Coyote Blog

I can't help thinking of Adolf Eichmann when I look at 1) our Elvis-impersonating terrorist who thinks the local hospital is hoarding body parts and 2) the Chechnyan Beavis and Butthead who managed to kill and maim scores of people despite being bigger screwups than the entire Reservoir Dogs gang.

Don't let your freedoms be taken away by people who say such and such a place or event is vulnerable or open to attack.  If these guys can successfully terrorize people, there can't be any way to stop serious threats short of a North Korean police state.  Every occasion and location is theoretically vulnerable.  Our best protection is to build a society that eschews violence.  And, when someone does go off the farm, we want a society where there is no general toleration for the act.  In Chechnya or Syria or Iraq, these two boneheads would likely have found help and protection from some percentage of the population.  Not so in Boston, or anywhere else in America.

PS-  Today must have been CNN's wet dream.  This was like a real-life version of the Running Man (the enjoyable Richard Bachman aka Steven King book, not the awful movie), with similarly high ratings.

I have read most of Stephen King's novels, and like many of them.  But some of my favorites were the four novels he wrote as Richard Bachman, in part because they were actually, you know, novel length rather than thousand-page monstrosities.

I have discussed in other posts that the Bachman book "the Running Man" is one of the movies I would most love to remake.  The movie was a silly farce where the lead actor (the governator) was out-acted by Richard Dawson, for God sakes.

This week while my daughter was sick I reread "the Long Walk."  Its one of those love it or hate it things -- the Amazon reviews are split between 5 star reviews and 1 star reviews.

I would love to make a movie of "the Long Walk."  It would not be that expensive to make -- the whole book takes place with a hundred teenage boys walking a couple hundred miles down a road.   Seriously, 10-12 unknown teenaged actors, 90 or so other extras, a couple of steadicams on a flatbed truck.  The crowd scenes at the end would take a lot of extras, don't know how expensive that would be, but I think a really interesting movie could be made.  I picture something ala Kirosawa, maybe even in black and white.  The concept also seems to suggest Tarantino, which reminds me of a movie called Battle Royale that is a sort of similar, but much more violent concept, which Tarantino once listed among his ten favorites.

PS-  This would also be a really cool play.  Picture a big moving conveyor belt from front to back of the stage, so the actors walk a steady pace through the whole show.

Channel surfing last night, I ran into the Running Man, an unfortunate movie "adaption" of  a pretty good Steven King (as Richard Bachman) book.  For those who have seen one and not the other, they have little in common with each other. 

What I hadn't realized before was just how bizarre the casting for this movie was -- Richard Dawson, the cheesy game show host as a ... cheesy game show host.  Jim Brown, Dweezil Zappa and Mick Fleetwood?  The latter, by the way, as himself but in the future.  Whatever.

But the best part is that the movie has two United States governors in substantial roles -- Arnold Schwarzenegger (California) in the title role and Jesse Ventura (Minnesota) as one of the "stalkers" trying to kill Arnold.  Is this a great country or what?

Do ya'll know any others?  I know Sonny Bono did a Love Boat guest appearance, so there must have been two Congressmen  in one TV episode (with Fred Grandy of Iowa).  There may be a Fred Thompson +1 out there I can't think of.  And of course there were probably some Ronald Reagan matchups, but that is before my time.

Update:  Rob reminds me that the Ventura-Schwarzenegger team can also be found in Predator. 

Nearly every dystopic novel I have ever read usually has an all-powerful state that insists on televisions everywhere in all public and private spaces to spew government propaganda and rebellion-soothing-entertainment at the masses.  (Example:  Richard Bachman / Stephen King's Running Man, which is a much better novel than a movie.)

I am reminded of this every time I go to an airport.  Why is it every airport feels the need to have CNN blaring from televisions spaced out every 20 feet or so.  You can't escape it or turn it off.  Do they really think I am so much of a moron that I can't entertain myself or even sit quietly without video Valium blaring at me every second.  Can't we maybe have some little quiet TV-free rooms, like the smoking rooms spaced around the airport?

I am an active computer gamer and much of the talk in the community is the uproar EA has caused by putting ads in Battlefield 2042.  Much of the discussion is not fact-based, but just panicky rumor-mongering, but one can see how much people don't want advertising pushed at them.  Which is funny to me, because ubiquitous TV in airports seems a much more annoying push than a few ads in a game.