She sings the perfect songs for me
when my head is full of bees
when my head is full of things
that I shouldn't be thinking...

Punk Drunk Love


I saw PDL on Tuesday with Lani, and it is quite unlike any movie I have ever seen. I’m not sure I can recommend it. While I enjoyed the movie (I think – more on this later), I can easily see someone hating it, or worse, being horribly bored by it. P.T. Anderson does manage to get a fine performance out of Adam Sandler—even if you like Sandler movies, you can’t claim he has ever acted—and the supporting cast is excellent in limited roles. The seven women playing Sandler’s sisters are especially good (“Remember when we used to call you Gay Boy? You’d get so mad…why were you so mad?”). Luis Guzman is typically brilliant. (Don’t know Luis? Rent The Limey and get educated.)

You can visit other sites (like Salon) for “proper” movie reviews and plot summaries. In fact it’s better not to know too much about what actually happens in the movie, not because there are so many surprises but because a lot of the film’s effect comes from experiencing the events in the order they occur. Anderson likes to play with sound, turning it down for stretches of time before throwing the switch. I jumped out of my seat a number of times.

Sandler’s performance is so full of violent energy and unfulfilled yearning that he is often difficult to watch. The various things he does to keep stable (which I won’t mention; see above) cut a little too close to home. Early on he announces sometimes cries for no reason.

The entire movie is a little hard to watch. The sisters touched off all sorts of nerves, and Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s portrayal of a mattress dealer and phone-sex operator is worth the price of the movie alone. His telephone conversation with Sandler left an indelible impression.

But did I like it? Yes, yes I think I did. I say “think” because I’m not sure just how much I liked it. The movie left me feeling…wack. I’m not sure I could watch it again, even though I plan to. It’s difficult to watch that much emotional pain, more difficult than watching physical pain like torture. If Hannibal the Cannibal wants to cut open someone’s head and eat their brain, so be it. That I can stomach.

Did I mention he cries for no reason?

Check out the official site – it has little movie montages and mp3s for download.

Come get your fortune read!

Created by ptocheia

Today I sat in Soma while Lani worked out a budget for the next few years, charting how much she's going to spend and on what. I listened to the Anaheim Angels win the world series. And I kicked the soccer ball funny and messed up my ankle. Again. And the toenail on my left big toe is coming off. Again.

People asking for change are annoying. I'll say it. But tele-evangelists asking for money are far worse. When I see Robert A. Schuller on my television, offering a "free" gift of a gawdy crystal cross, and all he's asking in return is for you to bless his ministry with money, I want to put my fist through his face. When he says that God might be telling me to give twenty dollars--"or maybe he's asking you to give more"--I see red. I'm a neutron bomb laying motherfucker, motherfucker. And when I see his smiling son, with his robes, and the Crystal Cathedral filled with light, and the thirty person choir with their matching robes, and the construction starting on the "International Centre of Possibility Thinking" (are you shitting me?), I want to start mixing the kitty litter and orange juice in the kitchen.

Some people have mentioned that I have a hate-on with religion. This is not the case. Religion is only the necessary and expected product of human paranoia and fear of the unknown. I spent more than twenty years going to church. I've spoken in front of thousands of people, prayed for hours on end under the power of the Holy Spirit, brought people to church and even lead people in prayer to accept Jesus into their lives. And through it all I struggled with the creeping though in my brain that all of it was fake. When the ripping began, and my faith was being torn from me by the overwhelming evidence that religion is a lot of bally-hoo, I felt empty and more than a little purposeless. Hell I still feel that way. But now I've come to the realization that even though religion is a crutch, this is not necessarily a bad thing. We all need things to get by. Some people take long walks, some people jump off bridges, some people drink, some people take drugs, some people have a lot of sex, some people go naked, and some people gather with other people and sing songs and listen to sermons and put money into silver dishes. We all need something.

The problem is people in religions usually get quite huffy when you suggest that religion is anything other than the truth to our entire existence. Something about admitting religion is a comfort food de-legitimizes it. How can we judge other people and send them to hell if there is no hell and no God? Or not the God we say there is? How can I take comfort in the world view outline in the Bible--which, despite sermons to the contrary, never outlines a definitive world view--when it's not all true? I need every last word in the Bible to be one hundred percent accurate. And it is. And you're going to hell.

Memo to religious types: Your beliefs are a way for you to deal with the shit that goes on in the world. You need it the way I need Wittgenstein and Camus. You need it to help explain the unexplainable, help define that "what the...?" feeling you get when you witness something crazy. I need that to. I look for answers in different places than you do, but I still look. So enough with the going to hell nonsense.

And stop asking me for money.

I originally posted this as a comment on AK's blog.

Mormons say, "You are going to hell."

Two nicely dressed young men came to my door quite some time ago, and even before I saw their "Elder so-and-so" name tags I knew they were Mormons. We got into a religious discussion during which time I asked them some pointed questions about Joseph Smith, their founder. Namely I asked how an entire book written on gold tablets--I read once it would have taken over 300 tablets of a certain size to hold the entire book--had managed to stay hidden in the American mid-west, and how it had managed to completely disappear. They told me they had asked God for the answers to such questions, and he had answered them, but they couldn't tell me those answers--I would have to get my own. I admit that I started to bait them, pointing out that there are a billion Muslims when they started talking about how the tens of millions of Mormons indicated their "end-time" veracity.

Well after some more ridicule the taller one just lost it, yelling at me that I was a sinner, and that when I was in front of the judgement seat of Christ, I should NOT come crawling to him. His partner nodded sagely. I thanked them for their time and they walked away.

About ten minutes later there was a knock on the door and there they were, Books of Mormon in hand, looking sheepish. Elder Tall One apologized and attributed his outburst to his passion for the truth and the importance of his message. I told him not to worry about it and they went on their merry way.

I would hate Mormons more if they weren't so goddamned funny.