Not coming soon to your Non-Fiction section...

"... After the big blowout in Roddenberry's office, the mood on the set was subdued. Shortly afterwards, Shatner came up to me when we broke for lunch.

"Hey, George.", he said. "How's things?"

"Fine, I guess.", I replied.

Bill looked uncomfortable. "Say, George. About that fight you and Gene had in his office..."

"Um, yeah?"

Bill squirmed awkwardly. "Er, this isn't any of my business, I realize, but... George, are you-?". He paused.

I regarded him warily. Bill and I's working relationship was friendly but somewhat formal up to this point.

"Gay, Bill? Is that what you want to know?"

Bill shook his head nervously, waving the answer off.

"Um, really, George?"

I folded my arms, preparing for another confrontation. I wasn't about to let Shatner push me around.

"Yes, Bill. I'm gay. Don't tell me after all this time you didn't know? I mean, come on! Remember last year's wrap party? When I got blitzed on all those vodka martinis and started singing show tunes?"

Shatner winced.

"Um, George, I just wanted to say, it's okay with me if you are. I know I've gotten a rep on the set for being a overly macho jerk, and...and I just didn't want you to start thinking I was going to be rude or abusive towards you."

Well! Seems Shatner had a heart, after all!

"Er, okay. Thanks, Bill. I guess."

"Are we cool, then?"

"Sure." He sighed, relieved.

"Just one more thing?-"

"What?"

"George. Have- have you ever thought of me in a sexual way? I mean, do you find me sexually attractive?"

"WHAT?!"

"I mean, have you ever wanted to have sex with me?"

I regarded him with a blank stare.

"No, Bill. I can't ever say that I have." Bill's shoulders slumped a bit.

"Oh. Okay, George. See you later." He walked off the set with a demoralized air. This was one of the factors behind my taking the pivotal role of the South Vietnamese captain in "The Green Berets"...

-From George Takei's forthcoming biography, "I'm Here, I'm Sulu, Get Used To It!" from Notarealpublishingcompany Press.
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"...It was my last client's 'action's' that influenced my decision. I had him bound in my dungeon, begging for release. After his pleas of eternal fidelity, I graciously freed his right hand so he could 'pleasure' himself over my latex boot.

"Ohhhhh...", he gasped, as he ejaculated, ropy, yellowish goo spurting forth. Just then, the pipe cleaner I had earlier inserted popped out from his urethra like a length of pipe from an oil derrick that's struck 'black gold'.

"My goodness, Slave!", I purred. "You've got quite a powerful-" My speech was cut short by the subsequent eruption of all the Monopoly game tokens from the same orifice. They landed on the cold floor with a dull tink! one after the other.

I stammered. "I- I didn't put any Monopoly tokens up your-" In the ensuing moments, This forty-three year old project manager had ejaculated not just the pipe cleaner and six pewter game pieces, but half a Lego figure, several small marbles, and incredibly, a novelty miniature flashlight (still lit up!) , the smaller type you latch onto your key chain.

I tendered my resignation at Mistress Spank's House For Naughty Boys that very afternoon, and later, became the assistant manager at a moderately successful Starbucks coffee house in Lower Manhattan..."

-from "Now I've Seen Everything! Former Sex Workers oral history of why they left the business" by Totallymadeup Publishing.

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"...Mr. Cheney, sir?" I gulped. Mr. Cheney didn't like to get bad news.

"Well, out with it, man!", he snarled. "I won't tolerate urine-soaked vandalism's in front of my office! I need to know who peed the words, 'Dick Cheney is a fag' right there, in the fresh snow so I could obviously read it!

"Er, sir? The DNA analysis came back, and we did confirm that it is, indeed, Alberto Gonzales' urine." Mr. Cheney slumped down in his chair.

"That wetback ingrate-", he started to rant. I quickly interrupted.

"Sir, it gets worse." Cheney looked at me, aghast.

"Worse? Dear God, man! How can it get worse?"

"Our handwriting analysts indicate it's Lynne Cheney's handwriting."

The thing about Dick Cheney is, he doesn't cry like a normal person. No, he just stares off into space and makes little whimpering noises like a trapped rat..."

-From "You Don't Know Dick!" by Anonymous (a now-retired Secret Service employee) from PleaseohgoddontshipmeofftoGuantanemoBay Press.

T.V. Party tonight...

Penn and Teller's 'Bullshit!" (C+) Showtime cable show by Vegas 'post-modern' magicians Penn and Teller. It's half a debunking of pop mythologies like Bigfoot, psychics, and self-help programs. The other half is an endorsement of the Libertarian creed. Obviously, it's at its best in the former, and as for the latter part, well...

I'm of the belief that a Libertarian is just a Republican who reads too much Ayn Rand and smokes pot on the weekend, so I'm a little biased in terms of how I view this show. While their debunking of folk beliefs like psychics, pet-marketers (one show depicts a guy who sells silicone testicles to neutered dogs...) and the like is entertaining, in my case, they're preachin' to the choir. When Penn (the big loud guy who looks like he played a lot of D&D in high school) gets on the Libertarian soapbox, there's problems. Mainly 'cause they frame their cases in 'straw man' arguments...

Take, for example, the show that's pro-legalizing prostitution. On the most pragmatic level, it seems legalizing it would make a lot of sense. Sex workers would be a lot safer, their job would allow them access to health benefits and reduce the spread of venereal diseases (and possibly other bennies like pension plans), and the potential for pimps to exploit sex workers (and underage sex workers, particularly,) would drop like a stone. The thing is, in most cities, 'escort services' already provide a measure of control in that regard. ('cept for the pension plan thingy...) My understanding is the police usually turn a blind eye to escort services anyway, unless a disgruntled rival or former employee raises a stink. If we provide a controlled environment for sex workers to legally provide their services, while insisting they maintain a standard of cleanliness and sobriety, any sex workers who don't meet the criteria won't be allowed to work legitimately. However, you don't think for a minute someone who's got say, a drug habit to support isn't going to refrain from walking the streets, do you? The practical result is that any tentative experiments to legalize it in North America will end in failure; the puritans of the left and right will fight tooth and nail to stop it. All they have to do is show the facts that the sex workers most in need of protection, the diseased, the addicts, the just plain desperate, won't get the support that they need.

Well, I'm starting to rant, so I'd better wrap this up. In spite of my whinging, Penn and Teller are pretty entertaining in delivering their message. Overall, it's worth a look, especially if you're a Libertarian.

The Sarah Silverman Program (C+) Absurd sitcom depicting the day-to-day shenanigans of comic Sarah Silverman. The humour is derived from the fact her character is the most spoiled, selfish, egomanical, lazy person this side of Eric Cartman. The jokes are pretty hit-or-miss, mostly on the hit side. She's an appealing comic, though I'd like to see just once in the show to have one of the other characters rip on her for being such a jerk. As a "Mr. Show" fan, it's nice to see alumni like Brian Posehn and Jill Telley make appearances, though. (One character wears a 'Titanica' t-shirt.) For what it's worth, my favorite bit of hers that she ever did was on the movie, "The Aristocrats", where she relates the anecdote that her family came to fame performing the dreaded 'routine' of that venerable comic joke. Sarah reveals that Joe Frankin used to 'help' her over the more difficult bits, going so far as to stand in for Sarah's other family members...

"Joe Franklin RAPED me!"

Leni Reifenstahl's Bastard Grandkid

300 (C) I went in wanting to hate this movie, but it's too technically proficient for me to do so. On the other hand, my conscience won't let me rate it any higher than a 'C'. If I had to sum it up in a single sentence, I'd say that it's the type of film the fresh-faced teens from Paul Verhoven's "Starship Troopers" would be allowed to see as state-sanctioned entertainment.

Not that I think director Zack Snyder and writer Frank Miller are closet Nazis or anything like that. I believe that Miller's original intent was to pay tribute to the concept of ultimate sacrifice in a historical context, (the Spartan battle at the Hot Gates of Thermopylae) and Snyder saw an opportunity to shoot some wicked cool sword-and-sandal fight scenes in a CGI setting where he literally has dominion over every rock face and blade of grass in the film. The problem is, in the present context, the audience has no choice but to view this film as pro-Iraq war propaganda. And because Snyder and Miller ignore or gloss over some of the more unsavory aspects of classical Sparta, (state-sanctioned homosexuality and pederasty, Sparta's warrior elite supported by a massive Greek slave caste, the fact that the 'boy-loving, ho,ho' Athenians won the war at sea later.) the viewer has no choice but to come to this conclusion.

In the context of the film, King Leonidas' (Gerald Butler) sacrifice seems pointless, since the best he can hope for is to stall the Persians advance a few days. The film has an added sub-plot not in Miller's original comic about Queen Gorgo's (Lena Headly) attempt to rally the other Spartans to aid her husband. The thorn in her side in this case is a Spartan diplomat who's made a deal with the Persians behind everyone's back to undermine the Spartan defense. Interesting to note, he's got a little hipster-left-wing soul patch, which ties him into the Democrat's anti-war stance. No, I don't think that was intentional either, but again, the movie doesn't leave us any choice but to think otherwise...

For what it's worth, Zack Snyder's direction is genuinely thrilling, especially in the battle sequences, which come across as both violent and bloodless, the CG spurts of black-red gore notwithstanding. If he'd shown the same level of sadism that was in Robert Rodriguez' 'Sin City', the movie would be unwatchable. The thing with CGI film making of this level, (and Sin City) is how it flattens out actor's performances. You can imagine the computer artists feverishly pixeling out Butler's spittle flying from his mouth during his speeches. If you've got a bone for comic-to-film translations, however, this movie is about as good as it gets.

As for Frank Miller...Well, if I didn't know of his stature in the comic-book community, I'd swear between this and Sin City that he was a nineteen year old nerd who got basketballs bounced off his head in gym class. (with all the hyper-macho posturing in these two movies, I'd also say he didn't have much luck getting dates, and felt 'funny' in the high school locker room getting changed around the beefy jock students...) He used to have a sense of proportion in his earlier comic work, up until 'The Dark Knight Returns'. All his post-Dark Knight stuff has a joyless, spiteful edge to it, like a surly teenager cursing up a storm after a parent tells him to watch his mouth.

It turns out my earlier jokey post about this movie appealing to gay men and single women in their thirties was dead-on, since in my circle of personal acquaintances, that's who seems to be most stoked about seeing it. I predict if it stays at the top of the box office for more than a few weeks, you'll be seeing a lot of gay porno with a 'classical Spartan' theme...("What ho, Diogestes! Say, my codpiece is loose! Be a sweetie and fix that for me, will you? My hands are full with my spear and shield!" "Ooooh, cheeky!" [cue crappy house music...]) The irony is that gay porn would be oddly more historically accurate than "300".

You know, there's a case to be made for films that explore the nature of war, from "All Quiet on the Western Front" down to "Flags of our Fathers". But this isn't that type of film. Even if it wasn't Snyder and Miller's intention, it's closer in tone to Leni Reifenstahl's 'Triumph of The Will', than Rudolph Mate's 1962 sword-and-sandals b-movie, 'The 300 Spartans'. I didn't hate it, but it didn't really thrill me in the way a hack-and-slash entertainment should, either. Given what we know about Sparta's treatment of its massive slave class, Leonidas' spittle-filled diatribes about how 'FREEDOM ISN'T FREE' (yeah, he says that...) rings really hollow. In this case, a little more historical accuracy would've made for a deeper, richer movie. Maybe in the future we'll see a more mature treatment of this battle. (Stephen Pressman's Gates of Fire comes to mind.) But I wouldn't hold my breath.

While I'm here, I might want to point out another observation of mine. That is, movies based on comics don't generate new comic readers, as much as comics generate more fodder for movies and T.V. to graze from. Once Hollywood gets a string of duds from the 'movies-from-comics' pool, they'll go back to more traditional inspiration. I'm picking Snyder's upcoming adaptation of 'Watchmen' to start the downturn. It'll come out about the time "The Sub-Mariner" hits theaters, presumably...