We’ll get to my vid eventually, but first, other stuff.

Like this. This ain’t making me happy.

There is already a nearly perfect version of Slaughterhouse Five. It was released in 1972, it stars Michael Sacks, and it is pretty much a direct translation of the book into movie form.

I am serious. A book that many people thought was unfilmable because it is so “weird” was translated directly into a movie by the director, George Roy Hill . The book is actually quite cinematic in nature and not at all hard to make a movie out of, although not exactly cheap to make either.

And now Andy Kaufman and Guillermo Del Toro want to make a new version. Kaufman I tentatively trust. He wrote Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and I loved that. But what I loved most about it was its extraordinary visual style that somehow feels more real than any movie I have ever seen.

And he didn’t have anything to do with that.

However, he was also the producer of Being John Malkovitch, a great movie, as well as Adaptation, a pretty good movie with a heavily layered plot, and that shows he has what is needed to do Slaughterhouse Five (not nearly as complicated) justice.

So I am willing to trust him…. somewhat. But Guillermo Del Toro is a terrible director. Every movie he makes demonstrates that he has a talent for rich and impressive visuals but no talent for coherent storytelling, and I shudder to think of what Vonnegut’s story would turn into in his hands.

The only thing I can think of that they could improve over the 1972 version is the special effects for the Tralfamadore sequences, and that’s just where they would let Del Toro splash his baroque nonsense all over the scene and completely ruin it.

So yeah. Not happy about that. The things that happen after the author dies…

Then there’s this juicy little incident.

To me, it’s obviously not an actual kiss. It is what happens when two dudes try to do the “I am all up in your face” nose to nose macho thing, and one of them makes an unexpected move.

It’s no more a real kiss than accidentally touching someone’s butt is sexual assault. It’s an accident, and nothing more than that.

I’m not saying it wasn’t hot, I’m just saying it was not a real kiss.

But hey, it’s progress.

And then there’s this bit of truly spectacular satirical journalism.

It’s about Detroit. So, brace yourself.

I love this piece because it is done with such a deft touch. It makes its points in a somewhat satirical fashion, but never forgets that what it is talking about is a deadly serious matter and that the point of the piece is to generate outage, not to mock people’s pain and suffering.

So it’s like Michael Moore but without the smugness.

Detroit is clearly an object lesson in modern anarchy. Hell, if you live in Detroit, why not be a criminal? It’s not like you will get caught. They basically have no police force now.

And it’s only going to get worse. The whole reason Detroit has to do such insane things as reduce their police force to perfunctory levels is that so many people have moved out that the tax base is minuscule. Why is it so small? Because people keep moving out.

And why do they move out? Because the place is an anarchic wasteland that any sane person with the means would flee. And so people leave, the tax base gets smaller, living there gets shittier, more people leave… you get the idea.

I have said it before but it bears repeating : Detroit may well become the world’s largest ghost city.

But hey, all you libertarians will start moving there soon, right? After all, Detroit is rapidly turning into a government free paradise where the free market rules and government regulation is no longer strangling innovation and tying the Invisible Hand behind our backs.

Talk about paradise! Sure, there’s crime, but you have guns, so who cares?

Pretty plain, much like yesterday’s. The heat makes it so hard to think! Plus, honestly, I kind of felt on both days that the subject matter didn’t lend itself to video clips, images, and so on.

Plus, that might be the last The Deal for a while. I am losing interest in it. It’s a lot closer to the sort of content I want to make than anything I did before this (some of that earlier stuff from this project seems pretty embarrassing now) but it’s not quite there yet.

But who knows. Maybe before it’s time to make tomorrow’s vid, I will have a great idea for another thing to explain The Deal on, and there will be a #6 after all.

Admittedly, I am feeling mildly discouraged and depressed today, so all this might just be a symptom of that. Dunno what it up with me, although caffeine withdrawal is a definitely possibility.

I knew going in to this “drying out” period that I was risking a drop in energy/enthusiasm levels in the short term, and it seems like I was right. I feel vaguely grumpy and discontent today.

These things pass, though. Nothing lasts forever, not even the bad things. I will regain my bounce once I have regained my bearings and once more found my little bit of solid ground in the oceans of emotion.

If this experiment does yield a happier me, then I will simply stop buying diet cola. I will still end up having it when we dine out (because it’s the only sugarless option) but that is once or every once in a while twice a week, so that’s no big deal.

And I will miss it. Cola is tasty, even the diet stuff. But there are plenty of other carbonated beverage choices, and if I find myself really craving the stuff, that just proves I was addicted and I am better off without it.

So the next little while might suck a bit, but I will get through it.

Maybe I should start drinking coffee….