Satan's Luau

I'm not really one for talk shows ... but Rollins new show on IFC is pretty cool to watch.

This is the interview he did with the legendary vox of the Sabbs

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In another, why does the US have to wait for a postdated release ... we present the groovy song of the year thus far. St. E finally drops on 5-9

Anyways, two fun video versions of the song we've been listening to since late Nov. from Gnarls Barkley

Crazy
Crazy, too

And for the sake of overkill Alt take of Crazy from across the pond

And from their warmup for Coachella this weekend ... too much Crzz

Too bad, they're not scheduled for the live Coachella webcast tomorrow

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Although the Blueshirts got swept out of the playoffs, it really was a surprising season where the NYR were in first place for much of the season ... and of course, returned to the playoffs for the first time in nine years

This is the video tribute to the fans

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Today the work crew went to R's at Koolina to belatedly celebrate AdPro Day ... which if I recall correctly was Wed. R's is located in the old open air clubhouse area at the golf course. This was my, I think, third time to R's ... the other times I went to the HKai location.

And you know what, I guess my palate is not tuned in to what they're trying to do there. I just don't get it. I ordered the bento ... and it had all these arty-ly small portions that were not really reasonable sized. The bento had this chopped steak style stir fry with sausage, onion and peppers; a one bite size of hibachi salmon; some chow fun cooked in black bean sauce; two grilled smallish shrimp skewers; a piece of their "homemade" f-cake on a bed of namasu AND kimchi; and a BIG moosoobi (it would be the cheapest stuff, wouldn't it?)

And overall the presentation was quite nice ... I unfortunately like things to taste good. The shrimp on a stick was pretty run of the mill, standard okay. The sausage stir fry thing was pretty good, but it's not what I would call a gourmet dish. The fishcake was just plain strange ... the kimchi was like sweet, yuck ... but the namasu was good. The salmon was well prepped ... and that is something to be said about any R's restaurant, they know how to cook fish -- I am intensely picky about cooked fish, they do it right. The chow fun was weird tasting and dryish.

We sampled two desserts ... and those were actually the highlight. The chocolate bar thing is really good, and the lilikoi cheesecake was really fluffy and light ... almost mousse like, good.

So, at the end of the day, I can now say that for my purposes, I think R's is pretty overrated ... and doesn't really taste good to me ... which for me is the bottom line

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VVI video ... here

Anyone ever listen to them in the aerosol era of heavy music?
Personallly, never listened to em

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In case, you haven't found out yet ... and like that earlyish Sabb and Zep sound of heavy guitar and banshee vox -- classic heavy rock, there is a free single this week on iTMS from Wolfmother. Been listening to them for a little bit now, we really like the sound of this band, glad to see them get some rub from iTs

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I'm not one who watches ET or those other celeb news programs at all. But something about the story of how that actress who acts on JJ A's other show deciding to just go to jail rather than do community service ... then have a K-H moment talking to the reporters after saying her allergy medicine made her strange ... was just damn creepy to me.

Almost as creepy as that teacher who said that being bipolar caused her to do it with one of her students

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The envelope. Consider it pushed.

Ichi The Killer: YMMV

I can't remember precisely, but I had wanted to see this film either at this past year's film festival or the one two years ago. I suppose it is somewhat ironic that I saw it in the week where Hostel hit the DVD market.

This movie is not for people who would normally feel uncomfortable with such themes as sadism, masochism, violent gore, torture, rape, violence against women ... and the list goes on and on, I suppose it does appear that my take on it seems leading to the conclusion that this movie should not be seen by anyone.

However, that's not where I'm headed.

This movie is extraordinary in its violence, in fact, I cannot think of a movie that had so much gory violence in recent memory, and violence that has dark psychological undertones. Note also that is movie is based on an adult manga called Koroshiya 1 ... so I think that to some degree, the violence is partly stylistic -- and to some degree, cartoony in that it can be rather fantastic and pushes the bounds of say, realistic violence ... whatever that may be

Thematically, I think that some of the issues relate to Japanese fascination with certain darker topics, such as the yakuza, school girls in uniforms, voyeurism of extreme situations, etc. This is not to say that these are not present in our culture, but that we do not have such cultural icons that are similar in meaning, taboo, or pathology.

And at the end of the day, I think that that is what the point of the movie is ... pathology. Will you see the movie and just be grossed out? Will you see the movie and be disturbed by its topicality or images? Or, will you be willing to explore what lies beneath your revulsion?

I think that that is where the movie is headed ... does it do the best job of getting this across? Not really, it does have its points where it is indulging itself with extreme violence or disturbing imagery. At other times, I did find myself wondering about some of the iconography that was in the film, such as extreme muscularity, extreme piercing and body modification, s/m, video game violence, human guts and blood, etc.

In the final analysis, there was so much pathology in the film that I almost wondered if I would get it if I was Japanese. Maybe the ultimate point related to -- again in the comic book sense, what would happen if the ultimate sadist met up with the ultimate masochist, do you want to know what happens ... well and with killing, black humor, torture, etc. along the way.

I did find the final battle to be ... quite funny because people were finally revealed for who they were. The "bad (ass) guy" really wanted to be scared and be killed in a fantastic way. The (anti) hero Ichi, his psychosis aside, was not a scary guy at all, and was instead scaredy cat that didn't really want to kill anyone. In a larger sense, I finally felt the despair of that this psychotic guy was being manipulated, and so many had to die because of the manipulator's motives ... in some ways, it was pretty sad. At the end of the day, is going through such lengths for revenge ... then having someone do your dirty work for you worth it? ... or beyond that, is it noble?

Lastly, this movie is not for everyone ... I would say that most people will find absolutely no value in this movie at all. I can say that my curiosity about this movie is now satisfied, but I can't really recommend it to anyone ... unless they had a curiosity as well about the film.

I didn't really get it, but I have seen it ... whatever that may mean

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Are we an immigrant nation, or aren't we?

Well, since one of the hot topics nationally is immigration. I finally decided to finish up watching my POV DVD on Farmingville.

POV: Farmingville

I have been watching the POV program on our local PBS station for a very long time. It really is a great source for documentaries on "free TV", and I highly recommend it.

As a preliminary note, I do find the current political discussion on immigration to be quite interesting. I often get the feeling that many Americans think this is a southwestern border state issue. I assume that the filmmakers also had that in mind, because Farmingville is located in Long Island, NY. -- and many of the same issues that make it such a hot button issue in the American southwest, are present there ... race, economics, human rights, fairness, etc.

I found the documentary to be extremely well made -- and illustrated what the various points of view over this controversy are, many of which are pertinent to the national discussion currently underway

There is the economic issue of opportunity for these workers to obtain day jobs working in construction and landscaping. As our President likes to say (and contractors in this movie), taking jobs that everyday Americans won't do.

And then there is the matter of inequality. There are always the arguments that illegal immigrants do not pay for the privileges that they enjoy ... in other words, no taxes are being paid by them. On the other hand, it seems that this immigration is a reflection on almost universally human to wish for opportunity, to help your family get ahead -- to do whatever is required, including working in a foreign country to make it happen.

The amazing thing about this movie is how potent people's feelings are about illegal immigrant day laborers -- or as they are euphemistically called "undocumented workers". There definitely appears to be a race relations component to it, where the well established members of the community are very fearful of the newcomers, defining them as a sexual, violent, criminal and a destabilizing threat to the community. There also appears to be a class relations component, where there is a view that these day laborers are not contributing members of society -- they are not hard working, middle class people -- they live 30 to a house -- they are rented to by slumlords, who inflame the problem, etc.

Some members of the town tried for two years to expel immigrants via legislation, after the police told them that there was nothing they could do to remove them. They stood across from corners where day laborers waited for trucks to pull up, offering work and taunted and intimidated them and the people looking for workers.

Eventually it got ugly, as people used to throw rocks and bottles at workers waiting to be picked up ... immigrant houses were drove by and shot at, known contractors of day laborers had their trucks set on fire, etc. ... and on the other side, a drunk immigrant driver struck a pregnant woman, killing her -- he skips bail and disappears

Eventually, all the tension culminates in the attempted murder of two immigrant day laborers who were lured to a warehouse with the promise of work and severely beaten. One of the alleged perpetrators had aryan/supremacist type tattoos which inflamed the situation even more. The city attempted to provide a compromise, by providing a common hiring site so that the workers would no longer be on the corners, but this was vetoed by the county "mayor", and the veto override failed.
The workers also formed their own community association to prove that they were there to work for the community, not destroy it ... and do positive community service for the community.

There were really stark images in the documentary. Anti-immigrant proponents flying the American flag, making at best dubious inflammatory nationalist statements ... and at worst, horribly racist statements. The other observation is that these protest groups were 100% white people, and I think that it is hard to watch the film and not think about how horribly angry and apparently racist the approach is, despite the injury that they may have felt happened to the community. The supreme irony of the anti-immigration approach, or the other side for that matter, is this: they do not see their position as irrational, hate filled, etc ... it is perfectly reasonable, and this is framed as "caring about their community" -- framing their concerns into a quality of life, community group that got involved with and the support of national anti-immigration groups

At the protest outside the vote to override the veto, it became pretty clear to me that a lot of people that are really disingenuous about their real underlying conceptualization about the issue, on both sides of it ... the issue is conceptualized around people being a different color, whether pro or con.

That is the way that both sides see the issue, and as a viewer, I found that to be very unfortunate ... but sometimes it is hard to remember that this 75% of this nation's people identify with being and will define their understanding from the perspective of being "white". It was so shocking to me that there are people who can say with a straight face, that their child cannot bike or skate, or women cannot go to the store because of the presence of immigrant workers in their town ... or feel like they are imprisoned in their houses -- truly fearing people who are different. I think it really gives me, as a person that lives in the middle of the pacific, a wakeup call ... which basically is, the notion of being American still very much is about being white.

On the other hand, there were these diversity, unity and tolerance rallies ... where a number of people of all groups had gotten together to fight against racism. My personal bias is that I tended to be more sympathetic with their message. However, I do understand anti-immigrant point of view that here are people with signs in Spanish, not English ... flying flags of other countries. Perhaps I am too distant from my familty's roots as immigrants to appreciate the affiliation with the mother country ... however, I think that such things may also be viewed as inflammatory ... and by nature, give the impression of being "un-American" as well, and not trying to fit in, so in many ways it is a bit more complex than "You should go/We are productive"

And I'm not one who is persuaded by hiding behind concepts for the purpose of being validated in the mainstream, yet being logically stupid -- for example, same sex marriage is no good, because it has marriage in the title ... whereas reciprocal beneficiaries or domestic partners is okay even if it has the same benefits of marriage, so long as you don't call it marriage ... whereas at its core, it's about being homophobic. Same here, hearing people say they are not opposed to immigrants, but they are opposed to "illegal" immigration ... that is like saying, we would be okay if your whole wave of people came and you were legal ... since you are not, please leave -- that hides from the essential crux of the matter, which is disturbing, discriminatory attitudes.

At the end of the day, the documentary is about the making of America. The filmmakers argue that each time a new group comes, there is resistance, and as a country of immigrants it is hard to say that okay, now the door is closed behind us. This film is interesting because it shows the impact at a local level, from varying perspectives ... and I think it is yet another chance for people to come to grips with some of the underlying discrimination that comes with the changing demographics in America.

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In the second of my tidbits about sensational stories of recent vintage, I found this article about the Columbine shootings to be quite interesting.

Basically, this is an article about the ongoing efforts to suppress "in the public interest" certain portions of evidence from the public related to the planning of the massacre ... read about it here.

Again, the eternal question is: is the public served better by knowing, OR should the public retain their only their horrified, initial impressions about the matter ... even if there are additional things that could be known if "released into the sunshine"

Do we as the public have a right to know these things?

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So in following with our controversial rainy day time waster, I began to think about what is it that we have a right to as the public in terms of information about recent sensational events.

Do we deserve full disclosure ... an airing of all information, no matter how controversial, into the sunshine -- so that we can learn un-MEDIA-ted information about events. In other words, have the information for ourselves to learn about it, without having some government or news group filter, cut, and choose what is important for us to know about

Okay, so recently they finally released the W-T-C cellphone calls to the families of the deceased, and left it up to the families as to whether the media could replay them

The issue that I wondered about was the release of the FLT93 cockpit recorder tapes at Moussaoui's trial. Even getting beyond the fact that the other three planes' voice boxes were never recovered. Perhaps even setting aside the popular assessment that this was a heroic group.

Will we ever hear these tapes ... or be able to listen for ourselves? Should we be able to?

Or must we persist in believing that these people were heroes ... without verification that the popular account is what happened. I don't know, but I wonder about it

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While eating lunch today, I happened to come across this piece of hellacreativity

Sox
Mets
RBI Baseball
Game 6, 86 Series

And, I STILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL don't understand why the years of blame and goatery for Bill Buck---

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As an initial note on current events, I must say this:

Why ever would Kween allow their music to be performed to ... on a show that is SO TERRIBLY AND 360 DEGREES OPPOSITE to what Kween was about ... has me dumbfounded and at a loss for words

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Well, two weeks ago today, there was a new episode from the boys that destroy dubious icons from my formative years, one icon at a time

Of course I mean NEW YACHT ROCK!!

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Okay, so if you didn't know ... goejijoose is the latest, greatest M-L-M piece of crap that supposedly can make you money ... but at the end of the day, will part you and your foolish ass of money ... Which brings us the, "will he ever change" person of the day

Not that I'm the smoekingunn or something, but this really reminds me of that song in the South Park movie where they have Saddam dancing around and singing "I Can Change" -- here

---

What I don't like about M-L-M's is that they prey on some of people's worst character flaws -- love of money/greed; exploitation of other's efforts/all the money, none of the effort; exploitation of another person's trust, etc. You know why many of them peter out, often causing people to go to jail in the end, it's a scam -- pure and simple.

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So, if you are like me and listen fairly regularly to the D-L-R morning show ... well, maybe you have noticed that it has had the steam taken right out of it, basically due to the "reorganization" of personalities on the show. There isn't really much to say when Dave spends a segment playing old V-H songs himself and singing to them

I can recall more than a few times in my "paying attention" (nah, not really ...) of local radio station programs, that this happens quite frequently ... where a show goes on for a bit, someone gets the great idea to subtract personalities or add other personalities ... and that ends up being the kiss of death

I'm not saying that the D-L-R morning show has been the best morning show ever ... there were many gaffes and missteps along the way, but it had ... yes HAD, that live performance feel to it ... that anything could happen, even big time goofs and awkward moments. The tragic thing is that sometimes, there was magic there, too. I really prefer it to the over-produced morning show stuff that you can get basically anywhere in the 50, including here.

Ah, well, life support has begun ... pay your respects while you have the time

Because it looks like sooner than later, it is going the way of the dinos

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Another go along with the crowd, gas cap hating person

But really ... I would like to know exactly WTF happened that caused the gas prices to go up to post-Katrina levels in the past month or so. C-B-S news has suggested that along with supply fears due to turmoil in oil producing countries ... oh so now, It's the gas futures speculators! They allegedly add 1/3 to the price of a barrel of crude, due to options and forwards on the future price of gasoline going into the "american driving season" and the "heating season" later in the year

Okay, so all that being said, coupled with the recent reports that hybrids "financially do not pay off" for the additional dollars on their sticker price, over the useful life of the car. I have this very simple observation.

It really all does not matter, when everyone grumbles about it ... BUT STILL BUYS IT / THEMS VEHICLES / LARGELY IS IN ECONOMIC TERMS "INDIFFERENT" TO HIGH PRICING. Car owner and buyer behavior has not changed -- and foreseeably will not change because people are still commuting in their full size trucks, suvs, neo-oversized American sedans -- recent public mass transit projects are NOT paying off as intended (see, monorail in LV, among other examples) ... as far as I can tell

Gas prices, caps, etc ... really now ... IS NOT NEWS, nor are jackasses with large vehicles grumbling at the pump during candid interviews. If the news purpose was, what makes Americans think that owning a large vehicle with high gas prices economically add up? --- you know, I would actually watch that news story

Moreover, if people actually started to care about what this all means, that would be news

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Not to get overly Seinfeld-ish, but it has occurred to me with the green light for the centennial festival this weekend after being postponed last weekend .... do certain cities just not make it?

I mean, are there some cities where they go ... gee man, we tried it for like three years and man, I think we should dissolve the city. Everyone scatter to the various ends of the earth from whence you came -- we're so sorry, we apologize for the inconvenience but this city will end by the end of the year

Is 100 years a big thing? And why is the city putting on this celebration, anyways. Here's what my superficial attempt at research suggests:

1. The city's own website says that no one really knows when Honolulu was founded ... okay, so this 100 year thing is related to some other date.

2. Did you know that the original county was the County of Oahu, as of July 1, 1905? That's not 100 years

3. Did you know that two years after the County of Oahu ... by my math, 1907, became the City and County of Honolulu?

Okay, so all of this info is on the city's own website. Is the city counting it Japanese style? Should we be superstitious about celebrating a 100th when it looks like the city is only 99

I don't demand answers about this ... I'm just saying

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It certainly may not be often that this column is dragged out again. However, from time to time, when SD and I go to eat somewhere new ... you'll read about it ... (that is, if I remember to write about it ... ehh). And yes, certainly there are other local food blogs that go wayyy more in depth about places here than we will ever go ... so you know where to find those

Okay, so our disappointment with the complete fade of Domino's from the landscape here continues ... but that's an aside. In the old D's complex in Kaneohe now is an authentic family style, or is it family run, Mexican sit-down called El Mariachi

We went in a group with SD's family plus one. It seems to be doing well for a newer place, we heard that it may have opened in late summer last year. But I suppose you want to know, is it good?

When we were waiting outside for about 20 minutes or so because all the seats were taken, I had commented that there are lots of Jalisco style restaurants here ... and a handful of other styles including Tex-Mex, interpretations of Mex, etc. El M is Guadalajara style.

I suppose that for most people that would just be a name of a style, and it wouldn't really mean anything especially to people here ... whose expectations are shaped by "runs to the border". Even for me, having some experience with the california and texas style of mexican ... I am still way more concerned about is it good or not

And yeah, it is good. SD had a steak quesadilla plate, which she ate almost all of ... which is an indication of some sort. SD's parents ate versions of sope, on recommendation of their guest. That kind of looked kind of taco salad-ish, sans a "bowl". I had the chili verde with red sauce, which was a bit different in taste, than the typical green sauce ... but that was good as well

Okay, so here's the thing that I have noticed about the closer to authentic Mex places. If you eat primarily at the border or at other interpretations of M, you may find that the "real stuff" may be somewhat bland or unfamiliar tasting (herb-y or natural flavored) ... this is really not so much a bad thing, but it does open your eyes to how much salt and other flavoring crap goes into other M food

At the end of the day, it was good ... portions fill an entire paper plate, if quantity is of concern, and prices are about the same as other M sit-downs.

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Finally, here

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