Brownback

I see John's point.

I just heard an interview with Brownback on WNYC. I was impressed. He's definitely trying to stake out a consistent pro-life position, and seems to take seriously issues like genocide, poverty, and prison reform. Those three things pretty much top my list of things I care about (although it was a short interview, and foreign policy/war on terror stuff did not come up). For example, he wants to apologize to Native Americans for the crimes inflicted upon them.

I don't think I could ever vote for the guy, or anybody else who I imagine would answer "yes" to the question "Should the United States be a Christian state?"*

Which got me thinking about an interesing reversal of What's the matter with Kansas?. A candidate could line up very well with me on policy and still lose my vote on culture-war type rhetoric.

More importantly, Brownback strikes me as serious and intelligent, the kind of opposition I'd want to have. I'd rather lose to someone who is reflective, who makes an effort for intellectual consistency, and who is thinking about how to make life better for the maximum number of people. Bush has made the culture war worse by being such an idiot, it's impossible for me to react to him in anything other than knee-jerk fashion. Whatever he proposes seems doomed merely by virtue of the fact that he is the one proposing it.

As I say, I'm not voting for Brownback, and I'll be kind of horrified if he wins, but I'm glad he's in the running. Maybe there's hope that this election will have some substance to it.

*CORRECTION: as phrased, this appears to be a direct quotation from the interview. It is not. It is my posing a hypothetical question and answer. As far as I know, Brownback has not said that he thinks the United States should be a Christian state. I wrote this because he clearly brings a zeal to the office of the presidency that I find off-putting. In an attempt to make this point clearer, I added "I imagine."

The audio clip of the whole interview should come up in the next day or so.

Great Teams I have Loved -- The Legion of Doom Flyers

Except for now, the Flyers have been in Stanley Cup contention for almost their entire existence. They won a cup in the mid 70's, and were in the finals in '80, and again in '85 and '87 under Mike Keenan, then hit a dry spell.

What I remember about the Keenan Flyers is:

• The seventh grade girls in our class were ga-ga over young Flyers like Peter Zezel and Rick Tocchet.
• They made the '85 finals with rookie Pelle Lindbergh in net, then he died in a car accident, then were back two years later with rookie Ron Hextall in net.
• Nobody ever really thought the Flyers had a chance in either series against the Gretzky-Messier Oilers. I do remember that the '87 Flyers won Game 5 against Edmonton, ticking off the Oilers because it meant they had to fly to Philadelphia again for Game 6, then back home to Edmonton. Hextall won the Conn Smythe Award depite playing for the losing team.

In any case, Keenan wore out his welcome, as he would do in increasingly shorter times as his career progressed, and the team fell apart.

Then, Eric Lindros came out. He was supposed to have the skill of Gretzky and Lemieux, with a mean streak. The Quebec Nordiques had the first pick, but Lindros didn't want to go there. (It's interesting how we didn't see the writing on the wall here. Philly fans would throw batteries at J.D. Drew years later for pulling the exact same stunt. I guess John Elway managed to pull this stunt and have a championshop career, but the rest -- Lindros, Drew, Eli Manning -- have so far fallen short of expectations, in part due to lack of passion). The Flyers thought they had a trade settled with Quebec, but then another trade was announced with the Rangers. An arbiter determined that the Flyers' trade was valid.

We rejoiced -- we got the big guy! In addition to the irony of this combined with our later disgust with Drew, this turned out to be a great trade for.. Quebec, who would shortly move to Denver, become the Avalanche, and win a Stanley Cup with the booty from this trade -- notably Peter Forsberg, Mike Ricci, Chris Simon, and a 1st round selection they traded for Patick Roy.

But never mind that -- we had the Next Big Thing. My father, whom I don't remember being a particularly rabid hockey fan, bough partial season tickets for the Flyers Lindros's rookie year, but there wasn't much success yet.

The team came together when the Flyers made another trade -- the Candiennes had won the Cup the previous year, and the Flyers traded Mark Recchi to them for two young players -- Eric Desjardins who would anchor the Flyers' defense for a decade, and John LeClair. who would team with Lindros and Mickael Renberg to form the Legion of Doom line.

In the strike-shortened 1995 season, the Flyers got all the way to the conference championship, but lost to the eventual champion New Jersey Devils, who would prove to be their nemesis. Lindros won the Hart Trophy that year, and gave a tear-filled speech promising he would lead the Flyers to the Stanley Cup.

It never happened. The Flyers went through a host of coaches and golaies, never quite finding the right mix. The one year they made the finals, 1997, they switched goalies twice. They never seemed to have a decent second line; they couldn't find anyone to play with the great Rod Bind'A'mour (whom I was delighted to see captain the Hurricanes to the Stanley Cup last year), and they never had a great "quarterback"-type defenseman. Renberg got hurt, and none of his replacements quite stuck.

As the years went on, Lindros collected concussions, and his relationship with GM Bobby Clarke became strained because Lindros was not Bobby Clarke. Things came to a head in the 2000 season when Lindros was stripped of his captaincy, then came back in the conference championships against the Devils again, and suffered a gruesome hit that ended his time with the Flyers.

So why did I love this team?

For one, the late 1990's was the era of the trap and the left wing lock. The Flyers didn't play that way -- they skated.

Second, few things were as exciting as when Lindros got the puck behind his own net and charged down the ice with the puck. He was an exciting, inspirational player, and it's beyond unfortunate that his career was shortened.

Third, the crowds were unbelievable. Philly is a hockey town, and we loved watching this team. And even though they were kind of the Yankees of the NHL, they played a tough style, which we ate up.

Unfortunately, it didn't come together immediately, and management ended up going for a variety of free agant quick fixes -- Dale Hawerchuk, Paul Coffey, John Vanbiesbrouck, Jeremy Roenick, and finally re-acquiring Forsberg -- that didn't quite work out. Brind'A'mour was traded for Keith Primeau, who succeeded Lindros ably as captain, but wasn't the same type of scorer. Then the lockout hit, the rules changed favoring quickness over size, and not the Flyers occupy the basement and are rebuilding.

But it was a fun ride.

Me and my Luger

It started innocently enough, My mother had asked me casually, Do you want to show it to your friends?

I’m not much for guns, though at one time I was okay with a BB gun. But my two brothers-in-law are fanatical about guns and rifles. Family get-togethers they disappear into the basement for hours and I know it’s about guns. Plus they kill, deer and such, that time of year can’t happen too soon for them. So yeah, whipping it out during one of those conversations in which I'm normally a bystander sounded kind of cool.

This gun had been my father’s, a trophy of sorts from post-war Germany. The story was that he had gotten it for a pack of cigarettes. I’d never seen it, but it turned out he’d hidden it with the bonds and stock certificates, so after he was gone, there it was sort of thing.

I inherited it a couple of months ago. First question: what do you do with a gun? I was at her place, and I didn’t want it up in the front seat with me so I threw it in a gym bag in the trunk. Now I have two gym bags back there: one with clean shirts and towels and the like (and it never leaves the car), and one that I take in with that day's stuff to the squash club.

Now at the squash club I don’t bother with a lock because I never have anything of value: I leave my wallet in the car, so just my keys, the phone maybe, and perhaps some loose change. Most players are the same, and the bags come out with you and usually are left lying casually around the hall, the viewing benches, whatever, just outside of the courts. Of course it’s unattended while you’re playing, though you can see it and it you through the back glass wall. There are always people milling about watching, waiting, kibitzing, etc. Bags left on the bench (like mine) often get picked up and moved over as more people show up and are looking to sit down.

I had kind of forgotten about the gun, or when I remembered I was never around the car so I was basically remembering to remember to bring it in next time I’m out at the car.

Here is the gun by the way, I’d been calling it a Luger but realize now that it’s not.

Anyway, today it finally clicked: I remembered about it and I was at the car, getting my stuff ready for a squash game actually. But horrors! No gun! Now what? I’m in the parking lot, it’s snowy and cold, and I can’t find my Luger!

Cold sweat. Glances over the shoulder. Could it have fallen out? But my trunk’s not a mess, I don’t see it, and the likelihood of it worming it’s way down to the spare or something is next to zero.

But wait a second, genius, how about checking your other bag, that flimsy little thing that you take into the club and leave lying around (unattended) for everybody to see? Like at least a dozen times since making it my luger’s temporary home? (Here, take my luger, people, more interesting than my squash game.)

I won’t learn though. It’s still in the car, but in the other bag now. Cold for sure, and maybe a little more lonely knowing it won’t be accompanying me to my games, nor waiting patiently for me afterwards, guarding my shoes and pants while I shower.

They Can't Be Serious

•CAPITOL STEPS PERFORMANCE SLATED FOR FEB 23
•MASS EVACUATION IN THE HAM, 19 KILLED IN HUMAN STAMPEDE
•Political Satire Music Troupe Makes Mark Russell Sound Like Mark Twain
•"KNOW WHAT WOULD BE REALLY FUNNY? IF THEY ALL SUDDENLY CAUGHT ON FIRE! HA HA HA HA!!!"
•By switters™

(By the way, the Zionist "punch line" gets dropped on BotF sometime this week. Might be interesting to see who shows up.)

I like funny. Often I try to be funny, sometimes on purpose. Like maybe I'd write something like this gem to garner a few chuckles if not some outright table-slappers:

Subject: Han Solo, Bipolar Retard
From: Tom_Robbins
Date: Mar 11 1997 2:35 AM

Yeah, so I'm watching The Empire Strikes Back again when they're all on that frozen planet and Han and Chewy are picking off those spy droids one-by-one. So they're all back at the Ice Bat Cave after having done some recon when all of a sudden it turns out Luke, doofus extraordinaire, has gone missing.

So Han mounts up on his alien space llama to go look for him, when this lieutenant dude, concerned for his safety, says, "But sir, your tonton will freeze before you reach the first marker!" Pretty reasonable, right?

And what does Han say in response? Does he say, "Really? Dang. Do we have some extra skins we can put on him so he doesn't freeze? Like a poncho thingie? Or maybe some hot water bottle contraption to keep him alive so that I'm able to proceed beyond the first marker?"

Does he say that? No. What does he say?

Han says, "Then I'll see you in hell." That's what he says.

…

Uhh… Can someone explain to me just what it was that Ensign Can I. HaveMyHeadBack said that warranted all the hostility from Captain KessleRun B. WhoGivesAFuck? Little harsh there, Solo. Anger management class at The Rebellion School for Non-Assholes, anyone? Sheesh!

You know, the classics. Wonderful!

Anyways, the promo my local NPR affiliate is running nearly nonstop ubiquitously consists of an announcer not even trying to sound like Don LaFontaine saying, "In a world where democrats hold the majority in the House and Senate…" or something, and then the one Capitol Stepper gal with a vibrato that has the range of your average boomerang sings, to the tune of "Everything's Coming Up Roses", "…everything's run by Pelosi…" Then announcer dipshit comes back and says something like, "… A world where the president seeks to repair our international image…", the dude who sounds more like George Costanza than George Bush sings, to the tune of "Stand By Your Man", "… stand by Japan…"

That's hilarious!

Something tells me that those are the 2 funniest moments of the show, which doesn't bode well for the evening.

Here's the thing, though: I often go out of my way to listen to each and every Capitol Steps special in some kind of weird masochistic attempt at testing my threshold of pain and tolerance. (Unless you've been having sexual intercourse in outer space for the last 8 months it should come as little surprise to you that I'm not a very tolerant person, especially when it comes to such things, and whatnot.) And you know what? The audience is laughing its collective ass off, quite possibly even rolling around on the floor in some cases, like many of you are oft prone to doing.

And I don't know whether to be more worried about that phenomenon or our current runaway hit on 24-hour news channels across the globe, our planet: The War In Vietnam, Part II: Refusing To Learn From Our Mistakes.

Way to close to call.

Oh, by the way (at the risk of repeating myself again), each and every one of you who voted to reelect President George W. Bush is in some way responsible for the deaths of each and every one of the American G.I.s killed since November 3ish, 2004. Good going!

Oh, and for the record: I'll stop dehumanizing people in the Middle East when they start acting like, well, human beings instead of like, well, rabid dogs. And that's sugar-coating it. The sooner we realize nothing's sacred, the sooner we'll be able to appreciate the fact that life actually is, but isn't to certain people. Let's just say that I'd rather my nieces' and nephews' babysitters were Israeli rather than Palestinian. To my estimation there's a better chance of my nieces and nephews not exploding that way. But that could be just me.

Joining WikiFray

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Weekend Off Topic

Three more notes on the Edwards flap, valuing fatherhood vs. caving to Muslim sensibilities, sports

• One of the memes emerging from the Edwards-blogger deal is that regardless of who was offended, the important thing is that John Edwards did not cave in to the likes of Michelle Malkin and Bill Donohue.
  
  Sorry, that won't do.
  
  Donohue and Malkin are to proverbial stopped clocks (though they are more obnoxious in announcing what time it is -- maybe a stopped alarm clock that's stuck at the wake-up time) that are correct twice a day. This happened to be one of those times.
  
  One of the big weaknesses of the current Administration is ignoring news it didn't want to hear by demonizing the messengers -- Hans Blix, the UN, the French, etc. I expect better form the next Administration.
  
  
• And it also won't do to bring up stupid things Donohue and Malkin have said in the past, as some have suggested.
  
  Nobody has hired Donhue or Malkin to work on their campaign.
  
  Which leads to something interesting -- the right has more than its share of rancid bomb throwers -- Coulter, Rush, Malkin, Hannity, and on and on. Yet they seems content to do the dirty work without dragging down the candidates by being closely tied tied with them. Democrats do things like hire Marcotte to work on the Edwards campaign, or put Michael Moore in a booth at the convention with Jimmy Carter. This doesn't make the right better than the left, in fact it might reflect better on the left since these folks might get involved in campaigns because they want to do more than just attack the other side. But it's an interesting note,
  
  
• I've been reflecting on why this Edwards blogger thing bugged me so much. Obviously, it was my particular oxe that was being gored, so that certainly played a role.
  
  When it looked like they were going to be let go, I was going to base a post on this post by Jim Geraghty about whether this incident would cause the blogosphere to grow up a bit.
  
  What Edwards has done is send a signal that the coarsening of public debate is fine with him. Obvioously, this current Administration has made a lot of hay by name-calling its opposition into submission. Which is why I'm hoping for better from the next Administration.
  
  Obama may be the best hope for this.
  
  Ok, now I'm done with that.
  
  
• Via Andrew Sullivan, fathers are not allowed at government-run playgroups in the Netherlands. Why? Because Muslime mothers may not attend if men are present.
  
  Yes, I know I've just spilled a lot of pixels about lack of repsect for my religion, but I do think there's a profound difference between not wanting people working for presidential campaigns to mix crude sexual language with references to God, and barring half the parents from a parent-child activity so as not to offend sensibilities.
  
  Things like this are a cultural sign post that for all the talk about eqaul partners, in the Netherlands at least, fathers take a back seat. Let's hope it doesn't spreaf.
  
  
• First weekend with no (meaningful) football game, and I'm already counting the days until Opening Day.
  
  This year's transition is especially rough. My native and current sports markets are having a pretty rough winter season. They Flyers and Sixers are at or near the bottom of their leagues. The Blues have climbed back to respectability, but probably won't make the playoffs. There's usually at least one college basketball team among the Big Five (or Drexel) having a good year, but not this year. Same with Missouri, Illinois, and St. Louis U. The only ranked team around here is SIU-Carbondale, and I'm not sure I'm ready to go to the MVC.
  
  
• On a related note, if the book club is still on, I've got the book.
  
  
• Besides the backbreaking length, one on the things that's always bugged me about Easterbrook's Tuesday Morning Quarterback column, besides the leering at cheerleaders, wanting to water down religion to a tepid ecumenical stew, and beating the same hobby horses (the blitz is stupid, the Sunday Ticket-DirecTV deal is unfair) to death, is the "Why am I the only one who picks up on this stuff?" attitude throughout the pieces. Last week's Super Bowl piece may have set a new record.
  
  To pick an easy target, Easterbrook several time expresses amazement that the Bears put the ball in the air against Indianapolis, writing several times, "IT'S RAINING, RUN THE BALL![sic, both for caps and punctuation]."
  
  Now, let's look at the postseason games both teams played. The Colts started by stifling the AFC's leading rusher, then shutting down Baltimore. They struggled against the Patriots, but more against Tom Brady than the run. They were obviously focussed on stopping the run, The Bears looked like they were about to let their lead slip away in the 3rd quarter against the Saints. They had become one-dimensional, and were going three and out. Then they opened up the playbook, Grossman made some plays, and the Bears pulled away.
  
  In order for the Bears to win, they were going to have to make some plays through the air. And Grossman had shown that he was more likely to make a few big plays than string together many little plays, as Manning was doing on the other side. They tried and failed, but that doesn't mean they were wrong for trying. And their efforts are not as easy to dismiss as Easterbrook makes it out. The MVP was the other teams's pure-pocket-passer QB (admittedly in a case of them having to give it to somebody on the winning team).
  

botf: Army of Christ Enlists Google to put the Extinction on Evolution

Jesus: I made the following point to [Darwin] about transitional fossils and you can read his response which follows as well.

Jesus: Since you always supply me with articles instead of photographs of these countless transitional fossils I decided to google them up. I used Advanced Search Google Images and put in the exact phrase "transitional fossil." This will give you photos, not articles. Only 33 hits of which only about 3 were photos, not illustrations. To be honest, I would have expected to have gotten about 100,000 hits which is not uncommon. Then I put in the exact phrase "intermediate fossil." Total hits, 3. Not impressive [Darwin]. Food for thought.

Darwin: I just typed "God" into advanced google search Images, and guess what? A lot of hits, but no photos of god whatsoever. I guess that proves god doesn't exist, right?

Jesus: Well some thought that was so clever of [Darwin] and the perfect response. So I am here to tell you, a little bit funny, a lot bit sad. Not only does this educated poster not have a good response to the total absence of intermediate fossils appearing in Google Images, he has always been secretly or not so secretly driven to deny any manifestations or evidence for God. I admit to being powerless to try to change such an animal.

Darwin: The whole rigamarole about transitional fossils is essentially a creationist tactic that is based on the idea that there should be a 100% complete fossil record, with every transition between every evolutionary state completely documented. As has been pointed out to you about a zillion times, this is a ridiculous assumption. Fossilization is a long, difficult process--so difficult, in fact, that the odds of any particular organism being fossilized have been estimated to be greater than one in a billion. It's a wonder we have any fossils at all.

Jesus: Sorry, doesn't fly. How many actual animals become fossilized is irrelevant. The fact that a transitional animal or form getting fossilized is equal to any whole species getting fossilized is an important premise. The fact is there are tens of millions of species of advanced animals that allegedly evolved from some other, usually, more primitive species so they all had to go through billions of transitions amongst them. I have heard estimates of up to ten million fossils of animals are housed in universities, museums, laboratories, etc. What are the odds that every single one of these fossils are of completely whole species and not some transitional forms? Impossible really. So now you are left with debating a handful of fossils that some say could be or are transitional fossils, and many others saying "no way" and with good reasons of their own. Either way, the there is a statistical dearth of transitional fossils and I am not buying it that we just haven't found them or should not be expected to find them.

Darwin: But what of "transitional" fossils? First of all, there are plenty of fossils that have been described as transitional in just the sense that you desire--they demonstrate a transition between two evolutionary states. May I suggest you google "Archaeopteryx lithographica" and see how many pictures you get? Each year, more transitional fossils are found--for example, just last year Tiktaalik was dug up on the Arctic Circle--it demonstrates a nice link between early tetrapods and their fishy ancestors.

Jesus: What of them? I resent those who embrace evolution here telling me that those scientists refuting these claims are junk scientists or religious laymen with no science background. They propose sound reasons and challenges to these claims that others accept without question.

Darwin: But more to the point--since all species are in evolutionary transition (barring extinction), then in a very real way, every fossil is a transitional fossil. Because you don't understand it as so doesn't make it any less true.

Jesus: It is not that I don't understand it, it is that I do not buy it. Just because someone says there were animals that morphed from this wolf like looking land animal into the modern day whale does not make it so. And there is plenty of that going around. Secondly, one species, by definition, cannot reproduce with another species. Or at best, they produce sterile animals. It is a leap of faith on your part to think that all these tricky reproduction transitional stages occurred until we have a new species all nice and neat.

Darwin: As for Google--images in Google are searched by the captions given to them by the people who post them on their various web pages. So unless somebody puts a picture on their web page and captions it "transitional fossil," it doesn't turn up on a Google Image search. People who are posting pictures of fossils don't take your weird tunnel-vision view of the world. They post things by their names. So, try an image search for "Archaeopteryx" (5,330 hits), or for "Tiktaalik" (702 hits), or using my definition above, "fossil" (322,000 hits).

Jesus: Yes, I get it. But it is the number of hits that showed up that is still glaring. 5,330 hits for photos of Archaeopteryx but only 33 hits for transitional fossil? And only 3 hits for intermediate fossil? That makes no sense. Except that there is a reluctance on the part of evolution scientists to call it that. The statistical difference says something to me. I won't bore you with further expounding.

Darwin: Your entire argument.... "I don't buy it."

Darwin: True enough, but I think you erred a bit (although I enjoyed your post [or at least, it made me les annoyed by the top-post]) in discussing the extent to which "transitional" can be truthfully used as a post hoc appellation. Better if you had taken *only* the all-forms-are-transitional-or-dead-ends tack (which was fine in your post). For a lesser degree of infuriating stupidity than [Jesus’] your dual explanation would have been helpful, but consider the conceptual model of evolution implied by his/her use of the word "morphed" or even the way he defines species (re: breeding - fine in some contexts, but not helpful here 'cause implies transition and species can be identified in an ongoing way, rather than post-hoc). A fun game to play would be to challenge [Jesus] to explain evolution as well as s/he can. Odds are you'd agree that the expressed view was silly as well. Or maybe I'm being too optimistic (the disagreement as incomplete knowledge school).

Jesus: I'll try at defining evolution for you.

Essentially, when you consider all that it claims, it is no more bold or preposterous than the following:

If you watch a canary long enough, it will turn into a wolverine.

That is what you want us to accept.

Darwin: As I said, your use of the word "morphed" (and some other tidbits) suggested you might be labouring under the misconception you again imply. That is, your description is vaguely compatible with Lamarckian evolution, but not Darwinian evolution. Really, even as a description of Lamarckianism, it is fatally imprecise. Try again, if you like. Tough call whether you are as evil (by my lights - denying a beautiful truth) as Arch implied.

In any event, a fun perspective for you: I don't know whether you've ever thought enough to encounter it, but abstract truth excites the human sense of beauty very stronly. It's a phenomenta that is most pronounced in mathematics, but evolution is probably the most beautiful truth that I know. It is an astonishing and wonderful thing that such a work of art (I mean all the intellectual labours that expand on the meaning of "evolution") should be more accessible to you than most (say, pure math). If you believe in God, this would be a gift from him to you - the fullest use of your mind to understand his work. Your behaviour is sacrilege. (In fairness, I'll state the obvious that I'm an atheist, but I'm not being manipulative here - few things make me empathize more with a religious sense of wonder than contemplation of evolution)

Four Sentences

Room. Street. City. Planet.

Write four sentences describing progressively larger or smaller spaces. For instance: the room where the girl sleeps, the street outside her room, the city, the planet; or the neighbourhood, the alley, the shed, the box where the stray cats live.

(The Agony Lab is relocating to WikiFray. Let's see if that helps.)

Tom Cruise Is A Great Actor, Parts III-V

•MAGNOLIA PRE-MELTDOWN FORESHADOWS OPRAH COUCH BOUNCING
•"I Will Not Apologize For What I Want, I Will Not Apologize For Who I am, I Will Not Apologize For What I Need, And I Will Not Apologize For This Totally Gay Hair Either"
•MOTIVATIONAL SPEAKER GOES ALL ALAN ALDA TO GET INTO M'LADIES PANTSUITS BUT GOOD
•By switters™

(Tom Cruise Is A Great Actor, Parts III-V)

Meet Frank "TJ" Mackey, babe hound and sometime misogynist, and damn proud of it. Frank is here to help you with your alleged love life by teaching you to fake being a caring and sensitive man. And he's damn good at it. Follow religiously his 48 step program, "From Fucktease to Foreplay: Getting Her In The Mood And Out Of Those Panties", and before you can say, "Respect the cock, tame the cunt," she'll be putty in your hands, literally.

Turns out Frank's got a tiny little… secret (too). Turns out Frank's not just 1 semester shy of a Master's Degree in Psychology from UC Berkeley. Turns out his mother isn't alive. Turns out his dad is, but dying. Turns out his entire life has been a long (or short – depends how you look at the film's thesis statement), grueling, miserably trudging pilgrimage as a caregiver to one parent while having been abandoned by another, only to be taken in by the neighbor lady.

But here's the thing: We find out all this while Frank is being interviewed by a very attractive African-American gal who's doing a piece on him for what has to be something analogous to The E! Channel or something.

But let's back up just about 15 minutes or so. This scene opens with Frank in his tightie-blackies doing some sort of Chip&Dales routine for the aforementioned lady person (well, for the camera actually, where the camera is a mirror). Really hamming up the bulge in his BVDs. He begrudgingly gets re-dressed and oh-so-carefully redoes his affectatious ponytail. Then the interviewer gradually takes him on a brief journey the destination of which is that his whole life has been a huge big giant lie.

Tom Cruise nails it. It's indescribably devastating to watch Frank's reaction as his secret is revealed: to him, to her, and soon, to the whole world (at least the Access Hollywood crowd, me amongst them). It's nothing short of Class I, A-list, brilliant acting. Sorry, but it is. And, that's right, it's Tom Cruise. It's cruel, crushing, belligerent, intrusive, unapologetic, ubiquitous, ironic. Devastating. It's the overarching moment of the film about who nobody really is. How you can never really know who you are yourself until you see your reflection in (only-)you-know-who's eyes. (The one that got away, probably.) The bottom. The abyss. The chasm. Utter uninterrupted darkness. Misery in pictures. Oops.

And that's when I burst out laughing. Because I realized that when The Tominator was doing his little R-rated jig for the charming negress, all you had to do was flash forward 7 years and picture him jumping up and down on Oprah's love seat saying how indescribably happy he was.

Ouch. Last year, for better or worse, Tom Cruise turned into a bubble gum version of Frank "TC" Mackey. And I think you'll all agree that it certainly wasn't pretty. Which is one main reason why I like movies so much more than reality a lot of the time. Movies are simply that much more believable. And that includes reality TV. (And game shows.)

Think about it: How painful is it to try to convince yourself to believe in reality when you take a couple moments and really consider what the fuck is actually going on? The truth doesn't hurt all the time. But it does sob in excruciating pain a lot.
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Coming soon? "Tom Cruise Is A Great Actor, Part VI"

•COLLATERAL DAMAGE BLOWDRIES THE HAIR THAT COMBED HOLLYWOOD
•Casting Against Type Types Against Caste
•I DON'T KNOW WHAT ANY OF THAT MEANS
•By Tom_Robbins™