2001-08-18 - 12:17 a.m.
I would have updated earlier today, but my net access went kablooey this afternoon and only just came up again about an hour ago. Which is just as well, actually--I�ve been deep in one of my I-have-no-use-for-the-bulk-of-humanity states of mind and you don�t want me subjecting you to all that venom and negativity, trust me. It all started with the lazy-ass old fart at the Unocal station who refused to pump gas for me yesterday because he claimed he was all alone there and he claimed he "couldn�t leave his post" (hey, buttwipe, you�re at a gas station, not fucking Fort Knox) and continued today with the SUV mom whose Ford Explorer almost took the door off my van at the library and who then brought her yowling litter of kids inside and stood around obliviously as her spawn ran noisily through the stacks annoying me and everyone else there. Whatever happened to "children should be seen and not heard"? I�m down with that last part--it�s the "seen" part I have a problem with.
It�s a good thing I�m not an all-powerful evil overlord yet. I�d probably lay waste to entire cities every time I had a fit of pique like this. By now I bet there�d be a big glassy hole in the ground where Bakersfield or Fresno used to be.
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There�s only one way to un-harsh my mellow and wipe the snarl off my face at such times: drink two glasses of white wine and eat some leftover risotto. Then go and see Ghost World.
What a fun film. The two girls� continuous stream of snark might have become tiresome at any other time, but tonight it fit my mood perfectly. Steve Buscemi�s role, meanwhile, offers irrefutable proof that yes, it is possible to base a successful film career on being the Ugliest Living Man in Motion Pictures. And I mean that only in the nicest way.
The truly funny part, however, came before the film even started, when the theater ran this bizarre trailer/ad/thing with Frank Whaley ranting about how there are way too many movies made that are based on comic books--this, right before a movie that�s based on a comic book. How can I stay made at the human race when it provides me with ironic little moments like that?
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So on Wednesday night, before going to see Spinal Tap, Ed and I are hanging out watching the Elias Sandoval episode of the original Star Trek (aka "This Side of Paradise," aka the "I�m not going back, Jim" episode, aka The One with the Spores, aka The One Where Spock Hangs Upside-Down from a Tree and Finally Gets Some Poontang) when we both find ourselves asking the same identical question: Why the hell is Kirk trying to kick everyone off of Omicron Ceti 3 in the first place? The people there are blissfully happy, they don�t have to work, the spores keep them healthy and protect them against Berthold rays, whatever those are--so why is Kirk being such a prick about it? The episode offers up some platitudes about how the colonists aren�t "building" anything and that it�s Man�s Nature to Fight for Survival, but it�s not very convincing about it. (It was no more convincing any of the 85 million times I�ve seen that episode in the last 30-plus years, of course, but I wasn�t on Diaryland then so I couldn�t remark on it. So there.)
This prompted a rather spirited discussion between Ed and me about whether either of us would actually want to live in that kind of environment for any length of time. Personally, I wouldn�t, but not because I prefer Gene Roddenberry�s antiseptic mid-�60s version of THE FUTURE--I just think I�d eventually get so goddamn bored that I�d either stick needles in my eyes or start beheading people with a shovel.
I guess that�s where the happy spores come in. They�re like Ecstacy, only they don�t leach all the water out of your body and compel you to suck on a pacifier and wear Day-Glo outfits. Score one for the spores.
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MST3K tomorrow. Tattoo Sunday. Sleep now.
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