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Ain't no cure for the summertime blues
Since I started this column I have paid more attention to current events than I used to. This has lead to a rise in my blood pressure. I once had the luxury of ignoring the world around me, focusing my energy on box scores and movie premiers. But now I know what's going on, at least somewhat, and my bloods boils.
Thus, I have decided to take some time off from the column, to forget, for a moment, the world around me and lose myself in fiction. Before I go, I leave you with one final rant:
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider is a new low in American cinema, obliterating the woefully bad Independence Day. Angelina Jolie is a grade-A klutz. Going into the picture, I thought she was sexy. On the way out, I thought her lips suggested Dikembe Mutombo's. Please don't see this movie. This isn't me being artfully critical, as I am wont to do. This is me being kind. Don't waste your money.
Dubya's education plan is stupid. Having students test every year puts amazing pressure on teachers to get their kids to pass a standardized test -- not to read well, think critically, and develop a love of learning. I will have to send my children to private schools because our benighted President is ruining a public education system that has worked efficiently for two centuries.
I hate cross-promotional commercials -- you know, the see this movie, log onto this Web site, drink this soft drink. Where can we go to escape from the onsalught from Madison Avenue? I remember a day when movie trailers (which are ads, too, but at least they're fun) were not preceded by a commercial for Coke, Moviephone, and the Independent Film Channel. DVDs with ads on track one should be outlawed.
Banks suck. If I could, I'd leave my money under my mattress. ATMs are convenient for banks. They allow a simple machine to replace humans -- machines that don't require salaries, vacation days, dental insurance, and 401(k) plans. Then they charge us to use them! My bank charges me a fee to use another bank's ATM. That bank charges a fee to use their ATM. So I get charged by two different banks to make a simple withdrawal. Rat bastards. Also, checking is free when you've got thousands of bucks in a savings account (!) but costs money if you have none. Most corporations suck up to rich people, but banks do it so conspicuously, they might as well have a logo with a tongue in Dick Cheney's ass. And my history teacher said Andrew Jackson was a fool to blow up the bank.
How did Pearl Jame lose to Ticketmaster?
More on this in a later (and more elegant) column, but I hope Jenna Bush's run-ins with Johnny Law inspire her idiot old man to revoke the agist drinking age laws. We can die for Uncle Sam at 18, but we can't enjoy a Sam Adams. Complete bullshit.
Legalize pot already. It's a big waste of taxpayers' money to try and enforce an outmoded law that criminalizes an activity that's not as dangerous as drinking. Did you know the government can seize your property if you have some marijuana plants on your window sill? Ruby Ridge never sounded as logical.
Mr. President: this is not a democracy, as you stated. It is a plutocracy disguised as a republic. Next time you're defending capital punishment to the Europeans, keep that in mind.
Timothy McVeigh was an asshole, but he was an asshole created by the U.S. military system. I would rather see him gang-raped in prison for the next fifty years than put out of his misery now.
Eric Clapton has a new album. Maybe next time his son jumps out a hotel window, he'll follow the tyke's lead. With any luck, he'll land on Rod Stewart.
Anyone who thinks New York is Sodom has never been to Vegas.
I've made fun of Dubya for almost two years now, but make no mistake: I am really offended that he is president. That we elect a recovering cokehead with three arrest records and more rooms in his ranch house than books in his library, a moron who believes he can smirk his way through power politics, a legacy who never would have gotten into Yale without his family connections, a failure at every business he tried his hand at, a Jesus-freak who appointed John Fucking Ashcroft as Attorney General and wants Roe v. Wade overturned; that we elect -- or rather, have our bogus Supreme Court install -- this buffoon to the highest public office in the land, and send him to meet with foreign heads of state, and plaster his photograph in our newspapers, and run his speeches on our nightly news, and give him authority to deploy troops, and condemn men to death, and detonate the nuclear football, is an atrocity. There is nothing funny about this. Dubya's ascension to the presidency has made us a laughingstock around the world, and it signals the end of U.S. dominance. He is the idiot son of a lousy emperor. And I hope he gets his smug ass out of the Oval Office before something bad happens.
That stench you smell in Times Square is the decomposing corpse of American theatre. Great nations put a premium on the arts, Mr. President. It's there in the history books, not that you can read them. How about subsidizing a Broadway renaissance instead of this ridiculous missile defense system?
Verizon finally called the dogs off me. Now AT&T has sent a bill for $28 to collection. This is for three months of service on a line I haven't had for almost a year. Methinks they should go back to the telegraph business.
The Harry Potter books are blatant rip-offs of Ursula K. LeGuin's Earthsea series. They are more fun but less deep -- like most remakes these days.
And stop putting John Travolta in movies, for fuck sake.
By Greg Olear
062601