So  I realize that each day that goes by, and I toe that fragile line between self-employed
and unemployed, I get farther and farther away from my dream …

my dream of having real ‘fuck you’ money.

There is a show on the ‘gay’ network (LOGO, channel 272) called ‘Adam and Steve’

… no idea what it is, but as I look thru the channel guide, the title alone makes me a tad uncomfortable.

There is a great Snickers commercial with Betty White and Abe Vigoda … the first time I saw it, I was thinking, ‘how the hell old is Abe Vigoda?’ … I mean Abe Vigoda was old in the Godfather movies and those where made in the early 70’s. Shit, he was on death’s door when Barney Miller was a hit show in 1975 … that guy has got to be 117 years old.

Yeah, go on ... have a Snickers Abe … if diabetes hasn’t got you yet, it ain’t gonna …

Speaking of The Godfather … as everyone knows The Godfather and the sequel, The Godfather: Part 2, both won the Oscar for best picture. Which is absolutely the exception to the ‘sequel’ rule.

I was watching TV the other day when Escape from L.A. came on … what an abortion of a movie that is. And what makes it worse is that it was done by the same writer and director as Escape from New York: John Carpenter and had the same star: Kurt Russell as Snake Plissken.

They should be ashamed of themselves. Snake Plissken, one of the great characters in movie and pop culture history ... running around in some futuristic jumpsuit, shooting baskets. It's embarrassing, even to write about it.

Usually bad sequels will have different writers, directors and/or stars to throw off the whole vibe and chemistry of the first movie. Caddyshack II, Major League II, Grease II, Teen Wolf II, Eddie & the Cruisers II, Blues Brothers 2000 … the list goes on and on.

(we do give a SINacle pass to Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo, greatest sequel name of all time)

And that’s not even mentioning the trilogies or worse. Usually, the movies get worse and worse as they go. (even the Godfather couldn’t pull off a trilogy)

Rocky. Rocky was ‘sequeled’ to death, but the original Rocky WON the Oscar for best picture. Rocky II was good, Rocky III with Mr.T, had it’s moments they just kept getting worse from there … Rocky 5 was sooo bad that Sylvester Stallone made a different version of it … not even acknowledging Rocky 5 when he basically made Rocky 6, but called it Rocky Balboa.

Bad News Bears (one of my favorites) had a decent sequel with Breaking Training, but the third one was just awful … beyond awful … again, because they didn’t bring the entire cast back and even changed actors of some main characters.

James Cameron hit a homerun with Aliens, the follow-up to Ridley Scott's Alien, but it was a mess after that ...

Tim Burton’s Batman was great … then just got worse and worse … I mean Batman & Robin was the most ‘unintentionally gay’ movie this side of Top Gun. It took Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale to rescue the Batman franchise with Batman Begins and then with the late, Heath Ledger … made what might be the greatest sequel of all time: The Dark Knight.

Which brings us to Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. Star Wars was great. Groundbreaking and unbelievable imaginative, and yet Empire was better. It was gritty and dark and had good and evil, love and honor, heroes and villains … and a cliff hanger to beat all … a frozen Han Solo.

This is all fresh to me because yesterday they played all 6 Star Wars movies in a row … the 3 prequels, and then the first 3 ending with, Return of the Jedi.

So after Empire Strikes Back … Jedi brings us to the end, and we get Ewoks … and our trilogy / Godfather 3 curse catches up to us … why Ewoks? From what I read, George Lucas was supposed to make it a forest full of Wookies. Chewbacca’s home planet … but he made them cute and cuddly and went for the muppet show instead which then carried over into the ‘prequels’ with Jar Jar Binks and all of that other cutesy, sell kids Happy Meals crap.

Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back … made in 1977 and 1980 respectively and I watched them yesterday … in 2010 and they still totally hold up. The characters, the story, the effects, the space ships, the blasters, the lightsabers … 30 years later, it all still works … which makes those prequels even more embarrassing. 25+ years of technology and that’s what we get?

There is one thing though … just one thing that bothered me about the old Star Wars …

How come the Stormtroopers can’t hit a god damn thing?

Even my 8 year old daughter could pick up a blaster and hit the side of the Millenium Falcon. Next time Star Wars comes on … check out the Stormtroopers … they not only don’t kill anyone, they don’t even come close … I mean, wing someone, graze someone … look, I understand that if you killed a main character it would put a damper on the story, but hell would it kill ya to maybe blast someone in the leg?

Ok, I am just rambling … that’s what 12 hours of Star Wars movies and 2 gallons of green tea will do to you.

Keeping on the sequel, prequel and trilogy theme, the song of the month is from Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day … it’s by a band called The Skids, the song is called The Saints Are Coming.

Oh, and Boondock Saints II, if you are a fan of the first one, it's worth a rent, but nothing more.

SINacle is going interactive, so in the comments section, I would like to know your thoughts on best and worst movie sequels …

Ok, moving on …

Oakland A’s pitcher Dallas Braden pitched the 19th perfect game in Major League history. Only 12,200 were in the stands in Oakland to see the historic game.

120,000 will claim they were there.

A couple weekends ago, me and my two girls were driving down to the ocean, I had to go thru the most jerkwater, backwards ass towns and I had to pull over to get air in my tires.

So, I pulled over and this fucked up station, and they wanted $1 for air. Which is illegal … all service stations must provide air and water for motorists, but anyway, that’s not the bit … so I go into the station and ask the ‘lady’ behind the counter to turn on the air … and in the station talking to the ‘lady’ is a bunch of meth making hillbilly locals … I mean it was pure white trash, like out of a movie white trash, like in Vacation where Chevy Chase had to buy tires and the hillbillies asked him ‘how much you got?’ … this ‘lady’ had more hickies than teeth? Hickies? What the fuck? Gotta be 40-45 years old and had hickies? … any way … just painting the scene for you …

so the ‘lady’ in a fucked up, gravelly, ‘Patty and Selma’ voice she says ‘It eats quarters’ … like, telling me to go out and put quarters in the air machine. I just say …’You charge for air?’ … knowing it’s illegal, but she says, ‘not if you’re getting gas’, so the old Scott would have said something smartass, asked her how many of these guys were responsible for the neck, if he was a brother or a boyfriend or both … you know, but this is the new improved SINacle Scott , and instead of catching a beat down from the Hickville Nation… I walked the high road … had my daughter with me and decided it’s best to just go with the situation …

So I say, ‘Oh, I am getting gas, right after I get some air in my tires.’

So she turns the air on for me … I finish putting air in the tires … drive over to the pump, put my card in and proceed to pump 50 cents worth of gas.

The SINacle version of the high road.

God I hate rednecks.

Iron Man 2, (see, sequel theme this month) … stars Robert Downey Jr. and Mickey Rourke. Think about that: Robert Downey Jr. and Mickey Rourke in the same movie.

10 years ago the production company wouldn’t have been able to insure that movie. More likely to find those two guys in the same rehab than the same billion dollar movie set.

Good for them.

61 underclassmen made themselves eligible for the 2010 NBA Draft. There are only 60 picks in the entire draft.

47 year old Phillies lefty Jamie Moyer recently threw a two-hit shutout vs the Braves. He is the oldest pitcher in Major League history to do so.

Jamie Moyer also threw a two-hit shutout in 1986 … the year I graduated high school.

SINacle note: teach your son to throw left-handed.

And lastly …

Dennis Hopper just passed away … take a look at Dennis Hopper’s IMDB page sometime … he was in well over 100 movies, including:

Rebel Without a Cause, Cool Hand Luke, Easy Rider,  Apocalypse Now, and Hoosiers.

Think about that. If you were in one of those movies, it would be a career … James Dean, Marlon Brando, Paul Newman, Gene Hackman … and everyone in between. An amazing career.

He also had a role in my favorite movie of all time: True Romance.

If you get a chance, check the scene between Hopper and Christopher Walken, it’s as good as it gets … two brilliant actors playing off of each other.

Thank You Dennis, you've earned the rest ...


- Until next time - SEM