The film "The Aviator"

I rented the movie "The Aviator" this weekend. This is Martin Scorsese's biography of Howard Hughes, starring Leonardo DiCaprio. I was really let down. What a disjointed film! It was certainly not "Citizen Kane".

Robin watched it with me. She gave up trying to follow it and went downstairs to read a book. I don't blame her. At least I know something of the history of Hughes, so I understood some of the context of the the scenes.

My fault with the film is that no background is presented in order to put what you are seeing into a context. In particular, no where in the film does it explain (or did I miss it) that Hughes' money came from his father's oil tool business in Houston Texas?

The film opens with some bizzare scene of a little boy being bathed by a woman in a sensual way. They don't try to explain who the woman is. You might guess it is his mother. Then it jumps to a 20 something punk directing a WWI aviation film called "Hell's Angels". What is the connection? Is the director the same little boy we saw earlier?

I also noticed that the film does not attempt to put events into any kind of time frame and current events. One has to assume that the Great Depression is going on. Or that WWII has broken out.

The film totally overlooked the brilliance of Hughes when it came to marketing his film "The Outlaw" starring Jane Russell's breasts. The film does discuss the problems the film had with the MPAA. But in reality the film, when first released, flopped. Hughes decided to withdrawl the film from the market and started the rumour that it had been censored and was "too hot" to show. He gave the rumour enough time to gain momentum until the public couldn't wait to see what was so awesome that the film was banned. It was a stoke of maketing genius that wasn't repeated until Terry Gilliam's masterpeice "Brazil" was produced in 1985.

I can go on with example after example. You need a cheatsheet with the film to understand what it going on.

So, read his bio first. Then watch the film.

Ugly American?

Thursday night I went to the American ExPat Club's monthly get-together at a bar in Northbridge. I mostly went as an excuse to get out and have a beer. I really enjoyed the last one I went to where I met this girl from San Diego. Her husband is a cartoonist and she is a Daily Show fan like me. We ended up having a great time chatting.

This time it was different. I did not enjoy it. Only three people showed up, and they all smoke. So they took a table outside on the patio. It was cold and raining outside, so I froze while having to breath second-hand fumes. The San Diego woman and her husband couldn't make it. They have some cartoon deadlines they were late on.

Who did show up was a 41 year old woman from Birmingham Alabama. She is here in Perth going to college getting her masters. She works at a gas station convenience store when not going to school. She is huge, very overweight. She seems lonely and comes to these get togethers just to get out. She also seems to have a hard time finding or keeping friends. I quickly figured out why. She is depressing. She dominated the conversation and kept steering it back to her.

She struck me as one of those people that I categorize as "energy vampires". They are the people who have the ability to suck the joy and energy out of you. They don't enrich you, or bring value to your life. It is difficult to not feel sorry for these people. They always seem to victims of this or that. Your natural reaction is of course to offer help, advice, sympathy, whatever. But then you learn that they really enjoy being miserable. All of your efforts to help are wasted. They use their misery as a ploy for attention. It works. So why change?

The conversation of the evening, as directed by the energy vampire, revolved around how difficult and how long it takes to adjust to life in Perth, so far from home. She has been here for 3 years or so now. She is still struggling.

It just pissed me off. Who cares? You are in Australia. No shit they do things different. Yes, I have noticed. No, I don't let it bother me. I enjoy a lot of differences. Some I don't like. But I don't worry about it. I usually think they are funny.

Eventually she got on the subject of why they are different. She claims that the difference is that the US was founded by religious and political refugees who voluntarily moved. Versus Australia that was founded by convicts forced to come here for petty crimes.

She is a loud woman, and some Aussies sitting at a nearby table overheard her. That got them pissed off, so they started having a loud conversation about how they didn't like loud-mouth Yanks.

I'm not going to go to anymore of these meets if she is going to be there. I mentioned this to Robin and she agrees with me. She does not like her at all. We like some of the members They like to talk about what they are doing, and fun stuff, versus what they miss about home. I wonder if they can ban her?

Bad place to build a building

Near my office in West Perth is a train station for the Fremantle Line, the public transport train that runs through the western suburbs between Perth and Fremantle. When I take the train to work on rainy days, that is where I disembark.

Next to the station is a new construction project where they are building a new condominium tower. The pedestrian exit for the station goes right in front of the construction site. Often the passengers have to pick their way though trucks and equipment being unloaded at the site.

They have been working on it for over a year now. Progress is amazingly slow. I reckon that the developer must be getting his panties in a twist over the lack of progress.

I dawned on me today why nothing is getting done. Every time a train stops and disgorges passengers, all work on the site stops as all the workers pause to perv on all the good looking office girls walking by. The problem is that there is a train every 7.5 minutes. The trains run every 15 minutes, one northbound and one southbound. So about every 7.5 minutes a pack of passengers has to run the construction site gauntlet out of the station.

If the developer were smart, he would install a tall fence around the perimeter of the property to block the view of the outside world from the guys in the inside. It would probably pay for itself in a week of productivity gains.

Michael Jackson Verdict

Beware of this 'man'!

Man. I can't believe it. They let him walk. It is a sad day for children today. A wealthy pedophile monster is allowed to live amoung us and prey on the children of stupid star-struck parents.

Osama bin Laden as a modern Hannibal

Hannibal	Osama bin Laden

I watched an interesting documentary about Hannibal, the Carthaginian general who waged war again Rome, around 200 BC. I couldn't help but to notice the parallels between him and Osoma bin Laden. This is not praise for bin Laden. For all of Hannibal's strengths and victories, he ultimately failed, and failed spectacularly, in his quest to restore the glory of the Carthage empire.

Hannibal came from a respected and wealthy Carthage family.
Bin Laden comes from a respected and wealthy Saudi family.

Hannibal was born in a time when the vast and mighty Carthage empire was in decline and being eclipsed by a newer rising superpower, Rome.
Bin Laden is from a time after the collapse of the Ottoman empire, which was replaced by the rise of western superpowers, such as the Britain and the US.

Hannibal came to view Rome as the cause of Carthage's decline and failure. He hated Rome and wished to see it destroyed. He hated Rome's military might and their ability to control the once proud Carthage city/state.
bin Laden came to see the west as the cause of the decline of the Islamic caliph under the Ottomans. He hates the US's military might and their ability to buy, conjole, and interfere in the affairs of the Islamic nations.

Hannibal declared war on Rome and made it his life's mission to destroy it.
Bin Laden declared war on the US and made it his life's mission to destroy it.

Hannibal shunned personal glory and riches. He dressed, ate with, slept with, and fought along side his soldiers.
Bin Laden shuns personal glory and riches. He seems be fine living on the run in caves inhospitable areas with his trusted staff.

Hannibal invented new cunning methods of warfare against Rome. At first he succeeded. He was able to demonstrate the world that the Roman army was not invincible.
Bin Laden perfected new cunning methods of warfare against the west. He demonstrated that the US military was not invincible.

Hannibal was unable to use his military victories to persuade the allies of Rome to switch allegiances.
Bin Laden has been unable to use his victories to persuade the allies of the US to switch allegiances.

Hannibal ended up having to resort to terrorism to gain the support he needed for his campaign.
Bin Laden has to to use terrorism to get support from the Saudi Royal family.

Rather than fight Hannibal on their own turf. Rome took the battle to him by attacking the Carthage controlled silver mines in Spain. These mines are what funded Hannibal. Until Hannibal attacked Rome, Rome had been content letting the Carthagians profit from the mines since it gave them money to trade with Rome.
Rather than fight Al Qaida only in the US, the US took the battle to Bin Laden by attacking Afghanistan and Iraq. These places were providing sanctuary and support for him.

Hannibal had to leave Italy to defend his nation in Spain and north Africa.
Bin Laden has had to spend a lot of time and energy trying to keep control of his home base, the middle east, rather then spend their efforts on exporting his war.

Hannibal eventually lost his war. He spend the last 20 years of his life running and hiding from arrest warrants from Rome. He was eventually captured in what is now Turkey, where he committed suicide by poison as his captors closed in. He died alone, a broken and bitter man.
Bin Laden will loose his war. It may take 20 years to catch him. But he is on the run, always hunted. He will die alone, broken and bitter.

Rome never forgave Hannibal for his crimes against Rome They hunted him for the rest of his life.
The US will never forgive bin Laden for his crimes against the US. We will hunt him for the rest of his days.