George Romero is about to release another zombie film, as detailed in this New York Times article,. The reporter does a nice job of detailing what makes Romero stand head and shoulders above his peers …
Great quote from Simon Pegg, who wrote and starred in “Shaun of the Dead”:
I just finished reading Matthew Polly’s “American Shaolin: Flying Kicks, Buddhist Monks and the Legend of Iron Crotch: An Odyssey in the New China.”
In one respect, Polly is “just another overprivileged Gen-X twit spending daddy’s hard-earned money trying to find himself in some exotic locale.” But he’s much more. He’s a humble, respectful, humorous visitor to the post-Tiananmen China of the 1990s who takes readers along for the ride, and it’s a fascinating ride.
Polly, a 98-pound weakling from Topeka, gets it in his head that he wants to study kung fu at the legendary Shaolin Temple, the supposed birthplace of both the martial art and Zen Buddhism.
What Polly finds when he finally arrives in Shaolin is more akin to “Kungfu World, a low-rent version of an Epcot Center pavilion.” Undaunted, he finds the monks, negotiates tuition fees with communist party officials and immerses himself in Shaolin. His observations on Chinese culture and customs are fascinating. During the course of his studies, he learns “to eat bitter” (suffer) and becomes quite proficient at kung fu and kickboxing. Great stuff ..
And Iron Crotch? He’s a monk whom Polly dubs “Monk Dong,” a practitioner of iron crotch kung fu. In other words, he’s learned to withstand insane abuse to his genitals. Talk about eating bitter:
“The door was slightly ajar. Overcome with curiosity, I peeked through the crack.
“Monk Dong, naked from the waist down, had placed his testicles on a wooden desk. At regular intervals, he brought down the palm of his right hand hard on his sack. He smacked and grunted. I winced.”
Ouch …
This is what happens when Memphis and Mardi Gras collide. Elvis ends up handing out beads at the Memphis Grizzlies game. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised … it was a surreal night from the start.
When I arrived at my hotel on Tuesday (I stayed at a Hampton cause I hate those damned ducks at the Peabody — quacking bastards) the TV was scrolling lists of school closings. I couldn’t figure out why they’d be doing that.
Then I saw the weather.
Radar showed an angry swarm of storms heading our way and everyone was battening down the hatches. When I stepped out of the hotel to go to the Grizzlies game, Memphis was in a state of blitzkrieg. Sirens were wailing and warm, random winds peppered with rain were whipping around. Way too warm for February. The kind of warm that carries a faint smell of tornado on it.
The FedEx Forum was almost empty. Partially because the Grizzlies suck, but mostly because sane people decided to stay home and hunker down. We enjoyed the game anyway. I managed to snag some beads without doing anything embarrassing. But after the game, we found out how bad the storms really were. Reports were already trickling in on storms that left dozens dead in Tennessee. Fortunately, Memphis dodged a direct blow. But it was one of those nights that made you glad the King was in the Building and protecting us from Ill Winds.
