The Kings are playing the Grizzlies and yet I cannot watch. It is tragically unfair.
Last night I couldn't actually convince myself to go to bed, so I stayed up watching movies on the cable. I don't do this nearly enough. I saw things of interest and I'm going to talk about them.
The Dunwich Horror (1970): I can't believe I've never seen this until now. All these kinds of earthly manifestations of demonic phenomena tales are so very much My Bag. Basically, Sandra Dee gets date-raped by Satan. At least once, maybe twice. That is the whole movie. Although there is all that H.P. Lovecraft "unearthly beings from another dimension" stuff instead of good old-fashioned occult crap, but it's a minor complaint. So Sam Rockwell, I mean Dean Stockwell, is the youngest in a long family line of people with "unusual" "beliefs" and when he sees doughy Sandra Dee clutching a copy of the Necronomicon, he is, dare I say, bewitched! and sets to employing a whole satchelful of warlock trickery in order to win her over so that he can sacrifice her in a ritual to open the gates to ... something, and maybe impregnate her, or get something else to impregnate her, or whatever, I dunno. It's artistic. With his Yorkie moustache, WASP 'fro and fluttery man-scarf, he brings to mind Roddy McDowall in that one episode of "Columbo," only not so butch, and both Sandra Dee and her Bonnie Cashin cape are suitably captivated. The most fantastic thing is that he's whipping out this whole catalog of awesome expressionating, like shifty-eyed dartful glances and pop-eyed stare-takes punctuating his every line of dialogue as if to say Bonggg, I am casting a spell on you, bonggg and it is not to be missed. And I can't even begin to get into all the trippy filter-abuse posterization segments, overlaid images that would made Tim Pope pee on himself, the bitchin' Les Baxter score, the multi-armed Coldmiser monster that looks like a 3D Ikea wall-hanging with teeth, or the part where the purportedly semi-nude Sandra Dee, in the midst of alleged sacrificial ecstasy, is laid out on the altar and you can see the entire armhole of her body stocking, complete with seams. It doesn't match her skintone in the slightest. Also, there are tons of stunt boobs and inappropriate groping. And don't miss the shock surprise ending! I give it a million stars.
Spun (2002): I missed the first couple of minutes, but I could tell after 30 seconds that this movie would be intolerable. Clearly Jonas Akerlund needed to make a full-length revisitation of "Smack My Bitch Up" and "Turn the Page" and then edit it to rip off, I mean pay tribute to, the addiction rush sequences from Requiem for a Dream. There's a reason why those were used sparingly. Oh my God. This is a complete piece of shit. Let me tell you something about America! It's got drugs! And FAT PEOPLE! Fat people who do drugs! And they eat junk food and watch wrestling and shop at — get this — convenience stores. And some guys wear these mullet hairdos and they're CRAZY! Don't they even realize they look stupid? Man, Americans are STUPID! They watch NASCAR and wear aviator glasses like they think they're from the '70s, but it's totally not even the '70s, because in case you haven't noticed, it is 2002 and practically the FUTURE. But don't tell that to these people! They wear, hello, acid-washed jeans? and cowboy boots. Cowboy boots! Have you seen these things? Only hicks wear that stuff! Hey, guess where there are a lot of hicks? AMERICA! Let me tell you something about America. They've got pornographies and strippers and people who watch strippers and GAY PEOPLE! And everyone does drugs and it's dirty and gross and yet extremely sexy, because we Europeans are so ADVANCED in our formulation of aesthetic standards that everything about dirty Americans that is disgusting and gross and that Finger-Pointing-at-YOU should really despise about YOURSELVES is actually the very zenith of hotness to us, because we are SO BEYOND YOU. This movie can shoot itself in the face and bleed to death. I can't believe I watched the entire thing! It made me go back and watch The Dunwich Horror a second time just to clear out the venom. I recommend watching this movie specifically to hate everything about it.
Little Murders (1971): I only saw the last half of this, which is either the stronger or weaker half, depending. Uh. I've seen this maybe three times. It's not the kind of movie you can watch over and over again. I like it as They Just Don't Make 'Em Like This Anymore but I don't think I'll ever get Chris to watch it as he despises Jules Feiffer. The first time I saw this was on a double feature at the Film Forum with, if memory serves, Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me? which is a certain sort of bill for a certain sort of person. It was trying. But good. Just don't try to see those both on the same night, that is rough going.
It took me so long to write this that the game ended ages ago and the Kings won. YAY
How sad is it that "Passions" finally gets a real Alistair Crane and he dies. On Thanksgiving even. He's only been on since September! He seemed like a cool dude and I feel :(
I was all ready to finally complain about how the show is now somehow all about people over 50, but I must defer out of respect. I'm not one to cross Alistair Crane.
This show is cursed.
Oh man, Thanksgiving karaoke, what happened.
This was the night of me doing songs where the groups' names were all messed up in the book, as in "We Live" and "Nobb, D." I wish they had "That's the Way of the World," that song makes me cry a little.
Tomorrow night (I mean TONIGHT) it's KINGS AT LAKERS BABY. Vlade vs B-52. EROTICA. ROMANCE. I'd like to put you in a trance/ All over. Oops, sorry, I got a little distracted there for a sec.
Hey look, Vlade's all cleared and suited up and throwing balls around.
He looks good! I mean like good-looking good. His playing sucked (so I hear).
Also, look how much this rules.
Go see it bigger for maximum appreciation: Aubernica (wizznutzz.com)
This isn't turning into a basketball blog, I'm sorry, I'm just not finding myself able to write anything about anything else at the moment.
OMG breaking news and an emergency installment of
J-WILL HAIR WATCH 3000
Our long national nightmare is over. Even though he now looks like a refugee from Hoosiers, it's a remarkable improvement. And while he didn't give a phenomenal performance or anything, the Grizzlies did manage to beat the division-leading Spurs tonight. COINCIDENCE?! I think not.
It's all because I was warming up to the hydro hair back here, obviously.
What was uglier, the Pacers/Pistons Brawl 4 All
or the Mavs uniforms designed by P. Diddy?
Oh ho ho I kid. OR DO I?! Anyway, never in my life have I seen such blatant disrespect for beverages and snack foods of all kinds. Poor Ron Artest. You could tell he was trying so, so hard to stay out of trouble, just like Gamera. And now I have infinite respect for Jermaine O'Neal after he completely flew out of nowhere and duh-ropped that guy who got onto the floor. Also entertaining was the studio commentary, where the prevailing attitude was that the fans were asking to get pounded on extra-hard ("Real men don't attack from behind! What a shameful display!") until they remembered to think of The Children, which meant, of course, that the fans deserved to get pounded on for behaving like chickeny girls in front of The Children. And you know, that's logic I can agree with.
BILL WALTON: 'I AM DEVASTATED'
Now there's nothing but "back ... and to the left" coverage on SportsCenter. Jeez, I reminisce about an NBA skirmish of old and look what happens.
All this got me so hopped up that I could barely concentrate on the big Kings/Grizzlies matchup I was PUMPED and GEEKED for. The game was fairly predictable in that the Kings blew a 16-point lead to a phenomenal degree, but then the Grizzlies inevitably collapsed deep into the fourth quarter to give the Kings a two-point win. So everyone was in their element, pretty much.
Brad had an uneventful night. Webber did the job for both of them. J-Will, he had a pretty good night. Oh wait, that means it's time to catch up with an ARCO Arena-sized edition of
J-WILL HAIR WATCH 3000
Honestly? I thought it looked good tonight. It's starting to look natural to me. Now where's my drink?
Song #16,000 added to iTunes is "Mod Lang" by Big Star. I only bring it up since I forgot to celebrate #15,000, which according to my calculations was "I Know" by the Beta Band, although I did a lot of pruning between then and now and it probably wasn't that at all.
"A lot of pruning," haha. I passed the 10,000 mark back here on June 16. At this rate, I really need to slow down my rate.
Karaoke on the big money Thursday night? Why yes of course.
Also the other night I found an .avi of the time Shaq took a girly swing at the back of Brad Miller's head. Drop it like it's hot:
movie opens in new window
Our supermarket's in the news, check it out: Shooting Victims Dumped at Two Metro Grocery Stores (KSTP.com)
Other than that, I ain't got nuthin'. KINGS GRIZZLIES TONIGHT OOH YEAH
OK, so the Bulls were leading by one at the half and that made me cry a little, but I should not have feared, because the Kings are now 4-4! 4-4! .500 baby! What would Jesus do? Connect on six of ten from downtown, that's RIGHT, Mike Bibby! Tune in to ESPN on Friday when the Grizzlies meet the Kings! J-Will Hair Watch 3000 collides with the Gargantuan Foxiness of B-52! Caution, I sense SEXCAPADES may be afoot!
So tonight we did the karaoke. OMG what happened.
P.S., I have to be terribly proud of myself because I had blanked "Shiny Happy People" out of my mind so completely that I was left singing a totally backwards atonal version of it that had no resemblance to the original whatsoever because I could not remember it at all, and I was trying even. Of course afterward it all suddenly came rushing back to me so now I am cursed to have both my backwards atonal version and the actual version of it running through my head at all hours of the day. What was it, ten years without having that song polluting my consciousness? It was a good run.
Oh yes, my children. Kings are 3-4, two in a row over 1) creepy lizard man Steve Nash and the Suns and 2) the Nuggets (or the Nuggs, as they are known in this house for inexplicable reasons). It all turns around NOW!
Last night saw the triumphant return of Smiley Laugh-y Brad, and it was breathtaking. Although I do so enjoy About to Beat Somebody's Ass Brad. He has so much going for him. Oh! Also NBA-TV got around to finally showing his version of the League Pass commercial, where he's unconsciously rocking back and forth in his chair while he talks just like I do when I'm feeling especially autistic. I'll have to get that out of the DVR and into my computer one of these days. If they ever get around to showing it AGAIN, that is.
Also, how did the Grizzlies manage to blow a 21-point lead in the fourth quarter against the Sonics? Let's find out with the help of
J-WILL HAIR WATCH 3000
The bangs. My God, look at the bangs.
The Kings are now 1-4. I hate it. The Sonics game was brutal. I'd go as far as to say it was F-ing brutal. We kept watching it in the distant hope that Brad Miller would finally snap and beat the crap out of somebody, because there were plenty of people who were asking for it, but alas, it was not meant to be. It almost would have made up for the loss. Almost. It was fun hearing his cursey swears go over the air on ESPN, though.
But their spirit will never be broken. Excuse me while I go weep in the corner for a bit. I should look for good things to say, though. The game Tuesday night was really awesome! There, I said it.
Hey, guess who led his team to their first win of the season, over the Lakers of all people? Six assists, 17 points, that's right baby, it's time for
J-WILL HAIR WATCH 3000
Rrawrrr! Ooh! Feelin' it! While the overall effect was much greener on the TV, it's clear that his head is looking more and more like our dish-scrubbing brush with each passing day. Not even remotely sexsational. D-
Polo crests. The deep-V-neck cardigan. GENERRA. This is truly the greatest thing I have seen in many weeks spent ... looking at things.
My friend Kevin recently cleaned out his wardrobe, which, due to his pack rat nature, was crammed with clothes he hadn't worn in more than a decade. Among the discarded were 25 sweaters that can generously be described as "hideous." ... Kevin's defense? "I worked at Marshalls in North Olmsted, Ohio, during high school and got a 15 percent discount. It was cold. It was the late '80s."
Why does Britney Spears keep trying to convince us of something we will never, ever believe, no matter how hard she tries?
How come the Associated Press can put up a graf like this, meanwhile I'm not working? At all?
Oh yes, working. Remember how I told you about how I was waiting on a job back here? And waiting and waiting? Well, I called and left a message that day (October 29) and I still haven't heard a thing. That was over a week ago. It's now been over two weeks since the woman emailed me to say she had work for me. Maybe if she got fired? I'd be willing to guess that, but usually people like that are the ones who keep their jobs forever and ever at that place.
I'm thisclose to going back to retail. I hate the general public and all, but I never dealt with anyone this stupid when I was working in a bookstore. Plus you get a sweet employee discount. DWR just opened up a branch in Minneapolis, you know.
The Kings are off to a blazing 0-2 start after closing out the preseason with a delightful 2-6 record, their worst showing since 1994. I miss Vlade. It kills me. I watched the game tonight and it was like, Let's just give the Spurs 50 second-chance points! Yay! I then tuned in to Lakers/Jazz on the off chance that Vlade was there (nope, he's still injured) and goodness, people sure don't like that Kobe fellow.
I also caught a bit of Wizards/Grizzlies, which gave me an idea for an important new feature ...
J-WILL HAIR WATCH 3000!
Hmm yes, it still terrifies. Michael Ruffin is actually holding a mirror there, see, which explains the look of horror. So that's what it looks like when I don't touch up my roots, he thinks. I must rectify this immediately.
In the meantime, give it up for my creepy hair. What what!
I need some work so's I can buy League Pass. They're giving me that free taste this week and I don't think I can live without it.
Whee. We went out and voted at our local cute old schoolhouse which was a million times cuter than Emily Dickinson, my old polling place in NYC. We didn't have to wait in line for anything. There was a decent sized line of election-day registrants. Minnesota got it lenient like that. Pretty much all college freshmen, it looked like. Two girls were walking out when we walked in and one of them was whining about how there were "waah, too many names." Oh, thank you for canceling out my vote with your idiocy.
Paper ballots, what a gyp. They hand you this ballot and a pen and a folder to carry it around in and you're on your own. You even feed it yourself into this ballot-reading machine which for all I know could have been a giant paper shredder. And then I got an "I Voted" sticker for being a good girl. I was hoping for the cool "draw a line to complete the arrow" business but no, it was "fill in circles next to the person's name" like a standardized test. We had like a zillion judicial slots to vote for and only like four of them were contested, so it was just filling in circles for the sake of filling in circles and it took too frigging long and ow my hand hurt.
I miss my old gigantic booths with the curtains and the spooooky lighting where you flip the switches and then pull that phat lever and it goes CATHHHHHUNK and you're like oooooh yeeeeah with satisfaction. Where I went today, all the little privacy tables were taken up so I had to sit on the gym floor and fill out my ballot in the wide open space like I was taking a quiz. For a moment I recaptured my youth! But it was weird.
Also? No bake sale. At Emily Dickinson, there was always a bake sale. Weak.
So old Josho was a mere stone's throw away from us yesterday doing that swing state celebrity crap. Someone must have realized that this particular hometown boy is a far more appealing spokesmodel than Captain Overexposed Ashton K, who was here last week being ANNOYING. "I'm a celebrity ... DO WHAT I SAY. I'M AWESOME." Whatever dude. Anyway, I could have seen Josh's chocolate milk moustache up close and in person. Look at that thing, it's ludicrous. Although I have to respect him for continuing to wear it for so long when it is so disgusting. He looks like an emaciated, 14-year-old Tom Skerritt. Or my uncle Paul circa 1972. It is not cute. But it truly makes him a Real Minnesotan, and I give him the thumbs up for that.
A certain organization with the initials ACT auto-called us yesterday and instructed us to report to the wrong polling place. This continues to fill me with an intense rage. The kind of rage that forces me to continue to eat leftover Halloween candy. Should I report them? Probably. I'll figure out how to do that eventually. I mean, idiots. IDIOTS. I'm completely infuriated. It's the kind of thing that makes me want to vote for Bush out of spite. (But I'm not going to.) (OR AM I?!?) (No I'm not.) Honestly. I'd be interested to know what other registered third-party households ACT is doing this to, you know? Can they even comprehend the gravity of what they're doing? Can I punch one of them in the throat? IDIOTS.
OK. I am going to back up and focus on that retarded moustache. It somehow gives me peace.
I'm glad Halloween's over. I'm not a big fan of it. I'm a fan of the concept, maybe, but the execution is lacking. Little kids in costumes? Adorable. Adults in costumes? Pointless. Parties full of people in costumes? Disgusting. I don't want to willingly subject myself to a worst nightmare situation that is cloaked in the pretense and false promise of Having Fun. It's too much work even to come out looking like crap, whereas you can apply the same amount of work to look fabulous and functional. I speak only the truth.
We bought five bags of candy, not being sure what the neighborhood turnout would be like, and we only got one doorbell at like 8:15. There were about six kids though, most of whom were apparently made up to look like the cast of Dead Presidents (so cute!) so I gave them tons of candy and prayed no one else would show up. We turned the lights out at 9. It was fun having a reason to turn our front porch light on, finally.
I think we probably didn't get people because a) we have like a ton of steps to get up to our house and people are lazy, and b) our landlord downstairs has a very large dog that would bark very loudly when human voices could be detected, so I guess that was a deterrent. Also we didn't have any decorations up or anything, but you know, Halloween decorations are useless. I save all that energy up for Christmas. That translates to two Hello Kitty LED mini-trees and maybe, if we're lucky, a string of lights. I spare no expense to catch the spirit.
Anyway, we're now swimming in an excess of mini Hershey's bars, Jolly Ranchers and Chewy SweeTarts (a.k.a. edible, fruit-flavored cocaine). We've got Reese's PB cups too, but there's no such thing as having too many of those.
I just realized today that this year will be the first year I've spent Thanksgiving with my family since 1987. Imagine that.
