Ugh. Bleck. Poop.

I'm tired.  It's really hot in my apartment.  I forgot to write today so this is me keeping my word to write every day even if I have nothing to write about.  Tonight I watched The Firm with Tom Cruise.  I was surprised to see Margo Martindale as Mitch's secretary.  Also Tobin Bell, evil villain of the Saw francise, played an evil villain.  Okay.  I have to get up at 5am so off to bed I go.  Perhaps tomorrow I will write something with more substance, verve, wit, boobs or fart jokes.  

Peace,

The Layabout

My Introduction To Awesomeness

I was a naive child.

I was the youngest of six children in a conservative and religious home in a conservative and religious small town.  It was the olden days before the internet and I only knew one person (my grandmother) who had cable before I was thirteen.  And that's when cable was eight channels and three of them were fuzzy.  The town was about 95% white and about 95% Mormon.  Sometimes we would venture out of our little town to Salt Lake City (also very white and very Mormon-y) or go to Mesa, AZ during the winter to visit my Dad's parents (Mesa: white, Mormon).  Needless to say, there was not a lot of diversity in my life.

After high school graduation I began to attend the local junior college which -surprise!- was a parochial school run by the Mormon church.  The school enforced a strict dress code and a personal conduct code that homogenized the student body into a same-dressing, same-behaving gaggle of youths marching lockstep toward our heavenly reward.  I was a milquetoast lad in a whitebread world.

So in 1989, at the age of 19, when I watched Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing my mind was pretty much blown.  From the opening credits featuring Rosie Perez dancing to Public Enemy, to the highly charged and unfamiliar (to me) racial and social tensions of Bedford-Stuysevant, it's safe to say I had never seen anything like it before.

Concerning the song:

Up to this point in my life, the only rap music I had heard had been pretty harmless.  Stuff like this

Or this

and these guys were edgy as heck (who knew that they would become hip hop's elderstatesmen?)

but all these songs were about normal teenager tropes - chicks, parents, parties.

So me and my buddy Mitch rent Do The Right Thing and thanks to those opening credits, Public Enemy detonated a bomb in my psyche.  This was no teen angst, this was a powerful political concisousness aimed toward activism and empowerment.  I had never heard a voice like Chuck D's and even though Flava Flav was a total goofball, he was still pretty awesome.  Sonically it was mesmerizing.  I still listen to PE all the time.  They're my favorite rap group ever period the end nuff said.

Anyhoo, while I prepare to review Do The Right Thing, I thought I'd hit up this tangent just for the flimsy excuse to listen to a lot of late 80s and early 90s hip hop.  Time well spent if you ask me.

An Update From Casa del Lowbrow

Hello dear reader!

*is handed a note*

Ah.  Sorry.  Allegedly there is more than one reader of this here bloggy blog.  Who knew?  What with my prolific publication rate and all...

So anyway, because of some previously mentioned health issues, because of the general ridiculousness of life, and because sometimes I've got my head really really far up my ass, I've been remiss in my writings.  And not just this blog but my script stuff, emails, general writing, any and all things that are written.

We all know that if you want to improve as a writer, you must write Every Single Day.  So that's what is going to happen here from now on.  Even when I end a sentence with a preposition.

So even if I have to crawl out of bed to make a new post that says "gah. tired. hate you all." that's what I'll do.

I'm going to get back to reviewing the AFI top 100 (next up, Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing) and I'm going to get back to writing my script stuff.  Every Single Day.

That's it.  That's my promise to you, to myself, to the great cosmic void.

Get used to it.

AFI 97 - Blade Runner

So.  Blade Runner.  (I really dig this version of the poster)

I am conflicted.  On the one hand this movie is iconic.  Ridley Scott on top of his game.  Young Harrison Ford at his apex.  Gritty Future Noir; deep, dark, conflicted.  Sean Young before she faded away.  Rutger Hauer being legitimately threatening and then giving his famous creepy monologue at the end.  Gorgeous set design (some inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright).  Intelligent, inventive sci-fi based on a Phillip K. Dick novel.  What's not to love?

Well. For whatever reason, I never really connected with this movie.  When everyone onscreen gets all angsty about What It Means To Be Human, I shrug and reach for my popcorn.  I've seen this movie at least three times (the original theatrical release on VHS, the Director's Cut version on DVD, and the Final Cut on Blu-ray) and I can tell you that is an impressive film beautifully wrought, and I just don't care.

(For the record, the Final Cut version was, in my opinion, the best version.)

Anyway, I don't think anything is wrong with this movie, I'm not going to call it overrated or anything.  Though it contains lots of things I should like, I just don't.  I'm going to say that in this case, it's me.  Much like Steven Soderbergh's movies can be beautiful and brilliant, they usually leave me cold.

I"ll give this movie a B, and I may change my mind later.

AFI 98 - Yankee Doodle Dandy

So far, this movie watching experiment (watching the AFI top 100 in reverse order) has not really gone my way.  I've watched three movies.  Two oldies and one contemporary film, and both of the old ones have been poopy.

Before you start to think that maybe I just don't like old movies, let me be clear: I like movies, period.  I like what I like and I don't like what I don't like, regardless of era.  Duh.

Soooo, in case you were just skimming that first paragraph, let me be clear.  Yankee Doodle Dandy is awful.

I'll be brief because I don't want to think about this movie for another second.

(deep breath)

Yankee Doodle Dandy is a shallow, racist, pathetically jingoistic musical that stars a guy who can't sing.

Hey!  Is that the Cohan Family, including two children, in blackface?  It sure is!  Take a bow Warner Bros.!

This movie stinks.  Don't watch it.  Don't support it.  Shame on you, AFI, and anyone else who thinks that it's okay to elevate this kind of dreck.  Boo.  Hiss.

Why I hate people no. 1285

For those of you who don't know, I work at an airport.

And for those of you who don't know much about airports, they are federally regulated operations that enable people to use airplanes to fly to different locales.

And of those of you that don't know much about federally regulated airports, they are (especially after 9/11) really not at all cool with chicnaery and nonsense and horseplay.

So I work at an airport and I don't make waves. This seems logical to me.  Unfortunatley, some other idiots that work at this airport think that wave-making is cool.

Enter the Douche Bros.  Actual brothers who work for one of the rental car agencies (not the one I work at, thank my lucky stars) and who I shall refer to as Massengil (the older bro) and Summers Eve (the younger bro).

Summers Eve is a dullard.  A needy, incompotent boob.  He will do the stupidest things and tell the most unflattering of lies in an attempt to receive attention.

Massengil is an ex-con.  A thief and a liar, he is one of the most self-absorbed wretches I have ever met, yet he has no sense of self.  Chew on that.

Needless to say, I really don't like the bros and I wish they would die in a rusty wood chipper.

So.

Last week this happened: Massengil has a tire.  I don't know whose tire it was or from whence it came but he rolled it out into the middle of a driving lane of the parking lot and rested it on the ground.  I know this because I wanted to drive a car through the driving lane, but I was blocked by them and their tire.

Summers Eve, in a moment of extreme riduculousness, hit the tire with a claw hammer.  Unsurprisingly, the hammer bounced off the tire and the claw gouged his forehead.

Massengil thought this was a hoot and a holler, but he was not entertained enough, I suppose, because he proceeded to light the tire on fire.  In the middle of a driving lane.  On federal property.

I ususally am not the narc guy.  But I have had my fill of these social and intellectual retards that I told my boss so he can take it up with the feds.  Who, by the way, have cameras all over the parking lot.  I'm not a fan of Big Brother, but right now I'm willing to waive that opinion.

I suppose it's too much to ask that they go to prison forever.  But a man can dream can't he?

Argh. Ack. My valve!

A brief message to both of my readers:

After a summer/fall long bout with some unwanted health issues, I'm on the mend and ready to write again.

Soon I will return to my mediocre musings that in another age, would wrap your fish or line your catbox.

Have a lovely day,
the Layabout