Rushfield Babylon

Fans say consistency, intensity, strong stage presence and a chance to reminisce on better times are all reasons why the Scorpions’ brand of heavy metal and hard rock has outlasted trendy 1980s hair metal, 1990s grunge and 2000s rap rock.

One of the many highlights of the show was a James Kottak drum solo that took the audience through the band’s decades of rock using a creative reenactment of its album covers on three massive screens.

Why are we not all at this show tonight?

Violence erupted at Comic-Con in San Diego’s Convention Center Saturday, July 24.

One fan in a Harry Potter shirt allegedly stabbed another guy just under the eye when one of them refused to switch seats in Hall H.

I suppose somewhere out there, waiting for him at home there’s a thousand young women in summer camp t-shirts who find it just swooningly endearing that he is so passionate about Harry Potter that he’s willing to stab someone in an eye to get a better seat at the panel discussion?

Wake up hipsters!  Geek chic is just one step removed from psychotic hoarder chic! 

1. Denial: Rewriting is the easy part.  It takes care of itself.  It’s really just clerical not actual writing.  And it’s not due till Tues.  That’s next week = 2 weeks away. Hey, have I watered the plants since lunchtime.

2. Anger:  Revisions!?!  Did Shakespeare take revisions?  Did Tolstoy take revisions!  This is about a process; how dare you impose deadlines on my creativity.

3. Bargaining: If i just go to the market, get a coffee, watch this show and surf the web for just maybe 15 - 45 minutes, then I’ll sit down and rewrite the whole darn thing. I promise. Hey, maybe I can turn this moment into a Tumblr post!  That’s like publicity, right?

4. Depression: This is the worst book ever written.  What’s the point of revising garbage?  Is revised crap not crap.

5. Acceptance: I’m 40 years old and have no skills. If I can’t finish this book, even 7-11 won’t hire me.

Unlike the rest of the internet which has been debating the spinny thing for a week now, I just saw Inception tonight, so I wont clutter up the web with my review of it, except to say about AO Scott’s review of the film: Good God man, can you get over yourself for just one day maybe?

But though there is a lot to see in “Inception,” there is nothing that counts as genuine vision. Mr. Nolan’s idea of the mind is too literal, too logical, too rule-bound to allow the full measure of madness — the risk of real confusion, of delirium, of ineffable ambiguity — that this subject requires. The unconscious, as Freud (and Hitchcock, and a lot of other great filmmakers) knew, is a supremely unruly place, a maze of inadmissible desires, scrambled secrets, jokes and fears. If Mr. Nolan can’t quite reach this place, that may be because his access is blocked by the very medium he deploys with such skill.

And the limitations of “Inception” may suggest the limits not only of this very talented director, but also of his chosen art form at this moment in its history. Our dreams feed the movies. The movies feed our dreams. But somehow, our imaginations are still hungry.

I mean, Holy Mackeral.  Yes, yes, Nolan’s not Tarkovsky or Antonioni, and sure the fanboys get a bit overheated, but how many 200 million dollar budget movies do you get these days that actually make the audience do some math themselves, don’t explain every plot point 50 times and telegraph it miles in advance, actually tell the story through visual clues, how many times does that happen a year that you can afford to sneeze at it and sigh, “Well, I suppose, this is what passes for greatness, so we’ll have to be content…”

I don’t think it’s the best movie in the history of the world, its not even my best movie of the dismal year, but its a movie that’s trying to do things.  Whereas, run your eyes over the rest of this year’s top grossing non-animated films: the uninspired Alice In Wonderland, Iron Man 2, Twilight:Eclipse, The Karate Kid,  Clash of the Titans, Grown Ups. Shutter Island (Yay for that at least), The Last Airbender, Valentines Day…

Given that this is the state of the world, might there not be a few better opportunities to bemoan this state than in your review of the one film that’s actually’s based on an original idea - and ideas - trying to do stuff and doesn’t treat its audience like a bunch of English as a second language lobotomy outpatients who have to be reached through a thorazine haze. 

Beyond that I am impressed to find that my p was on the money. 

When my book is done

When my book is done

What delights my life shall unfurl

I’ll sit up ‘till dawn’s bow

Watching old episodes of JWoww

And it wont matter that i’ve seen 'em 

When my book is done.

When my book is done

When my book is done

Nary a phone call will I take

About someone named Paula

And her tragic downfalla

Nor any of her fellow judges 

When my book is done.

When my book is done

When my book is done

My laptop I will burn at the stake

And if again to writing I should turn

I’ll poke out my eyes

And binge on chili fries

If I should think of media again

When my book is done.

When my book is done

When my book is done

My cat will cry out in rage

Because by night and by day

In his spot I shall lay

Asleep on the couch

When my book is done.