Blame Abraham and Isaac

Finally remembered the exact reason I don't like religion. Namely the one I was raised in.

Let's all go back in time to 1986. You're six years old, and you're dying to color something...anything preferably a wall of some sort. Your mother, bless her heart, buys you a Judeo/Christian themed coloring book.

Innocent enough...

And you color Noah Ark first because when you're a kid, and animals are cool. Fun times.

Then you color the nativity because of Baby Jesus.

Then you get to a picture of Abraham getting ready to sacrifice his son Isaac because God (capital G) asked him to. A quick recap:

Abraham was a man with lots of faith. His family had lots of faith. Everything was good. He had a son named Isaac, who he loved very much. One day, God asks in his big booming voice, "Hey Abraham, prove your faith in me by sacrificing your beloved son Isaac."

To which Abraham said, "Do what, Lord?"

To which the Lord replied, "Don't pretend you didn't hear me, it demeans us both."

"But, couldn't I sacrifice some sheep?" asked Abraham (at least I assume Abraham would have tried to bargain. At least I hope did.)

"Ummm...No," said the Lord.

"Okay!" replied Abraham since he had faith in God.

So he somehow manages to convince his son this is a good idea. Ties him up, puts him on top of a bunch of sticks to burn him on, and gets ready to give his soon a fatal case of death.

But right before Abraham can deliver on his promise, God stops him. "Psych!" God says, "Oh Me, you were really gonna do it! You have proven your faith to me. Untie your son, and here, take some money for his therapy bills." And everyone lived happily ever after.

Now in the coloring book. Abraham held the knife up in the air with a goofy-looking smile on his face. Same with Isaac, tied up to a pile of wood about to be stabbed by daddy, but what does he have on his face? A great, big goofy smile, cause being sacrificed is the bee's knees daddy-o.

It's the smiles that bothered me the most. Those vacant, cartoon grimaces haunt me still.

Let's go through better version of this story...

Abraham & Isaac: really cool great people who love everyone and have faith in God. You know? Real assets to the community.

God comes to Abraham and says, "Go sacrifice your son in my name."
Abraham cocks his head to the side and says, "Yeah...no."
God points his immaculately manicured finger at Abraham, "That's an order mister. Don't make me resort to smiting you."
Abraham turns and walks off, "Piss off, loony."
God blocks Abraham's path, "Listen you...I'm God. I say jump and you say, 'Is that all, I can juggle for you as well, maybe sing.'"
Abraham digs his heels into the ground, looks God in the eye and says, "NO!"

God stands aghast, but then chuckles to himself. "Right on, man. Good job. I asked you to do something completely stupid and you stood your ground. I'm so proud of you for not being a f****** robot. Come here!" And God high fived Abraham who knew in his heart of hearts that God wouldn't be so petty as to seriously ask him to kill his favorite son for no reason other than to teach him a lesson on the value of obeying blindly and without question." The end.

That's much better.

New Pictures

Takes forever to get pictures onto FLICKR without using their downloadable mass uploader.
This is a mosaic of some of my camera phone pictures. Not the best necessarily, but I was playing around.

As a recovering film student, it's hard not to look at the world in camera angles. I need to make a short project soon before I forget why I studied film in the first place.

Does the World Really Need Legally Blonde: the Musical?

And they say Hollywood's out of ideas.

Also, based on the success of The Producers musical, Mel Brooks now wants to turn Young Frankenstein into one. Personally, he should do Blazing Saddles instead. That whole scene where cowboys eat beans by the campfire is just crying out to be put to song. They should use real beans for the sake of authenticity and provide gas masks for the front row patrons.

Once in a while you'll hear a rumor about some dolt trying to turn Batman into a musical theater piece.

I hate musical theater.

Thank You, Lost!

So the writers of LOST have said that they will not let the show go on for longer than it should. Maybe I'll finally start watching the damn show.

Someone has some sense in TV.

There's a reason I don't watch LOST it's called The X-Files. I loved The X-Files, but it let me down. Oh it let me down. I'm talking I-can't-believe-people-pay-money-to-watch-Bruckheimer-movies-level of letting me down. So if LOST wants to go out while the story still makes sense instead of going on for four unnecessary seasons, I'll all for it.

You know what the worst part of The X-Files was? That at the end of it all. The truth was still out there. You gotta be kidding me?

There's a point in a TV show like The X-Files where the mystery comes to it's apex and if you don't solve it soon, the audience will be pissed. Someone in charge decided to keep going past this point. And when you keep an audience hanging for longer than you should, you're suffering from something I like to call Mysterious Mysteries of Mysterious Mystery.

I've read a lot of screenplays since I've started writing and when reading amateur ones there's nothing I hate more than a story that suffers from MMoMM-syndrome.

Lets hope the people behind LOST live up their word.

The Future Sucks Again

Remember back in the day when consumer electronic companies were putting digital clocks in every single product?

Coffeemaker? Needs a clock.
Fridge? Needs a clock.
Phones? They need a clock.
Stereos? How can I play music without a clock?

Nowadays playing MP3's is the new digital clock.

Your phone can play music. Your TV. Your PDA. Pretty soon, for the hell of it, they'll come up with a digital wrist watch that plays MP3's.

Do we really need refrigerators that play MP3's?

"Granddad, how come you're still alive?"
"Cause Granddad's pacemaker plays songs by Shakira."

You Can't Miss Being a Kid if You Never Stopped Being One

This one time I saw a guy on a unicycle riding through downtown. I wanna learn to do something completely useless just for fun. Like playing the harmonica.

I draw the line at playing handball, though. That's just dumb.

You know what I miss? Tag. I miss playing tag.

Forget ultimate frisbee, I want to start a Tag League. Who wants in? Can't you imagine it? Ten or so grown-ups running around, playing tag in a park for no reason? Can't think of anything better. And what better game? You don't even need a ball or any equipment and the rules are easier than your sister.

You could even keep stats on who was IT the least amount of time so you could crown a tag MVP. Okay, maybe not.

I want to play tag again. No backsies, of course.

Sometimes I Can't Help But See the Strings

What's so hard about getting a group of people together for a print ad? Every time I see an ad with a crowd shot I can't help but see how all those people were photoshopped individually to form a crowd. None of those people were in a room together!

Same thing with movie posters. If the stars appear together, it just looks like they took separate pictures of them and slapped them together via computer.

Maybe I look to deep into these things.

Maybe it's just more cost effective to do it that way. Maybe getting a group of people together to take one picture is less effort than scheduling hundreds of individual pictures. Maybe they get pictures of people wholesale.

"Hey, I need a hundred engineers. Do you have any?"
"Hell I have pictures of 1,000 different people crying over spilt milk. I think I can swing some engineers."

Sometimes I can't help but see how staged everything is, not just advertising. Like everything in life has to be presented as something else or else we won't accept it.

Hypno Bedhead's Motto of the Day

Hard liquor, like a good friend, stabs you in the front when it turns on you.

Wine, like a coward, hugs you, makes you feel loved, and stabs you in the back.

Life is But a Dream

I have been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.

--Mark Twain

It's true what they say...we invent our own lives. There is no little man behind the curtain pulling our strings. Unless we put him there for the purpose of pulling our strings because we felt it was necessary for there to be a little man pulling our strings to make us feel better about not pulling our strings ourselves.

A Rant

Bear with me for a minute...

I hate movie titles, not all of them, obviously. Just the ones with no imagination.

The Culprits (in no particular order)

#1 Teen Movie Titles:

Bad Titles-
Whatever it Takes, Drive Me Crazy, Get Over It
One word, GENERIC. These titles could be anything. They're all teen movies, but I'd be hardpressed to tell you which one's which or even what the difference is between them.

Better Title-
Mean Girls
Why? Because the movie is about mean girls.

Even Better Title-
Heathers
The movie Heathers is about a group of mean girls, all named Heather.

#2 Those #^&$ing -ING titles.

Bad Titles-
Being Julia, Leaving Las Vegas, Finding Nemo, Finding Neverland, Finding Forrester, Owning Mahowny...or any title with an -ING VERB + WHATEVER.
These bother me far more than they should but for some unexplainable, guttural reason, they irk me like no other. They just feel lazy. Take any title, change it to an -ING + WHATEVER title and see what I mean. Casablanca = Leaving Casablanca, Citizen Kane = Explaining Kane, Vertigo = Getting Dizzy on High Ledges.

Better Title-
Being John Malkovich
Simply because To Be John Malkovich sounds odd.

Even Better Title-
The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, The Killing Fields, The Howling
In the first and third, it's a noun. In the second, it's an adjetive. Don't ever use it as a VERB then.

#3 The Overly Poetic/Vauge Titles
Ask the Dust, Advice from a Catterpillar, The Science of Sleep, Requiem for a Dream
It pains me to put Requiem for a Dream with these, especially since it gets its name from the book, but life's tough and this title is vague. Seriously though, Ask the Dust? The second is an Alice in Wonderland reference, but that is still one clunky title. The Science of Sleep? What is this, a lecture?

Better Title-
A Beautiful Mind
Marginally, marginally better. Only by a little bit and that's only because it has to do with the story.

Even Better Title-
Snow Falling on Cedars, Smilla's Sense of Snow
Snow's makers made a good choice sticking with the book's title. Poetic, and a beautiful image. Smilla's Sense of Snow is clunky and odd, but Smilla, raised in the snow, can pick up more by looking at it than you and me. So therefore it's apt. Ask the Dust?

#4 Mouth Mumblers and Sentence Confusers
Saw
These are harder to define. The best example:
"Dude, I just saw Saw."
"You saw what now?"
"Saw!"
"Yes, what did you see?"
"Not see, Saw!"
"See saw? That doesn't sound like a cool movie to me."