Because you loved it then. Because you love it now.
8. The legitimately phenomenal soundtrack.
Ms. Becky Abrams (a dear friend-of-the-blog) directed me to the following Amazon.com review of the Can’t Hardly Wait soundtrack. It’s an exhaustive compendium of all songs featured in the movie. Somewhere, Ethan Embry is grinning an impossibly large grin. You’ve got 90’s staples (your Eve 6’s, your Third Eye Blind’s), classic movie songs (“Romeo and Juliet” and “Paradise City” are in like, every movie ever), and to top it all off, the title comes from a Replacements song. YES. (Also, Yaz. There is a Yaz song. Remember Yaz? Yaz does.)
7. The “Holy shit, she/he’s in this!?!!?” factor.
You’re watching the movie, minding your nostalgia, when all of a sudden, baby Jason Segel is eating a watermelon and talking about Velma from Scooby Doo. Later on, “Oh, hello, Selma Blair. Gee, you have no lines in this movie.” Later still, “Eric Balfour and Freddy Rodriguez!? You guys don’t even get names! Lucky for you, you’ll both be on Six Feet Under.”
6. The feeling of “Wow, so people were okay with the word ‘fag’ in 1998?”
Seriously, they drop it like, six times. We don’t use that word in this house, frankly. Except when Tommy puts on Caitlin’s makeup.
5. Trip McNeely.
Jerry O’Connell has basically the best career of all-time. We can just admit that, right? Someone go write it down, so it’s true. He starts out as the fat kid in Stand By Me, then between the years of ’96 and ’99, he does Sliders, Scream 2, Jerry Maguire, Can’t Hardly Wait, and The muthafuckin’ 60’s! And NOW, he’s married to Rebecca Romijn and shows up on FunnyOrDie.com when he wants to.
4. The eternally quotable script.
I’d give you a top ten of my favorite lines, but as you may have noticed… list ideas are lean these days and I need all the material I can get. This should get you started, though. And I swear to God, if they ever make a t-shirt that says “Scott Baio: We All Have Our Things”, I’d buy it.
3. The goofy-ass scene transitions.
Here’s an example. Nerd’s last line in scene A: “People may even be having sex tonight!” Seth Green’s first line in scene B: “Yo, I gots to have sex tonight!” That feels like such a high school film production club thing to geek out on, but I still dig it. I dig it like a pony.
2. The little things that stick with you.
This is just one of those movies that spawns inside jokes. Ethan Embry’s garbled delivery of “harnessing my chi”… Erik Palladino’s ridiculous “Uh, it’s okay, baby!” after he tries to mack on his cousin… I could go on, but you get the point. I’ve seen this movie a million times and at this point, these are the reasons I keep watching it.
1. The fact that by the end, you genuinely don’t care if Preston and Amanda get together.
I mean, right? Don’t get me wrong, Ethan Embry is totally my boy—and I’m still shocked that Jennifer Love Hewitt didn’t get the Oscar for this—but this is one of those films whose payoff comes from the journey and not the destination.
Showing posts with label 90's nostalgia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 90's nostalgia. Show all posts
Monday, March 30, 2009
Monday, October 27, 2008
Top 8 Amazing Hypothetical Episodes of TV We Could Watch If the Candidates Were to Go Back in Time and Guest on 90s Sitcoms
I'm not going to explain. This came to me in a dream. Sometimes good things come in dreams, like that guy who discovered benzene rings. Sometimes, this list happens...
8. Fraiser – Fraiser bumps into Barack Obama at a radio station event. Obama, thrilled to meet someone who makes him seem less elitist, agrees to attend a dinner party at Fraiser’s apartment. Fraiser, desperate to seem hip and cool to the new non-white girl in his office (!), hopes that Obama will teach him how to dance. Meanwhile, Mr. Crane meets John McCain at a bar and the two become best friends. Unfortunately, their bro-date to watch The Big Game conflicts with the dinner party! Oh, by the way, Niles can’t stop crushing on Michelle Obama and Daphne can’t stop being tacitly racist!
7. Wings – Obama and McCain are campaigning in Massachusetts, when a freak storm strands them both (!) on Nantucket Island. Sandpiper Air seems to be their best bet out of the Bay State, but everybody at the airport is star-struck. The Steven Weber brother pays off Lloyd to tamper with the charter planes to ensure everyone stays stuck… crazy old Fay is putting the moves on McCain… Antonio Scarpacci is convinced Obama is an immigrant, and therefore the right man for the job… how will the Timothy Daly brother keep everything together?!
6. Suddenly Susan – I am 100% thrilled to report that I cannot recall the premise of Suddenly Susan.
5. Just Shoot Me – Blush does a big piece on both of the candidates, leading to several wacky revelations. Jack is convinced that Barack is a guy from the mailroom and Obama, fun-loving rascal that he is, decides to play along. Meanwhile, Eliot and Maya are desperately trying to drag the mother of all secrets out of Nina—hint: maybe she had an affair with Post-Nam McCain? (!) And, um, Finch does something gross and sexual at several points during the episode.
4. Mad About You – While Jamie campaigns for Obama, Paul is contacted to film attack ads for the McCain campaign. Meanwhile, Cousin Ira’s bookie/mob contact accidentally passes along money to McCain’s coffers. The war for the White House is fought in the Buchman kitchen (!) as Paul and Jamie have a knock-down-drag-out fight. Five minutes later, they decide to have a kid and their dog Murray bumps his head on something. (AHEM! Eds. Note: Laksh gets credit for coming up with the Cousin Ira storyline. She also probably owns all of Mad About You on DVD.)
3. NewsRadio – It’s a family affair this week on NewsRadio, as Jimmy James reveals himself to be Barack Obama’s actual father and Matthew is convinced that John McCain is “his uncle Lester from the farm”. (!) Meanwhile, Dave and Lisa get all worried about whether or not Bill saw them kissing in the supply closet (they’re back together… aaaagain!). At one point, Obama’s campaign bus is broken and Joe hits it with a hammer, magically fixing it! (However, the same hammer can do nothing for McCain’s poll numbers in Florida and Pennsylvania.)
2. Third Rock from the Sun – The Solomons are forced to get politically aware when Dick’s college is selected to host a presidential debate, which Dick is chosen to moderate (!). Sally, favoring judicial restraint and a strong national defense, decides she is a Republican. Tommy, a social progressive with a ponytail, declares himself to be a Democrat. However, since he is too young to vote, he persuades Harry to register in his place, in exchange for a ferret. Nina is mistaken for Michelle Obama and hijinks ensue. During the debate, Dick becomes convinced that McCain is the Big Giant Head and, as such, becomes frantic, agitated, and causes a big ol’ Must-See-TV scene.
1. Northern Exposure – Sarah Palin shoots the town moose from a helicopter. Rob Morrow exacts sweet, sweet revenge (!).
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Top 13 Hidden Messages/True Implications of Kids' Breakfast Cereals
What up, PARMLOT fans.
You guys, if you acronym-ize our site's name, you get PARMLOT. Have you ever thought of that? I thought of it last night. Did you think of it last night? If so, WE WERE THINKING THE SAME THING AT THE SAME TIME!!! Kind of like that line in that song from Fievel Goes West about looking up at the same big sky.
Anyway, I've also been thinking a lot about breakfasts. Remember kids' breakfast cereals? Absolutely no nutrional content in those whatsoever! And the cartoons they had to pitch them to us! Shocking! Y'know... it's almost like there were some hidden messages in there or something... ohmygoshIbetthat'stheseguetoalist!!!
13. Cap'n Crunch
The gist: Sweetened corn and oat pieces; pitched by decorated veteran of what appears to be the Napoleonic Wars--based on his ridiculous Javert hat.
The catch-phrase: "You and the Captain, make it happen!"
True implication: "You and the Captain probably won't have a lot to talk about aside from your mutual love of cereal, as you are a young, human child and he is a high-ranking, cartoon old person."
12. Lucky Charms
The gist: Marshmallows and toasted oat pieces; pitched by a leprechaun pursued by an unruly mob of children.
The catch-phrase: "They're magically delicious!"
True implication: "Regardless of the tales your parents have told you about Irish Evil, a hearty Irish breakfast consists of marshmallows and toasted oats, not Jameson and potatoes. By the way, kidnapping little people is a fun hobby, and not at all a crime!"
11. Kix
The gist: Sweetened grain, puffed into colorless, non-descript balls; pitched by... moms?!
The catch-phrase: "Kid-tested, mother-approved!"
True implication: "Kid-tested, mother-approved, eh? Well, that review process has tons of holes in it. Who gives a crap if your mother approves, you still got to test it in the first place. See if you can repeat this series of events with more dangerous food items, weapons, or illicit substances."
10. Fruity/Cocoa Pebbles
The gist: Fruit or chocolate flavored rice puffs; pitched by Fred Flinstone and Barney Rubble, in half-assed vignettes where Barney steals Fred's pebbles... which sounds like a euphemism for something awful (but not somethingawful.com).
The catch-phrase: I guess "Barney, my pebbles!" counts...
True implication: "Petty theft begins with breakfast!"
9. Corn Pops
The gist: Sweetened corn pieces; pitched by an extremely determined adolescent.
The catch-phrase: "I gotta have my Pops."
True implication: "You will develop a painful, all-consuming addiction to this cereal, resulting in an acute deficit in gratification-delay capabilities and a loss of concern for personal safety. That being said, Corn Pops are tasty."
8. Frosted Flakes
The gist: Corn flakes covered in sugar, pitched by a biped tiger on steroids.
The catch-phrase: "They're grrrrrreat!"
True implication: "The ridiculously high sugar content of my cereal has plunged me into diabetic shock! As a result, I chatter spasmodically and have great difficulty saying my R's. Perhaps tigers should eat meat and not cereal?"
7. Apple Jacks
The gist: Sweetened, ambiguously-flavored multi-grain circles; pitched by loud children whose parents had better things to do.
The catch-phrase: "We eat what we like!" (usually in response to "These don't taste like apples!")
True implication: "The advertisers were unable to come up with a single good reason to eat this cereal. As such, we are marketing it to dumb kids and children who hate their parents."
6. Froot Loops
The gist: Brightly colored, artificially flavor circles of sugar; pitched by a talking toucan, sometimes awkwardly accompanied by his nephews?
The catch-phrase: "Follow your nose!"
True implication: "The nose is a perfectly sensible means of navigation. What the hell this has to do with breakfast, I really couldn't tell ya."
5. Smacks
The gist: Honey sweetened puff wheat; pitched by a bizarre little frog in a baseball cap who said "Smacks!" a lot.
The catch-phrase: "I dig 'em!" (That's the other thing he said beside "Smacks!" Total amphibious junkie, man.)
True implication: "I want my children to eat heroin for breakfast. Frankly, I prefer that they do it at home and in the presence of an adult... who is also addicted to heroin."
4. Trix
The gist: Fruit-flavored, fruit-shaped, ground corn puffs; pitched by a rabbit who's never actually tasted the damn cereal.
The catch-phrase: "Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids!"
True implication: "It is cool with me if you kids have been palling around with giant talking rabbits, as long as you don't feed them."
3. Cocoa Puffs
The gist: Chocolate-flavored puffed grain cereal; pitched by a talking cuckoo, usually on a skateboard. Wait--that's a frigging cuckoo? I want my hypothetical money back.
The catch-phrase: "We're cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs!"
True implication: "The mentally unbalanced deserve breakfast too, however, feel free to give them the least nutritious option possible."
2. Reese's Puffs
The gist: Chocolate/peanut butter flavored corn puffs; pitched by the most incredulous voice-over guy in the history of children's breakfast cerals.
The catch-phrase: "Reese's for breakfast!?!!!?!!?!"
True implication: "Let's be real for a minute. You don't actually give a shit what your kids eat for breakfast. By 8:30 AM, you're already halfway done with your first twelver of Genny Cream Ale... you'd be glad to feed them rocks--if you had any. But you sold those rocks to pay off your bookie, because you owed him big ever since the famous 'Which passed out meth-head will the fly land on?' bet of last Tuesday. Yeah. Let's be real real... you should probably start thinking of selling your kids... for more rocks."
1. Cookie Crisp
The gist: Basically tiny chocolate chip cookies; pitched by the Cookie Crook and his lovable, loyal dog Chip... though the pair were oft-pursued by Officer Crumb, I suppose that dude became an unwilling pitchman as well.
The catch-phrase: "Coo-oooooooooookie Crisp!" (...does that even count as a catchphrase?)
You guys, if you acronym-ize our site's name, you get PARMLOT. Have you ever thought of that? I thought of it last night. Did you think of it last night? If so, WE WERE THINKING THE SAME THING AT THE SAME TIME!!! Kind of like that line in that song from Fievel Goes West about looking up at the same big sky.
Anyway, I've also been thinking a lot about breakfasts. Remember kids' breakfast cereals? Absolutely no nutrional content in those whatsoever! And the cartoons they had to pitch them to us! Shocking! Y'know... it's almost like there were some hidden messages in there or something... ohmygoshIbetthat'stheseguetoalist!!!
13. Cap'n Crunch
The gist: Sweetened corn and oat pieces; pitched by decorated veteran of what appears to be the Napoleonic Wars--based on his ridiculous Javert hat.
The catch-phrase: "You and the Captain, make it happen!"
True implication: "You and the Captain probably won't have a lot to talk about aside from your mutual love of cereal, as you are a young, human child and he is a high-ranking, cartoon old person."
12. Lucky Charms
The gist: Marshmallows and toasted oat pieces; pitched by a leprechaun pursued by an unruly mob of children.
The catch-phrase: "They're magically delicious!"
True implication: "Regardless of the tales your parents have told you about Irish Evil, a hearty Irish breakfast consists of marshmallows and toasted oats, not Jameson and potatoes. By the way, kidnapping little people is a fun hobby, and not at all a crime!"
11. Kix
The gist: Sweetened grain, puffed into colorless, non-descript balls; pitched by... moms?!
The catch-phrase: "Kid-tested, mother-approved!"
True implication: "Kid-tested, mother-approved, eh? Well, that review process has tons of holes in it. Who gives a crap if your mother approves, you still got to test it in the first place. See if you can repeat this series of events with more dangerous food items, weapons, or illicit substances."
10. Fruity/Cocoa Pebbles
The gist: Fruit or chocolate flavored rice puffs; pitched by Fred Flinstone and Barney Rubble, in half-assed vignettes where Barney steals Fred's pebbles... which sounds like a euphemism for something awful (but not somethingawful.com).
The catch-phrase: I guess "Barney, my pebbles!" counts...
True implication: "Petty theft begins with breakfast!"
9. Corn Pops
The gist: Sweetened corn pieces; pitched by an extremely determined adolescent.
The catch-phrase: "I gotta have my Pops."
True implication: "You will develop a painful, all-consuming addiction to this cereal, resulting in an acute deficit in gratification-delay capabilities and a loss of concern for personal safety. That being said, Corn Pops are tasty."
8. Frosted Flakes
The gist: Corn flakes covered in sugar, pitched by a biped tiger on steroids.
The catch-phrase: "They're grrrrrreat!"
True implication: "The ridiculously high sugar content of my cereal has plunged me into diabetic shock! As a result, I chatter spasmodically and have great difficulty saying my R's. Perhaps tigers should eat meat and not cereal?"
7. Apple Jacks
The gist: Sweetened, ambiguously-flavored multi-grain circles; pitched by loud children whose parents had better things to do.
The catch-phrase: "We eat what we like!" (usually in response to "These don't taste like apples!")
True implication: "The advertisers were unable to come up with a single good reason to eat this cereal. As such, we are marketing it to dumb kids and children who hate their parents."
6. Froot Loops
The gist: Brightly colored, artificially flavor circles of sugar; pitched by a talking toucan, sometimes awkwardly accompanied by his nephews?
The catch-phrase: "Follow your nose!"
True implication: "The nose is a perfectly sensible means of navigation. What the hell this has to do with breakfast, I really couldn't tell ya."
5. Smacks
The gist: Honey sweetened puff wheat; pitched by a bizarre little frog in a baseball cap who said "Smacks!" a lot.
The catch-phrase: "I dig 'em!" (That's the other thing he said beside "Smacks!" Total amphibious junkie, man.)
True implication: "I want my children to eat heroin for breakfast. Frankly, I prefer that they do it at home and in the presence of an adult... who is also addicted to heroin."
4. Trix
The gist: Fruit-flavored, fruit-shaped, ground corn puffs; pitched by a rabbit who's never actually tasted the damn cereal.
The catch-phrase: "Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids!"
True implication: "It is cool with me if you kids have been palling around with giant talking rabbits, as long as you don't feed them."
3. Cocoa Puffs
The gist: Chocolate-flavored puffed grain cereal; pitched by a talking cuckoo, usually on a skateboard. Wait--that's a frigging cuckoo? I want my hypothetical money back.
The catch-phrase: "We're cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs!"
True implication: "The mentally unbalanced deserve breakfast too, however, feel free to give them the least nutritious option possible."
2. Reese's Puffs
The gist: Chocolate/peanut butter flavored corn puffs; pitched by the most incredulous voice-over guy in the history of children's breakfast cerals.
The catch-phrase: "Reese's for breakfast!?!!!?!!?!"
True implication: "Let's be real for a minute. You don't actually give a shit what your kids eat for breakfast. By 8:30 AM, you're already halfway done with your first twelver of Genny Cream Ale... you'd be glad to feed them rocks--if you had any. But you sold those rocks to pay off your bookie, because you owed him big ever since the famous 'Which passed out meth-head will the fly land on?' bet of last Tuesday. Yeah. Let's be real real... you should probably start thinking of selling your kids... for more rocks."
1. Cookie Crisp
The gist: Basically tiny chocolate chip cookies; pitched by the Cookie Crook and his lovable, loyal dog Chip... though the pair were oft-pursued by Officer Crumb, I suppose that dude became an unwilling pitchman as well.
The catch-phrase: "Coo-oooooooooookie Crisp!" (...does that even count as a catchphrase?)
True implication: "Criminals love a) dogs and b) this cereal! Hey! So do you! In many ways, you are much like a criminal, eh? Join the Cookie Crisp Criminal Task Force by sending away 12 proofs of purchase... then save up only 1200 more for your very own Tek-9! Bust a cap in hunger! (But also a cop.)"
Thursday, September 4, 2008
The Top 25 Best Things About 1998
So, I wanted to do a list about all the good things that have happened so far in 2008, but then I realized that I would just be one more guy talking about how awesome Batman and Barack Obama are. Well, I hate being "one more guy", so I decided instead to do a list about all the awesome things that happened in 1908.
Turns out 1908 was a shitty year for awesome. 1998, on the other hand, was basically the best year ever. Aside from the Clinton Impeachment, and El Nino, and Osama bin Laden issuing afatwa, and the abortion clinic bombings, and Windows 98, and Titanic, and George Michael getting arrested. (Leave him alone, people! The man is an artist!) Yep. Great, great year.
For these reasons!
25. John Glenn, 77 years old, goes to space
See, if John McCain wanted to change people's minds on this whole John-McCain-is-older-than-Methuselah thing, he'd have the courage to go into space. Of course, McCain's idea of space is probably straight out of La Voyage dans le Lune, complete with astronauts in hoop skirts belaying down to the Sea of Tranquility with parasols and picnic baskets.
24. Bear Grylls, 23 years old, is the youngest to climb Mt. Everest
Nine years later, he became the youngest man to drink his own urine on national TV, on his much-lauded adventure/survival program "Man vs. Wild".
23. Bulworth
There was a long time when I just assumed this movie had not aged well, but after catching it on cable a while back, I was really pleased to see that it's alive and well, in fact. What was awkward about Warren Beatty rapping in 1998 is still awkward, and to some degree, I think that's kind of the point. More importantly, WHERE HAVE YOU GONE, WARREN BEATTY!?
Goddamn, this is a groundbreaking album. Not groundbreaking in a "Oh my gosh,ladies rapping!" sort of way, but a "Holy shit, that girl-rapper just won five Grammys and actually deserved it sort of way." And I know it's semi-sexist when people focus on the production values of a female artist's work--as if to say, "Well, sure it's good, she had help... and the help was all dudes"--but the collaborations with Julian Marley, Carlos Santana, D'Angelo, and a then-unknown John Legend are pretty damn good.
21. Craig Kilborn leaves The Daily Show
And though Jon Stewart wouldn't officially join the show until January of 1999, Kilborn's departure was a ridiculously good thing for the show. It set the ball rolling for The Daily Show to transform from an arrogant 22-minutes that showcased the ego behind the desk, toactually focusing on the hypocrisy and humor behind the headlines.
My memories of this movie mostly consist of listening to the soundtrack over and over and quoting it incessantly in the religion office of my high school, and if you know me, you get that that's a pretty sound endorsement of a film. PS: Terry Gilliam's third-best film? MAYBE?
19. The Minnesota Vikings go 15-1, set NFL record for points scored, Randy Moss is a freak of nature/Rookie of the Year
This is entirely a partisan inclusion, but I have very little problem with that. 556 points in 16 games! Can you comprehend that? That's almost 35 points a game! More than a touchdown a quarter! DAMN. Patriots fans: YEP. I know you broke the record last year. You also broke it with relatively the same team that won three Super Bowls, the same golden-boy quarterback, the same bulldog-in-a-hoodie coach... The Vikes did it with a quarterback everyone said wasway past his prime, a coach perennially on the hot-seat, and, oh-by-the-way, no one saw it coming. Um... but they ended up losing in the NFC Title Game. Shut up shut up shut up.
18. Pleasantville
You simply could not have this cast together in one film today. It's too good. Tobey Maguire, Reese Witherspoon, William H. Macy, Joan Allen, and Jeff Daniels. (Oh, and Paul Walker. You go, Paul Walker!) I'll forgive the semi-heavy-handedness ("Get it, see, they're ostracized because they're in color... they're coloreds. Right?") and I'll applaud the masterful To Kill A Mockingbird court scene homage and frankly, I'll come out and say it, why the hell weren't the art direction and costume design for this film recognized with the Oscars they deserved! This film is a beautiful, complex meditation on how our values shape television and how television shapes our values.
17. Bulls win NBA Finals on Jordan's last second shot
So what if he pushed off... this was friggin' iconic.
16. Black Star - S/T
I guess you can't say that a classic touchstone of so-called "conscious hip hop" is a fun listen, but dammit, I didn't apply that title in the first place, so I'm going to say it. This a fun album to listen to, and that doesn't take away from its insight or its social commentary. And I'm going to bring production up again, because Hi-Tek is seriously skilled. Too bad there was never a follow-up...
15. Fond TV farewells: "Seinfeld", "The Larry Sanders Show"... to a much, much lesser extent "Family Matters"
14. Silver Jews - American Water
Aaaah, this should even be higher, really... you start off with one of the all-time great album openers, "Random Rules"--seriously, amazing first line: "In 1985 I was hospitalized for approaching perfection"--and then you careen off into a wild, sprawling desert of stories, stories full of characters you half-already know, as if they are tumbling out of your dreams. For a moment, you want to ask David Berman and Stephen Malkmus why they know so much about your dreams, but by the time you get the courage, you are humming along and it's too late.
13. The Truman Show
I don't think it's any coincidence that this film and Pleasantville came out in the same year. Far be it from me to peg 1998 as the first year that Hollywood became aware of television's potential for reality-engineering--I'm looking at you, Network--but they sure tapped into some kinda zeitgeist. And I'm not usually one to commend typically comedic actors for aberrantly successful dramatic performances, but goddamn is Jim Carrey good in this film.
12. Elliott Smith - XO
Let me first say that this is by no means my favorite Elliott Smith album. However, I think it deserves inclusion on a Best of '98 list simply for the shift in tone that it marks. As Smith's first major-label release, it is a snapshot of an artist moving away from his guy-plus-guitar image to a more intricately orchestrated, ambitious sound. This transition was catalyzed, in part, by Smith's contributions to the Good Will Hunting soundtrack, but you get the sense on this album that he could only say so much in lo-fi; he was searching for a new sound.
11. Good year for books looking to be made into films -- About a Boy, The Hours, Election, Holes, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
10. Also like every 90's song ever: "Jumper", "Sex and Candy", "The Way", "Closing Time", "Torn", "Iris"...
9. Sports Night debuts
It may have only last two seasons, but I defy you to find snappier dialogue, more carefully-crafted characters, or a more engaging comedy-drama on TV today. AND let us not forget, Aaron Sorkin followed up the critical success of Sports Night with the 7-season triumph that I am watching as I write this list, The West Wing.
8. Outkast - Aquemini
I read something Chris Rock wrote awhile back about Erykah Badu's influence on this album. His thesis was that she was with Andre 3000 during the making of Aquemini and it turned out to be amazing, and further, that she was with Common during the making of Like Water for Chocolate, which also turned out to be amazing, so, basically, Erykah Badu is the grand muse of hip-hop. Anyway. This is a seriously great album, start to finish, but more importantly, it signified that Southern Hip Hop was just as important a player as the hip hop coming from either of the coasts.
I have said as many words on the subject of Can't Hardly Wait as Harold Bloom has on Shakespeare, so I don't intend to load you down with more. I don't need to sell you on this movie, because chances are, if you are reading this blog, you were already sold on it in 1998.
6. Billy Bragg and Wilco - Mermaid Avenue
The history of entertainment is full of stories about landmark team-ups that should have been amazing but somehow crashed and burned. For some reason, A + B does not always equal brilliance. This was not one of those times. What is so blindingly apparent about this album is how well the poetry of Woody Guthrie compliments the voices of Billy Bragg and Jeff Tweedy, how well the melodic sensibilities of Bragg work combined with the ragged Americana of Tweedy, and vice versas all around. You hear genius-as-a-whole on this record way, way, way before the individual geniuses come to the surface. Oh, yeah... and Guthrie-as-rabid-socialist-Catholic/Robin Hood is a hell of a good time to listen to.
5. 1998 in baseball: Home Run Chase, Cal Ripken ends his streak, Yankees win 125 games
It is difficult to look back on the 1998 Major League Baseball season without the aid of some biased frame of reference, whether it's the rosy-tinted glasses of 1998-made-baseball-America's-game-again or the bitter-realism aviators of 1998-was-fueled-by-steroids-and-commissioner-indifference. Be that as it may, the images are enduring nonetheless.
4. Google founded
And now we can all google ourselves! It's as fun to say as it is to do. (When you google me, you get some reviews I wrote for Amazon, the homepage of my lab, and some interviews regarding various Columbia theatrical productions. Oh, and the WikiCU page that Rob wrote for me!)
3. Rushmore
I've gone back and forth on this film over the years. Sometimes it's my second favorite Wes Anderson film, sometimes it's my least. Then, I came to a realization--my least favorite Wes Anderson film is still likely to be quite a marvel. This film is like that perfect diorama that your rival brings in for the 6th grade science fair... painstakingly designed yet somehow effortlessly tossed off. This is the work of an auteur before he realizes that he's an auteur.
2. Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
This is not merely an album, it is a symphony. It has a) the best lyrics of any album from the 90s, b) the best horn section of any album from the 90s, and c) the best closing track of any album from the 90s. You here the opener, you have to sit for the whole thing. Plain and simple.
I will never get tired of this film. In thirty years, if someone asks me, "Hey, do you want to watch The Big Lebowski?" I can guarantee you that I will say yes. There is always something new to laugh at, and even when there isn't, there is always something familiar and wonderful to delight in. It is always a pleasure and a joy to see good actors having fun with their material and that's what makes the Coens so special, they absolutely infuse their films with FUN. This is the kind of movie you make when first and foremost, you flat-out love movies.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Top 18 Unabashedly Earnest and Yet Endearingly Timeless Portrayals of Adolescence
Okay. Okay. Whew. Breathe. So… the thing is, I missed a day. Rob said that it's probably okay and that no one would notice but I have sneaking suspicions to the contrary. This was a pretty exhausting list, I gotta say. In fact, I have to attach this mini-list of disclaimers.
Top 4 Disclaimers To Keep In Mind While Reading This List
1.) Comparing different forms of media is always really tricky. It takes 3 minutes and 47 seconds to listen to "Lost In the Supermarket" by the Clash (a late subtraction from this list), but it might take you a weekend or so to get through, oh, I dunno, Franny and Zooey (also, sadly, one of the last few works to be 'scluded). And yet, despite these relatively huge discrepancies in duration, one might conceivably have just as visceral an experience listening to the song or reading the book.
2.) I obviously left out some pretty gigantic heavyweights of the coming-of-age genre. Please, Catcher in the Rye fans, do not stone me. I have good, self-serving reasons for all of these choices. And you can read them tomorrow! The long and short of it is that these are, ultimately, pieces of literature, music, or film/TV that shaped my personal perception or experience of adolescence, and not just 18 generally-accepted touchstones of that time period.
3.) Adolescence is a funny word. My boss likes to talk about the syndrome of "protracted adolescence", whereby children stay children until about 25. Various factors produce this crawl towards true maturity, ranging from increased parental support, more individuals undertaking post-graduate education, and a decline in young marriages. Anyway, point is, I'm cutting a broad swath here. Like, nine years old to twenty-two.
4.) "Coming of age" is a silly phrase. One is always of a certain age. You are constantly coming of some age, whether it is 16, 21, or 33 years, 10 months, 20 days, 21 hours, 1 minute, and 3 seconds. Further, to suggest that there is some point in a person's life where they suddenly attain all the knowledge (or even some of the knowledge) that qualifies them as "adult", is kind of ludicrous. This point of view is a) demeaning to children, who, frankly know a decent amount about what is up, b) lets adults off the hook, in the sense that they no longer have to learn things, and c) makes life too goddamn black and white.
And now for the real list...
18. "Academy Fight Song" - Mission of Burma
The first single for the venerable band from Boston. There's just something about the jerky, vague images in this song, and its desperate, spit-spattered delivery that screams sixteen years old. I remember listening to this when I was around that age and thinking, "This isn't what my high school was like. I liked high school. High school ruled!" But I still managed to identify with that global, angsty "we are all outcasts and we are all uncool" level. When I listen now, it rings a little raw and immature, but that's part of the charm, I think.
17. The Monster Squad
Directed by Fred Dekker.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruCUFY9bgxo)
The Monster Squad doesn't really define a decade or an age so much, but it does take the title of Movie I Watched Like, Every Day When I Was Nine. COME ON. It's a kid's fantasy. A) There are monsters. (Actual line from the movie spoken by a kid taking charge: "You guys! I think there's monsters. And nobody's gonna know what to do about it but us.") B) There are kids who are prepared to fight the monsters. C) There are adults who are powerless? D) Frankenstein is a good guy. A + B + C + D = GENIUS. This movie respected kids enough to put the curse words in their mouths and the stakes in their hands. That's what good children's entertainment is about: respect. Like how Nickelodeon respects a child's sense of absurdity and caters to it. Also, though, this movie has a kid shooting stakes at vampire babes with a bow and arrow. TIGHT.
16. Vanity of Duluoz
Written by Jack Kerouac.
It's not quite On The Road, but I think that's a good thing. What always sticks with me about this novel (a semi-autobiographical tale of Jack Duluoz's high school triumphs, his brief stint at Columbia, and his tour with the Merchant Marine, obvs) is how much ol' Jack must have actually thought of himself as a character in some story. It's great, goofy, solipsisitic stuff. I can just see him scribbling in a notepad, holed up in Hartley Hall at Columbia, trying to come up with good names for all his friends.
15. "Boy Meets World"
Created by Michael Jacobs and April Kelly.
Especially the Graduation episode where Topanga (inexplicably) proposes to Cory after their high school graduation. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrnAmjKDKiU)
Do people really do that? Do ridiculous girls with straight A's and baffling names propose to jew-froed everymen in the middle of graduation ceremonies? This was shit I took as a given when I was 14. Possibility. Marriage was just a thing you did and the sooner you got around to doing it, the quicker you had won at life.
14. Beautiful Girls
Directed by Ted Demme.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8_Xg9ajmgg)
To me, this film depicts two different adolescences... the one you get when you're a kid (Natalie Portman) and the one you get when you've grown up, you've tried a few things, your life is starting to fall into order (read: routine), and you suddenly need a shake-up (Timothy Hutton). God, the line in the scene where he's talking down to her from his window (he's also kind of talking down to her in the script... heavy-handed much, Mr. Scott Rosenberg--who went on to write Kangaroo Jack?!!) and he goes, "Y'know, in five years, you won't even remember me." Ahhhh... you slay me, Beautiful Girls.
13. To Kill a Mockingbird
Written by Harper Lee.
I remember getting assigned this for summer reading and tearing through it in one, night-long thunderstorm at my grandmother's place. You just don't forget the images in this book, it's basically impossible. I don't know. Maybe it was a time and place thing, like everything you hold dear, like childhood itself. But it was a long, long time before a book hit me as hard as this one did.
12. The Last Picture Show (the film and the novel)
Directed by Peter Bogdanovich/Written by Larry McMurty.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AvqyTJoKqI&feature=related)
This is one of the most underrated monologues put to film. I remember those moments growing up where adults would pull back the curtain and let you in on who they used to be... you didn't really get it, but you were just glad that they let you listen. Even now when I watch this, I don't totally understand. I follow the narrative, I know what the words mean, but I haven't totally experienced that emotion... the realization that you are no longer young. It's terrifying and yet, somehow serene.
11. "Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton" - The Mountain Goats
First of all, this is my favorite band. I am seeing them November 8th AND 9th (at Music Hall of Williamsburg and then again at Webster Hall) if anyone wants to go. This song is pure heart. The delivery on "Hail Satan!" is so painfully genuine! You can hear John Darnielle smiling through every word of these lyrics. Buy this album (All Hail West Texas), buy the others, dissolve yourself in these stories. NOW. I would say more. I would say that this song captures youth at that point where you realize what you want to say and what you have to do but no one thinks you're worth listening to. I would say that this song is about a freedom that disappears when you grow older, the freedom of possibility. I would say that this song is so easy to play on guitar that even I can do it. But this is a long list already and I need to move, move, move on.
10. "Friday Night Lights"
Created by Peter Berg.
Especially the pilot--best pilot I've seen in a long, long while. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOnhVRu6soA)
Wow, three in a row for Texas. Way to go, Lonestar State. (I won't be putting on Lone Star, though. Or Texasville.) Adolescence is all about grossly inflated perceptions of worth and value and import. Dillon, Texas has those perceptions about high school football. Somehow though, this show manages to cultivate an atmosphere that is perfectly situated at the median between pathetic and glorious. It doesn't paint these characters as ridiculous, but it doesn't put them on pedestals either. They mumble, they drink, they fuck up routinely. They're heroes, sure, but it's because, not in spite, of their mundanity.
9. "Weezer" - Weezer (full album)
I was going through some times a while back and I rediscovered this album. Every track on it is pure gold... even the ones I used to skip back in high school. Every aching, heart-on-sleeve chord, every my-tongue-is-in-my-cheek-but-I-still-want-to-kiss-you lyric... oh man, did they ever set the bar high. "In the Garage" is probably the best portrait of adolescence, but the whole album has that same, sweetly shaky veneer.
8. American Graffiti
Directed by George Lucas.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1vBKOi3xqk)
Watching this film now is like spying on a voyeur... it's a 70s love-poem to the 50s, really. But there's nothing new under the sun, only new packaging and inflated prices. I know I'm not the first to say that Superbad is American Graffiti without the dick jokes and I don't think that speaks ill of either film. I'm just a sucker for that whole shake-the-dust-off-this-crummy-little-town thing, and hell, it's probably because I DID shake the dust off and move to the city, but I DIG it, man, I really do. And when it's set to a soundtrack like this, and it's shot by a guy who had yet to go batshit, well, damn... it's a sure thing. (Ah shit, I forgot The Sure Thing...)
7. Can't Hardly Wait
Directed by Harry Elfont and Deborah Kaplan.
This movie essentially defined my concept of love when I was 15 years old. If you feel something and you have felt it for long enough to be certain that you are certain of this feeling, writing it down on paper and making someone read your feelings is all you have to do. When I saw Can't Hardly Wait for the first time, I didn't bother to get invested in the supporting characters, I didn't pick up on the allusions to the previous films to which it owes obvious debts. For all I cared, there was only one eternal moment comprising one burning question: Preston and Amanda, yes or no? This is the stuff of adolescence! Immediacy! There is no past! There have been no prior I Love You's, you are most definitely the first person to have ever felt this way about another person and it is unbelievable! I was so certain of these things that I enacted my own Can't Hardly Wait in front of a taco place on Main Street. And yeah, sure, it worked. I don't know why. I mean, I did then, but now... not so sure.
Side note: At the end of the Where Are They Now? bit that closes up the movie, the screen reads (regarding Preston and Amanda) "They are still together." Every time I see that, I laugh, because I'm sure that they aren't. But the sentiment that their love, their connection was SO strong that even though they had never really spoken before that fateful grad party, and even though the only thing they shared in common was a respect for letter-writing, THEY FUCKIN' MADE IT, MAN. Gets me every time. I don't mean to put down the insouciant optimism of youth. It's encouraging in a beautiful, beautiful way. But I gotta laugh.
(Um, the whole thing is apparently available on YouTube. Start here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CE4u6uuzFY)
6. This Side of Paradise
Written by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Cobbled together from short stories, plays, and poems he had written in his early adult days--btw, do cobblers take offense when people say things are "cobbled together"... are they like, "Oh, what, so my shoes are shit because I just threw them together haphazardly, like EVERYTHING ELSE I DO?" In a lot of ways, this is the spiritual predecessor to Vanity of Duluoz, cataloguing Fitzgerald's days at prep school, Princeton, and New York. That final moment, though... as he falls to the ground and says, "I know myself and that is all." Wow. Even if I don't like the phrase "coming-of-age", that sentiment certainly defines what "coming-of-age" is trying to approximate.
5. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Written by James Joyce.
And it's our third kunstlerroman of the list! I couldn't not include it, really. I mean, come on. Catholic, all boys school... tempering troubles with his faith with troubles with the ladies. Alright, fine, I'm selling it short. Look, this is why I don't like to talk at length about great works of art. I can give you a thousand pages on Wings or Family Double Dare or Multiplicity, but as soon as I get to Joyce, it's like I don't want to offend the guy.
4. "Sixteen Blue" - The Replacements
Ah... the guys who wrote the song Can't Hardly Wait is named after. (And the best thing to come out of Minnesota aside from the Vikings, the Twins, and maybe Rob Trump.) It's one thing to capture the wonder of adolescence... the discovery, the risks, all that. But it's somehow more captivating--and frankly, more realisitic--if you nail the awkwardness, the lingering doubts, and the uncomfortable, sweaty silences. When you're four, your parents tell you to make friends, to run around, to reek with joy. But when you're fourteen, that behavior is no longer rewarded. You learn to avert your eyes, to only speak to certain people, to stick to your strata of the social scene. This song not only captures these moments, it pays them tribute. "Everything drags and drags," sings Paul Westerberg. Damn straight. It lasts forever and just when you get the hang of it, you get spit out to a bigger proving ground with new rules.
3. "The Wonder Years"
Created by Carol Black and Neal Marlens.
Especially the episode where David Schwimmer camps out in the rain to prove his love to Kevin's older sister. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePJEAoptOPE)
When you're a kid and you watch this, it strikes you as totally sensical. That boy is in love with that girl, so he waited all night in the rain for her. Knights kill dragons for princesses, football players catch touchdowns and marry the head cheerleader. These are facts, these are things that happen. Then, when you're older, you watch it and it still makes sense, on a totally different level. That boy is scared about losing that girl. He doesn't want to deal with defining a life beyond her, without her, so he acts desperately, even foolishly. It becomes this twisted, amazing cycle of evolving perception. Watching this clip, I understand now what I thought back then, when I thought about what it means to be as old as I am now. That is a convoluted-ass sentence, but I promise you that it is true.
(Also watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7RE2hDL8dk&feature=related)
2. "Thirteen" - Big Star
Earlier, I gave a nod to Alex Chilton's biggest fans, The Replacements, now I'll turn my attention to the man himself. I hope and pray that this song does not become the "Hallelujah" of teenage love tunes. I found a (potentially) sweet Wilco cover of it and lo and behold, when I played it in iTunes, the Album label read "Gilmore Girls Songs". The earnest, honest vocals, the delicate guitar picking, the lyrical nudges to inherent bond between music and young love. But it's more... there's a dark, almost dangerous current running through these words. The guy sings, "Let me be an outlaw for your love," I mean, he'd kill for her, he'd steal for her, he has yet to conceive of a compartmentalized life where at certain points in the day, his love is not the most important thing in the world. That truly is a wonderful, adolescent sentiment.
1. The Sandlot
Directed by David M. Evans.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vr5lHZQz-Z4)
"FOR-EV-ER." "You're killin' me, Smalls!" "You play ball like a giiiiirl!" You say any quote from this movie to someone from my generation and they will immediately sign your name in the Book of the Chosen. And yet, like American Graffiti, it wasn't really our story... it was a bunch of kids in the 50's who played baseball together. Now, I love baseball, I mean, I'm checking scores as I write this, but you ask these twenty-something fans which they've seen more times, a major league baseball game or The Sandlot, I bet you a good, solid chunk, maybe even half, would answer the latter. It's a good movie, sure, but it's more than that. You don't identify with this movie because it's 1952 and the only way you're going to make friends is by learning to play baseball. You identify because you remember what it was like to believe in legends, to have faith in your heroes, to surprise yourself... The Sandlot is not a movie, it's a cultural landmark.
Top 4 Disclaimers To Keep In Mind While Reading This List
1.) Comparing different forms of media is always really tricky. It takes 3 minutes and 47 seconds to listen to "Lost In the Supermarket" by the Clash (a late subtraction from this list), but it might take you a weekend or so to get through, oh, I dunno, Franny and Zooey (also, sadly, one of the last few works to be 'scluded). And yet, despite these relatively huge discrepancies in duration, one might conceivably have just as visceral an experience listening to the song or reading the book.
2.) I obviously left out some pretty gigantic heavyweights of the coming-of-age genre. Please, Catcher in the Rye fans, do not stone me. I have good, self-serving reasons for all of these choices. And you can read them tomorrow! The long and short of it is that these are, ultimately, pieces of literature, music, or film/TV that shaped my personal perception or experience of adolescence, and not just 18 generally-accepted touchstones of that time period.
3.) Adolescence is a funny word. My boss likes to talk about the syndrome of "protracted adolescence", whereby children stay children until about 25. Various factors produce this crawl towards true maturity, ranging from increased parental support, more individuals undertaking post-graduate education, and a decline in young marriages. Anyway, point is, I'm cutting a broad swath here. Like, nine years old to twenty-two.
4.) "Coming of age" is a silly phrase. One is always of a certain age. You are constantly coming of some age, whether it is 16, 21, or 33 years, 10 months, 20 days, 21 hours, 1 minute, and 3 seconds. Further, to suggest that there is some point in a person's life where they suddenly attain all the knowledge (or even some of the knowledge) that qualifies them as "adult", is kind of ludicrous. This point of view is a) demeaning to children, who, frankly know a decent amount about what is up, b) lets adults off the hook, in the sense that they no longer have to learn things, and c) makes life too goddamn black and white.
And now for the real list...
18. "Academy Fight Song" - Mission of Burma
The first single for the venerable band from Boston. There's just something about the jerky, vague images in this song, and its desperate, spit-spattered delivery that screams sixteen years old. I remember listening to this when I was around that age and thinking, "This isn't what my high school was like. I liked high school. High school ruled!" But I still managed to identify with that global, angsty "we are all outcasts and we are all uncool" level. When I listen now, it rings a little raw and immature, but that's part of the charm, I think.
17. The Monster Squad
Directed by Fred Dekker.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruCUFY9bgxo)
The Monster Squad doesn't really define a decade or an age so much, but it does take the title of Movie I Watched Like, Every Day When I Was Nine. COME ON. It's a kid's fantasy. A) There are monsters. (Actual line from the movie spoken by a kid taking charge: "You guys! I think there's monsters. And nobody's gonna know what to do about it but us.") B) There are kids who are prepared to fight the monsters. C) There are adults who are powerless? D) Frankenstein is a good guy. A + B + C + D = GENIUS. This movie respected kids enough to put the curse words in their mouths and the stakes in their hands. That's what good children's entertainment is about: respect. Like how Nickelodeon respects a child's sense of absurdity and caters to it. Also, though, this movie has a kid shooting stakes at vampire babes with a bow and arrow. TIGHT.
16. Vanity of Duluoz
Written by Jack Kerouac.
It's not quite On The Road, but I think that's a good thing. What always sticks with me about this novel (a semi-autobiographical tale of Jack Duluoz's high school triumphs, his brief stint at Columbia, and his tour with the Merchant Marine, obvs) is how much ol' Jack must have actually thought of himself as a character in some story. It's great, goofy, solipsisitic stuff. I can just see him scribbling in a notepad, holed up in Hartley Hall at Columbia, trying to come up with good names for all his friends.
15. "Boy Meets World"
Created by Michael Jacobs and April Kelly.
Especially the Graduation episode where Topanga (inexplicably) proposes to Cory after their high school graduation. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrnAmjKDKiU)
Do people really do that? Do ridiculous girls with straight A's and baffling names propose to jew-froed everymen in the middle of graduation ceremonies? This was shit I took as a given when I was 14. Possibility. Marriage was just a thing you did and the sooner you got around to doing it, the quicker you had won at life.
14. Beautiful Girls
Directed by Ted Demme.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8_Xg9ajmgg)
To me, this film depicts two different adolescences... the one you get when you're a kid (Natalie Portman) and the one you get when you've grown up, you've tried a few things, your life is starting to fall into order (read: routine), and you suddenly need a shake-up (Timothy Hutton). God, the line in the scene where he's talking down to her from his window (he's also kind of talking down to her in the script... heavy-handed much, Mr. Scott Rosenberg--who went on to write Kangaroo Jack?!!) and he goes, "Y'know, in five years, you won't even remember me." Ahhhh... you slay me, Beautiful Girls.
13. To Kill a Mockingbird
Written by Harper Lee.
I remember getting assigned this for summer reading and tearing through it in one, night-long thunderstorm at my grandmother's place. You just don't forget the images in this book, it's basically impossible. I don't know. Maybe it was a time and place thing, like everything you hold dear, like childhood itself. But it was a long, long time before a book hit me as hard as this one did.
12. The Last Picture Show (the film and the novel)
Directed by Peter Bogdanovich/Written by Larry McMurty.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AvqyTJoKqI&feature=related)
This is one of the most underrated monologues put to film. I remember those moments growing up where adults would pull back the curtain and let you in on who they used to be... you didn't really get it, but you were just glad that they let you listen. Even now when I watch this, I don't totally understand. I follow the narrative, I know what the words mean, but I haven't totally experienced that emotion... the realization that you are no longer young. It's terrifying and yet, somehow serene.
11. "Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton" - The Mountain Goats
First of all, this is my favorite band. I am seeing them November 8th AND 9th (at Music Hall of Williamsburg and then again at Webster Hall) if anyone wants to go. This song is pure heart. The delivery on "Hail Satan!" is so painfully genuine! You can hear John Darnielle smiling through every word of these lyrics. Buy this album (All Hail West Texas), buy the others, dissolve yourself in these stories. NOW. I would say more. I would say that this song captures youth at that point where you realize what you want to say and what you have to do but no one thinks you're worth listening to. I would say that this song is about a freedom that disappears when you grow older, the freedom of possibility. I would say that this song is so easy to play on guitar that even I can do it. But this is a long list already and I need to move, move, move on.
10. "Friday Night Lights"
Created by Peter Berg.
Especially the pilot--best pilot I've seen in a long, long while. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOnhVRu6soA)
Wow, three in a row for Texas. Way to go, Lonestar State. (I won't be putting on Lone Star, though. Or Texasville.) Adolescence is all about grossly inflated perceptions of worth and value and import. Dillon, Texas has those perceptions about high school football. Somehow though, this show manages to cultivate an atmosphere that is perfectly situated at the median between pathetic and glorious. It doesn't paint these characters as ridiculous, but it doesn't put them on pedestals either. They mumble, they drink, they fuck up routinely. They're heroes, sure, but it's because, not in spite, of their mundanity.
9. "Weezer" - Weezer (full album)
I was going through some times a while back and I rediscovered this album. Every track on it is pure gold... even the ones I used to skip back in high school. Every aching, heart-on-sleeve chord, every my-tongue-is-in-my-cheek-but-I-still-want-to-kiss-you lyric... oh man, did they ever set the bar high. "In the Garage" is probably the best portrait of adolescence, but the whole album has that same, sweetly shaky veneer.
8. American Graffiti
Directed by George Lucas.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1vBKOi3xqk)
Watching this film now is like spying on a voyeur... it's a 70s love-poem to the 50s, really. But there's nothing new under the sun, only new packaging and inflated prices. I know I'm not the first to say that Superbad is American Graffiti without the dick jokes and I don't think that speaks ill of either film. I'm just a sucker for that whole shake-the-dust-off-this-crummy-little-town thing, and hell, it's probably because I DID shake the dust off and move to the city, but I DIG it, man, I really do. And when it's set to a soundtrack like this, and it's shot by a guy who had yet to go batshit, well, damn... it's a sure thing. (Ah shit, I forgot The Sure Thing...)
7. Can't Hardly Wait
Directed by Harry Elfont and Deborah Kaplan.
This movie essentially defined my concept of love when I was 15 years old. If you feel something and you have felt it for long enough to be certain that you are certain of this feeling, writing it down on paper and making someone read your feelings is all you have to do. When I saw Can't Hardly Wait for the first time, I didn't bother to get invested in the supporting characters, I didn't pick up on the allusions to the previous films to which it owes obvious debts. For all I cared, there was only one eternal moment comprising one burning question: Preston and Amanda, yes or no? This is the stuff of adolescence! Immediacy! There is no past! There have been no prior I Love You's, you are most definitely the first person to have ever felt this way about another person and it is unbelievable! I was so certain of these things that I enacted my own Can't Hardly Wait in front of a taco place on Main Street. And yeah, sure, it worked. I don't know why. I mean, I did then, but now... not so sure.
Side note: At the end of the Where Are They Now? bit that closes up the movie, the screen reads (regarding Preston and Amanda) "They are still together." Every time I see that, I laugh, because I'm sure that they aren't. But the sentiment that their love, their connection was SO strong that even though they had never really spoken before that fateful grad party, and even though the only thing they shared in common was a respect for letter-writing, THEY FUCKIN' MADE IT, MAN. Gets me every time. I don't mean to put down the insouciant optimism of youth. It's encouraging in a beautiful, beautiful way. But I gotta laugh.
(Um, the whole thing is apparently available on YouTube. Start here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CE4u6uuzFY)
6. This Side of Paradise
Written by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Cobbled together from short stories, plays, and poems he had written in his early adult days--btw, do cobblers take offense when people say things are "cobbled together"... are they like, "Oh, what, so my shoes are shit because I just threw them together haphazardly, like EVERYTHING ELSE I DO?" In a lot of ways, this is the spiritual predecessor to Vanity of Duluoz, cataloguing Fitzgerald's days at prep school, Princeton, and New York. That final moment, though... as he falls to the ground and says, "I know myself and that is all." Wow. Even if I don't like the phrase "coming-of-age", that sentiment certainly defines what "coming-of-age" is trying to approximate.
5. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Written by James Joyce.
And it's our third kunstlerroman of the list! I couldn't not include it, really. I mean, come on. Catholic, all boys school... tempering troubles with his faith with troubles with the ladies. Alright, fine, I'm selling it short. Look, this is why I don't like to talk at length about great works of art. I can give you a thousand pages on Wings or Family Double Dare or Multiplicity, but as soon as I get to Joyce, it's like I don't want to offend the guy.
4. "Sixteen Blue" - The Replacements
Ah... the guys who wrote the song Can't Hardly Wait is named after. (And the best thing to come out of Minnesota aside from the Vikings, the Twins, and maybe Rob Trump.) It's one thing to capture the wonder of adolescence... the discovery, the risks, all that. But it's somehow more captivating--and frankly, more realisitic--if you nail the awkwardness, the lingering doubts, and the uncomfortable, sweaty silences. When you're four, your parents tell you to make friends, to run around, to reek with joy. But when you're fourteen, that behavior is no longer rewarded. You learn to avert your eyes, to only speak to certain people, to stick to your strata of the social scene. This song not only captures these moments, it pays them tribute. "Everything drags and drags," sings Paul Westerberg. Damn straight. It lasts forever and just when you get the hang of it, you get spit out to a bigger proving ground with new rules.
3. "The Wonder Years"
Created by Carol Black and Neal Marlens.
Especially the episode where David Schwimmer camps out in the rain to prove his love to Kevin's older sister. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePJEAoptOPE)
When you're a kid and you watch this, it strikes you as totally sensical. That boy is in love with that girl, so he waited all night in the rain for her. Knights kill dragons for princesses, football players catch touchdowns and marry the head cheerleader. These are facts, these are things that happen. Then, when you're older, you watch it and it still makes sense, on a totally different level. That boy is scared about losing that girl. He doesn't want to deal with defining a life beyond her, without her, so he acts desperately, even foolishly. It becomes this twisted, amazing cycle of evolving perception. Watching this clip, I understand now what I thought back then, when I thought about what it means to be as old as I am now. That is a convoluted-ass sentence, but I promise you that it is true.
(Also watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7RE2hDL8dk&feature=related)
2. "Thirteen" - Big Star
Earlier, I gave a nod to Alex Chilton's biggest fans, The Replacements, now I'll turn my attention to the man himself. I hope and pray that this song does not become the "Hallelujah" of teenage love tunes. I found a (potentially) sweet Wilco cover of it and lo and behold, when I played it in iTunes, the Album label read "Gilmore Girls Songs". The earnest, honest vocals, the delicate guitar picking, the lyrical nudges to inherent bond between music and young love. But it's more... there's a dark, almost dangerous current running through these words. The guy sings, "Let me be an outlaw for your love," I mean, he'd kill for her, he'd steal for her, he has yet to conceive of a compartmentalized life where at certain points in the day, his love is not the most important thing in the world. That truly is a wonderful, adolescent sentiment.
1. The Sandlot
Directed by David M. Evans.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vr5lHZQz-Z4)
"FOR-EV-ER." "You're killin' me, Smalls!" "You play ball like a giiiiirl!" You say any quote from this movie to someone from my generation and they will immediately sign your name in the Book of the Chosen. And yet, like American Graffiti, it wasn't really our story... it was a bunch of kids in the 50's who played baseball together. Now, I love baseball, I mean, I'm checking scores as I write this, but you ask these twenty-something fans which they've seen more times, a major league baseball game or The Sandlot, I bet you a good, solid chunk, maybe even half, would answer the latter. It's a good movie, sure, but it's more than that. You don't identify with this movie because it's 1952 and the only way you're going to make friends is by learning to play baseball. You identify because you remember what it was like to believe in legends, to have faith in your heroes, to surprise yourself... The Sandlot is not a movie, it's a cultural landmark.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Top 17 VP Choices For Obama To Choose From
So, Barack Obama is all set to announce his vice presidential candidate... maybe as early as tonight! Yeah, yeah; it'll probably by Joe Biden or Evan Bayh. BUT WHAT IF IT WASN'T! What if Obama went way out of the box, I mean, what if he tore that friggin' box in half, gave it a swirlie, and tagged it with a nice, big, glow-in-the-dark "Don't Tread on Obama!" and nominated a REAL American hero for Vice President. Here are my picks!
17. Olmec from Legends of the Hidden Temple
Huge, talking stone face. Enjoys games, historical trivia, and imperiling children. Unfortunately, after the stentorian demeanor and the boundless riches, the cons abound. Seriously, if you want to talk human rights abuses, look no further than Nickelodeon game shows in the 90s. Hidden Temple, eh? Sounds like extraordinary rendition to me. The Agrocrag on Guts? More like the Bataan Death March-Up-a-Mountain. And Figure It Out? That was just a bad show.
16. Christopher Lloyd
Invented time machine. Was in childhood staples Clue, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, and Mr. Mom. Also, attended Staples High School in Westport, Connecticut, alma mater of none other than my roommate, Caitlin Shure. But most importantly, he is the comic genius responsible for this clip. I'm not sure why this amounts to a good resume for a prospective VP, but come on... Chris Lloyd. Good guy.
15. Dirk Hellhammer
Not many neuroendocrinologists have names as good as Dirk Hellhammer. In fact, not many people have names as good as Dirk Hellhammer. Just envision that on a campaign button: Obama/Hellhammer '08. Sounds like the winds of hope and change to me! (Obama/Biden '08 just ain't as snappy.) (Note: Just because I can't find a Wikipedia page for this guy doesn't mean he doesn't exist. He does! I've seen him speak! It's terrifying!)
14. Any number of fictional Obamas/Obama clones
Robo-bama, Zombama, Rock N'Rollbama... these would all be sufficient stand-ins for a vice-president that is actually a different person from Barack Obama. I mean, the guy's done so well on his own so far, why mess with a good thing?
13. Imelda Marcos
I had to do a quick Wikipedia search to see if she's still alive and apparently she is, so... good on ya, Ms. Former First Lady. Has a lot of shoes, so that should go over well with the women folk. Possible confusion with Imelda Staunton, that lady from Vera Drake, which was about abortion, so... eh... that's unfortunate.
12. Axl Rose
Not only does William Bruce Rose Jr. have the pipes to belt out hits like "Paradise City", "Welcome to the Jungle", and "Patience", he's also got the stones to take on some of the biggest names ever: Vince Neil, Bon Jovi, Tommy Hilfiger, and the Eagles of Death Metal. (Frankly, when I found out that the Eagles of Death Metal weren't a band that did thrash covers of "Desperado", etc... I was pissed too.) Stones and pipes, fellas. Not only are those excellent VP qualities, but you could do a lot worse for the title of your autobiography. "Stones and Pipes: The Axl Rose Story"... That'd look great on a dust-jacket.
11. Jack Skellington
Okay, so... question. Obviously the Mayor of Halloweentown was kind of a figurehead. Plus, Jack is technically the Pumpkin King... but was that a self-appointed position or was he part of some regal bloodline? I guess either way it doesn't look good for a potential VP--we Americans have been known to frown on monarchy. Still, though. Confident, charismatic, passionate. Sounds like Howard Dean! Hmm. In that case, maybe Jack would be best behind the scenes...
10. Pete Coors
Has that down-home, silver-bullet-blast, salt-and-pepper hair, good-looking-enough-to-forget-about-the-obvious-hereditary-alcoholism charm that people really respect in billionaires... and vice presidents? Maybe? You guys, I didn't think this concept out all the way.
9. Scottie Pippen
8-time All-Defensive First Team. 6-time NBA Champion. NBA record holder for both steals and assists by a forward. Made the name "Scottie" sound remotely masculine. Most importantly, the dude was used to being number two to a powerful black man. Despite also being a powerful black man.
8. T. Rex from Qwantz
T. Rex wants to know what the haps are--the haps of the nation, that is! He's also enthusiastic about ideas. He's friends with God (securing the religious vote), but he knows how to hang with the Devil, too--so the all-important Bad-Ass caucus won't be left out in the cold. He's friendly to tiny animals (thanks for voting for us, hippie-types!) AND plus, he's a talking dinosaur (so if kids could vote, this would be a fucking landslide). Wow. This is a solid, solid pick. I have no idea why T. Rex is only number eight!
7. Paul Rudd
Comfortable in the sidekick role. Fan of Tom Waits. Would make women everywhere forget about Hillary. If elected, he would automatically become that "politician you'd want to have a beer with", except it would ten beers and they would be followed by an adventure and possibly an arrest.
6. Martin Mull
Our second Clue veteran of the list! (Also in Mr. Mom... hmm...) Martin Mull is the kind of guy who pops up everywhere like a whack-a-mole, but instead of whacking him, you think, "Aw... hey, Martin Mull. How's life treatin' ya?" and you give him a big, ol' hug. That's the kind of single-uncle-brand pathos I demand in a veep. Then again, after all those years of slumming for Red Roof Inn, can we really trust him?
5. Mayor McCheese
Previous political experience. Tough on crime (cf. The Hamburglar). Gigantic, Javert-esque hat. Kind of disappeared during the 90s, but frankly, who didn't. Unfortunately, has a reputation for being soft-on-fast-food, which would severely undermine any of Obama's proposed children's health initiatives.
4. Tim Gunn
As a vice-president, it's imperative that you cultivate a catchphrase. Just look at Albert "I invented the Internet" Gore or Dan "I spell potato wrong" Quayle or Dick "Get the fuck out of my secret lair" Cheney. How awesome would it be if after Obama does his whole "I solemnly swear" bit at the inauguration, Tim Gunn was all, "Alright, America--let's make it work!" I would watch that TV show and that is a good enough criterion for me!
3. Bernie Taupin
This is the cat who wrote all the lyrics for Elton John. Who better to craft and shape Obama's message than the brilliant Briton behind "Your Song", "Rocket Man", "Mona Lisas and Madhatters", and, to a lesser extent, "I Think I'm Gonna Kill Myself".
2. John McCain
Prominent national political figure. More experienced. Brings a decorated war record, respected stance on campaign finance reform to the table. Will be able to guide Obama's hand on issues of foreign policy, national security. Older than Jesus' dad. (HAHAH You guys it was so easy, I'm sorry. Seriously, that joke was easier than a joke about how easy John McCain's daughter is.)
1. Billy Dee Williams
Was Lando Calrissian. Frankly, that's all I need.
17. Olmec from Legends of the Hidden Temple
Huge, talking stone face. Enjoys games, historical trivia, and imperiling children. Unfortunately, after the stentorian demeanor and the boundless riches, the cons abound. Seriously, if you want to talk human rights abuses, look no further than Nickelodeon game shows in the 90s. Hidden Temple, eh? Sounds like extraordinary rendition to me. The Agrocrag on Guts? More like the Bataan Death March-Up-a-Mountain. And Figure It Out? That was just a bad show.
16. Christopher Lloyd
Invented time machine. Was in childhood staples Clue, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, and Mr. Mom. Also, attended Staples High School in Westport, Connecticut, alma mater of none other than my roommate, Caitlin Shure. But most importantly, he is the comic genius responsible for this clip. I'm not sure why this amounts to a good resume for a prospective VP, but come on... Chris Lloyd. Good guy.
15. Dirk Hellhammer
Not many neuroendocrinologists have names as good as Dirk Hellhammer. In fact, not many people have names as good as Dirk Hellhammer. Just envision that on a campaign button: Obama/Hellhammer '08. Sounds like the winds of hope and change to me! (Obama/Biden '08 just ain't as snappy.) (Note: Just because I can't find a Wikipedia page for this guy doesn't mean he doesn't exist. He does! I've seen him speak! It's terrifying!)
14. Any number of fictional Obamas/Obama clones
Robo-bama, Zombama, Rock N'Rollbama... these would all be sufficient stand-ins for a vice-president that is actually a different person from Barack Obama. I mean, the guy's done so well on his own so far, why mess with a good thing?
13. Imelda Marcos
I had to do a quick Wikipedia search to see if she's still alive and apparently she is, so... good on ya, Ms. Former First Lady. Has a lot of shoes, so that should go over well with the women folk. Possible confusion with Imelda Staunton, that lady from Vera Drake, which was about abortion, so... eh... that's unfortunate.
12. Axl Rose
Not only does William Bruce Rose Jr. have the pipes to belt out hits like "Paradise City", "Welcome to the Jungle", and "Patience", he's also got the stones to take on some of the biggest names ever: Vince Neil, Bon Jovi, Tommy Hilfiger, and the Eagles of Death Metal. (Frankly, when I found out that the Eagles of Death Metal weren't a band that did thrash covers of "Desperado", etc... I was pissed too.) Stones and pipes, fellas. Not only are those excellent VP qualities, but you could do a lot worse for the title of your autobiography. "Stones and Pipes: The Axl Rose Story"... That'd look great on a dust-jacket.
11. Jack Skellington
Okay, so... question. Obviously the Mayor of Halloweentown was kind of a figurehead. Plus, Jack is technically the Pumpkin King... but was that a self-appointed position or was he part of some regal bloodline? I guess either way it doesn't look good for a potential VP--we Americans have been known to frown on monarchy. Still, though. Confident, charismatic, passionate. Sounds like Howard Dean! Hmm. In that case, maybe Jack would be best behind the scenes...
10. Pete Coors
Has that down-home, silver-bullet-blast, salt-and-pepper hair, good-looking-enough-to-forget-about-the-obvious-hereditary-alcoholism charm that people really respect in billionaires... and vice presidents? Maybe? You guys, I didn't think this concept out all the way.
9. Scottie Pippen
8-time All-Defensive First Team. 6-time NBA Champion. NBA record holder for both steals and assists by a forward. Made the name "Scottie" sound remotely masculine. Most importantly, the dude was used to being number two to a powerful black man. Despite also being a powerful black man.
8. T. Rex from Qwantz
T. Rex wants to know what the haps are--the haps of the nation, that is! He's also enthusiastic about ideas. He's friends with God (securing the religious vote), but he knows how to hang with the Devil, too--so the all-important Bad-Ass caucus won't be left out in the cold. He's friendly to tiny animals (thanks for voting for us, hippie-types!) AND plus, he's a talking dinosaur (so if kids could vote, this would be a fucking landslide). Wow. This is a solid, solid pick. I have no idea why T. Rex is only number eight!
7. Paul Rudd
Comfortable in the sidekick role. Fan of Tom Waits. Would make women everywhere forget about Hillary. If elected, he would automatically become that "politician you'd want to have a beer with", except it would ten beers and they would be followed by an adventure and possibly an arrest.
6. Martin Mull
Our second Clue veteran of the list! (Also in Mr. Mom... hmm...) Martin Mull is the kind of guy who pops up everywhere like a whack-a-mole, but instead of whacking him, you think, "Aw... hey, Martin Mull. How's life treatin' ya?" and you give him a big, ol' hug. That's the kind of single-uncle-brand pathos I demand in a veep. Then again, after all those years of slumming for Red Roof Inn, can we really trust him?
5. Mayor McCheese
Previous political experience. Tough on crime (cf. The Hamburglar). Gigantic, Javert-esque hat. Kind of disappeared during the 90s, but frankly, who didn't. Unfortunately, has a reputation for being soft-on-fast-food, which would severely undermine any of Obama's proposed children's health initiatives.
4. Tim Gunn
As a vice-president, it's imperative that you cultivate a catchphrase. Just look at Albert "I invented the Internet" Gore or Dan "I spell potato wrong" Quayle or Dick "Get the fuck out of my secret lair" Cheney. How awesome would it be if after Obama does his whole "I solemnly swear" bit at the inauguration, Tim Gunn was all, "Alright, America--let's make it work!" I would watch that TV show and that is a good enough criterion for me!
3. Bernie Taupin
This is the cat who wrote all the lyrics for Elton John. Who better to craft and shape Obama's message than the brilliant Briton behind "Your Song", "Rocket Man", "Mona Lisas and Madhatters", and, to a lesser extent, "I Think I'm Gonna Kill Myself".
2. John McCain
Prominent national political figure. More experienced. Brings a decorated war record, respected stance on campaign finance reform to the table. Will be able to guide Obama's hand on issues of foreign policy, national security. Older than Jesus' dad. (HAHAH You guys it was so easy, I'm sorry. Seriously, that joke was easier than a joke about how easy John McCain's daughter is.)
1. Billy Dee Williams
Was Lando Calrissian. Frankly, that's all I need.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
The Top 9 Events That Should Be Dropped From the Olympic Games
Well, after Rob's previous post, this one was sort of inevitable. It doesn't have quite as much vitriol, but goddamnit, I would take Tug of War over any of these.
9. Modern pentathalon
The casserole of Olympic sports. It sounds like it was created by someone on a combination of amphetamines and goofballs. "Ungggggh... we're gonna have running. And swimming? I like water, water is so... watery. Yeah, let's have swimming. Also shooting! No, no shooting, shooting is scary! Wait, I like scary! They can shoot. But also swords! Swords are the best! Do you ever just like, think about kinghts! There were fucking knights once! Um um um um um also riding horses just 'cause this one time I was at my aunt's farm and there was this one horse..." It's not as though running, riding, shooting, swimming, and fencing don't appear in the Games. Redundancy does not equal glory.
8. Handball
I love handball. I love watching the old Filipino dudes in Ramon Aponte Park, I love reminiscing about my slightly pathetic backyard solo-handball days (where I played against myself AND did play-by-play)... I think this is a sweet idea of a sport. Kinda like how I thought The Prestige was a sweet IDEA of a movie. I wanted to give it first-tier credit, but... well... I couldn't. I loved it elementally, but I just... didn't like it. I'm not saying it isn't a sport. I'm just saying that I was really good at backyard solo-handball and I don't consider myself to be an Olympian.
7. Sailing, all kinds
This is a slippery slope, my friends. When you're on a bike, you're doing most of the physical work. The force exerted by the cyclists legs is converted into rotational energy. Awesome. But there's no energy conversion that goes into moving a sailboat from Port A to Port B. Oh, sure, there's probably cunning and guile and fearlessness involved... but so too in Madden or Warcraft. More importantly, we don't want to get to the point where NASCAR-style stockcar racing is an Olympic event. When you minimize the human element, you delegitamize the sport. Plus, this is easily the most classist event. Best (ie, most 'spensive) boat wins. EFF THAT. I'm a populist at heart. Rotational energy >> the almighty dollar.
6. Steeplechase
Hahahahah, cool, an obstacle course! Lookit. I used to make obstacle courses at my friends' houses in grade-school and race them for their toys. (It would seem that my major criterion for whether or not something is an Olympics-worthy sport is if I did it during my reckless youth.) I won a whole bunch of Happy Meal Toys and even a few Star Wars action figures, but no friggin' gold medals. ALSO, if you wikipedia Steeplechase, you'll note that it is named after a horse-racing event. (Also a competitive dog agility event.) Awesome, we owe this event to horses and agile dogs.
5. 50m Rifle Prone
Let me preface this. I think shooting at things is a great idea, provided that they are a) made of clay or corkboard or b) defenseless, tasty animals. However, the concept of needless challenge annoys me, and that's my general beef with Rifle Prone. "Oh! The 100m Fly is hard, but let's put one ornery barracuda in the pool and see how tough that is!" NO! Shooting at a target fifty meters away while your belly is kissing the dirt sounds really, really hard. But not in a deserving way, more like a "this time could have been better spent on something less militaristic, like rugby, for instance" way.
4. Field hockey
I'm sure this is a noble and difficult sport. I'm sure these are ridiculous athletes and that they are treated like semi-royalty in their homelands. (Y'know... the Pseudo-Prince of New Zealand and such.) But to be totally honest, this event is the biggest tease of the Olympics. You can't just take a beautiful thing, stick it in a field, trade in pads for shorts, and expect it to be engaging. Field bobsled? Field water polo? Field cake? Bullshit. Just give me the cake, Olympic Guys.
3. BMX
We already have the X-Games. We already DON'T WATCH the X-Games. Please, please, please don't let this keep happening. I sincerely don't want to turn on the London Games and see some freckle-faced redhead named Slade competing in the Big Air Skateboarding Final. Then again... what other country is going to bother competing in this travesty of an event. I've changed my own mind! Bring on the free medals, bitches!
2. Table tennis
If you're at summer camp and it's rec time or, I dunno, if you're trying to mend relations with a distant, Communist superpower, table tennis is a fantastic pursuit. If you're a really iconoclastic frat boy and beer-pong is too gauche for your taste, go ahead, get out the paddles and use that table as God intended you to. But if you're an Olympian in the sport of table tennis... man, I just don't know what to say to you. I feel like this was created just to set up an Apatow movie. There's some shlubby gold-medalist ping-ponger at some bar in the Olympic Village, some gymnast babe comes up to him and goes, "What's your sport?" He says table tennis, but it's so loud, she only hears tennis. Later, they make Olympic love, but in the morning, when she finds out he's not exactly Pete Sampras, she runs off without leaving her number. It's gonna take his wacky partner, his wackier coach, and the American Dream to make it work!
1. Trampoline
This is the Table Tennis Defense times infinity. Anything that can be done drunk behind a frathouse does not qualify as an Olympic event. I KNOW you can do cool tricks on a trampoline. We all remember Bobby McFlashy doing flips at our 9th birthday party at the YMCA. What happened to Bobby McFlashy? He mixed Pixie Sticks and Ecto Cooler and missed the trampoline on his ultra-super-mega-triple-flip, smacking his head on an errant, rusty towel rack. Now he folds towels for the very same Y and calls everyone who talks to him "Mr. Dennis." PS: This event is so lame that it doesn't even fall under the category of "Rhythmic Gymnastics" (aka Ribbon Dancing).
Friday, August 8, 2008
Top 11 Most Fun Lies to Tell
11. "I can't come to your party because I'll be watching preseason football."
10. "Excuse me, I think we went to high school together! You probably don't remember me because I've changed a lot. As a matter of fact, I think we were in the same English class? Mr. Kenny's class! You're absolutely right, that was his name... Mr. Kenny. Oh man. Good times. So, can I buy you a drink?"
9. "When I was a child, I set the world record for solving Olmec's Temple on Legends of the Hidden Temple. I also punched host Kirk Fogg in the face and refused to return the Cursed Flightplan of Amelia Earhart to the props department."
8. "We're allowed to do that at Mommy's house."
7. "My car can turn into a robot, but only when you aren't around because it's shy."
6. "I care deeply about the fact that Rob isn't letting this whole Merkin Muffley snub thing go."
5. "I'm pregnant."
4. "We experienced a very similar situation once while I was a supporting cast member on Everybody Loves Raymond."
3. "You can probably clean that up with club soda."
2. "I am a licensed physician and in my professional opinion, you have a terrible disease."
1. "Lisa Loeb is dead."
10. "Excuse me, I think we went to high school together! You probably don't remember me because I've changed a lot. As a matter of fact, I think we were in the same English class? Mr. Kenny's class! You're absolutely right, that was his name... Mr. Kenny. Oh man. Good times. So, can I buy you a drink?"
9. "When I was a child, I set the world record for solving Olmec's Temple on Legends of the Hidden Temple. I also punched host Kirk Fogg in the face and refused to return the Cursed Flightplan of Amelia Earhart to the props department."
8. "We're allowed to do that at Mommy's house."
7. "My car can turn into a robot, but only when you aren't around because it's shy."
6. "I care deeply about the fact that Rob isn't letting this whole Merkin Muffley snub thing go."
5. "I'm pregnant."
4. "We experienced a very similar situation once while I was a supporting cast member on Everybody Loves Raymond."
3. "You can probably clean that up with club soda."
2. "I am a licensed physician and in my professional opinion, you have a terrible disease."
1. "Lisa Loeb is dead."
(credit where credit is due -- I owe this to Lakshmi)
Thursday, August 7, 2008
The Top 12 Battles of All Time, Ever
12. The First Battle of Bull Run
Soooo much better than that Second Battle of Bull Run retread bullshit. And they ended the same way, too! Honestly, I wish you all you bushy-bearded Civil War generals would stop pandering to the public and give us an honest-to-God original bloodbath for once.
11. The Battle of Guadalcanal
This battle is the story of the movie The Thin Red Line, which I liked a lot and so did my mom. Once in a while, my mom and dad argue about whether or not they've seen this movie, but they did and they liked it. Well, at least, my mom liked it.
10. The Battle of Saratoga
Dude, I do NOT mean the turning point of the Revolutionary War. This one time, my buddy Kyle and I went up to Saratoga to visit our mutual bro at Skidmore and to hit the race track... anyway, we get a little too drunk watchin' the horsies and Kyle's talkin' to this girl whose like, hot but not, y'know, hot. Turns out this chick--Jessica or Tammy, or y'know, one of those names--this chick is the girlfriend of some guy who owns this horse who just won big. So this guy gets in Kyle's face, obviously, and he's all, "Why you up on my girl, bro?" and Kyle goes, "Why don't you go play with your horse, guy, 'cause she's my girl now," when all of a sudden, our bro Liam pulls out a freaking gun, man!!! I'm like WTF DUDE but he's not backin' down, 'cause see Liam had like, a really rough childhood, man, because his dad was in Panama or some shit and I guess he saw some stuff there that was pretty hard to deal with. Anyway, Liam cools off eventually, but not before Kyle punches that guy's horse. Yeah, man. THAT was the Battle of Saratoga.
9. John Battle (point guard, Atlanta Hawks/Cleveland Cavaliers)
It was a hard fight between John Battle and Kenny Battle (who played for the Suns). Ultimately, even though I had Kenny's rookie card, John played ten seasons to Kenny's five. Plus his Wikipedia page is longer.
8. The Battle of the Bulge
But not the WWII battle... I'm talking tummies! Let me tell you about my new diet, ladies. It's a DIET diet! Because I'm always hungry and I can't lose the weight. It's like I'm allergic to being skinny. Am I right, ladies? I tried to fit into my size 2 jeans from high-school the other day. It didn't work! How's this for irony--I wouldn't have a problem fitting a man into my schedule, but I can't find one, but the jeans I found from high-school don't fit me! You know what I'm talking about, ladies!
7. Thinly veiled homophobia vs. Thinly veiled homophobe
Okay, to be totally honest, this entry was the entire reason for the list. Some awful-looking high school kids were on the subway playing would you rather and all their questions were so brain-breakingly terrible (Eg. "Okay, okay... I got one... wait, wait... I got one... would you rather... have sex with Mr. Shermer every day for the rest of high school... OR... or, or, or... wait! I'm still going! GOD, Tommy... every friggin' day... I'm just trying to would-you-rather and you gotta interrupt me! What the frig! No, I will NOT calm down, Thomas. I will NOT. WHAT?! I can't even believe you would say that? I most certainly totally do not think Mr. Shermer is hot... that is such BS. Tommy, I work super hard for my grades, way more hard than you do, even though you don't have to work hard because your mom is the head of the PTA, and I can't even believe that you would insinuate that my five straight quarters of Second or First Honors are the result of a... a... what did you call it... a hand-whatever during my second period study hall. You make me sick, Tommy Greenspan. What? Oh, my would-you-rather... um... I forgot.) that I had to come up with my own. So, America, which is worse? Thinly veiled homophobia or a thinly veiled homophobe?
6. The battle with the bottle
I hear this phrase a lot in lieu of "crippling alcoholism"--which, it should be noted, did NOT appear on my previous list. I think media-types have this weird impression that if they gussy up pervasive health concerns with consonance, people will just drink it up. (Ooh, too soon on that one.) I mean, if there was an alopecia outbreak, I guarantee you every single TV news magazine would run the story as "Hair Scare!" It also reminds me of that one Nickelback song. Wait. Why are these good reasons for this item to be on my list?
MID-LIST RE-CAST!
6A. AKA The Real Number 6 AKA The Real Killers AKA Leaked New Killers Album!!! AKA Maybe Now We'll Get Some Hits AKA The Battle Between Me and Rob Over Me Not Including Merkin Muffley on My List of the Top 16 Fictional Presidents
Yeah. I didn't include him. It's true. I didn't have anything funny to say. It's like, "Oh, there's Van Gogh's Starry Night, why don't I just say something beautiful and post-impressionistic about it." You can't just be funny when you're talking about something that's actually really funny. I'd sound dumb. And... although dumb people... can be funny... they shouldn't. Because this is the internet. And there are higher standards here.
5. Wonderwall vs. Boulevard of Broken Dreams (also feat. Travis and Eminem (feat. Aerosmith))
It is no secret that I am a fan of mash-ups. For a while, Becky Abrams called me "Mash-Up". This was shortly before or after the time period in which Ms. Abrams called me "Departed". Anyway, this is probably the greatest mash-up ever conceived and it was introduced to me by one Ms. Caitlin Shure. It features a seamless marriage of Oasis' seminal 90s classic "Wonderwall" and Green Day's seminal Oasis rip-off/homage (or ripomage), "Boulevard of Broken Dreams". BUT THAT'S NOT ALL. It also throws in a snippet of Travis' "Writing to Reach You" as a bridge and wraps everything up with that Eminem song that samples Aerosmith's "Dream On". META-MASHUP! Girl Talk, eat your heart out! And then it ends with the sound of a nuclear blast. It's like Batman and the guy in Dark Knight who pretends to be Batman had a baby, and then that baby got raised by Jesus and Mohammed, except Mohammed actually speaks with God's voice, which is, in fact, also Jesus' voice.
FIFTH. BEST. BATTLE. EVER.
4. Battles (the band)
Have you heard the song "Atlas"? It is great. It is actually the only Battles song I listen to over and over, especially when I'm running, which I do a lot, because I am very fit. (Although I didn't run this morning, even though I told Tom there was a really good chance I would.) Anyway, this is a great band, but you shouldn't get them confused with Beatles, which is something different.
3. Battlebots
ROBOTS FIGHTING. A gift from high-concept heaven. They even had failed Minnesota Vikings quarterback Sean Salisbury on to do color commentary! Ah, what a perfect portrait of late 90's American prosperity. "Well, hot damn! We've got a budget surplus, no active military engagement, and gas is like, a nickel for a shitload. Let's build us some robots and make 'em fight! Hey, maybe we should do the Macarena while we build and get our hair cut in the Rachel fashion, as popularized by the 90s TV show Friends!"
Basically, Battlebots were cock-fights for the information age. Except no one does battle with bots anymore in 2008. And I'm pretty sure cock-fighting is still a huge problem in Louisiana.
2. "The Battle of Who Could Care Less"
The first single from Whatever and Ever Amen, the second album from Ben Folds Five. Though it is most certainly a different song than Brick, the better-known, higher-charting second single from that self-same album, The Battle of Who Could Care Less is certainly a battle, and therefore, it belongs on this list. Also, in this song, Folds namedrops Rockford Files, The Cure, and made up military personages Major Boredom and General Apathy... which is sort of a time-traveling reference to a great gag on How I Met Your Mother?
1. The Butter Battle Book
The moral of the Butter Battle (and, I suppose, its eponymously titled book) is that you shouldn't make a nuclear war over toast. I don't really like toast, so I totally agree. After reading this book, I never, ever made a nuclear war again--toast-provoked or otherwise. However, when I was just a kid (and had yet to read The Butter Battle Book) I was all the times making nuclear war on just about anyone who would listen... the old Polish lady next door, my puppets, Yuri Andropov. Anyone. But I'm all better now!
Soooo much better than that Second Battle of Bull Run retread bullshit. And they ended the same way, too! Honestly, I wish you all you bushy-bearded Civil War generals would stop pandering to the public and give us an honest-to-God original bloodbath for once.
11. The Battle of Guadalcanal
This battle is the story of the movie The Thin Red Line, which I liked a lot and so did my mom. Once in a while, my mom and dad argue about whether or not they've seen this movie, but they did and they liked it. Well, at least, my mom liked it.
10. The Battle of Saratoga
Dude, I do NOT mean the turning point of the Revolutionary War. This one time, my buddy Kyle and I went up to Saratoga to visit our mutual bro at Skidmore and to hit the race track... anyway, we get a little too drunk watchin' the horsies and Kyle's talkin' to this girl whose like, hot but not, y'know, hot. Turns out this chick--Jessica or Tammy, or y'know, one of those names--this chick is the girlfriend of some guy who owns this horse who just won big. So this guy gets in Kyle's face, obviously, and he's all, "Why you up on my girl, bro?" and Kyle goes, "Why don't you go play with your horse, guy, 'cause she's my girl now," when all of a sudden, our bro Liam pulls out a freaking gun, man!!! I'm like WTF DUDE but he's not backin' down, 'cause see Liam had like, a really rough childhood, man, because his dad was in Panama or some shit and I guess he saw some stuff there that was pretty hard to deal with. Anyway, Liam cools off eventually, but not before Kyle punches that guy's horse. Yeah, man. THAT was the Battle of Saratoga.
9. John Battle (point guard, Atlanta Hawks/Cleveland Cavaliers)
It was a hard fight between John Battle and Kenny Battle (who played for the Suns). Ultimately, even though I had Kenny's rookie card, John played ten seasons to Kenny's five. Plus his Wikipedia page is longer.
8. The Battle of the Bulge
But not the WWII battle... I'm talking tummies! Let me tell you about my new diet, ladies. It's a DIET diet! Because I'm always hungry and I can't lose the weight. It's like I'm allergic to being skinny. Am I right, ladies? I tried to fit into my size 2 jeans from high-school the other day. It didn't work! How's this for irony--I wouldn't have a problem fitting a man into my schedule, but I can't find one, but the jeans I found from high-school don't fit me! You know what I'm talking about, ladies!
7. Thinly veiled homophobia vs. Thinly veiled homophobe
Okay, to be totally honest, this entry was the entire reason for the list. Some awful-looking high school kids were on the subway playing would you rather and all their questions were so brain-breakingly terrible (Eg. "Okay, okay... I got one... wait, wait... I got one... would you rather... have sex with Mr. Shermer every day for the rest of high school... OR... or, or, or... wait! I'm still going! GOD, Tommy... every friggin' day... I'm just trying to would-you-rather and you gotta interrupt me! What the frig! No, I will NOT calm down, Thomas. I will NOT. WHAT?! I can't even believe you would say that? I most certainly totally do not think Mr. Shermer is hot... that is such BS. Tommy, I work super hard for my grades, way more hard than you do, even though you don't have to work hard because your mom is the head of the PTA, and I can't even believe that you would insinuate that my five straight quarters of Second or First Honors are the result of a... a... what did you call it... a hand-whatever during my second period study hall. You make me sick, Tommy Greenspan. What? Oh, my would-you-rather... um... I forgot.) that I had to come up with my own. So, America, which is worse? Thinly veiled homophobia or a thinly veiled homophobe?
6. The battle with the bottle
I hear this phrase a lot in lieu of "crippling alcoholism"--which, it should be noted, did NOT appear on my previous list. I think media-types have this weird impression that if they gussy up pervasive health concerns with consonance, people will just drink it up. (Ooh, too soon on that one.) I mean, if there was an alopecia outbreak, I guarantee you every single TV news magazine would run the story as "Hair Scare!" It also reminds me of that one Nickelback song. Wait. Why are these good reasons for this item to be on my list?
MID-LIST RE-CAST!
6A. AKA The Real Number 6 AKA The Real Killers AKA Leaked New Killers Album!!! AKA Maybe Now We'll Get Some Hits AKA The Battle Between Me and Rob Over Me Not Including Merkin Muffley on My List of the Top 16 Fictional Presidents
Yeah. I didn't include him. It's true. I didn't have anything funny to say. It's like, "Oh, there's Van Gogh's Starry Night, why don't I just say something beautiful and post-impressionistic about it." You can't just be funny when you're talking about something that's actually really funny. I'd sound dumb. And... although dumb people... can be funny... they shouldn't. Because this is the internet. And there are higher standards here.
5. Wonderwall vs. Boulevard of Broken Dreams (also feat. Travis and Eminem (feat. Aerosmith))
It is no secret that I am a fan of mash-ups. For a while, Becky Abrams called me "Mash-Up". This was shortly before or after the time period in which Ms. Abrams called me "Departed". Anyway, this is probably the greatest mash-up ever conceived and it was introduced to me by one Ms. Caitlin Shure. It features a seamless marriage of Oasis' seminal 90s classic "Wonderwall" and Green Day's seminal Oasis rip-off/homage (or ripomage), "Boulevard of Broken Dreams". BUT THAT'S NOT ALL. It also throws in a snippet of Travis' "Writing to Reach You" as a bridge and wraps everything up with that Eminem song that samples Aerosmith's "Dream On". META-MASHUP! Girl Talk, eat your heart out! And then it ends with the sound of a nuclear blast. It's like Batman and the guy in Dark Knight who pretends to be Batman had a baby, and then that baby got raised by Jesus and Mohammed, except Mohammed actually speaks with God's voice, which is, in fact, also Jesus' voice.
FIFTH. BEST. BATTLE. EVER.
4. Battles (the band)
Have you heard the song "Atlas"? It is great. It is actually the only Battles song I listen to over and over, especially when I'm running, which I do a lot, because I am very fit. (Although I didn't run this morning, even though I told Tom there was a really good chance I would.) Anyway, this is a great band, but you shouldn't get them confused with Beatles, which is something different.
3. Battlebots
ROBOTS FIGHTING. A gift from high-concept heaven. They even had failed Minnesota Vikings quarterback Sean Salisbury on to do color commentary! Ah, what a perfect portrait of late 90's American prosperity. "Well, hot damn! We've got a budget surplus, no active military engagement, and gas is like, a nickel for a shitload. Let's build us some robots and make 'em fight! Hey, maybe we should do the Macarena while we build and get our hair cut in the Rachel fashion, as popularized by the 90s TV show Friends!"
Basically, Battlebots were cock-fights for the information age. Except no one does battle with bots anymore in 2008. And I'm pretty sure cock-fighting is still a huge problem in Louisiana.
2. "The Battle of Who Could Care Less"
The first single from Whatever and Ever Amen, the second album from Ben Folds Five. Though it is most certainly a different song than Brick, the better-known, higher-charting second single from that self-same album, The Battle of Who Could Care Less is certainly a battle, and therefore, it belongs on this list. Also, in this song, Folds namedrops Rockford Files, The Cure, and made up military personages Major Boredom and General Apathy... which is sort of a time-traveling reference to a great gag on How I Met Your Mother?
1. The Butter Battle Book
The moral of the Butter Battle (and, I suppose, its eponymously titled book) is that you shouldn't make a nuclear war over toast. I don't really like toast, so I totally agree. After reading this book, I never, ever made a nuclear war again--toast-provoked or otherwise. However, when I was just a kid (and had yet to read The Butter Battle Book) I was all the times making nuclear war on just about anyone who would listen... the old Polish lady next door, my puppets, Yuri Andropov. Anyone. But I'm all better now!
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