and the hippos were boiled in their tanks

Some Books That Time Forgot

As a lad, I spent perhaps hundreds of hours staring at the cover of this paperback book (and reading it of course) and I dabbled away many a hot summer afternoon down at the local mono-plex mesmerized by the Major NEW Motion Picture that was spawned from its pages, and
which until Star Wars, Bond and Indy came into my life, I thought was hands down the coolest fucking movie ever made. It had realy cool British guys in white fisherman/naval sweaters, pinched faced German's, U-Boats, cavemen, stone-implement vs. machine gun violence, a hot Brit chick and dinosaurs. The perfect summer cocktail for a nine year boy.



Beer can collecting was also the perfect hobby for a nine year old boy. I spent a lot of time scouring the muddy dregs of many a suburban ditch seeking ancient relics and treasures that I would then check off out of this archeological book. I still have this book and I wish I had the cans. I had some cool ones. Old Frothingslosh, and Iron City (Steeler's Super Bowl Editions), cone top PBR's and Schmidt's "outdoorsey" series (aka: Hunters and their defenseless prey).

Ok, I'm bored

Who said you can't have fun with a dollar?

A good place for thinking aloud

Some tidal marsh off the back side of Tybee Island as seen from the cockpit of my Perception Monterey 14.0 on an absolutely perfect (though hot) summer day here on the Georgia coast.

Deadwood = what TV can be if kept out of the hands of myopic idiots

Ian McShane as saloon owner Al Swearengen in HBO's Deadwood and is perhaps the best damn character TV has ever seen.

I love this show. Let me say that again, I LOVE THIS SHOW. I don't have cable, but I found Deadwood on DVD and poured over the the first season (12 episodes) over a three week period. I was enthralled with it. This is a classic example of how great art can be produced for what is generally considered (and rightly so) a vapid intellectual slagpit with a built in audience of simpletons in mind (TV).

Normally I would never encourage anyone to sit in front of the box but there are exceptions to this rule and Deadwood is one of those. The writing alone is reason enough to wrap your arms around this show. Language is KING in Deadwood and the and it's gruff, crisp, fluid and absolutely beautiful to listen to. Every "Fuck" and "Cocksucker" is there for a reason and adds a cadence to the dance of words as they glide off the tongues of Deadwood's wild bunch. The standout (in a show full of standouts) is Ian McShane as Gem Saloon owner Al Swearengen. In my opinion, this has got to be one of the best actor meets character pairings in television history (Falk = Columbo, Garner = Rockford, Duchovny = Mulder, etc).

Season two is now playing on HBO. I haven't seen it yet, but I look forward to the DVD release. In fact, I prefer watching these things on DVD rather than as a stand-alone experience. You can watch it on your own time, you can pause it when you need to do something and the DVD usually comes with 2-3 episodes, so you can seriously LOCK IN without having to wait a week for the next episode. This is how I was sold on The X-Files (which puts 4 episodes on each DVD). Plus, you get all the commentary tracks, which run the gamut from interesting to funny, to both.

DIALOGUE SAMPLE:

Swearengen: "Bad news or tries against our interests is our sole communications from strangers, so let's by all means plant poles across the land and festoon the c*cksuckers with wires to hurry the sorry word and blinker our judgments of motive."

Dority: "Say the word, them f*cking poles are kindling."

King Dork lives!

I see my old San Francisco "band name" (a moniker given to me by the late Chuck "The Sarge" Jennings) has wound up as the title of an East Bay punk rockers book (Dr. Frank of the Mr. T Experience). Perhaps the writer, Frank Portman, saw our flyers up and down Haight Street in the early 90's and liked the name and as the band went nowhere, I'd say it's up for grabs. Enjoy it Frank, for I relinquished that crown years ago. I hope Frank's book is better than our band and finds a wider audience (that should not be hard as our audience was very exclusive and half of them are dead as the lifespan of a serious fringe dweller can be rather short. It's too easy to step on a landmine out on the perimeter - which is where the furies plant them - but the fringe is where the fun is).

I also like the unique reconceptualization of the old Catcher in the Rye paperback cover. Nice touch.

And now a break from the regularly scheduled Madness...