Rivers Cuomo is Peter Pan and it's starting to get creepy.

But I forgive him.  He's a freak like Brian Wilson; on purpose.  He's our American funboy and he manages to keep a straight face while we pay him to be unrelentingly weird.  And his band, Weezer is what rock-n-roll could be.  If only we realized that being cool is an ironic pursuit and yet still worth pursuing.
The new record, Raditude, is big and flouncy and adolescent and brilliant and Bollywood and romantic and quickwitted and far too simple to be as complicated as it really is.  As per usual, this Weezer album features the crunchy pop anthems, addictive rock ballads and anti-folk ditties that Rivers and the crew are known for.  There isn't an un-rad song on this record.
'In The Mall' gives enough grungy guitar street cred to it's retail melody to please the skaterboy mopheads.  'I Can't Stop Partying' is a soaring dance floor smash that flaunts top shelf brand name booze and Lil Wayne breathing new life back into auto-tune technology.  And  'The Girl Got Hot' provides a BTO-esque beat that I can even dance to.  Check out Weezer's official Youtube Channel to see a video for their first radio-ready poptart: 'I'm Your Daddy'

King Solomon's Mines

1880

King Solomon's Mines

I am trying to write material about books, especially the well-known "classics", that are based on my unique opinions or perspective, as opposed to mainstream information that can already be found in any number of websites. But there is usually relevant information that is worth pointing out, even if I copped it off of Wikipedia.

'King Solomon's Mines' is the first fictional adventure novel set in Africa, and it inspired an entire genre which can be referred to as Lost World stories. These would include stories written by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Arthur Conan Doyle, HP Lovecraft and Michael Crichton. It also had literary value in it's approach to race relations (the narrator at one point states that many Africans are more worthy of the title of "gentleman" than the Europeans who settle or adventure in the country) and even mythopoeic tones mixed in with a writing style that breaks loose from the wordiness and stodginess of other Victorian writers. Also- Haggard wrote the book on a bet with his brother that he could write something better than Treasure Island. Cool.

While many aspects of the story are exciting, and there is a huge war at the end which comes along unexpectedly and is unexpectedly awesome, most of the story is full of the main characters starving a whole lot, just barely surviving and then lucking into something they were looking for. I would rather focus on the protagonist, Allan Quatermain, and how he has been portrayed in adaptations and spin-off media. In a lot of ways we have come to believe that Quatermain is the original Indiana Jones, and in a lot of ways he is.

But in his first appearance in this book he is old, thin and wiry and his only point of pride and ability is his skill as a marksman. In fact, he only accepts the assigment of exploring uncharted regions of Africa based on the fact that he doesn't figure he'll live much longer anyway so why not risk his neck if he can earn money for his son who lives far away. By the time he-surfaces in the League, he is a sickly skeleton of a man, wasting away in an opium den- but see how I get ahead of myself?

Allan Q has appeared in many movies, six of which were adaptations of this book. Here are some of the better trailers so you can take a look at a tired, old man who happens to shoot a gun well.



How about those CRAZY ELEPHANTS, huh? I assure you there was no Lady with the Fire Hair in the novel.

The Sharon Stone version is definately the most true to the novel.



Remember the recent mini-series starring Patrick Swayze? Me neither. I don't know why: this commerical looks SO EXCITING.



And last on the list of craptasticness is the adaptation of the League: I hate giving this movie any mention, at least right now, but think how excited fan boys were when it was accounced that Quatermain would be played by none other than Sean Connery! This guy is both James Bond and Indiana Jones' dad! Now he plays the original safari bad-ass as an appropriately aged older man. Sweet!



Oh no, wait. Connery isn't playing an old junkie African marksman- he's playing SEAN CONNERY. Isn't that what most film producers pay him a lot of money to do most of the time? It's like they thought, 'Hey, no one has ever played Quatermain accurately- who can we get to really slaughter the character better than anyone else ever has? I know- Let's make him SCOTTISH!!!!'

Despite the fact that Hollywood has reduced this iconic figure to a direct-to-DVD staple, his literary presence has continued on. Before Alan Moore ever thought about the guy, PJ Farmer had written him into the Newton Universe as a relation to Sherlock Holmes. And what I love best about Quatermain's current adventures is that he continues to survive! It's what the guy does best, really.

King Soloman's Mine is a quick and fun read, and although I chose to skip them when I read the book back in September 2008, I plan to go back one day and read all of the stories that Haggard wrote about Quatermain, both the prequals and sequals (in chronological order, of course). I heartily recommend Mines as a great book to share with your kids the next time they tell you how awesome the adventure hero of the month is- Allan Quatermain is the real deal, kids.

My favorite episode of Lost

My favorite episode of Lost was probably the one when Jack and Sawyer were invited by the smoke monster to his beachfront summer home only to find him dead of a drug overdose, and in order to avoid being killed by a hitman -- that the smoke monster himself had hired! -- they threw sunglasses on the smoke monster to disguise his deadness and carried him around town to parties and things. And nobody was the wiser, if you would believe it!

Sleepwatching Chair

We here at the Quorum of Gentlemen love nothing more than watching our fellow gentlemen as they tuck in for a long and peaceful night of rest and sleep. And now, thanks to Cinco, we can finally do so in high-tech comfort!

Do you think I'm pretty?

Frontier Earth

1881

For those who have felt intimidated by the fact that everything I've reviewed so far was written over 100 years ago, I will now write a post on something written in 1999. But which takes place over 100 years ago.

First let's talk about the author, a man who arguably deserves a post just covering his career. Bruce Boxleitner. Not a household name... But he arguably should be.



The bio and backcover of this paperback highlight Bruce's role as John Sheridan on the nineties sci-fi show, Babylon 5. I never watched the show, as it always seemed to come off as a Star Trek rip-off with shiny special effects. Well, I did like the shiny special effects- they held my attention during late night TV watching sessions where my senses were altered. I originally knew Bruce from his role on Scarecrow and Mrs. King, although I didn't know it was the same actor until wikipedia was invented. Where Bruce really shined, though- the real peak of his performance career- was as the title character in the movie Tron.



Bruce is re-appearing in the highly anticipated 3-D sequel this winter, Tron: Legacy. Although no one applauded his appearance in the trailer- we were all waiting to see the Dude glowing like a mythical slacker video game hippie doing yoga. Bruce is simply not a real celebrity or household name- and the fact that he's been writing campy sci-fi westerns like Frontier Earth isn't helping, I guess.

I summed this book up by calling it Tombstone meets Predator, and that about says it all.

While Victorian fiction in the late 1880's was probing the edges of mankind's capacity for intellect and technology, we Americans were exploring a wild frontier- which didn't leave time for all that intellectual philosophising, I guess. As quaint and exciting as the western genre can be, it never interested me so much. Even when a sci-fi element is injected, such as using a steam engine locomotive to push a time machine, I struggle to get through all the square dancing and repetative barroom brawls. Hell, when Firefly was described as a sci-fi western, I almost didn't tune in! (Glad I did, though... Maybe I should give Babylon 5 another chance, knowing what it did for J. Michael Straczynski...)

Frontier Earth isn't so different from any other western story that ends in a big shootout between cowboys that are mostly good fighting cowboys that are mostly bad and most of them dying. The fact that aliens crashland and try to blend in while evading bad-ass alien hunters never actually changes the core dynamic of a western story. Sure there are some fun and funny moments- and the Apache shaman is an interesting fellow with a tad more depth than most indians in westerns who get killed by cowboys or cavalry- but at the end of the 322 pages Frontier Earth never delivered anything more than what it promised on the front cover illustration: a cowboy meets an alien. And then a bunch of people die.

Next week we will stay on the topic of wild frontiers, as we meet another Extraordinary Gentlemen in the unexplored dark reaches of Africa.

Do Not Hire This DJ For Your Wedding

As part of our continuing responsibility for offering sage advice to our manly men friends, I highly recommend you do not hire this DJ for your first wedding. Second and third weddings are ok.

Men's Style of Arguing Perfectly Represented

Call Me Dr. Strangelove

I can load chore lists and required social appearances and work related events and all sorts of absolutely necessary horseshit onto my iPhone calendar.  And I can set alarms to remind me to care terribly about all the important things that must get done. 

And my life is 100% more organized. 

And I am happier and healthier and I’m fairly sure that I’m probably going to live 5 or 6 years longer than originally expected: now that I’ve solved my all of my organization difficulties with this hunk of electronic gadgetry.

And I no longer wonder about things the way I used to.  The puzzles that used to keep me up at night are now solved, filed, forgotten.  I now lack no information.  What country exports the most caper berries?  Denmark does.  Who holds the world record for the longest moustache?  I have no idea; but I’m not worried about it because, if I wanted to know, I could.  Currently, I don’t care who has the longest moustache.  But I may later.  I’m not worried about it.

Having the Information Superhighway in my pants pocket has allowed me to stop worrying and learn to love the bomb.  Call me Dr. Strangelove.

But this new shortage of wonder has left me wondering about the plausible benefits of wonderment that I may be losing out on nowadays.  Are there benefits to unsatisfied curiosity?  Maybe not.  For instance: It is certain that stark nudity is never as enticing as lingerie; but, ultimately, satin will never be as satisfying as skin.  And you can’t judge a book by its cover.  And of course, curiosity actually killed a cat.  And only the raw power of satisfaction brought it back.  Curiosity may only be useful if it not left open-ended.

According to Australian author Julia Barnard, in a 2007 article entitled Curiosity - What it is, Why it Matters and How to Develop it, the benefits of curiosity include:

By being curious, you will be:

• More open minded

• Enjoying the world around you

• Excited about what is going on in your life

• Increasing your awareness of the world

• Enhancing your chances of experiencing flow and therefore happiness

• Learning new things

• Building your confidence

• Improving your job performance

It does seem, that in each of Barnard’s examples, it may be particular answers gathered, albeit due to the impetus afforded by curiosity, rather than the curiosity itself, that has resulted in a certain benefit.

So basically she’s totally wrong.  Or maybe she’s right in Australia.  Sinks drain counter-clockwise in the Land Down Under, they smear Vegemite on everything and kids drink beer for breakfast.  Backwards weirdos: the lot of them.  I only sound bitter because I wish I could drink beer for breakfast.  My iPhone has not cured jealousy.

My point is that the security of available knowledge has taken the place of the irresolute anxiety that I used to suffer from.  I don’t feel like I have to know everything; because I can find out anything whenever I need/want to.  And this has made me happier and possibly even more likeable.

How you like me now?  Wait, don’t answer that: I will use Google analytics to measure daily page impressions before and after this post.  Life has been quantified for me and I couldn’t be more pleased.

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SWEET GUITAR RIFFING RHINO NUTS KICKING NUCLEAR BOMB!

Sherlock Holmes

1878

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Where do you start with Sherlock Holmes? The man has to be one of the most popular fictional characters ever. I'll start by clarifying that I haven't seen the new movie starring Tony Stark yet, although I've heard it's good. IMDB lists over 160 Sherlock Holmes movies, though! There have been stage productions, cartoons, spoofs- most mystery writers list Holmes as a major influence. And like a lot of the books I am covering in this blog, Holmes retains every ounce of his popularity despite being older than my great grandma's first bowel movement.

A brief search on Holmes crossover examples pretty much blew my mind immediately. Apparently the super slueth has met every other fictional character. Period. In his own timeline he encountered Doc Savage, Varney the Vampire, the Shadow, etc. In recent media he has met all sorts of other heroes through time travel, as a ghost, via ancestors, you get the idea.



He has also been played by some notable sci-fi actors. My favorites include Peter Cushing (Grand Moff Tarkin), Tom Baker (Doctor Who) and Robert Downey Jr. (Chaplin).

To cover this time period which I set at 1878 through 1903 I picked up a collection of classic stories and tried to hit the best ones which I had not previously read. I was not naive about Holmes occasional drug use, but I was amazed that right out of the gate in the first story I read Watson begins by ragging on Holmes for overdoing the cocaine and slumming in his room for weeks at a time in a druggy haze. Wow! Homie don't play around. Most interpretations of the stories downplay or ignore this facet of Holmes but I find it integral to the myth. Perhaps I'm just intrigued by drug-infused literature (as upcoming reviews of Bill Burroughs will prove), but I think Holme's drug use, whether a habit or addiction, probably was intended to be a counter-point to someone who's brain is always on. Sherlock probably wanted to turn the bloody thing off sometimes and just chill! Perhaps the crime solving career was simply a way for him to occupy himself long enough to stay off the junk, although in the stories I read one gets the impression that many of his clients were a bother and interruption to him, he didn't need the money per se, but simply found himself getting caught up in the details and challenge of anything he couldn't solve off the top of his head.

Cliches and incorrect misnomers play a part in Holme's history as well. I believe the famous hat and pipe style was created in the theatrical stage version. The bowed stem pipe was simply a way of opening up the actor's face more to the audience. In the original books Holmes had a straight stem pipe- like Popeye, another hero Holmes probably met at some point.

I'm not going to review any of the stories directly, or Doyle's writing beyond telling you that I love Sherlock Holmes and think that anyone who enjoys mystery and action stories with just a hint of the supernatural should pick up a short SH story at least once a year to re-acquaint themselves and fall in love again with the most famous detective ever. Sherlock Holmes IS the Man.

Fighting tips from Unusual Sources- Part One: How to beat a man with a cane, by President Andrew Jackson.

Andrew Jackson, may not rank among the greatest presidents, but as a badass he stands without peer. Here he gives some advice on the finer points of cane fighting:

" Now, Mr. B ," said Jackson, " if any one attacks you I know you will fight with that big black stick of yours. You will aim right for his head. Well, sir, ten chances to one he will ward it off, and if you do hit him, you won't bring him down. Now, sir [taking the stick into his own hands], you hold the stick so and punch him in the stomach, and you'll drop him."

This was no theoretical exercise. Experience taught him the value of a gut strike. When he was a young man, a violent sort had apparently singled Jackson out as an easy mark and made the decision to engage with the future president.

Wrong bet:

"He was a man of immense size, one of the very biggest men I ever saw. As quick as a flash I snatched a small rail from the top of the fence and gave him the point of it full in the stomach. Sir, it doubled him up. He fell at my feet, and I stamped on him."

So, your real-world fighting tips here are:

(1) Don't go for the head, go for the gut
(2) When your opponent is down, finish him off

"He fell at my feet, and I stamped on him." THAT is true presidential application of unilateralism.

It is also probably worth mentioning that this was not a purely historical exercise for Jackson either, he maintained his form as a top-notch cane-fighter well into his later years. Legend holds that when, at 67 years old, he became the first victim of an attempted assassination when a man walked up and fired two pistols at the President. Both misfired. But canes do not misfire. A fact which Jackson proceeded to demonstrate as he beat the would-be-assassin until his bodyguards pulled him off.

Summer Symphonic

The screen door chirps the ¼ hour

as kids oscillate between the kitchen and the yard.
The under-the cabinet mounted FM radio is always on;
and it plays more commercials than it does songs anymore.
But the songs sound like mortar fire behind a gang of cats in heat.
Momma’s canning kettle is rattling louder than the leaf springs on my Ford.

And she’s swearing at the pickles under her breath.

The neighbor’s got a chainsaw running 24/7.
And Leroy is snoring through his drooly jowls.
A million locusts are trilling in the pasture.
A lawnmower across the street is finding every single piece of gravel in the turf.
The ice cream truck warbles “It’s A Small World”
as it circles like a hawk looking for field mice.

Around the World in Eighty Days

1872

I had originally listed The Mysterious Island as my next book, but decided to skip it when I realized that no libraries in Colorado apparently had it in stock. With so many other unread books on my shelf, many borrowed or received as gifts from friends, I am often unwilling to hunt down and pay for more reading material. Somehow I completely missed the fact that Mysterious Island featured Nemo and the home harbor of the Nautilaus! I will be sure to hunt it down when I return to the nineteenth century...

Instead I moved on to another famous Verne novel, Around the World in Eighty Days. This book only garnered three stars in my online review, and only nine words in my comments: "Not Jules Verne's best work, but a fun ride." Not exactly an in-depth analysis of a story, that while light hearted and fun, does hold a place in the lexicon of pop culture and time-stamped the sunset of the British Empire and the dawn of the industrial revolution. I was probably on my lunch break at work.

The only comment some have on this story is that there is no hot-air balloon trip in the novel, whereas the movie added a balloon flight and forever tied the two together. I find this oft-repeated and nearly cliche comment worth mentioning because so much of the fiction written or taking place in this era to be fascinated by hot-air balloons. Verne did write a story earlier about a long trip in a balloon, but in this story the protagonist, Phineas Fogg, writes off the idea as impractical. The most interesting occurance of a balloon flight in my reading takes place in the Riverworld series, flown by Jack London and Tom Mix. I placed that timeline starting at 1890- but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Around the World is not science fiction, but is an obvious celebration of technological advances in travel, namely the transcontinental railroad and the Suez Canal. What makes the story spicy, however, is the intriguing nature of Fogg's gamble, the inclusion of a bounty hunter on his tail, and some very far-fetched stories of Indian tribes, opium dens, mutinies and a battle against Sioux Indians not far from where I live here in Colorado. Whereas Nemo remained dark and mysterious in the fantasy of his world, Fogg is cartoonish throughout his adventures in the "real world". If Verne has a reputation of writing children's books, it's easy to see why from this example.

Around the World in Eighty Days is good fun, easy to read, and fit in well with my timeline perspective. In comparison to the many other things I have read and will read, though, it doesn't come close to the recommended reading list.

A Valley Story Pt. 2

They’d run two bulldozers, the big suckers, machines the size of houses…in a straight line across the grove, with a big chain stretched out between them.

I don’t know where they found a chain of that size: maybe a ship yard. Links the size of a football. The dozers would stay parallel with each other, say . . . 40 feet apart at the blades. And they’d drag that chain about knee to waist height right through the grove: uprooting old gnarled dead citrus trees like they were dandelions.
Those dead trees were just getting’ piled up out of the way: we’re talkin’ thousands of acres of orange and grapefruit, that hadn’t done squat since late February of 1946.

The Hidalgo Company, owned by Russian immigrants buyin’ up farmland in the Valley like it were groceries, was clearing out the way for sugar. They had to get it done by October; because that’s when cane is gathered and hauled for refining. And the Hidalgo’s already had the most sugarcane in the state of Texas . . . so they’d need all hands on deck for the harvest. Cane will ferment if you don’t get it all to the mill right away. Sugarcane gets cut in October, planted in January. And every other year they burn off the trash left behind after the stalks are cut . . . and then they plow the whole mess under.

The dozers, just two of ‘em, were working 12 hours a day to push the citrus trees onto the old Sullivan farm. This was goin’ on for a couple of weeks until the town folk started getting bent out of shape about all the dust and the rattlesnakes. I guess all that vibration from those bulldozers would scare out the rattlesnakes. And that’s how I got my first real summer job.

I walked up to the little camper trailer that the foreman had parked up next to the old Sullivan place. The Hidalgo’s had re-routed the telephone line right into the trailer. I remember thinking that was pretty slick. When I knocked on the little door and he stood there lookin’ down at me I immediately went into my sales pitch. And in three minutes I had talked my way into a real sweet deal. The foreman agreed to pay me, something like 15 cents, for every rattlesnake I killed out in the citrus groves. Maybe it was even a quarter, I don’t remember; but I ended up with seventy dollars by the time school started up again.

I’d walk in between those two dozers and keep my eyes peeled for snakes. When one would come shooting out of a hole: I’d whack it in the head with a stick and stun it for a few seconds. I’d cut off the head and the rattle with a bowie. I’d bury the head, you know, to be decent. And then stick the rattle in my pocket to turn into the foreman later. He’d toss the rattles in a big pickled egg jar and at the end of the Summer we’d count ‘em up and settle up.

Like I said, I made seventy dollars that Summer. And never had so much fun in my life. When the dozers were done there was a mound of upturned citrus trees about four stories high and covering a hundred acres or so. You’ve never seen anything like it. The dozers were loaded up on flatbeds and the phone line had been disconnected from the little trailer. The foreman had gone down to the bank and bought me a flour sack full of silver dollars. When I showed up to the trailer to count the rattles he came right out the little door and tossed that sack at me . . . and laid me out in the driveway flat.

Paid me in silver: just like Judas. Except I was killin’ snakes.

I asked if I could have the rattles too. And he gave ‘em to me without a fuss. I took my sack of dollars and that jar of rattles home. And Pa took both from me as soon as I walked in the door. He reckoned that a nine year old had no real use for either.

Heinlein, Blogophanalia, etc

OK, just perused the emerging blogophanalia briefly and Heinlein caught my eye, must recommend Time Enough for Love as a required Heinlein read .. .

Countdown to downtown

Understand the madness at hand:
We've replicated every scenario, carmelized it,
until it's sweet and charred,
elected a million lines of resolution
and taken to the streets in theory.
We've digested the truth externally
and recounted it for sport.

"Halellujah", says the extremist
as he collects his appearance fee.

We queue up and shuffle like lunatics awaiting meds;
while the decision makers are skating on the planet's touchpad.
It will all make sense someday.
Just like it always has.
Just like every dog has it's unicycle.