10 years since

I left southern California, Orange County, my home base for most of my 35 years, ten years ago in November of 1997. Rented a storage unit and put the rest in the back of my pickup truck. I was so exhausted from the moving I spent an extra night at my sister's place in Las Vegas before making the rest of the drive. I was headed to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, the best ski area in North America, as ski resorts go. I stayed a couple seasons then moved to Washington.

In ten years the cost of living down there has more than doubled; buildings have sprouted up like ugly weeds, and there is still no discernible culture. Only a handful of friends are down there, one aunt; no other family remains. Which is kind of sad considering we all grew up there. And one sister in L.A. but has plans on relocating to the east coast, at some point.

I think about going back, mostly for that handful of friends with whom I share history. I also think about getting a masters degree, perhaps in a foreign country. I look at the box I live in, and although it's nice to own my own place, it's not where true happiness resides. My happiness is more dependent on relational aspects, and the northwest is not just cold in the winter but in its natives and their acceptance of outsiders.

Worst. Movie. Ever: Afghan Knights.

If by reading this you pass on "Afghan Knights" my mission in life is complete.

Warning: Spoilers. A soldier living in the US is recruited to go back to where they fought and get someone out of the country. Having left one of his crew behind in an earlier war, he agrees. The movie starts out with some seemingly unrelated and poorly weaved but realistic footage of war action, along with some really out of place slaughtering of what must be some kind of monks, and oh wait, there's Genghis Khan. Okay, back to some biker dudes in Reno drinking beer. Before that, one of them having extreme hallucinations with faces popping through walls and people stalking him, resulting in more drinking and firing shots into the ceiling. It's in this state that the guy is asked to go back to Afghanistan.

Failed attempts to be talked out of it, blah blah.

A little trouble at the border at night, well it's not really a border, someone must have known they were coming. One of their party opens fire rather than negotiating. Mess is left, only border guys die.

Target found living underground in what appears to be a lavish lifestyle. Reluctantly he follows his emancipators but has too much crap and too many wives. So he has one shot and takes the other one, only to treat her abusively most of the time.

Can't go back the way they came, what with leaving the bodies and all. Will have to go over the mountains into the next country up there.

Potty break: hm, near a cave, where earlier somewhere we saw what seemed unrelated footage of a boy, a man and a female ghost. They come across a dead boy and a charred man and no ghost. Potty guy, a British dude non one trusts, hangs out near cave entrance while someone else stumbles upon the bodies. Oh what's this! The mountain is crumbling, they're being fired upon. Quick! Into the mountain that seems to be crumbling! Oh no, they're trapped! And who was that woman in white that ran back into the cave? Could we see through her?

Oh look who is there: the guy they left behind! But we find out he's evil! One by one the team is slaughtered, including the guy they were paid to free, although since he was mean to his wife we don't really care. I think the Brit maybe gets it too, but he seems to be the one who got him into this mess so we really don't care. But I can't remember if he gets it or not. The evil dude who was left behind doesn't trust the one who recruited the gang. He thinks it was a set up and he was left behind the first time on purpose.

So now we're chasing ghosts and people are spontaneously combusting and having their livers eaten. Left-behind dude can speak the local language and freaks out the woman saying really scary things. But she can't speak English to tell the other guy what evil guy is saying. With just a few of them left they try to escape the cave.

Our hallucinating hero is shown battling Ghengis Khan with a sword against two armed warriors on white horses. But is he really just standing there slashing at himself? Did HE eat the liver of the gay guy? It shows him eating the liver. Did he burn up the wife-beater? It shows him throwing a flaming blanket over him. When these things first happen we see it as the spirit of Ghengis Khan wants us to see it, that ghosts are doing it. Oh and that boy, who was dead outside the cave, he makes an appearance too. He kills somebody. Or did he?

Final confrontation: It's been at least 24 hours since there's been any contact with their coordinator, who has been shagging some horny prostitute for hours on end back in the camp. When his superior gets wind of the lack of communication he freaks out and demands a rescue. They locate the jeeps by GPS and send aid. Helicopters find them and lower a rope down a high opening in the ceiling of the cave. Meanwhile the dude that was left behind tells the hallucinating rescuer that he has found all this power by accepting the spirit of Ghengis Khan through some dollar-store spear. He said everything was planned for him to come and join him; from the hallucinations, all this thoughts, and those murders of his crew? They were tests, and he passed every single one! Won't he join him and accept the power!

He agrees, and the left behind guy holds up a spear. By the power of the spear he can become one of them! And live in a musty cave! He quickly grabs the spear and breaks it, and the left-behind guy seems to have his life sucked out of him. But not enough not to put the rope around his body and have him lifted out of the cave. Maybe he's not really dead. Everyone is out now, at least all the live ones, and the organizer is there with a couple choppers. The woman is smiling. Everyone will be okay and oh well the whole point of the mission died, but the leader doesn't care about the money now anyway. But hey back in the cave are the prized spears of Ghengis Kahn, and by now we figure that was the REAL purpose of the mission, because they'd be worth millions. The leader tells the whore-shagging coordinator that they're right down that hole, so he jumps down, and the leader pulls the rope up. We see the coordinator look up at the rope, but his attention is distracted by a female ghost running away from him.

THE END

Save your money and your time. Don't rent this one.

10 reasons you won't find me at a Warren Miller movie

10. I see enough commercials for JEEP already on television.
9. $20 to sit through a very long JEEP commercial.
8. Your $20 is compensated with coupons. To White Pass. Mid-week. How many 100s of miles is that from northwestern Washington?
7. Other coupons are a free pass to Sun Peaks, Big White, Apex or Silver Star. See above complaint.
6. Coupon for "Up to $25 off" purchase at a local ski shop. Which means I'd probably have to spend $500 to see the $25.
5. They find skiers with medals from world-renown competitions, but the year the US snowboarders swept the Olympics, they used a couple unknown teenage girls to demonstrate the snowboard segment.
4. They never brought back Rob Kingwill or Julie Zell.
3. Ski-jumping acrobatics.
2. Glen Plake thinks skiing was much better before snowboarding existed.
1. Glen Plake is Warren Miller's lil' bitch.

Degrees of Wetness

"I thought you said it was nice outside. Look, it's raining."

"Sure, but it's a dry rain."

"I thought dry rain only happened in the desert, where the water evaporates before it hits the ground."

"But you can walk in it and not get completely soaked. In Washington, that's a dry rain."

Hollywood Writers on Strike in NY

Oh My God what on Earth will people do if they don't get a new episode of their favorite SOAP OPERA or LATE NIGHT TALK SHOW on the tely next week? Might they have to TALK TO THEIR SPOUSE? or Play a BOARD GAME with their KIDS? or get off their FAT ASS and get some EXERCISE?

It's not like society is going to fall apart like when the sanitation crews stayed off the job in NY.

Quite to the contrary. I think it might be interesting to see if there isn't a mini baby boom 9-10 months from now.

I say, they should just stay on strike, permanently. Let the device that babysits all creative brain activity rot, instead of introducing rot into ones synapses.