It's My Friendiversary!!!!

Dear Imaginary Reader:

I am lucky enough to have three women I consider my best friends. They know who they are. (Y'all are friends, you know that too, of course, but you know what a BEST friend means, right?) After 13 years of knowing this one very special amazing woman, I think she's be the oldest best friend I have, while actually being the youngest of them all.

MEGHAN SARA KARRE, Happy Birthday and Happy 13th FRIENDIVERSARY!!! We've done waaaay better than most marriages!!!

Apichatpong Weerasethakul - "Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives"

The scene you'll most want to talk about in Apichatpong Weerasethakul's acclaimed "Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives" involves an aging princess being pleasured by a talking catfish near an idyllic waterfall.

"Uncle Boonmee" is full of many other dream-like moments like that, moments that feel believable because we've been lulled into acceptance by the rhythms of a life more natural. Uncle Boonmee is a kindly, enlightened man suffering from kidney failure, a condition which facilitates the arrival of ghosts into his life: there's his late wife, there's a dead son who has somehow gotten mixed up with a monkey... Soon Uncle Boonmee is taking glimpses into his previous incarnations, (which include that horny catfish.)

Cosmo gals who might think nothing of enjoying time with a piece of vibrating plastic might shudder at the idea of a trashing catfish near their genitals, but the catfish is alive, a connection to nature, part of a long magical tradition of women copulating with animals: Leda and her swan, Europa and her bull, the white elephant that entered Siddhartha Gautama's mother, the octopi that titillate Japanese fisherwomen. Bestiality has been replaced by batteries, and Apichatpong Weerasethakul might even suggest there's some degeneracy in that.

The magical moments are treated with such respect that you'll feel the glowing eyes in the monkey ghost are less bizarre than the sterile glow of a ghostly TV set in a latter scene. I would blame no one for thinking "Uncle Boonmee" is slow. It IS slow, and baffling at points, but you should never ask of dreams to speed up or explain themselves.

Willard Huyck - "Howard the Duck"

Dear Imaginary Reader:
I don't expect you to agree, understand or sympathize, but I like "Howard the Duck." People who've never seen it will tell you it's a turkey, like that's part of the Hollywood creed, but I don't even think it's "good for what it is," which would be contrarian enough: I honestly watch it, and smile through a large portion of it. It is far better than a lot of enshrined '80s movies, and if it doesn't quite take flight, at least it never falls on its beak. I like the never-ending flock of duck puns. I like the wise-quacking Howard. I think Lea Thompson is a trooper; most actresses would have demurred when asked to nest down with a bird. Tim Robbins and Jeffrey Jones give the daffiest performances of their careers- and I mean no insult by that. I don't think George Lucas needs to have egg on his face for producing this.

The Star Wars prequels? THOSE were fowl.

John Carpenter - "Assault on Precinct 13" and "Escape From New York"

ABOVE: This picture is from Webster's Illustrated Dictionary, and it is found next to the word "Bad-ass."

I'm not saying "bad-ass" was invented to describe Kurt Russell's character in "John Carpenter's Escape From New York." I'm just saying "Snake" Plissken epitomizes bad-assness. He just does not give a damn. He doesn't bother with sleeves. He has an eye patch. He's called "Snake"! And he's even got the snake tattoo to go with all that. It's not THAT cool of a tattoo; it looks a little awkward, and clearly there's a limited tattoo budget here, and there's been lots of advances in tattoo technology since. But for its time? That's one cool snake. And one cool movie.

(Cult-tastic cast too! Donald Pleasence, Harry Dean Stanton, Ernest Borgnine, Isaac Hayes, and Adrienne Barbeau, here wearing the kind of boob-baring tops she unfortunately wasn't wearing in "The Fog".)


ABOVE: Ok, the tattoo looks like a drunken question mark, but don't worry, Snake probably killed the tattoo artist in revenge.

John Carpenter's cult, the one that would allow his name to be an official, integral part of the titles of his movies, began with "Assault on Precinct 13," a ruthlessly low-budgeted B-movie that is clearly modeled on Western patterns. (Howard Hawks' "Rio Bravo" frequently gets tossed as a reference point.) "Assault" might have seemed transgressive at the time but I felt it to be stuck in its exaggerated fear of the counterculture, (see Wes Craven's "The Last House on the Left.") Look past the violent displays, like the famous scene in which a little girl gets shot while accidentally buying a VANILLA ice cream cone. (Had she stuck with vanilla she would have been fine, but she wanted CHOCOLATE, and that was her downfall.) I find Carpenter to be a deeply conservative thinker. In both of these movies the Status Quo must be restored... so Law-and-Order allies itself with All-American Bad-asses to take care of the REAL problems: revolutionary scum, zombie druggies, and escapees from a Weather Underground documentary.


ABOVE: Notice the bummy, Che-Guevara-impersonating bad guy.

Anne Sundberg and Ricki Stern - "Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work"

If you're my age, you probably think of Joan Rivers as a plastic surgery punchline haunting Red Carpets. "Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work" might just have you thinking of her as a human being, an INSPIRING human being, more full of life at 75 than most 25 year olds I know. And pretty fucking funny, too! Without her, Sarah Silverman or Kathy Griffin might not be around to make vagina jokes like this one:

JOAN RIVERS: "At my age everything droops! Not just boobs, pussies too! One day I looked down and thought: 'Why am I wearing fuzzy slippers? Why are they grey?"

...

Come ON, that's funny! She's 75!

Most documentaries pretend to shock you by telling you things you already knew, (killing dolphins is mean, the penal system is a nightmare, McDonald's should probably not be your main source of nutrition, meth sucks). Here's a documentary that will actually change your perception of a human being. I went in laughing AT Joan Rivers. I went out laughing, and even crying, WITH her.

John Carpenter - "The Thing" and "The Fog"

Easy rule for the budding horror filmmaker: Go with a name that starts with "The" and ends in a "G."

"The Haunting." "The Ring." "The Shining." "The Howling." "The Blair Witch Projecting." It never fails.

Or John Carpenter's "The Thing" and "The Fog."

---



"The Thing" was too easy to dismiss as an opportunistic "Alien" rip-off when it landed on screens in 1982. It IS, at some level. It's about a killer alien, after all. It trades the claustrophobic halls of a spaceship for the claustrophobic halls of a research station; the desolation of space for the snowy emptiness of the Arctic; the chest-bursting scene for... a chest-bursting scene. The dialogue is similar in tone, the cast acts at a similar pitch. But to rip-off a great movie by creating ANOTHER great movie deserves some clapping. Carpenter gets everything right. The sense of icy dread. The paranoid squabbling. The build-up to truly disturbing gross-outs (courtesy of Rob Bottin and Stan Winston) that I far prefer to slick CGI because they have TEXTURE. Even Kurt Russell's Fat-Jim-Morrison beard works.

The undercurrents are rich, too.
"The Thing" is about paranoia: You can't tell what anyone else thinks. You can never know if your buddy is actually plotting to leave you out in the cold.
It's about xenophobia: Watch the coldness with which a Norwegian character is killed in the opening scene, because his LANGUAGE can't be understood. The characters joke about it: "We killed the Swede... Norwegian, whatever." The foreigner.
It's about mysoginy: here's a movie with no female cast members, specifically no Sigourney Weaver substitute. Not one tough woman scientist among this crew. And everything is fine. These guys get along GREAT without dolls... until something shows up in their midst, something that spreads vaginal jaws and seems intent on nothing but reproduction, as the dialogue stresses over and over. That's the end of their friendship.
It's about racism. Doesn't the black guy always dies in these things? But there's the unusual final scene of "The Thing": two survivors, Kurt Rusell and the great Keith David, staring at each other in symmetry, incapable of trusting each other even though it's the one thing that could save both their lives.
Oddest of all, as you'll notice in a very tense "blood-test" scene, "The Thing" is about a certain nascent disease that was troubling America in 1982. Who has it, and who doesn't, and how can one tell?


---
1979's "The Fog," by contrast, leaves you little to think about.
There's an almost incomprehensible gulf between Carpenter's career peaks, like "Halloween" or "The Thing," and a genre movie like "The Fog." It does have a genuinely unsettling premise: A century ago, a group of sailing leper pirates (?!?) naively attempt to start a colony off California's Antonio Bay. The local residents, in their full Christian sympathy, conspired to have the leper ship crash. 100 years have passed, Antonio Bay is a bucolic town, and the lepers are coming back for revenge from their ghost shipwreck, hooks in their hands, shielded by an all-enveloping fog.

I mean, that's fairly original, right there. Leper pirates in the fog!

Carpenter never delivers. He pads the movie with characters we almost care about, and then gives them absolutely nothing to do. It's as if he's too attached to his trio of horror dames (Jamie Lee Curtis, Janet Leigh, and Adrienne Barbeau) to have anything actually dangerous happen to them. The climax, if I may SPOIL it, involves little more than the villagers saying: "Sorry, leper dudes. Our ancestors were assholes." At which point the lepers peacefully vanish.

... For the moment, anyway...

Over-reliant in fake-outs, the few kills in "The Fog" happen to peripheral nobodies who are simply being punished for stupidity. Hint: if there's a thick scary fog outside your house, and a leper pirate with killer hooks is knocking so you let them in, don't open the door and blink blindly into the fog and say things like: "I'm not scared of you, you stupid leper pirate with killer hooks! Do your worst!"

Shut the damned door, you moron!

Martin Scorcese - "Raging Bull"

"The Fighter" is fine, but no movie smashes the glove right in your face like "Raging Bull," no movie makes you as punch-drunk. Martin Scorcese simply made future boxing movies a redundancy, all boxers a Jake La Motta in training. So much of the love goes to Marty's brutal montages, the newspaper-aping cinematography, and Robert De Niro's performance (arguably the best in a career of 'bests') that I think people forget that Joe Pesci, (as Jake's slightly-more-reasonable brother) and Cathy Moriarty (as the tough teenage bride Jake jealously guards) deserved Oscars just as surely as De Niro did.

Gillian Welch - "The Harrow and the Harvest"

Folk music is derivative, in the same way that basketball is physical. That's the appeal. Gillian Welch (fresh from backing Colin Meloy) does very little new in "The Harrow & The Harvest." Familiar locales will be revisited, ("Tennessee," "Down Along the Dixie Line"), sampled lyrical motifs will arise (her "Six White Horses" will be probably be delivered... to the penitentiary), even guitarist David Rawling's wonderful twangs and strums can sound a little borrowed (are those the chords from "You're a Big Girl Now" I hear in "The Way It Will Be"? They ARE!)

That's all fine, because this is Americana at its best, and it can get away with being about someone else's sounds from a long time ago. "The Harrow & The Harvest" is a shining album that has very little interest in trends or looking at the clock. Gill stops time, and then pushes the hands back to take us to a humble house with a porch that was built for strumming away a day's worth of miseries.

Check out "The Way it Goes."

Sarah Silverman - "The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption and Pee."

My love-letter to comedienne-turned-author Sarah Silverman, (liberally covered in jizz. The letter, not Sarah. Not that I know, anyway.)


ABOVE: "Who, me? This letter is for me? Thank you, Hans!"

July 25, 2011

"I love you, Sarah Silverman. I know you're not everyone's cup of pee, but you can read into my soul just as if it was an open book. (An open and hastily-composed-for-a-cash-in book, just like "The Bedwetter"!)

Sarah, if either of us had souls, we would totally be soul mates.

We have so much in common.

You vocally love J. J. Abrams and "Lost." I liked "LOST in America," which I recently saw the other day for the first time.

You write about loving "Les Miserables," and wanting to play Eponine... I too wanted to play Eponine! And I too feel sad when I get hate mail from people who don't understand things such as irony or context or how hilarious it is to make fun of midgets in wheelchairs, specially if the midgets have AIDS. (Someone actually fucked a midget in a wheelchair?!? Why?!? How did that happen?!? The world is sooo mysterious.)"


ABOVE: You can tell she's charmed by me. She's thinking about it.

"And "doody" IS the most sonorous word in the English language. I just get you, Sarah! I love everything about you. Except the bed-wetting. That's just fucking gross. If you're gonna get serious with me, you gotta cut that shit out. I can't afford new mattresses daily. Not everyone has sweet Comedy Central gigs, you know.

Anyway.

Sarah Silverman, I think you're occasionally frightening but adorable.

You make me proud to be a Jew.

Or you WOULD, if I was a Jew, which thank God I'm not! I mean, ovens are for baking cookies and Thanksgiving turkeys, not for me, thank you. I'll pass on being the victim of genocide. I've been told I have a Jewy nose, though!

Sarah Silverman, you make me proud of my Jewy nose.

So... You wanna have sex or something?

Love, Hans."



ABOVE: Oh, yeah, she liked my letter! She's totally going to do it! Whoooo!

Daniel Defoe - "Moll Flanders"

One of the oddest things about the novel as recognizable entity is that, when it first emerges, there's nothing simple, primitive, or tentative about it. The world's first novelistic masterpiece, "The Tale of Genji," is as thick an exercise in world-building as "A Song of Ice and Fire," featuring fully modern psychological insights some 8 centuries before Freud stumbled into a cigar shop. Its author is even a LADY, (Lady Murasaki to be precise.) The first European novel, Miguel de Cervantes' "Don Quixote," is a progressive meta-fiction that might as well have been dreamed up in the 1960s.

And the first certified British novel, Daniel Defoe's "Moll Flanders," comes packed with as much irony as a teenager circa 1994, and certainly has way more sex.



Grit, wit, sly gossip, humor, shocking twists, psychological honesty, a charming female narrator toward whom we feel sympathy no matter what amoral adventure she embarks on... These are the modern features that make "Moll Flanders" readable, but it's the level of irony that make "Moll Flanders" worth talking about as more than a boring historical milestone.

Just about the only modern feature that Defoe didn't catch on to is THE SPOILER ALERT! The novel's full title is:

"The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders who was Born in Newgate, and during a Life of continu'd Variety for threescore years, besides her childhood, was Twelve Year a Whore, five times a Wife (Whereof once to her own Brother) Twelve Year a Thief, Eight Year a Transported Felon in Virginia, at last grew Rich, liv'd Honest, and died a Penitent."

Thanks, buddy. Now we know how it turns out. That's more or less what happens. Sex, violence, more sex, sometimes incestuous... and, then, startlingly, no moralistic fulminating lightning from an offended deity: Moll ends up getting love, family, wealth, and God's full approval. Who can blame Him! She's too joyful about it all to be punished! Moll's memoir is "The Story of O" for Puritans, but Defoe winkingly shields himself again and again from possible accusations of impropriety with disclaimers. A typical sentence comes in two parts: "And I did then Succ'mb to his Kisses with my Full pleas'd Desire, and it was Wonderf'l... But Ladies, do not trieth this at Home for it is Sinf'l!"

"Robinson Crusoe" is the better book, perhaps: but if I'm ever stuck in a little deserted island, I would much rather have Moll Flanders around.

Jefferson Airplane - "Surrealistic Pillow"

There's two songs everyone knows from "Surrealistic Pillow," Jefferson Airplane's stamp-licking best from 1967. Those two songs are "White Rabbit"- the "things-just-got-trippy" anthem movie soundtracks so readily turn to- and "Somebody to Love"- the Summer of Love standard that Grace Slick's haunted bellows turn from a caring question, ("Don't You Want Somebody to Love?") into a direct order ("YOU BETTER FIND SOMEBODY TO LOVE! OR ELSE!")



Jefferson Airplane never fully trusted Grace Slick's nuclear weapon of a voice, the way the Velvet Underground never truly trusted Nico. But Nico dated the Velvet Underground and Lou Reed made them timeless; on the other hand, Jefferson Airplane, the band, is dated... except for the timelessness of Grace Slick.

"White Rabbit" still plays well. "Somebody to Love" is not an old song.



The rest of "Surrealistic Pillow" swirls prettily around those two, like a psychedelic stream shaping itself around two great rock promontories. There's the prismatic pop of "She Has Funny Cars," "Today" and "How Do You Feel"; brief essays at proto-prog, like "Embryonic Journey"; and reined jams that sound like the Grateful Dead in chains, or Fleetwood Mac before Fleetwood Mac mattered that much. If you still feel like it's 1967, and you're going to San Francisco, and you've got flowers in your hair and some kind of bad love in your bloodstream, then lay your head on "Surrealistic Pillow": that's where it belongs.

These Worlds, These Worlds May Be Ours Yet

"The Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction" journeys from Alfred Bester to Ted Chiang, passing through Samuel Delany, Ray Bradbury, Stephen King, Philip K. Dick, Neil Gaiman, Ursula K. LeGuin, Kurt Vonnegut and pretty much anybody in the field you should concern yourself with. As flawless an anthology as anyone can expect. Highly recommended for beginners: it even has the original short versions of Daniel Keyes' "Flowers for Algernon" and King's "The Gunslinger."

The Strause Brothers - "Skyline"

The best alien invasion movies function as metaphors. The metaphors may be facile but usually effective commentaries on racism ("District 9"), xenophobia ("Alien"), consumerism and conformity ("They Live," "Invasion of the Body Snatchers"), loss of faith ("Signs")... Sometimes, the "invasion" is about sheer awe (the majestic "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," the destructive world-trotting of "Independence Day.") Some movies take off from these tropes and push beyond them into unexpected territory, like Gareth Edward's underrated "Monsters": an alien invasion that has nothing to do with aliens and is, instead, about how love flourishes when we put away our fears.

The point is, an alien invasion movie has to be about SOMETHING.

"Skyline" begins by being about nothing. Then gets considerably worse.


ABOVE: This looks like it could be kind of cool, right? Wrong!

The first act gives us descent but derivative-looking aliens blowing up shit, and hot-bodied L. A. losers bickering in their penthouse as though they were hoping to get their very own MTV reality show. Then the second act becomes preposterous when the aliens, who have managed to destroy and/or abduct the world's entire population in one day, somehow struggle to get rid of 4 punk kids... (why would they even CARE to pursue these boring-ass characters?!? Let them die of inanity on their own!) Finally, there's a last act detour that briefly tricked this patient viewer into hope ("Maybe there's a brilliant TWIST!") before it made him descend into sheer anger.

When the space invaders come, I hope they make everyone responsible for "Skyline" their primary targets.

"Basilisk"

Shakespeare is just like Dylan, minus the harmonica, plus the "thees" and "thous." He's always there, always adaptable, always has your back. Whatever mood or situation you're going through, Willy generously lets you know that you're far from alone. He's built a myth just for you.

Most people feel that fiction is a sub-segment of reality. But they're wrong. Reality may just be the aftermath of fiction. In the beginning was the Word, if you'll biblically recall. The Universe didn't explode into existence so much as it was SPOKEN into existence.

Life may be a tale told by an idiot, but that's still much better than silence.

Shakespeare is not British. He resonates everywhere. That he played at "The Globe" was delightfully fitting. But his stories work specially well when they melt with Japan's heroic myths, perhaps because feudalism is so relatively recent in Japan's cultural memory. Kurosawa made this well known to the world.



"Basilisk" is an anime based on Futaro Yamada's 1958 novel "Kouga Ninja Scrolls" and it takes place in a semi-historical, 17th century Japan. It is basically "Romeo and Juliet," Capulets and Montagues, but with all the ninja goodness you can take.

It is 1614. The Iga and Kouga clans bear centuries of hatred on their backs. But star-cross'd lovers Gennosuke and Oboro fall for each other, even though they shouldn't, and so they intend to stop their family feud.

The crazy, crazy anime family feud.

Because, you gotta realize, these Tybalts and Mercutios and Benvolios are not gonna mess around with witty put downs and thumb-biting! Hellz no! They have NINJA SUPER POWERS!



Here's a partial list of the totally believable, quasi-historically accurate talents of our large cast of ninjas:

Kagerou- When Kagerou gets sexually aroused, her breath becomes poisonous. So yeah, her fighting technique is rubbing herself against a guy until she's good to kill him.

Saemon- Saemon can slam your face down into mud to make a mold, then he can put his face in the mold, and there he goes! Identity theft!

Hyouma- Killer eyes. "If" looks could kill? Doesn't apply to Muroga.

Gyoubu- Merges with walls.

Okoi- She can get naked, press against you, and suck your blood right out of the epidermis!

Jousuke- The power of fatness. Can roll into a ball downhill.

Akeginu- She secretes blood from her pores. Then she sprinkles this blood around to form a fine, fine mist in which she can move stealthily. I have to repeat this: at some level, the animators are trying to make a QUASI-HISTORICALLY-ACCURATE tale of Japan's past! I don't think you should let that fact escape from your head. It makes "Basilisk" ten times more awesome.

Shogen- A hunchback with arachnid powers.

Tenzen- He has a wart in his ear. But it's not just any old wart, NO. This is a wart that's actually some sort of symbiotic creature that can EAT Tenzen's wounds and heal him.

Jingoro- Jingoro smears himself with salt, and, of course, this helps him turn into a viscous slug. But beware, Jingoro! You need to get to a water source to recover your human form!

Jimushi- Jimushi is the BEST. He has no arms or legs. He's just a torso that flexes his pectoral muscles to move the plate in his chest-armor, which somehow allows him to slither around super fast. Wait. It gets way better. You know what his killer skill is? Since he has no hands, he has a knife constantly concealed in his esophagus. He regurgitates it, grabs the handle with his reptilian tongue, and gets to the stabbing, right from his mouth.

No wonder today's ninjas feel just plain inadequate.

AMY?!?

WAIT. WHAT??? AMY WINEHOUSE IS DEAD?!? WHAT THE...!!! WHEN DID THIS HAPPEN?!?



I was shocked. One morning without the Internet and the world passes you by :-(

Rest on, Amy.

"Back in Black" was an achievement. This was a predictable and largely preventable tragedy. Kids, maybe it's ok to say "yes yes yes" to rehab after all.

Dylan's Got You Covered.

Dear Imaginary Reader:

I think relationships are very simple.

All you have to do is figure out exactly which Bob Dylan song you're going through.

That's the part that can be confusing. Not knowing where you're at. That's where people take too much for granted, they get their signals crossed. I may go around acting like "She Belongs to Me," but further inspection suggests "She's a Big Girl Now." You feel like "Mississippi" but you're actually "Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again." One lover may be whistling "I Want You," but the other lover's tune is "You Go Your Way (And I Go Mine.)" It's tragic, but "Lay Lady Lay" can turn into "Don't Think Twice (It's Alright)" before the crowing of the rooster. The good thing is that "Idiot Wind" slowly becomes "Most of the Time." That's wisdom.



It ain't just the love bits. Never mind what you're going through, Dylan's got you covered, every minute of the day. Tough day at the office? Raise your middle fingers with "Maggie's Farm." Fakester friend talking smack behind your back? They've got a lot of nerve! Turn on "Positively 14th Street." Wanna feel totally jazzy about walking your dog and dutifully collecting his poop? "If Dogs Run Free."

What Bob Dylan song are you going through right now, Dear Imaginary Reader? To help you decide, go to the amazing Cover Me Songs website, where a while back they compiled almost 300 fantastic, nicely unusual Dylan covers, (although they didn't resist the Guns N' Roses version of "Knockin' on Heaven's Door")

Don't like the old coot's rasp? You're in luck, then. You got plenty of other voices and styles to pick from. Start digging, and find what fits your mood.

Me, I think I'm going through "One More Cup of Coffee" right this moment, for instance. It's not so much that I'm in love with a wild gypsy woman, it's more like I'm not great at making coffee and the vending machine in my building ran out of Pepsi. I NEEDS CAFFEINE! How else am I gonna get to the valley below awake?

Enjoy this live version, Sony is pretty rabid about taking down Bob's stuff from YouTube.



"Your breath is sweet
Your eyes are like two jewels in the sky
Your back is straight, your hair is smooth
On the pillow where you lie
But I don’t sense affection
Or gratitude or love
Your loyalty is not to me
But to the stars above

One more cup of coffee for the road
One more cup of coffee ’fore I go
To the valley below

Your daddy, he’s an outlaw
And a wanderer by trade
He’ll teach you how to pick and choose
And how to throw the blade
He oversees his kingdom
So no stranger does intrude
His voice, it trembles as he calls out
For another plate of food

One more cup of coffee for the road
One more cup of coffee ’fore I go
To the valley below

Your sister sees the future
Like your mama and yourself
You’ve never learned to read or write
There’s no books upon your shelf
And your pleasure knows no limits
Your voice is like a meadowlark
But your heart is like an ocean
Mysterious and dark

One more cup of coffee for the road
One more cup of coffee ’fore I go
To the valley below."



It's Dylan's world. We just make our way through his lyrics.

M. Night Shyamalan - "The Last Airbender"

"Avatar: The Last Airbender" was such a beloved fantasy series because it had warmth, humanity, humor, fast-paced action, likable bantering characters.

In short, all the things that absolutely puzzle M. Night Shyamalan about film-making. I'll gladly defend sections of many of his movies, not just "The Sixth Sense" and "Unbreakable" (hell, I kinda dug some bits from "The Happening.") But the fact is that whenever he comes into contact with other human beings, tentacles shoot out of Shyamalan and drain all naturalness from his surroundings. "The Last Airbender" is a money-maker that still flopped, both with critics and with an unimpressed public that hoped to fill a Harry Potter void and instead was left with a baffling, misdirected howler.

I imagine Shyamalan's acting directions go something like this:

"You know how you're a little boy? Forget that. Try really hard to imagine that you're an ALIEN inside a little boy's body, and you're uncertain of the correct pace at which human conversation goes. Speak ve. ry. Slow. Ly. Speak like you're discovering words for the first time, and you're not even sure if you like them. Void your face of expression while you speak. Wait as awkwardly long as possible before replying to anything. Just SUCK, how about that? Just plain SUCK."

There has rarely been so much bad acting piled into a big mainstream Hollywood movie. I won't embarrass the young actors by looking up their names, I'll just assume they're fantastic and Shyamalan just has a life-draining effect on human tissue for half a mile around and only Bruce Willis can withstand the effects. Barely. It's a pity, because there's some neat production design in "The Last Airbender," and some fine effects- but one shudders to think what Ed Wood might have accomplished with 150 million dollars. Fans of the series were insulted, non-fans of the series were reassured they hadn't missed much.

And M. Night Shyamalan?

I think he's probably pleased. He's sure James Cameron has been challenged. He looks back fondly on the painful way he forced people to deliver "wise" lines like: "He will begin to change hearts, and it is in the heart that all wars are won."

Yeah, the heart, that's exactly where all wars are won. Except actual wars, which are usually won somewhere in the real world, in a place with lots of corpses.

"I have spread wisdom to the world," Shyamalan smiles contentedly. "War IS won in the heart. Now, let's make Part 2 and save mankind from itself!"

Robert Moore - "Murder By Death"

"Man who argue with cow in wall is like train with no wheel! Get nowhere!"- Peter Sellers spewing out wisdom as "Sidney Wang," an "Oriental" detective in the Neil Simon-scripted "Death By Murder."

"Door locked from inside! That can only mean one thing... And I don't know what it is."- Peter Falk as "Sam Diamond", a Dashiell Hammett-ish noir refugee.

"You should not speak with an accent when you know I am so hungry." - James Coco as "Milo Perrier," a plump Belgian detective in the Agatha Christie mode.

"I'm not one to use hyperbole, but I'll tell you this, for the first time in my life I've had the caca scared out of me!"- Elsa Lanchester as the equally Christie-ish "Miss Marbles."

"What a godforsaken spot to get lost!"
"I'm sure I saw a much better spot to get lost a few miles back." -
David Niven and Maggie Smith, frigidly screw-balling as a Nick-and-Nora team.

I found "Death by Murder" to be generous with the quotables, and an old-fashioned treat for whodunit fans. Still got your fondness for "Clue"? You'll like this. Amazing cast, also including Eileen Brennan and Alec Guiness, not to mention Truman Capote, who's as purposefully aggravating here as he must have been in real life.

Jacques Demy - "Les Parapluies de Cherbourg" - "Les Demoiselles de Rochefort"

Dear Imaginary Reader:

Why don't we listen to "Ne Me Quittes Pas" one more time, together, with all the silly romanticism our all-too-wise hearts can gather? Is it possible to remain unmoved while Catherine Deneuve weeps? While Nino Castelnuovo carries her in that magical gliding bicycle? While Michel Legrand's insane array of strings fall like rain on the umbrellas of Cherbourg?



If you know anything about me, then you know I find Jacques Demy's "Les Parapluies de Cherbourg" a sheer heart-breaker, and undoubtedly the best French movie musical ever made. If you DON'T know me but you've read HALLUCINA for any extended period of time, you can imagine it's up my alley...

That love-tinted alley where a kiss is stolen to one of the most beautiful themes of all time...



"Les Parapluies" is the movie I think of when I see young lovers in the rain, (these are hypothetical young lovers, because, really, no one goes out on the rain anymore! Pneumonia awaits there!) Have those young lovers seen the movie? Probably not. Do they know that all their protestations are nothing against the rains of time? Those drenched, soaked, kissing kids would probably be aghast watching the ending of "Les Parapluies," that justly famous, realistic downer of a non-confrontation at the gas station. This is what REALLY HAPPENS, but young lovers don't understand how passion can simply fold, like an umbrella. They're YOUNG! They BELIEVE!

The cynics always think of "Les Parapluies" as a warning: Love dies. Things change. People move on. One night you feel caught in the truest of romances. Three years later you run into your ex at a supermarket. She's there with her new boyfriend, and you can't even dig deep enough to find jealousy in you. You wish them both well. Love is bullshit, the cynics say.

That's not true. That's not what "Les Parapluies" is about. It's about that moment in the rain. You owe it to yourself to get caught in the rain once, and to swear to someone that you will love them forever, and to BELIEVE IT. The rest you'll have to deal with anyway.



There are no happy endings in real life, only endings that take longer to happen.

***



"Les Demoiselles de Rochefort" is often thought of as part of a triptych with "Les Parapluies de Cherbourg" and "Lola." But "Lola" is black and white, an introduction card for Jacques Demy. I only see a diptych of color: "Umbrellas" and "Young Ladies." "Les Demoiselles" doesn't have that ONE great theme, or that ONE great love story. It tries to make up by having lots of little nice tunes and lots of little love non-stories. It is a movie about NOT having met the love of your life just yet. We know the right person exists. They do! We, the viewers, know that A needs to run into B, and C needs to run into D, and E needs to run into F, and if they do, they will be thoroughly smitten, almost inevitably SO. They are MEANT to be together.

But the entirety of "Les Demoiselles" involves A hanging out with C while daydreaming about B; B talking to E about how wonderful A would be if she was real, and D walking away from C to hang out with F. If they could collide in one room everything would fall into place, but Rochefort is big enough a town that it is full of non-encounters. It is a beautiful place to revisit, though. This is one of those wonderful musical movies that you may not care for at first (I didn't! It certainly was a let down from the emotions of "Les Parapluies") but it rewards repeated viewings just like a record rewards repeated listening. (Non-musical lovers don't get this, but a musical movie, unlike other movies, must be revisited to be truly appreciated, for the same reason a rock album must be revisited to be truly appreciated. Music takes time.)

We should all re-visit Rochefort once a year. It really is a charming place. Soon you'll fall into the town's rhythms. You'll know when it's time for the twins played by Catherine Deneuve and Francoise Dorleac to pick up their little brother BouBou from school; you'll know when the regulars ought to stop by the coffee shop run by the beautiful Danielle Darrieux, who made the terrible mistake of turning down the love of her life simply because he had the silly last name of "Dame" and she didn't want to be "Madame Dame"; you'll get excited when the carnies played by George Chakiris and Dale Grover stop by to open their fair; you'll anticipate the moment when Gene Kelly runs into the girl he IS supposed to meet... and how he dances about it! And finally, you'll get to understand that, whereas "Les Parapluies" ended sadly, "Les Demoiselles" doesn't end: its ending is really the BEGINNING of all those promised love stories. Eventually, A and B will fall in love, C and D will fall in love, E and F will fall in love. Eventually. It will have to wait until another movie, though!

And it will be joyous for them.



I turn to these two movies a lot: they're friends and offer shoulders to cry on, realistic advice, and plenty of cheer.

"Les Parapluies de Cherbourg" is about how a great love story can end up becoming nothing important; "Les Demoiselles de Rochefort" is about how, out of nothing important, life can plot great love stories.

If you've never seen these movies, GO WATCH NOW. Definitely.

"Sons of Anarchy" - Season 1

ABOVE: Ron Perlman. Great actor. NOT a handsome dude. And that's Gemma/Leela/Peggy Bundy by his side.

Clay Morrow (Ron Perlman) presides over the Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club, Redwood Original, (lovingly referred to as SAMCRO.) SAMCRO is the lawless order in the small town of Charming, keeping in check all sorts of criminal factions (the Neo-Nazis, the Mayans, the 1-9ers). Their business may be the illegal distribution of weapons, and Clay oversees that with Godfatherish relish, but there is a code. His biker buds may be partners in crime, but they are also family.
Literally, in the case of his old lady Gemma (Katey Sagal, even better here than she was in "Futurama" or "Married...With Children") and Jax, his step-son... OR IS HE?



ABOVE: Now, I don't want to sound all fruity here... but come ON, this is a handsome dude right here!!! Come ON!!! You know it's true!!!

Jax is played by Charlie Hunnan, a Heath-Ledgerish-looking British actor from Judd Apatow's "Undeclared" and "Children of Men." Hunnam may throw all the motor grease he wants on his hair, but he's a pretty boy; that works fine here. He anchors "Sons of Anarchy" morally while giving it a little bit of a romanticized feel. In season 1 Jax has inherited his dead father's manifesto and has begun to truly question what anarchy is, navigating the moral complications of the outlaw life. He still finds time to make James Dean noises at a pretty doctor (Maggie Siff) while dealing with his first born child from a junkie ex-wife (Drea de Matteo, not much competition for Maggie.)



ABOVE: You know how I have a girl in every show? This is it. This is my girl.

"Sons of Anarchy" is much better written than Kurt Sutter's anti-Emmy Twitter rants would suggest. Sutter puts so much true (if sometimes naive) passion into "Sons of Anarchy" that one certainly feels it deserved some noms this time around. It may "just" be "The Sopranos" with bikers, (Drea de Matteo is here to remind us) but good golly, that's like saying something is "just" ice cream with some new sprinkles on it. Action, drama, romance, suspense, and characters you'll want to ride easy with... "SOA" has it all. Just like Hallucina, on a good week.

The Top 10 "Very Special" Episodes of Classic Sitcoms

1- In a very special episode of "Family Ties," the Keatons decide to get literal... and mix incest and bondage!

2- Remember that very specially gross episode of "All in the Family" where Edith nearly got raped? In this OTHER classic episode, a rage-filled Mike rapes Archie, while screaming repeatedly: "You wanted 'Meathead'? You gonna get 'Meathead'!"

3- Is Mike (Kirk Cameron) dealing with "Growing Pains"? Nope! It's a Lupus diagnosis for him!

4- Sam, Diane, Coach, Carla, Cliff, Norm, Frasier... it's a very special episode of "Cheers" when they all discover the sad realities of cirrhosis.



5- In this classic "Taxi," Tony Banta (Tony Danza) runs over a pedestrian with his cab, and pathetically attempts to escape police detection by assuming the alias Tony Tanba.

6- Fran, a.k.a. "The Nanny," is convinced they won't let her join a tennis club because of anti-Semitism, but, nope: they hate her guts because... good God, just LISTEN TO HER!!!

7- It's time to get serious in "Family Matters" and discuss the fact that Steve Urkel/Stefan Urquelle are one and the same. Multiple Personality Disorder is no laughing matter.

8- When the Bundys take a vacation to a distant compound in Utah, "Married with Children" takes on a whooooooole 'nother meaning!

9- In the series finale of "Newhart," Bob wakes up to realize it might all have been a dream, but his bed-wetting disorder is very much real.



10- In this very special episode of "Full House," Michelle (The Olsen Twins) falls off a horse and, instead of having a laugh-filled flashback episode, just plain dies.

David O. Russell - "The Fighter"

"What's the movie about?" Everyone keeps asking Dicky Eklund, (a boxer who once miraculously- and perhaps accidentally- beat Sugar Ray Leonard), when an HBO documentary crew tracks him down to his has-been life in Lowell, Massachusetts. "About my comeback, of course," says Dicky with a mix of pride, impishness, shame and delusion.

It's NOT about his comeback, because there IS no comeback. It's a documentary about crack in America, and how a once promising athlete can end up a gaunt madman, losing all his teeth while still in his 30s, planning hustles with a Cambodian hooker from a dilapidated crack-house. (Sorry for the redundancy: is there a luxurious, well-kept crack-house out there?) Dicky's a crackhead, but he's not the kind of guy who lets that bum him out. He brags about his moment of glory and his boxing techniques while introducing the crew to his voluminous and trashy family, headed by the matriarch Alice (Melissa Leo) who pretends Dicky is just a little unpredictable even though she frequently has to drag him out of the crack-house, (he sweetly sings her the Bee Gee's "I Started a Joke" to appease her, a revealing, manipulative childhood ritual.)

For me, there's one problem with David O. Russell's "The Fighter" for me. The movie is NOT about Dicky Eklund. It just FEELS like that. It's really about his younger brother Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg.) Micky steps out from Dicky's shadow into a thoroughly predictable underdog boxing story, coupled with a thoroughly predictable love story involving Amy Adams, while Dicky's powerful plot-line gravitates miles above the rest. It's really hard to tell why the movie isn't called "The Fighters." And if it's only "The Fighter," it's mean to make us choose WHICH one that is.



Dicky is, of course, played by Christian Bale, and he just knocks everyone out of the pic. Bale should be allowed to be a monster and rant at underlings for thirty daily minutes, as long as he keeps crafting performances like this one. You see him standing next to Marky Mark, and you REALLY get to understand the difference between a nice, charming movie star like Wahlberg and someone interested in ACTING, in embodying new people. It's more than getting cancerously skinny or accordingly pumped up: it's about borrowing someone else's body and mind, and Bale does this routinely.

Everyone else is right and real in the supporting cast, (the controlling boxing-stage-mom played by Leo; the don'fuckwitus gaggle of working-class sisters who equate going to college with fanciful arrogance; the reasonable Dad played by "Rescue Me"'s Jack MgGee.) And the character played by Amy Adams is wonderful as usual: She plays love-interests that interest me. You know my partiality to Amy, Dear Imaginary Reader- she enchants my pants- but here she makes me realize I wouldn't mind having her on my corner when a fine bar brawl gets to going. She's very good, the whole non-Dicky part of the movie is very good. It's just that Bale's performance is so out there it points out how the rest of "The Fighter" just goes through tried-and-true boxing cliches. What's that, you haven't seen "Rocky" or "Raging Bull"? Then you should probably GO WATCH THOSE NOW, TOO. Make it a triple-bill.

But... you HAVE seen "Rocky" and "Raging Bull." Right?

GQ, Thank U

My way of apologizing for the previous rant. Take this and like it.

Viva La No Reservacion! Also, The Brazilian Soap Opera that Saw Cuba Through "El Periodo Especial" And the Parable of the Russians in America, As Well As the Parable of the Super Orgasms.

ABOVE: "Havana is so amazing! I feel so connected to my people. This is truly one of the most beautiful cities on Earth! It's so vibrant and friendly and joyful and there's salsa music pouring out of these beautiful historic facades and... Wait a second. Where did I put my passport? Oh God, where is my passport? Is it back at the hotel? What if I lost it? What if the soldiers won't let me go back to the U.S. and I have to stay in this leprous shit-hole? AAAGGGGHHHHH where is the passport oh God please help me...!"

True Story: I have the above nightmare once every month, around the 10th.

Anthony Bourdain's "No Reservations" was one of the brighter spots in my days of editing cable shows, so I just had to watch the recent Cuba episode. I loved it and thought he did great, he's far more informed than I ever expected him to be (I sure avoid learning about life in Jersey, why should he bother learning about life in Cuba?) Anthony's aware of the things that are great about the island (we Cubans get a lot of chilling time because there are no jobs worth talking about; pretty beaches; affordable jineteras) and the things that are bullshit (everything else).

He had no need to apologize to his "friends" in the Miami community as he diplomatically does at the beginning of the show (When Bourdain says that, you totally believe he has a bunch of Cuban exile friends he routinely discusses Cuban news with; he's cool like that). "No Reservations" is a food-centered travelling show: In the Swedish episode I didn’t expect him to discuss the Swedish monarchy, when he ate in Vietnam I didn’t expect a retrospective on the Vietcong, and when he eats in Washington I don’t want or need him to deliver trenchant commentary on political corruption. Similarly, he's more than forgiven for not spending his Cuban time protesting censorship or corruption or helping dissidents flee from prisons. He eats food and talks about it.

He does that very well.

He was almost scholarly on the history of "paladares." Paladares, BTW, is basically people having restaurants in their houses, which, if you understand how Cuba works, was a highly treasonous anti-revolutionary activity symptomatic of Yankee values like "resourcefulness", "individualism" and "food." That is, until the Communist government realized it could charge extortionate rates, (something like 12% of the profits) from the owners of Paladares if said owners wanted to avoid prison. Then paladares became the center of Cuban life. And they're stocked through the black market, but when you give the government their part of the take, they look the other way. If you're wondering how come this reminds you more of the Mafia than of Marx... welcome to Cuba, baby.



ABOVE: You know how I fall unhealthily in love with a girl in every TV show? Me. Age 13. Chick on the left. Lidia Brondi's her name. Just saying.

BONUS DIGRESSION YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT AND COULD ONLY HAPPEN IN HALLUCINA: Have we talked about how much Brazilian novelas rock? "Paladar" means Palate, Taste. Cubans started naming restaurants "Paladares" after the uber-popular Brazilian soap opera "Vale Tudo" (That means "Anything Goes" but it also can mean "Everything is Worthwhile." That's pretty deep for a soap opera title. Better than "Hospital of Eternal Passions.")

In "Vale Tudo," the resourceful, individualistic heroine with a capitalist need for food goes from selling sandwiches at the beach to opening a restaurant business called "Paladar." Her struggle struck a chord in Cuba's hungriest days ever: El Periodo Especial. Everyone who knew someone who could get horse meat into the city dreamed of starting a Paladar business. What was the appeal? Communism never found room for stories about selfish individuals making their own dreams come true- never mind getting paid for those dreams. But those stories can be insidiously inspiring.

I wonder if the makers of "Vale Tudo" even realize that in some other country their show eliminated the need for the word "restaurant." I can't explain to you how pervasively popular "Vale Tudo" was when I was a kid, or how much Regina Duarte ruled, or what a bitch Gloria Pires was as her ungrateful daughter, or why I thought Lidia Brondi's haircut was a good reason for a boner. Ah, "Vale Tudo"! When there was a plotline about how young Thiago wanted to be abstinent, our priest dedicated a whole Sunday sermon to Thiago's noble chaste struggle- then Thiago got laid on the Monday episode and we were all like: "Ha!" And when evil Donha Odete got shot, you could get top dollar in Havana for a Brazilian VHS bootleg of the episode that revealed who had done it. (Oh, you're never gonna watch it, so I can spoil it. Almost everyone had a good motive to kill Odete. So naturally the person who did it was the only one who didn't have a motive at all.)


ABOVE: Donha Odette! Who cares who shot J.R?!?

In 1993 Cuba, 9 o'clock meant that every single TV set on the nation was tuned to "Vale Tudo." You could literally walk down the middle of any Havana street at night and not miss the plot, because the dialogue was coming out of every open window. If I tell that to American friends, they uniformly say it sounds beautiful and mystical and blah blah blah Che Guevara and everybody come together and blah blah blah. But you gotta realize all it means is we that we didn't have pesky entertainment "choices." That one exported soap opera was pretty much the best thing that happened in Cuba all that year.

That's pretty much Cubita. Everything sounds beautiful and mystical until you figure out it's way worse than you've realized.

This is why I have to take Anthony to task. Can't help myself.

On the plus side, he was very clear in explaining there's heavy censorship, general starvation, and that all the Communist hotels and restaurants and historical spots he's visiting are forbidden to Cuban Communists, unless they have Capitalist dollars and know someone they can bribe.

On the minus side, he explained the above without HAVING HIS HEAD BLOW UP.

Let me reverse the situation so you can truly grasp the absolute, direct-to-the-Twilight-Zone vortex that is Cuba:

Imagine if you can that it's 1957, and you, an American citizen, are in your native New York, and you go to visit the Statue of Liberty, and a soldier stops you and says:
"Sir, I'm sorry, you can't go in there. The Statue of Liberty is only open to visiting Russian spies. No American may go in."
And you say: "Wow, that's crazy! But I don't want no trouble, I'll accept this without question. Is there a McDonald's around here? I'll just go there instead."
And the soldier says: "Oh, there's lots of them, but it's the same thing. McDonald's only serves you if you can prove you're a Russian spy."
And you say: "But I'm reaaaaaaally hungry. Listen, I got 1000 bucks. I'll totally pay you 1000 bucks to go in there for me and get me a Big Mac meal."
And the soldier says: "I could get sent to prison if I do that. 1000 dollars just ain't worth it... ALTHOUGH... You wouldn't happen to have 5 rubles, do you? If you can get me 5 rubles, I'll get you a Big Mac AND a blow job."
And you say: "Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh, never mind. Screw you and screw the Russkies."
And the soldier says: "Yes! God bless America! McCarthy forever! Death to the Russian spies!"
And then five Russian spies pass by and the policeman kisses their feet and lets them right into the Statue of Liberty.

THIS EXACT SAME THING HAPPENS IN CUBA EVERY SINGLE DAY, AND IT HAS FOR THE LAST 20 YEARS! AND NO ONE THINKS IT'S WEIRD!


ABOVE: Look at this picture of Bourdain walking past a mural of Che, Camilo, and some other famous Cuban (I think it's Pitbull.) Are you looking at some surface of proud counter-cultural Communist icons? Are you seeing the Revolution in action? Or can you see beyond into the reality of a faded, unloved, decades-old remnant that no Cuban respects or cares about and only a tourist would choose for posing?

But Anthony romanticizes the surfaces, the crumbling buildings that have so much "character" (it just sucks to LIVE in them forever, you know, sacrificing your safety to a bullshit vampiric regime that hi-jacked your country and bled it of life.) Above all, like most Americans in Cuba, Anthony romanticizes the fucking shark cars. The ancient cars ARE beautiful and mystical, if you can't see past them to the reality. We are clinging to the past because the future never showed up. It’s not that we love ’59 Buicks. That's the kind of stuff AMERICANS like. Cubans would kill for a freaking '99 Myata. We're just not that lucky.

Bourdain is a very smart man, so I want to forgive him the following inferences... but they're too idiotic: "Cubans keep their '59 Buicks. You see them all about. Therefore, Cubans must know how beautiful these cars are, and can probably make a lot of money selling them to collectors."

No, Anthony, they can't. They can't sell them to anyone. If they could, they would. They wouldn't do it now in 2011. They would have done it back in '79, or '89. Long, long ago. Think about it: who could they sell it to? You think they can put an ad on Craigslist and hope Jay Leno sees it and pays them a million bucks for a '49 Coupe de Ville? Are they going to mail the car to him? They're stuck with their paralyzed rusting cars. What Anthony sooort of meant is:
"Cubans can probably make a lot of money selling them to collectors... when Fidel dies and Communism inevitably crumbles and the American money starts to pour in."

But he didn't dare say it.

Elsewhere, he parrots the bullshit trinity of Cuban propaganda (healthcare, education, sports).

Let me tell you a little story: when I have my own repressive regime, (Cuba2 sounds good) I will just make it part of our creed that orgasms are 300% stronger in my country. I will hire Michael Moore to shoot an extra-loud porn in my own personal suite, (reassuring him, of course, that my suite looks exactly like the average Cuban2's suite.) I will have Cuban2's citizens repeat this "fact" every morning, before being allowed breakfast. Within a generation it will considered gospel. Everyone will be sure their orgasms are 300% stronger than those of people in less fortunate countries- (how could they compare anyway?)- and feel great pride in this fact. They'll even say it to each other: "Hans is a repressive dictator, but at least we have these super-orgasms. That makes things more bearable!" It won't stop there. With time schools all over the world would all feature that rad, transgressive professor telling them that no matter what they've been brainwashed to think about Cuba2 by the media, it's a really cool place where orgasms are 300% stronger. Every student will titter, but a few will even travel to Cuba2 to get the super orgasms. They'll have lots of fun in Cuba2, with my armies of "joyful, vibrant, salsa-music-loving" prostitutes.

A quarter of the students will have sex for the first time there, and assume they've gotten a super-orgasm. A quarter of the students will have awesome vacation sex and will be convinced the trip worked, because THEY HAVE NO WAY OF MEASURING ORGASMS. Another quarter will NOT get laid in my island of pleasure, despite pathetic efforts, but will go back to their countries with wild fabrications: "300%? No way, bro! I was with these two chicks, and it felt like at LEAST 450% better! Cuba2 is the Super-Orgasmer's paradise!"

Then... there will be a certain final quarter of "skeptics". They'll have doubts. "Geez, that kind of felt like a normal orgasm, no? It was fine, but certainly nothing that I hadn't experienced before. And why would orgasms be related to territory? This doesn't hold water."

That's ok. Skeptics are easy to handle. I'll take them aside before they depart Cuba2, look them in the eye. "Did you enjoy your stay here? What a question, of course you did. I'm only asking because there was a rumor going around that... Well, it is said that the 300% orgasms do not apply to homosexuals, syphilitics, "skeptics", those who hate progress, racists, intellectuals, the congenitally insane, murderers, and men with small genitals. But why am I wasting your time with that nonsense! None of those things apply to you, of course! Have a safe trip and tell everyone about your experience in Cuba2!"

Anyone who attempts to investigate the 300% orgams through any actual scientific observations will be immediately imprisoned for unpatriotic activities.

I'm going to be the best dictator yet!

---

Let me go over this again. *sigh*

FREE HEALTHCARE! (Yes, those model-hospitals for visiting Yankee spies are awesome, it's just the average Cuban isn't allowed in there. Shouldn't that fact by itself suggest that healthcare in Cuba is not that great at all? If you're not allowed into one great "free" hospital, it doesn't usually mean that you are sent into ANOTHER equally good hospital. It means you're sent to a hospital that is not as good. The medicine isn't even free either. It's just cheap, hypothetically. Meaning aspirin would be inexpensive, if regular hospitals had it, but most of the time they don't. What is true about healthcare in Cuba is that it is somewhat better than you would have guessed from the typical hospital's state of squalor. Why would you simply believe a line like GREAT HEALTHCARE when it comes from a government that doesn't allow any scrutiny? Open your eyes. Look at a crowd of Cubans. Do the words "best healthcare in the world" REALLY suggest themselves to you? Later I'm going to show you a random picture of my peeps- not some select scary group of old Cubans, just regular young Cubans- and I want you to look past all those surfaces that always trick you: past our smiles, past our friendliness. What do you REALLY see? Do you see people with amazingly good health? Or do you see really skinny people? Are you so helplessly American that you think being famished is a sign of good health?)

Free education! (No, let's call this what it is: universal indoctrination. That indoctrination IS free. Somewhat. I can't tell you how great it is to read "Das Kapital" and the complete works of V. I. Lenin and never have to worry about tuition. This free education myth is not true, not exactly. You know that expression I hate, "freedom isn't free"? Well... "Free isn't freedom" works too. Suppose I take you under my wing as a child, and, at absolutely no fee to you, teach you how to work my fields, how to make my food, how to march in my army, and how to read books about my greatness and the importance of obeying me... Would you call that 'free'? Or would you say that I have tricked you into slavery? That's pretty much Cuban education. You may correctly reply: "But that is how education EVERYWHERE works. You're trained to be a slave to society." And I would say: "True. But in Cuba much more so. Trust me, I'm talking from experience." I'm not going to be the one to say that most Cubans are uneducated morons. But how about this..? Most people in most countries of the world are uneducated morons. Doesn't that ring a little closer to the truth than: "Cuba is a nation of super-scholars"?)

Great at baseball! (Cuba IS great at baseball, 'cause there's nothing else to do there but play baseball from the womb on, and watch that one soap opera at 9. The baseball players all can't wait to escape Cuba so they can be great at baseball far away from Cuba. I guess they don't like great healthcare that much?)



ABOVE: Extra healthy genius baseball players gathering to discuss the Ergodic Ramsey Theory of Additive Combinatorics, (which is a real thing.) I don't even understand half of those words, but I'm sure other Cubans do, what with their GREAT EDUCATION.

Oh, mercy, I have ranted too much again. This Cuba stuff always hits too close to the literal home, you know? You're a cool guy, Anthony Bourdain. And your show is about food, after all.

So let me just tell you how you fucked up with the food.

That weird-ass sea-food-with-noodles plate you ate at the fancy only-for-foreigners restaurant? How dare you. You went to Cuba to eat fusion cuisine no regular Cuban has ever heard of? Didn't you notice how your government-sponsored guide was nearly in tears, rocking back and forth and saying: "This is the most beautiful food I have ever seen. I don't know what it is, but it is so beautiful! Oh God, let me die while eating this thing, that's all I ask."

And that food you ate at the Paladar? That WAS Cuban food. Embarrassingly boring Cuban food. I can't believe you were all like: "Black beans! Rice! Plantains! Fascinating!" I'm going to assume you just didn't want to hurt feelings, because you know way better than that. If you went to the Midwest to do a show and someone offered you a mediocre meatloaf, you would punch them, wouldn't you? You should have punched the lady who gave you stale black beans and white rice at the Paladar. Come by my house any time, I guarantee my dog pukes out better Cuban food, and I don't even have a dog.