Don't be afraid to explore turquoise and black

Well that was quite nice of Dell to send me a Mach 3 Turbo.  Tell me dear philanderers, what is the difference between a Turbo and a non-Turbo?  I took the liberty of looking up Gillette in terms of being an ethical company, and they were not on the ethical list.  I hope I am not now investigated for the time I passed out at the wedding after relating my extensive CIA experience over drinks to a Mexican call girl I hired who was wearing black high heels and unwashed seamed hosiery (per request).  However, I believe they are attending a symposium on the ethical treatment of animals, so they soon (I hope) will be placed on the "nice" list.  I had this thought originally several years ago so who knows what extensive changes to our fair planet have changed since then?  It does sound like it was a cool experience.

I’ve never had candied apples, unless you count pies. Candied pears are good.  We are all oddballs. Though if one listens to Tatiana they may come to the conclusion that we are all angels.  I personally love Tatiana so I would be inclined to agree with her save for my perennially overpowering cynicism which prevents this. 

Hmm.. if I had found out that everything I have told me so far were lies, I’d probably be very disappointed. And hurt. And I’d probably wonder why you were lying. Something in your past? A mental disorder? A fear to face yourself? A fear to face others?  Weakness? Maybe I was placed in suspended animation due to floating around in a block of ice.  No one ever considers that my possibility when they chose to reprimand me for my dishonesty.   

ahhh.. Twix aren't bad. I miss the cookies n’ cream variety which existed so many years ago that I am beginning to wonder if they in fact only ever truly existed in my dreams.   Someone I used to know once asked something about chocolate but I can’t remember the particulars of the question.  All the same, I believe my answer was a staunch “no”. 

I purchased the new Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers album yesterday afternoon and then I listened to it.  I also listened to it today.  My first impressions are overall quite positive.   It is a charming, rocking record and thankfully stripped of most of the blues riffing of their last album.  It definitely has a “garage” feel to it and demands to be played at high volumes.   I look forward to bonding further with this newest work. 

I don’t lie

...am still reeling, thinking about things, it was all so surreal, I think I will have more to say about it next time, but one thing I forget that I liked was in the opening fight scene when the funny man starts throwing knives and the king catches one, I liked that.

But anyway

I was on allmovie.com and looking at the review of The Haunting of <olly...(sorry the last name escapes me) and they gave it 1 and 1/2 stars (which is very bad).  The review said a lot of bad things about the movie and also said it had a laughable, ludicrous conclusion.  The ending is my favorite part.  It’s all about the ending.  I often think that while I’m eating corn on the cob (which is never).    

I have to know.  I screamed that for hours while I was locked in the asylum following a daring bank heist and subsequent forced retirement.  I changed the world with my inventions but then I was shunned.  Kids these days, no respect. 

Early on in my life I fell madly in love with the comic book character Vampirella and I don’t think my life has ever fully recovered.  To think it all started with a man’s dying dreams and a few spare coins in my pocket. 

Thanks again for a lovely time said absolutely no one ever to me over the course of my entire life. 

This is the release I wrote for a shipping business I attempted to start but which never took off: Cajamadera.com covers the entire Mexican republic and through that we are able to utilize all the main modes of transport available there such as Aeromexexpress, the post office, White Star, DHl, Fedex – Multipack – ADO and UPS.  Additionally, we have our own vehicular fleet that operates specially in the City of Mexico and its Metropolitan area.  Delivery to the federal district and its metropolitan zone is free.  Shipping to anywhere in Mexico is approximately $75 per package plus shipping and handling.  For example, if you are sending several products but they can fit in a single box, the total cost would still be $75 plus shipping and handling.  The more products sent in one order, the more inexpensive it will be. 

I think about my mistakes all the time.  That was a mistake.

I once sent a man a picture of a mariachi queen and though I longed to find her and even traveled to the ends of the earth in my search I was never able to fulfill this dream.  Please someone help me. My mind is not my own.  Things invade my body every night and I am scared.  They put things inside of me.

In= I think it’s really…

Runs= 14 seconds

Out=…a really good idea.

Of course i did not have the guts (nuts) to ask.  I eat nuts.  But I am not nuts.  I have returned from the dead.  Or have I?  I am all too sane and understand it perfectly.  It was swept to one side.  Unkept.  But lovely.  I am not lovely.   I run away cause I am coward not brave but coward I am yellow the color of piss and kiwi (the bird Taz likes eat).  I run and come back and talk stupid cause I am not smart but stupid the color of dumb.  I must erase it all but no one will erase the biggest mistake of all!  That mistake is me because I am emo and ugly and worthless.   
Someone should take a large Pink Pet and erase this grotesque yellow mistake.

I want you to know even though you are not reading this: I still love you, more than anything and you are still inside me more than anyone. 

Thank you for hugging me, I will never forget that. 

Thank you for saving me.

I want to go away.

Thank you, I love you. 

They're like Frosted Flakes, he said

…and how anyone could have looked at Nicholas Hoult’s Beast design and say it doesn’t look like shit is beyond me.  There are two things which (just barely) keep this movie afloat: Kevin Bacon as villain Sebastian Shaw and Michael Fassbender as villain in training Magneto.  Fassbender is one of the grooviest actors of our generation and never phones it in, managing to elevate every poorly written and constructed scene in which he appears – which is pretty much all the scenes he’s in.  And Bacon is simply sumptuous as the energy absorbing former Nazi and all around mean guy Shaw and provides a desperately needed spark of, hmmmm, life?  Character?  Anything worth watching?  I’ll have my Kevin Bacon with an order of pancakes and a side of eggs cooked over easy!  Bacon does it again!  Notice I didn’t say James McAvoy elevates things because he was a daft, dank and damned dirge of a disenchanting dull Professor X.   

I challenge anyone who truly believes they liked this movie to watch it again and to think about a couple things: If there had not been four X-Men related movies prior to this one then would it still be anywhere near as enjoyable?  If this movie had come out in 2011 and had been the first X-Men movie would it have launched a franchise which now has 7 movies?  Is there anything about this damn movie that doesn’t seem like just another paint-by-numbers ultra-dull origin story where basically nothing happens and we watch for over 2 interminable hours just so we can see Professor X end up in a wheelchair and Magneto put on a fucking helmet?!  I hate this movie!  I have no qualms whatsoever calling X-Men First Class the worst in the franchise by a large margin.  I would watch X-Men Origins: Wolverine a thousand times in a row before daring to watch this once more.  I hate it so much that I’m going to eat a big bowl of Trix cereal with whole milk!  You only want me for my acres!  Honestly, if anyone reading this has the brass balls to go watch this movie for a second time and tell me they still liked it and explains to me why I will give them five dollars American currency on the spot!  I truly believe everyone who ever said this was a good movie was suffering from kind of psychogenic fugue and failed to notice the complete absence of engaging, well developed characters, interesting story developments or even a vague attempt to weave dozens of disparate and frankly cheap looking scenes together.  And that’s not hyperbole either!  Anyone who said this was a good movie is objectively, factually wrong and anyone who said they liked it was not operating under a clear frame of mind and would think differently upon a second and sober viewing.  Bad, bad movie.    

I have found you and I fail you on what sometimes feels like a moment by moment basis.  There is such anger and hate which festers inside of me and sometimes even for people whom I claim to love. 

What am I doing here?  Please someone shoot me please someone shoot me please someone shoot me please someone shoot me!  What is this thing in my lap? 

Alain always breaks my heart.  How happy I am for this discovery. 

I was happier than a dog rolling in a steaming pile of pig shit to learn that a sequel is currently being made to RZA’s 2012 flick The Man with the Iron Fists.  As I have stated previously on this very blog the first film is such a lovingly rendered homage to classic Shaw Brothers kung fu movies that I could literally feel the passion oozing out of my woefully inadequate Vizio widescreen television set and covering me from head to toe.  I don’t know what this newest installment will have in store (though I suspect it won’t diverge too wildly from the original or their inspirations) but I await it with bated breath.  The fact that this second chapter will almost certainly be a direct to dvd, video on demand or extremely limited theatrical release flick actually fills me with greater anticipation since in recent years these humbler action films have been amongst the most intelligent, creative and interesting and a blissfully far cry from the increasingly bloated and boring messes Hollywood churns out. 

As I re-watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy I am continually struck like a bolt of lightning from Zeus himself by how much more I am enjoying them these days in comparison to my initial viewing so many years ago.  Of course they nearly bored me to death so many years ago so exceeding my original expectations slash appraisals is not in and of itself a great leap.  That being said, it has thus far not simply been a case of increased tolerance but genuine active enjoyment. And though there is still a part of me dreading the seemingly endless The Return of the King what with its roughly 37 tacked on endings it most assuredly is not the palpable bite-my-tongue off, please knife me in the gut type of dread which it would have been this time last year.  

The Two Towers was a predominantly enjoyable romp though its natural state – at least in cinematic form – as something which does not quite have a beginning and most definitely does not have an ending leaves me feeling a bit unsatisfied but I admit I am likely in the minority on this.  There are also things which pop up throughout this trilogy which baffle me with their inclusion and sometimes drive down the respective movie in a shocking way. The constant use of Gimli as comic relief with the mirthless and endless parade of short jokes and competitive jibes with the sleep inducing Legolas was already grinding but it comes to a stunningly awful apex in the climactic battle of Helm’s Deep scenes where the two start counting how many of Saruman’s drones they’ve slaughtered to see who can get the highest number.  I half expected them to start slapping fives – down low! – and pop open a couple of brews (preferably PBR) while in the thick of this supposedly heated battle.  It just kept destroying the tone and nearly all semblance of tension when the scene would cut from an ultra-serious and on point Aragorn fighting for the lives of the humble townsfolk and their king and then jump to these jokers merrily giggling their way through the fray and surfing down the stairs.  Just thinking about this scene right now is getting me steamed!  It was like something from a Pirates of the Caribbean movie and that is never a flattering comparison to make.  

The talking trees also bring the movie to a screeching halt every time they appear with the payoff of their storyline at the film’s end hardly seeming to justify their repeated inclusion.  I truly believe you could have shown the two lesser hobbits meeting them once and then simply include their burst-into-battle-to-attack-Saruman’s-tower scene at the end and no one would have been crying out for those additional thirty minutes of talking trees scenes.  I could be mistaken but they would seem to be even more arbitrary given that particular storyline’s culmination complete lack of significance in Return of the King (if tortured memory serves).  And as much as a great many of the FX of this flick – and indeed the trilogy as a whole – should be praised the trees just look so ridiculous and their dialogue so droning that I knew I would shortly commit a serious act of relief inducing self-mutilation if they did not cease.  Though I admit I did find it cute when the tree who was set on fire put himself out in the freshly unleashed dam water, it was a subtle comical touch and far funnier than most of the other forced shoehorned in humor.  But still, Two Towers was infinitely more enjoyable this time around! 

There are going to be some people reading this who will find it a sacrilege that I prefer The Man with the Iron Fists to any of the Lord of the Rings movies.  If I ever meet those people I will happily strip naked and dance a ballet for them.  It is those glorious differences of opinion that make this world such a wonderful subjective place.  As David Bowie says, “and there is no hell like an old hell”.  Without David I would have seen my brains splatter all over the off-white walls of my posh flat many moons ago.  I consider ending it all at least once an hour – typically on the hour and in accordance with my Azimuth brand watch which keeps excellent Swiss quartz time – and it is almost always the voice and words of David which hold me back.  Perhaps in that respect he is actually doing the world a grave disservice through his art but all the same I cannot keep myself from listening. 

I knew my gun had no bullets when I pointed it at the piano player.  

Our celestial wedding

All these soft watches keep melting into our wrists where they are absorbed into our bones.  These watches remind me very much of the soft lies you told me so many years ago.  Alone in the front seat my hands ventured toward a forbidden place and I was denied but not before falling into a pit of love.  What strange and sad creatures we all are and I suspect we will all be shocked when we realize that none of this meaningless shit we are attempting to accomplish will make us in the least bit happy. 

I took a walk on Mars and I sensed he was with me.  I was so confused by his promises and I wondered why he or they chose to appear to those particular women and in those particular times even though the answer was staring me right in the face.  I wish to know them and touch them and understand what really happened.  The files have been sealed away in some dark dusty corridor and I fear what will transpire when they are opened again and wonder if our tiny brains will be able to comprehend what took place here. 

The sands threatened to swallow me whole and the stars offered new wonders and new terrors in equal measure and over the course of an hour I forget who and where I was 540 consecutive times.  There was a white pattern on black and it stuck and clung and I reached for it and felt razor blades across my tongue, splashing bright red upon the canvas.  He knew there were only about 10 people who could really understand what was going on but I was too afraid to connect to even one of them. 

I hear women and babies screaming and I hear no men and I realize now more than ever how evil could have been born from a simple shadow and a glance downward and I understand now what all those ladies were really doing at the marketplace.  There is glass breaking over and over and over again and a sweet temptation to roll naked through all the pieces and there are thoughts which slice my brain in half and then fourths and I wonder why male and female genitalia is so frightening and bizarre and why it looks so horrifying when they are connecting and forming some new slippery flesh monster that writhes and spreads and eagerly welcomes devouring penetration. 

I wonder which version of me is going to be having lunch today and I wish I could be the person sitting across the table to know what they see and then maybe I would have some kind of understanding of what is really happening to me and around me.  I walked through red curtains and saw the water before me and I knew I would not jump and this made me sad and I cried and confessed I wanted your friendship but I knew it was impossible.  I kissed her arm and it felt so blissful and I believed for an instant I was in heaven and when I looked into her eyes I saw a distinct lack of recognition.

There was no place.  There was no wheelhouse.  There was something here and something there and someone had stuck a very long needle through the head of a small monkey and it was chattering and having spasms on the ground and I wondered if its death was near.  There is a red car which keeps driving by my window.  I cannot make out who is inside but I believe s/he or they will one day come to my doorstep.  It will be night and I will sense someone there and I will look out the peephole and somehow it will be too dark to see the face.  I cannot imagine how their voice will sound.

Sometimes I wonder if I will die in your dreams.  I do not understand why I am begrudged putting on lipstick and eyeshadow and blush and wearing nylons and skirts.  What is wrong with a boy wanting to feel and look pretty?  Lipstick tastes so good, even better than the oysters I ate last night.

Has anyone ever screamed for the tears in my eyes?  Suddenly everyone is falling all around me and I see a horse on fire running toward me.  I can smell his hair and flesh burning and I watch its eyes explode.  I was staring at a bowl of fruit the other day when I inadvertently gave birth to a new brand of fear. 

Did you ever dance with all those gypsies as you prescribed to yourself while the old man kept screaming his way to an early retirement?  I found us all there bound by unbridled lust and I watched with disinterest and people willfully threw their lives away.  We say the words that make us cowards and thousands of stone pillars collapse and turn to dust.  Is that sweet thing born again as I was promised and when did I lose track of my second and final chance to be something worthwhile?  There are only so many different ways I can end things and if I open my mouth and look inside and I can almost see the thing that lives there and tells me everything I need to here. 

You mingled with the afterbirth and I watched you smile when putting on a new crown of meat and blood and your eyes rolled back and the noises you made were orgasmic and terrifying.  We all cut ourselves to the beat of our own drum and I have trouble stopping when I start to hit the really sensitive electric nerves and I start to look for nails and pins and pens and knives and other things I can drive inside.  I wondered when you first fell in love with death.  There was a lesbian inviting prostitutes up to her room when so many people started to end up dead.  How many watched that one die in the middle of the street and did nothing but continue in their mundane way while her red juice stained the pavement? 

Happiness rested on my tongue and the flower beds were vomiting their angst against the degenerate unassuming populace.  There is no better place I could be than through the haphazard and loquacious wires which traverse the interpersonal spectrum with their light and dark and anatomically correct selves which only serve to prove the inherent futility in everything that has come before, that currently exists or that will show up in the increasingly uncertain future.  I am a mountain man who has never crushed an empty can against his forehead and for that I cannot live with myself.  Why has no one looked passed the calm exterior and seen all the haunting shit beneath?  There is no better place than the beginning and right at the end and I long to the live in the gutters.  Everyone is closing and opening their legs and smiling and their sex is ugly. 

My words all sound so much better coming from your mouth.  

All those señoritas in the west

My fans and detractors alike have been jockin’ me all day long, dying to hear my reaction to the final game of the World Cup and if the end result was to my liking.  Sadly, I must admit I am not much of a futbol – or “soccer” for all my White Anglo-Saxon Protestant friends out there – fan so I did not actually tune into the game.  However, I did take special measures to ensure a viewing of the opening ceremony as I could not miss a performance by Shakira.  The glory of her reputably honest hips and the hypnotically poetic jiggle and shake of her rich fishnet-wrapped derriere coupled with the dulcet tones of her voice left me drowning in puddles of my own ecstasy and I could scarcely imagine a better way to spend my Sunday.   

The second trailer for David Fincher’s Gone Girl based on Gillian Flynn’s enormous 2012 bestseller went online earlier in the week and completely owned my pale, puckery hirsute ass.  At the same time my main man Trent Reznor and his partner in criminology Atticus Ross posted on some social media platform that they feel the soundtrack they’ve composed for this upcoming feature film may be their best work yet in that particular field.  Artists always say things like this but I trust Reznor more than I do anyone else in this miserable world and this statement fills me with unbridled joy as I worship their previous Fincher film soundtracks. 

What puts me in a state of slack-jawed drooling awe about the trailer is all the characters are perfectly cast to how I envisioned them from reading the novel; it’s a sweet punch to the gut.  And then when I saw the typically gorgeous Fincher cinematography I was ready to kidnap and ransom innocent children in order to purchase a ticket to an advance screening.  Also, I have to get this off my chest: of all Fincher’s movies Fight Club is undoubtedly my least favorite and part of me kinda sorta hates that movie.  There will be many who wish to savagely beat and berate me after hearing this and I understand their frustration but I could not hold it back any longer.  I promise dear readers that in the future I will provide plentiful details over this controversial opinion. 

At the very same instant the aforementioned second Gone Girl trailer was unleashed on an unsuspecting world the first trailer for Ridley Scott’s Exodus: Gods and Kings was also uploaded to the net and I viewed it while guzzling a bottle of the finest Chardonnay which I purchased at the corner gas station following a sumptuous steak dinner with the trumpet player from the local jazz trio.  Though I’ve been eagerly anticipating this flick – almost as much as my own eventual public humiliation and ultimate degradation – I was sorely disappointed when The Powers That Be decided to change the title from the simple and elegant Exodus to the gigantic run on mess I mentioned above.  I do not understand Hollywood’s new fascination with these awful subordinate titles (not to be confused with subtitles which are the captions displayed at the bottom of a movie or television screen that translate or transcribe the dialogue or narrative).  When I find out who is responsible for starting this dubious new trend I will eat a turkey on rye sandwich, play 9 consecutive games of solitaire and then further pontificate the great mysteries of our fair universe while wearing my mother’s wedding dress. 

Still, the title alone does not entirely quash my excitement and I imagine I will be at the multiplex opening weekend – while simultaneously cursing the exorbitantly high ticket prices the government has allowed – to see this Ten Commandments-esque retelling of Moses, pharaoh and the plagues.  However I am two minds on the director and the potential for success.  On the one hand, Scott seems like an obvious choice for this material and the trailer certainly makes use of that, citing his previous work as the director of Gladiator.  But on the other more hideously deformed hand one must also consider that since the release of Gladiator he also crafted Kingdom of Heaven and Robin Hood (which the marketing team wisely chose not to namedrop) and with this information he suddenly seems like a less obvious or at least less infallible choice.  I am willing to give Kingdom of Heaven the benefit of the doubt – though just barely – and (sidewalk) chalk that misfire up to a wildly miscast lead in Orlando Bloom but Robin Hood?!  Only the most ardent Scott or Russell Crowe apologists could watch that nigh impossibly bland movie and call it anything other than finely polished manure. 

The trailer for Exodus: Dawn of Justice certainly provides with the requisite thrills and my groin always feels curious stirrings at the sight of Christian Bale and Sigourney Weaver but every movie has an exciting trailer these days!  They no longer mean anything.  They mean nothing.  They actually mean less than nothing and have taken on a kind of anti-significance though they have undoubtedly become a distinct art form in their own right and I praise their makers.  I’ll still never forget how I actually thought Terminator Salvation looked thrilling.  And this year brought the great emotional pain with Godzilla.  You trailer-makers make my life a living hell and for that I thank you.  This particular trailer also featured an incredible cover from Sydney Wayser of the song “Belfast Child” originally by Simple Minds.  It is extremely unlikely this music will appear in the film but right now all those epic images of battles and plagues are intrinsically linked to that song in my diseased mind and this trailer would not be half as slammin’ without it. 

Christian movies have sure been good business at the box office this year, from the small evangelistic indies like God’s Not Dead to the talk show material like Heaven is for Real to the quick cash-ins like Son of God and right on up to a twin pair of large blockbusters like Exodus: The Desolation of God and Darren Aronofsky’s Noah from earlier in the year.  For my moolah Noah is easily one of the most interesting flicks that has been released in this creatively bankrupt year.  Its divisiveness certainly speaks for itself and I greatly appreciate the risks the filmmakers took.  I cannot see Scott making anything as bizarre as Noah so I am hoping for a more straightforward but perhaps more immediately satisfying biblical epic.  Either way, anti-Christian hate mongers and anti-NonChristian hate mongers have already begun spewing their bile all over the wide world of web and I look forward to the intelligent debates sure to come. 

You know what I just realized?  This is a movie which will likely have overt Christian themes (unless they remove a chief aspect of the source material) and it stars a man named Christian (Bale)!  Coincidence?  Maybe.  But it does make you wonder, doesn’t it?

I bought my first Louis L’Amour book today and I hope to read it in an airport while sipping overpriced cocktails.  

I don't care how many legs they have!

Haris Alexiou makes such beautiful music.  I only have one album of hers – Di Efchon – but I will most certainly buy more.  This Greek singer has such a beautiful voice that transports me to a far more wondrous plane of existence than the awful world which surrounds me.  I have listened to her music on road trips, at work, while falling asleep, stuck in traffic, while writing or reading and each time it has the same transcendental effect.  Her voice inspires such feverish happiness, it is an ethereal instrument.  If all the Alexiou fans in my readership would so kind as to make some hearty recommendations I will immediately make the appropriate purchases. 

Today, I listened to the album Heathen by David Bowie 21 times in a row.  It is a fantastic album and one of my favorites of the neo-classicist era.  I personally love latter day Bowie.  There are so many gems, so many songs which make me break down and sob like an infant.  “Everyone Says Hi” is the song from Heathen which never fails to turn on the wetworks.  When I am at my lowest I listen to this tune and wrap it around me like a blanket.  Bowie has alleviated me so much pain in life. 

I know I was somewhere doing something when I heard the song “24 Hours” by Sky Ferreira.  It was my first time hearing this song and I fell in love with it.  It reminds me of something but I haven’t figured out what yet.  Maybe the song “I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man” by Prince (massive compliment coming from me as that is one of my all-time favorites), maybe there are some sonic similarities there.  Maybe I’m hopelessly lost in the dark cesspool that is my life.  Either way I really dig the song but I’m too afraid to check out any other songs by this bold new talent for fear they may be trash.  I just don’t know what to do about it. God, I don’t know what to do. 

I feel bad for anyone who does not enjoy live albums.  If one is not able to feel the immediacy and the passion and vital beauty that are most clear in a live performance then I would question whether they truly have a heart and would conclude their life to be dull and filled with binge eating and unsatisfying sexual encounters.  And if one’s favorite artist(s) are not engaging live then one should questions the artistic integrity and validity of that/those artist(s).  Just my pompous opinion.

Audiences are much more willing to accept insecurities or fears in relation to sexuality if coming from a female perspective than from a male perspective.  It is very difficult to write a male who has strong and deep seated sexual issues without him appearing off-putting in some way to an audience.  This is rather strange and warrants further thought slash investigation. 

I’ve recently embarked on a journey of rock rediscovery.  This has taken me down paths as varied as Buddy Holly to A Perfect Circle to Elvis Costello to Sebastian Bach to OFF!   I will say right now that whatever band Maynard James Keenan is in at any given moment would do better to stop trying to show off with a thousand little fills and time changes and instead try writing some interesting and memorable melodies and vocal arrangements.  Fuck! 

However going along with this journey I have gregariously stumbled upon Mr. Ted Nugent.  I consorted with a few of my most beloved comrades in the wee hours of the morning on this matter and was shocked to find precious little love for the Motor-City Madman.  I have personally always found him to be highly engaging in interviews and he seems to put on a cracker of a live show.  After watching him being interviewed by the deplorable Piers Morgan this morning I happened to visit a site where I saw yet another clip about Mr. Nugent, this time with him discussing his utter discontent with a recent performance of Jack White on some show.  White happens to be one of the few recording artists whose music I absolutely cannot stand what with its ultra-derivative hipster pandering distilled blues boredom shitty shitness (the man himself seems like a jerkface as well otherwise I would not have employed such trenchant criticism) and I must say Nugent’s frankness on the matter, coupled with the subsequent props he gave to the Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Motown groove further ingratiated the man with yours truly.  Dear readers, do not be afraid!  I am acutely aware that this increased media presence is intrinsically linked to the man’s new album (playfully titled Shutup&Jam!) which sees release today and its accompanying tour and is nothing more or less than a canny form of publicity and promotion.  Yet I found it working.  I believe part of me wanted it to work.  There is a populist side of me that enjoys the idea of being influenced by commercialism.  I cry out for increased controls – government or otherwise – all the time (which is an oddly liberal perspective and quite contrarian to Mr. Nugent’s beliefs) and the prospect of purchasing something of which I’d had no prior interest solely as a result of slick corporate marketing makes me giddy with delight. 

Yet there is also a part of me which yearns to fall for a new rocker (more new to me I should specify in this particular case).  How I adore really delving deep into an artist and slowly amassing every album, every live recording, every rare b-side, it fills me with me white light.  And the great thing is that I never know what to expect and am frequently wrong in my preconceptions.  When I first began my Iggy Pop phase I had no idea whatsoever of the musical and lyrical depth and variety which I would discover in his catalogue – one of the most diverse in ages.  The one consistent was his eminently pleasing personality which made even his lesser discs enjoyable.  Will the same thing happen with Ted Nugent?  I don’t have any fucking idea but I’m open to the possibility, all right?  I’m open to the motherfucking possibility and that’s all that fucking matters.   Also, his anti-hippie sentiments are right on the money in my book.  Does anyone remember that ridiculous “Occupy…” movement from a couple years back?  All those entitled fucksticks sitting on their ever fattening asses, ordering pizzas and watching tasteful European pornographic films on their iPhones.  I am truly stunned that such an ignorant and worthless “social movement” could have transpired during my lifetime.  Anyway, I know Ted would never be involved in something that asinine and for that reason alone he earns my respect above many others.  Plus there is a song on his new album about BBQ!  I just can’t fucking resist shit like that!  I just can’t fucking resist it!  And so my Journey of the Nuge begins.  I will keep you all informed of my progress. 

 The reason I don’t like giving money to poor people is because I know they’re just going to spend it on drugs. 

The wizard gave me porcupines

I recently watched The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring again for the first time in what feels like millennia and I was pleasantly shocked to find that it did not bore the piss and shit out of me like it did the last time I watched it.  I’ve come to a pleasantly odd realization that I am now able to enjoy and respect a great many things which I could not before.  I wonder if this is the old age starting to kick in and fashioning me into a much more accepting and open minded individual.  I also wonder if it will continue in this trend until eventually I will just enjoy everything and be everyone’s best friend.  However I will point out one horrible part of the movie only because its image is cemented in my brain with its awfulness.  When Cate Blanchett’s character Galadriel is talking with Frodo about the dangers of the ring and whatnot and she shows him and the audience her potential transformation were she to succumb to the temptation of the ring’s corruption the resulting effect is shockingly cheesy, super gooey cheesy, ultra rotten smelly cheesy even (the kind I’d want a Mexican hooker to force feed to me with her seamed pantyhose clad feet while she laughs and calls me “ugly” and “pathetic” and while I lay in a paralytic state after she acquiesced to my requests of being shocked by the stun gun she carries in her purse).  The lighting effect on her face and body is akin to the photo manipulation one does on a smart aleck phone and the effect on her voice is so ridiculous it is hard to believe that scene is meant to be taken seriously at all.   I understand what Pete Jackson et al were going for but the cumulative effect is so laughable that I was unable to control my faculties while watching and I promptly defecated in my new Urparcel Mens G-string underwear.  

I want all you Ring-Heads out there to know that I do respect these flicks.  They were and are an undoubtedly impressive technical achievement and easily the most important movies of the genre in terms of bringing respectability to fantasy in cinema and displaying its vast potential for critical and financial success.  In fact the above mentioned scene is the only flaw in an otherwise perfect film, probably the best film that has ever been made or ever will be made, rivaled only by the following entries in the incomparable trilogy.  I’m sorry for my prior harsh words – here and elsewhere – for it was wrong of me.  Damn me.  I’m such a fool.  Still, my criticisms have always been honest, at least give me that.  And at least we’re together.  One last time together.  As it should be.  And at least we can all agree that The Hobbit movies are dreck.  Pure unadulterated horseshit. 

Over the holiday weekend I viewed Sean Penn’s 2001 movie The Pledge for the first time in decades after finally tracking down a delightful used copy on digital video disc.  For those not in the know this film has an all-star cast which includes the likes of Jack Nicholson, Aaron Eckhart, Benecio Del Toro, Mickey Rourke, Sam Shepard and a bunch of other people and follows Nicholson’s retiring detective character down a dark psychological path as he attempts to solve the final case of his career involving the murder of a young girl.  

When one makes a close examination of Nicholson’s career one notices he has opted not to appear in many feature films since the 90’s.  I would posit that The Pledge features (so far) the last great performance of his career and I would have no trouble ranking it in the top 10 performances of the man’s entire filmography.  It is a subtle and haunting performance full of nuance and the right amount of grit and heartbreaking realism.  In that sense it is very much the opposite of the performance he gave in Martin Scorcese’s 2006 flick The Departed where he was all indulgence and Nicholsonian vamping (though Mark Wahlberg, my current cinematic hero, of course saves the day with his typically stunning work).  The latter movie is of course far flashier all around and highly enjoyable in its own way but I do not believe the man’s work in that motion picture is on anywhere the same level as in Penn’s.  I encourage anyone even remotely interested in quality stuff to find a copy of this feature film and give it a good watching.  It is a grim and harrowing tale and I believe it will stay in my brain until I die a much deserved death.    After watching, leave me a comment somewhere to let me know your thoughts. 

Incidentally I once allowed my beloved friend Calvin Black a copy of this back in the delightful days of video cassette.  However in discussing the film with him what I found as apparent as it was bizarre was that Black had somehow missed several vital pieces of information that were not so subtly stated and for that reason he had completely misconstrued the film’s denouement.  Even stranger still was his adamant insistence that he had indeed viewed every second of its 124 minute running time.  Upon re-watching I have no choice but to label my dear friend either hopelessly delusional or a backstabbing liar as there is no way someone could watch The Pledge in full and come to such a mistaken conclusion about the events which transpire at the end.  Whatever the case may be, I desperately hope that Black gets the help he needs and finds the answers he is looking for. 

I keep having flashbacks to strange astronauts performing a bizarre medical examination on me.  I remember things leading up to it as well such as being dragged down a white corridor while I am screaming.  At intermittent moments during these memories I recall having strange sexual relations with a gorgeous black haired and ivory skinned woman with unusually large, dark eyes though sometimes I remember her not in that way at but as something with an animal like appearance and those memories are quite horrifying.  I also recall great pain in my groin and legs during this moment and that there were things – maybe those astronauts? – holding down my hands and feet.  Every time I tried to close my eyes she told me not to but I never saw her mouth move and her eyes were at once beautiful and frightening beyond measure and I cried and continued screaming while looking into them. 

After having watched Batman Returns and The American Friend no less than 17 times each over the 4^th of July holiday weekend I can conclude that not only are these two of my favorite films of all time but that the titular characters and their respective portrayals – Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne/Batman and Dennis Hopper as Tom Ripley – are my favorite interpretations of said characters AND I believe very similar characters in several ways which likely leads to my unbridled love.  They are both troubled loners, they both have difficulties functioning within the parameters of what society deems “normal”, they both forsake close relationships due to their individual psyches simply not permitting intimacy or friendship beyond a certain point and they both have no choice but continuing to succumb to their base instincts and desires which push them into their increasingly bizarre behaviors which ultimately yield their sole gratification.  They are haunting figures and so fully, beautifully realized that I praise the heavens I can re-watch and explore them whenever the need strikes me.  Thank you Burton and Wenders.  Thank you Keaton and Hopper.  You all make me cry.  I owe you so much.   

The Raid 2 is unleashed on blu ray tomorrow.  Having viewed this feature film on the proverbial big screen I can safely say I am so excited for this release I may spit in the faces of anyone with whom I come into contact until a purchased copy is clasped in my trembling hands. 

I joyously blew up the car on the beach and triumphed before my enemies but the ambulance left without me.