Fat Sexy Man Make Funny, Poignant Movie

The other night I took the EXTREMELY nerdy step of going solo, with a ticket purchased in advance, to see the Chicago premiere of Michael Moore's new romantic comedy, Sicko. Though my rationalization of this moment was probably just a lame excuse to feed my biases, I felt that as somebody who works in healthcare, and will one of these days have a degree in public policy, I ought to know what the kids are talking about (sure enough, a patient I met at work asked me about it this morning).

The film delivered much of what I thought it would. First, especially because it was the premiere, I was confronted by a plethora of obnoxious liberals, many of whom predictably thought it appropriate to clap when good points were made (it was great during those random moments when so-so points were made, when that one guy started clapping, only to realize he had no back-up, abruptly stopping his applause. I love it when old people act like a little teenager backed into the corner by the bully who's telling them that drugs are cool, and then totally succumb to the peer pressure). Moore went over the top, squeezing the emotional juice out of every possible moment. He took quotes out of context, such as when he used some of the Nixon tapes to distort the fact that Nixon was actually interested in saving money on healthcare dollars, not necessarily in hopes of hurting the po' man. From what I know about HMO's, his portrayal of Kaiser Permanente as one of the A-grade villians in the healthcare game isn't necessarily accurate, as the Kaiser system is generally known to act like a microcosm of what a single-payer national health care system could look like.

Nevertheless, the guy makes some good points. The Cuba scenes, which seem to be the most controversial in the film, are really creatively made. Some of the people's stories are just awful to hear and see, too. What I found most interesting was his portrayals of other country's health care systems. Sure, the conservatives will jump ALL OVER Moore's love of the French, but when I see that Canadians are waiting an hour or less at the ER, the words "rationing care" start to sound like what we experience here in the land of Tom DeLay, not what's going on in other countries where people don't live in fear of getting sick. When I see a London doctor living in a fat London pad, driving a German-made automobile, I don't think about some sort of terrible brain drain that would afflict our medical schools if MD's aren't necessarily pulling upper 6- or low 7-figure salaries. It's a proven fact that we Americans spend more on health care than any other nation, yet we live shorter lives than people from all of these places that have free health care. Sure, blame McDonald's, because they're a big part of the problem, but doesn't our healthcare system deserve the most scrutiny?

By the way, there's NO FUCKING WAY we are getting nationalized health care any time soon.

Happy Weekend

With a newly rejuvenated Mad World thanks to Mister Lister, things are looking pretty good these days. Spending Saturday at former CEO's parents' house in the suburbs, and they're not there! Should be a mightily wasted pool party in clear 70 degree weather, so we might even be able to pretend that we're in LA for a day.

A couple things to note: internet radio is going silent on Tuesday the 26th in protest of higher fees due to drop in a couple of months. Internet radio may go silent forever with the pending cost increases, so please do your part to support them.

Finally, here's a quick look into the Fatah headquarters' torture chamber. This proves a lot of things. (1) The Fatah dudes now in the West Bank who are looting and causing anarchy are douchebags (2) They will blame Israel (3) Yassir Arafat was a terrorist (4) Hamas is certain to pimp out the torture chamber to make it that much worse, and finally (5) These are all things that George Bush and Dick Cheney have as well, so we're all inadvertently no better than any terrorists...Go figure

Greetings

I'd like to say hello and wish a hearty L'Chaim to Adam for inviting me to write my inane complaints on this lovely, lovely little blog he's got here. He and I go way back, back to when we were just stupid kids. It all started at Pokey's Boxing Academy in Canarsie, Brooklyn. We were 2 stupid teenagers, caught up in the usual ghetto diversions of drugs, crime, and skipping school. Then Pokey came into our lives and taught us about hard work, responsibility, discipline, honor, and kicking ass. He was a great man, and he will be missed by all those who were touched by his heart and his faith in the human condition. Just why he was named Pokey nobody knows; word has it he killed the last 2 people who asked.

Anyway, back to me and the owner of this e-stablishment. Through the years I managed to give Adam a few good ass-kickings in and out of the ring; I even managed to knock a few of his teeth out. Once he gave me stitches above my left eye, but we (mostly he) took it in stride, and we're the better for it.

I now find myself in this privileged position, procrastinating at the end of the normal workday, before I can begin to start calling people at their homes and harassing them to help me do the work it is that I do. No, I don't steal from Grannies, but at the moment I find myself with some free time to broadcast my thoughts to the [pathetic] few people reading this.

I'll start with a few lighter topics that aren't covered very much by the MSM -- race and politics. I just figured I'd start out real creatively, and since there is hardly any coverage of these topics in everything else you read, I knew this would be a real catchy way to rope you in. This morning, and every other morning, I read the NYTimes online. There was a good op-ed, which you probably can't read if you're not a TimesSelect member, that said that the Republicans are shooting themselves in the foot by being anti-immigrant. Even Trent Lott, that political wonderboy, came down on the people who want to deport all the Pablos and the Juanitas. The rationale behind the article is that you may want send Pablo and Juanita back to their pueblo in Guadalajara, but they fornicated after that coyote brought them across the border into El Paso, and 9 months later Juanita gave birth to little Manuel. Manuel is now nearing voting age, and he is not about to vote for the Republicans. Sure, Bush wants Manuel to stay so that he can mow lawns for cheap wages, thereby allowing more rich people from Texas to have more money to give to Dubya-related causes, but Georgy Boy is out of step with his party here, so if all goes according to plan then 2008 will be a very good election year for the Dem's. Unless Bloomberg runs, that is, in which case independent-minded Jew Democrats such as myself will waste our votes on some dude that will fuck things up for the Democrats.

(Right there I wanted to say some sort of nickname for the Democrats, but I don't know one besides "Dems". I wish they had some sort of term like GOP that's way catchy. Why, anyway, is it called the GOP? I don't get it. I'm now creating my first giveaway, for which the winner will receive a gift certificate to Nobody Beats the Wiz. Simply email and tell me why the hell it's called the GOP. Easy money, right? Actually, it's just a ploy on my part to get a little action, get the people talkin', about all the wisdom I'm dishing out in my inaugural post.)

Anyway, back to Juanita and Manuel. So I went to the Manu Chao show the other nite here in the Windy City and had a rockin' good time. Besides the fact that I felt he played a good show, I also realized that it was about 100 million degrees in the Aragon Ballroom, one of those cool old venues that was built before anybody had ever heard of AC. It was so hot in there that all of the white boys--and their girlfriends who had never heard of Manu Chao--cleared out of the searing heat in front of the stage. This development led to most of the space being taken up by little Manuel and his other 3,000 or so Latino friends who came out to the show. As I sat there, listening to the music and admiring the fact that I was actually at a show where not EVERYBODY was a white kid who grew up in the suburbs, I too came to the realization that there are lots of little Manuels running around, and even if they're as apathetic as the general American population when it comes to actually voting on election day, they could still be a very important part of the electorate for years to come. Now, many of you will say that the extra cannabis coarsing through my brain at that time caused me to jump to conclusions and start babbling all this crazy talk, and that little Manuel and his buddies probably were illegals who can't vote. There's a chance you may be right, but I'm gonna stick to my guns here. Manu Chao is not running any sort of salsa band that appeals to random Mexicanos from shitty little villages that nobody's ever heard of. This guy is pure Eurotrash, and it takes a certain sort of urban taste and background to dig his sound. My own bloodshot eyes saw little Manuel and his buddies looking more like normal American kids than like dirty immigrants with leprosy, and I hope they vote as soon as they possibly can. Otherwise our government is going to continue to fight the good fight for the people who need it most, like the oil companies.

8 days and Pentagon gays

It's been 8 days, but only upon learning that the Pentagon was trying to make a gay bomb could I return in the middle of such a busy evening of work. I'm not too sure if Rummy was trying to make the world a place full of sinners, therefore further enraging his constituency and provoking them to join the armed forces, or if he was high on meth, but that's really the only thing I could imagine:

Rummy hits the lightbulb meth crack pipe, gets a ragin boner, thinks about how this is what the underground clubs in New York City are known for, and then decides that a bunch of sex starved Arabs would totally go for it. I dare you to come up with another theory other than the fact that Rummy was craving some Cheney one cracked out evening, but seriously this is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. I believe normal people think of backstage at a fashion show as the only real gay bomb that could ever be pulled off, but this is just really weird.

I'm ashamed I didn't get to write more about the Roger Waters show from a couple weeks ago, but it was beyond amazing and well worth the $95 it cost. Since we're on the subject of gay men in the desert, I'd like to note three risque things that appeared on screen while listening to Dark Side of the Moon:

Jesus having sex, Jesus drinking, and "Mission Accomplished" during the climax of "Us and Them." I was most high and and there was definitely a lot of crazy shit, but those were sticking points. The "Impeach Bush" floating pig was pretty crazy, but I missed that for a bathroom break, but did manage to catch the astronaut floating around the crowd too. Very good stuff...

Flamin Island

Finally enjoying the fruits of my summer share in Fire Island, the place is a sweet little 32 mile long sand dune, with only 2 of the 18 or so neighborhoods actually being "gayborhoods." Other than the fabulous guys on the LIRR, they took a separate bus to the separate (presumably gay) ferry, and the rest of the weekend was straighter than Lindsay Lohan's momentary sobriety.

No one knows where the name Fire Island comes from, but one must assume that quite the debate has raged over whether the chicken or the egg came first in this situation, but really who cares because Fire Island's history is riddled with pirates and that makes for better conversation material, especially when it comes to the topic of gay pirates.

While the weekend was riddled with alcohol and a pleasant beach setting, with last week came the unfortunate news of the end of Slack LaLane. In this digital age we just assume more and more of everything will keep piling on those internets, but in reality a most humorous blog is really just an excuse for funny people not to use pen and paper, and all technology aside, Ace and company seem to dig the John Elway winning a Super Bowl exit versus the Vinny Testaverde defying the age gods exit. Although I guess I made that one up on my own, the comments are riddled with athletic analogies leading me to ponder the question: are there any good analogies relating to comedians out there, or are the highs and lows of an athletic career the ultimate comparison no matter the profession, culminating in a guaranteed retirement circa age 40 rather than just dying a slow death?

There's the possible Adam Sandler, as his comedies seem to now suck if he's not doing drama anyway (just as Testaverde went from playing football to mentoring the better players on the sidelines), but a more glamorous departure from comedy goes to Bill Cosby, who's gone from being the funniest black man in the 80's and 90's to the most critical black man of the new millenium. Is Ace setting himself up to become a pissed off pundit, or is he more like a Dave Chappelle I don't need any more of your goddam money kinda blogger? Has his moment with Fox News gone to the head, or should I agree that it's just become a total Schiavo (borrowed joke) for him not to hang up the track shoes now? Either way, Slack LaLane has been my favorite blog over the past couple of years, and I'm still sorry for throwing up all over Ace's couch 8 years ago back in Evanston, Illinois when I was a visiting younger brother.

The humor has been most offensive and the jokes way better than mine, so a shoutout to a most upsetting (but not disappointing) finish of a most entertaining blog. I guess I've answered my own question now by realizing that continuing his blogging skills in a musical environment over at Hidden Track means that if he didn't have a day job, he'd just be some trust fund hipster baby who tried out comedy, thought it sucks, and then picked up a guitar to continue on his next half-assed attempt of a new venture. But rest assured Ace has been using his whole ass unlike Terri Schiavo's 1/13th of a brain, so I'm sure he will reap the benefits of being a good writer and going to many a live music shindigs.

In these trying times we must not forget others who have also been less fortunate, including Saul Hammerstein's "Annals of a Single Jew" that I have been too lazy to take off of my links section. His male version of Sex and the City has been most enjoyable and is missed, as those are some escapades that most fools cannot put on paper with such suaveness and certainty. To check out his legacy that lives on, catch him over at College Candy

That's all for now