TS Chris and Brokeback Joker

It's an old story. A man leaves home for a few days of vacation and all hell breaks loose in the meantime.

I was enjoying Stephen King's mammoth "Bag of Bones" when I heard the words "tropical storm Chris." We don't have very good reception in our condo, both phones and the TV, so I hadn't been able to watch The Weather Channel. There's also the fact that the jackals who run the condo don't allow guests to even use dial-up to access the Internet; you have to use their ten bucks a day modem, and it's not even wireless. Pathetic. So outside of coming to The Dizzy Bean Cafe to plug in to the WWW, I've been in the dark.

Anyway, TS Chris. I just checked the latest news on this guy over at NOAA's website, Wunderground, and Perillo's blog over at KATC.com. Seems as if the big guns are saying Chris is going to become a depression again and not re-strengthen in the Gulf.

Folks, hopefully you see how crazy that sounds. The Gulf is extremely warm, and we were told after last year's historic hurricane season that the gulf didn't cool down like it usually does. So we're supposed to believe that Chris isn't going to strengthen when he gets into the gulf waters? Please.

I was in those very waters yesterday. The water is damned warm and it's eerily calm. Not many waves. The water almost seems heavy somehow. Weird, I know. But I'm a writer, not a meteorologist.

Here's my prediction, if anyone's interested: Chris will become a TS within a day of entering the gulf. He'll be a Cat 2 storm by the time he's off the Louisiana coast. He'll make landfall somewhere in southeastern Texas or maybe Louisiana. You want me to be honest? Okay. I think you all need to start planning. Seriously planning. Buy some new batteries for the flashlights, get some water, etc., etc. Because despite what the pros are saying, my feelings are that Chris could turn very quickly to the north and affect us.

As for the Meaux fam, we'll be at Blue Alert when Chris enters the GoM sometime on Sunday (correct me if I'm wrong, Roy!). Blue Alert, as you'll recall from this very blog, means a tropical storm or hurricane has entered the GoM and we're watching it carefully. If Chris looks like he's going to start some drama with us, we go to Yellow Alert and then Red Alert if he's got us in the crosshairs.

Alright, one other thing. If you've been watching the news in the last week, you know that Heath Ledger, most recently of Brokeback Mountain fame, is set to play The Joker in the sequel to Batman Begins, entitled The Dark Knight.

Kids, I gotta level with you here. I think this is absurd. The word on the street is that director Chris Nolan picked Ledger himself. That's nothing new, considering that's how most casting is done. But let's be clear: Nolan's being pressured. The last I read on the various comic sites I visit, Nolan was favoring Paul Bettany, who ironically enough co-starred with Ledger in "A Knight's Tale." You probably remember Bettany as Russel Crowe's imaginary buddy in "A Simple Mind." He was also in that tennis movie a few years back.

Bettany has the look and the intensity to play The Joker. Ledger does not. I think this is just another case of what I call "token casting." Ledger's not gay, but the studio wanted to hire him precisely because he was in a controversial movie. Their thinking, if it can be called that, was "Hey, he was in Brokeback, that'll get people's attention, and we can make more money."

I want to trust Nolan on this one. Memento and Batman Begins are two of my all-time favorite movies. But this just doesn't work for me. Nolan's casting for Batman Begins was genius. And the cast for The Dark Knight was all set with everyone from the previous film but Watanabe and Neeson. I was hoping on Bettany or, even better, Johnny Depp.

Not freakin' Heath Ledger. He's a fine actor, but c'mon. He's a pretty boy. He's not The Joker.

More to come on this as The Dark Knight begins production in the next year.

And certainly more to come on that mischevious maelstrom out there with my name on it...

Chris