Sam Waterston's heavy-browed follies

Law & Order has been to me that one show I could always rely on. I guess because it's been on the air so long, almost as much as my own life, I fel it was always there and I could always turn to it when some other show disappointed me or there was just nothing else on TV.
However, a healthy 20-year span on the tubes wasn't enough to keep NBC from being the biggest douchebags this season, and thus cancelling L&O FOREVER.
Having said that (and having mulled it over and over and over and over), I thought it was high time to publish something more contingent, rather than something atemporal, that's more to do with my own personal tastes. L&O has now become a relevant topic for me, which is why I intend to cover it properly, and do it my way, from my taste's point of view.
Which is why I'm gonna talk about Sam Waterston.

Sam Waterston is probably in the minds and retinas of every law (and order)-abiding citizen as Jack McCoy, EADA (and later DA) on long-lasting TV police drama Law & Order. Fuckin' A.

Mr. Sam Waterston (sometimes referred by me as 'that cool old guy from L&O', or 'that fuckin cool old guy', or 'fuck, yeah, that guy's so cool') was born Samuel Atkinson Waterston in Cambridge, Massachusetts, making him instantly super american and super cool at the same time.
His mother could be traced back to the Mayflower, while his dad was scottish, which I'm thankful for, because it gives this picture a nice background (and even some degree of explanation):


Not that I mind a man in a kilt, but I kinda prefer to know why a man would randomly do the catwalk ensconsed in tartan.

Though he's best known for his role in L&O, his earlier career was as varied as it was interesting, not to mention underrated. (I am glad he finally got a star in th Hollywood walk of fame, though! But that's beside the point, as to many people it just seems an effort that's both too little and too late; count me amongst those people...!)
From The Great Gatsby to Reflections of Murder, I think he's played every type of role under the sun. He's a veteran well-seasoned actor, so I don't think I'm crazy for offering my praise. He's an actor's actor with a classical training and a very classical upbringing.
He got his first education at Brooks, which is a boarding school in North Andover, went to school in Yale where he got a BA, attended the Clinton Playhouse and he even attended la Sorbonne. Yes, the Sorbonne. THAT Sorbonne.


THIS Sorbonne.

All the more respect to him!
So what can you expect from such background? The man is pure class, interspersed with talent.
I often tend to separate actors in "can play Shakespeare" and "can't play Shakespeare" (you Demi Lovatos of the world and your Disney-fed brat pack, I'm looking straight at you!) and thank god, the man CAN play Shakespeare. Just watch him on Much ado about Nothing -which you can buy and I will soon, fuck yeah!-, and more recently in Hamlet; care for more modern theatre? Catch him in Tennesse William's The Glass Menagerie, along Katharine Hepburn!)


Rather intense scene from TLG. I just purchased this one from Amazon and I should be getting it in a couple of weeks, for a proper review.

I tend to think his looks, talent and speech, but more than anything his 15 years playing DA Jack McCoy in Law & Order, all have made him a very credible personality. Not for anything he's been used in TV commercials for TD Ameritrade:



And of course...selling insurance against the great robot attack (the SNL "Old Glory" insurance ad spoof, which I found for you here); the man could sell me a sack of used air and I'd buy it. He's that believable.
And let's not forget the comical spin the folks at the Colbert Report put on this reputation, when they introduced a semi-regular feature called "Sam Waterston Says Things You Should Never Believe In A Trustworthy Manner" (found them all here, here and here), which relatedto the time Fred Thompson (also Law & Order veteran ran for president, exploiting on his character's credibility, I'm sure...)
Those were some of my fave episodes. Who could forget such gems as "I'm from the future. Come with me if you want to live"?
For more on his connection to the show, here's Sam's entry on Wikiality (The Truthiness Encyclopedia!), including the Unity '08 scheme (of which you can see a video here)
If the man says it, it's gotta be true!! But I'd like to get out of the acting job and focus for a second in lesser known activities, mainly this one:



The man was a male model. And as I understand, quite good too! Not that male-modelling has always been a very up and coming career, at least not as much as its female counterpart, but he's seen in quite a few spreads! Based on the years of these issues (of Mademoiselle and Vogue), this happened when he was already making a big name for himself in theatre.
I don't know anythng about how he came to score this gig, but I can totally understand him being there,it makes sense; tall, thin, lanky, with great dark hair and puppy dog eyes...absolutely non-threatening; wouldn't you agree he's got the right look for those romantic, almost bucolic Mademoiselle fashion spreads? I just love these pics.Here's a couple more:


From Mademoiselle.


From Vogue.

And the Flickr where I found them, where you can see some more and at orignal size.

According to this blog, he also modeled for Seventeen magazine in the 60s, but since I couldn't find veritable proof of it (pics, or it didn't happen), I should also consider this could very well be misunderstood information (confusing Seventeen with Mademoiselle and the 60s with the 70s, for instance; not saying it couldn't have happened, though, as Seventeen started publishng in the 40s, anyway and I suppose Sam had that same skinny, non-threatening image from later on, and probably the same great hair ^^)
I understand Sam's wife was a pretty important fashion model as well (perhaps they met at a shoot???)

Speaking of Sam's family, his children are also quite talented. His son James (a veritable cutie!) does theatre, which is something I can respect more than you'd think, considering I stick to mainly TV as entertainment...


James Waterston.

His daughter Katherine shares his same smart looks and is also an actress (catch her on Ang Lee's "Taking Woodstock") and his other daughter, Elisabeth (who looks a lot like Sam, like whoa!), has done Broadway (even starred as Mandy Patinkin's daughter in a revival of "The Tempest"; what luck! Mandy's awesome)


Katherine and Elisabeth Waterston.

Sam is one of those rare cases of "good Hollywood parenting". Why? Cos he didn't live there. Nor New York, nor any big city. He raised his family in the country, which is even more respectable...(am I waxing a bit too poetically about the man? Perhaps; but with that big smile and even bigger eyebrows, it's kinda hard not to!)

For some highlights of his filmography:
His first major movie role had to be the observant Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby, though he was completely overshadowed by Robert Redford (at ;east that's what my mom says, though she fell for Sam later in The Fifth Missile) I know Rob's almost too handsome to look at, but since I tend to gravitate towards the quieter, more awckward types, I think I would've preferred Nick, rather than Gatsby...


You can see him right at the beginning of this clip, he's the first character to show up onscreen, and he's doing the narration.

Other highlights of his career include the weird space flick Capricorn One and the critically acclaimed The Killing Fields. But unortunately, I can't about cover everything; however, I invite you to find out more and see more of his earlier work.


------

In honor of everyone else on the show this season, check out this fashion spread on harper's Bazaar, featuring members of the cast.
Meanwhile, my own idea of making a video clip of me doing a cover of The Talking Heads' "Psycho Killer" using members of the Law & Order cast, remains a distant dream...

I'm sorry!

I'm sorry! I meant to finish up and post my Sam Waterston article this weekend, but life got in the way (it onvolves something like me losing an important piece of equipment, me travelling to my hometown and my kitty possibly being very very sick); but I go back home later today and after that I may have some time to spare :)
And inspiration! I just found out casually that my mother is also a Sam Waterston fan. Awesome.
Also...I'm watching three movies on YouTube right now: "Stigmata" with Patricia Arquette and Gabriel Byrne (I love that movie, I watch it everytime it's on TV and I do love Patricia Arquette and Gabriel Byrne); "Priest" with Linus Roache (because fuck yeah, Linus Roache and that hot scene between him and Robert Carlyle, I mean c'mon) and "The Lost Boys" with Kiefer Sutherland and the two Coreys (why? Because I just realized this is how fuckin modern vampires should fuckin act; they don't shine and they don't brood; they just kick ass and maybe ask questions later)

Happy Birthday, Pacman!

Go to Google's main page. Not only their ionic logo celebrates the birth of Pacman in aspect, if you wait a little while you can actually play the game around the logo. Don't let those bad ghosts catch you!

Let's see how Lilly Rush gets out of this cold one...

....Aaaaand CBS cancelled 'Cold Case'. I don't feel as sorry as with L&O, obviously, but I sometimes did watch CC, so that's something else out of the tube for me... They're also cancelling a bunch of other shows, but I don't care about half of them (though I feel sorry for those who were fans of 'Numb3ers')
What's funny about this piece of news? That all these cancellations are to make way for new series, such as (and I'm not joking) William Shatner's sitcom and Tom Selleck's new police show.
Excuse me, but when CBS said they were making way for new shows was that an euphemism for "We'd like to open the door to 1980, now, please?"
Perhaps this is the right mystery for Lilly...?

In other news, I've been using up any moment free from work (that's most of the day, ha) to dig up stuff on Sam Waterston. I think I already have a good bunch of articles and media forwarded to my home mail, all stacked in my Inbox for my later perusal. I hope to post the article tonight :)

Sheen returns to TV, show renews for two more seasons

THANK YOU JESUS!!!!
It's one thing to cancel Heroes (without a proper ending, may someone explain that to me? They couldn't possibly have been hurting so much for funds, right...?) and let's not even get into Law & Order (HOW DARE YOU, NBC? Now Sam Waterston's eyebrows are without a job!!), but TV people better not mess up with Two and a Half Men. Probably the only new show that guarantees I'll get more than a passing chuckle out of it...(speaking of, I also hope The Big Bang Theory is enjoying some good health?)

Speaking of Law & Order, I'm preparing a post on Sam 'amazing eyebrows' Waterston. It's not your run on the mill introductory article; I tried to dig lesser known facts from my main primetime law man. I should be posting it tonight, maybe :)

Oi

Don't worry, I haven't forgotten this spot. I'm currently working on my next article and effectively pissing myself off in the process...
Tomorrow I'll post a little something, plus some quirky links I've been meaning to show as well.
Stay tuned!

New geek in town

I didn't get this blog to talk about my personal life, but I just thought you should know I have entered a new level of geek. I got geek glasses. And I don't even need a prescription, I got them to wear as an all-assertive-nerd accessory. And they're not just any geek glasses. They're thick-rimmed emo glasses, the likes Buddy Holly would be proud of.
I actually bought them as 'Buddy Holly glasses' (remind me to make an article on Buddy someday!) They were the most Buddy-like I could find, which is why I got these and not others. However, on closer inspection, these aren't quite Buddy Holly as I suspected. The upper rims on Buddy's glasses are curved upwards, like so:



These glasses ahve those curves too, however, Buddy's are way more accented than mine.
I couldn't qite pinpoint it, but these glasses still looked familiar. So whose glasses did I get...?
Well, it was providence that gave me the answer:
I was watchng an old 1974 World Cup match last night (Holland vs Sweden, I think?) and decided to get out an old book on the 74 Cup I have laying around, to see if I could find any photos of Johan Neeskens on it (Johan Neeskens played no. 13 in the Holland national team and was Cruyff's best ally in the field); so I started thumbing through the book, and saw a familiar face cheering from a stadium seat:



That's right. I got Kissinger glasses. The only difference I can point between these and mne is that the two details on each side (those bolt-like dots) on his are aligned vertically, whereas mine are aligned horizonthally. But other than that, yeah, I'd say I got mutherfucker glasses. And I'm quite happy for that. You know why? Cos these glasses send a clear message: I'm an asshole and I regret nothing. Yep, move over knee-high trousers, high-tops and do-rags. These make me a badder mutherfucker than you'd ever know.
You want street cred? You get Kissinger glasses.

[BTW, not that it matters, but there were quite a few Neeskens pics in the book; I'm glad, cos I feel he rarely gets the credit he deserves]

Try it with a coupon or a Degree!

Of course, when I first saw this ad, I read something else.... For those who're thick in the head: yes, I read Yoplait for Geeks. I even managed to squeeze in a thought like 'hey, they're finally developing food for couch potatoes like me!' But no. They totally should... As a addendum, of course when I was typying the name of my blog which is Nerdvana for Geeks, I mispelled it as Nerdvana for Greeks. Secretly wishing I could make a little Nerdvana for other cultures and languages, I suppose! :P

Unlike videogames

Unlike videogames, the Earth only has one life.

The U.N. has just issued a warning stating that pretty soon the damage to our land will be irreversible.
Please, think of anything you can do or shouldn't do to keep up with your share of the responsibility. Recycle, don't overbuy things, don't waste paper (learn to recycle paper! it's fun); don't use electricity all the fuckin' time (reading a book is good too, guys), don't let the computer on all day, don't let the water running, don't smoke, prevent forest fires anyway you can; don't litter; if you see anybody littering, kick their butts (you've got my permission), cut back on anything you do that could be damaging the enviroment (try to think ahead about all the impacts every single one of your actions has on your surroundings; sometimes things don't just stop at the trash can...)
Start walking, if you need to travel a short distance. Share public transportation! Take the subway, if possible. Or get a bike.

Don't just sit and wait till big companies do stuff. Most of the damage to our planet comes from us, from our everyday life, believe it or not.

Start getting it on with your fair share, or it's payback time.

Couple of recommendations

If you enjoy musings written by geeks, then I suggest you check out Will Wheaton's blog, WWdN: In Exile. It's absolutely wonderful.
I really wanna read one of his books...I'm interested in 'Just a Geek', not only cos of the title, but also cos I wanna know how did he make the transition from somewhat hated character in Star Trek TNG (...as I remember) to a very sensible and cool nerd ^__^

Also, I think I really really really want Molly Ringwald's new book Getting the Pretty Back: Friendship, Family, and Finding the Perfect Lipstick. It's got coloured pages! In pink! And recipes! I just love it when books break traditional structures...
And since we're on that subject, I'm still lusting after the Bob Dylan Scrapbook. A graphic design nut like me couldn't possibly refuse this experiment...I'd wish it was carried to other musicians as well. Would make for a great collection.

Just chillin'

Watching Laugh Factory clips, while perusing a blog on japanese pop culture.
Yep, my saturdays are spent on YouTube and random blogs of passing interest...

...Nerdvana will be back to its irregular schedule next monday! (or you know, whenever I'm able to get off my ass to actually...sit back on my ass and write something; don't worry, I'm not hurting for ideas, I'm just "percolating"...)

Contrasting History

On YouTube, I'm watching a hilarious Dave Chapelle routine about racism, while Hitler: the rise of Evil with Robert Carlyle is on TV...
...I amuse myself way too much.

The Johan Cruyff apology

As mentioned in my pathetically short previous post, this one is dedicated to the dutch football figure of Johan Cruyff.

Hendrik Johannes Cruyff was born in Amsterdam in 1947 and is a former football player who retired in 1984, and then coached a few teams until somewhat recently. He started out in the professional league at about 17 and he was a fatherless, weak, skinny scrawny boy, before famed dutch coach Rinus Michels took him under his wing and created a special training to make him stronger. He started his career in Ajax and retired from Feyenoord, after brilliant performances in the national team, FC Barcelona and even the Washinton Diplomats in the US (back when football was a big fad in the US and many former stars decided to move there, for greener pastures...or rather, greener Astroturf)
Like Platini and Van Basten after him, he too has received the Ballon D'Or 3 times in his career and has been qualified as one of the best football players in the XX century.

....But I'm not here to talk about biographic details. What prompted me to write this is that despite being considered such a good player and big influence, how come fame has been so elusive? Shouldn't he be freakin' huge?? I mean, I know people into football know him, but whenever there's talk of the best players in history, his name is never in the top of anybody's mind; in fact, it seems to almost escape the list until somebody remembers him. It's always Pele, Maradona, Di Stefano, Beckenbauer, even Zidane, before somebody even thinks about mentioning Cruyff.

Well, a little nugget of history will help me kick off my part: Cruyff participated in one World Cup and one only. It was Germany 1974. He reached the final, no problem.
And he lost. The golden trophy went to Beckenbauer's Germany, instead.
So I started thinking, what if that hadn't been the case? Because today everybody knows Beckenbauer, but less know about Cruyff and only hardcore fans around the world know of or remember his absolute brilliance.
If Cruyff had taken the cup instead of Beckenbauer, he'd arguably be a lot more famous and he'd be on the top of everybody's head when it came the time to elaborate rankings.
I'm not saying everybody who lifts the World Cup over their heads becomes instantly famous (go on, try to remember who held it in their hands all the times before Beckenbauer in '74...); but is there a possibility that losing so famously kinda made him infamous...?


Beckenbauer and Cruyff, always the great strategists.

The problem in football, as with any other art, is that it's measured through actual achievements (how many trophies, how many goals, how many matches played, how many won); it's only the positive culmination of the process that makes us take a good look at the process itself. Just like in History, it is writen by those who win and to the victor belongs the spoils of war.

But it just takes one look at a video of Cruyff playing to notice his huge talent. Losing the Cup may have been product of other circumstances. It's hard to argue that Germany had had a brilliant campaign so far, carrying along a team of stars that's hardly happened in history before or after (Maier, Muller, Breitner, Vogts, Beckenbauer, Seeler, Netzer...)
And Holland...well, Holland was special. They had a good team, but not as many stars; they worked rather as a unit, a well-oiled machine that not many knew about before this event. The technique (or philosophy even) called Total Football, created by coach Rinus Michels, was the great revelation of '74. But who could deny their underdog status? Sure, one of the best teams in Europe was Amsterdam's own Ajax (also with Michels and Cruyff in the lead), but we must consider that Holland didn't have a great back history in football. They had just begun to turn pro when Michels took Ajax under his management (introducing then his Total Football); and though it took him only 6 years to make them the best team in Europe, what was Holland to the rest of the world, until they played in the World Cup?

But Germany had everything to win. And though we love to watch old 80s movies where the titans are beaten by the underdogs, real life tends to go in a different way. Germany overcame Cruyff's orange squad and took the cup home. You could probably breathe it in the air even before it happened.


Beckenbauer holds the golden pokal, after an intense match against Holland.

What a beautiful story would it be if the dutch had taken the cup home. What a strange, but gorgeous image to watch that skinny hopeful orphan boy -now a man-, that 'golden tulip' (as he was called) and his army of nobodies lift that same cup...

Beckenbauer was already the media darling and arguably, the first media superstar conceived by pro football. Always a gentleman, usually a diplomat, always there (having even played with injuries -remember Mexico 70 against Italy), always enthused by the sport as he had been when little.
And I confess he's been the subject of my adoration for a very long time. I have books on him, photos, figures and even his autograph rests framed in my living room.
But I inevitably feel that I may have taken the easier road when I became his fan. Supporting somebody so popular, so mediatic, with 2 World Cups on his resume (as captain and as coach) is surely easy to do.
The hard way would be to step out of the mold and follow the underdog. Hard, because less will know of him or remember him right away; there's less documentation, there are less websites, even less merchandise...gives you a weird feeling like you're supporting a loser, even though reality's not that simple.
But bottom line is: if you're not the winner, you're not popular. No good PR from you and you'll only not be famous, but infamous.
And Cruyff was...difficult, sorta speak.
Never one to hide what he really had to say, he always spoke his mind when it came to fighting for his principles. In the game, and in life and even when it came to money and sponsorships. He famously stripped one of Adidas' stripes from his national orange jersey, because though the team was sponsored by this brand, he claimed he was 'sponsored by Puma'. And there was no arguing over this point.
He reminds me of me, that way; I guess I feel a certain empathy and know where he's coming from. And I know what it's like to be *that* difficult person. It's inevitable, but more often than not, they'll mistake your tenacity for pedantry.



Certain decisions in his life made his reputation even harder to cope with: why did he not go to Argentina '78?
There were many reasons for him not to go. It was rumoured that he disliked the politic situation in Argentina and that he had problems with Adidas; some even think he had lost interest.
This issue caused major uproar in his country. This is one thing you just don't see anymore as very few players are now considered so indispensable, but Cruyff was different, of course. He was the one big gear that made the rest of the machine work.
Different media even went as far as organizing big celebrity-laden parties or raising signatures (14.000!!) in order to convince Cruyff from changing his mind about retiring from the orange squad.
Yet Cruyff was adamant about his decission; and what made it worse, he kept quiet about the resons behind it.
It was only in 2008 that he finally revealed why he did not go to Argentina in '78; the real reason is much darker than anything else you could've fathomed: in 1977 (when playing and living in Barcelona), he was almost kidnapped by some guys who broke into his apartment, tied him and his wife up and pointed a rifle to his head, in front of his own children.
After that, he was seen at all matches accompanied by bodyguards; his kids had to go to school with police escort.
How could he go faraway to South America after something like that had happened?

I'd kinda like to think that he actually felt bad about not being there in '78, but of course his own safety as well as his family's came first....but a man who loved the game so and was practically raised in a football field must've felt something...

Back on the subject at hand, Cruyff was a big talent, but maybe average at being the superstar. Beckenbauer seems to feel at home when doing advertisements, or back when he recorded songs and hung out with celebrities (and even married more than once, making any ole Hollywood inhabitant proud)
Cruyff did ads for products and sang too, but he always seemed out of his element, odd and uncomfortable. He did not have a singing voice (too nasal and out of control) and even claimed he was very embarrassed by those records and that he was probably drunk when he did it.


I've heard them. They're hideous and make me believe in the devil.

To him, football is just that. It's very simple, in the end; he coined the phrase "If you have the ball, your enemy doesn't". Sounds a bit daft, but after all, football is one-on-one and there *is* only one ball...

Watch him play, please. Take off all the myths, rumours, all you know or don't about him, all the vices and all the stupid crap and watch him. It's like a miracle. There's magic on that field. He's passionate, but precise. Only those who truly love what they do can manage that. As the president of FC Barcelona, Joan Laporta, said: Cruyff's someone who prefers to be the best, than to be the first.

Just a short one, showcasing the Johan Cruyff Turn:



So I end the post on this note.
Beckenbauer, you're my favorite.
But Cruyff...you're the best.

I L U Jopie

I was reading some comments on YouTube (a hobby I have, but I think everybody else does it too...), for a video about Johan Cruyff. Someone had commented that Cruyff somehow deserved more fame, but it had eluded him. And that got me thinking about the subject...and I ended up writing like 3 pages worth of material ^^;
So I think my next post will be football-related, instead; that'll give me more time to keep reasearching the other subjects I have in mind.
I hope this is not a problem...? You *can* be nerdy about football; specially when waxing poetically about retired awesome football players...right?

Replies go here!

@abendstern:
Since I can't reply directly to your comments (I'd wish this feature was like LJ), I'll address them all here:
Again, thank you for your kind comments, they really make my day!
About the Rmmstein piece: I did read somewhere that they were more left-wing, but at the same time, not really interested in politics, which is fine by me. Though I think it's great when singers sometimes express their political/social feelings through music, I don't want another Bono on the scene (one is more than enough!) A shoemaker should make shoes; if a shoemaker wants to also make furniture, that's cool, but it shouldn't bother us if he only makes shoes.
Ah, yes. Boy, people just like yelling nazi at everything these days...thinking like that is like closing oneself to the possibility of learning about other cultures, which only alienates you from the world. Which is particularly sad if we consider how global our communications are nowadays...
My own grandfather was imprisoned for 2 years in Mauthausen and he never held a grudge against anybody from Germany. He thought those who did wrong already got what they deserved, so why keep bothering.

I'd hope I could generate some interest in DTH so they can come, but it would't be too hard to go to Argentina to see them either. Several people do that all the time, cos Argentina hosts many concerts every year.
It's great that you've seen them! (also, your parents are awesome! I think the last thing my parents really liked was Sinatra, lol I dunno, really, but it would be hard to get them into punk music at this point...)

About Again:
well, like I said, many people (hardcore gamers, specially) ended up hating the game, so buyer beware. I'm probably the odd one out here. However, if you still really wanna try it, I hope you'll enjoy it (let me know!)

About the Twilight post:
well, what can I add. Seems like it's all been said (thanks for the link, btw!)
I do take issue with these type of books, because they're just so...they're nothing but sexual fantasies in print, for everyone to read. Nothing better than your typical Harlequin novel. And I don't mind those, what bothers me is how much they overinflated this one, turning it into a cash cow with a series of novels and movies...

Haha, that photo...what's interesting is that in the excerpts I read there was a description of the woman in the story (Gabrielle); she was a 40-something blonde witch with superpowers. Of course. Just like Meyers did with Bella: it's her, but improved and perfect. A Mary Sue. Wwhich is what prompted me to say "this is a fuckin' fanfic too!!!" and then be angry at my laptop...
If you want, I can send you the link with all the excerpts from the book. It's in french, though, but with a translator you can sorta get the idea of what the text reads (but are you sure you want to? It seriously traumatized me; to this point I'm still thinking there's so much evil in the world....)

It's gonna take some time...

Just to let you know that I am working in new articles, but it'll take a while. I'm researching for the next posts in my 3-part series about Cing Games (researcing in this case means playing. A lot), but at the same time I also wanna hurry up a bit on my post about Die Toten Hosen. I've been listening to them a lot lately and I feel very inspired. But I need to do a whole lotta research, because all I know about them is still quite basic, IMO
(...and I gotta finish watching Palermo Shooting with Campino, just so I have something nice to say about his thespian exploits).
Which will get posted first? I don't know! :) I'm thinking on working on a little easy article in the meantime, so that it doesn't look like there's nothing happening...

Major thanks!

To my awesome follower:

I'm really glad you enjoyed the post! I felt very nervous talking about a foreign subject, but I'm quite happy to know I didn't do quite so bad ^^

Well, about that, I read an article some days ago (when researching for this post) that said that for a lot of people, german does sound quite harsh and in the case of Rammstein, many fans didn't even know if they were chorusing lyrics about love, because as long as it was german and loud, it sounded brutal and awesome. Rammstein could pen a song about puppies and marshmallows, and these people could never tell...
A lot of people also think that because Till rolls the R a lot, then he's paying hommage to Hitler; which is about the stupidest thing I've ever heard. I personally think he rolls the R because it goes well with his style of singing and near-baritone voice, but you know how quick people will jump to silly conclusions, just so they have something to say.

Ah, DTH is an old love of mine. I started liking them in high school, when I was very into punk rock. I still listen to them sometimes, I try to keep a selection on my mp3 player :)
Oh, they are HUGE in Argentina (big punk rock scene there), but here in Chile, not so much. Very little.
...Almost nobody knows them, actually ^^; I do, because I used to watch the music countdown on the german channel, back when I was in school, and I've been hooked ever since (of course now it's way easier to score their albums than it was in the 90s)

Too bad they've only played here once (back in 1996, when I was 14 and my parents wouldn't let me go ><), yet they play in Argentina all the time...
I'm seriously considering skipping to Argentina next time they play there.

Thank you so much for your kind comments. It makes me wanna keep up the good work! You keep readin', I'll keep writin' :)

Declaring my love for Cing, part 1

Ah, Cing. What can I say about this now defunct indie videogame developer that's not been said before.
My feelings, I suppose...!
I fuckin' love them. As far as new generation consoles go, I'm embarrassed to admit I only own one, a Nintendo DS (in metallic rose, if you care to know); since it's not as open/popular as the Wii or the PS3, finding good games for it tends to be just a bit of a gamble.
But not with Cing.
Cing made novels. Cing made games for those of us who sometimes prefer to lay back and enjoy a couple of hours without any button smashing and lighting-quick reflexes.
How sad it is to see that the only developers that seemed to be making games for ME went under just like that.
So as tribute, I'll talk about the three games for the DS I ever got from them, starting with "Again" (Hotel Dusk and Trace Memory will be covered in upcoming entries)

OK.
Again.
For the record, let me clarify that Hotel Dusk is probably the best of these games, but I found this game really quirky and hard to put down and it's also the most hated by your regular gamer.
Seems you either love it or hate it.
Plot-wise, I don't wanna ruin anything, but it's Dexter season one! XD Plus the paranormal element which I found quite original, specially because it makes such good use of the DS' 2-screen structure.
The game's a mystery novel, where you play an FBI agent known as 'J', who has the dormant ability of being able to see both the past and present of certain locations (thus, the use of both screens) and he uses that to solve a bunch of crimes that happened both in the past and now, by a serial killer and its supposed copy-cat.

The character design this time is non-existant, as the characters are 'played' by real people. Interesting choice, and though I was put off at first (I loved Hotel Dusks's 'A-ha/Take on Me' style art), I find they handled it well and the models are not creepy, at least. They don't look too awful, like those creepazoids you'd see in the old Sega CD games. Remember those? Jesus Christ, that was bad. They could make your head spin in nightmarish visions of yourself wanting to rip your eyes off with a spoon so you wouldn't need to endure creepy z-rated actors telling you insane lines or worse, being your game sprite (omg, the fight games)


(yeech)

My point is, this is way way better.
I like the japanese box art a lot more, cos it shows clear pictures of the protagonists (see image on top of this post: see how they don't look so bad compared to the freaky-deakies from the olden days of the ill fated Sega CD? I mean, these are normal, hell, almost attractive people!...save for the inconvenient fact that they're all in an obscure videogame and apparently I'm a lonely old maid.....)

I hate that the name of the game is Again. Try googling that; go on, try it. It's absolutely ass. The best way is to write things like 'Cing' and 'DS' next to it, or go by its alternate title Again: eye of Providence. At lest it's not that bad as calling your band The The. You try finding anything on those people (Ok, actually you do find stuff on The The with ease. I guess they saw it coming and bought a good spot on Google results...nah-nah, boo-boo)

It's funny, but after some searching, I should point out that the only positive reviews I've found seem to come from girl gamers...there's maybe a niche there for novel-type games, hey? We like our dark, silent protagonists, maybe
haha (Seriously. Lonely old maid)
But this is exactly as I said earlier: like curling up with a good book and a cup of hot tea, only better, cos it's got music and moves (a lot more than just turning the page, at least)

Maybe some find it the gaming clunky, but hey, it's creative. sometimes creative efforts don't totally work, but if given
the chance, will evolve for the better (anyone else argue that it took 4 tries for Resident Evil to get it right??)

I bet if Cing would've had the chance to continue, they could've developed a much better sequel, but I guess now we'll never freakin' know, will we??

Fuckin' bombs.

A quick one, while he's away

Do they just not have enough actors in Canada?
I spy Bruce McCulloch and Dave Foley in the Anne of Green Gables sequel! (both famous for being a part of Canadian-based troupee, The Kids in the Hall, madcap-abundant pythonesque insanity that we could all enjoy in the 90s through HBO)
Nerdy me loved these movies when younger, but I could never buy Bruce playing it straight as Diane's fiancee...Dave's role, I can pass. Cos he was considered
'cute' (as in wholesome and sensitive) back in the day and he can get away with his face, it's not as funny. But Bruce...he played it straight in KITH so much while delivering stupid lines...it's hard to believe him whenever he's playing it straight anywhere else.

I do love him, though :) (but not as much as Scott Thompson; remind me to talk about him sometime)

Rammstein is all hearts and rainbows

Since I kinda got a request to write about Rammstein, I'll kick this one off by talking about their frontman Till Lindemann.

Seriously.
Till's got such a badass reputation, comparable to that of Chuck Norris (even though he's an old meme) just read Till's definition on the Urban Dictionary. The definition that better illustrates my point, being: "Till once beat Chucks ass and thats why he is no longer the main character in any movie."

But hey, he's actually quite nice.
He's a gentle giant, a cookie monster. You probably can't picture this if you pass judgement based on any concert or video you may have seen, (what with the pounding of the thigh, the costumes akin to S&M, the fire-spitting dildos, bursting into flames, and banging his head with a microphone, all while sounding big and ominous) but I'm here to defend the man behind the curtain.

Till Lindemann's a well-educated sensitive poet (published, actually), who loves Chris Isaak and milk (his words).

...Besides, after watching him as a dopey villain in a movie about a penguin (Amundsen der Pinguin), can you really buy that violent onstage persona as anything other than, well, an onstage persona?




So everybody who's always been like 'afraid' of Rammstein (me, age 14...) and pawn on them a bunch of crap about them being nazis -the truth could not possibly be further than that!-, homos, masochists or similar retarded judgements, really have no idea.
And when I say 'everybody', I refer to a classmate I had back in high school (Susana, I'm looking straight at you!); this girl pissed me off so much. She was a left-winger who thought knew everything about everything, just cos she had read two crappy Marx books and liked indie local bands. She just believed any crap anybody told her and was ready to jump at the slightest sign of fascism, be that true or not.
She always made me feel bad or stupid if I tried to defend them, just cos, well, in those years with so little access to proof (ie, before the internet), proving your point was way harder.
But hey, read any news related to these type of things and you'll notice it's usually foreigners that have the most trouble with either Rammstein or Mr. Lindemann. So take into consideration that a lot of this derives from not being actually familiar with their culture/language.
Yeah, language. Kind of important to actually, I dunno, understand the lyrics...?

It's happened before: they go to Mexico or some other faraway country and what happens? Some idiot will show up wearing a tee shirt with a swastika on it, because that's a thing that to them means 'Germany', and then Rammstein has to do a press release asking people to please not do that, please avoid these type of symbols, they're actually really bad, blah blah blah. Not to mention the Columbine shooters were Rammstein fans, which of course was yet another casualty that got pinned on them. Try sleazing out of that one.

Here's the point:
does this not prove that whenever we hear Germany, we inmeadiately think (somewhere in our minds) OMGnazis?

How many of us know enough german to fully understand their lyrics, anyway? I mean, really, really feel them. Face it, german's not exactly on every school's curriculae.
...And it's not like there are many many german musicians who've hit the big time everywhere else.
Seriously, name something. Kraftwerk? Die Toten Hosen? Ask someone sitting next to you if they're familiar with these artists. Yeah, I thought so.

So the less exposition your culture gets out there, the less people will relate you to positive things (just consider how many think about Japan as nothing but a madcap land based on cultural gaps so huge, you wonder why are they not wearing dead fish and eating booger soup, while walking their rhinestone-covered iguanas)

Where there's such ignorance, there's bound to be misunderstandings.

If you're interested, I suggest you give Rammstein a good listen: better to start with their most known work, which would be their second album, Sehnsucht (recommendd tracks: Engel, Du Hast, Bück dich, Eifersucht and Du Riechst so Gut)
From later albums, I'd recommend Ich Will, Feuer Frei!, Mutter, Mein Teil, Amerika, Benzin and hell, I'm even gonna throw in Te Quiero Puta!, ven though the lyrics aren't exactly poetic, because it's just so damm funny to listen to this guy sing insanities in spanish.

Don't wanna spend your moola? Find them on YouTube, most of these tracks are pretty mainstream. I won't link you to countless Evangelion FMVs that use 'Engel' or 'Feuer Frei' (because Asuka's OMGgerman, gais!!!). I'm not *that* much of a nerd...

Incidentally, if like me, you were ever into punk rock, I also suggest listening to Die Toten Hosen. They're pretty much one of the last pillars of punk rock and quite talented as well.
Just the silly rivalry between their frontman and Rammstein's frontman is worth the price of admission.
[Not to mention there you have another literate rocker: DTH's frontman, Campino (nicknamed after those strawberry-yoghurt candies -cute, I know) is quite versed on all aspects of modern culture, himself having tried his hand at writing (journalist) and
acting...]
...But hey, that's a story for another post :)

I won't dance, don't ask me

Let me be allowed to kick off this blog on a negative note.
Something that will already earn me some enemies, but at the same time show perfectly what I am and am not about.
Way, way better than a declaration of principles.

I do not like Twilight.
I don't like it as a novel, I don't like it as a movie, I could not, would not, in a house; I would not, could not, with a mouse.

Look, it's not the writing; it's not the author, nor the characters; it's not the horrid cover, it's not even the plot that makes you unbearably uncomfortable once you realize it's all the author's masturbatory fantasies.

Fuck this. It's all of the above, and then some. This whole clusterfuck of crap couldn't make my skin crawl more if it tried. It's like Meyer...works at it.

But you know, I'm not gonna wax poetically about the things I hate about it, because everybody's already talked about it enough to fill volumes.
Nope, sir. My approach is way more didactic than just your average review.
I have a little nugget for comparisson, actually. I think comparissons illustrate things way better than a crappy 2-cent thesis I could actually sit down and write:

There's some old woman in France who wrote a terrible novel about a man possessed
by a vampire. The novel's called Vampire and the main character is a man named Till and he's based on Till Lindemann, from german trans-metal band Rammstein, and several childhood nightmares. Anyway, it's about a rock band frontman who's tormented and possessed by the spirit of a vampire who sucks life energy out of people by giving them terrible visions (or sometimes orgasms; and yeah, you read that right); it's pretty much a fuckin' fanfic.
The masturbatory self-inssertive tales of a french old lady who fantasizes about boinkin' Till Lindemann from Rammstein.
It's like a fanfic and probably as badly written. It's awful and out of print for a reason and I wouldn't recommend its reading AT ALL.

....Yet it's still fuckin' better than that drawl Twilight, just because at least the vampire here isn't a shiny faggot. I mean, fuck. It's fuckin' Till Lindemann from Rammstein! That's a real man. Even when he's being a goofy idiot, you still feel he could kick your ass just by looking at you. He's german, he's big, his voice is like a commander of thunder.
Yeah, I buy him a lot more as a fuckin' vampire than 'OMGEdward'.
For that matter, I buy Count Chockula as a vampire more than 'OMGEdward', so I dunno.

(shit, I even like the cover better; kinda has a Mike Mignola feel to it...)

Addendum: to write this article with some sense of what I was doing, I *had* to read excerpts from the novel. They were in french, but my basic grasp of the language (plus a 2-bit translator) threw up (as in vomited) enough to get the gist of them.
...let's just say I could've lived without reading that. In fact, I'm sure for every excerpt I dared thread like dark muddy waters, I lost at least 1 day out of my life.
Just know the sacrifices I do for you guys :)