George Carlin was our comedic George Orwell

Most successful comedians have a niche. For some it’s politics. For others it’s observations about everyday life. For others still, it’s family. George Carlin’s niche was the English language.

Carlin, who died Sunday at age 71, delved into other subjects like religion (he was against it) and politics (he was against that, too). But he always returned to language.

English is a funny language. As Carlin observed, we drive on parkways but we park on driveways. Is it any wonder that non-native speakers have difficulty navigating English’s odd twists and turns?
English is also an abused language. Words mean things, but they sometimes mean many things. In his book “The Mother Tongue,” Bill Bryson writes, “Any language where the unassuming word fly signifies an annoying insect, a means of travel and a critical part of a gentleman’s apparel, is clearly asking to be mangled.”

Too often, people deliberately choose words that obscure what they’re really saying. Used cars are now “pre-owned.” It sounds nicer in advertising copy, but it doesn’t make the car in question any less used.

When politicians are involved, of course, the stakes are higher. Consider one of Carlin’s examples: “friendly fire.” It almost makes getting killed by your own side seem pleasant. Similarly, “collateral damage,” is vague, while “dead innocent civilians” demands that we assign blame.

At the risk of overstating his influence, Carlin was our own George Orwell, only funnier. In his essay “Politics and the English Language,” Orwell catalogs the faults of bad writing.

Passive voice, for example, is a favorite of anyone trying to avoid responsibility. We’ve all heard this one: “Mistakes were made.” Well, yes, mistakes were made, but who made them?

Orwell illustrated his point in his novel “1984.” He invented a simplified language, Newspeak, which the book’s totalitarian government invented in order to control its subjects. Without the right words, Orwell believed, certain thoughts are impossible.

Unlike Orwell, Carlin went for comic effect, but hidden somewhere behind the laughter was a point. Who, after all, really ever heard of a “civil” war?

There is even a point to Carlin’s infamous “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television” routine.
I can’t repeat any of those seven words here, even though you can now say them on cable TV. And only one of the seven — it starts with a “C” — is still truly unacceptable in most polite company. But if English is strange, then profanity, in any language, is stranger. And English profanity, by implication, is the strangest of all.

What makes one word off limits when another word, which means exactly the same thing, is not? Why can I write “urinate” but not an equivalent word starting with “P”?

In the TV series “Battlestar Galactica,” “frak” is a stand-in for the F word, but it doesn’t upset anyone. You can say “frak” 50 times in prime time without so much as getting a disapproving letter from the Federal Communications Commission.

Even within English there are oddities. In Britain, “shag” is the same as the F word. Here, we put “shagged” in the title of an Austin Powers movie. Another word is derogatory toward homosexuals here but is slang for a cigarette there.

Not all languages, however, have this problem. In Japanese, the difference between acceptable and off color is sometimes just a matter of a word’s inflection, or so I’ve read.

It’s probably a good thing Carlin didn’t live in Japan. His “Seven Words” might not have made much sense there.

‘Hulk’ do-over gives the fans what they want

The fanboys got what they wanted. So did Marvel Studios, the Hollywood-based corporate sibling of Marvel Comics.

The fanboys wanted a Hulk movie that was non-stop action, with none of the pesky psychological drama and fancy editing of Ang Lee’s “Hulk” getting in the way. If there’s one thing they’ve made clear during the past five years, it’s that they didn’t appreciate Lee’s attempt to do something artistically ambitious with Marvel’s Grumpy Green Giant.

I’ll say this: There’s nothing remotely psychological about Marvel’s do-over, “The Incredible Hulk.” In terms of plot, this movie is about as thick as the Hulk’s skull. But that doesn’t prevent it from being a decent enough summer action movie. It just doesn’t aspire to be anything other than a decent summer action movie.

Marvel Studios, meanwhile, wanted a second hit to carry forward the momentum its first in-house production, “Iron Man,” generated last month. And Marvel’s studio executives must be pleased with a $55 million, No. 1 opening.

But let’s put things into a bit of perspective. Lee’s unfairly maligned 2003 version also opened at No. 1 and grossed about $8 million more during its opening weekend than the new model did. The only thing director Louis Leterrier’s 2008 edition has going for it is the lack of a fanboy backlash, which should soften the second-weekend drop-off that doomed Lee’s film at the box office.

If “The Incredible Hulk” has the legs that Lee’s adjectiveless “Hulk” lacked, Marvel’s plan for a multi-character franchise will be in good shape. If not, Marvel Studios may be holding its breath until 2010, when “Iron Man 2” and “Thor” are set to open.

Honestly, there is a lot to like about “The Incredible Hulk,” and if I seem overly hostile to it, it’s because my own inner fanboy is also a bit of an art-movie snob, and I still haven’t gotten over the drubbing comic-book fans gave “Hulk.” To me, the Hulk’s alter ego, Bruce Banner, is the more interesting character of the two, and Lee’s movie grasps that. The Hulk is Banner’s abused inner child throwing a tantrum — a literal “monster of the Id,” to quote the 1950s sci-fi film “Forbidden Planet.”

As played by Edward Norton, however, Banner isn’t particularly tortured. He just has an unusual medical problem. There is no real reason for his alter ego to be so angry, apart from constantly having to fend off an Army unit led by Gen. Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross (William Hurt).

Ross wants to capture the Hulk and find out what makes him tick, so that he can use it to create super soldiers. As an added complication, Ross is also the father of Banner’s estranged love interest, Dr. Betty Ross (Liv Tyler).

Drawing more from the “Incredible Hulk” TV show starring Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigo than from the comic books, the film shows Banner in hiding, taking menial jobs and searching for a cure for his condition. That is, until Ross and Capt. Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth) track him down. Then it veers off into virtually nonstop action scenes: Banner vs. commandos, Hulk vs. commandos, Hulk vs. the Army and, finally, Hulk vs. Blonsky, who uses a cocktail of super-soldier serum and Banner’s blood to turn into the equally hulking Abomination.

All of those combinations work well, except for the last one. Fight scenes should amount to more than two CGI cartoon characters pounding each other.

But “The Incredible Hulk” makes even my jaded inner fanboy smile by placing itself firmly in the larger Marvel Universe. Scattered throughout, if you know where to look, are references to other Marvel characters like Captain America and Nick Fury. The film also cleverly sets up the villain for the sequel.

Best of all, however, is Robert Downey Jr.’s uncredited cameo as Tony Stark — aka Iron Man.
Still, when the best thing about a movie is the actor who reminds you of a better movie, maybe there’s a problem.

‘Swingtown’ promises sin in the ’burbs but doesn’t deliver

They say history repeats itself — first as tragedy, then as farce. But when the 1970s repeats itself, it’s pretty much farce every single time.

I’m referring specifically to “Swingtown,” a new drama airing, improbably, on CBS. Set in a Chicago suburb during the decade of disco and leisure suits, “Swingtown” focuses on three couples, all charting different paths through the jungle of casual sex and even-more-casual drug use.

Just about everyone loves to hate the ’70s. Liberals hate it because it commercialized 1960s radicalism and made it mainstream. Conservatives hate it because it commercialized 1960s radicalism and made it mainstream. Actually, the ’70s is one thing both left and right agree on.

It was the decade when sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll broke out of the counterculture. Music was groovy, and movies, finally free of decades of censorship, entered a new golden age.

It’s just too bad that the clothes and hairstyles were so awful. Probably the reason so many people were having so much sex in the ’70s is everyone, no matter their shape, looked better naked. In fact, that also may explain the streaking fad. And in the pre-AIDS era, even if sex wasn’t always safe, at least it couldn’t kill you.

That brings me back to “Swingtown,” which is all about sex, even though it doesn’t really show any.
First, you’ve got Tom and Trina Decker (Grant Show and Lana Parrilla). He’s an airline pilot — place your own cockpit joke here — and she’s a former stewardess who now mostly stays home and watches “The $25,000 Pyramid.” But at night, they’re the swingingest couple in the Windy City.

Yes, they’re swingers, wife swappers, whatever you want to call it. Asked if she has an open marriage, Trina replies, “Don’t you?”

The Deckers are the reason Jerry Falwell founded the Moral Majority.

Next, you have Bruce and Susan Miller (Jack Davenport and Molly Parker). They’re new to the neighborhood and to the whole swinging scene, but they’re eager studies. Of course, if “Swingtown” lasts more than six episodes, I’m sure they’ll learn that everything isn’t as groovy as it seems just after a couple of Quaaludes and a few Harvey wallbangers.

Ah, the intoxicants of yesteryear.

The Millers have two children, a son who has just discovered Playboy and a daughter who is into the works of Henry Miller and really into her literature teacher. (Feel free to pencil in your own “teacher’s pet” or “hot for teacher” one-liner here.)

Lastly, are Roger and Janet Hopkins. Janet is Susan’s best friend from the old neighborhood, and she’s simply appalled by Susan’s new friends. Roger, however, doesn’t seem particularly upset by the Deckers’ idea of a good time.

I sense marital discord in the Hopkins’ future, which is one of the two big problems with “Swingtown.” Just from the first episode, I figure I can predict with 97 percent accuracy where the rest of season 1 is headed. Assuming it’s not toward cancellation, which is my first guess.

Give “Swingtown” credit for getting the fashions and the music right, but for a show about swinging it’s depressingly sexless. What it’s doing on CBS rather than HBO or Showtime — or at least FX — is a mystery. As far as networks go, CBS doesn’t love the nightlife and doesn’t have to boogie. In fact, if CBS boogied, it’d probably break a hip.

On HBO, “Swingtown” would have made an excellent replacement for the explicit yet boring “Tell Me You Love Me.” On CBS, however, it’s like the first season of “That ’70s Show,” only not funny.
Unless the characters break out of their stereotypes, all “Swingtown” has going for it is its nostalgic setting. But how long will that stay interesting?

If it lasts, “Swingtown” will probably seem like just another network drama. Except without cell phones.

Lucas, Spielberg ruin my childhood memories again

I confess, I was too depressed to write last week. I blame George Lucas and Steven Spielberg.

Thank you, George, for once again violating my childhood. “The Phantom Menace” wasn’t enough, was it? It wasn’t enough to make all those years I devoted to “Star Wars” feel like a colossal waste. To say nothing of the money I spent on the action figures, comic books and, of course, my “Star Wars” lunchbox. I even had the stupid bed sheets.

No, you had to sully my memories of the Indiana Jones trilogy, too.

And Steven, you let George get away with it. You could have said no. You could have said the story was terrible and just walked away. But you didn’t. Way to go, Steven. You haven’t disappointed me this much since “Hook.” You ripped out my heart and laughed while it was still beating.

I ought to send you two the bills for all of the therapy I’m going to need to erase “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” from my brain. Refunding the eight bucks I spent on the ticket isn’t going to cut it. I saw the movie, and I can’t unwatch it.

See, I knew it was a bad idea to revisit the Indiana Jones series 19 years after “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.” Even back then, I could see the trend line: The humor was broader, the dangers less threatening than in “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” But “Raiders” is the ultimate adventure film, better even than any of the “Star Wars” movies. So, I gave “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” a chance, despite the nagging voice telling me to look away, like when Indy said not to look at the Ark.

But I didn’t, and I got my face melted off.

Still, you’ve got to hand it to Harrison Ford. The man is 65 years old, but he has an easier time beating up the bad guys and escaping certain death than he did back during his tomb-raiding prime. Oh, wait. That’s because “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” stinks.

When Indiana Jones retrieved the Ark of the Covenant from the Nazi convoy in “Raiders,” we felt every bump and bruise along with him. That was an Indiana who knew how to take a beating and still emerge triumphant.

Now, when he should be cashing his Social Security checks, Indiana can emerge from even the most ridiculous danger without a scratch. Survive a nuclear explosion? No problem. Go toe-to-toe with the Red Army? Piece of cake. Plunge over a waterfall not once, not twice but three times? Hey, sign him up for a fourth.

That’s because the Indiana Jones of “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” is no longer an action hero. He’s a cartoon character. The movie never convinced me that he was in any danger. It didn’t even try.
It did convince me — as if I weren’t convinced already — that Lucas is more interested in special effects than storytelling, even when the effects aren’t that special anymore. After all, he’s the executive producer, and he shares the “story by” credit.

But don’t let that fool you. The film’s failings aren’t all Lucas’ fault. As director, Spielberg sets the tone, and he hits all the wrong notes.

I never felt that the stakes were high, even though the baddies — Soviet agents led by Cate Blanchett’s Irina Spalko — have a pretty ingenious plan. They hope to use the fabled crystal skull as a mind-control device to take over the United States from within. It’s a clever nod to the Red Scare movies of the 1950s and one of the film’s few good ideas.

Maybe the Soviets just don’t make for interesting villains the way the Nazis do, because Spalko and her bumbling crew are about as exciting as Soviet architecture.

If “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” were the latest entry in the “Mummy” series, its juvenile antics might be excusable. The “Mummy” films are as much about slapstick comedy as they are action. But “Kingdom” fails utterly as an Indiana Jones movie.

Please, guys, you’ve made your money. Now, put the hat and the bullwhip away for good this time.

Scarlett Johansson’s debut CD is a dud

This has been a depressing couple of weeks. Scarlett Johansson has broken my heart twice.
First came word that she is engaged to “Van Wilder” star Ryan Reynolds, making her even more unattainable than she was before.

It doesn’t help that I’ll always think of Reynolds as Billy, the clueless hanger-on who mostly annoyed the older teens on the Nickelodeon soap opera “Fifteen.” (Now you know my guilty-pleasure viewing back when I was in college.)

Now comes the release of her first — and, with any luck, last — album, a collection of Tom Waits covers titled “Anywhere I Lay My Head.” And while it isn’t an embarrassment on the order of Eddie Murphy’s “Party All the Time” or Don Johnson’s “Heartbeat,” it pretty much confirms my theory that singers have an easier time becoming actors than actors have becoming singers. (For the record, I dispute the notion that Jennifer Lopez is either.)

The compact disc arrived in stores Tuesday, but anyone who has already heard streaming audio of it online knows the bad news.

It isn’t that Johansson can’t sing, although she can’t. Waits isn’t exactly known for his vocal range, either. A music critic once colorfully described Waits’ voice as “like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car.” So, Johansson’s breathy delivery — she sounds like she’s been downing bottles of cheap scotch and smoking menthols since she was 7 — should be up to the task.

It’s that everything around her sounds worse than she does. Either this is the most overproduced Tom Waits album in history or it’s the most underproduced pop album. In any case, the end result sounds like Johansson singing karaoke in that bar in “Lost in Translation.” That’s fine for a movie role, but terrible for an actual album you expect people to buy.

Wired.com Listening Post blogger Eliot Van Buskirk compares Johansson’s effort to the Cocteau Twins. Yeah, I could see that. If, of course, the Cocteau Twins recorded all of their albums while doped up on Valium. If there is one word that sums up “Anywhere I Lay My Head,” that word is “lazy.”

The blame rests squarely with the album’s producer, TV on the Radio’s David Sitek, who lays on the syrup so think that even Johansson’s backing musicians get stuck. Seriously, I’m not sure any producer has ruined an album like this since Phil Spector got his hands on “Let It Be” or David Bowie took the edge off The Stooges’ “Raw Power.”

Speaking of Bowie, he shows up on “Anywhere I Lay My Head,” too, although his backing vocals at least don’t make matters worse.

Ultimately, Sitek’s approach fails to live up to the material because the combination of Johansson’s voice and Waits’ jaded, jazzy lyrics should work. If Ben Folds can make William Shatner sound good, then anything is possible.

If there is any saving grace to “Anywhere I Lay My Head,” it’s that no song is so campy that it’ll end up on a Dr. Demento compilation CD. And with any luck, Johansson had gotten the singing bug out of her system so she can go back to doing what she is good at — making movies.

Speaking of which, Johansson is starring in yet another Woody Allen movie, “Vicky Cristina Barcelona,” with Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem. It’s scheduled to open in late summer, and it better be worth the wait.

I don’t think I can take Scarlett breaking my heart again.

Dr. House offers his diagnosis for the human condition

What makes Dr. Gregory House the best character on television isn’t his medical knowledge. It isn’t even his ruthless wit. It’s that he gets — really gets — human nature.

OK. Maybe I’m just as cynical as the title character of Fox’s hit medical drama “House.” After all, one of House’s key insights is “everybody lies.” But I prefer to think I’m a realist.
So, what is it about human behavior that House (Hugh Laurie) gets? First, he understands that people respond to incentives.

This is basic Economics 101, which means it’s a hard truth that most people would prefer not to believe. But anyone who has ever had to deal with a job-for-life government employee knows it’s true. Zero threat of losing your job equals zero incentive to do your job well. Car salesmen, on the other hand, get paid on commission. That means they have a powerful incentive to sell you a car — whether you want one or not — tempered only by their incentive not to alienate you as a future customer.

House understands this and even cites a classic example of behavioral economics.

In a recent episode, “No More Mr. Nice Guy,” House offers up this bit of wisdom about how people respond to incentives: “You want people to drive safer? Take out air bags and replace them with machetes pointed at their necks. Nobody would drive over three miles per hour.”

I first came across that argument in Steven Landsburg’s 1993 book “The Armchair Economist.” Landsburg uses it to show that seat belts and air bags don’t actually save lives. People willingly accept a certain amount of risk. So, when you make vehicles safer, people drive more recklessly — just as they would drive more carefully if you made cars more dangerous.

Of course, most people don’t understand that.

On an automotive Web site, I found an article that said, “Surprisingly, that grim crash fatality statistic (40,000 deaths per year) has held steady for the past two decades — even as cars have become more crashworthy and sophisticated safety features more widely available.”

Here is what House would say to that article’s author: “You’re an idiot.” There’s nothing surprising about it if you understand incentives the way House does.

House also understands another subject that makes lots of people uncomfortable — evolution.
In the same episode, House is convinced that a patient’s extreme niceness must be a symptom of some underlying disease. Why? Because being nice with no expectation of getting something in return isn’t natural.

House explains: “Three cavemen see a stranger running toward them with a spear. One fights, one flees, one smiles and invites him over for fondue. That last guy didn’t last long enough to procreate.”

Evolutionary psychology holds that just as plants and animals pass down physical traits to future generations, people pass down behavioral traits. So, just as it does with physical traits, natural selection weeds out some behavioral traits — like extreme, naïve niceness — because the people who have them tend to die before passing them on.

This is the sort of evolution that upsets most liberals just as much as it upsets conservatives. It’s one thing to say that people’s physical characteristics are the product of millions of years of natural selection. But behavior? Lots of liberals hate that idea because if behavior is largely biologically driven, you can’t make people behave differently just by forcing them into sensitivity training.

But, as John Adams said, “Facts are stubborn things.” They’re still facts whether you believe them are not.

That’s why all of the other characters on “House” think Dr. House is a jerk. He’s armed with more facts than anyone else on TV. And facts don’t necessarily play nice.

Iron Man to power Marvel movies through 2011

Thank you, sir. May I have another?

And just like that, Marvel Enterprises said, “Yes, you may have another.”
With “Iron Man” raking in more than $200 million worldwide last weekend, Marvel announced Monday that its next in-house film production will be “Iron Man 2,” set for release April 30, 2010.

The near two-year break between “Iron Man 2” and Marvel’s next self-financed movie, “The Incredible Hulk,” which opens June 13, is the result of the recent screenwriters strike. But Fox will release “Wolverine,” starring Hugh Jackman, next year under its pre-existing deal with Marvel.

“Iron Man” vindicates Marvel’s new strategy of producing movies in-house and using the major movie studios — in this case, Paramount — just for distribution. The big Hollywood studios have managed to produce huge hits based on Marvel’s most popular characters, Spider-Man (Sony) and the X-Men (Fox). But they’ve stumbled with many of the company’s lesser-known characters: Daredevil, Elektra, the Punisher and, most recently, Ghost Rider.

Now, Iron Man has been my favorite superhero since I was 5 years old. But he was hardly a household name, at least until last week. Still, Marvel was able to turn the character’s big-screen debut into 2008’s first blockbuster. It will probably finish as one of the year’s top-five grossing films. And in a year with highly anticipated Indiana Jones and Batman sequels, that’s no small feat.

Give Marvel credit for taking chances the big studios might not take, like casting Robert Downey Jr. as the film’s lead. The 43-year-old actor, who has found his greatest success in small films and supporting roles, isn’t the sort of actor most Hollywood executives would cast as the star of a big-budget action flick.

But Downey makes billionaire industrialist Tony Stark the most watchable superhero since — well, since ever. It’s the sort of performance that critics will be comparing to Johnny Depp’s turn as Capt. Jack Sparrow in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” films.

“Iron Man” moves along at a supersonic clip, and gives its cast a chance to shine as much as the special effects. Now that is how you make a superhero movie.

Fans will argue about whether “Iron Man” is the best comic book/superhero movie yet made. I think it is, and the film’s 94 percent “fresh” rating at RottenTomatoes.com backs me up. But I don’t think there is any arguing that it’s the most fun superhero movie so far.

In or out of his high-tech armor, Stark handles his demons like an adult. There’s no Spider-Man angst or Batman brooding anywhere in sight. (Not that there’s anything wrong with the occasional brooding Bat.) And that makes for an enjoyable romp. Not like Peter “Spider-Man” Parker fretting about how he’s going to pay for his Aunt May’s cataract surgery and other such soap-opera dreariness.

If you stay through the closing credits of “Iron Man,” you’ll get a teaser for what Marvel Entertainment has planned for the future. But in case you can’t hold your bladder in check that long, Marvel has announced its other projects for 2010 and 2011.

After “Iron Man 2,” “Thor” hits theaters June 4, 2010. Then in 2011, expect a Captain America movie (working title, “The First Avenger: Captain America”) on May 6, followed by what could be the superhero movie to beat all superhero movies, “The Avengers,” in July.

Like the comic book, “The Avengers” promises to team-up Iron Man, Thor, the Hulk and Captain America to face some menace none of them can tackle alone.

So, if “The Avengers” can lock in Downey as Iron Man, “Incredible Hulk” star Edward Norton and whoever stars in “Thor” and “Captain America,” it’ll be the most star-studded comic book movie ever.

Miley’s Vanity Fair pics stir moral panic

A thousand words apparently aren’t enough for at least one picture. Not if it’s a picture of Miley Cyrus. So, here are about 700 more.

The 15-year-old Disney starlet, better known as her TV character, Hannah Montana, posed for Vanity Fair magazine and famed celebrity photographer Anne Leibovitz. But before the May issue of Vanity Fair hit newsstands Wednesday, the photos were everywhere, after Cyrus and her Disney caretakers issued press releases basically claiming that Leibovitz had tricked her into posing for a sexually provocative shot.

The photo in question shows Cyrus topless but holding up a sheet so that only her back is exposed. Now, I’m probably not a good judge of how sexual the photo is. You’d be better off asking someone who is into 15-year-old girls and will actually admit to it — like, you know, a 16-year-old boy. But what I get from Leibovitz’s now infamous shot of Cyrus is vulnerability, which is what Leibovitz does, and does well. Her photos of the rich and famous are known for laying their subjects bare. And I mean that in the figurative sense.

The idea that Cyrus was tricked is a bit silly. She and her handlers signed off on the photo shoot. Her father, country music star Billy Ray Cyrus, was part of it. Everyone knew the score.

So, Miley changes her mind and says she is now “embarrassed” by the photo, either because she really is or thinks it will damage her reputation. She is a 15-year-old girl, so she probably changes her mind a lot. That’s fine. But Disney is in spin cycle. After all, it has been less than a year since another Disney star, Vanessa Hudgens of “High School Musical,” had to apologize when a nude photo of her — intended to be private — hit the Internet. And at least she was 18 at the time and not jailbait. But Disney’s public relations department is obviously in overdrive, making sure no one thinks its most profitable contract player is auditioning to be the next Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan or Paris Hilton.

’Cause you know, one minute you’re posing for Vanity Fair, and the next you’re out partying, drinking, crashing your car, flashing your crotch and shaving your head. From there, the only thing left is an extended stay at the Betty Ford Center.

Everyone involved in the Vanity Fair affair seems to have an agenda. So, it’s hardly a surprise that the usual suspects are in attack mode.

On his radio show Monday, Mike Gallagher — the poor man’s Rush Limbaugh — went into a truly disgusting rant that focused on the fact that Leibovitz is a lesbian, and worse yet, a liberal activist. He went on to describe Cyrus’ expression in the photo as a “come hither” look and the photo itself as “soft-core pornography.”

All that tells me is that Gallagher has never actually experienced a come-hither look, or thinks that every woman who smiles in his general direction is saying, “Come and get it,” nor has he ever seen any real soft-core pornography.

While the photo fiasco is much ado about nothing, it’s still symbolic of modern society’s latest moral panic — a generalized hysteria about sexualizing “children,” meaning teens. We’re all supposed to pretend that teenagers aren’t sexual. But 200,000 years of Homo sapiens biology and 6,000 years of human civilization beg to differ.

Until the Industrial Revolution, people in their teens were expected to go out and start families of their own. They were expected to be adults. Now when teenagers do “adult” things like flaunt their sexuality, it’s a national crisis. But a century ago, it was life.

It’s fine for parents to want to protect their children as long as they can, but it’s no use pretending that teenagers aren’t sexual beings.

Yes, teenagers today probably aren’t as responsible as teens of centuries past, if for no other reason than they don’t have to be. And, yes, that means it’s a bad idea for teens to have sex. But nobody in the media — especially not Anne Leibovitz — has to sexualize them. They’re sexualized already.
Maybe that’s why some people see “come hither” where it doesn’t exist.

OK, Apple, you win; I finally have an iPod

“I bought an iPod. It can hold 20,000 songs or one message from my mother.”

— Steven Wright, comedian

I’ve finally given in and purchased Apple’s signature product, the iPod. Funny, I remember when Apple was a computer company. Now, it’s a music company that also makes computers.

If it weren’t for Apple’s “I’m a Mac. I’m a PC” commercials, I might not remember that Apple even makes computers. And what’s up with those commercials? The PC guy is likable, but the Mac guy is a jerk. This is supposed to make me want to buy a Mac? Now, Windows Vista — that’s a good reason to buy a Mac.

Now, where was I? Oh, yeah. My new iPod.

For years, I’d gotten by with my iRiver MP3 player. Yeah, you may think the iRiver is just a cheap iPod knock-off, what with the similar names and all. But, trust me, the iRiver is huge in Asia. Still, my first-generation iRiver didn’t hold enough songs, and it was a pain keeping extra AA batteries on the go. I’m sure iRiver makes better MP3 players now, but it’s hard to keep up with the iPod. Not even Microsoft can do it. How many people own Microsoft’s Zune players? A lot fewer than Bill Gates would like.

I swear, the Zunes on the display shelf at Best Buy are gathering dust. OK, not really. But I’m sure that’s only because the staff dusts them.

Part of me still says the iPod is a textbook case of style triumphing over substance. Other MP3 players can do pretty much everything the iPod does. Everything, that is, except play music downloaded from Apple’s iTunes store. But with other companies, including Amazon.com, offering music downloads without Apple’s proprietary copy protection, that’s less of an issue.

So, what is the iPod’s allure? It’s sleek. It’s shiny. It has an easy-to-use interface. And it comes right out of the box ready to plug into your computer. It automatically synchronizes with the iTunes software and copies all of the music on your computer’s hard drive. Within minutes, it’s ready to go. Like most Apple products, the iPod is idiot-proof.

I take pride in my computer skills, so being idiot-proof is not normally a selling point with me, and it’s not an unequivocal plus with the iPod. Idiot-proof electronics are often harder to deal with for those of us who know what we are doing.

To manually manage my iPod’s content, I must connect it to my computer and turn off the automatic synchronization. Then, iTunes asks me if I’m sure I want to do that. Well, my name isn’t Dave, and iTunes isn’t HAL. So, yes, I’m sure.

But the same idiot-proof features that make Macs annoying and Microsoft’s Vista insufferable are a plus with something simple like an iPod. You don’t want it to do anything fancy. You just want it to play music.

Then there are the peripherals. Since iPod is by far the market leader in the U.S., every other electronics company wants to make gadgets to go with it. So, I can buy a cable that plugs my iPod into my car’s cigarette lighter and then plays my iPod over the car’s speakers. Presto! No need to ever lug compact discs to and from my car again. Plus, everything from the largest stereo system to the smallest clock radio now features an iPod plug-in port.

Ironically for Microsoft-hating Apple partisans, this is exactly how Microsoft came to dominate desktop computing — by gaining such a large market share that everyone else had to make Microsoft-compatible applications. What Microsoft did for computers, Apple has done for digital music.

So, I give in. After years of avoiding Apple’s sleek, trendy products, I have an iPod. And, yes, it’s as good as advertised.

But I’m still not buying an iPhone.

Things to do on the Internet when you’re dead

Note: The following column contains Internet language. It may be unintelligible to people over 30. Teenage translation is suggested.

I don’t have statistics to prove it, but I’m reasonably sure that the second most common use of the Internet, after looking up naked pictures of celebrities, is wasting time.
But there are more and less productive ways of wasting time while surfing the Internet. So, here are some of my favorites, in no particular order.

Lolcats. Once upon a time, there was a photo of a forlorn kitty who asked a simple, if grammatically suspect, question: “I can has cheezburger?” Did the cat ever get a cheeseburger? Who knows? It doesn’t matter. What matters is what followed. From that one photo and its semiliterate plea grew a phenomenon.

Now, the lolcats — cats who will make you “laugh out loud” — are everywhere. They’re in cars, buckets, washing machines and, yes, even in ceilings. Some are happy, others sad. They can’t quite grasp the English language. They made you a cookie, but then eated(cq) it. And most have simply had enough of you silly humans.

One Web site collects them all: icanhascheezburger.com. At last count, the site was up to more than 240 pages of pictures of cats, and a few others animals, too, in funny situations with funnier captions.

But just Google “lolcat,” and you’ll find them everywhere.

The lolcats have become so popular that the dogs have become jealous. So, now the loldogs have their own Web site, ihasahotdog.com. But it’s not as good as the lolcats’ site, because LOLCATS > LOLDOGS LOL!!!

(Author’s note: All dog lovers offended by the idea that cats are better than dogs, please e-mail your complaints to Scott Morris, managing editor and cat hater, at smorris@decaturdaily.com. K? THX.)

The Rickroll. There you are, minding your own business, when a friend e-mails you a link. You click it. Then, you realize your mistake, but it’s too late. You’ve been subjected to totally unexpected Rick Astley. Now you’re going to have his stupid song stuck in your head for the rest of the day. You’ve been Rickrolled.

Astley is the freckle-faced poster boy for 1980s musical mediocrity, as exemplified by his biggest hit, “Never Gonna Give You Up.” He was everything that was wrong with pop music during the decade of Ronald Reagan and “Family Ties.” He couldn’t even succeed as a one-hit wonder, because he actually had a second hit, “Together Forever.” There is some minimal amount of coolness that comes with being a one-hit wonder. But there is no such thing as a two-hit wonder. Having two hit singles before sliding into obscurity just makes you lame.

That’s what makes the Rickroll such a devious Internet prank. Well, that and the fact that Astley’s lyrics make him sound like a potentially dangerous stalker.

Last.fm. First there was Friendster. Then MySpace. Then Facebook. But there is one social networking Web site that lets you truly appreciate how terrible your friends’ taste in music is — Last.fm.

In addition to letting you listen to a lot of music online and free of charge, Last.fm can monitor the MP3s you play on your computer or iPod and match you with others who have similar musical tastes. You can also see what music your friends are listening to, and if it’s good, you can then e-mail your so-called friends and ask them why they haven’t already burned you a CD. (Editor’s note: The Decatur Daily’s staff and management do not condone music piracy.)

Of course, you’re more likely to discover that your friends, like most Last.fm users, have rotten musical tastes. And in that case, you can mock them for it. I mean, really, Coldplay? Coldplay??? I thought I knew you people.

Charlton Heston: a conservative mugged by reality

If his obituaries are any indication, Charlton Heston will be remembered for two things: starring in lavish biblical epics like “The Ten Commandments” and “Ben-Hur,” and his Second Amendment activism.

Heston died Saturday at age 84, less than six years after he announced that he had been diagnosed with symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease.

Just about every report of Heston’s death focuses on the late actor’s conservative politics — a rarity in Hollywood — and, in particular, his longtime support of an individual’s right to own firearms, which culminated in his becoming president of the National Rifle Association in 1998.

Less attention is given to Heston’s starring roles in a trio of apocalyptic science-fiction films.
Irving Kristol, the founder of American neoconservatism, once described a neoconservative as “a liberal who has been mugged by reality.” That was his bumper-sticker explanation for why he and some of his fellow leftists moved right during the 1960s.

Heston’s movie characters during the same period can be described as conservatives who have been mugged by the future.

Beginning in the late 1960s, Heston starred in “Planet of the Apes” (1968), “The Omega Man” (1971) and “Soylent Green” (1973). Each, in its own way, reflects the anxieties of American society during the Vietnam era, and depicts a world in which humanity is no longer at the top of the food chain.

Heston’s characters are cynical and world-weary. Sometimes they’re downright misanthropic, as in “Planet of the Apes,” when Heston’s wayward astronaut, Taylor, says he left Earth because somewhere in the universe there has to be something better than man.

How are Heston’s characters in these films conservatives? Consider what each represents. Although he doesn’t know it at first, Taylor represents the past. He’s a human trapped in a future where humanity has literally bombed itself back to the Stone Age, only to be replaced as Earth’s dominant species by apes. Evolution takes no prisoners, even if, fortunately for Taylor, the apes do.

Still, there is one way in which the apes reaffirm Taylor’s cynical brand of conservatism: They’re no better than men. They have the same class divisions and prejudices. If Taylor is a conservative, he is a conservative in the mode of the late political theorist Russell Kirk, for whom progress was just an illusion. The apes prove him right.

“The Omega Man” was Hollywood’s second attempt to film Richard Matheson’s novel “I Am Legend,” the most recent version of which, starring Will Smith, came out last year.

In “The Omega Man,” Heston’s Robert Neville is the last man on Earth, and the embodiment of an industrial society that destroyed itself through biological warfare. Unlike the vampiric, mutated survivors of the plague, Neville still uses technology. He drives a car and uses electricity. The mutants, however, blame technology for humanity’s downfall and have embraced primitivism. Neville isn’t just the last man, he’s the last remnant of civilization in a world that blames civilization for everything that has gone wrong. The parallel between Neville vs. the mutants on the one hand and the political establishment vs. the 1960s counterculture on the other is inescapable.

Set in the year 2022, when overpopulation has led to food shortages and the threat of mass starvation, “Soylent Green” stars Heston as New York City police Detective Robert Thorn, whose murder investigation uncovers a far more sinister conspiracy. I hate to give away the ending, but this movie did come out 35 years ago. Thorn learns that soylent green, the processed food ration that feeds the masses, is made of people.

In “Soylent Green,” Heston is part of the establishment but finds himself pitted against it. You can’t trust “the man” even when you are “the man.”

During the midpoint of his acting career, Heston was a lonely Hollywood conservative playing establishment/conservative characters in films in which the characters’ conservatism becomes their undoing.

I wonder if he was aware of the irony.

The best show on TV returns for a final season

If nothing else, “Battlestar Galactica” vindicates one of my long-held beliefs: If you’re going to remake a movie or TV show, you should remake one that wasn’t all that good to begin with. That way, there’s little chance of screwing up.

The 1970s “Galactica” was, at best, a fair to middling children’s show, which is not what you really want in a series that depicts the near annihilation of the human race and its aftermath. Somehow — and maybe it’s just me — a holocaust doesn’t seem like appropriate subject matter for Sunday night’s family hour.

So, when I first read that the Sci-Fi Channel was launching a new, darker version of “Battlestar Galactica,” my first thought was that it could only improve on the original.
That, as it turned out, was an understatement.

It’s almost a cliché at this point to say “Battlestar Galactica” isn’t just the best science fiction show on television, it’s one of the best things on TV, period.

Now, after seemingly endless, agonizing months on hiatus, “Battlestar Galactica” returns Friday night for the start of its fourth and final season. And given the revelations of last season’s finale, I’d say the show’s return comes not a moment too soon.

“Battlestar Galactica” isn’t the type of show I’d recommend coming to late. It’s definitely best to watch all three previous seasons on DVD before jumping into the new season. But if you don’t have time for that, the Sci-Fi Channel has posted a handy eight-minute recap video of the story so far, along with the last five, jaw-dropping episodes of the third season, on its Web site, www.scifi.com.

Like the best American SF programs that came before it — “The Twilight Zone,” the original “Outer Limits,” “Firefly” and most of “Star Trek” up until “Star Trek: Voyager” — “Battlestar Galactica” demonstrates the ability of science fiction to tackle big subjects, whether they are political, religious or philosophical.

“Galactica” executive producer Ronald D. Moore and his writing team have cleverly turned what once was “Wagon Train” in space into a show that goes beyond its outer-space setting to address issues facing the United States and the world today. The battle between the surviving humans and the Cylons has so many parallels to America’s “war on terror” that it’s hard to keep track of them all.

Whether it’s the consequences of military occupation, such as when the Cylons invade the human settlement on New Caprica, the ethics of torture, or when and if suicide bombing is ever justified, “Galactica” hasn’t shied away from thorny questions. And it has done so in a way, I think, that is far more compelling than watching Jack Bauer save the world in a day or President Bartlet and his “West Wing” staff talking in circles.

You can’t just say the humans of “Galactica” are “us” and the Cylons are “them.” The humans are a polytheistic but officially secular, democratic society, while the Cylons are religious extremists bent on spreading the love of their one, true God — at gunpoint, if necessary. But it’s the humans who resort to terrorism and suicide bombings when the Cylons overrun their New Caprica encampment at the end of the second season. When you can’t fit either camp into the neatly tailored roles of contemporary politics, it forces you to see each side’s point of view.

If anything, the Cylons are more interesting than the humans. They’re torn between wanting to eradicate their former masters and wanting to bring them to God. They hate the humans who created them but have evolved to look like them and to have human emotions. The Cylons have a genocidal Oedipus complex.

Yes, the new “Battlestar Galactica” is just a little deeper than your average TV show. And I’m glad it’s back.

Sometimes, ‘pretty good’ beer isn’t good enough

First it was the punch seen around the world. Now it’s a debate over beer that has the Alabama Legislature racking up page hits on YouTube.

The punch came when state Sen. Charles Bishop, R-Jasper, socked Sen. Lowell Barron, D-Fyffe, following a verbal altercation. That resulted in a sore jaw for Barron and one of those proverbial “black eyes” for Alabama.

The beer debate isn’t as explosive, but it does have more humor value, thanks to state Rep. Alvin Holmes, D-Montgomery, who has given me a new catchphrase.

Earlier this month, the state House of Representatives took up HB 196, a bill to increase the amount of alcohol by volume allowed in beers sold in the state. Currently, beer sold in Alabama may contain no more than 5 percent alcohol by volume. The bill would increase that to 13.9 percent, which would allow the sale of many gourmet and imported beers that are currently prohibited.

The bill narrowly passed the House, 48-42, and awaits action in the Senate, which is never in much of a hurry to do anything, except possibly raise legislators’ salaries.

Free the Hops, a grassroots organization of beer connoisseurs, has pushed for the legislation for several years, but this is the first year in which the bill has gotten traction. In 2007, the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Thomas Jackson, D-Thomasville, won the Legislature’s infamous “Shroud Award” for sponsoring the deadest bill of the legislative session.

Who knew there were degrees of deadness?

This being Alabama, of course, anything involving alcohol is sure to generate opposition — like those 42 state representatives. And among the bill’s most vocal — literally — opponents was Holmes.

Holmes is one of the state’s most powerful lawmakers and has been walking the halls of the Statehouse since 1974. But for perhaps the first time in his career, his remarks on the House floor are fodder for YouTube viewers worldwide.

While other bill opponents railed against the morality of all alcoholic beverages or fretted about teenagers getting their hands on high-octane brew, Holmes managed to turn the whole thing into a class issue.

“What's the matter with the beer we got? I mean, the beer we got drink pretty good, don’t it?” Holmes said during the debate.

Yes, that’s my new catchphrase: “The beer we got drink pretty good, don’t it?”

The next time I throw a kegger and someone complains because I bought cheap beer, I’ll just tell them, “The beer we got drink pretty good, don’t it?”

And if you disagree, you can take it up with the representative from Montgomery.

Holmes continued: “I ain't never heard nobody complain about the beer we have. It drink pretty good, don’t it? Budweiser. What’s the names of some of them other beers?”

At that point, Holmes received helpful input from some of his fellow legislators, who shouted out names like Coors and Miller.

But it’s easy to see where Holmes was going: Ordinary Joes drink Bud, and filthy-rich fat cats drink expensive gourmet beers, and Holmes is on the side of Joe Sixpack. He isn’t about to vote for anything that benefits the well off — or even middle-class guys like me who prioritize our beer money.

Meanwhile, Holmes’ tortured syntax and his fight against Alabamians’ right to good beer are on display for anyone with Internet access.

With any luck, this won’t be quite as embarrassing as the state’s ban on sex toys.

You know, I wonder if the Legislature’s sex-toy debate is online.

Superheroes and metaphors

Julian Sanchez, blogger, freelance writer and Reason magazine contributing editor, has a nice video interview with Douglas Wolk, author of Reading Comics. Topics include World War Hulk as a metaphor for blowback. The interview is from November 2007, but if you haven't seen it, it's new to you:

Not so 'Incredible'

I am one of only three people who loved Ang Lee's Hulk — the others being Lee and his mom. So, take my opinion for what it's worth, but the trailer for Incredible Hulk is, um, a bit lame.

Anyway, see for yourself:

• MTV
• Music Videos
• MTV Shows
• Entertainment News

No, not looking forward to this one as much as I am Iron Man and The Dark Knight.

You know, I learned something today

Apparently, there was once such as thing a kung-fu porn.

‘Killer Tomatoes’ remake to splatter movie screens

In case you had any doubt, there is now proof positive that there is no movie — and I mean no movie — that Hollywood won’t remake.

The Hollywood Reporter reported Tuesday that a new version of the 1978 cult drive-in feature “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes!” is in the works.

Stop for a minute to take that in. Someone is really and truly remaking “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes!” I’ll still be here when you get back.

Ready? OK. On we go.

The brains behind the remake are Kent Nichols and Douglas Sarine, creators of “Ask a Ninja,” an online video series in which a ninja (Sarine) answers questions from viewers. The two will write the remake, and Nichols will direct, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Now, it has been years since I last saw “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes!” So, I can’t really tell you much about it off the top of my head. (Yes, this is one cult movie that I do not have in my personal DVD collection.) The plot, as I recall, had something to do with a team of misfit scientists fighting an invasion of mutant, man-eating tomatoes.

It’s a bit like “Night of the Lepus,” except with giant, killer vegetables instead of giant, killer bunny rabbits.

Oh, and the makers of “Attack,” unlike the makers of “Lepus,” intended their film to be funny.

The one thing about “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes!” that I do vividly recall is the theme song:

“Attack of the killer tomatoes!
“Attack of the killer tomatoes!
“They'll beat you, bash you, squish you, mash you
“Chew you up for brunch
“and finish you off for dinner or lunch!”

Unforgettable.

While it didn’t exactly set the box office on fire, “Attack” cultivated a dedicated cult following via repeated showings on late-night television. That was enough to merit not one, not two, but three sequels: “Return of the Killer Tomatoes” (1988), “Killer Tomatoes Strike Back” (1990) and “Killer Tomatoes Eat France” (1991).

The only one worth talking about is “Return,” which is memorable mostly for starring a young, mullet-headed actor named George Clooney. (Yes, I do own the DVD of this one.)

“Return” also starred John Astin of “The Addams Family” as “angry” (not “mad”) scientist Dr. Gangreen.

What makes “Return” a cut above other killer vegetable movies is the way it purees Hollywood conventions.

Halfway through the film, the actors break character and announce they’ve run out of money and can’t finish the movie. So, they quickly hatch a scheme to raise money — product placements.

The next thing you know, Clooney is interrupting a breakfast-table conversation to sell cereal and Dr. Gangreen has a huge Pepsi logo plastered on the back of his angry-scientist lab coat.

Astin returned for the two subsequent sequels, as well as for the 1990 animated series, which aired Saturday mornings on Fox. Strangely, however, Clooney seemed to have better things to do.

You know, like “Batman and Robin.”

Meanwhile. things have been mostly quiet on the tomato front since the tomatoes ate France. The official Killer Tomatoes Web site touts a line of food products like Killer Tomatoes Pasta Sauce, but the site’s store is “currently closed for maintenance.” And there’s no telling how long “currently” has been.

But that could change if the “Ask a Ninja” guys’ movie ever actually goes before the cameras. Maybe they’ll even ask Astin to appear in it.

Or they could ask Clooney. I mean, George, if you’re reading this, an “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes!” remake has got to be a better offer than “Ocean’s Fourteen.”

Artists remake movies, comics without the annoying parts

Some enterprising artists are taking to heart the adage “less is more” by remaking the works of others — and improving on them.

In a Web comic called “Garfield Minus Garfield,” for example, an anonymous guerrilla artist takes “Garfield” comic strips and removes the title character. Without its eponymous fat, orange cat, “Garfield” ceases being an unfunny funny-animal strip and becomes something far deeper.

Garfield’s owner, Jon Arbuckle, is a ticking time bomb of existential angst. He talks to himself and hatches crackpot schemes that serve only to punctuate his loneliness. The empty space where Garfield used to be becomes symbolic of the emptiness of Jon’s pitiful existence. It’s so sad it’s funny — or funnier, at least, than most real “Garfield” strips.

Here’s an example.

Panel 1: Jon enters an empty room carrying an armful of shampoo bottles. “I’m going to spend the evening trying out different kinds of shampoo!” he excitedly tells no one.
Panel 2: Jon walks out of the room.
Panel 3: A silent, empty room.

In the original version, I assume Garfield delivered some sort of put-down at Jon’s expense. But in the “Garfield Minus Garfield” version, Garfield’s lame jokes aren’t necessary. The silence says it all: Jon is a sad little man who is just one bad day away from sticking his head in an oven.

A better-known example of someone applying the less-is-more aesthetic to an existing work is Mike J. Nichols’ “phantom edit” reworking of “Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace.”

By eliminating repetitive dialogue, as well as most everything the hated Jar Jar Binks says or does, Nichols produces a version of the first “Star Wars” prequel that many fans regard as being superior to George Lucas’ original.

Lucas has mostly taken a hands-off attitude to amateur filmmakers who try to improve on his movies, so long as they don’t try to make money from it. If anything, he seems genuinely impressed by their ingenuity. But not everyone is as charitable.

At TheForce.Net, “Star Wars” fan Sean Gates writes, “I often wonder at what point it was that we stopped respecting art; or the artist’s right to make their product their own way.”

Really? Is someone stopping Lucas from making whatever movies he wants to make, however he wants to make them? In fact, is anyone stopping him from going back years later and altering his movies himself?

Whatever anyone else does to “The Phantom Menace,” Lucas’ original is still available, for better or worse — at least until he decides to make his “special edition” and seal the original away in a vault forever.

Anyway, all of this has me asking, what other works of art could be improved by eliminating annoying characters like Garfield and Jar Jar?

I can imagine a version of “Home Alone” without Macaulay Culkin, in which a family’s house comes alive to defend itself against a pair of inept burglars.

Maybe someone could re-edit all of Eddie Murphy’s most recent movies so that he plays only one character.

Or how about a version of “Superman Returns” without any mention of Superman and Lois Lane having had a love child?

Yes, that would be a definite improvement.

Trailer park

First, the greatest actor ever in what will certainly be the greatest movie ever:



Second, a new kick-ass trailer for Iron Man. Hint: This is how you make a superhero movie.

Iron Man Exclusive Trailer

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Mensa chairman issues a guide to smart television

In 1961, Newton N. Minow, then chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, gave a speech in which he referred to television as a “vast wasteland.”

Ever since, many intelligent people — and not a few people who just think they’re intelligent — have harbored a prejudice against TV.

But now at least one officially smart person has dared to come out of the closet and admit he loves television.

Mensa International Chairman Jim Werdell recently named his list of the 10 smartest TV shows of all time.

Some, like Carl Sagan’s science documentary series “Cosmos” and the game show “Jeopardy,” are obvious picks. Well, except during the “Jeopardy” celebrity tournament. Celebrities can be pretty stupid.

Three of Werdell’s other choices are also favorites of mine: “House,” the original “CSI” — please spare me “CSI: Miami” and David Caruso’s wooden “acting” — and “Boston Legal.”

And then there is Werdell’s one baffling pick — the 1990s sitcom “Mad About You.” But the minds of geniuses often work in strange ways.

If I were compiling such a list, I’d include the Discovery Channel’s science series “Mythbusters,” Showtime’s provocative “Penn & Teller: Bull----!” and Fox’s late, lamented comedy “Arrested Development.”

The reality is that TV has never been as mind numbing as its critics have often contended.
In his speech to the National Association of Broadcasters, Minow infamously said, “... when television is bad, nothing is worse. ... I can assure you that you will observe a vast wasteland.”

Of course, what’s often left out is what Minow said first: “When television is good, nothing — not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers — nothing is better.”

Of the 10 shows on Werdell’s list, four are still on the air. That may just reflect a bias toward programs Werdell is more likely to have seen recently. But it may also reflect an improvement in TV programming.

Despite the explosion of “reality television,” most TV shows are getting smarter and demanding more of their viewers.

In his 2005 book “Everything Bad Is Good For You: How Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter,” Steven Johnson graphs the complexity of TV plots. He finds, for example, that more recent programs, like “The West Wing” and “The Sopranos,” ask far more of their viewers than did dramas of earlier decades, like “Dragnet” and “Starsky and Hutch,” to use his examples.

Of course, the politics depicted on “The West Wing” is a bit less accurate than the medical science depicted on “House,” but that’s beside the point. The point is that watching television is no longer a passive activity. It takes a lot of mental effort just to keep up. You almost need a scorecard to follow the goings on of “Heroes” and “Lost.”

Comedies are also more complex. Apart from “Arrested Development,” Johnson cites “Seinfeld” and “The Simpsons” as examples of far smarter writing than, say, “Three’s Company.”

Simple sitcoms — Johnson mentions “Everybody Loves Raymond” — still prosper, but so do intelligent ones with rapid-fire dialogue and ongoing stories. For every “Raymond” there is now a “Scrubs” or “The Office.”

Given a cable lineup of 100-plus channels, you’ll certainly come across a lot of bad TV, but it’s more likely than ever that you’ll find TV worth watching, too. Just ask the chairman of Mensa; he’s a pretty bright fellow.

The goddamn Batman thinks you need Jesus

Decatur, Ala., City Councilman Ray Metzger, who owns a not-quite-authentic reproduction Batmobile, has been handing out come-to-Jesus pamphlets featuring everyone's favorite Dark Knight. Take a peek and maybe you'll be as moved as I was — moved to hysterical fits of incredulous laughter. (Click images to enlarge.)

Steve Gerber, creator of Howard the Duck, dies

When I mention the name Howard the Duck, you probably think of the 1986 movie produced by George Lucas that became one of the biggest flops in Hollywood history.

You probably don’t think of Steve Gerber, the man who, in the early 1970s, created Howard the Duck for Marvel Comics.

That is a shame because while Lucas’ movie was a turkey, Gerber’s comics often approached genius.

Gerber died Feb. 10 from complications from pulmonary fibrosis, a chronic lung disease. He was 60.

In the ’70s, Gerber was one of the most creative and influential writers in comics. He brought the irreverent, satirical attitude of underground comics to the superhero genre.

As Gerber’s friend and fellow writer Mark Evanier tells it, a job offer from Marvel editor Roy Thomas “rescued” Gerber from the drudgery of writing advertising copy. At Marvel, Gerber soon took over the writing duties on “Adventure into Fear,” which at the time featured Man-Thing, a swamp creature charged with guarding the Nexus of All Realities, a place where various universes come together.

The story took an unexpected turn, however, when a talking, cigar-smoking waterfowl from another dimension came through the Nexus and found himself trapped on Earth, a planet populated by, as Howard put it, “hairless apes.”

Gerber didn’t plan for Howard the Duck to be anything more than a one-off character. But Howard quickly developed a following, which led to his appearing in more comics and, eventually, getting his own monthly title and a Sunday newspaper strip, all of which Gerber scripted.

Maybe Howard didn’t fit in on a planet full of humans and superheroes, but he definitely seemed at home in the cynical post-Watergate, post-Vietnam world of the ’70s. He was a voice of reason trapped in a world he never made.

Despite being a duck, Howard was an everyman. Evanier writes that Gerber’s “Howard the Duck” is, in fact, “obviously autobiographical to a large degree.” Except, of course, for all of the time Howard spent fighting a bizarre array of costumed supervillains. Gerber’s comics were as much a commentary on the absurdities of superhero comics as on the real world’s foibles.

Howard even ran for president of the United States, a story arc that Marvel turned into a successful publicity stunt.

During this period, Gerber also wrote other comics. He had a memorable run on “The Defenders,” which featured characters like the Hulk and Dr. Strange. He also created “Omega the Unknown,” a short-lived series that made a major impression on at least one young reader — future “Fortress of Solitude” novelist Jonathan Lethem, who currently is writing a new “Omega” miniseries.

Howard the Duck’s success, however, ultimately led to Gerber’s departure from Marvel and a lawsuit about ownership of the character. The parties settled, but afterward Gerber worked only sporadically in comics, for Marvel and other publishers. He also wrote for television, creating the popular 1980s Saturday-morning cartoon “Thundarr the Barbarian.”

Eventually, Gerber returned to his most famous creation. Marvel’s adult-oriented MAX imprint published Gerber’s six-issue “Howard the Duck” miniseries in 2002.

At the time of his death, Gerber was writing a “Dr. Fate” series for DC Comics. But his legacy will remain intertwined with his fowl creation, Howard, and with turning comic-book superheroics on its head.

That’s not a bad legacy to have, even if George Lucas didn’t quite get it.

Not a lot of love to go around for Valentine’s Day

It seems lots of people, not just singles and charter members of the Lonely Hearts Club, have reasons to hate Feb. 14.

Some reasons are better than others. A quick search of the week’s headlines turned up several stories from the Middle East. As you might guess, it turns out that the terrorists actually hate us because of Valentine’s Day.

OK, it’s not really “the terrorists,” but they’re probably not happy, either.

Ahead of America’s annual orgy of romance, chocolates and greeting cards, some Muslim countries are making sure no one within their borders gets too amorous.

Fox News reports that in Kuwait, the nation American troops “liberated” during the first President Bush’s administration, the head of the National Assembly’s Committee Monitoring Negative Alien Practices is looking to suppress Valentine’s Day, blaming it for spreading corruption among Kuwaiti youths.

In Saudi Arabia, the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice has ordered florists and gift shops to remove red roses, along with anything else colored scarlet, according to a Reuters news report. Apparently, Saudi religious authorities see red at the prospect of anyone else seeing red.

Perhaps Islamic fundamentalists would look upon the holiday more kindly if its true meaning hadn’t been lost.

St. Valentine was a Roman priest who was beaten and beheaded in the year 269, or thereabouts. And there’s nothing particularly romantic about that. Valentine’s Day didn’t come to be associated with love until the Middle Ages. In fact, the earliest link between St. Valentine and romance is probably a poem by Geoffrey Chaucer.

Yes, that’s the same Chaucer whose “Canterbury Tales” is now the bane of most English-speaking high school students. Evidently, he has much for which to answer.

Like many modern holidays, Valentine’s Day may have originated as a pagan festival. The ancient Romans, for example, celebrated a fertility festival, called Lupercalia, from Feb. 13 through Feb. 15. Not that ancient fertility rites had much to do with romance.

Of course, I’m not convinced that Valentine’s Day as Americans celebrate it has a lot to do with romance, either. There are too many obligations involved.

Cards, flowers, expensive dinners and boxes of candy — all given in accordance with a day on the calendar — do little to show genuine affection. They’re expected. Try not giving your significant other a gift for Valentine’s Day, and you’ll see just what I mean. There certainly won’t be any fertility rites in your immediate future.

But I’m not picking on women for expecting roses and heart-shaped boxes from their husbands and boyfriends. Men expect something on Valentine’s Day, too.

I’m sure my female readers will agree that they’re expected to be, shall we say, extremely grateful for all of the tokens of the holiday that they receive from the men in their lives.

Valentine’s Day is like a primitive mating ritual that refuses to go away, even after you’re married. Showy displays of flowers and candy are like the colorful feathers male birds use to lure female birds into their nests. But birds don’t really care about such things after the deal has been sealed.

Humans, however, have long memories. And some of us like to keep on reliving those mating rituals because they were a lot more fun than what followed.

So, this year, as we do every year, we all celebrate Valentine’s Day, either by going through the obligatory motions or by complaining about going through the motions.

Even singles celebrate it, mostly by moping about the fact that they’re not celebrating it with anyone.

On second thought, maybe Valentine’s Day is rather like getting beaten up and having your head chopped off.

Tennessee Valley horror icon Dr. Shock dies at 75

Tom Reynolds as Dr. Shock, with

Dingbat.

Two weeks ago, I noted the passing of horror hostess Maila Nurmi, better known as Vampira. Now I sadly must mark the passing of the Tennessee Valley’s own horror host.

Tom Reynolds died Jan. 20 in Huntsville at age 75. He had worked at WHNT Channel 19 as creative commercial director from the early 1980s until his retirement. But before coming to Huntsville, he became an icon in Chattanooga.

Reynolds’ day job in Chattanooga was working behind the scenes as program director for WTVC Channel 9. But on Saturday nights, his alter ego took over.

Donning a vampire cape and makeup, Reynolds became Dr. Shock, host of WTVC’s “Shock Theater.”

Throughout much of the 1970s, he and his sidekicks — a puppet named Dingbat and a nurse named Nurse Badbody — introduced B-grade horror movies, answered viewer mail and performed comedic skits. Dr. Shock gained a loyal following as much for satirizing local political figures as for sending up bad horror flicks.

Dr. Shock and Dingbat (performed by the late Dan East) “would often push the envelope, straying into controversial territory, offending the wealthy and powerful among us,” reported David Carroll of Chattanooga’s WRBC-TV upon Reynolds’ death. “... But the notoriety of their sometimes naughty behavior just seemed to boost ratings, and advertiser response.”

Dr. Shock made a brief stop at another Chattanooga TV station before Reynolds moved to Huntsville to work at Channel 19. And that’s where I entered the story.

In the early ’80s, Reynolds revived “Shock Theater” at WHNT. But viewers in the Huntsville area got only a glimpse at what had made Dr. Shock a legend in Chattanooga.

At Channel 19, Dr. Shock was a solo act. He made fun of the movies he aired and read viewer mail, but Dingbat and Nurse Badbody were gone, as was the original show’s political satire.

Still, the revived “Shock Theater” managed to make an impression on at least one viewer. As Eric Cartman might say, the show “warped my fragile little mind.”

“Shock Theater” was my first exposure to the Edgar Allan Poe movies that low-budget director/producer Roger Corman made in the 1960s. Just about all of them starred Vincent Price, and it was these colorful, drive-in shockers that cemented Price’s reputation as one of the masters of horror.

Poe, America’s poet laureate of the macabre, was the mainstay of Dr. Shock’s tenure in Huntsville. Apart from Corman/Price collaborations like “The Raven” (also starring Boris Karloff and a young Jack Nicholson) and “The Masque of the Red Death,” Dr. Shock featured oddities like “Spirits of the Dead,” a trilogy of Poe stories directed by Roger Vadim, Louis Malle and Federico Fellini.

These weren’t your typical schlocky horror flicks. These were good movies made by talented filmmakers. They ignited my lifelong obsession with horror movies. Because of them, I’ve scoured flea markets for used videotapes and sent e-mails to movie studios, practically begging them to release various obscure horror films on DVD.

For me, it all started with Dr. Shock. And when I interviewed Reynolds in October 1999, I was surprised when he told me that WHNT aired “Shock Theater” for only a few months.
“Shock Theater” didn’t take off in Huntsville as it had in Chattanooga, but for me, it was the best thing on television. Today, I probably own a copy of every movie Dr. Shock ever aired.

Ever since “Shock Theater” faded to black, there’s been a void. No one has stepped up to be the Tennessee Valley’s next Dr. Shock.

But as Dr. Shock’s many fans will tell you, no one can replace Reynolds. The best anyone can do is carry on the tradition.

Today’s blockbusters were yesterday’s trash

“Cloverfield,” the new film from “Alias” producer J.J. Abrams, had a monster opening weekend, setting a January record with its three-day take of $41 million.

Not bad for a film you can sum up as Godzilla meets “The Blair Witch Project.”

In the 1970s, a movie like “Cloverfield” wouldn’t have been a national hit. It would have been a B movie, seen mostly at rural drive-ins and urban grindhouses. But in the nearly 40 years since the heyday of monster movies and exploitation flicks, genre films have come to define mainstream, blockbuster entertainment.

Of course, today’s genre movies are a lot tamer than the ones that unspooled in the ’70s and early ’80s. For instance, compare “One Missed Call,” a PG-13 horror movie now flopping nationwide, to the movies of the ’70s. The contrast is stark.

I’ve nothing against PG-13 horror movies in theory. An atmospheric ghost story like 2002’s “The Ring” doesn’t need sex and gore to work. But a movie like “One Missed Call,” with its disposable cast of pretty teenagers, is begging for gratuitous violence and even-more-gratuitous nudity.

Otherwise, what’s the point?

“One Missed Call” is an exploitation movie that’s woefully short on exploitation. That’s the pitfall of turning exploitation movies into mainstream fare. It’s a rare film today, like “Hostel” or “Saw,” that pushes the boundaries regularly broken during the grindhouse and drive-in era.

So, while moviegoers were flocking to “Cloverfield” last weekend, I stayed warm at home, hunkered down with some ’70s trash cinema.

BCI Entertainment has released 10 double-feature DVDs under its “Welcome to the Grindhouse” banner. Each features a “grindhouse experience” option that plays a couple of movie trailers, then the first feature, then more trailers and, finally, the second feature. In other words, it’s just like watching a double bill in a rundown theater, except your feet don’t stick to the floor and you’re not in danger of getting mugged. Unless your house is in a bad neighborhood.

My weekend viewing consisted of three double features: “Pick-up” and “The Teacher,” “Malibu High” and “Trip with the Teacher,” and “Black Candles” and “Evil Eye.” The first four are American-made teenagers-in-trouble movies, while the last two are European horror flicks. None is a great work of art, but all except two are entertaining examples of drive-in sleaze.

The bad apples are “Evil Eye,” a plodding story about a man possessed by evil spirits bent on revenge against their killers, and “The Teacher.”

“The Teacher” has its moments, but they’re way too few for a movie that runs 98 minutes, should have run 80 minutes and feels like 120 minutes. This story of an ill-advised relationship between a teacher and her former student (played by Jay “Dennis the Menace” North) often plays like an “ABC Afterschool Special” gone bad. Only with breasts.

Back in the drive-in days, truth in advertising was more of a guideline than a rule. When you see the poster for “Malibu High,” you think “teen sex comedy.” But what you get is a story about a girl who blackmails her teachers, becomes a hooker, gets involved with the mob and ends up a hit woman. And the trailer for “Pick-up” in no way prepares you for watching three hippies experience increasingly bizarre flashbacks and hallucinations while stuck in the Florida Everglades.

Lastly, a few words of warning. “Trip with the Teacher” is a nasty piece of work that desperately wants to be “The Last House on the Left,” complete with a similarly psychotic heavy, played here by future “Red Shoe Diaries” producer Zalman King.

“Black Candles,” meanwhile, reinforces a theory of mine that all ’70s Spanish occult films are thinly veiled excuses for Satanic orgy scenes, often involving people you don’t want to see naked. For that and other reasons, it’s not for the easily offended.

Of course, that’s why they don’t make ’em like they used to.

Vampira, the first horror hostess, dies at 86

Maila Nurmi as Vampira.

Last week saw the passing of a television pioneer.

Actress and pin-up model Maila Nurmi was born Maila Elizabeth Syrjäniemi in 1921 in Finland. She moved with her family to the United States when she was 2. But fans of low-budget and no-budget horror movies will always remember her as Vampira, the first horror movie hostess.

Nurmi died in her sleep Jan. 10 at age 86.

Nurmi made TV history in 1954, when she debuted on Los Angeles’ KABC-TV as the star of “The Vampira Show.” As Vampira, Nurmi became the model horror hostess, mixing horror movies, humor and a plunging neckline, all to the delight of her fans.

She introduced old horror films like the Bela Lugosi feature “White Zombie,” acted out comedy bits with her pet spider Rollo, and invited her viewers to write in for epitaphs instead of autographs.

Nurmi based her look on Morticia Addams, a character in Charles Addams’ “Addams Family” cartoons. She had worn the costume at a ball and attracted the attention of a KABC producer who later hired her to host the channel’s late-night horror movies.

Unfortunately, “The Vampira Show” aired live, and no known footage of Vampira’s host segments exists. Also, the show lasted barely a year. After a contract dispute with ABC, Nurmi took her character to rival station KHJ-TV. The new show, however, was also short-lived. Still, Vampira’s influence extended far beyond her stint on Los Angeles television. She appeared in Life magazine and inspired fan clubs worldwide.

Nurmi crossed paths with Hollywood royalty, including James Dean. But, as she recalled in a 1994 People magazine interview, after her TV show’s demise, she was “scraping by on $13 a week.”
It was then that she agreed to the career move for which she is best known today.

In 1958, Edward D. Wood Jr., who had already made such schlocky drive-in movies as “Bride of the Monster” and “Glen or Glenda,” cast Nurmi in his most infamous film: “Plan 9 From Outer Space,” often cited as the worst movie ever made.

Billed as Vampira and wearing her TV-show costume, Nurmi shared the screen with Wood’s bizarre acting troupe, which by then included The Amazing Criswell, professional wrestler Tor Johnson and stock film footage of Bela Lugosi, who died in 1956.

Nurmi didn’t have any lines, but the image of Vampira haunting the movie’s wobbly graveyard set as a reanimated corpse became iconic. Actress/model Lisa Marie would replicate it decades later, portraying Vampira in Tim Burton’s 1994 film “Ed Wood.”

By the early 1980s, Nurmi was in negotiations to bring “The Vampira Show” back to television. But when the deal fell through, the show’s producers turned to a new actress, Cassandra Peterson, and a new character: Elvira, Mistress of the Dark.

The Vampira character clearly influenced Elvira, but Peterson’s performance was remarkably different — part punk, part goth and part Valley Girl. Nurmi sued Peterson, but the court dismissed the case, ruling that the similarities were not sufficient grounds for legal action. Elvira would go on to heights of fame and fortune Vampira would never see.

For her part, Nurmi didn’t fully exploit Vampira’s merchandising potential until late in life. But she nevertheless continued to cultivate a loyal cult following, and “Vampira: The Movie,” a documentary about Nurmi’s enduring character, was released in 2006.

Meanwhile, others continue the Vampira legacy. The latest is Ivonna Cadaver (Natalie Popovich), host of “Macabre Theater,” seen on small TV stations nationwide via the America One network. Locally, “Macabre Theater” airs on Athens-based ZTV at either midnight Saturday or 1 a.m. Sunday, depending on America One’s other programming.

Like many pioneers, Nurmi didn’t get the credit she deserved during her lifetime. But she will be remembered fondly for years to come.

Blu-ray wins the 21st century’s first format war

The latest great format war is over, and the winner is Blu-ray.

For the past 18 months, Sony-backed Blu-ray and Toshiba-backed HD DVD have battled it out to be the high-definition successor to DVD. During that time, Blu-ray seemed to have the upper hand, but the final blow came late last week.

Warner Bros., which had been releasing its movies in both formats, announced it will go exclusively with Blu-ray, joining other entertainment-industry heavy hitters Disney, Sony Pictures and Fox.

Warner currently sells more DVDs than any other Hollywood studio. But with DVD sales leveling off, it wanted to eliminate consumer and retailer confusion regarding Blu-ray and HD DVD, a company executive said at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. That obviously meant using Warner’s huge film and TV library to tip the balance in Blu-ray’s favor.

Warner’s decision leaves only Paramount, Universal and mini-major studio DreamWorks in the HD DVD camp. Industry observers expect all three to make the leap to Blu-ray by the middle of the year. Blu-ray sales and rentals were outpacing HD DVD’s even before Warner’s decision to go exclusively Blu-ray. The remaining HD DVD-aligned studios simply can’t afford to stay on a sinking ship.

Toshiba executives say the fight isn’t over yet, but it is. They just haven’t admitted it. Toshiba’s position is either spin or a river in Egypt.

So, if you purchased the first season of Universal’s “Heroes” on HD DVD, you probably shouldn’t count on seeing subsequent seasons released on that format.

While this is bad news for HD DVD’s early adopters, at least we shouldn’t hear a lot of complaints this time around about how the “better” format didn’t win. Most videophiles either rate Blu-ray and HD DVD as about equal or give Blu-ray the edge. That wasn’t the case with the last big home video format war — the war between VHS and Betamax.

Sony’s Betamax videotape format died an ignominious death in the early 1980s, and Beta’s partisans cried foul. They said Beta’s audio and video quality were superior to VHS’s, which they were. Thus, Beta’s failure was proof that the “better” format doesn’t always win.

But “better” is a relative term. Dinosaurs ruled the Earth for millions of years until an asteroid wiped them out, paving the way for mammals that had barely eked out an existence during the dinosaurs’ reign. Which was better adapted to survive? That depended entirely on the environment at the time.
During the Betamax/VHS war, the environment favored VHS. Consumers were willing to sacrifice Beta’s superior audio-video quality to get what VHS offered: double the recording time. That was a decided advantage when most consumers just wanted to tape TV shows for later viewing.

Besides, true videophiles didn’t need Beta. They clung to their laserdiscs, which served the niche home-theater market until smaller, more convenient and technologically superior DVDs came along.

So, Blu-ray has vanquished HD DVD and will, in time, replace standard DVDs just as DVDs replaced VHS. Then what? Will we be embroiled in yet another format war in 10 or 15 years?

I suspect not. What is probably next is digital downloading. You won’t have to buy a physical product at all. Instead, you’ll download movies and TV shows directly into some kind of storage/playback device.

That means there won’t be much incentive to replace Blu-ray as the format of choice for consumers who prefer a physical object to bits in a box. Blu-ray may reign for a while, only to become the video equivalent of an audio CD in an MP3 world.

The fault lies not in the stars but in ourselves

If you think your answers lie in the stars, there is something you probably should know: Stars lie.

Or, to be exact, astrological signs lie.

For years, I assumed I was a Scorpio because my birthday falls in early November, a period that astrologers link to the zodiac sign also known as the constellation Scorpius. Astrologers determine the periods for the 12 astrological signs based on which one the sun “passes through” — as seen from Earth — on a given day. From Oct. 24 through Nov. 22, the rising sun passes through Scorpio.

According to just about every astrology reference I’ve ever seen, Scorpios are passionate, powerful, profound, complex, keenly perceptive and analytical. They also have large sex drives and possess a powerful, magnetic eroticism.

Yep. That sounds like me.

It seems simple enough, but there is just one problem with it: It’s wrong. Not the description of me, of course. That’s obviously correct. I mean the dates are wrong.

As you may recall from elementary school science class, the Earth is tilted on an axis. That tilt, relative to its orbit around the sun, gives us the four seasons. But as you may not recall, the Earth’s axis wobbles. And because of that wobble — called the procession of the axis — the sun is no longer in the same astrological signs that it was during the dates set down by early astrologers more than 2,000 years go.

Writing for LiveScience.com, Pedro Braganca helpfully clears things up. For example, the sun now appears in Scorpio from Nov. 23 until Nov. 29 — a mere seven days, which don’t include my birthday.

On my birthday, the sun is now in Libra.

Unlike astronomers, who as scientists constantly update their theories in light of new data, astrologers seem to have a hard time keeping up with new findings.

It gets worse for us poor Scorpios or, I guess, former Scorpios, or whatever we are now. Many astrologers say Scorpio’s ruling planet — whatever that means, but I’m sure it’s important — is Pluto. But astronomers no longer classify Pluto as a planet. Now what?

At least Scorpios don’t have it as bad as Cancers and Leos do. The moon and sun, respectively, rule those signs, and it has been centuries since anyone (besides astrologers) has categorized those two heavenly bodies as planets.

Astrology hasn’t changed much since the days of classical Greece, when the rule of the day, as set down by the philosopher Aristotle, was that the celestial realm was eternal and unchanging.

Since Aristotle, however, we’ve learned that space is far from unchanging. Stars form, burn for billions of years and die. Black holes crunch the fabric of space and time. And some celestial objects, like ex-planet Pluto, have wildly elliptical orbits that take them in and out of the orbits of other objects.

Nobody knew any of that when astrology began, and astrology today doesn’t take any of it into account. Instead of focusing on the real forces at work in the universe, astrology is all about some mystical force that has to do with where the stars were when you were born.

Of course, some celestial bodies do influence life on Earth. Energy from the sun makes life here possible. The moon’s gravitational interaction with the Earth causes the tides and creates the pesky wobble that has thrown off the dates for astrological signs.

But on a personal level, even gravity isn’t a big deal. There was more gravitational attraction between you and the doctor who delivered you when you were born than between you and the moon.

So, if you’re looking to get good advice from your daily horoscope, you’re looking in the wrong place.

As for my Scorpio dilemma, as a “keenly perceptive and analytical” ex-Scorpio, I’ve never believed any of that astrology stuff, anyway.

The new year is a good time to look ahead, not back

Other dates are more associated with division. There’s always some excuse to fight over the “true meaning” of Christmas, Halloween and even Columbus Day.

But while no one actively fights over it, no date reveals a greater divide than New Year’s.

That divide is between people who look forward and those who look backward. As 2007 ends and 2008 begins, we spend most of our time looking back at the year that was: who died, events that shaped the world, Time magazine’s Person of the Year. We spend a good deal less time, it seems, looking forward to trends and issues that will shape the new year and years to come.

If we spend more time looking backward than forward, that’s understandable. The past is easy. We usually know what happened even if we don’t know what it all means. The future, however, is unknowable. We can only imagine it.

Still, even if predicting the future is more difficult than reflecting on the past, that’s no excuse not to give the future a try.

Yes, as George Santayana said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” History is important, obviously. But as The Amazing Criswell once said, “We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives.” A phony, showbiz psychic has never spoken truer words.

Looking forward, beyond the short run, doesn’t come naturally to us. In fact, it’s a recent phenomenon. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors didn’t have to look beyond the next hunt. And our agrarian ancestors, who came later, didn’t worry about much beyond the current growing season. As far as most people back then were concerned, the future was going to be pretty much like the past — awful. So, there was no point dwelling on it.

That didn’t really change until the early 1800s, and with good reason. According to Gregory Clark, chairman of the University of California, Davis economics department and author of “A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World,” living standards remained basically stable — and low — from our hunter-gather days through the 18th century. It wasn’t until the Industrial Revolution got under way in the 19th century that living standards (for some) shot up, technological advancement exploded and life spans increased.

Suddenly, the future mattered. In a big way. It’s no accident that the late 1800s saw the birth of science fiction, as seen in the works of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. People now had to speculate about the long term.

But before the Industrial Revolution could take hold, it needed the proper intellectual climate — one that fostered scientific discovery and entrepreneurship. That climate was the Enlightenment.

From the late 1600s through about 1800, scientists, philosophers, historians and economists — people like Isaac Newton, David Hume and Adam Smith — pushed forward the boundaries of human understanding. This was as forward-looking a group of intellectuals as the world has ever seen. By enabling the progress that followed, they helped make the rest of us in the West forward-looking, too.

Science fiction writer David Brin divides the world into forward-looking Enlightenment societies and Romantic societies, which look back to some long-ago Golden Age.

Romanticism in the 1800s was a reaction to the Enlightenment and idealized a pre-industrial bliss that never existed. Today, America still has elements of both its Enlightenment and Romantic heritages. But it’s the ratio that counts.

As we enter a new year, there is no better time to set out sights toward what is to come. We can indulge in nostalgia anytime. The past will always be there. But the future will be here before we know it.