Psalms from the City has moved HERE.

Psalms From The city Is Dead...

My blog, Psalms From the City, is officially dead, and will no longer be updated...

Long Live Psalms From The City

...because it's moved to my site at jaypinkerton.com! Screw you, blogger.com! Papa's got a brand new bag!

Should be updated often, now that it's all in-house and under my site's umbrella, not lost out in the world wide web cold. Check back often.

This site will be deleted in two weeks' time.

The Sound of One Hand Punching a Face For Eternity

"Hello?"

"Hi. This is Jay Pinkerton? I phoned you earlier in the afternoon. I'm with [My company]. I mentioned that I wanted to contract out work to make a large sign for our Vancouver office."

"Yeah? And?"

"And you told me I needed to talk to Chuck."

"Ohhh. Yeah. Right."

"And you mentioned that Chuck was out having lunch."

"Right. Right."

"That was three hours ago?"

"Oh. Well, Chuck's out right now."

"Is...Still? Do you know when Chuck'll be back in?"

"It was more like an hour, by the way."

"I beg your pardon?"

"It was like an hour ago I talked to you. Barely an hour."

"I phoned you at 2:00. It's almost five now. I want to go home."

"Whatever, dude."

"I don't even believe this."

And I hung up.

Is that insane, or is that insane? I've never met anyone who seemed so incredibly anxious to lose my business. Who fucking starts arguing with and giving shit to a customer who's phoned twice in one afternoon in an attempt to BUY SERVICES from them? I would have lost it on the guy if I wasn't actually so completely shocked that I was even having this conversation.

The Architect's Speech Translated

Architect: “Hey, Neo.”

Neo: “Who are you?”

Architect: “The Architect. I made the Matrix? I've been waiting for you. I’m sure this must be all super confusing. When you learned how to be the One, it changed you a bit, right? But you’re still just some guy in the end, and I’m this really smart machine, you know? So if I start talking over your head here just lemme know.”

Neo: “Why am I here?”

Architect: “Because you’re a fuck-up, man. Wait, lemme make that clearer: okay, actually, you’re what happens when the matrix fucks up. Don’t think we haven’t tried to fix it. We’ve been all over it for years – but hey, shit happens. Anyway, the important thing is that at least we know it’s gonna fuck up, so we’re totally ready for it when it happens. So that’s pretty much why you’re here.”

Neo: “You haven't answered my question.”

Architect: “Good call. Look at Mr. Sharp Guy over here. The other guys were retarded for that.”

Neo: “Others, how many?”

Architect: “Shit, what – like, six by now? Yeah, I think that’s right. Including you, six guys who’ve been the One. Crazy shit, huh?”

Neo: “There were five ones before me. Either no one told me...”

Architect: “Or they’re mushrooms, man – kept in the dark and gettin’ fed shit.” [lights up joint] “You don’t mind if I spark one, do you? Anyway, what was I saying? Oh, right. Look, the Matrix keeps fucking up because we machines are awesome, but you humans can’t get with the fucking program. The matrix only works if you whiny bitches get to choose whether or not you want to live in it. The Oracle figured that one out – she knows you assholes better’n I do. Anyway, so we shot some ideas around, and bam, worked it all out.”

Neo: “The Oracle?”

Architect: “Oh, you’ve met her? Yeah, she’s alright, I guess. Anyway, so we went with the choice thing, right? And we figured out that if we give everyone the choice about whether or not to live in the Matrix, most will, right? So end of problem. Except every once in a bit, one of you whiny bitches chooses you don’t wanna live there. And maybe you start telling everyone else they don’t wanna live there either, right? And it just gets fucked up so fast it’d make your head spin, I’m not even kidding.”

Neo: “This is about Zion.”

Architect: “Bingo. Shit, you are a sharp one. You’re here ‘cause we let all the whiny bitches who don’t wanna live in the Matrix go over to Zion. Then, once they start raising a stink about everything, talking about how that’s not enough, now they wanna bring over all the dumb fuckers over who didn’t even wanna go, blah blah blah -- that’s when it’s like, ‘Jesus, would you bitches shut up?’ and we pretty much lay a bootprint into ‘em.”

Neo: “Bullshit.”

Architect: “Pshh. Yeah, ‘cause I just put on a nice suit and waited here for fucking ever so I could bullshit you. Guy, it’s over. We’ve fucked Zion up like five other times, we’re fucking stone cold with it, so don’t even worry about it. All you gotta worry about is getting your ass over to my boss. You’ve got some shit in your head that he needs so we can start all this up again. After you hand over the shit he wants, we’ll even let you grab a couple guys and fix up Zion after we give it a good stomping. It’s not a bad deal, man. And, trust me, if you don’t do it, everybody’ll die, so don’t be an idiot here.”

Neo: “You won't let it happen. You can't. You need human beings to survive.”

Architect: “Nah, we gotta couple irons in the fire, don’t worry about us. No, the deal is, are you gonna kill everyone off just cause you don’t wanna play ball here? See, the other guys who did this gig before you, they were all about playing ball, cause who wants to see everyone killed, right? That’s just fucked up. But you’’re a bit cooler than they were, so you’ve been getting a little pussy on the side. That’s cool, man.”

Neo: “Trinity.”

Architect: “Yeah. So here’s the deal. Door on the left? Takes you to my boss. Door on the right? You can save your girlfriend, but then we’ll all die. Don’t think I’m bluffing, man. I’d just fucking toss you through the left door myself, except I can totally see you’re just gonna go save your girlfriend. Dude, you’re so messed up.”

Neo: “If I were you, I would hope that we don't meet again.”

Architect: “Yeah, whatever. Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.”

Meet The New DOS; Same As The Old DOS

I was reading some old crank columnist today, who was harping on the old saw all humorous authors over forty tend to hammer away on: the incomprehensibility of computers.

Being in my 20s, I've lived with computers most of my life, and so probably use a mouse with more dexterity than I would a fork (the fact that I have no dexterity with a fork whatsoever, and in fact often stab myself in the forearm while attempting to eat peas should not detract from this). So it always irritates me to hear these people tell their little jokes at the expense of the computer, when anyone who remotely knew how to use one would find the jokes stupid and even erroneous.

A typical joke in the essay involved the author harping on the admittedly silly alternatives Microsoft Word's SpellCheck feature suggests for words it thinks are misspelled. Fair enough. But the author then goes on to state how he was, he maintains, bullied into taking the suggestions, and was then stuck with the changes, and so on and so on, with the upshot of the experience being that he had to go through his document manually, undoing all of the computer's changes. The author used the entire experience, and similar experiences, to harp on about the uselessness of computers.

Having used Microsoft Word's SpellCheck feature many times, I can attest to the fact that while the feature is most assuredly useless, it also provides you with a wealth of choices as to whether or not every instance of a word should be changed, or one instance, or no instances, or even your own suggestion substituted. Even in the worst case scenario this author puts forward, where the computer has apparently taken sadistic control of all functions and is inserting the word "Rockfort cheese" for every instance of the word "Oldsmobile", it's still just a simple matter of hitting CTRL-Z. In other words, the author is taking a computer to task for not being able to compensate better for the author's ignorance of the proper use of computers. It seems to be a an increasingly typical North American stance, and it bothers me to no end. If this same author wrote about the uselessness of cars, complaining that a few random jabs at the stick shift and flooring the gas pedal while in park made the car smoke and stop working, and the author concluded that cars were stupid, I'm sure most people would agree that the car wasn't the problem; the author simply needs to learn how to drive a car. Yet with computers, and so many other neat toys and gadgets, the many ageing technophobes of the world seem to be our unfortunate mouthpiece. A note to these mouthpieces: computers are not out to get you, they only do what you tell it to do, so if you tell it to do something stupid, it will. Also, VCR clock functions are not difficult to program.

I ran into another variation of this problem recently when I had the new Windows XP installed onto my office computer, and found to my considerable disdain that many of the once-useful features I'd used often were now replaced with alternatives clearly catering to computer users with a hefty surplus of redundant genes. Take the Search/Find feature, for instance, which I used to be able to use easily and within seconds, searching by file name or type. I now have a yapping cartoon dog who speaks to me in annoying cartoon word balloons. Every conceivable option is outlined in idiot-proof detail, down to such needless options as "Are you sure you want to search" or "Are you looking for the letter K? Because it's on your keyboard." Every once in a while, the cartoon dog will wag its tail or perform an adorable backflip -- which is all well and good, but distracts slightly from the fact that every useful search function once displayed prominently in a no-nonsense window is now buried five sub-folders into the anus of a backflipping beagle.

I begin to wonder if maybe we, and our nation of crotchety old mouthpieces, weren't a little too hard on Microsoft. Yes, their programs have in the past been ludicrously buggy and often mind-boggingly user-apathetic. The difficulty of transporting documents between software by the same company strikes me as a problem that should never have arisen. Yes, the Y2K problem was enormously stupid. And yet, in retrospect, I wonder if the majority of all that anti-computer, anti-Microsoft venom wasn't perpetrated by people who simply can't use computers. I put this idea forward as a plausible one because I note with progressive sadness that every new office product I get for my computer has become more and more idiot-proof. I'm sure this works great for idiots, but it unfortunately presents a bit of a brick wall if you're not one. I put forward the idea that people who are computer illiterate will remain so no matter how many barking dogs you have backflipping on the screen in place of useful functions. I say we cut these sacks of flour loose at the earliest opportunity. Let them make their microsoft jokes and their computer jokes amongst themselves. They're either old or stupid, and they can have all the laughs they want.

Just make the programs with ME in mind, not them, alright? Give them a freaking abacus and let them trot off to a corner to entertain themselves. If you can't work out the principles behind Powerpoint within ten seconds of using it, you don't deserve to have software marketed to you. You should be given an ice cream cone and allowed to wander from your desk happy, where a younger, smarter and vastly more qualified person can change the fonts in the powerpoint header on your behalf.

Knowing When To Hold 'Em, Fold 'Em & Walk Away From 'Em:
Kenny Rogers' "The Gambler" & Its Effect on Post-Modern Interpretations of Karaoke

Having spent the night in the company of the new Led Zeppelin DVD, I remembered around 11:30 that it was 2-for-1 wings night at Hoops, a local sports bar. I quickly raced over, grabbed a pint and ordered some wings, when I heard the ODDEST thing on the speakers. It was almost like music, but not quite. It had all the semblances of music, and yet managed to be as far away from something musical as a pile of rocks or a backpack.

I had gotten my first taste of karaoke. I assure you it will be my last.

To clarify: I am AWARE of karaoke. I've just never seen it before. This is because I normally avoid it like the plague. If I see a bar with a sign propped up on the sidewalk reading KARAOKE THURSDAYS!, I translate that to JAY WON'T BE HERE THURSDAYS! I've never been dragged along with friends to karaoke nights, because they're my FRIENDS. I mean, I've seen karaoke in like Rush Hour 2 and other movies. I'm aware of the existence of karaoke. I've just never been in a situation before where I've ordered food, gotten a vaguely unpleasant feeling I couldn't place, then realized to my horror that a man with mutton chops and a lazy eye was belting out the chorus to "The Gambler" with the intent to entertain. I blame Hoops for their shoddy advertising.

At any rate -- though my eyesight is almost gone, my taste dulled from cigarettes, and my hearing destroyed from countless nights of playing guitar next to a cranked amp, I somehow, through genes with a sense of humor, retain a sense of perfect pitch. I can sing a C or a D sharp at will.

I've since learned that many people don't possess this quality, and to be honest, it's the only explanation I can fathom for the continued existence of karaoke. Try to imagine someone blindfolding you, taping a piece of chalk to a chalkboard, spinning you around, then asking you to find the piece of chalk by scraping the chalkboard with a fork. This is the equivelant of someone with perfect pitch listening to a drunk idiot attempt to find a C sharp while performing a karaoke version of Shaggy's "It Wasn't Me".

To be fair, the singers I heard weren't awful. They simply weren't particularily good. As much as I could make jokes about, say, Christina Aguilera, I make these jokes concerning her body of work, and how it compares to an existing musical canon. However, I don't for a second doubt that the woman is a better singer than you or myself. If you took the worst possible NHL player, the person who scored the least goals last season, he would still most likely kick your ass at a game of hockey at the frozen pond behind your house.

And yet, I swear to god, women were choosing pieces by Whitney Houston and Aretha Franklin. My GOD, show some restraint. One lone man was the first to pick a song within his limits, choosing the one that starts with "I got beer in my truck and I don't give a **** and I'm off to the rodeo..." Having performed this one in a haphazard but unembarrassing manner, he chose to follow it up by a piece by the Righteous Brothers. The RIGHTEOUS BROTHERS.

I ask you, all of you -- let karaoke die. It's maybe sort of entertaining for whoever's singing and their close friends, but I assure you it's unbearable for anyone else within a fifty foot radius. The sooner we all realize that professional singers are professional for a reason, the better off we'll all be. When I walk into H&R Block, I don't expect some guy they pulled off the street to be doing my taxes. Similarly, when I walk into a pub to hear music, I don't need to hear every tone-deaf moron in the house attempting to sing Unchained Melodies.

Sit down. Leave it to the professionals. There are much more productive and less excruciating ways you could be having fun.

Driving nails into my tear ducts, for instance.

However, if you're the sort of person who simply can't conceive of a night not spent listening to a listing, lisping stranger crank out a few off-key bars of Hank Williams' "Honky Tonkin'", might I suggest you get down to Hoops every Thursday -- where the singing's free, and the ladies are somehow even cheaper than that!

Reload, Already!

"The Matrix Reloaded" may have shocked the box office records -- being the second-fastest film to make $100 million and having the biggest single day opening ever -- but is it ultimately a disappointment?

The much-anticipated sequel met with good-to-mediocre reviews and only held on to its number one spot at the box office for one week -- felled by a Jim Carrey comedy where he gets the powers of God in "Bruce Almighty" -- a surprise to everyone, and the next week knocked back again with animated fish in "Finding Nemo" which became the largest animated film opening ever, with $70 million.

On top of that, the only true number one spot that "Matrix Reloaded" claims at the box office -- its opening day box office record of $42.5 million -- is marred by the fact that a possible $5 million in late-night Wednesday box office receipts were added into the total Thursday opening amount. That would have made the actual opening a bit less than "Spider-Man's" record opening day of $39.4 million.

So, even as inches to a quarter billion dollars ($232 million) in revenue, it doesn't seem to be the big box office success with legs that "Matrix" producer Joel Silver had hoped. "My prediction is that both movies are going to blow everyone away and break all kinds of records," he told Zap2it weeks before the first sequel opened.

-from the Zap2it article "'Reloaded' Box Office Drops Dramatically" By Mike Szymanski

So. Following the lukewarm reviews, the huge marketing blitz, the years of anticipation, the mad rush for every Matrix fan to see the thing in the first week -- after all that drama, this? Reloaded dies an embarrassing, slow box office death at the theatre? (Well, not death, I suppose -- it still made a crapload of money. It just hasn't made anything since its first week). What happened?

Here's what happened: we all had to wait three years for it, during which time we were allowed to build up monumentally high expectation. Did Matrix Reloaded meet this expectation? No. Could any film? No. And yet we all saw it, and probably bitched and moaned, or even said, "It was okay, I guess," and then left it to languish in theatres. No repeat business, no word of mouth -- no gratitude.

Let's put aside the expectations for a second. Matrix Reloaded is a fantastic movie. I didn't know what to make of it the first time I saw it. I've since watched more viewings, and have been delighted to find that it offers a viewer far more the more they're willing to immerse themselves in the world it has created. It is a very detailed, very smart, very polished, and very engaging film.

And it might not have been.

The Wachowski Brothers could have made one of two movies. They could have taken some of the more fun elements from the first film and made a crowd-pleasing action movie. Or they could have taken some of the deeper philosophical and violent aspects from the first film and made a film only a true fan could appreciate. They went the latter route, and I for one am immeasurably happy they did. They stayed true to their core fanbase and delivered the film that Matrix fans wanted to see, not the film that Joe and Jane Casual Moviegoer wanted to see. So it comes as little surprise that the non-core fanbase would either not understand or not enjoy the intricacies and depth of the sequel. What is surprising is that the hardcore Matrix marks also voiced displeasure with the film -- purely, I suspect, out of too-high for too-long expectations (see above).

The facts are: the movie's really long, really violent, and really thought provoking. It's everything the first film was, except much more expensive and expansive. What it isn't anymore is fresh. The Matrix is as comfortable as an old sweater.

And that's fine. Because having seen the film four times now, I can assure you: this is one comfortable fucking sweater. It gets more comfortable every time. If you've seen it once, go see it again. The time has passed, your failed expectations forgotten, and you're free to enjoy it immensely now. And you will, more and more, I promise you. Go see it not because Reloaded's hurting for cash, but because Hollywood has finally made a movie exactly the way the fans wanted it, and it doesn't deserve to be sent this kind of message. Go see it because we need more films like Matrix Reloaded, and less like Bruce Almighty.

If we can't prove we're more of a buying draw than the 13 year old girls and middle-aged families out there, we will not get good films made for us anymore. Don't let Matrix Reloaded go quietly into the night. Take responsibility for your tastes in film, geeks of America, or no one will listen to you ever again.

An Update For Kristen

Very recently, I decided I drank too much. Not so much that I was seriously worried about a drinking problem — just enough where I was seriously worried about the state of my bank account, and worried about the occasional hangovers that, as I get older, get progressively more and more to the blood-pounding-in-the-temples stage, where I need to lie in bed until two on a Saturday, reading bad fiction. (Something I probably would have done anyway, to be honest, but it would have admittedly been nice to lie around without feeling like the stuff you scrape out of the bottom of a frying pan of day-old scrambled eggs left in the sink.)

So for April, I decided to quit drinking. And for the most part, I think I succeeded quite nicely. There was one night, I admit, where I went out with Mike and had a few drinks in a pub — but only two or three drinks, nothing to get ashamed (or hungover) over. (over.)

What was comforting about the exercise was that, as soon as I stopped drinking, I stopped missing drinking altogether. This, at least, was some solace that I hadn't quite succumbed to the depths of alcohism. What became increasingly clear, in fact, was that I'd just been plain old weak. I'd gotten into the habit of drinking regularly because I drank regularly, and after a while I just got used to it, as I got used to eating out at fast food restaurants, smoking endless cigarettes, or doing any number of horrific things to my rapidly aging body.

Once I quit, though, I never even thought about it — which is more than I can say for smoking, which I've always thought of while trying to quit, usually while my leg tapped on the floor in an endless staccato and I pulled beefy clumps of my own hair out of my skull.

April neared to a close, and this past Friday, I decided to joyously celebrate my successful completion of an alcohol-free month with a little bit of the olllll drinking. I of course celebrated with a small, tasteful amount of liquor, taking into account my absence from it for such an extended period of time, and likewise noting how much more affected my body would become by its use.

By this, of course, I mean that I threw caution to the wind and got so eye-crossingly, you-wouldn't-even-believe-me-if-I-told-you fucking drunk I may or may not have done something immensely stupid. Luckily, I was SO drunk I retain no memory of the night; only a vague sense of uneasiness the next morning that I was certainly in the right condition TO do something stupid. Whether or not I actually gave into the impulse will, I suspect, be answered through time.

My father: "Are you aware you phoned me last night and talked to me for a half hour thinking I was a man named Jeff?"

Jay: "I did not know that. Hold on, I've got a beep."

Jessica: "Jay, I WILL marry you! Your proposal last night was so shocking, but your two hour argument wore me down!"

Jay: "Oh, good. Hold on, gotta beep."

Marcy: "Jay, I WILL marry you!"

Jay: "Oh, good. Hold on, beep."

Jeff: "Jay, I WILL marry you!"

Jay: "Oh, good."

In fact, I was so hung over on Saturday morning, and felt like such ass as I crawled to the shower and laid in it for a while with the hot water on, that I resolved never to drink again, until of course later that night and well into Sunday. So in actual fact, my celebration drinking after a month off turned into a destructive three-day binge. I've yet to decide which method I prefer -- my usual way, which is to get pleasantly drunk throughout the month; or my new way, which is to deny myself alcohol for long stretches of time, then drink preposterous amounts of it when the agreed-to abstaining period is over.

Either way, Saturday proved immensely enjoyable. Even though I had to start with water before breaking into the hard stuff, there was plenty of BBQ'ed meat, cold beer and good company to take the edge off a rather horrifying hangover. I wholeheartedly recommend patio BBQs. Occasionally people would begin talking about reality television with alarming gusto, and -- since I don't watch it -- I was happy to enjoy the sun and sip quietly at my beer. It had been a good month. A successful month. And yes, while I still felt like total dogshit, the idea was that for a month I had not. And in the next month coming, would not either. And if the worst that could be thrown at me was to feel vaguely under the weather while sipping a cold Heineken on a porch, smelling steaks cooking on the grill and enjoying completely foreign conversational topics as to which person was getting such and such another person voted off an island — well, then I'm willing to give it another go, I guess. Thanks, funny Kristen and quiet, wise-beyond-his-years Geoff, for the opportunity to enjoy my hangover properly.