Part One: Bury The Dead

My recent post on this site entitled “Robert De Niro’s Ugly Mug: A Roundabout Review of Righteous Kill by Way of a Long-Forgotten Horror Flick CalledThe Flesh Eaters,” prompted a number of complaints (the number, to be precise, was one) that I had no right to mock a once-great actor like De Niro — an Oscar-winner, no less — when I myself had never personally experienced the challenges of creating a character, the terrors of facing a live audience, or the trauma of encountering witheringly negative reviews.

All of this is utterly untrue.  I have known terror.  I have felt trauma.  And not only have I experienced the challenges of embodying an onstage character, I have failed in every conceivable respect to meet those challenges. 

In short, I do indeed have a background in acting, and one that is not without an interesting parallel to De Niro himself.  Just as De Niro, in the years between Mean Streets and Meet the Parents, once was widely considered to be the Greatest Actor of His Generation, I once was regarded in certain very narrow circles as the Worst Actor of His Time. [Read more →]

Tags: art & entertainment, creative writing by Michael Antman
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One of my earliest movie-going memories is of being dropped off at Chicago’s Nortown Theatre with my friend Saul when we were nine or ten years old to see an ultra-low-budget horror movie about microscopic monsters called The Flesh Eaters.  Some promotional genius at the studio had come up with the idea of offering all attendees one free packet of blood per ticket.  

The packets, which were handed to moviegoers along with your ticket stub, were similar to the ones used for soy sauce in carry-out Chinese, and contained some sort of viscous red liquid that must have been edible.  As idiotic, tasteless, and utterly inappropriate promotional gimmicks go, this one was bloody brilliant — at least in the sense that, to this day, I can still remember it vividly.

[Read more →]

Tags: movies by Michael Antman
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That the FDA will consider proposals to sell the public genetically engineered meat doesn’t surprise me. It was only a matter of time. It’s probably a foregone conclusion that the FDA will also find it safe for human consumption — what’s another “oops”? Besides, maybe it is safe. What piques my interest is the controversy over labeling such foods: the producers demand — and the FDA appears to be inclined to humor them — that such food not be labeled because of the ignorant consumer’s fear of the unknown. Since the gross-out factor is pretty high, they argue, it’s best we don’t even know that all the thighs in the family pack came from the same chicken.

I already buy only chicken labeled “no antibiotics” (because “no hormones” label on a chicken is laughable: chickens aren’t raised with hormones; that’s for meat). Do you think the old-fashioned producers will be allowed to label their product “no DNA messing”? Does anyone know of an organized active resistance to this what-you-don’t-know-won’t-creep-you-out school of thought? I want to join.

Tags: health & medical, recipes & food by Olga Gardner Galvin
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Cheap Thrill #1
There it is. Forty bucks. Art history. Cooking sushi. Walking tours of the veteran’s cemetery. What-ever. Throw a pot. Build an Adirondack. Channel your chi with chai.

Throw away your J. Jills, your Lillian Vernons, your SkyMalls, and open just one catalog this season, the Community Education catalog. Then pick anything you want — anything.

It feels like a splurge, but there’s no shop in town that will give you as much bang for your buck. What good is another cheap Old Navy turtleneck, when what you really want — deep down — is to make perfect buttercream rosettes? Some nutcase out there wants to show you how, for next to nothing.

Community ed. Not only do you get a cheap night out, new friends, and possibly a clay ashtray or wobbly pine stepstool that you can give as a holiday gift to some long-suffering relative, but you can write the whole thing off as self-improvement. Maybe the next love of your life is out there right now, writing a check for six weeks of Beginning Fencing. Haven’t you always wanted to fence? What are you waiting for?

Ask Ruby for advice

Tags: advice, money by Ruby Mac
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Coming soon: Advice for the Rest of Us, a weekly column by Ruby Mac. Read all about it here and submit your questions to Ruby. Kind of like Ann Landers, only still alive. And funny. Not at all like Ann Landers, now that we think about it

Tags: announcements by Coliseum
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Is it right for a woman to hate on a guy just because he lives at home?

According to a recent survey conducted by the New York Post, 52 percent of women said that they would not date a man who was living at home. I’m not defending those kinds of guys because I was one of them as recently as early May of 2007, but rather because it’s simply not fair.

Look at the economic climate that this country is dealing with. In many situations, people of both genders are being forced to stay home for financial reasons — anyone who chooses to live there and avoid paying rent or mortgages is making the smart call. Some men might have family issues to deal with that are easier to manage when they live at home. There are plenty of well-educated, well-adjusted, bright men with great futures who simply do not have the resources to get off the ground at present time. Women can’t use the privacy as a crutch to stand on either… if sexual urges hit, why can’t they simply go back to her place?

For the record, paying rent really is a bear when you’re 26…unless you work for Bear Stearns or something, and judging by the Dow’s recent performance, more than a few comfortable folks should be tightening their belts right about now.

Tags: his & hers, money by Glenn Giangrande
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Is this really necessary?

Children’s author Eoin Colfer is to write a sixth novel in the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” series, seven years after the death of its creator Douglas Adams, Penguin said Wednesday.

Adams’ widow approved, and Adams himself is hardly in a position to object.

Adams died from a heart attack in California in 2001 at the age of 49. He had hoped to finish the series with a sixth novel.

 ”Five seems to be a wrong kind of number; six is a better kind of number,” he once said.

Yeah, Adams wanted there to be another book in the series, but when he said the above, I’m pretty sure he was expecting to write it himself. Of course, Adams’ widow knows better than I do what Adams would want. And he wasn’t known for taking himself or his work too seriously, so maybe he’d have no problem with this. I know that I would want my wife to make some money off of my books for herself and my son if she could, and attract more readers to my work as well. I’m not really judging anyone on this. But this new book gets an asterisk, right? If you’re a fan of the original series, are you going to read this one? 

Tags: books & writing by Scott Stein
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July 9, 2008
I dream I am in bed in my parent’s house, and sitting on the bed, in a blue shirt, is a boy who looks like me. The boy doesn’t want to be there; he is being compelled somehow and he wants to leave to do something else with his brother. I believe that the boy is a younger version of me and I want him to stay. After a few moments, when he feels he has discharged his duty, he gets up and runs away. I try to protest, but I can make no sound.

[Read more →]

Tags: Fred's dreams by Fred Siegel
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What’s with trains lately?

First we have the very serious, terrible story of the California train crash that, last I saw, killed 26 people. The engineer apparently ran a red light and is reported to have sent a text message just before the crash. Human error was named the cause of the crash. Maybe we’ll never know precisely what role texting played in that error, but texting while driving a train is far beyond stupid.

Also in train news, on a lighter note because no one died, in this case alcohol was a factor. I know, shocking. Stupidity was a factor, too. How can you be this dumb and live to be 34?

And the trains keep on coming. No one died, but alcohol was a factor here, too. And cigarettes. If you think it’s more careless and drunk than stupid, you’re wrong. It’s stupid.

In non-train stupidity, alcohol was also a factor here. Falling asleep in a store you’re trying to rob is stupid.

But let’s not blame alcohol for every minor indiscretion. Crack deserves some credit, too.

Tags: drugs & alcohol, ends & odd by Scott Stein
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I was at an enormous Asian supermarket called Super H today and I saw, among all the shelves of miso, tofu, and kim chee, a new kind of iced coffee from Japan called “Let’s Be Bitter.”  (There’s a companion brand called “Let’s Be Mild.”)  Although I resisted the impulse to buy either variety, I was inspired by the names to dig up some old files of strange and astonishing “Janglish” I collected the last time I was in Japan.   All of the following are real, as hard as some of them may be to believe:  [Read more →]

Tags: ends & odd, language & grammar by Michael Antman
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