it’s a big zero. As is the hilarious but atrocious writing from Steven Koren, Mark O’Keefe and Steve Oedekerk.
A Buffalo, New York TV reporter, Bruce (Carrey) yammers about God and all the misfortune he faces until the Almighty, fed up, decides to endue Bruce with His own miracle might and see what kind of job he does as Supreme Ruler. What he does for self-gratification is a howl, but it isn’t long before illogic and desultoriness stain the story. So does sentimentality: Bruce is the most syrupy comedy since Patch Adams (1998), both of which films were directed by the same man, Tom Shadyac.
Bruce Almighty raked in the almighty dollar when it was released, despite being a foolish wreck.
![Cover of "Bruce Almighty [Blu-ray]"](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51%2B3NQFLYqL._SL300_.jpg)
