We have GOT to get jobs as overseas government contractors. The improbably named Triple Canopy-are we still sure that’s not some artsy Silicon Alley startup?-has the contract to guard the US Embassy in Iraq, writes Spencer Ackerman, whipping out a damning in-house State Dept. report on our pals over there. They don’t send the Delta Force boys for this-I mean, you’re not even required to be proficient in English, which is awesome, as I am not. And? “The contracting officer’s representative in Baghdad does not verify either the guards’ attendance at their posts or the accuracy of personnel rosters (muster sheets) before they are submitted, to ensure contractor charges for labor are accurate…. [The State Dept’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security] lacks standards for maintaining training records. As a result, Triple Canopy’s training records are incomplete and in disparate locations making it difficult for the Bureau to verify whether all personnel have received required training.” You don’t say! I actually would love to know more about the process of hiring folks from Central America and shipping them to Iraq as inexperienced contractors. I bet these people have amazing life stories. And what’s the deal on April 15? Do they get 1099s or what? Do they all get together and use Turbotax?

“Yeah, why not?”
-Benny Andersson of Abba’s response to a question about whether the band “would consider an intimate one-off performance — perhaps with an orchestra — that could be beamed around the world.” Andersson further mused, “It’s not a bad idea, actually.” The article, naturally, is headlined, “Abba offer hope to new generation of fans with reunion hint.”

Where I come from (“California”), a man saying “There is no independent evidence presented that would substantiate any claims of violence” about a woman who is pressing assault charges against a boyfriend is pretty much a hanging offense. That’s for good reason! To hear it coming from New York’s governor is really terrible, sad and stupid.

by Abe Sauer

Are you ready for next week? Next week you will be forcefully violated by Clash of the Titans producers looking to remind you that Titans! Will! Clash!… on Friday. So GO SEE IT FORCHRISTSAKE! FAST CUTS! LOUDNESS! GGAAAAHHHHHHHH!

A whole new generation is ready to be treated to the American bedtime story that is Clash of the Titans. And yes, Sam Worthington is the Millennial’s Harry Hamlin. The film will be in 3D and make 73 bazillion American dollars, or about $100,00 Canadian.

At the same time Clash of the Titans producers will be cramming trailers for their shitty 3D film down your throat, the film version of Conan-creator Robert Howard’s Solomon Kane character will continue to strive for a release date in the U.S. after debuting to some regard in old Europe.

“Profit” is not something Solomon Kane and Clash of the Titans will have in common. But both films’ trailers feature scenes and characters derivative of a number of successful adventure films from the last decade, subconsciously telling you, “You liked this before and you’ll like it again. It’s all good. Come in where it’s warm and familiar.”

A sampling:

Gay porn film 300 perfected the spectacle of the slow-mo fall, both in the “THIS! IS! SPARTA!” falling-down-the-well scene and off the cliff. Clash of the Titans clearly liked what it saw, incorporating a nearly identical above POV slow-mo doom tumble.

The only thrilling action sequence in Troy came in the first six minutes, when Brad Pitt slow-mo leaped over a towering enemy, sword at the ready. Clash producers must have liked this, because here’s Sam Worthington, slow-mo jumping.

The mysterious Persian assassin army (Ragheads!!) brought some threatening tension to 300. Clash clearly likes that head-wrapped mysterious maybe-Middle Easterner thing, because here’s a bunch.

The battle in the woods with the pure evil, blue-hand-printed Uruk-hai captain that closed out The Fellowship of the Ring was thrilling. Both Solomon Kane and Clash creators apparently thought so too, as both films feature wooded sets with disfigured Uruk-hai-like blemished baddies.

Hey, Pete “That Guy” Postlethwaite is OWNING the 2010 teen nerd fantasy adventure film genre! See him character-act the shit out of both these films.

Didn’t you love the Nazgul Ringwraiths from the Lord of the Rings trilogy? OMG! So do the Solomon Kane guys! And that flaming sword? Hell yeah!

Who would have thought Guillermo Del Toro’s dark, tragic Pan’s Labyrinth would have such a huge influence on action films? But after his eyeless, emaciated, old-man-calves-skin monster scared the bajeesus out of everyone, the creature was adopted for both Kane and Clash. In fact, the design was so groundbreaking, Del Toro began ripping himself off in Hellboy II.

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Finally, those who are old enough to remember the original Clash of the Titans Kraken are old enough to remember the Return of the Jedi Rancor monster which is certainly what they will think when they see the new Kraken.

So, remember, The Clash Begins on April 2! It’s going to be AWESOME. How can it not with all those scenes you already loved AND four credited screenwriters (including the auteur responsible for Æon Flux)! And don’t forget to sign up to get Solomon Kane its U.S. release. C’mon ladies, it’s got James Purefoy!

Anyway, these movies need to sop up all the cash they can before the release of Bébé(s) in May. I mean, just look at this unstoppable fucking thing.

That even makes MY uterus hurt.

Abe Sauer will be first in line for that flick about babies.

After the blizzards and hurricanes of early March, I went out to the garden to assess the damage. The plants, a sad exhibit of cracked limbs and blackened, desiccated leaves, seemed to confirm that for all concerned, it had been a fucking brutal winter.

I kneeled down to take a closer look at the stem of a hellebore, bent in half like a broken wing, in front of which I saw the dislocated branch of a columnar Norway spruce (Picea abies ‘Cupressina’) that had been knocked down under the heavy snow. Both seemed to epitomize what the fading season had delivered to the world beyond these courtyard walls: earthquakes most obviously, but also continuing wars on multiple fronts, foreclosures, record unemployment, suicide, homelessness and a general level of economic stagnation and existential despair that seems to hover over the country like an oppressive cloud, making it impossible to remember the joy and spontaneity that life can deliver (albeit always in fleeting and increasingly limited doses after we pass the age of 13).

I looked at a straggling patch of sedum that just months earlier cascaded so beautifully over the rock face but now suffered greatly, and remembered the devastation I felt when Johnny Weir, despite a flawless short program and a generally untarnished free skate, failed to medal at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

Nor did I feel any better as I considered a listless, flat clump of a perennial coreopsis, which — as I remembered the neurotic, obsessive beauty of its orange petals — reminded me of the futility of almost any creative endeavor, and how even that which flowers one season can be expected to die forgotten the next, buried under the cruel ambivalence of quarterly profits, product cycles and a million blog comments — i.e., capitalism in the modern era.

Even the campanula, which has traditionally been one of the hardiest perennials, shaking off any amount of snow like a mere coat of dust — seemed to sigh morosely in its newly crippled form: this past winter, it seemed to say, was one in which we were introduced to the trauma of Google Buzz.

But then, on the verge of giving up on this barren landscape, I widened my gaze and noticed signs of life, admittedly tender and fragile but still persevering, such as the newly unfolding leaves of the tree peonies.

Nor were these the only plants to soldier ahead, and in doing so seemed to laugh (or at least smile) in the face of death, not caring that such is the fate of all living things. How else to explain the engorged buds of a Japanese maple (Acer palmatum ‘Elizabeth’)?

Or the Sycamore Maple (Acer pseudoplatanus ‘Eskimo Sunset’)?

Or even the columnar beech tree (Fagus sylvatica ‘Dawyckii Purple’), which can live for hundreds of years, and is therefore almost certainly condemned to a premature death at the hands of vandals or real-estate developers long after those who have lovingly inserted it into the earth can remain to protect it?

Overwhelmed with futility, I turned to the azalea. “How do you do it?” I whispered. “I mean — life! — how do you endure?”

The plant nodded serenely back at me under the March light. “We live until we do not,” it offered before seeming to extend a glossy leaf, and in my tears of gratitude for this small gesture, I could feel the gentle rains of spring.

Matthew Gallaway is a writer who lives in Washington Heights. His first novel, ‘The Metropolis Case,’ will be published in 2010 by Crown.

Wow! I’ve only been listening to it for half a day now, and I’ve known plenty of people with a much better ear for discerning such things than I have, but E-40’s new song “The Weedman” sounds to me like it ought to be a giant smash hit. I think it’s totally excellent! It is very much like Jim Jones’ 2007 hit “We Fly High,” which is really okay, because “We Fly High” is a really great song. You might know it as “Ballin’,” because that’s what Jim Jones says on the chorus, and in a very memorable way. You still hear “We Fly High” a lot coming out of cars on the street. It was such a big hit when it came out that all the sports teams were doing it on the sidelines at the of the end of their games and stuff. It is mostly great because of its huge thwomping beat and a keyboard riff, seven notes of very simple, very very catchy melody, repeated over and over again throughout the whole song. They are such a great beat and melody, though, that you don’t mind hearing them repeated over and over again throughout the whole song. They are such a great beat and melody, in fact, that a special remix version of the song Jones did to celebrate the success of the New York Giants football team, with new lyrics all about football and the Giants, rather than about being super cool and drinking and doing drugs and having sex with women, is still pretty much as great as the original song.

And “The Weedman” is very much like that, a great big thwomping beat, a keyboard melody, only four notes this time, and a memorably enunciated chorus. But also, E-40 can rhyme really well. In this case, he does so about the marijuana industry in hometown, Vallejo, California. The video depicts same-with nice footage of pine trees on suburban streets and the display and usage of all sorts of pot paraphernalia. It also has a cool, visual effect, making the images ripple that throbs in sync with the downbeat. Because the downbeat is so big, so huge, so monstrously thwomping, it shakes the very earth the cameraman is standing on!

This one’s been all over the Internet today, and if you’re anything like me you’ve kept scrolling through your RSS feed and passed it by each time. You know what? Give it a shot. Look, I know you have issues with Michael Cera. We all do. But I really think we just might be able to make this one work.

“An extremely well thought through entry that the judges felt demonstrated the skill and tact required in this sensitive case.”
-Judges from the Chartered Institute of Public Relations describe the nomination Britain’s Northumbria Police submitted for its handling of the death of Hayley Adamson. Adamson, 16, was struck and killed by a speeding patrol car driven by a member of the Northumbria Police. The force won a gold award for Crisis Communications. [Via]

Just as the Awl Editorial Board has come around on Anthony Weiner (D-New Yawk), and yes, we are pretty pro, after years of finding him unlovable, today perhaps the wingnut right has just now cemented our position: “Law enforcement officials say a package with white powder was sent to Congressman Weiner’s Queens office today. A preliminary review shows the letter in part complained about the historic health care legislation passed by Congress this week, according to the source.” American terrorism! I guess they had to go the extra mile because the letters calling him “Shlomo” weren’t enough, apparently. (Hey, also, remember when the right wing talking point was always “ALL MUSLIMS MUST LOUDLY RENOUNCE THE TERRORISM OF THE (40 or 50 TERRORIST) MUSLIMS?” Anyone? Because… So… You see… Oh never mind.)

A joint study between Brown and Boston Universities shows that binge drinking does not affect test-taking abilities:

Over a four-day period, the 193 student participants were given either an alcoholic or non-alcoholic beverage. The students who received alcoholic beverages drank until they had a blood-alcohol level of 0.12. The next day, participants took practice versions of the Graduate Record Exam and a mock quiz on a lecture they received the previous afternoon.

Whether they were sober or inebriated the previous night, all of the students received similarly high scores on both exams.

There are the usual “blah blah blah binge drinking is still bad for you” warnings from the dude who conducted the study, but whatever: I think the real crime here is that nearly 100 college students had to go four days without a drink. That is some Stanley Milgram-style wrong going on there.