Monday January 17, 2005

DENNY CRANE

Those who might have been wondering if David Kelley could inflict a greater aesthetic blot on the escutcheon of televisoin in general than when he gave Camryn Manheim a major continuing role in The Practice were ably answered with tonight’s episode of Boston Legal, when the delectable Lake Bell was written out of the series, to be replaced with Candace Bergen as a regular character and Betty White in a steadily recurring supporting role.

I’ve long suspected that Mr. Kelley at some point over the past few years formed a secret compact with himself, to see just how much utter havok and ruin he could enact on a major broadcast network before people would stop hiring him to do it. You’d have thought that The Brotherhood of Poland, New Hampshire, or whatever the hell that godawful thing that was on CBS for about 4 episodes last season was called, would have reached that goal nicely… actually, I would have thought nearly any randomly chosen episode of Ally McBeal, or repulsive characters like Boston Public’s The Hook Lady would have accomplished this with ease. But no, networks are still vying to throw huge bales of cash at Mr. Kelley’s feet, and he is, apparently, utterly determined to teach them the error of their ways.

Whether ABC learns their lesson or not, I have, and in fact, I’m grateful. I drifted into watching Desperate Housewives just because it was on right before Boston Legal, and now that I’ll no longer be bothering to stay up for the latter, I won’t miss the former, with its endless half-wittily presented misogyny and straight-bashing, either.

Yeah, yeah, I know, it’s shallow to stop watching a show just because they change the chick-scenery. And, geez, even if that’s all I’m after, Boston Legal still has Monica Potter and the other one… the British chick with all the collagen in her lips, Rhina something or other, I think… and you’d think that would be enough cuteness for any show. But it’s not just the departure of Lake Bell’s character, it’s the fact that Lake Bell’s character was an astonishing aberration for David Kelley shows, which is to say, she was a female character written by David Kelley that I didn’t want to throttle to death immediately. Trust me, this is odd.

Now, anybody reading this who actually watches Boston Legal will quickly assume that I liked Lake Bell’s character so much because she was a hot young woman who dressed provocatively, danced naked on bars when she got a little drunk, and who liked to sleep with older men. And certainly that’s true, and what’s wrong with that? It’s amazing David Kelley created such a character and then didn’t immediately have a building fall on her, but hey, I was enjoying his departure from his usual habit of depicting all his female characters as stridently humorless man-hating bitches.

Candice Bergen’s character, on the other hand, is an elderly, not particularly great looking, ultra aggressive so called feminist liberal who spends much of her time disparaging men, and the rest of it making crude sexual innuendoes to them. Rhona Mitre (that’s her name)’s character consists of a British accent, nice legs, and straight lines for James Spader’s Alan Shore. Monica Potter’s character, who has been on the show since the first episode and who is a lot of fun to look at, has absolutely no discernible personality whatsoever, except tonight, we discovered she goes to church. Which of course, makes me like her even more.

In fact, I will freely admit that another reason I don’t want to watch this show any more is that tonight’s episode was, essentially, a powerful argument for faith, in which our protagonist lawyers got a judge to agree that taking ‘God’ out of the Pledge of Allegiance was ridiculous, and high school science teachers should be required to teach Creationism (thinly disguised with the code phrase ‘intelligent design’) right alongside evolution.

Now, me, I’m more or less a believer in ‘intelligent design’ myself… but I don’t think it rises to the standard of being an actual scientific theory. It doesn’t seem like the sort of thing that can be grounded in research, or supported by facts. It seems to quite simply be a leap of faith. I find that leap of faith comforting, but I don’t think tax dollars should go towards teaching it to kids under the guise of being a reasonable scientific theory… or, in the context of American mainstream society, anything but an endorsement of the particular brand of monotheism generally referred to as ‘Christianity’.

So, when David Kelley starts replacing young hot older-man friendly babes with obnoxious elderly women who apparently revile everything male, and in the same episode, he seems to be saying that he feels Creationism should be given equal time with evolution as part of a high school science syllabus, it’s time for me to stop watching the damned show.

SNAP, CRACKLE, E-POP

Got myself in some seriously hot water at work on Thursday. See, we have these things called e-pops, which are basically an Instant Message feature for the local network where I work. The majority of the employees, which is to say, the reps on the floor, can only receive e-pops, they cannot initiate them, or even respond to them, unless the e-pop has a pre-programmed response link at the bottom of it (for when some team leader there finds a set of keys or something and sends out an e-pop asking whoever lost them to respond to him, etc).

However, supervisors and back office folks can send out e-pops, either to any one individual presently logged in to the system, or to a specific team, or to the entire network.

Now, on the e-mail team, we have a tradition of e-popping funny customer names, email addresses, and/or the occasional utterly deranged customer email, to the rest of the team, for their amusement.

And, the way our e-pop directory is set up, the email team’s collective address, that you click on to send something to all of us, is directly below the collective address (O=users) that sends an e-pop to everyone currently logged in to the system.

You can just see that this set up is utterly fraught with peril, especially for total spazzes like me.

So, I got this email. It was just a piece of spam, trying to lure people to an adult dating website, and we get stuff like that all the time. But this specific email said “Hey, I know this will sound strange, but would you like to come over tonight? I’m finally getting rid of my asshole husband, and I was wondering if you’d like to keep me company for a while later tonight.” It was signed “Angela T”, and of course, at the bottom, it had the inevitable link to the adult website it was actually simply a transparent shill for.

Now, here’s the thing: we have this guy on the email team whose name isn’t Brian, but I’ll call him that anyway. He is what British girls would once have (and for all I know, would still) called dishy. He’s also a devout Born Again Christian, and the fact that the women where I work hit on him constantly, and I mean, constantly, is a source of profound embarrassment to him. And, naturally, we all mess with him about it. So I copied and pasted this email into an e-pop window, typed “Clearly this was intended for Brian” in the subject line, and sent it to our entire e-care team.

And I really did do that, our entire e-care team did get the message, and everyone thought it was really funny, too, until Brian noticed that the addressee was not “Email.Agents.Users”, but, rather, just “Users”.

And, of course, the “From” line was neatly filled out with my name.

And then someone came in from the floor and said “Okay, you guys just created a huge uproar out there”.

“You guys”, in this case, meaning me.

Now, people make mistakes with e-pops, if not all the time, then at least frequently enough that while it can be embarrassing, it’s not considered serious. But in this case, it was serious, because of the presence of the word ‘asshole’ in the e-pop. That made it an offense that could rise to the level of termination, to use perhaps overly fulsome Human Resources bureaucratese.

And… here’s another thing… we actually have a woman… a young, quite attractive woman… on the email team named “Angela”. Her last initial isn’t ‘T’, but, still, we have an Angela, and most people on the floor, and all our supervisors, know that. And this looked a lot like, basically, Angela had sent me an email inviting me to an adulterous encounter at her place that night, and somehow or other, I had accidentally forwarded it on to the entire floor.

This happened around 4:15 in the afternoon, on a Thursday, so most of the employees were present. Fortunately (or not) my direct supervisor, Kendra, had already gone home for the day. Nonetheless, within five minutes I had two different team leaders and three different Senior Supervisors back in the email team room, demanding to know what the hell we were sending to each other back here, apparently under the impression that the email team was indeed using company software and hardware to set up illicit liaisons with each other.

Now, once I explained that it had just been a piece of spam, and we got stuff like that all the time, and further profoundly apologized (and, of course, I really was sorry, since this was very embarrassing), and they all took a second look at the email and the subject line and realized that, in fact, it was not something we had originated between us, and it had simply been meant as an in-joke for the email team, everyone calmed down.

I myself went over to our General Manager’s office and personally apologized. I don’t say that here to give anyone the impression that I’m a wonderful guy or anything. My name was on the e-pop; there was no point trying to deny sending it. I do think that when you screw up that publically, you should apologize, but I was also mostly simply trying to get whatever official retribution was going to come my way over with… if I was going to be fired, I wanted it to happen right then.

Our GM thanked me for ‘taking ownership’ of the mistake, and in response to a direct question, said I wouldn’t be fired for what was obviously just an honest and harmless error. Of course, it wouldn’t have been harmless if our major corporate client, or even someone higher up my company’s food chain, had been visiting the center and seen that e-pop, but I got lucky there.

I did get a formal write up for it, which, you know, ain’t a happy making thing, and will doubtless impact any raise I may get (and I have a six month review due, too, since January 12 was my one year anniversary on this job). And I will never, never send an e-pop to anyone at work, ever, again.

But, still, I wasn’t fired. And that has to be a good thing.

THE CHAINS WE FORGE IN LIFE

I got a friend who is much more experienced with E-bay than I am to order me another case of UNLEASHED, from another E-bay vendor, and will send off a check for it tomorrow. This price actually worked out to be a few bucks cheaper than the total I was supposed to pay to the pricks at Cedar Cliff Collectibles, so, well, that’s a nice little bonus. And, as Mike Norton pointed out in my comment threads, apparently my experience with Cedar Cliff made an impression, as they have since modified all their E-bay ads to state that they will only send purchases to CONFIRMED addresses.

For what it’s worth, I did make an attempt to confirm my current mailing address with E-bay. However, when you do this, they send you over to PayPal, and then PayPal brings up this form that you type your credit card information into, so they can compare the information you provide with the information PayPal already has on file for you. And I just shut that form down. I resigned myself to providing that information to PayPal on the grounds that once PayPal had it, I would be able to use PayPal to make purchases from other vendors in relative anonymity. I have no desire to give E-bay my credit card information, since I am very aware that within the very elaborate electronic agreement one must consent to before one can do business on E-bay, there are all kinds of stipulations that allow them to bill your credit card for all sorts of things whether you want them to or not. So, I will most likely never have a ‘confirmed’ address with E-bay, and, well, that’s okay, I guess, as long as I have friends who aren’t quite as surly or truculent or paranoid about such things as I am.

It will take longer for my case to get to me, since it has to go to my buddy first and then be remailed to me, but, well, I can live with that.

My baby brother, the one I used to share a very small apartment with, is now working at the same place I am. He’s gotten his girlfriend… the one I can’t stand… pregnant, and so has vowed to straighten his life out. I’ll admit, the place we both work is the best job one can find in this rotten little township, but I’m not particularly impressed with what I see… or don’t see… of his determination to better himself.

He walked home with me Friday night and hung out for maybe 90 minutes. He didn’t want to play a game of HeroClix, because, you know, that was something I would have enjoyed and his visit certainly wasn’t about that. He was happy to go through my extra clix and amass a big bag of stuff for himself, but, well, I’m generous that way, and didn’t much mind. Other than that, he spent most of his time talking about all the Marvel comics he is currently buying. I don’t buy anything from Marvel currently, but my bro’ is apparently enjoying the new Marvel Team Up series as well as one of the Spider-Man books, Thunderbolts, and Fantastic Four, and he’s buying a slew of other books (including The New Avengers) simply, as he puts it, ‘in case something cool happens’. He did seem a little embarrassed at spending so much of a very small monthly income on comics with the baby coming, but, well, as my mom put it over the holidays, “Paul thinks he’s getting a puppy”. He honestly has no idea what he’s in for. He says he does, but he clearly doesn’t.

And, you know, given how badly his last puppy worked out, I’m not real wild about that idea, anyway.

Paul has always wanted my approval, and clearly he wants it now more than ever, and I just can’t give it to him. Leaving aside the fact that he spent an hour sitting at my kitchen table blathering on and on about comics I have no interest in (and that he knows I have no interest in), I was mostly disappointed and perturbed by the constant excuses he kept making as to why he and his wretched slattern of a girlfriend aren’t doing more to get ready for this kid. They know they have to move to a bigger place, but right now they are waiting for an opening to show up at an apartment complex where some friends live. They know they have to get on a serious budget and start getting stuff for the baby, but, well, they are waiting for the paychecks where Paul is now working to ‘seriously kick in’ (he has three weeks of training at a lower wage, which I assume is what that means). And several times during the conversation, Paul mentioned, vaguely, with a sappy grin on his face, that “things have always just fallen into place” for him.

There’s a guy who used to live next door to Paul (and me, when I lived with Paul) named Jeff. Jeff’s a nice enough guy, I suppose. He’s a good friend of Paul’s going back to high school. As a lot of young men do these days, Jeff has a child, a daughter named, I believe, Amber, and she’s an adorable little kid, about 4 years old and incredibly cute. Her mom, one of Jeff’s many ex-girlfriends, is… well, I don’t like her much. Amber will spend her entire childhood staying with Jeff for a few days every week and then with her mom for the rest of the week, in whatever particular dives and/or hovels that Jeff and her mom happen to be separately residing in at the moment, with whatever unpleasant, trashy significant others Jeff and her mom happen to be sharing space with at the time.

And, a year from now, two years from now tops, I am horribly certain, my new niece/nephew will be in exactly this position, as well.

I’m trying not to think about it, but, well, it’s just a depressing prospect.

I am currently reading a book called Anno Dracula by Kim Newman. I got it from one of Amazon.com’s Marketplace used bookdealers, as it’s apparently out of print, and intended it to be a Christmas present to a friend of mine who is nuts about vampires. However, it got sent to me instead, so I’m reading it, and I may just keep it, because it’s rather good.

The central concept of the book is that at the end of Dracula, the master vampire is not defeated by Van Helsing and his friends, but manages to triumph over them and, within months, has convinced Queen Victoria to marry him, in exchange for giving her restored youth and immortality by turning her into a vampire. Once this happens, and Dracula becomes Prince Consort of the British Empire, vampirism becomes something of a fad, spreading amongst the upper and lower classes like a plague… a plague most avidly seek out, as it promises them, well, eternal youth and immortality.

The book describes a London about equally divided between undead and ‘warm’, which has become the colloquial term for those who haven’t been ‘turned’ to vampirism yet. Taking place about three years after Stoker’s Dracula, the story follows this particular world’s Jack the Ripper, a survivor of Van Helsing’s all but destroyed band of would be Dracula enemies, who is using a silver scalpel to murder undead prostitutes, to try and learn the secrets of vampire physiognomy so he can devise some better way to wipe out the entire evil bloodsucking race.

The book is populated with fascinating characters, both human and vampire, and gives a wonderfully detailed and atmospheric look into a world in which vampires have ceased to be regarded as inhuman, predatory horrors that must be slain at all costs, and are instead not only accepted members of society, but whose status is actually coveted by the majority of the still human masses. Many historical personages, real and fictional, appear in one form or another in Anno Dracula. Van Helsing’s head decorates a spike outside the Tower of London, while both Bram Stoker and Sherlock Holmes have been sent to a concentration camp off in the Scottish wilds along with many others who will not accept the new social order. Nearly every vampire ever depicted in popular fiction gets at least a passing mention somewhere (although Newman makes a mistake when she mentions ‘the buffoon Barlow’, as all us serious ’Salem’s Lot scholars could tell her that in point of fact, Barlow is an Americanization of that particular vampire’s name, which was originally Breichen, and which, in the 1890s, he would most likely still be going by).

Beyond being a fun book simply for picking out the various literary references (and one has to assume Alan Moore took a great deal of his inspiration for League of Extraordinary Gentlemen from this volume), it’s also a well written story, and one I’m finding enjoyable. There are at least two sequels to the book, one set in WWI concerning “the Bloody Red Baron”, who I’m guessing is a vampire, and one set in the 1950s called Dracula Cha Cha Cha about I don’t know what. But I may make a real effort to pick them up, given how much I like this one so far.

On the subject of Amazon.com, I went out and ordered a bunch of Modesty Blaise novels and comic strip collections there last week. When and if they all show up, I should have all the Modesty Blaise books except for Pieces of Modesty, a short story collection, which is apparently so out of print that the cheapest copy I could find was $50. And it appears that the Titan comic strip collections I used to own up North have all been re-issued with different covers. I ordered one of those as well, and will probably pick up the others over time.

And, honestly, that’s really about all that’s going on in my life right now. No, I probably wouldn’t comment on these entries, either, if I came across them on someone else’s blog, so, certainly, you’re all excused.

RULES OF THE ROAD

In one of his many invaluable essays on life in Hollywood, Mark Evanier described his first meeting with legendary TV comic and icon Milton Berle. Upon being introduced to Uncle Miltie and shaking hands with him, Mark, who is a pretty witty guy, blurted out without even thinking about it, "Wow, I didn't recognize you in men's clothing". According to Mark, this soured Uncle Miltie on him from that point forward, because Mark had broken Rule Number One When Hanging With Milton Berle, namely, Never Be Funnier Than Milton Berle.

I'm reminded of that anecdote now.

Recent experiences at Electrolite being pretty much entirely similar if not completely identical to my previous experiences at Uppity-Negro.com and TampaTantrum.com, I thought I'd take the time to extrapolate whatever wisdom there is to find in the whole mess. Here's The Deal, as far as I can see:

If you want to make friends and influence people when you head out onto the blogging trail, at least, as regards your posting comments on other people's blogs, you MUST NOT:

Rule E comes mostly out of my experiences with Aaron Hawkin's Uppity-Negro blog. He gets a lot of female posters and like any of us male geeks would be in that admirable position, he is thoroughly whipped by them. If a new reader comes along and does anything whatsoever to offend the babes on Aaron's blog, that new reader can expect a cold shoulder from Aaron roughly the size of the Greenland glacier. I don't really blame Aaron for this; for a male geek, positive female attention is a jewel beyond price, and if I ever had any women posting to my blog who weren't related to me by marriage, I'd most likely dance and sing like a puppet on a string when they cracked the lash, too.

I should add to this that I've learned, from Electrolite, that one Must Not Be Whimsical, Oblique, or Overly Geeky When Posting To A Big Important Political Marketplace of Ideas Type Blog, because those guys just have no time for Theodore Marley Brooks or Cornelus van Lunt references, regardless of how amusing or entertaining you and some others may find them.

Now, I am posting this to point out that while these may be the universal Rules of the Road on other blogs (and as far as I can see, they are, indeed, pretty much universal) you can ignore them here. I don't care if you:

Oh, and I like geeky references and would just adore whimsical, cleverly elliptical posts to my comment threads, although I suspect I'd get annoyed if someone started posting a whole lot of Harry Potter-speak here, just for one example.

If there is a universal rule on this blog, it is quite simply, Do Not Be A Bigger Asshole Than The Blogger. In fact, if you can avoid it (and most of my small number of regular posters avoid it with style and panache) Don't Be An Asshole At All. I am quite a big enough asshole myself to supply all the assholiness necessary for any blog, and I will continue to keep this blog well furnished with stupid remarks, doltish mistakes, whiney rationalizations, and defensive recriminations by the ton lot, there can be no doubt. You need bring none of your own asshole nature with you, I have plenty and am always willing to share.

THE INEVITABLE DISCLAIMER

By generally accepted social standards, I'm not a likable guy. I'm not saying that to get cheap reassurances. It's simply the truth. I regard many social conventions in radically different ways than most people do, I have many many controversial opinions, and I tend to state them pretty forthrightly. This is not a formula for popularity in any social continuum I've ever experienced.

In my prior blogs, I took the fairly standard attitude: if you don't like my opinions or my blog, don't read the fucking thing.

Having given that some more thought, though, I'm not going to say that this time around, because I've realized that what this is basically saying is, 'if you don't like what I have to say, tough, I don't want to hear it, don't even bother to tell me, just go away'.

And that's actually a pretty worthless attitude. It's basically saying, 'I don't want to hear anything except unconditional agreement and approval'. And that's nonsense. This is still a free country... for a little while longer, anyway... and if you really feel you just gotta send me a flame, or post one on my comment threads (assuming they actually work, which I cannot in any way guarantee) then by all means, knock yourself out.

Unless your flame is exceptionally cogent, witty, or stylish, though, I will most likely ignore it. You do have a right to say anything you want (although I'm not sure that's a right when you're doing it in my comment threads, but hey, you can certainly send all the emails you want). However, I have an equal right not to read anything I don't feel like reading... and I'm really quick with the delete key... as various angry folks have found in the past, when they decided they just had to do their absolute level best to make me as miserable as possible.

So, if you don't like my opinions, feel free to say so. However, if I find absolutely nothing worthwhile in your commentary, I will almost certainly not respond to it in any way.

Stupidity, ignorance, intolerance... these things are only worth my time and attention if they're entertaining. So unless you can be stupid, ignorant, and/or intolerant with enough wit, style, and/or panache to amuse me... try to be smart, informed, and broad minded when you write me.