Mt. Washington Drive: "Reign of Brutality"

I've tried to imagine the most sinister streets, the most brutal boulevards, the most insidious interstates, and the most pernicious of parkways. It is in this realm that I am shrouded in a cloth of pure nightmare, set about in the maddening chaos of a thousand densities of metal screaming as they are torn asunder, of a million burning carcasses strewn across the deathly gray asphalt. These thoughts beleaguered my tiny brain, for it seemed that such mindless terror was beyond human comprehension. And until today, I was correct.

For today marks the beginning. The shivering wet carapace of our world is coddled in the gnashing teeth of discord, awating the hellish bliss of the moment when the jaws squeeze, cracking the chitinous shell of everything we hold as truth and order.

Mt. Washington Drive's Reign of Brutality has come.

MWD--whose name is e'er printed in a fashion parodying the acronym for weapons of mass destruction--orders the blood-curdling insanity from the menu of a hell that Lovecraft only wished he could have conceived. The Drive on the west side of Bend, Oregon has, since its inception, paved a winding, ceaseless path of unchecked speed and power, and it is of this day that every molecule of its potential has been grasped.

Let this reviewer divulge the seat of MWD's power: money. It is with this bottomless tub of dirty cash that MWD is able to throw countless powerful vehicles into one another, like a fiery bolero of aimless asteroids in space. BMWs, Escalades, Mercedes, all built with incredible engines of unimaginable power, able to reach breakneck (literally) speeds as they pass through MWD's blind curves and peripherally hindering corridors. Thus the Drive can claim its victims. There seems to be a nasty collision every week, and they are not always kind to the unsuspecting fools inside the vehicles. Just two weeks ago, MWD claimed three lives. Pure. METAL. GO.

The sheer number of unready human souls that MWD has claimed in its relentless career is monumental, considering the human establishment of the law and traffic safety. All over the world, countless streets are castrated and left as harmless, accomodating avenues for the faithless to travel through; the worst that some of these can do is a rear-ending, most not even resulting in whiplash. But Reign of Brutality spells otherwise. Even the simple, cheap task of installing a few four-way stops has been robbed of the boneless hands of the Bend council, and there is e'er an absence of man's law enforcement to try and protect inevitable victims. 

Bicyclists are crushed beneath the wheels of an SUV going too fast around the curves near the intersection with Simpson; otherwise careful drivers are pressured to speed into collisions with the wealthy at the intersection with Broken Top; pedestrians on their way to their job at a gatehouse are in constant danger even on the sidewalks, for MWD knows no boundaries. The destruction will never be stopped, not by man, not by God, not by the all-ending chaos of the incendiary universe. Mt. Washington Drive's Reign of Brutality will continue forever, into the infinite dark wormhole of time.

No one is safe.

5 Stars for endless, stupid brutality.

Religion: Boxed Set

Hm.

Well, I have to give it to 'em: it's a really shiny boxed set. Like, literally, it's glowing. Glossy, attractive cardboard shell, folds out like origami, has detailed color pictures of what all the deities really look like. The marketing on this is stunningly genius; the photograph of the deities all standing there looks like those promo photos for the fifth season of Lost. Jesus of Nazareth, who is also the Christ, stands just left of center (and not all the way to the right, like you'd expect), standing by a big sandstone pillar in a musky temple someplace, leaning against it like a model in his sky-blue collared shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. Buddha (the Hurley of the group) stands kind of in the shadows, looking depressingly happy with a nose-stud, dyed-black hair, a Threadless t-shirt and iPod headphones, and suddenly skinny--what with his standing as the go-to guy for confused high school teens who are really atheists but see Buddhism as a means of escape from Christianity. Zeus, the leader of the 'Others,' sits like some king on a folding chair in a black suit and tie. Satan, Lord of Lies, is holding a baby.

The whole thing is an extraordinarily hi-def design, impressively colorful, and won't fit on your shelves; you pretty much have to go buy a pedestal for it to sit on. And it really is comprehensive: the parables, the stories from which to draw inspiration, the lessons of love towards your fellow man, all the basics. It includes every chapter of every ancient text, complete with thorough, expansive commentary from the producers. Really, if you're into this kind of thing, there's nothing else that's going to completely turn you into a captive. Er, I mean captivate you. You'll be captive. Ated. Captivated. I mean. 

Only problem is this: that whole marketing design being almost hypnotically alluring? Admiral Akbar said it best. It's a trap.

Speaking of Star Wars, do you even remember those movies? They don't run them anymore; the only way you'll find them is to dig around at garage sales in the grab-bag of VHS left in a damp-bottomed cardboard box near the sprinkler on the asshole's lawn. Old, fuzzy, crappy visuals, shaky 1970s scene transitions, warbling poorly-mastered audio tracks...but really, if you detach yourself from these lesser qualities, you get some pretty entertaining space opera there. Too bad you can't find it anymore. Instead, in its place like a demon, is this trilogy of movies that are nice and glitzy but with all of these extra things added in to make it fucking retarded. Like, at the end of Return of the Jedi, when Luke looks over to see the ghosts of Yoda, Obi-Wan, and Anakin? When before it was the shape of a man who looked like it could be Luke's father--in fact, the form of his father that he would fucking recognize--it is now Hayden "Goddamned" Christensen, the presence of whom makes little to no shiteating sense, and the face of whom is a talentless idiot's face. Just for example.

Religion's kinda like that. The original, wholesome parts of it are now just as much relics as the Muslim buildings razed by Crusading Morons. What's left is what people want to see, as opposed to what people want to feel.

Onto the content, Season One is the only good season. It details the time when a man's god was a symbol of his love for life, a way of teach the next generation how to live their lives productively with good in their hearts. These early people would find god in anything, mainly to appease their questioning minds in lieu of the sheer absence of the greater sciences. Philosophers expounded upon the concepts of gods, offering theories, getting stabbed, the whole bit. People looked to the sky for their gods, finding the sun, the moon, the stars. Nature was the only constant in their revolving generations, therefore nature and its symbolic aspects were their deities. But do the celestial bodies appear on the glossy photo with Jesus, Buddha, and all those people? No. They're indoors, in the dark. Looking glum.

Season Two details what we in the present refer to as "mythologies." I'm talking the polytheist Greek, Norse, Egyptian (the "Age of Mythologies" triad), Mesopotamian...uh...you know, all those. Unfortunately for the modern religious folk, these were once religions too, by basic definition. Basic definition being: people worshiped higher beings. They linked their deities to natural occurrences (e.g. storms, crops, turning into a cow to have sex with a human), built iconic statues, fought over them, the whole shebang. Sounds like a religion to me, especially the cow-human hanky-panky part. Suddenly, at the season finale, all of that shit is completely burned to maddening oblivion (as you remember) and then painted up by the powers that be (the church of Santa Claus) as funny little stories for 9th graders to write papers about. Maybe, had the source material been properly represented, this season would have been very intriguing, maybe even powerful and romantic. However, in its place is left a direly comedic collection of fables that can be openly mocked in children's theater, something that Christianity would never abide without several lawsuits and maybe a burning of heathens or something.

Seasons Three, Four, Five, and Six all revolve around the de facto main character of Religion, Christianity. What I never understood about the series when it split up into all of its spinoffs was why Christianity, out of all the others, remained as the central facet of the parent series. And it's just more of the same: Jesus of Nazareth, a dark-skinned Jew, died for your sins, unless you follow any other religion, including Judaism. This arch never made much sense to me anyways. First off, they kill off the main character at the end of Season Three, and then he's still around. It's like Season Two of Buffy the Vampire Slayer where Jenny Calendar keeps popping up everywhere they could fit her in, even when it didn't make that much of a difference who was taunting Angel or Giles or whomever. It's not like Battlestar Galactica where Caprica Six remains alive in Gaius's consciousness but for a really interesting reason. The following seasons are riddled with proving other people wrong and shoving Jesus right in their faces like he's the panacea of faithlessness and misled beliefs. People died and killed in the name of it, when Jesus was all about playing it cool and making friends, hanging out, teaching people how to love. Total, needless change in character from peace-loving Middle Eastern guru dude to light-skinned warrior of undeniable truth. The cake, if you will, in the cake or death scenario.

Though all of the spinoffs are included in this boxed set (which weighs the weight of three goats), it offers little to no consolation to what has been bastardized throughout history. And since Religion has become synonymous with Christianity because of its popularity, the spinoffs get little to no attention. This reviewer is only aware of the ubiquitous traits of Religion, and can testify to healthy knowledge of Christianity and meager, sickly knowledge of anything else. All that the layman knows about Islam, for one, is that they are all freedom-hating terrorists (lie) and that when they die in the name of their god, they get seventy-two virgins. Lovely and all that, and no disrespect to the core faith of Islam, but is the whole seventy-two virgins thing part of that core faith, or is that a piece of tinsel added by following generations to make their religion more attractive? Something to think about, considering that in reality, that reward from the heavens sounds more like seventy-two tedious, painful, and unromantic chores. Just saying.

Overall, I think I'll give the Religion Boxed Set a 2.0. Originally, very good series when concerning personal faith and finding a spiritual link between yourself and the natural universe around you. The rating is then degraded by the following historical accounts of murder and deception and all-around bullshit tacked on by modern fanatics. 

Your Mom

When I heard about it, Your Mom seemed like something I really wasn't going to be able to get into. Considering its above-and-beyond shelf life and somewhat bloated production, I was setting myself up for certain disappointment. What with the diminished veneer, and the absence of the spark of freshness and all. But once the incapacitators that I put in its drink took effect, Your Mom continually surprised me all through the night, earning more than its other critics have said it deserved.

It started slow, empty, atmospheric, the way I like most things. Most of the newer-feeling releases I experience just sort of leap on you and start tearing off your clothes right away, but Your Mom started with a very gentle, almost motherly hand on my knee (metaphorically speaking, of course). Every spoken word was like a bedtime story, soothing me into what I had no idea would be a raucous rollercoaster of truly epic proportions. As Your Mom escalated to a point of intensity, when you reach that first crux after which you know you can't leave, can't go back, must go forward, I found myself purely enthralled, finding its gritty exterior more and more beautiful. Beautiful in that manner in which you want to destroy it, to defy it by thrusting yourself upon it so fully that all remaining semblances are erased by detonation.

By the time it really got going, I thought Your Mom was never going to let me go. I felt trapped, panicky, but reluctantly pleased. This type of release hadn't ever been something I thought could rock my world so, but it did. It really, really did. Every turn my brain tried to make, Your Mom cut me off, ending me at a brick wall which I was forced to slam my head into in order to make sense of it all. Feelings were gushing from me as if I had no control. There was laughter, there were tears, there were moments of unmitigated childish hysteria, but Your Mom embraced me, told me that everything was going to be all right, even as it kept going as if it had no care in the world for me.

When it ended, Your Mom left me sleepless. It's the kind of release that destroys itself, but leaves you wanting to build. You get into the car afterwards, start driving home, thinking all you want to do is fall into your bed and not rise from it for two whole days. But you first fall to your couch, expel a heavy sigh, find that you can't blink. You count your DVD collection, compelling your body to make at least the first move toward your bedroom. 

But you can't. Your Mom has shaken you to your core, so that your functions in life come to a standstill, and all you can do is exist. It's amazing, phantasmagoric, mind-blowing. To fully understand it, you'll have to keep going back. But how? How can you reach that pinnacle of life again after having it that just once?

Just thinking about it, I feel helpless to do so.

I wish I could rate Your Mom above 5.0, but I can't, so I'll have to settle for perfection.

American Airlines: "Hit the Sky Running"

Advertising is a rancorous ruse, the most manipulative of man-machinated demons since Western monotheism. Watch as it hypnotizes its prey, fills its head with lies, forces it out of its dwelling and into the nearest market, and controls its hands as it weakly purchases the product in question. We have all been suckered by this masterful craft. Not one month ago, this reviewer found coupons for Quiznos, and with no previously existing Quiznos diet, this reviewer found himself going there time and time again, just to use the coupons. You see a finely animated advertisement on a piece of technology, you think it looks so clean, so sleek, so useful that you must have it or perish. Ideas get lodged into your head like so many CD wallets in a glove compartment. Forever, we are the slaves of advertising, and we bask forever in its terrible glory.

Except when it blunders, thus breaking the spell for just one second.

I don't know how long ago this started, as I, a freedom fighter against advertising's reign, do not expose myself to much of its media, but American Airlines has been and is now using the slogan, "Hit the Sky Running." This is a major flop. Allow me to tell you why.

To think of how an attractive slogan works, you must think of yourself enacting its cleverly truncated exhortation, to which its advertising fame is duly attributed. McDonald's old slogan (current? I don't know) "i'm lovin' it," inspires you to believe that when eating a burger (or whatever you call them) at McDonald's that you too will be lovin' it, and will henceforth neglect the capitalization of your self-proclaiming pronoun, for the sake of all things beef-and-grease. At the same time, H&R Block convinces you that you will be surrounded by people doing things for you, and the United States Army insists that you will surmount to the absolute pinnacle of your true being by firing a gun at someone and not having to go to jail for it. You imagine doing these things, and then you do these things.

When I imagine myself "Hitting the Sky Running," no good things come to mind, in any scenario.

Hitting the sky running on the plane can have many different subplots, the two main reasons for a human being to run being:

A)  You're exercising, which is silly, since you're on a plane. Travel is supposed to have a soothing feeling, because it inherently is not. That's why airport music is insidiously soporific, and why they offer you every kind of food, beverage, convenience that an entire city can offer you all in one web of halls. Not only is it preposterous to exercise on a plane because of the narrow aisle width, other passengers, and the flight crew, but those pesky, cumbersome beverage carts make for painful hurdles. And also, you're on a plane because it's too far to drive, and you drive because it's too far to RUN.

B) What, do tell, are you running from? Could it be some kind of danger? Oh yes, American Airlines please.

Then, there's the notion of hitting the sky running outside of the plane, which only means that you're falling to your death.

What the slogan is doing is catering to the goers in our family of generations. The laid back generations have gone soft and wrinkly, so what could appeal more to the baby boomers on up than doing as you go? Always moving, always progressing, food on the go, music on the go, internet on the go, exercise on the go, thinking on the go, cats on the go, it's all fucking go-go-go-now-now-now. And that's what "Hit the Sky Running" is doing for us. It's a phrase taken from its more practical predecessor, "Hit the Ground Running," but has substituted one noun and therefore created absolute fucking nonsense.

Me, I'll fly Delta, because they'll get me there, and they love doing it. Which I disbelieve, but am hypnotized into feeling more comfortable with. Actually, I won't fly at all, because frugality is my holy water for advertising, may it keep me clean, protected, and not broke.

"Hit the Sky Running," 1.5 stars.

The Doctor's Odor, Vol.2

Well, what did I say? What did I tell you? I am regular prophet, a seer into the swirling haze of our future. Vol. 2 stinks. The tolerable dog smell is gone from the Doctor, something that had been holding him together over his last release. You remember that line from Lord of the Rings: "The quest stands on the edge of a knife. Stray but a little, and it will falter." Or something like that. Same thing could have been said for the Doctor's attempts to be less abusive on the olfactory sensors. 

From beginning to end, Vol. 2 reeks of the same stale markings of Vol. 1, only this time there's some shit included in it. Mayhap he needs his glands expressed or something, I don't know. All I know is that Vol. 2 totally isn't even worth checking out. Not for curiosity, not for irony. Avoid at all costs.

Everybody: "The Band Camp Joke Reference"

This reviewer has never seen American Pie. That's right, not even one of its other superfluous incarnations, not even once. Not many of us remain in our echelon of civilization, those of us who have never seen this movie, for we remain on the same level as the Amish, super-religious, people who live in far more stimulating cultures, and people who live in countries that don't have DVD rental locations, and who have carbombs and getting home safely every night to worry about instead of having seen this movie. We who belong in the same tier as the aforementioned parties are known as those who have a good preemptive taste. Now, I know there are many of you who also have a good preemptive taste, and would never have sought to see this movie on your own, but you found yourself in one of those annoying, pesky social situations that compel you to stay even though you're about to watch or experience something you know in your heart to be terrible before succumbing to it. I know because I have been there, sitting on L-arranged couches with ten of your friends, staring at a television as it projects a truly horrific thing for "ironic entertainment." Fortunately, American Pie has eluded me, or vice versa. 

However. 

I will never, can never avoid the knowledge and awareness of the one tidbit that escaped the requirements of seeing the movie in the first place to understand it. As an avid watcher of movie channels and broadcast television stations that daren't air previews of American Pie's caliber, I think I only saw one or two runnings of the "film's" trailer. And still. The ubiquitous absorption of the "Band Camp" joke.

Even if you're Amish, super-religious, fish for tropical life aquatic on your days off, or duck for gunfire on your way to elementary school, you know exactly what "This one time, at band camp..." means. 

Hey, I was thirteen (maybe fourteen) when this movie came out. My peers--idiots--had the full-blown right to be shakingly amused at this joke. Some stellar beauty such as Alyson Hannigan referring to an experience at band camp when a certain woodwind instrument found itself inserted into her genitalia... Not only would that have given my peers--idiots--insignificant little boners, but it would have incited (and did incite) a seeming infinity of repetitions, followed by their tittering, sophomoric laughter. 

1999 was almost ten years ago, folks. And do you know what I still hear sometimes? I go to start of a story with, "This one time..." and forty people chime in with "...at band camp!"

Can someone say "behind the times?" No, because your mouths are all continually choked by The Band Camp Joke Reference. TBCJR has been repeated for almost ten fucking years, and still, Everybody (that includes you) seems to think it's still funny. It wasn't that funny to begin with, I'll add. Objective ratings for The Band Camp Joke are honestly at about 2 stars. The vulgarity and shock factor, coupled with Hannigan's inherent innocence factor, are enough to goad a modest chuckle, but only the one time.

'Reference' releases are mere cash cows, on the attention scale. A movie comes out with a clever joke or line, and in the following months, the more you can slip that joke or line into your casual conversation, the more (stupid) hip you seem, and the more people feed you with their laughter. However, reference releases often don't live that long. They die eventually, often at just about the right time. The Show Me the Money Reference was gone by the time I got to high school, The Dr. Evil Reference series was kaput by sophomore year, yet The Band Camp Joke Reference remains as this long-standing Dick Clark monument as the living dead. 

Taking part in TBCJR was passe even just one year after the likes of Leno would stop putting it into their coffee mug routines, but Everybody still. Keeps. SAYING IT. Really, sometimes folks like to start out stories with, "This one time..." and even those who may have found American Pie to be the most delightful little family event in the world would, circa five fucking years ago, hate your rotten stinking guts.

How about hanging up that old hat? Yes? Because as of now, The Band Camp Reference gets 0.5 stars. Can't get any lower than that, unless I convert my scale to negatives JUST for every time any of you people--idiots--append "...at band camp" to what I'm about to say. And since I just won't do that, this reviewer will be issuing copies of my very own Punches to the Throat: Your Pain Is My Joy. 

Vandals: Christmas Decorations at Broken Top

I love disruption. Don't you? When someone with a clever mind sets to work on defiling the stale perfection of the world with some poetic form of art in the guise of vandalism, that can be a powerful thing. Well-placed words spray-painted on a building that has just recently taken the place of a lovely grove of trees, a Hitler mustache sharpied onto a public visage of our soon-to-be former president--these can all be entertaining in the least. Sometimes they can inspire those who are without power, without money, to laugh at those with. And sometimes there can be a decently-worded sex joke underlining some other graffito in a bathroom stall where all you think of is, Awesome!

Disruption can be a powerful thing, except when done poorly, when it becomes just absolutely pathetic.

Christmas Decorations at Broken Top has to be one of the latter. From the very first sign of discovery, it left me wondering, Wow, is this even vandalism? Or did some dog get out and think that this was something it needed to kill? The first installment of this trilogy is just simply a string of standard Christmas lights left in the street in front of the house from which they were most likely taken. Most of the small trees in front of this particular house are decorated with a variety of colored lights, all of which were left untouched except for one tangled green string that was just...left there. I remember asking myself, 'Is this by Vandals? Doesn't really seem like it, but...what else could it be?'

When you make something in your line o' schtick, you have to remain consistent, or else you'll totally lose people.

The second installment is perhaps the only real close resemblance to Vandals' work. Don't at all think that it's anything to stop and take a picture of, unless you're a police officer begrudgingly complying with the wishes of the fanatically enraged homeowner. Three of those light-up reindeer are placed in a classically pornographic threesome formula: one is in the middle, standing on all fours while another is behind it in the standard copulating position of kingdom animalia. Lying on its side is a reindeer receiving oral stimulation from the reindeer in the middle. Now, maybe if I were an eleven-year-old fawn with an internet connection and no parents home, I would find this amusing. Otherwise, it's just plain sophomoric. Ooh, animals having sexings! This is just AWESOME! Right.

It's all about creativity. Maybe if the Vandals had chopped off the reindeer's legs and somehow made the logos of Ford, GM, and Chrysler prominently emblazoned somewhere on their wiry bodies, strewing them about the driveway like starving, amputated fake reindeer...that would have been interesting to see. Still illegal, yes, but so is Banksy's stuff. Most of it. But to place animals into a triumvirate of decadent fornication leaves a lot to be desired.

The trilogy ends somewhat anti-climactically, again, like the beginning, leaving me to wonder whether or not it actually was done by Vandals. Further down the street there's a snowman decoration that has merely been knocked over on its side. There was wind last night. Given that no other decorations around the neighborhood knocked over by the wind, someone might come along and think that it was all a big accident. In which case, you, Vandals, have failed.

The point of vandalism is to make people know that what happened to their stuff was A: intentional and B: not just some angry outburst like keying BITCH into someone's car. Knock something over and yeah, people may think that it was done by someone, and within that maybe, maybe it was done on purpose. Someone might have made a bad three-point turn, bowled over the snowman, and done what any other asshole would have done and drove off hoping no one saw them. Even an uninformed, xenophobic placement of a spray-painted sickle/hammer on the snowman's thorax would have been better than laying it gently on its side.

I'm no vandal, and normally I don't endorse it because it's annoying to those who receive it without deserving the fuck out of it. But if I were a vandal, my very first attempt, my freshman project, my virginal loss, would have been exponentially better than this shit. Don't go see it. It isn't worth it.

1.5 stars