Listening Post

Happy Friday!

Now behold the mind-bending awesomeness of Eagles of Death Metal -- featuring Josh Homme, Jack Black and Dave Grohl.

From the album Death by Sexy, here's a song that plows over you like a Mack truck driven by a stripper: I Want You So Hard (Boys Bad News).

The Curious Case of Jack McClellan

Lock up your daughters, because apparently they can't lock up Jack McClellan.

The unzipped fly in the ointment of the LAPD, millions of fearful and frustrated parents, and a seemingly helpless legal system is back on the street after being arrested not once but twice in a period of a few hours. Monday evening, the homeless drifter and self-proclaimed pedophile -- at least in the figurative sense -- was stopped on the UCLA campus, directly outside of the school's child development building. Found among his things: A camera -- a detail which America's entire corps of idiot newscasters paused in unison before proclaiming, in an effort to give the revelation the requisite heft as well as display their own almost-human level of distaste. A couple of hours after that initial bust, he was taken into custody again while doing an interview with a local TV station -- once again on the UCLA campus.

All of this is just the latest in the bizarre ongoing saga over just what to do with, and about, Jack McClellan.

He first came to the attention of law enforcement officials several months ago through his blog, which he used to extol the dizzying splendor of little girls. The website was quickly shut down, but obviously McClellan stayed on the radar of the California legal system, which was determined to keep as close an eye on him as possible and take whatever action it deemed necessary to keep him out of arm's-length of children.

Here's the thing though: Jack McClellan has never been arrested for anything even remotely related to the molestation of a child.

So far, all he's done is talk a good game, and according to the law, you can't arrest someone for something he or she hasn't done yet -- no matter how badly that person might actually want to do it. The era of Philip K. Dick's "Pre-crime Unit" is still a long way off.

Needless to say, this presents one hell of an ethical dilemma, and has now put it front-and-center in the public consciousness.

It's also created an almost surreal cat-and-mouse game between McClellan and those who want to stop him -- some, by any means necessary. A couple of weeks ago, Anthony Zinnanti -- a lawyer from Santa Clarita and a guy who may have more in common with his quarry than he'd care to admit, given their equal affinity for TV cameras -- filed a lawsuit on behalf of his own daughters and the children of every other concerned Californian which prohibits McClellan from coming within 30-feet of a child. It was a similar order to this one, issued by a California judge on August 3rd, that McClellan supposedly violated on the UCLA campus Monday evening. Legal experts concede however that both orders are likely to be shot down in flames as they seem at face value to be the furthest thing from constitutional.

McClellan meanwhile continues to test the fence of society, like a lion stalking a village.

Or maybe the legend of a lion -- nothing more than a ghost story.

It's impossible to tell.

No decent human being would be an advocate for a pedophile, but the rights of a person who technically hasn't broken the law is an entirely different story. It's hard to believe that McClellan can control the fact that he's attracted to kids -- and for the record, there's always been a small part of me that's felt a very real pity for anyone afflicted with such a vile sickness -- but as far as the legal system is concerned, he has yet to act on that attraction.

You know what that makes him, despite the breathless assertions of contemptible worms like Nancy Grace?

A law-abiding citizen.

And attempting to do an end-run on the constitution to undo that fact and make illegality come to him instead of vice-versa is ridiculous.

Admittedly, some may see this negligence as leaving a gaping hole in the aforementioned fence when it comes to protecting the young girls to whom McClellan has already confessed a sexual attraction -- and it very well may. But such is the often difficult price of our freedoms: It's simply not illegal to think hideous thoughts, and restricting someone's freedoms because of such considerations is nothing less than underhanded.

There's no denying that McClellan, provided he isn't staging all of this as some sort of twisted bid for attention, should probably get help -- and get it quickly. As I hinted at, I can't imagine what it's like to go through life with the knowledge that the one thing that gets you off is the single most despicable and forbidden sexual proclivity known to man, and that seemingly nothing can curb your covetous nature in this regard.

On the other hand, I have a tough time believing the intentions of those alinging against McClellan to be entirely lacking in solipsism. The fact that his persecutors seem to have never met a microphone they didn't like serves only to confirm the likelihood that their agenda is as obvious and intransigent as the one they prescribe to McClellan. There's a certain amount of entertainment though to be gleaned from the peculiar back-and-forth over America's most famous pedophile. In an age in which every form of anti-social behavior -- every kind of act outside the norm -- has been assimilated, homogenized and silk-screened onto a black t-shirt at Hot Topic, the maniacal fury over one homeless boogeyman is a fascinating curiosity to say the least.

Which takes nothing away from the possibility that that boogeyman may, in fact, be very dangerous.

Which changes nothing when it comes to the fact that until he does something legitimately illegal, there might not be a whole lot anyone can do about it.

(Also on this subject: Idiot vs. Predator/3.1.07)

King Me

Elvis Presley died on the toilet 30 years ago today.

As expected, thousands of the fanatically devoted have gathered in 100 degree heat and 937% humidity outside Elvis's timeless tribute to carpeted ceilings, mirrored walls and "Puddle of Sick"-green upholstery that's forever trapped the smell of fried chicken grease -- Graceland.

Let's meet a few of them, shall we?



Long live the King, and God bless America.

Serial Killer

When I first heard that Flash Gordon would be returning to television, I admit my interest was mildly piqued. Although never a die-hard fan of the original comic or serial -- both were well before my time -- I'll be the first to proudly proclaim my odd and unyielding devotion to the absolutely God-awful 1980 movie starring Sam J. Jones, Melody Anderson and, for reasons unknown to this day, a host of people who could actually act. In addition to being the single worst career move in Brian Blessed's lifetime -- as there's little doubt that he's since been forced to endure frequent and infuriating shouts of "DIVE!" from various live audiences while attempting to perform, say, Shakespeare's Richard III on the Haymarket stage in London -- the film is best remembered for its campy style, punctuated by a brilliantly absurd score from Queen.

I was curious as to whether the new series would take the traditional route or purposely party like it's 1980 and go completely over-the-top. Regardless, it had one thing going for it right off the bat -- it was being given a run on cable's Sci-Fi network, which, despite having successfully exhausted the entire "-Saurus" genre, had carved out a certain place in my heart by bringing the whip-smart reimagining of Battlestar Galactica to television.

So, yesterday, I downloaded the pilot episode of the new Flash Gordon free on iTunes, settled in with a bag of Bugles and a depth-charge-sized cup of Crystal-Lite raspberry lemonade and watched from start-to-finish.

And?

It's just fucking terrible.

I'm not talking destined-for-kitschy-cult-classic-status terrible; I'm talking unwatchably bad.

The entire thing feels like an Ark II-esque Saturday-morning venture (and not in the good, old-serial sort of way), it looks like it was produced -- special effects and all -- by a junior high AV class, and the dialogue sounds as if it were written by Dawson of Dawson's Creek when he first got that Spielberg jones -- say, around age five.

The goddamned thing was free, and I still wanted my money back.

I found myself immediately demanding to know just who was responsible for such a painful atrocity, as I hadn't done much in the way of research before sitting down to watch -- nor would I be able to live with myself had I actually taken the time to delve too deeply into the parentage of fucking Flash Gordon. That's when I realized that I had missed the opening credits entirely -- no doubt in the kitchen at the time, grabbing the aforementioned Bugles and Crystal-Lite.

So I skipped back to the beginning, careful not to subject myself to even a momentary second-viewing of the nonsense I'd just witnessed, and when I got there, you can imagine my surprise -- or complete lack thereof -- at what I found.

Robert Halmi Sr.

The Godather of crap.


For the blissfully uninitiated, Robert Halmi Sr. was once known as the "King of the Mini-Series." He was the man responsible (read: to blame) for a huge swath of supposedly epic, Tolkein-on-the-cheap, TV sweeps extravaganzas -- beginning with Gulliver's Travels in 1996, starring (oh dear God) Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen, eventually winding its way through an entire catalogue of fantasy titles like Merlin, The Odyssey, Alice in Wonderland, and The 10th Kingdom, and finally coming to a merciful end with 2002's Dinotopia. During Halmi's heyday, there wasn't a magical land of make-believe beyond his reach, as long as cut-rate CGI could support it.

Infinitely more entertaining though than Halmi's leviathan ten-hour televised elementary school pageants was Halmi himself. A diminutive, 80-something Hungarian immigrant with an obligatory streak of white hair -- his unpredictable temper and bitter disdain for the very TV executives who regularly and inexplicably agreed to fund his schlock was the stuff of legend. I've never actually seen an interview with Halmi, but knowing his demeanor all-too-well, I always picture his mannerisms being quite a bit like Patton Oswalt's impression of surly TV painter William Alexander.

I was picking up a paycheck from NBC when Halmi's flame-out began -- when his magical fantasy world started to crumble, so to speak, and his banishment from network television seemed all-but-assured.

In 2000, after a series of projects which became known for their consistently escalating budgets and consistently diminishing returns in the way of ratings (as well as one, The Magical Legend of the Leprechauns, which became fodder for late-night comedians everywhere thanks to its rather un-PC portrayal of the Irish), NBC wisely reacted with hesitation when presented with Halmi's latest opus -- The 10th Kingdom. More than a few cracks had developed in the network's once mighty primetime juggernaut and the powers that be were weighing their sweeps choices more carefully than usual; Garth Ancier, the programming chief at the time, simply wasn't sure it was worth the risk involved in tying up five nights of valuable airtime with another of Angry Bob's whimsical epics.

His Solomon-like solution: Straddle it at the end of the book -- with the first episodes inside the sweeps period and the last ones safely outside. As expected, it bombed -- leading NBC's mini-series chief Lindy DeKoven to fall on her sword for signing the thing in the first place.

Halmi's response to all of this?

He went fucking ballistic.

He screamed to anyone who would listen about NBC's lack of vision and how no one at the network appreciated "imaginative fantasy" anymore, and he vowed to take his next project elsewhere -- leading to the compulsory public statement of remorse from NBC, followed immediately by the private Don't-Let-the-Door-Hit-You-In-the-Ass-On-the-Way-Out party.

That next project, by the way, was 2002's incomparably silly Dinotopia; the "elsewhere" was ABC.

The ratings were as you might expect.

In the space between Halmi's initial descent at NBC and his final crash-and-burn at ABC, he managed to piss-off every other network executive in the contiguous 48 -- at one point inundating CBS big gun Les Moonves with faxes designed to antagonize the living hell out of him after learning that Moonves had publicly insinuated that Halmi did little more than crank out bad special effects.

But time heals all wounds apparently, and Halmi has allowed himself -- and has been allowed -- back under the tent of one of the big networks, as Sci-Fi is owned by NBC Universal. Apparently and unfortunately however, one thing that hasn't changed is his almost preternatural knack for being able to get away with churning out ridiculous garbage -- as evidenced by the new Flash Gordon.

Like much of what Halmi has done in the past, his latest effort is an embarrassment to the network carrying it, and the presence of it makes it crystal clear just how much Sci-Fi is going to suffer come next May when Battlestar wraps-up for good. If this is the kind of brand the network is set on advancing, and NBC is content with accepting, it's pretty much doomed to a consistent level of failure.

But hey, with Halmi on board, at least Sci-Fi can be assured that it'll never run out of badly produced dinosaur movies.

Coming soon: Carnotopia.

Project Office Mayhem (8.18.07)

Your assignment: Quietly put the following link up on every computer in your office, then crank all the speakers to full volume.

Mischief Points: 100

(It's a Pizzone.)

A Message from the Management

I hate to break promises*, but as it turns out, nothing more substantial will be forthcoming on the departure of Karl Rove -- at least not within the next couple of days.

The truth is that I've been up to my ass in the story at work -- although curiously not as deeply immersed as I probably should be, as it's imperative that we carve out the necessary airtime to keep you up-to-date on those trapped miners -- and I have no desire to stare at Karl's Babyface Finster-esque mug any longer than necessary.

Want something more substantial?

I hope the son-of-a-bitch gets eaten alive by rats.

How's that?

(*Several ex-girlfriends would dispute this.)

The Big Bang Theory

BAGHDAD, IRAQ (AP) -- A U.S. soldier serving in Iraq is crediting divine intervention with saving his life after he was shot last week.

Army PFC Brendan Schweigart, 22, was recovering a broken-down tank in Rustamiyah, Iraq, when a sniper hit him from behind.

The bullet entered the back of his left arm and went through his arm and chest where it exited, lodging in a Bible he happened to be carrying in a pocket between his body-armor and himself. The bullet from the high-powered rifle likely could have ricocheted off of his protective armor and re-entered his chest had it not been stopped by the small Army-issue Bible.

None of his major organs were hit and PFC Schweigart is expected to make a full recovery.

In the wake of this seemingly miraculous incident, President Bush has ordered the Pentagon to immediately begin production on a new kind of body armor to be made entirely out of Bibles.

The ACLU plans to file suit to halt the move, demanding that the Army instead begins issuing copies of Madonna's steel-plated Sex book to all soldiers in the field.