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Saturday, May 20, 2006

"Well, ain't this place a geographic oddity?
Two weeks from everywhere!"
- "O Brother Where Art Thou"


i can’t wait for grad school to start. i’m going to raise my hand every five seconds. they’re going to hate me. i’m going to come to class with one of those hats where you pull the string and it claps big rubber hands. that’s how i’m going to raise my hand, by clapping my hat. i’m going to target some kid and contradict everything he says, even if he says the world is round. i’m going to make airplane noise all the way to my desk for a whole week. i’m going to pass notes to people who don’t want notes. the notes i pass will be maps of my back yard from 20 years ago and they will make no sense to anyone. maybe i will get caught passing a note to someone who doesn't want one and i will be forced to read my notes out loud to the class but instead i will diagram these notes on the blackboard in detail. i'm gong to bring apples to put on my own desk. early one morning, i’m going to put random, nonsensical math equations on the blackboard, and then time it so when the class assembles, i’m standing there solving one of them, dressed in a janitor's jumpsuit and holding a mop. then i will panic and run out the door, shoving them out of the way with my mop. i will come back dressed normal five minutes later. i’m going to come to class bouncing a basketball like Matthew Modine did in “Gross Anatomy.”

you heard about the goofballs watching "Wizard of Oz" while listening to to Dark Side of the Moon. cueing the cd up to start on the words “run rabbit run” when Dorothy scratches her crotch? well, this works much better:

watch "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" with the sound off, (captions on or off, they aren’t talking anyway), while playing Captain Beefheart’s “The Spotlight Kid” cue it up with the song “When It Blows It Stacks” right when Clint Eastwood stops chewing on that tiny cigar and flips it around in his mouth and yells “Ta da!” just like David Copperfield. it lines up perfect, i swear.

i am going to get an eye exam. these glasses are giving me headaches. as much as i'd like to get new glasses today, i have to save up a little for this purchase as the cocksuckers in office are killing me with these gas prices. when i say that our president is a "cocksucker" i don't mean that he's a jerk or something. it means he actually holds a set of balls in his hand while he takes a cock over his lips and into his mouth. then he proceeds to suck on it while fingering his own wrinkled asshole. thought i'd clear that up so there's no confusion.

and now that i've made clear my thoughts on "W," i can also safely say that the new Neil Young is awful artless crap. that "Let's Impeach the President" song sounds like complete ass. this dummy put a bunch of overdubbed voices or something on every line so you can't understand a word he (they) are saying. not that it's anything that sharp. the lyrics are the same shit we heard (said) years ago. you got to bring more to the plate than that Neil. someone made a good point when they said that you'd never hear Bruce or Dylan doing crappy songs like that. that's why Neil (This Bud's For You!) Young will always be 3rd string when it comes to protest music. it just sounds awful. anyone hear it? it's got the same tin drums from Metallica's St. Anger, mixed with high school lyrics and shit production. i hate to say it, but creepy little elfin Bright Eyes boy did it infinitely better on "When the President Talks to God" and he had a better punchline too. AND you could actually hear what he was saying.

so that shitty “Cabin Fever” movie actually gave me a good idea for the western i’m working on. in that movie the kids try to drink nothing but beer on a dare during their camping trip and one or two of them inadvertently escape getting the jungle-madness from the infected water because of this. this idea wasn't used to its potential, of course. and now i’m thinking that this town in my script that just ran out of water (it's too far away from water to escape from, maybe it's like two weeks in every direction, so once you're there you're stuck with whatever water it has...or something. i haven't worked it all out yet) maybe all the people are out of water and drinking up all the alcohol (and outhouse bucket water!) instead. and this, of course, makes them a tad more unpredictable. i’m talking the entire town. kids and dogs, too. all shit-faced. all with about 3 days to live. and the stranger comes to town all noble, looking for someone to save. good luck!

if it seemed like i was suggesting there's no god last post, i am here to say that i was wrong. you know why? because i came to work two days ago and found the show "Deadliest Catch" waiting on my computer for me to caption!!! praise the lord. i told my boss that i never thought i'd be able to put all my new crab knowledge to use and there i was getting paid for it. great show. i can't tell you about the one i captioned because the events it portrays haven't happened yet. see, we caption them before they EXIST, not just before they're aired. sorry.

AND it's a "Deadliest Catch" marathon right now on Discovery! see, this is how a computer graphic should be used. it shows you where the crab grounds are, where all the ships are, and there's a crab count to keep a running score or have a drinking game if you want. in recent movies, they're wasting computer graphics on fake waves, and even fake birds when there's plenty of real ones if they'd film outside the soundstage. so what do you want? a computer-generated fake wave tipping over a fake boat or a computer-generated cartoon crab showing you how the mouth is different on the breeds that aren't in season? and the computer crab looks like something a kid with crayons would draw and i never thought "that looks fake!" because i was too busy waiting to see if the guy with ice in his eyebrows slipped off the crane and died.

jesus christ. judging by this show, the ocean floor does NOT contain sand or coral or mountains or shipwrecks. it is simply a thousand-mile carpet of creepy, twitching crab critters. it must be. that's the only explanation for dropping a simple metal cage into the sea and then hauling back up a gigantic teeming mass of 300+ scuttling creatures. if you went down to the ocean floor, apparently you'd be covered in bug-like monstrosities like that scene in the new "King Kong."

only two episodes of The Sopranos left and i must say, it’s been weak. we got Brokeback gangsters saying shit like “I love you, too, Johnnycakes!” to their firefighter boyfriends (which comes across less like a daring move and more like desperate trend-chasing) we got kids avenging their dads...well, not really. payback for double-crossings...well, not really. Chris getting married and talking like an AA meeting. Paulie with cancer, quietly watching TV with his mom (action packed!), Tony getting angry...well, not really. i’m telling you, these last season episodes are so lazy. with the exception of the random and weary tits-and-ass shots in the club, this could be on network TV. it’s like these characters have been around so long, the writers are afraid to do anything drastic to them. the moment that woke me up to EXACTLY what’s wrong was when A.J. wimps out on stabbing Uncle Junior for shooting Tony, then exclaims “but dad, you’re favorite scene is when Al Pacino kills the guys in Godfather who tried to kill his dad!” and Tony’s like “it’s just movie!”

wow. how post-modern of them. does anyone else see how telling this moment is? how the problem has been identified in flashing lights on the side of a blimp above our heads?

THIS is just a movie, too! well, a cable show, anyway. see what i’m saying? there should be moments on THIS SHOW where some idiot in the real world cites it as his favorite scene and inspiration for not having the guts to do something. if i wanted to watch a bunch of people NOT doing shit, i’d look out my window. they’ve got two episodes left to do this right. remember the good ol' days when fish were talking to delusional guilt-stricken Tony? or when he stapled (!) that guy and threw away the stapler in the dumpster after wiping it for fingerprints? THAT'S how the show should reference a movie gangster-type situation. this shit would be so easy to fix. if one more person on this show starts to do something interesting, then hesitates and doesn’t, just so that the screenwriters can smugly slap each other on the back for being so (gasp!) realistic, i’m going to give up and spend my Sundays looking around for a western-themed porn called “Fistful of Fingers” instead.

hey, it’s a nice day out there. i’m going to go down to the river and see if there’s any drug-smuggling pirates like were portrayed in “Striking Distance.” did i already mention that movie was filmed right outside my window on this stretch of water? i still haven't noticed any crazy riverboat Police Patrol solving any mysteries, or leaping onto any hijacked garbage barges for that matter. i suspect that there aren’t any drunken cops tearing up and down this river looking to solve any crimes at all. just a random pumpkin or two bobbing along every October.

p.s. you know, i’d probably buy the new Tool album if it didn’t come in a fucking Viewmaster.

::: david - 2:22 PM [+] :::
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"How many hoary-bearded elders of the church have whispered wanton words to the young maids?"
- Nathaniel Hawthorne "Young Goodman Brown"


let me just start this off with two blasphemous statements:

first off, asking a stranger if they are "a Christian" is the same as if you're asking them if they fucked someone in the ass.

and second, i have found a quality reality-based show.

i'll come back to the Christian thing in a minute. the show is called "Deadliest Catch" and it is, quite simply, the shit. imagine that crap movie "Perfect Storm" without the stupid computer-generated waves and the weeping "going down with the ship" clichés. remember the cool five seconds in that movie where they were actually fishing? where they were hanging off the ship and accidentally hooking each other in the face and pulling in giant plastic robot fish? well, that's the whole show. it's like someone did you the favor of removing all the Oscar moments and emoting and plot bullshit and just showed you the cool shit. namely, fishing (with the occasional graphic to explain why they seem to be throwing away half their crabs) you see, "tanner" crabs bad, "opie" crabs good. true story, i actually went to the gas station just now to get a can of tuna and some sardines to make some sandwiches i was so inspired. they just went to a commercial with one of the crew members holding what appeared to be an AK-47 yelling, "this is how i deal with my anger!" how can you ask for more? the only thing that would make the show better is if they occasionally hung the ship upside-down from a giant hand and tried to shake the weary, grizzled, ice-encrusted crewmen off the deck.

oh yeah, i almost forget. has anyone else noticed this? people have suddenly grown balls big enough to ask strangers if they're "a Christian." whatever the fuck that is. i've heard at least 3 people tell me how someone has come up to them and asked this loaded question after they've witnessed what they've apparently judged to be inappropriate behavior. one woman asked this question to my stepdad after she spotted the skulls on his motorcycle. one woman asked a friend after she noticed the pentagram on her shirt. one woman asked another friend after she noticed a friend's anti-Bush bumper stickers. what do all these things have in common? well, i'm guessing these stupid bitches have grown bold as they're cozy in the current right-wing climate and decided that they can look over their glasses and "tsk" at their fellow man. and the arrogance to ask such a personal question boggles the mind! does someone really have the time to tell these sour-faced, withered twats their life story at the gas pump? i mean, you say "yes" and you sound like you're folding under their disappoving gaze, you say "no" and you've admitted to being "eeeeevil!"

i firmly believe that this question they're so innocently asking is much more intrustive than asking a stranger if they fucked someone in the ass. actually, it's more intrusive than asking a stranger if they fucked a DOG in the ass. i hope (pray!) some fucking dunce asks me that question if they spot my goofy 2 dollar fish-with-feet sticker on my bumper. i hope they have somewhere to sit because they'll get my version of sermon AND a puppet show!

BONUS SCAM!

here's a quick lesson about how to punish a store for fucking with you. i bought a cd a while back and didn't notice it was edited until i played it on the way home and the first skipped word made me scream and punch the roof of my car. but the fuckers wouldn't return it since it was opened, so i sold it for scrap and filed that grudge away in my head. so when i noticed that my my ex had left a bunch of her empty cd cases at my apartment (since she had this big cd folder and never looked at the cases or booklets) i noticed the empty case for a cd i wanted:

-took that empty case and went back to that store.
-bought a copy of the cd from them.
-went to my car and put the new disc her old case.
-walked right back in with their empty case and receipt.
-said to the clerk all distressed:

"hey! there's no cd in here!"

and they were like, "those damn kids! someone must have stolen it. was it sealed?"

and i was like, "i was in such a hurry to listen to these fresh beats that i didn't even notice! (head in my hands) whatever shall i do?!?"

and this woman was like, "go get another one, sir!"

and i was like, "okay! i sure hope i hear someone bust some rhymes soon, ma'am!"

and then i walked around the sporting goods section twice to make it seem like i was really looking for another one, then i came back all confused, head down, saying:

"that was the last one! now what?? i'm out of ideas! i guess i'll just stop listening to music..."

and she was like, "i'm sorry, sir. here..." and she gave me my money back.

then i drove home listening to my new cd compliments of my ex's empty case and that bullshit store's new free cd program for people that didn't get to return an edited one three years ago.

just watched "Hostel." it blew. watched "Constant Gardener" before that. it blew.
watched some Iclandic movie called "Noi" before that. it was good. it had some kid
shotgunning icicles (their idea of being a redneck)

speaking of...this guy on "Deadliest Catch" is shooting at the water! why?!? is there a giant squid?!? does he have "arctic madness!?" now someone else is swinging a pipe at a stuffed animal hanging off a crane while the rain bounces him off the rails! fuck! is that the last episode tonight??? now what? what else is on. whoa. fuck that. i sure ain't watching "Chain Reaction" (looking around sheepishly)...again. seriously, this fishing stiff is perfect television. could do without the Bon Jovi theme song, though.

::: david - 1:14 AM [+] :::
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"Heroes are out these days, Mike. Sorry."
- "The Killer Elite"

"You wouldn't shoot me in the back, would ya, Billy?" BANG!
- "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid"


anyone see that "United 93" movie? got mixed feelings about seeing that. it reminds me of a comic book tribute to 911 that showed a group of passengers storming down an airplane aisle from over the shoulder of a man with a boxcutter. that image gives you a charge, sure. but is it a tribute? is it respect for the dead you're feeling?or is it the same charge you get in, say, "Midnight Express" when the hero spits that man's tongue across the room? and what luck that the flight was called "United (We Stand) 93." the movie couldn't be so easily adverstized on a bumper sticker if they had been on board "Quantus 93."

Mark just sent me an article by Alex Cox that talks about what he thinks went wrong with the contemporary western, so i thought i'd link it and keep the western talk around here going a little while longer. i reckon. the article is called A Bullet in the Back and it's worth reading. Cox's "Repo Man" was a high school favorite of mine and spent a while in my Top Ten list, so i'm more than a little confused about the convention-busting that seems to be bothering him in this article. this from a man who's hero's last line in "Repo Man, in response to his love-interest's question, "what about our relationship?"

Otto: "Fuck that!"

i guess he makes some points about good intentions gone bad, but the article kind of meanders around what i think his main point is. if i'm reading it right, he says that Sam Peckinpah and "Once Upon A Time In The West" and violent Eastwood westerns (and i'm sure "Dead Man" and all the "Djangos" and "Unforgiven" would all be anti-westerns that would fit nicely in his thesis) have made the western film unpopular with the masses and therefore unmarketable? if so......so what? i mean, does he want big popular westerns dominating the mainstream? that would just be more popular movies for me to avoid. hell, i think westerns should move even further toward the fringes. i'm not concerned with their popularity, or their nobility. i just want to see men with guns running around in the mud like fucking cavemen.

and the first photograph he talks about? of Sam on the set of "Pat Garrett" with the i.v. drip of alcohol? that was an ad that Peckinpah, himself, took out in some newspaper to respond to rumors that he was drunk on the set. he staged the picture and took out the ad to show he wasn't drinking (even though, of course, he probably was) and that picture is kind of a well-known fact about Peckinpah. i'm surprised Cox talks about it out of context like it's a smoking gun that he's a drunk. no shit, dude. he made his best stuff drunk. okay, that photograph clearly made Cox think about westerns 'n stuff, and that's all good, but you know how i was saying the other day that "Cable Hogue" was my favorite western by him? forget all that. i was wrong. I just watched "Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia" again for the 10th time, and i forgot that THAT'S my favorite one. you know why? because not only is Sam clearly drunk and insane and methodically trying to be subversive and contrary to what is expected in a western film (at least i consider "Alfredo Garcia" to be a western since it's got all the western staples) he also seems to be less interested in making what anyone would consider a coherent MOVIE. you ever read reviews of "Garcia" back from the time it came out? of course now it's considered a forgotten classic, but back then it was evidence that Pecinpah had truly lost him mind. and if that contributes to the decline of the western as an indentifiable genre, i say that's GOOD.

i mean, i'm only drawn to westerns for the same reason i'm drawn to the
"Mad Max" movies:

because it is a brightly-lit wide-open space full of grizzled men of few words surrounded by a violent story that has been stripped down to its basics. i could give a shit about the heroism and tradition or whatever that's attached to its memory or the grand glory days of westerns. if that's really Cox's gripe, i'm not with him. and why did "Brokeback Mountain" upset him so much? he should ask himself why. who ever said that was a western anyway? that doesn't look to me to have a single thing to do with westerns except for the fact that they're wearing cowboy hats and ride horses. how does that make a western? i'm pretty sure there's not a single gunfight or horse theft in that movie. it looks like a dull love story to me. and he misses the simplicity and nobility of John Wayne westerns? why? the only good one was "The Searchers" and maybe "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance." you know why that is? because they fucked with the conventions in those two movies. "Searchers" had the racist, obsessed Wayne hunting down his neice for anything but noble reasons (to kill her because she was raped by indians!? thanks for the rescue, Uncle John!) and "Liberty Valance" attacked the idea of myth and storytelling by saying that the people that love a feel-good story with the perfect ending are wrong, and maybe stupid, too.

every western i own or watch over and over and over is, without exception, a seriously-skewed, fucked-up western. for example, but not including Sam Peckinpah's movies because they go without saying and that's a whole other post:

"One-Eyed Jacks" (cowboys are completely baffled by the ocean!)
"Last Man Standing" (dead horse in the street for the whole flick!)
"The Quick and the Dead" (daughter tries to shoot the rope hanging her dad! oops!)
"Utu" (a fucking four-barrelled shotgun!!!)
"The Missouri Breaks" (hero cuts the bad guy's throat while he's sleeping!)
"Wild Bill" (don't fuck with Lebowski's hat!)
"Vera Cruz" (Burt Lancaster threatens to kill a bunch of children!)
"Extreme Prejudice" (tries, and fails, to top "Wild Bunch" with TWO machine guns!)
"Quigley Down Under" (Magnum shoots the villain last 'cause he can't shoot for shit!)
"Hud" (Paul Newman's an asshole!)
"Django Kill" (bad guy shot with gold bullets so his goons will tear him apart!)
"High Plains Drifter" (paints the town red, names it "Hell," makes a midget mayor!)
"Unforgiven" (dude gets shot, then seems to cry for water for half an hour!)
"Ravenous" (cannibalism in the old west ain't bad!! it gives you super powers!!!)

hell, i'd even include "Tombstone" just for Val Kilmer's freaky, simpering perfomance alone. and you know what? fuck it. i ain't afraid to say it:

"Young Guns!" both of 'em!

i like these westerns for the same reason that i like every other genre movie. because they're different than the rest. and you know why everyone and their dad still talks TO THIS DAY about Val Kilmer's Doc Holiday? because it shit all over what the idea of a lethal gunfighter should be. that's why nobody remembers Kevin Costner's "Wyatt Earp" from the same year even though you could argue that it's a better-made movie. but it was a story told with way too much repect for the western to be remembered.

it sounds like Alex Cox would love "Silverado" but be "troubled" by, say, "El Maricahi." hell, "El Mariachi," "Desperdo," and "Once Upon A Time in Mexico" are clearly part of the problem Cox has -- westerns made by a young smart-ass with a HUGE love of westerns and therefore unable to stop fucking with the formula until it's completely bonkers. and i still think that's a good thing.

you know, i was working on my western script two days ago and here's what i did for ideas: i made a loooooooong list of things that you see in every single western (a hanging, a campfire, a shootout, a duel, a favorite horse, etc.) and i changed these things to make it all fucked-up, something that was touched on (barely) in "The Unforgiven" when they did things like shoot the guy on the toilet and felt bad about it later. and i have an impulse to do this because i love westerns, and i have an unbearable urge to shit on their most well-known conventions. which is what (i think) Cox says is bad. my love for westerns and my knowledge and enjoyment of every cliché i've seen in these movies (don't misunderstand me, i WANT to see the hanging and the duel and the campfire) has given me an undeniable urge to gleefully piss all over the formula as a tribute.

and the title of the article? is that supposed to be a bad thing? "A Bullet in the Back" is a great thing! Hackman knew this in "The French Connection!" i still laugh every time i see one! the only thing that i can think of that is more satisfying that someone shooting someone else in the back when you don't expect it, is if someone lit someone on fire instead:

"Hey, you wouldn't light me on fire when I wasn't lookin', would ya, Billy?"

WHOOSH!

i would piss my fucking pants if i saw that in a movie! you know what? i'm putting that in my western script. right now. just like that. i will make it fit in somewhere. i will hammer it until it fits because it's funny.

dude, i might (add more to this) and blog this email, too. i'm enjoying our western debate this week. we should do a back-and-forth western disussion on both our blogs. like a point/counterpoint. or like a he said/he said thing!

"i'll be the woman if you want."
- "Brokeback Mountain"

you watch "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" yet? isn't this your little vacation weekend? you better talk about it when you do. hey, you know what i'd rather watch than "High Noon" or "Chisum" any day? "The Rundown." i like that movie. i especially like the way it says guns are bad...until you finally use them!?!?
i haven't been that confused by an anti-violence message in a movie since Ice Cube put away his gun and picked up that brick in "Friday!" cause, like, a brick ain't that dangerous, right? and "The Rundown" is sort of a western, and i'd like it even more if they'd kept its original, more-westernish title "Helldorado!"

now THAT'S a sweet name for a movie. that's what i heard they call it overseas.

got to talk about the last and next radio shows. that new station's shiny-new equipment is in constant turmoil. i miss the huge, dusty gear at the old radio station more and more.

::: david - 2:29 AM [+] :::
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