Black Lodge Yelp Review, or David Lynch At His Worst

Last weekend, Dr Desert Flower and I spent many hours finishing watching the 1990-91 Twin Peaks CBS television series, on Netflix.  DDF was resting after an outpatient procedure, and I was icing a pinched left elbow bursa that was jammed between the left arm-rest and the Delta 737-800's fuselage on row 14A, after we flew from LAX to Covington Kentucky on July 2nd for DDF's best friend's birthday party.  We were stationary humans last weekend, with considerable time on our hands.  Then, late last Saturday night, we began watching the 2017 Showtime series "Twin Peaks The Return" upon multiple recommendations of DDF's friends and co-workers who heaped high praise upon David Lynch's new work.  (Rotten Tomatoes has their reviews of them here: link, though I vehemently disagree with the tremendously positively reviews you'll find there)

The original 1990s TV series was not bad.  Some slow parts, some meaningless parts, far too many teenage-angst-romance sub-plots that now, as a man in his 50s, I could not care less about... but all in all, not a bad two seasons.  You find out who All killed Laura Palmer, you find out about the nature of the pervasive evil "Bob" represents, and there's a whole bunch of little side plots that progress nicely; many of them wrapped up with a neat bow, some of them left open ended.  DDF and I hoped that the 2017 follow-up would close those open loops.  That was a false hope that never came to fruition.

Instead, we got introduced to Dougie Jones, who when spoken to, repeated the last few words annoyingly.  Repeated the last few words, annoyingly.  This got really old fast. Really old fast.  It was not germane to what was happening back in Twin Peaks, and by all means, appeared to be completely irrelevant.  Completely irrelevant.  I would have rather had another teenage love triangle plot line instead of static-filled Dougie's scenes of endless fragmented repetition. Fragmented repetition.

Then, instead of Twin Peaks Washington, there was a major shocking sub-plot in the imaginary "Buck Horn South Dakota".  [Twin Peaks WA doesn't exist either, but was filmed in Snoqualmine, North Bend, and Fall City WA as well as Malibu CA]  How Buck Horn ties into Twin Peaks, no one figures out.  How does the hole-in-the-wall NYC high rise mutilation tie into anything, no one knows.  How does static-filled Dougie Jones in Las Vegas tie into Twin Peaks Washington, still, no one knows.  Very little happened in Twin Peaks in the 2017 series.  Most of it was putting you to sleep in NYC, scaring you in South Dakota, or making your eyes roll in Las Vegas.

All of this was very Lynchian, disjointed, fragmented, bizarre, mysterious, but it was watchable for the most part until the final episode.  New characters got introduced.  Some of them got killed,  Many good comedians played non-comedic parts.  Lynch pulled out all of his favorite actors and put them in the line-up who were still alive.  That is... until the final episode.  The final episode, for the first 20 minutes (the first 1/3rd), was a real episode.  There was plot, dialogue, progression, continuity... for the most part.  After the 20th or 22nd minute, the rest of the final episode became a masterbation exercise by David Lynch, a platform for him to take Eraserhead (or Labyrinth Man if you're in France) to the next level of inane, unfathomable, nauseatingly stagnant and boring "art expression" that drives an intelligent viewer mad.  I am so glad we watched it for free on our "Free Showtime Trial" which we will cancel next week.

Nuclear explosions in the New Mexico desert... is the mushroom cloud the one armed man's missing arm that is also a stunted growth and leafless sycamore tree in the Black Lodge who crackles with electricity?   Are the ubiquitous and ever-flowing red curtains of the Black Lodge representative of the blood that flows when evil manifests itself in the material world, or the fireballs of nuclear fission?  Are the shadowy black-and-white mobs of "woodsmen" who come out of no where and dive upon motionless, shot, evil, mulleted Dale Cooper in league with the nicotine zombie who takes over AM radio?  The crazy golden shovel Twin Peaks psychiatrist who rants on AM radio, is he supposed to analogous to the nicotine zombie guy?  The doppelgänger who turned into a small golden pea / pellet, is that related to the flying frog creature that hatched on a nearly black screen after the second nuclear explosion?

If those were the only questions, ok, I could grapple with it and wait and see for the next season.  BUT, those snippets took painstaking, excruciatingly slow minutes to get to, as characters slowly, slowly, slowly ascended stairs, or stared into nothingness, or gathered around an inanimate object that made no sense whatsoever.  "Meticulous" is how the Nerdist called these scenes.  Excruciatingly painful while-at-the-same-time eye-lollingly boring was how DDF and I saw it.  We'd fast forward at 4X or 8X for 15 or 30 seconds, and oh-my-gosh, the heavy-set lady had made it to the other side of the room.  Another 15 or 30 seconds, and the elderly giant had turned, 90 degrees.  Another 15 or 30 seconds, and the lady stares at the golden orb.  Arrrrghhhhh!

The final episode of the 1991 series had Kyle MacLaughlin running around the Black Lodge for about 5 minutes too long.  The final episode of the 2017 series had David Lynch and a team of special effects technicians running around for 35 minutes too long, tediously.  I could not care less if Showtime's Twin Peaks continues, or falls on its sword and goes away.  I've wasted far too many minutes of my life watching David Lynch's work on my TV, atrophying my brain.  "Has it given you nightmares?" ... one of DDF's friends asked us.  No, it's made my eyes tired from rolling (Anderson Cooper style), and it's motivated me to warn others to not waste their time watching something that'll squander their time and neurons...  unless... perhaps, they're on acid, and want to enhance their trip, or they're taking a contemporary art class and are forced to watch it as a class assignment.

No thanks.  I have a sock drawer I need to rearrange, or a garage to clean, or a thousand other things to do that are a much better use of my time.

Birdman - In Flight

Birdman!

It took a moment…  but I remembered…   Birdman!   “Maybe I’m crazy…. “  has been humming through my mind in the shower, as I walk the streets and river-sides of Glasgow, ride in elevators, and  wait in lines at airports.

Michael Keaton was truly oscar worthy in this film.  I see now why he won the Golden Globe.  Ed Norton was very good, and showed he’s great at playing a total ass hole.  Big Eyes actress Emma Stone was both beautifully played and exhibiting a very dark and disturbing side that I hope she does not emulate in real life.  Zach Galifianakis finally played a character who was not an idiot or a child, and it was refreshing to see him being a useful grown-up - something I had not seen him do previously.

Perhaps it was my irritability from being unable to get comfortable in the “Premium Economy” seat, or the fact that Air France in-flight service crews really don’t give a merde about the Premium Economy passengers - except when passing through quickly on their way to coddled business class where my company no longer believes I am worth buying a ticket for - or that I was extremely dehydrated at 40,000 feet and -68C outside with not a single drop of water being offered by the absentee Air France crew… but I found the beginning of Birdman VERY funny.  Laughing-out-loud-funny.  

Ed Norton at one point strips naked - apparently someone in Hollywood thinks hairless, little-boyish, weak little Ed Norton shirtless and pastey will put butts in seats - all it had me doing was snickering “first rule about fight club, is be strong enough to actually fight someone, little boy” …  this guy played “The Hulk” … really?  But in the scene where he is naked, his girl friend is confronting him and telling him to put his clothes back on and he says to her, standing buck naked in front of her in the wardrobe section backstage “play with my balls” - how hilariously inappropriate!  

Michael Keaton running through Times Square in his whitey-tighties is kinda funny.  The jamming, syncopated, rhythmic drum track provided by (insert name here) through-out the film powerfully appealed to me, in a tribal, reptilian brain, primal sort of way.  It was awesome when the drummer finally appeared, on screen, drumming.

There were far too many scenes going up and down back-stage stair wells.  I don’t care if that’s an integral part of the “theatre experience” I found it about as annoying as Wes Anderson’s fixation on centering the camera on the scene’s speaking actor and close framing him.  Enough with the stairs already!   I get it, there’s lots of ups and downs, and it’s cramped.  SNL does the whole back-stage thing very well, once every 3 or 4 shows, and that’s enough.  Don’t dwell on it throughout the movie.

Keaton evoked the old Batman voice for his Birdman alter-ego, and that made it all the sweeter (to me).  His telekinesis ability was interesting, but )I think) under-played.  A levitation here, a dropped light there, an exploded bulb or 4… I would have liked to have seen a tiny bit more of this ability on-screen to know that he was not hallucinating, but I am not a Mexican director with my own agenda.

Birdman - if you have a chance to see it on Netflix or Amazon, I highly recommend it. (I wrote this 2 weeks before the Academy Awards gave it an Oscar)

Do Not waste 2 hours of your life watching 50 Shades of Gray as I did in Glasgow last month, in a theatre packed with over-weight, dolled up, Scottish housewives, who heckled the screen and who had to endure some of the worst written, worst acted, weak themed, mis-represented characters of any film I’ve seen in the last 35 years - literally since I began buying my own movie tickets.  A severe disappointment it was, and my expectations going into the movie were already very low.

Hey Bud, You're Not Invisible

Earlier this month, I was on a flight from Phoenix to Atlanta, enroute to Dubai the next day, when I noticed something disturbing and inappropriate.   I'm sitting in seat 2A, on a 757, a nice business class seat, next to the widow.  No problem.  I'm dressed in business attire - a nice pair of trousers and a tapered fit shirt, wing tip shoes, when a kid in his late 20s, early 30s, sits down next to me in 2B, wearing baggy checkered "shorts" - i put "shorts" in quotes, because anything that is longer than one's knee, in my perspective, are not shorts, they're capri pants, and should be called 'capri pants' appropriately.   Shorts end at or above the knee.

But it wasn't the kid's attire that disturbed me.  No, it was the fact that he played with himself, fondling his genitals with one hand as he surfed with his iphone before take off with the other, repeatedly.  And then after take off, again, he started up his phone, and resumed his public self-massage.  This was not just a slight 'adjustment of the boys' as nearly every adult male (and all grade school and high school boys) has done from time to time, in public, when you think no one is looking.  No, this was an all out testicle adjustment and genital stroking, massaging, for the entire time the plane was loading.  Maybe he had a bad case of crabs?   I don't know what was on his phone, but he was certainly enjoying himself.  I tried to read my book (a Nietzsche compendium) but it was disquieting to see out of the corner of my eye, his hand and arm repeatedly moving, tugging away at his shorts, almost rhythmically.  Why Mr. Michael D. Me**ger (when you go to the rest room, don't leave your boarding pass where other passengers can see it, or you will be called out for your behaviour) thought that he was invisible, or that it was perfectly fine to repeatedly fondle himself in public, I do not know.   I hope I never sit next to such a person again, anywhere.

Meanwhile, in Japan

When I was a kid (like 5 years old), my mother knitted "bear pillows" for my brother and I, that looked like the face of a smiling bear, with floppy ears.  She made it out of old towels that were soft, and I remember sleeping with it through elementary school, but grew out of it before High School.  I guess in other cultures, you don't grow out of hugging your pillow.

Que Eres Un Perdedor

So "reasonable" Republican voters in "Live Free or Die" New Hampshire, who are characteristically NOT fundamentalists, picked a corporate raider & liberal ex-governor as their first choice, a libertarian purist as their second choice, and a Billionaire's son who was also a conservative state's governor & former ambassador to our Chinese bankers.  I am on the record that Huntsman is the only Republican candidate who has a significant chance of independent voters picking over Obama... but hardcore Republican New Hampshire voters don't think so.

"I’m a driver, I’m a winner; things are gonna change I can feel it".  Beck keeps running through my head this morning.

Iranian Children's Stories

I'm a father who's read his son many a children's story in my life time.  With this reference point, I was amazed and disturbed to hear a spokesman for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claim that the Iranian's government's proven involvement in an assassination plot to kill the Saudi Ambassador to the US in New York "a "child's story" meant to distract Americans" (links here and here).

A child's story?  Seriously?  Is that how children in Iran are raised, put to bed, intrigued... with stories of conspiracy with Mexican drug cartels, being monitored by the DEA, and plotting to explode a diner while the Ambassador ate there (probably killing lots of people who were not the Ambassador)?  Is this what goes for a "child's story" in Iran?   Sick, twisted, bizarre.  I do not understand the current state of leadership in Persia today.

Extended Zombie Dreams

Last Night, Dr Desert Flower and I watched the evil season conclusion of AMC's BReaking BAd.  During the DVR-ing, I noticed a plethora of "Walking Dead" promos, and those planted seeds in my fertile subconscious.  Throughout the night last night (I woke up several times) I was in a series of dreams involving "I Am Legend" like zombies, huddled together in the day time and hunting the non-infected at night.

Except that the longer the dream went on, I found that it setting changed to an alpine setting in Bavaria, combined with the bleak "Walking Dead" lack of a color spectrum similar to The Road.  All the signs and store fronts in the dream were in German.  The world was being taken over by The Infected, but in the dreamscape that my subconscious architect created, unenlightened German scientists had created an insidious vaccine, that was available to only the richest, wealthiest persons in the world, and it didn't really work fully.  Everyone else, who was not borne of privilege and had not inherited their daddy's money were given partially potent, semi-solution inoculations, that either left them catatonic, or shriveled them up into raisin-like gollum smeagols who were not yet crazed and murderous but who were pathetic wretches nonetheless, or (and this is the grossest part)... they turned into pasty, pudgy like characters akin to those on Nick Swardson's Pretend Time, who were quite ugly, very annoying, and extremely disturbing to see my loved ones turn into right before my eyes.

My son, my father, Dr Desert Flower, and many of my friends in my nightmares each turned into these over-weight baby hueys wearing garish lipstick saying awkward, un-endearing things that they were completely unaware of how repulsive and annoying they'd become, as the German serum coursed through veins.  I'd gotten them to Europe in a less-than-stable water craft, and we fought our way across the Ruhr valley and into the Bavarian mountains, only to have the less-than-capable German serum completely screw them up.

Maybe I played too much Battleground WWII in previous years.  Maybe I've seen too maybe Hitler spoofs recently.  Perhaps it's my love of the French language, cuisine, and the phrase "soup to nuts" that I heard ad nauseum last week.  Halloween is approaching.  I don't know.  I do hold AMC partially responsible for a good deal of the material.

Hank Williams a Senior Idiot

Congratulations to ESPN for pulling Hank Williams Jr's intro to Monday Night Football last niight after his ridiculous rants on Faux Friends Monday morning.  (link here).

Ironically, The Daily Show's moment of Zen (planned and recorded many hours before MNF began) was the fools at Faux n Friends dismissing as irrelevant celebrity opinion and then giving HWJr a platform to rant about how Obama and Biden are "the three stoogess", and coparing Obama to Hitler, and Boehner to Netanyahu. Bizarre.

But thank you ESPN.

Dawn Dutch Deleterious

On Monday morning I left the hotel shortly after 7am, and saw a scene of carnage.  Broken glass bottles, vomit, paper debris, plastic packaging, 1/2 crushed cups, smashed cans, canine excrement, horse excrement, various residual fluids, littering the side walks, streets & hotel fountain (which had been switched OFF, probably to prevent the ingestion from all the debris & deleterious floating about in the water) - okay there was no excrement in the fountain that was discernible, but it was full of floum & jetsom.   I thought "did I miss a GIANT party Sunday night?".  A few hours later, the Dutch socialist state had it all cleaned up, and looking  geschikte again (neat / proper / tidy).

Yesterday morning (Wednesday), I got up to get Dr Desert Flower a "all day breakfast sandwich" and a "cinnamon dolce latte, non fat, no cream" from the Starbucks 2 blocks away from the hotel, at about 745am... and once again, the scene of carnage prevailed.  More garbage, refuse, junk, crap, littered the street, sidewalks, and fountain.  It was everywhere, but the Dutch had begun the process of reclaiming their city of Amsterdam.  Leaf blowers were pushing piles of trash, street sweepers were vacuuming it up, the tidy Dutch would not truck with the filth that had been spewed upon thier streets the night before.

Where does all the crap come from?  In the 6 to 8 hours from closing time to waking time, the influx of deleterious is remarkable, each night.   It's like the Wednesday after Mardi Gras, every night, in Leidensplien, and the blocks surrounding it.   I wonder what it would look like after a few days without the fastidious cleaning?  I am glad I don't have to ind out.

As Seen In Georgia

Sometimes the hatred, ignorant belief systems, stupidity, and misguided fears of white Southerners is so overwhelming, it cannot be contained, and it bubbles over into bill boards, where such idiots can broadcast their bias to the rest of the world.  One such instance of this, is a bill board, I saw in rural Georgia on I-85 between Commerce and Atlanta.  It was one of the confederate counties (Jefferson [not Thomas, but Jefferson Davis], Jackson, Josephus...) near mile marker 168, not far from where Sherman marched through and scorched some 150 years ago after he torched Atlanta.  The bill board read as follows:

"It's WE the people, not YOU the President"

...and there was a picture (unauthorized use) of President Obama's face on the bill board, beside this bizarre message.

First of all, to your Georgians who paid for and constructed this bill board, thank you for demonstrating your overt hatred of our fairly elected leader of the Executive branch.  Secondly, when did President Obama EVER say that the emphasis in America, was on HIM and not on jobs, the economy, getting terrorists like Osama bin Laden, keeping America safe, protecting your food safety and drinking water....  ?  When did President Obama slight you, to prompt such a statement?

Please, if ANYONE from Georgia (or anywhere else for that matter) can enlighten me as to the logical motivation behind this bill board, I would love to have an intelligent conversation with you.  Please comment here, so that I can better understand the impetus behind such a public display.

In All Fairness

The Fairness Cream I mentioned earlier...   here's the ad:

And to reinforce that this  is NOT just some side-line, rarely used product, this was a 1/2 page ad, on the front page of the newspaper.  And, at work, we had a "fun at work" activity, in which we were divided into teams of 4 or 5, and had to use ads from the paper to sell a product, with a celebrity endorsement, and act out an ad for the activity, that a panel of judges would determine the winner.  One of the 5 teams chose "Fairness Cream".

I STILL don't get it.

Fairness Cream? Seriously?

Looking through the Bangalore newspaper last Thursday, I came across a 1/2 page ad for "Fairness Cream".  On the ad was a picture of a very light skinned Indian man holding a jar of cream. "Whiter in 7 days".  Seriously?  I asked at work, and I was told by my colleagues that it is "very popular here".  Bleach your skin so you can be more "white"??? That's completely messed up.   I took a picture of the ad, but that is locked on my  my XD card (so links here and here).  "Fairness Cream" = "White Man cream".  Unbelievable.

Cat's Foot Iron Claw

...Neuro-Surgeons Scream For More." I don't know what King Crimson was thinking about when they wrote 21st Century Schizoid Man, on their classic album In the Court of the Crimson King. But it sure was fun to practice Mike Giles' drumming, with head phones, on my Ludwig drum set in the basement back in the 80s - the same red striped drum set floor tom our old cat sleeps under from time to time now. Seemed appropriate to post today, in that respect. Lyrics included here, for the uninitiated:

Rain in Maine & Snow In NYC?

Today's forecast is freezing rain in Maine (link here), and NYC schools have closed (link here) as another foot and a 1/2 of snow has blanketed America's largest city. WTF? Yeah, the Earth's climate is kicking along just fine, there's no anomalies.

It Better Not snow like this NEXT Friday night, when Dr Desert Flower and I will be flying through JFK. Grrrrrrr. Il faut voir - Nous ne pouvons qu'espérer.

I also hope 'The rain in Maine does not stay mainly on the planes.' There's enough local atmospheric turbulence with Canadair Regional Jets into and out of the Bangor and Portland airports, that they don't need to add ice to that equation. =\

Magnetized Copper From Jesus!

I look through the direct mailers we get here in Phoenix for useful coupons. Occasionally, there's something useful, or funny in it.

I saw this one last week. I really need to rush right out, and buy several dozen! 2 for me, 2 for Dr Desert Flower, and 2 for every Christian [TM] I know. Somehow, using the healing power of Jesus, in the United State's porn capital (Van Nuys CA), Dream Products has been able to magnetize copper, and forge it into this fashionable bracelet! Wow. the gullible hat trick.

I could wear them on my ankles too... so 4 per person... Order today!

Beware the Penguins

Why the Hilton Hawaiian Village has penguins, is impossible to know. The Japanese tourists, and children (yea! let's take our toddlers on vacation to Hawaii! They won't remember it!!) appear to enjoy seeing these flightless birds.

In the tropical heat & humidity, their feces do give off a pungent smell, even though an unfortunate Hilton employee gets to hose out their pen each night. mmmmm