Monsters! Pumpkinhead
WHAT DOES THE PROTAGONIST WANT? Ed Harley is a simple country man with a small boy and a small business. When a clutch of "city folk" do him grievous harm, he calls upon a backwoods witch-woman to raise the spectre of Pumpkinhead to mete out vengeance.
WHO IS THE MONSTER? Pumpkinhead is described by one of the locals as "some kind of demon." He is the personification of class resentment and bloody revenge.
WHAT IS THE WARNING? Revenge plots, it may surprise you to learn, often don’t turn out well.
Monsters! Jeepers Creepers
WHAT DOES THE PROTAGONIST WANT? We’ll get to that.
WHO IS THE MONSTER? Some weird kind of demon-creature who eats body parts.
WHAT IS THE WARNING? Let’s table that discussion for now.
Contact your representatives today!
I’m not really the most political of guys, I’m much happier talking about box-office reports than public-opinion polls, but I’ve been angered by George W. Bush from the moment he stole the election in 2000. Something about the way he subverted democratic principles and the will of the people in order to grab power kind of rubbed me the wrong way. Funny how he’s proceeded to subvert democratic principles and the will of the people a thousand different ways since then. Started an illegal war, illegally detained and tortured prisoners, didn’t bother pursuing the people responsible for the events of 9/11, looked the other way while an American city was destroyed, illegally wiretapped American’s phones, those kind of things, I’ve got to say, they just don’t sit right with me.
And yet, I’ve kind of let all those things go by without really getting involved. But this Wall Street bailout thing has sent me right over the edge. No pretext, no explanation, no excuse, just a loaded revolver aimed at the temple of the American middle-class, "hand over all your money so that my wealthy friends can stay wealthy or else." Did someone say $700 billion dollars? Try $1.8 trillion dollars. And keep in mind, the language of the bill only limits taxpayer involvement at $700 billion at any given time — that is, we’re talking about a slush fund of $700 billion, to be replenished and handed out however our financial overlords see fit, with no oversight, no checks or balances, on Bush’s say so. Everyone is talking about it as a bailout, but I have a hard time seeing it as anything besides just handing over the keys to the Treasury to Wall Street. And you can tell from the markets that Wall Street sees it for what it is — a blank check, a carte blanche to keep going full-steam ahead, no correction, no regulation, no punishment required. Yahoo! We finally failed so big that we now get to raid the Treasury! It’s grand theft in broad daylight on an unimaginable scale.
So, I don’t generally do this, but please, Write your Congressperson, write your senator. It’s fun and easy and, believe it or not, it makes a difference. If enough people show that they are royally pissed off about this, maybe the spineless Democrats won’t cave on this one — after all, congressmen don’t make so much money that they won’t be affected by this. (Speaking of which, I simply cannot believe that this, this, has become a partisan issue — why are all the headlines today about the "Democratic Response" to this obscene, dripping phallus of a bill? For Christ’s sake, fucking NEWT GINGRICH is against it! UPDATE: Christ on a pogo stick, even rabid conservative hate-hound Michelle Malkin is against it — and she’s dumb as a post and evil as creosote!)
UPDATE: If you’d like to know what all this has to do with the election, you will not get a finer, more readable, more comprehensive overview than this right here.
Longtime reader The Editor tells me that a snail-mail letter to your representatives carries more weight than a phone call or email, but due to the emergency nature of this atrocity that’s being rammed down America’s throat in record time, I urge readers to do both. Write the email, copy the text, paste it into your word processing program, print it up and send it.
Thanks! Analysis of Jeepers Creepers, Pumpkinhead, The Wizard of Oz, and A.I. are on their way. To my readers who suggested I watch Tetsuo: The Iron Man and Ginger Snaps — well, I tried. I really did. Sorry.
A brief note on Igor
I took my kids Sam (7) and Kit (5) to see Igor this weekend. In my duties as loving father, I am often asked to trundle my kids to see movies that I, in an ideal world, might otherwise decline to take in. Because I want my kids to grow up with a love of going to the movies, I will take them to see anything they want to, assuming it is remotely appropriate for their ages (thus, no Iron Man, which Kit desperately wanted to see, and no Dark Knight). Sometimes this means sitting through a movie that is an inoffensive time-waster (like Space Chimps or Alvin and the Chipmunks or Fly Me to the Moon), and sometimes it means being pleasantly surprised (I took them to see Kung-Fu Panda three times, and one of those times they didn’t even want to go).
The Hen-House Crisis
My fellow Americans, today I would like to address the problem we face with America’s hen-house.
Due to circumstances no one really understands, foxes have been put in charge of operating our hen-house. There will be plenty of time in the future to debate about whose decision it was to put foxes in charge of the hen-house, but the fact remains that the foxes have eaten all the hens and now we are out of hens. This is a crisis of far-reaching import — American hens are the envy of the world and we cannot afford to be without them. I shall call this the Hen-House Crisis.
I have spoken with the foxes who run our hen-house and they have assured me that this is a crisis. Our hen-house must be filled with hens immediately or it will lead to a world-wide shortage of hens. That means no chicken dinners, no scrambled eggs, no Denver omelets, no feathered pillows. And that cannot be allowed to happen. The world turns to us for hens and hen-related policy.
And so it is up to each and every American to supply our foxes with more hens, to dig deep and sacrifice their hard-earned hens so that the foxes will have more hens to mind. This is the only way out of this crisis — the foxes must be given more hens. It is the only solution to our problem, and anyone who suggests otherwise, well I have to question their belief in hens.
If the foxes are not given more hens, they will go hungry, and we cannot afford a nation with hungry foxes. Foxes are the backbone of our hen-fox structure — foxes provide America with whatever hens they don’t devour, and if we don’t supply our foxes with an unending stream of hens we will have no hens at all.
My plan calls for Americans to supply our foxes with seven hundred billion hens — give or take, on an ongoing basis, whenever the foxes ask for them, for whatever purposes the foxes see fit. This deal is non-negotiable and permanent, and our foxes will be under no obligation to tell us how they are tending our hens or when, if ever, we will ever see any hens again. Because we need so many hens immediately, this means that a lot of Americans who have never raised hens will need to learn to do so, otherwise our foxes will have no hens to tend. Some Americans may need to work an extra job in order to buy the materials they will need to raise hens to give to our foxes, but that is a sacrifice I am willing to demand.
I have been assured by America’s foxes that they will be very wise and cautious in the stewardship of these billions upon billions of hens, that the hens we provide the foxes will be bred into even more hens, which will then, the foxes assure me, returned to the Americans who provided them. We will then be, I am told, swimming in hens, thanks to the very wise foxes of the American hen-house industry.
"This is an emergency, there is a clear and present threat to our nation, everything could blow apart into a million pieces tomorrow, we must act now now now or there will be hell to pay, there is no time to bicker and argue about details like ‘who’s responsible for this’ or ‘how are we going to pay for this,’ the federal government must be immediately granted sweeping new supreme powers without oversight, and anyone who disagrees with me or questions me or seeks to modify my decisions is a traitor, and I know best because I am the president."
Hmmmm…where have I heard this before?
Oh yeah, now I remember. Yeah, it’s all coming back to me now.
Amazingly — amazingly — Bush seems to be doing it again. A president with less credibility than a turnip, the man responsible (along with anti-regulator John McCain, of course) for this entire mess, is now telling us that we’re in the midst of a crisis and only he knows how to solve it and we have no option but to agree with him or else we’re destroying the country. The amazing part is that Washington isn’t just laughing in his face and looking for someone actually qualified to handle the situation, they’re actually taking his proposal seriously and worried about their political future if they don’t unquestioningly obey our Dear Leader.
As Atrios puts it, "Any member of Congress who looks at the plan to give Hank unchecked power to transfer $700 billion from the Treasury to his friends’ companies and has any reaction other than ‘You’ve got to be fucking kidding me’ does not deserve to hold office."
His proposal, as far I can tell, is: it is not enough that the middle class pay for the highest deficit in our history and a three-trillion dollar war nobody wanted, it must now also help keep the ultra-wealthy Wall Street crowd from losing its yachts. This is, I hope (but can by no means be sure) the final insult to the American people by not just the worst president in history, but one of the worst Americans (which, as The Stranger in The Big Lebowski would put it, "which would put him high in the runnin’ for worst world-wide") in history.
In happier news —
Jack White and Alicia Keyes have recorded the under-the-titles song for the new James Bond movie, and you can here it here. It crunches. Duran Duran are running for the hills, a-ha hang their heads in shame and even Shirley Bassey is checking over her shoulder as this Bond-a-riffic juggernaut comes trundling down the pike.
Bush’s speech, translated
This is a pivotal moment for America’s economy.
SOMEBODY TOLD ME I HAD TO GET UP AND SAY SOMETHING. SO HERE I AM.
Problems that originated in the credit markets — and first showed up in the area of subprime mortgages —
PROBLEMS THAT ORIGINATED IN MY OWN ECONOMIC POLICIES, AND IN LEGISLATION DEVISED BY PHIL GRAMM, JOHN McCAIN’S ECONOMIC ADVISER —
— have spread throughout our financial system.
THE BILL FOR EIGHT YEARS OF FEEDING AT THE TROUGH HAS COME DUE A LITTLE SOONER THAN I HAD HOPED IT WOULD. MY SOLUTION IS TO RE-FILL THE TROUGH WITH A TRILLION DOLLARS OF TAXPAYER’S MONEY — OH, NOT WEALTHY TAXPAYERS’ MONEY, THAT WOULD BE SOCIALISM.
This has led to an erosion of confidence that has frozen many financial transactions, including loans to consumers and to businesses seeking to expand and create jobs.
NOBODY COULD HAVE PREDICTED THAT RATS WOULD FLEE A SINKING SHIP.
As a result, we must act now to protect our nation’s economic health from serious risk.
AS A RESULT, WE MUST ACT NOW TO PROTECT REPUBLICANS’ CHANCES OF RE-ELECTION IN NOVEMBER, OTHERWISE I MIGHT BE CHARGED WITH WAR CRIMES, AND I DON’T WANT THAT TO HAPPEN.
There will be ample opportunity to debate the origins of this problem.
ANYBODY WHO TRIES TO PIN THIS ON ME WILL BE SMEARED AS A TRAITOR.
Now is the time to solve it.
NOW IS THE TIME TO PUT A BANDAID ON IT AND HOPE THAT KEEPS PEOPLE HAPPY UNTIL THE SECOND WEEK OF NOVEMBER.
In our nation’s history, there have been moments that require us to come together across party lines to address major challenges. This is such a moment.
BEND OVER.
_________________________
It goes on, but you get the idea.
Monsters! Creature from the Black Lagoon
WHAT DOES THE PROTAGONIST WANT? David Reed is an ichthyologist with a hot tip: the skeleton arm of a heretofore unknown creature from the Devonian age has been unearthed somewhere near the Amazon River. Investigation of the find leads him to the legendary Black Lagoon, where, it turns out, the selfsame Devonian creature stilllives. Reed wants to study the creature in its natural environment. He is opposed in this pursuit by fellow scientist Mark Williams, who wants to kill it, haul it back to America and make big bucks. David is either compromised in his pursuit by the presence of winsome Kay Lawrence or encouraged by it, depending on his mood.
WHO IS THE MONSTER? The titular Creature opposes David in his pursuit in the strongest possible terms. On the other hand, it also seems to have the hots for Kay, which compromises its position. In this way, the creature is a dark reflection of David.
WHAT IS THE WARNING? Creatures from the Devonian age are better left in the Devonian age, and we would do well to leave them alone. Take heed, world! On a subtextual level, the warning seems to have more to do with mixing business and pleasure, more on which to come.
