May 2007 Archives
May 31, 2007
The Elderly: Not Completely Useless
Check out this CNN video about 100-year-olds being given iPods at a Washington rest home. While I don’t dig the patronizing tone of the piece, it sounds like kind of a nifty idea. Mostly I’m posting it for the comedy gold that appears a little more than halfway through it. When asked how she feels about paying $3 for a cup of Starbucks coffee, she spits, “Shit!”
With the exception of every brilliant moment of Rick Sanchez’s career, this is the funniest thing to hit CNN since Bruce Springsteen called Soledad O’Brien an idiot right to her face, while laughing at her:
I wish the world were this hilarious every day.
In case you aren’t as amused by elderly people using obscenities to describe the Starbucks pricing structure, here is a great animated short called “All the Great Operas in 10 Minutes.” It’s seriously funny shit. Don’t let the Canadian accent fool you.
Posted by Stan on May 31, 2007 6:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | Random Musings
May 29, 2007
Joblo Blows It Again
So I stumbled across this blog post on Joblo, second only to Ain’t It Cool News in terms of horrible entertainment “news” and “reviews,” where they suggest — without irony — that Arrested Development’s great Michael Cera was the original choice for the lead role in Knocked Up. But he was fired for being terrible, which the video shows. The hell?
The video itself is comedy gold that’s obviously a parody of the David O. Russell video, obviously fake, so why would anyone be stupid enough to post this as if it were legitimate? You’ll have to ask “James Thoo,” who posted it on Joblo. In case you can’t believe it based solely on the obviously-staged video, here is a mountain of evidence showing how full of shit it is:
- Almost immediately after The 40-Year-Old Virgin became a smash hit, Judd Apatow announced his next movie would be a star vehicle for Seth Rogen, who was a genius on Apatow’s TV series Freaks & Geeks and Undeclared and was also pretty great in Virgin.
- Michael Cera is starring in Superbad, a movie produced by Judd Apatow, which Seth Rogen costars in and cowrote.
I was actually going to go on with more information, but I realized that there’s absolutely nothing else that needs to be tossed out to show the utter fakeness of the video.
Way to go, Joblo. You’re almost giving Harry Knowles a run for his money.
Posted by Stan on May 29, 2007 7:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | Random Musings
May 28, 2007
The Worst Song Ever Recorded
Everyone knows I am a fan of the Beach Boys in general and Brian Wilson in particular. Seriously, I’m really annoying about it. Almost as annoying as I am when I talk nonstop about Guns N’ Roses history. But the history of G’n’R, while hilarious, can’t quite match the bizarre saga of the Beach Boys. It also can’t match the multiple accounts from various band members, friends, family, hangers-on, and industry insiders. Even more, nothing in the Guns N’ Roses musical canon can match the absolute horror of the Beach Boys’ lowest lows.
For my money, there are three types of horrible Beach Boys songs: the early, painful filler Brian Wilson wrote to pad out LPs (see: every song you don’t recognize from Surfin’ Safari and Surfin’ U.S.A.); the disastrous compositions of Beach Boy Mike Love* (“Student Demonstration Time,” “Transcendental Meditation,” and the “Big Sur” section of the 100% awful California Saga from 1973’s Holland); and hilarious songs that are so baffling and bad your jaw literally drops when you first hear them — hell, it continues to drop on repeat listens until you can figure out what the hell they were thinking.
Many of this last category of song comes from the late oeuvre of Brian Wilson. Sure, “Kokomo” (Mike Love again) is a bad song that may or may not have been written about a city in Indiana, but it doesn’t compare to Brian Wilson at his batshit-insane worst. Love You, from 1977, is by far the strangest album in the legitimate Beach Boys catalog (and really, that’s saying something), but you can’t forgot the dentist-drill-like Mt. Vernon & Fairway suite included as a 45 with copies of Holland, or his 1988 solo album that continued Love You’s successful hybrid of overproduced synth-pop with incomprehensible lyrics and musical surprises (most surprising in the worst possible way). You have to be a real die-hard fan to take away anything positive from Brian Wilson or the 1998 (yeah, ten years later) follow-up, Imagination. These are terrible albums abusing the worst trends in music of that period. Unlike Love You, which has a disarming, goofy charm, these two solo albums are just crap.
But a legend was born: a long-standing rumor that an album, titled Sweet Insanity, was recorded in 1989 and ‘90 as a follow-up to Brian Wilson. When Wilson submitted it to the record company, they rejected it out of hand. The album surfaced, in various forms, in the wild world of music bootlegs, and many agreed this was an astounding piece of work and the label was crazy to reject such a great album. Knowing that what came before was Brian Wilson and what came after was Imagination, I couldn’t help assuming that Sweet Insanity would be more of the same. Curiosity got the better of me, so when I found one of the many bootleg copies floating around, I pounced.
Nothing could have prepared me for what I found. Sure, most of the album continues the tradition of insipid lyrics and goofy synthesizers twangling and square-waving their way to our hearts. One thing I have to give Wilson credit for is that when he finally separated himself from creepy round-the-clock therapist Eugene Landy (who wrote or “influenced” most of the lyrics on “Brian Wilson” songs from 15 Big Ones through Sweet Insanity), his lyrics did get better. The music…eh, at least the lyrics got better. A little more introspective and thoughtful, a little less stupid and childish.
Unfortunately, Eugene Landy was still there for the creation of Sweet Insanity, which explains why it contains the worst song in the entire Beach Boys catalog (including all solo albums — yes, that includes Mike Love’s solo album and the bootleg demos of his never-finished follow-up solo album, and Bruce Johnston’s solo album, and “Santa’s Goin’ to Kokomo.” I sat listening to this album, bored and unimpressed, until the last track on this particular version of the bootleg, a song called “Smart Girls,” awakened me.
Click here [link removed on 3/13/08 to avoid illicit download sites direct-linking to MP3s] to listen to “Smart Girls.”
So many things go wrong here, it’s hard to identify the ultimate song-killer. The “Kidz Bop Performs Run DMC” drum loop? The terrifying pitch-shifted “hehehe” laughing? Brian Wilson choosing the medium of “bland white-man hip-hop” to apologize for decades of Beach Boys sexism? Apologizing for decades of sexism with a song that manages to be slightly more sexist than anything the Beach Boys has ever recorded? The terrible idea of sampling classic Beach Boys songs merged with the even-worse idea of adding “new” lyrics to the old songs? It’s a really tough call, but if I had to put money on it I’d say either Brian Wilson talking about breasts, or the line about “strokin’ me with hypotheses.” True, the Beach Boys have had their fair share of dirty songs, but there’s something very disquieting about a 50-year-old man rapping about how he’s had a lot of dumb hot girls but now he wishes he could bang a smart girl.
Also not helping? The chorus that manages to be catchy and annoying simultaneously. It’s harder to get out of your head than “Macho Man.”
Lyrics (approximated based on what I’m hearing; if you hear him saying something different, drop a comment and I’ll correct it):
Smart girls, talkin’ ‘bout smart girls,
Sexy legs with high IQs.
My name is Brian, and I’m the man.
I write hit songs with the wave of my hand.
Songs of surf, and sun and sand,
I make great music with my band.
Songs you dance to and songs of joy
‘Cause I’m the original Beach Boy.
Everybody’s gone surfin’, surfin’ U.S.A.
All the songs I used to write
Talked about girls who weren’t too bright
‘Round ‘round get around, I got around!
What I was lookin’ for, I never found!
But time goes on, and I’ve seen the light
Intelligent chicks are dy-no-mite!
When I grow up to be a man,
Giddy-up giddy-up 409.
Now some guys like the fast types,
And some guys dig the archetypes,
I’m no different from the rest
I love hips and legs and breasts
But strictly on a higher plain
What really turns me on’s her brains!
Smart girls, talkin’ ‘bout smart girls,
Sexy legs with high IQs.
Smart girls, I love you, smart girl.
Your brainy babes with your attitude.
Smart smart smart smart girls!
Did I love you, little surfer girl
Or was it just your bod and long blonde girls?
Fun fun fun was all we heard
Cruisin’ in her dad’s Thunderbird
Bar bar bar bar barbara ann
She ran away with another man!
She’s the littlest kid —
This is the worst trip —
Help me, Rhonda, yeah —
Get her out of my heart.
Rhonda help-help-helped me for awhile,
Not much goin’ on behind her smile,
I want it hot, hot, massive stimulation,
Women with more imagination.
Yeah, smart girls are my inspiration
Givin’ me…good, good, good, good vibrations!
Wouldn’t it be nice if Ph.Ds
Were strokin’ me with hypotheses.
Gimme a gal who teaches school
Who’s not afraid to break the rules.
Women doctors and lawyers, too,
Can really make a man outta you.
Smart girls, talkin’ ‘bout smart girls,
Sexy legs with high IQs.
Smart girls, I love you, smart girl.
Your brainy babes with your attitude.
Smart smart smart smart girls!
Smart girls! I wish they all could be
Smart girls rhymin’ poetry!
A clever head is a real turn-on
You bright, you brainy amazons
Authors, scientists, and architects
Sultry babes with intellect.
Don’t worry, baby, ooh
(Everything will turn out)
God only knows what I’d be
Without smart girls, hip-hop, and harmony.
I’m wiser now, I know where it’s at
Intelligence is an aphrodesiac.
So if you’re seekin’ that perfect mate,
Listen to Brian, beauty’s good but…
Smart girls, talkin’ ‘bout smart girls,
Sexy legs with high IQs.
Smart girls, talkin’ ‘bout smart girls,
Sexy legs with high IQs.
Smart girls, talkin’ ‘bout smart girls,
Sexy legs with high IQs.
Smart girls, talkin’ ‘bout smart girls,
Sexy legs with high IQs.
Smart girls, talkin’ ‘bout smart girls,
Sexy legs with high IQs.
Smart girls, I love you, smart girl.
Your brainy babes with your attitude.
Big brains are awesome, dude!
Smart smart smart smart girls!
Smart girls, talkin’ ‘bout smart girls,
Sexy legs with high IQs.
Smart girls, I love you, smart girl.
Your brainy babes with your attitude.
I feel like the Mr. Burns excerpt at the end was tacked on by the bootleggers. Ostensibly, this album was recorded at some point between 1989 and 1991 (when Wilson terminated his relationship with Landy). Supposedly the finished product was submitted to the label in 1991, just prior to Landy being tossed out on his ass. Granted, The Simpsons had been on the air for a few years, but was “excellent” really a notable catchphrase by that point? I’m not sure, but even so, Brian Wilson has seemed so out of touch for such a long time, it’s hard to believe he’d tack a Simpsons bit onto the end of his song. Obviously, it could imply that the song was recorded later. On the one hand, it seems less likely because of how outdated his Fat Boys rap style would sound by, say, 1994 or ‘95, but then again, that could tie back to the “out of touch” thing. So yes, there are a few possible explanations, but I honestly believe that this sample was added after-the-fact by a bootlegger, perhaps as a calling card or just as a random act of “hip” postmodern art.
To sum up: I really wish I had heard this song before I recorded my own intentionally awful white man rap song.
*Love’s lyrics are by far the weakest aspect of the early Beach Boys, but when he actually combined the insipid lyrics with either crappy or derivative (or both!) music, he unleashed a dark force previously unknown on Earth. I’d be remiss if I didn’t also mention that Beach Boys Carl Wilson, Bruce Johnston, and Al Jardine also wrote terrible songs, but their lowest lows can’t match the freak show of Mike Love. Also, once in awhile they actually wrote good songs.
Update 12/11/07! WFMU’s Beware of the Blog “finds” Brian Wilson’s “lost” rap song. I know I’m not the first person who ever heard this song, but then again I didn’t pretend like I was unearthing a semi-preserved dinosaur or something. It has some good info that I somehow missed during my zero seconds of research, but come on! Until I took my blog off the Internets for a few weeks, I was the #1 Google hit for keywords “brian wilson smart girls” and “worst beach boys song ever.” I demand the preservation of this minor victory!
Posted by Stan on May 28, 2007 10:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | Reviews
May 17, 2007
What Happened to The Manager?
Does anyone remember The Manager? I’ve been asked about him by a couple of people, why I’m not working for him anymore, what all happened there, so I figure since not much is going on today I’ll dive into that.
A brief recap for those two lazy to reread all the links: last summer, my friend Mark said he responded to a vague ad on a job list for an unpaid “e-internship” reading scripts. He sent his resume to The Manager and the response was two scripts and coverage templates. He did it for a few weeks, decided the guy wasn’t completely shady, so he let me know about it in case I wanted to participate. I figured, what the hell? I was unemployed and wanted something to do, and at the time we thought maybe this guy would make something of himself and we’d be getting in on the ground floor.
Gradually, a combination of bizarre behavior and general asshole-ishness led Mark and I to believe two things: (1) The Manager had no idea what he was doing, and (2) we were not getting in on the ground floor of anything. For awhile, we had plenty of conspiracy theories that this dude was really smart and playing us for chumps, but evidence kept rolling in and it’s really, sincerely true that the man has all the business sense of a jar of bolts. Mark actually abandoned ship around October or November of last year. He was tired of reading shitty scripts for no pay, tired of The Manager ducking Mark’s requests for feedback on his own scripts (which The Manager asked to read), and tired of the bullshit idea that maybe The Manager would make something of himself and we’d ride the wave.
I kept going with it, mostly because I wanted to maintain some connection (no matter how useless) to The Industry, but also to continue building up an extensive, varied portfolio of coverage. But my heart wasn’t in it; as I complained in September, it didn’t seem like they were listening to my ideas (except for a yea or nay on submissions). They also never started paying me, which was another reason Mark decided to bail. He figured he’d let the paying slide if The Manager wanted to take him on as a client, but that didn’t happen. I bitched to The Manager a couple of times about getting paid, and he came back at me with false reassurances that they were about to break through, and as soon as he made a sale I’d be compensated. I didn’t believe it then, and obviously it never happened.
As a result of my disillusionment and lack of payment (and all the crappy scripts that simply became a chore to get through), I took more time to read them, took more time to write coverage; at one point, The Manager just told me to stop writing detailed coverage on really bad scripts, just give him a paragraph on why it sucks. Unfortunately, I ended up doing this for nearly all of them, but I’d still take the time to write a full report for my portfolio. He just didn’t want to read them.
But the real breaking point came in December. He sent me a script, an adaptation of a stage musical (trailer here, horrible and baffling short film by the author here). Because it’s not entirely evidence in either of the YouTube links, here’s a brief synopsis of the plot: a preacher dies during his Sunday sermon and is sent to hell in spite of his service as a man of God. He takes a semi-guided tour through hell, encountering several sinful stereotypes and having an occasional war of words (and song and dance!) with Satan himself. That’s…basically the entire story. It also has the baffling, religious-awakening equivalent of the “it’s all a dream” ending — at the eleventh hour, just as Satan is going to strike the preacher down, God explains that he sent the preacher to see what hell was like so the preacher would make sure his congregation never strayed from the flock. Then he wakes up in the church, alive and well, and they all burst out in song. I know it’s a musical, so I’ll forgive the bursting out into song, but how is that ending not simultaneously obvious and retarded?
But wait — it’s not actually obvious, because of all the baffling “filmic” changes that were made to the script. It is evident that the author did a rushed hack job to turn her stage script into a film screenplay. It’s obvious when “cinematic” scenes are added between the stage-show musical numbers. The “prologue” is basically a long series of non sequiturs that are supposed to make sense later (arbitrary vignettes featuring each stereotyped character pre-death); they either continue to not make sense by presenting plot inconsistencies and continuity errors, or the scenes are re-explained by the characters when they appear later (meaning either the early scene or the dialogue should be cut, but it wasn’t because the script is so poorly changed). More awful problems: certain characters have random name changes, sometimes on the same page, as if she wanted to change the names but did a half-assed job of find-and-replace. The dialogue is just terrible, and somehow the lyrics are worse. The characters, including the preacher, are cardboard cutouts.
I know musicals aren’t known for exceptional storytelling, but look: it’s hard to judge a musical without hearing the music. I can’t do much without it except judge it based on story, character, and lyrical content. It’s awful across the board, walking the fine line between crappiness and incomprehensibility. Usually it stumbles and falls to either side.
There is one interesting moment in the script. Early on, the preacher sings that he doesn’t know what he did wrong — can’t somebody show him why he’s in hell? There’s an arbitrary flashback, one of many (because it’s cinematic!!), that shows this preacher, this man of God, swearing on a Bible before getting on a witness stand and lying his ass off. It’s never explained who he’s lying for, what he said, or why — just that the preacher lied, and he knows it. Now, you might say, one act of perjury is justifiable if it’s for the greater good, but the script portrays God as an Old Testament hardass, sending people to hell for minor infractions like getting into a car accident because the driver was on a cell phone (this is strictly forbidden in the Book of Numbers).
You might also say, “Wow, what an interesting road this script is taking, 22 pages in: you have a preacher who’s sent to hell, basically because he’s one of those corrupt douchebags who uses the ‘man of God’ thing to excuse all sorts of sinning.” You would be wrong; the flashback, like so many others, has no bearing or impact on anything that happens afterward. It simply exists as yet another non sequitur and continuity error, because afterward the preacher keeps complaining that he doesn’t know why he was sent to hell, and then at the end God basically says, “You shouldn’t be here — hope you enjoyed the tour!”
Needless to say, I savaged this script. It might have been my longest coverage ever, chronicling every logical inconsistency, plot hole, and continuity error in detail in the synopsis so I could rip it apart in the analysis. I was proud of this handiwork, and I sent it to The Manager…
…and never heard from him again. By that time I was disillusioned and irritated; I’d had long stretches where he simply stopped responding to e-mails, but then enough “begging” on my part would get him to “remember” me and e-mail another script. This time, I had had it. This was one of the worst scripts I’d ever read, after a long string of other crappy scripts, and I felt like what he was handing me came from the bottom of the pile. When I first started reading for him, he did send a lot of bad scripts but there were also plenty of scripts that had potential and even several that were legitimately good; while I think it’s probably more valuable to read bad screenplays than good ones (both are important, but I’d rather look at where people are going wrong and avoid the traps than look at what people are doing write and trying to imitate their success). Now, he wasn’t sending any of the good ones* to me and I had to wade through a sea of shit. I figured if he kept me in the loop and sent more, I’d still read it, but I was tired of begging for scraps.
Is it surprising that I never heard from him again? I’ve googled him and some of his clients on occasion, especially in the weeks immediately following. I wasn’t sure if he had dropped me or if he got busy actually doing something. I’ve only learned a couple of tidbits about him, none of them particularly good:
- One of his worst writers has a novel coming out next month. I won’t deny that this is part of the reason I believe I can get my novel published. No screenplays, but if the “audiobook” version of his first chapter is any indication, the dude’s novels aren’t any more coherent than his screenplays. Seriously, it’s a tiny press that’s publishing it but they have a good reputation. I don’t know how they misfired so seriously.
- From The Manager’s “LinkedIn” profile, I gleaned that he has “expanded” his management/production company buy creating a holding company. I swear to you that in January or February when I first found this, he suggesed that the holding company would be there to “hold” film financing for his productions. I didn’t really know what a holding company did at the time (I just know that I rarely hear the term outside of a corruption/scandal context), but when I eventually discovered that this isn’t what a holding company does at all, I re-googled the LinkedIn profile and found that he had changed it to say that the holding company exists that owns his various assets, many of which exist in the form of theoretical business ventures.
- He has not, to date, sold any screenplays or produced anything.
- His one big project, based on a Saturday-morning cartoon property that I don’t think there’s much of a current market for, was rejected. Apparently a big studio was looking at a bunch of different takes on the property; he had one that I thought was awful, an attempt to clone Star Wars using all of the worst aspects of the new trilogy (to sum up: politics politics politics bland love story politics politics). At any rate, it was announced earlier this year that the property would return as an updated Saturday-morning cartoon that re-imagines the characters as rock star superheroes drawn in an anime style. I honestly believe that is a better concept than the treatments I read from The Manager; I do think his take could have worked, but he chose to ignore my feedback and just kept sending more of the same.
- Saving the best for last: I found a quote from The Manager dated September 2004, in a press release for the stage version of the horrible musical, where he is listed as “producer/co-promoter.” Obviously this little project meant more to him than he let on. I don’t have any confirmation, but I do think this is why I never received a response from him.
So that’s that: The Manager and I have parted ways, and I’m probably better for it. I have a coverage portfolio that is largely useless in the Midwest, but at least I was able to spend the time honing my skills. That, and a miniscule amount of money to cover one script, are pretty much all I have to make me better off than I was before I knew The Manager.
*I attribute this to my criticism getting a little harsher, even on the stuff I liked — because it could all be better, but often I lobbed softballs because I thought he was going to pay me and didn’t want to piss off his “clients.”
Posted by Stan on May 17, 2007 1:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | Career-Based Rambling, The Manager Chronicles
May 16, 2007
Employment Horrors
Earlier this week, I had a phone interview with a woman at a classy downtown law firm where a friend of mine works. It went pretty well, as it is one of the rare job interviews where I’m not at least partially bullshitting my experience level, and even better: it’s full time, pays really well, good benefits, all that jazz. The only real problem, aside from the fact that I don’t actually have the job yet, is that it’s on the 66th floor of the Sears Tower. The combination of my comical fear of heights and propensity toward seasickness* might be a mitigating factor; I just hope 95% of the job involves being seated in a cubicle with no windows in my sightline. But we’ll see how it goes. I have an in-person interview with HR on Friday, followed by an interview with the department manager at a later date (it’ll be pretty obvious if the second interview is not scheduled that I didn’t get the job).
Lately, I’ve tended to not tell my dad about these jobs. He has a tendency to stress me out more than I already am, acting like the fate of the world is riding on me getting a job as soon as possible (and to him, it probably is — he’s been wanting me out of the house pretty much since I came back). He also takes it way too hard when I don’t get the job (a part of the whole “fate of the world” mentality, I guess), so I usually just tell him after the fact on the day of the interview, or after I’ve confirmed whether or not I have the job.
This law firm interview is no different; it’s a better lead than I’ve had in awhile, what with the whole “I actually have experience” thing, and it’s coming at the recommendation of a friend who is (apparently) well regarded at the firm, but like any job it’s not a sure thing. I planned to just not say anything until after the second interview, or after the first if I don’t get a second and therefore know I didn’t get the job…
…and then I got an e-mail from my dad. A position where he works — a definite sure thing — has come up again. I stupidly turned it down last summer because I had this misguided belief that a café job, while paying less, wouldn’t be as stressful. Because my life would be nothing without constant irony, turning down the first job led me to the most stressful café job I’ve ever worked. I ended up semi-quitting when I took a quick trip to Los Angeles for a job interview. Technically I was fired for not showing up to work, but I made the decision knowing what the consequence would be; I could have begged for the job back, but shit was it miserable. This led me to the total opposite of my “cafés pay less but are less stressful” theory: if I have to deal with the same bullshit, I might as well get paid for it.
In yet another ironic twist, the guy my dad’s buddy hired in my stead was fired for not showing up to work. He decided to restrategize, training somebody he’s already got to do the job part-time (and do his normal job the rest of the time), then hiring another part-time person. That way, if the part-timer is unreliable, disappears off the face of the Earth or quits with no notice, he has a backup. But if the part-timer is reliable, he can be bumped up to full-time eventually.
So here we have it: a part-time (for now) sure thing where they know me and would be okay if I ditched out with no notice to pursue something better, or a gamble on a much better job. My dad’s buddy wants to train both a new part-timer (i.e., me) and the guy he already has simultaneously, starting next week. I had to spill it about the job interview, which has managed to fuck everything up. My dad, who hasn’t tried to find a job in 20 years, seems to be under the delusion that the typical interview process goes like this: you go in for an interview and are hired the same day, starting the following day. I’ve only had this experience twice in my life: one was a shitty retail job (where I think that type of hiring process is more common, since it’s monkey work), and one was an office job.
I’ve been on a lot of job interviews, and all but two have been a long and irritating multi-tiered process. When I told my dad about the other interview, he said, “Okay, call him on Friday after the interview and tell him whether or not you’re interested. He wants to start training you guys on Monday.”
I told him I might know if I don’t have the job, but I definitely won’t know if I do have it. I offered to train for the job with my dad’s buddy, since he has a hard-on to do it ASAP, and then if I get the other one I’d be out the door. I sorta think that’s a waste of my time, but I should probably keep my bases covered. I’m just not sure why it can’t wait another week…
*The Sears Tower one of the many modern skyscrapers designed to sway with the wind, and the higher you get, the more you feel it.
Posted by Stan on May 16, 2007 10:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | Job Shit
May 14, 2007
The Hot Drive-Thru Girl
So there’s this burger joint I like to go to on the edge of town (I say that mainly because it sounds kind of cool and dangerous like a biker bar, but it really is on the edge of town). Since I’m not going to spend my own dwindling cash supply on frivolities like fast food, I rely on mooching off my parents for such things. Because yesterday I was overruled on our traditional Sunday artery-clogger, what with it being mother’s day and all, my mom felt oddly guilty* and offered to buy me lunch today if I went with her to get a haircut. I needed a haircut, but like most unemployed 25-year-olds living at home with a mother who just lost her job, when I need to go out and do something, I want to go alone.
Unfortunately, she needed a haircut, too. Even though I go to the cheapest imaginable place, I was sucked in by the offer of both a free haircut and a free lunch. We went together to BoRics and stopped at the burger joint drive-thru on the way home.
The girl at the pickup window was incredibly cute (and not just rated on the scale of drive-thru workers, who are not usually the cream of the crop, looks-wise). Even better: against all odds, she was giving me The Look. No, not that Look — the complete opposite. She was giving me that va-va-va-voom, look-at-the-cute-guy-in-the-car look, edging her eyes past my mom and trying to make eye contact with me. Rather than make direct eye contact, I tried not to move my head past the three-quarter-profile she saw, because obviously there was something she liked. After staring at myself in a mirror while harsh fluorescents beat down on my bleached skin, exposing every fault (major or minor), my confidence was shaken. I didn’t want to look at her dead-on and have her see what I saw and lose interest.
Oh, also: I was sitting in a car with my mother. In her old-lady Buick. It wasn’t like my old Buick, which I transformed from an old-lady car (literally owned by my 85-year-old great aunt for 20 years before it was passed down to me) to a bad-ass pussy wagon**. It was an old-lady car owned and driven by an old lady, and I was the passenger with the obvious family resemblance: the 25-year-old son picking up drive-thru with his mom at 2:30 in the afternoon. This was a humiliating experience on a number of levels, and I wanted it to end as quickly as possible. I didn’t want to make eyes back at her and catch a whiff of disappointment; I didn’t want my mom to say something that she thinks is adorable that is actually embarrassing. I just wanted to get the food and drive away as quickly as possible.
On the way home, I started thinking: this is a girl who is seeing me at my absolute worse. I’m being carted around by my mother like a drunken, shiftless loser, and she knows that. I am a fat pig who, on occasion, orders a bacon double cheeseburger and large fries on a Monday afternoon, and she knows that. And despite taking my disgusting order and witnessing me on the Mom-mobile, she was still looking at me with an encouraging degree of lust.
While this could (and probably will) end with me being named in a lawsuit involving food and pubic hair, I can’t help but think this is some kind of opportunity. Good or bad, I don’t know. Maybe I’m reading too much into Fortuna’s wheel spins, but it seems fortuitous that on the same day I get my new, improved “job-interview-ready” haircut, I both receive a call from my most promising job lead in months and discover a girl looking past my gut and my mom and saying, “I want me some Stanbeef.” Am I leaving the “crushed dreams” phase of life and moving on to “settling for less”?
I sure hope so!
*Which is funny because I totally didn’t care about where we ate. I just tossed out a suggestion and was shot down. It’s not unusual.
**Note: despite the overall coolness factor, this car only managed to get me to second base.
Posted by Stan on May 14, 2007 5:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | Fumbling Attempts at Relationships
May 12, 2007
Some Shit Is Going Down
Grampa, who has generally remained quiet (using Aunt Matriarch and others as his voice), finally wrote back. In brief: remember how I praised Becky for not resorting to txtspeak or Ebonics? Grampa doesn’t believe that e-mail could be written by “a high school dropout” (I thought she graduated!). He also laid out, in exact dollar figures, what has happened:
- All told, Aunt White Trash owes $113,884 that she can’t hope to pay back. This deprives the rest of her siblings around $4000 for their estimated inheritance.
- Becky, individually, owes $5411, plus another $2000 for instances where he paid to bail her out of jail.
- Darlene owes ~$1200 for some reason.
He capped the letter by referring to her family as white trash and that they aren’t getting any more money. Good times!
Posted by Stan on May 12, 2007 11:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | Family: The Horror…
May 11, 2007
YahooGroup Throwdown
My extended family has had a YahooGroup so long that it was started before eGroups got bought by Yahoo! It’s typically used as a resource for everyone to keep in touch, and while interest in using the YahooGroup has waned proportionally with the family’s interest in keeping in touch with each other, it’s still used on occasion. It’s nowhere near the insanity of election fever circa 2000, when we peaked at more than 650 e-mails per month (seriously!); in fact, at this point we’re lucky to get more than 100 posts in a year.
A lot of that has to do with being secretive. Many of the issues with Aunt White Trash were sent privately by Aunt Matriarch to just the brothers and sisters, to shield their children from the family issues. Of course, this was an unnecessary step since all the brothers and sisters just told their kids everything, but I guess Aunt Matriarch didn’t want to thoroughly humiliate Aunt White Trash by spreading the information onto a YahooGroup filled with young adults who might still respect her (ha!). Also, I think YahooGroups are public, so she’s pretty much airing the dirty laundry and if anyone actually cared, they could read all the posts.
Apparently Aunt Matriarch doesn’t care anymore, because last night she sent an e-mail to the YahooGroup last night containing the following information:
- Aunt White Trash e-mailed Grampa on May 5th asking for more money, which is what elicited this response in the first place. This is the only communication she’s had with him since they arrived at their destination.
- Aunt White Trash refuses to talk to Grampa on the phone or give him a phone number. Also, her last communication with him involved her screaming incoherently and hanging up.
- Aunt White Trash is stressed and depressed about the events of the past few months. She requires monetary compensation to alleviate both of these feelings.
- All told, the total cost of getting her the fuck to California was $4400, with an additional $5000 spent to clean the house and return it to saleable condition.
A few hours later, Becky (the eldest of the white trash brood) wrote back, explaining:
- Aunt White Trash “put her life on hold” to “lovingly take care” of Grampa. As I observed in my earlier blog entry, the loving care last for all of a month before they decided to use him as a human ATM and only help him out when they absolutely had to. You might remember this anecdote: The only clear incident I recall of them “taking care of him” is when he fell down on the driveway and got disgusting, old-man welts and cuts all over his arms, knees, and face. And instead of bandaging him up, they ran and got the camera, uploaded the photos to the family’s Yahoogroup, and wrote a few sarcastic comments about how useless old people are. That about sums it up.
- She actually made some valid points about how family should be there for each other (in reference to the entire extended family turning their backs on Aunt White Trash & Co.), but it falls under the heading of “pot kettle black,” what with the rampant abuse of Grampa.
- Aunt Matriarch is “losing it” and “needs to get a life of [her] own.”
- Bottom line: Becky took issue with Aunt Matriarch using YahooGroups for the reasons I pointed out above: the humiliation factor and the tainted opinions of “[her] cousins.” But she spun it that Aunt Matriarch doesn’t have her facts straight and her whole e-mail is tantamount to libel.
Why would she care about our opinions? Because, as she stated in the following paragraph: she had a kid. She has started the “next generation” of the family, and most family members haven’t even acknowledged the baby’s existence. And, if you want to dig deeper, the cousins are all she has left — monetarily, her siblings are as useless as she is, as is her own mother, so what can she use as a cash cow other than the welfare department? The cousins. Well, the joke’s on her! None of us have any money, either!
Oh, and also: we already know all the negative stuff. The YahooGroup only circumvented information trickling down from parents to children to significant others/spouses. Instead, it’s all right there for us to see, together; everyone already knows the shit that was going down, which is why nobody except my dumbass sister* acknowledged White Trash: The Next Generation. And at least she has a husband who’s smart enough to point, laugh, and not hand over any of his money.
Seriously, we all know I love playing conspiracy theorist and finding terrible, convoluted motives for pretty much everything. But trust me when I say this e-mail reads like shrill pandering to those (like my sister) who might feel pangs of guilt for cutting this entire family out of our lives. The entire subtext is: Even though I had a baby now (after three abortions) solely because I’m old enough to qualify for welfare benefits, I am not my mother. Don’t lump me in with her, and by the way I am still registered at Bed, Bath and Beyond and The Container Store if you want to get a gift for the new grandchild.
Becky’s e-mail ended with a line I’ve deemed a family classic. It seems like the only genuine emotion in the e-mail, and it’d be heartbreaking if not for the sloppy and baffling wording:
This isn’t really like you and because I have love for you which doesn’t seem to be reciprocated anymore this really hurts my heart.
There hasn’t been a response from Aunt Matriarch or anyone else. I was tempted to respond specifically because of the bits about the cousins, but it’s really Grampa and Aunt Matriarch who are being dragged through the mud. If they want to reply, that’s their prerogative; I have a feeling they’ll respond in the best possible way: by not giving them money.
As a side note, I will give my cousin Becky credit for not resorting to horrible, unreadable “txtspeak” or weird “gangsta” chatter.
*The thing that cracks me up about my sister feeling sudden sympathy is that when the pregnancy was first announced — six months into it — she was really pissed off that she and her husband were waiting to have kids. She’s currently the only one of our generation of cousins who is married, and maybe we’ve all given up the Catholicism that was beaten into us as children, but we didn’t give up the idea that having babies outside of wedlock doesn’t count.
Posted by Stan on May 11, 2007 10:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | Family: The Horror…
May 9, 2007
The Bailiff
Most people know that Judge Mathis is my favorite TV judge, and my chronic unemployment has allowed me to sample a wide variety of TV judges. He’s by far the most interesting and entertaining, and the cases are usually more bizarre and hilarious than the other courtroom fare. Longtime watchers of the show (like me…I will at least admit I’m kind of ashamed to have watched it for this long) might have noticed the abrupt bailiff shift a few years back. According to this horribly designed website:
Judge Mathis Bailiff Dead at 37As announced on a recent episode of Judge Mathis, former bailiff Brendan Anthony Moran died on December 28, 2002 at the age of 37. Moran’s death has been officially ruled a suicide; he passed away after falling off a balcony. Moran’s family disputes the ruling, claiming that Brendan would not kill himself. Still, it is an unfortunate fact that suicide spikes during the winter holidays, when people who are only moderately depressed fall into even deeper levels of depression.
Saying Goodbye and Moving On
On the first edition of his show taped after Moran’s untimely death, Judge Greg Mathis briefly eulogized his friend and coworker, finishing by saying “Goodbye, my friend,” and dedicating that episode of the program to the late bailiff. Of course, the show must go on, and Mathis, who is fighting to increase the ratings on his show in order to make it to a fifth season, is now working with a new bailiff, pictured at left.
R. I. P.
Brendan Anthony Moran
1965-2002
Clearly the site is regularly updated, since this five-year-old announcement is plastered on the main page and it claims this all was announced on a “recent” Judge Mathis episode, but who am I to mock? I obviously missed the eulogy episode and had no idea what happened. I just assumed he quit for whatever reason.
I can’t deny this news is kind of depressing. I wonder if they ever investigated and found out it was…murder?! It’s doubtful. The “we’re his family and we know he’d never commit suicide” routine is pretty common.
Posted by Stan on May 9, 2007 6:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | Random Musings
May 7, 2007
Another Stakeout
Well, this morning we (yes, my mother insisted on going with me again) went back to spy on the college girl who theoretically still worked there. And, at 8:01, she showed up. Pretty disappointing for my mom, even though we all saw it coming.
Other news? Somebody from high school who I don’t remember at all added me on Facebook. Will this lead to an interesting adventure or more boring rambling? Stay tuned!
Posted by Stan on May 7, 2007 9:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | Family: The Horror…
May 3, 2007
Worst Sleuth Ever
The Internet is great for stalking. With the combination of social networking sites, instant messaging, message boards…that’s not even getting into all the stuff that makes it great for identity theft as well as stalking. As part of my ongoing mission to spy on my mother’s former coworker, I got her AIM screen name from her Facebook profile and added it so I could have a rough idea of when she was online. I thought it might help to identify whether or not she still worked there. I also have an instant messaging program that lets you open up a tab for a user, whether they’re signed on or not, and then it keeps a running log of when they’re on, off, away, or idle. This has sort of worked: on Monday, she didn’t sign on until after five o’clock; on Tuesday and Wednesday, when she has the day off and has to go to classes, she popped on and off an assload of times throughout the day. Like everything else, it’s circumstantial, but it seems at least reasonable to conclude that she was offline most of Monday because she was working.
So the big goal this morning was to get there around 9:45 and wait and watch, to make absolute positive the car my mom saw on Monday was indeed her former coworker’s car. The only way to make 100% certain was to physically watch her get out of the car and walk into the building. I got a good enough sense of the layout of the business park to know whether or not this was feasible; I had a perfect place to park so I could watch.
Unfortunately, my mom insisted on going with. I told her I know what the girl looks like thanks to Facebook, and I have at least a vague sense of the car she drives — it’s not rocket science. But whatever, it’s her job and her “investigation,” so that’s fine even if it means it’ll be ridiculously easy to catch her in the act.
So we drove into the business park and…a landscaping truck was parked across about five spaces right where the perfect vantage point was. So that sucked, but in retrospect it was probably a good thing; we had to park in a slightly different spot, but it was less noticeable. There was shade on the car; with the other spot, the sun would have been shining right through the windshield, making it obvious two people were sitting there staring. And if one of her coworkers had come by, it would’ve been obvious she was the one in the car.
So we were in the shade, backs to the compound, but my mom was freaking out because cars kept going by and people kept walking around. We were pretty far from any other cars or a desirable parking space, and nobody walking around paid any attention to the two people sitting in the car. In fact, they didn’t even glance in our direction (following one of my many worldly observations, that nobody will give a shit about anything out of the ordinary unless they’re looking for something out of the ordinary — an unfamiliar car with two people sitting in it for no reason? Only a security car would care).
But as 10 o’clock rolled around and the coworker didn’t show up, things got a little disheartening. My mom decided to stick it out until 10:05, but the girl was rarely late (in fact, she was usually early). I was about to suggest continuing the stakeout until 10:30, just to let any mitigating factors (maybe a car accident on the expressway?) work themselves out, but then I remembered something:
Last night, I was yammering on AIM with a couple of people, and my mom’s coworker signed on. After a few moments, she put up a cynical away message that would have endeared her to me if not for the fact that she’s skanky: “As I come home from the South Loop at 9:00, it occurs to me that I’ll have to go back there in less than 12 hours. Suburban life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.” A sentiment I thought many times (yeah, she went to my alma mater — needless to say, I had to correct a lot of spelling and grammar to make her away message readable), but usually I shrugged and thought, “Deal with it.”
But then, it occurred to me at 10 a.m. that if, at 9 p.m., she said she’d be back in the South Loop in less than 12 hours…that pretty much meant she wouldn’t be showing up to work. Or, at least, she wouldn’t be anywhere near on time. Finals are gearing up, and I imagine she has a lot of projects due, probably needs to use school resources and can only find the time to do that during time she’s normally working. So she took a day off…
You’d think that’s a pretty big clue that a real, semi-competent investigator would hone in on and say, “Yes, she’ll be down in the city,” and if I had really wanted to I could have used my former college connections to track down where she’d be and when and tail her and/or have her kneecaps broken. But it didn’t occur to me until after we drove all the way out there and sat around for half an hour. And I was going to suggest we wait even longer.
I have no right to continue pretending to be a private detective. I am deleting my Rockford Files ringtone and setting fire to my Raymond Chandler books.
Posted by Stan on May 3, 2007 5:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | Family: The Horror…
May 2, 2007
Ahmet Ertegun
So I was sent a review copy of an American Masters documentary on Ahmet Ertegun, who co-founded Atlantic Records in 1947 and built it into one of the biggest independent record labels of the ’50s (before selling it to Warner Brothers in 1967, but he still ran it until his death last year). I watched it yesterday because I had to get my review posted.
As I wrote in the review, it’s slow in spots. What I didn’t say is that the review copy is extremely rough, so I wonder if the pacing problems came about because they hadn’t tightened all the cuts for the final edit. Even so, this does not make up for the last 20 minutes or so, where the narration spins its wheels repeating things ad nauseam and showing clips from Kid Rock that are supposed to lead us to believe he’ll be recognized like Ray Charles in 50 years.
But you know, it’s kind of stuck with me. It’s not trying to be inspirational, but that’s the best kind of inspiration, isn’t it? We just get a profile of a man who loved music and took his passion to the next level. He wrote a whole bunch of hits in the ’50s without anything like a technical knowledge of music or an ability to play the piano; he just knew, by instinct, beating his foot to a drum beat and belting out a melody. They made a point of showing us Ertegun stood out — and why Atlantic outlasted all the early independents, to the extent that they ended up buying most of them up) — because of that passion.
While most other labels were (and are) run by people who think they understand what will sell, Ertegun just tried to sell what he liked, because he assumed everyone else would, too; lucky for him, they did. I have to admire that. I also have to admire that, into his 80s, the man still has more energy and enthusiasm than most popular musicians. If you’re a music fan, check your PBS listings. They rerun shit all the time, and it’s definitely worth checking out if you can find it.
Also, Robert Plant has reached a point where he looks like those creatures from Where the Wild Things Are.
Posted by Stan on May 2, 2007 10:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | Reviews
May 1, 2007
My Subconscious Says: Woodland Creatures Want Me Dead
This winter, during the excitement and fun of hibernation season, we discovered a small animal had taken shelter in our attic. It had pulled up insulation to create a nest of sorts and had dragged food and disgusting clumps of leaves and branches (one assumes to make the place more homey, since it didn’t appear that it was part of the nest). It wasn’t there when we discovered it, but it seemed like it had been gone awhile so my dad assumed it was hibernating.
How’d it get there? It chewed through an old vent screen. My dad took off the screen, leaving a gaping hole, thinking, “I have months to replace this.” But he’s lazier than I am, so it goes without saying that there’s still a gaping hole, now that animals have come up from their burrows.
I had forgotten about this, and then about a month ago I had a really weird, vivid dream that an animal had gotten into my room and was on my bed, a la the “gift” Tom Hagen leaves for Jack Woltz. Except alive. It woke me up and was so vivid still that I leaped from my bed, ran out of the bedroom, slammed the door, and I swear I heard it chasing me. After a few seconds of waking up, I realized how stupid and irrational this was, so I went back into my room. No animals, living or dead, anywhere. Big surprise.
The next morning, my mom announced, “I heard an animal crawling around in the attic last night.” Huh. Is it possible that I heard the scratching and clawing, as well, and this is what caused such a vivid dream? I didn’t know…
…until I had a very similar vivid, creepy dream of animals crawling around and had the same involuntary reaction upon waking. This time, at least, I didn’t think I heard anything chasing me. I went back into my room; obviously, nothing there. I didn’t hear any scratching or crawling, though. That’s the weird thing — I’ve never heard it while I’m awake, yet I have these dreams.
The next morning, my mom said the same thing: “That animal’s back. We really need to do something about the screen.”
So since I’ve never had these dreams on any other night in my entire life, is it safe to conclude that the animal crawling around in the attic is causing my subconscious undue agony? It’s a well-known fact that I hate and fear all living creatures, including (especially?) humans, so it’s pretty reasonable to assume my subconscious would interpret the mild scratching of a squirrel or raccoon as a murderous, demonic animal that wants me as dead as possible.
But that sorta sucks, because I like sleeping.
Posted by Stan on May 1, 2007 9:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | Stories of Hilarity and Humiliation
May 2, 2007
American Masters: Atlantic Records: The House That Ahmet Built
When Ahmet Ertegun founded Atlantic Records in 1947 with the $10,000 investment of his dentist, he never guessed it would be a lifelong career. The son of a Turkish civil servant, Ertegun was so certain that his record label would be short-lived that he penned songs under the name “Nugetre” so that, when he followed in his father’s footsteps and entered a career of government service, nobody would know he had spent a few years writing “obscene” songs.
Atlantic began as a three-person operation, with Ertegun and co-founder Herb Abramson producing the music and doing the A&R and promotion work, and Abramson’s wife Miriam doing all of the office work. As its reputation grew, the label got slightly bigger but still operated as a small independent, amassing artists like Ray Charles, Ben E. King, Aretha Franklin, and Bobby Darin, along with the songwriting team of Leiber & Stoller and legendary producer Phil Spector. Atlantic managed to outlast the many other independents of the R&B and early rock era thanks to Ertegun’s sensible approach to running a record label: he signed artists he liked and hoped the world liked them just as much. Fortunately for him, they did.
American Masters presents a two-hour retrospective, mostly in chronological order, that both reveals Ertegun’s life story (told largely in the form of anecdotes told by Ertegun, his wife, and many Atlantic artists) while telling the history of the label, highlighting its big “gets” and detailing the adaptability that allowed the label to survive in the sea of major labels. While Ertegun passed away in December of last year, his interviews are spirited and entertaining—he’s obviously a man who’s young at heart, even into his 80s. It’s clear from the affection of legends like Aretha Franklin, Eric Clapton, and Mick Jagger that they all have tremendous respect and admiration for this man and the record label he built.
The piece drags a bit in certain spots, mostly when the chronicling relies on narration or third-party anecdotes rather than Ertegun’s own interviews. However, the classic jazz, R&B, and rock music and great archive footage of live performances more than make up for it. The last half hour is pretty bumpy, though, as the classics give way to contemporary acts that haven’t stood the test of time, and the narration gets repetitive as it winds down.
Overall, this is an entertaining look at a music icon who probably doesn’t get his due outside of the business because much of his work happened behind the scenes. By believing in himself and his artists, and being a music lover before a businessman, Ahmet Ertegun created a successful business and revolutionized the music industry.
Posted by Stan on May 2, 2007 4:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | Reviews
