So here I am, my final day in the windy city, the Big Apple, the birthplace of basketball and the potato capitol of the world: Los Angeles, California.
In all seriousness, there are some things that words can't describe. And then there are some things that the words "words can't describe" can even describe. And I have to admit that this last four months have fallen into that category.
I don't even know where to begin. I guess first and foremost, I continued quitting cigarettes. You read about me reaching the six month mark in a previous post, so I'm super proud of myself for keeping that up and have just passed month seven. I think its safe to say I'm never going to smoke another cigarette for the rest my subsequently longer, cancer-free life.
A lot of times you go in to something with certain expectations and end up getting disappointed. In fact, for me that's been pretty much all the time. But then, there are certain times in your life where you desperately want something to go some way, and for whatever reason, maybe by the grace of God, you get exactly what you want. And I can say with amazingly no hesitation that what I wanted to accomplish during my Los Angeles stay has actually been achieved. Allow me to list
1.) Kick ass at internship
Not being an involved student by any means besides SAE, I had low expectations of what kind of internship I could get. Unlike all the other faggy Emerson Channel kids who signed away their social lives to a meaningless video club, I had been majoring in pounding PBR and making horrible decisions for the three and half years I had been in college.
Well thankfully, I kicked ass in my Comedy Writing For Television class at my teacher, Martie Cook (strong candidate for "Coolest Woman Alive") put me in contact with this girl named Amy at Film Roman who ended up getting me a job. And who also ended being the coolest most respectful supervisor I ever had.
Obviously, gallant men of iron-clad will such as myself don't cry, but I came very close to tearing up when I left. Amy and Dan treated me to a great lunch and then this high-up executive Carin (VP of Creative Development) took me for coffee and thanked me profusely for all the hard work I've done. When I got back they had all signed a card, which if I read aloud would even pull at the heart strings of a even grizzly bear.
So thank you Film Roman'ers if you guys are actually even reading this.
2.) Get Back In Shape.
Since coming to college I had seen my body deteriorate further and further and further. Thankfully I quit cigarettes, but I ended up gaining like thirty pounds in the following weeks. However now I back to the high 150's, lifting more than I've ever had in my life, and am running my fucking dick off. Best shape of my life? Oh yeah, for sure.
3.) Find myself.
Well that sorta brings us to this blog. As egotistical and gay the whole blog thing can be, I have had so much fun writing down my thoughts, and found it be very therapeutic. More so than that though I have had several of my friends actually read it and tell me in exactly these words: "comedy writing is your calling."
As obvious as it may sound, finding something that people think you're really good at is an amazing feeling. I am endlessly thankful for all the strong encouragement from all of you and has given me new found confidence when it comes to pursuing a potential career path.
I could write a 1000 page book on how much I have changed, but I'm going to leave it pretty simple. For some reason though I feel it nessecary to leave this retrospective series with some parting words of advice. Seing how numerical ordering has already been claimed by the first list, I'll labels these A, B, and C.*
*Also, A & B are words of advice given by Bret "The Hitman" Hart but they relate really well to my LA experience. But yeah 66% of my final words of wisdom have come from a professional wrestler. Deal with.
A.) In order to find yourself, give yourself up to loneliness.
Unfortunately, not a lot of partying happened during my LA stay. I was never really great friends with any one here. I would kinda bounce back between groups of people every weekend but I was never a part of any crew. However such a large amount of time to yourself is necessary for you to reassess your life. Being so far away from everyone I care about was indeed difficult but it truly made me realize how much I love all of them and how I'm the luckiest guy in the world for having all these great people in my life.
B.) Life is less about what you're going to learn and more about what you've had in yourself from the very beginning.
Pretty self explanatory. Look back at your life and try to find the things that always made you happy, and life's gonna be a lot easier after that.
C.) You'll be surprised how far a little trying will go, and absolutely amazed and how far a lot of trying will take you.
So often, we give up or don't do something because we're convinced we're not cut out for it. Thus, we close so many doors and cross of so many paths before we even get to see what they're like. I never though I would get a good internship. I never thought I would succeed at a good internship. I never thought I'd be running five miles a day again. I'd never thought I'd quit cigarettes. But all of those things have happened. As cliche as it may sound, self-determination is probably the strongest force in the entire universe. To sum it up in words we've heard since third grade "you can do anything you set your mind to."
For the longest time, I was a very unhappy kid. I thought I was doomed to a life of misery. But as I sit here looking back on how everything has turned out -- and it amazes me to say this -- I'm one of the luckiest people alive. I've taken a lot of things for granted back east and I'll never do that again. I am graduate of a very esteemed film school, have amazing friends, and I'm pretty sure I've found my calling.
Life is going to take all of us to very unexpected places, but -- and now things are going to get really gay -- as long as you follow your heart, things are going to turn out pretty well for you. It has for me.
And thus one of the most amazing chapters in my life has come to end. However a new one begins the second I set foot back on the east coast soil. Daddy's coming home!!!!
One love and until we meet again (and we will),
Andrew G. / Geno
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Emerson / Los Angeles Retrospective Part 2
| It was during my freshmen year I did something I never thought I would ever do: join a fraternity. That fraternity was Sigma Alpha Epsilon and joining it was one the greatest decisions I have ever made in my life. Yes, I'm aware that any of you who have been to some of our parties may find it unusual to see the words "SAE" and "great decisions" being used in the same sentence, but let me assure you that it truly was. Describing what SAE is like or what the appeal is, is pretty much impossible to do. I feels like its the most normal boys at Emerson College all coming together in order to act totally insane. SAE is like no other fraternity chapter you've ever actually hung around with, and probably the most like you'll see the movies, except without all the attractive topless chicks. You don't join SAE necessarily because you want to, you do it because you feel like it makes the most sense. Regardless of why I decided to join, Sigma Alpha Epsilon provided me with an amazingly strong and much needed foundation and there's no way in hell I would have ever stayed at Emerson College in the first two years there had I not been a brother of the greatest fraternity chapter in the world*. *A congratulations and possibly sex with me is in order for my former roommate, BFF, and SAE president Jon Ruest who has recently been recognized "Greek of The Year" by Emerson College, an award they give to the fraternity/sorority member who actually appears to maybe have his/her shit together. SAE is coming back and there's not a goddamn thing any of you pussies can do about it. Pussies. Sophomore year was the year of 49 Gardner and the infamous SAE house, of which I would visit almost every other day. Insane partying reached its absolute peak that year. Unfortunately all these good times at Boston were overshadowed by some very, very bad things happening back home. I'm not going to mention their names out of guilt and respect to them but it was at this time that my two best friends from home and I had completely decimated our relationships. I'll never actually reveal the details to the internet, but it was meaningful friendships that ended up being destroyed by drugs. It was the lowest point of my life. For the first time in a long while, I felt completely and utterly alone. |   Top, related to article: SAE's offical emblem. Bottom, completely unrelated: Terror on the high seas |
That Christmas break, I would reunite with two friends who I had either let fall by the wayside after college or who I never really took the time to really get close to in high school. My brother Matt -- there's not a single kid who I owe more t in this world than him -- felt bad for what happened between my friends from home and told me that I should go over to our friend Pat's house, where Nick was hanging out. Pat and Nick were for the most part fairly good friends of mine who I would party with but that was essentially the extent of our relationships. However on that night, I ended up driving the two to iHop and they said something to me which truly touched me:
"Andrew, you don't hang out with us enough,"
Long story short, that is no longer the case anymore and now Nick and Pat, and eventually many many others from home have become amazing, amazing friends of mine and now coming home is something I greatly look forward to, rather than fear. And I owe it all to Nick, Pat, and my brother.
Things were slowly but very surely getting better for me. But there was a lot of other stuff I needed to do. I still hadn't found my calling, I was constantly stressed out, and I was smoking a pack and a half of cigarettes a day. Some serious changes still needed to be made.
And I'll talk about those changes, and finally about this whole LA thing in the next blog post!
One love,
Andrew G. / Geno
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Emerson / Los Angeles Retrospective Part 1
| I should let you all know that the following is going to take a more personal, serious tone than most of my blog posts, but still trying to be funny. Also I will be frequently using the literary device of metaphor throughout the blog post in order to convey certain senses of emotion, and during some of these instances you might feel it necessary to call me a total homo with a gay problem for being such a literary emo fuck. However this is a fate I'm willing to accept in order to get across the emotional roller coaster ride (metaphor #1) that was my experience at Emerson College. It was around junior year of college, I pretty much decided I wanted to go to school and study audio production? Did I have any experience at all when it comes to the technical or artistic process of sound recording? No. But I liked and |  (Not pictured: PBR, Parliament Cigarettes, Morally Casual Sex) |
After weighing my college choices, I finally decided on Emerson. Emerson was in my favorite city in the world, Boston, it was close to home, and had a world-renowned reputation. One of my favorite high school teachers, Mr. Rea (who taught English and who was once spotted rocking out at Bright Eyes concert), was -- besides being the fucking man -- the professor who helped me on my college essay and whose classroom many of my friends and I would hang out at after school was out while we waited for our respective sports practices to start. I remember getting my acceptance letter in the mail and then running back to school (which was a five minute walk from my house) and showing Mr. Rea my acceptance letter. Mr. Rea would run into my mom, a veteran employee in the Ludlow public school system herself, and said that moment was one of the greatest ever in his teaching career. Which is an awesome thing to hear. My college experience seemed to be off to a good start.
Or so I thought. After getting accepted I joined the "Emerson Class of 2010" Myspace group page. I would find out almost immediately that it was a place where pretentious future college students can start arguments with each other before they even met or were officially enrolled in the school they'd all be going to for the next four years. Remember how you could change your name in MySpace to something silly whenever you wanted? Well after seeing Clerks 2 my friend changed my MySpace name to "Porch Monkey 4 Life," a reference to the Kevin Smith sequel. This was all my new virtual Emerson classmates needed to believe that I was a flaming racist who was about to enter their school and they would have none of it. I actually received an e-mail from a kid who I had never met or even freind'ed on MySpace pointing out to me Emerson's deep ethnic-student population (which I would later realize to be a total lie) and that perhaps I should consider going to another school. Wow. So yeah my first interaction with Emerson kids resulted in them telling me to disenroll over the internet. This should have been the first indication that Emerson College was going to be a rough, rough start.
And I was right. It was a horrible start. A horrible, horrible start. It was kinda like Mario Kart where you hold down the "A" button too long before the green light at the beginning of the race and you spin and flutter out of control while the other drives scurry past you. And then you get bombarded with banana peels and turtle-less turtle shells. And just when you think that little rainbow box with the question mark on it is going to be the answer to all your problems it explodes in your face. And then you get thrown off the course and a weird yellow creature comes flying in on a cloud and has to fish you out with a traffic light and bring you back to where you started. Actually, my freshman year at Emerson College was exactly like Mario Kart.
So I slipped into a deep, deep depression, turned to cigarettes and drugs, and basically saw my life get about as dark as you can get without having to have a reality show about you. Fortunately, as is often the case when you hit rock bottom, the only direction to go from there is up. Which, thankfully is what started to happen the next year.
So join me tomorrow for part two where things get a lot less depressing! I'll talk about SAE, what was happening back home, and, here's the part you've all been waiting for, MORE!!
Until then, one love
Andrew G / Geno
Thursday, April 22, 2010
College Girls claim bisexuality, Andrew G tells them to shut the fuck up.
Our nation's recent advancements in homosexual equality have made it not just socially acceptable, but trendy and hip to rub your genitals on whatever you can think of, with the only limits being your own imagination. This is great news for all you zoo-goers who can't help but keep noticing the emu that keeps eyeballing you from a distance, but I feel like this is hurting the gay-rights cause more than it is helping it.
I use the bestiality reference to make a point. America treats homosexuals as exotic animals, not as people, and we try to pass it off as accepting, social consciousness .Emerson College is one of, if not the single most gay-friendly campuses in America. Which is awesome, and I'm honestly proud to say that about my alma-mater. But you would think after all the exposure my fellow students and I have to the gay community, we'd be just a little desensitized to the whole thing. Nope. I feel like a student can't come out of the closet without fifty reporters bombarding him, flashing pictures, and shoving microphones in the poor kid's face demanding to know JUST what' its like to have another man's scrotum placed on your uvula.
Where did all this idol worship come from? I feel like it was only five year ago where the country was still run by ignorant, God fearing zealots who just couldn't even stand to fathom the idea of two men having sex without having to confess their sins to a priest. Sodomy went from blasphemous to cosmopolitan in a matter of years. When, in reality, it's neither. It's just another aspect of human life that we need to accept and then move on with our lives without making fools of ourselves by over-accepting them like THIS.
It goes back to when Lance Bass came out. Lance Bass made the "brave" declarative statement that he was in a fact a homosexual. I responded with "Great Lance Bass, can you sing that fucking Rocky & Bullwinkle song again? Thanks." Lance Bass went from "one of the three guys who wasn't Justin Timberlake in N'Sync" to relevant topic in the amount of seconds it took him to shout to the world that he loves penis. Because of our nation's new found love of alternative lifestyles, people like Lance Bass always made me suspicious of people who claim their gay just for the attention America is going to give them.
And I was right, but it's not just the people in the media. A multitude of college girls have taken their daddy issues to astronomically depressing heights by trying to trick us into believing their bisexual. You know what I'm talking about. Every now and then you'll go on to one of your female friend's Facebook pages and notice that she's interested in both "men" and "women." And when you ask her what happens she'll respond with something along the lines of "ooooh you know I just feel like humans aren't supposed to limit their sexuality to just ONE gender!" At first, you're happy for their new, if not stupid, outlook on life, but then you realize their experimentation with the same sex has never gone passed the point of saying she likes them on Facebook.
These girls obviously aren't bisexual. They're just emo girls pissed off at the way society made them so they're attempting to get back at all of us by trying to make us feel uncomfortable. They're the equivalent of bandwagon Red Sox fans only they still don't watch any of the games. Now that decades of persecution have gone by and we're actually starting to be accepting in society, let's just jump right in and say we love them too!
It's actually a smart idea. You get all the attention and social benefits of being a lesbian, but without having to go through the trouble of actually having sex with a woman. Congratulations girl, you found the loophole that allows you to be as far away from vagina as you possibly can and still get 10% off drinks at the Leather Jacket night club.
Perhaps it's just a step in the acceptance process of homosexual equality, but I really wish it would stop already. The more you think that someone's more socially enlightened just because they're gay, the more you are hurting the cause and preventing true equality from happening.
I use the bestiality reference to make a point. America treats homosexuals as exotic animals, not as people, and we try to pass it off as accepting, social consciousness .Emerson College is one of, if not the single most gay-friendly campuses in America. Which is awesome, and I'm honestly proud to say that about my alma-mater. But you would think after all the exposure my fellow students and I have to the gay community, we'd be just a little desensitized to the whole thing. Nope. I feel like a student can't come out of the closet without fifty reporters bombarding him, flashing pictures, and shoving microphones in the poor kid's face demanding to know JUST what' its like to have another man's scrotum placed on your uvula.
Where did all this idol worship come from? I feel like it was only five year ago where the country was still run by ignorant, God fearing zealots who just couldn't even stand to fathom the idea of two men having sex without having to confess their sins to a priest. Sodomy went from blasphemous to cosmopolitan in a matter of years. When, in reality, it's neither. It's just another aspect of human life that we need to accept and then move on with our lives without making fools of ourselves by over-accepting them like THIS.
It goes back to when Lance Bass came out. Lance Bass made the "brave" declarative statement that he was in a fact a homosexual. I responded with "Great Lance Bass, can you sing that fucking Rocky & Bullwinkle song again? Thanks." Lance Bass went from "one of the three guys who wasn't Justin Timberlake in N'Sync" to relevant topic in the amount of seconds it took him to shout to the world that he loves penis. Because of our nation's new found love of alternative lifestyles, people like Lance Bass always made me suspicious of people who claim their gay just for the attention America is going to give them.
And I was right, but it's not just the people in the media. A multitude of college girls have taken their daddy issues to astronomically depressing heights by trying to trick us into believing their bisexual. You know what I'm talking about. Every now and then you'll go on to one of your female friend's Facebook pages and notice that she's interested in both "men" and "women." And when you ask her what happens she'll respond with something along the lines of "ooooh you know I just feel like humans aren't supposed to limit their sexuality to just ONE gender!" At first, you're happy for their new, if not stupid, outlook on life, but then you realize their experimentation with the same sex has never gone passed the point of saying she likes them on Facebook.
These girls obviously aren't bisexual. They're just emo girls pissed off at the way society made them so they're attempting to get back at all of us by trying to make us feel uncomfortable. They're the equivalent of bandwagon Red Sox fans only they still don't watch any of the games. Now that decades of persecution have gone by and we're actually starting to be accepting in society, let's just jump right in and say we love them too!
It's actually a smart idea. You get all the attention and social benefits of being a lesbian, but without having to go through the trouble of actually having sex with a woman. Congratulations girl, you found the loophole that allows you to be as far away from vagina as you possibly can and still get 10% off drinks at the Leather Jacket night club.
Perhaps it's just a step in the acceptance process of homosexual equality, but I really wish it would stop already. The more you think that someone's more socially enlightened just because they're gay, the more you are hurting the cause and preventing true equality from happening.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Overly Used / Obnoxious Types of Facebook Statuses, Part 2
Hey Earth people,
I thought I actually wasn't going to do it, but here is the second, shorter, and probably less funnier part of Obnoxious / Overly Used Facebook Statuses. Let's turn this mother out.
6.) Quoting For the Sake of Quoting:
A lot of people are against song lyrics and movie quotes as a hard and fast rule, but generally I actually don’t have a much a problem with it. Yes sometimes the lyrics are annoying and emo like “yeah you bleed just to know you're alive” but sometimes they’re lucid and intellectually stimulating such as “niggas gunna make me unleash the dragon”
What I have a problem with is when someone quotes a part of a movie or a song when they clearly have no idea what the lyrics/dialogue are about or why they were even written in the first place. These are the kids who desperately need you to know that they know more about a movie than just what it says on the back of the DVD cover. They’re the kind of kids who just to go to azlyrics.com and copy and paste whatever words look pretty to them. And yet whether it be film or song, they just end up looking far more ignorant about it than they would've from not even mentioning it in the first place. Example.
"I need you (I need you) More than anyone darlin' You know that I have from the start So build me up (Build me up) Buttercup Don't break my heart"
Out of all the songs that you clearly needed to go songmeanings.net and copy and paste from, I can’t believe you had trouble recalling any of the words from THIS song. Seriously, how does anyone who’s this old to use a computer without their parent’s permission not know the chorus to this fucking song without having to consult the internet for reference? The lyrics to Build Me Up Buttercup are used in fill-in-the-blank sections on U.S. Citenzship tests. They use it in SAT analogies. Every single elevator in the world comes with a copy of this song. Me and the rest of my class had to sing this song with our hand over our hearts in front of the American flag in third grade. Seriously, you desperately need expand your musical tastes right now because there’s thousands of others songs out there you could have chosen to describe your depressing life.
7.) Parading your Drug Use:
There’s a fine line between letting people know you like to have a good time and straight up cry for help. And these people have broken up that line with a razor blade and snorted it up their noses with a rolled up twenty dollar bill.
"is totally doing acid TODAY BWAHAHAHAHAHA time to trip sack"
Jesus dude. Jesus. Calm the fuck down. We’ve all been to high school and most of us to college so you’re not telling us anything we don’t see on a weekly basis. If you’re trying to impress with complete disregard to your physical health, at least have it be something more original than acid. Hell there are plenty combinations of energy drinks and table cleaner that’ll make you see some SERIOUS, life-altering shit.
8.) Complete and Utter Nonsense
Sometimes people write things that make me wonder if they had just accidentally smashed keys on their keyboard that coincidentally ended up forming words. And thus, trying to make any sense of these statuses is a one-way ticket to insanity, as I will demonstrate by trying to make sense of this:
"best jeep weather i can ask for in april."
What? What are you…WHAT?? Jeep weather?? How is that…I…WHAT??? What the fuck, no seriously what the fuck is “jeep weather??” What kind of climatic conditions must exist in order to make driving a Jeep more luxurious than driving ANY other type of car? Wouldn't good Jeep weather be good weather in general? And what does April have to do with any of this??? GAHHHHHHH*!!!
I thought I actually wasn't going to do it, but here is the second, shorter, and probably less funnier part of Obnoxious / Overly Used Facebook Statuses. Let's turn this mother out.
6.) Quoting For the Sake of Quoting:
A lot of people are against song lyrics and movie quotes as a hard and fast rule, but generally I actually don’t have a much a problem with it. Yes sometimes the lyrics are annoying and emo like “yeah you bleed just to know you're alive” but sometimes they’re lucid and intellectually stimulating such as “niggas gunna make me unleash the dragon”
What I have a problem with is when someone quotes a part of a movie or a song when they clearly have no idea what the lyrics/dialogue are about or why they were even written in the first place. These are the kids who desperately need you to know that they know more about a movie than just what it says on the back of the DVD cover. They’re the kind of kids who just to go to azlyrics.com and copy and paste whatever words look pretty to them. And yet whether it be film or song, they just end up looking far more ignorant about it than they would've from not even mentioning it in the first place. Example.
"I need you (I need you) More than anyone darlin' You know that I have from the start So build me up (Build me up) Buttercup Don't break my heart"
Out of all the songs that you clearly needed to go songmeanings.net and copy and paste from, I can’t believe you had trouble recalling any of the words from THIS song. Seriously, how does anyone who’s this old to use a computer without their parent’s permission not know the chorus to this fucking song without having to consult the internet for reference? The lyrics to Build Me Up Buttercup are used in fill-in-the-blank sections on U.S. Citenzship tests. They use it in SAT analogies. Every single elevator in the world comes with a copy of this song. Me and the rest of my class had to sing this song with our hand over our hearts in front of the American flag in third grade. Seriously, you desperately need expand your musical tastes right now because there’s thousands of others songs out there you could have chosen to describe your depressing life.
7.) Parading your Drug Use:
There’s a fine line between letting people know you like to have a good time and straight up cry for help. And these people have broken up that line with a razor blade and snorted it up their noses with a rolled up twenty dollar bill.
"is totally doing acid TODAY BWAHAHAHAHAHA time to trip sack"
Jesus dude. Jesus. Calm the fuck down. We’ve all been to high school and most of us to college so you’re not telling us anything we don’t see on a weekly basis. If you’re trying to impress with complete disregard to your physical health, at least have it be something more original than acid. Hell there are plenty combinations of energy drinks and table cleaner that’ll make you see some SERIOUS, life-altering shit.
8.) Complete and Utter Nonsense
Sometimes people write things that make me wonder if they had just accidentally smashed keys on their keyboard that coincidentally ended up forming words. And thus, trying to make any sense of these statuses is a one-way ticket to insanity, as I will demonstrate by trying to make sense of this:
"best jeep weather i can ask for in april."
What? What are you…WHAT?? Jeep weather?? How is that…I…WHAT??? What the fuck, no seriously what the fuck is “jeep weather??” What kind of climatic conditions must exist in order to make driving a Jeep more luxurious than driving ANY other type of car? Wouldn't good Jeep weather be good weather in general? And what does April have to do with any of this??? GAHHHHHHH*!!!
Friday, April 16, 2010
Ridiculous Pro Wrestling Characters Part 1: "The Lethal Weapon" Steve Blackman
Growing up in the 90's, the World Wrestling Federation provided me with many years of entertainment. Many insane years of absolutely ludicrous entertainment. The fact that I ended up going to a film school where we dissect and discus the aesthetic integrity of a text totally amazes even me after spending years of my life thinking cutting-egde television was watching Macho Man Randy Savage desperately trying to make just one coherent sentence in a ten minute promo.
Here at Emerson, I take a lot of classes in television writing and development. While its art and you can't really teach it, there are still quite a number of rules and guidelines you have to follow. Well I'm proud to say that the WWF completely shattered and broke every single one of these rules with each and every storyline and feud they ever scripted.
Yes, I know wrestling is fake. Did you really think after watching the Undertaker steal somebody’s soul I'm going to be wondering about that? No. No shit its fake. So is everything else we see on TV. All the terrible acting and nonsensical storylines are predetermined and scripted by the WWF creative team writers. And you could only be a WWF writer unless you were absolutely insane.
Some of the stuff they would write was so illogical, that it became an entirely new way of thinking. The people who came up with the storylines defied common sense so often and so hard that I became convinced that I was crazy for even questioning what was going on my TV screen.
This is going to be the first of many articles I’ll eventually post that deals with the most ridiculous wrestling characters of all time. Each one will have a character bio and my favorite moment. Enjoy the insanity!
"The Lethal Weapon" Steve Blackman
Steve Blackman combined the nunchuck twirling skills of a karate master with the personality of a struggling car salesman. After he got done twirling whatever martial arts weapon the WWF writers remembered from their Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics, it was obvious that Steve Blackman had no idea why he was in a wrestling ring, or why there was someone across from him who wanted to attack him.
Whenever he had the opportunity to not just twirl his weapons and actually use them in a fight, it became clear that Steve Blackman's knowledge of martial arts weapons was limited to twirling and only that. He would literally just spin his weapons for about five minutes while the guy he was fighting would stagger around before he realized that actually hitting his opponents might be a more effective way of hurting them.
Favorite moment: Steve Blackman runs over Ken Shamrock with a car
Steve Blackman lacked so much charisma, he couldn't even make attempted vehicular homicide look interesting. If you're trying to kill a guy with a car, WHY WOULD YOU GO IN REVERSE? Seriously any one who has ever seen Chris Tucker, Will Smith or any crazy black guy action movie knows what kind of SERIOUS shit you can fuck up with your ride. And Steve Blackman chose probably the least efficient way humanly possible. My grandmother drives faster than that when she's NOT trying to kill somebody.
Also why did he get out of the car? If you had just attempted to kill someone, isn't a getaway part of the process? And wouldn't the car you WERE JUST IN be an ideal mode of getaway transportation? And why the fuck is he wearing a track uniform???? Seriously, I looked up the results of this particular show and not once could I find something that explained why a Samurai who’s supposed to have extensive knowledge of lethal weapons was not only trying to kill somebody with a Saturn, but doing it right before he ran a marathon.
Here at Emerson, I take a lot of classes in television writing and development. While its art and you can't really teach it, there are still quite a number of rules and guidelines you have to follow. Well I'm proud to say that the WWF completely shattered and broke every single one of these rules with each and every storyline and feud they ever scripted.
Yes, I know wrestling is fake. Did you really think after watching the Undertaker steal somebody’s soul I'm going to be wondering about that? No. No shit its fake. So is everything else we see on TV. All the terrible acting and nonsensical storylines are predetermined and scripted by the WWF creative team writers. And you could only be a WWF writer unless you were absolutely insane.
Some of the stuff they would write was so illogical, that it became an entirely new way of thinking. The people who came up with the storylines defied common sense so often and so hard that I became convinced that I was crazy for even questioning what was going on my TV screen.
This is going to be the first of many articles I’ll eventually post that deals with the most ridiculous wrestling characters of all time. Each one will have a character bio and my favorite moment. Enjoy the insanity!
"The Lethal Weapon" Steve Blackman
Steve Blackman combined the nunchuck twirling skills of a karate master with the personality of a struggling car salesman. After he got done twirling whatever martial arts weapon the WWF writers remembered from their Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics, it was obvious that Steve Blackman had no idea why he was in a wrestling ring, or why there was someone across from him who wanted to attack him.
Whenever he had the opportunity to not just twirl his weapons and actually use them in a fight, it became clear that Steve Blackman's knowledge of martial arts weapons was limited to twirling and only that. He would literally just spin his weapons for about five minutes while the guy he was fighting would stagger around before he realized that actually hitting his opponents might be a more effective way of hurting them.
Favorite moment: Steve Blackman runs over Ken Shamrock with a car
Steve Blackman lacked so much charisma, he couldn't even make attempted vehicular homicide look interesting. If you're trying to kill a guy with a car, WHY WOULD YOU GO IN REVERSE? Seriously any one who has ever seen Chris Tucker, Will Smith or any crazy black guy action movie knows what kind of SERIOUS shit you can fuck up with your ride. And Steve Blackman chose probably the least efficient way humanly possible. My grandmother drives faster than that when she's NOT trying to kill somebody.
Also why did he get out of the car? If you had just attempted to kill someone, isn't a getaway part of the process? And wouldn't the car you WERE JUST IN be an ideal mode of getaway transportation? And why the fuck is he wearing a track uniform???? Seriously, I looked up the results of this particular show and not once could I find something that explained why a Samurai who’s supposed to have extensive knowledge of lethal weapons was not only trying to kill somebody with a Saturn, but doing it right before he ran a marathon.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Quick Explanation on Why True Blood Sucks
The melodrama. With True Blood, HBO executives have taken this genre that appeals to sexually depraved groups of easily entertained fruitcakes and put a more mature twist on it in order to appeal to a more pretentious sexually depraved group of easily entertained fruitcakes.
When I say "more mature twist" I mean killing characters and bringing them back to life with no explanation and randomly splicing in scenes of other people having sex. True Blood is softcore pornography badly disguised as coherent television. The basic formal for the show goes like this: INTRO - SEX - SOMETHING COMPLETELY UNRELATED TO INTRO - SEX - CONCLUSION THAT RESOLVES NOTHING - SEX - SEX.
The abundance of sex scene are there in order to appeal to a select group of people who believe that they can think vampires are cool yet still have any sort of sex life at the same time. Sorry nerds, but that's having your cake and eating that, the tray it came on, and the stripper inside too.
True Blood irresponsibly leads its viewers to believe that they are somehow sexually enlightened for watching such poor storytelling involving gay vampires. In reality, if you go up to a normal person and start talking about the mating patterns of vampires, wearwolves, and other things that don't exist, it's going to be a long, uphill battle to get them to even consider having sex with you.
This show also tries to trick their viewers into thinking they're watching something that's somehow socially conscious by trying to promote itself as an allegory for gay discrimination. But really, all they are doing is absentmindedly spewing off random references to homosexuality in order to legitimize their uninspired method of creating trash television. If any True Blood viewer can explain, without drooling on themselves, to me exactly how this show is a metaphor for specifically gay discrimination (and not any other type of minority/sect), please do so, but try to do it without a stake and garlic in your hand.
When I say "more mature twist" I mean killing characters and bringing them back to life with no explanation and randomly splicing in scenes of other people having sex. True Blood is softcore pornography badly disguised as coherent television. The basic formal for the show goes like this: INTRO - SEX - SOMETHING COMPLETELY UNRELATED TO INTRO - SEX - CONCLUSION THAT RESOLVES NOTHING - SEX - SEX.
The abundance of sex scene are there in order to appeal to a select group of people who believe that they can think vampires are cool yet still have any sort of sex life at the same time. Sorry nerds, but that's having your cake and eating that, the tray it came on, and the stripper inside too.
True Blood irresponsibly leads its viewers to believe that they are somehow sexually enlightened for watching such poor storytelling involving gay vampires. In reality, if you go up to a normal person and start talking about the mating patterns of vampires, wearwolves, and other things that don't exist, it's going to be a long, uphill battle to get them to even consider having sex with you.
This show also tries to trick their viewers into thinking they're watching something that's somehow socially conscious by trying to promote itself as an allegory for gay discrimination. But really, all they are doing is absentmindedly spewing off random references to homosexuality in order to legitimize their uninspired method of creating trash television. If any True Blood viewer can explain, without drooling on themselves, to me exactly how this show is a metaphor for specifically gay discrimination (and not any other type of minority/sect), please do so, but try to do it without a stake and garlic in your hand.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Yes, Sarah Palin Sucks But Lets Move On With Our Lives
Before I actually go on to write this, I must inform all of you that I'm absolutely 100% against the policies of Sarah Palin and do believe her to be one of the biggest jokes in the history of politics. Only I, unlike so many Americans, have decided to move on with my life.
I recently wrote this on my facebook:
Making fun Sarah Palin, as retarded as she may be, does not make you a political satirist. It just proves you watch the Daily Show. good job.
I decided to delete it because it goes against one of my own rules against Facebook statuses and I also don't like posting Facebook shit out of anger. But before I could, I received a painfully over-prepared statement from someone who completely missed my point and who I've met maybe three or four times in my life. He also clearly missed the phrase "as retarded as she may be" because I'm obviously one of Ms. Palin's strongest supporters.
"I mean, you do realize that the incredibly vacuous comments she makes time and again--not to mention the ridiculous shit she does publicly--these exist independently of the singular TV program you've cited which merely capitalizes on them. You know this, right? Like, when she had crib notes on her fucking hand at that rally... that was a uh, real thing that happened in American history. Pretty sure Jon Stewart didn't employ some unique super sleuthing to find the absurdity in that.
The bone-chilling reality that there are people actually stupid enough to fanatically endorse her, all because they mysteriously gobble up the trite, folksy rhetoric she spouts off... it does nothing for ya, huh? Doesn't like... blow your fucking mind or nothin'? Mmmm, Okay... okay.."
Clearly he has thought about this before, and has probably rehearsed it many times in front of the giant pile of meat he's dressed up as Sarah Palin in his basement lair. The fact that someone was so unhealthily angry to write out such a retarded smorgasbord of ellipses and poorly developed thoughts, and send it to a stranger, completely proves my point that America is far too obsessed with Sarah Palin, who in reality is of no real danger to our country anymore.
Sarah Palin lost (and by a VERY large margin) on the losing ticket in the presidential election. Sarah Palin has endured (and yes, deservedly so) more public ridicule than every single person who has ever auditioned for American Idol and Milli Vanilli combined. She has set the female race back further than Amy Fisher or My Little Pony ever could. Of course Sarah Palin is an idiot. Children know she's an idiot. The dogs that pull her people's sleds know she's an idiot. I was playing my Wii and right after the warning message that told me not to swallow the Wii Remote it said "Sarah Palin is an idiot." Even video games know that Sarah Palin is an idiot. So explain to me how someone who's such a universal punchline can be such a threat to our livelihoods?
There's one line in his email that proves Sarah Palin can't even go to the Dairy Queen without getting pointed and laughed at by millions of paranoid, women-fearing Americans:
Like, when she had crib notes on her fucking hand at that rally... that was a uh, real thing that happened in American history.
That's right America. A politician that had to give an important address in front of a large group of people ACTUALLY HAD THE AUDACITY TO PREPARE A LIST OF NOTES. What a no good Godless traitor of our country.
Let's move on to another idiotic thing he writes:
"The bone-chilling reality that there are people actually stupid enough to fanatically endorse her all because they mysteriously gobble up the trite, folksy rhetoric she spouts off"
What? Who? I've met a lot of strange people who I thought never existed. I've met people with six fingers on one hand, citizens of Delaware and people who like Coyote Ugly. But not once have I ever met a vocal supporter of the Alaskan governor and certainly not someone who I'd consider a "fanatic endorser." Start taking your Paxil again buddy, because your paranoia has led you to believe things that don't actually exist. No one takes Sarah Palin seriously and the fact that you are even sarcastically referring to her incoherent babble as "trite, folksy rhetoric" is giving her way more credit than she could ever deserve. That's like sarcastically referring to someone with Down's Syndrome trying to speak as "trite, folksy rhetoric." You just sound like a total dick in saying it.
Has it occurred to anyone that maybe all this ridicule against a woman in power may be in someways destructive to the progress of female equality? Every time you make another tired, worn out Sarah-Palin-is-stupid joke, you in turn just remind us how we're still holding women in power to ridiculously higher standards than men, which is insane because we came this close to ELECTING A WOMAN PRESIDENT. Sure you can blame Sarah Palin for her existence and the Republican party for their promotion of her existence, but I feel the blame also lies on everyone like this kid who has Sarah Palin penis-envy for preventing a woman from ever seeing the oval office for a very, very long time.
I recently wrote this on my facebook:
Making fun Sarah Palin, as retarded as she may be, does not make you a political satirist. It just proves you watch the Daily Show. good job.
I decided to delete it because it goes against one of my own rules against Facebook statuses and I also don't like posting Facebook shit out of anger. But before I could, I received a painfully over-prepared statement from someone who completely missed my point and who I've met maybe three or four times in my life. He also clearly missed the phrase "as retarded as she may be" because I'm obviously one of Ms. Palin's strongest supporters.
"I mean, you do realize that the incredibly vacuous comments she makes time and again--not to mention the ridiculous shit she does publicly--these exist independently of the singular TV program you've cited which merely capitalizes on them. You know this, right? Like, when she had crib notes on her fucking hand at that rally... that was a uh, real thing that happened in American history. Pretty sure Jon Stewart didn't employ some unique super sleuthing to find the absurdity in that.
The bone-chilling reality that there are people actually stupid enough to fanatically endorse her, all because they mysteriously gobble up the trite, folksy rhetoric she spouts off... it does nothing for ya, huh? Doesn't like... blow your fucking mind or nothin'? Mmmm, Okay... okay.."
Clearly he has thought about this before, and has probably rehearsed it many times in front of the giant pile of meat he's dressed up as Sarah Palin in his basement lair. The fact that someone was so unhealthily angry to write out such a retarded smorgasbord of ellipses and poorly developed thoughts, and send it to a stranger, completely proves my point that America is far too obsessed with Sarah Palin, who in reality is of no real danger to our country anymore.
Sarah Palin lost (and by a VERY large margin) on the losing ticket in the presidential election. Sarah Palin has endured (and yes, deservedly so) more public ridicule than every single person who has ever auditioned for American Idol and Milli Vanilli combined. She has set the female race back further than Amy Fisher or My Little Pony ever could. Of course Sarah Palin is an idiot. Children know she's an idiot. The dogs that pull her people's sleds know she's an idiot. I was playing my Wii and right after the warning message that told me not to swallow the Wii Remote it said "Sarah Palin is an idiot." Even video games know that Sarah Palin is an idiot. So explain to me how someone who's such a universal punchline can be such a threat to our livelihoods?
There's one line in his email that proves Sarah Palin can't even go to the Dairy Queen without getting pointed and laughed at by millions of paranoid, women-fearing Americans:
Like, when she had crib notes on her fucking hand at that rally... that was a uh, real thing that happened in American history.
That's right America. A politician that had to give an important address in front of a large group of people ACTUALLY HAD THE AUDACITY TO PREPARE A LIST OF NOTES. What a no good Godless traitor of our country.
Let's move on to another idiotic thing he writes:
"The bone-chilling reality that there are people actually stupid enough to fanatically endorse her all because they mysteriously gobble up the trite, folksy rhetoric she spouts off"
What? Who? I've met a lot of strange people who I thought never existed. I've met people with six fingers on one hand, citizens of Delaware and people who like Coyote Ugly. But not once have I ever met a vocal supporter of the Alaskan governor and certainly not someone who I'd consider a "fanatic endorser." Start taking your Paxil again buddy, because your paranoia has led you to believe things that don't actually exist. No one takes Sarah Palin seriously and the fact that you are even sarcastically referring to her incoherent babble as "trite, folksy rhetoric" is giving her way more credit than she could ever deserve. That's like sarcastically referring to someone with Down's Syndrome trying to speak as "trite, folksy rhetoric." You just sound like a total dick in saying it.
Has it occurred to anyone that maybe all this ridicule against a woman in power may be in someways destructive to the progress of female equality? Every time you make another tired, worn out Sarah-Palin-is-stupid joke, you in turn just remind us how we're still holding women in power to ridiculously higher standards than men, which is insane because we came this close to ELECTING A WOMAN PRESIDENT. Sure you can blame Sarah Palin for her existence and the Republican party for their promotion of her existence, but I feel the blame also lies on everyone like this kid who has Sarah Palin penis-envy for preventing a woman from ever seeing the oval office for a very, very long time.
Monday, April 12, 2010
A Letter To Outlaw Certain Shirtless Dudes
What’s your first though seeing all of these pictures? That’s right: THIS SHOULD ALL BE ILLEGAL! Nowadays not only are more and more dudes who have upper bodies that should never see the light of day taking their shirts off, they’re doing it in the most inappropriate of public places. Something needs to be done about this.
I was outside last weekend grilling and these two (completely out of shape) dudes who were friends with my friends thought to themselves “you know what would be a good idea to do around all these slabs of meat and flame retardant chemicals?” “I know! Let’s TAKE OFF OUR SHIRTS and expose our semi-permeable skin to it! These two taken chicks and this one dude will LOVE it!” And they did. Not being confused about my sexuality, I left my t-shirt right where it belonged: on my body. Being the odd man out and needing a place to burst out laughing, I had to excuse myself.
Sometimes mentally handicapped people like those two dudes need the government to step in to prevent them from further embarrassing themselves and their community. This is why we have warning labels on hair dryers telling you not to use them in the shower. And this is also where I come in. The following is my official law proposal to the state of California that will hopefully outlaw these type of people from ever showing their naked flesh to you or your family. You’re welcome.
Dear California:
I am writing to you because of a disturbing trend I’ve noticed within your male community. More and more often I am noticing your kind removing their shirts in order for us to see their bare chests. The problem is I’d rather watch a marathon of cesarean sections than to ever have to put up with the site of their disgusting bodies. Cause let’s face it California, there are certain people out there who shouldn’t even take their shirts off to bathe. Before I get into how we punish these people, I’d like to take this time to list just exactly what type of people I’m referring to.
1.) People who think “skinny” means “in shape”
Some people don’t know whether they’re low body fat came as a result of hard exercise or a long struggling addiction to cocaine. So they figure they’re going to let the rest of the world figure it out for them by removing their clothes. And guess what, it’s usually the latter and never the former. If I wanted to see a sad tale of drug abuse, I would have just watched all of Robin William’s stand up again.
2.) Completely hairless creatures
These are the kind of people most likely to take off their shirts because they want to show off their lack of genetics. Way to rub it in all of our faces, dickhead. Just be aware all men with hair on their chest are just a bottle of Nair and a cigarette lighter away from being in the same position you freaks are in.
3.) Covered in tribal tattoos
Just because you grew up on a cul-de-sac but read a comic book that had someone of your heritage getting a tattoo of something, doesn't automatically mean you have to get that same meaningless shape sewed permanently into your body. Stop displaying your bad life mistakes to the world, as I have no interest in knowing about them.
Those are a just a few of the many different types of people who should be wearing long sleeve shirts and parkas all the time. But how do we deal with these types of people? Here’s my proposal:
Murder
Okay really here’s my proposal:
If you see someone showing you how malnourished they are via the process of shirt removal, and if they’re doing it in a public place that’s not a beach, you are within complete legal rights to throw whatever you want at them and call them a homo until they put it back on. Such items would include, but not be limited to pencils, tennis balls, paper airplanes, and throwing stars. If they still insist on displaying their hatred for exercise, you can graduate your weapons to bats, hockey sticks, and other blunt objects. Continue this process until they lose consciousness or exposed and disgusting torso is covered with a shirt.
So there ya go California, I hope you have been listening. Do this for the children of tomorrow who’d rather not to be exposed to the effects of heroine of the body. Most importantly, do it for yourself.
Sincerely rockin’
Andrew “Geno” Geanacopoulos
Friday, April 9, 2010
Vacation Time Part 3: Ferris Wheels = Certain Death / Powerhour! / Leftover Pics
Editors note:
Apparently, Emily has a "qualm" with some misinformation I posted. The song that she was afraid to play on the west coast wasn't "Juicy" but "Hypnotize." This totally makes the situation less ridiculous and I should be very ashamed of myself for journalistic embellishment.
Overcoming My Fears of the Ferris Wheel
Me: "Wow, that Ferris Wheel looks like its actually going pretty fast. Maybe we shouldn't go on it."
Emily: "..."
Jon: "..."
Alright, fine. I’ll admit it that even though the Ferris Wheel was going a little faster than usual, I’m sure whatever speed it was going didn’t signify immediate danger. But that’s not the point. I don’t know what sort of sadistic, backwater Siberian prison camp that Jon and Emily grew up on that made them completely numb to the emotion of fear, but not only were they unafraid of going on the Ferris Wheel, they were EXCITED to do so.
Not being the carefree, throw-caution-to-the-wind daredevils that my friends are, allow me to explain things to the rest of the real world. The Ferris Wheel is fucking scary. Unlike roller coasters where you ascend a certain height and from there on out you’re experiencing a fun family thrill ride of a life time, the Ferris Wheel is different. You’re just dangling who-knows how many feet in the air, taunting God and waiting for Him to unleash all sorts of divine whoop-ass on you and send you plummeting to your certain and inevitable death. And Jon and Emily had the gall to call these completely normal feelings of mine "paranoid."
However, Emily persuaded me to go on using the same method my mother would utilize to get me to do any chores, homework, college application, or apartment lease I ever had to complete: she promised to buy me ice cream (left, delicious).
Maybe because we were only going 1mph and
maybe because we never ascended higher than the height of my old tree house, but it actually wasn’t that bad, and in fact maybe a little fun. I felt .8% more of a man that day for finally conquering my fears, and in a way I never felt more alive.
Though that didn’t stop me from bawling and crying the whole time we were on. Or for the five hours after we got off it.
Powerhour Returns / Some Dude from Gray's Anatomy
It had been over four months but on Easter Emily and I finally awoke our old partying lifestyles and borderline drinking problems by doing the one activity that has pretty much defined our friendship since the moment we met: POWER HOUR.
Just in case you hate fun or something and have never heard of a power hour, allow me to explain it to your square, narc ass. A power hour is a shot of beer every minute for an entire hour. And you know when a minute is up every time the song changes on your iTunes (an application called iPowerhour will automatically switch to a random portion of the song every minute). To do this though, we had to get shot glasses, so we went to a little gift shop where apparently and according to Emily some guy who played a character named Denny on Gray's Anatomy was in line right behind me. Having both of our genitals securely in tact, this was lost on Carter and I as we have never watched Gray's Anatomy. But apparently it was this guy, whose name is Jeffrey Dean Morgan.
It's a very good thing I didn't notice him at first because I clearly would've been lost in his mysterious yet undoubtedly gentle gaze.
However we went back home and finally did a successful power hour. Below is the playlist of champions:
All songs listed in red are ones that you should be thankful to be alive if you play them on the west cost.
Devil in Jersey City - Coheed and Cambria
Smooth - Santana feat. Rob Thomas
Wonderwall - Oasis
This Love - Maroon 5
It Ain't No Fun (If The Homies Can't Have None) Snoop Dogg feat. Warren G, Nate Dogg and Kurrupt
Californication - Red Hot Chilli Peppers
Clocks - Coldplay
Intergalactic - Beastie Boys
Forgot About Dre - Dr. Dre feat. Eminem
Ziplock - Lit
Juicy - Notorious B.I.G.
In Bloom - Nirvana
Sittin' At a Bar (The Bartender Song) - Rehab
How To Succeed In the Music Business (Without Really Trying) - Hollywood Ave
Sweetness - Jimmy Eat World
Smack That - Akon feat. Eminem
Crooked Teeth - Death Cab For Cutie
Good Girls, Bad Guys - DMX
Trippin' Billies - Dave Matthews Band
On to the Next One - Jay Z feat. Swizz Beta
All Star - Smash Mouth
The Science of Selling Yourself Short - Less Than Jake
Going Away to College - Blink 182
Nightswimming - R.E.M.
One Week - Barenaked Ladies
Love Story - Taylor Swift
The Next Episode - Dr. Dre feat. Snoop Dogg
Let's Make This Moment a Crime - The Format
I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing - Aerosmith
Closer to Free - Bodeans
1985 - Bowling for Soup
Fat Lip - Sum 41
High and Dry - Radiohead
Jude Law and a Semester Abroad - Brand New
Superman - Eminem feat. Dina Rae
Colt 45 - Afroman
My Name is Jonas - Weezer
Limelight - Rush
Dumpweed - Blink 182
Hands Down - Dashboard Confessional
Sk8er Boi - Avril Lavigne
More Than a Feeling - Boston
The Kids Aren't Alright - The Offspring
Hash Pipe - Weezer
Kiss From a Rose - Seal
Forever - Drake Feat. Kanye West, Lil Wayne, Eminem
Slide - Goo Goo Dolls
The Remedy - Jason Mraz
A Praise Chorus - Jimmy Eat World
Semi-Charmed Life - Third Eye Blind
At Your Funeral - Saves the Day
Feathers - Coheed and Cambria
Your Love - The Outfield
Basket Case - Green Day
3 A.M. - Matchbox Twenty
Free Fallin' - Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
What's the Difference - Dr. Dre feat. Xzibit and Eminem
Tonight, Tonight - Smashing Pumpkins
Piano Man - Billy Joel
La La Lie - Jack's Mannequin
Apparently, Emily has a "qualm" with some misinformation I posted. The song that she was afraid to play on the west coast wasn't "Juicy" but "Hypnotize." This totally makes the situation less ridiculous and I should be very ashamed of myself for journalistic embellishment.
Overcoming My Fears of the Ferris Wheel
Me: "Wow, that Ferris Wheel looks like its actually going pretty fast. Maybe we shouldn't go on it."
Emily: "..."
Jon: "..."
Alright, fine. I’ll admit it that even though the Ferris Wheel was going a little faster than usual, I’m sure whatever speed it was going didn’t signify immediate danger. But that’s not the point. I don’t know what sort of sadistic, backwater Siberian prison camp that Jon and Emily grew up on that made them completely numb to the emotion of fear, but not only were they unafraid of going on the Ferris Wheel, they were EXCITED to do so.
Not being the carefree, throw-caution-to-the-wind daredevils that my friends are, allow me to explain things to the rest of the real world. The Ferris Wheel is fucking scary. Unlike roller coasters where you ascend a certain height and from there on out you’re experiencing a fun family thrill ride of a life time, the Ferris Wheel is different. You’re just dangling who-knows how many feet in the air, taunting God and waiting for Him to unleash all sorts of divine whoop-ass on you and send you plummeting to your certain and inevitable death. And Jon and Emily had the gall to call these completely normal feelings of mine "paranoid."
However, Emily persuaded me to go on using the same method my mother would utilize to get me to do any chores, homework, college application, or apartment lease I ever had to complete: she promised to buy me ice cream (left, delicious).
Maybe because we were only going 1mph and
maybe because we never ascended higher than the height of my old tree house, but it actually wasn’t that bad, and in fact maybe a little fun. I felt .8% more of a man that day for finally conquering my fears, and in a way I never felt more alive.Though that didn’t stop me from bawling and crying the whole time we were on. Or for the five hours after we got off it.
Powerhour Returns / Some Dude from Gray's Anatomy
It had been over four months but on Easter Emily and I finally awoke our old partying lifestyles and borderline drinking problems by doing the one activity that has pretty much defined our friendship since the moment we met: POWER HOUR.Just in case you hate fun or something and have never heard of a power hour, allow me to explain it to your square, narc ass. A power hour is a shot of beer every minute for an entire hour. And you know when a minute is up every time the song changes on your iTunes (an application called iPowerhour will automatically switch to a random portion of the song every minute). To do this though, we had to get shot glasses, so we went to a little gift shop where apparently and according to Emily some guy who played a character named Denny on Gray's Anatomy was in line right behind me. Having both of our genitals securely in tact, this was lost on Carter and I as we have never watched Gray's Anatomy. But apparently it was this guy, whose name is Jeffrey Dean Morgan.
It's a very good thing I didn't notice him at first because I clearly would've been lost in his mysterious yet undoubtedly gentle gaze.
However we went back home and finally did a successful power hour. Below is the playlist of champions:
All songs listed in red are ones that you should be thankful to be alive if you play them on the west cost.
Devil in Jersey City - Coheed and Cambria
Smooth - Santana feat. Rob Thomas
Wonderwall - Oasis
This Love - Maroon 5
It Ain't No Fun (If The Homies Can't Have None) Snoop Dogg feat. Warren G, Nate Dogg and Kurrupt
Californication - Red Hot Chilli Peppers
Clocks - Coldplay
Intergalactic - Beastie Boys
Forgot About Dre - Dr. Dre feat. Eminem
Ziplock - Lit
Juicy - Notorious B.I.G.
In Bloom - Nirvana
Sittin' At a Bar (The Bartender Song) - Rehab
How To Succeed In the Music Business (Without Really Trying) - Hollywood Ave
Sweetness - Jimmy Eat World
Smack That - Akon feat. Eminem
Crooked Teeth - Death Cab For Cutie
Good Girls, Bad Guys - DMX
Trippin' Billies - Dave Matthews Band
On to the Next One - Jay Z feat. Swizz Beta
All Star - Smash Mouth
The Science of Selling Yourself Short - Less Than Jake
Going Away to College - Blink 182
Nightswimming - R.E.M.
One Week - Barenaked Ladies
Love Story - Taylor Swift
The Next Episode - Dr. Dre feat. Snoop Dogg
Let's Make This Moment a Crime - The Format
I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing - Aerosmith
Closer to Free - Bodeans
1985 - Bowling for Soup
Fat Lip - Sum 41
High and Dry - Radiohead
Jude Law and a Semester Abroad - Brand New
Superman - Eminem feat. Dina Rae
Colt 45 - Afroman
My Name is Jonas - Weezer
Limelight - Rush
Dumpweed - Blink 182
Hands Down - Dashboard Confessional
Sk8er Boi - Avril Lavigne
More Than a Feeling - Boston
The Kids Aren't Alright - The Offspring
Hash Pipe - Weezer
Kiss From a Rose - Seal
Forever - Drake Feat. Kanye West, Lil Wayne, Eminem
Slide - Goo Goo Dolls
The Remedy - Jason Mraz
A Praise Chorus - Jimmy Eat World
Semi-Charmed Life - Third Eye Blind
At Your Funeral - Saves the Day
Feathers - Coheed and Cambria
Your Love - The Outfield
Basket Case - Green Day
3 A.M. - Matchbox Twenty
Free Fallin' - Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
What's the Difference - Dr. Dre feat. Xzibit and Eminem
Tonight, Tonight - Smashing Pumpkins
Piano Man - Billy Joel
La La Lie - Jack's Mannequin
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Vacation Time Part 2: Movie Tunnel / LA Radio
Great Scott! The Tunnel from Back to the Future 2! (Our Trip to Griffith Observatory)You remember that bridge that Danny Glover and Mel Gibson drive under for a breif second in that scene from Lethal Weapon? No, you probably don't. And why? Cause you're a terrible Lethal Weapon fan. Those little details may pass over a fair-weather fan such as yourself but when it comes to people like Carter and I, we know every little thing about the movies we love. Including the specific tunnel that was in the climax of Back to the Future 2 (right, badass).
It only took five seconds for Carter to realize exactly where we were when drove under it. I'm not sure how he distinguished it from any other tunnel in the world, but once he pointed it out I knew it had to be true. And thanks to modern Internet, we were able to conclude this as accurate. While all you typical LA vacationers were hitting up your techno clubs and dive bars, me and Carter stood in the same place where Marty McFly retrieved the Almanac back from Biff, thus resetting the course of time and preventing the Doc from being institutionalized*. And yes, it was heavy.
*No, you're the fucking nerd.
LA Radio
You know that little cousin of yours that just started listening to popular music? And at first you think its really cute he's listening to top 40 stuff but then you start to get annoyed that all he/she is playing is the same eight songs over and over again? And then all you want to do is inject poison into his Capri Sun? Well guess what. That little cousin of yours has been elected program director for every single radio station in Los Angeles. Your poison wasn't potent enough.First of all, only half of the stations are in English, and only half of those are non-Christian gospel. So we're already working with about four regular radio stations here. And out of those four, none of them have a playlist that lasts longer than fifteen minutes before it starts replaying the same Lil John song you just heard a few moments ago. During Jon and Emily's stay I've heard Baby Bash's "Cyclone" almost 500 times and no, it doesn't get better every time you hear it*
*Total lie
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Vacation Time Part 1: Intro / Don't Play "Juicy" or You'll Die / Hot Tub Time Machine / Area Codes
On Thursday, I received a surprise visit from two of my BFFFFFFFFs (all the extra F’s are for more and more fun!) Emily and Jon. Having pretty much spent the majority of my time in LA working, it was amazing to have finally had the “LA experience” and, more importantly, have fun. Here’s the first part of a couple of stories from the vacation. There’ll be plenty more to come in the following days.
Note: These are not in chronological order.
“Is it Okay to Play This Song in CA?” asks Emily Noonan
There’s nothing wrong with being precautious. But there’s a fine line between being overly attentive/alert and not really understanding how the world works. When Emily and Jon first got into their rental car, they turned on the radio to find the song “Juicy” by Notorious B.I.G. playing. And once those grooves hit Emily’s eardrums she realized what exactly they have just done. She had to say something to Jon, otherwise who knows what consequences there could have been and Emily Noonan wasn’t about to have her vacation ruined by senseless violence. She exclaims:
“Wait! Are you sure it’s okay to be playing this song in California?”
Emily is of course referring to the brutal hip-hop rivalry between LA’s Tupac Shakur and New York’s Biggie Smalls that divided rap fans into “east coast” and “west coast.” It was a brutal, senseless war that resulted in terrible things like someone saying
“I like Tupac” only to be countered with something as disgusting and devastating as “Oh yeah? Well I kinda like Biggie.” It was awful. And it’s probably something we shouldn’t be fearing our lives over 15 years later. Call me glib, but I’m pretty sure it’s safe to play music that was made in a recording studio on the other side of the country without having to worry about whether or not someone is going to murder you for it.
Then again, when I get drawn and quartered for being a little bit country in a place that’s a little bit more rock’n’roll, I’ll admit that I should’ve heeded the warning from Emily.
Hot Tub Time Machine Makes Our Insides Sad:
Maybe because of sleep deprivation or maybe we needed to find a place to hide from the angry mob of people who heard us blasting “Hypnotize” in our car, but for some reason we all made the decision to actually pay hard earned dollar to see Hot Tub Time Machine.
Have you ever been talking with a friend, and one of you makes a joke that’s so bad you actually lose your faith in humanity for a moment? Well seeing Hot Tub Time Machine is like that moment only 90 minutes longer. It’s the kind of experience where you’re not too sure if you’ll ever be happy again. The movie is so bad I don’t even want to make fun of it, as much as I want to bury it deep down inside of my memory and hope it never comes up again. I’m not sure if there are any blocked-out memories of me being molested somewhere deep in my conscious, but I’d much rather have to deal with that than the memory of actually seeing this movie. Hot Tub Time Machine would be the perfect film to torture terrorists with if it weren’t for the fact that the torturing supervisor would probably kill himself too. If any country wanted to stop our military, all they would have to do is show them this movie because it will cause anybody who sees it to lose their will to fight for anything they’ve ever believed in. It’s that bad.
If anyone out there is even considering seeing Hot Tub Time Machine, please just say no. You have family and friends who love you. Consult suicide hotlines if you need to, just please don’t ever watch a minute of this movie. Chose life!
Area Codes = CITY PRIDE!!!! But no, they don't.
Our friend Helena wanted me to write about people who refer to the place they live by the first three digits you'd have to dial on a telephone if you wanted to actually contact them. You know what I mean. Every now and then one of your friends who lives on your floor will tell you that they are "going back to livin easy in the 978 for the weekend" (Lazares, Facebook) and you're left pondering what exactly these numbers mean and why it makes life so easily livable.
The problem I have with these people is that they expect me to do too much work in order to find out where they live. I have to either a.) look it up on google or b.) ask them where the "978" is and probably have to listen to more stories about it. And I sure as hell don't care enough to do either.
So seriously, as Helena says, just say you're going home for Easter and stop talking.
Note: These are not in chronological order.
“Is it Okay to Play This Song in CA?” asks Emily Noonan
There’s nothing wrong with being precautious. But there’s a fine line between being overly attentive/alert and not really understanding how the world works. When Emily and Jon first got into their rental car, they turned on the radio to find the song “Juicy” by Notorious B.I.G. playing. And once those grooves hit Emily’s eardrums she realized what exactly they have just done. She had to say something to Jon, otherwise who knows what consequences there could have been and Emily Noonan wasn’t about to have her vacation ruined by senseless violence. She exclaims:
“Wait! Are you sure it’s okay to be playing this song in California?”
Emily is of course referring to the brutal hip-hop rivalry between LA’s Tupac Shakur and New York’s Biggie Smalls that divided rap fans into “east coast” and “west coast.” It was a brutal, senseless war that resulted in terrible things like someone saying
“I like Tupac” only to be countered with something as disgusting and devastating as “Oh yeah? Well I kinda like Biggie.” It was awful. And it’s probably something we shouldn’t be fearing our lives over 15 years later. Call me glib, but I’m pretty sure it’s safe to play music that was made in a recording studio on the other side of the country without having to worry about whether or not someone is going to murder you for it.Then again, when I get drawn and quartered for being a little bit country in a place that’s a little bit more rock’n’roll, I’ll admit that I should’ve heeded the warning from Emily.
Hot Tub Time Machine Makes Our Insides Sad:
Maybe because of sleep deprivation or maybe we needed to find a place to hide from the angry mob of people who heard us blasting “Hypnotize” in our car, but for some reason we all made the decision to actually pay hard earned dollar to see Hot Tub Time Machine.
Have you ever been talking with a friend, and one of you makes a joke that’s so bad you actually lose your faith in humanity for a moment? Well seeing Hot Tub Time Machine is like that moment only 90 minutes longer. It’s the kind of experience where you’re not too sure if you’ll ever be happy again. The movie is so bad I don’t even want to make fun of it, as much as I want to bury it deep down inside of my memory and hope it never comes up again. I’m not sure if there are any blocked-out memories of me being molested somewhere deep in my conscious, but I’d much rather have to deal with that than the memory of actually seeing this movie. Hot Tub Time Machine would be the perfect film to torture terrorists with if it weren’t for the fact that the torturing supervisor would probably kill himself too. If any country wanted to stop our military, all they would have to do is show them this movie because it will cause anybody who sees it to lose their will to fight for anything they’ve ever believed in. It’s that bad.If anyone out there is even considering seeing Hot Tub Time Machine, please just say no. You have family and friends who love you. Consult suicide hotlines if you need to, just please don’t ever watch a minute of this movie. Chose life!
Area Codes = CITY PRIDE!!!! But no, they don't.
Our friend Helena wanted me to write about people who refer to the place they live by the first three digits you'd have to dial on a telephone if you wanted to actually contact them. You know what I mean. Every now and then one of your friends who lives on your floor will tell you that they are "going back to livin easy in the 978 for the weekend" (Lazares, Facebook) and you're left pondering what exactly these numbers mean and why it makes life so easily livable.
The problem I have with these people is that they expect me to do too much work in order to find out where they live. I have to either a.) look it up on google or b.) ask them where the "978" is and probably have to listen to more stories about it. And I sure as hell don't care enough to do either.
So seriously, as Helena says, just say you're going home for Easter and stop talking.
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