The Societal Contigency Plan

                                 I'm pretty sure Joe Cartoon didn't give me permission for this

My brother has a good theory about homeless people.
Here's the theory. If you give a homeless person some money, say 5 bucks, he will take it to his tribe of homeless and say "hey, 5 bucks!"  They will then scurry like cockroaches to where the rich homeless guy found his human ATM and try to extract money from others.  If they don't succeed Dirty Mike and The Boy's return back to the hobo camp and beat the shit out of the rich hobo and take his money.  So, the lesson is: give 1 hobo some money and you'll have 1 less hobo.
Here's a sentence.
Hey look, blue car!

I'm in a mood.  I was in a great mood all day, although tired, I was just cruising throughout the day, doing my job, trying to sell cars and help out where I can.  Also, it's my "Friday", the day before my 2 days off, which I am really looking forward to, so I can get a little bit of relax time in and little bit of my Podcast done and hang out with family, shit I like to do.

The last 20 days have been a grind for me.  I'm just getting back to work from almost a year off due to my psoriasis, so I'm tired, achy and probably a little bit of an asshole, but I'm trying to keep my attitude from affecting anyone and I just push all the attitude aside and just roll with things.  Again, I am trying to make it easy on myself and others.  However, I'm my own worse critic.  Also, I think that I'm fed up with one aspect of civilization.  The "homeless".

Now, I'm not talking about the REAL homeless, those that have had life shit on them and they are in desperate need of help and medical attention, I honestly feel no one cares about them because it's just easier to let them continue on their path of destruction than to actually lift a finger to help.  That's disgusting.  No, what I'm talking about is the piece of shit dregs of society that beg their way through life expecting us to assist them by asking for money or buying them alcohol or cigarettes or whatever and I'm done with that shit.  The Mike Charity is now closed.

I can see you reading this and saying, OK, whatever, but why?  Why, Mike, do you feel this way? Well, let me tell you why, my friend.

It all started innocently enough about 20 or so years ago, I'm driving from my place down to Carmichael, CA to meet some friends and I proceed to the off-ramp at Greenback lane, which is a 3 lane off ramp.  I'm heading to the movie theater just on the opposite side of the road, kitty corner to where I'm at (i.e. I take a left and then take a right and turn into the theater).  Standing on the side of the road is a "homeless" guy.  I'm already annoyed because these types of people have infected society and have taken advantage of hard working people by begging for money - fuck them.  Except this guy standing there on the corner of Greenback and the off ramp. He really looks beat up, dirty, disheveled, worn through shoes etc, etc.  He's either really playing the part or he needs help.  He's also holding a sign and again I'm thinking, great another "Will Work For Food" sign.  I move forward in the car as the light changes to green and I'm trying to get through the intersection, but apparently it's the lightning round and the light turns red before I can get through.  So there I am sitting in my car, 20 feet from homeless guy and I see his sign.  "Why Lie, NED A Beer"  and I roll down my window and call him over and give him 5 bucks.

Why?
He really needed a beer, the sign even told me he did.  But he misspelled "need", I believe, or his name was Ned and he couldn't really articulate and forgot basic sentence structure like "Why Lie, Buy Ned A Beer" or something like that.  He won.  5 bucks richer and I did feel good about myself.
So cut to months later and I'm in San Francisco with friends and now we're being harassed by a singing, dancing, comedian chatterbox that's continually asking for money, but in song form, as in he would take popular top 40 songs and make up lyrics to the beat about the people he was serenading, but I had enough, after about 3 minutes, I just told the guy to get bent or piss up a rope or something.  It was cute the first 30 seconds or a minute or so, but the gall and persistence of the man got under my skin, so enough is enough, and I stabbed him in the neck with a pen and took his wallet and keys and money and his shoes. I mean, they were nice shoes.  Really nice.

So it's gone on for years, once in a while, if I thought the person needed help, I'd throw a buck or two their way.  That is, until tonight.

I stopped at a store to get the basics for survival - beer and cigarettes.  I get out of my car and hear "hey, hey buddy, psssssst, over here" and I look to my right to see a guy, dressed relatively nicely, holding a half smoked cigarette that he picked off the ground, staring at me and he gives me his fucking sob story.  At this point, I just don't care, it all sounds like the sounds the adults make in the Charlie Brown cartoons WAAA WA WAA WA WA. 
"hey buddy, can ya spare a dollar, I need at least 1.91 to get out of this town" which I thought was odd that it only took 1.91 to actually leave Auburn, I mean you're not going to get far on that, but hey, if it gets him outta town, then I'm all for it.  Have a merry adventure, adieu.
So's I gives him the buck and pop inside to get my items I need to continue my healthy clean living.  I pay and walk out and hear the same guy say "hey, hey buddy, can I get one of those?"
The fucking gall.
Look, pal, you're a fucking piece of shit out of work homeless guy begging for money and picking cigarettes off the street to smoke.  Everyone has their little issues, but I bust my ass for my cash and frankly the last thing you should do is even think about begging for MORE stuff after I've already given you the dollar you asked for.
It's like the SNL sketch "The Thing That Wouldn't Leave", in which Belushi torments a couple " (played by Jane Curtin and Bill Murray).  Someone giving you something is just not good enough, I need to have them give more stuff to me.
Get a job you asshole. Go do something or get the fuck out of town like you said you were going to.  You don't get to have a beer, you don't get anything else from me... buddy. 

Frankly I'm done with this bullshit.  I give because I feel it's the right thing to do, or, at least I used to but these guys are just fucking relentless greedy little assholes.  So now the Mike Charity is closed.  Go find some chump that will let you hang around like a bad case of the crabs and soak off them until you've worn out your welcome.  As to that theory of a homeless guy.  Well, Dirty Mike and The Boys like to cluster about the shopping center near my house where they have also set up their "Drug Lounge/Gay Sex Shrubbery" right near the entrance to the shopping center.  Knowing where they hang out, you can now pick one lucky lotto winner on any given day and give him a 10 spot and watch the gladiatorial combat ensue when he shows his friends.  Hey, maybe you can bet on the fight and get your money back as well.

Apparently I like writing blogs...

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Dredd And The Fugitive Mike

                                                                       I AM THE LAW!

When I saw the trailer and posters for Dredd last year at about this time, I couldn't wait to see it, then all of a sudden it disappeared.  I think it was in theaters for a total of 2 weeks.  Total bullshit, as it wasn't "performing" as well as the studios had hoped. so I didn't get to watch the movie in theaters.  Oh poor me. The trailers I saw showed it to be a centralized action piece with Dredd and Anderson in a huge shoot out.  Perfect popcorn movie, even if it was like the Stallone crapfest Judge Dredd.

Now, I'm a fan of movies, but it has gotten to the point in the past few years where we have just accepted the shit that we're being force fed and it's getting old.  It's been written and talked about for years and I don't need to repeat what everyone else is saying, save for the fact that the idea factory is bankrupt.  With few exceptions.  Dredd being one of them.

This movie is excellent.  Everyone plays their part well and the action is fast paced and the story is good.  It's not drawn out, it keeps you interested and doesn't throw out schlocky slapsticky comedy like the previous Dredd movie. This movie delivers on a large scale and it's pathetic that it didn't do better.

From the setup to the final pay off, this movie should have gotten more recognition than it received in theaters.  Then it came out on DVD and performed as it should have.  I'm hoping that the DVD sales results in a sequel.

I guess what I'm getting at is this -
The studio system is just pounding us with reboots and remakes and little in the way of original movies.  We all know that "it's been done before" but stories are out there to be told.  I don't need to see another Spiderman origin story or Batman or whatever else is available out there for reboots (there are tons of them, I'm too lazy to research them right now...) or remakes.  I would like to see modern day updates to tons of movies - Bullit, The Detective (which is technically the first "Die Hard" story) Saturn 5 or even Arsenic and Old Lace.  It would be cool to see takes on those types of movies. How about an update on Smokey and the Bandit? But who would play Big Enos and Little Enos?

With the way that everything is established, studios go for the easy pay off.and little risk. It's a problem with the system in and of itself - independent movies are locked out where they could find an audience, good movies aren't given enough life in the theaters to build an audience and bad movies continually make money (Scary Movie 4/5, Epic Movie anyone).  I don't know if we're conditioned just to accept this stuff and laugh at the lame jokes or if we're so starved for something good we're willing to sit through the crap for the nuggets of gold.  I think it's the latter.

Jack The Giant Slayer

The prevailing thought throughout a lot of Hollywood is the idea that the common person is dumb and that with movies there has to be a lot of exposition and hand holding - this, of course is for a lot of the "modern day" movies. The biggest offender's being the current crop of movies that have come out, most of which we have covered on our podcast (www.diicast.com and click on the Average Joe's link). Let's get specific on this though. Jack The Giant Slayer. The reason this movie is a fundamental failure is 2 things. The writers have taken Jack And The Beanstalk and Jack The Giant Killer and combined these movies instead of telling two distinct stories and combining them into one larger story.

To break it down even further, we all know the story of Jack And The Beanstalk, to a degree. Jack is told by his mother to go to town to sell the family cow. Jack goes to town, trades the cow for magic beans, brings them back, his mom, angry, tosses them out the window. The next day, a gigantic beanstalk has grown out of the ground, reaching towards the heavens. Jack climbs the beanstalk (after hearing tales of the golden egg and the harp) to this new land where he befriends the wife of a giant, who feeds Jack and cares for him. Becoming friends, Jack takes advantage of this, stealing gold, the hen (not goose) that lays the golden eggs, the harp and a few other things. The male giant finds out about this and chases Jack to the back to the beanstalk. Jack climbs down and chops the beanstalk down, killing the giant, living happily ever after.

Jack The Giant Killer, the story is about a person named Jack whom kills giants that live in England. It's an Arthurian legend. Jack saves one of King Arthur's retainers and is given a seat at the roundtable. Jack then proceeds to roam the countryside killing the giants, insighting a war, where the knights of the roundtable prevail.

This movie would have been better off being made into two movies, first telling the story of Jack and The Beanstalk and then The Giant Killer. The story could have started off with Jack at a young age, following the story to a T, befriending the female giant, killing the male giant and making off with the gold he steals, creating a better environment for him and his family. On top of that, he could have dropped the beans in the giants castle, thus creating a link to the second movie, where the female giant wants revenge on Jack.

Then in the second movie, Jack, now older, has gone on with his life, becoming a giant killer. No one know's exactly where they're coming from, but they are living in the land. Jack saves one of Arthur's knights or retainers (or what have you) and gains a seat on the roundtable for his actions. The female giant, finding out about Jack, through his reputation, proceeds to attack Camelot and in return, the knights defeat the giants, but not before they escape with Jack. Arthur gather's a small contingent of knights and tracks the giants to where these beanstalks are and proceed to rescue Jack, kill the giants and cut down the beanstalks.

Instead, we got a mashup of both stories, with a weak predictable plot. The best part of this movie was the "animated" beginning, done in the style of the Harry Potter Deathly Hallow's animated story, in which one of the character's in the Deathly Hallow's movie relates to Harry about the Cloak, The Wand and the Stone, all wonderfully animated. If Jack The Giant Killer had continued with their animated beginning as the basis for the story, it would have been a better movie.

I guess what I'm saying is that even though I picked Jack The Giant Slayer for this rant, lack of good story will always kill a movie and it seems that's really all we're getting now. There are hundreds of great movies, Django, The Hobbit, etc etc. But those are far and few between the schlock we're getting now. Even the new Die Hard movie was a disappointment, there are too many finger's in the cookie jar making decisions on story and direction. I'd rather have fewer movies come out during the year that are really good, than be hammered with movies that were just tossed together at the last moment and shoved down our throats.

We have The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug coming, Iron Man 3, the new Superman movie, Kick-Ass 2 and a few other's that will be good, but we also have Scary Movie, The Great Gatsby, The Croods and several other's that won't be good. The bad outweigh's the good in terms of what's coming out or are out and its a wonder that Hollywood sits there and believe's that if they increase the amount of movies that come out per year they can continue this vicious circle of making these movies on the hopes that one of them will be a massive hit at the cost of something good. That's too bad for us. But it's good for me and my movie review blog and podcast.

Thanks for reading.

The official DII Cast rant blog.

It's been a couple of years since I visited this blog and was checking through it to see if it was worth keeping and I realized that, yes, it's worth keeping and mostly, this is/was the template for what has become the Podcast (www.diicast.com, heathens!) and it shall remain as the second page for our little spot on the interwebs to post rants, raves, stories, news items and all things Snooki or whoever the newest retard reality show celebrity is that comes along.

Don't be shy, come over here and let me hold you and stroke your hair while we tell you stories from our lives, sprinkled in with movie reviews and tales from our work experiences.

Resurrection - it jostles the memory of the olden days when some guy came back from the dead, before George Romero's zombie movies, and this "reborn" guy created wine from water and did all sorts of neat magic tricks and got a sweet gig in Vegas to spread his cheer and just like that guy from the olden days or John Travolta's career after Blow Out (except Battlefield Earth, Wild Hogs, Two Of A Kind, Perfect, Old Dogs, Look Who's Talking..), Stop Having A Boring Tuna returns