Shooting From The Dick

(with no apologies to Mike Lupica)

Our research indicates that putting the word dick in the title of a blog post increases readership by up to 75%, which in our case means an additional 3 readers...

"Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less."
-- Samuel Johnson, 1709-84

So I see where Mitt Romney finally gave up the chase, throwing his considerable heft behind frontrunner John McCain. In fact, Romney pledged all his delegates would now vote for McCain at the Republican convention. All six of them.
Now that Romney has dropped out of the presidential race, the five fighting Romney Boys can sign up with the U.S. military for the fight against Islamo-Fascism that Candidate Mitt has been beating the war drums for -- after all, the Romney Sons are no longer busy campaigning for the old man. I guess as long as it's other dads' kids doing the fighting in the latest war to save civilization, no need to get their hands dirty. Or bloody. Or blown off. Wouldn't make for very good photo ops at the next family volleyball game. George Bush Sr. also is officially supporting McCain. About eight years too late to save not only the country but the rest of the planet from the ruinous consequences of his own deranged scion, I'm afraid.

Saw where Obama visited Edwards at his North Carolina house over the weekend. Gee, I wonder who John Edwards is gonna endorse. He has a better chance of supporting Mike Huckabee than Hillary at this point.

With Edwards, my original choice, out now, I'm going for Barrack Obama. I think Obama would win in a landslide over McCain, but if Hillary was the candidate, given she has more baggage than Samsonite, it would be a much closer face-off once the full weight of the right wing echo machine is brought to bear down on Clinton.

The only way the Democrats were gonna lose this thing is by beating themselves. Hillary is a virtual blueprint for the Republicans; without her they stood no chance going into the fall. McCain is really Bob Dole with a newer war story. The difference is in '96 Clinton had yet to be tainted by scandal, whereas in '08, there's a lot of film on Mrs. Clinton, if you will -- with most if not all of it negative to millions of potential voters...

"I've got great respect for Sen. McCain, great respect, but I don't like the way Republicans have taken this country. Every time I hear the word 'conservative,' it makes me sick to my stomach, because they're really just fake Christians, as I call them. That's all they are.

I think they want to be judge and jury. Like, I'm for gay marriage. It's none of my business if gay people want to get married. I'm pro-choice. And I think these Christians, first of all, they're not supposed to judge other people. But they're the most hypocritical judge of people we have in the country. And it bugs the hell out of me. They act like they're Christians. They're not forgiving at all."
-- Charles Barkley, 1963-present

Dallas Mavericks getting a motivated Jason Kidd back in mega-trade with New Jersey has to give them a leg up in getting out of the Western Conference once the playoffs start.

One weird offshoot of the trade sends one-time Net Keith Van Horn back to New Jersey. Who knew he was still in the league? Turns out he wasn't. He was retired but evidently not officially.

Now, I'm not making this up -- and why would I -- but I had a dream the other night, maybe last night, where Van Horn went into the stands and beat the hell out of a guy who was heckling him. Actually, the fan was right under the basket with his young kid, and after a string of obscenities hurled at Van Horn, he just lost it and hit the guy with a bunch of punches. I don't know what to make of the dream, just glad there were no sexual overtones in it. But probably not nearly as glad as you all are.

Rented three terrific movies over the last week or so: Art School Confidential, Waitress and Interview ... all kinda indie movies of fairly recent vintage, each unique in its own way, and highly recommended. In fact, I watched Art School twice before returning it, although the second time was over Bob & Holly's apartment.

When I picked up Art School I didn't even know it was directed by Terry Zwigoff, who it turns out directed two of my all-time favorite films: Crumb and Ghost World. Now add this to that panetheon, because it's that good.

Waitress was directed by the late Adrienne Shelley, who was murdered in her own NYC apartment last year. It stars her as well as Cheryl Hines, Keri Russell and Andy Griffith, the tale of a smalltown diner and some characters who intersect there. Man, I gotta tell you I lost it at the end there, not only because of the story itself, which is quite moving, but just knowing that this was the last film Shelley would be in. If you are not feeling a little kerplect there at the end, I almost feel sorry for your lack of sentimentality, which apparently is quite fashionable these days. In the end, you might say Waitress is kind of what a Lifetime Original Movie would be like if was directed by someone like Hal Hartley.

Interview is really just that: the story of a jaded journalist forced to interview a young Lindsay Lohan-type celebutard. Steve Buscemi directs and plays the journalist, with Sienna Miller quite good as the self-involved starlet. But conventions and preconceptions are turned on their head and then back again, as is the definition of voyeurism. I really dug the way this film effectively opened up a whole world as it played out in real time. It's stupid to rate movies in my opinion, but let's just say I didn't want the movie to end when it did, and would've been happy with another hour or so of Buscemi and Miller going at it.

More Pearls of Wisdom from Sir Charles:
"They've got what we call 'fuck-you' money. Stephon Marbury makes $20 million a year ... so he'll always do things his way."