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Because I can't bear to eulogize Doug - 2008-08-19
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9:06 p.m. - 2005-07-23
I went a couple places and there's one hell of a hole in my yard. Last night Mike and I checked out Bad News Bears without bringing the baby. I'm glad we did. If we'd have brought Wolf the poor kid would have been bored to tears. Now listen, I'm no Tatum O'Neal purist. Nor am I automatically against remakes. (Though I do think 98% are unnecessary.) But seriously this new version is truly bad news. Gads, where to start? Most people are chiming in about the staggering amounts of profanity. I will too. But not because I think little darlings should never say naughty words. The profanity in this movie and the vehemence with which the kids spew it just made no sense. It was like the scriptwriters were having a contest to see who could write in the stupidest curses possible without resorting to the F-word. Even if a person is a world class cusser he usually sticks to one type of cuss. Be it scatological or innuendo, there's a pattern to most obscene riffing. And these kids were belting out filth which was neither situationally sensible nor constant enough in theme to be a character's trademark. The pacing of the film was off too. Not helped by a lame score. Long stretches without any music at all and then KA-BLAM! In crashes Dvorak's New World Symphony. Then silence. Then some more Dvorak. Then a screeching left turn into the realm of classic rock. Bad score. Especially surprising for a Richard Linklater film. Then there's Buttermaker. First he's too amiable. Then he's a contrite rah-rah booster. Then he inexplicably sours. Sure, in the storyline it was time for him to go mean, but there wasn't any reason for his abrupt departure into assholedom. It's like if your normally kooky but kindly grandmother stood up during Thanksgiving dinner and demanded everybody get the fuck out of her house. Now. I mean, wouldn't you stand around in the driveway for a while scratching your head and wondering what the heck just happened? Buttermaker's turn to the dark side is like that. Oh! and the kids themselves! Not a one of them is appealing. Kelly Leak, who is supposed to be original gansta and dangerously attractive (for a 12 year old), is a complete blah. No simmering anger. No latent compassion. No nothing. He looks a little bit like Treat Williams and that's the only reason I paid attention when this kid was on screen at all. I was trying to decide if they were related. The rest of the Bears were a mish-mash of central casting loser archetypes without twinkle or spark. And product placement all over the place. Ugh. Lame script. Lame actors. Lame score. Lame story arc. Boo on Bad News Bears. It strikes out, big time. Today I was carted to Sam's Club, IHOP, and Laura's house for her elder son's birthday party. I like that we have a business membership at Sam's. Means we can go in extra early. No crowds. Everything is freshly stocked. And they put out free coffee and snacks. I needed the coffee this morning, I was running on 3 very restless hours of sleep. Breakfast at IHOP. Is there an equal to the bliss of the Big Basic Breakfast? Eggs, meat, potatoes, and pancakes. So simple. So delicious. IHOP even serves real skinny link breakfast sausage. None of that lousy chubby chorizo other places give you. Breakfast sausage is one of the world's perfect foods. It's greasy, spicy, crisp yet chewy, and tastes great with maple syrup. You cannot put syrup on chorizo. It tastes like ass. After breakfast we came home, unloaded the groceries and packed Wolf's water slide in the back of the Exploder. Laura asked if we'd bring it to the party. Sure, why not? The thing was made to be used. Wolf does play with it quite a bit, but sharing is good. Mike was in a tizzy to get going. A guy was coming with an excavator today to dig the trench to the outbuildings. We're running water and power out to the garage, the chicken house and Wolf's playhouse. The massive (and as yet undelivered) hot tub goes in the garage. Wolf's playhouse needs juice for when it becomes a rehearsal studio for the inevitable garage band. As my hot tub will take up most of the room in the actual garage, my son will need someplace to jam which is NOT inside my house. Our chicken house is destined to become guest quarters and Mike's office eventually. The building is about the same square footage as our house, though laid out quite differently. There's room enough out there to use one section as storage, one for an office (with the pool table) and one section for a pretty guest room with a ¾ bath. Hell, Alex may end up living back there when he's through with school. He won't be buying his own McMansion on a teacher's salary that's for sure. The average house price in our area is creeping up on half a million. So unless teachers suddenly start getting paid what they're truly worth instead of making the same bucks as a KFC night manager, my kid won't be seeing homeownership for a very, very long time. At least not around here. While I blearily tried to make polite party conversation at Laura's, Mike was here supervising the digging of an enormous trench. Not only is there 4' deep, 40' long scar gouged into my yard, Mike got some bad news. Our sewer outflow pipe is CLAY. That pipe is as old as the plumbing. A ceramic pipe which has been funneling poop for over 70 years. A disaster just begging to happen. So now along with running water and waste pipe and electric conduit in the trench, we have to dig up the septic system and replace that clay pipe. Mike is bummed. I'm a bit more sanguine about it. Better we should find out now when we have the yard ripped open already and have an excavator handy. Of course I'm not the one who'll be out there up to my navel in sewage, my take is bound to be less upset than Mike's. Thank goodness I bought him those hip waders for Father's Day a few years ago. Time to hit my pillow. ~LA
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