On Thursday, 17 July, I had the fortunate opportunity to be one of thousands who attended a special movie theater live screening of Glenn Beck's summer stage concert "Glenn Beck '08: Unelectable"

This was a first for Glenn Beck and, to my knowledge, the first of its kind. Glenn gave the performance to a sold out live stage theater in Dallas, TX. The performance was captured by about seven high definition video cameras, directed, and streamed to a satellite where it then went to 350 movie theaters.

I bought five tickets to the performance the first day they were available for Glenn Beck Insiders (about 4-5 days before they were available to the general public) to see the HD simulcast at the Jordan Landing Cinemark theaters in West Jordan, UT.

I don't know how big the other movie theaters were, but there were two sold-out theaters at the Jordan Landing Cinemark and they each probably seated 2-300 people. I' sure there were other theaters that were much larger.

I showed up a little more than two hours before the show was to start because the tickets were all general admission. I wanted to make sure our group had good seats and that we would be able to sit all together. There was one other person who had shown up before me, but she was in line for the other theater. So, I was the first person in line for theater #1. It wasn't long, however, before a handful of other people were in line behind me. Then, with over 90 minutes to go before Glenn went on stage, a young man came, told us we could begin seating, and showed us to the theater. I thought that was super nice because there was a pregnant woman in line behind me and I felt bad for her if she was going to have to stand in line for over an hour. Instead, she could relax in a theater seat.

I made some observations before the show. First of all, there were a lot of pretty attractive women there for the Glenn Beck performance, about half of which were pregnant. Also, the people were very friendly and very talkative, even with people they didn't know.

About 70 minutes before the show started, the projector came on and the dozen or so of us that were in the theater by that point were treated to a Windows "Active Desktop Recovery" dialog... in HD. It didn't inspire my confidence that the show was going to go without any snags.

After a couple minutes, however, the Windows message disappeared and was replaced with a young, pretty round-faced blonde with loop earrings holding a small seemingly homemade clapper board and she was opening and closing it in front of a pair of microphones about once every two seconds.

She was then replaced by a goofy-looking guy in need of a little orthodontic work (or maybe he was just had perma-grin from the excitement of being involved in something so... momentous) who did the same thing, but a little differently. His method of clapping the clapper board was just a little more... goofy. After a while, he was replaced by an older gentleman who had less muscle tone in his arms. It seemed harder for him to keep closing the clapper board and before long, he was replaced by a tall, intimidating fellow who repeatedly closed the clapper with great determination.

It was fascinating.

Twenty five minutes before 6:00, the Glenn Beck preshow began. This was just a slideshow presentation of funny trivia facts, pictures, and silly quotes. I didn't catch much of it because I was running in and out of the theater to meet the others in my group to get them their tickets.

Five minutes before six, a countdown timer appeared on the screen counting down the minutes and seconds "to Glenn." And then, there was a snow-filled screen and static noise.

On the screen appeared a man in an orange vest and an orange hat, like a construction worker or something, fist-bumping with three or four other people in a dark area. After a few moments of watching this, it became apparent we were seeing Glenn Beck backstage. He carried a plastic green toy assault rifle and walked out on stage as we followed, viewing him through the lens of a camera carried by a Steadicam operator.

The theater Glenn performed in was beautiful. It was smaller than I expected and looked more like a large stand-up comedy club than an opera house, an arena, or an auditorium (which I've seen Glenn perform in the last three times I've seen him live.)

Glenn started by introducing two "special" people in the audience. The first was Texas governor Rick Perry (who had perfect hair) and had to have been at least a little uncomfortable being an elected official at a show that was all about slamming "the weasels" in elected positions. The second was soldier/author/all around great guy Marcus Lutrell. Gov. Perry got some applause, but Marcus Lutrell got a standing ovation that went on for several moments. It was clear the audience loved this guy... and for good reason!

Once that was out of the way, Glenn jumped right into the comedy- talking about politicians that come out (as he had) wearing their "huntin' outfit" and carrying their gun that was given to them by a dear family member (never purchased, of course). Glenn said he thought people who don such ridiculous costumes to show the press they're in favor of the second ammendment make him sick and he took off the orange vest, orange hat, and the flannel shirt under the vest. Underneath was a light grey T-shirt with large black letters: "NRA." Hee hee.

The comedy went on for the next hour about politics, about Glenn's city government making ridiculous demands and imposing outrageous restrictions on what Glenn and his family can and can not build in their yard, about Glenn's experience traveling with a firearm through a New York area airport, and about stupid laws (Chico, CA will collect a $500 fine from anyone caught detonating a nuclear weapon within city limits.)

There was a short 15-minute intermission and Glenn came back on in a blue politician's suit and red tie and stood behind a podium with a "Beck '08" placard attached to the front of it.

The second part of the comedy show centered around what Americans (or at least Glenn-minded Americans) want to hear from their presidential candidates: the truth.

(The above picture was taken at a previous performance by another Glenn Beck Insider, but the gist is the same.)

The camera work was great. The timing was awesome. The comedy was the best I've seen of Glenn. My wife was a little... well, okay, very, disturbed by the number of times Glenn joked about wanting to kill someone with a gun.

The message in between the comedy was one about realizing the power in our country is not in Washington, not in your state capitol, not in your City Hall. It's in you! And it comes from God. Glenn encouraged the audience to read history, learn more about the founding fathers, learn more about the history of our great country, and never forget it is a great country worth fighting for, worth dying for, and worth saving from peril.

The message Glenn gave at the Freedom Festival Patriotic Service at Brigham Young University last month is essentially the same message, only without all the comedy mixed in.

So, all in all, I think it was a tremendous success and I congratulate Glenn and Company for a job spectacularly well done. They should be very proud of themselves. I'm certainly proud I could have participated in this special moment in history as an audience member at the first-ever Glenn Beck HD simulcast.

I don't think I've ever mentioned anything about Tony Snow on the Fozzolog before. I can't say that I was a "fan" of his, not that I didn't like him or anything. Today, however, I learned he has ultimately succumbed to the cancer he has battled for years.

My first exposure to Tony Snow was when he would occasionally fill in for Rush Limbaugh on the Rush Limbaugh radio program in the late 1990s and early 2000s. This was at a time when I really enjoyed listening to Rush (before I switched to Glenn Beck for my primary talk-radio fix). It was always a disappointment when Rush had a fill-in host, but of the fill-in hosts, Tony Snow was one of my favorite if not the favorite. He knew how to keep momentum on the radio, something that even the most seasoned broadcasters struggle with. 

Before Snow accepted the invitation to join the Bush administration as Press Secretary, he was an anchor and host on the Fox News cable channel. He also had his own radio program which was available in Utah shortly before he joined the Bush administration.

Unlike most people in the middle of the political news arena, Snow always seemed to me like a genuinely good guy. I would cringe at the prospect of, say, being at a barbeque with the likes of Sean Hannity, Chris Matthews, Keith Oberman, or radio hosts Michael Medved or Michael Savage. If Tony Snow was going to be there, I'd be delighted to go and mingle. He always seemed like an easy-going, down to earth dude.

Wow!

About a month ago, my hero Glenn Beck had actor, writer, artist, etc. William Shatner on his television program for an hour-long interview. I missed it and didn't record it so I was very pleased to find out it was re-run this last Friday and got snagged on my DVR.

Wow!

That interview was just amazing and, surprisingly, contained almost no Star Trek content whatsoever. There were some clips from Star Trek shown when they were talking about Shatner's reputation for "overacting" but that's about it.

What did they talk about for an hour if not Star Trek? Some politics, some philosophy, some Shatner history, and alcoholism (Shatner's third wife suffered from alcoholism and it ended up claiming her life.)

Maybe I enjoyed it so much because it was just an almost-informal hour of discussion between two of my favorite people.

It looks like some dude on YouTube has done the honors of capturing the entire hour in six parts. At least he a real job of capturing the video and didn't just smack a Flip video camera in front of the TV like I've seen some people do!

Here are the obligatory links:

• Glenn Beck & William Shatner - Part 1
• Glenn Beck & William Shatner - Part 2
• Glenn Beck & William Shatner - Part 3
• Glenn Beck & William Shatner - Part 4
• Glenn Beck & William Shatner - Part 5
• Glenn Beck & William Shatner - Part 6

I've mentioned a thing or two about the book Liberal Fascism, but last week, Glenn Beck had author Jonah Goldberg on his TV program. I've uploaded the segments to YouTube for public consumption. Goldberg presents an interesting argument, not that liberals are Nazis as many accuse him of saying, but that progressive liberal movements such as those being pushed by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, bear an eerie resemblance to fascist movements in history.

It pays to study your history or else you're doomed to repeat it.

View the video segments on YouTube.

I just finished watching the one-hour interview with candidate Dr. Ron Paul on Glenn Beck's show on CNN Headline News. I was very impressed with what Dr. Paul had to say. I agree with many who have said that he hasn't been given a fair shake by the media and they typically quote small snippets of his statements out of context and generally make him look ridiculous. The things he wants to do with the office of the U.S. President are radical, but they are good things and I am proud of the platform he's running on.

I haven't seen any video of the interview online yet, but it probably will begin showing up soon. In the meantime, if you did not see the show, you can read CNN's transcript of the show.

I just wish Mitt Romney or Barak Obama were saying the things Dr. Paul is saying. While he's spot-on with regards to the problems our country is facing and the solutions to those problems, he lacks the commanding leadership characteristics required to be “presidential.”

I was watching tonight's episode of Glenn Beck's TV show and his last segment featured a young lady as a guest talking about her 300-page iPhone bill.

I found the transcript for the show here and share it with you now:

Wow.

As for Justine Ezarik... just Google her to find her vlogging, blogging, flogging, etc. sites.

It's nice to find someone more narcissistic and "jacked in" than me so I can point my finger at her and laugh.

Fozzout.

As a young kid (we're talking around 1978 when I was six years old), I looked forward to Sunday evenings at my grandma's house because I would watch episodes of Battlestar Galactica there while my dad and my grandma would visit.

The only sci-fi I had been exposed to at that point was Star Trek re-runs, which I was very fond of. I hadn't seen Star Wars which had come out a couple years before and I wouldn't be introduced to the Star Wars universe until The Empire Strikes Back was released in 1980.

While some people had speculated that BSG was simply an attempt to capitalize on the popularity of Star Wars, it was the first time I had seen a space drama that was dark, dirty, and full of mysticism.

When the BSG franchise was reborn in 2004, I watched with fear and excitement. Would they butcher the series I had liked so much as a kid? Would they do it justice?

Ron Moore and co. did something I didn't expect. They recreated the universe and the background while still giving fans of the old series plenty to appreciate.

Season Three premiered this last Friday night. A major plot twist in the last couple of episodes of S2 left the story in a very weird place the original series never got close to. It really was unknown what S3 was going to be like.

Having seen the S3 premiere, I have to say I'm shocked and dismayed with what they're doing. I will probably watch a couple more episodes just to find out if what they're doing with the story is just temporary, but if they don't break out of this downright stupid plotline, I'm going to have to turn the TV off.

Potential spoilers here...

It seems like every Utah geek blogger and their dog is either weighing in on the Hollywood vs Cleanflicks, et. al. ruling or filling the RSS aggregators with spittle about some new Toyota they bought. So, I admit, peer pressure is persuading me here...

Like many, it seems, I've never been a fan (or a member) of any of the edited film clubs. I always thought there was a something wrong with someone going into a place like that with a clear conscience and renting a film that would otherwise pass as softcore pornography.

This reminds me of a story. 

A few years ago, when I was still living in Cache Valley, a friend and I were driving back from Taco Bell where we had just had a delicious and nutritious meal and passed by a corrugated plastic sign posted in a grassy spot. The sign was an advertisement for Logan's newest edited films business: FLICKS CLUB.

Both my friend and I scoffed and snickered. Then, one of us noticed, because of the font the sign was done in, it would require very little alteration, either with electrical tape or a black marker, to change the "L" and adjacent "I" on the sign to appear as a "U". How funny that would be... and how ironic, too.

Okay, fast forward to now. Court says "can't do that!" and Cleanflicks is goin' out of business.

How do I feel about it? I have mixed feelings. I don't really think Hollywood producers and/or directors should have any say over what Joe Consumer does with a motion picture once they purchase a copy of it. That is, if I purchase Striptease on DVD and edit it on my computer so the whole family can watch it, I may be a really creepy guy, but I don't think Hollywood should have any say in it. It's called "fair use" and that's how it should be.

I have personal issues with people who have serious problems with their kids seeing stuff like Titanic with the boob shot and the love scene. Maybe that's because I thought it was fairly artistic, not to mention that Kate Winslet is a fine example of a woman in art form.

I mean, If we hide all that kind of stuff from our kids, edit or ban the movies and TV, cover all the cleavage-ladden womens magazine covers at the grocery stores, etc., what will the children do when they walk out of the house and see some neighbor-girl walking down the sidewalk in a low-cut blouse?

Oh yeah, that's where the anti-depressants come in.

Anyway... I have strayed off topic, so where was I? Oh, yeah, I have mixed feelings. Yeah, I thought these edited films places were running a stupid business, but didn't the movie biz folks in Hollywood have anything better to do? As others have pointed out, they were still making plenty of money on the business of edited films. Heck, I wondered why they didn't start slapping edited-for-TV versions on DVD for a piece of the edited-for-content action.

Oh. Yeah. Movie studios only do those television edits -- not out of the goodness of their hearts -- but because because the FCC forces them to. Maybe that whole artistic integrity argument does mean something and most Hollywood film biz people are really actively contributing to the moral decline of our society.

I guess the bottom line is that if you really want someone else making decisions on how to best slice and dice that steamy, bloody, profane film into something the whole family can stomach, get a Clearplay subscription or, better yet, take advantage of the open source mplayer's support for Edit Decision Lists (EDLs) to create (and trade online) non-destructive modifications to the presentation of a film.

A couple television updates. Now, I'm not a tube freak, but there are a couple shows I try to stay up to date with.

First of all, this week featured the season finalé of Veronica Mars. I like this show because the writing is a lot like shows produced by Joss Whedon such as Buffy and Angel. In fact, I've heard a lot of people compare Veronica Mars to Buffy saying it's just like Buffy only without all the martial arts fighting and the supernatural. For those of you who have always thought Buffy was nothing more than supernatural story lines and kung fu... well, oh well.

Good finalé. Very good.

Next, this last Monday was the premiere of talk-radio host Glenn Beck's new television show titled, uhm, "Glenn Beck" on CNN's Headline News network. This is obviously a move on CNN's part to recapture some of the viewership share they've lost to Fox News.

I enjoy Glenn Beck a lot. He's smart. He's funny. He's self-deprecating. He's politically incorrect. He's conservative. He's also LDS. Hell, he's a lot like me!

Anyway- I've been watching his TV show- three nights now. He's on Headline News at 7 p.m., 9 p.m., and Midnight (Eastern time) every weeknight.

What cracks me up is the incredibly tight-ass, anal-retentive liberal media reviews of the show written by people who have absolutely no sense of humor and must be incredibly easily offended by Glenn's irreverance.

For example, in an article on MediaMatters.org, we read that on his TV show Glenn "suggested, using a visual aid, that an appropriate punishment for convicted 9-11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui would be having sexual relations with syndicated columnist Helen Thomas and actress Bea Arthur 'while David Hasselhoff sings.'"

Well, I thought it was funny.

I thought I'd comment on some things in the entertainment realm.

Serenity

If you know me, you know I'm a big fan of Joss Whedon spawn like Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel. In 2002, Whedon had another series on TV called Firefly which only lasted 11 episodes before the Fox network put the lid on it due to lackluster ratings.

Firefly still had life left in it, it seems. Universal made a deal with Whedon to take Firefly to the big screen and this last Friday, the film spawned by Firefly made its big-screen debut nationwide titled Serenity.

I was not planning on seeing Serenity anytime soon. In fact, if I was planning anything, it was to wait until the film was available on DVD. But, we got lucky. Christine managed to get my mom to agree to watch our kids Friday night so we could go to a movie. That movie, of course, was Serenity.

We made it to Jordan Landing about 25 minutes before the 7:15 show and got in line. When we were behind the people buying their tickets, one of the ticket clerks stood up and placed a "SOLD OUT" sticker over the 7:15 showtime for Serenity. Dang!

Christine was depressed, but I was vigilant and resilient. I remembered that the film was also playing at the Jordan Commons theater- so I used the fancy shmancy features of my Treo PDA/phone to find their phone number and had Christine call them while I started driving in the general direction.

Christine learned there was a showing at 7:45. We got there about 7:25 and I dropped Christine off at the door so she could get tickets (if any were available) while I found parking.

Parking was, of course, a challenge in of itself, but I managed to find a spot and proceeded toward the theater and tried to call Christine on her cell. She didn't answer but called back and told me to meet her outside theater 14. When I finally waded through the deep pools of loitering theater patrons and made it to "14," Christine was furious that I had taken so long. She obviously didn't know how far away I had to park and then I couldn't run because of all the people obstructing my way.

We got in and found a half-decent place to sit and I still had time to run out and get popcorn and a beverage. Ahhhh. We made it. We were going to see the film. The theater didn't sell out, that I know of, but it was pretty packed in. A lot of geeks out on the town Friday night.

Now, the film was awesome. The story starts shortly after where Firefly left off, so fans of the show got some continuity. There was a short introduction to get Firefly virgins initiated and familiar with the characters and it wasn't distracting at all.

The story was awesome. The characters were awesome. The acting was spectacular -- partly due, I'm sure, to the fact these people had quite a bit of time to settle into these roles before the film. The writing was, not surprisingly, witty, brutal, and honest. Perfectly Whedonesque.

The special effects were outstanding. Apparently, the same company was used that did the F/X for the TV show. They made great use of their expanded budget and produced imagery that blended perfectly on the big screen.

My only complaint is that it seems like Joss shot the show a little too much like TV. That's no surprise, really, because he hasn't had that much experience shooting for theater releases. It wasn't bad, by any means. I just noticed many times there were shots that were tight shots of characters that felt a little claustrophobic on the big screen. They could have pulled the camera back a bit- gave the scene some more breathing room and it would have looked, in my opinion, better.

I thought the character of Inara was especially beautiful and breathtaking to view even though her role in the film seems a bit small. River Tam's facial expressions alone were worth the ticket price for me. And, of course, Jayne never disappoints.

My verdict: I want to see it again in the theater. I will definitely own it on DVD. I either want to, preferably, see the series return to television with new episodes, or, alternatively, begin a film sequel franchise.

Smallville

Last Thursday was the season five premiere of Smallville. Over the weekend, I downloaded the episode and watched it twice -- once with Christine.

Very nice episode -- especially the shocking final 10 seconds of the show which I didn't see coming.

It will be interesting to see how this season shapes up. Lois Lane is now a full-time credited regular character. They gang isn't in high school anymore and we know, from Buffy, this can be a cumbersome transition for the writers. School is such a solid background. Now what?

The relationship between Lex and Clark is obviously more strained and the relationship between Clark and Lana less strained, but Lana grew up a LOT in the last season and now has her own agenda in finding the truth about the mysteries of Krypton that affect her.

And now Clark knows that Chloe knows his secret. And Chloe knows Clark knows. And Clark knows Chloe knows he knows.

Should be interesting. More knowledge-is-liability territory to explore there.

My verdict: I'm still hooked! I want more.

Desperate Housewives

Like a lot of people, I had no interest in Desperate Housewives when it was first promoted as the must see show on ABC Sunday nights. It seemed like a trashy drama-heavy soap.

But, somebody did something right because halfway through the season last year, I decided to download the 2-part pilot episode and give it a spin. I was hooked.

I think the things that attracted me to the show (besides the attractive actresses) were the music (Danny Elfman) and the pacing. During the first season, the writers were whipping through storylines about ten times faster than normal. After watching three or four shows, I felt like I'd watched a whole season's worth of situations and plotlines.

Anyway, a week ago Sunday was the season two premiere and I downloaded it last week. It was a good episode, although not as good as some of the season one episodes. The episode, more or less, tied up loose ends from season one and started to open up new mysteries for season two.

My verdict: Still interested, but it could lose my interest if it becomes more of a traditional soap and less of something crazy like it was in season one.