Two news stories that sound like movie pitches, and a pair of men charged with vandalism for sidewalk chalk

BLOT: (30 Jun 2013 - 12:11:52 PM)

Two news stories that sound like movie pitches, and a pair of men charged with vandalism for sidewalk chalk

Sometimes good things come in pairs, such as last week when I saw this pair of stories that struck me as being awfully a lot like movie pitches:

US group that 'converted' gays closes its doors and apologizes (reuters.com)
RHS 'sheep-eating' plant about to bloom in Surrey (bbc.co.uk)

The first sounds like one of those indie dramas that come about with a mildly-anti-religious-but-generally-life-affirming plot. The movie would have a name like Straight Talk and would be about a husband-wife team that decides to make money converting gay youth amongst the rich, scandal-phobic types of New England. By the end it will turn out their daughter (probably, since guy-gay is still a little too icky for Hollywood) is a lesbian and after a big fight followed by grudging acceptance, they shut down the doors and stand there, holding hands, and looking out towards a sunrise. And then Jill Sobule's "I Kissed a Girl", probably re-sung by some current-pop-type [Taylor Swift in a controversial move?], would play as credits scroll up.¹

The latter sounds like, well, a movie with sheep-eating plants. Let's call it...Shepherd's Bush. Except radiation leakage from buried waste seeps up and they become human-eating as well. And a pair of backpackers team up with a group of caravanners to try and survive. Really, doesn't need much more plot than that, I guess, but there should be at least one scene with an old truck, rusty and beat up, plowing into a field of plant-people before exploding, as some crazy old man screams, "I HOPE I'M HAIRY ENOUGH FOR YOU!". But then, at the end, you'd have at least one plant-man crawling into a stream and it would pan downstream and it would be heading to London or some such, geography be damned.

For those who do not like movie-style-reality stuck in their news-style-reality, here are two stories about two different men being held on charges for writing protest messages in sidewalk chalk, one is facing up to 13-years, and the other wrote what is actually a fairly polite message, considering your usual state of protest signs [the guy facing a long prison term's messages aren't repeated, because there is a gag-order in place]:

Ah. Goo times.

1: Joking aside, I was especially bothered by the style of therapy in the first article, the "touch" therapy, where gay (or curious and their parents panicked) youth are held by a therapist and sit in their lap as they have "man talks". While I dislike the stereotype of gays-as-sex-predators, that sounds like too easy of a set-up for a closeted gay male to go after members of vulnerable population - "Suck my cock and I'll sign a paper that says you are straight, don't and I'll say you are an especially troubled case!" - that have been handpicked for them.

OTHER BLOTS THIS MONTH: June 2013

Two news stories that sound like movie pitches, and a pair of men charged with vandalism for sidewalk chalk