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[cameiotmagazine-blog]

The First Full Aladdin Trailer is Here!

In the fictional city of Agrabah, Jafar, the Grand vizier of the Sultan, and his parrot Iago, seek the lamp hidden within the Cave of Wonders, but are told that only a "diamond in the rough" may enter. Jafar identifies a street urchin named Aladdin. Princess Jasmine, who refuses to marry a suitor, temporarily leaves the palace and meets Aladdin and his pet monkey, Abu. Aladdin and Jasmine become friends and eventually fall in love. When the palace guards capture Aladdin on Jafar's orders, Jasmine confronts Jafar to demand Aladdin's release, only for Jafar to lie to her that Aladdin has been executed.

Disguised as an old man, Jafar frees Aladdin and Abu from prison, and sends them to the cave, ordering them to retrieve the lamp. There, Aladdin finds a magic carpet and obtains the lamp. Unaware to touch nothing but the lamp, Abu grabs a red jewel, and the cave collapses. Aladdin hands over the lamp to Jafar, who throws both Aladdin and Abu back down into the cave, though not before Abu manages to steal the lamp back. Trapped, Aladdin rubs the lamp and meets the Genie, who is trapped inside of it. The Genie tells Aladdin that he will grant him three wishes. Aladdin tricks the Genie into freeing themselves from the cave without using a wish, and he uses his first to become "Prince Ali Ababwa" in order to woo Jasmine.

At Iago's suggestion, Jafar plots to become Sultan by marrying Jasmine. When Aladdin greets Jafar and the Sultan at the palace, Jasmine becomes upset at them. Refusing the Genie advising him to tell Jasmine the truth, Aladdin takes Jasmine on a flight on the magic carpet. When she deduces his identity, he convinces her that he dresses as a peasant to escape the stresses of royal life. After sending Jasmine home, Aladdin is tied up and gagged and thrown into the sea by Jafar, but he is rescued from drowning by the Genie with his second wish. Jafar tries to hypnotize the Sultan into agreeing to his marriage to Jasmine, but Aladdin intervenes, exposing his evil plot in the process; however, Jafar spots the lamp and thus discovers Aladdin's true identity. He flees to his lair, and orders Iago to retrieve the lamp from Aladdin.

Fearing that he will lose Jasmine if the truth is revealed, Aladdin refuses to free the Genie in order to maintain his charade. Iago steals the lamp, and Jafar becomes the Genie's new master. He uses his first two wishes to usurp the Sultan, and become the world's most powerful sorcerer, exposing Aladdin's identity and exiling him, Abu, and the carpet to a frozen wasteland. However, they escape, and return to the palace, where Jafar tries to use his final wish to make Jasmine fall in love with him, but the Genie cannot grant the wish as it is beyond his power. Upon noticing Aladdin, Jasmine pretends to be interested to distract Jafar, and Aladdin tries to retrieve the lamp. Jafar catches on to the plan, stops Aladdin, traps Jasmine inside an hourglass, and overpowers Aladdin and his friends with his magic. After Aladdin rescues Jasmine out of the hourglass, he tricks Jafar into using his last wish to become an all-powerful genie; now bound to his new lamp, Jafar ends up trapped inside it, taking Iago with him.

With the palace and kingdom returned to normal, the Genie sends Jafar's lamp far away into the Cave of Wonders, and suggests that Aladdin use his third wish to regain his royal title so the law will allow him to stay with Jasmine. Realizing that he has to be himself, Aladdin decides to keep his promise and frees the Genie. Realizing Aladdin and Jasmine's love, the Sultan changes the law to allow Jasmine to marry whom she chooses. The Genie leaves to explore the world, while Aladdin and Jasmine plan their marriage.

[cameiotmagazine-blog]

On The Watermelons

   Oh The Watermelons - internationally famous and recognized internet sensation.  When roaming downtown late at night, often people will describe seeing watermelons, seemingly roaming the streets, unaccompanied. They are beautiful and majestic, but be forewarned. Although safe to look at and take pictures with, do not approach them. Those who approach them are never seen or heard of again, rumored to be lost in the phylacteries of time.

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An Interview with Garfield the Cat

Hello. We’re here talking to the most important cat of this generation or any generation – Garfield the Cat.

“Meow.”

“Ho, ho, very funny, Garfield the Cat. Now, Garfield the Cat, my first question is, why do you hate Mondays?”

“Meow, meowww.”

“Ah, makes perfect sense, and if you were to read the strip you would perfectly understand the reasoning behind it. Uh, yes, because you have notorious bad luck on Monday, like the day almost hates you. That’s why you hate Mondays. That makes sense, Garfield the Cat. Thank you for telling me that. My second question for you, Garfield the Cat…..Where did Garfield the Cat go? Garfield the Cat has disappeared.”

“He left out that door.” said jason

We spent the next several weeks searching for Garfield the Cat – I and my editor Jason. We crisscrossed this country attempting to find him. We finally found him in a small limestone region in Utah Zion National Park.

It was the middle of the night and Garfield the Cat was staring up at the moon. I asked Garfield the Cat why he felt compelled to stare up at the moon. Garfield didn’t answer, and Jason and I spent a quiet contemplative evening in the crisp Utah air. Later that day we left, feeling that we had learned much of what Garfield the Cat had hoped to teach us. I do wonder if some times the was Garfield or just some cat.

[cameiotmagazine-blog]

The Brief History of the Sport of Schleem in the Olympics

You would never call schleem a popular sport. The rules are complex and often archaic, and the games take days to finish. It was never a game destined for mainstream popularity in America, what with its strategic rules. But the one and only time it ever reached anywhere close to mainstream popularity was during the brief time in 1984 in Los Angeles when the Olympics Committee decided it would be one of the new games added. Although few records exist of the Olympics 1984 schleem game, we do have a few spontaneous records which include the transcript of the two junior sports commentators assigned to cover it – James MacAroyd Taylor, a local sports reporter for NBC in Los Angeles, and Dirnell Auslow Jones, a former fullback for the 49ers, who covered each and every round of the sport of schleem. We luckily have surviving transcripts of it. As the nature of the sport of schleem is exceptionally hard to film, it proved not to be a popular sport, and the Seoul games did not include it. For one glorious week, the schleemers, as the fans called themselves, had their day in the sun. So the following is the transcript of the first day.

T[aylor]: It’s an exciting day for schleem, I’m told is how you say it.

J[ones]: Yah, yah indeed.

T: It’s one of the sports that have been added, and you may be asking yourself why we are broadcasting at 3 o’clock in the middle of the night. Well, I’ve been told many times that it is traditional for schleem to start at this time.

J: Yes, that is what I have heard as well.

T: Okay then. The 5 foot 6 American schleemer has come up to the giant mechanical screw that has been installed in this 230 square foot stadium. Now you might be asking yourself, ‘what is that he is holding?’ And I’ve been assured by an expert that that is called the Glubinheiker. Yes, it does seemingly resemble a severed cow’s leg, and I am told in fact it is.

J: Well, Jamie, now what do you suppose they do with that?

T: Well, let’s just wait and see.

J: Oh, I see he is tossing it up in the air, and he is yellin’ at the Ukrainian fellow.

T: Yes, that is the Ukrainian Anton Sublerbervitch. They say his family has been playing the game for over 10 million years, and he is the one to look out for.

J: Oh, that does not seem possible, but okay. I don’t know how we could maintain records of that.

T: I’m not sure either. I had to wake up early to come to this thing, Darnell.

J: Me too. They said it was direly important we come to this event. I had no idea that I was supposed to be covering this. I assumed I was covering women’s gymnastics, but as you know, it is traditional for schleem announcers, so I have been told, to be kidnapped in the middle of the night by men in hoods screaming in Portuguese.

T: Yes, that is apparently part of the schleeming tradition.

J: Okay, okay, the leg is landing. From this information sheet on schleem it takes over 20 minutes for it to fall. During that time the two schleemers are viciously punching and kicking each other.

T: That is right. They have been continuing to hit each other, and now the American has started to cry. What a sad day for American sports, and in fact this is not what he’s supposed to be doing. In fact, Darnell, I do not know.

J: Okay, okay, now a judge is coming out. I was not aware that this was a judged event. I am told the judge is French, and when asked his name, he said he would stab me if I asked.

T: Yes, that’s right Darnell. On the sheet I was given, I was told that we are never to ask the name of the judges – only their nationality.

J: Yes, that is interesting. Gosh, what an interesting sport. Is the round over yet?

T: No, in fact it lasts for eight more hours.

J: Oh my, the judge has yelled ‘Flavenfliven’. I’m not sure what that means.

T: Well, Darnell, lucky for you I have been given this sheet, engraved in pure gold, translated in a language that should be untranslatable. Inexplicably I know how to speak it; I expect it was the mysterious elixir I was forced to drink while I was being kidnapped.

J: You know, Jamie, I have also been having inexplicable knowledge of past events that I don’t think I was supposed to know.

T: You know, Darnell, it almost feels like this game is messing with the very reality of nature.

J: It seems to be an exciting day; I do agree with that.

T: Now they’re apparently bringing out a giant motorcycle, made solely of wood. On the pure golden tablet that I am reading from that tells me every single rule of schleem, it is said that the wooden motorcycle hints that we are now ending the first round of schleem, as both contestants will not be pulled out on it. Whoever comes out of the darkness at the end of the field will be declared the winner of the first round. The loser will be lost in time for over a thousand years.

J: That is correct. I don’t know how I know that, but I feel I know that in my soul.

T: Exactly, Darnell. I feel that everything that I thought I knew about the world has been horribly questioned by the game of schleem. Okay, we’re going to cut to a commercial break right now.

And after that there was an advertisement for McDonald’s. They were advertising their ‘Get a Free Meal every time America wins a Gold’. It proved out to be a terrible disaster after Moscow boycotted the games, but, you know, what do they know? Now, back to schleem.

T[aylor]: Welcome back to schleem. Now, if you’re wondering why the sky has suddenly turned a hue of red, well, I have been explained to by the Italian coach that that is traditional in the mid-game of schleem. Now, if you’re wondering what has happened to the three hours in between, even though the commercial was only 5 minutes, I’ve also been assured by the coach that those rounds will appear at some other point down the road, maybe 200 years from now. ‘The game of schleem is complex, and the rules are very strategic,’ the Italian coach assured me and the creature behind me that he said not to look at.

J[ones]: That’s right, Jamie. About 2 hours in we became aware that there is some sort of creature right behind us, staring at the game. We’ve been assured repeatedly ‘do not look back.’ When asked why we should not look back we were given no answer. We tend to believe them, and as we are professionals here at NBC we will not be looking back.

T: If my wife and children are listening to this, I want to tell them I love them.

J: That’s right. We are both very afraid for our lives.

T: Okay, it looks like it’s the Italian's turn now. The Ukrainian and the American are still jumping up and down on the trampoline. They’ll do this for another twenty minutes until they turn into vapor of some sort.

J: That’s right. Schleem requires half of the game to be played in a vaporous state. The winner of the third round will be determined by who regain their form.

T: That’s right, Darnell.

J: I’m just trying to get through this, and come back the same age as when I left.

T: We’re all dying, Darnell.

J: I’m just trying to get through this and live.

T: I don’t know, Darnell. There’s a good chance we’re in hell already.

J: That’s right Jamie. We have been discussing the possibility for some time now that this might be a punishment for our sins committed in our lives, and we might have already died – in some kind of car accident I assume.

T: I assume I’ve probably been murdered.

J: That’s a good point, Jamie. we could have been murdered.

T: Okay, okay. The Italian player is beginning the dance portion of schleem. You would think it would get boring.

J: And, oh my gosh, I have never seen a dance portion like that before.

T: That’s right, and I think that’s because nobody in human history has. He is already several feet in the air; you would think he’d fall, but he isn’t. He’s now staring directly at us.

J: That’s right. He’s been whispering the names of our first loves, alternating every 20 minutes.

T: That’s right, Darnell. It’s the woman I never truly got over, and for my entire life up to this moment I’ve always regretted not going for her. Why didn’t I go after her, Darnell?

J: It’s because you were afraid to live as you truly were, Jamie.

T: Well, you know Darnell, you are truly wise.

J: I sometimes feel like I have no purpose in life.

T: That’s probably true, Darnell, that’s probably true. As the schleem team’s one and only sponsor says, ‘You do not matter. You will all die a horrible death. Shop at Old Navy.”

J: That’s right. Old Navy is the only sponsor of schleem. I heard Mickey Drexler was an avid schleem player in college.

T: That’s right, Darnell.

The crowd boos.

T: The American player has just made a crucial error.

J: Oh, that will cost him big.

T: And as he enters the piranha pit it looks like a silver medal for the Americans, and once again the Ukrainians have won. That’s it for the first day of schleem, and I hope that I am still alive when I have done with this.  

They were not.

[cameiotmagazine-blog]

Looking Back at 1975: "I Don't Care Who's President"

And now Camelot is proud to reprint an article from a 1973 issue with Pulitzer Prize owning reporter Jonathan Needlemeyer.

Why, hello there. This is Jonathan Needlemeyer, reporting on a situation. I don’t care who’s president. Oh, there’s one of these every four years; my head is just killing me. I tell you I was on this plane, and I punched that damn uppity pilot straight in the jaw. Telling me I can’t fly a plane. I can fly a plane; I can fly a plane better than anybody else can. Oh my head, my head. Sometimes I dream I was a penguin in a past life. Those were the good times. All I had to worry about was getting from point A to point B with an egg between my legs, and nobody would judge me as an irresponsible violent person.

Today, augh, I just got arrested. They said it’s illegal to transport massive amounts of drugs. I don’t know what they’re talking about. They should be asking me why do I have authentic whale ambergris in my bag, and I’ll tell you why, Illuminati! because I’ve been hunting and killing whales with my bare machine-gun-clenched hands. They don’t wanna die. They might be as intelligent as toddlers, but I look into their faces and I know, I know, that my wife respects me. I’ll punch somebody or something if I hear anybody say to me it’s the presidential election. Augh. Reporting in from somewhere or someplace.

Of course, being as it was 1975 the presidential election had been over for a year. Needlemeyer was not aware of this as he had been in a drug induced stupor for over a year. This has been a classic look back at Camelot Magazine.

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The Oral History of The Beatles: I Want to Hold your Hand

And now, a recurring segment where we take an oral history look at famous things - we look at the Beatles I want to hold your hand

 Arthur Ken A potential Beatles Manager: So I had heard of this band coming from Liverpool, right? And they were The Beatles, and I was like, that’s crazy. We had to show these four guys. We had to go outside and I said, ‘Listen people, these are the beetles’, and I showed them, but there weren’t any beetles, so we had to wait a few days out there for any beetles to show up, but there weren’t any beetles. And the people were getting very impatient, and they kept saying to me that it was a joke, but I was like, ‘No, no, no. You keep saying your name is the beetles, and I keep trying to tell you that the beetles what beetles are boys.’

So I got very tired of this. So I flew the four boys out to Egypt and I showed them a bunch of beetles. And then they finally wrote it down for me, and I totally got it – they spelt it wrong. So I was like, “Well, we’re in Egypt already and we’ve been hanging out nonstop for like 3 months, so I might as well sign you.”

And they were like, “We don’t want to be part of you anymore. You’re a crazy person.”

So I never really saw them again after that. I didn’t hear much about The Beatles, really, because after that I was in a plane crash and I was lost for 20 years on an island with a lot of mysterious caves. I saw many things in the caves. I might have visited hell, I don’t know. It certainly was hell for me.

 Henry Milligan The Beatles Assistant to the Assistant Engineer: Oh man, I remember the day The Beatles came into my recording studio, and they said they that wanted to write a song about wanting to hold your hand, and I was like, ‘That’s real revolutionary. I didn’t even know you could hold another person’s hand.’ You gotta remember the culture at the time in England was that nobody really talked about things like holding hands. We didn’t even know where the children came from. You would wake up one day and you would find another baby in the house because your parents had had a dream about the Royal Family. It gave rise to the simple phrase of ‘royally’, where each and every night couples who really wanted a baby would spend each and every night focusing hard on the Royal Family, or thinking about them, or what they’re doing. It was a big deal at the time. One of the hit English films was about that.

So you could really understand when the first song from The Beatles was saying that not only is holding hands of another person possible, but it was in many ways desirable, it was one of the biggest things we had ever heard about. That was truly the start of what they eventually called ‘greatly appreciating the rock and roll music of the band The Beatles’. Of course, Americans mostly simplified it and called it ‘Beatlemania’, which was not what we called it here. I remember that one time that I was talking to Paul about royally and I never forgot this he said "who are you"

[cameiotmagazine-blog]

Copy of My failed pitch for the Baywatch movie.

Big Hollywood movies go through hundreds of different tweaks and rewrites, and especially when you are adopting with well-known brand recognition, like Baywatch, no really known fan-base but a well-known brand. There are often hundreds of different pitches on how to do it, and of course, I was called into it. I'm not saying the traditional way. I mostly just threw a brick through a window of a big Hollywood executive and assumed that would probably be enough. Still, since they made the movie, it's become increasingly clear that they didn't take me up on my offer, but I'd like to share with you my ideas.

Okay, so it starts with: they are all in the lifeguard tower, and they are all dancing to the musical song "Rock Lobster" which goes like, "Na-na, rock lobster." Then, they get a call from headquarters, and they say that James Cameron is trapped in the Mariana Trench, and the big guy, who is like, the hero, because he is all good looking, is like, "Yeah. I can save James Cameron." So, they take a few minutes in a boat and go from Baywatch, which is in L.A., to the Mariana Trench and then the main guy, he just dives in to the Mariana Trench and starts swimming down to save James Cameron, but he hits his head, and he's like, "Oh no! I've hit my head. It hurts," and stuff, and he's like, "Ow. Oh the pain! Oh the horrible, terrible pain!"

And everybody's like, "Oh no! Man, that sucks," But then, he sees a dolphin, and the dolphin is, like, "You know what? I can save you, and Neptune would like to meet you." So King Neptune ... okay, and this is the part where the David Hasselhoff cameo comes becuse he as Neptune goes like, "Dude, you shouldn't worry about all that stuff, man, and also, you need to focus on some me time. Just relax and hang out and don't worry so much about the entire world. It'll get on fine without you."

But then, the main dude explains what the deal is and how he is trying to save James Cameron, and Neptune all like, "Oh, Dude. I love those Terminator movies, and you know which one's also really good? Titanic! I don't want James Cameron to die. Although, I do think you should hang out and relax for a while because, dude, you looks so stressed. You should save James Cameron first." So then the main guy swims down. Also, surrounding this entire thing there should be like sweet ass heavy metal music playing that goes like, "Duh-na-na, na-na-na-na, na-na-na-na," and then when he finds James Cameron and he saves James Cameron and I think the running time should be eight to 15 hours long and then the credits should happen and the credit song is like, "Duh-na-na, na-na-na-na, na-na-na-na." That would be the best movie ever for Baywatch. It would be better than every other movie ever made, including Citizen Kane and The Frighteners by Peter Jackson. That's for sure, man. That's, like, total for sure.

So, call me at 555-55 You know what, now that I think of it, probably the reason I didn't get the job is because I gave a fake number instead of a real number. Darn it. My love of being a joke slinger has once again damned me.

[cameiotmagazine-blog]

The Wizard Film Fest Review Day 3

have you ever seen a double eclipse I hadn't till toady. It didn’t occur to me for a while that Arizona must have two suns, because I realized that for the entire time I have been here it has never not been day. I wondered if I was actually in Arizona, or not. I don’t remember how I got to Arizona. I just remember following Simon, and then I was on a train, and it was red, for awhile. Then I arrived here in what they said was Phoenix, Arizona.

Phoenix, Arizona always had two suns, right? That’s a thing that existed before. I am just going to have to keep telling myself that. Well, anyways, there was a double eclipse today, where both of the suns were blocked, and for a few joyous minutes there was darkness. I don’t know which I like better – the one where I’m able to sleep for more than three hours a day?

So I went to a movie. I had been seeing a lot of straight fiction films – beautiful stories about rocks being in love, but I had not seen a real life story. I decided thus to see a documentary. Now, wizard documentaries are not exactly like the documentaries normal human beings partake in. Yes, they have Talking Head interviews, but they also have Talking Heads not on bodies interviews. This one I saw was about a very, very important issue in the wizard community – spontaneous combustion of wizards. It is quite a big problem in society. Many wizards are randomly set on fire each and every day - coincidentally right when they seem to threaten another wizard, but all the wizards who are shifty-eyed and refuse to answer any questions, deny that it is even a thing.

You know I have never worked on a crime beat in my career as a journalist, so I can’t tell if the shockingly accurate descriptions of the night that only a person in that room could have seen were truthful, but I suspect that they were not being fully truthful. It was intense. There were all these close-up shots of things, and then there were reenactments, but instead of doing them in color, they did them in colors imperceptible to the human eye that caused us to briefly see our dead relatives.

The film was called Spontaneous Combustion: Conspiracy or not a Conspiracy. It was directed by a wizard and his twin clone that did everything exactly the same as him – Marty. I talked to them after the screening, and in unison voices they said, “We believe Spontaneous Combustion is a thing that happens.” After they talked to me they both turned into smoke and vanished.

I gave the film a solid Recommend.

Sometimes I believe these wizards are not giving it to me straight At times I and I may not have mystical abilities, and this might not be the planet Earth as I was led to believe, and I might not even be in Arizona,  sometimes I just want a bloody damn person to give me a straight answer. Is that so much to ask for? Probably. I’m probably rude?  I had a drink after that. I had a Shirley Temple, but it was an adult Shirley Temple. You know, like when she was an ambassador.

Not many people get to see a movie filmed on the sun. I didn’t get to see it either. That one was full, so I saw another movie. It was filmed in an atom, a little tiny atom. It was a coming-of-age film about a young wizard who was inexplicitly born inside an atom of a pencil. it was called Atom boy I give it a 5/5.

You know, I had a lot of fun at this festival. It has been an interesting experience, my first true film festival ever since I became a film critic. I mean, yes, most of the time I was horrified beyond imagining, and I was pretty sure someone was going to kill me, and now I have been wondering exactly what the Ramada Inn I have been staying at was. Those voices in the night that told me “selection, selection,” were terrible, and I didn’t like that.

The final film I saw though was something special. I walked into theater 13G. All theaters in in the wizard film festival are theaters 13. At film festivals you sometimes have to take a strange path. I walked into it, and the guid wouldn’t really tell me what the film was or who it was by. The movie opened and it was a small incandescent dot, and it played in a consistent tone: “eeeeeeeeeeeeee”, and for three minutes the dot consistently grew bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger until it was the size of a movie theater. It was then the main character finally appeared.

The main character, a young man around my age – he never introduced himself. He then pulled a chair, and it took a while for him to pull the chair dead center into what now appeared to be a perfectly white room, and sat on the chair, and stared intensely at the audience for an hour, and threw his eyes. First you were uncomfortable, and then for a while you intensely loved him, and then you intensely hated him, and then there was a brief second where somebody in the audience shot at the screen. This was Arizona. I mean, it was a place calling itself Arizona.

I walked out, and I was confident, very confident, and for the first time in my film critic career, I had seen the worst movie ever – a 9 out of 10 stars. I mean, yes, it was brilliant, and I rode on an emotional journey that I would never again ride on in my live, but a dude shouted at the screen. That totally ruined my film experience. Was that unfair of me? Yes, 100 percent. Will I watch this movie again?  Most likely. Will it rise in my estimation? Even now as I slowly contemplate it – yeah probably. But that’s the great thing about film. You can constantly revisit it and constantly re-appreciate it. I now own a magical raven and a magical bunny.

I returned home on the mysterious train and I looked up in the sky to see if there was only one star in it. Thankfully there was. Simon continued to follow me, and every once in a while he will bring a mysterious gold coin from an ancient Aztec treasure that he somehow knows where it is.

[cameiotmagazine-blog]

The Wizard Film Fest Review Day 2

There are rumors about this one. There were horrific warnings about this one. They were blind - all the women who would come up to me - their eyes milky white, and they would whisper to me, "Do not dare to enter this for you shall not return." I thanked them for their advice but I am a film critic, and I didn’t get into this job because it’s easy. I got into it because I like movies and I like to write about them. The film they were warning me about was by Iriethana Arcanegrin, who is one of the first female directors I had encountered at this festival. Her film was called:

"The Beauty and Mastery of a Fearful and Horrifying Wind: Ill Omens".

Long title, but as long as the title was, the thing they had all warned me about was the length of the film. As a film critic I am capable of a lot. I mean I’ve seen in one sitting both the extended edition of "The Hobbit" and the extended edition of "Lord of the Rings". But this movie is a long one, and it wasn’t even clear how long the movie would be. The pamphlet said it was x^2*240. I really wasn’t sure what that meant. My guess is the movie was very, very, very long.

 It began with a tracking shot of a young man in the woods. This lasted for five minutes. As we got closer and closer on this young man’s eyes, inexplicably the movie stopped. The lights came on, and the critics and the fans shuffled out. I’m sure of what happened. I was really unsure too but I guess five minutes was good. The young man walking through the forest was really beautifully done and it was an intense little short film. I walked up to the bar waiting for the next movie to start when Iriethana Arcanegrin came out to get a drink.

“So what did you think”, she said in a thick Ukrainian accent.

“Well, um.”

“You thought it would be longer, right?” she said as a faint smile came over her.

“It is not an unwarranted reputation,”  Iriethana said.

“Really.”

“My last movie, "The Prepositions of the Ingenious World on a Dangerous and Unknown Plane of Existence", for me earlier, at say four years ago, is still playing. I check in there every once in a while. The critics that were watching it have formed a Society. There’s talks of worshiping me as a god, but I put an end to that pretty quickly.”

“Well, that’s certainly one of the stranger things to come out of this  week… So, so why so short?”

“Well, I like to think that the thing is a layered piece that you return to over and over again,” said Iriethana Arcanegrin.

She said that as she walked backwards, wriggling her fingers and making ghost sounds, when the bartender came up from behind the bar.

“Madam Iriethana Arcanegrin, your drink,” said the bartender.

She walked forward and picked up her drink, and then once again walked backwards making ghost sounds and wiggling her fingers.

The festival has been showing mostly very artistic films, but sometimes when you’re at one of these you crave a little action. Fortunately the next one I saw was full of action. There was so much action that at one point the entire screen was filled with blood for over 10 minutes! Just blood with a bunch of different shades!

"Happy Fun Day" from Choi Dong-Woo

The movie starts in an action movie 101 way with a violent cold opening that has little to nothing to do with the main guy, a very good looking Korean man. The man’s head explodes, and then another man’s head explodes, and then a third man’s head explodes. You don’t why – no context, no nothing, just exploding head after beautiful exploding head, to the point that the exploding heads start to resemble a Jackson Pollock painting of different shades of blood. It’s the single most violent thing I’ve ever seen.

Then for a half hour the movie turns into a romance where the main wizard romances another wizard - a female one romances a girl wizard. And then a guy comes in and his head gets blown off, and another person’s head gets blown off. Really it’s a very head-blowing-off sort of picture, full of just beautiful violent imagery after violent imagery. The violence becomes so endemic of the film that in the end nothing occurs but violence, and violence becomes disturbing for its lack of violence. You become sensitized to the very nature of non-violence. The movie ends of course violently. The movie started violently; the middle was violent. I couldn’t even really tell you what the plot was, what anything was, but I left it with a Recommend.

What does Kurt Cobain have to do with magic? Nothing, probably, but one wizard was born in the 90’s, and he just really wanted to make a movie about Kurt Cobain, so who am I to judge? Not me, I really wanted to see a Kurt Cobain movie made by a wizard. The movie was called:

                         "Kurt Cobain as Seen Through the Eyes of a Wizard".

It was a simple, beautiful movie in a lot of ways, and in a lot of ways it was very experimental, because it seemed to be actual footage of Kurt Cobain, somehow mythically obtained. But the credits finally confirmed it to me. There were no actual actors in this. They were all transformed mice that the wizard, Loran the Mighty, Big fan of Nirvana, had made to look like the late great rocker.

Loran the Mighty, Big Fan of Nirvana, was also apparently a fan of improv in movies, because most of the dialogue related to cheese of some sort – where is cheese; how to get cheese; what has happened to my beautiful mouse body; what are these new sensations I felt?

There was a beautiful speech near the end where the mouse that was turned into Kurt Cobain said, “I was once a proud mouse, and now I am a filthy man animal. What are these horrid appendages that have grown from me? You cruel and unfair being of evil. Return me. Return me.”

So I gave it a Recommend.

I left, expecting to see the Aztec-inspired lobby that I had seen in my days here. An odd sensation - I opened the doors that had previously opened onto the Aztec lobby and I was once again in "The Beauty and Mastery of a Fearful and Horrifying Wind: Ill Omens", and the young boy who was walking through the woods now came upon a house. He opened the house to see who were clearly his parents, and as I sat down, I found I was at the bar again as if nothing had happened. I spied the director Iriethana Arcanegrin across the room. She was holding a drink. She shrugged and walked away. After that happened several more times I came to realize that that movie would continue on for the rest of my life. At random points in my life I will somehow be watching that movie again.

All in all, I would say it was an exciting cinematic experience. Simon made friends with a bunny, so I have a pet bunny now. I named her Penelope.

[cameiotmagazine-blog]

The Wizard Film Fest Review Day 1

Every year in Phoenix Arizona a special event goes on. Some say it is the pinnacle of the unseen film world’s social calendar. Yes, the Wizard Film Fest, where the greatest and brightest wizards/filmmakers gather to show off their latest major motion pictures early in front of a collection of wizards/filmmaking professionals before they are handed out to the mass secret underground release, the common places where wizards see movies - projected on a hydrogen atom. You could also try walking through the screen of movie theaters, the place us normal people would never think to look for movies. But this year Camelot Magazine, after years of trying to get approval to see this vaulted, cultural institution, was finally granted press credentials in the form of a raven that would never leave this critic’s side and that eventually one day guided her to the secret underground lair. I named him Simon, but that’s not the point. The point is to see these amazing, wonderful, innovative wizard-written, produced, directed and starring, films.

            The first film in the Wizard Film Fest was by one who in the olden times was called the Grand Wizard, but that name was co-opted by a bunch of jerks, so now they call him The Really Cool Wizard. But that also got co-opted by a bunch of not good people, so in the ‘80’s they had a re-branding of the name, so now they’re called The Rad Wizards, and the first film was done by one of the most rad wizards there is. That of course is Serkec Maltovy – a short small man with stubby little features. Oh, how the obvious trembles in fear of him. They said once when he was on a whale watching trip he saw a whale, which is a big deal for wizards because whales have the mystical ability of blocking themselves from being viewed by wizards, and no wizard has been able to stop that until the guy's name I just said.

His film was of course about the famous whale singing incident. He cast himself of course in the lead role, but he always casts himself in the lead role. Of course, there was also a romantic angle. Now, Serkec Maltovy is 700 years old, so in a move that many would find creepy and sad and just a tiny bit pathetic, but not me because..... because..... I see the beauty in everything even if I have to try very hard, he cast a 23-year-old as his love interest. So, you know, super cool, because the world is beautiful and I love it. Also, there are a bunch of super-cool, lovely, just great, wonderful monsters and stuff in it, which didn’t really have to happen, because honestly he just went on a whale-watching tour. The movie was called The Whale in Love. It was pretty good. I gave it a 16 out of 10.

As I wait for the next movie to begin I walk around and my hope is to interview someone. This proves hard to impossible to do as all the wizards seem to have trouble speaking about anything important. Well, here is a conversation I had with Arman the wise:

“So, Mr. Wise (I’m not being cute; his last name really is The Wise), I read that for your last film you shoot a love scene in a collapsing black hole. What was that like?"

He looked around at the room. Then he said, "Boy, that sure is some weather.” 

All the wizards were like this, most conversations being banal talks about the weather or the roads they took to get there. After a certain point I gave up and did something much more useful. I hit my head on the wall over and over again until a younger wizard took pity on me. He looked to be my age and had a warm easygoing smile.

“Not getting anywhere, right?” he said.

“They’re not a very talkative bunch, are they?” I said.

Then he explained what was going on, that yes, first, there very much are wizard schools. In truth they are more like schools than most anything,  but at some point you'll learn almost casually how to read other people's minds and that's when the real work begins. Oh sure, everybody's, as it doesn't change anything, but eventually all the wizards go to the remote areas of the earth to work alone.

It was time for the next movie. The next movie was called The Baleful, and was directed by an arch-mage Killam. It depicts a famous point in the history of the wizard world, the final stands of the lich of Phoenix Arizona, one of the last great liches in the world of wizard's history, and greatly revered. I was pulled in by the sweeping vistas and the smart but dry humor she had. I felt for her struggle as she surely had positive thinking.

Later I talked to another critic. “I really loved the nihilistic violence of his struggle,” he said.

This was odd, but not as odd as when another critic talked to me about how he was happy that they were finally to have a movie that displayed what he called values. He even stared at me for a very long time and I was very uncomfortable with it, and I left quickly after. It did not occur to me until later when I saw screen shots of the movie that it was nothing but a black screen. I give it a Recommend.

Can a rock love? That was the question of the third movie I saw today, and it certainly was something. It is directed by Eugene the Y. The rock love story takes place entirely within a cooking pan that two rocks fell in, and then the rocks fell in love. Now the entire movie is an hour and a half of Eugene the Y playing with rocks, not with magic. After the movie, during the questionnaire, he summoned a tiger to cook us the greatest sandwich I’ve ever had in my life. The movie is not animated; it's just  Eugene the Y playing with rocks. Well, it was certainly something. For a second there I thought I transcended my body and lived a million lifetimes, but then I came back and he was making the rocks making out with each other. So I give it a Recommend.

It was later that night when I went back to my hotel - the Ramada Inn, the nicest hotel Phoenix, Arizona has where a celebrity did not OD. I asked the front desk person if they had any magical raven food. They didn’t. That makes sense. I tried talking to Simon the raven; he didn’t say much, just went crowing and cawing, and that was my first night at the Wizard Film Festival.

[cameiotmagazine-blog]

The Dugery of Wine and Lime

[cameiotmagazine-blog]

Five Problems that only Intelligent People Will Face

Being intelligent is not a rarity in the modern world. Evolution has rendered humans into intelligent and high-functioning adults, sadly. Because ignorance is bliss. While intelligence has helped you sail smoothly over a lot of things in life, it has also brought in with itself its own set of problems and struggles. It’s not a rose without thorns, eh? Here are a few problems highly intelligent people inadvertently end up facing in life

Number 1: you'll struggle to make friends.

It's sure lonely to be intelligent and nobody will accept you because your intelligence isolates you into going to a remote part of California to look for gold. You know that nobody will be around for hundreds of miles as you spend mere weeks desperately searching through all of your claim in hopes of finding your gosh darn gold. Beautiful, wonderous gold.

Number 2: People will think you're an arrogant know-it-all.

Oh, they'll say it of you, "Oh Jim. You're crazy, for gold, the rush was hundreds of years ago. You won't find no gold." And then you're sadly going to have to tell them that they're wrong, and you're right, that you can feel it in them bones that gold be there. It'll be real depressin' and real sad when people go like, "God, please listen to me. Don't Go to that remote part of California. Don't leave me dad." And I'll have to sadly inform Shelly that now I've got to do this. They just think I'm being an arrogant know-it-all.

 Number 3: finding a soul mate will be challenging.

Oh, what a difficulty for us highly intelligent people who are searching for gold. They'll be like, "Dad, mom died here years ago in this very spot that you are mining for gold, and I know it's been tough to move on." And I'm not afraid at all of trying to meet somebody new. Why, I'm only 45 years old, and I'm a miner, dammit! That's why I'm going to. And I have no problems. Everybody else is the problem, that's why I went to remote claim in California and be there and live there for the rest of my life in the spot were my wife died.

 Number 4: you can stay sleep because of all the thinking

You'll be up 'til late in the night being unable to sleep. Oh, how they laughed at you when you said you'd be living by yourself, for the rest of your life,  searching for gold to become a rich man. Oh, but they'll know it soon enough. And it doesn't matter about the near daily calls from your daughter to come back, saying she misses her father and worries about you.  I'm perfectly happy up here, contentedly happy up here.

I do sit up late at night crying, because of the wolf attacks. At times you have to dumb it down for them. When my supposed in-laws called me and said, "Jim, you've gone crazy. Your daughter is up every night crying. She misses her mother, and now she misses you." I have to say to them, in much dumber terms, that I am not done fighting for gold, and I ain't leavin' until I find it. It's not even funny, buddy. But I sometimes have to go with the crowd.

 Number 5: they can be prone to being unhappy and frustrated.

Just because I'm out here in the middle of the desert, desperately searching for gold, doesn't mean I'm happy all the time. When I see visions of Joanna, calling out to me in the middle of the night saying, "Let the wolves take you. You will be happy there," I just get so gosh darn angry. Those visions of my dead wife just don't understand and appreciate that high level of intelligence that I have, and that is the problem that every super duper smart person faces.

[cameiotmagazine-blog]

My Meeting With a Houston Biker Gang

I was at a party with my friends, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. It was a few weeks ago and it was a standard party. Everybody was having a moderately good time, but I noticed a peculiar sensation.  Nobody would drink the punch. Any time I would go to grab a drink of punch or potentially liven it up with some alcohol, I would always be scooted away, and he said, "No, you do not understand. It is a Houston event." It was an odd statement to hear that. A very odd statement.

I asked my friend Julius, is there some tradition of never drinking the punch? Julius said, "Wait, and you shall see." It was just then the door was violently kicked open and you saw the meanest-looking biker you ever did see. Everybody froze, terrified, unwilling to look as the slow clanking of his boots went closer and closer to the punch, which he grabs and walked out. We could hear him announcing to what must have been the rest of the biker gang, "Fellas, I got the punch," and they screamed with joy as they rode off.

I asked Julius what it was and he said, "you have not been in Houston for long."

I said, "No, I have not."

"Why, that is the famous Punch Gang who treasures punch above all else."

I said, "Ah. But surely they'd much like it with alcohol."

It was then Ethel came up to me and said, "No, that would spoil the pureness of it for them. They aren't in it for the alcohol. They're in it for the straight punch." I thought that beautiful and I acquiesced.

[cameiotmagazine-blog]

Im like don draper if he listened EDM and was a Doctor that's why chronic lyme disease is real.

I know you know me. You've seen my hip. You've seen my billboards all over town. I'm the one doctor with the two sexy ladies surrounding me, and I have a freaking sweet grin. Or maybe you've seen the ones where I place closer to family neighborhoods, where I'm in a white coat and I'm smiling as I'm helping a kid get better from playing with boo boos. Either or, both parts of my personality, freaking sweet. I have sweet personality.

Anyway, I'm coming here to talk to you. Talk less about all that stuff and more to talk to you about how to heal yourself. That's right. That's right. You're sick. You're sicker than sick. You're sicker than sick. Sicker than sick. Here's what I bet you got. I bet you get headaches sometimes. I bet you're tired sometimes during the day. I bet you feel sad. I get it, man. Everybody feels sad. Sadness, depression. Head on a pillow. You're just sitting there thinking, "Oh, my life isn't working out the way I want it to." I know the feeling. I know the feeling in theory. In theory I'm a very successful doctor, so I've never experienced sadness. Not even when all three of my wives mysteriously disappeared.

Anyways, I'm here to talk to you about what's going on with you. And I'll tell you what it is. You have chronic Lyme disease. That's right. You're sick as a dog with chronic Lyme disease. What's that you say? Lyme disease. That's what it is. That's the only disease it could be. Now that you know you're sick, congratulations by the way. I know it's been a scary time for you, now that you know everything. It's time to learn how to fix it. And as a doctor who never worked in infectious diseases at all, and I'm even more of a family pediatrician, I feel confident that I can fix you.

Now, what you need my friend, what you need my friend, what you need, go to your doctors who are all sweet as hell and hella rad and hella cool and ask them for antibiotics for months. Now, okay. Tons of them. Now, a few of your doctors who are part of a vast conspiracy to kill you will say things like, "No," or, "No," or, "Prolonged use of antibiotics may cause you death." Which is a lie and wrong, and they don't know what they're talking about. Or even a few crazy ones will say, "Well, if you take some of the antibiotics eventually you'll get a virus that can survive against antibiotics. And that'll probably kill you, but it might also lead to a plague that would maybe kill a lot of the world's people." But it's bullshit. Sure, you might get a virus, but you'll live. You'll live, don't worry. You'll live, don't worry. You'll live.

And there are poor people. Who cares about that? Who cares about that? You're a rich successful white lady. You subscribe to GOOP for God sakes. God sakes. Gwyneth Paltrow won an Oscar. That's just as important as a medical degree. Ugh, to think since there are doctors out there that don't accept Oscars. Oscars as appropriate diagnosis for medical things. Ugh, ugh. And to imply that I'm just doing this to keep myself in sweet ass Lambos, like five I've got out there. Dude, dude, it's insulting. Do you know how fast they go? Like really fast. I can't really drive them that fast because I live in Los Angeles and traffic's crazy. But you know it. When you see this sweet sexiness driving around. The ladies love it and my wife's. My wife's getting up there, she's 29, is already 29. So in like a year she's just going to mysteriously disappear.

So it's okay. It's okay. I've got my sweet fucking ass Lambo. It's fucking sweet as hell, man. How dare they imply that? They're just in this for the money. Unlike me, who lives in a large mansion and has several Lambos. I'm in this to help you. That's why I cheer hard for politicians to make the drugs that I sell you legal. And here's the thing, you can trust us. Because believe us, believe me, doctors would never intentionally overprescribe you medicine to make money.

 That's ridiculous. Because like me and my fellow Lambo driving doctors, we're part of a club, we all sit in each other's Lambos and high five each other, and a few times we'll just get a dog from a pound, a vicious one, and not feed it for a long time. And then we'll just drive in the middle of the night, find a neighborhood and just let that dog free and see what happens. It's good fun. What I'm saying is trust me, a good doctor who graduated near the bottom of his class and has never worked in the corrupt and dangerous field of infectious disease research.

[cameiotmagazine-blog]

Real Americans Play Football not 7 of 7

I remember when I was growing up and in my small town, football was the end all and be all. Man, the entire town would close down and everybody would go to the football stadium, high school football stadium, and we would watch young men just cream into each other. We didn't have any issues whatsoever with ... any issues whatsoever that the modern people say is happening.

Like, nobody ever got ... you know, nobody's mind ever got a disease or nothing from it. I remember Roy Calhoon , the quarterback. Oh, boy, he was good lookin'. I still see him, he was good looking and intelligent and polite. You know, his English, you know ... and you could tell he came from good English stock. I would see him every day at the He was a good boy, and I looked up to him. He was my hero.

He would do tons of just ramming his head viciously into the He was fine. Every day I seen him and I ask him how he's doing. After several minutes, he eventually says, he eventually mumbles a few words that to me sound a lot like "fine". He was a good man. He's a smart man, and a smart man who knows well how to sweep up little piles of sawdust at the local lumber mill.

Playing football didn't hurt him at all. But now that I'm a  I love the game. It was heartening to see young men work as a team and really coalesce and be powerful people. They're powerful people. I decided to dedicate my life to it and become a football coach for a small university in Texas called Texas Southern State University, or TSSU.

Why, it was the proudest day of my life when I eventually became head coach. I remember my mom cried, like women do. My dad just ... well, my dad had died, and they said from mysterious ... my dad had died. It broke my heart, because he was the whole reason I had become, I had gotten into football. He was a linebacker back in the '40s for his high school and they won state that year. Then at the age of 50, at the age of 45, he sadly developed Alzheimer's  alzheimer's and died.

It was a harrowing case, but I did it for him, and I knew he was in heaven looking down at me and saying strong fatherly advice that he would give me. But today, I just don't know. Our proud and noble game that has been for generations the exemplar of our abilities is disappeared and it's tragic to me.

It is a tragedy the likes of which I have never seen before. I'm sure if you're in the know, you already know this. Already know this is called seven on seven football. I know. I know that the true Americans, true Americans, you know, Protestants in our group are horrified. The real Americans, the ones from small towns who work hard. Work hard, as opposed to other ones who don't work as hard. Are saddened and tragically clutching their hearts. Many don't even know what's going on. But it's true. It's true.

seven and seven is a game that amongst the young people of a certain type, especially the certain types that live in cities, you know, it's growing in popularity. It's well, the game is simple. It has the shape of football but not of the pride and tradition. None of the honor.

It's a lot like a faster paced version of touch football. Oh, the horrors. Horrors, the horrors. The worst of it is, it's popular. It's growing in popularity. I don't even know how that's possible. The game does not have tackling or direct tackles, and you just have to direct tackles and they don't even have to wear the football jerseys that made them, was the closest we have to knights in this modern age.

Think about it. Young men not having to brutally, not having to powerfully ram their skull straight into a competitor. Oh the horrors, oh the horrors of having to live that life. Think about it. The worst is instead of supporting team play, you know, like a good justify, like football does, it helps with our team playing abilities. It's focused strongly on the team. So much, you know, a football team is nothing until it kinda coalesces into a vague blob and people like me and almost every football coach, as opposed to non-managers, are the ones able to guide them.

Think of the horror. The horror. That individual strength would be emphasized, why that would create issues and problems. They betray Think of just if any other player would be ... think, if the side supports would be think of this in a professional term. What if the player surrounding Tom Brady were as famous as Tom Brady himself, and were considered a valuable member of the team? The non-appropriate person in charge being considered as important as the, you know, what's clearly good stock and a real American like Tom Brady. Oh, the horror. The horror.

Do we want our children to believe in themselves and not tackle people? I don't think so. I don't think so. Because nothing is wrong with head on tackles, especially for younger people. The move around ... the skull, the fact that their skull is still growing, it really strengthens up the non-complete skull growth. Like, real hard. You know, and hard.

So we have to fight against this dangerous, arrogant people thinking like they can be good and do all them stuff instead of the appropriate way, which is stuff, and you know. Think about oh, yes, yes, yes. This is good. This is good. Think about it. They could be asking for money. Right? Like, isn't that horrifying? Think about can you believe the sheer arrogance of people wanting to get paid for high school and college sports? No. They only should be paid when they make it to the NFL. Which would happen. Which is going to happen for every high school player.

For every peewee and high school player, they would make it to professional sports league if they weren't coddled. So, you know. That's what they should do. Why would them sorts even need the money? They should be able to just rely on ... like me, rely on my parents who were both ... like, I didn't rely on nobody and my dad was just a simple factory owner. Nothing more, nothing left.

So in the end, seven on seven is bad. Real football, you know, traditional football with traditional leaders is good and not arrogant like how some people are is good.

[cameiotmagazine-blog]

How to be Happy

[cameiotmagazine-blog]

Hitler did not have the longest legs recorded in medical history

Ah, this old propaganda chestnut. When I was a war reporter in Germany I saw this thing being banded around numerous times. Even before the war any of us working at our desks would receive this from Berlin more than once. I remember the response apparently was to a Bugs Bunny cartoon where Hitler was depicted as a tiny little man of course. It was said by sources within the wolf's den he fly into a rage, slowly taking off his glasses and yelling at people. He said, "How dare they? How dare they decree that I have tiny legs? Bugs Bunny, he ain't even, you know he ain't even a guy, animated by the brilliance of Walt Disney." Hitler of course was major into Disney.

Like Al Capone, who is also a noted Disney fan, Hitler would often spend nights raging about how Warner Brothers cartoons were, " The animation style was crazy, and it should be simpler." So it was passed around to all the papers that, "No, that is far from the truth. In fact, Hitler had the longest legs in recorded medical history. That's the reality of it. That's the true nature of it," they would go on, almost desperately. "How are you insinuate otherwise? Hitler has great legs, wondrous legs even. The best Legs." Of course it was still Hitler and the irony of was that cartoon Hitler leg was not even that short it just and that was not even the joke odd right.