Month: November 2005

So I got the new Wilco CD, Kicking Television: Live in Chicago. It sounds great, and has one of the most incredible version of Spiders (Kidsmoke) I’ve ever heard, but it’s not much different from any other soundboard recording from the same tour earlier this year. I’m not ashamed to admit that I have a pile of recordings from that tour, because I am that big of a Wilco geek. I even picked up the actual CD, rather than buying it from the iTunes Music Store, hoping for a booklet or something inside, but there wasn’t anything that made me glad I’d driven all the way to the store for it. Still, it’s a great recording that Wilco geeks will probably enjoy, and the best reason to buy this CD is because you love the band and want to support them.

I finally watched 28 Days Later last night. I enjoyed it, but I think it had been built up way too much by my friends, because it didn’t blow me away like I was expecting it to. I wouldn’t consider it a zombie movie, at all. First of all, I don’t consider it a true zombie movie. That’s not to suggest that it’s a bad movie, it’s just the zombie elitist in me snorting from behind a too-tight sweaty T-shirt: When the infected die, they’re dead. The end. If they were traditional zombies, they’d be coming to get you, Barbara. They also don’t eat the living, they’re just out there trying to kill everything that moves and spread the infection. I really liked that, and I think the zombie comparisons aren’t necessary. (Yes, I know that Danny Boyle called it a "reimagining" of the zombie films, so I’ll defer to him on this point, but like a good nerd, I’m needed to snort and argue about it a whole lot, first, to feel important.) 

I really loved the way the movie looked, and I loved the score. I thought the performances were all fantastic, and the movie was truly scary and suspenseful . . . but when they got to the whole thing with the soldiers, I felt like the story took an unexpected turn, jumped onto a different track, and became and entirely different movie. Actually, now that I think about it, I suppose it could be an additional examination of how different people reacted to the epidemic . . . but it didn’t feel right to me in the context of the film. I watched all the alternative endings, and I really liked the one that ends with the two girls walking down the hospital corridor, without the coda.

It’s my turn to pull the early shift today, which means I get to see the sun rise this morning.

It also means that I get to see the full moon on its way down the Western sky, a brilliant white orb in a that part of the sky that’s still dark, though the Eastern horizon was on fire.

(Did anyone see the conjunction of the moon and Mars the other night? And could the skies over Los Angeles be any clearer the last few days?)

There isn’t a cloud in the sky, it’s already warming up out there, and the dull roar of the freeway was oddly comforting as I walked my dogs around the dewy grass in the back yard. The birds haven’t even woken up, yet.

And now . . . coffee and toast.

I first saw Star Wars in 1977, and watched Star Trek reruns in afternoon syndication throughout the early 1980s. I started reading SciFi literature around sixth grade, and by the time I discovered Larry Niven in high school, I was a full-on Sci-Fi Geek.

During the production of TNG, I could have very easily lost my love of Sci-Fi, because creating it was now my job (here is the part where I plug Just A Geek, because I talk about that conflict an awful lot in it. Thank you for your indulgence.) However, right around the second season of TNG, I officially became A Gamer, and serendipitously discovered The Prisoner and graphic novels like Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns. Whenever the joy of Sci-Fi was threatened by the daily grind of working on TNG, I picked up a comic, or went to The Village, played GURPS or painted Warhammer 40K Space Marines. To this day, I am one of the only (if not the only) actors you’ll find shopping for nerdy T-shirts and technical manuals in the dealer’s room, minutes before I go onstage at the convention. (And don’t think for a second that I’ve ever stopped counting my blessings for that!)

My point is, Sci-Fi always provided an escape for me, even when it was an escape from creating Sci-Fi, and though I liked other genres, especially horror and fantasy, nothing ever captured my imagination or stimulated my intellect like Sci-Fi did (and does.) I’ve always tried to explain to people that I love it because good Sci-Fi (not that action movie bullshit that pretends to be Sci-Fi) allows us to look at our world, and the human condition, in a safe way that still challenges us, but I’ve always felt that my explaination falls a little bit short.

I’ve been re-reading Ron Moore’s Battlestar Galactica blog today, and Ron explains, perfectly, not only why I love Sci-Fi but why Battlestar Galactica is the best Sci-Fi series in the history of the universe:

Galactica is both mirror and prism through which to view our world. It attempts to mirror the complexities of our lives and our society in turbulent times, while at the same time reflecting and bending that view in order to allow us to extrapolate on notions present in contemporary society but which have not yet come to pass, i.e. a true artificial intelligence becoming self-aware and the existential questions it raises. Our goal is to examine contemporary culture and society, to challenge (and sometimes provoke) our audience, but not to provide easy answers to complex problems.

Frakkin’ A, Ron.

WWdN reader Seymore pointed me to this story in The Onion that hits a little close to home:

Metal Council Convenes To Discuss ‘Metal Hand Sign’ Abuse

In an emergency session Tuesday, members of the Supreme Metal Council
strongly condemned the increasing use of the metal hand sign in lay
society, claiming that its meaning has become perverted by overuse.

"The metal sign, or ‘sign of the goat,’ has all but lost its impact
as a token of respectful recognition for something truly ‘rocking’ or
‘metal,’" SMC president Terence "Geezer" Butler said. According to
Butler, members are upset that their sacred gesture is being used to
acknowledge and celebrate "favorable but clearly non-metal events."

"We have all heard the reports of people using it to greet their
in-laws, or after starting their lawn mowers with a single pull,"
Butler said. "But recently it was brought to our attention that someone
used the gesture in a Texas convenience store after snagging the last
box of carrot cakes. This simply won’t do."

"I remember a time not long ago when the Devil Horns were reserved
for only the most righteous of person, deed, or riff," Grand Elder
Lemmy Kilmister said. "To see someone throwing the horns to his mate at
the launderette because the clothes dryer came to a full stop just as
he finished reading his copy of Circus… It breaks my heart."

Nodding in silent agreement were council members Adalwolfa, a
curvaceous Frank Frazetta-drawn Teutonic she-warrior magically brought
to life by the council, and the spirit of slain Pantera guitarist
"Dimebag" Darrell Abbott.

Of course, because I am a good ‘merican, I don’t recognize the legitimacy of any governing body which I can’t manipulate or otherwise control, so I am not afraid of any resolutions which may come out of this so-called ‘council.’

Rock. \m/