Slowly Going Bald

So, there's a near-constant stream of snacks flowing through my office, and today one of the guys in another department brought in some peaches, and cut up some and gave them to my department on a plate. Free fruit is always appreciated.

The new guy in my department saunters up to the plate. He's a nice guy, but probably the ditziest man I have ever met; it's like a gay Ken doll come to life. Anyway, he grabs a peach and takes a bite and says, "These are good." And in the instant that he does that, I see Chris Farley dressed as one of the Gap Girls, saying the exact same thing with the exact same inflection. It happens around the 0:12 mark:

I was floored by the fact that the new guy is so gay he sounds like Farley in drag, and went half-crazy with excitement about my discovery. I shared what I'd found with a coworker, and she completely agreed.

So, that's the new guy.

Those of you with Facebook accounts can see more photos here.

In short: It was a huge, crazy event, and the crowds were often terrifying. And I want to go again next year.

UPDATE: There's a geek fight going on in the comment thread over at Pajiba. If this thing keeps escalating someone's gonna throw their TI-82, and then the gloves will be off.

For those interested, I am blogging from Comic-Con over at THR's Risky Biz Blog. Check it out.

More in-depth info later.

EXT. — HOUSE IN THE VALLEY

The bright sun beats down on a completely average house somewhere in the San Fernando Valley. A few black cords are visible snaking from the front door and into a white panel truck parked in the driveway. The sprinklers kick on. It's hot.

INT. — HOUSE IN THE VALLEY

The buxom TERRA FIRMA stands before a bathroom mirror, idly brushing her hair, naked.

In walks JOHNNY COXSWAIN, wearing only a towel around his waist and carrying a small cup of frozen yogurt that he's eating with a spoon.

They walk off screen, as the music rises.

It seems that many, if not most, of my youth group memories involve a trip of some kind, usually to one of the weeklong summer camps that are so prevalent throughout the South and Midwest. They're often held on the campuses of Christian colleges/universities, presumably because even a secular campus can have corrosive effects on the spiritual development of impressionable teenagers, but the location is often secondary to the fact that anywhere you put young men and women together and lecture them about moral propriety as the girls idly pick at the frayed hems of their summer shorts and the boys stare at the girls' legs and try not to fall over dead in wonder — well, the situation takes on a life of its own.

My youth group attended several camps each summer, but the main attraction was a camp in a tiny town in Nebraska, which took a usually brutal 15-hour ride in one of those big white Ford passenger vans to reach. (Regular readers of this feature will remember that this series actually started with my fuzzy memories of one of my youth group colleagues regaling a small group of us guys with the sketchy details of the brief fellatio he'd received on the van, but since apparently he was lying a little back then or my memory was way off [and it's probably a combination of the two], I should here point out that no one went down on anyone, at least on that particular trip up to Nebraska. Besides, the logistics are mind-boggling; those benches are close together.) But though the van trips were often fun, they were mostly filled with dead time, and we usually entertained ourselves by playing cards, reading, or listening to music.

One summer toward the end of my time in the youth group, the youth minister, operating under the same kind of misguided hypocrisy that had previously led him to swear off R-rated movies but continue to view them on his own, declared that while we the teens would still be allowed to bring our personal CD players on the trip¹, we would be prohibited from listening to any artists that weren't Christian. I had a big problem with this, as the only Christian artist I enjoyed at that time was Caedmon's Call, since they had the honesty to sing about doubt and boredom. But at 17, I was a painfully big fan of Dave Matthews Band, and the thought of sitting in a van for 15 hours without being able to listen to "Rapunzel" whenever I wanted to was intolerable. The youth minister even checked our luggage as we set off on the trip. I'd like to believe that the vague anti-authoritarian stance and general dickheadedness, as well as a desire to flaunt this man's stupid rules, that defined my personality at that age meant that I managed to sneak a wallet or two of my secular, hellbound music onto the van, and I really think that's a possibility. But the truth is I don't even remember.

The youth intern was responsible for enforcing the rules, too; he was a frenetic, almost jolly kid of 21 who had already gotten on the youth minister's bad side by (a) befriending me, since the youth minister didn't like me all that much, and (b) organizing the night when some of us TP'd the youth minister's house and scattered pickle chunks in his garden, the smell of which did not sit well with his pregnant and occasionally bitchy wife. The intern inspected one young girl's music and told her that the James Taylor CD she was packing was unacceptable; when he refused to yield, the girl complained to the youth minister, who then told the intern that the JT was fine. "I don't care if it's not Christian, I just don't want the loud stuff," he told the intern. That guy. You know? Just ... man.

The camps themselves were sweaty, confusing affairs built around spending a week in a group of 25 or so kids, most of whom were from other churches or other states, so you could experience all your emotional growth and breakdowns in front of total strangers. The Nebraska camp had a lot of ups and downs, especially when it came to sex. Most teens are already boiling in their own confusion when it comes to relationships — or at any rate, the guys are — but church camp adds another level of guilt by adding the fate of your immortal soul to the mix; touch that girl, and you could be lost forever. So of course, in an environment that scolds its young for expressing the frightening changes they're going through, you wind up playing a lot of sexually charged (for kids, at least) games, the most notorious of which was Kiss and Tackle. Everyone stands in a circle and is assigned either a number or letter by gender, and the ensuing game is a mashup of Duck Duck Goose that gives kids an excuse to run around after each other and attempt to kiss someone. This is intimidating for any geek worth his salt at age 15, but against the women of Grapevine it could be downright terrifying. It was as if every horrible dream you never admitted to yourself you had was being acted out before you in a grassy field in the Nebraska sun, and was condoned by grownups.

That's what the camps were: A heady amalgamation of sexual wonderings and spiritual longing, where genuine change went hand in hand with the desire to score, or at least get some NCMO. Getting the non-commitment makeout, a mugging session with no strings attached, was the holy grail of these trips; my roommate got some all the time, so I guess wearing those Rollerblades everywhere really worked for him. One year, returning from camp, riding in a Suburban that had been brought for luggage, I held forth on the girl with whom I'd crossed the magical Rubicon, a brunette with long hair and a nice smile from somewhere I can't remember. My NCMO story was total bullshit, since all I'd done was hold her hand and walk her back to her dorm, but I felt somehow obliged to confess something big, as if we'd been busted by the youth ministers while she was giving me a lapdance or something. I don't even remember her name now, or what she looked like, just the shape of her shadow on the concrete. Those camps were something else.

<sup>1. Ah, life before the iPod.
2. She was a classic '90s Kojie: Kind of hot, wicked mean streak.</sup>

Oh Purple Jenny!

Always lying by the pool
in your purple two-piece.
That's how we named you.

Sure, the pool isn't always clean
or even safe. And no one knows
what to do about the algae.
We've checked.

But that doesn't stop you from
dragging out the big white plastic chair and
getting some sun. Stretched out, baking,
swimming in the valley's own heat.
And then halfway through you flip over
and untie your top and
just lie there.

Thanks for that.

Oh Purple Jenny!
Why do you live in our apartment complex of elderly citizens?
Do you have a cat? Or are you just cheap like us?
The only other younger people I've seen here
are the Armenian family.
Jenny, you're not Armenian.

Oh Purple Jenny!
What do you do all day?
Sometimes you're out there at like
2 p.m. on a Friday. Don't you work?
I don't work Fridays.
Maybe you're a barista, or another
waitress waiting to be discovered.
Not exactly novel, but then, that's L.A.

Oh Purple Jenny!
Where are you from? I guess it doesn't matter.
Enjoy the pool.

P.S. My roommate thinks you're hot.

I was strolling through the ArcLight on Friday, enjoying the quietness of the hall back by theater 5 and just generally happy to once again be at the best theater in town, when I saw this poster for Shoot ’Em Up, which appears to be an action-comedy:

I say “appears” because the tagline is willfully cheeky and is juxtaposed against the image of Clive Owen brandishing a gun in order to stand out from the pack of other movie ads, but that's really beside the point. The actual problem is a huge one, and I want you to say it all with me:

An apostrophe is not a quotation mark.

The error is egregious, and right there for everyone to see:

It’s not that the designers of the poster didn’t know they needed an apostrophe to indicate the “th” that had been dropped from “them” in the title. But they used the wrong punctuation for it, confusing an apostrophe with a single open-quote, which is absolutely incorrect. Here’s an example of an apostrophe:

Here’s an open-quote mark:

These are different things. You cannot interchange the two; this is not up for discussion. It’s possible to sidestep this issue entirely by using a simple vertical line instead of a curved or “smart” quote, as IMDb does on their page about the film:

But in most instances, smart-quotes are used, and that means that the designer should have had the basic training to know the difference between an apostrophe and a quote mark. Did New Line not think it was important to hire an ad company that employed copy editors?

This will bug me every time I see the poster. Every time.

• Let's go to that new place, Reservations Only ... in my pants.

• You got more ass than Walling Lecture Hall.

• You've f**ked more Siggies than Stafford loans.

• You've trimmed more bush than Physical Resources.

• You've seen more boobs than all those bastard DT babies.

• Baby, you get my Cafe all Hardwood.

• Do you wanna join my Spring Break Campaign and help me explore missionary positions?

• Hey, I've got a Tower of Light for you ... in my pants. Yeah, I said it again.

• I spent all night showing her my Sing Song face.

• She went down faster than a Kojie trying to earn a Sub-T sweatshirt.

[I think it's safe to say that my honorary doctorate will probably be delayed a bit now, and the Gutenberg thing doesn't exactly seem likely, either.]

Rescue Dawn

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

"Studio 60": What Kind of Show Has it Been?
[Willamette Week]

Talk to Me

Not horrible, not great. Good start, weak ending. If you really need to read more, here you go:

Click here for the review.

So, today marks my first column for the Willamette Week. I'll be writing about TV, which makes me happy, since some of the best conversations I've ever had have been about season-long character arcs for people who don't exist. Anyway:

Click here for the column.

P.S. When I was a freshman in college, I stubbed my toe on the bookshelf (or something) in my dorm room, and uttered a barking "Dammit!" Immediately, my roommate said, "Janet," and then we turned to each other and sang "I love you" in a rough harmony. I don't even like that movie that much, but you have to admit, that's a pretty awesome moment.

P.P.S. My apologies to any residents of Willamette or the greater Portland area who don't like the fact that I don't actually live in Oregon. But I've been assured by my editors that the TV shows broadcast in Los Angeles are almost exactly the same as the ones shown in the Pacific Northwest, so I think everything will work out.

It all goes by really quickly. It's kind of a blur, actually.

Click here for the review.

100%The Movie Quiz

That's right.

Again: That's right.

58%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

This seems a little arbitrary, but then, there's some truth to it.

This was actually surprising. Apparently I used "hell" four times (believable), "shit" three times (less so, but there's one more mention), "porn" twice (seems low), and "ecstasy" once (I can't believe I'm being penalized because the quiz can't differentiate between the drug and the feeling).

60% Geek

Also not that surprising. I know some geek stuff, but let's face it, I also call tech support. Sometimes you just get tired of printer maintenance. Though I am happy that I finally get points for knowing who Smaug is.

45%

I can't run very far, but then again, I've never had the kind of adrenaline pumping through me that I imagine a zombie invasion would produce. Still, I think my lack of physical prowess is balanced my ability to find a hiding place and look for weapons, as well as my willingness to kill my friends if they became zombies.

• "Wrestling is opera for men who don't know they're gay yet."

• "She's hot. Every time she walks by, I want to sing 'Take My Breath Away.'"
"What does that girl have to do with Top Gun?"
"Nothing. That's just the best song to sing when someone hot walks by."

The very first photo taken with my new camera: My desk at work. Hooray.

I freehanded this drawing of Master Shake. Yes, that's right; I'm that good. A coworker printed out little pictures of his hands and taped them on, but let's face it, that's some kick-ass freehand artwork right there.

...More to come.

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On one hand, I managed to beat Manny; on the other hand, I feel I may have flirted with cheating because when it asked about my hair, I chose "short" instead of "bald," since really it's just balding in that one area.

• So, Big is the weirdest comedy about child kidnapping I've ever seen. Josh's dad is almost completely absent, despite having what appears to be a healthy marriage, mainly because the presence of another parent would complicate things and introduce all kinds of questions like: Why haven't the parents called in the police or the feds? The movie is presented from the kid's view, which makes it lighthearted, but Josh's mom must've been eaten alive nightly by the terror of what must be happening to her boy, who's been missing for months. And then at one point Josh writes a letter to his mom set to a montage of baseball and video games, as if the film wants to mock her for worrying so. Sure, granted, Josh's actions aren't completely incomprehensible. He moves into a loft, buys a soda machine, and sleeps with Elizabeth Perkins; all pretty plausible fantasties for a kid in 1988. But there's a dark side to the story that's shoved to the corner, and it always feels weird to watch the adult Josh play with toys and order pizza when his mom is at home crying her eyes out.

• Back to the Future: Part III ends with an admittedly cheesy send-off from Doc Brown that the future isn't written yet, and you can make it whatever you want, so "make it a good one." And that's all fine, I guess. But if the future isn't set, then traveling from the established present into, say, 2015 wouldn't be traveling into the actual future, merely one of the possible futures available from your particular present. So while Marty went forward in time in the second movie to save his kid's reputation, it's not merely feasible, but highly likely that something else happened in the intervening 30 years to re-ruin the life of Marty Jr. Not to mention the headaches caused by going into the past to change the present, which would theoretically give Marty two entirely different and warring sets of childhood memories, one in which he's a poor loser and the other in which his family is well-off and seems to employ Biff as a house servant/man-slave. These two completely independent lives would likely split Marty's brain apart, but instead he just hops into a pretty weak-looking truck and drives around with Jennifer instead of succumbing to the eventual psychosis brought on by one consciousness attempting to contain two separate but equally true histories. What gives?

From today's sermon:

"Jesus commanded us to reach around the neighborhoods."

I had to bite my tongue so hard I almost bled. And I still laughed.

transformers

transformers boxoffice

transformers boxoffice records

transformers are they real

robots and humans interacting

impending robot war

how to survive a possible robot war

how to befriend and possibly train a robot

things to feed a robot

seriously do women care about the whole bald thing

macarthur high school

macarthur alumni who have gone downhill

macarthur alumni i am more successful than

securing your apartment against robot attacks

normal people who read comic books

recipes using leftover steak

how to build your own robot for defense

flip-flops

apocrypha about the kessel run

constructing a robot from old kia parts

can a robot develop consciousness

can a robot build you a lightsaber

what to do when your robot eventually decides to kill you

A great movie, and another solid performance from Christian Bale:

Click here for the review.

Also, the headline for the review is "Wings of Desire," which I know is a film by Wim Wenders, not Herzog. But (a) the title fits, and I like it, plus (b) they're both New German filmmakers, so (c) please don't point that out for me like I don't know it. Okay? Okay.

It seems I just can't help myself when it comes to making these mixes. Part of it is because I constantly listen to CDs in the car, and am always looking for ways to shuffle up my music collection. And, as I've said before, I enjoy sharing music with people and having them point me toward new bands or artists I haven't discovered yet. But I suppose the biggest part of it is just that I love this music. My buddy Collins and I use this music as a litmus test of human emotion and relational compatibility: He recently said of a girl, "She likes our kind of music," an excited stamp of approval the Rob Gordons of the world will surely understand. I even made an alt-country primer CD for my dad a couple Christmases ago because it's one of the surest ways I know to communicate with someone when words just won't do. If you want to understand me, then watch Rushmore, read some Chabon, and give these songs a listen.

This mix is brand spanking new, as well, which I think adds to the nicely spread out nature of the alt-country mixes I've been making. The first one took shape when I was in college, the second in early 2005, the third in summer 2006, and now this one for the dog days of 2007. It also comes in at 23 tracks, the longest mix yet; I just can't help myself, I guess. As always, I've provided iTunes links where available, but you might have to keep an eye on the clearance rack of your local used CD store if you want to snag some of the tracks. Without further ado:

Alt 5.0
1. "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me," The Jayhawks — If I ever made a playlist called Shimmery Guitar Pop That Restores My Faith In Humanity And Belief In Love When All The Evidence Would Persuade Me Otherwise, this song would be at the top. Further proof that Gary Louis needed Mark Olson like Jeff Tweedy needed Jay Farrar, which is to say quite a bit at the beginning but then later, not so much. Also, the terrible thing about iTunes is that The Jawhawks' Smile isn't available, so this song is only offered on their "Dawson's Creek" soundtrack. Please don't let that ruin the song for you.

2. "Medicine," Bob Schneider — This guy needs to be getting more attention.

3. "Pecan Pie," Golden Smog — Speaking of Tweedy and Louris, you pretty much can't go wrong with an alt-country supergroup like this one. Incidentally, my Golden Smog name is Weldon Briarcroft, which sounds either gay or British or both.

4. "16 Days," Whiskeytown — I'm pretty sure Strangers Almanac was the first real alt-country album I ever owned, and you could do a damn sight worse as an introduction to the field. This was the first Whiskeytown song I full-on loved.

5. "The Stranger's Lament," King Straggler — A great band fronted by John Hawkes, of "Deadwood" and Me and You and Everyone We Know fame. I saw them perform at Crane's on El Centro one night, or anyway I wanted to, but it was midnight and they still hadn't gone on and I had work the next day, so I just went home, happy to be rid of the cramped porch full of smoking hipsters who were probably wondering how it was physically possible for me to sweat that much without being hospitalized. This is a good album, though.

6. "Return of the Grievous Angel," Gram Parsons — The creator of cosmic American music and the forefather to pretty much every alt-country band working today, even if they don't know it. I wish my life were as epic as this song.

7. "A Break in the Clouds," The Jayhawks — Another pop masterpiece. "Every time that I see your face, it's like cool, cool water running down my back." Who doesn't love a line like that? That's one of my favorite lyrics ever, along with the one from "Oppenheimer," by Old 97's, that goes, "Tar on the roof, there were stars in her hair, beneath the quarter moon, beneath the quarter moon." Anyway, back to the point: Good song.

8. "Heaven or the Highway Out of Town," The Refreshments — I haven't given a lot of love to Roger Clyne's old band (or his new one, later on this mix) on any of these CDs, which is in part because his music isn't quite up to snuff in some ways, and his latest album is so atrocious it's as if he's given up on being even a remotely competent songwriter. Still, he put out some good music with The Refreshments, and this track, from their second album, The Bottle & Fresh Horses, is great country-rock.

9. "Now She's Gone," Steve Earle — I Feel Alright is one of those albums I loved from the moment I heard the first notes, and this song is one of the strongest on there. Earle is hardcore; this guy went to prison, kicked his heroin habit while he was behind bars, and released a pair of comeback albums upon his release, one of which was I Feel Alright. I will never screw with Steve Earle.

10. "Truth No. 2," Dixie Chicks — A woman who can play the banjo is pretty much tops in my book.

11. "Christine's Tune," The Flying Burrito Brothers — Parsons and Hillman doing their thing, and it's amazing, as always.

12. "A Little Bit Lonesome," Kasey Chambers — A wonderful, old-school sound. Her Australian accent makes her Southern country numbers unique.

13. "San Antonio Girl," Lyle Lovett — I'm admittedly predisposed to love any song that name-checks Mi Tierra and Highway 16 and generally makes me ache a little for home, but this is also an awesome country-swing number from My Baby Don't Tolerate, which you should all go purchase immediately.

14. "Coahuila," Old 97's — The only song with lead guitarist Ken Bethea handling the lead vocals, and it does what the genre does best: It mixes great music with lyrics of surprising pain and honesty. Great song for driving, or drinking.

15. "A Little Hung Over You," Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers — The closest Clyne will ever come to the genuine honky-tonk rock he was only moderately skilled at appropriating. But it's a good one.

16. "I'm Leavin' Now," Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard — Why aren't more of Cash's American recordings available on iTunes? Anyway. A friend of mine put this on a mix tape for me when I graduated college, and I mean like an actual tape, not CD. I wore that thing down from listening to it so much, and I doubt it would be good for too many more runs through a tape player, if I even had access to one. But this is a fantastic song, and the screw-you-I'm-doing-my-own-thing mentality is a helpful one to adopt if moving across the country. Best line of the song: "Wouldn't trade a nickel for another buck, livin' on muscle, guts, and luck." Amen.

17. "Foot of the Bed," Tres Chicas — Beautiful, sad, and sweet. I loves me some Caitlin Cary.

18. "In My Hour of Darkness," Gram Parsons — I think G.P./Grievous Angel should be issued to everyone as a requirement for being a decent person.

19. "City Girls," Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers — Another great Clyne song.

20. "If My Heart Was a Car," Old 97's — Straight-ahead Texas-based country-rock, with Rhett Miller's perfect howl holding it all together.

21. "Live Free," Son Volt — Yet another great lyric: "I wanna see your smile through a pay phone." Either these songwriters have lived some really terrible lives, or they're great at faking it.

22. "Three Days," Thermadore — I first heard this song on the Zero Effect soundtrack, which my buddy Collins and I each owned, having seen the movie together and loved it. (I will always remain disappointed that Bill Pullman's song never made it on the album, which is still a pretty great soundtrack.) We also each at one point picked up Thermadore's only album, Monkey on Rico, on the strength of this song, but after a couple runs through the CD it became clear why they weren't a success. Avoid their album, but pick up this song.

23. "3 Chords," Shurman — A fantastic album closer from Shurman's EP, which is only sporadically in print. If you have a choice between the EP and their debut album, Jubilee, just get the EP.

Enjoy.