He served a dark and a vengeful god...

Sunday night I finally made it to the theatre to see the film version of my favorite musical of all time, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. I have been looking forward to this moment since I first heard that they were doing it. I thought that if anyone could do it justice Tim Burton could. Johnny Depp as Sweeney I wasn’t sure about, but I love Johnny so I gave him the benefit of the doubt.

I took Jeff and Steve with me to see it. Neither of them was familiar with the show at all. They knew it was a musical and that there was supposed to be a lot of blood, so it wasn’t too hard to convince them to come with. I knew in advance that some of the songs had been cut from the film; they would have to cut something, the music alone accounted for an hour and forty-six minutes of the show.

Before going into my critique, I will give you a run down of the show, In case some of you weren’t the kind of High School drama-queen I was. Benjamin Barker was a happy barber with a beautiful wife and new baby. So enamored by his life, he never noticed the other man that was obsessed with his wife Lucy. Judge Turpin and his faithful servant the Chief of Police, Beadle Bamford, arrested, tried and convicted Barker on fake charges and sent him to prison in Australia so that they could get him out of their way. You learn all this in the first song. The show begins twenty years later and Sweeney Todd (prison escapee Barker) arrives in London.

Once back in London Todd goes looking for his wife and child and instead finds an abandoned apartment and his old neighbor Mrs. Lovett that runs the pie shop downstairs. She recognizes him and fills him in on what happened to his wife and baby. Lucy went crazy and drank poison after being lured to a party at which she was raped by the Judge and his friends. Johanna became a ward of the state and the Judge adopted her.

Todd and Lovett form a plan to exact his revenge on the Beadle and the Judge. They set his barber shop back up and he starts taking customers. He goes out and challenges the “Barber of Kings” to a duel and promptly defeats him, gaining the favor of the Beadle. Pirelli, the “barber of kings” also recognizes Todd and tries to blackmail him. This is the beginning of the bloodshed. Todd swiftly slits his throat, and Mrs. Lovett suggests using the body to make meat pies. From here you can only guess where the story leads. Lots of blood gets spilled, they become the most famous pie shop in London and he gets his vengeance.

The opening credits are where I started to grow concerned. It was badly digitized cartoon blood running through practically every set piece of the movie, and it lasted way too long. I consider myself easily amused and admittedly biased about this movie because of my love of the show. From there the casting decisions and the directing became the most obvious shortfalls of the movie.

The casting was all off with four exceptions: Sacha Baron Cohen as Pirelli was brilliant. He was the only character that wasn’t steeped in goth and depression. He was flamboyant and funny, and I was even impressed with his singing. Alan Rickman as the evil Judge Turpin was a sight… We all knew he was a great actor, and we all knew he could play a bad guy, but the emotions that he shows in this movie, just on his face, are more than the rest of the cast combined! Timothy Spall as Beadle was creepy and effective as always and Ed Sanders who played the boy Toby was… uh… does it sound bad if I say he was adequate?

Anthony in the movie played by a barely pubescent boy.

Johnny Depp, while he did a satisfactory job, was grossly unsuited to play this role. Sweeney is a substantial man that has spent a good fifteen years in a hard labor prison, and is filled with only hope for his family and hate for his enemies. Johnny Depp is a small waifish boy of a man that is more petulant child than vengeful devil. And if you tell me that the character he portrays has seen one hard day in his life you would get laughed out of the theater. Helena Bonham Carter was equally disappointing as Mrs. Lovett, but at least she made me laugh once or twice, when I could understand what she was saying. Let me put it this way, have you ever seen the local High School put on a show that you saw done up properly on Broadway? That is what seeing this movie is like.

Anthony as he is written, a sailor in his twenties

The main issues I have with this movie are the decisions that Tim Burton made in the directing. First, I don’t know why he is so obsessed with it, but for the love of all that is holy, please, dear god please… come out of the dark Tim, and take those stupid goth clothes off and start making some decent movies again. I would like to know exactly what the decision making process looked like when he decided to remove all color (with the exception of the brilliant Cohen) from the film. You think I’m kidding or overreacting? Than please explain to me why the actors faces were painted black and white, and why the sets were all (and I mean even the outdoors shots) in shades of grey, matte brown, black and white. None of these photo's have been altered. This really is how much color there is in the film.The only real color in the movie was Cohen, the overly ridiculous animated blood and that painfully unnecessary dream sequence. It felt like in the editing room Burton started to realize there was no color and told his crew to just throw together a scene to make up for it.

Burton has always been a bit on the dark side, but in his heyday of Edward Sissorhands and the first two Batman movies, at least he balanced out the darkness with the light. Here it is just all so saturated in goth that it just makes me want to die, die, die my hair black. The people move like zombies, the leads sound whiny and pathetic, and the only time I got lit up at all was when Cohen and Rickman were chewing up the set, which only proves that some actors are great no matter how bad the director.

The biggest slap in the face however, was the slow painful mutilation exacted on the score. If you are going to have all the extras in the background of the movie anyway, why would you cut out nearly every single song the chorus sings? Burton decided to make a musical with actors that don’t really sing, while simultaneously cutting out the entire chorus. In the stage version it is the chorus that tells the story, with screeching whistles and sopranos howling at the very top of their range while the basses are booming away at the bottom of theirs. The score is truly a magnificent piece of work that has been winning awards since the day it was written and has been preformed by professional theatres for 29 years across the globe. And yet, Burton decided to butcher the score and put out a musical with a bunch of unmemorable half-sung parts of songs, leaving the most amazing pieces of composition on the cutting room floor. Gone is the wallop of a punch the final two songs of the stage version pack. I remember the first time I walked out of that musical, I was looking around me for crazy people thinking that any moment Todd might show up to slit my throat. Walking out of the movie all I could feel was relief that it was finally over.

I know this review sounds a bit scathing, and I am sorry about that. But I did warn you that this was my favorite musical of all time. And therefore I was not going to be able to give an unbiased review. So, if you are looking for an unbiased review here it is: If you have never seen or know nothing about the superior stage version, than you will be moderately entertained by this movie. However, if you ever have any intention of seeing this musical done up right, save the $19.99 that you would pay for the DVD and just buy a ticket the next time the show comes to town.

My Death Today

My death today, it shouldn't last too long
Just an age or two to correct the wrongs
I'm having trouble breathing in this place
Like I've been mislaid somewhere out in space

So many things now I can't comprehend
Death seems the only way to make it all end
Reasons to fight seem to disappear fast
And nothing I do seems ever to last

Dying today will surely clear my head
Only one downfall, that I will be dead
A few exceptions I know there will be
But few will notice a world without me

Some tears will fall and some will wonder why
On this day of all days I chose to die
No big event, no obvious reason
A random day, a change of a season

A moment felt once by each human being
I know that you all have seen what I'm seeing
These thoughts in my head, standing on the ledge
Please show me how to step back from the edge.

A really good shampoo

I got home from work yesterday and was just blah… All I wanted was to sit on my couch and veg for the rest of the night. I turned on my Law & Order, got my Mt. Dew and wrapped myself in my flannel blanket. I stayed in that position for a solid three hours.

I have been feeling slightly off this week. Can’t really explain why or how I feel… but you know those times when there is something going on inside your body that you just aren’t too sure about? This was like that, I wasn’t feeling sick or anything and there was just this off-ness. Like when your body starts telling you to be a little more careful or you really will get sick. Or when your body has caught an infection and is busy destroying it, the rest of your body feel’s slightly neglected. That’s how I felt yesterday, not sick, just blah.

Somewhere in the vicinity of nine pm I make up my mind to take a shower. I had a long hard day of work and I wanted to get the grime off me. So I strip down in my room and get my robe on. This was one of those moments when I realized just how close to all out sick I was. Between the six feet of taking my clothes off and putting my robe on I got a severe case of the shaking chills. My teeth were rattling and I physically couldn’t stop myself from shaking. I walked out my room and turned the thermostat up to 74 and walked as quickly as my weak frame would carry me to the bathroom.

I should also mention at this point that while I have been feeling off I have had little to no desire to eat. For the last few days I have been forcing food down anyway, but yesterday I just couldn’t bring myself to eat. I had a donut in the morning for breakfast, and a banana for lunch and I skipped dinner altogether, all this on my most physically taxing day of the week, work wise.

I get to the bathroom and jump quickly into the shower. I turn the water on and get it to a good hot temp, than without really knowing why, I throw the bath plug into the drain. So I stand there under this steaming sheet of hot soothing water for a good ten minutes, just rotating making sure that every part of my body gets the heat and the warmth. I can’t explain the feeling of relief that comes with warmth.

When I finally open my eyes and look down, a considerable amount of water has collected in the tub. My legs feel so worn and weary that it makes total sense that I sit down right then and there. And so my hot shower becomes a hot bath, with the steam rising from below me and the warmth raining down on me. I take several slow deep breaths, coughing up some more of the phlegm that has taken up residence in my chest since Christmas. I take a few more breaths… until I can at last breathe without interruption.

While I am just sitting there like a quivering mass of flesh I decide to do something that I haven’t done is quite some time. I start examining my body. Closely, looking at all the things that I have noticed over the years, making sure they are all still there and that nothing new has shown up to say hi. I spent a good thirty minutes there in the silence of the bathroom, looking at every part of my body that I could see with the shower mirror. Taking the time to thoroughly clean every inch of me took some focus and therefore made me stop thinking about feeling off.

Don’t get me wrong, I shower daily, sometimes twice a day, but they are always those quick down and dirty navy showers: get in, get wet, get soapy, rinse, get out. We don’t always spend time on ourselves. Like I need to tell you that… you know.

So there I was completely clean, every inch of my body had been examined and scrubbed, and I still felt grimy and off. I couldn’t figure it out, so I stand back up, pull the plug out of the tub and turn the showerhead back on. Not very much hot water left, so I have to finish up quickly. I brush my teeth thinking maybe I still feel weird because there is film on my teeth or something. Nope. I turn so the showerhead is behind me and I put my head under the flow. Running my hands through my hair I then think maybe I should wash my hair. I get the shampoo and pour a dollop into my hand, spreading it evenly over both my hands. I then start massaging the shampoo into my scalp working up a rich thick lather. I also shampoo my beard, thinking it wouldn’t hurt. When I stick my head back under the showerhead I start to feel better. I rinse my face and my hair and run my hands through it again. Not quite there yet, so I grab the conditioner and repeat the lather getting my beard in the process. I stand still for a couple minutes letting the water sooth me and letting the conditioner take full effect.

As soon as I leaned my head back I felt it. That was it. That was what was making me feel grimy. I know it sounds cheesy and silly, but I really felt like those women on the shampoo commercials. I ran my hands through my soft, clean, radiant hair and I smiled. Seriously, I smiled like I was having an orgasm from a good shampoo. Ridiculous.

When I got out of the shower my chills were gone. The slight haze that had settled unconsciously over my vision was gone. I felt refreshed and focused. I don’t feel off anymore, and damn I am hungry. So I guess the point of the story is this, if you are feeling off take a good long hot bath/shower, spend a little time with yourself, and have a really good shampoo.

My Oscar Prediction 2008

As many of you know I am a bit obsessive about movies. I know, as many have put it, way WAY WAY too much about movies. I can name a movie just by the suggestion of a plot or an actor whose face was familiar from that other movie... So every year as the Oscars approach I like to make my predictions. I have been right on some years (Thank you Unforgiven) and way off base other years (damn you Russell Crow and Reese Witherspoon!!). And yet like it's some addiction, (cinephiles anonymous?) I cant seem to help myself from saying who should win and why, so, I'll just go ahead and call it for this year: And the winner is...

Best Picture: Atonement, Juno, Michael Clayton, No Country for Old Men, There Will be Blood.

Winner: There Will be Blood
Why: The unique and interesting view the filmmakers took to make this movie helps it stand alone in this category. It is not just a movie that you go and watch. It is an experience. The way sound and music are used to tell the story give us new angles and view points to make films. It is this innovation that will be awarded. Plus it doesn't hurt that Paul Thomas Anderson has given us very unique and groundbreaking films twice before with Boogie Nights and Magnolia.
Dark Horse: Juno, In this country at this time there is already so much violence, mistrust and anger, the voting academy might just decide to go with Juno because of it's ability to bring brevity and humor to a troubling social issue.

Best Actor: George Clooney, Daniel Day-Lewis, Johnny Depp, Tommy Lee Jones, Viggo Mortensen

Winner: Daniel Day-Lewis
Why: Day-Lewis IS the greatest living actor. He already has one best actor statue for My Left Foot, and he has been nominated 4 times for this award. He is a method actor which means when he takes a role, he becomes that person. For anyone who has seen any of his movies he is virtually unrecognizable from one role to the next. He is a true artist with his craft. As for his competition, Clooney wont win because the movie just doesn't warrant it for him. He did a great job with the movie, but mostly he just stood still while most of the impressive acting was happening around him. Depp wont win because it was just so grim, and for all those academy voters who saw the Broadway show before the movie, the film fell flat with a dull thud. Tommy Lee and Viggo both wont win because of... wait... what was that movie?
Dark Horse: Tommy Lee Jones, First time in the leading role category, he could win it as a nod to a distinguished career. Johnny could walk with it because he deserves it (five times over, at that). But he wont win because he is young and we are still expecting more.

Best Actress: Cate Blanchett, Julie Christie, Marion Cotillard, Laura Linney, Ellen Page

Winner:Laura Linney
Why: Laura Linney is a versatile actress who has turned in some amazing turns as women just hanging on. She has been nominated for an Oscar three times in seven years, and has a solid resume of well reviewed and highly lauded movies. She is an Academy Darling that the academy has never rewarded. This may be her year just because of that reason. Cate Blanchett was nominated because she deserved the Oscar for Elizabeth 1 and was kind of robbed in the opinions of some voters by Gwyneth Paltrow. This nomination is their way of saying sorry for that slight, but she is not going to win, not with a supporting statue at home and a possible second supporting statue that night. Ellen Page gave a great performance as Juno, but lets be real, it's her second run out the gate (if you don't count X-men 3), and she is bound to give us something more amazing. Julie Christie, could win the elderly statesmen vote, and she has been up for this award four times, winning once, but I just don't think she will get it this time either. The Academy figures give her a few more years (she is only 67 after all) and they will give her a lifetime achievement award.
Dark Horse: Marion Cotillard, This is actually who I think should win. I mean I love Laura Linney and everything, but Marion Cotillard gave the most amazing performance of the year as Edith Piaf. The academy does love to reward the ability to perfectly mimic a public figure (Jamie Foxx as Ray, Cate Blanchett as Catherine Hepburn, etc...), the only downfall is that this movie came out in theatres to a limited release in June and was on shelves by Thanksgiving, and most people have never heard of it.

Best Supporting Actor: Casey Affleck, Javier Bardem, Phillip Seymore Hoffman, Hal Holbrook, Tom Wilkinson.

Winner: Hal Holbrook
Why: Holbrook has been a constantly working actor for over 54 years, and this is his first trip to the Kodak Theater. That alone could win him the Oscar. In his brief time on screen in Into the Wild he created a fully formed old man with a lifetime of woe that broke our hearts and made us want to call our fathers and grandfathers, not a small feat for just a few minutes on screen. To put it in perspective, this man has been a working actor in Hollywood longer than 3 of his co-nominees have been alive, and he made his tv debut when Tom Wilkinson was 6. I think he will win it so the academy doesn't have to give him a lifetime achievement award in a couple years. Casey Affleck, first time out the gate on his own in a movie that no one saw. Phillip Seymore Hoffman just won an Oscar, and this performance was no where near as good as that one. Tom Wilkinson has been nominated twice before and not won, and though he is an Oscar caliber actor and should be rewarded with a statue, it wont be for this movie.
Dark Horse: Javier Bardem, Although Bardem is the favorite to win this race, I think that the killer balloon has popped. Bardem has been nominated before for Before Night Falls, his performance in that movie was amazing and electric, and he should have won. I don't think he will win because like William Hurt in A History of Violence, they are after all, just another killer.

Best Supporting Actress: Cate Blanchett, Ruby Dee, Saoirse Ronan, Amy Ryan, Tilda Swinton

Winner: Tilda Swinton
Why: Watching the physical reactions on Swintons face in this movie tells a story onto itself. Looking at this list of candidates, Swinton gave the most impactful performance of the group. The confrontation and subsequent break down at the end of Michael Clayton is breathtaking and the stuff of academy voters dreams. She provided in that one scene more emotion than all her competitors combined. Blanchett won this award two years ago and her votes this year are going to be split between two races essentially counting her out of both. Ruby Dee, was on and off the screen within minutes, had little to do with the story, and was not missed through the rest of the film, strong performance, but not enough. Saoirse Ronan can be discounted by age alone, but also because she wasn't very nice in the movie and she was gone for half of it.
Dark Horse:Amy Ryan could walk with it. She has made a successful career playing one name characters (neighbor with toddler in War of the Worlds), and honing her craft both in small supporting roles and on the stage. This could be considered by many as her breakout roll. That could help and hurt her. For those that have heard of her, she has their votes shored up. For those that haven't seen her face somewhere before... she is just another filler name.

Best Director: Paul Thomas Anderson, Ethan and Joel Cohen, Tony Gilroy, Jason Reitman, Julian Schmabel

Winner: Joel & Ethan Coen
Why: The Coen Brothers have been nominated for 8 academy awards between the two of them, having only won best original screenplay for Fargo. People are not lying when they say that the brothers are back in form. It also doesn't hurt that there are two of them. Don't put it past academy voters to see that opportunity. Why give a statue to one person when you can reward two? The Coens are also the most accomplished directors in the pool. Tony Gilroy made his Directing debut with Michael Clayton and voters will just assume he is off to a good start. Jason Reitman, son of famed director Ivan Reitman has to prove he is more than just his fathers son, and Paul Thomas Anderson is young and going to giving us much more.
Dark Horse:Julian Schnabel has a huge following of very vocal supporters. And well he should have. It was Schnabel's Before Night Falls that brought Bardem to American screens for the first time. He also made one of the most beautiful and praised movies about an artist in the last two decades with Basquiat. It has been said that while Schnabel was a mediocre artist, when he steps behind the camera he creates something truly magnificent.

Best Original Screenplay: Ratatouille, Juno, Michael Clayton, The Savages, Lars and the Real Girl

Winner: Juno
Why: Juno will win for the same reason that many of this categories former recipients won for, it wont win anything else. When there is a clear winner in the best picture race and it is an original screenplay than it will usually win this category also (ie. Shakespeare In Love, American Beauty, Crash), but if the Best Picture winner is an adaptation then this race goes to the little movie that could, but didn't (Little Miss Sunshine, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Sideways, Lost In Translation).
Dark Horse: Ratatouille. If by some freak voter malfunction Juno doesn't win, than my money is on Ratatouille. It was a cartoon sure, but it was wonderfully written and performed, and I think that it is a little movie that could, coming off the string of cartoon misses it worked for kids, adults and every age group in between.

Best Adapted Screenplay: There Will be Blood, No Country for Old Men, Atonement, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Away From Her

Winner: No Country for Old Men
Why: It will win because it has the most momentum and it is the front runner. This way the Coen brothers can walk away with four Oscars and that will put them out of the running for a few years.
Dark Horse:Away From Her. The Academy loves to reward actors for their writing (Emma Thompson, Billy Bob Thornton, Ben Affleck & Matt Damon, Sofia Coppola). And to say Sarah Polly hit it out of the ballpark on her first try is an understatement. She did an amazing job with the movie and gently guided Julie Christie to her fourth nomination in 42 years, I'm just not sure it will be enough.

Best Original Song: "Falling Slowly" from Once; "Raise It Up" from August Rush; "Happy Working Song", "So Close", & "That's How You Know" from Enchanted

Winner: "Falling Slowly" from Once
Why: This entire movie was a beautiful musical journey spinning the tale of how a beautiful love song gets written. There is amazing chemistry between the singers who fell in love making the movie, and the song soars with emotion.
Dark Horse: Nominating multiple songs from one movie is tricky. In the late 80's and early 90's when Disney was in it's musical cartoon heyday, they pushed for multiple nods for The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, Beauty & The Beast and Aladdin and won each time. But when Dreamworks tried the same tactic for Dreamgirls last year they fell flat on their faces. I think it will happen again, but if I am wrong, I would have to say "Happy Working Song" wins.

Best Foreign Language Film:Beaufort, The Counterfeiters, Katyn, Mongol, 12

Winner:Mongol
Dark Horse:Beaufort

Best Documentary Feature: No End in Sight, Operation Homecoming, Sicko, Taxi to the Dark Side, War/Dance

Winner:Taxi to the Dark Side
Dark Horse: Sicko

Best Documentary Short: Freeheld, La Corona, Salim Baba, Sari's Mother

Winner:Salim Baba
Dark Horse: Sari's Mother

Bets Animated Feature: Persepolis, Ratatouille, Surf's Up

Winner: Persepolis
Dark Horse: Ratatouille

Best Animated Short: I Met the Walrus, Madame Tuti-Putli, Even Pigeons go to Heaven, My Love, Peter & The Wolf

Winner: Even Pigeons go to Heaven
Dark Horse: Peter & The Wolf

Best Cinematography: Atonement, Diving Bell & The Butterfly, No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

Winner: Atonement
Dark Horse: No Country for Old Men

Best Visual Effects: The Golden Compass, Pirates of the Caribbean III, Transformers

Winner: Transformers
Dark Horse: Pirates of the Caribbean III

Best Live Action Short: At Night, The Substitute, The Mozart of Pickpockets, Tanghi Argentini, The Tonto Woman

Winner: At Night
Dark Horse: The Tonto Woman

Best Art Direction: American Gangster, Atonement, The Golden Compass, Sweeney Todd, There Will Be Blood

Winner: There Will Be Blood
Dark Horse: American Gangster

Best Costume Design: Across the Universe, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Atonement, La Vie en Rose, Sweeney Todd

Winner: Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Dark Horse: Atonement

Best Film Editing: The Bourne Ultimatum, Diving Bell & The Butterfly, Into the Wild, No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood

Winner: The Bourne Ultimatum
Dark Horse: Into the Wild

Best Sound Mixing: The Bourne Ultimatum, No Country for Old Men, Ratatouille, 3:10 to Yuma, Transformers

Winner: No Country for Old Men
Dark Horse: Ratatouille

Best Sound Editing: The Bourne Ultimatum, No Country for Old Men, Ratatouille, There Will Be Blood, Transformers

Winner: There Will Be Blood
Dark Horse: Ratatouille

Best Original Score: Atonement, The Kite Runner, Michael Clayton, Ratatouille, 3:10 to Yuma

Winner: Atonement
Dark Horse: The Kite Runner

Best Makeup: La Vie en Rose, Norbit, Pirates of the Caribbean III

Winner: La Vie en Rose
Dark Horse: Norbit

I love you in secret

I met you some years ago in a crowded bar
You said hello and smiled, and it lit up the dark
You stood happy beside me for the entire night
I knew it was perfect, things were finally right

Your lover was near but just far enough away
For me to pretend that you were mine for a day
I dreamed up a romance and gave you the lead part
But kept it locked safely in the deep of my heart

As the years ticked by slowly, my secret grew dim
I knew in my bones that you would always love him
I loved you in secret letting our friendship grow
I guarded my heart, so that you would never know

Yours was the model love I compared others to
But all fell short, I must have been waiting for you
A few short months ago, your relationship died
It was time to show you, no more reason to hide

But in my soul, an echo that cant be unheard
You loved him completely, no matter how I yearned
The model betrays me, I can't love you in fear
I'll love you in secret, so I can keep you near

-Shane Joseph Kroll

Hootchie on the Hood

Okay, so I live near the beach....

All the dust, the drunks, the tourists exhaust, the noise, you name it! But hey I wouldn't live anywhere else!!!

SO yeah my car is dirty all the time and I hear it from my friends, my roomies and everyone all the time... "why don't you wash it", blah blah blah!! And sure everyones seen the "wash me" signs that people devilishly write on cars from time to time..

But really?? THIS WAS NO WAY, NO HOW! A COOL WAY TO FORCE ME TO WASH MY CAR and make me late for WORK!!!!! WITH MY ROOMIES LAUGHING - HAR HAR WHY WASH IT! IT'S PRICELESS

WAS THIS REALLY NECESSARY you cocky sons of bitches???

THIS IS MY CAR, NOT YOUR BED!!!!! RRRRRRRRRR!!!!!

Life in Cartoon Motion

My Country Tis of Whine: part 2

This was the only response letter published by the BAR in response to my chorus' song "Magic Snow" at the Castro Theater Christmas Eve:

'Magic Snow' keeps falling

Arthur Bosse of the National Council on Alcoholism and other Drug Addictions, and Kim Grubbs, a clinician, wrote to you of their dismay at the Lesbian/Gay Chorus of San Francisco having performed a comic piece, "Magic Snow," in their set at the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus 9 p.m. "Home for the Holidays" concert on Christmas Eve. Apparently, they each feel they possess the wisdom and judgment to determine what audience members should and shouldn't hear at a concert. I think maybe they're just sanctimonious poops who need to find something more important to focus their attention on than comedy bits.

I, too, am a clinician, and I treat patients with addictions, including to cocaine of both the powder and crack variety. I am also domestically partnered with a psychiatrist who is chief medical officer of a major addiction treatment provider. I am well aware of the pain and destruction caused by all addictions. I can tell you that I have not, in the past decade at least, encountered anyone who doesn't have a strong sense that cocaine is a dangerous and destructive drug – not any clinicians, addicts, or lay people. I really don't think that anyone in the audience came away from the concert with the thought that cocaine really must be okay if the LGCSF sang a funny song about it.

As a clinician, I am also aware that humor is an adaptive and high-level defense, an indicator of cognitive flexibility and perspective. It was very foolish of Bosse and Grubbs to have had (apparently) a humorectomy. Lord preserve us from these folks who go around declaiming the right, good, and acceptable for the rest of us. They belong in the same class of people who want to tell us what we should do in our bedrooms and who we should love: different complaint content, same tedious social dynamic.

Asa DeMatteo, Ph.D.

the death of a Laureate

Dear Governor,

I am writing this letter to you this afternoon to voice my deepest regret. I voted for you.

I believed that you would be a great leader because you didn’t need to be. I believed that you would be the voice of the people of California without bowing to the whim of what’s popular. I voted for you because at the heart of it all, I believe in the capacity of men to govern themselves fairly and to honor our diversity and traditions, while solidly leading us toward unity.

Today you lost my vote.

I am not angry at you. I understand that you have been under a lot of pressure about what to do about Stanley “Tookie” Williams. I hoped that in your heart you would do what is right. Don’t misunderstand me; I am not an advocate of revoking the death penalty. I do not pretend to know if it is best for our society or our country. What I do know, is that it is possible for you to grant clemency to someone who deserves it. I understand that you weighed all the evidence, and that it was a hard decision for you to make. But this is why you have lost my vote: You let the good of the few outweigh the good of the many.

In the case of Mr. Williams you have decreed that a man be put to death. The death penalty was given due to the severity of the crimes that Mr. Williams was found guilty of. The families of those murdered by Mr. Williams long for revenge in the guise of justice, and I am not one to say they should not have their revenge. But in this case there is something rare and unique.

It is something that has often been on the lips of Republicans and Democrats alike. Rehabilitation. For a long time people have been debating if it is worth trying to rehabilitate prison inmates. This man, Mr. Williams, has been rehabilitated. What you failed to take into consideration when making your decision is the fact that Mr. Williams has spent the better part of the last twenty years in prison helping people. And this is the point, he has written books for children to keep them from making the same decisions in life that he made. He has contributed to society in a way that few have before him. He learned from his mistakes and used that knowledge to the betterment of society. He has been nominated multiple times for one of the world’s highest honors: the Nobel Prize for Literature.

In your decision today to deny clemency to Mr. Williams, you have shown the people of California, you have shown me, that you are not capable of doing what is in our best interest. You have made a bad decision, and it will not only cost a man his life, but it will cost the world. We are a world that needs his guidance, sorrow, experience, and wisdom, to help us understand this still constant problem of how to keep our children from making his mistakes.

The families of those who Mr. Williams murdered will be grateful for your decision today. As for the rest of us, you will not be granted clemency for this decision.

With sorrow and humility,

Shane J. Kroll

Dear TV Producers...

Dear Entertainment Weekly,


I read your latest issue and really enjoyed the article by Jeff Jensen "Are you killing TV?" He really did a good job at presenting the reasons the Television Industry thinks that the ratings are going downhill.

As an avid tv watcher, I would like to throw my two cents in as well. I think that there are three major problems that the industry is failing to take into account.

First, Technology. Yes we have come a long way baby... and it doesn't look like we will be slowing down anytime soon. DVR's and DVD's are the way of the future. I wont even watch live tv anymore because of all the commercials. I know it is how they make their money, but I think that it might be time to catch up to the changing technology. Time to be more inventive, try something new. For example, if people are only tuning in for the show and fast forwarding through the commercials, why not scrap the commercials all together and get your advertisers to do product placement. Take the futuristic example given in "The Truman Show", they never cut to commercial, but everything on the show is product placement.

Second, Hiatuses, breaks and reruns. Yeah, got it, you need them, the actors need them and all that... But you will continue to lose viewers. The networks need to come up with a new system
for this. Especially when it comes to the long breaks. Sorry, no matter how you explain it, 12 weeks is too long. The networks are stuck in this archaic system that says we only watch our favorite tv shows at certain points during the year. It's crap, we all know it. I watch tv all year round so it begs the question: Why wouldn't you do year round programming? You leave the summer months to repeats and bad reality tv and take 12 week breaks in the middle of a season. That is why cable networks consistently beat out public access networks with programming. If they were serious about fixing ratings slumps, why would they wait to introduce 18 new shows in the fall? You already have a fall line up, put something new and original on during the summer.

Third, Consistency. I have been watching tv since I can remember. And the one thing that has been missing for at least the last decade is consistency. Let me explain; when I was growing up, I knew when all my favorite shows were on. I didn't have to go searching for them. They didn't change every season. They were at the same time, every year, and you know what... I watched them. Every week. The networks are trying everything they can to figure out why viewership has been on a slow decline for years, well maybe we are tired of all your changes. I used to watch Greys Anatomy every Sunday, but now I only watch it on tivo because, like most of America, I have things to do on weekday evenings.

Stop moving things around and stop giving shows half a season to make it or break it. An easy solution for them is to give up the idea that a tv season has to cover a certain period of time. The only reason I can think of that they need to spread one show out from September to June is because of the sweeps races. Which were created by who? Advertisers? Put a show on in September, let it run it's 22 episode course without repeats and when it is over put on another 22 episode show. That takes care of 10 months of programming. Then with the last two months put out some shorter series like Bravo's "30 Days" whose first season was only 8 episodes.

That is the long and short of it... The networks don't give shows a real chance, they rely too much on ratings (which is a defunct system that I wont go into now), bowing to the whim of advertisers and instant gratification (it must be a success in the first 5 episodes or it's canceled). If they want people to tune it, than they need to keep things regular. Put a show on, keep it on for a few years and stop moving it around.

Well, I know this letter wont be published because of length, but I just had to voice my thoughts. Keep up all the good work you guys at EW do. And keep my bible coming!!!

Yours,

Shane Kroll