I went to the Check Cashing Place this morning and I made the mistake of asking my attendant through the bullet proof glass how she was.
She clanked my money into the metal slot that’s big enough to clank money through but not big enough to fit a pistol through and said:
“Next.”
I guess that meant her day was “just fine, thank you.”
I have a hard time communicating with people, too, I’ll admit it. Whenever I’m trolling chatrooms, I’ll do something stupid like ask ArwenElf203948 if she wants to meet me at the Blockbuster by my house without first waiting the ‘requisite 10 minutes of IMing before asking to meet a stranger at Blockbuster’. There seems to be so many unwritten and written rules about how to talk to people!
When I am Ouiji boarding by myself in my incense drenched bedroom and I ask the spirit what color underwear it’s wearing, the marker always jumps over to the “Goodbye” in the corner. How am I to know all the finer details of necromancy if no one tells me?
If the waitress at Denny’s doesn’t have the proper etiquette and social tact to introduce herself formally and shake my hand, of course I’m going to call her “Sweet Tits”- but still I’m the one who gets looked down upon by the Denny’s management!
To give you yet another example of how hard it can be to have an adult conversation with someone, this is what happened to me last night at the Minx‘s men’s bathroom:
Some Guy: Hey. What’s up?
Me: Hey! Not much how are you doing tonight? Don’t you just LOVE the DJ here?
He plays just the BEST music!
Some Guy: Yeah. Cool. You wanna party?
Me: Ohmygawd I love to party. I’ve been wanting to party all day.
Some Guy: Yeah? Let’s go into the stall and talk about it.
Me: Your shirt is just adorable! I love it.
Some Guy: Yeah. Well, I’ve got some other cool stuff to show you too.
Me: Show and tell? Aren’t you the brave little boy in front of the class!
Some Guy: Yeah. Uh, can you keep your voice down? I mean, the staff here
are really uptight about this kind of thing, so…..
Me: Where did you get your shirt? It is just adorable!
We went back and forth like this for like 20 minutes and I never did find out where he bought his shirt. I mean, what gives?
There is nothing I find more difficult than talking to girls. I know, many of you might have pegged me as a ‘Don Juan’ type but I am pretty much the opposite. I’m more John Cusack than John Cusack could ever be. I think that in the Guiness World Record for the most sexually frustrated animals it would be a tie between me, captive pandas, Trekkies, and the roadies for Ratt’s ‘Invasion of Your Privacy’ Tour.
Not that talking to people is all that important when you have a blog. Why bother talking to people when you can sit in a dark room on a Friday afternoon and blog about how difficult it is to talk to someone?
I wanna get in good with folks who are incarcerated. Prison, lock up, home arrest, drunk tank, juvie, loveless marriages, I want to befriend them all.
Why? Well, with recidivism rates so high, I want to assure that the next time that I get held up by someone on their ‘second strike’ that they’ll know me from the Blogosphere.
“Gimme your milk!”
“It’s old and sour, you really wouldn’t….”
“Listen, you Irish rat bastard. Gimme the milk.”
“…..I’m Ryan McGivern!”
“The guy who donates his sperm and blogs about it?”
“That’s right, baby.”
“OMG! I tattooed ‘Mindflowers’ on my cellmates face!”
“Small world, amigo. Small world.”
I’ve never been to prison, but I’ve driven by one. You know those signs that say
“Correctional Facility. Do not pick up hitchikers!”
Well, they’re there for good reason. Turns out not everybody in a bloodstained guard’s uniform that’s too small for them is a fast growing guard with a nose bleed who’s fogotten where they parked.
So this being the first outreach to my peeps in the clink, I will write about what every inmate and lonely, poverty stricken, barely employed Irishman loves: Solitaire.
It is the “Game of Gangly Kings”, it is “The Dregs of America’s Pastime”, it is simply put: One Level Up From Watching Your Skin Age.
I borrowed my roommate Ben’s iPod the other day to play Solitaire in the bathroom and I’ve got a message for you Steve Jobs: Don’t Quit Your Day Job.
I finally, after 13 attempts and 45 minutes on the toilet, won the game. I’ve never seen such crappy cards in Solitaire before. It’s like the tightest slots in Vegas! (Which can be found at the Golden Nugget. The waitresses, not the slotmachines, that is.)
Anywho, I finally won the gosh darned thing and the most pitiful and ironic message comes up on the iPod screen:
“We’ve got a winner!”
Well, if you can call a guy who’s been drinking PBR and playing iPod Solitaire on the toilet for 45 minutes a “winner”, this is a world I don’t want to live in.
But then again, I’ve felt that way since Cavemen was cancelled.
Being funny is not easy. No matter what being drunk may lead you to believe.
There are a couple of approaches on how to attain ‘funny’. Rodney Dangerfield and Don Rickles approached it in the same manner that a sailor might approach a glory hole. Larry David brings the funny in the same way that your 7th grade crush broke your heart and made you laugh all at the same time while telling you they wanted to ‘just be friends’. Woody Allen knows funny like a therapist knows sex hang ups.
The Flight of the Conchords also know funny, but unlike the previously mentioned, are not Jewish.
Not only is it hard to be funny, it’s even harder to be a good comedy duo. Bret and Jemaine have overtaken Abbott and Costello as the best comedy team ever. (Finally! Now we can put to rest the “Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder vs. Morecambe and Wise” debate.)
I can only imagine that it will soon become cool to be a New Zealander. This has been long in coming. Those Auzzies have for too long cornered the market on awesomeness. Australia: Surfer girls.
New Zealand: Waterfalls.
Australia: Wombats.
New Zealand: Waterfalls.
Flight of the Conchords is sure to be a cultural phenomenon that will get our kids saying “Flub” instead of other, more crass ‘f words’. If that isn’t enough to cheer on the funniest comedy duo in years, what is?
Bottom line: Awkward celibacy is back en vogue, and you should watch Flight of the Conchords with your poverty striken roommate after recording an awesome folk song.
There is a genre of movie that I have taken to calling “The Phallic Movie”. (I won’t bother explaining this term. You know what I mean.)
Beowulf is a Phallic Movie of the worst kind: Smegma coated, cankerous, raw, and hanging off of Rick Santorum.
Robert Zemekis has been behind some of the treasured movies of my youth: Romancing the Stone, Roger Rabbit, more recently Cast Away (yes, I like this movie. I won’t apologize for that) but I’m feeling towards Zemekis like Marty McFly felt in that car race scene with Flea: conflicted.
Zemekis opened the door for ‘motion capture’ animation in the mainstream US market with Polar Express and gave crappy movies a whole new innovative look. I will not speak anymore about the technology of Beowulf other than I saw it in Real D, a 3-D film image that makes you wear uncool glasses, and that between the CGI ‘mo-cap’ and the 3-D, they come together like that three way you had with your friend Steve and his neighbor’s fiance-a confused orgy of drudgery and revulsion.
Take this Beowulf Quiz to find out if you should see this movie: Do you like movies that spend the majority of the time in one location? Do you like it if said location is a dark ‘mead hall’? Do you like ear shattering screaming provided by Crispin Glover that is annoying and unnecessary the first 40 times he does it and then comic the last 40 times?
Believe me. I wanted to like this movie. I like nothing more than movies where somebody gets smote (preferably foreign hordes or giant beasts) and the smoting occurs via axe.
But, as a Phallic Movie, Beowulf misses the sweet spot and in fact probes south, towards that “no, that’s not it” spot.
I know its tempting to see this movie. You want to smoke a heaping mound of Humbolt County Greenery and go see a badass movie where stuff will fly at you in 3-D. Well, you know what else is tempting? Calling that chick who gave you her number at the Liquid Kitty last week. Both are a bad idea.
Have you ever done that first exultant hit of pure heroin? Well, I’m sorry to tell you, all subsequent hits will pale in comparison. Thankfully however, the Coen Brothers have now given us ‘Grade A’ Afghan Angel Tar Heroin and lemme tell you: It’s sweet in the veins, brother.
The story comes back like a great repeating wet dream to the Coens. It was told in “Blood Simple” like a suprising Freshman quarterback and again in “Fargo” like a Playoff worthy Sophomore. Here now in “No Country” they have not only scored the winning touchdown as a Junior, but they went home and got to second base with that slut from Economics class.
I will not tell you that “they’re covering familiar territory” in this film. I’ll let other reviews tell you that. Because I don’t really buy it. While you can unearth some of the same character types and motifs, this is a more serious and consistently good film than any of their previous. Let’s just pretend that “The Ladykillers” and “Intolerable Cruelty” never happened.
Just erase them from your tortured mind. You’re then left with a great body of work that tells interesting and dark tales
that are teetering on the edge of “dentistry drugs gone wrong”. “Fargo”, for all of its high points (it really is a great film) still borders on clownishness with overdone accents and caricture over characterization. “No Country” boils off the slag and only falls back into this dangerous territory in two scenes.
The Coens have a sense for place. While I would never want to go back to Texas for any reason, I enjoyed the time I spent there in this film. The scenery and each location breathes and the characters that inhabit them are so believable that it becomes a world that you feel you could step into (and then fear for your life). I want to make out with Nancy Haigh, the set decorator who joins the Coens again, also having done “O Brother”, “Hudsucker”, “Barton Fink”, and “Miller’s Crossing”. She and Lauri Gaffin (who did set decoration for Fargo) have a way of making a room come alive, especially kitchens-where the heart of a home is. The Coens’ scenes done there have a magic honesty that make you smell toast and eggs.
Javier Bardem has now become one of cinema’s great monsters. Emperor Palpatine is a Chuck E. Cheese’s ball pit compared to Anton Chigurh. I’ve never flinched more in any shoot out scene as I did here. It was embarrassing.
The direction of the suspenseful, eery, or action scenes are, simply put: ‘oral sex with a finger in my butt’ good. And that’s good.
I had come to two conclusions about movies:
1) Any movie with shotguns in it is awesome
2) After “Ladykillers” and “Intolerable Cruelty” the Coen Brothers were washed up.
Here, one of my conclusions was proven wrong. A voyage into a desolate land filled with greedy desolate souls, where death can surprise you or corruption eat at your heart slowly, “No Country For Old Men” is a film you’ll go home unravelling.
Last week the Cosco Busan freighter ship hit the Oakland Bay bridge hammering another nail into the coffin of Mother Nature’s pert apple shaped bottom.
Said a local environmentalist: “After aggravating humanity with wasps and mosquitoes, not to mention ‘hoof and mouth’ for so long, its only right to give her a taste of her bitter medicine.”
Hitting the bridge support and ripping a 90 foot gash in the hull, the freighter dumped 58,000 gallons of fuel into the shark filled Bay waters.
“Take that!” said one activist to a passing oil drenched shark.
The shark, while slowed by oil clogging its disgusting and deadly gills, gnashed its teeth in response, sending a shower of bloody diving equipment ashore.
Initial reports about the spill were confused due to possible drug use by the ship’s crew, the Coast Guard, and Barbara Boxer. Said Boxer at a press release,
“We’re gonna get to the bottom of this….whatcha call it…..catatastrophe. Did I just
say catatastrophe? Oh my god I’m wasted.”
Representatives of R.J. Reynolds rushed to the scene in a show of concern.
“Dear Bay Area residents. This oil coated duck here is crying out. It is crying out not to be judged. You see, this oil coated duck has almost as much tar content as one of our delicious Camel, Doral, Kool, or Salem cigarettes. Are you not going to love this duck because of some tar? Of course not. You’re going to love it. Sure, it might quack once in a while. That’s what ducks do. Don’t turn your backs in anger towards a duck whose entire body is sopped in flammable oily tar, America. We might also mention that nothing brings you rich satisfying flavor like a good ol’ American made cigarette. Isn’t it time to love ducks and cigarettes again, America? God bless America.”
In other news, Steven Jethram was fined 300 dollars this week for washing his car in his driveway.
“See that soapy water?” said Alameda Police Officer Susan Kim, “that’s headed straight for the bay. Give a hoot. Don’t pollute.”
Hank walked into the fortune teller’s creepy shop. It was creepy for a whole bunch of reasons: It was located near a Wal-mart, its windows were energy wasting single pane, and it smelled like gypsies.
He walked into the dark room.
“You must be Hank.” said a spooky voice.
“Holy crap, you’ve got a spooky voice! And how did you know I’m Hank?”
“The voice I owe to being a smoker… Knowing you’re Hank I owe to you making an appoinment. And you’re ten minutes late, by the way.”
“Sorry. There was traffic.”
“I knew you’d say that. Sit down.”
The fortune teller had the body of a crystal ball, only not see through. She had Hank sit on a bed pan.
“Make yourself comfortable.” she said.
Hank wanted to hear his future because he had spent too much time living in the past, or so his therapist told him. But dealing with the present was still too scary.
“How was your day?” he asked her, making small talk.
“Not good. My spirit guide and I broke up.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Yeah. He said he suspected me of seeing other people. And I says: ‘whatta mean “other” people? I can’t even see you!’……..Its a joke, Hank.”
“Funny. No. Its good.”
“Look, you were ten minutes late. Don’t you go giving me a hard time about my joke.”
“Can we…..”
“Get on with it?”
“Yeah.”
“I knew you were gonna say that.”
She got out her tea leaves and chicken entrails and gave them a glance.
“Well, Hank. It turns out you’ll be tortured in 72 hours.”
“What? Oh my GAWD!!!! NO!”
“Wait! Hank. Wait. I was wrong.”
“Oh. Oh. Thank god.”
“You’ll be tortured for 72 hours. For. But it won’t happen for while.”
“Oh. Oh. Thank god.”
She looked at him blankly.
“Is that it?” He asked.
“Yup…. But…. You…..wanna screw around?”
“No thanks.”
“Sure?”
“Yeah.”
On the way home, Hank stopped over at Wal-mart just to see what kind of sales they had. Not that he would ever actually buy anything there. They’re anti-union after all.
Yesterday was Veteran’s Day. I didn’t find this out until I went to Casual Male Big and Tall to check out some stretchy slacks as a Christmas present for my Grampa. After 4 bus transfers, an uncomfortable walk past a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf where one of my old girlfriends works, and a near fatal run in with a speed walking mom with an aerodynamic stroller, I found Casual Male locked up tighter than a Glendale Galleria security guard’s knickers (just because you’ve had to ask me to not loiter in front of Cinnabon doesn’t mean I’m a bad person). I stopped another speed walking mom who passed by (its Glendale people. There’s more speed walking moms here than square feet on Reese Witherspoon’s forehead) and asked her:
“Do you work here?”
“What?”
I guess the place really was closed. Veteran’s Day is a real downer. Everything is all locked up, keeping you out as though you’re the villagers in Dustin Hoffman’s “Straw Dogs”, and what kinda holiday is Veteran’s Day anyway? Haven’t those Veteran’s done enough damage already? Who’s starting all the wars in the world? Veterans. Who’s making the Unified States of Americaland out to be a buncha jerks by going and starting all those wars with Iraq?
Those jerks.
(Iran, don’t get cocky. You’re next.)
Veterans should never have been given a holiday. They should have stuck to what they know best:
Appearing in cool movies by Ken Burns or lending their advice to cool WWII video games to make them more realistic.
“On this level, I think that the player should drive a tank, operate an anti-aircraft gun, with which to desimate a German battalion, fly a bombing mission over Dresden, and machine gun their way through some trench maze, all within a span of 4 minutes.”
“Would one soldier really have done all that in 4 minutes?”
“How you think we won, whippersnapper?”
The greatest irony of all is that my Grampa is a veteran. He fought for the Kaiser in WWI. He’s even lending his help to the new PS3 video game ‘Kaiser Lacheln und Gluck’
My mom used to try to discourage me from watching T.V. by telling me:
“T.V. is just masturbation for the mind!” and I always thought,
“Is that supposed to discourage me from wanting to do it all the time?
No wonder I think it’s so awesome to watch Magnum P.I. and The Price is Right!”
“T.V. is just masturbation for the mind” is like telling kids:
“Kicking babies in the head is candy for your soul!”
If you want to stop kids from doing something, you’ve got two options.
1) Hit them real hard everytime you see them do it or even suspect they’ve done it.
(Well, it won’t stop them from doing it, but they’ll do it more sneakily and think of how much they hate you while they’re doing it and that’s a start.)
2) Don’t tell them anything about it and pretend it doesn’t exist.
(This has proven to work 5% of the time in ‘abstinence-only’ education. You can’t argue with stats like that. Its science.)
Pornography, strangely enough, has never been called “masturbation for your mind.” Maybe the ‘anti-T.V.’ people haven’t seen pornography yet.
If they think “Judge Judy” is like mind self pleasure,
wait’ll they get a load of High Society‘s “Pettin’ on The Ritz” photo spread!
I’m afraid that my mom was ultimately unsuccessful in every way regarding the way she wished to raise me. I’m a T.V. addicted, atheistic, masturbating Democrat with no hard feelings towards the English and the traitorous Orange Irish. But, she tried her best and she did it out of love. And that kind of love is priceless.
And the ensuing necessary therapy has been costly.
I went to the Check Cashing Place this morning and I made the mistake of asking my attendant through the bullet proof glass how she was.
Have you ever done that first exultant hit of pure heroin? Well, I’m sorry to tell you, all subsequent hits will pale in comparison. Thankfully however, the Coen Brothers have now given us ‘Grade A’ Afghan Angel Tar Heroin and lemme tell you: It’s sweet in the veins, brother.
