We’ve all had that moment. It comes on quickly. That “oh shit” feeling, literally. You’re out with friends having a pint or two or out for a long jog (I believe the j is silent) and you’ve got to go pooh. I know, I know. It’s hard to talk about something serious when we’re using the word pooh. But we’re going to try.
Anyway.
So you go find the nearest bathroom, not necessarily the nicest one, and you run into this (now in the interest of having this scene make sense you could very well be a heroin junkie and finally getting sober, which brings on the runs instead of an upstanding citizen out walking your dog. We don’t judge.):
Good god we don’t want that to happen! But it has happened to all of us. The shitting toilet, not necessarily the drugs or climbing into the toilet part. Let’s stop having to rely on the convenience of the worst toilets available for something that’s a little bit nicer. You buy nice shoes, good alcohol, decent kitchen gadgets and top of the line gaming consoles. You certainly shouldn’t settle for just an old toilet.
Yup, there is now a service that will alert you to where the best toilets in your city are. Mizpee is conducting a survey where you can vote for the best and worst toilets in your city and after June 15 they’ll have the requisite information to send to your cellphone.
So that way, when the you’re out running and the runs come on quickly you won’t have to worry about getting some disease from first available toilet. Besides, it wasn’t just Elvis that loved poohing on golden pristine toilets. Everybody wants that. Even those not brave enough to admit it.
Vote below. I’m pretty sure this will take you straight to the Portland, Ore. voting section. But really this very serious issue is for cities across the country. So go vote. It’s your Patriotic duty. It’s what Obama and Clinton would want you to do. Even if it means stuffing the ballot box several times.
MizPee founders Peter Olfe and Dhana Pawar, who live in San Francisco, launched the site’s beta version in 2007. Over 2.5 million people have visited the website since it went live. And they’re going international, which is a good thing.
Because one time I had to pooh in Italy (some little fishing village) and their public toilet was a small block of concrete with a hole in the middle. So I had to expertly squat over the hole, um, with nothing to hold onto and try to score the double bullseye by not getting anything on me and also getting everything into said hole. Yeah, I could’ve used Mizpee back then.
“When Phish broke up, I made some comment about how I’m not gonna go around playing ‘You Enjoy Myself’ for the rest of my life,” Anastasio said with a laugh. “And it’s so funny because Fish and Mike and Page have been talking to each other a lot lately and now — it’s not that I can’t believe that I said that, but its symbolic of how much I lost my mind or how much I lost my bearings or something. Because at this point in time I would give my left nut to play that song five times in a row every day until I die. I certainly thought about that while I was in jail.” [Rolling Stone]
Wondering if he was also thinking about his cell-mate and having flashbacks to watching Shawshank Redemption with the guys. Regardless, I sort of hope that Phish doesn’t get back together, which is blasphemous, I know.
It’s just that these type of reunions almost never work out, the magic that was there in the first place generally isn’t there or it is but it’s off by a fraction. Enough to notice a slight difference. Was there anything worse than the stories about Coventry and Whitehall when the band had no spark and the letter Trey wrote to fans announcing the band’s breakup four years ago?
Anyway, when Trey, Mike, Page and Fish were on, there was no better musically oiled machine. The left heads exploding in the aisles and though we can assume that drugs played a part in their breakup, fans have never really gotten a truthful explanation of what the hell happened to the foursome. How did seemingly four best friends end up on the outs with one another. Or was it just Trey who was on the outside looking in?
And yet . . . and yet. I find myself thinking about all the shows I’ve been to and thinking what if?
“Bohemian Rhapsody” 12/31/96 Fleet Center, Boston, MA
The Massachusetts government has never really shed the label of “Taxachusetts” or the bifurcating image of steely-eyed blue collar workers living side by side to smarmy academics. In truth, that’s probably a fair description of my home state. And it’s charming and wonderful in every possible way.
In its high-profile bid to compete with Hollywood and New York as a film production hub, the state is doing more than subsidizing TV series and feature movies through tax credits and sales tax exemptions. It is also underwriting the cost of producing TV commercials in Massachusetts. The Department of Revenue said it has issued more than $2.1 million of tax credits for 37 ad-related productions - with eight more applications pending - since the state started offering incentives two years ago.
Though the state would not reveal recipients’ names, local ad production companies say they have received or will seek funding for commercials promoting Intel computer chips, Head and Shoulders shampoo, and other major corporate brands.
Some public policy watchdogs say the incentives go too far.
“We certainly should not be subsidizing large corporations whose advertising dollars and budgets stretch into the millions,” said Liam Day, a spokesman for the Pioneer Institute for Public Policy Research in Boston, which generally opposes aid to specific companies or industries.
But supporters say tax credits could help Massachusetts become a prime locale for advertising productions, creating jobs and pumping millions of dollars into the economy. “We’re building a whole new industry,” said William Earon, managing director of Coastal Capital Advisors LLC, a Boston private equity and consulting firm that serves the film industry.
Seems like more corporate welfare, but what do I know. It probably will help boost the economy, but I find it hard to believe that this is the type of boost to the economy that is long lasting or an actual boost. Boston and the state should be pumping money into science and technology research, bioengineering and taking advantage of all the freaking colleges.
It would lead to more commercials, like below, filmed in actual locales around the Boston area. The spot for Ocean Spray was filmed in a Carver cranberry bog.
Director John Woo has wrapped up the most expensive Chinese-language film ever. Red Cliff has been kicking around for sometime now, and was originally supposed to star Chow Yun Fat (who dropped out to star in Dragonball) but now stars the awesome Tony Leung and Takeshi Kaneshiro.
Woo hasn’t made a flick since 2003’s Paycheck and this promo reel shows a slightly different side of him. It’s great to see him take some time off and recharge his batteries. Hopefully, there won’t be any double guns blasting or pigeons in sight.
The flick, an epic two piece war film, is based on the events prior to the Three Kingdoms period of Ancient Chinese history. The Battle of Red Cliffs was a decisive battle taking place in the northern winter of 208 AD between the allied forces of southern warlords Liu Bei and Sun Quan and the numerically superior forces of northern warlord Cao Cao.
The victory by Bi and Quan gave them control over the Yangtze Province and was the basis for the creation of the two Southern Kingdoms.
Obviously, Chow Yun Fat should commit the subtle art of sepuku for dropping out of this movie to star in Dragonball
Choke finally gets a trailer courtesy of the Fox Searchlight, the studio that snatched up the rights to this film back at Sundance. The flick stars Sam Rockwell and is based upon the novel by Chuck Palahniuk.
The story follows a con artist (Rockwell) who pretends to gag at upscale restaurants so he can latch onto his Heimlich saviors and bleed them dry. He offsets this with working as a Colonial “re-enactor” to fund treatment for his mentally handicapped mom (Angelica Huston). In between, he finds time to immerse himself in therapy and unhealthy sexual relationships.
So you’re typical Palahniuk subject matter. Hopefully, Choke is marginally successful so that other Palahniuk books (cough Survivor, Lullabye, perhaps Invisible Monsters cough) make it onto the big screen.
Taken outside a Portland, Ore. Burgerville restaurant around 3 p.m. yesterday afternoon. I just came back from hiking. I decided against saying something to the manager, though I probably should have, because it was just too funny.
Yes, yesterday was Memorial Day, unless of course you thought it was Veterans Day (which is celebrated in November). The thing that gets me is that not only did someone put that sign up, but they didn’t consult anyone else, they didn’t know it was Memorial Day or didn’t think there was a difference between the two holidays. It’s not like Memorial Day is Flag Day, either. It’s one of the major civic holidays in the U.S.
Could it have been a prank by one of the high school kids working there? God, I hope so, cause otherwise this is just a sad pathetic reminder that we’re not getting the job done in this country. MORE »
Robbie Knievel bested his old man Evel by jumping 24 delivery trucks over the weekend. The jump was approximately 200 feet and took place at the same place as one of his father’s most famous jumps.
Evel Knievel jumped 115 feet over 14 buses at Kings Island in 1975 in an event that was watched by more than half of the nation’s television viewers. He died last year at the age of 69 after suffering from failing health for many years.
Robbie Knievel dedicated his stunt to his father, U.S. war veterans and those serving in the military.
I’m not sure people still get excited about this sort of thing. Admittedly it’s kinda lame and as far as stunts go, well, certainly, other dare devils have taken things up a notch from jumping long distances. Still, I don’t know what it is, but I get a kick out of the sheer ridiculousness of the production. The nostalgia, the aping of his father’s costume, dedicating it to U.S. war veterans and active duty military personnel, it’s all so absurd.
After waiting almost two decades, it’s hard to believe that what everybody went to go see was the best that Harrison Ford, Steven Spielberg and Co. could do. Truth be told, this one doesn’t even hold a candle to any of the previous three and makes Temple of Doom look that much better. However, this is coming from a guy who thinks Temple of Doom is the second best and offers giddy pleasures in a way vastly different but equal to Raiders.
With that said, though, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull just comes off as a hack job. There are bits that work (is there a better action director than Spielberg?) and silly bits that take you out of the movie (yeah I’m looking at you George of the Jungle sequence) and more insect scares (holy shit those giant ants frightened the hell out of me) and moments that left me crying like a little girl (those first two or three scenes with Marion Ravenwood).
But it’s hard to take the movie serious when Indy is actually surprised by shit, ya know? This is a guy, who is not only immortal after drinking from the Holy Grail (which helps explain him surviving an atomic blast in a refrigerator!), but he’s seen more crazy shit in his lifetime that by the time this adventure rolls around I almost expect him to be utterly detached, blase to the point of being apathetic.
Regardless, it didn’t pervert my childhood (yeah I’m looking at you George Lucas) so it has that going for it. And still, with all the crazy stuff Indy has been through, I’m drawing a line at aliens and spaceships.
Oh and Shia LaBeouf didn’t ruin the movie, so let’s not start calling him Jar Jar Binks.
Or some sort of weird midi-version of real music. Anyway, I still have no idea why this guy wouldn’t just go buy a real guitar and learn how to play, but whatever. Maybe it’s just easier to “play” Nirvana’s “Teen Spirit” with 15 notes.
The best is the last line though, where the guy admits he wasn’t geeky enough for Beauty and the Geek. So you know the dudes on that show are truly hopeless.
The Oscar-winning director of such films like Tootsie, Out of Africa, The Firm, Sabrina, Three Days of the Condor, The Interpreter, Absence of Malice,The Way We Were, and Jeremiah Johnson passed away from Cancer today. He was 73.
As a filmmaker, Pollack had a reputation for being a painstaking craftsman — “relentless and meticulous,” screenwriter and friend Robert Towne once said.
“His films have a lyrical quality like great music, and the timing is impeccable,” cinematographer Owen Roizman, who shot five films directed by Pollack, including “Tootsie” and “Havana,” said in 2005 when it was announced that Pollack would receive the 2006 American Society of Cinematographers Board of Governors Award for his contributions to advancing the art of filmmaking.
“He is never satisfied. . . . His passion is contagious. It inspires everyone around him to dig a little deeper,” Roizman said.
Film critic and historian Leonard Maltin said “the hallmark” of Pollack’s career “has been intelligence, both in his approach and his selection of subject matter.”
“Good, bad or in between, his films at the very least respected their audience,” Maltin told The Times. “And, of course, he worked with grade-A collaborators on both sides of the camera — the best screenwriters, the best actors — and it shows.”
Coincidentally, his death comes just three months after the death of his business partner Anthony Minghella. The two ran Mirage Enterprises together, which Pollack founded in 1985. Pollack also acted in many movies, many of which he directed. By the numbers, and they don’t do this titan justice, he produced 47 films, acted in 32 and directed 21 pictures, amongst several television shows.
Allocine had dropped a new teaser trailer for the Vin Diesel sci-fi picture Babylon A.D. The film is directed by Mathieu Kassovitz, which doesn’t inspire confidence as he’s the man who’s given the world Gothika. As for his other movies, well, I haven’t seen any of them. They very well could be okay. This time around he’s created an original sci-fi work based upon a novel by Maurice Dantec.
Vin Diesel is the mercenary Thoorop, who is hired to smuggle a young woman from Russia into China. What he doesn’t know is that woman is host to an organism that a religious cult wants to use to create a genetically modified messiah.
Story is intriguing and the visuals look good. Here’s hoping we get a good sci-fi thriller.
And yeah, the clip is in French. Whatever. Babylon A.D. hits theaters on Aug. 29.
Leave it to Al Jazeera of all places to explore the reasons why people in the Appalachian region of this country won’t vote for a black man to be their President. This video takes place in Kentucky. And despite the explosive topic, I can’t believe that major American news outlets haven’t explored this. Of course, they’ll be the first to claim that Sen. Obama can’t win the white vote, citing losses in several Appalachian states as the reason why. And now we know it’s not white people that won’t vote for Obama, it’s a very specific type of white person.
Still, according to Halfricanrevolution, the piece still doesn’t go into the history of coal mining.
“After emancipation, coal mining companies sought an advantage over unions by hiring former slaves as scabs since, the unions were racist, wouldn’t allow blacks as members. The companies didn’t have to fulfill many obligations to this new, unorganized labor force, and a lot of white miners lost their jobs. So it actually makes sense that people would see race relations as a question of pure exploitation; with one side dominating the other. That’s the history of the region.
Exploiting racial tensions helped the coal companies make a buck. And that story was repeated in urban and rural areas all over the country for years. So who exactly benefited from all this racial tension? It wasn’t coal miners or factory workers.”
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