Why You Should Never Peak Before Your Time

Who here remembers a man named "Orson Welles?"

That many, huh?

In case you couldn't tell, I was lamenting the fact that other than film students and general movie snobs, Orson Welles is not remembered much outside his Citizen Kane masterpiece. And to those of you who disagree with my use of the word "masterpiece" to describe Citizen Kane, well, you can go off and write your own blogs refuting me, can't you? The fact of the matter is that Welles wrote that movie when he was 26. Let me repeat that because I feel you aren't paying attention: He was 26. Yeah, he made a movie that changed the face of the film industry when he was only ten years removed from getting his learner's permit... Think about that.

If you're hip then maybe you also remember Orson Welles from his fantastic trolling of the world one Halloween night when he broadcast H.G. Wells' book The War of the Worlds and people completely and legitimately lost their collective shit. They believed an alien invasion was happening right here on Earth despite the fact that none of them seemed to look outside the window and see a huge floating ship sucking the life-force jelly out of people... I guess it was a simpler time back then, back when there were shoe-shine guys on every corner and you could pay a penny for a newspaper and still get change back.

Anyway, I'm running up on blog space for the day, but I just wanted to let you know the story of Orson, because, like many epic legends and myths of our culture, I feel that it's an important one to understand.

So, you're a young guy who just finished making a movie that is a technical and revolutionary masterpiece and you would imagine that the world is, quite literally, your oyster. For real. Like, you could probably order a Whopper at a McDonald's and they'll give it to you. And why wouldn't they? You made Citizen Kane. You made this image...

courtesy of whitecitycinema.com

the background image of every English major's tumblr account for all time. You could probably demand midgets jousting on rhinos wearing sweet rhino saddles if you wanted to. YOU MADE CITIZEN KANE.

Anyway, do you think anything like this happened to Mr. Orson? He had nothing but a bright future and the world ahead of him. If you were alive in 1941 and could transport yourself 40 years in the future, what would you imagine? Would you imagine Mr. Welles would perhaps have a statue in every major city by that time? Or maybe he would have made a dozen or so excellent and fantastic movies? Or maybe even he would have a house just for his Oscar collection?

You could guess that. But then you'd be wrong.

This is what happened to him.

Did you watch that video?

No?

Watch it.

Like, seriously, watch it.

Now, I could spend the rest of my time on this Earth watching this clip over and over, and I will do a breakdown of this in a future post (like, the next one, probably) but just like Beowulf who eventually falls to a fiery dragon, every hero must have a grand and glorious death. And this, my friends, is the most glorious end to the saddest story of a young genius. A man who was trained to be the best, was the best, peaked way too early, and had a slow, lingering fall into the ash pile of tears and regret.

Ah, the French.

We Are the Hollow Men

I've done some travels. "Real-World" travels, even. Don't ask where I've been though... I was going to say something else but I'll just leave it at that for now.

Anyway, during my awesome "real-world" travels, I picked up a book in a used bookstore that caught my eye and I just had to have it. It's called The Hollow Earth by a man named (take a deep breath) Dr. Raymond Bernard, A.B., M.A., Ph.D.

Don't believe me? Here it is:

Besides having a fairly long and intricate name, the thing was a small red tome that drew my eye, and on the back it details what this 191 page book is all about. Namely, (ahem):

REVEALED!

The Underground World of Supermen Discovered Under the North Pole.

Now I know that that's enough for most of you to jump on this and buy it, but the most amazing thing about this book is that insane wackiness like this isn't even "hidden" on the back page; a fuller account of the contents is actually right on the front cover, just under Dr. Raymond Bernard's name:

Dr. Raymond Bernard... Says that the true home of the flying saucers is a huge underground world whose entrance is at the North Polar opening... He believes that in the hollow interior of the Earth lives a super-race which wants nothing to do with man on the surface. They launched their flying saucers only after man threatened the world with A-bombs.

Interesting that for people who don't want anything to do with us surface dwellers, they seem to visit us with flying saucers about once every week in the Ozarks. In some way, I can imagine this "Doctor" to be a tortured genius type, working up the courage every night to pound the keys of his typewriter so he can publish this grand and brave expose on the truth. For me, though, the only really "brave" thing about this idea is that it is placed right on the front cover. Not to be snarky or mean, but didn't you kind of just ruin the whole book for us? This isn't some sort of Shakespearean play where the prologue tells you what's going to happen and then you watch in awe (and boredom) as it plays out before your eyes. This isn't Shakespearean; why would I read this book now? For facts? If I wanted facts I wouldn't be reading something called The Hollow Earth, would I?

Also, a quick Google search of the infamous, multi-titled doctor reveals, well, that he isn't really a "doctor" at all. His name is really Walter Siegmeister who (according to Wikipedia) was an alternate health and esoteric teacher who formed part of the alternate reality subculture... Well, those credentials are almost as good as a medical degree.

Anyway, I think this post is far long enough without me having to get into the nitty-gritty of the theory. You know, I once read that the average blog post should only be 500 words? Weird, huh? Most of mine are far longer. Oh, well, I guess the attention span of the public is becoming worse and worse.

Stay weird.

This is the greatest Shakespeare of all time.

What's up, guys?

Trolling the internet for awesomeness seems to be a deed and a desire that, like the sirens' call in Odyssey, I must listen to even while strapped to the mast of the ship, tearing and rending the ropes that hold me (thank you, thank you for your praise... As you can see, someone wemt to community college...)

And nothing, but nothing says badassery than a super short post with a video in it, eh? But of course. I agree.

I know that I alluded to this video earlier - if you remember my post about William Shatner -  but it had been awhile since I have actually seen this in its full majesty, so here is William Shatner performing William Shakespeare's Hamlet. Yes...

Just one word: Yes.

All of it is win. Pure and unadulterated win. Even the background laser-ish noises are winning.

Without much further ado (inside joke intended) here it is:

Society

What's up guys?

I'm experimenting with having a tremendous existential breakdown. It's interesting, but it seems to suck away a lot of time that I would use fighting crime, writing or surfing the interwebs for anything interesting or useful to relay to you all.

But, in that same existential vein, here's a video I found about why society - for a lack of a better term - sucks. If you stick through the awkward beginning laughs, many of the points he makes are actually pretty cogent and interesting. I'm normally not a fan of Craig Ferguson, but this little monologue is a good one.

Have fun and sleep tight.

Oh, also, I'll throw up a Louis C.K. bit that helps explain a little bit about society as well, in case you weren't convinced of whatever it is I'm trying to say.

The almost unbearable brutality of "Sonic the Hedgehog"

I spend a lot of my time doing stuff that helps me earn a living. I also spend a lot of my time playing video games and trying my best to beat inane, meaningless achievements in them so I can feel momentarily awesome and useful. Sonic the Hedgehog has been my latest quest, and I must say that as of yesterday, at 3:45 in the morning, I destroyed that game...

Well, I got all of the Xbox live arcade achievements for it, that is. Yes, a wonderful childhood game of mine was put up for sale and I got it, happily eager to relive my joyous childhood. Needless to say, after about twenty minutes of it, the game soured and poisoned everything I held dear to that game. Yes, I understand that to make the game more profitable/marketable you need to add these dumb "achievements" in there, but did you really have to make them for this game? Come on, guys.

Because this is the unbearable brutality you make us - the gamers who have these weird, OCD-esque qualities about our achievement scoring - do. You force us to perform, like a circus monkey,  ridiculous things that the original programmers of the game never would have imagined us doing. Who really needs to beat Sonic the Hedgehog in under forty minutes? Really?

But it doesn't matter, because I earned my 200 gamerscore and can now rest easy. Except that Xbox just likes to shit over all of these "perfect score" gamers and makes it so that as soon as you take a step in a video game you get an achievement so now you can't erase the game from your history and are FORCED to play such putrid games such as Fairytale Fights six times to get all of the achievements because your nephews came over one day and played Xbox when you were gone and brought their game to play and used your gamertag to play it...

But, whatever, I'm not bitter.

Rock-It Man

In the hallowed halls of awesomeness, there are three immovable, unchangeable statues dedicated to the patron saints of awesome. The three are, of course: Snake Plissken, the bad-ass ex-criminal from "Escape of New York" fame who influenced yet still surpasses all modern day bad-asses who dare to attempt to touch our hearts; Han Solo, the boyish and clever rouge who is the coolest guy not just on Earth, but in the whole fucking galaxy; and the last is William Shatner, the most awesome rouge of all who was the first and best captain of the Starship Enterprise.

The first two need no further introduction; let's take a moment and look at how baller Shatner is.

I don't know if you're familiar with it, but after Star Trek, William Shatner proceeded to embark on a "serious" acting career, often performing Shakespearean monologues on cassette tapes and records. He would also redo modern day songs in spoken word format in some of the most brilliant acting ever recorded on film; Al Pacino, Jimmy Stewart and Gary Cooper would do well to take some lessons from this man. 

Well, in case you don't believe me, check out this AMAZING clip of Shatner singing Elton John's "Rocket Man", which is the perfect epitome of his spoken song/Shakespearean era. He is in perfect form here - a tiger ready to pounce. His silky voice perfectly floats above the cacophonous din with sinewy ease. The special effects are amazing as well, boasting some of the most awe-inspiring effects that even George Lucas would salivate with jealousy.

And thus, without further ado, William Shatner sings "Rocket Man"... (by the way, Family Guy also parodied this, in case you thought that this looked familiar.)

Even though this is hilarious in its awfulness, I do give props to William Shatner for taking this whole "bad acting thing" in stride and then using it, like a Kung-Fu master, to his advantage, making a career out of it much in the same vein as Adam West. 

So, here's to you, Shatner! Enjoy your place in the hall of awesome. You deserve it.

What the Hell is this "Uncle Dolan" Madness?

As I am sure you are aware (unless you hail from Kansas, Arkansas, Arizona or the like) that evolution is in full swing in every aspect of life. Trees, opinions, crabs... Even Freudian thoughts are in constant evolutionary flux. But what about those things that we really care about? Do those things have to evolve?

The answer (and here there should be the feeling of a door hitting you in the face) is YES! Unfortunately. 

Why this diatribe? Well, for me, I love the internet meme of Rage Comics, and there has been an interesting offshoot, a revolution - an E-volution, if you will - in them. They are called, well, "Uncle Dolan Comics." 

For example, this is a Dolan comic:

What are they? Well, imagine Donald Duck is drawn like he has Downs, and then imagine that that drawing is done by someone who has one hand, and that hand has four broken fingers on it. Add some sexually perverse profanity and include some horrible grammar and misspellings and BOOM. Uncle Dolan. Originally, I believe that the characters were exclusively Disney ones, but it's not uncommon to see Loony Tunes characters interacting with Disney, and vice versa.

Personally, I don't mind the comics - in fact, I like them. I wouldn't say that I looooooove them, but they are entertaining once you "get" them. I also like the fact that they stretch the idea of what the English language is through the weird and unusual spellings in the comics. At first, I was drawn to the idea of Rage Comics because you could have an entire story with very nuanced feelings without words and with only images and agreed upon meanings of certain facial expressions. It was an awesome idea, and Dolan pushes that idea further by actually making the language itself weird.

Anyway, that's how I justify reading a Dolan comic that has him raping Goofy for the fourteenth time.

Go check 'em out.

Dolan on Know Your Meme:

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/dolan