Naked Came I

If you're ever thinking about going down to Crawford, Texas, to protest against Bush, beware. The police do not take kindly to demonstrators there--or legal observers, for that matter. And even if you're just wearing an anti-Bush button, you could get arrested.

That's the message a local jury sent last month. On February 16, it convicted five peace activists of violating the parade and procession ordinance of Crawford, Texas. That ordinance required 15 days' notice and a $25 registration fee. The Crawford Five were part of a larger group that was trying to go down to Bush's ranch outside of town to protest the Iraq War last May 3.

One irony is that they weren't intending to protest in Crawford itself, the protesters say. Nor did they do so, they insist. As they tried to move through Crawford, the police set up a barricade and blocked them from proceeding.

Police Chief Donnie Tidmore then ordered everyone arrested. When protestors asked where the police were taking the people, the police arrested them, too.

When one legal observer saw the police arresting two people, including another legal observer, so he went up to the policeman. He asked the officer what his name and badge number was, and the officer said, "Step off the road, I'm going to arrest you."

When a television reporter came up to a bystander and started asking her questions, six police officers arrested her. A bus driver stopped to see what the commotion was, one passenger got off the bus to get a closer look. The police arrested him as well.

At trial, the police testified that the protesters in Crawford were yelling anti-Bush and anti-war slogans, though the defendants deny this and a tape of the arrests backs them up.

The defendants' lawyer, Jim Harrington, director of the Texas Civil Rights Project, cross-examined Police Chief Tidmore and extracted an alarming--and telling--concession from him. Harrington asked him "whether one of the defendants would have violated the ordinance by sporting political buttons, such as those that read 'No Nukes' and 'Peace,' without the permit," according to the Waco Tribune-Herald.

"It could be a sign of demonstration," Chief Tidmore responded, according to the paper.

Still, it took a Crawford jury only ninety minutes to convict all five defendants, who were fined between $200 and $500 each.

The five are appealing.

Chief Tidmore says he cannot comment either on the activists' claims that they were not protesting or on his own testimony that wearing a political button could be verboten in Crawford. "They've appealed," he says. "We're just having to wait until we're through the final phase of it" before talking to the press.

A separate legal action against Crawford is also under way. Other protesters from that day are pressing a civil suit in federal court against the town for violating their rights.

The ordinance, which has since been changed to mandate a seven-day notice, is "unconstitutional, overly broad, and gives too much discretion to the police chief," says Harrington, who is the lawyer in that case, as well. In a press release, he called the ordinance a "blatant political attempt to prevent any adverse political protest near President Bush's ranch. The Crawford ordinance illegally chills fully protected expression of political views. . . . In effect, it means that there can never be political protest near the Bush ranch or in Crawford, when he is in town. This is un-American."

The Bill of Rights apparently doesn't hold up in the President's home town.

But as one defendant said, "The erosion of your civil rights is like a cancer that starts in these little places. You've got to pay attention to them."

On Friday, March 25, 2004, the Bush administration was busy pumping up hopes that the war on terrorism was about to yield the capture of a major al-Quaeda operative. Administration aides were also trying to get Spain's new prime minister to stop declaring the occupation of Iraq "a disaster" and were trying to head off Poland's president, who gave a press conference in which he declared that his country was "misled" about the threat posed by Iraq. Aides were also rushing to discredit Richard Clarke, the former White House aide, who had charged that the Bush administration was asleep at the switch when it came to Osama bin Laden.

Where was National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice in all this? Busy dealing with matters of state?

No.

Rice spent most of the day addressing a secret gathering hosted by Rupert Murdoch and which included News Corp.'s top television, newspapers and other media executives. Rice spoke via satellite to Murdoch and his VPs, who had gathered in Cancun, Mexico.

News Corp.'s holding include the Fox News cable channel, which is hugely supportive of President Bush.

In addition, News Corp. controls the Bush-friendly "The Weekly Standard" right-wing political magazine and the "New York Post," as well as 35 local television stations and 20th Century Fox.

Oh, and thanks to Bush administration appointees over at the Federal Communications Commission, Murdoch's reach is rapidly expanding. In December, the FCC approved News Corp.'s $6.6-billion takeover of DirecTV.

That decision made Murdoch the only media executive with satellite, cable and broadcast assets in the U.S.

So it should not come as no surprise that Bush administration officials answer Murdoch's demand for fealty -- even when they are supposedly preoccupied with national security concerns.

Rice has repeatedly refused to testify under oath in front of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.

When the National Commission calls, Rice is not available.

But when Rupert Murdoch calls, well, how could Condoleezza Rice refuse?

Ever notice?

When General Eric Shinseki told Congress that Iraq would require a large occupation force, that was the end of his
military career.

When Ambassador Joseph Wilson revealed that the 2003 State of the Union speech contained information known to be false, someone in the White House destroyed his wife's career by revealing that she was a C.I.A. operative.

When Richard Foster, the Medicare system's chief actuary, was threatened with dismissal if he revealed to Congress the likely cost of the administration's prescription drug plan.

When Richard Clarke, Bush's former counterterrorism czar and the author of the just-published "Against All Enemies," went public with accusations of Bush asleep at the World Trade Center switch, he is attacked by every Republican in sight as a "disgruntled ex-employee."

OH. MY. GOD.

Check out Anthony Shaw in Falcon's "Alone With... Vol. 6." He cums three times in as many minutes.

Yes, THREE times.

As he lays on the bed, limp and exhausted after this astounding performance, he gazes into the camera and asks, "Was that all right?"

Oh, Anthony my love.... it was all right. Yes, it was all right.

I saw "The Little Foxes" on TCM on Sunday afternoon. I watched it partly because I'm sick and just wanted to sit on the couch all day (a repeat of the entire six-hour, 1979 mini-series "The Martian Chronicles" helped, too). But I also have heard good things about this film, and decided I should see it.

I've seen a number of Bette Davis films in the last year. I'm intrigued at the way Davis is lauded in the movie community. I find that Davis almost always plays a version of herself. Her on-screen personality is so strong, it's difficult for her to be anybody else. That said, Davis stands out for the way in which she solidly inhabits her roles. She's not speaking lines, or acting a role. She is the character on screen.

I've not made a real systematic study of Davis' films, not in the way that I've hunted down Orson Welles' work or Jimmy Stewart's or horror, monster and sci-fi films. The first Davis film I saw was the weeper "Now, Voyager" (1942; Warner Bros.). It's actually not a bad picture, even if it is pretty predictable in its outcome. Davis shows such a soft side in the film. Her portrayal of the spinster sister is very convincing. It's not just the dowdy clothes, the bad hair and the clunky glasses. It's the way Davis holds her shoulders, the way she's brittle on film, the way she doesn't really project hope. That strong personality is still there. But it's an angry one, one wanting suicide as the way out rather than to push against her domineering mother. Davis is superb by the picture's conclusion. She is convincing in her potrayal of her affection for her lover's daughter, and her still-wobbly faith in his love for her.

I quickly followed it up with "Dark Victory" (1939; Warner Bros.). That's a rather meandering film, and one in which there doesn't seem to be a real ending. As the she-bitch society dame of the film's beginning, she isn't nearly nasty enough or vicious enough -- not Bette Davis enough -- to make me feel that her transformation (once diagnosed with brain cancer) is really that miraculous. But the film has a strong conclusion.

I've also seen her in "The Man Who Came to Dinner" (1942; Warner Bros.) with Monty Wolley. What was so surprising about that film was the way that Davis really toned down her native personality. Wolley has to be the center of the picture, and he is. His natural personality -- that booming voice, that bushy white beard, that slicked-back shock of white hair -- makes him so. Plus, this is a comedy, and Davis wasn't known for her comedic work. But her performance here is downright wonderful. She gives Wolley (a B-picture character actor) all the room he needs. Meanwhile, Davis really nails her performance as the nice, strong secretary who thinks Wolley's antics are funny until they get in the way of her own chance for love. She's serious about falling in love, and carries off the role as if it were a dramatic piece rather than the love-interest counterpoint to Wolley's comic stylings. I almost expect the role to have gone to someone more feminine, like Rosalind Russell in "His Girl Friday."

Naturally, I've also seen "All About Eve" (1950; 20th Century Fox). That's pure Davis. Strong, bitchy, vicious, angry, conniving, spiteful, tragic. She's awesome.

She's outstanding in "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" (1962; Warner Bros.) and "Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte" (1964; 20th Century Fox) -- films which play well to her aging features and the horror-tragedy of her acting skills. "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" is so close to "All About Eve." You can imagine "Eve" slipping over the edge into insanity and horror (just as Davis did for meldramatic, not horror, purposes in "Jezebel" -- which I've only seen the ending of). There was always an undertone of horror in the truly bitchy, awful dramatic films that Bette Davis did. Her characters are so brutally nasty. But the films stay just this side of horror. That's what makes "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" so terrific -- it shows the flip-side of what Davis' acting was like. It is the wrong-side-of-the-tracks of "All About Eve" and "Jezebel."

She's shaky in "Death on the Nile" (1978; EMI Films) and "The Whales of August" (1987; Nelson Entertainment). Mostly this is due to her need to practically shout her lines in order to get them out of her raspy, smoking-ravaged throat. She's just simply bored in "Death on the Nile." But she's trying very hard in "The Whales of August." Lillian Gish is superb, much better than Davis. Yet, you can see Davis brushing the rust of her acting chops, and improving with each scene. She's still got it, even if it isn't quite showing until the very end of the picture.

She's downright awful in "Pocketful of Miracles" (1961; United Artists). The voice is going, which makes it hard for her. She isn't happy with the role, either, I think. She can't quite carry of the sweet insanity bit as well as she can the tragic-insanity bit. And you never, ever are convinced that a) she loves her daughter and b) is so desperate to see her daughter married off that she'd stoop to impersonating a high-society dame. In fact, it's hard to see Davis as anything other than Bette Davis in streetperson drag at the start of the picture. Her personality is so strong, and she's still so much a star in her own mind, that she just doesn't have the beaten-down-ness of a homeless woman who sells apples for a living.

So what about "The Little Foxes"?

"The Little Foxes" is one of those Bette Davis films that supposedly fixed her public persona as a true bitch. And the film does portray her as such, right from the get-go. Davis plays a rich Southern woman who has a chance to invest $75,000 in a cotton mill -- a move which would leave her rich as Midas, while poisoning the town's air, stealing the town's water supply, and making practical slaves out of the town's black and poor population. Unfortunately, all the money in the household is in the hands of her husband. He's been away for five years in Baltimore. He left to undergo treatment for a bad heart, but he also left because life with Davis was such hell. Davis' daughter is being wooed by the idiotic son of one of the co-investors, but she really loves the son of the town's dressmaker. When Davis brings her husband home, she tries to convince him to invest. He refuses. When the co-investors steal the bearer-bonds he owns, he discovers their plot. He intends to make them repay the money, so his family's honor is not involved in the cotton mill scheme. Davis, for her part, sees their theft as a way to blackmail them into giving her 75 percent ownership of the mill. Eventually, Davis stands idly by while her husband has a fatal heart-attack. She gains ownership of the mill, but loses her daughter in the process.

The best part about the film has nothing to do with Davis, and everything to do with race. While the rich white folks of the town go on about how "daddy was a general in the war, a good soldier fightin' for the Great Cause," the poor black people of the town have to listen to this racist crap while serving table. When Davis tries to convince her husband to invest the mill by saying that people would work for "only 10 dollars a week," her husband retorts that "they'd work for three." He's disgusted at how this will tear the town apart, making a permanent underclass of poor black workers. Davis is thrilled to hear that they'd work for three dollars a week. The black housekeeper stares at her coldly. Now that's the sort of subtle racial commentary you just don't see in films (like the racist "Gone with the Wind").

Davis still turns in a terrific performance. She's not over-the-top, like she is in "All About Eve" (even though it works superbly in that film). Her performance is measured and realistic. Although the character is scheming, Davis isn't a wicked stepmother-type or uber-bitch. She does care about her daughter, and very much wants her daughter to be just like Davis herself.

Throughout the film, Davis' dislike for her honorable husband grows into distaste, then disgust and even hatred. Yet, while her husband struggles out of his wheelchair and up the stairs to get to his medicine, Davis isn't a cold bitch. She's terrified. You can see the struggle on her face -- a struggle between the love she once felt for this man, the fear that he might be strong enough to get to the bedroom and his medication, the desperation she feels in her ambitious scramble to be independently wealthy. She clutches at the arms of the chair she's in. At one point, you almost feel she's going to get up to help him. But her determination steels her, and she clamps down harder on the arms of the chair and tries not to cry out as her husband begins climbing the staircase. She holds her head straight -- willing herself not to look at her husband's struggle. Relief comes as she hears him stumble on the stairs and collapse. Her choice is made for her by his weakness.

Later, after he dies and Davis has blackmailed the co-investors into giving her absolute control of the mill, Davis' daughter, Alexandra, confronts her with her mis-deeds. She knows that the co-investors stole the bearer-bonds. She knows that Davis didn't uphold the family honor, that she's covering up the theft in order to gain control of the mill. She's sickened by it. (She doens't know that Davis let her father die.) Davis tries to strong-arm her daughter: Keep quiet, or she won't give her blessing for the marriage to the dressmaker's son. Alexandra lowers her head in defeat. Then Davis goes up the stairs to her bedroom. Only, she hesitates. She knows her dead husband lies in the next room. She knows how she murdered him. It terrifies her. She knows how she sold her soul, and sold the whole town, for 30 pieces of silver. She can't live with herself. She turns, and asks Alexandra to spend the night in her room with her. Alexandra see the weakness. She refuses. She announces she is running off with the dressmaker's son, mother be damned. And she's going to expose the theft. Of she goes.

The film's final image is that of a stone-faced Davis -- desperately trying not to let herself lose control -- staring out the window into the rain while her daughter runs off with her beloved. She's lost her husband, her social respect, her daughter. She has the mill, but at what cost? As the Bible verse quoted in the film says, the little foxes have destroyed the vineyards where there are tender grapes.

It's a solid performance. A good performance? Great? Not quite. But at times it gets close.

I think I like Bette Davis.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!! Why haven't these photography books come out yet??

David Chapman, "Victor Victorians: The early years of International Physique Photography

Harald Seiwert, "Cumrades: Created images of Male Erotic Photographic Art"

Dick Sweet, "Dick Sweet Men: A photographic oeuvre of a lifetime"

Leonard Zett, "The African Male Nude, Vol. 1"

Third World Studio/Jim Jager, "Mr. Long"



GAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!! I can't stand the wait!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Don't be fooled!

I know that Amazon.com and others are advertising the "Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" on DVD. But this is not the one with the extra scenes and lots of extra documentaries. This is a stripped-down version that has almost nothing added.

Wait until August for the better version to come out, boys and girls.

Bad Blog titles:

There's one out there called Palm Addict. I thought it was about masturbation! Boy, was I wrong.

Actor Seth Green ("Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Austin Powers") has been named executive producer of a new animated series for Cartoon Network. Cartoon Network has ordered 20 episodes of an untitled, stop-motion cartoon that depicts famous and iconic toys in humorous situations.

Green has also been named co-creator of the series along with Matthew Senreich, editorial director for Wizard Entertainment's print magazines.

The Cartoon Network show is scheduled to join the channel's late-night Adult Swim block in October 2004.

Wizard Entertainment, founded in 1991, publishes a number of comic and toy magazines, including "Wizard Edge," an indie comics magazine; "Toyfare," about sci-fi- and comic-related toys; "Inquest Gamer," about video and role-playing games; "Toy Wishes," a toy industry trade publication; and "Anime Invasion," a manga and anime magazine. The company also runs major sci-fi, comic and gaming conventions in Philadelphia, Chicago, Texas and Los Angeles.

The new Cartoon Network show is based on "Twisted ToyFare Theater" -- a photographed "comic strip" that runs in Wizard's "Toy Fare" magazine. The monthly comic strip puts action-figure toys such as G.I. Joe or the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" characters into satirical and humorous situations. (Sound familiar?) It had run as a syndicated weekly strip in previous years in alternative newspapers such as the "Washington City Paper" and "Pitch Weekly."

Green -- a comic and anime fan -- contacted Wizard Entertainment in 2001 to explore producing a series of short films based on the comic strip.

Sweet J Productions (co-owned by Seth Green, Breckin Meyer and Ryan Phillippe*) subsequently signed a deal with Sony on June 18, 2001, to develop "Sweet J Presents" -- a stop-motion animated series of short films for Sony's Screenblast.com Web site. "Sweet J Presents" debuted in September 2001. Among the plots were a mystery about the murder of Santa Claus, superheroes in a "The Real World" scenario, a mock documentary tracking down popular action-figures from the 1970s and 1980s and giving a "where are they now" report, and a Joey Fatone doll posing as a martial-arts expert to avenge the deaths of his fellow 'N Sync'ers.

Los Angeles-based Shadowmachine produced the "Sweet J Presents" online shorts. Co-producers were Pat McCallum, vice president and editor of Wizard Entertainment's print magazines; Doug Goldstein, special projects editor for Wizard Entertainment; and Tom Root, a former editor and executive at Wizard Entertainment. Senreich served as executive producer.

Sweet J Productions currently is also developing comedy and variety programming for cable TV and the Internet, as well as feature films.

Green and Senreich will write the Cartoon Network series with Goldstein and Roots. Green will also provide some voice-work for the show.

And they cancelled "The Brak Show" for this???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

By the way, doesn't this all sound a little like Nickeoldeon's "Action Team Now," -- in which action-figures from the 1980s now frolick about in wacky, satirical adventures?




* - Green's production company is called Sketch Pad, Inc. It's run by lawyer David E. Weber. Ryan Phillippe's Olsol Productions (aka Lucid Films) and Breckin Meyer's Monkey Shoe Productions are all run by the same guy.

Labels: Cartoon Network

Stef de Klerk's first book, "Abafana," was released in November 2003. It's his first book, and features images of the beautiful Xhosa men who live around the farming country of Cape Town, South Africa.

When this book was first announced by Janssen (the terrific German publisher of nude male photography), everyone was agog. It featured a handsome, dark-skinned, muscular, naked black man on a horse. Bareback (in both senses of that word). His thick pubic bush was visible, and his solid erection snaked behind the horse's mane.

The thing is, this book isn't about naked muscular black men with gigantic erections at all.

But that's what makes it so great.

The first 10 pages or so feature the cover model in various semi-clothed and naked states (yes, there are full-frontals, and no, his penis is not huge). But look at pages 14 and 15. Those feature a stunningly handsome man in color.

What?!?

Yes, color. De Klerk is one of the few photographers today who works in color. And de Klerk is one of the few photographers today shooting black men. De Klerk understands, correctly, that only color can bring out the magnificent skin tones of black men. Only color does justice to the myriad tones and variations in black men's skin. As de Klerk says in the introduction to his book, "I couldn't believe how rich the black skin became during the 'magic hor', that last hour before sunset. It is a celebration of texture and the warmth of flesh. The smoothness of black skin, and the exuberance of sensuality."

This is a photoghrapher who doesn't buy into the "black-and-white is better for moods" bullshit. This is a photographer who understands that we see in color. This is a photographer who understands that color is key to understanding human skin.

Take a look at the images on pages 26 and 27. The left-hand image is of a model with a saxophone. It's black and white. And it's boring. The right-hand image is the same model, with the same sax. And it's in color. The right-hand image means so much more, contains so much more emotion, depicts the model's skin and beauty in so many different ways.

What makes these images so wonderful is that these are men that de Klerk knows well. They aren't the American ideal of a 12" cock and gym-built body. These men have flaws. There are scars. There are lines. There are few muscles. The hair isn't by S/p/alon, it's natural. The smiles are real. Real smiles for a real friend.

I think de Klerk's biggest failing is that he tries too hard to imitate American photographers like Herb Ritts, Bruce Weber and Steven Underhill. There's a lot of unnatural posing, and the black-and-white images in the center of the book are emotionless.

But when de Klerk is just letting his models stretch out and display their bodies, there's magic on the page. This book has a large number of erection shots. I know that many reviewers are claiming that this makes the book pornographic. But that's not true. These are men who got erections on their own. These are men who became aroused while being shot. These are not erection shots staged for the camera. De Klerk captured them, as surely as he captured a ready smile or the line of an arm or the swell of a belly as a model leans backward to catch the sun.

This is pure photographic magic, and I look forward to more by Stef de Klerk.

Here come the book reviews.

I've been saving up for a couple of months now to buy some very expensive nude gay male photography books. Well, some aren't so expensive. But there are a lot of them. I'm always a bit miffed that Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble or TLA Video don't do good jobs of separating out the photography books from the other art books, nor a good job of distinguishing among the various classes (landscape, art, human, nude, animal) of photography books. So it's rather difficult to stay on top of this genre. And since I can't seem to hook up with other nude male photography-lovers, I am not part of the loop of gossip and information-trading that would help, either.

Anyway, I got Clifford Baker's "Naked Asia" some time ago. This book is the most frustrating I've owned in a long time. Baker has a long history in the nude male photography genre, but only one other publication that I am aware of -- the 1995 "Edition Euros #1." Now, that is no small honor, being the first in the "Edition Euros" series. And the photographs live up to that standard. The book is small, only 7" tall by 5.5" across. Subsequently, the photographs tend to be medium shots (knees to head). The photography often is full-frontal display, with some variability (butt shots, posing, etc.). But it all works. Baker's models are all aggressive and photogenic. They confront the camera. There is personality there. There's none of the artificiality of posing. Baker, too, permits his own personality to come through. There's precious little of the "post-industrial abandoned factory" setting in his work. He loves nature, loves romanticism, and loves smoothly-sculpted men. He likess average-sized cock, small pubic patches, and classically handsome faces.

"Naked Asia" is nothing like Baker's earlier work. Oh, some of the images appeared in "Edition Euros #1." And that's disappointing, as I'd hoped to see all-new work from Baker's hand.

Unfortunately, as David Leddick points out in his too-brief introduction -- Well, let's talk about that introduction. What's the fucking point? It's in huge type (as if the publisher believes that all my masturbation has made me go blind). It's one page. If you typed it out on a computer in Times Roman 12-point, it would all up to all of five lines of text. What the fuck???

Leddick makes one point and one point only in his introduction: Muscle is the definition of masculinity. Since American racists perceive all Asian men to be short, feminine and soft, Leddick believes that only by depicting gym-built muscle-men can Baker depict Asian men to be "masculine."*

And that, my friends, is complete and utter bullshit.

Leddick claims that there is almost no depiction of Asian men in Western art (true enough). But in Eastern art, Asian men are rarely depicted as "masculine" -- and that's nonsense. Leddick mirror-images his Western assumptions about masculinity and maleness onto Eastern photographic art, and then denigrates what art exists by arguing that it doesn't depict its subjects as "manly."

Sadly, Clifford Baker buys into this same nonsense.

What struck me most about "Naked Asia" is the way the Baker treats his models as fetishes. These aren't men, with individual personalities. These are things to be masturbated over. The locales in the photographs are not representative of the personal feelings of the models or photographer (as they were in "Edition Euros #1"), but rather bland, stereotypical, hollow-feelling'ed locations. The feeling of distance between photographer and model is like a slap in the face in "Naked Asia," like a bucket of cold water.

Technically, the photography is above-average (although the quality of the printing process leaves much to be desired; many of the images come out grainy, like an under-lit color photograph). The composition of each image is workmanlike and competent, but there is little feeling to them. There is a wide variety in the type of photographs in this book, which is probably due to its large coffee-table format -- close-ups, medium shots, distant shots, butt shots, presentational shots, clothed shots, nude shots, etc.

But where are the models in all this? Most of them act like statues, dull and cold, eager to collect their paycheck and get out of their, back to their girlfriends and baggy pants.

And that's another problem with this book. While I mind that the book refuses to distinguish among the various nationalities of Asian men, I can look past that. What I can't look past is that all of these models appear to be Americans. None of them appear to be Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, etc. It's a distinction that I find important because it affects the quality of the model. Look through this book, and count the number of models with shaved pubic hair. That's something you won't often find Thai, Korean or Chinese models doing. It is something you will find American models doing.

And this gives the lie to the whole purpose of the book. Leddick (and by implication, Baker) wants these images to convey the "masculinity" of the Asian male. But none of these models are Asian -- they are American. They reflect American cultural attitudes about cock size, body image, muscle, body hair. They do not reflect Chinese, Thai, Japanese or Vietnamese cultural attitudes about these same things.

And in the end, that's what makes this book so frustrating and disappointing. Whereas Baker's earlier work was personal (not "deeply personal," but personal nonetheless), conveyed something of the nature of the relationship between model and photographer, and presented the models in a distinctive way, the new work contains none of this.

That's just way too bad.






* - I won't even get into the discussion about "Asian" men -- as if Chinese, Thai, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Laotian and Cambodian men were all alike and indistinguishable.

HBO is believed to be planning a June DVD release of multi-Golden Globe winner "Angels in America."

Spring is in the air.

I watched a Latino guy (18? 19 years old? Not 20, no) stroke an enormous penis at the urinal in Union Station today. Lots of men go to the restroom on the food court level to cruise.

This kid was handsome, very handsome. Rail-thin. Nice well-formed but small pecs. Big, fat, full, wild bush. Didn't see his balls.

But he definitely had a 10-incher between his legs. Uncut, naturally. Thick. Some large veins along the lower part of the shaft that disappeared half-way up.

Dark, dark brown cock. Tiny trail of hair up his flat, superb belly.

He stroked and stroked, caressing his manhood with both hands. As he achieved full erection, his penis thrust a solid four inches past his clasped fists.

Oh my god.

Oh my god.

Oh my god.

Oh my god.

Oh my god.

Oh my god.

Oh my god.

Oh my god.

I wish he'd looked at me, and not at the black athlete with the big, very fat cock, who was next to him, leaking precum.

I was home sick today. Got a cough yesterday (probably from one of the attendees at my weekend conference), and this morning I had a sore throat, stuffy nose, cough and fatigue. I thought about going to work, but decided against it. Better to beat it now, than suffer through a week of illness.

I tried watching daytime television. God, what a wasteland. SciFi Channel dumped "Dark Shadows" at 8 a.m. and "Babylon 5" at 9 a.m., so I had nothing to watch in the morning. I saw a couple bad episodes of the original "Star Trek" -- which SFC strips throughout the day (it's cheap). Fell asleep this afternoon, and then awoke at 5 p.m.

That's when I caught "Hercules." It was the episode from the 1997-1998 season (the show's fourth of five). It was a season with a number of flashbacks to Herc's "early years" -- partly as a way to give young actors some jobs, partly an attempt to give the show's stars a break, and partly as a way to support the struggling spin-off "Young Hercules" (which lasted the 1998-1999 season).

Stunningly handsome Ian Bohen played Young Hercules in the Kevin Sorbo show. He was 20-21 years old when he did the show. Okay, so Ian Bohen didn't have biceps to save his life. But what tits. What gorgeous fucking pecs. Sadly, the show's costumers rarely let us see his nipples. There are some flashes of them -- tight, dark brown, erect, suckable nipples.

I don't know why Bohen never played Young Hercules on the show of the same name. Instead, the idiotic closet-case Ryan Gosling -- with the stupid round face, boyish body, lack of musculature and screen presence of a sock -- played the role.

Gosling's co-stars on "Young Hercules" were Dean O'Gorman (young Ioalus) and Chris Conrad (young Jason of Corinth), who had played the same roles on Kevin Sorbo's show.

Chris Conrad is another stunner. Handsome in the very traditional way, he had a muscular body that the show's directors purposefully hid. Couldn't let him upstage the star, now could we? Conrad was 24 on the Sorbo show.

Needless to say, I spent the hour caressing my manhood.

Woof.

Sadly, neither Bohen nor Conrad is acting any more.

Lessee...

"Dawn of the Dead" beats "The Passion" by a cool $8 million. A super-violent zombie flick is the film that knocks the super-spiritual (but equally as violent) Jesus-flick out of the #1 spot.

In other words: "The Passion" is meaningless. Its impact is nothing.

Godzilla is about to take a break from show business.

Hit by slumping box office, Toho Co. is planning to put Godzilla on hiatus after this year's finale, "Godzilla: Final Wars." The executive producer of the Godzilla films, Shogo Tomiyama, said March 4th that the latest movie -- the 28th Godzilla release in 50 years -- would be the last for at least a decade.

"Godzilla: Final Wars" is set to premiere in Japan in December 2004 with a U.S. release to follow in the spring of 2005. Godzilla will fight to the finish against 10 different foes -- some old, some new. Director Ryuhei Kitamura said the epic motion picture would touch on Godzilla's past. The budget for the film will be about $9 million.

Known in Japan as "Gojira" (a combination of the words for gorilla and whale), Godzilla was born in a American atomic bomb test and first appeared in director Ishiro Honda's 1954 black-and-white classic. It featured an actor in a rubber suit stomping through Tokyo. For a nation rebuilding from the atomic bombings of World War II, the dark allegory about the global nuclear arms race was a familiar one -- and Japanese film-goers packed theaters to see it.

Inspired by the turnout, Toho made one sequel after another, tapping into worries about Armageddon. Part cautionary tale, part campy fun, the Godzilla films have shown Big Green saving humankind from the Cold War, pollution, nuclear energy and biotechnology.

Although nearly 100 million people have seen Godzilla movies over the years, stale story lines and outdated special effects have eroded Godzilla's appeal. An 1998 American production starring Matthew Broderick and a computer-generated Godzilla was critically panned ("a big, ugly, ungainly device to give teenagers the impression they are seeing a movie," said movie critic Roger Ebert). It earned $136 million at the box office and a mere $68 million in profit for its studio after costing about $125 million to make.

Godzilla's dwindling popularity led Toho to retire the mutant monster before. In 1968, Toho announced it would end the series with "Destroy All Monsters" -- a film in which a small boy battles schoolyard bullies and gangsters bent on kidnapping him in order to blackmail his scientist-father into giving up his energy-weapon secrets. The boy imagines what Godzilla and his son, Minya, would do when they had to battle monsters -- images which helps him gather up the courage to defeat the bullies and the gangsters. "Destroy All Monsters" was the 10th outing for Big G. Its unanticipated success inspired Toho to bankroll six more sequels.

Only the first of these ("All Monsters Attack!") was directed by the legendary Ishiro Honda -- the writer-director of "Godzilla" (1954). Yoshimitsu Banno ("Godzilla vs. Hedora") and Jun Fukuda ("Godzilla vs. Gigan," "Godzilla vs. Megalon," "Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla") directed the rest (in which has come to known as the "Heisei" series, vs. Honda's "Showa" series). Toho brought Honda out of retirement to direct "Terror of Mechagodzilla," which featured the silly Titanosaurus. After this 1975 flop, Toho put Godzilla on hiatus for 9 years.

In 1984, Toho and director Koji Hashimoto brought forth "Godzilla 1984" -- in which Godzilla rises from his sleep in order to destroy several of Japan's nuclear power plants. It was a box office smash that prompted Toho to make 11 more Godzilla films over the next 20 years. The 1984 film updated the monster's look, making Godzilla more mean and evil-looking. Godzilla's look changed slightly in each film thereafter, although he remained a man in a rubber suit. Godzilla lost his "defender of Japan" status to take on a more ambivalent approach -- sometimes defending the island from monsters, but just as often attacking it for its greed, abandonment of traditional values and investment in nuclear power.

Even if "Godzilla: Final Wars" makes money, it will be at least a decade before Godzilla returns, Tomiyama said. He declined to discuss how the next-generation Godzilla would look, saying only that the filmmakers would make a clean break with the past. But Toho won't completely abandon Godzilla's essence -- like the actor in the rubber suit. "Without a person acting as Godzilla, it would just be animation," a Toho spokesman said. "That's no different from Hollywood's 'Jurassic Park.' "

Easter: The pagan holiday

Did you know that Easter is linked not to the date of Jesus' supposed resurrection (the Sunday following the start of Passover on the Jewish calendar) but rather to the ancient pagan holiday of Eostra? That's right! All you Christians have been celebrating a pagan holiday all along!

March 20th is the first day of spring, or the "vernal equinox." "Equinox" means, literally, "equal night." As the tilt of the earth's axis changes throughout the year, lengthening and shortening the period of daylight in each hemisphere, there are two times each year when day and night are of equal length: the spring and autumnal equinoxes. (More precisely, day and night are of approximately equal length for the few days before and after each equinox -- but non-scientists needn't sweat the details.) This celestial phenomenon has been recognized for thousands of years and -- in the case of the vernal equinox -- has given rise to a number of religious observances.

The first day of spring has been hailed throughout human history as a time of organic and spiritual rebirth, following the "dying of the year" in winter. The ancient Germanic festival of Eostra (in honor of the goddess Eostra/Ostara), held on the first day of spring, celebrated the cyclical return of light and life with fertility rituals and symbols.

Now, according to the Christian Bible, Easter should fall on the third day of Passover. When does Passover occur? The Jewish calendar is lunar, with each month beginning when the first sliver of moon becomes visible after the new moon. In ancient times, the start of the month used to be determined by observation. When people saw the first slice of moon, they would notify the Sanhedrin (the ruling council of Jewish elders). When the Sanhedrin heard testimony from two independent, reliable eyewitnesses that the new moon occurred on a certain date, they would declare "rosh chodesh" (first of the month) and send out messengers to tell that the month had begun.

The problem with strictly lunar calendars is that there are approximately 12.4 lunar months in every solar year, so a 12-month lunar calendar loses about 11 days every year. Changing to a 13-month lunar calendar doesn't help, because a 13-month lunar calendar gains about 19 days every year. In other words, the months on the Jewish calendar "drift" relative to the solar year. On a 12-month solar calendar, the month of Nissan (which is supposed to occur in the spring), occurs 11 days earlier each year -- eventually occurring in winter, fall, summer and then spring again! To compensate for this drift, an extra month is occasionally added: a second month of Adar. Thus, the month of Nissan occurs 11 days earlier for two or three years, and then jumps forward 29 or 30 days, balancing out the drift.

In the fourth century, chief priest Hillel II established a fixed calendar based on mathematical and astronomical calculations. This calendar, still in use, standardized the length of months and the addition of months over the course of a 19-year cycle. Adar II is added in the 3rd, 6th, 8th, 11th, 14th, 17th and 19th years of the cycle.

But Easter doesn't follow the Jewish calendar. It follows the pagan calendar. In order to discourage people from worshipping Eostra, the Roman Catholic Church decided to co-opt the holiday and place the date of Christ's resurrection on Eostra. To dislodge the holiday from its pagan roots, however, the Roman Catholic Church devised new rules for when Easter occurred.

The current Christian rules that determine the date of Easter are Roman Catholic (take that, all you Protestants!), and can be traced back to 325 C.E. at the First Council of Nicaea convened by the Roman emperor Constantine. The Council of Nicaea (which, by the way, also eradicated a number of heresies by adopting the "Nicaean Creed" -- leading to 150 years of Christian civil war and the massacre of a number of heterodox Christian sects) decided to keep Easter on the same Sunday throughout the world. The Council constructed special tables to compute the date. These tables were revised in the following centuries until they were finalized in the 6th century by the Abbot of Scythia, Dionysis Exiguus. Nonetheless, different means of calculations continued in use throughout the Christian world. In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII completed a reconstruction of the Julian calendar and produced new Easter tables. Yet, the Eastern Orthodox Christian churches still determine the Easter dates using the older Julian Calendar method.

The usual statement -- that Easter is the first Sunday after the full moon that occurs after the vernal equinox -- does not really match the ecclesiastical rules established by the Catholic Church. The Church's full moon is not the astronomical full moon but an "ecclesiastical full moon" determined from Exiguus' tables. The result is that Easter can never occur before March 22 (good) -- but it can also occur as late as April 25!

Meanwhile, the Eastern Orthodox Church never adopted the Gregorian calendar. It stayed with the old Julian (or Roman) calendar. So for more than 1,000 years, Easter's date was celebrated at two different times during the year. Finally, in 1923, the Eastern Church adopted a modified Gregorian calendar and decided to set the date of Easter according to the astronomical full moon.


Then we have the little problem of Easter eggs and Easter bunnies...

The egg is one of the most literal and obvious of all fertility symbols. However, Easter eggs symbolize not the resurrection of Christ but pagan beliefs about karma and reincarnation!

The ancient Romans and Egyptians exchanged eggs to symbolize the continuance of life after death. Early Christians adopted the idea and incorporated it into Easter celebrations. The rising and rebirth of the sun on Eostra was a time of celebration and dancing in pagan worship because the sun now was in the sky for longer periods of time every day. Christians, meanwhile, co-opted the idea of dancing on Easter in several hymns (e.g., "Lord of the Dance"). To commemorate the rising of the sun on Eostra, pagans exchanged red and gold eggs, because eggs symbolized the birth of the new sun. Christians adopted the practice and turned them into Easter eggs.

And did I forget to mention...? Eostra's favourite animal was the hare. The long association between rabbits and Easter ("Easter bunnies") is no coincidence, either. In pagan mythology, the rabbit and hare represents love, growth and fertility. This, too, ties in with the tradition of giving eggs on Easter/Eostra. Christians simply adopted the practice, too.

But Easter eggs also have a stronger link to pagan rituals concerning fertility. Young pagan girls would decorate eggs for their sweethearts, giving the eggs to young men as a token of love and admiration. The man who received a large number of eggs at Eostra was not only popular, but was considered to be a "good catch." The young man then would store the eggs for a time. When he felt the time was right, he would look at the eggs to see which egg had retained the strongest coloring. Whichever girl's egg had retained its coloring the most indicated which girl become his fiancee (if the color had not faded, then her love was true and would not fade either).

Thus, for pagans, giving eggs in the spring was a way of initiating sex acts. For Christians...well, who knows what chocolate eggs will bring????

I subscribe to Nerve, an online magazine. One of the things Nerve does is showcase outstanding photography. I keep exploring their archives. One thing I found two years ago, I ran across this weekend while looking for a little inspiration for my own photo sessions (even though it's cold outside, it's bright -- and perfect for taking photos outside).

But my point: If "The Passion" is creating such passion nationwide, why aren't people burning down museums and rallying against art like that described below? (I have the photo, if you want to really see it.)

I raise this issue because "The Passion" has meaning. "Spider-Man" made $300 million domestically, but no one asked what it "meant" because it was so obviously just a fantasy. It didn't make anyone want to go out and invent radioactive spiders to become a web-slinger. No one wanted to inventive flying vehicles, or body-armor. It meant nothing.

Yet... Mention "The Passion," and people talk about that film's $300 million likely B.O. as if it "meant something."

Odd, eh?

Perhaps that is because "The Passion" is about a real-life person -- as if somehow Atticus Finch never inspired anyone. Perhaps it is because the film is about Jesus -- as if films were never made about Jesus before. Or Gandhi. Or Satan. Perhaps it is because Mel Gibson and the fascist radical Christian Right is making the claim that this film "means something." ("The greatest witnessing tool in 2,000 years!" -- despite the fact that the Bible says only the Word of God can change a person's soul.)

But what does the popularity of "The Passion" mean???

I'm not sure that it means anything.

Consider: Has anyone suggested the 1956 version of "The Ten Commandments" caused a huge upsurge in Christianity? Or Judaism? Or a mass revival? "The Ten Commandments" grossed $80 million in 1956, or $544.7 million in today's dollars. ("The Passion" is not going to hit that mark!)

Increasingly, I think "The Passion" means nothing. It's popular -- in the same way Britney Spears is popular. In the same way Snickers bars are popular. In the same way NFL football is popular.

But it doesn't mean anything.


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Yo Mama's Last Supper
Photography by Renee Cox

When Giuliani took aim at the Brooklyn Museum of Art's exhibit "Sensation," even those who found his legal claim baffling could at least see what was offending him: Elephant dung on an image of the Madonna could easily be interpreted as a defilement of a sacred figure. But now, as he targets the same museum once again, this time for its presentation of Renee Cox's interpretation of Leonardo DaVinci's famous "Last Supper," he's lost us on both fronts.

In the photograph, which Nerve originally ran in November '99, and runs again today in light of its timeliness, Renee Cox stands starkly naked at the center of the frame. Her stance conveys the gravitas and sad dignity typical of crucifixion images, her arms nearly outstretched at her sides; at the same time, one senses in her bearing pride, pride at the insertion of herself -- a black woman -- in the canon of a typically white, male tradition of art history. The look on her face is, to some extent, ambiguous, and could be read as a confirmation of either one of those somewhat conflicting messages. But there's one thing that's not ambiguous: There is nothing sexual about it. Nor is there anything sexually overt about the way she holds herself -- any more than the thousands of nude representations of Christ at the cross shown in museums across the world are sexualized.

It's true that Renee Cox's body confronts the viewer with its beauty; but so, too, is one struck by the beauty of Christ's near-naked form in Michelangelo's Pieta, the lines of his sculpted limbs only emphasizing the tragedy in losing so young and strong a life. Some people, of course, see sex everywhere. As high-minded a Catholic as Giuliani is, he might just be one of them -- but only when it comes to women.

Colleen Moore was a silent-era film star. The following is from her autobiography, Silent Star, published in 1968:


First National had been in business less than a year when the twenty-six owners gathered together in Hollywood for a board meeting, the number one topic on the agenda their purchase of 1923's sensational bestseller, Giovanni Papini's "Life of Christ." The movie adapted from it was to be the big picture of the coming season...

Charlie Chaplin had left First National when his contract with them expired in September of 1922.

Nevertheless, he invited Mr. Rowland and three of First National's owners to lunch at his studio while they were in Hollywood. When we arrived, Charlie ushered us into his studio living-room. On one wall was a large bay window, the bright California sunshine streaming through. We were all sitting there chatting, waiting for lunch to be served, when Charlie stood up and, turning to Robert Leiber, the president of First National, said, "I hear you've bought Papini's 'Life of Christ.' "

Mr. Leiber nodded.

Charlie nodded, too. "I want to play the role of Jesus."

If Charlie had bopped Mr. Leiber over the head with a baseball bat, he couldn't have received a more stunned reaction. Not just from Mr. Leiber. From all four of them. They sat there like figures in a waxworks. Even their faces had turned sort of waxy yellow.

"I'm a logical choice," Charlie went on. "I look the part. I'm a Jew. And I'm a comedian."

The bosses looked more stunned, if possible, than before.

Charlie explained to them that good comedy was only a hairline away from good tragedy, which we all knew to be true. "And I'm an atheist," he added, "so I'd be able to look at the character objectively. Who else could do that?"

They had no answer for him.

He stretched out his arms high over his head, his fists clenched, and in a blood-curdling tone of voice screamed, "There is no God! If there is one, I dare Him to strike me dead!"

The five of us sat there chilled and tense, holding our breath, but nothing happened, not even one small clap of thunder. The California sun shone outside, the chirp of birds came through the window, and I suppose God was in His heaven, and all was right with the world -- all but for five very shaken people in the Chaplin studio.

There was silence in the car going back until Richard Rowland said, "He's the greatest actor alive, and he'd give an historical performance, but who of you would have the nerve to put in lights on a theater marquee: Charlie Chaplin in 'The Life of Christ'?"

Mr. Leiber said wistfully, "It would be the greatest religious picture ever made, but I'd be run out of Indianapolis."

Mary Pickford later told me that one time she and Douglas Fairbanks and Charlie were all sitting around the swimming pool at Pickfair when Charlie, who couldn't swim, got up and jumped into the pool with all his clothes on, screaming, "I am an atheist! If there is a God, let Him save me!"

He was gurgling and going down for the third time when Douglas, also fully dressed, jumped in and pulled him out. Mary, meanwhile, was running around the pool shouting, "Let the heathen drown!"

"I think the act of looking at someone is very powerful, but is being looked at powerful as well?"

A nude model posed that question. I found it very thought-provoking. Michel Foucault argues that it is not. But I disagree. being looked at can be caused by at least two things. The first is because you have to be watched -- like a criminal, a thief, a student who is suspected of cheating, someone who might do wrong or break the rules. You have power over others, in that you deny them the right to do what they want to do. They must watch you. They want you to do something, and you've agreed -- they have power. But they must watch you closely in order to get the task done. They are constrained by their own power. And you can force them to give up more of it, by doing "wrong" in their eyes. And yet, within the constraints of their power over you, you have a freedom of action. How much do you push their buttons? How much do you pretend to do the work, but don't? How much do you do your own work, rather than theirs -- evading their notice? There is power here, being watched.

The other power is that of the beautiful, the desired, the wanted. That power is far more obvious. It is a power that forces others to see you. It is a naked power. It's the kind of power that forces heads to turn, even when you want to be ignored or left alone. It is a power that you can't turn off. I suppose it could be overwhelming. But, as Gene Hackman said in the film "Hoosiers": "...most people would kill to be treated like a god, just for a few moments."


But, oh, how it must hurt to have no power. To neither have the ability to force others to your will, or the power to make people look at you.

God, it must hurt.

Every month, Nerve.com, the magazine about sex, runs a photo contest for amateurs. The contests are always thematic. The themes are always "sexiest photo of...", and include someone dancing in socks, someone shaving, someone reading "The Wall Street Journal," someone with a stuffed animal, etc.

I'm fascinated by the entries in the contests. Most of the time, the photography is of an adequate technical quality (not many blurry or underlit shots). The composition is invariably very poor most of the time. Sometimes, the photographers display the most simplistic and clumsy attempts to using art theory. (I'm particularly reminded of one image where the photographer shot a woman wearing hip-high stockings that had horizontal stripes on them. The photographer shot the model standing in front of a Venetian blind, so that the light of the setting sun threw horizontal stripes across the whole room. The idea was to emphasize the horizontal stripes. The photographer completely over-did the effect. It was distracting. And since the line of the model's legs was vertical, not horizontal, the repetitive horizontal lines worked to obscure the model herself -- completely undercutting the intent of the image [to showcase the model's legs].)

One thing I've noticed is that Nerve is really for straight people. It's a magazine about sex, but apparently that rarely reaches to bisexuals (well, if you're a bisexual woman, they include you) or homosexuals. Transvestites and transsexuals are off their radar screen.

Interestingly, almost all the photographers who contribute to Nerve's amateur photo contests are male. The few female photographers who exhibit are (one assumes, from their gender-choice of model) bisexual.

Oddly, almost none of the models are men. Men rarely appear in these images. Then they do, they are invariably depicted as boyfriends or lovers of the women who took the image. Occasionally, a man will photograph his own penis doing something strange to a woman. (In one photo about socks, a woman's sock-clad feet were shown supporting the man's erection. In another, he simply fucked her cowboy-style. In a photo about shaving, a man tied a razor to his penis, which was then depicted "shaving" his wife/girlfriend's pussy. Another photo from the same man showed three razors sticking out of his wife/girlfriend's freshly-shaved vagina.) But for the most part, when men are shown, they are not shown nude. I find that startling. Men are shown in underwear. Men are shown with thighs or shadows strategically covering their genitalia. Men are shown from the waist up. But show a man's penis? Much less a man's erect penis? Never.

Humor is as rare as homosexuality or men in these images, and none of the humorous shots are really that inventive. In one image, a man's face is thrust into his girlfriend's pussy, her thick pubic hair forming a mustache for his nose. The image is titled "Groucho." In another, several small beanie-baby-type stuffed animals are shown mountaineering up a woman's thigh toward her swollen labia and erect clitoris. Eh... been there, done that.

The vast majority of the photographs reveal a stunted erotic imagination. The poses are the same you'd see in any C-grade porn magazine. The make-up, hair styles, clothing, soft-focus -- it's all been seen and done before. Rarely do I get the sense that these images are heartfelt or depict authentic emotion. For the most part, these images only show imitation.

You do see the occasional real image. In the shaving entry, two women (lesbians?) are shown shaving one another's heads. The laughter is real, the sensuality is palpable. But the images are not meant to be sensual. They are candid (obviously taken by someone else, and not posed). But the sensuality of the images comes from what you know is coming later. There are no breasts here, no vaginas, no gentle caresses. But the fun-loving nature of the three images conveys the sense that these two people are deeply in love. And, once the camera is gone, they will express that love sexually. It's the same sense you get at a party that's winding down, when you know that the hosts are going to fuck as soon as the guests have left. There's no feeling that the guests are being kicked out in order to accommodate the hosts' love-making. It's just something natural that will occur in the afterglow of the festivities. And that's how these three photographs feel.

I am, however, interested in seeing how many "average" people these photographs contain.

It's very clear to me that gay porn is dying. One of the reasons why is that gay porn has fetishized a very narrow definition of beauty. "The boy next door" and the "average joe" no longer fit in that definition.

But when I look at the type of people in these Nerve photos, I am struck by just how starkly they lie outside that boundary. None of the women, for example, have porn-sized breasts. Many of the men are going bald, have ponytails, have rail-thin bodies, or are decidedly not handsome. Paunches are common. Ugly tattoos, poorly placed, are common. While the age of most of the models is 18-30, there are a number of older woman in these images.

That, I think, says something. I think it's obvious that porn (or something) is stunting the sexual imagination of Americans. But there's something to be said for that fact that Americans are not seeking out porn stars for lovers.

Welcome to Bush's Fascist America, Part 379:

According to a D.C. Council committee report, D.C. Police Chief Charles Ramsey and other police officials conspired to cover up evidence of their wrongdoing during the mass arrests of anti-globalization demonstrators in September 2002.

The D.C. Council's Judiciary Committee criticized police for not telling protesters to disperse during the demonstrations and then arresting them for failing to obey the nonexistent order. Hundreds of protesters and bystanders were arrested. In the months afterward, Ramsey repeatedly lied about whether he had approved the arrests. The investigation also found fault with the police department's handling of demonstrations as far back as 2000. The report says D.C. police continued to use undercover officers to infiltrate protest groups even after the organizations were found to be law-abiding.

Ramsey called the report "bullshit."

But the report echoes the findings of an internal police investigation into the mass arrests that concluded that the apprehensions were wrong.

Mass arrests took place at Pershing Park on Sept. 27, 2002, the first day of a weekend of protests aimed at the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. In the days before, police had warned that there might be tens of thousands of demonstrators downtown and that many might follow through on threats to "shut down the city."

There were a few sporadic acts of vandalism that morning, and some protesters blocked roads. Police used the park, at 15th Street NW and Pennsylvania Avenue NW, as a place to contain and arrest lawbreakers. Most of nearly 400 people in the park -- a group that included not only demonstrators but also tourists, other bystanders and journalists -- were arrested.

The council report says the police never gave the protesters an order to disperse.

After evidence of Ramsey's wrongdoing became public, the D.C. Counil report says that Ramsey and other police officials conspired to put the blame on Assistant Chief Peter Newsham in order to protect Ramsey.

The report cites testimony from Ramsey in February 2003 in which he told the council that he was not involved in the decision to arrest the demonstrators. It quotes him as saying, "When I came up on the scene, actually, that was already practically in progress." But in December 2003, Ramsey told a D.C. Council attorney that "I told [Newsham] that I thought that the arrests were okay."

The committee report also takes issue with a raid on the headquarters of anti-globalization organizers during protests in April 2000. The report says police were unable to obtain a search warrant for the building, so they persuaded fire officials to clear out the place as a fire hazard, with police officers going in behind them.

George Bush may lose Florida.

While Bush began the 2000 presidential race with a double-digit lead over Al Gore in Florida, a poll released March 7 shows Bush trailing Kerry in Floriday by six percentage points. A majority of Florida voters disapprove of the way Bush is handling the economy; a plurality believes he exaggerated intelligence to build support for the invasion of Iraq; and, by a wide margin, voters trust Kerry more than Bush when it comes to protecting Medicare and Social Security.

Many of those who supported Bush in 2000 seem ambivalent and unenthusiastic about him today, while Floridians who voted against Bush four years ago -- particularly African-Americans and older voters in Palm Beach County who believe they were disenfranchised -- are enraged and inspired to oust him from office now.

There's hope for America yet.

I swear, video-pods are the wave of porn's future.

These things are all the rage right now. The Archos AV320 and the RCA Lyra RD2780 are the only two on the market. Microsoft wants to introduce its own at some point -- I'm sure they'll fuck it up.

These little beauties have screens that measures 3.5 inches to 3.8 inches diagonally. A rechargeable battery plays video for a little over three hours. The hard drive holds 20 movies.

Now you can sit on the plane and watch "All Boys Need Sex II" without distubring the Christian across the aisle. Or you can ride the bus in the morning, groping your erection while the kid next to you grinds his leg into your hip in an attempt to see the fuck-show you're watching. ("Hey, mister -- is that 'Powertool'?")

I tell ya, it's the wave of the future.

America's trade deficit mushroomed to an all-time high of $43.1 billion in January as sales of foreign-made goods hovered near record levels.

The trade gap reported by the Commerce Department on Wednesday was 0.9 percent larger than the $42.7 billion deficit registered in December.

January's trade deficit swelled as the value of imported goods and services eclipsed the value of U.S. exports.

Meanwhile, he deficit in the broadest measure of trade swelled to a record $541.8 billion in 2003, according to a government report. The latest snapshot of trade activity released by the Commerce Department on Friday showed that the "current account" deficit last year was 12.7 percent bigger than the previous all-time high deficit of $480.9 billion in 2002.

The current account report is considered the best measure of a country's international economic standing because it tracks not just the goods and services reflected in the government's monthly trade reports but also investment flows between countries and unilateral transfers, including U.S. foreign aid payments.


What does all this mean?

It means that Americans bought more overseas goods than the entire rest of the world bought from us.

How did we pay for this? Well, we certainly didn't pay for it with income. American factories were largely idle (foreigners weren't buying our goods).

Instead, Americans bought with borrowed money -- credit cards, home mortgage loans, etc.


What will happen?

Some day soon, Americans will have to pay the piper. Maybe a small uptick in interest rates will make Americans unable to borrow at the 50-year low rates they enjoy today. Maybe wages won't rise enough to keep up with inflation. Maybe more Americans will simply not have jobs. And maybe Americans will simply max out all their credit.

When that happens, the great buying binge will stop.

Overseas economies will shut down. Our economy will shut down. A prolonged economic crisis will occur, as American consumers default and major creditors default.

It's coming. Mark my words.

Start doing the things you think should be done, and start being what you think society should become. Do you believe in free speech? Then speak freely. Do you love the truth? Then tell it. Do you believe in an open society? Then act in the open. Do you believe in a decent and humane society? Then behave decently and humanely.

-- Adam Michnik

Thomas Soffron, a clam digger and the entrepreneur who created clam strips, which brought low-priced fried clams to restaurants nationwide, died on February 28, 2004. He was 96.

Mr. Soffron and three siblings owned the Soffron Brothers Clam Company in Ipswich, Mass., which once had an exclusive deal to provide clam strips to the Howard Johnson's restaurant chain for its "Tender-sweet Fried Clams." The clam strips were made from the "foot" of hard-shelled sea clams that were dredged from the ocean bottom offshore; they traveled better than did soft- shell clams that were dug by hand in areas closer to shore.

Mr. Soffron and his brothers once operated seven processing plants, from Maryland to Nova Scotia.

Dear god, but he will be sorely missed.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate; our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There is nothing enlightening about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

-- Nelson Mandela, inaugural speech, 1994

Paul Winfield is dead at the age of 62.

When you read his obituary in your local newspaper, put in parentheses after the last line: "And a longtime lover he never publicly acknowledged."

Paul Winfield and his lover were both lovely men. Whenever Winfield would walk through the Fox lot and saw someone he knew, he'd wink and ask how they were doing. Pretty cool.

It's too bad he never felt he could (or should) acknowledge his sexuality.

When John Ashcroft testified before Congress during his confirmation hearings, he left no doubt that he believed the Internet was replete with pornographers who needed to be imprisoned, preferably for a very long time. "I am concerned about obscenity," Ashcroft told the House Judiciary committee in June 2001, adding that prosecutions of Web pornographers "would be an objective of ours in this respect."

But according to CNet.com, Ashcroft is readying the Justice Department to make an example of online pornographers. "I would expect that very soon we'll see a real uptick in prosecutions," said Michael Schwartz, vice president of government relations at Concerned Women for America, a fascist group. "We had a lot of complaints about the department's performance in this area up to this point. Obscene material is not protected by the First Amendment. It is prohibited by law. Yet it is an extremely lucrative business."

In an early hint that Ashcroft was beginning his anti-porn jihad, the Justice Department convened a training session for prosecutors in 2002 that focused exclusively on how to prosecute pornographers. "The Internet is perhaps the most pernicious medium for obscenity," Ashcroft said at the meeting. "The Department of Justice is committed unequivocally to the task of prosecuting obscenity."

Because Ashcroft wasn't moving fast enough, in November 2003 the U.S. Senate unanimously approved a nonbinding resolution that claimed the "Internet has become a conduit for hardcore pornography that now reaches directly into tens of millions of American homes."

Ashcroft got the message. In February 2004, Ashcroft hired Bruce Taylor -- the most aggressive anti-porn prosecutor in the United States. Taylor, 53, started out as an obscenity prosecutor for the state of Ohio, then joined the Justice Department in the late 1980s under the first Bush administration. He spearheaded the Bush team's multiple-jurisdiction prosecutorial efforts, which were designed to bring suit against porn manufacturers in as many jurisdiction at once as possible in order to bankrupt them. Taylor's efforts were subsequently admonished by a number of federal courts. Taylor then left to start his own anti-porn group, the National Law Center for Children and Families in Fairfax, Va. Taylor's new job at Justice has him reporting to to Christopher Wray, assistant attorney general for the criminal division.

Taylor relishes the chance to clash with First Amendment lawyers. "Every year we'll put a bill in there, every other year, just to keep the ACLU in business," he told free-speech advocates three years ago. "They should send me Christmas presents instead of hate mail. I'm putting their rotten little kids through private school."

"I think we should be worried," says the ACLU's Barry Steinhardt. "We're assuming that by hiring Bruce Taylor, by issuing these threats (of prosecution), at some point they're going to act on them."

On March 5, 2004, a spokesman for the Justice Department acknowledged that "there is a renewed emphasis on obscenity prosecutions across the board."

According to Justice Department insiders, Taylor intends to utilize the 1998 Child Online Protection Act (COPA). A federal appeals court in Philadelphia struck down COPA as a violation of free speech, and the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case the week of March 1. If COPA survives constitutional challenge, it would give Taylor and his allies a disturbingly powerful new weapon in their campaign against offensive Web sites.

The problem is that COPA is worded so broadly that it endangers far more than just sex sites. That's why the plaintiffs in the COPA case include the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, Salon.com, Philadelphia Gay News, Planet Out, and the Internet Content Coalition. The appeals court recognized that COPA "is not narrowly tailored to proscribe commercial pornographers and their ilk, as the government contends, but instead prohibits a wide range of protected expression."

Still, even if COPA is voided, Ashcroft's obssessive enforcement of existing obscenity laws is likely to trample on the rights of hundreds of thousands of Americans. Obscenity laws deal with "community standards," but it is difficult to see how that concept could apply online. Could juries in the most prudish community veto what's accepted in more liberal ones? How could any U.S. law hope to shutter Web sites hosted in places like The Netherlands?

Obscenity law has routinely been used in the United States to suppress unpopular ideas. Its victims include a literary magazine that printed works by Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs, Henry Miller's book "The Tropic of Cancer," the book "Fanny Hill," James Joyce's "Ulysses," and, in the late 1990s, comic book artist Mike Diana.

Obscenity prosecutions tend to start with pornography but do not end there.

In his dissent in a 1973 obscenity case, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas put it best: "Obscenity, which even we cannot define with precision, is a hodgepodge. To send men to jail for violating standards they cannot understand, construe and apply is a monstrous thing to do in a nation dedicated to fair trials and due process."

Maybe we could all deliver pizza......

What would happen if America's middle class grew too financially strapped to purchase the goods and services that businesses produce?

Consider:

President Bush and the GOP free-traders claim that watching good-paying American jobs go overseas is actually beneficial. It will force American companies to either cut costs and compete, or shut down.

Of course, if they shut down, no one can buy all that great stuff at Wal-Mart.

Of course, if they cut costs, that means cutting wages -- and then no one can buy all that great stuff at Wal-Mart.

On Friday, the U.S. Department of Labor reported that a paltry 21,000 jobs were added to the economy in February. The Bush administration had predicted 300,000. Hiring by government, not the private sector, accounted for all of these new jobs. And helped that more than 392,000 people simply gave up looking for work and left the labor market.

More than 2 million jobs have been lost since President Bush got his cronies on the Supreme Court to give the election to him.

Job-market scholars predict that several million more jobs will be pushed offshore in the next several years. Many of these will be the higher-skilled infotech jobs that just a few years ago were hyped as appealing replacements for those who lost grimy factory jobs.

The U.S. economy hasn't suffered such a prolonged loss of jobs since the Great Depression. More than 4 million workers have seen their unemployment benefits expire -- and they still can't find jobs. In the last 12 months, inflation-adjusted hourly wages have barely risen.

Oh, but the Bushites say, the economy has grown!

If we are losing jobs, then why has the economy grown?

Because those workers still working are working harder and faster.

Since 2000, productivity has grown at a 3.7% a year -- high even for a recovery.

Offshore jobs contributes to the increase in productivity, since hours put in by foreign workers are not only cheaper than domestic jobs and but they are also not counted in traditional productivity measures (e.g., products get made but no workers are counted against them). Outsourcing helps, too, by replacing full-time workers with part-time and/or piece-meal workers who earn no benefits or overtime.

In the past, higher productivity translated into higher wages and more jobs as employers. But this time that hasn't happened. Instead, the benefits of higher productivity are going into higher profits. The Bureau of Labor Statistics calculates that employees' share of the value added to the U.S. economy has fallen to its lowest point since records were first kept in 1947 -- and the rate of decline is accelerating.

But what about the people displaced by outsourcing?

They have to move into jobs that are at least as productive as their former jobs in order to pay for all those cheap imports. But they're not. The economy is still shedding jobs. A huge underclass of people who are out-of-work or no longer seeking work is being created. And that spells doom for our ability to keep buying all that cheap stuff at Wal-Mart.

Bush, that great economic genius, believes America should export the menial jobs and keep the high-tech, high-wage creative stuff. Even good old "U.S. News & World Report" says in its latest career guide that the jobs with "staying power" include such high-tech, high-wage jobs as 3-D animator (but not traditional cartoonist), contract nurse (be prepared to travel!), maintenance electrician (better brush up on that "programmable logic control"),; software designer (but you'll have to spend your entry-level years overseas) and auditor.

But this strategy assumes that God has anointed the United States to be the world's genius-bucket while the rest of the world has to assemble sneakers and mow our lawns. But that's not the way it works. Indian physicists and Chinese computer programmers are at least the equal of American physicists and computer programmers. And one has to wonder how that mine worker is going to get one of these cushy high-tech, high-wage jobs. What will less-talented workers do if they are not gifted enough to make "flock of birds" software for Pixar or if there are not enough high-tech, high-wage cushy jobs to go around?

Maybe they should just move to China and start assembling those sneakers like the lazy, no-talent idiots they are.

But if Americans are not to abandon "the greatest nation on Earth" for the hinterlands of Pakistan, they will need to be retrained and educated.

But education and retraining generates high adjustment costs.

Every time a factory shuts down because the work can be performed more cheaply overseas, those people who used to work in that factory need to be retrained to do something else -- or must resign themselves to live off unemployment or welfare. That's the panacea promoted by both political parties. But the record of retraining programs is dismal. Better education is another favorite answer, but education levels among workers have already risen notably since 1992 and that doesn't help those less-talented workers for whom more education is not effective.

But even if retraining and education did work, such wrenching dislocations in the social fabric of a nation create significant increases in mental illness, suicide and family breakdown -- all hefty human and social costs. Economists ignore all these public costs. But taxpayers end up paying for them.

Aside from the social costs of such an outcome, there is the more pressing matter of paying our bills.

Thanks to Americans' insatiable appetite for consumer goods, foreign investors now hold some $1.5 trillion in American public and private debt. Much of that debt is held by members of OPEC and by the central banks of the big exporting nations of Asia -- like China and Japan. Someday those investors may realize that Americans are working at such low-wage jobs that they can no longer afford all those cheap goods at Wal-Mart. When that happens, they will call in their loans. American companies and consumers won't have the resources to pay back those loans. And then we're all up shit creek: The already weak dollar will plummet, creating ever-worse balance-of-trade problems (e.g., forcing Americans to take out more loans to afford goods). Inflation will spike. Interest rates will skyrocket. And a nasty and enduring economic downturn will ensue.

It would be better if more Americans -- and their leaders -- began to realize that there are a lot of things you can't buy at Wal-Mart: Safe neighborhoods, good schools, open spaces, clean air, pure water. If consumers -- the people who pay taxes -- don't make much money, they don't pay much in taxes. And when government is starved for cash, those safe neighborhoods, those good schools, those open spaces, that clean air and that clean water go away. For good.

Is this the type of society we want to live in?

Someone asked me about a couple of gay porn stars, and which of their films were the best. So here goes:

Chris Williams
Chris Williams is easy. I'm a HUGE fan of his! I can't get enough of that gigantic cock and those MASSIVE balls. I'd say his best films are: "Making It Big," "Out of Bounds," "Perfect Summer" (there's a scene where he has a motorized squirtgun shooting water up his ass!), and "Spokes 2." I've not seen "The Young Cadets," but others like it.

Chad Knight
He's made a huge number of films, so it's hard to pick out the good ones. So okay, I don't like his guttural moaning. But I like his body and that big cock. I prefer: His on-screen deflowering in "Compulsion: He's Gotta Have It!" (he is fucked for the very first time by another man on screen), "Big Switch 3: Bachelor Party" (a bisexual film; Knight is bisexual, and he's really turned on being fucked in the ass while eating pussy), "Big River," "Kiss-Off," "Malibu Pool Boys" (includes his famous flip-flop scene with the incomparable Cody Foster), "Score 10" (being boned up the ass by the superb Blade Thompson) and "Buttbusters" (awesome with Matt Gunther).

Tom Mitchell
This lithe, twinky, hung stud with the deep-brown eyes only made a few films. You'll like him in "Powertool," "Bigger Than Huge," "Sizing Up," "Splash Shots" and "Spring Training."

Mike Branson
Personally, I don't know that Mike Branson did any good films. Hey, he's handsome and has a nice body and has that HUUUUUUUUUGE cock. But he really never has much on-screen personality. It was obvious that he was straight and really had issues making love to other men. He'd do it, and smile while doing it. But he never really let loose on screen, you know? His best films are "California Kings" (he screws the legendarily hung Tom Chase in Chase's only bottoming scene ever), "The Chosen," "The Freshmen," "High Tide" and "Manhandlers."

Rod Barry
Rod Barry -- now this guy makes a gigantic number of films. He's still working, almost 8 years after he got into the business. (He is also increasingly out of the closet; he's come to accept his sexuality and considers himself "gay, but a little bi" and mostly sleeps with men in his private life.) I wasn't a big fan of his early on, because it was so clear that he despised the gay men he was fucking and sucking. But in the last two years or so, he's really changed and made some tremendous movies. I'd check him out in "Burning," "Cowboy Jacks," "Fox Tale," "High Tide," "Uncut Weekend," "White Trash" (he's excellent!!!!!!!!!!) and "Sex Pigs."

Cameron Fox
Cameron Fox is loved by everyone. His best films are "Sting - A Taste for Leather," "The Crush," "Good as Gold," "Fire Island Cruising 5," "Working Stiff," "Out of Athens 1 and 2," "Aim to Please," "Prick Tease," "Handsome Devils," "Say Uncle," "Hard to Hold," "Serviced," "In Deep" and "Taggers."

Labels: gay porn

Naomi Watts has been cast as Ann Darrow (the role made famous by Fay Wray) in "King Kong." Principal filming begins in August 2004. The budget has been set at a whopping $200 million.

Director Peter Jackson has announced he's going to film "The Hobbit."

But first, New Line Cinema and MGM must fight over the film. New Line Cinema has the rights to make the movie, but MGM's United Artists subsidiary has the rights to distribute it.

Tolkien originally sold the movie and merchandising rights to the entire "Lord of the Rings" books and "The Hobbit" to United Artists, which never made a film. In 1976, independent movie director Saul Zaentz acquired the rights from United Artists (which retained distribution rights). Zaentz immediately sold the rights to "The Hobbit" to the Rankin/Bass Animated Productions company, which set about making a film. Zaentz also embarked on its own animated version of "The Lord of the Rings," with noted animation director Ralph Bakshi.

In 1977, Rankin/Bass Productions produced a traditionally-animated version of "The Hobbit," which ran on ABC television as a special the Sunday after Thanksgiving. It was the 10th highest-rated program of the year on television. The film starred John Huston as Gandalf, legendary film director Otto Preminger as the Elvenking, Cyril Ritchard as Elrond, Brother Theodore as Gollum, Don Messick as Balin, John Stephenson as Dori, Orson Bean as Bilbo Baggins, Richard Boone as Smaug and Hans Conried as Thorin. (Rankin/Bass Productions was purchased by Lorimar, which merged with Telepictures in 1985. In 1988, Lorimar was acquired by Warner Brothers.)

In 1978, Ralph Bakshi ("Fritz the Cat," "Wizards") produced a rotoscoped animated version of "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" and the first half of "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" for the Saul Zaentz Co. The film was theatrically distributed by United Artists (which also obtained the rights to distribute any future version of "The Hobbit"). The Bakshi version starred Christopher Guard as Frodo Baggins, William Squire as Gandalf, Michael Scholes as Sam, John Hurt as Aragorn, Michael Graham Cox as Boromir, Anthony Daniels as Legolas, David Buck as Gimli, Peter Woodthorpe as Gollum, Fraser Kerr as Saruman and Phillip Stone as King Theoden.

The Zaentz Company was not interested in completing the "Lord of the Rings" saga. So it sold the right to complete the saga to the Rankin/Bass folks.

In 1980, Rankin/Bass completed the saga with a traditionally-animated version of "The Return of the King." The cast was pretty much the same: John Huston as Gandalf, Brother Theodore as Gollum, Don Messick as Balin, John Stephenson as Dori, Orson Bean as Bilbo Baggins, and Hans Conried as Thorin. Paul Frees took over as Elrond, and Orson Bean voiced Frodo as well. The cast added Theodore Bikel as Aragorn, William Conrad as Denethor and Nellie Bellflower as Eowyn. No King Theoden was cast. This version covered the last half of "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" and all of "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King." "The Return of the King" aired on ABC in 1980.

Since these early efforts, Tolkien Enterprises -- the licensing arm of Zaentz's company -- has run a small operation that sporadically granted rights to market various items such as "The Lord of the Rings" belt buckles and a ballet based on "The Hobbit."

Then in 1997, Miramax optioned the live-action rights from the Saul Zaentz Company. The plan was for Miramax to finance and distribute the franchise, with Zaentz acting as executive producer. Miramax entered into script development and worked on the special effects with Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh for over a year (Jackson had a first-look deal with Miramax). But the studio and Jackson couldn't reconcile their differing approaches to the material. While Miramax wanted Jackson to compress the three books into a single picture, Jackson stubbornly held out for his original vision of three films. (This goes contrary to Jackson's oft-repeated story on the DVDs and in interviews given since 2001. In more recent versions of the story, Jackson claims that he agreed with Miramax to do just one movie, but Miramax didn't want to shoulder the cost. Jackson now claims Miramax permitted him to take the film to New Line, which "surprised" Jackson by wanting to do three films.)

In August 1998, New Line purchased Miramax's option for $2 million and reimbursed Miramax $10 milliion for its development and research costs. In addition, New Line bought the film rights to "The Hobbit" from Miramax. Bob and Harvey Weinstein, Miramax co-chairs, and Saul Zaentz retained executive producer credits on the live-action "Rings" cycle. The Weinsteins and Zaentz each receive five percent of gross earnings of all "Rings" films.

In 1998, New Line said hoped to convert its option with Zaentz into full ownership, with the exception of certain rights that Zaentz may hold back. However, it is not clear whether that happened or not.

In order to finance the "Rings" films, New Line president and CEO Rolf Mittweg paid for 65 percent of the $150 million "Rings" budget through foreign pre-sales. That meant New Line was exposed to far less risk, but also would recoup far less money if the films actually were a hit. Then in late 1999, Mittweg convinced 25 licensees that they would have to pony up $160 million in advance before they would see the "Rings" films completed. They did.

When New Line bought the rights to "Lord of the Rings" from Miramax, it also won certain limitations on licensing rights. Zaentz's Tolkien Enterprises agreed to issue no new licenses in certain major categories but it retained the right to grant them in some key areas -- such as games and collectibles. Making matters more complicated, News Corp.'s HarperCollins book publisher -- the British publisher of Tolkien's works -- retains its right to create certain printed products (such as calendars).

This complicated Web of licensing deals has created some odd marketing quandaries. For example, in 2003, two video games based on "The Lord of the Rings" entered the marketplace. In 1998, the Zaentz Company licensed the rights to a video game based on the "Lord of the Rings" books to Sierra-Online, which was then owned by Cendant Software. In 2000, Vivendi bought Cendant (now known as Vivendi Universal Games). Sierra-Online proposed an ambitious online game dubbed ''Middle Earth,'' but canceled the effort in 1999. Zaentz's Tolkien Enterprises unit sued Sierra-Online for failing to live up to the deal. The suit wasn't settled until May 2001. By that time, New Line Cinema's ''Lord of the Rings'' films were well under development. Subsequently, New Line licensed the rights to video games based on "The Lord of the Rings" movies to Electronic Arts Games (EA Games) in July 2001.

Vivendi Universal Games has the broader rights to make games that derive from more than 1,000 pages of story in the books (though it does not have the rights to "The Silmarillion.") And EA Games is limited in some ways: If a location wasn't specifically mentioned in any of the Peter Jackson films, EA Games can't include it in a game. On the other hand, Vivendi can't make a Frodo that looks like Peter Jackson's Frodo or a Minas Tirith that looks like Peter Jackson's Minas Tirith -- images stamped in the minds of most people.

Meanwhile, Vivendi Universal Games is working on several different games that would allow players to live out the roles of a wide number of Middle Earth characters. Vivendi also is working on a "War of the Ring" real-time strategy game; "The Treason of Isengard," a hack-and-slash game; and a "Hobbit" game. Vivendia Universal is betting that Tolkien fans want to explore Middle Earth far beyond where the movies go -- like the battles in Mirkwood Forest during the War of the Ring.

But EA Games is focused on creating one big title, a ''Lord of the Rings: Return of the King'' game. That game will follow the movie's plot line, but will diverge from the story at the end to give gamers something that they haven't seen before.

Jackson said if he were going to direct the movie, he'd want Ian McKellen to be back as Gandalf and want it to feel like it was part of the same mythology as "Lord of the Rings."

"Why of course the people don't want war... But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along -- whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship... Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger."

Hermann Goering, Nazi leader, at the Nuremberg war crimes trials

Naked men in the calendars for March:

Without a doubt, the best calendar image for March 2004 is Sebastian Bonnet in the "Bel Ami Classics" calendar. You know, I was never very impressed with Bonnet on film, not at first. He seemed to be too cheeky in his performances. Sure, he had a huge cock. Sure, it was raging hard. Sure, he fucked like a steam-driven piston -- deep, sure, deft strokes using his entire penis. (God, I'm rock-hard just writing that!) But he seemed to never take it seriously. He seemed to snicker at gay sex. But over time, he's turned from being a giggly little boy with a huge penis into a handsome man with a huge penis. He's become a performer who understands the mysteries of sex much more.

And to see him as the Bel Ami "Classic" Man for March is to realize how poor today's crop of Bel Ami stars is. Bonnet has a perfectly symmetrical face, with those amazing brown eyes, that strong nose, and that kissable mouth. He's got shoulders. He's got small, perfectly formed pecs and nipples the size of silver dollars that are stiff and erect and mouth-watering. He's let his pubes grow in more, and they are wild and bushy. He's got thick, muscular legs and sweet calves. His penis is just as long and thick as ever, with that doughy, thick foreskin covering the knob. His balls, if anything, are fuller now.

Is there a #2 on my list?

I guess so. Maybe Tamas Miklos, an Eastern European (if that's to be believed) in the "Freshmen" calendar. He's not that pretty, and his body is more lithe than either skinny or muscular. He has just a smidgen of pecs, and a flat belly (but none of that silly "six-pack abs" -- as if a six-pack of beer would do anything except give you a paunch). What I like about his is that leanness, sure. But I like those furry, hairy legs and that long, long, long, long uncut cock. That pink knob is almost completely out of that foreskin, and it's just a pretty sight. I'm a sucker for a large, floppy cock. And Miklos has one.

Maybe another #2 is Jason Nichols, in the RAD Video "Naked Youth" calendar. He's got a cute face that reminds me of the long-retired porn star Cameron Kelly (the first porn star with an uncut penis who I fell for). He's twinky and has just a touch of body fat that makes him lickable. He's a nice brunette, with dark-brown pubes and a rock-hard small cock.

Maybe another #2 is Josh Weston in the "Falcon Heroes" calendar. I'm no fan of muscle. And Weston's body is ridiculously over-built. He's trying waaaaay too hard to be a porn star. Those poses he strikes in his photo layouts are laugh-inducing. But he has a big penis with a sizeable "German helmet" knob. And I like his eyes. Weston has one of those complexions that is going to collapse when he hits 35. That skin of his is going to wrinkle like linen left in the dryer. Those eyes are going to go baggy like Bette Davis'. In the meantime....woof.

Maybe another #2 is Fabrice Felder (boy, if that's not a porn name, I don't know what is). He's in Pacific Entertainment's "College Jocks" calendar. Yeah -- he looks like he's 27. Real collegian that one. But while his face is on the border of cute/handsome (just barely), his body is too gym-built. Being one of these straight men from Eastern Europe, he projects no personality whatsoever as he repressed his sexuality. Still....he has nice legs. And he's got a whopper of a cock between those legs.

Honorable Mentions go to Sam, the model in Adu's "Naked Asia" calendar (handsome, a cock so raging hard that it must be painful, skinny body); a furry Cisco Melendez in the "Naked Black Men" calendar (he should never be permitted to clip or shave his pubes again, and his torso needs to be strip-shaved, and his cock should be rock-raging erect to show us just how truly gigantic that monstrosity is -- and since when is Cisco Melendez black?????); the penis (not the man) in Kristen Bjorn's "Body Heat" calendar (just what a wonderful penis that is! and what a nondescript, boring, bland, whitewashed man it is attached to); the compact, muscular (what pecs!), slightly furry, big-dicked boy-next-door Britt in the All Worlds "Military Men" calendar; and Eric Hanson in the "Unzipped" calendar (but these images are too dark, too uninspired and too bland to do justice to this magnificent human being).

Worst calendars for March 2004 are:

* Bel Ami's "New Generation" -- too yellow, hair is not styled, image is uninspired, and the model looks like he's drunk.
* Adam Film World's "Porn Star Birthdays" calendar -- boring.
* Lucas Kazan's "A Taste of Italy" calendar -- look, Tiziano Cortese is sort of ugly-handsome. But his body is too gym-built. He's got a fantastic uncut cock with big, whopping veins in it and I just drool over that piece. But that ugly, ugly, ugly tatto in his pubes has to go. Has. To. Go.
* Carlos Morales in the "Titan Men" calendar -- an un-pretty man with a boring body.
* "Naked Asian Men" -- the model, Chuck, could have been interesting. He's twink, with slight Johnny Rahm-like pecs and a long, long body. But the photo looks like it was shot by a drunkard.
* Zyper in the "Naked Latinos" calendar -- I'm tired of the "yo -- I'm hip-hop trippin!" pose.
* Miami Studios' "Barrackz Boyz" calendar -- get rid of the over-sized Navy dress-white hat, so we can see the guy's face. Have him stop covering his genitals with his hand. Shoot the goddamn photo with a sense of what lighting you're using, so it doesn't look like a fucking Polaroid. Shoot the photo with the idea that you want to show off this kid's cock and balls, not hide them beneath him.
* "Advocate Men" calendar -- boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring.
* Kristen Bjorn's "Stallions" -- listen, if you're going to call your calendar "Stallions," you had better put some well-hung men in it.
* "Naked Muscle" -- boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring.
* All Worlds' "Straight Men" calendar -- I won't bore you with how boring this guy looks. And he's so over-vascular, you have to stare just to try to figure out where they airbrushed the heroin needle-tracks away.

Labels: calendars, photography

File this under "Those Law-and-Order Republicans Ignore Their Own Morality When It Suits Them":

For the last 18 months, Republican Senate staff aides engaged in unethical and possibly illegal spying by reading Democratic strategy memoranda on a Senate computer system.

According to a 65-page report released on March 4, 2004, by the Senate sergeant-at-arms, two Republican staff aides read, downloaded and printed as many as 4,670 files concerning the Democrats' legislative tactics in opposing President Bush's judicial nominees. At least four other Republican staff aides read and distributed the documents. But they are not named in the report, as they did not fully cooperate with investigators and the extent of their culpability in the crimes is not yet known.

The report was undertaken at the request of the Senate Judiciary Committee

The report further concluded that many other Republican staff aides may have been involved in trafficking in the stolen documents.

Senator Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), the Senate Judiciary Committee's top Democrat, said, "This report indisputably shows that this secret surveillance was calculated, systematic and sweeping in its scope. It is not difficult to conclude that this was criminal behavior."

The report identified the two Republican staff aides -- Manuel C. Miranda and Jason Lundell. Miranda had been senior counsel to Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.). Lundell was a clerk for the GOP majority on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

For 18 months, Lundell supplied documents to Miranda after gaining access to the files of staff aides for Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.), Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.) and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.).

Some of the information was about how Democrats would question some nominees. The information was then handed to Republican Senators and staffers, who then researched counter-arguments and counter-evidence to bolster the case for each Bush judicial nominee who would be questioned.

The information gave the GOP a strong advantage in legal and philosophical debates over the nominees.

Senator Leahy wrote to Alberto Gonzales, the White House counsel, asking if his office received any of the stolen information. In response, Gonzales said he could not deny that his office had received the illegally acquired information, saying, "[T]here has been no White House investigation or effort to determine whether anyone at the White House was aware of or involved in these activities."

In an ingenious if psychotic and unethical defense, Miranda said that he had done nothing wrong, because the Democratic files were not password-protected and no "hacking" had been required to view them.

Lundell, meanwhile, admitted to investigators that he had viewed, printed out and distributed the confidential Democratic files. He subsequently resigned and left for Texas to engage in graduate studies in accounting. (One hopes no accounting firm ever puts him in a position to view confidential files!)

I had two awful dreams last night. I went to sleep at midnight, like usual. At 1 a.m., I woke up -- sure that I had seen someone (dressed in white sweats) rush out of my room. I wasn’t startled, really. Just astounded. They ran from my window (on my right, in the corner of the room) out into the hallway. I assumed I dreamt it, and fell back asleep. Exactly an hour later, at 2 a.m., I woke up again. I was sure someone had just lain down on the floor next to my bed. It was a child or young teenager (dressed in black), I thought. I checked under the bed. I was wide awake, but not thinking clearly. I thought the child had come from the big Dan Gauthier poster on my wall (opposite my bed). I got out of bed, and walked to the hallway and into the living room. No, of course not -- no one was in my house. Had they come from behind a secret panel behind the big poster? No, silly...the other side is my living room, not another apartment.

But still, it took me a bit to fall back asleep.

Having dreams that people are in my home at night has become a frequent occurrence in the last two years. It is, I think, a sign of my stupendous loneliness.

Just got two old CDs in the mail. One is Don Henley's "Actual Miles: Henley's Greatest Hits." I got it for the songs "Dirty Laundry," "The Boys of Summer" and the immortal "Sunset Grill." The other I got is Peter Gabriel's "Hit." It contains the beautiful "Soulsbury Hill," the wonderful "Sledgehammer" (I remember that video so incredibly well!), the tender "In Your Eyes," and my all-time fave -- "Shocking the Monkey."

I was supposed to have dinner with a friend tonight. But he bailed on me. Typical. Most of my friends won't do anything with me. Not Colin, not Carlos, not Brian. I give up.

I saw the trailer for "Troy" on TV, and disliked it immediately. Brad Pitt imitating a British accent (why British??? they're Greeks!!) is just ludicrous. Plus, Orlando Bloom -- who plays Hector -- is such a slender boy that I never feel he's a butch warrior. The whole thing felt pretentious and "acted." Not heroic and epic.

Defining the "modern age" of cinema is hard. Some would date it to "Bonnie & Clyde" in 1967 -- the first time a movie showcased anti-heroes without punishing them at the end of the picture. (In truth, "Bonnie & Clyde" did neither.)

Others date it to "Jaws" -- the first true blockbuster film, the film that set the standard for all films in the post-"Jaws" age (openings on 2,500 or more screens rather than a few hundred; the $75 million standard for a "hit" film; gigantic opening weekend B.O.; summer as the prime season for a film to open).

But for many, "Star Wars" is the turning point. "Star Wars" begins a period in film in which sci-fi is resurrected. It begins a period in film in which big, brash, epic adventure films become common ("Raiders of the Lost Ark," "Die Hard," "Mission: Impossible"). It ushers in a new era of "tent-pole" film-making -- where sequels ("The Empire Strikes Back," "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom," "Back to the Future II and III," "Star Trek IV," "Batman Forever," "Superman III," "Mission: Impossible 2," "Addams Family Values," "Spider-Man 2") count as much toward a film's success as does the tent-pole that started it all.

This period really has two segments. The first is the 1977-1989 period, bookended by "Star Wars" in 1977 and "Batman" in 1989. ("Batman" established the $100 million mark as the sign of a "hit" film. "Batman" also ushered in "edginess" as the hallmark of a good film, pop culture as a basis for film, and the rise of the "new composers" like Danny Elfman, David Byrne and other rock artists.)

It's not clear if we are out of the second segment. No film, to my thinking, has yet had such a clear and defining impact on Hollywood as "Batman" or "Star Wars." Surely, we have not broken the mold the way "Bonnie & Clyde," "Jaws" or "Star Wars" did. And I have not seen a film reify and solidify the gains of genre the film industry (a de-aligning election, as it were) the way "Batman" built on, improved and redefined everything that "Jaws" and "Star Wars" ushered in.

True, at times Hollywood has seemed to lose its way. Just as the "character-driven" films of the 1970s ("The Goodbye Girl" and "Annie Hall") were giving way to treacle ("Coming Home," "All That Jazz" and "The Deer Hunter"), "Star Wars" redefined movies and created a new template (the epic adventure-thriller) that couldn't have been more unlike what came before. Just as the "Star Wars" impact was petering out (films released in 1987 and 1988 were simply stupid and unmemorable, for the most part), "Batman" gave the "Star Wars" template new life.

I don't see us leaving the post-"Batman" era yet. The era is dying, I think. Mind-killing films like "Mission: Impossible 2," "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace" and "The Cat in the Hat" are common. Star-driven vehicles are the only ones that get made, while they lose ever-higher amounts of money and their costs soar ever-higher. Economists call this a "death spiral." Hollywood considers itself the center of the universe, yet twice as many people watch "The West Wing" EVERY SINGLE WEEK than have seen "The Passion" (at least, so far; "The Passion" has a total audience of about 17 million as of Sunday, Feb. 29).


1978: "Star Wars" lost to "Annie Hall" for best picture. It's a complete robbery. Richard Dreyfuss deservedly got Best Actor for "The Goodbye Girl." Diane Keaton won for "Annie Hall." But, weirdly, Jason Robards won for "Julia" and so did Vanessa Redgrave. That's insane. Melinda Dillon should have gotten it for "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." Woodie Allen won Best Director for "Annie Hall," while George Lucas ("Star Wars") and Steven Spielberg ("Close Encounters") lose. "Close Encounters" wasn't nominated for a single other major award, in a terrible oversight.


1979: An odd year for film. Hollywood was stunned by "Star Wars," which is STILL RUNNING in theaters. The first of the Vietnam films -- "The Deer Hunter" -- won Best Picture. Jon Voight won Best Actor and Jane Fonda won Best Actress for the other big Vietnam picture that year, "Coming Home." Christopher Walken played himself in "The Deer Hunter," and nabbed Best Supporting Actor -- over the more-deserving John Hurt in "Midnight Express." "Grease" and "Superman" -- films arguably more lasting that either "The Deer Hunter" or "Coming Home" -- were overlooked. A classicly bad film, "Scared Straight!", took Best Feature Documentary honors. Today, the film is roundly ridiculed.


1980: "Kramer vs. Kramer" took Best Picture over the far better "Apocalypse Now." It's the second "Vietnam movie" year in a row. Martin Sheen was overlooked in the Best Actor category (Roy Scheider was nominated for "All That Jazz," a terrible picture). Melvyn Douglas ("Being There") took the Best Actor, over a far superior performance by Robert Duvall ("Apocalypse Now"). Meryl Streep won the first of her Oscars for "Kramer vs. Kramer." "Alien" didn't win a single award, and Sigourney Weaver's amazing performance in the film was completed ignored. An honorary Oscar was given to Sir Alec Guinness, after Oscar voters are chagrined at not giving him one in 1978.


1981: The telecast is postponed one day because of the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan. "Ordinary People" won Best Picture over several good entries, including "Coal Miner's Daughter," "Raging Bull" and "The Elephant Man." But "Tess" is also nominated -- ignoring the spectacular "The Empire Strikes Back." Sissy Spacek won Best Actress for "Coal Miner's Daughter," even though Mary Tyler Moore turned in a performance in "Ordinary People" at least as good (and possibly better, as it was a complete stretch for the actress). Real trivia: 24-year-old actor Michael O'Keefe was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for "The Great Santini." A year later, he'd play a teenager and be the romantic lead Daddy Noonan in the classic comedy, "Caddyshack." Mary Steenburgen (the forgotten film "Melvin and Howard") robbed Eileen Brennan ("Private Benjamin") of a Best Supporting Actress Oscar.


1982: The year of the fuck-up. "Chariots of Fire" won Best Picture over both "On Golden Pond" and the outstanding "Raiders of the Lost Ark." Warren Beatty ("Reds") won Best Director over Steven Spielberg ("Raiders of the Lost Ark"). The hack composer Vangelis ("Chariots of Fire") beat John Williams's history-making score for "Raiders of the Lost Ark." Harrison Ford was not nominated for Best Actor, even though the awful Paul Newman ("Absence of Malice") and mediocre Burt Lancaster ("Atlantic City") were. Although Michael Cimino was a superstar at the Oscars just three years earlier, this year his awful "Heaven's Gate" was released -- and it killed his career."


1983: Meryl Streep ("Sophie's Choice") won her second Oscar -- for Best Actress. John Lithgow ("The World According to Garp") lost in a shocker to Louis Gossett, Jr. (the second black man to win an Oscar) for "An Officer and a Gentleman." "Gandhi," a great film, stole the Oscar for Best Art Direction from the astounding, immortal "Blade Runner." "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" stole the Oscar for Best Visual Effects from "Blade Runner."


1984: The sappy "Terms of Endearment" won the Best Picture Oscar. But its competition was not that good: the sappy "Tender Mercies," the sappy "The Big Chill," the forgotten "The Dresser," and one excellent if rambling epic, "The Right Stuff."


1985: Laurence Olivier neglected to announce the names of the Best Picture nominees before revealing that "Amadeus" had won. However, Saul Zaentz tactfully mentioned the other films in his acceptance speech. The awful "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" beat the wonderful "Ghostbusters" for Best Visual Effects. "The Times of Harvey Milk," about slain gay San Francisco mayor Harvey Milk, won the Oscar for best feature-length documentary. Incredibly, the National Endowment for the Arts is honored on its 20th anniversary for its support of the arts -- just as the NEA is about to be convulsed by Sen. Jesse Helms' war on the arts.


1986: Geraldine Page, who had been nominated a remarkable EIGHT TIMES for an Oscar (for times for best actress, for times for best supporting actress), finally won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for "The Trip to Bountiful." She died the next year, at the age of 63. Lionel Ritchie won Best Song for "Say You, Say Me" from "White Knights." It is a grotesquerie: Huey Lewis' "The Power of Love" from "Back to the Future" should have won.


1987: Oliver Stone's bloated "Platoon" won Best Picture. Marlee Matlin ("Children of a Lesser God") won Best Actress over the superb Sigourney Weaver ("Aliens"). Oliver Stone is nominated twice for best screenplay: "Platoon" and "Salvador." (Woody Allen won for "Hannah and Her Sisters.") Thankfully, "Top Gun" -- the year's #1 movie -- was completely ignored.


1988: Jack Nicholson ("Ironweed") was ignored by the Academy in favor of the silly performance of Michael Douglas ("Wall Street"). Ironically, the Roaring '90s would be ushered in a mere three years later, and the "greed is good" philosophy would rule rather than be snubbed. Two black actors are nominated for best supporting Oscars (Denzel Washington for "Cry Freedom" and Morgan Freeman for "Street Smart"). "The Last Emperor" swept most of the awards, although "Moonstruck" did well in the actress and supporting actress categories. In a horrible mistake, the Oscar for best feature-length documentary went to "The Ten-Year Lunch" -- a film about the "Algonquin Roundtable" group of writers -- rather than to the moving, astounding "Radio Bikini."


1989: The show's opening sequence included a musical number which featured Rob Lowe singing "Proud Mary" with an actress playing Snow White. After threats of a lawsuit from the Walt Disney Company over the unauthorized use of their cartoon character, the Academy was forced to apologize. Otherwise, it was a bad year for films. "Rain Man" won Best Picture, Dustin Hoffman's silly performance in "Rain Man" took best actor honors, Jodie Foster's flat performance in "The Accused" took best actress honors, and Barry Levinson won best director for "Rain Man" (over the far more deserving Charles Crichton for "A Fish Called Wanda"). Absurd films like "The Accidental Tourist," "Dangerous Liaisons," "Working Girl," "Stand and Deliver," "A Cry in the Dark," "Gorillas in the Mist," "Little Dorrit," "Married to the Mob," "Running on Empty," "Tucker: The Man and His Dream," "Tequila Sunrise" and "Beaches" were nominated for big awards. But at least Max von Sydow was nominated for best supporting actor for "Pelle the Conqueror" (and the film won best foreign-language film).


1990: Another weird year for Oscar. Although "Driving Miss Daisy" won best picture (deservedly), silly films like "My Left Foot," "Born on the Fourth of July," "Field of Dreams," "Dead Poets Society," "The Fabulous Baker Boys," "Music Box," "Shirley Valentine" and "Crimes and Misdemeanors" were all nominated for one thing or another. Jessica Tandy won an Oscar for Best Actress, at age 81 becoming the oldest Oscar-winner (George Burns had won at the age of 79 for "The Sunshine Boys" in 1975). Surprisingly, "Batman" was not nominated for any major award -- overlooking the film for best picture and Jack Nicholson for best actor (he should have been nominated and should have won). Yet, "Batman" would prove more durable than any of the other best picture nominees, and a turning point in the post-"Jaws" history of film. John Williams was nominated twice (and lost twice) for best musical score for "Born on the Fourth of July" and for "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade." Yet, Alan Menken's lovely score for "The Little Mermaid" won -- deservedly so. Danny Elfman's astounding score for "Batman" wasn't even considered. The glorious "Cinema Paradiso" won for best foreign-language film.

Labels: cinema

I wonder what my favorite film is. I own a lot of them on video and DVD. I like a lot of films. "Citizen Kane." "The Red Violin." "The Rocketeer." "The Day the Earth Stood Still." "Dracula." "Patton."

But someone asked me the other day what my favorite film of all time was. I didn't have an answer.

Look at the top 20 films in the AFI list from 1998:

1. Citizen Kane (1941)
2. Casablanca (1942)
3. The Godfather (1972)
4. Gone With The Wind (1939)
5. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
6. The Wizard of Oz (1939)
7. The Graduate (1967)
8. On the Waterfront (1954)
9. Schindler's List (1993)
10. Singin' in the Rain (1952)
11. It's A Wonderful Life (1946)
12. Sunset Boulevard (1950)
13. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
14. Some Like It Hot (1959)
15. Star Wars (1977)
16. All About Eve (1950)
17. The African Queen (1951)
18. Psycho (1960)
19. Chinatown (1974)
20. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)

I've seen all of them except for "The Graduate," "Schindler's List," "Some Like It Hot" and "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." I've seen pieces of all of those films, but nothing of "The Graduate" or "Schindler's List."

Of the remaining films, I like them all. "Citizen Kane" is like watching an epic -- so powerful, so overwhelming, so immense, so magnificent that it washes over you. But is it that good? "Casablanca" has astounding writing. But is it really that good (especially Claude Rains)? And in retrospect, "The Godfather" has a lot of triteness. Personally, I cannot stand "Gone With the Wind." "On the Waterfront" has problems, notably Eva Marie Saint. "Singin' in the Rain" is excellent, but I find Gene Kelly to be on screen too much. I have nothing but praise for "It's A Wonderful Life." "Sunset Boulevard" seems like a set-up: Why be so upset about being a kept boy?? And the William Holden scenes in "The Bridge on the River Kwai" seem boring and lackluster. "Some Like It Hot" is not funny. "Star Wars" seems flat after so many viewings. "All About Eve" seems to melodramatic. I have nothing but good words for "The African Queen," but the scenes on the lake are flat. Janet Leigh's motivations seem confused, and Vera Miles' obsession is not believable. The ending to "Chinatown" makes absolutely no sense (especially Faye Dunaway's wackiness).

Is "It's A Wonderful Life" my favorite film?

The final words do make me cry. Every time.

Without a Mayor Quimby, our town would really stink;
We wouldn't have a tire yard or a mid-size roller rink.
We wouldn't have our gallows or our shiny Bigfoot trap.
It's not the mayor's fault that the stadium collapsed!


Quimby. He'd vote for you.

Much More Oscar Trivia -- From 1960 to the Revolution (1977):

1960 was the year "Ben-Hur" took almost everything. It won 11 Oscars, more than any film up to that time ("Titanic" and "Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" have tied it since). Oddly, the film did not win best adapted screenplay. "Some Like It Hot" dominated the black-and-white categories.

1961 was the year of the obscure film. "The Apartment", largely forgotten today, won Best Picture. Burt Lancaster won Best Actor for "Elmer Gantry", a film rarely seen or remembered today. (Spencer Tracy is far more memorable in "Inherit the Wind" anyway.) Elizabeth Taylor won for Best Actress in "BUtterfield 8." Incredibly, "Spartacus" was nominated for only a single major award (Peter Ustinov for Best Supporting Actor, which he won), although today the film towers above its competiton. "Psycho," also released this year (Janet Leigh was nominated for Best Supporting Actress, but lost to Shirley Jones in "Elmer Gantry"), also was snubbed. Billy Wilder took home the Best Director Oscar, beating Hitchcock (Stanley Kubrick was not nominated). "Spartacus" did win best color cinematography, and three other minor awards.

In 1962, "West Side Story" took home most of the Oscars, but not for either Best Actor or Best Actress. Best Actor went to Maximillian Schell for "Judgment at Nuremburg" -- a role he had originally created on television. Sophia Loren took Best Actress for "Two Women" (beating Audrey Hepburn in "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and Natalie Wood in "Splendor in the Grass"). Amazingly, three of the Best Original Screenplay nominees were foreign (all Italian, too).

In 1963, Frank Sinatra was host of the awards show. But he forgot his parking sticker, and the security guards would not let him park his car in the allotted area. He had to park more than a mile away and run to the auditorium -- barely arriving in time. 1962 pitted "To Kill a Mockingbird" against "Lawrence of Arabia" ("Lawrence" won). Gregory Peck picked up the Oscar for Best Actor, while Anne Bancroft took Best Actress for "The Miracle Worker" (Patty Duke won Best Supporting Actress for the same film). Ed Begley ("Sweet Bird of Youth") robbed Omar Sharif ("Lawrence of Arabia") for Best Supporting Actor. For the second year in a row, three of the five Best Original Screenplay nominees were foreign (two were Italian, one Swedish). This was a year for awesome movies: "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?", "The Manchurian Candidate," "The Longest Day," "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance," "The Music Man," "Mutiny on the Bounty," "Birdman of Alcatraz," "Days of Wine and Roses," "The Miracle Worker," "Long Day's Journey Into Night," "Billy Budd," "Tender Is the Night," "Lolita." My god. What a year to see films.

In 1964, Sammy Davis, Jr., was to read the nominees and winner for Best Adapted Musical Score. As he read the nominees and winner, it became apparent he had been given the WRONG ENVELOPE. But he read the winner of the Best Original Score category by the time anyone could stop him. Davis was handed the correct envelope. The suspense was gone for the other category, however. 1964 was a year for forgettable films. Who remembers that "Tom Jones" took home the Best Picture Oscar? Or that Sidney Poitier won the first Oscar ever for a black actor for "Lilies of the Field"? His Oscar win is remembered; the film is not. Oddly, films that weren't nominated are considered greats today: "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" and "The Birds" (nominated for only special effects, and not a winner!) and "8 1/2" and "Charade" and "How the West Was Won" (although the latter is rarely seen these days).

In 1965, the award for best makeup is first presented. "My Fair Lady" dominates the awards, beating "Mary Poppins," "Dr. Strangelove," "Beckett" and "Hush....Hush, Sweet Charlotte." "Goldfinger" is nominated for best sound. "The Pink Panther" -- with its amazing soundtrack -- loses to "Mary Poppins" (also with an amazing soundtrack). Oddly, "Chim-Chim-Eree" is the song that wins Best Song -- not "Supercalifragilisticexpealidocious" or "Just A Spoonful of Sugar Helps the Medicine Go Down."

In 1966, the Oscars are first televised in color. "The Sound of Music" wins for best picture, netting Robert Wise his second Oscar (after "West Side Story", four years earlier). Although it beat the inimitable "Doctor Zhivago," the other three nominees are completely ignored today. (They were: "Darling," "Ship of Fools" and "A Thousand Clowns.") The major acting awards make no sense: Lee Marvin ("Cat Ballou") beats Rod Steiger ("Doctor Zhivago"; Omar Sharif is not nominated!!) for Best Actor. Julie Christie ("Darling") beats Julie Andrews ("The Sound of Music") for Best Actress. NOTHING from "The Sound of Music" is nominated for Best Song (the obscure "The Shadow of Your Smile" from the film "The Sandpiper" wins).

The 1967 Oscars were nearly canceled due to a technician's strike. The strike was settled three hours before the show was to begin. It was a weird year for films. Relatively minor works like "The Sand Pebbles," "Alfie," "The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming," "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and "A Man for All Seasons" are the major nominees. Only the last two are remembered today, but rarely seen all the same.

In 1968, the Oscars were postponed by two days because of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., on April 8, 1968. This was also the year that black-and-white categories were merged in with the color categories. Four great films competed for Best Picture: "In the Heat of the Night" (winner, and starring Sidney Poitier), "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?" (and starring Sidney Poitier), "Bonnie and Clyde" and "The Graduate." Arguably, the best film of the bunch is "The Graduate" -- it won the Best Director nod for Mike Nichols. "Camelot," "Cool Hand Luke" and "The Dirty Dozen" were also released the same year. But instead, "Doctor Doolittle," a rather shoddy film, was nominated for a number of awards instead. "2001: A Space Odyssey" was barely noticed. Incredible.

In 1969, film again took an odd turn. "Oliver!" won Best Picture. "Funny Girl," "The Lion in Winter" and "Romeo and Juliet" were in competition. Katharine Hepburn and Barbra Streisand tied for Best Actress. "Planet of the Apes," "The Producers" and "Rosemary's Baby" also came out this year. But "The Wild Bunch" -- a violent film which Quentin Tarantino shamelessly steals from in all his films -- was ignored. "Easy Rider," at least, got a few mentions by Academy voters -- but no wins.

In 1970, for the first time, there was no host. 17 actors, actresses, directors and others presented the show. "Midnight Cowboy" became the only X-rated picture to win Best Picture. It beat "Hello Dolly!" and "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid." John Wayne finally won an Oscar, for "True Grit."

In 1971, there was again no host. "Patton" won for Best Picture, often going head-to-head with "Airport," "Love Story," "M*A*S*H," "The Great White Hope" and "Five Easy Pieces." George C. Scott won Best Actor for "Patton," but believed his performance to be so inferior to that of the other actors that he refused to accept his award. Frank McCarthy, the film's producer, accepted the award on his behalf. But McCarthy returned the Oscar to the Academy the next day, in accordance with Scott's wishes. Francis Ford Coppola and Edmund North won best adapted screenplay for "Patton."

In 1972, "The French Connection" took home Best Picture honors, competing against "A Clockwork Orange," "Fiddler on the Roof" and "The Last Picture Show." "The Theme From 'Shaft'" won the Best Song nod.

In 1973, Charlton Heston, the show's host, had a flat tire on the way to the Oscars. Clint Eastwood filled in for him during the show's first few minutes. "The Godfather" won for Best Picture against "Cabaret," "Deliverance" and "Sounder." Marlon Brando won Best Actor, but refused his award because he claimed that America was still discriminating against Native Americans. He sent "Sacheen Littlefeather" to accept on his behalf. Only, she was really Maria Cruz, a Latino actress from Southern California. Liza Minelli and Joel Grey won for "Cabaret" -- Grey's win coming at the expense of James Caan, Robert Duvall and Al Pacino (all in "The Godfather").

In 1974, a streaker ran across the stage on live television just as David Niven was about to announce the Best Picture winner. "The Sting" won Best Picture; for the first time ever, a woman (Julia Phillips) is given an Oscar for producing. "The Sting" beat "American Graffiti" and "The Excorcist." Jack Lemmon beat out Robert Redford for Best Actor; the film was "Save the Tiger," which is forgotten today. Glenda Jackson, who had been nominated three years in a row, finally won for Best Actress for "A Touch of Class." John Houseman, the legendary theatrical and film producer and actor who had helped Orson Welles make "Citizen Kane," won Best Supporting Actor for his incomparable performance in "The Paper Chase." And Tatum O'Neal won Best Supporting Actress at the age of 10 for "Paper Moon" -- the youngest person ever to win a competitive Oscar.

In 1975, Bert Schneider and Peter Davis won Best Documentary, Feature Length, for their scathing film about Vietnam, "Hearts and Minds." Schneider read a telegram from North Vietnam during his acceptance speech. Later, Frank Sinatra read an on-air a disclaimer from the Academy, disavowing Schneider's speech. "The Godfather, Part 2" became the first sequel to ever win Best Picture (it beat out "Chinatown"). Al Pacino ("The Godfather, Part 2"), Jack Nicholson ("Chinatown") and Albert Finney ("Murder on the Orient Express") were beaten out for Best Actor by Art Carney ("Harry and Tonto"). Even Carney had no explanation for that appalling development. Francis Ford Coppola's other film of the year, "The Conversation," was also nominated for several major awards. But it won none, and is forgotten today. Two disaster flicks, "The Towering Inferno" and "Earthquake," were released this year. So were two Mel Brooks films: "Blazing Saddles" and "Young Frankenstein."

In 1976, "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" beat "Jaws" for best film of the year. Both are great films, but "Jaws" is arguably the better picture and more lasting. "Barry Lyndon" (forgotten), "Dog Day Afternoon" (almost forgotten) and "Nashville" (forgotten) were the other nominees. Jack Nicholson won Best Actor and Louise Fletcher won Best Actress for "Cuckoo's Nest." "Jaws" won John Williams his first Oscar for Best Original Musical Score. Oddly, "Jaws" would not be nominated for a special effects award; there was no category that year. Instead, the now-forgotten "The Hindenburg" won TWO special Oscars for visual effects.

In 1977, the last year of the "old Hollywood" (before "Star Wars" changed everything), "Rocky" won Best Picture against "Taxi Driver," "Network" and "All the President's Men." It's stunning, but there it is. "Rocky" has not held up well, while "Taxi Driver" and "Network" are considered some of the greatest films of all time. Sylvester Stallone became only the third person nominated for both acting and writing in the same year (following Charlie Chaplin for "The Great Dictator" [1940] and Orson Welles for "Citizen Kane" [1941]). "Network" became only the second film to win three awards for acting (following "A Streetcar Named Desire" in 1951: Marlon Brando for best actor, Vivian Leigh for best actress and Kim Hunter for best supporting actress). Peter Finch won Best Actor (the first posthumous winner in history), Faye Dunaway won for Best Actress and Beatrice Straight won for Best Supporting Actress (she had all of 8 minutes of screen time). Lina Wertmuller became the first woman nominated for Best Director (the Italian film "Seven Beauties"). Grotesquely, "King Kong" and "Logan's Run" both won special Oscars for visual effects.

Everything changed in 1978 with "Star Wars." Not that Hollywood noticed. But everything did change.

Let me just say that I'd be Adrien Brody's love-slave at the drop of a hat. Just say the word, buddy. I'll let you ravish me all night long.

Woof.