"Undermining my electoral viability since 2001."

Outlandish Josh

Published on Fri, 2005-02-18 13:20

Back

I'm back from Norcal. The good news is that the route is more or less sketched and we picked up a camper for Luke's pickup. The bad news is that the pickup also needs serious engine work. We believe the used-car warranty will come through on this count.

But now, for what you really wanted: the photos. I have two so far. Click for big versions.


Here's the truck (man-size mudder tires! yeah!) and John, the AZ mechanic who did the initial work to get it road-worthy. Unfortunately, after taking Luke back to SF and then he and I up to Westhaven without much incident, the engine had a major breakdown -- horrible death-like knocking sound -- on the way back from the grocery store. It should be all ironed out by May though, hopefully though a warranty.


And here we are with the Siesta, a camper shell which should fit much more nicely on the big truck than on the lil' red one. We got it off a pure humboldt dude, and unfortunately the cranks which you use to raise and lower the camper couldn't get it high enough off the ground enough to back the 4x4 under. Man-size mudder tires...

To load the Siesta up, we will have to fabricate a cranking mechanism with higher clearance. This should be pretty easy, actually, and will be documented in full. But it seemed like a task better suited for the leisure of may rather than the pressure of the moment, so after some deliberation (and hamburgers and a right-wing mom'n'pop joint in Eurika) we decided to see if the smaller red truck would carry the weight of the camper. Proving it's worth once again, it performed like a champion, even on rutted and bumpy Westhaven gravel roads.

At $300 (plus however much it saps our gas mileage), the Siesta seemed a worthy investment in terms of the additional comfort it will offer for three men and a dog on the road for three months. It will sleep two in comfort, has roof racks, a small refrigerator (which can run on electricity or propane) and a stove. We plan on serving fried eggs out of it at Burning Man. Oh yeah.

So Luke and I returned a little later than originally planned, and via the all-night greyhound. Oh man. Thanks to Zia being johnny on the spot with the half-pints of Aincent Age, the bus trip passed quickly. Now the pile of work looms. I fly to New York on Sunday. Much to do between now and then.

Look for future trip updates starting soon on VAGABENDER.COM

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General
Published on Tue, 2005-02-15 08:51

Out for a Kill

IMDB: Out for a Kill (2003), one of the most incomprehensible films I've ever seen. Watched this last night as kind of a V-day joke.

Everyone reconizes that it's terrible, but no one I can see mentions that it was clearly made to be released internationally. Much of the dialogue occurs where we cannot see people's mouths moving. When plot details or exposition are shown with text, they are post-processed in like subtitiles, rather than placed into the film directly. This doesn't look as good, but it's easier to switch. All this points to the filmmakers consciously angling towards internationalization when making the movie.

The conventions of the film also track more closely with Hong Kong than Hollywood. Multiple subplots are hinted at without exploration. Visual styling includes a lone gravity-defying wire-fight. In what are meant to be emotionally-intense scenes, the principle actors have most of their faces shadowed, but with light around their eyes; it's a pretty distinctive effect.

And also, most of the crew is Bulgarian, and the eastern-european bits were recognizably filmed in Sofia, Bulgaria.

My guess is that the whole film was made overseas. Many other parts -- particularly the "American House" Segal and his wife are supposed to live in -- have the distinctive look of soundstage sets. Using a non-US (and non-union) crew, DV cams and digital post-production, the whole movie could have been produced for a comparative pittance. Segal was a producer -- meaning investor -- on the film, so this makes sense. With secondary sales in Hong Kong and around the globe, its entirely possible that this film turned a healthy profit.

And they use the word "Academician" in it. Academician!

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nerding out
Published on Tue, 2005-02-15 08:18

It's your party

Chairman Dean in action. Assuming (and I think it's moderately safe to assume) that someone's actually going to read the responses, this is a great idea.

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politics
Published on Mon, 2005-02-14 15:59

Power Corrupts: Example 5837b

So here's what we've got: an energetic Texas republican running a privately-held corporation promoting the conservative point of view, as well as an attached "news organization," places a reporter in Washington who gets clearance on a dialy basis to press briefings from the White House. This reporter/operative lobs obvious softballs and participates in the exposure of a CIA operative (a felony, fyi). He's a tough guy, an ex marine, maybe reminds the old hands of G. Gordon Liddy. Anyway, about a month ago when he gets called on by El Presidente himself, he asks a supendously loaded qustion and some interested parties started looking into who this character was.

Then the plot really takes a turn for the bizarre. Turns out he used to be (still is?) a male escort. It's something of a commentary on the state of the Conservative Movement that they either didn't realize this was the case, or knew it and assumed that this information wouldn't come to light. Kind of a fascinating study in power, really.

The Long Story:
There's this guy who's been lobbing softballs at White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan for the past couple of years, Jeff Gannon. Turns out, he's not really Jeff Gannon, or a journalist. In fact, his real name is James D. Gukert and in addition to "broadcast journalism training" from the leadership institute, he also has a background as a male prostitute.

His journalistic employ (and White House passes) come through "Talon News," a web-only publishing operation supported financially by GOPUSA, a "privately held corporation" run by an enterprising Texas Republican named Bobby Eberle. Bobby's bio recently went off the GOPUSA homepage, but google still has it in cache. It states "Bobby is a member of Texas Christian Coalition and Texas Right to Life, and he spends considerable time promoting these conservative ideals." Apparently that means arranging for a military-themed male hooker to get into White House press briefings (on repeated daily passes which don't require as much oversight as long-lasting "hard" passes) so he could "report" for Talon and offer a lifeline when questioning from real journalists needed some "balance."

Toping the pile of dirty tricks you probably shouldn't run via someone with such a questionable past, workin' girl Gannon was, along with other such luminaries as arch-conservative/ veteran operative Robert Novak, given a memo blowing CIA operative Valerie Plame's cover, an act of political retribution against her husband, diplomat Joe Wilson, who had refused to prop up part of the administration's rationale for war with Iraq by demonstrating that evidence suggesting Saddam Hussein had attempted to purchase nuclear materials from Niger was forged.

Only people in a really big rush or in the throes of hubris (or both) would bother to use an agent so prone to compromise for these kinds of things. Oh man. Oh man, indeed.

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politics

Authentic Experience

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Nerding Out

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