pictured above: Me, with short hair

Thirteen years after the debut of my first website at Yahoo Geocities in 1997, the mere six page Transvestite Freedom Fighter has morphed into a veritable beast in a labyrinthine maze of links. Up till this year, I kept all the pages accumulated over the years intact, but I realized that I was not unique in that way thousands of Twitters fancy themselves to be. So I streamlined to the things my loyal audiences continue to appreciate: pictures, images, and thoughts regarding transgender identity. I have also devoted space to futanari (she-male) drawings I find intriguing.

I believe transgender people are oft represented either negatively in the media as serial killers and freaks, or online as individuals obsessed with documenting their transition. I wanted to provide a modest but positive and free website that depicts the humor, innate curiosity, and alas -need I say it? – intellectual inquiry of one transgender person. I don’t even like to use the term “transgender” because to me, it’s purely a legal term for advocating rights and policies in public spaces. I have switched to calling myself a mere “eccentric,” because that term, at least, provides the option of going to new territories when doubt is innate in a developing identity. Besides, friends have long called me “the outlying factor.” I am easily an outcast even in the so-called transgender community, where personal agenda is aggressively – sometimes even militantly – rammed down one’s throat (ie. “If you don’t take hormones and get the operation, you are not legit“) To be fair, it’s risky business to label oneself “transgender” when one considers the mind-numbing amount of weekend warrior headless trannies on flickr.

I’m just glad I am so far over in the left field, I am standing on the lacrosse grounds.

I have been eccentric for over thirty years. I don’t plan to transition fully, because both the male and female anatomy are remarkable, gorgeous works of art. I am struck by wonder when I think about the beauty of the human body. I am not a hormone-taker, as I feel that sex drive is one of the critical lifeforce in sustaining the great human imagination.

Human beings are constantly in danger in their coexistence with viruses. But we shouldn’t flatter ourselves as superior beings. Instead, we should take the path of virus mutation as an ideal, and develop accordingly. I want to continuously, energetically, and joyfully change, morph, improve, learn, and absorb knowledge, wisdom, and humane lessons with each passing day.

This, for me, is the most important transition: to be a human being first, an eccentric second, and a transgendered person if all else fails.

So relax, make yourself at home, and enjoy!

P.A. June 28, 2010

PLEASE DONATE TO HELP SUPPORT THE CONTINUATION OF THIS WEBSITE

1. It’s a quiet show.
I dislike loud television…especially when they throttle up the volume for commercials. If anything, tv at loud volumes always makes me tune out automatically.

2. It shows joyful laughter.
Like Jackass, there’s no better tonic than a bunch of boys (and or girls) laughing at each other and at themselves.

3. It’s probably the only tv game show in America where half naked men can run around.
America has a strange fear of the human body. I remember seeing complimentary magazines at a airport waiting room in Milan Italy featuring men and women practically naked. There’s nothing wrong with nudity. It’s just something that has been made unnecessarily exotic by the States’ insistences on shielding everyone from it.

4. It’s probably the only tv game show in America where half naked men can touch each other.
Ok, maybe Jackass has a lot of nudity and men touching each other. So what? Boys do that all the time when they are horsing around. It’s doesn’t make anyone gay.

5. Zero Kazama
I first saw this dude on Spike’s Deadliest Weapon Yakuza vs. Mafia. As a person with a mean face, I appreciate another meanie representing. His stern decree from the librarian’s desk is a deadpan delight.

6. There’s uptight, stuffy library types in the backdrop
The uptight stuffy librarian type is the crux of my dressing style. So I am always busy ogling what other uptight stuffy librarian types are wearing while contestants are trying to choke down a Chee-tohs from some fat guys hairy armpit.

7. The theme song
I think Kazama – your mean librarian host -is also responsible for the music (look at the closing credits). It sounds like vintage Kazumi Watanabe ala Mobo Splash era.

8. The concept can be easily duplicated at any library
Part of the magic of Jackass is how it trains viewers to see fun in even the most mundane daily objects. Silent Library does the same in making recreation out of a bare bones situation.

9. It’s not as violent as the original Japanese version
Go to youtube and google “Japanese Silent Library” When they say “Rabbit Droppings in the face” or “Live Snake down your back” they mean it literally! Some poor businessman got his rump whacked with an aluminum baseball bat. That’s just not right….outside of the bedroom anyway.

10. Girls don’t get special preference. They have to do equally horrific feats.
I’m always a fan when girls don’t get special treatment. Call me a feminist.

White House Press secretary Robert Gibbs’s snowstorm list, etched on the palm of his hand.

1. ) Food: Lettuce, tomatoes, red onions, fat free shredded cheese, fat free ranch dressing, wrapper

2. ) Burgundy or Merlot for Scandinavian Glögg

3. ) Soap and detergent

4. ) Stuffed animals

5. ) All my Sony Glenn Gould Edition J.S. Bach CDs

6. ) My Piano

7. ) At least 24 oz of KY Jelly

8. ) The collected works of Jorge Luis Borges

9.) All my Belle and Sebastian CD’s

10. ) Either 2 boxes of fresh Tofu or my Donkey Punch DVD (they are equal)

Cultural Imperialism at its most effective: Asian Eyelid Surgery. Parents give it to their kids as birthday presents as early as 15. Proponents say it’s merely “corrective.” I bring your attention to the dyed hair, blue contact lenses, and lightened skin in the AFTER picture.

1. ) Asian Eyelid Surgery. To this day, I still badger people to explain exactly what Asian eyelid surgery is. What is it supposed to accomplish? I call this the liquor-in-a-brown-bag syndrome. Just because you put an elongated bottle in a brown bag, do you really think all cops are instantly fooled? That he’ll miss the smell of booze on you, that you are stuttering and stumbling on the streets, and that you have no pants on?

2. ) Why do so many trans girls have multiple girl names in their female names? Is it the male mentality of more being better? More female names= more feminine. So it’s like a Chevy Big Block 572 V8 with a Holly Six pack carburetor of girly. You’d be a dude if you were merely Rachel Bilson. No. That’s like the Yugo of chick. You have to be Rachel Ann Tiffany Flowers or Sarah Elizabeth Isabella Silk. She is all XX on the chromo-dar.

Funny thing, I don’t hear of Female-to-Male trans bois calling themselves Jonathan Harry Jake the Snake Pummel or Joshua Matthew Christopher Allman. If whipping out your femme name and gauging its length with a ruler against other tgirls’ namesize is any measure of femininity, I really need to overcompensate for my brawny ways: I better start making plans to change my name to Brittany Grace Lisette Angela Santa-Maria Amatullah Sameera Al-Maalik Goldstein III.

3. ) Why do Asians love food with bones in it? Whenever I try it, I end up leaving the restaurant hungrier than when I came in. More calories burnt than consumed. Are they trying to drown out the surrounding noise? As a child I never understood the toothpicks that were freely available after dinner. Now I know it’s to remove chunks of tendons that were stuck in between teeth when food was vacuumed through the mouth at 8-10 hp.

4. ) Why women think dumb men in tv commercials is hilarious, but the reverse would constitute sexist misogynistic, oppression resulting from the systematic patriarchal post-feminist machinations of male chauvinism.

5. ) How white collar people can still take each other seriously and get work done when the word “synergy” continues to be used in boardroom meetings.

6. ) How blue or green eyes always evoke the cliched “the eyes are the window to one’s soul” but the Godfather of Soul is James Brown and the two biggest soulful artists are Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder.

7. ) Why so many sports fans have no problems expressing their homophobia while they hang out with a bunch of men getting drunk, hugging each other, and cheering a bunch of other men in tight pants patting each other’s butts.

8. ) Why the folks who find transgender women so hilarious and deserving of public taunting are the same people who fail to see anything peculiar about Wendy Williams.

9. ) Why we could exist in silence while in transit for hundreds of years, but now we can’t even cross a busy intersection without fondling our combo bluetooth I-Phone IPad GPS Kindle Book Auto-Atomic Diaper changer.

10. ) Why many animal-rights and human-rights activists see no problems with employing violence or portraying violence towards other human beings.

Even though I have been in the U.S. for over 30 years, there are still things in pop culture I have yet to experience. Some I actively resisted, most I simply have no interest in. This is the list that frequently drives my friends to pull their hair out by the roots and wail “Are you on CRACK!?” The truth is, all that time spent on consuming these shows, films, or books, is time away from the other curiosities that attract my attention.

1. The Godfather Movies
No interest. Friends – both non-mafia and mafia-related (who wants ta know?) – have threatened to tie me down and force me to watch at least Part II. The more they clamour, the more I resist. If you can’t withhold an ounce of satisfaction from your friends, what good are friends?

2. E.T.
Never seen it, never will. I think Spielberg’s soppy kitsch is predictable. The facial closeups, the manipulative soundtrack, the tearjerking moments are all geared towards the almighty dollar at the box office. Think I’m too cynical? Watch “Room 666″ a documentary where prominent directors are interviewed on their craft. Godard talked about mechanical innovation, Herzog about his feet. Spielberg sounded like an accountant because he is one.

3. Star Trek
Never seen a single episode, and have no intentions of seeing one. I have seen the scene when Spock strums a guitar and sings, and I thought it was beautiful. But as for the rest of the Star Trek mania, the only character I remember is that old guy from Fantasy Island with a wig.

4. Avatar
I don’t care for any of Hollywood’s new gimmicks. Because they are battling against home DVD viewing, plot, acting, and craft have all been replaced by VOLUME, dazzling CGI graphic WOW!, and more VOLUME. That’s equivalent to someone sending me a meaningless email written in 120 pt font. If you’re saying nothing, shouting it doesn’t make it more meaningful. Zero content multiplied by the largest of numbers still gets you zero content.

5. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
It was better when it was written 15 years ago by Umberto Eco. It was called Foucault’s Pendulum. Why anyone would want a mediocre remake is beyond me.

6. Any Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter
Aren’t they the same thing? I always get the two mixed up. It seems like porn for the Dungeons and Dragons set.

7. Any Holocaust or Hitler related movies
If I want to learn about the Holocaust, I will go to a museum or to Germany or Poland. I’ll read a book. Just from articles written in the New Yorker in the past twenty years, I have learned more about that moment in time than any movie can hope to provide. (Funny thing is, those articles were about flower-arrangement or absinthe) There’s been so many atrocities committed since the Holocaust, I’m amazed Hollywood never seems to tire of reiterating that one event.

8. Any Broadway play
I have walked past, driven through, ridden under, flew over the Great White Way since the age of ten. I still haven’t seen a single Broadway play. Breaking into song and dance at someone’s deathbed is something reserved for real life. You don’t pay to watch someone else act it out on stage. The closest I’ve ever came to the glittering marquee was an Off Broadway rendition of Shaw’s Major Barbara. The rest were experimental pieces in Glasgow, Edinburgh, and London.

9. Friends
It’s Seinfeld without the bite.

10. Sex in the City
I think Kristin Davis is pretty. I don’t care if people call me prudish, but to the thought of materialistic women going around having casual sex with different men as entertainment is gross and offensive.

above: my deskside telecommunications center: rotary phone

I have the simplest New Year resolution for 2010: the classic that never goes out of style: lose weight.

For readers of d332.com, I make a more expansive list of ten promises.

1. Less sourpuss, more positive attitude

It’s very difficult for my deadpan humor to translate online. My favorite anecdote goes like this: At a restaurant everyone who is sitting around me is laughing out loud. The waitress comes and asks why I have a face like a horse. Don’t I have any sense of humor. To this, the answer arrives: “she’s the one telling the jokes!”

Having understood the lost of translation to text, I resolve to be cheerier since most of you guys have yet to meet me in person.

2. More about homemaking

I have another sight that I write about homemaking, so that has, in some way, deflected the Stepford element from this site’s content. But do you really want to know how to clean the mold out of bathtub caulk? (combine used fabric softener sheets with fresh lemon juice). Won’t you rather look at some of my favorite futanari pictures from my collection?

3. More about transgender community
I know I stopped calling myself transgender midway through 09. I started calling myself plain ol’ eccentric. It was a fancy abbreviation for “I’m just not THAT certain about the epistemological base of any labels.” Can we be THAT sure of anything that we’ll willfully adopt a label and try our darnest to fit into that circle…..even when we are a square? But not identifying as transgender doesn’t mean I don’t care about what other transgender folks are going through. In my unique – often annoying way – I point out what I detect as shortcomings, and hopefully I, and a few of you, may learn from someone else’s mistakes.

4. More frequent updates
I’m not chained to a computer. I still use a rotary phone at my desk. A vigilant Luddite, I try to find every excuse to wander away from a computer. But I will try to update more frequently this year.

5. Shorter entries
If silence is golden, then the gift of brevity is at least gold flakes. I have resolve to put my long, memory-aid entries in private mode, so I can simply log in and go read them when I need to remember what I was thinking some weeks ago.

6. Better accessibility and support
Hey look! I have a YAHOO INSTANT MESSENGER status button on the right sidebar below my pic. So now if you have to ask me something about what you just read, and that yellow bouncy ball is lit up, you can scoot over and say Hi!

7. More noticeable humor

8. More outdoor, public pictures with people in the foreground and background
So you’ll be sure I didn’t wake up at 6 AM to go out and snap these pictures. Besides, I’m usually just about to go sleep around sunrise.

9. More transgender advice.
I know my article about how to buy a dress, written in the nascent years of d332.com is quoted often. Hopefully, I would like to write more things like that that can assist other trans girls in going about the whole business of dressing with a sheep’s glance towards quality.

10. More pictures
I can’t really promise this one. As time is quickly advancing upon me, I find less reason to pursue the narcissistic art of self-portraits. Besides, wouldn’t you rather read about cleaning mold off a bathtub?

Happy New Year to all gentle readers of d332.com !

I was away, out-of-state, out-of-mind for the holidays. Now I’m back home and clearing mp3s, files, and folders of the year past. Turning a new leaf, trying to be a bit more positive (that’s difficult). But I’ve got 10 happy songs from my favorite Scottish pop-rock band to help me through the storm. Here they are, in order of adoration, #1 being my favoritest.

10. Dress Up In You (from The Life Pursuit)
A great introduction to the music and lyrics of Belle & Sebastian. Poppy, happy-go-lucky music underlie angry bitter lyrics. The first time I heard this song during a marathon Belle and Sebastian listening fest en route to Nova Scotia, I pricked up my ears and paid attention! The Stroop Effect of opposing moods in a song always interests me. Whoever said major chords must accompany happy songs and minor chords sad songs? The vocal accompaniment provided by Sarah Martin is absolutely lovely, reminding me of the first time I stumbled upon Belle and Sebastian: after purchasing Isobel Campbell’s Gentle Waves album.

9. Photo Jenny (from Push Barman to Open Old Wounds)
I believe my friend, with his massive collection of all things B&S, started listening to this band because of this song. My theory is that he was into his 23rd hour of non-stop Jennie Garth internet photo download sessions, when he tossed in variations of a google string search “Photos of Jennie” with “Photos of Jenny.” I think Belle and Sebastian sometimes come dangerously close to sounding like an anthology of pop styles from the past 40 years. This is one of the songs where they achieve a perfect balance between originality and nostalgia.

8. Wrapped Up In Books (Books)
Another beautifully constructed pop song that halts in the middle with a horn break, before a secondary, female vocal interweaves – in that understated way – into a rich texture. Just on a technical level, this piece is a clinic on the marriage between studio production quality and songwriting.

7. Women’s Realm (Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant)
I just love the contrast between Stuart Murdoch’s voice and the rich, velvety creaminess of Isobel Campbell’s voice. A song like this gives me hope that new, original things of quality can still be made. Women’s Realm is a re-reading of Motown devices that is so original it brings the form to an entirely new level, almost creating a new genre altogether. Playful channel separation with a balance of string accompaniment and pop instruments, this is one of those songs that really brings a good hi-fi set to life.

6. The Act Of The Apostle Part 2 (from The Life Pursuit)
I’ve always loved songs that stop in the middle and become another song. I tend to write my pop songs as prelude + fugue format, so when I hear that “break” in the middle, I’m always enchanted. The second part of The Act of the Apostle Part 2 is a gorgeous piece of work, multiplying vocals over a hook after memorable hook like an ever expanding sea of melodies.

5. Another Sunny Day (from The Life Pursuit)
I’m sure this is one of the iconic happy Belle and Sebastian songs. Tightly produced, masterfully written with intertwining countrified guitars and a humorous backup vocals that sweetly chime “the referee gives us fuck all”

4. I Know Where the Summer Goes – (from Modern Rock Song)
Another beautiful piece that is so incredibly melodic and singable, a listener basically gets enveloped in the lush beauty of the harmony and luxuriant texture.

3. If You Find Yourself Caught In Love (from Dear Catastrophe Waitress)
People in YouTube have appropriated this song by placing their own images to make it interpretation de facto. Needless to say, religious zealots have also grabbed this piece as a fabu song about their Jebus. Me, all I remembered from this sing-along are the lines “Another TV “I Love 1999″ Just one more box of cheapo wine.” Look at the lyrics carefully, and you will see a message that can be read a multitude of ways. Or not at all.

I love songs that you can just jump up and down to while eating a sno-cone, or write a dissertation on. Not necessarily in that order.

2. Sleep The Clock Around (from The Boy with the Arab Strap)
There are certain songs that always bring back a bittersweet 80s flashback whenever I hear them. Daft Punk’s Veridis Quo is one of them. Scenes of Studio 54, Dynasty (which I have yet to see an episode), Izod’s with sweater wrap-arounds, and a preppy culture that is entirely removed from today’s young A&F consumers. The Moog type synth of Sleep the Clock Around gives me a sweet melancholia that is not unlike the effect Jobim and Gilberto’s music invokes.

There are very few songs that actually inspire me to re-think how I live, and to find a better way. I’m referring to just the aural aspect of the music, not specifically to the lyrics. Although it helps in this song when the duet sings:

And the puzzle will last till somebody will say
“There’s a lot to be done while your head is still young”
If you put down your pen, leave your worries behind
Then the moment will come, and the memory will shine

This is one of those songs that make me rethink how I walk, how I move, and how I see, though my life.

1. Marx and Engels (from Push Barman to Open Old Wounds)
This is my all-time favorite Belle and Sebastian composition. Every note, every bell, every tone is in the right place. The backup vocals is so original that you wonder how the band could have relegated it to a B-side. Genres beyond pop’s realm get brought in: choral, ensemble, jazz…all layered under a melodic line that stays in my head for days with only one listen. This is definitely the type of music that – years later – can bring back a flood of memories when the record is dusted off in a spring cleaning session and played in the seclusion of an attic.

Oh dear. The non-news. First the balloon boy, then the uninvited party crashers, and now this. I called the balloon boy hoax before someone even finished the reading the headline: no parent would leave the youngest child unattended when there’s a dirigible in the backyard. Uninvited party crashers = non-celebrity wannabes who has already been forgotten even before 15 seconds is up. Failed. I knew the fire hydrant was the tip of a monstrous iceberg the moment Tiger apologized for embarrassing his family. By hitting a fire hydrant?

When I slammed my car into the side of a concrete wall outside the Holland Tunnel at 80 miles an hour, my first official statement was “there’s 31 minutes before the liquor store closes.” Dave, who was in the passenger seat, had this to say on record, “I was deciding whether this was a good time to put my seat belt on.”

No. Nobody apologizes for embarrassing his family when he hits a fire hydrant. That’s like some president saying “that depends on whether you’re asking me whether smoking this cigar is, in fact, blowing my load on her black dress.”

I am no educated fan of golf. My only golf hero to this day remains Babe “When I really want to blast one; I just loosen my girdle and let ‘er fly.” Didrikson, who co-founded the LGPA, so I’m in no position to bemoan the end of Tiger Wood’s career. And it is the end. I predict most of his sponsors will pull out by the end of the year.

In Europe, Tiger’s unfaithful, eight-timing butt would be non-news. Just because you are a betraying adulterous cheating lying bastard in your private life, doesn’t mean you can’t golf. If that were the case, then why isn’t Pat Robertson out on the greens? A cheating president can still be wholly capable of running a country. I know a girl who can pull a 150-man bukkake and still cook a mean broccoli quiche.

Unfortunately, here in the States, there’s this weird moral high-ground from the sensational-starved public. It doesn’t help that corporate sponsorship will decide whether you sail or tank, since corporations like to be associated with a product consumers can purchase. Take Nike for example. I always associate them with hiring embryos in Thailand to assemble a $200 sneaker for 3 cents a month. Now that Tiger’s carousel-o-women is dragged into the picture, I’m beginning to feel…well, ambivalent about Nike’s ethics.

I guess that’s also why people are so over-protective of their privacy in this country. Fear of identity theft is one thing- and yes, it’s everyone’s duty to put TMZ out of business- but I always go on the assumption that the details of my life are of no interest or value to anyone. I assume people have better things to do. You don’t have to be so overly protective unless you have something to hide.

women of FLDS subjected to intolerance, witchhunts, and mob mentality

I love tight places. I’m a claustrophile. I often build a small igloo of pillows with a comforter over it in bed and crawl inside to sleep in the winter. If I ever found myself inside a closed coffin, I’d probably say, “wow, I can get use to this!” I guess that’s why marriage, being a stay-at-home housewife, being locked in to domesticity, and caged (in the Kieslowski WHITE way), fits my mindset so nicely. I’ve never been involved with a man who was possessive, controlling, and micromanaging me, but that sounds posh as well.

So I started thinking last night, what am I frightened of? Here it is.

1. Fear of Moths and bugs

I hate moths because of what they do to fabric. I have so many mothballs in my walk-in closet (a room actually) that I often smell the way I dress…like an old lady. Hard-shelled bugs frighten me to death. Whenever I see a stinkbug, I scream. I found half a dozen in my home recently, and I almost had to be checked into an emergency room.

2. Fear of Shellfish

Lobsters and crabs, especially the horseshoe crabs send me running. This ties into my fear of water (see next entry). As a child, the moment I stepped into the ocean (I was born near an oceanfront), I imagined stepping on all sorts of icky things. The horseshoe crab’s long spike frightened me to no end. I still have nightmares of beaches filled with these beastly things. If I ever go wading in the ocean and one of my foot were to touch a shell or even one seaweed, I would get a heart attack and die immediately. Sure lobsters and crabs may taste good, but as far as I’m concerned, they are huge evil scary monsters out to bite me. Even a cooked lobster looks like it can jump up and grab me at any moment. Dinner napkins have never seemed such a feeble shield.

3. Fear of Water

When I was four, my parents left me on the edge of a man-made pond. In a lapse of attention, I fell backwards and sunk in. As I sunk to the bottom, I could see the algae green sun disappear into darkness. There is a road in Provincetown, MA that promptly ends -after a blind hump- in a T-intersection three feet away from the ocean. I have nightmares going down that road several times a year.

Whenever there’s a leak in the plumbing of the house I live in, I pretty much go bonkers.

4. Fear of Obesity

I have never been too thin or too rich, although both seem unreachable at this point.

5. Fear of Dirt

One’s own dirt is one thing: no matter how disorganize you may appear to be, you know where you last put your hand and how long ago you washed it. But if I ever catch someone sniff-checking the armpits of their clothes, I’d faint on the spot. I have a 0-second policy with any food that falls on the floor. The time I take to cook is epic – all from endless rounds of anti-bacterial soap handwashing to prevent cross-contamination.

6. Fear of Abandonment

7. Fear of Hollywood Remakes

The point of diminishing returns, or the vicious circle of mediocrity has never been so frightening as present day climate.

8. Fear of Censorship

In 1981, Herbert Vesely made the film Exzesse to tell the story of how in 1912, the painter Egon Schiele was charged, arrested, and imprisoned for doing sketches of an underaged girl. He was charged with kidnapping. The girl, Tatjana Georgette von Mossig, finally came forward and said there was no kidnapping, and Schiele was released after three days, despite the order that all his drawings of her be burned. Vesely’s film was an attempt to retell the story in a different light, perhaps exonerate Schiele’s legacy, but since the actress Nina Finkelstein, was sixteen at the time of filming, this movie is unobtainable today. 70 yrs later and we haven’t progressed all that much.

9. Fear of Witch-hunts

I love the innocuous ideas of femininity and domestic tranquility from Helen Andelin and the the Mormons. I don’t agree with most if not all of the ideas of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS not to be confused withe regular LDS Mormons) stand for, but the whole Yearning For Zion Ranch raid in 2008, based on a false tip from a nonexistent 16 yr old person (played by 33 yr old Rozita Swinton), resulting in the forcible removal of 462 children from their parents – with no evidence found to support any of the charges, reeks of the Salem witch trials in the 17th century and the McCarthy Hearings in the 50s.

I can’t believe all the anguish the children and their mothers went through in the interrogation sessions..(here is a sample, from a nonpartisan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4B5i0E_cN0 ) all this from a few hoaxed telephone calls from someone who has a record of making fake phone calls? Put aside religious intolerance, the odious charges of abuse, and our closemindedness towards polygamy and what are you left with? Four words: Where Is The Evidence?

The whole FLDS beliefs aside, just the thought that I can pick up the phone, make any accusation, and wreck someone’s lives in this modern day and age, is frightening. It doesn’t help the public’s bloodlust for sensationalism and victimhood- combined with human nature to believe what one choses to believe – produces a curdling cry for the heads of the FLDS. Almost sounds like they’d show up at the gates with torches.

10. Fear of Revisionism and Unnatural Selection

The process of publishing, where titles that hold revelatory – but not politically correct- observations, become discontinued and forgotten is scary. How do we keep from going in the wrong direction if we don’t even know where we came from? Erin Pizzey’s book Prone to Violence, which prompted death threats from PC feminazis. David Olive’s “The Chauvinist’s Bedside Book” implicating so many of our beloved figures from our past, detailing how chauvinistic they were…Plato, Aristotle, Rosseau, Samuel Johnson, John Knox, Hillary Clinton..gone.

Then you have Amazon elections, where adulating 5 star reviews always get the most vote …(is THAT any surprise?)…can actually determine the lifespan of a published title.

The way movies – the modern equivalent of books – have scenes removed to go from NR rating to R rating is pretty disturbing. I’ll have a conversation with someone about some movie, and someone will say, “I swear there was a scene in there.” And come off sounding like a nutjob. You then go to old beta and VHS tapes and you see the scene, which has disappeared from the DVD edition.

History, and how facts get veiled while half-truths advance, make me wary of what constitutes reality.

What I liked about it
1.) The entrance of 93 in the opening scene, dressed like the original No.6, but now as old as the late Patrick McGoohan would have been (conflicting reports abound on whether PM wanted to play that role or not). As 93 lays there dying, he says “tell them I made it! I finally found a way out!” It was a sentimental moment which would have been even more powerful if the late PM was still around and had agreed to play it.

2.) Ian McKellan plays No.2, who has to deal with a gay son- turning the hidden homosexuality, silence-is-death motif into a prison within a prison. Perhaps McKellan had a say in the script – given his openly gay activism -but I felt like, “Hey! We got one of our guys going to bat for us on this!”

3.) The allegorical motifs that asks “what is freedom?” (the twin towers) “what is memory?” (the fake brother) “Is love and attraction truly nothing but chemistry?” (the DNA gene swap) “What is religion?” (the speech No.2 gives at the church). “What is choice?” (Wraps is the only choice of food in the village) “What is entertainment? (6′s brother’s family enjoying tv violence when their own father is dead)

4.) The Borges’ device of one person dreaming an entire civilization of people and how the moment she stops dreaming, holes appear. (See Jorge Luis Borges’s “The Circular Ruins.”)

5.) It didn’t try to remake the original Prisoner. It sampled here and there, but it was more a reinterpretation than a mindless note-for-note remake, which would have been a monumental disaster. Imagine it this way: look at the concept of the Prisoner itself as a Elizabethan / Tudor music composition or a jazz standard. There are no dynamic markings or tempo suggestions (how loud or how fast to play the piece), it is left up to the performer to decide how he or she is going to interpret the piece. It gives a loose structure, or in jazz, the head, and you then have to decide how you’re going to take it to the end. I give the creators of the remake credit in that they at least tried to make something new.

6.) The friendship between the cabbie and No.6. It shows a humane side of No.6 and the village people.

7.) Jamie Campbell Bower as No.2′s fabulously androgynous and innocent son.

8.) Whether intentional or not, a hilarious, running meta-commentary on the production of the remake itself (I may be reading too much into it here): 1) The Old Prisoner (dressed like Patrick McGoohan, looked like what PM would have look like today if he were still around) dying at the beginning of the show, signifying that the original prisoner won’t be “in” the concept of this production. 2) The new No.6 rummaging through what appears to be a facsimile of the old No.6′s home….almost as if Caviezel is desperately searching for clues on how to play No.6. 3)The Penny Farthing bike, once an icon of the village – and employed by McGoohan to signify the obsolescence in a rapidly progressing technological world- has now been relegated to some dive sex bar where people view peep shows through a slot (us, watching the remake?) 4) The holes appearing referring to the holes in the plot?

9.) The opening theme music cleverly samples the three notes from the iconic original and hides it in the closing lines. Though certainly no where near Ron Granier’s piece, it at least makes the attempt to create something new, instead of another mindless Hollywood remake.

10.) Caviezel is a better runner than McGoohan.

What I didn’t like about it
The lack of energy in this No.6. Part of the problem is that the original No.6 was a secret service agent before he arrived at the village. He was debonair, urbane, fit, a man of physical action who paces his room like a wild animal in an undersized zoo cage. He is suspicious of everyone, beautiful girls and their tears have no effect on him and his determination to escape. On the other hand, the new No.6 holds a desk job as an analyst at an office. So you can see the inherent problems that arises when the main character is limited by who he is. The moment he finds a hottie at a dating service, he thinks about marriage and all but forgets about escaping.

The tiring slo-motion shots. It looks much like filler to stretch a 2 hour concept into a six-hour one, just for the sake of the number 6.

The interweaving shots to disorient you. In the old Prisoner, disorientation was achieved via the layout of Portmeiron and the violation of the 180 degree rule. The interweaving shots, combined with the slo-mo made many scenes look like music videos that sacrifice content for stylistic tic.

The feeble opening sequence. It looks like a car commercial at certain points. It didn’t have the fire, thunder, and passion of the original, that always drove one to wonder at the beginning of each episode “who is the new no.2 and how is s/he going to slug it out with No.6 this time around?” You watch the original and you tell yourself, “if there’s one guy who is going to fight in the name of individuality, this is the man for the job!”

If Caviezel had more energy, it could have made the whole thing gel better. As it were, it seemed totally out of character the one time he got mad and yelled at no.2′s gate.

It feels like multiple writers were involved (some creative counterparts pulled out during the project) and the way sex and romance keeps getting inserted haphazardly made me wonder if some bigwigs were demanding gratuitous scenes for ratings.

They didn’t have to use the Prisoner as a framework. It could have just been called, say “The Cure” or “Gates” and it would still have been able to tell it’s story. Using the Prisoner seemed like riding on the coat-tails of a classic just for hype’s sake.

o