The War on Christmas

Sigh. There's a clever new email making the rounds this Christmas season:

Twas the month before Christmas
When all through our land,
Not a Christian was praying
Nor taking a stand.

See the PC Police had taken away,
The reason for Christmas - no one could say.
The children were told by their schools not to sing,A
bout Shepherds and Wise Men and Angels and things.

It might hurt people's feelings, the teachers would say
December 25th is just a "Holiday".
Yet the shoppers were ready with cash, checks and credit
Pushing folks down to the floor just to get it!
CDs from Madonna, an X BOX, an I-pod
Something was changing, something quite odd!

Retailers promoted Ramadan and Kwanzaa
In hopes to sell books by Franken & Fonda.
As Targets were hanging their trees upside down
At Lowe's the word Christmas - was no where to be found.

At K-Mart and Staples and Penny's and Sears
You won't hear the word Christmas; it won't touch your ears.
Inclusive, sensitive, Di-ver-si-ty
Are words that were used to intimidate me.

Now Daschle, Now Darden, Now Sharpton, Wolf Blitzen
On Boxer, on Rather, on Kerry, on Clinton!
At the top of the Senate, there arose such a clatter
To eliminate Jesus, in all public matter.

And we spoke not a word, as they took away our faith
Forbidden to speak of salvation and grace.
The true Gift of Christmas was exchanged and discarded
The reason for the season, stopped before it started.

So as you celebrate "Winter Break" under your "Dream Tree"
Sipping your Starbucks, listen to me.
Choose your words carefully, choose what you say
Shout MERRY CHRISTMAS, not Happy Holiday!

And my response. Feel free to cut and paste it yourself, should you choose:

‘Twas some weeks before Christmas, and all thru the town,
decorations were hung over trees not yet brown.
“Why the rush?” I did muse, “to be merry and gay,
when we’ve not even set our Thanksgiving buffet?”

Yet the ‘Christians’ were out, and they dared to declare,
“You won’t let us be Christians! It just isn’t fair!
We want to hear 'Christmas' when we go to the stores,
To buy our big-screen TVs and dress our daughters like whores!”

I puzzled a bit at their public distress;
Surely Jesus would not have endorsed such a mess?
It was He, after all, who was heard to intone,
“When you pray, go away, thou shalt do it alone!” (Matthew 6:5-6)

“You have every freedom in this land of ours,
To go pray in the courthouses, schools, even bars!
The problem, you see, is that if you had your druthers
You’d dictate the prayers that should be said by all others!”

“But our nation,” they cried, “is a Christian-y land,
We’re being oppressed, you don’t understand!
The Founding Fathers were God-fearing all,
They would want us to celebrate Mass at the mall!”

I puzzled some more, for a cursory glance
Through the History books showed a very slim chance
That the great men who founded our Nation would care
If you’re Christian or Jewish or something more rare!

Washington, Jefferson, Adams, and Paine,
State-sponsored worship they all did disdain.
One can imagine just how much more
They would have detested religion pushed by a store!

“Besides,” I then thought, “I’m as Christian as you,
but have many friends – Atheist, Muslim, and Jew.
My ‘Happy Holidays’ doesn’t slight your belief,
But acknowledges theirs – so what’s your beef?”

But my words of good sense fell on ignorant ears,
Who continued to rail against imaginary fears.
So to you, dearest friends, these four words I transmit;
Happy Holidays to all – even dumb hypocrites.

Ted's Haggard, pt. 2

And just when you thought the religious right couldn't be any more hypocritical than it already is.....

They knew he was gay all along.

The money quote: Sheldon disclosed that he and “a lot” of others knew about Haggard’s homosexuality “for awhile ... but we weren’t sure just how to deal with it.”

Ted's haggard

Well, anyone who couldn't tell at first sight that Ted Haggard is gay is at best stupid, at worst severely mentally handicapped.

Plus, I wonder why it's news anymore when a Republican and/or Fundamentalist Christian is revealed as a hypocrite.

Jet, however, has taken particular delight in this particular downfall, having spent part of his childhood in a non-denominational Fundamentalist "New-Life" -ish congregation. He had this to say:

Perhaps it is not a Christian thing for me to say, but I'm delighted that a man, who based his life on preaching and promoting a doctrine contrary to our healthy commitment, has been ironically brought down by the very vice he worked to suppress with hatred and criticism.

My Life's Purpose

Has been found. See here.

600

Feh. A milestone is a milestone. And because I'm now an "eductaor", the item that put me over the mark was 25% off at Borders.

Why I hate Heloise

The Florida Times-Union, Thursday, September 7, 2006: (I apologize in advance for the salty language. Reading Heloise sends me into a rage that cannot be described. I really may need medication for it someday.)

Dear Heloise: So often when we go to eat Mexican food, we do not eat all the chips they bring with the salsa. I always take them home, crush them and freeze them. They make an excellent topping for casseroles, squash, taco bake, hash browns or any of your favorites.
R. Neuse, Seguin, Texas

Well, Mr. or Mrs. Neuse, my first piece of advice is to stop throwing around phrases like "taco bake" like people will even know what the hell you are talking about. I imagine it could have easily been grouped under the all-encompassing "casseroles". Oh, and by the way, I weep for your dinner guests who are being served casseroles topped with old thawed corn chips that probably were stale before you even crushed them up and snuck them out of the restaurant in your pocketbook.

My other source of concern is, who the fuck doesn't eat all the chips they bring with the salsa at a Mexican restaurant?!? I can't get enough chips at a Mexican restaurant, they have to bring me three or four baskets before the meal is served, and at least two after.

And just when I thought I would never see anything as stupid as a reader writing to Heloise to suggest doing crossword puzzles in pencil, rather than pen....

Dear Heloise: I always have a pitcher of iced tea in my fridge. When I feel like having a cup of hot tea, I just pour a cup of iced tea in a cup and put it in the microwave.
Margaret Caswell, Waterloo, N.Y.

A quick Google search shows that a Margaret Caswell was a teacher at DeWitt High School between 1955-1962. If it is indeed the same Margaret Caswell, I think she may have since turned retarded. I mean, what happens if she uses up all of her iced tea making hot tea, and then wants iced tea all of a sudden? Besides, retarded people shouldn't be playing with microwaves OR hot liquids.

After the rains....

...the whole neighborhood smells like licorice. Very STRONGLY of licorice. I really have no explanation for it, unless the Maxwell House plant is adding anise to its coffee, or perhaps there's been an uprising in the harbour and angry natives have dumped a shipload of ouzo overboard.

Crikey.

All the menacing creatures he's wrestled to the ground without a scratch, and he gets killed by a stingray?

That's wrong, man.

Why couldn't something sting Paris Hilton, or Jessica Simpson, or someone equally as useless?

Is God Angry, part 2; or, A Question of Karma

In the past four days, I have been unexpectedly granted three different gift cards. The first was from the check out lady at Target, who, after ringing up Arrested Development Season 3 (which rocks, by the way) gave me a free five-dollar gift card, with which I bought Mars Attacks.

Later that day, while escorting Mother Rubble to the Gospel World store to look for stick on geegaws for her Worship and Music poster for the Church Talent Fair, I found a Barnes and Noble gift card with a remaining value of eleven dollars and forty cents on the ground, with which I bought Wicked, the book, which I read a number of years ago in the midst of a string of panic attacks, so I don't really remember what happened in it, not that my reading comprehension and retention is that great even in the best of times.

Today, after returning from my first day of teaching at my alma mater, I found a Best Buy gift card lying on the curb in front of my house. Remaining value, forty dollars even. Which means it's probably never even been used.

Is this bounty a gift from the heavens, a reward for being kind and good in the face of grief and despair? Or is it a cruel test, and am I stcking up more bad karma for myself by taking these cards as my own and wantonly using them for my own selfish ends?

I am hoping the former, as Jet and I will be going to Best Buy tomorrow just as soon as the termite men have come to do their inspection.

Could even a trickster god be cruel enough to plant a Best Buy gift card with forty dollars left on it in front of my house?

Just the Roof, please, continued

When Jet came home from work last night, Dill the Crooked Roofer was sitting across the street from our house in his dilapidated van, staring at our house.

Jet asked him if he needed to speak with him. "Not unless you have any money," was the reply.

The police, apparently, can do nothing unless and until he encroaches on the property or makes an explicit threat.

You should know, of course, that we have not paid Dill the Crooked Roofer the balance of our bill, and are suing him to get our deposit back. Which he should know about by now. Which means he is angry, and stupid, and likely possesses firearms.

Sigh.

Code Dependent has just posted her first new blog in two years. So no more grousing about how infrequently I post.

Unemployable, continued

Okay, I'm starting not to get the joke.

Yesterday, having filled out an online application for a temp company, and having an interview appointment automatically scheduled for me, I received a call from girl-at-the-temp-agency-with-a-perky-name-that-probably-dots-her-I's-with-hearts.

Perky: "Hello, Bamm-Bamm? It's about your appointment tomorrow. I just screened your application and I'm sorry to say you don't meet our core requirements."

Me: "And those are?"

Perky: "Mid- to upper-level management, and data entry."

Me: "...um, that covers three of the five jobs that are listed on my application."

Perky: "I'm sorry, but I screened your application and you don't meet our core requirements."

I repeat, this is for temp work. Which a chimp could do.

Oh, plus, I'm petty and vindictive. The company was Apple One. Spread the word.

Is God angry?

Six weeks after buying this house, we have a live termite infestation, any sign of which somehow evaded the pre-sale termite inspection.

I'm still unemployed and unemployable.

And here's the path of Hurricane Ernesto, set to hit our definitely-not-able-to-withstand-a-hurricane-roof at 8am on Friday - the day I'm supposed to start my one-day-a-week job, which is thus far my only form of employment:



I'm just sayin'.

Dog Park

One thing I WILL give this town credit for is its dog park, "a 42-acre swim and play park for people and their doggies (over 25 acres are currently fenced)! The park is the country's largest completely fenced dog park--a true heaven on earth for dogs!"

Heaven for most dogs, I suppose....Frito Joe for instance, who will chase and pester any dog no matter how big, and bark at the top of his lungs when he can't catch them, which he can't, because despite being slim and wiry he is composed entirely of sinew and is just a hair slower than every other dog in the park.

Poor Dino (the sweetest dog that ever lived on the earth in all of history), on the other hand, could take it or leave it (mostly leave it I imagine). When approached by another dog for a friendly sniff-up, she will curl into a ball, preferably under the legs of Jet or me. If we are not available, she will approach any strangers who happen to be standing by (because this is a dog park, these strangers are usually old men or lesbians, or old lesbians). If no legs are available, she will growl and snarl and make herself out to be the sort of undesirable cur that is unwelcome at the dog park, even though she is, as I mentioned, the sweetest dog that ever lived on the earth in all of history.

If pressed into activity, she will chase only Frito Joe, seemingly for the express purpose of preventing him from having any fun. As she can run roughly at the speed of sound, her self-appointed task is easily accomplished. She will carefully choose a moment when she is able to gain access to Frito Joe without having to touch or be touched by any other dogs, then take off like a discharged bullet, tackle Frito Joe to the ground, and resume her position of safety under someone's legs.

This isn't leading to any pithy revelation about real life, I just wanted to upload a picture of the dogs.

Limbo

Having spent the past three days back in DC, I am faced with the startling fact that, just like they say, you can't go home again. But I'm jaded and cranky and not at all prepared to embrace my new life and town. What's a boy to do?

Plus I'm still forty, and have no idea what I'm supposed to do with THAT knowledge.

Plus I'm apparently unemployable (see previous post). Okay, I haven't sent out, like, thirty-thousand blind resumes a day, like I've heard some people say they do, but I HAVE diligently scanned the newspapers and websites for local jobs that I am eminently qualified for, and been perky and affable in every interview I've gone on, and STILL nothing.

Well, except for the teaching one day a week at one of my Alma Maters, which gave my self-confidence a boost but is nonetheless an hour and a half away and will only net me a cool five grand a year, which is not going to be enough to keep my DVD habit going, and I already have the DT's from not having been to Best Buy in over two months.

Speaking of Best Buy, I would NOT be above working there, IF they were hiring, which they're not. Nor is Borders, or Barnes and Noble. The only box store offering the possibility of gainful employ is Michael's Crafts, but when I went in to ask for an application, after having been brusquely put off by the managerette, I inexplicable burst into tears and had to race back to my car. I suppose it was the possibility of having to scrawl my own name on my smock with a fabric marker that set me off, I don't know. Perhaps I'll go back this week. Now that I have one day of the week accounted for, I only need to find something for the other four.

Just to keep my options open, I DID ensure that I would have a place at the Cathedral should Jet and I suddenly return to DC, and was assured that I would indeed have a place - and all because I'm good and pure. I didn't even have to give out money or sexual favors. I also insisted that in the meantime, I be called back should anyone of importance die and have a service at the Cathedral, another assurance that was graciously granted me.

Oh, and lest I forget, Jet Screamer has started his own blog. Nothing much there yet, but keep hounding him, he's sure to have some juicy posts for us real soon.

Unemployable

How in the crap am I not qualified to be a bank teller?!? A CHIMP can be a bank teller.

Sigh.

Just the roof, please

When one’s business is named “Just So-and-So”…..”Just Cakes” perhaps, or “Just Rivets”, it would seem to imply that said business has made such an art of, say , cakes or rivets, that they’ve abandoned all other pursuits to ensure that their cakes or rivets are the cream of their respective crops.

Unless you’re in the South. Jacksonville, as we’re discovering, IS the South, unlike the rest of Florida, which is a giant beach town. Even the parts that aren’t on the Beach. Jacksonville is more accurately thought of as belonging to southern Georgia, and I mean that in the worst possible sense.

In the South, naming your business “Just So-and So”…for the sake of argument, I’ll say “Just Roofing”…means that you’ve so screwed up every other endeavor that you’ve only one endeavor to screw up. Like roofs. Specifically, our roof. Our historic pressed-tin roof that the city would only allow us to replace with another pressed-tin roof, which was supposed to be complete before we even moved in yet wasn’t even BEGUN until two weeks AFTER we’d moved in, and was supposed to be completed in four days but wasn’t NEAR completion for four weeks, and now may or may not be complete – we’re not sure because the city has halted all work permits issued to our roofer, Dill, and if we want the roof to be put on correctly we’ll have to hire another company to rip the whole thing off and start from scratch.

I suppose we should have taken a bit more notice when the crackerjack carpentry team next door kept ridiculing the progress Dill was making on our roof, or when they reported that Dill’s helpers were sitting up on the roof smoking pot every time Dill left the site. But it wasn’t until water poured from the attic into our upstairs hallway that we really started to suspect that something might not be kosher. Then when the city inspector walked up into the attic, whistled under his breath, and said “Oh, shit”. Oh, and of course, when we found out Dill’s State license had been suspended since March, with no one ever bothering to tell the city. Things like that really start to pique one’s interest.

Other than that, the neighborhood remains…interesting. We attended Jacksonville’s recent Gay Pride Festival with some neighbors we met at the neighborhood dog walk. Granted, Jet and I may be a bit biased, as the last Pride Festival we attended jointly was in San Francisco….but fifty middle-aged people milling around a street corner while a lonely DJ blasts music in their ears doesn’t say to me “gay”, “pride”, OR “festival”.

Jet and I have been traveling across the river to the tony part of town to do our shopping, except in the direst of emergencies, like when we wake up on Sunday morning and have no coffee. It was just such a Sunday morning recently, and I dashed down to the local Stab-n-Save to grab a can of Folger’s, arriving just in time to witness the after effects of a homeless person taking a shit right in the middle of aisle ten. Not the coffee aisle, thankfully.

Contrast this with events on the other extreme, like the well-dressed white couple that drives by our house in a golf cart, both of them holding full goblets of Merlot, announcing that they’re “snooping things out”. I don’t even know what that means. But I like to think I’m a little smarter than to drive the streets with an open container of liquor in a slow-moving vehicle. That’s just asking for trouble.

Oh, and did I mention I’m forty? What am I supposed to do now?

2 things you never want to hear from your waking or sleeping spouse

Waking: "Baaaaaaam! Frito Joe has an erection and he's doing something to the carpet!"

Sleeping: "Bamm, PLEASE! Don't kill those kittens!"

Moving Day

Well...not REALLY moving day, since we moved in last week to our stately home at 5135 Kensington Avenue, where gentle breezes carrying the sound of children's laughter sway the tall, majestic trees.

By day.

By night, the stifling, putrid air carries the sound of either firecrackers or gunfire (we haven't quite decided yet), the rumble of city busses (as our house lies on the temporary bus route), and the shouts and catcalls of the drunk, high, and indigent - or as Jet calls them, "the colorful foot traffic".

They say it will get better. Soon. The people next door say it's already unrecognizable from when they moved in four years ago. Floozy Flingland's boyfriend C-Lo has a friend here who says much quicker than five years. But Jet and I have had a hard week, so we're having trouble accentuating the positive right now.

How hard? Not, like, death and destruction hard, just inconvenient hard really. Which is bad enough when coupled with a last-ditch but futile effort to not even move away in the first place, and the constant struggle to force one's mind to believe that this will all probably look really good in hindsight.

So, to summarize:

July 8: We pack up in the morning with the help of our dear friends, choking back tears all the while, and once the dear friends left us alone we cried and cried. And cried. Well, Jet mostly, as I'm stoic and believe that feelings are like treasures, to be buried. We wasted no time in getting on the road once we were packed, as we had already rented back from the new owners for two days, and had promised faithfully to be out by sundown.

Another neighbor reported that Pedro and Inez, the new owners, descended on the house like a swarm of locusts once they knew we were gone. To rid it of our evil, I'd imagine.

We stayed the night in Swampscent, North Carolina, and had to take a smoking room as that was the only way they would let us bring Dino and Frito Joe.

July 9: We continued the drive to Bremerhaven, where Jet will soon assume his glorious new position (I may have failed to mention that, in the interim between getting hired and starting to work, Jet has already been promoted to a position of some authority by his new boss, Johnny Depp.) The drive was arduous, especially for Jet, who was driving the moving van with our girly pickup truck in tow. At least I had the complete works of David Sedaris on CD to keep me company. Of course, I DID have Dino and Frito Joe, who need constant attention and talking-to in baby language, so I reserve my right to whine a little.

We arrived at sundown at the Marriott Residence Inn, which I can HIGHLY recommend for anyone who may be traveling in the near future. It does cost a little more, naturally, but as a wise charwoman once told me after I complained about the bathtub ring in my room at the Dollar Inn in Jeffersonville, Ohio; "You get what you pay for".

I will now insert an interesting anecdote, that being that Jet once found Nancy Marriott's wallet in a practice room down at the college, and turned it in, and did not get a reward, even though Nancy Marriott could buy and sell us all.

July 10: We sat around all day, as the closing was delayed by 24 hours, through no fault of our own.

July 11: We dragged poor Dino and Frito Joe all over the town, to lots and lots of places that they weren't allowed into. We were hopeful that we would be able to unload a few of our precious belongings before the closing, but naturally that would have been logical and simple, so it wasn't meant to be. Finally, at sundown, we were handed the keys and started to unload.

Now the house, viewed in isolation, really is lovely to behold. A two-story frame vernacular built in 1909, all the original woodwork throughout the house has been restored. There are three bedroom, two updated baths, and a room downstairs which we can teach from. Even an upstairs walk-out balcony, of which I've always dreamed.

But the neighborhood. I mean, we KNEW we were buying into a transitional area. I guess we just thought it would be a little further up the scale than it actually is.

Our neighbors, Skipper and Prison Doctor (who are separated but still live together, we think, or not - it's hard to tell and you KNOW how we hate to pry) told us that we should leave nothing on the front porch that we didn't want to see stolen. Even though we have a latchable gate and several hundred watts of motion-sensitive security lights. "Surely," we thought, "no one would be foolish enough to try and steal our giant fifty-pound statue of Buddha. It will certainly be all right here on the front porch."

Well, it WAS all right, for nearly a week, until said security lighting was actually installed and activated.

But here's the thing - why would anyone who doesn't care about the teachings of Buddha want to have a Buddha statue?

And anyone who DOES care about Buddha's teachings wouldn't steal, right? Especially not steal something that weighs fifty pounds and is awkward to carry and will not be easy to make a quick getaway with, after setting off motion-activated lights...

...and yet the thoughtful thief, perhaps in an effort to balance out his or her karma, took the time to close and re-latch the gate behind them.

Anyway, back to our story.

July 12: Mother Rubble, Code Dependent, and Nephew Ratched arrived to help us finish unloading the truck. Which is a lucky thing, as without their help our piano would still be sitting out in the street - or, perhaps, being wheeled down the street with a Buddha statue perched on top.

Mother Rubble actually didn't do much lifting, but once the air conditioning broke down she was happy as a clam, and she loves the hot.

Yes, I said the air conditioning broke down.

The day we moved in.

July 13-17: A blur, really, as the air conditioning was still broken, and the hot makes me woozy. Evidently, we moved some things around, and unpacked some boxes, and set up some bookshelves and such. I DO recall going to church, as Jet laid twenty bucks in the collection plate, leading me to think that's things would surely get better after such a generous tithe.

Well, the air conditioning is working now. But then Buddha got stolen. So I don't know what to think.

Snarky Reviews: Superman Returns

Saw my first summer blockbuster of the season last night, as I am wont to do in summer blockbuster season (X-Men 3 doesn’t count, as it wasn’t summer yet, and it wasn’t a blockbuster….though it was fine.)

So, Superman Returns. I’m going to tell you all about it, so if you don’t want to know what happens, just scroll up to the top of the page, the right hand corner, and click “next blog”.

Still here? Okay, then – Superman Returns apparently constitutes a bit of revisionist history, a world in which Superman III and Superman IV: The Quest For Peace never happened. Which is fine by me, and I would imagine fine by anyone who saw Superman III and Superman IV: The Quest For Peace. The events follow Superman II…rather, I should say, they pick up five years after Superman II, as the opening credits inform us that Superman has been in outer space for the past five years, looking for his home planet of Krypton (yes, we all remember that Krypton exploded, as does Superman himself…why exactly he went to look for it is never quite explained).

Superman II, you’ll recall, involved Superman giving up his powers and sleeping with Lois Lane. This becomes an important plot point later, so don’t forget it.

True Superphiles will also instantly realize that the five-year gap conveniently allows for the events of the film classic, Supergirl, which I saw in Chicago on Thanksgiving Day almost 22 years ago with JubJub, who will be visiting this weekend with her new boyfriend Babaloo.

But I digress.

After the five-years-later explanation, and a dizzying ride through space while the credits roll, we pick up at the Kent farmstead in…well, I don’t know where it is. Kansas? Indiana? Someplace flat and expansive. Mother Kent (Eva-Marie Saint) is puttering around her kitchen, which apparently hasn’t been updated since about 1927, judging by the antique ice box with a Marconi wireless perched precariously on top. Her scrubbing of the laundry on a washboard is interrupted by a fiery meteor which lands in the back forty, so she hops into her Model T pickup and heads out to find:

1) a giant smoldering crystalline something-or-other, and
2) her adopted son Superman (Brandon Routh), naked and stumbling around the field

She takes him home and spruces him up, whereupon he plays a mean trick on the family dog, has a flashback to his childhood, watches the news, offers no explanation about where he’s been, mumbles something, and leaves.

We then head to Metropolis, where Supes has re-donned his Clark Kent disguise and assumed his old duties as a mild-mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper (I won’t bore you here with my treatise on how, psychologically, I believe that Clark is the authentic person and Superman the disguise, which puts me in opposition to pretty much everyone else in the world). Clark’s hopes for picking up his life exactly where it left off are dashed when he discovers that Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth), his former paramour, is living with the boss’s nephew (James Marsden), has an asthmatic out-of-wedlock child (Tristan Lake Leabu), and is about to accept a Pulitzer for her opinion piece “Why The World Doesn’t Need Superman”. Whoops.

Before he has time to brood about it, however, he’s called upon to save a crashing plane-connected-to-a-space-shuttle (don’t ask) which just happens to include passenger Lois Lane. He saves the plane in a spectacular display of special effects wizardry, sets it down on the pitcher’s mound of Yankees Stadium, and if you don’t get a lump in your throat as the crowd erupts in cheers then, my friend, you have no soul.

Meanwhile, Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey), his gun moll Kitty (Parker Posey) and three (maybe four, I had trouble telling them apart, except that one had a video camera) generic stoolies are planning their revenge against the newly-returned Superman. Revenge includes picking up on Lex’s obsession with beachfront property from the 1978 film. Only this time, Lex has stolen power crystals from Superman’s long-abandoned Fortress of Solitude, which he is going to use to create a new continent in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, flooding all of North America and leaving a huge, craggy, crystalline continent that no one would want to live on in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

After much hand-wringing and soul-searching on the parts of Lois, Superman, and Lois’ live-in boyfriend - interspersed with gee-whizzical scenes of Superman saving people and stuff – Lois ends up trapped on Lex Luthor’s yacht with her asthmatic out-of-wedlock child, headed out to sea with Lex to create his new continent. Which, incidentally, will be laced full of Kryptonite so that Superman can’t stop him. They are rescued by Lois’ live-in boyfriend, but not before one of the generic stoolies has a piano thrown at him by the asthmatic out-of-wedlock child, pretty much confirming everyone’s assumption that Superman is Lois’ baby daddy. Superman then arrives to save all of them, then gets weakened by Kryptonite, then gets shivved by Lex Luthor, then gets rescued by the people HE had just rescued. Then he flies up into the sky to soak up some sunlight and flies back down to Earth to beat Lex and – wait for it – lift the entire new continent up into space and fling it toward the sun.

Then he plummets to Earth, powerless, and dies. Or not. It’s a tense few minutes.

Lois manages to get into the hospital with her no-longer-asthmatic out-of-wedlock child, where she kisses Superman on the lips, reveals that he’s her baby daddy, and then goes on about her business. Either the kiss or the revelation of parentage does the trick, because next thing you know the big blue is up and around, creeping into the kid’s bedroom while he’s asleep to whisper some mumbo-jumbo about the father becoming the son, and other useless drivel you’ll recall being uttered by Dead Marlon Brando earlier in the film.

So, there we have it. The movie ends with Superman flying off to stop some more deli robberies, leaving Lois living with her child and her boyfriend who is not the father of her child, but still thinks he is. It’s a pretty big genie they’ve let out of the bottle, it will be interesting to see how they follow up.

Performances: I was awfully worried when Brandon Routh first appeared on the screen. He mumbled and appeared to have little idea that he was in a movie, or even awake. But he grew on me. His instructions were apparently to “channel Christopher Reeve”, a challenge he accepted with gusto. His speech patterns and mannerisms might as well be Reeve himself. And actually, I like his Clark Kent better than Reeve. More natural, less of an obvious put-on.

Kate Bosworth. Sigh. She gives it her best shot, but she’s far too young to be playing Lois Lane, especially a Lois Lane that has a five year old child and a Pulitzer. She’s far from the worst Lois Lane (hello, Teri Hatcher) but I fear it won’t be a high point of her career, nor a character-defining performance like Margot Kidder’s.

Kevin Spacey. Parker Posey. I want to like them both, especially Posey, but…well….they just…they both seem to play the same character, no matter what movie they’re in. Spacey the smarmy ham, Posey the crazy chick. There is nothing remarkable about either performance, certainly nothing unique that they bring to their characters. Lex Luthor should be terrifying in his evil, and he’s not. And, I certainly never thought I’d pine for Valerie Perrine’s Miss Tessmacher, but there you have it. I do.

James Marsden has his role as a pretty face down pat. Actually, I was pleasantly surprised to find that, unencumbered by his X-Men Cyclops shades, he can turn in a moving and subtle performance. He might have actually been a good Superman, if not for the fact that he appears to be about five-foot two. And as I mentioned above, he’s awfully pretty.

Dead Marlon Brando appears, to what purpose I still don't know. Honestly, his face is obscured by so much digitized vaseline-lens effect, it could have been anyone spewing metaphysical drivel with marbles in their mouth.

There is one perfect match of character and actor, Sam Huntington’s Jimmy Olsen. Perfect. He needs more to do in the sequel.

There are nice cameos by Noel Neill and Jack Larson, Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen from the 1950’s television show. Larson, as you’ll recall, is now an acclaimed playwright, and was the longtime partner of James Bridges, director of The Paper Chase, The China Syndrome, and Urban Cowboy. But you knew that.

Gripes: The costume. He looks like a Nicaraguan hooker. And Routh has this weird sort of love-handley thing that doesn't lend itself to wearing bikini trunks.

The hair. Director Bryan Singer is gay, so one would think he could employ a decent hairdresser. Kate Bosworth looks like she combed hers with an egg-beater. And Routh's...well....look, I KNOW Superman's hair in the comics is black with navy-blue highlights. That's because it's a comic book. That does NOT mean you have to dye his hair with jet-black shoe polish, and give him a wig like a 70's porn star. The movie-going public WILL accept a Superman with a weight line and a haircolor that occurs in nature.

The child. Are there no longer child actors that look and act like children, instead of like Damien?

The Christ symbology. Okay, I get it. You don't have to freaking pound me over the head with it.

So…not the best movie I’ve ever seen, certainly far from the worst. I give it a B+. Review over!

Now – get over to Monk-E-Mail and amuse yourself the rest of the day.

Dogs at work

It's National Bring Your Dogs to Work Day, and so I've brought mine, which I planned to do even before I knew it WAS National Bring your Dogs to Work Day, because everyone in the prestigious scientific society where I work is gone to Boston for the Annual Meeting, except for me, Palsy, Poinsettia, Wendy the Lost Girl, Pregnant Rebecca, Sinthia, and the Phantom of the Eighth Floor, who hates dogs.

Dino is a perfect lady, of course, and Frito Joe is well-behaved unless I decide I need to go to the bathroom, or to the kitchen, or the fax machine, or anywhere besides my cubicle, which has been cordoned off with two recycle buckets and a trash can to keep the little darlings from running around the office.

Thus far we have endured a building-wide fire evacuation, an impending thunderstorm, and queen-of-inappropriate-discussion Palsy wondering aloud why Frito Joe was interested in her crotch, since "I'm not on my cycle". Classy.