Monthly Archives: April 2007

Apr172007

Jason Bennion: Pulp Hero!

There are a number of topics I wanted to blog about today, big, important topics that would require lengthy entries to fully explore. Today would be a perfect day to write them, too, because it’s been relatively slow at work. So what have I been doing? Playing with this HeroMachine doohickey I ganked from jaquandor, naturally. This is what I would look like if I chucked the writing and proofreading gigs and became some kind of latter-day gentleman-adventurer:

Pulp Hero

Of course, to really look like that, I’d need to be taller. And in better shape. And still have hair on top of my head instead of only in the back. And not wear glasses. And be able to afford really cool boots. And a good tailor. And… oh, jeez, this is depressing…

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Apr162007

Melvin Tries Again

When last we encountered Melvin Dummar, the Utah native who claims to have once given Howard Hughes a ride and that he’s owed a share of the Hughes fortune, his last-ditch lawsuit — which alleged that new-found evidence showed the original 1978 probate trial was tainted by false testimony — had been thrown out by the U.S. District Court in Salt Lake. I figured that would be the last we’d hear of old Mel until the time came for an obit.

Looks like I was wrong. Melvin has now filed a new lawsuit in Nevada, repeating the same claims as last year’s failed Utah suit. As I’ve said before, I’m inclined to believe Melvin’s story, both because it seems plausible based on what I know about Howard, and also because it’s just such a damn good story. Such an American story, really, the tall tale that has the ring of truth, of two self-made (or, in Melvin’s case, self-defeating) men who meet by chance in the wide open Western deserts.
I wish him luck with this new suit, although I remain pessimistic about his chances of actually getting anything…

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Apr162007

Question of the Day

I don’t know if this is widely known outside the Zion Curtain, but the Dark Lord himself, Vice President Dick Cheney, has been invited to give this year’s commencement address at Brigham Young University in a few weeks. BYU (or “The Y,” as it’s more commonly known in these parts) is, of course, the most conservative college in Utah, possible even in the country. It’s so conservative that male students aren’t even allowed to wear beards.

(True story: I actually applied to the Y back in my pre-bearded days. I was conditionally accepted pending a letter of recommendation from my spiritual leader. Smart-ass that I am, I was tempted to forge a letter in fractured English and sign it, “Yoda, Jedi-Master of Dagobah,” but ultimately I decided it wasn’t worth the trouble, and anyway I didn’t want to go to a school that would forbid me from dressing like Sonny Crockett. [I was very big into Miami Vice at the time, and had this thing about muscle shirts, not shaving for four days at a stretch, and going sockless, all big no-nos at the Y.])
As conservative as the school is, however, there are protests planned to coincide with Darth Cheney’s visit. But I don’t think it’s necessary to dwell on the fact that even BYU students think the man is nasty and hateful. I think we should instead concentrate on the really important matters:

…the question remains whether Cheney will get an honorary degree. And, if so, what would it be? International diplomacy? Public Relations? Energy Policy? Environmental Science?

Enquiring minds want to know!

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Apr132007

More Remakes

As long as I’m feeling grumbly this afternoon anyway, I may as well note that two more genre classics are scheduled to be remade: Barbarella and The Day the Earth Stood Still.

I can actually see some value in redoing Barbarella, which, despite its kooky, 60s-ish charms, is a pretty bad movie. As I was saying the other day, there is a case to be made for trying to improve questionable material. But The Day the Earth Stood Still? A movie that (a) is just about perfect on its own terms, (b) holds up quite well even after 50 years, and (c) stemmed entirely from the nuclear nightmares of the early Cold War times in which it was made? Come on. What’s the point?

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Apr132007

Salt Lake’s Light Rail: Number Ten!

Here’s an interesting random factoid: according to this, Salt Lake’s light-rail system — the train I mention so often on this blog — is ranked tenth out of 27 cities in terms of ridership. Not bad, considering a lot of people protested its construction a few years ago on the grounds that “no one would ride it.” (We’re still hearing that argument from folks who don’t want extensions running through their neighborhoods.)

Now, if only I could find some statistics on the number of people who leave chicken bones under train seats and pretend no one saw them…

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Apr132007

Further Evidence That Human Beings Suck

So, I get on my train this morning at my usual station, the end-of-the-line terminus at the south end of the valley. The train sits at this stop for 15 minutes or so in between runs, to give people time to actually walk across the immense park ‘n’ ride lot and get on board, which means that on mornings when I’m one of the first people on — as I was today — I get to sit in a mostly empty train car and observe what human beings do when they think no one’s around. And today I saw a corker:

There was this corpulent, sour-faced old man in cheap velcro-fastened shoes who apparently doesn’t know or doesn’t care that you’re not supposed to eat on the train. I watched as he pulled a leftover KFC drumstick out of a plastic grocery bag and commenced to chowing down, dropping bits of Extra Crispy coating all over himself and the bench seat on which he’d parked his immense rear. This was mildly annoying, but I see people eating or drinking coffee fairly often in the mornings, so I could let it slide. No, the thing that really got me was that when he finished his breakfast, he carefully placed the bone under the seat in front of him, then got up and moved to another seat.

I debated for some time over whether to go tap him on the shoulder and ask him if he really thought no one had seen him commit his tiny act of ignorant, inconsiderate crappiness, but he looked like the sort who would escalate the situation into something truly ugly. In the end, I wussed out and chose to avoid confrontation. And it’s been bothering me ever since… I really should have just faced the argument and let the stupid old son of a bitch have it with both barrels.

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Apr122007

The Stupidity of Local TV News

Kristy Kruger is an award-winning singer-songwriter from Texas whose older brother, Lt. Col. Eric Kruger, was killed in Iraq a few months ago, on only his second day in the country. Kristy has since written a sad, sweet, deeply moving little song of farewell to her brother, and she’s now on a 50-state tour of the U.S. to pay tribute to Eric’s memory (she says she’d like to see what he died for, i.e., the whole of America). The tour has brought her here to Salt Lake, where she’ll be performing tonight at a venue called Kilby Court.

Continue Reading…

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Apr122007

Quote of the Day

Andrew Sullivan on the whole Don Imus thing:

I wish I’d taped the conversation I had today with the editor of the Sunday Times in London when I had to explain exactly what “nappy-headed hos” were. He had images of garden tools covered in diapers.

And they say Americans and Brits speak the same language…

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