Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Snakes on another plane of existence
I dreamt I was in a snake movie.
For the first fifteen minutes it was all school and classroom scenes with no snakes at all. The tension was unbearable. We all knew we were in a snake movie but no snakes.
Then my mom (played by a famous character actress) said to me
"Don't move. There are four snakes right up against you."
She then proceeded to dispatch three of them with a frying pan. GONG! GONG! GONG!
"Hey mom, what about the fourth one?"
"Now hold your horses, the last one is really big." GOONNGG!
I then spent the entire night killing snakes with a flat shovel. I was running around the house doing Jackie Chan moves off the furniture and 86ing snakes.
Morning came and I wandered outside and found Phillip Seymour Hoffman standing underneath a roof eve. "Hey man, whatcha doing?" "Shhh." He fired a shotgun at the roof and green liquid started leaking. He fired again and a thirty foot long, foot wide snake crashed through the roof.
Then he, James Woods and I started across the pastures to get to the office of the country doctor. I asked my cohorts "Don't you find it a little suspect that we just spent the entire night fighting snakes and now we're walking across a field of high grass and all three of us are wearing shorts?" They could see my point. I wasn't entirely sure that James or Phillip were entirely cognizant that we were in a snake movie.
At the office of the country doctor, a man stumbled in, said he'd been attacked, puked and dropped dead. James Woods set about to form a posse and go after the man's attacker. I tried to make him understand that the man had been attacked by a SNAKE. But no, he and PSH continued planning a manhunt. I asked "do you SERIOUSLY think the whole snake thing has just sorted itself out?"
At one point, we were leaning against the kitchen cabinets and I asked James Woods "First time in a TROMA movie?" "Yeah, what the fuck? What do I gotta do to get a vegetarian meal around here?" "No kidding right?" The fourth wall was meant to be broken.
I think I also said "Do you people seriously not realize we are in a snake movie?"
It was a great and awful dream and the movie should be made with me, James Woods and Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Although it was also at times, me, Roy Scheider and Paul Giamatti.
For the first fifteen minutes it was all school and classroom scenes with no snakes at all. The tension was unbearable. We all knew we were in a snake movie but no snakes.
Then my mom (played by a famous character actress) said to me
"Don't move. There are four snakes right up against you."
She then proceeded to dispatch three of them with a frying pan. GONG! GONG! GONG!
"Hey mom, what about the fourth one?"
"Now hold your horses, the last one is really big." GOONNGG!
I then spent the entire night killing snakes with a flat shovel. I was running around the house doing Jackie Chan moves off the furniture and 86ing snakes.
Morning came and I wandered outside and found Phillip Seymour Hoffman standing underneath a roof eve. "Hey man, whatcha doing?" "Shhh." He fired a shotgun at the roof and green liquid started leaking. He fired again and a thirty foot long, foot wide snake crashed through the roof.
Then he, James Woods and I started across the pastures to get to the office of the country doctor. I asked my cohorts "Don't you find it a little suspect that we just spent the entire night fighting snakes and now we're walking across a field of high grass and all three of us are wearing shorts?" They could see my point. I wasn't entirely sure that James or Phillip were entirely cognizant that we were in a snake movie.
At the office of the country doctor, a man stumbled in, said he'd been attacked, puked and dropped dead. James Woods set about to form a posse and go after the man's attacker. I tried to make him understand that the man had been attacked by a SNAKE. But no, he and PSH continued planning a manhunt. I asked "do you SERIOUSLY think the whole snake thing has just sorted itself out?"
At one point, we were leaning against the kitchen cabinets and I asked James Woods "First time in a TROMA movie?" "Yeah, what the fuck? What do I gotta do to get a vegetarian meal around here?" "No kidding right?" The fourth wall was meant to be broken.
I think I also said "Do you people seriously not realize we are in a snake movie?"
It was a great and awful dream and the movie should be made with me, James Woods and Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Although it was also at times, me, Roy Scheider and Paul Giamatti.
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
... this just in ...
Deadwood is the new Sopranos
Sopranos is the new Saved by the Bell
No one on Deadwood has gone antiquing
Sopranos is the new Saved by the Bell
No one on Deadwood has gone antiquing
Friday, August 18, 2006
... and one MORE Chucklehead story ...
... if you're just joining us and don't know who Chucklehead is, go to May archives and start with the post called "Looking forward to death (not mine)" Go ahead, it's not that boring. It's a story seething with violence and bodily fluids. That neighborhood of the blog also has lotsa EMT jokes and bits too.
... anyhoo ... Chucklehead ... right, first of all, HOW in the world is he still alive and apparently ambulatory?
Sue got a message on her machine from Chucklehead saying "I'm applying to get an apartment and I listed you as the manager of the building so give me a good reference!"
Sue laughed and laughed and laughed. Yeah, you threatened to kill my dog and I'm going to give you a peachy reference.
Sue screens her calls. She keeps the volume way low and listens to messages later, but she walked in the other day and heard a message being left and heard the word "tenant." She scrambled and picked it up.
Here's a rough sketch of the conversation.
LANDLORD
Hi I'm processing an application for a tenant named Chuckle Head and his roommate. The roommate has excellent credit but I was wondering about Mr. Head. He listed you as the landlord, is that correct?
SUE
No, I'm not the landlord. I'm another tenant. And the reason he didn't give you the landlord's name and number is because he was evicted.
LANDLORD
Evicted, really?
SUE
Yes for two reasons. He was evicted for not paying rent for four months. And secondly the residents of the building did not feel safe with him around and they all signed a petition to have him evicted ... would you like to hear more?
LANDLORD
No I don't think I need to.
SUE
Cuz there's more.
LANDLORD
I'll bet there is.
Yeah, she could have stopped at "he didn't pay rent." Also the landlord mentioned that he was glad she mentioned that the other tenants had problems with him because he said his building was full of really nice people who look out for each other and have a little community. Sue said "we have that here."
OH and while I'm at it, a second unforseen Chucklehead story that I only heard recently, even though it occurred back when he lived here.
I never saw it but I guess outside his door was a whole mass of flowers -- most of which were dead -- and other stuff and in the middle of it was a picture of Ann Margaret. Scrawled on the picture, in Chuckle Head's handwriting, were the words "Dear Chucklehead, Get well soon, I love you, Ann Margaret"
... wow ...
... anyhoo ... Chucklehead ... right, first of all, HOW in the world is he still alive and apparently ambulatory?
Sue got a message on her machine from Chucklehead saying "I'm applying to get an apartment and I listed you as the manager of the building so give me a good reference!"
Sue laughed and laughed and laughed. Yeah, you threatened to kill my dog and I'm going to give you a peachy reference.
Sue screens her calls. She keeps the volume way low and listens to messages later, but she walked in the other day and heard a message being left and heard the word "tenant." She scrambled and picked it up.
Here's a rough sketch of the conversation.
LANDLORD
Hi I'm processing an application for a tenant named Chuckle Head and his roommate. The roommate has excellent credit but I was wondering about Mr. Head. He listed you as the landlord, is that correct?
SUE
No, I'm not the landlord. I'm another tenant. And the reason he didn't give you the landlord's name and number is because he was evicted.
LANDLORD
Evicted, really?
SUE
Yes for two reasons. He was evicted for not paying rent for four months. And secondly the residents of the building did not feel safe with him around and they all signed a petition to have him evicted ... would you like to hear more?
LANDLORD
No I don't think I need to.
SUE
Cuz there's more.
LANDLORD
I'll bet there is.
Yeah, she could have stopped at "he didn't pay rent." Also the landlord mentioned that he was glad she mentioned that the other tenants had problems with him because he said his building was full of really nice people who look out for each other and have a little community. Sue said "we have that here."
OH and while I'm at it, a second unforseen Chucklehead story that I only heard recently, even though it occurred back when he lived here.
I never saw it but I guess outside his door was a whole mass of flowers -- most of which were dead -- and other stuff and in the middle of it was a picture of Ann Margaret. Scrawled on the picture, in Chuckle Head's handwriting, were the words "Dear Chucklehead, Get well soon, I love you, Ann Margaret"
... wow ...
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Feminist Horror
I was talking with my pal Sue the film professor about how horror is a real hot genre right now and she was saying her students are making a lot of horror projects and she's encouraging it. But it makes her dean a little queasy cuz she's still kinda seeing it through an older feminist point of view.
Just because you put a cheerleader on a meat hook does not mean you have a problem with women.
Watch to the end, the only person who lives to the closing credits is a woman. Oh and the sheriff who arrives WAY too late to do any good except give her a blanket and a ride to the hospital.
Ya see? Little Red Riding Hood cannot count on the lumberjack. Sisters gotta do it for themselves.
I do object to the prudish conservativism of a lot of slasher flicks -- cutting up the girl who puts out is not something I can get behind. It's not a good use of resources. Here's what I'm saying, let's dice up the mousy brunette in glasses first and let's let the blonde floozy and the obnoxious jokester live to the credits.
All these "bad" things in these movies ... the woods, sexuality, nighttime, revelry, feminine values, wicca women, herbalists, ethnicity, critters -- these are all VERY GOOD things.
The "good" things in horror movies ... daylight, crucifixes, xenophobic violence, conformism, sobriety, propriety, patriarchy ... yeah, not so much.
And frankly I REFUSE to live in any building that is NOT on an Indian Burial Ground.
I'm not at all sure about this whole Freudian model of story either ... uncovering the past crime puts an end to the current suffering. Oh boo hoo, your potty training didn't go so swimmingly? Wake up and smell the bloodshed.
Aristotle, Freud, Newton. I have never seen the universe work that way. NEVER!
Dali, Jung, Chaos Theory. Way more accurate descriptions of how my day is likely to progress.
Three act structure? What?
"A story has a beginning, a middle and an end."
So does a turd.
Just because you put a cheerleader on a meat hook does not mean you have a problem with women.
Watch to the end, the only person who lives to the closing credits is a woman. Oh and the sheriff who arrives WAY too late to do any good except give her a blanket and a ride to the hospital.
Ya see? Little Red Riding Hood cannot count on the lumberjack. Sisters gotta do it for themselves.
I do object to the prudish conservativism of a lot of slasher flicks -- cutting up the girl who puts out is not something I can get behind. It's not a good use of resources. Here's what I'm saying, let's dice up the mousy brunette in glasses first and let's let the blonde floozy and the obnoxious jokester live to the credits.
All these "bad" things in these movies ... the woods, sexuality, nighttime, revelry, feminine values, wicca women, herbalists, ethnicity, critters -- these are all VERY GOOD things.
The "good" things in horror movies ... daylight, crucifixes, xenophobic violence, conformism, sobriety, propriety, patriarchy ... yeah, not so much.
And frankly I REFUSE to live in any building that is NOT on an Indian Burial Ground.
I'm not at all sure about this whole Freudian model of story either ... uncovering the past crime puts an end to the current suffering. Oh boo hoo, your potty training didn't go so swimmingly? Wake up and smell the bloodshed.
Aristotle, Freud, Newton. I have never seen the universe work that way. NEVER!
Dali, Jung, Chaos Theory. Way more accurate descriptions of how my day is likely to progress.
Three act structure? What?
"A story has a beginning, a middle and an end."
So does a turd.
Friday, August 11, 2006
... I know this guy ...
... he asked for a raise because his wife is having a baby and he needs the money ...
... just one problem ...
... you guessed it ...
... no wife, much less a baby ...
... but the news has gotten out and the whole office "knows" about it and he's scrambling to keep up with the whole thing now ... he's going to have to borrow baby pictures and maybe even ultrasounds to bring in ...
pretty screenplayish so far right?
yeah and now he seems like he's got the hots for this girl at work but he can't really pursue it cuz he's "married" and shit ...
ya know ... life has its ups and downs and I have my share of challenges but I hope my life never devolves into a shitty ben stiller movie ...
... and if anyone out there wants to write that story and sell it, be my guest ...
... not only will I not write it, I won't watch it ...
... just one problem ...
... you guessed it ...
... no wife, much less a baby ...
... but the news has gotten out and the whole office "knows" about it and he's scrambling to keep up with the whole thing now ... he's going to have to borrow baby pictures and maybe even ultrasounds to bring in ...
pretty screenplayish so far right?
yeah and now he seems like he's got the hots for this girl at work but he can't really pursue it cuz he's "married" and shit ...
ya know ... life has its ups and downs and I have my share of challenges but I hope my life never devolves into a shitty ben stiller movie ...
... and if anyone out there wants to write that story and sell it, be my guest ...
... not only will I not write it, I won't watch it ...
