Thursday, May 22, 2008

End of Quarter Near

Disclaimer: Elements in this fatigued and incoherently brutal rant are designed to tweak all you commies that just won't let go - sometimes I just like to be deliberately contrary, very politically incorrect, and generally insensitive. I'll go back to my default fuzzy and warm-hearted persona when I feel a bit better. I'm presently embracing darkness as an old friend; so read on at your own peril, or wait till my next post. The most miserable quarter of my life is approaching an end. If all quarters were like this one, I would not continue down this torturous path. I knew all along this would be my worst quarter, but I hoped it would go better than this. At least I'm within 3 weeks of Italy - I'm simply holding on til I can decompress my brain for the summer. I did go to the Indiana Jones midnight premiere across the street from my house because I couldn't sleep anyway and I thought I could get in an archaeological mood. All throughout the evening there were rogue packs of drunk sorority she-wolves howling the Indy theme song at the top of their lungs up and down the streets, so I felt unable to concentrate and justified abandoning my Greek at 11:30pm to go to the movie. Very convenient! I set my expectations as low as possible for the movie because nothing can ever live up to seeing the original when I was ten years old and still embraced hope and optimism in life. In this new movie, I didn't like the 50's motif and Stalinist Commies in film never make as formidable bad guys as the Nazi's do, although I always like Cate Blanchett in any role. Nazi's are always representative of an earthly manifestation of pure evil that is oppressively efficient and aristocratic in ways that posed a tangible threat to western notions of individual liberty. A concrete threat that had to be opposed at all costs. Commies tend to viewed as mindless promoters of a misguided ideology of unrealistic visions that exploited the desires of largely servile societies accustomed to being dominated by central authorities, essentially a bunch of lowly peasants that knew nothing but allowing themselves to be dominated. It is better to die than to be such an abject creature subservient to the state. Commies were never a threat to succeed over the long haul. Sorry to all you people out there who take commies seriously in any way, either on the far left as fans or the far right as 'Red Scare' mongers, but I'm much too concerned with the pursuit of self-agrandizing valor and glory from the vanquishment of a formidable enemy to give any credence to such an unworthy adversary, especially one so rooted in the base consciousness of the lowly peasantry. I remain much too narcissistic and elitist to validate commies as any real threat to western civilization - their movements tend to devolve into the eating of their own as in the Maoist and Stalinist examples, and they represent tragic, yet ultimately meaningless, exercises in population control of the vulgar throng. Thus, these commies and their ideologies are best resigned to the dustbin of history, a closet where you lock up the ugly and deformed step-child to avoid shame being conferred on the rest of the family. I pretty much feel the same way about inappropriate attempts to revive Marxist historiographical methodology in academia. Sorry friends, sometimes you just have to let it go when it dies and starts to decompose! Some applications of it can work in certain circumstances, but many are anachronistic projections. Anytime a scholar attempts to impose it on my field it invariably proves to be an absolute disaster, but you'd be surprised at the amount of articles in the last few decades that have tried. In any case, enough on the unworthy nature of villainous commies. Forgive the digression! Back to the film! The movie includes some nostalgic moments of proper Indy fare, but was doomed from inception to be unable to measure up to it's own iconic standards. With that said, I'm sure I will see it many times with my daughter over the years to come and it provided a much needed distraction from school. On a similar note, I have confirmed that a new Conan movie is in production at Lionsgate with a reported $100million budget. They did not consult me on the script, so I'm sure I will have to bring down the wrath of Crom on them if they screw this up too bad. I unabashedly state I could write the best script for Conan, one true to original vision, if only I had the right connections. I don't know who they are going to get to play the new Conan with the Gubernator being too old and physically deteriorated for this role, as he was always his most effective as an actor when he played a cyborg or a barely evolved human. Such was his wheelhouse. I hope whoever they get doesn't piss me off too much. I'll let this rant end now - Fine!