In Defence of Over-the-Top-Television Action/Crime Shows. From 2002.

So, Sarah Baby turned me on to this short-lived (22 episodes—is that "short-lived"?) Action | Crime | Thriller TV series titled Fastlane. It's a seriously cool, honestly thought-out, and downright sexy show about a couple of hot young undercover cops who pose as criminals to infiltrate and bust the toughest rings out there. At their disposal is God-only-knows-how-much-money's worth of cars, weapons, clothes, and technology to assume any legitimate persona, but at the end of the day, they solve the crime, restore their honor, and get the girl, using good old-fashioned street smarts and left hooks. And even though personalities rub wrong and emotions run high, again, at the end of the day, they are still best (reluctant) friends. Don't forget, one of them's out for vengeance for the death of his cop brother, while the other is constanly dealing with his fucked-up childhood.

It's like 21 Jump Street grew up, wanted to start shit and look good doing it. You know why? Because that's what we did. I was a kid when Jump Street came out and I was a man when Fastlane appeared. And I grew up, and I wanted to start shit and look good doing it. Sadly, I ended up looking a lot like Peter Deluise.

When I was a child, I used to speak like a man, think like a man, reason like a man; when I became a man, I did away with mannish things. A mannish boy. Spelled B...

A twist on the familiar. I hope that's ok to do. Anyway, Fastlane. It's great. There are bitchin' cars, hot girls, dreamy dudes, all dangerous, most of them (girls and dudes), fistfights, gunfights, and chase scenes resplendent with spin-outs, flips, rollovers, sinkings into the ocean after a pier dive, and most final, explosions. There's emotional warfare, physical warfare, and demonic warfare (the in-the-head kind), and there's usually some small but significant trial by fire in which one or both or all three of our main players learns they have yet another level in them they can handle.

Exactly what you always pictured the Jump Street crew graduating to after they got sick of sitting in history class. The last thing I saw Peter Facinelli in was Can't Hardly Wait, a high-school party movie, in which he plays the handsome-and-stupid dickhead ex-boyfriend of the Perfect Girl, Jennifer Love Hewitt. Bill Belamy's cousin is none other than Shaquille O'Neal for eff's sake (that is not germain to my point, but still), and Tiffany Thiessen even dropped the "Amber" 'cause she was all growds up.

Enough of this; I'm gonna watch an episode.

Broken Lizard

If you haven't had the luck to watch the movies created by the comedy troupe Broken Lizard, please take the time to do so. I was turned on to these talents by good friend McInfly, who told me I seriously needed to sit down and watch the nouveau-keystone cops comedy Super Troopers. This wasn't the first time McInfly had initiated a new and hilarious experience for me, so I trusted his suggestion and watched it. I laughed harder than I had since the last time I had watched Tom Hanks and Jim Belushi in The Man With One Red Shoe (trust me). I followed this with their next movie Club Dread and then Beerfest, the last feature film they have released.

"Man, you must of eaten like, 100 bucks worth of pot, and like, 30 bucks worth of shrooms, man... So I'm-I'm gonna need that 130 bucks... as soon as you get a chance..."

I think that's what College Kid #2 says to College Kid #3 in the opening scene of Super Troopers. This is great writing, as it's sounds and feels just like something we all heard from that one dude we all knew in high school who was kind of a dick. What follows is total fantasy.

Or so it might seem, but how many of us can recall stories, though maybe not quite as intense as the ensuing scene, of crazy happenings when we were in high school and college? The time you almost flipped your car because you took a turn too tight? The time you were followed out of the local miniature golf course by what seemed like all the gang members in town, the time you actually did flip your car... Anyway, in the midst of all their hilarious and sometimes cheap jokes and their healthy use of sex and boobies and drug references, the Broken Lizard crew really knows how to tell a story. These are not necessarily the most complex of plots, but the concepts are ones that utilize to great effect the old technique of asking "what if?" as in, "What if there were a department of highway patrolmen who really knew how to party?" or "What if a Jimmy Buffet-type of has-been musician owned a resort and the employees started getting killed?" or "What if there were a super-secret, global underground beer-drinking competition that considered even the idea of an American team a huge joke?"

These "what ifs" all produce stories that, in turn, produce moments you will never forget once you have watched them. You will never forget them because you and whichever buddy of yours has also seen the movie will constantly quote lines to each other, send lines as text messages to each other, and post them on each other's Facebook walls on a regular basis.

I am especially impressed by Lizard member Kevin Heffernan. Heffernan co-wrote all Broken Lizard films and delivers, IMHO, the most ridiculously funny, dry, and well-acted performances of the entire (extremely talented) crew. Also keep a close eye on auxiliary performances by seriously funny goofy guy Michael Weaver, particularly in Club Dread, and an actor whose mystery and charm lure me and entrance me in every movie he's in-Philippe Brenninkmeyer. Wow.

There are several projects in the works with these guys. Heffernan is starring in some promising-looking comedies. One, Strange Wilderness, a non-Lizard production, puts him together with another comedy great, Steve Zahn. I don't, however, believe that semi-hack Jonah Hill deserves screen time with him, but hey, maybe Hill can continue to rebuild the funny he promised us in The Forty-Year-Old Virgin and started to reclaim in his hilarious, albeit brief, encounter with Ben Stiller in Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (yes, I have a four-year-old). It's just too bad that Hill gets higher billing. Oh well, welcome to how it is. I'll have to watch it and report back.

Anyway, back to Broken Lizard. They are poised to release Super Troopers 2 in 2010 (directed, as were the other Lizard productions, by Jay Chandrasekhar), and The Slammin' Salmon (directed by Heffernan-eep!) this year (is it out yet?) Watch them, learn them, take some of what they put on screen with a grain of salt (a couple of these guys can ham it up a bit much), and forever find yourself asking "Who's Barry Badrinath? Who's Barry Badrinath? Who's Barry Badrinath?"

Thanks again, McInfly.

The Thrifty Reader

Being married to a vintage fashionista has its advantages. One, she always looks pretty damn awesome. Two, I spend a lot more time in thrift stores and, subsequently, walk out of said thrift stores with some fairly wonderful book finds. The downside is that I spend money I should be using to pay off my now ten-year-old school loans and continue to add to the stacks and stacks of pulp in the house.

But those downsides are nothing compared to the joy I receive from getting myself nice and mellow and paging through something like this:

Yes, it's an elementary school book, but hey, it's just the kind of book I would have found in the library of Sierra Vista Elementary in lovely Upland, California, and yes, I have an insanely nostalgic streak in me that makes the characters in Springsteen's Glory Days look like serious "live-in-the-now" kind of folks.

Just listen to the music of the book's opening paragraph:

"Mexico, our sister republic on the south, is an enchanting land of mountains and deserts, golden sunshine and purple shadows, dense evergreen forests and tropical jungles."

Ahh... Such lush pictures do enter my head! I feel like I'm floating in a wee boat, lost in the cool air, hypnotic song, and dazzling bedazzledry of It's a Small World. Any moment now we'll pass through Polynesia, into the brilliant sunlight, and back on our treck toward the Storybook Land ride, soon to be swallowed whole by Monstro the whale.








Enchantment of America
Mexico
By Frances E. Wood
Illustrations by Katherine Grace
Copyright 1964 CHILDRENS PRESS, CHICAGO

Page 13

Do yourself a favor and find some old picture books about ancient Rome, Greece, Capri, India... anywhere, really, that has retained its ruined past and has grown up around the remains. I say "old" picture books, because there is something about the outmoded film, cameras, developing, etc. that produced photos of such a rich and saturated quality that the colors burn right into your head, forcing you to wonder what kinds of adventures the previous owners of the books had been inspired to undertake.

I have acquired several of these books at Goodwill, Salvation Army, etc. I've found each one at different shops, yet I've somehow amassed a collection that seems to come mostly from the same foreign publisher. When I'm laying in bed, looking at the gigantic edifice of say, the Porta Maggiori in Rome, or the Parthenon in Greece, Hindu temples in India, Mayan pyramids, or even the Taj Mahal, which, while not exactly ancient, is really brilliant to look at, I go away in my head. I think I'll go there now. Maybe I'll teach my kid to surf in the shadow of some Zoorastrionist holy shrine while my lovely wife drinks mai tais from hollowed-out pineapples. Doesn't that sound grand?

Page 12. Right?

the Family Effing Feud.

Couldn't retrieve chat history

10:48pmDave

dude, you totally have the DVDs of the Midnight Special, don't you?

10:50pmCraig

no - but i want to order the set

10:51pmDave

both Neil Sedaka and Blackfoot are featured on that show (this is in response to Craig's use of both of those acts in his bio for a phony MySpace character he has created and maintains.)

I feel like it's the same disc

maybe you saw an ad for it

ha

it got in your sub

Sedaka is a total dork trying to be hip in this white suit and red fedora

and Blackfoot is all in warpaint and paramilitary-native american type clothes

10:53pmCraig

that's smart dressing

10:54pmDave

the guitarist dances onto stage to heavy drums before strapping on his axe, er, tomahawk

and he has a full feather bustle and shit

I love it

but f*%# Sedaka

hahah

10:55pmCraig

i remember my mom went to see sedaka when i was a kid

my mom has always been 65

10:55pmDave

yuck

I think my mom story might just blow all others away

In 1980, my family somehow ended up appearing on "Family Fued".

So my Mom, Dad, aunt and uncle, and my Grandmother went on the show

and Richard Dawson was all creepy and shit, and we got free tootsie pops in the live studio audience

10:58pmCraig

wow

10:59pmDave

(incidently, we almost didn't make it, because my older brother Dan was in the record shop instead of the arcade, where he was supposed to be picked up on the way to the taping).

so, my family beats the other family by a hair and goes on to the $10,000 round

11:00pmCraig

good so far

11:01pmDave

my dad goes first, and he does pretty well. When asked, "Name a famous drummer," my dad says, "Ringo Starr". Turns out to be the number one answer in a survey of 100.

"Survey Says!" I can still hear it.

11:01pmCraig

awesome

11:02pmDave

So Joan, my Mom, comes out. She's doing okay, but she needs to do well on this drummer question.

11:02pmCraig

buddy rich

11:03pmDave

Richard, flirtatious and soft, asks my mother, "Name a famous drummer."

*beat*

"Cubby!"

11:03pmCraig

from the mickey mouse club?

11:04pmDave

Cubby, the f#%*ing drummer from the g*#%amn Mickey Mouse Club.

Richard Dawson is perplexed.

"Who?"

Hahaha!

11:04pmCraig

awesome

11:05pmDave

They split twelve-hundred dollars between three families.

But hey, that was $400 in 1980

11:05pmCraig

not quite bass boat money, but still pretty good

a house payment

11:06pmDave

(I say that like I'm some sort of expert on the financial climate of 1980 America)

yeah, house payment

a week's supply of crystal meth

11:07pmCraig

on a slow week

like easter

11:12pmDave

man, I had something profound to tell you, and then *poof* it went away

11:12pmCraig

that'll happen

it will come back around

11:13pmDave

yeah, I guess.

After we failed to win the big prize, someone shoved my brother and sister and me to the stage and we ran down and hugged our family, which was typically a celebration reserved strictly for the victorious team. I felt like such a dipshit.

Page Eleven

Do yourself a favor and watch some movie from the late '80s that you know you've seen, but you don't really remember much about. My choice for tonight is Throw Momma From the Train. The risky part of telling you this is that I haven't actually tested this notion. I'm about to, and the cool part is that I think it might actually be pretty fun and funny, still.

There was that weird bunch of comedies that were neither too heavy nor too light; they featured great acting by solid actors, fairly good writing, and always at least one hilarious scene that most people my age (almost 36—eep) will recall with great enthusiasm. Picture Danny DeVito shouting "You lied to me!" and clocking Billy Crystal in the face with a frying pan, or Jim Belushi descending into madness after some fairly outrageous moments in The Man with One Red Shoe, a lesser-known Tom Hanks gem.

When I revisit something that I haven't seen in a while, I am amazed and delighted by how much I have forgotten. I suppose that's one upside to the impending memory loss of old age.

"What's this called? Toothpaste? This shit is AWESOME!"

Page Ten

Do yourself a favor and listen to more hip-hop. Start with the basic big names right now: Li'l Wayne, Akon, T-Pain, Plies, Kanye, and of course, Ludacris.

Beyonce gets her own line. Right here. She's owning things right now.

Here's what's badass about hip-hop. Collaboration. We crackers get so caught up in thinking that this is the music of selfish, materialistic gangsters that we completely overlook the fact that these artists are so committed to putting out the best music possible that they will work together in what seem like endless combinations to constantly keep the listener happy.

The other aspect of this genre that just blows my mind is its unwavering demand for quality. You music "fans" out there who are so proud of the fact that you will listen to "anything but new country and rap" consider these exclusions to be proof of how discriminating you are, but if your favorite hipster band were to put out a Shit Sandwich, you would be terrified of being the one person out there who admitted that the record sucked. You live in fear of someone, twenty years from now, saying, "You! You were the one person who didn't like that sixth Fleet Foxes record that is now hailed as a visionary masterpiece by the kids in Silverlake (or whatever part of town will be the hip part of town in twenty years.)!"

The point is this: a few months ago, VIBE magazine named, after an in-depth, reader-driven competition, Eminem as the Rapper of the Year. A lot of people took issue with this, but no one could deny that he was surely a valid candidate for the title. So, Eminem is riding high on most everybody's happy list, but if Eminem were to put out a crappy single or, even worse, a whole album of poop, HIS ASS WOULD HEAR ABOUT IT. The fans and the critics would demand more. Apologies would be called for, and his version of that apology would be another album that schooled everybody off the court. The fans would have spoken, and the artist would have upped his game, knowing that a bad single doesn't get played at the club, doesn't get played on the radio, and doesn't make him the shitload of cash he was hoping to make this year.

So quit worrying about whether or not your friends will no longer view you as a pure Gram Parsons fan if you suddenly dive into Snoop, or if you will be asked to step down from the presidency of the Ray LaMontagne fan club for bumpin' Luda out of your vintage Volvo.

And as a bonus favor to yourself: Watch Beyonce videos over and over and over...