LUST: PART OF A BALANCED BREAKFAST

Good morning, Interwubbers.

It’s Monday morning and you need breakfast.

Raquel Welch made you some.

"Joe Tanner - The Battle" (Watch on YouTube)

FUN FACT: This is from the original version of Bedazzled, which I highly recommend. And no, not just for this scene.

The most important meal of the day,

This is dF

DANCES WITH GOATS b/w THE DOCTOR WILL SEE YOU NOW

Oh, I’ve been to the movies again. I have opinions and crap.

The Men Who Stare At Goats

Basically a fictionalized version of Jon Ronson’s non-fiction book about the Pentagon’s experimentation with LSD, psychic warfare and New Age superpowers that, ultimately, may have led to the idea of blasting Iraqi prisoners with the Barney song.

It’s funny and full of good performances – and no one ever said it wasn’t fun to watch Jeff Bridges say to George Clooney: “I'm your commanding officer and I'm ordering you to let out the dance!”

But as a satirical vehicle, it plays things way too safe. One of the points Ronson made in the book was that the Barney story and many other aspects of US psychological warfare – and the potentially troubling implications therein – were watered down to light-hearted punchlines in the media. The film version basically waters it down even further.

The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus

Inevitably this film always be known as Heath Ledger’s last gig and be judged by the fact that Terry Gilliam had to struggle hard just to get the damn thing finished, which in itself is an accomplishment. But for all that, it’s also Gilliam’s best film since at least 12 Monkeys (with the caveat that I haven’t seen Fear In Loathing In Las Vegas or Tideland).

Gilliam makes the most of the basic premise – Dr Parnassus battles The Devil for souls using a magic mirror that reflects yr imagination, and encounters a mystery man who may be the key to getting out of his own pact in which he traded the soul of his daughter for immortality – with twisted fervour, and the result is sometimes messy but rarely dull, depending on how much you like Gilliam’s stream-of-consciousness fantasy scenes.

I like them fine, and I like Gilliam’s tendency to pit Victorian looking-glass fantasy against modern London. Granted, he's done it better, but at least he's still doing it. Also, bonus points for casting Tom Waits as The Devil.

You bet yr life,

This is dF

PRESIDENT OBAMA IS SICK OF YR CRAP

So I’ve been fielding a lot of phone calls asking for comment on the story where President Obama walked into a room full of Republicans and either (1) made them form a line so he could bitch-slap them individually until they begged his forgiveness and promised not to do any more stupid shit, or (2) used his bully pulpit to lecture Republicans like the elitist phony he is to try and blame them for his failures, depending on whether yr primary news provider is MSNBC or Fox News.

I confess, I had no idea this had even happened, and Googling it didn’t seem to produce much. It wasn’t until Def Agent lorilori  gave me the YouTube link that I saw what all the fuss was about.

And having watched it, I have to say ... I don’t think it changes a damn thing.

That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy it. And not for the reasons you might think. Sure, I’ll admit when I saw it, my first thought was: “Damn. Where was THIS Obama six months ago?”

Also, I do think Obama made a few key points that were worth making – the best of the bunch being that the Repubs were doing themselves no favors trying to win the healthcare debate by portraying Obama’s plan as the equivalent of turning America into the Soviet Union circa 1977 – which of course it never was, not even in its most liberal incarnation which was rejected early on.

That doesn’t matter if yr determined to stick to a “Us vs Them” b/w “We’ll never join you! Do you hear? Never never NEVER!” platform. But if you really are open to some kind of compromise (as opposed to opposition for its own sake), you can’t build up yr ideological opponent as Pure Fucking Evil and expect all the voters you convinced of this to understand when you and Satan eventually get a healthcare plan together.

But I’m less interested in who “won” the Q&A and more interested in the format itself – a public, nationally televised airing of grievances with the President grilled by the opposition. I think it’s a great idea. They should do these once a month. I got more out of that 80 minute bit than I did out of every town hall meeting combined in the last year. The fact that they got through the whole thing without Joe Wilson’s head exploding (assuming he actually bothered to show up) is an accomplishment in itself. (It’s also probably why Fox News decided to bail early – “D00d, this sux, let’s watch some Sarah Palin pr0n.”) Whoever made the comparison to marriage counseling nailed it.

However ...

I seriously doubt it’s going to make a meaningful difference in how 2010 plays out in terms of bipartisanship. For one thing, politics is a dirty business at the best of times. These people have re-election campaigns to run, and no one ever won a campaign by co-operating with the other guy (much less by sticking to the facts).

More importantly, though, the tone won’t change unless their supporters want it to. And for good or ill, many supporters aren’t getting their talking points from any of the people who attended that forum – they’re getting them from information sources tailored towards their own political biases. Not to pick on conservatives – because both sides are certainly guilty of this – but people like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck don’t sound all that interested in bipartisanship to me. It’s a fair bet the same applies to their fans. And John Boehner, for one, sees these people as “critical” to the GOP’s 2010 mid-term strategy.

And so much for civil discourse.

Still, you have to start somewhere. And frankly, anything that encourages public, televised interaction between two branches of govt should be encouraged. It may not help, but hell, Jim, it can’t hurt.

Out in the open,

This is dF