Your mission, should you choose to accept it...

Can it be that Ethan Hunt, protagonist of the Mission Impossible series, is a freelancer? With all of the technical training and dire consequences involved in international spying, I just assumed he was on salary. Time and again the fate of the free world is in the hands of someone under no contractual obligation to even show up? It makes no sense. James Bond seems to have a similar dynamic with his higher-up, Q, who treats Bond with air of deference that is borderline innapropriate: "Double-0-Seven, you must hurry", "we're counting on you Double-0-Seven". Can you imagine Q ever getting stern with James Bond?

Do I need to remind you what Double-0 means? It means there are a HUNDRED other idiots in this organization who can do your job. So get up NOW, wash the cigarettes and stale hooker perfume out of that filthy table cloth you call a tuxedo and be here in twenty minutes! And don't tell me you gambled away your cab fare again 'cause I didn't beleive you the first time!

Seriously though, the phrase "should you choose to accept it" is nothing more than locker room psychology. Whereas Q appeals to Bond's massive ego, Ethan Hunt (should I just say Tom Cruise? Nobody knows the character name) is routinely confronted with a challenge to his manhood--as if Tom hasn't suffered enough in the tabloids. The guys who approach Hunt with new jobs are a far cry from dodering old Q. They are always these hard chargers, fresh out of spy school, looking to steal his gig! Comming from Billy Crudup, "should you choose to accept it" doesn't sound like protocol, it sounds like a dare.

But surely one of these super spys takes advantage of the fact that they're the only ones who can work a harness and jump out of the way of explosions without messing up their hair. Double-0-Five probably lives for sticking it in Q's face from time to time, "YES, I realize that The Mona Lisa is priceless but I asked off for the second week in June for a reason!".

Tom Waits Interviews

I've been working away on the Road to Peace portion of my recently publicized, up-comming post about Tom Waits. Unfortunately, just when I think I know what the hell I'm talking about, it keeps getting away from me . There are too many blind alleys, and it's gotten so bad that I've begun referencing Marshall Mcluhan.

WOODY ALLEN: You don't know anything about Marshall McLuhan's work.

ME: You're so right, Woody.(sigh)

But I haven't given up. So, in the meantime, I'll do the easy part:

Tom Waits has been going on Letterman for years. Dave knows he's one of the best songwriters on the planet and I'm sure he is admiring of him as an artist. But a big part of Tom Waits' art is his humor. He's the rare hybrid of a high-brow artist who is also a total ham. Dave knows this and is more than happy to play the straight man giggling at the funny old hobo telling tall tales.

When the subject of children came up in one of their interviews Waits explained how his kids learned "never to ask Dad to help you with your homework." (History homework in particular.)

LETTERMAN: Why's that Tom?

TOM: Hmmm...I think I made up a war once.

Can't you just picture Tom Waits telling his 8th grade son about the ferocious battle of 860 b.c., when the mighty Byzantian Huns rode atop fire breathing wolf-hounds ...etc.?

Like any good East Coat Liberal, I have an unhealthy, man-crush on John Stewart and everything associated with The Daily Show. So, it's with reluctance that I say he squandered his short time with Tom Waits by being too much of a fan. He did it with Neil Young too, but that time it was ok because Neil, while genial and articulate, isn't all that funny. Whatever.

I'm sure everyone over at the Daily Show is reading this and scrambling to rework the format of the show. Don't worry about it guys. I'll be happy to do some freelance consulting after the holidays. I've just been swamped lately.


This guy is funny?

Three things I may, or may not post, about this week

A HELICOPTER IN EVERY GARAGE- The inventor of the helicopter envisioned little one-person helicopters for every person in America.
*Can you imagine the evening news: "15 helicopter pile-up on I-95"? Totally Awesome!!

DUUUDE...-Think hard, did you ever get lost in a really cool screen saver pattern back when they first came out?
*Cinematic master, Stanley Kubric predicts the magic of the PC screen saver 2o yrs. early in his classic "2001".

THE ROAD TO PEACE- A track on the new Tom Waits album is a vivid political ballad about the conflict in the Middle East. It's a jaw dropper. Like Dylan and John Lennon before, Tom Waits hijacks the language of newspapers in lyrics like "The killing has intensified/ Along the road to peace..."
*Tom Waits television interviews--Why John Stewart could learn from Letterman.




All this (maybe) and so much more to come this week at Daydream Vaccination!

Who is poisoning Russian dissidents?

This story will probably become really compelling in a few days when it starts to make a little more sense. But right now it's just kind of annoying.

Why have "traces of the man-made isotope turned up in at least a dozen spots across this capital city and in several aircraft."

It sounds like the guy doing the poisoning took a stroll around London for a few days with the radioactive crap falling out of his pockets like loose change.

And whatever happened to Arsenic? Or just throwing someone off of a bridge?