» Fringe Blog – Writing on Film, Culture, and Things on the Fringe

LaGuardia Airport Is Terrible!

jelewis8 — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 09:39:28 +0000

For future travel planning purposes, here’s a helpful hint from Jeremiah and his lovely girlfriend Emily, who recently tried to travel to Roanoke out of New York by way of LaGuardia airport, via United.
Em’s original flight out was to have been 7:30pm on Thursday, but due to weather (Emily reported sky was clear at the airport) her flight was delayed. Then it was cancelled. She managed to rebook on a later flight, and boarded her plane a little after eight that evening.
She remained on the plane for over an hour while the technical crew attempted to fix a “mechanical issue.” This ultimately failed, and the flight was canceled. No other flights out were available, and a connecting flight that might have taken her was also canceled because enough staff to fly could not be found.
After standing in line for over an hour, Emily managed to get transferred to a US Airways one-way non-stop flight into Roanoke Friday morning at 7:25. At 4:30am, after no sleep and being at LGA for over 10 hours, she saw that her 7:25 flight had been canceled due to mechanical problems. Multiple attempts to find a different flight that isn’t canceled or booked have failed, and Emily is now attempting to get a flight out of JFK. The first available flight out is at 12:25.
The lessons are thus: do not flight United or US Air, and do not fly in or out of LaGuardia Airport. Emily’s experience is not necessarily indicative of the status of most air travel. But it’s certainly enough to sour one to particular agents with whom one might have had to deal.

Fringecast 21

jelewis8 — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 06:04:46 +0000

To celebrate the millennium, we here at Fringecast decided that nothing but an extravagant, balls-to-the-wall all out Fringefest was needed to ring everything in all good and proper-like. So we’ve packed an hour’s worth of content into one amazingly spiffy casting session, complete with a movie trailer AND a commercial. Can you believe we do this for free? Somebody shoot us.
This episode features a frank discussion about mistletoe, so next year you won’t be caught unaware. We also muse about fathers and their particular mode of dress after hitting that mid-life crisis, we call up Tim Shabanowitz for a discussion of the weather in Denver, including the differences between El Nino and La Nina (Columbus and Jack Daniels enter the picture here). We also fantasize about whose celebrity organs we would like to see donated to science, and discuss whether villains and criminals should be allowed to donate their organs, since they’re all evil and they might live on…
Along with a trailer for the romantic drama “When Frogs Squeal” and a commercial for Try-A-Guy (r), this is pretty much the best we’ve ever done. And that’s not saying much at all.
The iTunes feed kicks serious butt (plus we can track it). But if you’re a Luddite, you can also download the episode directly in mp3 format. The Fringecast XML feed is available through a feed reader. All shows are archived by date, and can be accessed on the right hand sidebar.
Music was provided for free by the Podshow Podsafe Music Network. Without it, we’d suck hard.

Fringecast 16

jelewis8 — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 07:01:00 +0000

It’s not every day you get a chance to spar with the best and come out on top. But with this Fringecast, Joe and I do that, squaring off with such diverse topics as retro weather reporting and the ethics of finding money on the street or in the woods, with the eventual but inevitable question “What would Jesus do?” entering the fore with surprising results. The answer involves slurpees and hobos, in case you were wondering. I have an interview with Jenny Chowdhury and Cory Forsyth regarding their prescient Popularity Dialer, which we discussed on a previous podcast and which they bravely set out to create and support out of pocket. Finally, we discuss alternatives to the term “The Man”, eventually deciding on “The Awesome” as an acceptable substitute.
If you fancy yourself a boxer and care to dance in the ring with us and these fiendishly simple (yet complex) topics, tune into iTunes and listen like you’ve never listened before, or download it directly in mp3 format. You may also access the Fringecast XML feed through a feed reader. All shows are archived by date, and can be accessed on the right hand sidebar.
Music was provided for free by the Podshow Podsafe Music Network, which is PPMN, or “peppy men” for short.

Living In The Land of No Complaints

jelewis8 — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 14:56:35 +0000

It’s odd. The things about summer I’m used to being annoyed at are mostly not applicable here in sunny Southern California. Virginia was a twisted alcoholic when it came to the weather; you never knew when she was going to come home and start slinging dishes at you, or just drop into bed and snooze off the drunken stupor. Summer days could be langorous or explosive, stupidly peaceful or downright punctuated with a battery of thunderstorms that would roll in over the Appalachians like a band of wild Injuns, attacking villages and towns and taking the women and children hostage. In a manner of speaking, of course.
It’s not that I mind thunderstorms. I love ‘em. They’re nature’s 2000 Flushes. But try scheduling afternoon hockey games at ten in the morning, when the sky is bright and blue, the sun is beaming its approval o’er the land, and birds indicate that it’s pretty near perfection, only to have the clouds descend in Valkyric vengeance upon your pitiful band of hockey revelers, and you’ll feel a pang of disappointment. Encounter this scenario multiple times throughout each week, stretch it throughout the entire summer, and you have yourself the beginnings of disapprobation, or if you’re in the South, umbrage.
Here, the weather is more like a rather mild mannered gentleman who enjoys chess games outside under the corner store porch awning, occasionally chiding the youngsters who race past on their scooters, snapping their bubblegum insolently at anything resembling authority. Sometimes the gentleman wears shorts with black socks, but you know that’s a fashion statement reserved for the indolent and fashion unrepentant, and you have to give props where they are due. It reminds you of your grandfather, or at least the TV idea of your grandfather, and it more or less indicates that the state of the world, at least your little corner of it, is tranquil and pacific.
It doesn’t hurt that you are fifteen minutes away from the Pacific, le grande bleu. That’s the kind of assurance you can fall asleep to at night.
So I found myself reflecting on the fact that in my life, I really don’t have much cause for complaint. That lack is refreshing on one hand, but I noticed that I sometimes feel a dubious sensation creeping up on me, as if I’ve landed on the moon without a helmet but I’m somehow still able to breathe. At some point I start thinking “This can’t last.” I hope it does, but you can only plan so far ahead, and in terms of attitudes, balmy quiescence in the workaday life has a way of making you easier prey. For what exactly I don’t know, but I do know that when I walk out of doors, I am a potential victim, made so, or at least eased into more, by the lack of any real daily dangers. No one in Paradise carries a gun, to paraphrase and rearrange Elvis Costello, and it means any old sinner can come in and change lives with a few well-aimed pulls of a finger.
Naturally, all this is metaphor designed for maximum obfuscation, since I’m not even sure I know exactly what I’m talking about. But no matter. It sounded right, and still sounds right in my head, though on paper feels a little more like a drawing of a wolf, rather than the actual wolf. Dangerous and scary, but only if you squint hard and turn your head sideways.
See, this is what not having anything to complain about does to you.
Check out the new 13 Months of Sunshine trailer. It’s been slightly re-edited with some clarifying footage, and the subtitles have been altered slightly, hopefully to better effect. Sorry for the non-posting yesterday. I sort of forgot. Then again, it was Monday. I never could get the hang of Mondays.
See you tomorrow.

Cocoa Krispies and Haircuts

jelewis8 — Thu, 06 Oct 2005 21:45:02 +0000

You haven’t lived if you haven’t eat Cocoa Krispies for breakfast. No, wait, what I mean to say is, if you want to live, don’t eat Cocoa Krispies for breakfast. Or any other meal, for that matter. This is clearly a cereal marketed toward the part of a kid’s brain that has no intention of ever living right. It consists of tiny puffs of rice-based cereal (so not eligible for Communion food) dipped in a chocolate-like substance. It however does not have the pleasing taste of chocolate, rather the equivalent of a sickening dread you get when you are being stalked by an unseen, omnipotent killer (I could say cereal killer, but that might be going too far). If any of you has ever been stalked by a killer, you know exactly what I mean.
Los Angeles is currently experiencing another spate of round-the-clock hotness. One problem with moving to a new location is you’re never sure if the weather you’re experiencing is the norm or an anomoly. Even if it’s an anomoly, it might be a normal anomoly, and if you want total confusion, you can consider that the weather is neither normal nor an anomoly, but the onset of a new weather pattern paradigm. Then everyone’s screwed, and we can all blame Bush for not signing Kyoto.
In general, moving to a new town means having to establish new routines, new places to frequent, new schedules. I have happily found a coffee shop that, despite its lack of wifi, is quite good, and I go there often to wake up in the morning. One thing I haven’t found is a hair cuttery. This is quite a frightening ordeal, going into an untested hair place. You never know if you’re going to come out looking like your stylist was a psychotic lawn care professional or not. The most you can hope for is not to be disappointed. You will almost never come out of a new place thinking, “That was the most amazing experience of my life.” Then again, not everyone has access to Hollywood’s finest.
So I have yet to get a haircut, despite that I am back on my short hair kick. I like short hair, I like not having to deal with the intricacies of hair combing and knot untangling and shedding. I think I look better with short hair. But with no haircut, I’m fearful every morning. I wake up and look in the mirror and think about the possibility of immediate removal with a surgical, military strike. But no, I haven’t lost every brain cell.
I apologize for my lack of updates. I have a review of A History of Violence half-finished, and another short story I’ve been wanting to start writing. I have no excuse. Please forgive me, and come again tomorrow. I promise I won’t be slack.

Lewis 500

jelewis8 — Thu, 23 Jun 2005 00:56:46 +0000

How did I miss the first day of summer? How many times have I harped about the changing weather, the seasons, the changes and the bizarre temperatures, and then to go and neglect a mention? Much worse, I forgot it was even here already.
Already. As if it’s been so long in coming. To my mind, this has been the fastest year on record (with possible exception to 1204 AD, which saw the sacking of Constantinople…man, that was a crazy year…anyway, it was February just yesterday. I’ve been noticing an increase in the number of space-time continuum shifts lately, but this is ridiculous.
I think I got some buzz going yesterday with the trailer to Red State. It was gratifying to hear people genuinely pleased with how it turned out. I’ve had one of my friends suggest I show the finished film in Richmond, which would be nice, though I’m not sure I’ll be able to do so without having to fly back East. I honestly don’t know if I can complete the film before I leave for Los Angeles. Here’s hoping.
I’m going to enjoy a cigar on the porch while my clothes are being laundered. Unlike Lauren, I don’t actually sit in my pile of besotted apparel watching TV like a guy. Guess I’m more girly that way. And no, I don’t want to picture it, though Lauren’s description was quite enough. Hopefully Lauren knows I’m just kidding. Which I am. Partially. It’s too much fun to pass up mocking her, and given that she’s more than a country mile away, I can get away with it.
Heading home tomorrow to see the ‘rents and engage in familial contact of a semi-annual nature. AKA, reunion, Lewis style. If you’re unfamiliar with the Lewis family mode of operation, it is most accurately described as a Honda Civic racing in the Indie 500. And somehow winning without totally blowing a rod. And everyone watching on the sidelines is amazed at how well everything seems to be holding up.
Honestly, we’re just competitive, that’s all. Anyway, I may or may not be posting the rest of the week. If not, have a great weekend.

Some Kind of Sanity

jelewis8 — Wed, 08 Jun 2005 00:29:22 +0000

And the rains finally came. The entire day has been one long orchestral wind-up, weather’s equivalent to a goldfish’s mortal end after a lifetime of swimming and slow growth. Inevitable, yet somehow, not significant. That’s the trouble with summer. You’re always battling the rains that build like ancient pyramids. Just once you want to scream out, Enough! Stop building! Two week break for everyone!
Two weeks of summer sun. Or better, a cool summer breeze that coats an indolent sky and makes the sun’s rays just over the county line from hot. Warm. Pancakes in the oven warm at times, maybe, but nothing that requires mitts and a welding mask.
And in the ten minutes since I began writing this, a small subriver has begun to form in my backyard. It’s even got its own tributaries and has begun forming oxbows. I expect a riverboat any second.
And in the ten minutes since I began writing this, you’ve thought at least once about the last threads of my lingering sanity. I assure you, it won’t be missed. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go plant fishheads in my watermelon patch.
I pulled a 14″ pipe, rusted and blackened with carburetor soot, from the remains of the innards of my muffler. Oh, I’ve known about the muffler hole for weeks, but it gives such a delightful roaring sound now, the kind that sends young Asian men out into the streets with wads of fifties. And I have grown used to the rather fretful ignition throttle problem that plagues me whenever I start the car–it’s a constant whine and release, as if a very large mouse is jumping up and down on the internal engine compartment mechanism that controls gas flow. And the striped sticker that runs the length of both sides of the car that forms the signature 1990 Honda Civic “look” peeled off the last time I washed it. My windshield leaks in heavy rains (speaking of which, I think I just spotted a tiny Huck Finn paddling down my backyard river on a raft made of Q-tip sticks), my floormats no longer have metal wire lining the insides…the rubber holding it in rotted away about a year ago. Sigh.
I think my car is slowly dying. And what’s one more vehicle? I’ve had my baby for five years, and before that it served its owner(s) for ten years. If I could afford hired help, say, a butler named Nigel or Jeeves or Bernard, and he stayed with me for fifteen years, I would…well, I would have a butler for fifteen years, and that’s something not just anyone can claim.
With any luck, my car will make it across country and serve me a while in sunny California, where it only rains in places that respectable people don’t really go, and the temperature is a constant 78, and movie deals are made right on the street, you just gotta be at the right coffee shop at the right time to catch the transaction, and maybe, just maybe, you can become a famous movie star. Hey, it’s the land of dreams…
I’ll take mine with a double shot of luck. Make it a grande.

D-Day At 61

jelewis8 — Tue, 07 Jun 2005 06:25:50 +0000

I nearly forgot. Today was the 6th of June. A day which not so very long ago brought heroes and cowards out in the full light of strafing gunfire and murderous artillery on the beaches of Normandy. We’ve all seen the movies, read the history books, heard the accounts of survivors and observers on the History Channel specials. Year after year we mark the day, perhaps remembering, as I did today, a little later each time. Was not so long ago. Was not so long ago.
Sixty-one years. Barely a lifetime. Yet nearly eons in the poor memory of human waste, misery, and selfish indulgence. We forget so quickly, learn so little.
It was a landing on one of the most critical beaches, certainly critical to Eisenhower’s battle stroke. Other options were surveyed. Each had their own measure of danger and disaster in nearly equal measure. But it fell to Normandy, a fluke of weather and landing point of unparalleled access to the western sphere of Europe. Hitler’s, and the Nazi death knell began the moment the first machine gun bullet pinged against the first landing craft, the first in an Illiadean venture to claim, not a city for a cuckolded husband and king, but two continents and hosts of people from the tyranny and barbarous evil of Naziism and fascism. Fundamentalism at its most vain and iron-willed.

Exact figures are still unknown, but it is estimated that between 6,000 and 10,000 Allied men died taking the beaches. The casualty rate on the first wave attack was 50%, an unparalleled number in war history.
61 years later, we try to remember, imagining what it all means now, in our enlightened day of knowledge and smug satisfaction. Imagining that it was different then, the circumstances more dire, the compromises and complexities of today not inside the landing craft as the men faced metal murder. We imagine the nature of the human condition to have been a different shape than it is now.
History in the making, we all are. 61 years isn’t a lot of time. It just seems like it. And our hearts remain the same. Well…some of our hearts…

Pushing to Spring

jelewis8 — Wed, 23 Mar 2005 18:05:52 +0000

I woke this morning at five in the AM to hear a steady, but not heavy rain. Two days after spring, I thought, and right on time. You can almost feel a turn in the weather, even though yesterday was chilly and grey, like a room in which the heat’s been turned on, but takes forever to warm up because the thermostat’s not quite right and the oil-burning heater sputters out from time to time. It’ll get there, eventually, if we have to get out and physically push the globe to a more vernal position.
Talk about your mid-week lulls. I started Monday with a case for life. Yesterday, I continued on that theme and put forth a disclaimer: I do NOT support congress messing with our junk, to put things slightly out of proper diction. Now it’s Wednesday and all I can think or write about is the vague hint of sunlight peeking through some clouds. I can tell because my window blinds are glowing.
There. Magic. Raised the blinds, window already open, and despite the heavy smattering of Rebecca St. James floating over from my roommate’s perpetually worship music-soaked room, I can hear the buzzing of whatever insects happened to have come back from vacation in the underworld and the dollops of chirruping coming from the birds that live just beyond the clearing and in the woods on the right side of the house. That, above rainbows and green leaves and tulips and bluer skies is the most comforting thing spring brings. It means it’s safe. It means that things are waking up, time is slowing down somewhat, becoming more indolent and luxurious.
Winter has a kind of stringent royalty about it, a stern uncle that refuses to hug you and sometimes mocks you because you don’t have a girlfriend. But Winter’s also got staying power, like hated in-laws, and you’re never more glad when you see those first signs that the in-laws are going to finally leave. By the first weekend of April, the winds will blow so hard you’ll see skid marks on trees, but danged if you won’t be glad.
The other day someone called me an “optimist idealist disguised as a jaded realist”. I thought about that and it began to stick. I think they’re right. I find I can be extremely cynical about a lot of things, especially things which are, or I want to be, near and dear to my heart. For instance, I have noticed in me a deepening cynicism toward Christianity lately, fueled in part by actions of other Christians. Yesterday’s post regarding Congressional interference in the Terri Schiavo case summed up my own feelings about the Religious Right, and I know I’m not alone in my concerns. C-Spew and I have our disagreements, but we tend to be in alignment in our dislike of the corporate and political turn Christianity seems to have taken in our country.
But, it’s a cynicism that derives from wanting the best from the things I love. What is Christianity doing embroiling itself in American politics? Or more to the point, what are Christ’s followers thinking? There is a reason Jesus advocated giving to Caesar what belongs to Caesar–it’s not just taxes he’s talking about, but it’s the whole political system to which we must submit, not make ours to conquer and control! I see Conservative Christianity carrying a sword it was never intended to hold, and right now that sword is the legislative process. It’s a dangerous position to be in, for those who live by the sword will also die by the sword. If it weren’t true, wouldn’t liberals still be in power right now?
A simplistic conclusion to be sure, but one which I don’t see any harm in heeding.
But enough blather. The sun’s gone back behind a cloud, and I can’t hear the insects anymore. And I’m sitting on a review of Be Cool. Why, I don’t know. I’m going to get out and push the planet a little closer to spring. Just a little, mind you. I wouldn’t want to upset the balance or anything. See ya tomorrow.

Offer Life

jelewis8 — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 19:16:52 +0000

Happy Spring. The time of year when new things grow, flowers bloom and trees begin to blossom with buds, animals and people make more babies, the sun shines more brightly and longer, the weather gets balmy, and the rains come.
Oh yes, and for one woman and her husband, there’s a huge national drama to perpetuate. I haven’t weighed in on the Terri Schiavo case for several reasons. One, I was and still am, for the most part, really and truly uninformed about what’s going on. No, uninformed isn’t the right word. We are all pretty informed on the matter. It’s the access we don’t have. Access into Terri’s mind and opinion. Access into her husband Michael’s head. Access into the judge’s head. And that’s where things are really happening. Believe me, the battles being raged there probably dwarf any war between India and Pakistan.
I don’t believe Michael Sciavo is unconflicted about his course of action, even if he does seem to be compromised in the worst of ways. Greg Piper notes that Michael has conflicts of interests in this case like Castro’s got Cubans and the high investigative journalism standards we might expect if it were about a President lying about a blow job or whether there were WMD’s in Iraq are sorely lacking here. To quote:

I’m not sure why most media have not seen it appropriate to mention’s Michael’s behavior for a decade. Editors might think it’s just a family dispute – but his actions and deviations from promises in court are in the public record. More likely, I think, is a reluctance to get involved in “personal matters” that also showed itself in the Jeff Gannon/James Guckert scandal involving a fake White House reporter. When Gannon/Guckert’s role in gay porn websites came out, it took several days for mainstream media – as opposed to blogs – to mention that. The imposter’s personal life, in that case, wasn’t particularly relevant to how he got into a press briefing, but the rationale for withholding the information is the same: it’s a personal matter.

The sway of journalims over public opinion is unprecedented. Yet this is barely acknowledged, though issues like abortion and same-sex marriage would not have nearly the attention or support they have if it weren’t for the headlines and selective reporting. In another post, Greg writes that “one little sentence in a two-page (online) story, high enough to be noticed by the casual reader, would be enough [to sway public opinion in favour of life for Mrs. Schiavo]. Indeed it would. And whilst the blogosphere is busy tooting its own horn, why haven’t we seen a more concerted effort to keep Terri alive at least in what we cover on our daily blogs? Sure, it’s starting to happen now, but mightn’t this have been a little more useful, say, a year and a half ago?
Perhaps its our innate sense of optimism and hope in the human ideal; that Michael Schiavo would wake up one day and realize all along that he has been a selfish prig and a prime candidate for the Ironies Division of hell, and change his heart, or at least his tune of “When is that bitch gonna die?” When you’re on the side of life, it’s difficult to think of Michael Schiavo as anything more than a guy who thinks that his wife is an inconvenience. And God forbid this American deny his own convenience.
American Digest writer Gerard Van Der Leun says that the Schiavo case is about friendship and the departure from politics that it should be (but isn’t). The GOP considers this “a great political issue” that can be used to galvanize core members and help propel conservative representatives to elected posts in the 2006 midterm elections. And that’s just tragic. What happened to humanity? What happened to justice? Not everything can be or should be boiled down to “Ask what you can do for your country.”
In the words of Ronald Reagan, since outfitted from the anti-abortion arguments of the 80′s by Peggy Noonan, “Don’t kick it”. This isn’t about the value of human life. Forget value. To classify this case with such a venal term is gross and antiseptic. Maybe human. But certainly not the best we can offer.
Offer life. Simply because it is life, and worth living, even at the bottom of a deep, dark well. That’s something no science textbook can explain.