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January 20, 2009 15:14Legacy

Even as the whole world celebrates the inauguration of Barack Obama, my thoughts can't help but drift to the ever-tenuous reputation of George Bush. As he slithers out the back door of the White House, leaving behind two wars, a ruined economy, destroyed foreign relations, and a viscous trail of slime, I can't help but feel a little bad. As historians debate what his final legacy may be, hyperbolic insults continue to be uttered and may grow deafening again as the title "Worst President in History" solidifies. Much as he may have all this and more coming, can we, at the very least, finally put the Hitler comparisons to rest? I mean, really, it's rude, it's insulting and it's demeaning.

To Hitler.

Old Adolf is already history's greatest boogieman. Do we really have to subject him to the final insult of comparing him to George W. Bush? Give the poor genocidal maniac a break. Sure, they're both war criminals responsible for brutality and torture on a massive scale. But Adolf Hitler was a competent war criminal. Bush, on the other hand, has gone about his crimes against humanity in bumbling-boob fashion. Mean-spirited comparisons between him and the legendary Nazi dictator do serious damage to the memory of Hitler, and tarnish his otherwise impeccable reputation as the most despised monster of the last thousand years.

Now, I know, Hitler made his fair share of boneheaded mistakes. In retrospect, declaring war on America following the bombing of Pearl Harbor wasn't the smartest move. Nor was ignoring Napoleonic history and pressing his invasion of Russia well into the winter months. And really, what was up with that moustache? Bad bad choices all. But he never stooped to the astonishing level of slack-jawed idiocy of Bush. Hitler's speeches may have been loud, frantic, even hysterical. But the words all made sense. Not necessarily in their philosophical content, but at least in the logical progression of one word following the next and forming correct sentence structure. Hitler's policies may have been insanely xenophobic and dire in their consequences, but they didn't work completely counter to his own stated objectives. It took invading armies to bring his country to ruin, not greed-fuelled economic models. And Hitler, to the very best of my knowledge, never nearly choked himself to death on a pretzel. Nor on any other Bavarian snack food for that matter.

So please, for the sake of correct historical context, try to refrain from the cheap and easy sport of comparing George Bush to Adolf Hitler. He's more of a retarded, lobotomized genetic hybrid of Rudolph Hess and the monkey from Outbreak.

January 15, 2009 20:52Free At Last

More death talk at Eyestrain Productions? Well, what do you expect from the writer of Ashes to Ashes?

This is a big one for me though, because Patrick McGoohan was somewhat of a personal hero of mine. My admiration began in high school, when PBS started running ads about some old British spy show from the '60s they were bringing back. It was called The Prisoner and it looked seriously demented. And I couldn't wait. When it finally aired, I watched it religiously week after week, and then would spend most of history class the next day discussing what it all meant with my friend Ron. He was the only other person I knew who was into the show and wanted to know the answers to all those mystifying questions concerning why Number Six resigned, and who Number One might be. If you've ever seen the show, you can image how bamboozled we were after the last episode, probably the most ambiguous hour in television history.

"I got away with murder on that one," McGoohan told me years later.

As for that ITV remake for British television that just wrapped, well... I guess we'll just have to see.

January 09, 2009 22:33Five Pounds

I went to see the latest Will Smith Oscar-bait opus, Seven Pounds, on cheapo Tuesday. I only saw five pounds worth.

To go with cheapo Tuesday, my friends and I also went out to the nearby cheapo buffet. I'd been there four or five times before because there aren't too many places on the east coast where you can get all-you-can-eat sashimi. Sure, I'd been warned off eating dodgy raw fish before, and a buffet isn't the most likely place to find top-of-the-line salmon, but if it's raw fish and it doesn't already have flies on it, it's probably going to make my mouth water.

Flash forward half an hour and we're in the theatre. The tone of the film is morose, because morose is how you win Oscars. And I start wondering idly to myself, "Why do I feel like I'm dying?" I mean, the movie isn't all that depressing. I've seen harsher stuff. I've seen harsher stuff this week. Eventually, I realize it isn't the mood of the movie, it's the mood of the sashimi. The salmon wants to return to the sea. Now.

While I was in the bathroom, having an experience not entirely unlike what John Hurt had in Alien, I got to wondering what key plot points I was missing in the theatre. It was easy enough to piece it together after I returned and assured my friends that I was just fine, thank you. Still, I never consider I've seen a movie until I've seen the whole thing.

Surfing the web, I stumbled upon this way-cool trailer for Kid vs Kat. There are plenty of shots from my episodes in the mix. I remain eager to see the completed cartoons. Somehow I think it's unlikely the actual show will feature the great but overused trailer music that accompanies Coop and Kat's warfare here, but it sets a nice mood for two minutes and thirty-five seconds.

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