Month: February 2005

This Day and Age – Slideshow : http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/15623892/

View their official site: [link]

And listen to their Purevolume account: [link]

“in the movies, on the bigscreen i’d make you mine.”

“if this were highschool or just homecoming, we’d dance all night.”

Thursday, February 24, 2005 Posted: 8:48 AM EST (1348 GMT)

LOS ANGELES, California (Hollywood Reporter) — Call it “Kill Gil.”

Quentin Tarantino has signed to direct the season finale of primetime’s most-watched series, CBS’ “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.”

Tarantino also has come up with an original story for the episode, which is expected to shoot in early April and air May 19, according to “CSI” executive producer Carol Mendelsohn.

Tarantino has long been a fan of the stylish forensic drama as series creator/executive producer Anthony Zuiker learned when he bumped into Tarantino at an awards show during “CSI’s” first season. They have pursued him to direct an episode for some time, and after members of the “CSI” crew ran into Tarantino a few weeks ago while the show was doing some location shooting in Las Vegas, the stars finally aligned for him to helm the show’s fifth-season closer, Mendelsohn said.

“He knows everything there is to know about ‘CSI,’ and he is into the whole mythology of ‘CSI,”‘ Mendelsohn said. “Quentin came in a couple of weeks ago. We had a story meeting with the writers. He had a great idea, and it was so much fun to have him in the room. . . . We are positively giddy.”

Zuiker, in particular, “worships Quentin,” she added.

Mendelsohn said the story will involve a plot that finds one of the key members of the CSI team, led by Gil Grissom (William Petersen), in serious jeopardy.

“There will be more bugs and blood this time,” Mendelsohn joked.

Tarantino, who earned an Oscar for co-writing the screenplay to his 1994 smash “Pulp Fiction,” directed a 1995 episode of “ER” and appeared as a guest actor on ABC’s “Alias” in 2002 and last year. His other features include the “Kill Bill” films, “Jackie Brown” and “Reservoir Dogs.”

Hunter S Thompson’s death has left a gaping hole in the ranks of American counter-culture. Thompson fan Kate Taylor reflects on the events of his singular life, and his ongoing influence on writers today

Monday February 21, 2005

“By any accepted standard, I have had more than nine lives. I counted them up once and there were 13 times I almost and maybe should have died”

On hearing that Hunter S Thompson, the maverick voice of American counterculture, had been found dead at his fortified compound in Woody Creek, Colorado, friend and fellow-author Martin A Lee described his death as “sad” but “not surprising”.

The mood among commentators following the announcement of his death this morning was equally resigned: the subtext to the many radio and television reports of his apparent suicide was that such an act was a fitting, if tragic, end to a remarkably singular life.

And Thompson’s life was nothing if not surprising. He famously and fully embraced an unconventional lifestyle, summing up his attitude to fast living with the iconic phrase: “I do not advocate the use of dangerous drugs, wild amounts of alcohol and violence and weirdness – but they’ve always worked for me.” His house was most famously home to a collection of peacocks, but he allegedly also kept a keg of gunpowder in his basement, and on one occasion accidentally shot an assistant. His major foray into public life occurred in 1970, when he decided that “there might be some serious fun in politics” and duly stood for Sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado on a platform of drug decriminalisation. The Republican candidate sported a crew cut, which prompted the contrary author to shave his head entirely and refer to his rival as “my long-haired opponent” throughout the campaign. He lost by a handful of votes.

Thompson began his career in journalism in 1956, working as a sports reporter for the base paper at Eglin air force base in Florida. By all accounts, the strictures of army life did not suit the man who once described himself as “a dangerous drunken screwball”, but after his (honourable) discharge he stuck with journalism. While writing for various magazines, he produced two serious novels (Prince Jellyfish and The Rum Diary) and numerous short stories, none of which were published until his break came in 1966 when he pitched an article to Harper’s Magazine about his time with the Hell’s Angels motorcycle gang, then associated with lurid rumours of murder and gang-rape. After that he had little trouble persuading Rolling Stone magazine to serialise what became his best known work, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

The novel, subsequently made into a film starring Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro, is the first-person account of a trip to Las Vegas. In a skewed take on the road trip genre, the narrator-journalist and his companion aim to cover a narcotics convention and a motorcycle race, but are sidetracked by a search for the American dream, assisted by a colourful palette of substances (LSD, ether, adrenochrome and ibogaine to name a few). This powerful, absurd tale of self-destruction soon became a psychedelic classic and delivered Thompson a cult following, as well as founding his reputation as one of the most important American writers of the 20th century. It also epitomised the way in which Thompson’s life and writing were intertwined. His conviction that: “truth is weirder than any fiction I’ve seen” lead him to invent a style of journalism to which he gave the soubriquet ‘gonzo’: a vivid, outlandish blend of fact and fiction in which the writer features prominently. In Fear and Loathing, the narrator and his “300 pound Samoan” attorney companion are barely-disguised versions of Thompson himself and his friend and lawyer Oscar Zeta Acosta.

Following the publication of Fear and Loathing, Dr Thompson (the doctorate apparently arrived by mail order at some point during the 60s) has remained embedded in America’s cultural consciousness, his prose and lifestyle both condemned and celebrated by ensuing generations. A self-styled political and social commentator, he described his journalist’s “beat” as the death of the American dream. His follow-up to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72, a savage and subversive account of the US presidential electoral process in which he preempted the verdict of the Watergate scandal saying that “Nixon represents that dark, venal and incurably violent side of the American character almost every other country in the world has learned to fear and despise”. His latest book, Hey Rube: Blood Sport, The Bush Doctrineand the Downward Spiral of Dumbness (2004) is equally forthright about the current administration. When asked in an interview about the modern impact of fear, the commodity inevitably linked to his name, he replied: “This country has been having a nationwide nervous breakdown since 9/11 … But I don’t think fear is a very effective way of dealing with things, of responding to reality. Fear is just another word for ignorance.”

Hunter S Thompson thoroughly adhered to his own belief that “Freedom is something that dies unless it’s used”. In 2003 he was asked if, in spite of regularly proclaiming its demise, he hadn’t in some sense lived the American Dream itself. “Goddammit!” he replied, dismayed. “I haven’t thought about it that way. I suppose you could say that in a certain way I have.”

Thompson saw himself in the tradition of great American iconoclasts – Hemmingway, Twain, Mailer, Kerouac – even naming his son after F Scott Fitzgerald. For many, the ‘new journalism’ movement of the 1960s, a forthright style associated with writers such as Tom Wolfe and Gay Talese, reached its peak in his searing, snearing prose. His nihilistic energy skewered the unique insanity of the 1960s, and while some felt that he lost his focus in later years, his influence is undeniable. PJ O’Rourke and Timothy Edwards Jones are acknowledged descendants, but his arrogant poetry resurfaces today in everything from Will Self’s novels to Louis Theroux’s Weird Weekends. The crazed journalist at the heart of his own investigation is now a commonplace – some might say too commonplace – but what gave Thompson such lasting appeal was his whole-heartedness, the conviction behind all the posturing which still feels genuinely revolutionary.

When asked in a recent interview if he had any regrets, his response was dimissive. “Those I have are so minor. Would I leave my Keith Richards hat with the silver skull on it in the coffee shop at LaGuardia? I wouldn’t do that again. But overall, no. I don’t have any regrets.”

Tonite, Ortonville suffered an embarrasing lost to one of our rival towns Milbank. I, David Rausch – I’m sure you’ve all heard of me ‘cuz
i’m famous, played tonite. This was the cause of much celebration among some of the fans, and much celebration within my mind. I bet you the Milbank fans were furious and much afraid of Ortonville’s secret weapon. I am such a secret weapon that almost no one we play
has heard of me. Can you believe that!?

The famous David is not so famous when he becomes a weapon of secrecy.

I am let loose to wreak havoc on opposing teams when our team is in greatest need – mostly when were down by more than 20. I accept my benched role because of my feelings of sadness for the other teams. I wouldn’t want to play a secret weapon like myself either.

Sometimes I am so secret my coach even forgets that I’m there!

When coach looks my way, I know he is not really looking at me, but through me. I am so secret its like I’m not even there! The last 2 games (Milbank included) the secret weapon has been released onto the court.

Its been fun to get back into the flow of playing again. Its weird being seen again after being secret for so long. Whether playing basketball or being a secret weapon, basketball has been fun and i have no qualms being either. My role on the team is to accept what coach does and believe that it is for the good of the team. If secret weapons need to stay secret than thats alright with me, I can still have a good time.

If the secret weapon continues to be unleashed, hopefully I can drop the bomb on opposing teams (make a basket) and create disruption within their minds and/or soul or souls if they have more than one.

Freaks.

Either way I am content and love doing nothing as much as I like doing something.

Enjoy. If you don’t laugh, i have failed in my purpose of writing it and have wasted more of my life than is acceptable. It has made me realize how tired i am and that i have no real life.lol

THE FAMOUS –
David Rausch

http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/15189381/

Maybe cupid isn’t perfect. Maybe he misses sometimes. Maybe his arrow hits one person harder than the other.

Maybe his arrows can impair as well as enamor. Maybe he can smite as well as smit. And maybe some of us can actually pull the arrow out and pretend we were never struck. And then cupid’s arrow is a dagger.

Remember: Cupido rima con estupido.

St. Valentine’s Day is coming up, and I think I should pass the word on. This holiday is simply a way for obnoxious couples to fornicate in public. It’s a way to sell way too many bad tasting candy and day old flowers.

Don’t believe the love stories. They’re just science fiction for ordinary people.

Tony says:
how was the game?

Miles says:
Little girls suck at basketball.

Tony says:
how did Molly do?

Miles says:
Well, …. she’s kinda the class clown of the basketball court. She…. well, … she’s not good, but she’s just so adorable that you laugh off her airballs and turnovers.

Tony says:
haha