I just saw the 2007 Ryan Reynolds film "The Nines", and I highly recommend it. It's an odd little movie I never heard about until a few days ago, from the Secret Sun . There are three segments to it, starring the same actors, but with different/similar names and differing hairstyles and colors - superficial changes. But if you look closely, the roles are the same. One person, Ryan, has total control over his worlds - in one, he is a TV writer and controls his character's destinies, in another he is a game programmer and controls those character's destinies, also. The thin blonde actress acts as a devil's advocate/provacateur and interventionist. The cute chunky actress fromGilmore Girls is always a friend and/or love interest for Ryan.

The blonde is always trying to get rid of the chunky one, because "She's holding him back." You really start to wonder what's going on here - his place is haunted and he keeps bumping into ghostly versions of himself, a little girl is deaf and dumb, or talkative, sometimes both at the same time! And all the while, there runs the gamut of "9" symbolism popping up everywhere - a note tells him to "look for the nines" (Turns out the mysterious note was written by him.)

So what does it all mean? It's a fascinating revelation, and I won't ruin the movie for you, but it's rather esoteric, especially for a Ryan Reynolds movie. Kind of like a happy-go-lucky "Donny Darko," except, not really. What can I say without giving it away? I don't know. But it concerns the mythology of the avatar in various religions (See the new movie "Avatar", by all means). Sorry I'm so obtuse. See it and you'll understand. And Happy New Year, if I don't get around to writing before Jan 1, 2010 (Is it really already that time?)

Happy Holidays

Happy holidays to all you out there who aren't reading this blog. Sorry I was off a few days. I just wanted to say I should do at least one blog a year where I'm not grousing about anything, so today is that day.

That means that this will be a very short blog! Happily, I saw "Avatar" yesterday, and what a revelation that was! It was the most glorious movie experience ever. I hadn't seen any 3-D pictures since the early 80's, when they did it for a number of exploitation films. I truly felt totally immersed in the world of Pandora and its marvelous natives, the Na'vi. All corporate capitalists and Wall Street prima donnas should be forced to see this anti-corporatist, pro-environmental, anti-military masterpiece. The scenes of the glowing creatures and vegetation at night and the Na'vi's central holy tree were alone worth the price of admission. And the trailers for "Alice in Wonderland" in 3-D were pretty amazing also, although in a different way. Is a 3D renaissance on the way?

The only bad thing about "Avatar", at least for film makers who want to do more of this breakaway, revolutionary work, is the cost involved, which will certainly stifle some up and coming directors. But like everything else, the costs involved will eventually come down, and such movies as "Avatar will become commonplace. I don't know how far into the future that will be, but I doubt it will be very long.

All that said, I had a great Christmas, although I was a little hurt not all my kids called me. It's a self-absorbed generation, I know. Still, it would be nice...

Back to the Norwegian spiral thing I referred to several blogs back. I was listening to William Henry on Revelations on unknowncountry.com and was struck by something he said. The moving spiral looked like it could be a wormhole or stargate opening up, and at the end, closing down on itself in a "black hole". He asked if that meant something was emerging from the wormhole, or was something entering it? Good, creepy question.

An interesting factoid: The blue spiral emitted from the main central spiral leapt out in the direction of a HAARP -like installation in Norway just over the hill, an antennae farm. Was that installation in fact creating the spiral, or its projection in the arctic skies - or was the blue outshoot naturally drawn to the antennae farm? Questions, questions.

What about the scientist's claims that it was a misfired Russian rocket spirally out of control? Do you honestly believe the Russians would launch a failure-prone rocket on the eve of Obama's visit to Norway, practically in his lap? And there have been many mishaps with this rocket, and nothing even remotely similar to this has ever happened before. Sounds like the usual disinformation.

To me, it looked like a hypnotic spiral like you see in movies like Vertigo. Were we undergoing a type of mass hypnosis? Seems like a pretty crude method, it we were.

Perhaps this is a more sophisticated variant of a crop circle, projected into the skies. I wonder if the little racing orbs photographed at fields just before they became crop circles could handle the Tromso phenomenon. Seems like an altogether different type of technology at work here. And does anyone believe it is not a technological wonder and just a natural phenomenon? No, I didn't think so.

There are the synchronicities that abound here - Obama being there, Will Smith being there, Obama's cynical defense of war as a good thing, etc. Was this some kind of attempt to celestially annoint Obama as some divine leader? Or a warning about him? Who knows? I wish I did.

Obama the enabler

On my last blog I ranted about Joe Lieberman, and after hours of projectile vomiting, I felt a little better. But then I thought about who was to blame for Joe Lieberman. Barack Obama. Joe dissed him in the election, threw his support for Rebublicans, and Obama forgave him. Joe has been a primadonna at every turn, and Obama has been there at every turn, secretely patting him on the back.

At every critical junction, this supposedly progressive president has thrown the fight in favor of Big Business. Big Pharma and Health Care has won the debate, because that's what Barack wanted all along. There's a reason he hasn't been a forceful voice in this debate - he wants Big Pharma to win. How else to explain his vociferous objection to importing cheaper prescription drugs from Canada? Why else would he not speak out in support of a Medicare buy-in for those 55 to 65? Why wouldn't he give solid support for a public option? Because he made a deal with the devil earlier this year, and the devil is holding him to his promises - unlike the rest of us, who can't get him to honor any promises he made.

So why is Joe Lieberman the most hated man in Congress? Because Obama enabled him. Because they're both on the same side. I don't know what big business promised him, but it must have at least been more than the thirty pieces of silver the Romans paid Judas Iscariot.

To me, it looks like Lieberman and Obama are playing roles assigned to them, playing them with apparent relish, They're both puppets, neither have an original thought in their heads, they are told what to think and what to say by the real people in power, whoever they may be, according to whether you're a right-wing or a left-wing paranoid conspiracy follower. They're best buddies!

I wonder if any real or implied threats of violence keep these clowns from pursuing the right thing and showing they have a conscience. Is it a carrot or a stick which makes Joe and Barack run? I'd sure like to know. There's around three hundred million of us who would like to know - before it gets too late.

I am disgusted. Truly, truly disguted. The cowardly Dems have caved in once again to Joe Lieberman, a hypocritical, egotistical self-serving asshole if there ever was one. He's certainly enjoying his moment of supreme power these days. Now they've abandoned the Medicare buy-in for people 55-65, cause Joe said it smelled like liberals were excited at it. He was completely for it in September of this year. Now he savors the possibility of filibustering if he doesn't get what he wants. Once upon a time, he railed against the filibuster, saying it gave too much power to one man over the Senate - a power he now apparently relishes. I wonder exactly how much he and Haddassah have earned from Aetna and pharmaceutical firms this year alone. Of course, that wouldn't have anything to do with his recent actions, now would it?

Why do Democrats kowtow to this smug, whiny-voiced denizen of the sewer? Why are all our hopes and dreams for universal health care being held hostage by this megalomaniac? The people of Connecticut should be deeply ashamed and embarrased they re-elected him over Ned Lamont. They say you get the government you deserve. Well, maybe all you jerks in Connecticut deserved him, but the rest of us surely didn't. If you had any pride at all, you'd recall him at the first opportunity.

Democratic senators - shame on you. Especially shame on the "centrists" and blue dogs who have emasculated the public option and cowered before the insane demands of Lieberman, Nelson and any pathetic Republican who stuck his well-financed nose into the whole morass. Shame on your spinelessness of health care, Afghanistan, Wall Street, et al. I know those hundreds of thousands, even millions, of dollars are very precious to you, but the rest of us are starving and dying and freezing our butts off while y'all wallow like hogs at the trough. I'll be bold and declare all of you treasonous. And you know what the penalty for that is. You make me sick - even sicker than Republicans. I think I'll go vist the restroom now. Maybe a good heave will do me good.

Right wing alien heart attacks

Tuesday I had a friend survive a massive heart attack. They did a triple bypass on him and saved his life. That's great. I had a quadruple bypass five years ago. But the interesting thing is what happened when they tried to take out his respirator tube.

He fought the doctors like the devil. They woke him up and tried to remove the breathing tube, but he fought them like a wild man, broke his restraints and kicked out the back of the bed. Suitably freaked, the doctors put him under again and tried the next day, with the same results. Yesterday they finally succeeded. He evidently wasn't aware of what he was doing. He's OK now.

My friend is a right wing paranoid conspiracy nut. He's a "birther", anti-global warming, Obama- is- a- socialist kind of guy. His daughter thinks he may have been hallucinating that he was being abducted by aliens and being probed in a spaceship. Now, I don't know if that's what really happened; I hallucinated a bit, too, after my operation, but that was entirely due to the Ambien they were giving me to make me sleep.

So this is what happens when you wander off the reservation, when you cross the border without a passport, in your every day conscious life. This is what subconsiously structured right wing paranoia does to you. So my advice to y'all out there is to studiously avoid any David Icke, Sarah Palin or Glen Beck before having a bypass operation. It's just bad for your health.

Well, obviously that attempt didn't work. Seeing as how I'm a persistent kind of guy, I'll try it again. Hopefully, no one will get too annoyed with me today, as I seriously doubt anyone is reading this, anyway.

My art slideshows

I'm playing around with the fomat of this blog. Included hee are slideshows of some of my art. I don't have a new website set up for this yet, so this will have to do for now. Hope you enjoy them. Tell me what you think!

Well, I don't know what to make of this spiral-in-the-sky phenomenon that happened in the dark morning skies over northern Norway yesterday. "They" have tried to explain it away as a failed Russian missile launch, but after looking at the photos and seeing videos of it, it sure looks like something different from that to me. And since when do out-of-control rockets project a spiralling blue-green ray out from the center of the "death spiral"? As others have said, it almost looks like a computer projection in the sky - which, for all I know, it could be. Was this in fact an experiment to see if such a large scale projection could be made in the skies? Perhaps as a precursor to an "alien disclosure" event that has been bandied about so often recently on the internet?

As for an official government announcement as to the reality of UFOs and extraterrestrail beings, I wouldn't hold my breath. Time and again people have made pronouncements about something like this happening, and it never has materialized. The latest snafu was that Obama was supposed to announce this on a two hour television special on November 27, I believe, to all the world breathlessly awaiting it. According to "inside sources", the television time had already been bought and paid for. Right. And I have a little green alien hybrid baby I'd like to sell you.

The truth is, the government has no incentive to tell the truth about ETs. Nor do they have any incentive to parade all the nifty gadgets, devices and vehicles they've back engineered from captured craft and crash sites. That would be tipping their hand to the Russians, Europeans, terrorists, whoever we have dark suspicions about. There's plenty of evidence coming from elsewhere. It will continue to pile up. Most everybody believes there are ETs anyway - what's the big secret anyway?

Still, this Norway event - manmade - or something else? Surely not natural. Something out of our control? If so, the generals must be pissing their pants. We'll see.

I thought I'd add a couple of images of my latest oil paintings I did for my Masters and see what kind of comments (if any) I get.

Introduction

Hello, all. This is my first foray into blogging. I'm not yet sure how it will evolve, but it will include ideas about art, movies, music, writing, plus esoteric themes and progressive politics and ideas. My favorite blog is The Secret Sun, and I check out Huffington Post every day. And I wish Richard Hoagland would get his act together and finish his articles and series on Enterprisemission.com. It seems he posts something on there about twice a year. Hardly sufficient for all the flurry of activity from UFOs, NASA, etc. these days.

My least favorite site is Davidicke.com. There's occaisionally an interesting article in the daily news section, but most of it is right-wing paranoia about Obama and global warming and flu shots, et al, and some of it is just offensive and possibly libelous. I get so weary of seeing Obama pictured as the Joker or as a Nazi. Can't we raise the level of discourse without resorting to cheap, ugly shots like these?

Two other sites I visit daily are Earthfiles.com and Unknowncountry.com. There's almost always something interesting or of value on either one.

The two people on this planet who drive me absolutely crazy are Sarah Palin and Glen Beck. Other irritants includes O'Reilly, Hannity, Lou Dobbs, Lars Larsen and others of their ilk. If only there was a virus specifically developed to paralyze the vocal chords of right wing bloviators and nut jobs. 'Nuff said.

I'm off work today, 'cause I didn't get a substitute teaching assignment, so I'm trying to get this thing to take off today. It's cold, and the heaters haven't done their job yet, so I'm shivering as I write this. The only reason we live way up here is because of my wife's job at Social Security. Tucson sounds like a nice warm place right about now (Phoenix is too big and spread out, plus too hot).

Well, that's it for now. If any of you out there are sci-fi/fantasy/horror publishers, drop me a line, because boy do I have a book for you!