As I lay in bed, staring out the window at the full moon, I pondered what I could use to fight off werewolves.

There’s not much silver about the “silver”-ware. I doubt that any of what little jewelry I have is silver. In fact, I’m hard pressed to identify anything in the place that is certifiably silver.

In the old days you could pelt the hairy beasties with quarters and nickels. If you were really good at flickin’ coin, you might break hide or penetrate an eye (”Don’t do that or you’ll put someone’s eye out!” That’s the idea, Mom.), then sit back and roast s’mores while wolfie combusted from the inside out right before your eyes. (Boy, I miss Assembly of God summer camp.)

But the government stopped putting silver in coins. Then it struck me: our government is in the pocket of werewolves! WEREWOLVES CONTROL THE GOVERNMENT!

Anyone who’s seen the fine documentary Werewolf of London knows that Asia has an abundance of werewolves, owing to a rare Tibetan flower that is the only known werewolf cure. Werewolves flood in, hoping to acquire the flower, but only succeed in making lots of silver-sensitive, hairball puking Asians.

What’s less well known is that the Communists captured may of these lycanthropes and converted them to their cause. (Richard Condon’s novel was originally called The Manchurian Wolf. Publishers felt it wasn’t “realistic” enough and demanded a full rewrite. If they only knew.)

As Lyndon Johnson escalated the war in Vietnam, these most hirsute of commie agents infiltrated America under cover of moonless night. One eventually attacked the president. The secret service killed this monster, but not before she bit our commander-in-chief. (Perhaps you’ve heard of Wolf-Baines?)

Due to Johnson’s efforts, werewolfism spread throughout the Democratic Party faster than Marilyn Monroe at the Kennedy Compound. (Speaking of Kennedys, Teddy wanted to pull Mary Jo Kopechne out of that pond, but you know how much cats hate water. He thought this was brilliant till someone pulled him aside and pointed out that werewolves are technically dogs not cats.) With half the nation’s politicians developing a rapidly worsening silver allergy, a bill was easily passed to eliminate silver from most common coinage.

Capitol vending machines saw a dramatic rise in profits. The “Great Society” (for werewolves) had begun.

The removal of silver from circulating coinage was completed in 1970, shortly after Richard Nixon remarked how hairy a Chinese negotiator’s palms were. With a wink and a sly smile he insinuated the negotiator must be an unmarried man. As the negotiator lunged for Nixon, canine teeth bared, Nixon gasped, “You may swing that way, but I certainly do not!” Moments later, he did. (This exchange can clearly be heard on tapes available at the Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda, CA, though few recognize the exchange’s true significance.)

(As an aside, Nixon would have negotiated anything away to the Chinese just to get him near Tibet and his sweaty hands on that flower. He, however, betrayed his friends and allies by refusing to share. Haldeman, Dean, and others were especially incensed. Watergate soon followed. G. Gordon Liddy is not a werewolf. He’s just surly.)

With the Republican Party firmly in their hairy grasp, the removal of silver from American coinage was inevitable. (A small amount was still permitted to be minted “for collectors,” just to keep the public at large off the scent.) Subsequently, silver is far less common in American households today than at any other time in our history, leaving us virtually defenseless from lycanthropic attack.

And that’s how werewolves took over our government.

Posted: February 13th, 2010 under Entertainment, Humor, Movies, Politics, Satire.
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When I saw Superman Returns, one of the previews which flickered onto the screen was for M. Night Shyamalan’s Lady in the Water. People openly mocked it. Not just a couple disaffected teen slackers sitting too close to the screen, no, all types of people all over the theater. They were laughing, making jokes about it. As expected, that didn’t bode well for the film’s popularity. Perhaps you can gauge how not well by Shyamalan’s latest film being described as “by the director of The Sixth Sense and Signs.” (Films from 1999 and 2002 respectively, which ought to tell you something right there.)

I knew then things weren’t looking good for Shyamalan’s career. His latest film The Happening also isn’t out yet, and already the mocking has begun, as evidenced by this poster, defaced by anonymous wits in NYC:

(photo by wellohorld)

Or, as this review of The Happening by Nathan Rabin of The A.V. Club states:

M. Night Shyamalan used to have a vast army of fans. Now he has a dwindling network of apologists. The former frightmaster’s descent from wunderkind to embarrassment has been unusually dramatic and public…

Why? Well, first his films are bad. The only (supposedly) good thing about The Sixth Sense is the ending — and I figured it out from the previews. (Really, have you people never read a ghost story that you couldn’t see that coming?) They all feel the same: soaked in dread, self-important, and more ponderously paced than a 36-hour child birth. It doesn’t help that like his films, the man himself is dreadfully self-important, strutting around as if he’s God’s gift to film. About the only good thing I can say about M. Night Shyamalan is he has some skill at crafting a story, but he comes up short in practically every other area I can think of.

I’ve thought for years the best thing Shyamalan could do is stop his two years between films nonsense, stop trying to be the next Alfred Hitchcock, and make several different genres of films in one year. The man needs to make a musical, a slapstick comedy, maybe a crime drama. It would go a long way to expanding his abilities and informing his other films’ outlook. As it is, he just keeps recycling the same crap over and over and audiences have been onto him for the better part of a decade. I don’t even bother watching his films anymore. I just look at spoilers to confirm I once again correctly guessed the ending.

But I’m not holding my breath for any self-discovery out of “Night,” as he likes to be called. He’d first have to acknowledge that perhaps he’s not the genius mommy always told him he was.

Yes, people are so over M. Night Shyamalan. Too bad he’ll never be over himself.

Posted: June 13th, 2008 under Movies.
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