DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

The audio commentary track to Something’s Gotta Give, the recent comedy with Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton, answers a question I’ve wondered about since I was 17 and legally able to watch R-rated movies: how do male actors control their erections during sex scenes?

I mean, maybe I’m abnormal, but if I’m naked under the sheets with an actress, and she’s naked, and we’re “pretending” to fondle each other, I’d be sprouting wood like a bamboo forest.

Are actors picturing something non-stimulating, like their grandmothers or Nicole Kidman? Does the presence of 100 stagehands and extras dull the sensation of hot nekkid flesh? Have they tied themselves down so as not to betray natural impulses?

The answers, according to Jack Nicholson, are no, no, and no. Respectively.

The following exchange concerns the scene pictured above. Nicholson’s character is about to get it on with Amanda Peet’s character. (She’s the one on top.) The commentary track features Nicholson and Nancy Meyers, the writer and director of the film.

Jack: I miss what you edited at the end of this particular scene, here.

Nancy: You mean where you sat up in your underwear?

Jack: Yeah, with a huge, you know…

Nancy: [laughs] That’s why it’s not in the movie, Jack.

I like this one a lot. It seems more intelligent and less cute than most romantic comedies. And the acting, as far as I can tell, is really wonderful.

My younger brother called recently to ask for advice on eradicating a virus from his computer. I couldn’t help him very effectively, because I have not used Windows (except in emergencies) since… let’s see… 1992. I was a power-user of Windows 286, to be sure, but I recovered quickly.

Anyway, on the phone I felt compelled to say, “If you’re tired of screwing around with viruses, you could always ditch Windows and buy a Mac.”

“What do you mean?” he asked. “Can’t Macs get viruses?”

He really didn’t know. He’s a couple paragraphs from finishing his Ph. D… he’s so smart he can find meaning and significance in the least rewarding movie I’ve seen all year. He once wrote a scholarly essay on my band’s debut CD that, even if it didn’t move any inventory, at least sounded like something that might show up in downbeat.

… Among the Babylon of culture there are significant works of art, literature and music. One such is the compact disc WANT, the music of a San Francisco band who seem to be busy at the marginality of super-hype and over-success…

And yet he didn’t know that 99% of all viruses target Microsoft Windows.

I thought everybody knew this — that to use Windows is to accept daily virus attacks in addition to the frequent critical security patches. But I guess it isn’t common knowledge after all.

Macs can, of course, get infected by viruses, but for the most part nobody bothers to write them. Virus authors want to see their work spread quickly. Therefore they’re unlikely to target a platform that is used by ~5% of the population. Windows is simply much more efficient at propagating viruses than any other OS. (They should print that on the side of the box.)

Jon Carroll’s column about the Bush administration’s apparent fantasy of infallibility — that is, Bush & Company’s inability to admit having ever made a mistake — is so right, so lucid, I’d like to quote the whole thing. You can read it in its entirety here: George Bush is never wrong.

(That’s my title, not Mr. Carroll’s; I’m hoping Google will index the link text so that feverish Bush supporters looking for justification will search for “George Bush is never wrong” and find, instead, a strong suggestion that he is.)

Carroll writes:

I have a theory. It dates back to Watergate, the first great 24/7 media scandal. Nixon tried to stonewall, and he could not. Why? Because there were too many staffers whispering to too many reporters.

You could take two lessons from Watergate. You could learn that the cover-up is always worse than the misdeed and that cutting your losses is always a good idea. Or you could learn that you must exert much tighter control over your staffers and your documents.

Which of those two lessons Bush learned is an exercise left to the reader. Just remember, kids: George Bush is never wrong!

Another interesting link came in the mail today, courtesy of Jacque Harper, who found a great story I’d missed in my own local newspaper. He even found the best pullquote for me:

The problem is that bananas have not had sex for 10,000 years.

I avoid GMO foods, to the degree that I can. Packaged food labels only advertise when the food does not contain genetically-modified ingredients, which should give you an idea of the public’s perception of same. Even products labelled “certified organic” are likely to contain GMO ingredients.

Or, as Cornell University’s Public Education Project claims,

Am I eating genetically engineered foods?

The simple answer is yes.

Here’s a bleak link for a dreary Monday: motorcycle tour of Chernobyl.

The tone is somber yet matter-of-fact.

Usually, on this leg of the journey, a beeping Dosimeter inspires me to shift into high gear and streak through the area with great haste. The patch of trees in front of me is called red — or “magic” wood. In 1986, this wood glowed red with radiation. They cut them down and buried them under 1 meter of earth. The Dosimeter readings on the asphalt paving is 500 -3000 microroengens, depending upon where you stand. That is 50 to 300 times the radiation of a normal environment. If I step 10 meters forward, Dosimeter will run off the scale. If I walk a few hundred meters towards the reactor, the radiation is 3 roengens per hour — which is 300,000 times normal. If I was to keep walking all the way to the reactor, I would glow in the dark tonight. Maybe this is why they call it magic wood. It is a dark magic with the power to turn biker leather into shining armor.

The accompanying photos seem random and somewhat uninteresting, but I guess this is appropriate: radiation is invisible.

Thanks to Bim for the link. (Bim’s motorcycle trip to Turkey was much less bleak!)