I can crawl again!
So yesterday was my birthday and it was much better than I expected. Go Karts, pizza, beer, indie movies... what more could a man want?
It all started on monday night at this awesome little bar just a couple blocks from my house called Danson. A bunch of friends were there... Dominic, Lenny, Maria, Marcela, Susy, Mickey, Aliocha, Alex, this British guy I had never met called Peter who turned out to be a pretty "safe bloke" or whatever the fuck crazy English lingo you use to call someone a cool dude. We had a bunch of drinks as we waited for the 25th hour to come along and it when it did we were drunk enough to explode in a ridiculous "happy birthday" chant completely oblivious to all that which was around us. We annoyed the waitress. It was that obnoxious.
After some more drinking and a heated debate about the death penalty (I was so drunk my own contributions were completely slurred and incoherent) I went to bed where I proceed to not go to class the next day. Woke up to find a very nice surprise from Su and about a million e-cards. Went out to lunch with my mom and a few of her friends (one of them a Fox Sports journalist-- if any of you watch that stupid channel, his name is Antonio something and seems to be quite impressive-- people stopped him on the street) and then at about 1 PM went to the Malba museum and met up with my friends to buy tickets for the first two movies I was interested in seeing in the Eighth Annual International Buenos Aires Independent Film Festival-- namely "Last Days" by Gus Van Sant and "Greaser's Palace" by Robert Downey Sr..
The movies didn't start 'til at night, so we went over to Palermo and decided to hit the Go-Karts. This was my first time Go-Karting, so I lost miserably and crashed several times, but I can't say it wasn't extremely fun. It was definitely an experience. So fucking fast, and there was this one sharp curve that just kicked my ass every single time. My kidneys hurt like a bitch afterwards but it was worth it just so I could say I rammed Lenny from behind. He doesn't think it's as funny as I do.
After that was done, we went out for beer and pizza and then the movies. I was quite drunk (again) during "Last Days" but I can say I enjoyed it. It's a very Gus Van Sant-y movie. Quite like "Elephant", the difference being "Elephant" was boring and uninteresting while "Last Days" was boring but interesting.
But I wasn't quite prepared for what was to come.
Robert Downey Sr.'s "Greaser's Palace" is something of a lost gem from the early seventies and probably the most bizarre movie I've ever seen in my entire life. The movie-- if one could even call it that, sometimes it's more like a series of bizarre skits completely unrelated to each other except for sharing some characters and settings-- revolves around a bizarre Christ figure called Jessy who parachutes onto some small Western town, has the power to bring people back from the dead by just touching them and saying "If you feel, you heal". He befriends a poor schmuck called "Lamey Homo" ("lay me, homo"-- get it??) who is constantly getting killed by his father-- a constipated Sherriff (I think?) called Greaser who owns a bar where his daughter performs. Lamey dies every couple of scenes and every time he comes back he describes his visions of the afterlife ("Dad, I was swimming in a rainbow with millions of babies... and they was naked... and then all of the sudden I turned into a perfect smile!").
Jessy's mission is to travel to Jerusalem to become an actor/singer and in a memorable scene shows off his dancing skills to the audience at the bar, who are not impressed at all. Frustrated, he thinks up an act that will impress them, and suddenly blood starts pouring out of his palms. Yep, Jessy's experiencing a stigmata. The townspeople start worshipping Jessy as a messiah, and he proceeds to cure every one of them of their illnesses (including an awesome little bit where the "cures" a wheelchair-bound man who proceeds to fall hard on the floor and drag himself miserably through the ground... one would think the miracle failed, but he turns his head up, tears welling up in his eyes, and proclaims joyously, "I can crawl again!"). Then of course there's the gay midget, the whole Persistent-Woman sub-plot, the topless Indian girl, the "shitting parties"... it's just too fucking bizarre to describe.
All in all, Greaser's Palace is a trip of epic proportions. It's a movie that thrives on chaos, confusion, non-sequiturs and complete debauchery. It's off-the-wall depravity, insanity and inhumanity. You guys should take a look at it if you ever see it on DVD. It's filled with enough "What-the-fuck" moments to fill 25 Lynch films, and the ending scared the living crap out of me. I'm sure it's a religious parable of some sort, but whatever message it has either flew right over my head or was buried deep beneath all the craziness. Check it out.
Oh, the LJ wars came to a thrilling conclusion, as both laura_varon and anger_engel were forced to disable replies and delete posts after much public humiliation and scrutiny. Sure, it's all in good fun, but some truth slipped in there. And 20 bucks says morbid_downcast is the long-lost foncho.
That is all.
It all started on monday night at this awesome little bar just a couple blocks from my house called Danson. A bunch of friends were there... Dominic, Lenny, Maria, Marcela, Susy, Mickey, Aliocha, Alex, this British guy I had never met called Peter who turned out to be a pretty "safe bloke" or whatever the fuck crazy English lingo you use to call someone a cool dude. We had a bunch of drinks as we waited for the 25th hour to come along and it when it did we were drunk enough to explode in a ridiculous "happy birthday" chant completely oblivious to all that which was around us. We annoyed the waitress. It was that obnoxious.
After some more drinking and a heated debate about the death penalty (I was so drunk my own contributions were completely slurred and incoherent) I went to bed where I proceed to not go to class the next day. Woke up to find a very nice surprise from Su and about a million e-cards. Went out to lunch with my mom and a few of her friends (one of them a Fox Sports journalist-- if any of you watch that stupid channel, his name is Antonio something and seems to be quite impressive-- people stopped him on the street) and then at about 1 PM went to the Malba museum and met up with my friends to buy tickets for the first two movies I was interested in seeing in the Eighth Annual International Buenos Aires Independent Film Festival-- namely "Last Days" by Gus Van Sant and "Greaser's Palace" by Robert Downey Sr..
The movies didn't start 'til at night, so we went over to Palermo and decided to hit the Go-Karts. This was my first time Go-Karting, so I lost miserably and crashed several times, but I can't say it wasn't extremely fun. It was definitely an experience. So fucking fast, and there was this one sharp curve that just kicked my ass every single time. My kidneys hurt like a bitch afterwards but it was worth it just so I could say I rammed Lenny from behind. He doesn't think it's as funny as I do.
After that was done, we went out for beer and pizza and then the movies. I was quite drunk (again) during "Last Days" but I can say I enjoyed it. It's a very Gus Van Sant-y movie. Quite like "Elephant", the difference being "Elephant" was boring and uninteresting while "Last Days" was boring but interesting.
But I wasn't quite prepared for what was to come.
Robert Downey Sr.'s "Greaser's Palace" is something of a lost gem from the early seventies and probably the most bizarre movie I've ever seen in my entire life. The movie-- if one could even call it that, sometimes it's more like a series of bizarre skits completely unrelated to each other except for sharing some characters and settings-- revolves around a bizarre Christ figure called Jessy who parachutes onto some small Western town, has the power to bring people back from the dead by just touching them and saying "If you feel, you heal". He befriends a poor schmuck called "Lamey Homo" ("lay me, homo"-- get it??) who is constantly getting killed by his father-- a constipated Sherriff (I think?) called Greaser who owns a bar where his daughter performs. Lamey dies every couple of scenes and every time he comes back he describes his visions of the afterlife ("Dad, I was swimming in a rainbow with millions of babies... and they was naked... and then all of the sudden I turned into a perfect smile!").
Jessy's mission is to travel to Jerusalem to become an actor/singer and in a memorable scene shows off his dancing skills to the audience at the bar, who are not impressed at all. Frustrated, he thinks up an act that will impress them, and suddenly blood starts pouring out of his palms. Yep, Jessy's experiencing a stigmata. The townspeople start worshipping Jessy as a messiah, and he proceeds to cure every one of them of their illnesses (including an awesome little bit where the "cures" a wheelchair-bound man who proceeds to fall hard on the floor and drag himself miserably through the ground... one would think the miracle failed, but he turns his head up, tears welling up in his eyes, and proclaims joyously, "I can crawl again!"). Then of course there's the gay midget, the whole Persistent-Woman sub-plot, the topless Indian girl, the "shitting parties"... it's just too fucking bizarre to describe.
All in all, Greaser's Palace is a trip of epic proportions. It's a movie that thrives on chaos, confusion, non-sequiturs and complete debauchery. It's off-the-wall depravity, insanity and inhumanity. You guys should take a look at it if you ever see it on DVD. It's filled with enough "What-the-fuck" moments to fill 25 Lynch films, and the ending scared the living crap out of me. I'm sure it's a religious parable of some sort, but whatever message it has either flew right over my head or was buried deep beneath all the craziness. Check it out.
Oh, the LJ wars came to a thrilling conclusion, as both laura_varon and anger_engel were forced to disable replies and delete posts after much public humiliation and scrutiny. Sure, it's all in good fun, but some truth slipped in there. And 20 bucks says morbid_downcast is the long-lost foncho.
That is all.