ginandtacos.com

2004 Sucked. That's ok because (a) 2005 is already much better and (b) there were some good things that happened last year, of which I'll put to (electronic) paper over the next week so I can remember those and forget the rest.

First off, the DVR. Although I've been around cable television for as long as I remember, after college I never signed up for it (I would make my parents tape the HBO shows I watched). Part of me would like to think this is a result of some sort of "there is nothing ever good on why aren't you reading more Proust?" cultural snobbery, but I really know it was more out of behavior avoidance to prevent myself from ending up awake at 3am, 50 pounds heavier, watching Carson Daly count down the top 70 moments of 1993.

In walks the DVR, a TIVO-like device offered through our comcast service. It tapes up to 80 hours, up to two channels at time. Whatever interface issues people complained about in the past have more or less disappeared, and anybody who can navigate a computer can handle this. It makes it so that you can enjoy TV on your own time/on your own terms. Everyone who has one of these things raves about it, so I'll limit myself to a few things about specific shows that have changed since I started DVRing them.

First off, you can become a master at watching shows in fast-forward. I can watch 8 hours of Gilmore Girl in 30 minutes, stopping only to stare and blush at the scenes with Lane Kim in them. Thanks to the internet, I can use episode guides to find which episodes of Beavis and Butthead have the videos that cracked me up 10 years ago and see if they still do (they still do – "these guys are called smashing pumpkins, but they aren't smashing anything" – brilliant!).

One of the biggest impact is reserved for those shows where the parts that are good are completely seperated, like oil and water, from that parts that are awful. Which brings me to Boston Legal. I never watched The Practice until it's last year, where James Spader was brought on to try and breath new life into the failing show. Legend has it that David E. Kelley offered Spader a job playing a lawyer immediately after seeing "Secretary" for the first time; this makes sense as the vaguely sinister, sexually deviant, somewhat likeable but morally challenged character Alan Shore seems straight out of that movie. Later brought, of all people, William Shatner as the powerful, though possibly senile, named law partner Denny Crane. The show got cancelled anyway.

Rather than throw the baby out with the bathwater, ABC decided to take these two new characters and build a show around them. With no history of Awards and Strong Moral Dramatic Situations that The Practice evidently had going for it, Spader and Shatner are free to chew the scenery as much as they'd like (while poor Odo tries to keep them in check). Shatner (who just got a Golden Globe for this role) tells a jury that he hates old people, and that the jury can go ahead and find the drug company civilly-liable as they'll just increase the price of medication to cover the judgement. James Spader waxes reflectively on his love affair with a midget ("best two years of my life") and his "frequent flyer miles" he gets with the local escort agency with a reptilian charm you can't quite stop watching.

The rest of the show is a photocopy of a photocopy of any of those crappy David E. Kelley lawyer shows for which the fast-forward button was designed. There's some idealistic young lawyer with big boobs, there's some hard-headed "my-way-or-the-highway" lawyer that has a short skirt, and so on. Evidently not everyone watches Boston Legal via DVR, as ABC is now gutting the show a bit to keep the women making "Desperate Housewives" (the lead-in show) a huge-hit around for a second hour of TV. The last weeks have seen the firing of one of the super-model women lawyers, Candice Bergen entering as a regular playing another named partner to rival Mr. Shatner, and one episode in which a women playing Spader's secretary (whose likeness to Maggie Gyllenhaal is notable) complaining that Spader is sexually harassing her (the in-joke is quite funny). It may be enough to keep the show interesting in the long run.

The ability to fast-forward through crap is one of the big selling points of the DVR, but I find it equally useful in re-visiting scenes that need a second (or third) viewing. So far, every episode of Boston Legal has ended with Spader and Shatner at night, seated in bubble chairs on the roof, cigars and brandy in hand, contemplating the events of the show against the void of the Boston skyline. The snark and defenses of the characters are dropped for that moment, and it's usually quite touching. It's certainly interesting enough for a mutiple viewing via the rewind-button.

(that went long – sorry, later in the week is best documentary, and best liberal breakdown, among others. stay tuned)

Have you ever wondered what the ubiquitous phrase "O.K." means or what its origins are? Ginandtacos.com was recently observing a thread on the Electrical Audio message boards in which dozens of people were posting dozens of increasingly silly postulations, some even taking the form of assertions, about its meaning and origin. As the duty of setting the matter straight fell upon me, ginandtacos.com would like to share this information widely as a public service.

Where did "O.K." originate? Like most things that are great about America, it came from…..the 8th President, Martin Van Buren.

Van Buren's other popular phrase – "Well, fuck my petticoats!" – never caught on.

Yes, one of our irrelevant Presidents contributed the only phrase (aside from possibly "Coca-Cola", depressingly enough) that exists untranslated in every spoken language on Earth. You see, ol' Marty was known to his closest associates by his nickname, "Old Kinderhook" – a reference to his birthplace and home town. An obstinately lazy man, Van Buren approved White House documents not by signing his name but by scrawling "O.K."

The phrase, which struck the White House staffers as inherently memorable and sonorous, was adopted as an all-encompassing positive. It spread through Congress quickly and, by the end of Van Buren's first year in office (1836) it had filtered out to most of the country. Unlike most slang expressions that disperse and evaporate quicker than flatulence in a wind tunnel, the term became a permanent fixture in the American lexicon and eventually, aided greatly by the first World War, the entire world.

Van Buren was also, as seen above, the first President (chronologically) to be photographed. Some historians claim that John Quincy Adams (the sixth President, while Van Buren was the 8th) was photographed shortly before his death, but no evidence remains to support the claim.

Ginandtacos.com – your one stop shop for Van Bureniana.

We can be almost certain that this is one of those times where we are supposed to be shocked and appalled. We are meant to be in a state of outrage at how horribly misled we were by the liberal media- at least this is what I think I should be feeling.

I imagine that I would have been slightly upset to learn that CBS did "possibly" have a political agenda when they ran a story about George Bush's National Guard service if it hadn't been painfully obvious from the beginning that they had a political agenda all along. If anyone in this country gave even the tiniest of shits about what Dan Rather and CBS had to say maybe I would care a little more. If it weren't for the fact that all of us fundamentally have the gut feeling that there is , in fact, something amazingly dubious about Mr. Bush's military service then perhaps I would take the time out of my only moderately busy schedule to be slightly bothered.

All this aside, I am actually kind of impressed by how the CBS report is being handled. Perhaps media outlets are too wrapped up in being scandalized by Randy Moss's display of pantomime mooning during the Vikings/ Packers game, or perhaps it is because in their hearts they know that despite the fact that this particular document was forged, the general theme was probably true. This we will never know.

Traditional assclown extraordinaire Chris Matthews seemed to take up some kind of preemptive position. Does anyone know where this Jackass stands politically, because I sure as hell can't figure it out? He apparently was proclaiming that talk radio was going to instantly lambaste the report for being soft on Dan Rather. He also seemed to be making fun of the bizarrely conservative nature of America’s highways- insinuating that the airwaves would be locked up with truckers calling Limbaugh to complain about the "liberal media."

Limbaugh however took a somewhat uexpected, mild tone. Instead of commenting that the report was inaccurate or biased, he was largely talking about how no one media outlet can influence the American mindset. He took this opportunity to point out that Dan Rather, as opposed to being some great liberal mastermind, is just disconnected and irrelevant.

It is amazing how after the election, when he no longer has to stump for Bush, Limbaugh has decided to again enter the realm of the moderately sane and self aggrandizing and forego his former position of complete fat deaf lunatic. I honestly believe that due to his position prior to the 2000 election that Limbaugh hates George Bush nearly as much as he hates the "dems" and "libs". To be perfectly fair, any liberal minded individual who is frustrated by how castrated and ineffectual modern liberals seem might actually find themselves agreeing with this ridiculous bastard quite often.

Poor fellow even looks a bit like Tom Daschle…

My favorite comment on this situation was made by the Chicago reporter for the ABC affiliate WLS am, Jim Johnson. He was thrilled that media bias was out in the open. This is where I always have stood on this issue. I want my media as biased as is physically possible. I want to know exactly where a particular outlet stands before I waste my time watching listening or reading.

Jim Johnson was not frustrated that CBS might be liberal but rather that organizations like Fox continue to maintain that they are "fair and balanced." Its true. I have no problem with Fox being conservative, it is the absurd claim that they are not that makes me want to take out Rupert Murdock with a 12 gauge. With Bill OReilly and Sean Hannity prancing around in some astounding display of little bitchery while proclaiming that they represent the truth and an unbiased opinion, it is all I can do to keep my bowels from rupturing.

Anyway, take it as you will. CBS might or might not be liberal. Lets hope they are. Dan Rather might or might not have had anything to do with this debacle- does anyone care?

To pretend that media is ever unbiased is about the most ridiculous thing that I have ever heard. Was there really a need for an outside investigation? Could CBS have just fired the people they knew screwed up months ago and said "Yes, we are liberal- fuck you. If you don't like it, you are probably watching Fox anyway."

"But we always kill the good guys, you ever notice that? And let the demons run amok. Jesus – murdered. Martin Luther King – murdered. Malcolm X – murdered. Gandhi – murdered. John Lennon – murdered. Reagan…. wounded." – Bill Hicks

Sometimes it becomes painfully apparent that life isn't fair, or perhaps more accurately that the world is not a meritocracy. Take, for example, the recent news that McLusky have broken up.

For the uninitiated, this Welsh trio, most popular for their kitten video adaptation on rathergood.com, were one of about 5 contemporary bands who were worth a damn. It wouldn't be an overstatement, given the veritable ocean full of shit expelled onto the music-buying public last year (I directly correlate the hailing of U2 and Modest Mouse for "best albums" with the killer tsunami), to say that they were in fact the best of what's around.

In reviewing their work on the ginandtacos.com Music page, I made a half-assed comment about the miniscule lifespan of British bands. In hindsight it turned out to be a prophecy, unfortunately. The flag will fly at half-mast with the hope that the inevitable "next projects" by the band's creative team will in any way be able to fill the void.

Since today is the day that they announced the 77th annual Oscar nominees, it seems as good as any day for me to discuss my favorite documentary of 2004. Since it was seen in about a dozen places across the country, and may or may not be legal for the director to sell (more on that in a minute), I'll keep it short and also discuss the Oscars.

This year look like every other Oscar with the normal Oscar bait movies sweeping every category. This is odd, as dragging out the same old guys from the 70s is getting tired. Look at the guys who are sweeping the nominations. I'll defend Clint Eastwood to the bitter end, but Scorsese and Nichols haven't made any real cinematic gems since 1976 (excluding HBO TV for Nichols, and count Goodfellas if you must). These are the same guys who had their decade 35 years ago, but it's time for something new to step on the stage.

With last year's welcome reception of indie-spirited "Lost in Translation" and under-the-radar critical hits "City of God" and "House of Sand and Fog" to the normal mix of contenders, I thought perhaps this may be the year that things change up. But after seeing Huckabee's and Zissou and realizing, no matter what I thought of them, that they were in no way ready for prime-time, I was wondering what the Academy would due to stay relevant for our culture.

Which is to say, that i'm very happy they didn't nominate The Passion of the Christ for everything, which is something I was very worried about. They nominated it for makeup (how much like a horror movie!), and instead nominated a bunch of guys who were really good at some point – just not right now. Granted The Passion may have made for a more interesting evening, but I'm comfortable with it's awfulness not getting held up to higher scrutiny.

I am surprised at the obvious pandering of giving Jamie Foxx a nomination for both Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor. Especially since he was the main Actor, not Supporting, in Collateral. Collateral was at it's best when showing the extended range of Los Angeles, the way the city goes on and on in all directions, and does it with a digital camera (giving hope for all of us running around with 3-ccds trying to make something decent) that improves on poor-quality tape instead of trying to mimic it, and in that sense, it's fair to consider Los Angeles the main actor in that movie.

Which brings me to the documentary in question, LA Plays Itself. This is a documentary by Calarts film professor Thom Andersen, combing over the depiction of the city of Los Angeles exclusively through movie clips set in the city he has taken from the past 100 years. It is three hours of clips of movies with narration over it, trying to makes sense of it all in various directions. It is dense, complicated, and difficult to follow at points. It is wonderful.

Some of the threads that Anderson tries to draw throughout the movie are depictions of police, from old Dragnet movies/tv episodes, and how they change around the time of Rodney King (the conclusion of "they become bizarre" is evident from the number of "Psycho Killer LAPD Cop" movies that are made, best shown by the T-1000 in Terminator 2).

He goes to the throat of the condescension of Woody Allen; he shows how foreign directors approach the city. He watches as the views of the idyllic place to go and live in the mid-century turn into the dystopic and dysfunctional land it has become in popular culture, and traces it to teenage culture and recessions. He contrasts liberal middle-class movies (think Alan Alda teaching his son to drive) with seldom-seen minorities and immigrant directors with the desperation and harsh humanity of Cassavetes.

Most importantly, Anderson loves his city in the way that acknowledges the bad but appreciates the good, and it shows in this movie. Coming from Chicago, a city that has a give-and-take relationship for it's identity from popular culture, I can appreciate this. Chicago is many things if you know about it solely from the media: fat and ignorant (*da bears!*), a collection of desperate or happy-go-lucky suburbs (American Beauty's 847 area-code, everything John Hughes has done), a great place for suburban kids to hang out (Ferris Bueller), the strangest mix of urbanity and the western-frontier with class anxieties (Blues Brothers).

I want to say that this is the best documentary I've seen this decade. It may be true for a longer period of time, but there is something very new century about it. The internet has a lot of the kinks out of it, and we can now start to piece things together from varying sources to find something new – and the movie does have a feel of a very intense google search about it, piecing together elements faster than you can handle them.

The film does get very geeky at points, which is either a plus or a minus depending on your mindset. I'm not going to bother to convince you on those merits. I love statements like this realization of Blade Runner – "Perhaps [the reasons people still really are into Blade Runner] is that it makes us nostalgic for a dystopia that won't exist…instead of living in giant overrun cities with public transportation, we live in disconnected suburbs with no identity…instead of technology being dangerous and sexy, it is just efficient and takes away our jobs." which clarifies something about that movie that you were probably sort of thinking.

Now there's going to be a problem that's obvious; this movie seems custom made for film geeks, people who can measure their lives in movies and genres and influences and cinema trends. But it's also made for anyone who has a strong connection to any city. I'm very glad I got to see it in downtown Chicago. The movie had me leaving the theater extremely conscious of my experience of place, something that had never happened to me before with seeing a movie. I had to walk around for a while just go get my bearings straight. That feeling of having everything you felt going into the theater getting knocked on it's ass is probably the best thing you can hope for from a movie.

As this movie is entirely of clips of other movies, it may have a problem getting released on dvd (though i'm sure it'll show up somehow). I'll get you word when, and if, it does show up for netflix or online. Until then, here are two reviews of the movie that are worth reading. And thanks for making it this far :)

Collateral Damage: Los Angeles Continues Playing Itself

Interview: The Reality of Film