This is a After bar that I walked into at my buddy Nolan's House. No joke. Just thought I would share.
10 years ago
Friday, February 27, 2009
Naked Gun
This is a After bar that I walked into at my buddy Nolan's House. No joke. Just thought I would share.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
The best 5 dollars I've ever spent
I downloaded Super Mario 3 on Wii last night. Needless to say, it's amazing. Everything about the game, all of the 'secret' wings, whistles, etc, just sort of come back to you when you start playing. The graphics also look stunning on a 42 inch flat screen. If you thought they were meager before...you haven't seen anything yet!
My favorite is the boot. My informal survey of other nerds concluded that most people called it 'the sock.' Apparently it's official name is Goomba's Shoe. Who knew?
My Top 5 Embarrassing Fashion Mistakes and Years I Made Them
Look, we all had them. BIG mistakes. Though, sadly I fear I had them worst than most - especially as a smalltown kid from the gentile plains of Wisconsin with a minority index of 4%. But I learned from it, and that's the key: to learn from those mistakes or frankly, just ignore fashion completely. But it was harder as a kid. Our smarts were attributes of scorn, not weapons against the dumb. And the sad reality is that fashion was a defining social symbol. So in the spirit of coming clean and accepting adulthood, I offer you, my friends, a breakdown of the bullshit I succumbed to...
1. Cross Colours (1992-93) - You know, if I could claim I was wearing this stuff because I was against Apartheid that would have been one thing, but that wasn't it. Looking back on it, I got my first pair of Cross Colours jeans - a fairly expensive brand for a 7th grader considering my parents wouldn't spring for Girbaud - shortly after getting into Naughty by Nature, Ice Cube and yeah unfortunately, Kris Kross. I never wore them backward, but even the sad spectrum of my hip-hop taste shows I was turned around enough without the pants. I even had a pair that were candy striped with thick green and white bands. Cross Colours was one of the first brands I was into. And they still make this shit. It's even more embarrassing than ever.
2. Oakley Razors (1992-94) - I was talking with a lady just last night about these, trying to say I was done wearing them by the end of 7th grade, but it was a lie. And a bad one. She outed me in less than 10 seconds. I wore them into 8th grade. So sad. But sadder still is that they remain featured on Oakley's website, though they are no longer available. As if they're some kind of vintage prize, a treasured part of their history. I don't go waving my Jose Canseco rookie cards around like they mean anything, no need for Oakley to do the equivalent. It was a mistake for me at that early age. And its a bigger one to pay homage to your own product like that. This is the kind of shit that Danny McBride wears in East Bound and Down. I bet someone somewhere is selling them in a package deal with one of those hats with the built in ponytails. Fuck. That was a bad one.
3. Kikwear (2000) - I was WAY too old for this stuff, but I was on drugs. It's true. Which with all the drooling and eye-popping bizarro looks is like willingly time-traveling back to the first 18 months of life without your body changing... except for all the sweating. When I started taking Ecstasy, I started wearing the clothes that went along with it. When I stopped taking the drugs a short while later, I hid the clothes. It's amazing to me that there is a mind control drug so powerful that it can create an entire culture of people in huge pants and tech vests. Does everyone that takes Ecstasy wear this shit? No. And I'm still unsure how it happened to me. Just thinking about it, I need an inhaler... preferably one unlined with Vix nasal balm.
4. The "Biff" Hairdo (Intermittently, 1990-1993) - Otherwise known to people as a skater's cut from the 90s (picture unavailable), the cut essentially shaved your head everywhere but for a mass of length that hung to one side covering half your face and half of what had been shaved. It gave the impression that you didn't care, especially when you returned questions with a blank stare, but the honest truth was that from 5th grade through 8th grade I didn't even know what Libertarianism was or Quantum Physics for that matter. Somewhere there are some Halloween pictures from 4th grade of me as a skater tooling around grade school, and somehow my parents never noticed when the costume became a fashion statement, in various incarnations, for the next four years. Thanks Mom. Good looking out.
5. Dyed Orange Hair (1995-1997) - Yeah, those were the nomad years of high school. I was "experimenting"... with the same awful hair coloring, over and over... Jesus, what a disappointment I was to Jesus. At one point, my brilliant plan was to try to go grey, which would have been awesome, as in my current state of balding my body's deterioration is racing to see if I can get to salt & pepper before there is nothing left to season. But every time I tried for it, I ended up a strange shade of pink - like a salmon or barf color. The bright side was that my mother, observing the consistent and significant folly I managed through these trials, decided she'd just let her hair go whatever color it pleased. I was always the guinea pig of the family.
So, yeah. There it is. A blind list of 5 unforgettable embarrassments... To be sure, there are countless others, but if you remember them - and remember them well enough to spew them forth from memory in between fits of mocking laughter - give me a day or so to feel as though I got away with this before you commence the onslaught. That way it'll hurt more. And you'll feel twice as fulfilled... You fucking bully.
1. Cross Colours (1992-93) - You know, if I could claim I was wearing this stuff because I was against Apartheid that would have been one thing, but that wasn't it. Looking back on it, I got my first pair of Cross Colours jeans - a fairly expensive brand for a 7th grader considering my parents wouldn't spring for Girbaud - shortly after getting into Naughty by Nature, Ice Cube and yeah unfortunately, Kris Kross. I never wore them backward, but even the sad spectrum of my hip-hop taste shows I was turned around enough without the pants. I even had a pair that were candy striped with thick green and white bands. Cross Colours was one of the first brands I was into. And they still make this shit. It's even more embarrassing than ever.
2. Oakley Razors (1992-94) - I was talking with a lady just last night about these, trying to say I was done wearing them by the end of 7th grade, but it was a lie. And a bad one. She outed me in less than 10 seconds. I wore them into 8th grade. So sad. But sadder still is that they remain featured on Oakley's website, though they are no longer available. As if they're some kind of vintage prize, a treasured part of their history. I don't go waving my Jose Canseco rookie cards around like they mean anything, no need for Oakley to do the equivalent. It was a mistake for me at that early age. And its a bigger one to pay homage to your own product like that. This is the kind of shit that Danny McBride wears in East Bound and Down. I bet someone somewhere is selling them in a package deal with one of those hats with the built in ponytails. Fuck. That was a bad one.
3. Kikwear (2000) - I was WAY too old for this stuff, but I was on drugs. It's true. Which with all the drooling and eye-popping bizarro looks is like willingly time-traveling back to the first 18 months of life without your body changing... except for all the sweating. When I started taking Ecstasy, I started wearing the clothes that went along with it. When I stopped taking the drugs a short while later, I hid the clothes. It's amazing to me that there is a mind control drug so powerful that it can create an entire culture of people in huge pants and tech vests. Does everyone that takes Ecstasy wear this shit? No. And I'm still unsure how it happened to me. Just thinking about it, I need an inhaler... preferably one unlined with Vix nasal balm.4. The "Biff" Hairdo (Intermittently, 1990-1993) - Otherwise known to people as a skater's cut from the 90s (picture unavailable), the cut essentially shaved your head everywhere but for a mass of length that hung to one side covering half your face and half of what had been shaved. It gave the impression that you didn't care, especially when you returned questions with a blank stare, but the honest truth was that from 5th grade through 8th grade I didn't even know what Libertarianism was or Quantum Physics for that matter. Somewhere there are some Halloween pictures from 4th grade of me as a skater tooling around grade school, and somehow my parents never noticed when the costume became a fashion statement, in various incarnations, for the next four years. Thanks Mom. Good looking out.
5. Dyed Orange Hair (1995-1997) - Yeah, those were the nomad years of high school. I was "experimenting"... with the same awful hair coloring, over and over... Jesus, what a disappointment I was to Jesus. At one point, my brilliant plan was to try to go grey, which would have been awesome, as in my current state of balding my body's deterioration is racing to see if I can get to salt & pepper before there is nothing left to season. But every time I tried for it, I ended up a strange shade of pink - like a salmon or barf color. The bright side was that my mother, observing the consistent and significant folly I managed through these trials, decided she'd just let her hair go whatever color it pleased. I was always the guinea pig of the family.So, yeah. There it is. A blind list of 5 unforgettable embarrassments... To be sure, there are countless others, but if you remember them - and remember them well enough to spew them forth from memory in between fits of mocking laughter - give me a day or so to feel as though I got away with this before you commence the onslaught. That way it'll hurt more. And you'll feel twice as fulfilled... You fucking bully.
You don't know what I've got either
Is everyone scared to post because the last one was so amazing? I know I am.
On an unrelated note, I finally watched East Bound and Down. Do you think the permed mullet will make a comeback?
Monday, February 23, 2009
Fucking ROBBERY!!
Yeah, yeah... so this is a post about the Oscars. Now, I could spend a few pages talking about the shame and embarrassment Hugh Jackman must feel for nancy-prancing through a medley of cheap parlor renditions of this year's nominees. Or lament appropriately about the loss of Paul Newman, Richard Widmark and Van Johnson. Or make some sort of cynical statement about how predictable the Academy is with its lavish flowering of Slumdog Millionaire for all sorts of awards. But instead, let me just take a couple of minutes to sink into the myre of blog conformity and whine from my digital toadstool about this year's Best Actor category... And I'm well aware I'm about to do this... Mickey Rourke was FUCKING robbed. I don't care how good you thought Sean Penn was - how great it was that his portrayl of gay rights martyr Harvey Milk brought to light even more details of the long struggle for equal rights in this country or how much it illustrated his tenured acting abilities to play a career's worth of bad boy hardasses and then oscillate seamlessly into a bright, flamboyant smiling gay man... These things are undeniably true - and Penn's acceptance speech was both proof that he is an actor that, despite public persona, can't and shouldn't be ignored and that some actors can prove a larger value to their work in the social sphere (Yet, as it was pointed out to me, he didn't thank his wife - neither at the Golden Globes or the Oscars, and this I frankly think is inexcusable regardless their personal issues).
But that doesn't change the fact that Mickey Rourke should have won the award. His portrayl of Randy "the Ram" Robinson may not have been the biggest departure from his real life. The film's subject matter may not have had the social weight that Best Picture winners typically have. And Rourke's reclusive, spotted past may not be the sort of pedigree that the Academy feels moved enough to reward, but FUCK man, that film was so... honest. When I watch a film I like scripts with powerful, prosaic dialogue. I like beautiful cinematography. I like well-weaved narratives. But more than anything else, what really moves me is a parallel to reality that offers me a clearer possibility of how things could be and then an exploration of how things often turn out. I like films about the total cost of a story, of people and their choices. And I like the actor that sells it to me. That's Rourke. At so many points in the film, you see him holding himself together (literally with duct tape) just to provide a few kids with a laugh, a few fans with a thrill, a stripper with her dignity, a few deli patrons with a little light entertainment, and he's rewarded with little more than a few moments of opportunity for himself - with his estranged daughter, with his addiction to steroids, with the stripper. But the weight is just too great and the plebian complex of the deli manager is too large and the pockets of the trailer park manager are too shallow and his daughter's capacity for pain has just run her down too much. And in the end it's a matter of bad timing. A man once a star to many - as delusional as his fans - has awakened to a future he never prepared for, a humility few could bear and he's just too beaten to take another risk, to suffer any more indignity. He's become a plastic action figure, a symbol of dying fantasy and fading paint and all he can think to do with his tired, broken life is make that leap one last time from the top ropes and pray that when he lands he is remembered for where he started and not where he ended up. A name in the credits. One of a million bulbs burning, shattered and replaced.
So Mickey, that one was yours. Fuck the lot of 'em. Even Penn knew it. He told you. We saw your hands quiver, your eyes clench tight behind those glasses. That was your award. You earned it. I've never been so caught up in the outcome of an Academy Award in my life, and I know that's a little weird. Like guys and sports teams. But I just don't want to see you become the man in real life that flounders in parallel to one you played on screen. Don't go out like the movie, Mickey. Don't flicker. Keep coming on strong.
Our condolences about Loki.
But that doesn't change the fact that Mickey Rourke should have won the award. His portrayl of Randy "the Ram" Robinson may not have been the biggest departure from his real life. The film's subject matter may not have had the social weight that Best Picture winners typically have. And Rourke's reclusive, spotted past may not be the sort of pedigree that the Academy feels moved enough to reward, but FUCK man, that film was so... honest. When I watch a film I like scripts with powerful, prosaic dialogue. I like beautiful cinematography. I like well-weaved narratives. But more than anything else, what really moves me is a parallel to reality that offers me a clearer possibility of how things could be and then an exploration of how things often turn out. I like films about the total cost of a story, of people and their choices. And I like the actor that sells it to me. That's Rourke. At so many points in the film, you see him holding himself together (literally with duct tape) just to provide a few kids with a laugh, a few fans with a thrill, a stripper with her dignity, a few deli patrons with a little light entertainment, and he's rewarded with little more than a few moments of opportunity for himself - with his estranged daughter, with his addiction to steroids, with the stripper. But the weight is just too great and the plebian complex of the deli manager is too large and the pockets of the trailer park manager are too shallow and his daughter's capacity for pain has just run her down too much. And in the end it's a matter of bad timing. A man once a star to many - as delusional as his fans - has awakened to a future he never prepared for, a humility few could bear and he's just too beaten to take another risk, to suffer any more indignity. He's become a plastic action figure, a symbol of dying fantasy and fading paint and all he can think to do with his tired, broken life is make that leap one last time from the top ropes and pray that when he lands he is remembered for where he started and not where he ended up. A name in the credits. One of a million bulbs burning, shattered and replaced.So Mickey, that one was yours. Fuck the lot of 'em. Even Penn knew it. He told you. We saw your hands quiver, your eyes clench tight behind those glasses. That was your award. You earned it. I've never been so caught up in the outcome of an Academy Award in my life, and I know that's a little weird. Like guys and sports teams. But I just don't want to see you become the man in real life that flounders in parallel to one you played on screen. Don't go out like the movie, Mickey. Don't flicker. Keep coming on strong.
Our condolences about Loki.
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