Pushing 1000

The hit counter's gone nuts lately. A quick look at bStats said that I was 9 short of a 1000 for the month, putting me at my best month, uh, ever. Several months worth, actually. But now I really need to put this bitch over the top. So here's a nice bedtime story for all you Googlers out there.

Once upon a time, a knight with the unfortunate name of BEYONCE'S ASS sought to free the beautiful Princess LINDSAY LOHAN from the castle of BOOBS. But the Castle BOOBS was guarded over by a wicked wizard named VIN DIESEL BARE CHEST, who wielded the terrible power of ATKINS DIET. But Sir BEYONCE'S ASS was not afraid of VIN DIESEL BARE CHEST, and rode forth on his faithful steed UNCLAIMED MONEY.

BEYONCE'S ASS strode to the castle wall, and called out to his foe, "Come and face me, VIN DIESEL BARE CHEST, that I may smite you with my Sword of KOBE BRYANT." But alas, VIN DIESEL BARE CHEST was a PUSSY, and he fled to his tower in the kingdom of HOT CHICKS. So BEYONCE'S ASS, victorious over his cowardly enemy, claimed LINDSAY LOHAN as his bride, and they both lived happily ever FREE MP3s.

The End

Cultural Sensitivity

I had a realization this week that, as a newly-minted Jewish banker, I'm embodying one of the oldest and ugliest cultural stereotypes in the world. I couldn't get any closer to a KKK caricature if I were a rooftop fiddler. But what am I to do? Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, and Jews have to secretly contol the world via a massive Zionist banking conspiracy.

I think there should be a union for people in culturally stereotypical careers. We'll call it the "Racist Joke Punchline Workers Union". Mexican gardeners. Chinese dry cleaners. Italian waste-disposal experts. Russian gangsters. Black pimps. South American druglords. Japanese ninjas. Finally, a banner we can all stand proud under. Look for the union label whenever you need hedges trimmed, a suit pressed, a high-interest loan, your balls cut off, a ho, several kilos of fine Colombian blow, or the stealthy elimination of a rival warlord.

Cake means good food...

And also a Sacramento band. My brother put up a link to a sample of their new album called "Wheels" and it's more awesomeness from John McCrea and crew. My brother met John McCrea at the Unlimited Sunshine tour and now thinks he's all that. "Meeting him", so what? I got him to play "Mr. Mastodon Farm" at the Green Christmas Ball in 19-effin-96! I got trampled at that same concert-- for him! I'M HIS BIGGEST FAN, and as soon as I let him out of the 5'x5' concrete room in my garage where he gets to be my best friend I can keep him from seeing all those phony people who claim to be his friends and family, he can tour the country and you can see why he's worth all the effort!

But first it has to put the lotion in the basket.

W.M. Short FIlms

At right you will see a new addition to the sidebar: direct links to Wicked Machine short films. Right now it's just the old films with a new compression to make them load much quicker. I got both down to the 5-7 meg neighborhood. Jake and I are working on some new ideas and I'll keep you all informed on our progress.

Start clickin'. Peace out.

Episode 3 Title Revealed

It's Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. I think we all can agree that this one is not only inoffensive but pretty damn cool.

What will this "revenge" entail? Will Darth Sidious hire Ashton Kutcher to "punk" Mace Windu? Will a sleeping Yoda find his hand in a bowl of warm water? Will Anakin give in to the dark side and give Obi-Wan the dreaded telekinetic wedgie? Check back in May 2005.

100 Movies with occasional comments.

Seen this on a few blogs lately. It's the 100 highest-grossing films of all time. Boldfaced titles indicate one I saw in theaters, asterisked ones are films I've seen on TV or video.

1. Titanic* SUCKED. A woman's heart may be a "deep ocean of secrets", but this movie was a shallow pool of dog vomit.
2. Star Wars I'm counting the re-release as "seeing it in theaters". Probably the second most influential movie for me after The Godfather.
3. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial Watched it again on video a year ago. Boy, was this just a lot better at the time?
4. Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace
5. Spider-Man Spiderman 2 should be up here soon.
6. Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
7. Passion of the Christ Complete with people collapsing in prayer in the aisles. This movie will suck on DVD if for no other reason than no strangers testifyin'.
8. Jurassic Park
9. Shrek 2
10. Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
11. Finding Nemo
12. Forrest Gump
13. Lion King, The*
14. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
15. Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
16. Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones
17. Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi Ah, the only one I saw in theaters the first time around. Although apparently I saw ESB at a drive-in when I was 3, but I couldn't recall. Anyway, I always loved this one, so poo-poo on the haters.
18. Independence Day
19. Pirates of the Caribbean
20. Sixth Sense, The (1999) The amount of people who claim to have figured out the twist before the ending has recently exceeded the amount of people who claim to have been at Woodstock.
21. Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back
22. Home Alone
23. Matrix Reloaded, The
24. Shrek
25. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
26. How the Grinch Stole Christmas How could this possibly beat Boris Karloff?
27. Jaws*
28. Monsters, Inc. Still my favorite Pixar movie.
29. Batman Saw it again recently. Has not aged well.
30. Men in Black
31. Toy Story 2*
32. Bruce Almighty*
33. Raiders of the Lost Ark* Best. Entrance. EVER.
34. Twister
35. My Big Fat Greek Wedding
36. Ghost Busters I had to leave halfway in because the scene where Dana gets possesed freaked me out. Hey, I was 7. Still count?
37. Beverly Hills Cop Somehow I was a huge Eddie Murphy fan by age 7. Loved his stand-up albums.
38. Cast Away
39. Lost World: Jurassic Park, The
40. Signs
41. Rush Hour 2
42. Mrs. Doubtfire* Well, I still haven't seen it all the way through, but probably seen the whole thing in pieces. Meh.
43. Ghost (1990) * Ruined that song for me forever. You know which one I'm talking about.
44. Aladdin*
45. Saving Private Ryan
46. Mission: Impossible II
47. X2
48. Austin Powers in Goldmember
49. Back to the Future Still great.
50. Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me Seemed a lot funnier in the theaters. Not as good as Goldmember, innafinalanalysis.
51. Terminator 2: Judgment Day First FX movie that made me go "wow".
52. Exorcist, The*
53. Mummy Returns, The
54. Armageddon
55. Gone with the Wind Havent' seen it. Don't give a damn.
56. Pearl Harbor*
57. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
58. Toy Story (1995)*
59. Men in Black II*
60. Gladiator
61. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
62. Dances with Wolves Another one that hasn't aged well.
63. Batman Forever
64. Fugitive, The
65. Ocean's Eleven
66. What Women Want
67. Perfect Storm, The
68. Liar Liar*
69. Grease
70. Jurassic Park III* Not that bad, actually. The spinosaur was freaky.
71. Mission: Impossible
72. Planet of the Apes and * Not sure which one, but I've seen both. I choose not to weigh in on the controversy, except to say that the twist in the remake was way lame compared to the Statue of Liberty ending in the original.
73. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom Went to the premiere!
74. Pretty Woman I'm like the only person I know who hasn't seen it. I wear that as an oddly-shaped badge of honor.
75. Tootsie* May have even seen it in the theater.
76. Top Gun* "MAVERICK!!!" Movie kinda sucked, but I still yell that every now and then.
77. There's Something About Mary*
78. Ice Age*
79. Crocodile Dundee
80. Home Alone 2: Lost in New York* Home Alone 2: Thin Premise Wears Even Thinner.
81. Elf Only one on this list so far that I'd kinda like to see.
82. Air Force One Hellzyeah. Oldman had one of the best villain deaths ever.
83. Rain Man
84. Apollo 13
85. Matrix, The
86. Beauty and the Beast*
87. Tarzan (1999)* Terrible music, even for a Disney film. Screw Phil Collins.
88. Beautiful Mind, A*
89. Chicago
90. Three Men and a Baby* Another one I might've seen in theaters, but I'm not gonna brag about it.
91. Meet the Parents*
92. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
93. Hannibal Book's ending was better.
94. Catch Me If You Can* Being in the check fraud-catching business, this one really grabbed my attention.
95. Big Daddy*
96. Sound of Music, The*
97. Batman Returns*
98. Bug's Life, A
99. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Best HP yet, but the next one will be even better.
100. Waterboy, The* What, no Happy Gilmore on this list? It's only Sandler's Citizen Kane.

So to sum up, that's 90 out of 100 that I've seen, 60 of which I saw on the silver screen.

"I think someone wants to fuck a banker."

The bank's HR department called me before lunch yesterday and made me an offer I couldn't refuse. Starting next Monday I'll be a permanent employee of the bank. I can finally start telling people I work FOR the bank, not AT the bank.

So who says perseverance never pays off? Well, me, usually. But here's to inertia, eh? To all of you temps out there: If you can just live through 22 months of a dead-end temp gig, you can score a nice dead-end permanent gig.

It's been an interesting and entertaining two years. You get to meet the neatest people when you temp, like Jake and the Shark Lady. Bosses seem to be a lot cooler to temps from what I've seen, or maybe it's just the shabby bosses I had before that. Most bosses see temps the way they would see the world's smartest dog - sure, catching frisbees with your mouth isn't that big a deal in the long run, but aren't you just so cute and spunky? Who cares if Mr. Unemployable only does half as much work as everyone else and looks bored doing it? It's just so peachy keen that he can do any work at all! Good boy!

The 3 P's: Pizza, Peaches and something else that starts with P

Just came back from a nice little excursion that actually threatened to suck from the beginning. Rachel got a wild hair up her ass to visit the Concord Flea Market out at the drive-in theater. It's as skeevy as it sounds, but I knew it would be. In days of my youth, I could be found trolling the booths looking for knives and swords. It was like a circus, only instead of elephants and jugglers it was implements of violent death. Well, they must have changed the laws or something because now they have precisely DICK in terms of weapons. There was one bigass SCUBA knife but it was a little too plasticky. One guy was selling what looked like two nice buck knives when they were displayed in sheaths, but they were rusty and junky when you pulled them out. For this he wanted to haggle down from $12! What is this world coming to, when decent American like myself can't purchase sales tax-free swordcanes and pistol crossbows from unlicensed and poorly-groomed dealers.

Back behind the wheel and firmly in control of our destinies for the next few hours, I guided the Saturn towards Berkeley, or as I like to call it, the Place Where God Would Sit Down And Have A Sandwich. I'd been lobbying hard the last few days to try a new pizzeria called Gioia which every local food critic has been drooling over like it was a soft young boy at a NAMBLA meeting. I bought a slice of pepperoni for me and olive for her out of the sidewalk window. By Neptune's trident, this stuff is good! Thin, crispy but not cruncy, complex cheese (not rubbery cheapo mozzarelle), tasty sauce, and good grease. I folded that sucker, gobbled it down and chased it with an organic strawberry lemonade.

Rachel wanted to check out the nursery so I walked over to Monterey Market. Lo and behold, Frog Hollow peaches! The only fruit that should be allowed to carry the name "peach"! I just ate one now and it was so damn good I had to write about it. If a Frog Hollow peach could bake a Gioia pizza I would marry it, make sweet tender love to it and have little peach babies.

You all need to start paying me for this site so I can move to Berkeley. I promise if you move me to Berkeley I'll never do the Lord of the Underpants again, and you'll never have to look at this picture.

Chicharrones calientes! (Audio)

Coming soon to a garage near you... 

Maximus, Slayer of Spiders

I just killed a monster black widow in my garage. It didn't just have a red mark, it had corporate sponsorship stickers like a NASCAR driver. Drow were worshipping it. I saw it chase a hobbit under my washing machine. I bit IT, and it gained the proportional strength and agility of an out-of-shape temp. I hit it with a rubber band and it just said "You call that a hit, faggot!" in the exact same voice as the drill sergeant in Full Metal Jacket. Finally I got out the broom handle and beat it to death, screaming "Mommy says you're naughty! Mommy says you're naughty!"

Is it wrong that I want it to come back from the dead so I can videotape myself killing it this time?

Big change numero dos

Max's World is dead. Long live Wicked Machine!

All part of my meager attempt at respectability. I can't help it; I want something that'll look nice on a business card.

Anyway, Wicked Machine is the umbrella under which I will now be producing this blog, along with video and art projects on this site. One of these days I'll probably get around to filling out one of those fictitious business name petitions. Then a li'l IPO, then I buy a private jet and whisk investors to parties on private islands in the Mediterranean, complete with ice sculptures that urinate vodka.

Tell your kids that you were there at the beginning, long before the corporate fraud indictments were handed down.

(All the old addresses will still work. I just like this one more.)

I'm against bear-fucking and I vote

I was watching a commercial for LaBatt's Blue beer tonight that really spun me. In it, a talking bear is playing softball with his buddies, who deride what they perceive should be his poor softball skills, as he is Canadian and lacks thumbs. He knocks one deep into center and breaks someone's window. As a "peace offering" he takes a six-pack of LaBatt's with him so as to ease the tension.

So right off the bat (pardon the pun) we see a number of things wrong in this situation.

1. Bears play soccer.
2. When they do play softball, they tend to pull to left field when they connect.
3. No one drinks LaBatt's.

So he arrives at the newly-defaced home, and who should answer the door but a Hot Chick. This Hot Chick is not alarmed by the presence of a talking bear, one who may or may not already be liquored up on cheap beer. As a matter of fact, she invites him in, and introduces him to her roommate Hot Chick #2. Both Hot Chicks give him a randy look and the door is shut. It was at this point that I realized that these two HUMAN women were going to fuck that bear.

You know, I was just starting to get over that Sunsetter awning commercial, and now this. The moral majority in this country have got their collective hissies in a fit over profanity on the radio and violence on TV, and here's a Canadian company proudly promoting bestiality on our airwaves! Where is the righteous anger? Where are the crudely-acronymed parents rights groups like People Against Bear Sex on Television (PABST, a blue-ribbon panel)? Where is Jerry Falwell?

I'm writing letters expressing my grave concern to the ASPCA, both of my senators, the Commerce Dept., Tom Ridge, and the Prime Minister of Canada. Then I'm taking my meds and going to sleep.

"A man that doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man."

On our way to a Gerry family dinner a month or so ago, Rachel and I started talking about what to expect that night. I told her that I'd guarantee that if me, my dad and my uncles are all in the same room, eventually we'll start talking about the Godfather. She naively thought I was joking, and maybe I was. But when we walked in the room, there's my pop and his brothers, TALKING ABOUT THE GODFATHER. Needless to say I dove right in.

In my grandparents' old house in El Cerrito there was a Godfather poster in the garage where I used to play with the iconic image of Marlon Brando stroking that cat, waiting for the next pitiable schlub to beg for his assistance. I knew nothing about this movie but the image spoke to me in a way I didn't understand.

I have dim recollections of seeing it later as a child, and seeing Godfather Part III with my dad when that came out. I didn't form a real opinion of it or Brando until I watched a taped copy of The Godfather Saga (a chronological edit of the first two movies, i.e. the De Niro scenes from Part II, then all of Part I, then the Pacino scenes from Part II) in high school. I was blown away, not just by the amazing filmmaking, but by Marlon Brando himself, who I mostly knew as Jor-El.

I immersed myself in Brando's work. My dad and I rented The Wild One and I became the only kid at school who knew the answer to the question "What are you rebelling against?" I vaguely recall attending a film history course in college, but I remember watching On the Waterfront there and loving every frame. I saw his white head peek out of the shadows in Apocalypse Now, embodying a madness I'd never seen before or since. I grinned all the way through Don Juan de Marco with him and Johnny Depp, watching two of my favorite actors of two different generations thoroughly enjoying themselves.

And it all brings me back around again to The Godfather, which I recently purchased on DVD. Watching it, I find myself captivated over and over again with a film I know virtually by heart. I dwell on the words that Brando delivered in his greatest performance, words about honor and family and loyalty and protecting the people you love. The fact that these words are coming out of the mouth of a murdering gangster doesn't detract from their power.

The Godfather's become such a touchstone for the men in my family that I don't know what we'd talk about exactly if it didn't exist, if Marlon Brando hadn't created such a character. It's a shared experience that we've all interpreted in different ways, but which is no less profound for any of us. In that film and throughout all of his work, he got down to the essence of what it means to be a MAN; the power that is inherent in masculinity and the ultimate responsibility it entails. He taught us not to whine or cry over our misfortunes ("You could act like a man! What's the matter with you? Is this what you've become, some Hollywood finnochio that cries like a woman?"), to be good to our families above all other concerns ("Do you spend time with your family? Good. Because a man that doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man."), and to be strong when others fail ("I spent my whole life trying not to be careless. Women and children can be careless. But not men.").

So Marlon Brando will be greatly missed by the Gerry family. If anyone needs me I'll be in the TV room, watching a snail crawl across the edge of a straight razor...