This week I revisited an old classic, The Day After - that 1983 TV movie depicting a nuclear holocaust in the Midwest. The scenario has Kansas City obliterated by multiple bombs, leaving Lawrence, Kansas with the only surviving hospital for a hundred miles.

Most of the movie was filmed in KC and Lawrence, and its broadcast was a huge event here in Missouri. It was very powerful for me because I grew up among the minuteman missile silos scattered throughout west-central Missouri. The closest was only about a mile from our house. The movie had several very compelling scenes for us locals. One is a decimated Mass. Street in Lawrence. Another is Jason Robards standing in the pile of rubble that used to be the Liberty Memorial, looking out over a moonscape that used to be Kansas City. Then there is a soldier walking along what appears to be 50 Hwy outside of Holden, asking a passerby about Sedalia and Whiteman AFB. The reply is simply “there ain’t no Sedalia. No Green Ridge. No Leeton. No Nothin.” And then Arrowhead Stadium full of Chiefs fans watching missiles launching out of the ground around them, even though I don’t think there were really any silos inside the city.

Then there are the inaccuracies that are probably inevitible. For example, the movie places the KU Medical Center in Lawrence instead of KC and Whiteman Airforce Base in Sedalia instead of Knob Knoster. It also uses the fictional Sweetsage, MO, even though it includes other real towns like Harrisonville, Joplin, and Sedalia. Plus, the picture quality sucked, especially for a blockbuster event. The picture was fuzzy and grainy at the same time, and the colors were terrible. Did all TV look this bad in the 80s?

A new reaction to the movie was the similarities with the current tsunami disaster in southeast Asia. There were thousands of people with homes or even towns to return to. Literally nothing left. No hope of finding family or loved ones might have been just one or towns away when the bombs hit.

   

This weekend Michelle and I trekked up to St. Joseph to spend the day in an insane asylum. Actually, it was the Glore Psychiatric Musuem, a temple to the history of mental health. It has four floors of Ripley-esque artifacts from the adjacent St. Joseph State Hospital, formerly Missouri Insane Asylum #2. It’s one of the more bizarre, but fascinating, things I’ve seen recently.

The creepiest part of the museum are the mannequins posed in and on the various contraptions like fever cabinets, straight jackets, etc. Overall, the place had some similarities with The Road to Wellville, the book and movie depicting a turn of the century health spa run by Dr. John Harvey Kellogg.

We also hit the Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art and the Pony Express Museum, just a couple of the dozen-plus museums in this little river city. If you visit, be sure to push past the fast food and strip malls ringing the city and explore the dozens of historic neighborhoods and well-preserved downtown.

Here is the photo gallery…

On the wall of the 54th Street Grill on NW Barry Road…

Work is the curse of the drinking class.

I already get most of my news from The Daily Show, and now I can get my reading there as well. Be sure check out the audiobook, read by Stewart and the cast of the show.

Janet Maslin - The New York Times
� the devil’s own comedic handiwork, a side-splitting guide to the abuses and absurdities built into our political processes and institutions � America can be opened at random, the way it will be in college dormitories when it becomes much loved and indispensable. But it can also be read straight through, thanks to sustained clever writing and a smart, durable premise.

Guys, I need some help. I’m looking for a real, old-school barber. No stylists or salons. Anywhere between Downtown and Waldo. Northtown would be OK too. This is becoming a yearly quest. For various reasons every time I find a good barber, it never lasts.

Update: 3/22/2005 Today I checked out the Esquire Barber Shop, 3535 Broadway, between Cafe Trio and Planet Cafe. It’s a great Italian family-owned place with a father, son, and and uncle. $15 includes the groovy massaging thingy.

Congrats Julie and Artie on your surpise wedding. Great idea to combine a wedding and New Years Eve. And to eat the cake first!

Last night at the gym, 5 of the 7 TVs were tuned to Friends. The other 2 were on VH-1’s I Love the 90s, Part Deaux. I thought there was an unwritten rule of gym etiquette that required at least one TV each for CNN and ESPN.

This weekend was the premier of the new Battlestar Galactica TV series on SciFi, and it seems to be living up to the standard set by the excellent mini-series from December 2003 - Movie-quality special effects and an interesting human story.

If you haven’t heard about it yet, this is a revival of old TV series from the late 1970s, only it isn’t a remake. It follows the original premise, but with entirely new scripts. The industry buzzword is “re-imagined.” For example Dirk Benedict’s Starbuck character is still present is now a woman! It caused quite a bit of controversy in the science fiction community. Original series star Richard Hatch lead a very vocal opposition to the re-imagining, lobbying instead for a continuation where the old series left off. However, that conflict seems to be dying down now that fans have seen the new footage. Hatch is even slated to make a cameo in next week’s episode.

My only complaint is that the whore-turned-nurse character of Cassiopeia has been dropped in the new series. Oh, and they did do a lame knock-off of Jeri Ryan’s Seven of Nine borg character… A hot Cylon babe called “Model 6.” Maybe someday BSG will crossover with Star Trek and we’ll get to see some android-on-android action.

My weekly-ish trip to the Penn Valley dog park with Ginger provides a lot opportunities to observe some good Darwin Award candidates. Here are some helpful hints to keep in mind at your local doggie park…

• If you have a small toy dog in your arms, the big dogs WILL jump on you to get at your lap dog.
• If you try to give your dog a treat, you will instantly find 15 other dogs swarming around you. Leave the treats at homef.
• Ladies, wearing those fancy dress shoes to an ice-covered doggy playground is gauranteed to get you ticket on your very own Iditerod race. Happy dog sledding!
• Dogs hump and sniff each other. Even the most well-trained dog will do it sometimes. It’s genetic. If that freaks you out then stay at home.
• If you bring your sack full of McDonald’s to the dog park, dogs WILL jump on you to get at that Royale with Cheese. Eating lunch in a park full of loose dogs is not a good idea. Duh.
• Wheeling a baby around in stroller will definitely invite curious dogs to poke their head inside or jump on your precious.
• Carrying a kid around in one of those backpack or frontpack things is also a poor choice. The dangling arms and legs look like tempting toys to a dog.
• If your kid is scared of dogs, then the dog park is not the best place to take him. Running away from the dogs will just encourage them to chase Junior.
• You only have yourself to blame if you try to setup a picnic in the middle of a dog park and it gets overrun by drooling beasties.
• If you park your lazy ass in a lawn chair and send your dog out to play unsupervised, I WILL send my 60 pound pup over to jump on you.

I laughed so hard at this movie that my face hurt. Then in the morning my stomach was sore. It’s one of the most random movies I’ve seen in a long time, and a great story of being a misfit in a 1980s small town.

Update: Just found this Napoleon Dynamite soundboard, with most of the good sound clips (but no “flippin”).