Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead

I've officially been in Denver, Colorado for 24 hours now. I'm trapped in an industrial park in Englewood, though my room at the Marriott overlooking nothing is nice.

I've been nailed with a fate so heinous, it's tough to describe: I can't stop farting stinky farts. Alright, maybe it's simpler to explain. Apparently, the higher altitude causes the gas to expand, and that somehow makes whatever room you're in smell like Elizabeth, New Jersey. I'm afraid to light a match for fear of nuclear meltdown.

You apparently need to drink plenty of water here, too. It's apparently silly easy here to dehydrate. One of beer's ingredients is water. I'll try that.

Tonight marked our first foray into the greater Denver metropolitan area that didn't involve the words "airport" or "liquor store." We ate at a steakhouse called the Buckhorn Exchange, which prides itself on 500 animals stuffed and stapled to walls while hiding out between the slums and the railyard. I couldn't determine if I should be attempting to score some crack or throwing my belongings in a sack and leap in a boxcar. I ate a Buffalo Prime Rib. Tender. Dissolved in your mouth, so tender. Like eating a baby, but with more guilt.

Time to go down the hall and drink myself blind. Maybe you'll get a drunken Denver post in 3 hours.

Dare to dream, kiddies. Dare to dream.

Walk without rhythm, and it won't attract the worm.

Just because.

All I know is that this violates every canon of respectable broadcasting.

My car has logged over 72,000 miles.

It's traveled in 10 states (NY, VT, MA, CT, NJ, PA, MD, DE, OH, WV) and one Canadian province (Ottawa). It's never been involved in anything larger than a few scratched bumpers. It's been updated with a new Rockford Fosgate sound system, so the music is perdy. It's even been featured in an episode of "Law & Order" (as the murder weapon, no less!).

Why do I bring this up? Well, my car needs about 15 gallons of gas to go from E to F. When I first inherited said car after I graduated from dear ol' Syracuse University, that averaged about $22.50 per fillup. I used to say with confidence "fill the tank" at every available opportunity.

Now, I'm averaging about $37.50 in one of the highest priced cities for gasoline in the dear ol' US. I don't particularly like New Jersey, but I find myself longing for romps down the NJ Turnpike merely to save the $3 per gallon extra I spend here in Brooklyn. And God forbid I drive in Westchester...

Now, I get news that we're now living in the highest gas increase in our nation's history.

Thank you, W. Congratulations again on your second term, by the way.

Now, OK, I know i'm the eleventy billionth person to chime in on this conversation, and I'm not particularly bringing any new facts to the table. But I do have one fact to offer that I don't think is being nearly mentioned enough:

I know gas prices are high. Please stop telling me that.

I had this revelation on the way to work in a cab the other day. 1010 WINS-AM had a brief report on high gas prices. The reporter visited gas stations in NYC and asked people what they thought of the high prices. And you know the responses, "Man, it's hard." "It's so expensive." "I don't fill it all the way like I used to." And it just hit me. I've heard this interview previously. I read it in the newspapers, saw it on TV. It is literally the only story ever aired about the high prices.

As a wise Spinach-eating sailor used to say, "I've had all I can stands and I can't stands no more."

These reports NEVER discuss governmental pursuits of alternative energy. They never discuss how most cars don't need anything higher than an octane rating of 87, or how some gas stations are charging even higher rates to make a little extra profit. They never discuss hybrid cars or vegetable oil cars or cars with the floor below the driver's seat ripped out so that it may be powered Flintstones-style. They never discuss drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, known affectionately as ANWR (pronounced ann WAHR'). The reports are always "Gas prices are high and there's no end in sight. Suck it, consumer."

So, right here, right now, I make one simple request. Keep reporting on the high gas prices, but please stop reporting ONLY on the high gas prices. Package it with SOMETHING. Show me the vegetable car. Let me read about how this is the highest gas increase in our history, and what is being done about it (which, knowing our current administration and our President - who, let's not forget, started as an oil man in Midland, Texas himself). Bring up progess about ANWR, but also about how modes of alternative energy would actually make drilling in ANWR unnecessary. (For a hilarious bit on why Alaskans are for drilling in ANWR, read this. I especially like the part about how oil pays for schools.)

And hurry up. Challenge the machine. My car's got 40 states to go and is having a hard time finding work in television.

Zing!

Sunday's food for thought, courtesy of Mike Lupica:

It is no great shock that the same President who believes Palmeiro's version of things still thinks he's got a working plan going for him in Iraq.

Now, while the body count keeps rising, he thinks he needs the longest vacation any President has taken in 37 years.

Sometimes you think he knows as much about this job as he did about running the Texas Rangers.

Tired of the same ol' college football preview?

Grab a football if you love hip hop.

We're trying to make a movie, not a film.

When was the last time you saw a great movie?

Not a good movie.

Not Batman Begins cause it was cool and Liam Neeson was great in it.

Not Million Dollar Baby because it won all those Oscars.

Not Ray because everybody talked about it.

I mean the last time you went to a theater and got blown away without somebody telling you, "This movie is going to blow you away."

Sadly, you won't be getting a chance anytime soon.

Neal Gabler, a senior fellow at the Norman Lear Center at USC Annenberg, is the author of "Life the Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality, argues in an LA Times editorial that movies just don't matter anymore. His argument claims, in a nutshell that we as Americans have become so enamored with stars and how they live, that we don't even care why they're stars anymore (aka the movies).

Gabler writes:

Movies, television and DVDs are attracting fewer patrons because people, especially young people, value being entertained less than they value knowing about entertainment and entertainers. Movies have become what director Alfred Hitchcock called a "MacGuffin" — a red herring that triggers a plot but has no other inherent value. Like MacGuffins, movies have little inherent purpose except to be talked about, written about, learned about — shared as information.

This culture of Access Hollywood, People Magazine, and "The Fabolous Life of..." on VH1 is now making us dream, whereas crazy ideas like putting a movie in space simply doesn't do the job anymore.

And part of this stems from Hollywood paying too much attention to questions like "Will this make money?" and "Will this play in the Midwest?" Right before cable exploded, the credo about television was that "The best shows never air because they never get past the pilot phase." Film, an artform that should allow visual and other sensual expression, should not be held back because Kansas won't like it or a focus group didn't laugh accordingly.

We're too busy trying to know everything, to guess how movies will end before we see them (Spoiler Alert, anyone?). We will concede the actual experience of seeing the movie if we can assume how it ends. But come on... somebody, somewhere has a script we've never heard with characters we've never met and a story we've never been told. That's the one I want to hear. That's the one that will leave me saying, "Wow."

As opposed to the Dukes of Hazzard, which will inevitably leave me saying, "Wow.... that was crap."

Ok, so maybe reports weren't "greatly" exaggerated. They were exaggerated, though. I mean, I'm still here, no?

G'day, mates.

I'm back. For real.

We're a month later, a new computer, and and all around sense of "Damn, it's fucking hot outside" and it'd been too long.

So, to answer your question, the question being: "Where have you been?"

I don't really know. I know Vermont was there for a while. Took in a few Brooklyn Cyclones game. Remembered what it's like to have a social life. Still, that doesn't really solve the age old question.

Things happened while I was away. Supreme Court nominee. London. Palmiero nailed for steroids. And yet, I offered no mindless drivel to the conversation. Boo.

It won't happen again folks. We're back, and open for business. And downloading a substantial amount of pornography with the brand-spanking new 40GB Hard Drive.

Oh, internet, let's get together.