Ratatouille and the future of Pixar

After seeing the by the numbers Shrek the Third and the overblown Pirates 3, I was losing hope for summer movies. Fortunately my bad streak has ended with Ratatouille, from the ever dependable Pixar (who are now eight for eight in my book). However, the relatively low opening weekend box office returns (< $50 million vs. > $125 million for Shrek 3, Spiderman 3 or Pirates 3) for Ratatouille had me a bit depressed. Won't Pixar now be pressured into producing lowest common denominator movies and sequels as the only possible way that Disney can recover the gazillions they paid out?

Fortunately Pixar's reply to this question is a defiant "never", and this message is not so subtly encoded in the film's plot. The following discussion is for people who have already seen the film; however, I'll provide enough information so anyone can follow and will include mild spoilers. My thesis is that the story of Ratatouille is actually the Disney-Pixar story. Because Brad Bird and Pixar are mostly concerned with making a superb movie, they don't push the allegory too far; however, the message is there and it is defiant.

The primary action in Ratatouille takes place in Gousteau's restaurant. Gousteau was the greatest chef in Paris, and had a populist streak appearing on television to explain the tricks of his trade to the public. After Gousteau's death the restaurant was never the same, despite the good efforts of many in the kitchen. Gousteau's restaurant sounds a bit like Walt Disney Studios with Gousteau as Walt. The new chef, Skinner (Michael Eisner perhaps?), is mainly interested in extracting as much money as possible from Gousteau's name and is about to market a variety of rather cheesy sounding frozen food products (direct-to-video sequels?).

The hero of the movie, Remy the rat, is a true artist in the kitchen and he single handedly turns Gousteau's around through his innovations in the kitchen. When the staff discovers that Remy is responsible for the restaurant's new success, they quit en masse, and Remy must employ his entire rat colony in the enterprise. Although the rats create a masterpiece for the critic Anton Ego (voiced by Peter O'Toole), the restaurant is closed after the health inspector discovers rats in the kitchen. However, in the happy ending the heroes of the film open a bistro for both rats and humans, where excellent food is prepared and Anton Ego is a regular.

Incidentally, the process where seemingly hundreds of rats prepare the meal is not unlike the process of animation itself, where countless people make small but fundamental contributions to the painstaking process with the artist, Remy (Brad Bird?), in charge.

There are two major lessons which are spelled out for us by the film; the fact they are so blatantly spelled out is one of the few bits of pandering the movie makes to the younger set. The first is that pursuing ones calling as an artist must take supremacy over most other considerations - it's better to pursue excellence in a bistro than mediocrity in a fine dining establishment. To me, this moral is defiantly telling the viewer that Pixar will resist the temptation to sink to the lowest common denominator, and will create art on their own terms. The second lesson is that although not everyone can create great art, great art can come from anyone and anywhere. This lesson has nothing to do with the Pixar-Disney situation, but in part addresses the rivalry between animators (the rats) and live-action filmmakers (the human cooks). The reflexive dismissal of animation as an inferior art is attacked in this message, but the most effective attack is presented by the existence of this wonderful film.

Top Ten Movies that aren't on your List

Compared to the other film enthusiasts in the blogosphere, I'm an amateur among amateurs; however, among my friends, I'm the movie expert. I'm often asked about my favorite movies. Many of my favorites are pretty standard: Sunset Boulevard, Lawrence of Arabia, Chinatown, etc. It's almost pointless to list them. Here are 10 of the best American movies that most people don't put on their lists. I'll have to think some more about favorite foreign films.

1. Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933). The Busby Berkeley boxed set came out a year ago and it was a revelation. I'd heard about these movies and seen clips, but nothing quite prepared me. Between the pre-code shenanigans and the choreographed human kaleidoscopes, this movie is simply a good time. 42nd Street and Footlight Parade were close contenders for this spot.


2. The Lady Eve (1942). Sullivan's Travels is most often cited as Sturges' masterpiece, but its sentimental streak keeps it from being ranked among my favorites, which include this choice, The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (which brilliantly outmaneuvers the Hays code), and The Palm Beach Story. The Lady Eve wins out because of the star appeal of Henry Fonda and Barbara Stanwyck. See this and you'll weep over the current state of the romantic comedy genre (you may want to support this cause)

3. White Heat (1949). The early gangster movies (The Public Enemy, Scarface, and Little Caesar) are fun to watch, but seem like cultural artifacts compared to White Heat, which gets to us at a visceral level. James Cagney plays the psychopathic Cody Jarrett who may love his mother a little too much.

4. Strangers on a Train (1951) The equal of any of the usually cited Hitchcock masterpieces (e.g. Psycho, Vertigo), this may be his most perfectly constructed thriller. Robert Walker is Hitchcock's greatest villain (not only does he love his mother, he wants Farley Granger to kill his father). Hitchcock hits all of his obsessions: mothers, an innocent man wrongfully accused, and the darkness within us all.

5. Sweet Smell of Success (1957) "A cookie filled with arsenic" is used by Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis) to describe J. J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster), but the phrase is also an apt description of this especially dark and cynical noir tale. James Wong Howe's black and white cinematography, Ernest Lehman's script, Elmer Bernstein's jazzy score, Ernest Lehman's sharp script and Alexander Mackendrick's (who didn't make enough movies) direction prove that film is a collaborative medium.

6. The Music Man (1962). I wanted to include one movie you can watch with your three year old (Dumbo was my second choice). Conventional wisdom is that the musical died when the Arthur Freed unit closed down at MGM, and the big 3-hour cinemascope Broadway-based extravaganzas killed the musical. Actually, they kept the musical alive financially, and a few of them were pretty good. This one (along with the more commonly listed My Fair Lady) is nearly perfect, and preserves Robert Preston's career defining role for all time.

7. One, Two, Three (1962). One of funniest movies ever made, its frenetic pace and total irreverence was ahead of its time, foreshadowing the work of Mel Brooks and the Zucker-Abrahams team. Billy Wilder tackles many of the issues he explored as a screenwriter for Ninotchka (an also ran for this list), skewering both communism and capitalism but saving his most vicious digs for the Germans (all of whom claim to have been part of the resistance). James Cagney fires off the mile minute jokes as a Coca-Cola executive in Berlin. How Billy Wilder got Coca-Cola to go along with this movie is a complete mystery.

8. All that Jazz (1979). 1979 was the year I first got interested in movies as something more than entertainment. In addition to the classics, I remember loving All that Jazz (which I saw twice in its opening month), Apocalypse Now, Being There and Manhattan. All that Jazz is Bob Fosse's 8 and 1/2, except Fosse uses fantasy and musical sequences to draw us in at an emotional level, whereas Fellini's fantasies just make us wonder what the hell he's trying to get at.

9. Repo Man (1984). I don't know if it's my advancing age or the decline of the repertory cinema, but it seems they don't make cult movies like they used to. This is the best of them.

10. The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985). From 1980 to 1999, one of the events I looked forward to most was the opening of the year's Woody Allen movie. Even when his movies weren't up to snuff, they never felt like a waste of time. Strangely, his latest efforts have been both less ambitious and less likely to fulfill their ambitions. Allen doesn't appear in this one; Mia Farrow is his surrogate, a star struck fan who is literally drawn into the fantasy world of a depression era movie. The under-appreciated Radio Days was another candidate for this spot.

11. A. I. (2001) This is number 11, but who's counting? Spielberg’s amazing run of great movies in the 2000's is reminiscent of Hitchcock in the 1950's; A. I. is Spielberg’s Vertigo, an under-appreciated masterpiece that will eventually be revered. With the exception of an ill-advised coda, this is a great movie about what it means to be human with a chilling and heartbreaking performance by Haley Joel Osment.

Of Faggots and Presidents

Ann Coulter just defended her schoolyard taunt of John Edwards by claiming that it's OK because he's not actually a homosexual; she was just accusing him of being effeminate. In 1999 left-of-center columnist Maureen Dowd wrote about Al Gore,

Al Gore is so feminized and diversified and ecologically correct, he's practically lactating.

The only Democratic candidate who will probably never be accused of being too feminine is Hillary Clinton! What everyone has failed to explain is why feminine characteristics create bad Presidents.

It turns out that our nation has had a long history of faggot Presidents (effeminate men who may or may not be homosexuals). My recent readings about George Washington reveal that he was obsessed with creating fabulous military uniforms and maintaining perfect appearance. However, the real proof of a testosterone deficiency is revealed in his orders regarding torture.

Treat them with humanity, and Let them have no reason to Complain of our Copying the brutal example of the British army in their Treatment of our unfortunate brethren.

The he-men of our current administration would never stoop so low.

By now, most of us have read the theories that Lincoln was a closeted (was there any other kind in 1860?) homosexual. Further evidence lies in his self doubt and his willingness to have dissenters in his cabinet (real men dismiss everyone who isn't a yes man - what's the point of listening to incorrect arguments?). Finally, there's the question of Lincoln's flip-flopping (I don't want to be too graphic about why this might be associated with being effeminate) -- first he doesn't want to free the slaves, then he does.

Adams (both of them), Jefferson, Madison, Teddy Roosevelt and Wilson are immediately suspect because they were public intellectuals. Ann Coulter would have a field day with them; they all wrote volumes full of sentences and phrases that can be lifted from their context. Teddy tried to cover his feminine side with all of his manly activities; however, if you've seen Brokeback Mountain you know the real reason men like to go out camping with their buddies.

If you want testosterone vote for Rudy Giulani, he can give more testosterone in one blood donation than is available in the entire democratic field - and I'm including Hillary. As for me, if effeminate means a little less moral clarity, an end to "my way or the highway" diplomacy, and a dose of humility before both God and the American people, I say bring the faggots on.

Editor's Note from Bad Mom, Good Mom:
His sarcasm light is flashing, but you have to be looking at him to see it. So don't even bother flaming him. He's flaming enough as it is. I have it on good authority that his DVD collection identifies him as a faggot. It has to be true because a major movie studio paid for the marketing research.

Response to Editor:
The Editor just says things like this when she wants me to prove otherwise. That means I better get going RIGHT NOW!

Smoking and Praying don't mix

When government seeks to be fair and evenhanded, enforcement of regulations can get ridiculous. The latest example is a British order to post no-smoking signs in all churches, attempting to solve a problem that never existed. Amusingly, the notices were sent out on Feb. 21, Ash Wednesday. In California, we've had smoke free workplaces for so long, I'd like to see the government-mandated no-smoking signs taken down. After all, a no-smoking sign in a California restaurant is about as necessary as a no-defecation sign in front of a urinal (I'd like to see the pictograph for that!).

Credit Card Offers from Capital One

How does Capital One make a profit? They must spend $50-$100 a year sending offers to our household alone. Last Monday, we received four offers from Capital One (two for me and two for Grace). After opening each envelope, putting materials with our names on it in the shredder basket and recycling the rest, I felt disgusted enough to call them. Fortunately, they answer quickly because they think you're calling to apply for a card.

I explained how I was sick of receiving offers and wanted to stop receiving them. That wasn't a problem. I made the mistake of giving them Grace's info first. Here's the approximate conversation:

"I'm not speaking to Grace, am I"

"No, she's not home right now"

"I can't remove her name without her permission"

"I'm the person who has to shred these things, and I don't want them crossing my property line!"

"We're not allowed to take her name off without talking to her"

"Look, I can give you good intelligence information that Grace will not take you up on your offer. You should act on that intelligence and save your company some money. That shouldn't require her permission."

"I'm sorry, we can't do that sir"

"OK, I'll make it easy on you. I forgot to tell you that Grace is dead"

"Sir, this is a recorded line and you may want to be careful about any misrepresentations you make"

That seemed rather threatening, although I doubt any jury would ever convict me of fraud, and I can't imagine Capital One having standing to sue (for saving them money?). I relented, and resuming polite conversation we managed to get my name off the list. In 6-8 weeks our house will become a Capital One free-zone. I recommend calling, just make sure that everyone you want to remove (or at least someone whose voice can pass for the proper gender) is in the room.

Apparently, I am not alone.

Plurality vs. Majority-based Democracy

What do Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and the Hamas Party have in common? All owe their rise to power to plurality-based democracy. Pluralities are considered too dangerous a method for choosing the mayors of Redondo Beach and Los Angeles, yet all fifty states are willing to choose their presidential electors based on a plurality vote. And pluralities are dangerous; just think about the governments that might be favored by your least favorite 30% of the electorate.

The consequences of a plurality-based system are twisted, yielding disproportionate spoiler powers to the likes of Ross Perot and Ralph Nader. The system also makes third party victory virtually impossible, because the average voter is adept enough at game theory to understand why a third party vote is a wasted vote, and will usually vote for the least offensive Democratic or Republican candidate. A majority-based system, which employs either runoff elections or preferential voting (aka instant runoff), lets voters simply vote for the candidate they like best with no repercussions. What a revolutionary concept!

After the 2000 election, the electoral college system was under fire again, perhaps deservedly so. However, a constitutional amendment that eliminates the electoral college will never pass - too many small states benefit from the system. Let's concentrate on what can be fixed. A majority-based runoff system could be implemented on a state-by-state basis, and in many states could be introduced through initiative amendment. Initiatives would bypass the mainstream party controlled legislators, which have an interest in perpetuating the plurality-based system.

Many of those interested in electoral reform are third party advocates. I'm not particularly troubled with having only two strong parties; however, like all monopolies (or duopolies), the threat of competition can only inspire them to do a better job.

Smokefree restaurants and the European marketplace

In a recent poll, more than 60% of Germans favored a smoking ban in restaurants. I've seen similar numbers for France. Everything I know about free markets suggests that large enough niche markets will be rapidly accommodated by the marketplace, and 60% is more than a niche. Why then, is it so hard to find a smokefree restaurant in either country? Generally, smokefree dining in Germany or France is confined to venues that are smokefree for some other reason (e.g. museums, department stores) or the even rarer hippieish vegetarian restaurant. In California, smokefree restaurants started showing up in the mid-80's, long before smokefree legislation seemed possible, and by 1990 smokefree dining was easy to find (especially in restaurants catering to the upper middle class).

Only two explanations seem possible. European restaurateurs either have some knowledge that is not revealed in the polls (the marketplace is working), or they are more fearful of change than their American counterparts (the marketplace is dysfunctional). There's also the possibility that things have changed since my last visit to Europe in 2005, but that doesn't explain why the marketplace seemed to be failing then. Of course this will all be moot soon, as these governments are about to mandate smokefree environments for all restaurants. In the meantime, I'm looking for an answer and would like to hear your comments.

Comments are now open to all

A few people have told me that they couldn't leave comments because they weren't registered users. Apparently, the default blogger settings don't allow comments from the general public. I've fixed that, so flame on! (Actually, respectful comments are preferred).

Let me know by email (see my profile on the right) if you have any problems posting a comment.

Depressing Career Moments

For some unknown reason the numbers on a touch-tone phone are arranged with the smaller numbers up top, while calculators have the smaller numbers on the bottom. In graduate school and in my early career, I would often start dialing a touch-tone phone and inadvertently punch in the numbers as though I was using a calculator (rotary phones were still common so I wasn't using exclusively touch-tone). One of my most depressing career moments was when I realized that I was accidentally doing the opposite; the phone numbering scheme had become more automatic than the calculator's!

By the way, if you have fond memories of your HP calculators with Reverse Polish Notation and the best buttons ever, check out the museum of HP calculators. I'll substitute one of their pictures into this post if the curator will give me permission.

On Confederate Flags and the Pledge of Allegiance

Hillary Clinton just repeated a Democratic primary campaign tradition - the ritual condemnation of the Confederate flag that flies over the South Carolina statehouse. And she was right to do so. Flying the Confederate flag is not a time honored tradition, but was instituted as a segregationist statement of defiance against the federal government for the civil rights policies of the 50's and 60's. As such, the Confederate flag is an insult to those who put their lives on the line to complete what was the United State's greatest unfinished task. Those who fly the flag are implying that they only acquiesced to civil rights because they had to, not because they finally realized that segregation was wrong.

I wish a high profile politician would apply the same standards to the inclusion of "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. Again it is not an old tradition (like "In God we trust" on coins), but was added in the 1950s to contrast American religiosity with the state-mandated atheism of the Communists. The proponents of the phrase didn't understand that it was our freedom of religion (including the freedom to not believe) that made our system superior. Likewise, the Communist system was evil because it enforced a religious point of view, not because that point of view was atheism. Inclusion of the phrase "under God" is offensive to me not because I believe that all references to religion should be removed from the public square or that I am inferring unintended meanings, but because the deliberate intent of the phrase is to associate being a true American with religious belief.

On the other hand, if I had to run for office I would probably just let it go too.

The American Presidents: George Washington

Upon browsing the bookstore shelves I came across an intriguing series of books, entitled The American Presidents edited by Arthur Schlesinger. Based on the intriguing author list ranging from top historians (Robert Dallek, Gary Wills), political figures (Gary Hart and John Dean) to a novelist (E.L. Doctorow), I was compelled to dive in. I hope to draw some lessons regarding the qualities of character that make for both good and lesser presidents, and some insight into what to look for in the current crop of candidates for 2008. Also, I'm currently interested in the history of presidential power, as I believe our current administration is dangerously overreaching. Of course since I'm dealing with history, I'm as likely to draw the wrong lessons as the right ones, but at least I'll be able to back up my arguments and sound authoritative. It's easy enough to draw the wrong conclusions from a controlled science experiment, and history is anything but controlled.

Each volume is 150-175 pages, giving equal time to James Garfield (who served less than a year) and FDR. It looks like each volume devotes its first third or so to the pre-presidential career, with the bulk of the book being devoted to the presidency. The result is a volume that compares to a full-blown biography like a blog post compares to a real essay. At this length, getting through the entire series seems feasible, and I'm intrigued by the prospect of learning about people like Benjamin Harrison and Rutherford B. Hayes, as well getting new perspectives on the usual suspects.


The fact that I'm writing this post in the United States of America governed by pretty much the same constitution as written in 1789 is a testament to the effectiveness of George Washington as the first President. When we read the constitution, we imagine the government as it is organized today; however, a closer look shows that it doesn't really tell us that much about the executive branch. We're just mentally filling in the details with what we take for granted. Washington and his cabinet (the cabinet isn't specified in the constitution either) expertly defined the role of the executive, including the executive's supreme role in foreign policy, and leadership in proposing legislation. Washington gave the presidency enough power to be effective, but prudently did not grab the monarchical powers Americans might have granted him.

The authors, James MacGregor Burns and Susan Dunn, do a good if pedestrian job of explaining just how dicey Washington's situation was. Success for the American experiment was not assured, but Washington surrounded himself with the best and the brightest including Alexander Hamilton as Treasury Secretary, Thomas Jefferson as Secretary of State, and James Madison as his point man in Congress. Rather sensibly, he preferred the vigorous debate to take place within the administration and to emerge publicly with one voice. As public debate and dissent became more rancorous and partisan, Washington found the presidency more distasteful. As a result, Washington's second unanimous election established a tradition being honored to this day, the tumultuous second term.

I came off with a favorable impression of Washington, but the authors never conveyed the empathy (which does not preclude criticism) that I find in the best biography. That may have been due to Washington's carefully crafted public image, which is difficult to penetrate. However, they did tempt me to dig into the giant biography of Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow that's sitting on my bookshelf. Instead, I started the next book in the series, John Adams , and it's already a more compelling read than the Washington biography. I look forward to reporting on it.

DVD Watch: This Film is Not Yet Rated

This Film is Not Yet Rated, directed by a very visible (a la Michael Moore) Kirby Dick, is a perceptive, if not revelatory look at the MPAA's rating system for movies. I've always considered the rating system somewhat loathsome, especially because of the changes filmmakers must make to accommodate the system. Although his criticisms of the MPAA hit the mark, Kirby Dick doesn't emphasize that some of the worst problems with the system are due to reactions to the rating system, rather than MPAA policy.

In 1990, the MPAA tried to do the right thing and instituted the NC-17 rating - an "adults only" rating that was meant to bypass the stigma of the X rating, which had been co-opted by the pornographic film industry. These efforts were almost immediately sabotaged by national video rental chains, many theater chains, and newspapers, all of which refused to distribute or promote NC-17 movies.

The second crisis (and probably more damaging from an artistic perspective) occurred in the mid-1990s, when theaters were pressured into strictly enforcing the R rating. Before this crackdown, theaters were effectively allowed to create their own local standards for admission into R rated movies, and often based admission on how old or mature a teenager looked, and might even apply different standards for different movies. The new enforcement regime, along with Hollywood's dependence on the teenage market, created enormous financial pressure to make PG-13 movies with content pushed as far to the edge of R as possible.

As a result, we currently have a rating system with effectively two enforcement (as opposed to advisory) categories: the unrestricted admission G's (G, PG and PG-13) and R. I don't include the NC-17 because it means that the film is virtually banned (although through no fault of the MPAA). I don't understand the usefulness of three advisory categories (especially as hard to differentiate as G and PG, and as mind-bogglingly broad as PG-13), when so much more detailed information is available in alternative media.

Kirby Dick doesn't really give us many proposals for reform beyond the laudable desire to make the process more open. However, even an open system will have its moments of arbitrariness as lines will have to be drawn somewhere. Since no system will seem fair to everyone, the main goal of ratings reform should be to minimize the consequences of inevitable bad decisions.

So what are the main problems with the current rating system?
1. NC-17 is a stigmatized rating
2. Strict ID checking for R-rated movies have created pressure to make PG-13 movies, because they are the only movies that teenagers can get into without an adult. However, a PG-13 movie must also be watered down enough for unaccompanied 9-10 year olds.
3. Both number 1 and 2 result in commercial cliffs (into an NC-17 or R rating) that can represent financial suicide.

The simplest solution is to increase the number of enforcement categories and soften the blow of slipping a category in the ratings. My proposal is to divide the R rating into a soft-R and a hard-R with their own enforcement criteria (Soft and hard do not necessarily refer to the state of genitalia in these movies, but they could!). The exact enforcement criteria are arbitrary, but I can imagine a soft-R requiring children 12 and under to have a parent present at the box office , and a hard-R banning children under 12 and requiring parental accompaniment for under 17s. The most objectionable PG-13 movies (crude comedies and violent fare) and softer or ennobling R movies (the Matrix, Schindler's List) could be in the soft-R category, while harder core R's (Kill Bill, Gangs of New York) and most NC-17 movies (Requiem for a Dream) would go to the hard-R category (and I won't have to see people taking their 4 year olds to these movies anymore). The most severe NC-17s (Short Bus) would remain NC-17, because certain corporate entities need something to ban in order to demonstrate their moral standards to the public.

Finally, on a personal note some of my best movie experiences (Hair, Network) were the result of being admitted underage. I recall that I went almost straight from 11 years old, qualifying for the child price, to 17 years old. I never could find a movie theater that would let me do both at the same time.

Bond Trivia Contest

I've always been something of a James Bond fan; it's part of my extended adolescence. I even like to watch bad James Bond movies. I actually have a theory that it's the bad movies we like that really define us as moviegoers, and I'll write about that someday.

On Saturday I competed in the James Bond trivia contest at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica, which is part of the non-profit American Cinematheque . The contest covered the seven Sean Connery Bond movies. It was conducted in spelling bee format with seven panelists asking questions - each panelist being an "expert" in one movie. Once you missed three questions, you were out. Steven Jay Rubin, author of The Complete James Bond Movie Encyclopedia, moderated.

Because I hadn't seen any of the movies since around 2000 and my Connery DVDs were in the hands of my brother, I needed to devise a time efficient study strategy. I checked out Steve Rubin's 450 page opus from the local library on Wednesday night, and read straight through, skipping the irrelevant parts. Because many facts are repeated (e.g. characters are listed both under their character name and under the cast name), it was the perfect way to study.


Thirty-eight of us (only two females) participated. Fortunately, my study strategy was effective, as I came in third, and got lots of swag. Each of the five finalists got the stuff in the red bag which included Avengers videos, Casino Royale souvenirs, altoids, a DVD of the Peacemaker, and a ticket to the Cinematheque. The top three finalists got a 5 movie DVD set from the Ultimate James Bond Collection. Mine contained two-disc editions of Thunderball, The Spy Who Loved Me, A View to a Kill (Grace likes this one for some reason), Licence to Kill, and Die Another Day.


Here's the five finalists (I'm in the middle peering over the winner who's wearing a tie) and Steven Jay Rubin (on the right). His book is fun and essential if you have a need to fill your brain with useless information for a trivia contest (especially if he's the moderator). If you want a more erudite (but readable) account of the role of the Bond films role in both film and cultural history, I highly recommend Licence to Thrill by James Chapman. If you grew up with the Bond series (I was born in 1962, the year Dr. No was released), you'll probably find the book quite fascinating.

Grace was impressed with my accomplishments at the trivia competition. She just wants to know why I can store all this useless information, but can't seem to remember where things are kept in the house.

I've been tagged

Bad mom good mom (my wife's blog) tagged my blog. To paraphrase her blog, being tagged means:

1. I have to post five things about myself that I haven’t already mentioned on my blog
2. I need to tag 5 people I’d like to know more about

I'll knock off number one here.

My email address is bikeboy at gmail dot com. It's now on my profile.

Grace recently outed me as a randonneur. I was an avid long-distance cyclist until my daughter was born, when I ramped down my activity considerably. In 1999, I completed Paris-Brest-Paris (PBP), the premier randonneuring event. PBP involves 1200 km (750 miles) of riding in 90 hours or less. 3500 riders participate, riding day and night with only short stints of sleep. I also was an avid participant in the California Triple Crown series of double centuries (200 miles in one day). The picture is courtesy of bikeaholics, from the 1997 Eastern Sierra Double Century. It's taken from the back of a tandem, and I'm the lead rider in the picture (I like staying near the back of tandems).

Travel and the outdoors are also passions. Some of my best travel experiences have come by accident. In 1997, I won a KCRW (public radio) prize of a trip to Buenos Aires. Grace and I turned it into a three week vacation, visiting the Torres del Paine National Park in Chile (adjacent pic) and Iguazu Falls at the Argentine-Brazil border. In 2005, Grace got sent to a two-week school in Corsica (lower pic) and the family got to tag along. I threw this in so I could add some pretty pictures to the post.

I have been reading the Dickens novels in order and have been stuck for years on Barnaby Rudge. Although I know that the path to David Copperfield and Bleak House goes through Barnaby Rudge, it's hard to get myself energized to get through it. By the way, The Pickwick Papers is much more fun than I was led to believe.

My previous addresses have been San Diego (born and raised), Cambridge Mass (MIT undergrad), Berkeley CA (graduate school in Chemistry), and Boulder CO (postdoc). When Pat Buchanan gave his famous (infamous?) speech about the cultural elite, I was living in Boulder and he mentioned my two past addresses. I felt personally honored.

After six months of binging, I am now a recovered sudoku addict. Unfortunately, I discovered a site which has introduced me to Hashi, Kakuro and Hitori. Check out the link at your own risk.

That's it. Now I have to find five blogs to victimize.

The Iraq Paradox

Many have said that we should not leave Iraq until we achieve victory. My question is: how will we really know if we have won until we see what happens when we leave?

January in LA

When I moved to Los Angeles from Boulder, Colorado in 1993, my colleagues felt sorry for me and treated my move like a prison sentence. As a southern California native, I knew that California was a much different (and better) place than that imagined by Boulderites. We reaffirmed that last weekend (see Grace's post as well).

Here we are on a January day at Playa del Rey riding our Santana Sovereign tandem towing our BurleyPiccolo tag-along bike. It was our first real ride (25-30 miles) using this equipment combo, and it worked out great. It's fast on the flats and downhills and extremely stable; however, we did struggle a bit on every uphill. The uphill performance may reflect our conditioning more than the equipment. We rode city streets and the beach path. Occasionally we had to ride on major thoroughfares and drivers were very understanding and cooperative, usually getting out of our lane to pass. We have pledged to do this every good weather weekend from here on out, working up to an overnight tour in the summer.

Iris complained about a sore rear end throughout the return phase of the ride, but was an excellent sport. We did promise her that if she liked the ride, we'd buy her a jersey and bike shorts. She is usually keen to pursue any activity that has fashion accessories. We found some kid-sized bike wear at Performance, and she should feel much better next time out.

The Gay Lion?

Grace just blogged about our day in LA. At 5:00 pm, I knew Iris was running out of patience, so I watched a screening of The Wizard of Oz with her at the LACMA film series, while mom toured the exhibits. For the first time, I realized that the cowardly lion is gay (He is just a "dandy" lion, and displays a rather limp wrist). Judging by the moments that got laughter from the adults in the audience I wasn't the only one who thought so. Googling "cowardly lion gay" produces some interesting hits, proving that I'm not the only person hell bent on destroying childhood.

Inspirational Movies (don't care for them)

After coming home from seeing Little Children, we were discussing movies with our babysitter, and she mentioned that she wanted to see Freedom Writers. Without much thought my reply was, "I don't really like inspirational movies". I also thought that I must come across as a terrible person for saying that. I was referring to the dozen or more pictures that come out each year about either a teacher who connects with seemingly hopeless students, a ragtag sports team that transforms itself, or a hero who overcomes addiction or illness. To paraphrase Tolstoy, all inspirational movies seem the same, whereas one can always find new and interesting ways to be cynical or depressing.

It's easy to mistake nobility of purpose for quality. The Academy does it all the time choosing Rocky over Network, Taxi Driver and All the President's Men or Forrest Gump over Pulp Fiction, or Dances with Wolves over Goodfellas. The bottom line for me is that all great movies no matter the tone or topic are inspirational (as is any great human achievement). I walk out of movies as diverse as It's a Wonderful Life (yes, I do have a weakness for it), Kill Bill or Requiem for a Dream feeling pretty much the same way, exhilarated.

You can see the AFI's list of 100 most inspirational movies here. Quite a few of these are excellent films, but the voters took a very broad view of what inspirational means (a cynical movie like Bridge over the River Kwai is inspirational??). I'm looking for a fight, so I'll add that in the top 10 are two good (and certainly noble) films that are consistently overrated as among the best of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird and The Grapes of Wrath.

The Future and its Enemies

I just finished The Future and its Enemies by Virginia Postrel. It deftly describes dynamism, the messy but incredibly vital process which creates the inherently unknowable future. The book describes these processes as they apply to diverse human enterprises, including high technology, evolution of cities, and even fashion. It's also a polemic work, which cautions us against stasism ( resistance to change) and technocracy, which values change but seeks to control it (usually producing unintended consequences). I agree with the author that we should not unnecessarily stand in the way of dynamism (and she provides excellent examples of bad policy); however my definition of what is necessary would probably differ from hers. Nevertheless, it's a recommended read that will change the way you look at the world.

If you're further interested in the processes that shape the future, Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond is an outstanding work which describes cultural and technological evolution over the entire sweep of human history. The emergence of agriculture, cities and written language are shown to occur by processes identical to those described by Ms. Postrel (I don't know if either author would agree). In both books, the ability to trade and compete with diverse partners is shown as vital to human development. However, there is a key difference between the books. While Ms. Postrel's work emphasizes the unpredictable nature of the future, Mr. Diamond shows how geographical considerations (most importantly the availability of native plants and animals for agriculture) inevitably lead to the development of the touchstones of civilization. Of course, this inevitability is only evident to us when we're looking back in time!

Full disclosure - Grace (my wife) and I recently met Ms. Postrel socially, which inspired me to read her book.

The iPod

Santa brought me an iPod, and like all great devices that enrich our lives, it's been sucking all of my time away from useful enterprises. First, I had to convert our CD collection to MP3. Then I had to find a way to play the tunes in our car so we could have our whole collection along on every roadtrip. The cassette adapter was a disaster (terrible sound). Fortunately my friend Rich told me about a product by Blitzsafe, which hooks up to the CD changer port on your car stereo (there are different versions depending on your car make and model) It charges your iPod while it's hooked up and for twenty minutes after turning the motor off.

Our Toyota Sienna fit the hardware inside no problem; I just used some sticky back velcro to secure the Blitzsafe hardware to the top of the car stereo, and reattached the dashboard panels leaving the iPod cable sticking out. I only dropped one screw which will be rattling around in our Sienna for all eternity. My wife doesn't know I dropped the screw yet, but she'll find out next time she checks out the blog. The next and much simpler project is getting the iPod on our home audio system (an interim measure until we get a product like the just introduced Apple TV).

Iris and the Movies: Introduction

A recurring theme at Bad Dad will be exposing my six year old daughter to movies most would deem inappropriate (in accordance with the Bad Dad theme). Don't worry, I don't think she's ready for A Clockwork Orange or Taxi Driver yet. A. O Scott just wrote a piece on taking kids to adult fare, and it resonated pretty deeply with my philosophy.

Children are very lucky to live in what I would call the golden age of children's movies. The Harry Potter series, Pixar movies and a host of others are far ahead of what passed for children's fare in the '70s, or possibly at any time in movie history. Our parents gladly dropped us off at those dumb '70s movies, whereas now I find myself dropping hints to my daughter about kids movies that I want to see. However, a good part of my childhood moviegoing involved being dragged along to movies made for adults and about adults. Children got in for about a third of the adult price, so it was cheaper than a babysitter and I usually wanted to go. There were quite a few movies I didn't understand, but that was OK because children are accustomed to not understanding everything they see and hear; I can recall that once the adults got going at the dinner table they might as well have been talking in a foreign language.

Society's current need to cocoon children is most evident in the MPAA ratings. Growing up, one of my good friends going up was banned from attending movies with a rating other than "G". My research for this posting indicates that he could have seen: The Italian Job (1968), Oliver! (which has the vicious murder of Nancy by Bill Sikes), 2001: A Space Odyssey, Gone with the Wind, four of the five Planet of the Apes movies, Fiddler on the Roof, Airport, the Andromeda Strain, and Ice Station Zebra. Many of these would be PG-13 today, yet they were considered appropriate family fare in the "good old days".

Incidentally, the real reason (IMHO) for the creation of the PG-13 rating in 1984 was not that movies were getting more violent. By 1984, the criteria for a G rating were so severe that only a few sugar-coated outliers could achieve the rating. With all those formerly G movies getting pushed up to PG, the PG category was simply too broad. Creation of the PG-13 rating enabled the territory once occupied by G to be split into PG and G.

My own precocious recollections include seeing Lawrence of Arabia as an early grade schooler, the French Collection at the age of 8 and the Godfather as a nine year old. Somewhere in there I saw Cabaret, and didn't have a clue of what was going on (although I liked the musical numbers). The James Bond movies were favorites from age nine on. These were not scarring experiences that turned me into a psycopath, but moviegoing adventures that I recall vividly (especially Lawrence)

Next I'll talk about the best place to start with even the youngest of children, musicals, an area where my daughter is now an expert. When she was two, she would tell people that her favorite movie was Chicago. I'm also going to try out the silent clowns; I'll let you know how that works out.

Mission Statement

For about a year now my better half, who resides at badmomgoodmom, has been urging me to write a blog. At home I love to spout off about the movies, arts and politics, and she probably thinks that if I blog about it, she'll no longer have to listen. Plus, if I have to communicate these ideas down in writing, perhaps they'll be better formed, or I'll just realize how idiotic they were to begin with, and spare everyone including my readership (which so far is just me).

The blog is titled Bad Dad because it will talk about what Dad is doing when he is being bad and neglecting family life or the house. Even the time spent blogging is a part of being Bad Dad. The passions I pursue as Bad Dad include bicycling, bike commuting, travel, the movies (including an embarrassingly large DVD collection), and omnivorous reading. Mostly, I'll be documenting these passions for myself, but it's a blog so everyone is welcome.