The Hunger Games... in technicolor

    A friend and I were having a debate on whether the events of the blockbuster film "The Hunger Games" could possibly occur in real life.  My friend argued that we are too civilized of a society to actually engage in something as barbaric.  I countered her faith in humanity by pointing out that our society is seemingly decaying by the minute.    Nothing is more true of this than the report of a shopper pepper spraying her fellow bargain hunters in a Best Buy in order to rightfully claim a fancy gadget on markdown.  If someone in this society is willing to pepper spray someone to get their hands on a discounted piece of technological utopia, imagine what would happen if said person was forced to fight for their very survival on this planet.  You can say that you wouldn't watch your fellow humans doing battle for their right to remain on this planet but you know you would.  You know you would watch and you know you would be on the phone voting for your favorite combatant to give you your requisite hunk of flesh.  And don't tell me there isn't some corporate giant who wouldn't be willing to write a huge check in order to profit from all the blood shed and chaos.  I can see it now.... Ryan Seacrest playing Edward R Murrow in a Brooks Brother special; the cool hipster putting the de evolution of society into a marketing friendly package of ad dollars and outright voyeurism. 
 

   If the Hunger Games were indeed real would they end up being cloaked in some semblance of partisan politics?  I imagine if the Hunger Games were held for real under a Democratic administration, the GOP would be threatening a filibuster to keep down the number of well to do tax payers competing for their lives.   And I imagine if the Hunger Games commenced under a Republican administration, the Democrats would be screaming into the heavens about how the middle class are taking on a higher casualty rate than their upper class brethren.  I imagine if the Hunger Games commenced for real, that the landscape, post blood shed, would be something akin to Cormac McCarthy's "The Road."  I'm not talking about a world devoid of resources and I'm not talking about a world void of self restraint and society based etiquette.  I forsee a world post Hunger Games filled with opportunist.  A world where the power brokers sift through the casualties in an attempt to try and create a utopia in their own image. 

Those darn hobbits.....

  There's something about mystical works of fiction that just don't strike my fancy.  In other words, I don't give a rat's ass about the Harry Potter film library and I don't give a rat's ass about the multi billion dollar Hobbit film that is soon to hit theaters.  Where is Smaug and why is it being desolated?  And what exactly is a friggin Hobbit any way?  I've tried reading Tolkien and it didn't go well.  I got through a few pages and I surrendered.  But then again, the Lord Of The Rings franchise made a half a billion dollars in total receipts without any of my money going into the LOTR kitty so I guess that Hollywood doesn't give a rat's ass if I give a rat's ass about this particular franchise or its Hobbit franchise off spring. 

  Maybe someday I'll be sitting on my ass at home wrestling with my angst when the LOTR and Hobbit films will magically strike a chord with me.  It happened with Star Wars.  Once upon a time I didn't give a rat's ass about Star Wars and now I have one of the combo anniversary limited edition blue ray packs that George Lucas dangles in front of people like water in the desert.  Maybe I'm destined to be on the outside looking in when it comes to certain aspects of pop culture.  I don't want to see amateurs making fools of themselves on American Idol and I have no interest in hearing the kids on Glee singing other people's tunes.  I want the simple things in my life.  I want dark indie films that don't compromise and directors that don't butcher the books I love when they become films.  I want a woman who is uncomplicated and I want to not act out of need.  I don't want hobbits and midgets and British thespians in full beards being tied into a Denny's grand slam meal.  I just want to watch dark indie films and write the great American novel so I can make lots of money.  Then eventually I'll turn into an even more insufferable sack of crap and some woman will come along and steal all of my wealth.  And then maybe I'll spend my last ten bucks on a Netflix subscription and maybe, just maybe, I'll finally understand why people stand in line for two weeks in full Gandolph regalia to watch an overblown CGI fest like The Hobbit.  Right before I have my grabber or I get a hit by a bus or my potential wife to be slips a foreign toxin into my coffee, I'll finish one book in JRR Tolkiens epic medieval opera.  Then I'll travel to this mystical land of Smaug and one of the liberals will bring their row boat and their film crew along as we try to rebuild the joint.  I will install Wi Fi throughout this land known as Smaug and I will teach the hobbits how to get health care through the Obama backed insurance site.  And then the Hobbits will find out that there existing insurance has been canceled and I'll be exiled back to the states.  Resist Tyranny!!! Toot!!!  Toot!!!

What would the pilgrims say?

  I wonder what the pilgrims would say about the way their sacrifices would be celebrated.  On this day of Thankfulness, there are people camped outside various department stores across the United States in a battle for marked down bargains.  Imagine what the pilgrims would say if they heard about two strangers beating the crap out of one another for a marked down LCD television or a X Box One or whatever the else the department stores dangle in front of us bargain hungry vultures these days.  I've never gotten the whole concept of Black Friday myself.  Maybe it's because I don't have the people skills to tolerate a bunch of ill mannered cretins pushing and shoving their way towards a materialistic utopia of some kind.  But on this holiday of thanks, it's nice to turn on my television and be bombarded by a handsomely paid actor telling everyone that an employment dictatorship like Wal Mart is a place where employees bloom and prosper.  I wonder if the person who has to put up with the animals on a Black Friday at Wal Mart for nine bucks an hour would sing the praises of the afore mentioned corporate entity.  In one commercial the same handsomely paid actor says with pride how he started at Wal Mart as a cashier and then became a manager; a manager at the next Wal Mart opened up after the union busting giant squeezed another small business into submission more than likely.  So this is Thanksgiving.  Wal Mart propaganda running in a loop, people working for peanuts slinging burgers at McDonalds, and super stores dangling the karat of Black Friday OT in front of workers that aren't paid enough to begin with.

  I imagine I'll be making this same post on Christmas.  Christmas, the day that the entity hovering above us celebrates his or her birth day and people across the land spend the day bitching about what they didn't get while the interest on their credit cards accounts accumulate at light  speed.  But for me the most unbearable of the holidays is probably new years.  See I can avoid the materialism of Christmas and the inhumanity of Thanksgiving day shoppers but New Years is another matter entirely.  I am currently a singleton and a recovering...... well I'm recovering..... It's a long and complicated story for another time.  It's a quandary I think.  What does a middle aged singleton do on New Years eve if they are a solo, booze free entity?  There's always the cine plex.  Perhaps I'll buy a ticket for the Hunger Games and swoon over the lovely Jennifer Lawrence while I'll digest some popcorn and ponder how my life jumped the tracks at some point.  Bottoms up everyone and happy shopping!!!!

Everything Kennedy......

  Suddenly, my cable universe is wall to wall with various films offering their takes on the late John Fitzgerald Kennedy and what allegedly happened on that fateful day in Dallas in 1963.  I have to admit, my guy Greg Kinnear handled the Boston accent well and functioned rather smoothly as a Hollywood JFK doppelganger of sorts.  It's amazing how poor Oswald gets treated in Hollywood move of the week circles though.  In the Kinnear led film, he's an emaciated, sweaty, Woody Allen esque assassin with a slight paunch and a flat Texas/Brooklyn accent.  In the other Kennedy film of the week, Oswald is seen as a gangly killer with piercing blue eyes with a hint of the speech pattern from Latka on Taxi.  I'm guess what I'm saying is, let's stop asking the question about why Kennedy died.  I say that because I'm a cynic and we're never going to get a definitive answer about what went down in Dallas that fateful November day.   All of these movies of the week about Kennedy are just repetitive tabloid fodder that stir the conspiracy theorists into an un necessary frenzy.  That's not to say that I don't dismiss the notion that our government, namely the CIA, would be calculated enough to arrange the Caesar like execution of its presidential field general.  What I do believe is that Oswald wasn't some loon who just picked up a rifle and took aim on a president for some unknown reason.  If you believe the stories, Oswald was a trained merc with a nice pedigree in weapons training.  The story I believe is that Oswald was a merc given a task (Kennedy) by whoever his master was and he carried out it.  And after Oswald carried out his assignment, he was subsequently served up to the world as a nut with a rifle and a grudge that reared its ugly head in Dallas.   While I admit there is some smoke to the theory that JFK was the victim of a conspiracy of some sort. one question remains.  If this was some covert plan within the halls of the very government Kennedy was the leader of, then why hasn't it happened again?  For every recorded tidbit about Kennedy's death that keeps you from over reaching, there are always certain elements that make you wonder. According to the history books, Kennedy's parade route was a turkey shoot; tall buildings with open windows and inviting sight lines.  Plus, it has been put on record that Kennedy's security detail was scaled back.  People in Chicago can't even use the expressway when Obama is in town, yet Oswald was supposedly allowed free reign to pull out a bolt action rifle and take aim at a president from a book suppository high above.  These are gross security miscalculations that either spell out incompetence or a grossly obviously betrayal by the secret service on some level.  Makes you wonder, doesn't it?  No no no.  Oswald acted alone and that's that.  I will not get caught up in the JFK conspiracy hoopla.... I will not get caught up in the JFK conspiracy hoopla.   Now if you'll excuse me, Reelz channel is running a special that examines the Zapruder film from a different angle.