A Season of Sequels

I've put a lot of thought into this and I think the hubris of the evil Galactic Empire is best exemplified through the second Death Star, the one that was under construction in 1983's Return of the Jedi.

Yes, this is what I do in my spare time. Choke on it.

Think about it. The Battle of Yavin (where the first Death Star was destroyed - duh!) took place only a few short years before the debut (and subsequent destruction) of the second Death Star (Battle of Endor). With the Empire's defeat at Yavin, which, remember, was so very catastrophic and unexpected that Grand Moff Tarkin refused even considering evacuation AND where the only survivor of the roughly 1.5 million on-board escaped by accident, you would think that the Empire would have applied those "leassons-learned" to their super-weapon design in the future.

No sir. They just built a bigger mousetrap, because that was really the biggest problem with the first Death Star: it was about 7 times too small a target. And as everyone knows, a gigantic two meter exhaust vent was a little too excessive. I mean if an untrained farmboy could hit it with a proton torpedo well... So they decided to fix that by...wait a minute...they still had gigantic shafts that led through the superstructure of the space-station? Right to its volatile easily-explodable core? Big enough to fly freighters through?!? Aw for Pete's sake!

So the Empire just kept chugging along with nary a thought of changing course in spite of overwhelming evidence that it would be good to change everything about what went wrong before. Wait for it...

Hang on. It even kinda looks like the unfinished second Death Star. Weird.

I've been at it again. I should have known that once Meridth pointed out during the last debacle I had with the dreaded McZoo that I'd be better served if I had a McRib instead of mere bacon to represent pork, I'd have to try it again...this time at full magnitude! So there I was again, eyes resting upon those sundry cartons, each a small treasure chest of cardiac distress. Each taunting me, ever taunting!

NEVERMORE!

They really forced my hand with this one. November was McRib month. For the first time in many years the McRib would be available nationwide (and I mean WIDE) at your local neighborhood McDonalds. It wasn't going to last though. Just a narrow window to squeeze my engorged body through to become one of the elite: a Full-on McZoo veteran.

So I engaged the target.

Ugh! Unbelievable!

That photo says it all, the greasy discarded bread discs, still glistening with unholy nectar. I can't believe I'm finding myself here again. What is wrong with me?!? There has to be some support group for this...



So let's do the math: that's a 1/3 pound Angus burger at the bottom, then the McRib patty, a grilled chicken slab, and a Fillet-o-the-Fish on top. And a red onion. For flair. It may seem incongruous to the entire spirit of this ill-advised exercise to select the grilled chicken in lieu of its fried and breaded brethren. I admit, it's the road less traveled.

Fast-food and a Robert Frost reference. Who loves ya baby?

And brother, that made all the difference. Meridth asked me at half-time how it tasted and I was (and am) ashamed to say it's extraordinarily delicious. So much better than the McZoo I. I'm forced to conclude that it is because the Fillet-o-your-Fish and the southern-style fried chicken I had with the first McZoo simply overloaded the grease-center of the taste-bundle at the apex of my spinal column. (I looked it up on wikipedia.) This time around with the Fillet-o-Phish as the sole "breaded/fried" entrant, I got the blendation of greasy-beefy, sauced-an-mold-injected, faux-healthy and breaded/fried. It's all about balance, friend.

Yep, balance. It's the peak-level yoga position of meals, right there.

Am I going to hell for this? Maybe. Between all the factory-farm terror, the oppression of the hispanophonic McDonalds workers required to bring me the meal, the amount of exercise I will have to (and already have had to) do to purge my roller-coaster -ride of a body AND the remote possibility that some impressionable thing will read this blog-entry and foolishly try to emulate, or worse still, to top my absurd quest for gonzo-food creation...

Hey kids! Why not top your favorite pizza with MORE PIZZA?!?

...there's certainly a case to be made for my infernal eternal rest. That being said, I regret nothing.

And will never ever do this again.

Why I Need Meridth: A Gonzo Tale

When Meridth isn't around I have the tendency to go off the rails just a bit. When she was in NYC for the summer of 2006 I watched all three (at the time) Terminator movies back to back to back, had a severe case of food poisoning, worked 60 hours a week, ate 1500 Otter Pops and ran seven miles every morning. It was a gonzo summer. Suffice it to say that Meridth centers me in an important stabilizing way and when she's gone, things tend to become pear-shaped, like an ill-formed lump of clay on a potter's wheel...


...which leads us to this peculiar photograph. What is it? What does it mean? What does it have to do with my dignity? It's simple really...


BEHOLD THE McZOO!!

Yes, like the cast-off cigarette butts tossed aside by the wheezing emphysemic, these buns are the husks lesft over in the construction of this...this...monstrosity...this abomination. What is it you ask? What drives a man to so alter the natural constitution of the 'burger' phenotype? What was its unholy aim? It's an elegant theory actually...like the ancients in their construction of the Tower of Babel, I only sought to reach the heavens of deliciousness by melding all the varieties of animal flesh offered on the McDonalds menu into one Voltron-like mountain of meat. How could this be a sin?


So one Saturday last month I rolled up to the drive through and ordered one Third Pound Angus Bacon Cheeseburger, one Chicken Selects Chicken Sandwich, and one Fillet-o-Fish...

(Meridth: "It would have been cooler AND grosser if you had the McRib." Edward: "Don't I know it, but you have to work with what's available and Bacon = Pig. Good enough for me.")


Looking at them all just sitting there with their accusing stares was intimidating. Like the Tell-Tale Heart, I was consumed with madness. Working swiftly and with surgical precision I deconstructed the sandwiches, unveiling their meaty cores and combined them, knitting flesh-to-flesh like a culinary Doctor Frankenstein. And the result was no less monstrous and incapable of being loved.


In his epistle to the Romans, Paul called me out as one of the "inventors of evil things" chasing that stupendous and gonzo line between culinary genius and coronary disaster. I ask you: what was the result?


I was so preoccupied with whether or not I could combine so many different meats, I never stopped to think if I should!

Next month I'm going to try to stick two pieces of each type of meat on one sandwich and call it the McNoah's Ark.

DVD Review: "Zombieland"

I'm sure some of you are belaboring under the delusion that I am a 'big fan' of the zombie subgenera. While I am genuinely appreciative of the various gifts and brik-a-brak that some of you may or may not have given me because you think I love zombies, the truth is that I'm incredibly picky about which zombie movies I love, particularly since we are suffering through a glut of zombie-related media. It seems you can't throw a rock and not hit one of these shambling menaces. To tell the truth, I only 'love' two zombie films - the original 1968 'Night of the Living Dead' and 2004's unrelentingly perfect 'Shaun of the Dead,' if anyone is keeping track - although I have a certain appreciation for sundry other examples in the subgenera - the original 1978 'Dawn of the Dead' comes to mind. I know I shouldn't love you; you insult my intelligence and belittle my taste, and yet...

So I guess it goes without saying that I came into last year's 'Zombieland' with some skepticism. I mean as far as zombie-related comedies go, 'Shaun of the Dead' was certainly the exception that proved the rule. It took the combined talent of Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and (not pictured) Edgar Wright to pull of the unprecedented mix of hilarity, poignancy and violence. If it took the combined Voltron-esque talent of that calibre to produce a zombie-comedy, what chance did shoe-gazer Jesse Eisenberg have? I saw the unfortunately-similarly-titled movie 'Adventureland' and hated it. And frankly, I was more than a little concerned that 'Zombieland' would quickly devolve into an example of the death-of-narrative-cinema, just showing clever kill after clever kill. What I didn't realize is that Woody Harrelson was swinging for the fences with this one. His manic 'Tallahassee' is like a previously-unknown loony-toon packing more heat than Yosamite Sam by a long shot. And it's not a stretch to say that Woody digs deep in this role with an emotional twinge that holds that note just long enough and then tosses out a fine 'Titanic' joke. Well-played, sir!Mr. Harrelson swinging for the aforementioned fences.

I was not displeased with the two female leads and, although the basic conception of their characters was refreshing, they were given surprisingly little to do, and in the end suffer from an unfortunate case of damsel-in-distress syndrome. Oh well.

Now the film deploys a number of tactical gambits which I imperfectly but not inaccurately will describe as 'gimmicks.' (They aren't 'gimmicky' per se but they are certainly not seamlessly integrated.) One is the appearance on-screen of the written text of a number of rules for surviving the zombie plague. The character of Jesse Eisenberg will relate these rules via a voice-over and the text will appear on screen. It's ironic, because my wife and I have been catching up on the JJ Abrams tv show 'Fringe' and one of the only real problems we have with the show is the appearance of 3D words hovering over the establishing shots describing the location. It's almost the same typeface used by 'Zombieland' and yet, I found it amusing in the movie. It was a small sign or indicator of the tone of 'Zombieland.' And I suppose that's the best I could say for this movie: don't over-think it. It's droll, a bit random, and good. Genuinely entertaining.

As for the other noticeable gimmick, the less you hear about it the better, suffice it to say it's an unexpected cameo. And it's comedy gold. "Whoa there, hold on. Is that hombre giving out spoilers to OUR movie?!?"

So there you go. It's a solid movie, well worth your time. Does it have much gore? No, not more than your average action movie. There is a bit of questionable content in the opening credits that nets the film it's 'R' rating (along with its proclivity for profanity) but it's an isolated incident and you ought not let it change your mind. Unless you like lady-zombies, in which case your mind oughta be changed, weirdo.

But if you're looking for a zombie drama, just as a last aside with regard to zombie media I do lovelovelove, I can't recommend Max Brooks' 'World War Z' highly enough. It's available in paperback and a smashing full-cast audiobook edition (featuring the talents of Mark Hamill and Henry Rollins. Together at last!) and, rumor has it Brad Pitt's production company has acquired the film rights, so get on-board now and tell your friends you read it first.Don't know why I should shill for amazon.com but click here to order the paperback. Best ten bucks you're gonna spend today.