This past week was monumental as the Senate struck down that bs amnesty bill which was being sold to us as "comprehensive immigration reform". Anyone who supported it, and that includes President Bush, is clueless. If anyone in Washington sides with Ted Kennedy on something, you know it's the wrong position. And what cracked me up was hearing Kennedy whine and moan like a spoiled brat when he was screaming about how those who are against this bill never say what they are for. Let me correct him...those spineless wimps in Washington never say what they are for...we the people have been screaming about it for a long time. We want English as the official language...we want secure borders...we want those here illegally to be sent home...does that answer his question? I swear, for a senior Senator he sure is a dumbass. But he's a liberal all the way...and liberals are basically morons with no grasp on reality. Think about it...the Presidential candidates who are liberals all support such "important" issues as global warming, the concept of universal health coverage where we all pay for someone else's doctor's bills, same-sex marriage and being "pro-choice" which both basically means anyone can conduct themselves in the most morally bankrupt ways and still feel ok with themselves. Oh, and let's not forget the "illegal" war in Iraq they all voted for. "Bush lied about WMD's!!!!" is what they scream about...but yet say how stupid he is. If he's so stupid, then how did all you braniac liberals who voted for it get so easily deceived? Man...you guys must be about as sharp as a bag of wet liver. I thought you liberals in Washington were supposed to be so enlightened...yet by being "misled" by this President, I would think you're a bunch of idiots...but hey, who am I, right? After all, I'm just a serf who's supposed to pay more and more taxes to support the lazy people who don't want to do anything to better themselves.
Let me set the record straight...bums piss me off. Yes, I am a Christian...and that means I do try to help out those who are less fortunate...but it doesn't mean I have to support some addict. For example, a couple of years ago I stopped at an Exxon on the way home from work to get some gas. A dude was at the front door and asked me for some money for food. I told him I would go inside and buy him something to eat. He seemed shocked...and then told me I didn't need to go out of my way and that I could just give him a couple of dollars. I told him it was no problem and that if he needed something to eat I would go in the store and buy it. He kept protesting that...and then just kept asking for the money. Guess what...he got nothing from me. I have run across this time and time again...especially since my company moved to an office in downtown Nashville. Not a day goes by where someone asks for money while I'm walking to the building or going to get some lunch. Guess how many times I give them money...never. I learned that people who really want help will walk two friggin blocks to the mission for a meal and a place to sleep...and hopefully get their lives on track. Those who just want money are junkies or whatever, and I am not going to give them a dime. Awww...am I being cold-blooded? Too bad...if someone really wants help they only have to walk two blocks. The ones I see all the time on the same street corners are bums who only want money to feed whatever addiction they have...the ones who are homeless and want to make things better will walk two blocks to the mission. The people I see every day asking for money...and it's usually the same ones...are bums and leeches. Seriously, I have seen the same handful now for about a year, and I just keep on going. Of course now that "South Park" did an episode where they parodied "Dawn of the Dead" starring bums, I laugh thinking about the show every time I see someone asking for change. Again, I have no problem with helping someone out who honestly needs it, but when I see the same guy at the bottom of the exit for 2nd and 4th for about a year, I really have to ask myself if giving that guy money will honestly help him. One of the funniest was when my band was playing a gig at The Muse a few months back, and while we were outside unloading equipment this dude comes up and says "Hey guys, I'll be honest, can I have some money so I can buy some crack?" No lie, that's what he said. I told him I appreciated the honesty, but the answer was no. I was actually going to talk a little more to him, but he just ran off. It was quite strange.
Speaking of bums, I was basically a bum this weekend. I have been so friggin busy over the last several weeks, and had two very big deadlines at work this past week with the end of the quarter. So when Friday came around, I knew I had no obligations for anything this past weekend, and I was determined to have a mini-slug fest. Let me put it this way, the only thing I did this weekend that could even be construed as productive was two loads of laundry. Oh, I did run to the grocery store once to stock up on Coke Zero...but other than those two monumental events, I did nothing but sleep, play video games, watch movies, and play with the dogs...that was it...and it was everything I could have hoped for...hahaha. I watched a bunch of movies, so if you want some quick reviews, here you go:
1) Shooter - AWESOME movie. As I sat there munching down on Hot Pockets Saturday morning watching this, I thought to myself how it was exactly the movie I needed. It's got it all - guns, explosions, government conspiracies,dudes getting their heads blown away from a mile away, and even a cute girl with a nice body who wasn't the token "strong female" that had to save the day. The only drawback was it had that Castro and Chavez lover Danny Glover in it, but outside of him it rocked! The great thing about it was that it was a somewhat original idea for a movie. And what I really found impressive was watching the bonus stuff. Mark Wahlberg spent several days with a Marine sniper to learn all sorts of details from...and they showed him on the range. After two days he was picking off targets at 1100 yards away. On his first day they showed the targets he hit, and his triangulation was pretty incredible. The sniper who was working with him said he was pretty blown away by how good Wahlberg was. I have to brag for a minute and say I'm a pretty incredible shot with a rifle...I scored expert on a National Guard firing range where I hit 35 out of 36 targets. The only target I missed was when I shot a pop-up target in the lane next to me. The way they were staggered, I didn't know if it was mine or not, so I shot it. So basically everything I shot at I hit. In fact, I even nailed the 300 meter target and I wasn't using a scope. I still have the medal from it, I was pretty proud of myself. It just runs in the family...my dad was a heck of a shot when he was in the Army, and he taught me as a kid how to hold a rifle, breathing tips, all that. Wait, I was talking about the movie...so yeah it kicked ass!
2) Dead Silence - Loved it. Now normally I don't dig ghost story movies because I don't believe in ghosts, so they do nothing for me. However, this one had the second creepiest thing as the focal point. Number one on the list are clowns, and number two are ventriloquist dolls. I HATE those things. It goes back to when I was a kid and there was a movies called "Magic" starring Anthony Hopkins. Whenever that ad would come on TV it freaked me out. It was this hideous ventriloquist doll saying in a high-pitched voice "Abra Cadabra I sit on his knee, presto chango now he is me, hocus pocus he puts me to bed, magic is fun and now he is dead" or something very close to it as the camera zooms in on it's eyes. I watched the movie years later and thought it sucked, but as a little kid that ad scared the crap out of me and since then I've always had this hatred for those friggin dolls. Oh, and to top things off, there's a pretty creepy scene with a ventriloquist doll that's a CLOWN of all things. Yes, my two biggest fears rolled into one neat little package...hahaha. I really liked the movie though...it was written by the dudes who have done the "Saw" movies, and those guys know how to write those "holy crap I never saw THAT coming" kind of endings.
3) Black Snake Moan - Incredible! I didn't know much about this movie at all, so I had no clue what to expect. But since Samuel L. Jackson was starring in it, I figured I would check it out. Wow...I was blown away. This is one of those movies that people can sit around and talk about all sorts of underlying themes that were in it. It was a great story, and pretty original too which is a huge plus. I think what I really loved about it was that it showed just how broken we all can be, and how there's some semblance of decency striving to get out in a lot of people who are in some screwed up lives. One scene that was great was when Jackson is playing his guitar while a thunderstorm starts raging outside, and the song is what is keeping the character of Rae comforted. I just loved how the song, while simple as heck, just started to have so much guts to it as the storm built in intensity, along with Rae's fears and doubts. Jackson just has this incredible presence, and Christina Ricci was pretty incredible too. And one thing I have to say, even though Justin Timberlake is some pop-star pinup boy, this guy is a really good actor. I watched "Alpha Dog" a few weeks ago and he was pretty good in that. In this movie, he did a great job. The thing about this movie is that it's an easy to follow yet complex story about a handful of people in a small town. I honestly didn't want it to end because I was so wrapped up in their lives. I can't believe I didn't hear more about this film...it is SO well written and acted. Plus, I loved how much faith played into everything. When Rae is talking to the preacher is a conversation that I think everyone should hear.
4) Gangs of the Dead - Not too bad. Now I love my zombie movies, and am almost willing to give any of them a chance to see if I can find that diamond in the rough like I did with "Severed - Forest of the Dead". If you can overlook some bad acting and production quality, it's a really good zombie movie. It's got everything one could want in a zombie movie - people being eaten, guns, explosions, and even the member of the group who gets bit where some are saying just go ahead and shoot him, but his buds won't do it. You can imagine how that goes down...haha. If these guys had a bigger budget, it could have been great...but as an indie film it was pretty good. Definitely better than 90% of the crap zombie movies I've sat through.
5) Isolation - yawwwn. The premise seemed interesting...a remote farm with an infected animal and the people there come under attack of the virus plaguing the animals. Slick production and everything...but man I was ready to take a nap. I watched it all the way through while reading the latest edition of Black Belt Magazine. Plus, one of the main guys was this dude who played Thomas in the NBC mini-series "Jesus" several years ago, so I couldn't view him as anyone but Thomas. In fact, every time I watch a movie with Jeremy Sisto who played Jesus in that same mini-series, it's tough to distance him from that. Funny thing was when I watched "Unknown" a while back and Jeremy Sisto and James Caviezel (the guy that played Jesus in "The Passion of The Christ") were both in it, I was caught up in the fact that the two guys who played Jesus in my favorite movies made about Christ were in the same movie...quite weird. Anyway, "Isolation" sucked.
I did try to watch a movie called "Days of Glory" Friday night, but cut it off after about 30 minutes. It's a World War II movie that got a lot of praise, so I thought I'd watch it. It did nothing but piss me off. The plot is about 4 guys from North Africa who join the French army. Well guess what...the four guys are Muslims...and guess what else...they are the only people with any sense of honor while the evil white man is treating them horribly. The one scene that had me going "oh screw this" was when two French soldiers are standing over the body of a dead Nazi. One of them takes his rifle butt and starts caving the body's jaw in, for whatever reason, and Johnny Muslim screams at him to stop. Johnny Muslim then tells him that they aren't savages, they're soldiers. So the guy who follows a religion where cutting the heads off of infidels is lecturing someone else about being a savage. Whatever. The movie was just too agenda driven for my taste, so I just turned it off. It reminded me of the first time I watched "Dances With Wolves" back when it came out. The movie pissed me off. Why? There was one scene where after Costner's character is captured by the Americans and one of the soldiers has his journal. Him and another soldier are taking a dump in the bushes and the other asks for some paper. The soldier with the journal starts to tear some pages out and then asks the other if he can read, to which the guy says "you know I can't read". That's the movie in a nutshell. The evil and stupid white man going after these peaceful Indians who never hurt anyone. Now I really have no problem if the white dudes are portrayed as morons...it's not like education was stressed then. But my problem comes when the stereotypes veer too far from fact. That movie made it seem like all the Indians wanted was to be left alone to live in peace...when reality suggests otherwise. I can't remember off the top of my head, but I think it was the Blackfoot and Sioux tribe that had some brutal conflicts. One tribe would target the women and children of the other tribe when fighting so they couldn't reproduce. Ever heard the term "Meliah Rage"? That was when one tribe would get so hopped up on drugs they could go to war against another tribe...be hit multiple times with arrows...yeat still keep going because they felt no pain. I used to know what tribes and what plants and all that, but it was years ago so pardon me if I don't speak in specifics...you can look it up. The thing I hate about movies dealing with history is when facts get distorted or lost. I have no problem with white dudes from Europe portrayed as evil masters of conquest and so forth, as long as the story is historically accurate because I know it happened. I just hate how all WASP's are portrayed as these war-mongering morons to move an agenda. Every race, every culture, and every country has had their dark times...just be truthful in it is all I ask. Oh I know, someone will contact me saying that the movie "Days of Glory" is historically accurate and all that. And my response would be this - how did the French army find these four nooble Muslims out of a vast number of people who want to do things like, oh I don't know, set off car bombs in England? Thankfully it didn't go down the way it was planned...but that religion of peace was planning some major bombings this weekend in England in case you missed the news. But what can you expect to have happen in a county that is more concerned with offending people than enforcing immigration laws? Oh wait...
Ok sportsfans...that's it for now. Be sure to watch NoiseCult rock at The End on Saturday the 7th! I think it will be quite an awesome show.