Thank god for the Simpsons. I’d been having a bad day until I had Radioactive Man, the movie waiting on my Tivo. I’m not sure how mentally healthy it is to have my moods change with television shows, but I’m technically a generation Xer. We were all raised by Voltron, G.I. Joe and Bugs Bunny. I wonder if the internet is going to be the next generation’s t.v.? Today I had a loan document signing to take care of as part of my notary public service. On my free time, I notarize loan papers for refinances on properties for extra cash. It almost pays more than my normal job and I get to meet a wide cross section of Los Angeles society. I love observing people’s living habits and very few other jobs lets me walk right into stranger’s homes…at least legal professions, anyways. It’s interesting to see how certain people decorate their homes, treat their spouses, cook their dinners, etc. Today I was supposed to complete a signing with three Asian women on a rental property they own. Unfortunately, the loan company, which shall remain nameless, totally screwed the pooch on the documents. They misspelled Irene K. Ng as Ifene K. Hg…I guess it would have been more noticeable had her name been Barbara Smith. Not to be racist or anything, but Ng as a last name? Yes, Pat, I’d like to buy a vowel! They probably assumed her first name was anything but normal so Ifene could pass as “oriental” to some dumb hick out in Pennsylvania typing up the docs. They didn’t stop there, though. They also screwed up their social security numbers by mixing them up…Hehe, I guess even on paper, all of those Asians look alike to the white bread boobs on the East Coast. They even got the address wrong! I mean, you’d think with thousands of dollars at stake, they might actually succeed in locating the damn place they’re lending the money to pay for. Needless to say, the signing was cancelled and now I have to explain to the clowns that sent me on this fool’s errand why I couldn’t complete it without questioning their stupidity or blaming my incompetence.

After laughing way too loud at the Simpsons, I felt better and decided to catch up on several of the movies I’ve had my Tivo record for me. Usually, I’ll have it record famous, Oscar worthy films because I’m supposed to watch them, all the while ignoring them to watch reruns of Seinfeld. Every once in a while, a movie comes around that I’ve really been meaning to see such as the one I watched tonight, Throne of Blood. This is Akira Kurosawa’s take on Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, so it’s really the best of two worlds. I love Akira Kurosawa’s movies despite the fact that he has his actors overact in every scene…it might be the subtitles and the fact that I don’t understand Japanese that it works for me. My personal favorite of his is Ran, a remake of Shakespeare’s King Lear,(yeah, he’s got a hard on for Shakespeare, but who doesn’t? The Earl of Oxford was “bloody brilliant!) which tells a great story and manages to have more blood and guts than an Arnold Schwarzenegger action flick all the while managing to be artsy at the same time. Macbeth also happens to be my favorite Shakespeare play; probably because it’s his shortest. O.K., also because the main character happens to be an interesting and empathetic character who just happens to be married to the most evil and terrible characters in the history of…the world, really. Seriously, Lady Macbeth is the poster child for “Just Say No to Marriage!” Throne of Blood plays it pretty straight; it’s pretty much the exact same story only set in feudal Japan instead of feudal Europe…the only difference is probably hygiene, really. Toshiro Mifune plays the lead role and he’s magnificent as always. He’s one of the coolest actors ever to grace the screen; he’s right up there with Humphrey Bogart, William Holden, Clint Eastwood or Bruce Campbell (hey, the Evil Dead movies are a work of art.) He manages to be a brash, clueless rogue with a heart of gold in The Seven Samurai, a conniving, intelligent and dangerous killer in Yojimbo and an intense, effective yet insecure leader in Throne.

What makes a great tragedy is the self inflicted wounds caused by their protagonist’s faults and vices, not external events. King Lear is so arrogant and such a bad judge of character that he destroys his own family and everything he fought for his entire life; Othello and Macbeth fall due to their own insecurities and ambitions, much like the modern day loser Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman. A good tragedy is truly hard to beat in terms of staying power within people’s minds; they teach a lesson about human weakness and the dangerous inherit with submitting to them. They’re really just safety films with higher production values and better writing. Even if you don’t like downers, you have to admit they’re better than those terrible after school specials we were forced to watch…and certainly not as funny.