Re: Humbug

1

Some webcomic says: myth!


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 05-28-10 10:58 PM
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Wouldn't be the first bird-related lie my mom told me. Like when we would bake a birthday cake on Christmas morn and feed it to birds, so they could take it up to Jesus in Heaven*. Pernicious bird-related lies!

*I shit you not


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 05-28-10 10:59 PM
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3

Dinosaur Comics weighs in on the hummingbird issue.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 05-28-10 10:59 PM
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I, of course, never had to be told not to touch birds.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 05-28-10 10:59 PM
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Pack of lies; birds not smell-dependent, and family will certainly look after a little bird put back into its nest or onto a nearby branch. This is a much better idea than trying to feed the little bird, which is very hard boring work. People eventually slack off or do it wrong and the bird dies, this might be the origin of 'don't touch the bird'.


Posted by: Penny | Link to this comment | 05-28-10 11:28 PM
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2.last: holy shit.


Posted by: Bave | Link to this comment | 05-28-10 11:28 PM
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6: Your reaction matches the other reactions I've gotten about that anecdote. In her defense, my sainted mother is a very liberal Catholic: cool with the gays, women priests, Vatican II was an improvement so let's have Vatican III. So we let it slide, we do.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 05-28-10 11:38 PM
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7: I thought he was describing the result of the cake being re-eaten.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 05-28-10 11:40 PM
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Some webcomic says: myth!

If you're a sensitive type, maybe don't think, "Hey, I'm curious about this webcomic, so I'm going to read the previous installment." Not so much with the cuteness of the linked one. Fuck.


Posted by: Mr. Blandings | Link to this comment | 05-28-10 11:50 PM
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Pack of lies designed to keep the kid from trying to handle the bird and breaking it.


Posted by: Hamilton-Lovecraft | Link to this comment | 05-28-10 11:56 PM
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If you're a sensitive type, maybe don't think, "Hey, I'm curious about this webcomic, so I'm going to read the previous installment." Not so much with the cuteness of the linked one. Fuck.

Yeah, sorry, I should have warned about that. Same thing happened to me a while back.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 05-29-10 12:02 AM
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People curious about that comic would probably be better served by starting with the beginning.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 05-29-10 12:10 AM
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I still haven't read the whole thing (inadvertently starting at the end has a way of dampening enthusiasm for this particular type of comic), but I hear it's good.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 05-29-10 12:11 AM
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I was told that about baby deer, not birds.


Posted by: Epoch | Link to this comment | 05-29-10 12:43 AM
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I thought it was baby bunnies.


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 05-29-10 8:04 AM
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It's definitely true for baby rattlesnakes.


Posted by: Beefo Meaty | Link to this comment | 05-29-10 8:19 AM
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16: That's not true. They're called "baby rattlesnakes" because they're snakes for babies. Babies like rattles. God, Sifu, you monster.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 05-29-10 8:30 AM
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snakes for babies


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 05-29-10 8:49 AM
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baby snakes


Posted by: Jimmy Pongo | Link to this comment | 05-29-10 9:57 AM
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20

While reading the Awl:

And it will be just in time for midterm elections already foul with the tea party's red-white-and-blue jingoism.
Why isn't it called jizzoism so someone can dance/JO to it?

m, just askin'


Posted by: max | Link to this comment | 05-29-10 10:16 AM
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For the record, I found 2.last very sweet.


Posted by: Di Kotimy | Link to this comment | 05-29-10 10:26 AM
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I found 2.last very sweet.

The part about me shitting you not? Huh. Different strokes...


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 05-29-10 10:56 AM
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Honesty is always sweet.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 05-29-10 10:59 AM
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Different strokes...

Too soon!


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 05-29-10 11:11 AM
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Apparently releasing a "scathing report" and reprimanding a few people constitutes "extraordinary sensitivity" to the people you've murdered.


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 05-29-10 11:13 AM
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||

NMM to Dennis Hopper.

|>


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 05-29-10 11:44 AM
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26: Fuck that shit!


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 05-29-10 12:41 PM
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Is 27 referring to the news, or to the normative statement?


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 05-29-10 2:29 PM
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28: Quoting Blue Velvet, no doubt.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 05-29-10 2:33 PM
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29: Lamely, yes. My own personal fantasy Sopranos ending has Hopper as Frank Booth coming out of the bathroom at the restaurant with his oxygen mask and a gun.

And looking at his IMDb entry, he had a role in Rebel Without a Cause. Never knew that (or knew it and forgot it).


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 05-29-10 2:43 PM
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30.2: Yeah, once you've seen Speed, the rest of his oeuvre just sits dimly in the background.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 05-29-10 2:45 PM
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Hopefully we aren't starting a Summer of Death again. That would suck. Let Dennis Hopper give us a long break.

m, 'the 90's will make the 60's look like the 30's'


Posted by: max | Link to this comment | 05-29-10 2:48 PM
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I would say his last great role was in Land of the Dead. He made that movie pretty good. RIP


Posted by: Cryptic ned | Link to this comment | 05-29-10 2:48 PM
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I've actually never seen Speed other than a couple of snippets while channel-surfing.

(And to go mcmanus on y'all, stayed up late the last two nights and watched Tropic Thunder and District 9 and found them both interesting and irritating at the same time (the squandering of the District 9 premise was particularly annoying).


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 05-29-10 2:53 PM
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My God was he in a lot of absolute shit. But then I actually enjoyed things like his turn in Waterworld.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 05-29-10 2:56 PM
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According to the Times obituary after he gave up drinking and drugs in the 80s he never turned down a role.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 05-29-10 2:58 PM
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36: he never turned down a role.

You could tell from the movies. Yes, he was in a lot of shit.

m, the boomer version of john wayne


Posted by: max | Link to this comment | 05-29-10 3:07 PM
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Great. I just noticed Gary Coleman was younger than I am. Lovely.

m, same age as b


Posted by: max | Link to this comment | 05-29-10 3:10 PM
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Gary Coleman was younger than I am

Nine months older than me.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 05-29-10 3:42 PM
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Apo's Irish twin?


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 05-29-10 3:44 PM
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The only thing I remember about Speed is that Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves are very good looking, and at the end of the movie, Bullock makes a joke about having a relationship based on sex.


Posted by: rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 05-29-10 4:37 PM
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R.I.P Dennis Hopper, the best of the indies.

Too many good or interesting movies. Supportng parts in Elegy and especially Sleepwalking in 2008. The latter is an example of why Hopper should be celebrated. Nick Stahl and Charlize Theron are totes fucked up siblings, and in the last third of the movie you find out why:Hopper is the father. 15 minutes of screen time critical to the effect.

Out of the Blue is a pitchblack masterpiece.

Carried Away, True Romance, Chasers, Space Truckers, Basquiat, Frankie the Fly, Jesus Son...whatever. Maybe some are bad movies, but at least they are a little different from the tv cop show or CGI spectacular.

I am a bad person, but Crow Wicked Prayer has David Boreanaz and Tara Reid as the very very bad, Edward Furlong as an action hero, Emmanuelle Chriqui as the good girl, Danny Trejo as Danny Trejo...and Hopper. 2.7 at IMDB, but I'd watch it again. It was more fun than Terminator Salvation.

Failed visions are better than successful products any day. Hopper with Night Tide was at the start of real indie movie industry, and has always supported it by working cheap.


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 05-29-10 4:42 PM
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Posted by: | Link to this comment | 05-29-10 5:07 PM
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According to the Times obituary after he gave up drinking and drugs in the 80s he never turned down a role.

Geez, I thought you were talking about Gary Coleman, and wondered, "What? He gave up drinking and drugs?Really?" It is very sad about his (Coleman's) death, at any rate. All of the child stars of that ridiculous show seem to have sunk into squalor, petty crime (or even, I guess, major felony), hardcore substance abuse, and the like. It is very odd.

It's too bad about Hopper, also.


Posted by: Mary Catherine | Link to this comment | 05-29-10 5:13 PM
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45

I personally liked Dennis Hopper best in True Romance.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05-29-10 5:23 PM
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46

Unrelated: I like this headline. Oh no he didn't! That baby is going to get smacked down.


Posted by: Cryptic ned | Link to this comment | 05-29-10 5:27 PM
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46: Ahahaha.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 05-29-10 5:30 PM
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Looking around the web, I see that Hopper married Brooke Hayward, not long after her mother's and sister's suicides. 1961-69. I'm impressed, for several reasons. Dodge City boy must have had something.

I am pretty sure I read Haywire but I don't remember it.


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 05-29-10 6:44 PM
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He was also married to Michelle Phillips for about a week or so.


Posted by: Mary Catherine | Link to this comment | 05-29-10 6:54 PM
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45: Me too.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 05-29-10 8:05 PM
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50 to 49


Posted by: Everyone who was anyone | Link to this comment | 05-29-10 8:08 PM
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Here's a kinda longish (and mildly NSFW) highlight reel on Hopper.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 05-29-10 8:16 PM
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Michelle Phillips was a star; Brooke Hayward was Hollywood royalty. I shouldn't be so impressed, but I am

Been spending a little time thinking about the specific Hollywood generation 1955-65, or even more specifically, 1960-65. This was a group of very intelligent young actors etc hipper than the system they worked in, dissatisfied but powerless, not quite rebels, mostly hanging out and going along. I am curious about the degree in which they hung out together, who was on the periphery, etc. Since this was not the most productive period, my guess is that it would be skimmed in most biographies or autobiographies, but I think this might be their formative period.

Peter & Jane Fonda, Warren Beatty, Nicholson, Hopper, Tony Perkins, Tuesday Weld, director Bob Rafaelson. Bruce Dern? Susan Strasberg? Hackman? Duvall? Nicholas Roeg? Sutherland is the right age, but it looks like he was working in England at the time.

P Fonda went from "Young Lovers" (64) to "Wild Angels(67) to "Easy Rider" (69)
Weld went from "I'll Take Sweden" (bimbette opposite Bob Hope) to "Pretty Poison" to "Play It as It Lays"

They say it was the times, but it was the people who made the times, and it was this generation, born 1935-45, that made the 60s.

Stokely Carmichael and Jesse Jackson both b 1941


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 05-29-10 8:40 PM
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So Stanley, who do you want to win your Cup this year?


Posted by: M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 05-29-10 8:56 PM
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Uh, Chicago, duh?


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 05-29-10 8:59 PM
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(That is, I was born there and maintain many family connections there, and to the extent I've ever worn a hockey fan jersey, it was a Blackhawks one [because I'm an aboriginalist], though I think most relatives now root for the minor league Wolves as much as anything [cheaper games, more fights, etc.].)


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 05-29-10 9:21 PM
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because I'm an aboriginalist

If I had to be a fan of two baseball teams at the same time, it would the Indians and the Braves, because...


Posted by: Jesus McQueen | Link to this comment | 05-29-10 9:25 PM
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Michelle Phillips was a star

Yeah, she really was. She was very pretty, of course, but she had a presence that stemmed from something more than just beauty: old-fashioned glamour (the ability to fascinate, in other words), overlaid with the hippie-dippie styles of her day.

But you should totally resist being impressed by Hollywood/show biz celebrities, bob, since they're just the ancien régime aristocrats of our own time. (Health care for all! and not just for the pretty and the well-heeled and the Ivy-Leagued, and etc.).


Posted by: Mary Catherine | Link to this comment | 05-29-10 10:55 PM
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Dennis Hopper was a seriously, horrifically awful person, mostly but not exclusively to women. It's not at all surprising that he ended up as a hardcore Republican. He made one very important movie (I wouldn't say great, but Easy Rider is an incredibly important movie in the history of the movie business, mostly because it was a huge profit maker when the studios were nearly dead) and had several very good roles. But if he's emblematic of his generation, he's emblematic of it absolute worst side, not its best. RIP.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 05-29-10 11:19 PM
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And the notion that Dennis Hopper was in any ways good for the indie market -- except as an actor -- is just dead wrong.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 05-29-10 11:20 PM
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59

... It's not at all surprising that he ended up as a hardcore Republican. ...

Not that hardcore. If wikipedia is to be believed he voted for Obama.


Posted by: James B. Shearer | Link to this comment | 05-30-10 12:00 AM
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I had not really read much about Hopper in recent years, but there are some interesting interviews out there. This one with an Aussie film reviewer last year was pretty good.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 05-30-10 7:38 AM
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Unrelated movie item (which is very "2003"), I'd be quite impressed if anyone seeing this clip (from the set of Predator) imagined in their wildest dreams that they were seeing two future governors of US states in action. Or even anyone who saw Predator or Running Man (although I might have thought that Richard Dawson had the stuff).


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 05-30-10 7:52 AM
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63: Wasn't there a push to have Brad Pitt run for mayor of NOLA? From there it's a short jump to governor. Get him and Edward Norton or Helena Bonham Carter (I mean, I would vote for her, because I don't discriminate against Brits) elected somewhere, and there's two more. The Fight Club govs!


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 05-30-10 10:08 AM
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