U.S.A.! U.S.A.! vol. 6

We Are the Sprocket Holes vol. 14

RAMBO: 9/10

there is graphic news reel footage of dead, dying, and mutilated people, some children. we cut to Burmese militants throwing land mines into a swamp. they load their captives out of a big jeep, hold guns to their heads, and force them to run across the water. One of the captives catches the land mine and erupts in a thick cloud of crimson viscera. the captives who make it to the other side of the swamp are than mowed down by machine guns, their bodies nearly shredded at the wounds.

that's the first 3 minutes of Sylvester Stallone's masterful RAMBO. RAMBO meets somewhere between Reaganomics Action Film and the Grand Guignol, forgoing much of the revisionist politics of previous installments ("We could've won Vietnam but you wouldn't let us!!"), instead going for the ripped-out throat, close up and in full view. It is more Grindhouse than Grindhouse.

The plot is simple; missionaries are taken hostage by the evil Burmese army. The US Embassy won't help them, so Rambo and a batch of mercenaries are sent in to retrieve them. now when i say "evil" i mean it. The Burmese of RAMBO are as cruel and sadistic a batch of villains you'll find this side of Hostel. they rape women, murder children, kill dogs, burn down entire villages with huge flame throwers, and much of it is shown in full detail. We even revisit the killing fields, seeing bloated, fly covered bodies strewn about the grounds, as if a wartime mortuary had thrown up.

Now what about the titular character? Well Rambo himself is a brick shithouse, with gattling guns mounted at each corner. His is a grizzled world weary loner. He doesn't speak much, so you won't find any big "nuthins is ovah!" speech here. Stallone seems to have allowed Rambo to let go of those things and just be more or less a force of nature, someone who murders because it's in his blood. It's what he does...it's what he's done for more than half his life. Make no mistake, Rambo is little more than a mass murderer, but he's chosen what some might say is "the right target".

I did find myself asking one question at the film's end; "How Does this man Sleep At Night?". A psychological evaluation of this character/film/audience is useless, though. This is not high art. This is not reality. Check your liberal guilt at the door and get lost in the piles of severed limbs, the avalanche of guts, and the showers of grenade instigated blood rains. The only way this film could have been more rad was if Rambo had to fight a giant shark in the third act, or an army of black bears who mind link with giant brown recluse spiders. But i'll settle for a few hundred bullet-related decapitations and some disemboweling.

Every reason to hate RAMBO is every reason to love RAMBO. this is not an exercise in sensitivity. This is not going to fill you with hope for mankind. Much like the heart-in-the-right-place-ite missionaries of the film, any idealist who witnesses this film will be left confused, shell shocked, and perhaps defeated. Not the most positive message i know, but this is no message picture. This is Nihilism with a bullet, followed by several thousand more bullets, a nuclear bomb, and more than a few arrows to the back of the head.

Nothing really is over.

Double You, Tea F. vol. 17

Double You, Tea F. vol. 16

Amy Winehouse Smoking Crack

Double You, Tea F. vol. 15

http://www.wftv.com/news/3643877/detail.html
STUART, Fla. -- A 480-pound Martin County woman has died after emergency workers tried to remove her from the couch where she had remained for about six years.

Gayle Laverne Grinds, 40, died Wednesday, after a failed six-hour effort to dislodge her from the couch in her home. Workers say the home was filthy, and Grinds was too large to get up from the couch to even use the bathroom.

Everyone going inside the home had to wear protective gear. The stench was so powerful they had to blast in fresh air.

A preliminary autopsy on the the four-foot, ten-inch woman lists the cause of death as "morbid obesity." But officials want to know more about the circumstances inside the home.

Investigators say Grinds lived with a man named Herman Thomas, who says he tried to take care of her the best he could. He has told them he tried repeatedly to get her up, but simply couldn't. No charges have been filed, but officials are looking into negligence issues.

Emergency workers had to remove some sliding glass doors and lift the couch, with Grinds still on it, to a trailer behind a pickup truck. Removing her from the couch would be too painful, since her body was grafted to the fabric. After years of staying put, her skin had literally become one with the sofa and had to be surgically removed.

She died at Martin Memorial Hospital South, still attached to the couch.

Neighbors say they had no idea Grinds lived at the duplex, though they had seen Thomas and some children outside.
Copyright 2008 by WFTV.com. The Associated Press contributed to this report. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed

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anyone remember What's Eating Gilbert Grape?

Just Needed to Share vol. 7

first time i've been up before noon in months.

I can't for the life think of why i'm getting up. what good it's going to do. maybe to make them happy. make them feel like they've accomplished something. that they've broken me. that i'm giving in to their ideals finally. that i'm being melodramatic on the internet over nothing. that i feel truly without a country....without a generation.

i can't relate to anyone. i'm not hip enough to be young and happy and too young to be old and bitter. i'm not normal enough for society and not crazy enough for the asylum. i'm to weird for the mainstream and not damaged enough for the "freaks". I replace one insecurity with another, one without a face. this isn't a girl that didn't love me back. this isn't a publisher that rejects my manuscript after a six month wait. this isn't an audience whose indifferent toward or downright hates the band. oh they're still squishing my brain matter between their fingers like silly putty, but this is...i don't know what this is. it's more vague. it's more frustrating. it's more debilitating creatively, as there isn't even a phantom to pine over/attack violently. this is an attack on all fronts. on my manhood. on my "talents". on my intellect. on my ideas. on my ideals. on my general worth...my relevance....my place in the world.

very little has changed. i still don't know what the fuck it is people want from me. what i have to do to make them give me at least a fucking chance. is it really something so trivial and superficial that i can't even notice it? is it really about hair and clothes and smiling through your fucking teeth? is it really about just nodding in agreement with everything they say? is it really about being a god damn house cat? I don't fucking know. 25 years old and i still do not fucking know.

Just needed to share.

Song for the Week of 1/20

CRANES - "Beautiful Friend"



i feel those days without end
when we used to be friends
those summer days were spent
in search of hope and happiness

we used to while away our days
in a beautiful haze
I guess I knew one day
that you'd be moving long away

you said go back to your dream
back to your wilderness
go back along the walk
maybe you'll find some happiness

I wept a thousand tears for you
for my love that came true
and soon i realized
i'd always dreamt it'd come to this

you know that time passes by
and that our lives have changed
but our love was special
our love was strange

in the ...
in time we depend
except when I think about the time
that we used to be friends

we were friends
we were friends

so go back to your dreams
back to your wilderness
go back along the walk
maybe you'll find some happiness

I wept a thousand tears for you
for my love that came true
and soon i realized
I'd always dreamt it'd come to this