Archive for the ‘Ramblings’ category

“The Life I Lead” (3rd Reprise) or The Saddest Moment EVER in Cinema History

March 9th, 2010

When I was a youngin’, like many yougin’s, I enjoyed movies. And I grew up watching and appreciating the Disney classicsPinocchio, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Dumbo, The Wind in the Willows (one of faves), and, of course, Mary Poppins. I mentioned Mary Poppins as being some kind of lying bitch in a previous post somewhere. Well she was. But that’s beside the point. She was hot. She could sing. She had a green energy mode of transportation. She could jump you into a painting. She hangs out with chimney sweeps! The perfect woman!

No.. That’s not what I’m writing about. I’m here to tell you about the saddest moment ever in cinema history. Towards the end of the film, Mr. Banks is called to appear before his boss that evening. Mr. Banks knows it’s because he’s going to get fired. And he gets really depressed – So depressed, in fact, that he gives his annoying kids some dough and reprises his song “The Life I Lead” for, I believe, the third time in the film. But this time around, it’s super sad. And after a sad duet with Dick Van Dyke, Mr. Banks begins his long trek to the bank under the night sky, alone on the streets. As he walks, the tune grows in the orchestra and gets more sad by the measure, continues to grow with intensity along with some beautiful shots of Mr. Banks walking alone through a park – silhouetted by trees, and finally culminates with a choir and long shots of him walking up to the massive, imposing bank.

When I was a child, this was the saddest moment ever in cinema history and I’m sharing it with you. I still remember the scene and the music vividly.

Unfortunately, the only fucking video I could find of it was in German. The internet foils me again…

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Target Demographics

January 30th, 2010

Noticed something this evening… All jewelry ads.. You know the ones.. “How else to make 10 months salary last forever…” … “Oh!! He went to Jared!” … etc. Observation: Those ads have the direct opposite impact on men than they do women. Absolutely polarizing.

A man thinks: “Holy crap! I’m never getting married – no rock is worth that much dough. What kind of superficial wench… grrr…”

A woman thinks: “Awwww… I want to get married and have a big diamond ring given to me by a metrosexual…”

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Mary Poppins: Bastard

January 17th, 2010

In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun…

I beg to differ, Ms. Poppins. There’s plenty of jobs that aren’t fun at all. You’re a real ass for lying to kids like that. And then you go and feed them spoonfuls of sugar and wreck their teeth. Bastard.

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Twart

January 14th, 2010

twart [twahrt] Vulgar Slang
–noun
1. an often audible discharge of intestinal gas (flatus) expelled through Twitter.com
2. an annoying or foolish Twitter.com user.
–verb (used without object)
3. to expel a flatus through Twitter.com; break virtual wind.
–verb phrase:
twart around
4. to spend time foolishly or aimlessly on Twitter.com

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And our secret celebrity judges today on “Throwdown…” are…

January 13th, 2010

… a woman with a tremendous ass and a short man in a mustache

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A Quick Commentary on the film: “Teen Wolf”

January 7th, 2010

For those of you unfamiliar with the 80’s film “Teen Wolf“, I point to the ever-useful Wikipedia:

Teen Wolf is an American film released on August 23, 1985 by Atlantic Releasing Corporation starring Michael J. Fox as Scott Howard, a high school student who discovers that his family has an unusual pedigree when he finds himself transforming into a werewolf.

Michael J. Fox… is back from the future in a NEW COMEDY …” where he’s a seventeen year old high school kid on his basketball team… sick of being average and wishing he were special …” So he turns into a werewolf

What makes this tragic tale of high school romance and body hair so unbelievable is not, as you might suspect, that a high school student transforms into a mythical creature at inopportune times. No. What makes this tale so unbelievable is that any basketball team in history – from professional to the lowliest high school team – would ever in a million years choose a four foot tall Canadian to play on their team.

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Why “They” Hate Us

January 5th, 2010

A lot has been made of the people all over the world who hate America and / or Americans. They hate “… our freedoms.” They hate that “… we’re all arrogant, ignorant assholes.” They hate that “… we have Trader Joes and they don’t …” But the reason for the hatred, at least to me, is as clear as day:

TRAVEL SHOWS

It’s so simple, people. Have you seen any of the travel shows on television? On PBS? On the Travel Channel? Discovery Channel? Have you seen the fucking people we send all over the world as “ambassadors” to expose other cultures to us?

Rick Steves? The guy’s website title is “Europe Through the Back Door” – what does that immediately make you think of?

Andrew Zimmern? A short, fat, bald, feminine, annoying, dork who goes around the world asking everyone in each location where he can get the best beating frog hearts, freshest goat anus, or, better yet, fermented beetle dung.

Anthony Boudain? Oh good – An arrogant, pretentious East Coast prick with a last name that sounds French. Magic combination there. I’m sure the poor guy in Vietnam who lost his leg after walking across a landmine left on his farm from the war wants to hear Tony throw around big words while eating what little food the guy has left and asking him if he resents him because he’s American. Then he turns to the camera and talks about how good the fucking soup is.

Then you have the lesser tier of hosts like Dr. Mike who travels around the world trying to get animals to bite him, Samantha Brown who has all the annoying qualities of a jolly, senile senior citizen but couldn’t be more than 45, or that Man vs. Wild guy who gets dropped in the middle of fucking nowhere and is 5 cans short of a 6-pack and eats maggots and drinks piss. Or how about the legions of idiots across several different channels now who travel around chasing “ghosts” or “extreme weather”?

People all over the world either meet up with these assholes when they travel to their part of the world or they see them on T.V. and they think we’re all a bunch of short, fat, bald, annoying, arrogant, gay, senile, lunatics who want to eat and drink only the most disgusting shit their countries have to offer and hope to hell that a big fucking paranormal tornado hits while we’re there. THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is why people in other countries hate Americans.

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How lazy are we, anyways?

December 25th, 2009

Admit it. All of you have been there.. Sooo lazy to change the toilet paper that you leave that 2.35 squares left on the roll or just leave the roll empty… Or too laaaazy to change the channel because of the distance of you to the remote even though a Martin Lawrence movie is coming on… Or you’re sooooooo lazy that instead of just finishing off the milk, you leave a torilla’s height worth of milk at the bottom of the carton. Or you’re in there in the bathtub all lazy and relaxed and you decide that you just don’t want to get up to pee

Right? We’ve all been there, right? Yeah..

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Et tu, N.P.R.?

December 23rd, 2009

This time of year… when I go into Ross (which happens more than you’d know), I expect to hear awful Christmas music. But when I flip on N.P.R. I expect to hear some good jazz… Or what would’ve been an interesting news-story were it not for the monotone, horribly boring, nasal-y clod delivering the story in such a pretentious manner.

But one thing I don’t flip on N.P.R. for is Christmas music. I could’ve gone my entire life without hearing The Yellowjackets’ version of Mr. F-ing Drummer boy.

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Just Be Good At One Thing

December 21st, 2009

I just started reading Pull Up A Chair: The Vin Scully Story. I was eagerly awaiting this book as I had heard about it months ago. For those who don’t know, Vin Scully is arguably (and, quite frankly, very few would argue) the greatest sports broadcaster in history. He has been broadcasting Dodgers games for over 60 years (crossed to the West Coast when they moved from Brooklyn), countless other sports, 25 World Series, 18 no-hitters, etc. He’s simply the master of his profession and is a true class act. I grew up spoiled listening to him in Los Angeles and he has no equal. So you can understand how I was eagerly awaiting this book – essentially the very first book written on Vin as he is an extremely personal individual. How could one possibly fuck this up? Well…

I knew nothing about Curt Smith (the author) previously but, apparently, he used to be a speechwriter for George Bush the first. I don’t recall being that into politics at the time of the original Bush, but the first George Bush wasn’t known as a great speaker to my knowledge – come to think of it, neither of the Bushs could speak. So that should’ve been my first sign that this had suckage potential.

But here’s what really pisses me off about a book I’m only 13 pages into but already irate enough to write this crap on my blog… The author seems to use, on average, about 2-3 obtuse metaphors and / or random quotes per paragraph – Sometimes, the quotes and metaphors aren’t clearly differentiated from the rest of the content so you’re left baffled and reading and re-reading the same paragraph four or five times. Now I know I ain’t the smartest guy. I still periodically put my shirts on inside-out and / or backwards. But still – I shouldn’t have to be reading every paragraph 2-3 times just to try and get a grasp on what the author is trying to say.

And another thing – Curt loves constructing sentences, albeit sometimes effectively, pursuing deeper details, some interesting, some not, by using, as is his style, apparently, constructed of multiple statements glued together, loosely would be an understatement, via commas, thereby confusing the reader, like myself, as to what the hell he’s talking about.

All I ask is that if you decide to become a writer for a living. That’s all you fucking do – all day, every day. How about you get good at it? I’m no Don Johnson, but I’m fairly certain that if I spent all day, every day learning how to knit, I think, after a few months, I’d be pretty damned good at it. And after a year or two, I’d be really damned good at it.

Curt – You’re 58. And all you do is write. How can you take a previously untapped subject that has the potential to be immensely entertaining and interesting to millions of people and make it suck so much? Curt Smith: You’re an assbag.

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