"I can’t go on. I must go on." --- Samuel Beckett
LORD OF THE GEEKS
Lord of the Rings is at number one and fantasy has always been the geek line in the sand that I won’t cross. Science fiction, horror, mythology, porn, comic books, far too much knowledge of history---all the other geek standards I know well, but I have always refused to get into fantasy. Swords and sorcery have always just seemed overly silly to me, despite being the only place where you could find geek girls (then again, ever seen a geek girl?---ugh). All those silly made up names just got on my nerves (eventually this contempt would extend to science fiction and kill my interest in that as well). Needless to say, the big fish in the fantasy pond was Tolkien. ALL fantasy of the last sixty years comes from Tolkien. He is to the fantasy genre what John Ford and Sergio Leone combined are to Westerns. Still, I was unaware as to just how long this shadow was until seeing Lord of the Rings. Almost every aspect, every plot turn, every characterization in this movie, I’ve seen in some other film not knowing of its origin. Thusly, the film seems very familiar to me. It’s also very well done. Still, given how long it is, you have to wonder if they couldn’t have condensed it a little more. I mean, the whole Hobbit book has been reduced to a few passing mentions in this. Couldn’t they have applied that thinking to say, the first half-hour?
YOU WANT ME TO LICK WHAT?
There’s a hysterical sequence in the beginning of Ocean’s 11(at number two this week) with Brad Pitt, George Clooney and what seems to be the entire cast of the WB. You’ve got someone from Dawson’s Creek, 7th Heaven, Charmed, and one Fox entry from That 70’s Show. If you want to see the difference between boys and men, this is your prime example. Suddenly the preference for older men that I’ve seen women display over the years made perfect sense. Yeah, that guy from 7th Heaven was still the prettiest face in the room (yes, even prettier than that girl from Charmed), but with Pitt and Clooney you figure you’ll get a pretty face that also know what a clitoris is. In fact, you hope that face and your clitoris will have a meeting, if you know what I’m saying. With a younger man, your hopes for this are very low. That stupid love triangle on Dawson’s Creek would have been ended long ago if either one of them would think to go down on her. I mean, you think someone named "Pacey" actually eats pussy?
BLACK UNITY, MILITARY INTELLIGENCE…YOU KNOW WHERE THIS IS HEADED
Ali is at number three and I left this film with a deep and abiding hatred of Black people. Not quite what the filmmakers had in mind, I’m sure, but they couldn’t have foreseen the Black Muslim woman next to me who not only received phone calls, but made them as well. That is, when she wasn’t talking to her entire party about what was going on in the film. Apparently, in a film called "Ali" she felt the right to act with impunity. Normally, I’d move, but my dad had chosen the seats, so I felt obliged to stay there. Only afterwards, when I told him did I learn he had as little patience for this as I do. The film itself could have lifted itself above the average bio-pic, but stumbles by being needlessly overlong because of some need to have painfully detailed boxing sequences. And the first half-hour is just as much about Malcom X as it is about Ali, as if Michael Mann wanted to prove he would have made a better film than Spike Lee. Also, it remains somehow distant from Ali. Never did I feel like I knew what was going on in his mind so I could understand why he did what he did. Still, my dad was happy with it and that’s all that matters.
BLACK HOLE
Jimmy Neutron at number four. I know nothing, I could care less.
SAFETY FIRST
Vanilla Sky is down to number five and Tom Cruise tends to make the same movie over and over again. Initially, it was young man trying to live up to dead father (Top Gun, A Few Good Men, Rain Man) and now it’s young man fails and has to rebuild (Jerry Maguire, this and the coming Minority Report). This movie could easily be called Jerry Maguire II: Agent Without A Face.
HALF-WAY MARK
Harry Potter is down to number six and at almost $300M Harry Potter is about half-way to what it needs to be to make a profit.
KATE’S BROTHER & LEOPOLD
Kate & Leopold is down to number seven and I have little patience for this sub-genre of romantic comedy which suggests that there are simply no men available for woman who is independent and successful. Needless to say, a man wrote this. Oh, I’m sure it sounded good in the pitch meeting of a gentleman from the past coming into the future and impressing a modern woman with his manners and breeding, but this should have been either a Hallmark Hall of Fame or Lifetime movie. Not a major release. The first problem is that it’s not very funny. That’s kind of important in a romantic comedy. You need the latter as much as the former. Also, the fish-out-of water premise is highly underused. Leopold adapts to the 21st century with no problems. I mean, isn’t the point of this film how he’s a man out of time? Granted, he’s shown as an inventor with an open mind, but televisions, radios, airplanes, cars and computers don’t seem to faze him one bit. There’s one joke with a toaster and after that, he’s literally making a television commercial with ease. The only time the movie shines is when Hugh Jackman goes out with Meg Ryan’s brother (played by Breckin Meyer), where he teaches him how to pursue a woman using 19th century courting techniques (as if someone who looks like the 6’3" Hugh Jackman actually needs technique to get laid). You know you have a problem when there’s more chemistry between two men in your romantic comedy, than between the man and the woman. Meg Ryan simply plays the character she’s always played with that weird bed-hair that she’s made her trademark.
AND I’M CRAZY FOR LOVING YOU
A Beautiful Mind is at number eight and I haven’t made it to this yet. I have a problem with Ron Howard, so my enthusiasm is low. Also, they cut the love scene with Jennifer "Chesty" Connelly, which is another detriment.
YEAH, WELL IT STILL SUCKED
Monsters Inc., is down to number nine and has yet to hit the $250M attained by Shrek earlier this year. How much do you think that bothers the Disney people? How happy do you think that makes the Dreamworks people? Expect this movie to stay in release until the day before the video comes out. Disney will stay out there as long as they have to in order to win.
YOU MUST LOVE ME!
The Majestic is down to number ten and the next mission of our armed forces will be to pry Jim Carrey’s lips from the collective ass of the Motion Picture Academy. Jesus Christ, could he degrade himself any more in search of an Oscar!?! This is a role that Robin Williams probably would have played five years ago, which is the proof of a maudlin piece of shit. Never will this crap poison my soul and judging by the poor box office, everyone else feels the same way.
WAR IS HELL
Not breaking the top ten because it’s only in a limited release for Academy Award considerations is Black Hawk Down, a story of a military disaster in Somalia eight years ago. First off, I have to ask why anyone would make this movie? Horrible military blunders are so common the History Channel actually has a show about them. Who the hell wants to spend two hours watching men die because of a screw up? That said, it’s a well made movie about a very unpleasant event and watching it is painful. I despise Saving Private Ryan, but because of it and Braveheart, the concept of a bloodless war being depicted onscreen is obsolete. The deaths you see are brutal and nasty and pretty much nonstop for two hours, so steel yourself and don’t get attached to anyone other than leading man Josh Harnett. You might get hurt if you do.
MONSTER BOOTY
Also in limited release for Oscar consideration is Monster’s Ball, a.k.a., That Movie With Halle Berry’s Sex Scene. Oh, come on. If not for a sex scene that had to be cut to get an "R" rating, would you even know or care of this film’s existence? I know I wouldn’t. Ostensibly about a prison guard who winds up in an affair with the widow of man he led to the electric chair, this tries to be some sort of southern gothic exploration with no less than half of the initial characters you meet dead by the halfway mark (execution, suicide and car accident). Supposedly, Halle Berry and Billy Bob Thornton are to find solace in each other and the big sex scene is when they finally explode in mutual misery and need. Granted, it does convey that need, but personally, I think the sex scene in The Terminator still ranks as the most painful love scene I’ve ever seen. Maybe it’s because seeing Billy Bob do Halle Berry doggy style on a couch really doesn’t convey "loss" to me. Also, the thawing out of Billy Bob’s character happens much too quickly, given how tightly wound up he’s been for the first hour, even in the wake of his son’s suicide (sorry, Heath Ledger fans). And the accents are awful. Heath Ledger’s is bad, Halle Berry’s is bad and Peter Boyle’s is non-existent! How can he be Billy Bob’s racist father and not have a southern accent!?! Overall, everything is much too studied and executed to be effective. Like The Royal Tennenbaums, they simply tried too hard to make it what it should have been naturally and it shows and suffers.
CITY OF THE BIG SHOULDERS FOR A REASON
It started with the trip home. I got a good deal through hotwire.com, but there was a price to be paid and that price was a two hour flight being turned into a six hour trip because I was routed through fucking Chicago (fate has a cruel sense of humor). Chicago was also the apparent destination of the giant women. I swear the women that got on in New York and disembarked in Chicago were giants. Not a one was under 5’9" and there were two that were no less than 300 pounds. I know they grow ‘em big in the Midwest, but damn!
MEET THE PARENTS
My concern for the otters wound up costing me a total ten pounds, leaving me at 160 (which my mother’s cooking quickly undid). The weight loss was not totally appreciated by my parents. My dad thought we’d bonded over having mutual "pimp guts" as he called them and mothers just want you fat for some strange reason. Also, mom and dad’s desire for grandchildren has gone from unmentioned, to suggested, to openly requested, to flat out bitterness at being ignored. This time I was actually mocked by my parents for my childless state, along with a gleeful anticipation over how much difficulty having children at a late age will be (remember: my parents were 35 when I went to college). "If you had a child tomorrow, you’d still be 45 with a 10-year-old," my mother sneered at me. Then came her curse of me marrying a younger woman. Oh yeah, this is going to get me breeding. Mom then drafted me for a day of shopping since most of the family was coming to Atlanta this year. Thankfully there were no questions about my personal life, because the answers I have are far from great. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want my mother to ever associate the term "fuck buddy" with her only son (the way she now does with her baby daughter). And don’t think she didn’t notice the otter-induced depression, but again, how do you tell your mother that your concern for woodland creatures just took ten pounds off you? I told her I had a mild drug problem and she let it go. My dad and I clashed over our shared need to make people suffer when we’re right and they’re wrong. I just don’t think he should do it to my sister, who is about to go back to Atlanta after a few months in NYC (she got here two weeks before 9/11).
MEET THE SISTER
The next day I was out with my Baby Sister who shames me by paying the same amount to share a house in Georgia that I pay to share a one-bedroom in New York. In addition, she started her own business this year, and while the recession forced her back to full-time work, she still maintains it on the side. She put the final nail in the coffin when she told me the stopped smoking because she once felt herself out of breath during sex. Ouch! I had no comeback for that one. I’d nailed her a few times earlier, but she openly told me she was saving that one to bring me down. She was very successful. I was never the same afterwards.
MEET THE COUSINS
We were mercifully spared our annual Christmas pilgrimage to Alabama this year when all our relatives decided to come to Georgia. The downside to this is I can’t leave the way I could leave Alabama. Actually, this was kind of a passing of the family gathering torch from my parents and their siblings to our generation as it was held at my cousin’s home. Because of this, the child thing came up again. Almost all my cousins are married and have children. Even the ones a decade my junior. Amongst their siblings, only my mom and dad don’t have grandchildren. When picture time kicked in, we were the only group with just two generations present. Don’t think that wasn’t freaking obvious. We must breed in ’02. Hopefully, a successful impregnation can be achieved by the end of February, so mom can have a grandchild for Christmas.
MEET THE GRANDPARENT
Of course, it couldn’t be a gathering without at least one shit storm. The day before I left, there was some confusion as to whom my grandmother would be traveling home with. Somehow this led to her ranting for a full half-hour about the sacrifices she’d made for her children with no lack of bitterness over the choices made. Apparently, my aunts had heard all this before, because they pretty much ignored her after the first five, so she was pretty much talking to no one for the next twenty-five. I’d come in and out of the room and she’d still be talking and since it was never the same thing twice, I assume she was following a path of some sort and not just rambling. Lest you think I’m making fun of an old woman, let me point out that, at one point when I was helping my grandmother pack, she muttered that none of "those worthless niggas" seemed to have time for her. Bear in mind "those worthless niggas" of whom she spoke, were her children. She can take care of herself.
JUST STAY AWAY FROM ME, GILLIAN ANDERSON
Also while home, I got the idea to track down the woman who I blame for most of my misery: The First Redhead, who was also The First Unrequited Love (here’s how it works: take a good friendship, try to turn it into a great romance, walk away with absolutely nothing; rinse, then repeat…for twenty fucking years!!!). She was the drum major when I was in the marching band. She has an I.Q. somewhere in the 160’s. When I told her I was calling to ask her why she’d cursed me with redheads for the last two decades, she shot back, "It couldn’t be that you just don’t learn, could it?" Totally unrepentant for the pain she caused me…to cause myself. Bitch. We made tentative plans to see one another, but didn’t try too hard to follow them through. Just as well. In the cold light of adulthood, past infatuations tend to suffer. Fortunately, as a geek I had nowhere to go but up.
A SPECIAL TIME IN A YOUNG MAN’S LIFE, THE FIRST TIME HE BLOWS IT
I also gave thought to maybe looking for The First Lust, who was the object of my desire---as opposed to The First Redhead, who was the object of my affections. I met her when I was in the seventh grade. You know all that "ugly duckling" crap? Never for her. From day one she was beautiful. I was hardly the only one who noticed and despite my wit and intelligence and the fact she actually seemed to like me, I couldn’t compete with guys with actual social skills (and the book of Annie Lebowitz photography I gave her was totally unappreciated). Then there was the incident after the high school talent show, where she asked me to sing with her, having been so moved by a duet of "With You I’m Born Again" that had been performed. Young AngryGeek sneered at the idea of this, which pretty much guaranteed I would never, ever see her naked. The First Lust wound up running with a fast crowd in high school and the extra weight she gained from the birth control pills was quickly removed by the cocaine she started doing. We lost touch until 1993, when I ran into her on a downtown train here in New York (cue the music, "Will I see you tonight/On a downtown train…"). Needless to say, I was shocked. I was so busy trying steal a look at a pretty girl that I couldn’t see she was smiling at me, trying to get me to realize who she was. We exchanged numbers, but I decided not to call for a few days to show I was no longer an eager geek. In that time, she left the city for work (she was trying to model---that picture up there is her from a low-rent swimsuit issue she once did) and then for good. I never saw her again. My sister, however, ran into her brother at a wedding and it seems now she’s fat and since it was never about a meeting of the minds, that pretty much removes any impetus for me to ever see her again.
A GIRL’S FAVORITE COMBO
So, thanks to the otters I now have a flat stomach and a wounded soul. Apparently, this is attractive to some because I found myself being eyed by an attractive freak of nature at the mall while shopping for my mother’s gift. When I say "freak of nature" I don’t mean ugly, I mean as in being tall and thin, but still possessing an ample bosom. That’s not normal, so people like that are freaks of nature. There was an exchange of smiles in one store, then again in another store a few minutes later, which lead to a brief conversation. I couldn’t go any further than that. Aside from lacking the motivation, the whole idea of a fling in Atlanta just depressed me. Whereas being from New York once had a 50/50 chance of either impressing average southerner or being the equivalent of saying, "Hey, let’s you and me fight!" It now conveys total sympathy. I felt that would have been the hat trick in this particular situation. Besides, she looked too young, though my less-than-charitable Baby Sister concluded, "Nah, she was older. Then again, white girls age hard." Also, she shared the name of First Lust, which is a bad, bad sign.
EVERYBODY LOVES PORN
So, my mom is one of those women who reads romance novels by the hundreds. If you know anything about romance novels, you know they are nothing but explicit sex wrapped in a gauze of romance. Coincidentally, my sister-in-law reads them as well, so they exchange them often. I am occasionally the courier for these exchanges. Remembering the mastubatory joy I once got from the books of Harold Robbins (who taught me about poppers and water sports), Judith Krantz (who taught me that erection density changes during intercourse), Sidney Sheldon (who taught me the sexual importance of a prostate) and Rosemary Rogers (who filled in all the other blanks), I looked over one or two of them and they were hysterical in their naked, calculating zeal to appeal to the female market. Every heroine was smart and attractive, facing a dual struggle of personal and professional success, which she, of course, achieves in the end, but not without at least one major setback and lots of hot sex with both the wrong and right men. The one that stayed with me was about the Englishwoman who married a millionaire, only to leave him when he took a mistress to satisfy his sadomasochistic desires. She gets a job in publishing working for a hot Italian guy from the Bronx, who’s all the man her sissy English husband will never be, only to have her ex-husband destroy that business for revenge. Needless to say, she and Bronx Boy build a new business together, initially fighting their attraction to one another, before finally giving in, then breaking up, then experiencing a business setback, only to rebound and triumph in the end in each other’s arms. Also, when she’s a kept idiot wife, she’s blonde and hates sex, but when she becomes a successful businesswoman, she goes back to her natural brunette self and becomes a sexual animal. What struck me most was the description of the Bronx Boy as someone who didn’t care for poetry or fine arts, but possessed a dick like a tree trunk and fucked like a beast, leaving her with marks and bruises all over her body the next day. Not surprisingly, the woman who wrote it is English and now lives in New York with her husband, who is probably some Italian guy from the Bronx, who doesn’t care for fine arts, has a dick like a tree trunk…etc. Thank god for college, where we can meet liberal-arts-majoring-girls who actually like us fine arts-loving-wuss-boys who don’t leave marks in the morning.
AND HENDRIX PLAYED IT UPSIDE DOWN!
I bought myself two gifts this Christmas: 250 thread count Egyptian Cotton sheets and electric guitar that I practiced every day I was home (sans amplifier). What the hell else was I going to do? Atlanta is a car country and I had no car. It’s fucking harder than it looks. How so many people can play guitar is beyond me. I’ve discovered the very first chord of "Wonderwall" like I wanted, and inadvertently found at least two chords that will one day make up "Night Moves," but you wouldn’t know unless I told you. I’m letting my hair grow now for the first time in years because it’s apparently a rule if you’re learning guitar. Besides, it made mom happy.
PLEASE ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE MYSELF, I’M A MAN OF WEALTH AND TASTE…
Okay, once again I’ve pissed off people who get mentioned here and it’s the same old thing: it’s always funny until it happens to you. Another reoccurring theme is being mentioned under a code name, being dumb enough to tell people it’s you and then feeling betrayed when I reveal an intimate (though hysterical) detail about your life as it relates to me. I feel the urge to ask these people HELLO, HAVE WE MET!?! HAVE YOU READ THE FUCKING COLUMN!?! YOU’RE NOT SPECIAL! NO ON IS! Chasing Amy has never gotten mad at me because Chasing Amy has never been dumb enough to tell anyone it’s her. She just reads and smiles.
REMEDIAL RANT TOPIC
Okay, question: in that VW ad where the James Spader lookalike shows up to disrupt the wedding? Is the father looking at his watch because he wants the guy to show up or because he’s hoping he won’t make it? Since Ulysses is too fucking hard for you people.
12/17/2001
"I’d go to church more but I got a bad knee." --- Chris Issak
THE FACT THAT CAMERON DIAZ IS NOW 4’11" IS A CLUE
Vanilla Sky opens at number one and there is a moment at the film’s climatic scene where one character looks at his watch because he’s waiting on Tom Cruise to get on with it. That simple gesture summed up the movie for me. Get the fuck on with it. Now, it looks great and I’ve long since learned to tolerate Tom Cruise’s incredibly forced ‘acting" (the muscles in his face are so stressed when he emotes, I keep waiting for him to pull a cheek tendon) so that wasn’t nearly and painful as it used to be and even Penelope Cruz wasn’t as annoying as I expected, but that doesn’t change the fact that this is a director’s indulgence. The always-dependable Cameron Crowe has seriously misstepped with this one and because Tom Cruise is his friend and one of the producers, there was obviously no one there to tell him, "No." Ten and twenty minute scenes could easily have been cut down to five and ten. And as far that the big "surprise twist" goes, if you’ve seen or read enough science fiction, you know what’s going on after a certain point. One hysterical concession to an actor’s ego: Cameron Diaz is a former model, so she’s easily 5’9" if she’s an inch and in one scene she approaches Tom Cruise in heels, which is going to put her at damn near six feet. Imagine my surprise when she and Tom are exactly the same height when she reaches him! If only that worked in real life.
MUY LOCO
Ocean’s Eleven is bumped down to number two and what the hell happened to Andy Garcia? Yes, he’s out of his freaking mind, but when has that ever blocked anyone from success? There as a time when he would have been the star of something like this, but now he’s the pudgy heavy. And Elliot Gould? Just how many drugs was America doing in the early 70’s to make this man a star?
BUT WHERE WAS JON CRYER? DON’T TELL ME HE’S BUSY.
Not Another Teen Movie opens at number there and there needs to be an Academy Award for Silk Purse Out Of Cow’s Ear, for the guys who cut the trailers for crap movies like these to make them actually seem funny. This was 90 minutes of nothing but pain, with barely one chuckle to be found in the whole thing and a total waste of a cameo by Molly Ringwald. The closest thing to a laugh is found during the cheerleader sequence, when half-a-dozen blonde cheerleaders start doing ghetto cheers with a "Break it down for me niggas" in the middle of it. That’s it. Mia Kirshner appears and needless to say, her little fascination with being a pretend lesbian in the movies hasn’t lessened, but I couldn’t watch her make out with that old woman onscreen. It’s almost as bad as watching Woody Allen kiss his younger leading ladies. Almost.
HEY, WHAT TIME IS THE WAR ON?
Harry Potter is down to number four followed by Behind Enemy Lines at number five and apparently people would rather watch a real war on TV rather than see this.
THOUGH A NICE JAY-Z RAP WOULD HAVE BEEN NICE
Monsters Inc., is down to number six and you know what the best thing is about this? No goddamn Randy Newman theme song. Apparently the closest thing to subtlety he ever had was "Short People" (which was a satire on bigotry, by the way). The Monsters Inc., theme song would have gone a little like, "…two of us/kinda scary but we’re nice/two of us/oh, I wish I had two eyes/now there’s three of us/a little girl and she’s nice…" on until even the Dalai Lama considered suicide rather than hear another verse.
WOMEN WITH STRONG, STRONG JAWLINES.
Spy Game is down to number seven and Catherine "Braveheart" McCormack is in this and if you can tell the difference between her and Natascha "Ronin" McElhone, I’ll give you a dollar. Then, of course, you have you come and tell me the difference every time one of them makes a movie.
ETC.,
Black Knight is down to number eight, followed by Shallow Hal at number nine and Amelie at number ten.
I KEPT WAITING FOR SOMEONE TO CALL HACKMAN, "POPEYE."
Not breaking the top ten is The Royal Tennenbaums, a brilliant, brilliant little movie from the Wes Anderson, the director of Rushmore. Do you know how I know it’s a brilliant, brilliant movie? Because it fucking screams "I’m a brilliant, brilliant little movie" with every fucking frame of its existence! I swear there is not one unplanned, perfectly designed second to this movie. It’s so tight I could barely breathe while watching it. And this whole ugly New York motif they went for just rubbed me the wrong way. This movie could have been made in 1975 with almost no changes to anyone’s wardrobe or to the set and why this was a good idea to anyone I’ll never know. I’m sure it relates to the relationships of the family that pretty much came to an end in the 70’s, but that doesn’t make it any easier to look at. I’m going to take a risk and assume this was a comedy (there’s an exchange from the movie Internal Affairs done word for word for some odd reason) despite the almost James Brooks’s like need to have the characters go through "real" pain. Even with that, if it had just loosened up for a second, it might have been more enjoyable. Not that it was bad. It was just a little too affected and controlled for my tastes. And every single character is a perfect eccentric. Nothing resembling normal crosses the screen even once to provide a contrast. And between this and Behind Enemy Lines, just how tired is Gene Hackman of seeing Luke Wilson’s weird ass nose?
BUT IT’S GONNA READ "HOROWITZ" ON HER RECORD
Okay, we’re going to have to discuss Winona Ryder. How pathetic is this? No, not in that she’s shoplifting, but in that she’s doing this desperate for notice. When was the last time you thought about Winona before this? Exactly. This is such a stunt. A brilliantly timed stunt, nonetheless. There’s nothing going on, people are tired of the war, they want to see someone rich and beautiful being humiliated. A wise PR person saw this and fulfilled a need. But what I love the most is the "I was researching a role," excuse. Yeah, and those hookers you saw me with last week? I was merely researching a part I have in Sweet Charity, which will be running this January at P.S. 189.
MR. BIG SLOB
Saw Chris Noth on 49th St. My god, did he ever look like shit. I guess they aren’t filming Sex & The City right now.
AND BETTER GAS MILEAGE THAN A PORSCHE
A Ford Taurus wagon gangsta’d up on 14th & 5th. I’m serious. Lots of chrome and ghetto gold and blacked out windows…on a fucking Ford Taurus wagon! What kind of loser spends time trying to make his Ford Taurus wagon into some kind of hot car? "Hey, baby. Need a ride? Room for your groceries too." The sad fact of our criminal justice system is, if I were set that car on fire, I would be the one to go to jail.
DIARY OF AN ANGRY GEEK
For some odd reason, my parents gave me a journal for my birthday. Not having anything to write about, I copied the first forty pages of "Diary Of A Madman" into it by hand. If something should happen to me, it’s going to pretty fucking funny when the cops find that.
LAST TIME IT WAS 15 POUNDS FOR SPOTTED OWLS
Okay, people have commented that this column has gotten a little melancholy in recent weeks. Well, I must plead guilty on that one. As my brother is found of observing, I don’t have any real problems to speak of, so I tend to create them then make myself miserable over them ("Oh, the Southern Sea Otter! Who will save them if not me?"). I’ve done so recently all too well and the result is an air of melancholy in the column and a loss of eight pounds (did you know there are muscles in your stomach and that you can see your dick without sucking it in?). As always, when my concern for some woodland creature consumes me like this, my friends try to get me to go into therapy. Aside from the fact that, if 9/11 didn’t make me go, I’m sure as hell not going over this, my primary reason for not going is the response I would get when I would mention it: "Yeah, that’d be good for you." What the fuck is that supposed to mean!?! Imagine if mentioned you were going to get a little plastic surgery and the response was the same, "Yeah that’d be good for you." Still not insulted? Bastards. Hey, in a world filled with people who bury their problems in sex, drugs, alcohol and violence, not eating my weight in cheese every week the way I did before is mild. Besides, I’ve found a better form of therapy. I’m taking guitar lessons. This means, the more fucked up I am, the better I’ll play. I look forward to being like Eric Clapton during the Layla sessions: strung out on smack and obsessed with the otters. "Ot-ters/You got me on my knees/Ot-ters/I’m begging mammals, please/Ot-ters/Come and ease my flaming heart…" If you’d like to help the otters, go here
"DO YOU WANNA GO/PAR-TAY…"
To take my mind off the otters, I agreed to actually leave my apartment to attend parties with my roommate on Saturday night. The geek in me screamed betrayal, but as king, I can do these things. First stop was at an amazing duplex in Inwood that included roof access. There I met what had to be the most perfect baby in the world. I’m not kidding. She looked like something someone created for a babyfood label, she was so perfect. Her name was Jillian, she was ten months old and she loved me! Unfortunately, Jillian wasn’t much for conversation so I wound up speaking to a Bitter Film Crew Member, a woman who prided herself on getting drunk and talking shit, someone actually named Amber and a Canadian Classical Pianist who dressed like Sheryl Crow, to whom I made the mistake of describing the dream girl of every rock musician as being a skinny blonde with big tits. After that she began to interrogate me because she’d recently ended a relationship with a rock musician (honey, don’t Canadian mothers teach their daughters that you never date musicians, eh?) and he’d taken up with what I’d described soon afterwards. Thankfully, I found an exit from the conversation right around time she asked me, "So, what do Black American men want?" Sadly, she then set upon my roommate with more questions about New York dating. We soon left that party and went to a party filled with the actors my roommate will touring with for the next six months (sublet open; live with The AngryGeek himself! Must have references or cash). This is good if you’re into promiscuous people (and I am), but bad if you refuse to sleep with actors (and I do). This means all you have to do is talk to them and actors only like to talk about one thing: acting. Well, that and the meaning of art and life, but somehow this still leads back to acting. I was able to briefly speak with yet another Canadian woman (aren’t they patrolling those borders anymore?) who was a retired dancer, but even if she hadn’t a boyfriend, the fact that she wasted her Sony flatscreen TV on freaking Gladiator was enough to kill the deal for me. I judge women by their taste in movies and she was found wanting. Fortunately an actor came over and soon we were all discussing the meaning of life. It was a nice party, but odd. Alcohol and making Christmas decorations. A dangerous combination. Also, there were a lot of sweets. Fudge, cookies and caramel. No other food, just that. It was when I realized there would be no more caramel that I took my leave.
FUNNIER THAN HIS DAMN SHOW
Because of my concern over the otter problem, I’ve been listening to a lot of melancholy music, which brought me to Chris Issak’s Forever Blue, written after he came home off tour to find his girlfriend had moved out. He wrote her a letter but never mailed it (smart man---write the letter, kids, but never, ever send it) and decided to include it on the inside of his CD. That’s where that quote originates. Even when writing a broken-hearted letter, he’s still fucking funny.
SO MUCH FOR THIS WEEK’S QUESTION ON JAMES JOYCE
Only two of you fuckers responded to my question on Ulysses. Illiterate boobs. That’s the last time I try to raise the level of this column. From now on, it’s nothing but porn! Next time (which won’t be for at least two weeks) it’s porn-with-a-plot vs. wall-to-wall humping.
12/10/2001
"Don’t look for Atlantis in a puddle." --- Me. Sometimes I am a deep, deep muthafucka.
YOU GOT A PURTY MOUTH---AND I LOVED OUT OF SIGHT
Opening at number one is Ocean’s 11, and when George Clooney exits from prison in a tux, you know you’re in for a movie. Not a film, a movie; a movie filled with movie stars looking like movie stars and basically walking their way through the picture without breaking a sweat. One problem: Julia Roberts. Sorry, but there’s no way ferret-face could be George Clooney’s wife. I’m just not buying it. She’s nowhere near pretty enough, so her "glamorous entrance" just falls flat. They needed a real woman in this role, like a Rene Russo or Linda Fiorentino (now her I would buy as Clooney’s wife). I was so uninterested in her that I failed to notice the cowboy gait she displayed while walking that so annoyed my roommate. This is probably better than I make it sound, but my dislike for heist and caper movies is well known. Besides, no matter how light-hearted they try to make it look, it still looks like a shitload of work to me. You might as well get a real job. What’s the point of being a crook if you have to work that hard? And that’s not even including the constant looking over your shoulder. And let’s face it, how much money is worth getting raped in prison, ‘cause you know if any man is going to get raped in prison, it’s going to be a Brad Pitt or a George Clooney.
HARRY’S GAME
Harry Potter is finally down to number two and at best, this will top out at $300M. Still not enough for what they spent on it.
BAD GUYS COME IN ALL COLORS
Behind Enemy Lines is down to number three and how happy is Hollywood now that you can actually make Arabs terrorists again without being called a racist? Over the last decade or so, Bosnians and Croats have become their favorite non-minority whipping boy villains, right behind the militia groups. There’s only one problem: the militia movement all but died out after the Oklahoma bombing and the war in Croatia is over. Right now in Hollywood there are dozens of Arab-America actors struggling over selling their souls for work in the new wave of terrorist based action films that are going to be coming out. Poor Tony Shaloub. How long will he be able to say "no" to the money being waved at him? Look for his sell-out interview when he justifies finally playing a terrorist because "they gave him dimensions."
MUST…BE…STRONG…KEEP…MONEY…FROM…MOUSE
Monsters Inc., holds at number four, thanks no doubt to the new addition of outtakes that Disney so cruelly adds to films still in release to get you to go back. Not me, buddy! But I’ll be happy to buy it when it comes out on DVD. Say it with me everyone: "Kitty!"
GRANDMA, DID THE SUSPECT HAVE REALLY SHITTY TASTE IN SCRIPTS?
Spy Game is down to number five and this is a bit of a disappointment, because it’s not a bad movie at all. And if you knew how much I truly hate Tony Scott, you’d realize how amazing that statement truly is. I hate him like he stole something from my mother. From my grandmother even.
MASTERS OF THE DRAMTIC PAUSE
Black Knight is down to number six, followed by Shallow Hal at number seven and Out Cold at number nine. Lee Majors is supposedly in Out Cold. Jesus, what adult Six Million-Dollar man fan gave him a job, because you know that’s what happened. Hell, it’s what I’d be doing. It’s why I had to respect that issue of Gear that Craig Kilborn supposedly oversaw. It had interviews with William Shatner and Adam West. Now, that’s a man after my own heart. I would so be about giving Adam West work every chance I could.
THERE MUST BE NO PAINT DRYING TO WATCH
Amelie holds at number nine, followed by Domestic Disturbance at number ten. Okay, now who the fuck is still going to see this movie. Actually, the total was less than a million, but still…who’s going!?! I’m thinking the combined families of all the lead actors.
LOOK AT ME/I’M SANDRA DEE/CEO OF AT&T…
Not breaking the top ten and not deserving to, is The Business of Strangers, which has been hyped up as a female version of In The Company of Men. Maybe it’s the lack of testosterone, but it’s not nearly as brutal or as vicious as that. It does come close in its depiction of the horrid, stagnant world of corporate culture (is my bitterness showing?), but then it goes off on this supposed power struggle between Julia Stiles and Stockard Channing, when there’s no way you believe for a second that Julia Stiles could take the character that Channing portrays. It’s like asking you to believe that Sandy could take Rizzo. Also, there are no surprises in the script. The attempt at a twist is as predictable as it is flat. And somewhere down the line expect for Julia Stiles’s lower torso to disappear from films entirely. She’s a little too stocky below the waist for an American movie star, so at some point, some agent is going to convince her that it should be in her contract "don’t show my thick legs." Which will come as a considerable disappointment to the Black fan base developed after Save The Last Dance and O.
DREW IS MY FAVORITE
Okay, let’s not pretend that you don’t look at nekkid people online. You do. We all do. An article in Newsweek reported that most of all online porn viewing happens between nine and five, so you’re not only doing it, you’re using your T-lines at work to get that good, streaming video stuff. The only site that can claim my regular visitation is Nerve.com and it’s only because of the photography (okay, the personal ads are fun too, but you can’t prove that picture is me). I just can’t read porn online. Besides, Nerve is a pretentious yuppie porn site. I hate when people intellectualize sex too much. It’s easy: lick it, stick it, keep water by the bed. We’re not splitting the atom here, people. Fortunately, you can’t intellectualize too much with photographs, though some do try. Those people, however, are not my favorites and I would not buy their books the way I did the work of Peter Gorman. I first saw his series of nudes on Nerve.com and looked forward to the day he finally published a book. He did and it’s called Nudes in Apt. 7 and you can see the photos both here and here. Again, I dare you to look at them at work.
"ALL CHANGED/SHE’S HAVING A BABY…"
So this weekend I actually got social and went out to see friends. My first stop was at a baby shower for the Young Married Couple in Chelsea. That’s mom you see in that picture and don’t worry: she stopped the heavy drinking around the fifth month. Now, rather than it be a usual case of me just being another one of the girls, it was a definite co-ed affair, though only the gay guy and I lacked dates---and he left early. There’s some sort of belief that these things aren’t just as hard on the single, childless male as the single childless female. You’re wrong. As someone who wants to breed and have someone to put my cold feet on in wintertime, this ain’t no picnic (the great Get Married & Breed In 2001 Plan has sadly, failed). Not making it any easier was the hostess, who forced us to participate in a babyfood tasting contest. Jars of Gerber’s babyfood were stripped of their labels and we were forced to taste and guess. Aside from the sheer disgusting nature of this (green beans, anyone? Carrots? Prunes?), I came in last. Dead fucking last. One of the other guests was even mocking me to his girlfriend! "At least I didn’t come in last," he whispered to her. Insult to injury was that he was one of my people, a geek. A writing geek, no less. I was doubly betrayed! Unfortunately, the baby may never see my gift, because daddy-to-be took an instant liking to it and wouldn’t put it down. It was a stuffed Krypto dog (check it out here). For those of you who do not know, Krypto was Superman’s dog on Krypton. Jor-El used him to test the rocket and a meteor knocked it off course into deep space. Years later, Superboy (back when there was a Superboy in the Superman continuity---they wiped him out the way Dallas wiped out that year when Bobby died) found him and proceeded to have adventures with his super-dog. As always, you can find it at St. Marks Comics. You know, I’d better start getting some free geek stuff for these plugs.
NOW THAT’S MORE LIKE IT
After leaving the baby shower, I stopped into an ornament store to price the Superman ornament in the window and the attractive, well-dressed man in line kept staring at me. Much better. That’s one step to wiping away that disgusting supermarket creep a few weeks ago. Sexually, I’m straight, but my ego accepts all compliments.
DO YOU PROMISE TO AT LEAST THINK ABOUT LOVING AND HONORING, TILL DEATH DO YOU PART?
My next stop that day was New Jersey---by way of Brooklyn. The Married Housewife who got me into all-girl porn was having a party and I said I’d attend (and I had another Krypto to deliver to her child as well). To do so, I had to catch a ride with yet another married couple from Brooklyn Now, this is a big deal for me, for not only was I leaving Manhattan, but twice over. The trip to Brooklyn was relatively painless, so long as you don’t count the fact that my cell phone stopped working once I got there! See, it’s no man’s land! Next came the dangerous trip into New Jersey. Not only is it a Saturday night, but it’s raining and we have to go through the pit that is Staten Island. Then came a few near misses with a car, a van and a median (okay, so we didn’t miss the median so much as drove over it), because New Jersey apparently doesn’t believe in lighting its roads. On the bright side, I finally got to see where Kevin Smith’s comic book store is located. The party was nice, but unfortunately I had to leave before the thirtysomething former cheerleaders and football players got drunk and started demonstrating how they didn’t so much have marriage vows, as much as marriage suggestions. Yes, all the stuff you hear about decadent suburbia is true. Maybe next time I’ll be able to stay.
AND THEN THERE’S THE PROBLEM OF SHRINKAGE
In honor of the husband of Married Housewife, I went commando. For those of you who don’t know the term, it meant I was traveling sans undergarments. Yes, I was hanging in the wind beneath my Liz Claiborne slacks. What did I think? What the fuck is wrong with you people!?! It’s cold! How can people do that!?! Besides, what about the damage done to your clothing? Underwear absorbs what your genitals gives off (be it scents or secretions) and without it that just goes right to your pants! Besides, underwear is nice. It’s like the wrapping on a present. Getting something you like is nice, but getting something you like wrapped in something pretty is even nicer. For me, going commando is just that: a type of aggressive act. You should go commando to make a statement, not every freaking day! You go commando to uptight, upscale events and then whisper it to your date to make them laugh or excited (or both). The one exception to this rule is the summer dress. The Mean Irish Redhead I once dated always went commando in summer dresses and it made my millennium. The best part: that dress never had to come off. More than made up for the keys being thrown at my head.
NOW, AUNT JANE HAD A NICE BOOTY
Speaking of underwear, why is my beloved Bridget Fonda doing underwear ads for H&M? Not that I don’t like it, but H&M is the K-Mart of Europe. She’s so much better than that (of course, this isn’t stopping me for downloading all the ad pictures from the internet, which can be found here: h&m)! She should be doing the French ads at www.aubade.com, though she in no way has the ass the model in those ads has. That ass is nothing short of spectacular. It almost makes me doubt my atheism. I had a friend complain that seeing the ad I referred to made it impossible for him to think clearly for the rest of the day. Really? Then you’d better stay away from the shots from the book "Lessons In Seduction" because they will kill you.
BUT I CAN LIVE WITHOUT EVER SEEING A BRIS, THANK YOU
So my social weekend came to a close with my first ever Hanukkah celebration with Nice Jewish Doctor Woman (whom my brother and sister-in-law are convinced I should marry---gee, thanks bubbalah). Yes, after 17 years of living in New York, this is my first occasion to celebrate Hanukkah. What can I say? I’ve only known the lamest of Jews. I’m serious. Most of what I know about Judaism I learned from Joel on Northern Exposure, not my Jewish friends, who are on a first name basis with bacon. I learned about Passover from that episode where Joel Grey showed up as Elijah and I learned what a Kaddish was when Joel’s uncle died (Northern Exposure also supported my idea that the Jews have been too oppressed to be considered White). Hanukkah, however, I learned from a comic book called Nexus, which had a character who was an alien raised by Jews named Judah Macabee and he told the story of his namesake in one issue.
TALES OF BRAVE ULYSSEES
Okay, this has nothing to do with anything, but it might appeal to all you literary theory fans. During the Odyssey, Ulysses and his men encountered The Sirens, and to protect them, he had them put wax in their ears, while they tied him to the mast. Why? Why didn’t Ulysses put wax in his ears as well? Why did he voluntarily subject himself to their call, which would lead him to his death if they succeeded? This is applicable to an actual development in my life and if I get a good enough answer, I might just tell you about it. My brother (for the last time: no, he’s not my biological brother, but the closest I have to one) and his wife said it was because he wanted to hear the sweet song without paying the price, but that still doesn’t take into account the torment he had to endure. Okay, you English Majors, let’s hear from you.
PROJECT SPOT THE DRUNK
Finally, the Project Greenlight series started on HBO this week. If you remember, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck held a contest and the winner would get a million dollar budget to make a film they’d produce and Miramax would distribute and the making of it would be totally covered by HBO for this reality series. What do you mean, "Why didn’t I enter?" Why the fuck didn’t you enter!?! I was busy! Besides, filmmaking sucks. If you know anyone who does it and have ever visited a set, you know this. Besides, I’m still holding out for that stay-home-in-my-underwear job (yes, even in the privacy of my own home, I do not go commando). Still, it was both interesting and sad to watch the process because you had to send in a video to sell yourself and your movie. Sorry. I will not make myself look that pathetic. Well, not publicly anyway. Even worse were the brutal discussions on the finalist’s scripts and even their personalities ("The script was nice, but the film was for shit."). Sorry, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to base my future on whether or not some drunk (Affleck) and his ugly friend (Damon) think I have enough "passion" for the business. Actually, that’s going to be the most fun in watching this show; trying to figure out just when Affleck was drunk (‘cause Damon is always ugly).
12/03/2001
"When morality comes up against profit, it is seldom that profit loses." --- Shirley Chisholm
THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY
Harry Potter holds at number one for the third straight week and I maintain that they aren’t going to make their money back on this film. This looks to be another Batman scenario, where the real money is made on merchandising, so the movies wind up being just a very large commercial.
HOW HARD ARE WE UP FOR ACTION STARS? VERY, IF THIS IS A CLUE.
Opening at number two is Behind Enemy Lines. Inspired by the true story of a pilot shot down over Bosnia (remember that?), this was scheduled to open in March. Gee, I wonder why they pushed it up? Oddly, this isn’t as bad as you might think and this is coming from someone who was no fan of Owen Wilson onscreen (his turns in Zoolander and Meet The Parents have erased the horror of Shanghai Noon from my mind). One surprising factor is that he’s initially no Rambo. The gist of the film is that he’s running from the fight because he’s not really much of a warrior (and they do a decent job of creating some suspense for a character we know has to survive). Of course it all goes to hell in the last ten minutes of the film when he suddenly becomes a super soldier, who can nail bad guys while sliding on a frozen lake, while the hundred guys shooting at him all miss. It’s like John Woo stepped in to shoot one scene, complete with over-the-top Christian imagery (the image of an angel statue with a wing shot off an a hole in her chest is actually very effective). One odd thing about this film is the make up. Every man seems to be wearing lip-gloss. Pink lip-gloss. Hardly the most macho shade. I’m thinking cherry would have been better. No, wait. It’s the Navy, so maybe Blueberry. Yeah, Blueberry. But no pink. No way. That’s for Marines.
…AND YOU’LL BE RED HOT WHILE FIGHTING YOUR COLD WAR IN THIS JACKET FROM ARMANI…
Spy Game is down to number two and as much as I hate the 70’s fashions, at one point Brad Pitt is wearing a brown leather trenchcoat that I would kill for. Despite the hair, or maybe even because of it, he briefly cuts a swath as a super-chic secret agent. Actually, some of that shaggy 70’s shit works for some people. Billy Crudup never looked as good as he did in Almost Famous. Making a surprise, but ultimately welcoming appearance in this movie is Charlotte Rampling, still looking great after all these years.
I’VE CHOSEN MY DEVIL
Monsters Inc. is down to number three and at just over $200M, it’ll probably equal if not surpass Shrek’s box office take by the end of its run, which fills me with mixed emotions. On one hand, I despise The House of the Mouse, but I truly hate the overwhelming success that was the mediocrity of Shrek. The Mouse sucks, but they are good at what they do---most of the time (alas, poor Atlantis).
PRESENTING LADY LAWANDA FROM WALES
Black Knight is down to number five and I must admit I’m a little curious as to how they got a Black female love interest into the 12th Century. But not enough to ever sit through a second of this. Hell, I’m sure a review or two will tell me, but I can’t even do that.
REMEMBER TO THANK YOUR MOM FOR NOT DRINKING AND SMOKING WHILE PREGNANT
Down to number six is Shallow Hal and there is a character with spina bifida and Hal’s friendship with him is supposedly a sign of Hal’s innate goodness, while Jason Alexander’s character is obvioulsy a creep because he’s the only one bothered by it. Please. Seeing someone with no lower torso get by walking on their hands is creepy. Sad, yes, but still creepy. Oh, yeah. I’m the only one. Please. That bus to hell is going to be pretty crowded if this is all it takes.
OUR NEXT EVENT: LOSE THE SECURITY GUARD FOLLOWING YOU AROUND THE STORE
Out Cold is down to number seven and even more improbable than a Black woman in England in the 12th Century is a brutha snowboarding. Please. Now, my hatred of a monochromatic America is well known, and for better or worse, I am used to being the only brutha in a crowd full of White people, but even I am not going to caught doing Winter sports, much less Extreme ones. Extreme sports are for middle class White people whose lives lack the challenges minorities face, such as going for your wallet without being shot to death. We don’t have to look far for death-defying thrills. Latrell and Jose (and now Abdul) call that Tuesday.
ETC…
Domestic Disturbance is down to number eight, followed by the current art-house fave Amelie (a.k.a., Best Foreign Film 2001), entering the top ten for the first time. Miramax is quickly becoming my new Disney. They do what they do well, but I hate them nonetheless simply for being.
NOTHING WORSE THAN AN INCOMPLETE SLUT
Finally, Heist closes out the top ten at number ten and my friends, The Young Married Couple, tell me they’ve seen it and in it, Rebecca Pidgeon is tarted up in a pair of denim cut-offs. "High heels?" I ask. "No." Well then she didn’t do it right. It’s not slutty just to wear denim cut-off with your ass hanging out. You have to wear it with the heels. Trust me. I’m from the south. We created this look.
U-G-L-Y/YOU AIN’T GOT NO ALIBI/YOU UGLY…
Not breaking the top ten and almost seen by me is Affair of the Necklace. Someone should tell Hillary Swank the more she tries to look feminine, the more she reveals just how unattractive she really is. I’m sorry, but this girl just ain’t pretty. She was never better looking than as a boy and even then she looked like and even uglier Matt Damon. What almost got me into this was a rare appearance by one of my favorite actors, Adrian Brody, and the possibility of some swordfights. In the end, it still wasn’t enough (I just didn’t see enough evidence of swordfights).
A.K.A. YOUNG GUNS 3
Also, not breaking the top ten was Texas Rangers , made three years ago, but only now seeing the light of day. Here’s your cast: Dylan McDermott, James van der Beek, Usher, Ashton Kutcher and Robert Patrick. Now, with the exception of Usher, none of these guys is super hot right now, but they are known, so combined you’d think they would be enough to get people into the theaters. So this movie must have been really, really bad for them not to release it. I say "must have been" because this is only 90 minutes (why else do you think I saw it?) and judging by the gigantic gaps in the movie it was no less than two hours originally (Dylan McDermott refuses to re-form the Texas Rangers, but in the next scene he’s done just that and we don’t know why). John Milus wrote the original screenplay, so I’ve no doubt it was originally bloody and brutal as well. But maybe less is more, because none of these guys is exactly Olivier. McDermott is self-righteous, van der Beek is stiff, Kutcher is a goofball, Usher is…Black (sorry, but I can’t even call what he does acting) and Patrick is intense. In other words, they are exactly the way they are every week on TV, where you can see them for free. Rachel Leigh Cook is in this and I maintain she’s really an 11-year-old boy with breast implants. To position her as Ashton Kutcher’s love interest is ridiculous. He’s just too goddamn pretty for her.
SORRY, NO SPLENDOR IN THE ASS
So, I finally got my bootleg copy of High Art on DVD. Now, normally, I am the enemy of bootlegging anything, but given how Universal can find the time to release multiple editions of Jurassic Park and The Mummy to make you keep buying it, but can’t find the time to release just one version of this amazing film, then I have no trouble in fucking them over. Besides, it’s not like I won’t buy it when the real version comes out. This bootleg isn’t letterboxed. The total DVD count is still 225 because, believe it or not, I actually got rid of something. And because I’m sick of all your shit, this week we will add in the porn…which brings us to a total of 254. Happy now? I own a grand total of 29 adult DVD’s (9% of my total collection), which range from the ridiculous (Sex Freaks, directed by Gregory Dark, who now does music videos) to the sublime (Aroused, which looks like a Victoria’s Secret ad that goes that extra mile, shot on film and everything).
LE DRAWERS
Speaking of porn, though it may be a cliché, sometimes less is more, which is why the website for the French lingerie company, Aubade, is better than most of what I own. You can view it in English as well, but somehow the French version is sexier. My personal favorite is Lesson No. 27. Dare you to check it out at work: www.aubade.com
THE NUMBER ONE REASON TO MAKE PORN ILLEGAL
And as long as we’re still on porn, the Ron Jeremy documentary, Porn Star, opened this week and I will never, ever see it. Having suffered through Ron Jeremy’s odious presence in the past, I’ll be damned if I don’t at least have the presence of some attractive, naked women to endure it again. Don’t pretend you don’t know who this ugly bastard is, but if he isn’t proof that God is both cruel and a man, I don’t know what is. A kind or female God would not have inflicted him on the poor drug addicts and victims of childhood sexual trauma that make up the female populace of porn (you can actually tell how mentally healthy a girl is by her willingness to work with him; only the relatively healthy ones know they can refuse). Still, I would liked to have seen him promoting this on The View. Apparently Barbara Walters was not happy to have him there, but he supposedly dealt with it very graciously (apparently, Ron desperately wants mainstream acceptance and would do anything for it). Me, I would have torn her a new hypocrite asshole. The only difference between porn films and regular films is that porn doesn’t pretend to be about any thing than what it is: money. Thought I was going to say sex, didn’t you? Shows how little you really know about the entertainment business. It’s all about money, kids. The particulars are irrelevant.
ONLY MARGINALLY BETTER THAN BLACK TAIL
And the last thing I’ll say about porn (this week) is that someone, somewhere decided there was a market for 14-year old Black kids and fully grown Black men too wimpy to buy real porn, so now we have an ethnic equivalent to Maxim and FHM (yeah, because a half-naked Blonde woman covered in baby oil is the last thing on a Black man’s mind). It’s called King and I’m sure Martin Luther King is spinning in his grave over even the slightest hint it has something to do with him. I had to buy an issue just to see how bad it is, and the best thing I can say about it is that at least it’s only quarterly. Still, I cannot deny the sheer magnificence that is Leila Arcieri, who is half naked with baby oil on the cover.
NEXT I’LL BE LOOKING UP TO TOM CRUISE
I don’t know if I ever mentioned this, but during my sabbatical from this, I was in Tower Video and in comes Matt Damon with Terry Kinney (bald, goatee guy on OZ). Damon was taller than me, which was a surprise. Does this mean that Winona Ryder is taller than me too? Man, I’m getting depressed. Still, my man-crush, Taye Diggs, is part of the latest Gap campaign and I know we’re the same height. Thank god I don’t have to suffer through Ally McBeal anymore now that he’s gone.
WONDERWALL
It’s really sad that George Harrison died. Granted he’d become a bitter old man of sorts, but still he was a rock god, whose post-Beatles musical output rivaled both Lennon and McCartney’s for creativity, if not success or output (John died 20 years ago and it still seems like he made more albums than George). Still, this doesn’t mean those people at Strawberry Fields weren’t complete and total fucking losers. I’m sorry, but they are. Strawberry Fields is for John Lennon. Why would you go there for anyone else? And what’s worse are the singers. Okay, you wanna sing a song? Fine, but they weren’t singing George’s songs! Know why? BECAUSE THEY DIDN’T FUCKING KNOW ANY. Oh, yeah, they’ll do "Something" and "Here Comes The Sun" and "My Sweet Lord", but two seconds later they’re doing "Imagine" and "Give Peace A Chance." Even worse are the losers who brought their guitars, because they aren’t so much there for George Harrison as they are from themselves. You don’t just "happen to have your guitar" like that. They’re using a man’s slow and painful death for the audience they so desperately crave. Suppose it had been Ringo. Imagine all those fucking losers singing "It Don’t Come Easy." Now, when Paul dies, I’ll show you mourning. I’ll never get enough of the silly love songs.
SOUTHERN BY THE GRACE OF GOD? I DON’T THINK SO.
I hate that I’m so enjoying listening to Shelby Lynne’s new over-produced, designed for success album. As I said, it’s not nearly as good as the first one (blame the over-producer, Glenn Ballard), but not without its virtues. And for the record, I was born in Birmingham, Alabama. I moved to Georgia when I was in the first grade. Yes, I’m that goddamn Southern. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
WHEN DO THE NEW SEX & THE CITY EPISODES START? ‘CAUSE SUNDAY NIGHTS SUCK.
My VH1 Music Awards started on a low note. Bon Jovi doesn’t deserve to listen to the Beatles, much less sing them. Thankfully, Gwen Stefani’s incredibly sexy ass-wiggling self was the very next thing I saw…The parody of Elton John’s crappy song and video with Robert Downey Jr. was another step in the right direction…Jesus, how big are Jewel’s breasts?…everything Maclom In The Middle touches is gold…Nelly Furtado should do less "performing" and more "singing"…Mary J was great. Mary J and Sting? Not so great…Creed and Lenny Kravitz sucking up a storm…Mick Jagger trying desperately to remind people he released a solo album two weeks ago. How sad. Notice how all the guys who live in the past just love Lenny Kravtiz. Know why? ‘Cause he lives in the past too. Only it’s not his past…what a lame awards show. I liked it better last year, when it was so obviously a disorganized mess and Megan Muhally, his Will & Grace costar, was so obviously drunk off her ass.
MORE MAN THAN YOU, BUDDY
So now that it looks like the war in Afghanistan is going to be over soon, I advise all of you with girlfriends to do what you have to in order to lock them down, because once Captain Rod Lance and his best friend, Sgt. Dirk Hammer, get back and decide they want them, it’s over. I’m serious. What do any of us have to match up to a Special Forces officer who parachuted into Afghanistan then charged into battle on a horse? Money, good looks, sense of humor, even fame, all this will be nothing compared the ultra-testosterone these guys will be oozing when they get back. Hell, even the lesbian populace will suffer. And a gay solider will have to keep his machine gun for protection against all the ass that will be coming his way. Only NYC cops and firemen are safe, but the rest of us just might as well set up our nightly poker game while these guys are humping everything from 16 to 60 when they get back. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. And no, you can’t borrow my porn. I’m king of the geeks. I’ll need it more than any of you. "Excuse me, miss, but I’m very witty." "Oh, that’s nice, geek, but there are real men around now."
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