Sometimes I think I oughta just change the name of this column to WHAT THE SHIT IS GOING ON IN THIS COUNTRY?! I mean seriously.
Take this Howard Dean business for example. I know the republicans are scowering the shit out of his past. The media wants him dead, and they’ll do whatever they can to nail his balls to a wall and then pee all over him. You know, practically every politician is getting a bribe or a blowjob or some stupid shit and all everybody can find on this guy is, “he went ‘Yeeeahhh!!!'”
That’s a fucking scandal? How did this even make it on TV? It’s been the top story all week. Shit, even Michael Jackson is real news compared to this! This is a waterskiing squirrel. They’re writing epic poems about a 2 second video clip of the guy being goofy to rile up a crowd. I mean, they had more intelligent discussions on the red carpet coverage at the golden globes. They didn’t do that for Bush’s “fool me once, shame, shame on me, shame shame shame, you can’t fool me again” or whatever he said. They didn’t do it for dropping his dog or falling of a segway (previously believed impossible) and it took them months to notice him standing on the aircraft carrier or saying “bring ’em on” or lying about uranium or etc. (read the rest of this shit…)
Who the fuck knows what to make of Gus Van Sant? Fierce independence and idiosynchricity or whatever for many years. Openly gay independent filmatist working out of Oregon, adapting underground literature and hanging out with Burroughs and shit. Suddenly out of the blue he does this huge hit studio movie with no gay people, but Robin Williams and a math genius garbage man or whatever the fuck that movie was about (I never saw it). How bout them apples I guess is what a guy says in it, I don’t know. So suddenly Van Sant is a mainstream super star and he can do whatever he wants… so what he does, he announces that he’s gonna do a shot for shot remake of Mr. Hitchcock’s famous picture PSYCHO. With the same score and everything. And hire the same screenwriter just to change like ten or fifteen words in it.
When I saw the first trailer for MYSTIC RIVER I practically flipped out. I guess not like one of those “geek-gasms” my bud Harold Knowles talks about but more like getting goose-shivers or the hair standing up on your balls or whatever the saying is. I already knew it had cleaned up at the Whatsisdick Film Festival over there in wherever it was, and that it was directed by my man Clint, who actually did the narration for this trailer. There was no scenes from the movie, just a helicopter shot of the town with the narration and then the credits start telling me, okay: Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Kevin Bacon, Laurence Fishburne, Marcia Gay Harden, Laura Linney… and then it says, “A Film by Clint Eastwood.” It gives you no clue what it’s about really, just shows you the setting and tells you the players and figures that if that’s not enough for you then you must be an asshole. “That’s all I need to know,” I said, but really I already knew more – that it was written by oscar winner Brian Helgeland, director of outlaw award winner PAYBACK. 
Hi, everyone. 
