(no subject)
Hello there children. Settle down, settle down. I know it's
been a while, but I will write much. Uncle Jason has many, many
things to say today so settle in for the long haul.
So I'm home for the summer now, my final lazy summer. What's a lazy summer you ask? Well it's the only kind I know of and it basically involves me doing very little. For example, this summer-no real job. Which implies that I've had a real job during past summers which was only true for about a month last year. This summer I have a glorious unpaid internship at the Philadelphia Weekly. It's real nice; it's a fun paper, and I'm hoping I might get some concert tickets or press passes out of it. My dad's paying for my train tickets so I don't have to worry about those. The weekly's in an awesome location too; right in center city, about three blocks from suburban station. And there's an amazing comic shop right down the street. Also I get to ride the train. I like riding in things: buses, cars, air planes, trains, wombs. It's relaxing and I get to catch up on my reading. I have about a 150 pages left in Kingdom of Fear, Hunter Thompson's memoir.
Meanwhile, the rest of the week I'm doing my usual odd job thing working for Shulman and Cole. The way I see it, the past two summers this is what I ended up doing anyway, so why bother wasting my time with pointless applications and interviews that go nowhere. Weekends I'm usually either at my fathers or down the shore. I'm a simple man you see I don't require much money. I don't pay for car insurance or my cell phone, so all I need money for is a healthy supply of comics, books, cd's and the occasional dvd and keeping my car full of gas. Life is good...
...except when things piss me off. Now there seems to be a belief in the comedy club that I am an angry, bitter little man at heart; this is not always the case. I may say I don't like someone or something or I may say I hate that someone or something, but there aren't too many things that I outright detest...things that get my blood pressure up, my knives sharpened and my eyebrow twitching. Right now here's the list of things I really just fucking can't stand:
1.Paris Hilton
-What an awful, awful human being. When Paris Hilton comes on TV I change the channel. She's just an awful, shallow, proactively stupid human being. Seriously, she's like the worst possible icon for adolescent girls in the media today. Maybe the worst role model in all of mankind. I mean at least Hitler tried painting before becoming a fascit dictator*. Paris Hilton has not contributed one thing to society. She needs to be destroyed. I'm tempted to read her book so I can mock her better, but I'm afraid if I touch it I might get the clap.
2.Gwen Stefani's 'Holla Back Girl'
I hate this song with a passion of a thousand burning suns. Ok we get it: you're not a hollaback girl, whatever the fuck that means. What is this song even about. Ok looking at the lyrics...ok it looks like someone was talking shit about Gwen Stefani, who points out that she has been around the track a few times....ok...then she's inviting this person to fight her at the bleachers...and then what the fuck? Ok these are real lyrics I have not altered them in anyway and they're coming from letssingit.com:
Oooh, this my shit, this my shit [4x]
Let me hear you say, this shit is bananas
B-A-N-A-N-A-S
This shit is bananas
B-A-N-A-N-A-S
Again, the shit is bananas
B-A-N-A-N-A-S
This shit is bananas
B-A-N-A-N-A-S
Wow.
3.Blue Collar TV
While there are tons of good comics out there like Patton Oswalt, David Cross, Eugene Mirman, Lewis Black and the late Mitch Hedburg, the Blue Collar Boys sell out giant stadiums and are some of the most well known comics at the moment. Now I can see why they exist; they serve a niche market that, like NASCAR, is apparently made up of a large part of this country judging by the results of the November election. And while I can tolerate their stand-up this TV show is awful. Apparently the reoccuring jokes involve ranch dressing and gravy. Because rednecks love ranch dressing and gravy. These aren't even reoccuring characters or reocurring themes, these are reoccuring food products.
4.Idiots
This is a pretty big category, and it's constantly changing, but right now there are two groups that anger me.
The first group is the people who are criticizing the new Star Wars movie, not for sucking, but for being a metaphor for the Bush Administration/America Foreign Policy. This is a real thing I'm not kidding you. Here.
This is just the AP article but David saw it talked about on TV and the anchor and the pundits and such were actually talking about it (and some have called for a boycott of the movie) like it was legitimate piece of news. David offers a good analysis here, and while I considered writing a real analysis, I realized that this would give credence to something that is obviously retarded. The two major quotes that the article mentions are:
"This is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause," bemoans Padme Amidala (Natalie Portman) as the galactic Senate cheers dictator-in-waiting Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) while he announces a crusade against the Jedi.
"If you're not with me, then you're my enemy," Hayden Christensen's Anakin - soon to become villain Darth Vader - tells former mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor). The line echoes Bush's international ultimatum after the Sept. 11 attacks, "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists."
Ok the first one is George Lucas trying to be insightful and clever, something he tries very hard, too hard, to do in the movie. The second quote...I mean...Bush doesn't have a trademark on the whole 'you're with us or against us thing.' And Lucas has said for years that for years that Star Wars is basically about the battle of good versus is evil. I think he may have also said something about it being like the rise of fascism in Europe. I don't know, and I honestly think Lucas is losing it anyway.
Honestly if there are people out there who are boycotting this because of vague parallels with the current administration please stop it. We know you just like to complain about things, and even if Lucas did do this on purpose who give a shit; just because you like the president doesn't mean he's above criticism.
And I mean come on; while star wars deals with religion and politics -it's obviously not about bush america. One plot point is that the Palpatine tries to convince Anakin that the Jedi are trying to over throw him. The Jedi, of course, are religious zealots--they can't marry, they are supposed to concern themselves only with others and they worship and invisible, all powerful force. And as we all know, Chancellor Palpatine eventually becomes a fanatical ruler. This is obviously not like america where the religious zealots team up with the fanatical ruler to spread their messages of the evils of evolution, the wonder of nascar and the hilariousness of the blue collar comedy tour. zing.
But man, if conservatives are made about Star Wars possibly/maybe/pretty fuckin' unlikely commenting on their precious President Bush, imagine how they would feel if George Lucas mucked up their precious Jesus:
(larger image here)
The other group that pisses me off is the family who was sitting next to me during Star Wars. So it was a mother, a father and their son, he looked to be about 12/13. He was dead quiet during the entire film, as was the row of teenagers (they looked about 15/16) in front of me. But holy shit, that mother and father wouldn't shut the fuck up. You could tell the mother probably hadn't seen a Star Wars movie in like 20 years. So often she was asking her husband "What's wrong with Anakin's hand?" "Who's that black guy?" But most of the time it was "Oh no I bet it's a trap!" "I think they'll use the force!" or "Oh is that baby who they just called Luke, the same Luke from the original movie?" Very good shithead. God I know you probably raised your kid not to talk during movies so why don't you shut your sound hole? I don't practice restraint often, usually I say what I think (this throws people off guard: once a girl was complaining that she needed to lose weight or she wouldn't fit into her bathing suit for spring break. I advised her to just buy a new bathing suit. A crowd of stunned people then acted like I just said "Well I don't know about that, but that Hitler had some pretty good ideas.."). But I was polite, even though these people ruined most of the movie for me. Seriously though, I had to ask myself: at what point do you stop being polite and just go "Would you and your wife please shut up or I'm going to punch you both in the mouth."
Other than that I only had two complaints about the movie. 1) George Lucas what the hell was with all the wipes? They're going to need to make a new version of Final Cut just to add some of those. I know the original movies had a fair amount of wipes but this was ridiculous. Once the scene was at Padme's bedroom and then it wiped to the Jedi temple. But it wasn't a left to right wipe, oh no, it was nine tiny squares. Nine tiny magical squares that gobbled up the picture. Is this a movie or a commercial promoting the wonders of 21st century editing software?
2) Hayden Christenson and Natalie Portman. I know these two can act, I've seen them do so in other movies. Portman was even decent in the first two prequels! But I don't know what the hell they were doing here. Seriously the two of them were the most unrealistic couple ever. My brother and I were laughing during some of their very serious dialouge. What they were doing wasn't even acting, it was the antithesis of acting...let's call it unacting.
One other minor thing; Lucas seemed to be giving himself a congratulations reach around with the script. Like using lines from the original trilogy. I mean I liked it when Obi wan commented how uncivilized the blaster was that was a fun little one off-er. But shit like that happened toooo much. It's like Lucas saying 'Look at me guys I still remember my past. Remember how clever I used to be?! Well I'm not that clever anymore so I'm going to hide that fact by throwing in some references to my old films so all the nerds chuckle cause they totally get that reference!'
Other than that I enjoyed the movie (besides the opening space battle which was the least suspenseful thing ever. 'Let me just scrape these robobugs off your space ship like a Macdonalds employee scraps gum off of the underside of table while you half-heartedly do the go on with out me schtick.' Ok there I'm done.).
Well so much for convincing people I'm not bitter and caustic. Oh well this was fun I like venting! Stay tuned for regular updates.
*(For any internet crusader reading this: I'm not condoning Hitler. It's a joke. I really don't think I should have to point this out, but I've had bad experiences with internet comment people in the past).
So I'm home for the summer now, my final lazy summer. What's a lazy summer you ask? Well it's the only kind I know of and it basically involves me doing very little. For example, this summer-no real job. Which implies that I've had a real job during past summers which was only true for about a month last year. This summer I have a glorious unpaid internship at the Philadelphia Weekly. It's real nice; it's a fun paper, and I'm hoping I might get some concert tickets or press passes out of it. My dad's paying for my train tickets so I don't have to worry about those. The weekly's in an awesome location too; right in center city, about three blocks from suburban station. And there's an amazing comic shop right down the street. Also I get to ride the train. I like riding in things: buses, cars, air planes, trains, wombs. It's relaxing and I get to catch up on my reading. I have about a 150 pages left in Kingdom of Fear, Hunter Thompson's memoir.
Meanwhile, the rest of the week I'm doing my usual odd job thing working for Shulman and Cole. The way I see it, the past two summers this is what I ended up doing anyway, so why bother wasting my time with pointless applications and interviews that go nowhere. Weekends I'm usually either at my fathers or down the shore. I'm a simple man you see I don't require much money. I don't pay for car insurance or my cell phone, so all I need money for is a healthy supply of comics, books, cd's and the occasional dvd and keeping my car full of gas. Life is good...
...except when things piss me off. Now there seems to be a belief in the comedy club that I am an angry, bitter little man at heart; this is not always the case. I may say I don't like someone or something or I may say I hate that someone or something, but there aren't too many things that I outright detest...things that get my blood pressure up, my knives sharpened and my eyebrow twitching. Right now here's the list of things I really just fucking can't stand:
1.Paris Hilton
-What an awful, awful human being. When Paris Hilton comes on TV I change the channel. She's just an awful, shallow, proactively stupid human being. Seriously, she's like the worst possible icon for adolescent girls in the media today. Maybe the worst role model in all of mankind. I mean at least Hitler tried painting before becoming a fascit dictator*. Paris Hilton has not contributed one thing to society. She needs to be destroyed. I'm tempted to read her book so I can mock her better, but I'm afraid if I touch it I might get the clap.
2.Gwen Stefani's 'Holla Back Girl'
I hate this song with a passion of a thousand burning suns. Ok we get it: you're not a hollaback girl, whatever the fuck that means. What is this song even about. Ok looking at the lyrics...ok it looks like someone was talking shit about Gwen Stefani, who points out that she has been around the track a few times....ok...then she's inviting this person to fight her at the bleachers...and then what the fuck? Ok these are real lyrics I have not altered them in anyway and they're coming from letssingit.com:
Oooh, this my shit, this my shit [4x]
Let me hear you say, this shit is bananas
B-A-N-A-N-A-S
This shit is bananas
B-A-N-A-N-A-S
Again, the shit is bananas
B-A-N-A-N-A-S
This shit is bananas
B-A-N-A-N-A-S
Wow.
3.Blue Collar TV
While there are tons of good comics out there like Patton Oswalt, David Cross, Eugene Mirman, Lewis Black and the late Mitch Hedburg, the Blue Collar Boys sell out giant stadiums and are some of the most well known comics at the moment. Now I can see why they exist; they serve a niche market that, like NASCAR, is apparently made up of a large part of this country judging by the results of the November election. And while I can tolerate their stand-up this TV show is awful. Apparently the reoccuring jokes involve ranch dressing and gravy. Because rednecks love ranch dressing and gravy. These aren't even reoccuring characters or reocurring themes, these are reoccuring food products.
4.Idiots
This is a pretty big category, and it's constantly changing, but right now there are two groups that anger me.
The first group is the people who are criticizing the new Star Wars movie, not for sucking, but for being a metaphor for the Bush Administration/America Foreign Policy. This is a real thing I'm not kidding you. Here.
This is just the AP article but David saw it talked about on TV and the anchor and the pundits and such were actually talking about it (and some have called for a boycott of the movie) like it was legitimate piece of news. David offers a good analysis here, and while I considered writing a real analysis, I realized that this would give credence to something that is obviously retarded. The two major quotes that the article mentions are:
"This is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause," bemoans Padme Amidala (Natalie Portman) as the galactic Senate cheers dictator-in-waiting Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) while he announces a crusade against the Jedi.
"If you're not with me, then you're my enemy," Hayden Christensen's Anakin - soon to become villain Darth Vader - tells former mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor). The line echoes Bush's international ultimatum after the Sept. 11 attacks, "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists."
Ok the first one is George Lucas trying to be insightful and clever, something he tries very hard, too hard, to do in the movie. The second quote...I mean...Bush doesn't have a trademark on the whole 'you're with us or against us thing.' And Lucas has said for years that for years that Star Wars is basically about the battle of good versus is evil. I think he may have also said something about it being like the rise of fascism in Europe. I don't know, and I honestly think Lucas is losing it anyway.
Honestly if there are people out there who are boycotting this because of vague parallels with the current administration please stop it. We know you just like to complain about things, and even if Lucas did do this on purpose who give a shit; just because you like the president doesn't mean he's above criticism.
And I mean come on; while star wars deals with religion and politics -it's obviously not about bush america. One plot point is that the Palpatine tries to convince Anakin that the Jedi are trying to over throw him. The Jedi, of course, are religious zealots--they can't marry, they are supposed to concern themselves only with others and they worship and invisible, all powerful force. And as we all know, Chancellor Palpatine eventually becomes a fanatical ruler. This is obviously not like america where the religious zealots team up with the fanatical ruler to spread their messages of the evils of evolution, the wonder of nascar and the hilariousness of the blue collar comedy tour. zing.
But man, if conservatives are made about Star Wars possibly/maybe/pretty fuckin' unlikely commenting on their precious President Bush, imagine how they would feel if George Lucas mucked up their precious Jesus:
(larger image here)
The other group that pisses me off is the family who was sitting next to me during Star Wars. So it was a mother, a father and their son, he looked to be about 12/13. He was dead quiet during the entire film, as was the row of teenagers (they looked about 15/16) in front of me. But holy shit, that mother and father wouldn't shut the fuck up. You could tell the mother probably hadn't seen a Star Wars movie in like 20 years. So often she was asking her husband "What's wrong with Anakin's hand?" "Who's that black guy?" But most of the time it was "Oh no I bet it's a trap!" "I think they'll use the force!" or "Oh is that baby who they just called Luke, the same Luke from the original movie?" Very good shithead. God I know you probably raised your kid not to talk during movies so why don't you shut your sound hole? I don't practice restraint often, usually I say what I think (this throws people off guard: once a girl was complaining that she needed to lose weight or she wouldn't fit into her bathing suit for spring break. I advised her to just buy a new bathing suit. A crowd of stunned people then acted like I just said "Well I don't know about that, but that Hitler had some pretty good ideas.."). But I was polite, even though these people ruined most of the movie for me. Seriously though, I had to ask myself: at what point do you stop being polite and just go "Would you and your wife please shut up or I'm going to punch you both in the mouth."
Other than that I only had two complaints about the movie. 1) George Lucas what the hell was with all the wipes? They're going to need to make a new version of Final Cut just to add some of those. I know the original movies had a fair amount of wipes but this was ridiculous. Once the scene was at Padme's bedroom and then it wiped to the Jedi temple. But it wasn't a left to right wipe, oh no, it was nine tiny squares. Nine tiny magical squares that gobbled up the picture. Is this a movie or a commercial promoting the wonders of 21st century editing software?
2) Hayden Christenson and Natalie Portman. I know these two can act, I've seen them do so in other movies. Portman was even decent in the first two prequels! But I don't know what the hell they were doing here. Seriously the two of them were the most unrealistic couple ever. My brother and I were laughing during some of their very serious dialouge. What they were doing wasn't even acting, it was the antithesis of acting...let's call it unacting.
One other minor thing; Lucas seemed to be giving himself a congratulations reach around with the script. Like using lines from the original trilogy. I mean I liked it when Obi wan commented how uncivilized the blaster was that was a fun little one off-er. But shit like that happened toooo much. It's like Lucas saying 'Look at me guys I still remember my past. Remember how clever I used to be?! Well I'm not that clever anymore so I'm going to hide that fact by throwing in some references to my old films so all the nerds chuckle cause they totally get that reference!'
Other than that I enjoyed the movie (besides the opening space battle which was the least suspenseful thing ever. 'Let me just scrape these robobugs off your space ship like a Macdonalds employee scraps gum off of the underside of table while you half-heartedly do the go on with out me schtick.' Ok there I'm done.).
Well so much for convincing people I'm not bitter and caustic. Oh well this was fun I like venting! Stay tuned for regular updates.
*(For any internet crusader reading this: I'm not condoning Hitler. It's a joke. I really don't think I should have to point this out, but I've had bad experiences with internet comment people in the past).