http://www.articletrader.com/ Articles at ArticleTrader en-us http://www.articletrader.com/entertainment/movies/gay-sulu.html http://www.articletrader.com/entertainment/movies/gay-sulu.html Mon, 29 May 2006 00:00:00 -0500
He had been slated to appear in the last Star Trek movie with the original cast in a very small part, but he found out that were he to decline this part, the writers would make a reference to Captain Sulu having his own Star Ship. Which is what he decided to do. The other Star Trek actors roundly criticized him for turning down a real-life role paying actual money so that the fictional character he used to play could get an imaginary promotion. I'm guessing that he knew that whatever lasting fame and immortality he would ever have was tied to the character of Sulu and he wants his obituary to read that he played the role of Captain Sulu instead of merely Commander Sulu. It also shows a lot of dedication to the creative process to pass on real cash.

I'd read his autobiography a number of years ago. Obviously he hadn't made any reference to his lifestyle back then, but I do recall him saying that it was difficult for a Japanese actor to get any roles aside from 'houseboy' in plays and movies. Kids, back in those days every gay man was an actor. Every single one of them (for the most part), every single day had to pretend that he was straight and not acknowledge the thoughts and desires that were illegal in all fifty states. It's no surprise that so many of them chose to get paid for what they were doing already for free.

Star Trek for it's time was extremely ground breaking merely for showing an egalitarian work place where men and women and people from different countries and ethnic groups worked side by side. That work place did not exist in the mid 1960's and to even show it as a possibility was controversial. Portraying openly gay characters would have been entirely beyond the pale.

If you look at old time TV shows and movies you can see that there were gay characters portrayed, but only for comic relief. You know, look at those funny men who act like women - that sort of thing.

My belief is that a lot of the 'buddy' movies of the past were actually code for gay relationships. Look at Abbot and Costello. Don't tell me that those two men weren't involved in a loving monogamous relationship. Or Hope and Crosby. Why were they always on the road to somewhere or the other? It was because they would keep getting run out of town for their deviant ways and had to take to the road. Martin and Lewis? Okay. Sure there was always a lot of talk about Dean and his women - so maybe he was Bi - but you always, always knew who his first love was, didn't you? At the end of the movie, who did Dean Martin end up with?

And the three stooges, what was their story? Why were these three men always together everywhere? Well, I've got the answer and it's simple if you think about it: Gay swingers.

--
Steve Sommers is the author of REXROI, and Evil Super-Villains need Love, Too ... and other important wisdom. (Both books can be viewed by simply clicking on the titles)

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/entertainment/humor/the-french-pirate.html http://www.articletrader.com/entertainment/humor/the-french-pirate.html Mon, 29 May 2006 00:00:00 -0500
I've got a huge confession to make: I've had silly facial hair. For most men facial hair appears in two epochs of their lives. The first is when we're adolescents and we discover that we can grow any at all, which is what we then attempt to do and not very well. This facial hair usually disappears when we realize that our sparse attempts at mustaches and beards make us look less manly - not more so. That's the first time.

The second great period of facial hair occurs when the hair on top starts to disappear. Then it's crucially important to show the world that we can still grow hair out of our head. Sure it's not where we want it to grow, but it's hair none-the-less and that's the critical thing. This, by the way, also explains hair growing out of noses and ears.

When I was on an airbase in Texas I noticed that a lot of the retired military would engage in bizarre facial hair. These guys would be shopping at the base exchange with hair-cuts that would be as high and tight as any active duty service member, but then they would add to it some weird beard, like huge curling mustaches, or a long Colonel Sanders, or giant sweeping side-burns. Something to let you know that they had made their twenty years, and don't you dare try and give them any orders.

I've sort of fallen into the Midwest habit of growing a beard in the colder months and going clean shaven during the warmer ones. The rationale is that the beard provides extra warmth for your face when you need it most. Which is really just baloney, because no one around here is outdoors so much that it really makes much of a difference. We have indoor heating and we use it.

The real reason, I admit, is just laziness. It's a drag to have to scrape your face with a sharp piece of metal every single day and those few minutes it takes to do so can be better used for other purposes. Usually TV. So, you just say it's your 'winter beard'- or around here it's your 'deer hunting beard' - and you get out of that tiny bit of work for the next six months.

I claim that I can grow a full beard if I want to. Maybe with a little help from an eyebrow pencil here and there to fill in, but that still counts. The beard I grew last Winter is what I call 'the French Pirate'. This is the kind of styling you see on a number of male celebrities like Jonny Depp, Colin Farrell, Leonardo Di Caprio, P. Diddy Et Al. The French Pirate consists of a mustache, a soul patch underneath your lips then a bit of fuzz on the chin. Think Basil Rathbone in Captain Blood.

I didn't get much of a positive reaction to that beard. A few people observed non-commitally that: "Oh. You're growing a beard." To which I was compelled to reply: "Um, no. It's fully grown. This is the whole thing."

Then the subject would be changed.

A couple of women told me that it looked 'cute' and I thanked them for the compliment while thinking to myself: "No. It's not supposed to look 'cute'. It's supposed to look dashing. Like a French Pirate."

--
Steve Sommers is the author of REXROI, and Evil Super-Villains need Love, Too ... and other important wisdom. (Both books can be viewed by simply clicking on the titles)

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/entertainment/humor/hefner-dances.html http://www.articletrader.com/entertainment/humor/hefner-dances.html Mon, 29 May 2006 00:00:00 -0500
Well, Why should he put any effort into it? He knows for a fact that he's going to get lucky that night, so why work at it? He needs to save his energy. Not so for the rest of us guys. We only have crossed fingers that our work will pay off and that's not much to go on. Let me you into a secret here: No straight man really likes dancing so much. It's all for the ladies and almost always the last thing in the world we'd ever want to do.

The last time I was ever on a dance floor it was because I was dragged out there. The times have been few indeed where I actually asked somebody to dance with me.

It seems to be different for women. They dance because it's an activity they want to engage in for it's own sake, much like taking a hot bath. Can someone explain that to me? I've asked women what on Earth is so great about laying in hot water and all I ever get is vague evasions as if it weren't the bath itself but something else, something else they were doing in that hot bath all alone by themselves without their clothes on ... hey, wait a minute!

Okay, now I get it.

After many years, I've finally figured out a way not to disgrace myself so thoroughly on the dance floor. I call it faux dancing. Here's how it works: When I must dance I try to equip myself with some distractors, these are distractors to distract my partner from how crappy I'm dancing. My two favorite distractors used to be to have a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Thus, every time I would miss a step I would take a sip off my cocktail, another misstep - a puff on my cigarette, a really bad one: Sip and a puff both. Then to further distract my partner I would lean in and make some sort of conversation.

Of course, I would have to make some sorts of motions with my body so my ploy was to sort of kind of mirror my partner - figuring she probably knows how to dance - and sort of kind of mirroring her makes it look like I do, too. When she would twirl under my outstretched arm, I knew I was home free.

Back to Hugh. The guy's got a pretty good life now. I wonder to myself whether I would change places with him and take over his life, if I suddenly had to be an eighty year old man but with free hot sex with pretty much as many beautiful women as me and my viagra could handle. That's a hard hypothetical question, for sure. But you know what? If I live long enough I will be an eighty year old man and I probably won't be having hot blondes sharing my bed then. So all things considered if I could suddenly assume Hugh Hefner's life right now I'd do it, even if I didn't dance so hot.

For some reason my letters, phone calls and E-mails requesting an invitation to the Playboy Mansion go unheeded. Unheeded if you don't count restraining orders - and I don't. By the way, even though I hold the patent on faux dancing any other man who wants to can use it. It's worked pretty good for me and it probably will for you, too.

--
Steve Sommers is the author of REXROI, and Evil Super-Villains need Love, Too ... and other important wisdom. (Both books can be viewed by simply clicking on the titles)

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/entertainment/humor/the-blonde-preservation-act.html http://www.articletrader.com/entertainment/humor/the-blonde-preservation-act.html Mon, 29 May 2006 00:00:00 -0500
Aside from that, why should we go out of our way to preserve blondeness? Well, think about the standards we use to decide to preserve other endangered species. Do you know what the main over-riding factor that decides whether we choose to save one line of animals over another?

Give up?

It's cuteness.

That's right. The biggest factor that determines if animals are going to be allowed by us humans to continue living is how cute we think they are. I guarantee you that puppies and kittens will be around forever because they are absolutely adorable. And talk about Pandas - if they weren't so cuddly we wouldn't be making half the effort to keep them around.

Non- cute species? Think about your reaction if I told you that there was an insect virus that would kill off all of the cock roaches and spiders tomorrow. Not too concerned, are you? In fact, I dare say you might be a might bit happy with that news. Forget about all the good things these insects supposedly do in the ecosphere - they're icky. Now, think about that same virus only this time it's a kitten and puppy virus.

Aha! That would be a national disaster. We would have every available scientist up all night in their labs to find a cure for that virus, wouldn't we?

So, we should use the endangered species act for blondes, too - because they're cute. Well, most of them and that should be good enough.

The first thing we as a country should do immediately is to identify the natural blondes in our population. I had the idea that we could enlist the medical establishment to do this. We all know that there is only one real way to tell a real blonde from a non-real blonde, so every physician would be given a form that they would have to fill out and return to government bureaucrats when they have a suspected blonde patient in their examination room. The form would have one question: Carpet match the drapes? Simple. Then they would send it in and the national list of genuine blondes would be tabulated.

Once this list was compiled all blondes would have to be registered. Why not? We register handguns, and this is every bit as important as that. Next, the genuine blonds should be identified from the general population with - maybe - a system of arm bands or something that they would be required to wear everywhere, since we don't want them slipping over the border or anything.

Then we breed them. At first we could encourage this by a system of tax breaks. However if that doesn't work and the number of natural blondes continues to dwindle we would have to take more stringent measures, like setting aside land for Blonde Reservations, where we would send them all. The reservations would be created to mimic their natural habitat, I envision them as a cross between gigantic shopping malls and hot, trendy night clubs. They would be kept there until there are enough of them to re-introduce into the wild.

This sounds harsh, I know, but it's necessary if we want to keep telling amusing jokes about them well into the future.

--
Steve Sommers is the author of REXROI, and Evil Super-Villains need Love, Too.. (Both books can be viewed by simply clicking on the titles)

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/society/religion/founding-my-religion.html http://www.articletrader.com/society/religion/founding-my-religion.html Sun, 28 May 2006 00:00:00 -0500
About the time that this US exploratory vessel failed to sail, a man named Cyrus Teed founded a sect that was based partially on this premise. His religion didn't take off, but Cyrus had a cousin whose religion did. Cyrus's cousin was Joseph Smith and his religion was the Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints. Or Mormons. I'm not going to get into whether or not Joseph Smith was visited by an angel who gave him golden tablets, which disappeared after he transcribed them. Nobody believed me when I was visited by an angel that gave me disappearing golden tablets. So, I know it can happen, and I also know how damn skeptical people are when you tell them about it.

Mormons, I've got to say, are rather nice people. Granted most of the Mormons I've met have been trying to sell me on their way of life, and it wouldn't have paid to be a dick to potential converts like me, but I've known some others and they were nice. Mormons emphasize a healthy way of life - no baccy, booze, drugs, or even coffee for crying out loud - and they also emphasize family and community. All of this means that they live very long, healthy lives and if you think their theology is a little hard to take, please remember that most of the world happens to think your personal philosophy is one hundred percent wrong, too.

It never occurred to me that I could start my own religion until I saw videotapes of David Qoresh talking to his followers at Waco. Man, I thought to be a cult leader you had to have charisma or something but this guy had nothing. Maybe it was his ability to not blink for long periods of time that made him look like a visionary. He had a line of rap, for sure, but it's beyond me why anyone would let this guy lead them to their deaths. They all must have been pretty dumb was all I can figure.

Then it hit me. Yeah, to start your own religion all you need are people who aren't as smart as you are. You don't have to understand the secrets of the universe or anything close to that, you just have to be able to convince other people that you do. I know what you're thinking: Steve, even if that's true you still wouldn't be able to find a roomful of people who are so much stupider than you.

Well ... I could so. This is America and people are absolutely proud of what they don't know. It would be a snap to recruit a bunch of seekers of insight, because, as you know, there's a seeker born every minute.

There would be a few hard and fast rules for my seekers. Number one is: Nobody kills nobody. You don't need to go out on my behest leaving a trail of bodies in order to start Helter Skelter (a water slide in England, by the way, not an apocalyptic race war) or go after our enemies, because everybody's going to absolutely love us. Most especially you don't have to kill yourselves. If for some reason the spaceship doesn't come, or the end of the world doesn't happen, or everything collapses like a house of cards - we're done. Nobody drinks the Kool-Aid. Everybody can pack up and go home. And if for some reason the FBI shows up with tanks and tear gas cannons, it's safe to say we must have messed up big and maybe we should open the door and hear what they have to say.

Rule Two: I don't care who you sleep with. I won't tell you how to use your private parts at all. That's entirely your own business and I especially won't require anyone to sleep with me to achieve enlightenment. It would be highly encouraged, but not a hard fast rule.

This is where all the other cults go wrong in a real creepy way. There was this one in England where the leader decided that this one kid was the new messiah and everybody in the cult had to sleep with him, including his own mother. He grew up and killed himself. Or there was the Sri Rajneesh cult in Oregon where everybody had to wear orange and sleep with everybody else. Which sounds good in theory, but in reality if you really could sleep with everybody - you wouldn't want to.

Mostly they go in the opposite direction and advocate total celibacy for everyone except, of course, for the guy who's running the show and telling everybody else not to get any. For some reason God requires that guy to get as much trim as possible. It reminds me of that flying saucer cult in California where the men all thought it was a good idea to not have their testicles. Ewww. That gives me the shivers. Then they all put on tennis shoes and drank the Kool-aid, but you know what? They might as well have, because they didn't have a whole bunch to live for anyways.

There'd be some perks for me, of course. I read somewhere that L. Ron Hubbard the creator of Scientology went everwhere with two blonde teen-age girls in white hot pants following him around. One carried his cigarettes and the other his lighter. Apparently that's all they did for him and he never made any attempt to sleep with either of them. He was a pretty old guy at that point and all he wanted to do was sail around in his many yachts and write (not very good) science fiction books. I can't say whether or not that's a true story, but I like the idea.

So, I'll have an entourage, too. I quit smoking awhile back so I don't need any help with smoking materials, but I like the idea of comely maidens escorting me, though I don't know what purpose they could serve. Probably I would have them as my personal cheerleaders. Clearly, any person who thinks that they should sit at the right hand of God has no problems with excessive modesty, so I think if I took the important step of starting a religion, this would be more than appropriate.

Oh. And what, you may ask, are the tenets of my new religion? I know I haven't really gotten to that part of it. Well, I haven't decided that yet. But don't you worry about it, because it's going to be good. It's going to be something you can really believe in and I guarantee it won't be anything goofy at all. Trust me, you're going to want to be one of my disciples. So, what you can do right now while I'm thinking this stuff up is get your cheerleading uniform out of the closet and think up some good cheers for me, because I'm going to want to get started with this religion thing real soon and I want all my followers ready.

--
Steve Sommers is the author of REXROI, and Evil Super-Villains need Love, Too ... and other important wisdom. (Both books can be viewed by simply clicking on the titles)

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/entertainment/movies/the-amityville-weight-set.html http://www.articletrader.com/entertainment/movies/the-amityville-weight-set.html Sun, 28 May 2006 00:00:00 -0500
Yes. It's incredible and hard to believe, but here's how it happened. It was at an airforce base in Greece where I read the entire book, The Amityville Horror. I never actually bought the book, but just read the whole thing standing in the aisles. This bookstore was a fair-sized one which was run by Greeks who had what I think is the most unique way of organizing I've ever seen.

Let me ask you - say you were going to open a bookstore - how do you think you might organize the books? Subject matter, maybe. Or perhaps alphabetical by author? Or publisher or even the color of the cover? You'd do it in some logical way, wouldn't you? Not them. They organized the books by price. (no, no, I'm not kidding). Is that the dumbest thing you've ever heard of? Have you ever said to yourself that you want to read a twenty five dollar book, for example? Anyways, the Greeks there didn't like me too much because I was pretty insistent that they find a different method of inventory. Which, 0f course, they never did.

The book was written in the form of a daily diary and I had to wonder who on Earth goes to the trouble of starting and maintaining a daily diary about their friggin' house? Do you have friends or family who've ever done that? It's pretty abnormal, I think. The story was that this family moved into this house and all sorts offrightening paranormal activities started happening. Then they find out that a gruesome mass murder had been committed there before they'dbought it and it was haunted like you wouldn't believe. I forget how I met this guy from Amityville who I bought the weights from, but I did ask him about this and he said that he hadn't known the family who wrote the book, but knew the family who were murdered and the guy who murdered them, whom he described as a pretty normal fellow who he would see down at the local bar.

Later I saw a special on the Amityville Horror on PBS. (I don't know why I was watching PBS and I also don't know why they would do a show on this). On the show, they interviewed the people who had bought the house after the Amityville Horrors and found the house not to be the least bit haunted at all. The wife had, in fact, gone to the trouble of looking up the daily weather reports that matched the dates in the book and not one matched. That pretty much cinched it for me that the house was never haunted.

Those weights I bought from that Amityville guy, however - they were.

--
Steve Sommers is the author of REXROI, and Evil Super-Villains need Love, Too ... and other important wisdom. (Both books can be viewed by simply clicking on the titles)

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/entertainment/music/michael-jacksons-arabian-nights.html http://www.articletrader.com/entertainment/music/michael-jacksons-arabian-nights.html Sun, 28 May 2006 00:00:00 -0500
My guess? The prince is, in fact, a big fan and dropped a line to Michael and told him that if Michael came over to Dubai he could sleep with as many young boys as he wanted to and nobody would arrest him or even bother him about it, because that's what all the grown men in that part of the world do. It wasn't for nothing that Sir Richard Burton labeled it the sotadatic (sodomy) zone. Sure, Sir Richard wrote more than a hundred and fifty years ago, but it probably still holds true.

I followed the Michael Jackson trial with re-enactments on the E channel and thought it was pretty riveting television. Our trial system, the adversarial system, automatically includes a lot of drama which is why there are so many lawyer shows on TV. We Americans like contests like this, which is what a trial is. Most trials, of course, aren't anywhere close to this one. The vast majority of defendents in criminal cases don't happen to be multi-millionaires so they don't get to put on these extravagant defenses with trials that last for months with witness lists in the hundreds.

They have lawyers appointed for them by the court and they go to prison.

However, they probably should go to prison. Seventy five percent of people serving time right now plea bargained their cases, which means that they not only admitted what they did, but they agreed to serve the time that they're serving. Perry Mason was probably the only defense attorney who had the luxury of only defending innocent clients. The rest have to wrestle with this moral quagmire of trying to prevent justice for bad people they know should be punished. They can take comfort, I suppose, in the fact that they are doing their constitutional part in providing everyone with the best defense but there have to be times that they regret being as good as they are at their job.

Michael Jackson - I believe - got away with his crimes. Despite his 'Not Guilty' verdict, he sure wasn't very innocent and some of the jury were clear that they thought this, too, but that they couldn't in good concience convict him of this particular crime. The same probably went with the juries for O.J. and Robert Blake. Both were found 'Not Guilty' but it wasn't a slam dunk in either case. I'll bet some jurists in those cases are having some sleepless nights still.

The hell of it is for Michael Jackson that if he were born in a different time and a different place his actions would have branded him as a solid citizen and not a pervert (I mean, alleged pervert). Three thousand years ago (or so) in Athens it was thought to be the absolute civilized ideal for an older man to take a younger man under his wing and educate him in the ways of the world, acting as a mentor to his protege. And then boofoo him.

I remember reading Plato's Republic and coming across that. In the book, Socrates and his gang of philosophers were out in the market square bantering about before they got down to some serious philosophizing. One of the sub-philosopher teases Socrates that he 'knows how Socrates gets around a young handsome lad'. Ho, ho! Wink. Wink.

It comes down to this thing called age of consent. When is a person considered a grown-up? In ancient times the answer was that it better be as soon as possible. In Jesus's time a man was expected to be married when he was fourteen; In America we won't let a fourteen year old cook a hamburger much less reproduce. But it was different then, because for most of human history a fourteen year old was a middle-aged person. So they better start breeding and keep breeding because otherwise there wouldn't be people.

It took six live births to guarantee that two people would live to replace their parents, meaning you'd better start early and keep going. We are all here right now because for most of human history fourteen year olds did it.

But, of course, this is the twenty first century and nobody under eighteen should be even thinking about that stuff. When they turn eighteen then they can think about marriage. Period. That's all. Although, I'm not exactly sure why exactly we've put the ages down for what's acceptable. In America you can drive at sixteen, vote and go to war at eighteen, drink at twenty one, and become president at thirty five. Doesn't this seem just a tad bit arbitrary? Why shouldn't it be President at sixteen, drink at eighteen, vote and go to war at twenty one and then drive at thirty-five? It sure would be a more interesting country if we did that.

In Europe people do drink at sixteen, then receive their drivers licenses when they're eighteen. It seems more sensible to me, somehow, that you learn the social responsibilities involved with alcohol before you're able to get behind the wheel of a car. People should be taught how to drink with adult supervision first.

Okay. I got away from Michael Jackson and I promise I won't do that again. The most important thing about him that has not been getting the coverage that it deserves is that his music sucks. It didn't always. In his time he came up with some great tunes, but I haven't heard anything that I remotely liked at all since his Thriller album. And I just hate listening to his voice because it's so nasal since he chopped up most of his nose. I've heard that he never stopped writing songs and could have other artists release some of this unheard music, now that he's in the clear being associated with him might not quite be career suicide.

The key to this Michael Jackson business, I believe, is revealed in his video for the song Thriller. In the video, a young and relatively normal appearing African American Michael Jackson with only a modest nose job is leaving a movie with his date, an attractive African American woman. (A playboy centerfold in real life). Michael looks pretty hip - 80's hip - and is dressed in a red leather outfit. The two of them leave the movie theater, go to his house and are about to start snuggling when Michael shyly stops her and tells her that he is: 'Not like other guys'. Then he turns into a monster, chases her away, and goes out into the street and dances with other monsters.

The way to interpet this video is symbolically and I would have to believe that it was all sub-concious on Michael's part. He didn't want us to know this on purpose. This is my interpetation
only and is merely speculation, I don't have proof and he was found 'Not Guilty', blah, blah, blah ... please don't sue me, Mr. Jackson.

Here goes: The opening symbolically shows a conflicted Michael Jackson who is struggling with his sexuality and his un-natural desires, (ie) his 'monster-hood' while pretending to the world that he is in all ways a conventional hetero-sexual, even a ladies man. To his date - the world - he reveals that he is secretly a monster (attracted to boys) and he rejects the standards and conventions of society (chases his date away). The last part - dancing with the other monsters - needs no explanation, because we all know what dancing with monsters means, don't we?

--
Steve Sommers is the author of REXROI, and Evil Super-Villains need Love, Too ... and other important wisdom. (Both books can be viewed by simply clicking on the titles)

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/entertainment/humor/meek-new-world.html http://www.articletrader.com/entertainment/humor/meek-new-world.html Sun, 28 May 2006 00:00:00 -0500
When I was a kid there was a show on called The Twenty First Century which was sort of a science fiction type genre with predictions about what the future of the next generation would look like. I don't recall too much about it, but I remember one episode where they talked about how everyone would have computers and how useful they would be - and I just didn't see it.

I have a lot of fun watching old Science Fiction movies. The one that I just watched that inspired me to write today was ... one of the Planet of the Apes movies. I think it was Return to the Planet of the Apes. The movie opens up with a futuristic cityscape, like about 1980, with chained monkeys in orange cover-alls being led by sadistic, fascist overseers (with whips). They show you a little bit of this, then underneath they put up the words: "Los Angeles. 1991." Beautiful! Does everybody remember just fourteen years ago when we had monkey slaves in California? Whatever happened to them?

Among other things that were supposed to happen in the 1990s, we had the launch of the Robinson family in Lost in Space, the launch of Khan's renegade ship after the Third World War (the Eugenics War), and the moon being launched out of orbit in Space 1999. Also, Atlantis was finally supposed to rise from the sea and the Antichrist was supposed to come to power and launch Armageddon. And the world was scheduled to end by any other number of doom-sayers.

An earlier and better example of the future that never wasn't is the novel1984. It's pretty dated now, but the novel was written by George Orwell in 1948 and was about a dystopian future under a totalitarian system much like we believed Communism was at the time. When the year 1984 did come, all the news magazines and TV shows went nuts with articles and shows about how close we really were to 1984. Not really. There were some handy comparisons between the technology that Orwell speculated about and emerging technology for keeping track of other humans. But that was about it. In America. Elsewhere in the world in more totalitarian countries the comparisons were closer.

When I was a kid I used to love Star Trek, the original Star Trek. God, when I watch it now, though, I almost want to cringe. For one thing, the special effects are so dated. It was cutting edge back then, I know, but these days even crappy Sci Fi can do so much better. And then its almost hilarious how little they imagined for the future. I keep thinking about their picture phones, each with a huge cathode ray tube in back.

Perhaps my favorite episode for silliness is Spock's Brain, which is a rather infamous one with fans - they don't like it - but I find it hilarious. In Spock's Brain, Spock's Brain is stolen, and the crew of the Enterprise (their space ship) track it down to a planet where women rule everything. These women dress in mini-skirts, go-go boots, bouffant hair-dos and long fake eye-lashes.

Yes. If women could run their own planet this is exactly how they would dress.

Now, I started out originally with Planet of the Apes and I'm a fan. Not of the sequels but of the original. Charlton Heston really did some ofhis finest acting in that movie and I still have some lines memorized word for word. ie, "Take your stinking paws off of me, you damned, dirty ape!""It's a madhouse! A madhouse!" and "You maniacs! You finally did it. You blew it up. You blew it all up. Ahhh, damn you! Damn you all to Hell!" That last line is delivered in the shadow of the ruins of the statueof Liberty and sent a chill up my spine when I first saw it, but it's still there as is most of the world which was supposed to have ended already.

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Steve Sommers is the author of REXROI, and Evil Super-Villains need Love, Too ... and other important wisdom. (Both books can be viewed by simply clicking on the titles)

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/entertainment/humor/toilet-seats-down.html http://www.articletrader.com/entertainment/humor/toilet-seats-down.html Sun, 28 May 2006 00:00:00 -0500
Ladies, don't get your hopes up because that's never going to happen in America. Men in the states are going to continue to stand, and they're going to continue to sprinkle, and you - I'm sorry to say - are going to continue to clean up these sprinkles; they will never do it themselves.

It's certainly a cultural thing as we see in the above example of my brother-in-law and all those other European men. Part of being a man here in America is that you stand when you urinate, since you are not a woman and women, we know, pee sitting down. Indeed there is something intrinsically powerful about peeing standing up and the more elevated you are the more powerful you feel. In fact, nothing feels more powerful than peeing off of a roof ... um, I've been told.

In the war of the toilet seat lids I have finally decided that toilet lids should both be down when the toilet is not being used. Wait, here me out, guys. I'm not betraying my gender - much. There are very good reasons to have the lids down, and none of them have to do with being nagged to death if you don't.

Number One: You don't want the dog drinking out of the toilet bowl. Don't have a dog? You might get one and it's good practice for you in the meantime so that you get into the habit. Or you might have a friend with a dog visit you unannounced, and you want to be prepared for that. By the way, if you have a really big dog, it should be both lids down with a brick on top of them. They find the cool water, perfectly positioned for them to drink from, irresistable - especially when their lazy master has forgotten to refill their water bowl.

Number Two: You can accidentally drop things into an open toilet. Do you like fishing your tooth-brush out of the toilet? Or for that matter, do you like fishing anything out of it at all?

Thought not.

Number Three: It's bad Feng Shui. Okay. I'm a little bit out of my element on this one, but as I understand it, Chi energy or the life force naturally flows towards water and you just don't want all of your Chi energy going down the toilet. It's bad, believe me. To counteract this you need to either have a growing plant on the back of your toilet (draws the life force up), or you need a bowl of rice. My choice was the plant, because if you have a bowl of rice on your crapper people think you've been eating rice in your bathroom, and that's kind of hard to explain away.

Number Four: Maybe this is just me, but I've always found an open bowl of toilet water kind of scary looking. Alligators or Norwegian Sewer rats could jump out of it at any time. And the water itself leads directly to the dark depths of the underworld and I'd just rather see it covered and not have to think about that.

Number Five: It actually is a polite thing to do for a woman, you know like holding a door for her, or pulling out a chair for her at a restaurant, or helping her put on her coat, or other polite things like that. Don't want to be polite? Fine. I just gave you four other perfectly sound reasons why you should do this, anyways.

If you do happen to be a man who lives alone and has no friends or dogs or visitor and never plans on having any of those ... well, I feel sorry for you. None of the above applies to you. But in that case, you really should get a dog because, Buddy, you really need a little companionship. Just make sure you get a small dog that can't get it's head into to that open toilet of yours.

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Steve Sommers is the author of REXROI, and Evil Super-Villains need Love, Too ... and other important wisdom. (Both books can be viewed by simply clicking on the titles)

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/entertainment/celebrities-know-whats-best-for-you.html http://www.articletrader.com/entertainment/celebrities-know-whats-best-for-you.html Sun, 28 May 2006 00:00:00 -0500
Yes, he knows what he's talking about, for sure. But so do any number of gray un-dashing economists and world leaders. Nobody was making a ruckus when they said the exact same thing supported by graphs, and facts and figures, and PHDs. No, what is took was a sexy rock star to make this whole business look sexy and suddenly everyone's interested - especially the teen-age girls, because if Bono says it: It's hot.

Trooping around not far away from his is the gorgeous and alluring actress Angelina Jolie. The pregnant Mrs. Pitt is the UN Goodwill ambassador who has been touring impoverished areas promoting - I don't know, non-impoverishment. It doesn't matter so much because she is so beautiful to look at that she could be promoting plague and eating dirt and I'd still pay attention. You would, too, I think. It matters little to us that a couple years back she was wearing her husband's blood around her neck as jewelry and tattooing every inch of her skin. Now she's a noble madonna about to give birth to the most blessed child since you-know-who.

For years Oprah Winfrey has been telling people what she thinks they should read. Oprah is an amazing woman and her ability to tell a story through the media is unparalleled. She is a gazillionaire but is that why we assume she has literary taste? If being rich automatically endowed you with taste, then Saudi Sheiks would be the most tasteful men on the Earth, and they really aren't. As far as I know Oprah does not have a literature degree or and English degree and I don't even know that she reads any more than the average Joe on the street. Are we to assume that because we like Oprah we'll also like what she reads? Does anybody seriously need Oprah's help at the bookstore?

My pal Tom Cruise made a lot of enemies when he criticized the use of antipsychotics for the treatment of post-partum depression. He may be right, and there's a good case to be made for the overuse of these medications by the medical community. Tom's simply not the man to make the case. As he lectured today show's Matt Lauer, Matt did not know the history of anti-depressants, but Tom only knew one side of the history and he has no medical degree whatsoever. If I recall correctly, he's a high school drop-out. Not once did Matt Lauer stop to point this out to the TV audience because he knew what we all know: Tom Cruise's opinion is important because his movies bring in tens of millions of dollars at the box office.

It's painful when actors I respect for their acting speak up and say stupid things - well, stuff I disagree with. Charlton Heston gave one of my favorite performances in planet of the Apes, but I absolutely winced when he became President of the National Rifle Association. A brilliant actor was saying some remarkably un-brilliant things and it cheapened my appreciation of the great acting he'd done. I mean, C'mon, Bright Eyes, you don't even know what you're talking about with gun control. Just scream out about the maniacs who are blowing it all up and leave it at that.

Two comedians who used to be funny - used to - have become political hacks of the worst kind. One is Dennis Miller and the other is Al Franken who have each of them taken up positions on the far right and the far left respectively. Both of them are so sour and didactic that it pains me to listen to either of them, forget about belly laughs, because there's not a one left with either of them. They were both guys I liked because they were funny, but I don't any longer because the rhetoric they spought can be found anywhere and done better than they do it.

When entertainers run for office, like Reagan, they truly have a legitimate forum for their views. Vigo Mortenson condemning the war in Iraq while wearing an elf suit is not legitimate. Arnold Schwartzenager winning the governorship of California and having his say is. All politicians come from the citizenry and when the citizenry gives them their vote that means that we also are telling them that we're giving them the right to speak up. Now, Arnold sacrificed the remnants of a fading movie career so it's questionable what he gave up to run California, but we should listen to him now more than we ever should have when he was in a terminator movie.

For the rest of you celebrities who are too lazy to step into the political arena (not Al Franken, he's running for Senate from Minnesota) but for the rest of you I have this advice: All you celebrities just shut up and entertain us. That's what you're being paid to do.

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Steve Sommers is the author of Evil Super-Villains need Love, Too ... and other important wisdom and, REXROI,

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]>