If someone....

....says you should google or watch the video for "2 Girls 1 Cup" DO NOT DO IT!!!! You have been warned.

Seriously, do not navigate over to google right now.

I'm not kidding.

You'll be really, really sorry.

And no, I'm not challenging you, I'm warning you. I gave in and sought it out because alot of people were talking about it, and I may as well have watched that creepy video from "The Ring."

You've been warned.

Heya, Chuck

I was walking the baby around and noticed "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving" was on. I am, and always have been, a total sucker for holiday kids movies on TV. All the Charlie Browns, Rudolph, Fat Albert Santa Claus is Coming to Town...you name it, I've seen it 36 times. Except for anything newer than 1990...and the Garfield ones. So naturally I turned the baby away from the evil screen and zoned out to Snoopy making dinner for Peppermint Patty, Marcy, Linus, Lucy and (surprise surprise) Franklin who Charlie gave a high-5 to in a really sad, latently racist move. He didn't slap skin with any of his other friends...just the "other" friend. But as usual, I digress.

What struck me this year was how frigging rude Peppermint Patty is to Snoopy and Charlie Brown. I mean sure, toast, popcorn, pretzel sticks and jelly beans are shitty components for a Thanksgiving Day feast. But...hello....you're a guest you grouchy beeotch! You don't diss someones food when you invited yourself over because you have no parents. What really annoyed me further was Charlie Brown feels bad about it and soon allows his freeloading friends to go with him to his grandmas house for a "real" dinner. I wonder if all these years, Charlie Brown was more of a pushover/cuckold than a "loser?" I'll be looking closer this holiday season.



After the Thanksgiving show, a newer Charlie Brown special called "He's a Bully Charlie Brown" came on. It was all revitalized (or trying to be) and had Snoopy and Charlie Brown on a halfpipe skateboarding in the opening credits. Neat. They also had some glossy looking computer type animation that really sucked as well. It was basically a pumped up Peanuts and it lacked any and all charm of the originals.

Oh! The "acting" was horrible! They were like Peanuts Robots. "Hello, Chuck. How. Are. You? Going. To. Summer. Camp?" You get the idea. But what really made my night was the fact that we can no longer question or make sly innuendoes about Marcy and Peppermint Patty. See, in "Bully," Marcy and Charlie Brown get to go to summer camp but P. Patty has to stay behind and attend summer school. Torn apart by jealousy over Marcy and Chuck having fun while she is in school, she calls Marcy each night to see what she's missing.

Soon, while on the phone, Marcy starts doing things like, "Oh, hold on sir, I can't hear you because Chuck is nibbling my ear" (I'm not kidding...that really happens) and during one phone call she says, "Oh Chuck....quit squeezing my hand so hard." It all makes Peppermint Patty incredibly jealous and she comes unglued and she sneaks off to the camp to see what's really going on.

Once there Patty begins to look everywhere for Chuck with Marcy attached at her hip....where she is usually found. Now, simpletons would believe the company line that Peppermint Patty is jealous because Marcy is picking up on her man. However closer inspection reveals that Patty never actually states who she's jealous of. If you took some of her statements at face value and "in" the scene, you could easily easily argue she's mad that Marcy is straying from her and in fact, I think the lack of clearness speaks to the fact Peppermint Patty is a lesbian. Not that there's anything wrong with that and hell, since Dumbledore got outed it's only a matter of time before a classic cartoon character comes out of the animated closet. I do have to say my money was always on Goofy though...

EBAY is harassing me.

So I made boo-boo with my ebay account. Here's the deal...
I had a credit card on file with Pay Pal and that credit card expired before I could swap it out. Then I somehow managed to forget my Pay Pal password and accidentally blocked myself out of the site. While this is going on, I won an auction for a $4 bendy toy action figure thingy. I was going to do some stop-motion animating in my massive amount of free time.

So, I call Pay Pal and in order to reinstate my account to me, I need to provide them with the credit card number. Since the credit card had expired and I replaced it, I cut up the old credit card and tossed it. The guy at Pay Pal then said I would have to have the BANK fax them a clearance to which I responded, "are you high? Do you think I have time to have the bank fax you my information? Can't I just tell you my moms maiden name and my dogs name and we can move forward?"

"No, sorry" was the response.

So I then think to myself, well screw it. I'll just let that account sit there and I'll open another one under another email. Brilliant! I set one up and then went through similar phone BS that basically ended up being, I can't change the Pay Pal account or email or some such thing on my Ebay. I need to jump through the hoops to get my Pay Pay fixed. But in the meantime, I have yet to pay my $9 ($5 shipping) for my bendy toy and so now, my Ebay account has a strike and I'm on like, double secret academic probation suspension. And it's all rather annoying and I really don't shop much on Ebay but knowing I can't is really frustrating. But here's the kicker...Ebay emails me about 6 times a week to remind me I have "a strike" and my account is on hold.

I mean, Jesus H. Ebay....I frigging get it. I won an item, did not pay and now I'm in trouble. But for F-'s sake....don't you people think I know by now?! It's reminding me of that storyline in "Short Cuts" where Lyle Lovett keeps pestering the couple who just lost their son to pay for and pick up the cake they bought. He keeps crank calling them and won't let it go that they never picked up and paid for a cake they bought for their kid...when truth was the kid got hit by a car and died. Boy did Lyle's character feel shitty when he found out what happened.

I seriously want to call Ebay and make up some crazy, sad thing that happened but that's never good karma. But still....leave me alone Ebay! I'll fix my shit soon...sheesh...

lazy blogger...

....i didn't even bother to capitalize.

But seriously...
Many times I wonder how a book or movie becomes "a classic." In terms of newly found crazes, that is.. I generally miss the rise as it comes up, or wholly disagree. But lately I've been reading several people who are just crazy about Bob Rafelson's "Five Easy Pieces." I read many blog innuendoes before and finally caught the film about a year and a half ago...when we had "On-Demand"...which, corporate levelling aside...RULES!! Anyway...it's a really, really under-the-radar-yet-you-must-see movies.

There's one scene in particular which apparently sums up the feelings of post-60's hippies as well as 80's kids....or something. It's the one below...and it's just fucking great. Seriously, greatX5. But the whole movie is really good and much like small time classics such as..."Harold and Maude" and "Edward Scissorhands" (that people have rethought and said, "ya know...that shit was the shit!!) I think "Five Easy Pieces" is a GREAT movie on the fast track to being the movie cool/smart/hip people go "Ohh man, that was great!" then get all wrong in their assessment of it.

No matter what you think of the whole thing, here's a clip to whet your appetite...Friend-o. Go rent this...ASAP...you'll be deemed cool somewhere, sometime.

Living and learning...

I love to learn. Seriously. As much as it bites me in the ass in that I know seemingly a teeny, tiny, miniscule bit about everything...just enough to have a conversation with any annoying nut job at a bar or supermarket, I LOVE finding new writers, filmmakers, music...pop culture phenomenon ("Jenkem," anyone?) and whatnot. It's just the bees knees. But when Norman Mailer died the other day, alot of people I enjoy reading were writing their little blog tributes and I seriously had no clue who he was.

Sure, I heard the name and saw the youtube clip posted below (which is freeking...amazing. We don't get "real" moments like that EVER these days) but really, why was he famous? Who was Norman Mailer? I had no idea and I just spent the last hour reading about him and damn it if he wasn't exactly the kind of brilliant/perma-damaged/creative force freakshow I usually find solace in.

My point is that although I can still remember the original "Herbie the Love Bug" license plate (OFP 857)...I'll never know anywhere close to anything. I'm not down about it, I'm just saying.

Enjoy Norman Mailer -vs- Rip Torn on the set of Mailers film "Maidstone"...

If you haven't...

Checked this out, you're seriously missing out on something cooler than hipster cool could ever be:

http://www.robertplantalisonkrauss.com/

I'm back!

After a brief hiatus, I'm back to my blog. Aside from baby time, I've just been plain busy. We're STILL editing our new doc, school is in FULL swing and work, sleep, baby, movies, shows....wow. My old plan to get rid of February and add another hour to the day seems more and more genius all the time.

I'm holding it all together pretty well and I've seen some GREAT movies lately and I also saw Springsteen again! The show was just o.k. Like pizza and BJ's, even when it's so-so Springsteen is pretty great. I just wasn't that crazy about the setlist. It was alot of new stuff...which is o.k....and kind of vapid/pointless old stuff like "Tunnel of Love" and "Workin' on a Highway." Plus they shut off the beer on the third level where we were THEN shut off the escalator going down so it took forever to get more beer.

Still, you gotta respect The Boss. He can do whatever he wants and dammit, you'll like it. I love that he doesn't give in to convention. The whole setlist is here: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/live/2007setlists.html#20071026

I also saw two AMAZING movies: "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" and "No Country for Old Men." I'm doing a review of the latter for Film Threat but man, I simply cannot wait to see it again. I saw a special screening of it in San Rafael and Josh Brolin was there. He was pretty funny and off the cuff...in a douchebaggy kind of way. It opens this Friday I think and you should check it out. Be warned....it's uber violent and bloody and it's also an incredibly frustrating movie, but in a great way.

Tonight there's a really special screening of "There Will be Blood" in SF and I really, really, really want to go. It doesn't even open until Christmas. But, the earliest I can safely leave work would be 4:00 and the doors open at 6:30. Parking near the Castro is a nightmare, plus I have to go to SF again in the morning. But here's the thing....I'm totally loving the MA program at SF State and I really dig my classmates and they all get to go. They all live really close to SF. I hate missing out on fun stuff. When I went to Cal State Northridge, I didn't really work much so I could really enjoy being just "a student." Now I have to balance so much and it takes away from what I really love to do. I'm literally on the fence about going.....grrr.

Anyway, that's a brief update and I plan to write more and more often.