tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-88598493441809144372024-02-08T07:34:09.296-08:00THE LEX DIARIESLexGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15868677491486898267noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8859849344180914437.post-44751842710928235262016-12-01T18:06:00.001-08:002016-12-01T18:13:38.869-08:00SPEC SCRIPT SAMPLE 1 = IMPORTANT<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>EXT NIGHT. HOLLYWOOD AND HIGHLAND.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Outside the CHINESE THEATRE, a crowded premiere is wrapping
up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Flash cubes are popping like fucking
vaudeville.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moviegoers are rolling out
of this HISTORIC FIXTURE of L.A.
moviegoing.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>THE LEXMAN, 41, wearing a cocked-sideways KC ROYALS
FLAT-FRIM and CAMO SHORTS, WALLET CHAIN, tubby but awesome, ratty beard, is
FIRING UP A WINSTON, looky-looing the exiting patrons, journos, and
HIGH-ROLLERS.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>WHOOSH CHYRON, JOHN STOCKWELL-TONY SCOTT STYLE ON FREEZE
FRAME/GRAINVISION:</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>“LEXG. 41. INTERNET TROLL. FAVORITE CELEBRITY TO WHACK OFF
TO = SCARLETT JOHANSSON.”</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>CAMERA SHUTTERS CLICK as starlets and wannabes exit in a
Fellini-Stardust Memories surreal fantasia, like some wack calliope music
ambient on the track, maybe like a MUSETTE or some fucking shit.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Then THE MAN OF THE HOUR rolls out, KEVIN SARACI, a doughy,
DON CALFA-LOOKING movie blog stereotypical PC rodjob fucking nerd, 41, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>in a “PICARD OWNS” T-shirt covered in SAL’S
PIZZZZA-REA stains, smugly smoking a cigarette with a PETER O’TOOLE cig holder,
other TUBBY NERDS all over his dick waiting for his pompous pronouncement.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>The CROWD SILENCES as MAESTRO SARACI looks to the divine to
summon something PROFOUND….</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span>SARACI</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 4;"> </span>It
is a masterpiece.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>WHOOSH CHYRON FREEZE-FRAME, READS “KEVIN SARACI. BLOWHARD
MOVIE BLOGGER. FAVORITE CELEBRITY TO WHACK OFF TO = SAILOR MOON…..(pause, fades
up) SECOND CHOICE, GLORIA STEINEM.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>The crowd APPLAUDS and a little ZITHER RIFF plays on the
track, THE CRITIC having deigned to give approval like a Roman King from ON
HIGH….</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Autograph hounds and Junket Whores SWARM Sir Saraci, but
something to the side catches his attention.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>He spies LEXMAN, leaning against the wall, cig in mouth,
NIKE AIR ALPHA FORCE wedged up on the wall.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>SARACI knows this guy…</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>SARACI pushes aside the throngs of admirers and the DIN OF
NOISE quiets on the soundtrack to surreal, ambient Michael Mann eerie silence….The
bright lights in the background are in that SMEARY MIDNIGHT RUN
VEGAS-SCENE-VISION….</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span></b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 2.0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 2.0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<b>SARACI</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span>Hey.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span>LEXMAN</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 4;"> </span>Hey.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span>SARACI</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 4;"> </span>Don’t
I know you?</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span>LEXMAN</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 4;"> </span>Yeah,
you know me.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span>SARACI</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 4;"> </span>What
do I know?</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>WHOOSH CUT TO:</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>INT NIGHT. BAY-LIT COMPUTER TERMINAL.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>LEXMAN typing on a blog with a pic of a FAT GUY WITH HIS DICK
OUT, JERKING IT.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>CLOSE ON:</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>LEXMAN TYPES:</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>“Your a fag!!! Eat my balls” – Lexman420</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>WHOOSH CUT TO:</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>INT. DAY. A WIDE, BRIGHTLY LIT POOL OUT OF A OLIVIER MEGATON
MOVIE.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Classic music, the DUET FROM LAKME is playing, as SARACI is
typing at a huge BANK OF SERVERS worthy of Hugh Jackman in fucking SWORDFISH.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>SARACI reads the “your a fag” message, types into his text
box.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>“You are blocked, banned, and a sexist, racist, homophobe,”
hits ENTER, then leans back with a knowing smirk.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>A GREEK NYMPHET out of FELLINI’S CASANOVA feeds him grapes.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>CUT BACK TO:</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>EXT. NIGHT. OUTSIDE THE CHINESE.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Same as before, read up motherfucker….</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span>LEXMAN</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 4;"> </span>I
know you hate me.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span>SARACI</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 4;"> </span>Nah,
that’s just a shtick. </b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span>LEXMAN</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 4;"> </span>Oh,
yeah?</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span>SARACI,
Presidio-style</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 4;"> </span>Yeah.
</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span>LEXMAN</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 4;"> </span>Wanna
cause some fucking chaos?</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span>SARACI</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 4;"> </span>Okay.
Let’s do it.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>LEXMAN steps off the wall, flicking the cig away, ROMERO in
ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK style, as IN THE AIR TONIGHT kicks in on the track.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>INT. NIGHT.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>PARKING
GARAGE.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>As the DRUM INTO KICKS IN, LEXMAN is BEHIND THE WHEEL of a
1990 BENZ, convertible, TOP DOWN, the lighting some TERMINATOR-BLACK MOON
RISING vaguely ‘80s SOFT FOCUS shit…. SARACI riding shotgun, serious as
motherfucking Rico Tubbs.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>When the dialogue kicks in, it’s a little off….</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span></b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span>LEXMAN
(doubtful)</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span>Thought
you were kind of a PC liberal pussy?</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span>SARACI.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span>That’s
just for those pussies upstairs.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>PROFOUND PAUSE, COLLINS SWELLS.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They fist-bump.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span>LEXMAN</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span>Right
on.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>They roll up to the attendant and LEXMAN has the TICKET IN
HIS MOUTH MCQUEEN GETAWAY STYLE…. The CASHIER is a ZOMBIFIED, bored chick in
BLONDE RINGLETS ‘80s hair.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That framing
shit where it RACKS FOCUS to reveal her.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span>LEXMAN</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span>‘Sup,
hotness?</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>She CRACKS HER GUM.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span>CASHIER</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>$15, guys.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>In TANDEM, LEXMAN and SARACI put on some RAY-BAN WAYFARERS,
and LEXMAN flicks a $20 at her with UTMOST contempt.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span>LEXMAN</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 4;"> </span>Keep
it.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>The ARM RAISES and from behind we see THE BENZ roll up, out of
the lot, HANGING ON THE SHOT A BEAT TOO LONG in PURE MANN VISION.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>CUT TO:</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>EXT. NIGHT. HOLLYWOOD
BOULEVARD.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>REFLECTIONS of NEON and STREETLIGHTS on the HOOD OF THE
BENZ, CLOSED-UPS OF THE RIMS, front-bumper FRIEDKIN-ASS POV shots as they ROLL
DOWN the BOULEVARD</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>A LONG PARTY LIMO pulls up alongside them, a HOT CHICK half
out the window, flashes her rack.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span>HOT
CHICK</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 4;"> </span>Whooo!
Par-TAY!</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>LEXMAN and SARACI just GLOWER.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Awkward moment as the HIP-HOP droning inside the PARTY BUS
drones as the HOT CHICK loses her smile, pulls her top down and slinks back
inside.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The fellas SHRUG.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span>LEXMAN</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 4;"> </span>Be
more where that came from.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span>SARACI</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 4;"> </span>Pull
up over there.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>EXT. SUNSET BLVD. NIGHT.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>The street is RAIN SOAKED inexplicably, the TRAINING DAY WELCOME
TO THE OFFICE SCORE kicks in across a WIDE PAN of them ROLLING INTO….</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>INT. NIGHT. A LIQUOR STORE.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>MIDDLE EASTERN SWAMI MUSIC is BLARING as a foreign man of
indeterminate origin is behind the counter, in DIAMOND DAVE DISTORTO-VISION.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Shades on, LEXMAN and SARACI make a cursory run up the aisle
as a customer buys a Slim Jim, then in ARONOFSKY SEPTIC TANK GREEN SHEEN AND
FISH EYE, SARACI rushes up and WHIPS OUT A SILVER DESERT EAGLE.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span>SARACI</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 4;"> </span>Open
the fucking drawer, Achnad!</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span>LEXMAN</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 4;"> </span>Oh,
it’s on! </b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>WHOOSH SWING as SARACI swings around for backup and LEXMAN
wheels out a SAWED-OFF, RACKS THAT MOTHERFUCKER THREE TIMES IN QUICK SUCCESSION
in JAGGED THREE JUMP CUTS.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>The CAMERA SWIRLS AROUND THEM in that BAY DEAL.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 4;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>The CASHIER is COWERING IN TERROR as SARACI slams the coin
jar across the register and pushes the gun in his face.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span>SARACI</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 4;"> </span>Fuckin’
do it, motherfucker! </b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span>LEXMAN</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 4;"> </span>You
fuckin’ heard him, bitch! Open it!</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>An ELDERLY KOREAN WOMAN happens into the ENRANCE.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>SARACI cocks his HAMMER.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span></b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 2.0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<b>SARACI</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 4;"> </span>Fuck
out of here, Kim Hye-ja!</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>The ELDERLY KOREAN WOMAN mugs and begs off in some cartoonisly
looped Uwe Boll-level stereotypical dialect….</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>SWINGS BACK TO THE CASHIER IN TERROR! WOOOOAH!</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span>SARACI</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 4;"> </span>Empty
your fucking drawer, Dev Patel!</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span>CASHIER</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 4;"> </span>I
do it I do it!!!!!</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>He frantically empties the drawer, throwing billz at the
SATANIC-EYED SARACI, who scoops it up in a frenzy….</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>LEXMAN surveys the liquor behind the counter….</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span>LEXMAN</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 4;"> </span>And
gimme a BOTTLE O’ ANYTHING!</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>CASHIER forks over a Fifth of Jack, the guys scoop up their
treasure and race to the door, WHEN, chilled by the HOLLYWOOD AIR, a figure
appears from behind BAMBOO CURTAINS….</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>FARIZ, the CASHIER’S wife, emerges, caught off-guard, seeing
her store thrashed and robbed.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span>FARIZ
(gasping)</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 4;"> </span>What
is this????</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>She SURVEYS THE SCENE IN HORROR, and OPERATIC MUSIC KICKS
IN, that shit they play in CASINO when the HOTELS TUMBLE DOWN IN DEMO, as she
sees her husband felled by two lowlifes, and we CUT TO….</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>VARIOUS. MONTAGE.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>In HYPERKINETIC NOAH-ARONOFSKY VISION, we see FARIZ emerging
from a VAGINA in a SACRED BIRTH in a FAR-OFF LAND, SEPIA TONE, FAST-MOTION,
quick crazy cuts watching her grow up, a LOVING FAMILY EMBRACING HER in 8MM
FILM STOCK, giving way to A WARLORD WITH A MACHETE, terrified reactions, the
FATHER being HATCHETED TO DEATH, the mother with a RAG IN HER MOUTH WEEPING,
FARIZ as a YOUNGSTER in PRISON GOWN being TORTURED with EL DOCTOR ELECTRODES,
WHOOSH WHOOOSH WHOOSH SWIRL, she is ESCAPING ON SOME EPIC DUNES HORIZON,
TRIUMPHANT MUSIC, NATIVES CHEERING, SHE RAISES A FIST ON A MOUNTAIN TOP, cut to
her BEING FETED BY WORLD LEADERS AT THE U.N., Rocky FREEZE FRAME and NEWSPAPER
CLIPPING “FARIZ NOBEL PEACE PRICE,” RAIDERS-STYLE MAP CARTOON WITH RED LINE OF
HER FLYING FROM “THE MIDDLE EAST” to “LOS ANGELES,” footage of her FROLLICKING
ON BEACH IN FAST MOTION, ATTENDING A COLLEGE – SNAPSHOT of her RECEIVING A
DIPLOMA, SHOOTING A THUMBS-UP, WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH , she’s MARRYING THE
CASHIER, WEDDING PHOTOS, HE’S CARRYING HER! CHEERING, WHOO! CUT TOOOO….</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>SFX: GUNSHOT!</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>SARACI plugs her RIGHT BETWEEN THE EYES.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>REVERSE WHOOSH, THE WHOLE LAST MONTAGE REWINS in SPEED
MOTION, CUTS TO BLACK, the sound of a FLATLINE RESOUNDS, her life is over, she
is DEAD, all rendered meaningless.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>BACK TO:</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>INT. LIQUOR STORE.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 6;"> </span>LEXMAN</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span>Dude,
what the FUCK?</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>SWOOP IN on Saraci….</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 6;"> </span>SARACI</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span>She
had to fuck with me.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Quick BEAT.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 6;"> </span>LEXMAN</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span>Let’s
go. Let’s go!</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>EXT.NIGHT. SUNSET.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>They race back to the car, some PUNK MUSIC BULLSHIT kicks
in, THEY SPEED OFF!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>WHOO!</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>EXT. NIGHT. INSIDE CONVERTIBLE.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>SARACI is now DRIVING, and LEXMAN is CHUGGING a KEROSENE
CAN-sized JUG OF DEWARS.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’re
HIGH-FIVING and the EXTERIOR SHIT switches to SPEED-UP Koyananisqati VISION,
RACING DOWN THE BOULEVARDS OF HOLLYWOOD,</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>CUT IN with SLOW MOTION OF THEM LAUGHING IN GLOWERING THICK
RED SATURATED HELL<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>LIGHTING…..</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>They head down a SIDE STEET OFF SUNSET, PURE ROBERT ELSWIT
VISION as they ROLL UP on a SUBURBAN HOUSE/</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 6;"> </span>LEXMAN</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span>Fuck
is this?</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 6;"> </span>SARACI</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span>I
got a buddy in here, can hook us up.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 6;"> </span>LEXMAN
(dead inside)</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span>Right
on.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
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LexGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15868677491486898267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8859849344180914437.post-19145274305196593032016-06-21T22:26:00.000-07:002016-06-21T22:26:01.981-07:00THE DAY I HAD TED DANSON'S HAIR<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">THE DAY I HAD TED
DANSON’S HAIR.</b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Spring 1988 -- I was
well into being Captain Fucking Movies and had to see everything I could in a
theater; I mean movies that like no 15-year-old on earth would’ve given a shit
about, but from around age 12 or 13 I started getting more and more obsessive
about going to the theater instead of just renting stuff 5 or 6 months
later.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was a brief era in here for
a couple years where my mom – who previously hadn’t that big on going to the
theater – became my Moviegoing Buddy, which led to such great formative fucking
moments as me and Ma coming home from the Cineplex and Dad asked what we saw
and the answer was the incredibly unmanly sounding “Hannah and Her Sisters,”
which I clarified by saying “It’s a WOODY ALLEN film, Dad!” which did not help
my case, because my old man ABSOLUTELY fucking hated that guy and anyway I’m
sure there was some big ballgame on that night and your already-dorky son in
Coke-bottle glasses bragging about a night on the town with Mommy to catch the
latest Barbara Hershey movie couldn’t have sounded any fucking gayer if I threw
some confetti on him like Rip Taylor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It’s because of moments like this that I still half-think my family
suspects I’m gay and living some Steve Inwood-in-Cruising existence in the big
bad city 2,000 miles away.</b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">But Mom was pretty
cool and had fun seeing the big shows with her son, and Woody Allen excepted,
was oddly into guy’s-guy movies, so things like “Color of Money” and “The
Hitcher” and “Platoon,” she’d take me and I didn’t think anything of it…. Until
“The Hidden” came out, that Kyle Maclachlan alien movie, and for
fuck-knows-what reason I went with my MOM to see this, and not only was some
striptease part a little odd to watch stifling a boner from a seat away, but we
saw it on a Friday night, and upon exiting the theater, like half the Cool Kids
Class of ’91 was hanging out outside smoking and bullshitting like a scene from
Wild Life or Fast Times, and out waddles my dorky ass clearly going to the
cinema with Mommy on a FRIDAY NIGHT at age 14, and some fat chick made fun of
me In Front of My Mom about it, they’re all “HAHAHAHA He goes to the movies
with his Mom! HAHAHA!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fucking
mortifying, and while I think my mom treasured our little outings, she was
pretty understanding thereafter about me feeling a little weird about this, and
wanting to start spreading my wings by – oh, what a badass – going to movies BY
MYSELF!</b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">This long
movie-related preface is only to establish which oughta be fucking obvious by
now – I didn’t have any goddman friends.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>These are my later junior high years, the worst, bleakest days of my
life, where puberty and awkwardness were meeting head-on with daily bullying
and occasional beatdowns, kids tripping me in hallways, Trapper Keeper flying,
some fuckbag who’d call me VELOUR always on my case.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My mom still bought my clothes, and this is
like 1986, ’87, ’88, I didn’t understand fashion shit or care at all, but
seemed like EVERY KID had some WHITE T-SHIRT WITH A CRAZY BEACH BAR LOGO, like
a big fucking Koo-Koo-Roo looking bird and it’d say like JERK SHACK on it,
they’d wear it with acid washed and some Michael Biehn high-tops.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I didn’t know how to explain this uniform of
the day to my mom, but everyone else’s clothes seemed all casual and bullyish
and carefree, and instead I’m still repping Selections By Mom, which were still
from the 1979 Columbia Pictures Palette, and BROWN O’CLOCK, always like some
ill fitting CORUROY JEANS with a SKIN-TIGHT AS FUCK BROWN PLAID SHIRT or
MAROONS.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>MAROON AND BROWN, yeah, just
the ticket in the days of the Lost Boys and hair metal and Tiffany and
whatnot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Anyway, yeah, the one shirt was
a MAROON VELOUR V-NECK which I can’t imagine WASN’T the gayest fucking shirt in
HUMAN HISTORY, and this asshole named Joe something-or-other, some little
hateful Pittsburgh white-trash fucking midget would go “VELLLLUUUUUUUUURE!” and
start tearing at it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bunch of dudes
circling me like a fucking Sasha Grey blowbang all shouting “VELOUR!” including
this fuckhead named Farrare who was a close friend in elementary school but
turned on me in junior high, and when I tried fighting back, the Joe kid spit a
mouthful of Goldfish crackers on it then Farrare tore it, I had to spend the
rest of the day red-faced and ashamed with a RIPPED SHIRT like a loser,
everyone making fun of me then the INSANE GUILT where I couldn’t tell my mom
that this all happened because she was still dressing me in these absurd
fashions.</b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">It had been a little
better in 7<sup>th</sup> grade when my friend Bobby still was around –
Mentioned this elsewhere, but he was kind of Dennis Gilder to my Arnie
Cunningham, cool kid from across the street who was into music and playing
drums and stealing cigarettes and ripping off his dad’s porno mags.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just a great regular dude, but he and his
family moved away at the beginning of eight grade, and I was left pretty
friendless, NERVOUS AS FUCK entering the lunchroom like it was the prison yard,
ultimately sitting with the biggest fucking nerds in the school, the only guys
that’d have me, including some rod named Heckla who already had male pattern
baldness at FOURTEEN YEARS OF AGE, and some towering lurch who I think was 100%
mute.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So it was a regular cringing
misery every day at lunch with this crew, who unlike my bro Bobby didn’t do
jack or shit when some fuckhead rolled up to us and put a booger on my mom’s
home-packed Bologna sandwich, or laughed at me drinking a can of SHASTA with a
STRAW (“Huh huh huh….You like sucking on straws?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I bet you like sucking on straws….”)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Great, thanks, fuck off.</b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">And this shit didn’t
stop at just school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’d crank call
my house, I’d be watching “Top Gun” on VHS and a party full of little assholes
would call asking for me then laughing and calling me “fag,” and the phone
would ring over and over and my Mom would get on and yell at them as I cringed
and couldn’t focus on Goose’s YAW RATE HEARING.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And worse than that was some bullshit called CCD.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For those who aren’t Catholic (lucky fucking
you), it’s this afterschool or Sunday School type shit where you go and some
dude teaches you/…. Fuck, I don’t even know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I stuck with it through 12<sup>th</sup> grade and maybe I just blanked
it out, but I never learned a fucking thing except guilt and misery and
depression from it, it’d be some “teacher”/volunteer guy telling you about
Jesus or burning in hell or “don’t jerk off” or something, and ALL the fucking
cool kids who hated me seemed to be there too, and I’d be stewing that these
alleged fucking Catholic angels were all bullying and partying and
crank-calling my mom and shit in their downtime.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In eight grade our CCD “teacher” was this
absolute prick who looked like the “They’re coming to get you, Barbara” guy
from Night of the Living Dead, and the guy could NOT having given less of a
fuck, he’d put on MTV and let the kids shoot the shit as Motley Crue, that
great Catholic example, wailed in the background..<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One cold wintry Pittsburgh night in this
depressing classroom, his “lesson” was on our burgeoning sexuality and making
“the right choices,” and as part of his INCREDIBLY HIP PATTER, he offhanded,
“By now, all of you are starting to have feelings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You might be starting to date, and might be
PASSING NOTES.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m sure everyone here as
at least PASSED A NOTE now, unless you’re a COMPLETE LERP.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On cue, this weaseally asshole named MONROE pointed at me and
declared “HE’S A LERP!” and the teacher DOUBLED OVER, just HOWLING WITH
LAUGHTER, “Is that true? You’re a LERP?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And then selected kids started changing LERP! LERP! LERP! as I got all
red-faced and slunk into the key lime-colored cement floor.</b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">After “class” one
night, the hits kept coming with the bullying and bullshit until I RAN OUT like
a bitch, and they circled me with their CDD PROGRAMs, kind of like a baseball
program size, rolled up and started whacking me with it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was ducking and bobbing and terrified and
somehow WALKED INTO A FUCKING BROKEN OFF RUSTY PIPE that was protruding from a
Dumpster.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It broke one of my two front
teeth in half.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just chipped the whole
bottom half off so I had half a tooth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
screamed “My tooth! My tooth!” as the sensation of the exposed nerve kicked
in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They laughed at this for a few
seconds before realizing they’d seriously fucked up, but, hey!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their rides home were waiting and everyone
pretty much shuffled off in their own directions, leaving me there stunned and
shocked and feeling fucking amputated, and some dumb fat oaf goes “Here’s your
tooth, dude,” as he had found it for me on the ground.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everyone dispersed and my mom 10m later
rolled in to find her son in the snow under a lonely basketball hoop missing a
tooth thanks to fucking Catholic class.</b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">She went on a warpath
looking for some soccer mom to yell at, but the head culprit was apparently
from some white-trash hateful family and the parents couldn’t have given a
FUUUUUUCK, and told my Mom it was my own dumbass fault for not being
coordinated like the immortal champion Pittsburgh Steelers when it comes to
ducking a pipe sticking out of a Dumpster on a frozen shitty evening.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I got my tooth mounted/capped within a day
or so, and as a beacon of kindness toward me and my Mom, this other awesome mom
whose son was there but not part of the bullying called our house to see if I
was okay, said her son Scott saw it and felt horrible about the whole thing and
wanted to hang out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m fairly sure this
was sort of an Arranged Playdate of sorts encouraged by his mom, maybe partly
out of guilt that he had witnessed this scene, but me and Scott had gone to
elementary school together in 6<sup>th</sup> grade when I first moved to
Pittsburgh.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We had been pals then but
gone our separate ways a little bit in junior high, but still saw each other
once in a blue room and were pretty friendly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This is basically how I finally got another friend I actually liked and
got along with, and who wasn’t a complete fucking dork like the lunchroom
crew.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We even soon enough got a third
pal, this guy Phil, and sometimes an assist from this bozo named JIMMY JACK on
Zeppo duty -- and before you new it there was camaraderie and occasional outings
like ballgames and birthdays, and some of the psychosis and social cluelessness
of 7<sup>th</sup> and 8<sup>th</sup> grade subsided and the slightest hint of
confidence entered the equation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was
still getting called a “fag” and a “dork” and I would occasionally have some loathsome
bush-league Repperton stick his sweaty gym clothes in my locker as a prank, but
bolstered by having a friend or two, my funny side came out a little more, and
in classes where I felt comfortable (usually English classes) and no bullies
were around, I’d do my comedy lines and cut loose a little with the “wacky guy”
persona I’d comfortably had as a Rodney Dangerfield-obsessed 10-year-old in
laid-back Maine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fuck, even some of the
“popular kids” started thinking of me as funny and stood up for me a little,
and the beatings dropped off entirely.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Say
it with me, Johnny Drama: Victory!</b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">But even though this
was -- shockingly, depressingly – as close to a “posse” or crew as I’ve ever
successfully maintained, on the “best friend” front it wasn’t always smooth
sailing with my “bro” Scott.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The most
concise way to put this is he was very much an all-American sports-loving, super
patriotic ballcap-and-NASCAR, er, what do you call it? Oh, yeah, NORMAL PERSON.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
I’m a fucking fruit loop who at age 14 was more interested in seeing “The Last
Emperor” because Siskel and Ebert gave it two thumbs up than in the Steelers or
Penguins and who yelled at my Dad for booking our Florida vacation the week
WPTT was gonna show an edited-to-fit-2hrs 96 minute version of “Serpico.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(And I couldn’t just set a VCR from afar, I
had to BE HOME to HIT PAUSE and CUT OUT THE COMMERCIALS so I could later
STOPWATCH THE RUNNING TIME OF THIS CUT.)</b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The movie psychosis
never stopped, and with regards to this Scott dude, even in SIXTH GRADE during
our first go-round as pals, I remember subjecting him to my AUDIO RECORDINGS of
Popeye Doyle curse words and going to some recreation night at our school and
whining to him that we were missing “Up the Creek” on HBO, and in all cases,
this dude just BAFFLED by this obviously unimportant bullshit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it
continued ahoy in our ninth grade era, dude would JUST WANNA SHOOT SOME HOOPS
or throw a football around like normal kids, and I’d browbeat him into watching
“Assault on Precinct 13” and he’d bored to motherfucking death watching this
depressing “old movie” with actors he’d never seen with that dreary music, guy
just didn’t get it at all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which is
fucking fair enough, I was the weird one, and as an adult this is why I try my
damndest never to talk movies too much in real life, I tend to see movies alone
and go well out of my way, at least OFF the internet, not to be too insane
about this shit, unless 1988, when I was having Scott NAME MOVIES so I could
wow him by having the runtimes memorized, long after he rightly pointed out,
“How would I fucking know if any of these are right?”</b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">And Scott’s old man
was a fucking riot, this big, towering, John Wayne-worshipping old-school
grumpy SOB who was so into telling you “I’m to the right of Pat Buchanan,” he
might as well have a fucking BUSINESS CARD made up saying it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dude was this cigar-chomping awesome DAD
built like a mighty oak and who above all FUCKING THINGS ABSOLUTELY HATED
ME.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We called this guy THE FOUNDER
because he looked fucking exactly like Dave Thomas the Wendy’s guy who was
described as THE FOUNDER OF WENDY’s in commercials then.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>THE FOUNDER would drive us to the mall to
“check out the babes” and on the way there in he’d be trying to talk Pens or
Buccos with Scott and my contributions to the conversation would be faggy shit
like asking if he saw DAVID BRENNER on the Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show
the night before, which fucking appalled him on a million levels, not the least
of which was the horrifying concept of a kid of 15 STAYING UP PAST
9-FUCKING-PM.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dude also one got so
incensed his daughter bought a Japanese car that he fucking WEPT and made her
say the Pledge of Allegiance then threatened to cut her out of the will for
turning her back on American cars.</b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">In short, this guy
ABSOLUTELY OWNED, exactly the kind of taskmaster hardon who I’d fucking love
today, but back then I just couldn’t get in good with the dude at all, who
surely was worried about his all-American son hanging out with this
Hollywood-lovin’ pussy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’d give you
his WISDOM on certain topics like the correct level of BROWN on his TOAST, or how
the perfect soda taste is 2/3 regular Coke with 1/3 Diet Coke, then he’d send
us to CoGos to get him one from the fountain and if the fucking Coke-Diet Coke
mix wasn’t SPOT-ON he’d spit-take that shit like fucking Arsenio.</b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Much like how my main
bonding thing with my Dad was baseball, and how it was movies when it came to
Mom, Scott and The Founder’s big thing was model and remote control
airplanes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both guys were apple-pie as
fuck and Scott wanted to be a Navy pilot, they loved aviation and planes and
the military and all that shit, and would have these father-son bonding times
when they’d built and craft these models together and get super fucking stoked
to go try and fly it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’d try to show
it to me, all excited about their newest creation or purchase or FEAT OF
MINIATURE AVIATION, and true to form I was about as gracious and open to it as
fucking Rain Man, all YEAH THAT’S NICE BUT THERE’S A GOOD WILLIAM FRIEDKIN
MOVIE ON HBO TONIGHT.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fucking dork.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like it fucking BLOWS MY MIND how socially
inept I am, I was, how I maintained this friendship or any other, ever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As the Founder himself put it, “There’s
something weird about you, kid.”</b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">To bring this all
back to where we came in, I have cut my mom loose as a Movie Buddy! and Scott
couldn’t give a fuck about seeing such formative gems as “Fatal Attraction” and
“Less Than Zero” on the silver screen, a fact that his dad the founder of
Wendy’s couldn’t be more thankful over.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>So I essentially resign myself to my eternal fate as a Solo Moviegoer,
having Ma drop me off at the trusty Showcase theater or mall dollar house to
see this incredibly inappropriate movies that should rightly bore any guy my
age, who should be out on the football field or hitting some Risky Business
gags-and-stunts house parties by now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But nope, then as now, every weekend it’s ‘What’s out this week? Oh my
God I have to see it now now now”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And in
the spring of 1988, the MAIN FUCKING EVENT for me is “Colors,” that Sean
Penn/Robert Duvall cop movie about inner-city gangs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just that kind of shit ALWAYS the most
exciting thing in the UNIVERSE to me, COPS AND GUNS AND DRUGS AND SCARY TOUGH
GUYS in LOS ANGELES, I was on PINS AND NEEDLES, and even though I knew goddamn
well knew the answer, I tried browbeating Scott into seeing this EPIC IMPORTANT
MOVIE with me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>IT HAS SEAN PENN! IT HAS
ROBERT DUVALL! IT HAS THAT SONG BY ICE-T! IT’S GONNA BE SO COOL!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dude gave it the TOTAL PASS, no interest
anyway but this was a weekend where he and the Founder had FINALLY finished
some long-worked-on RC PLANE that they were fucking GEEKED over, and I’m trying
to persuade him to blow off the FATHER-SON MOMENT OF THE YEAR to go see OFFICER
SPICOLI FUCKING UP STREET GANGS.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Got the
resounding “no no no no no, also no” and accepted my fate, and half-promised,
“Yeah, maybe once my IMPORTANT MOVIE IS OVER, I’ll swing by the park and check
out your plane.”</b></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">But despite the
current SOCIAL CONTRACT between me and Ma that the movies-together playdate was
a little weird, somehow at the last minute she’s ALL ABOUT seeing this, mostly
because of Duvall and “it looks exciting” or something.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So I’m cringing that this MOST AWESOMEST COP
MOVIE SHIT EVER! is now an outing with Mommy, so I lay down some GROUND RULES
that Mom is to drop me off at the curb then park and enter the SHOWCASE CINEMAS
separately, she is to walk behind me at all times, and sit at least three seats
away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just such an absolute douche move
I still feel vaguely guilty about, as if ROLLING SOLO at a mediocre Sean Penn
movie at age 15 makes you a regular fucking Newman in HUD or something.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So we see it and it’s, well, maybe not
everything I had hoped for but still, fuck it, COPS AND GANGS AND L.A. POLICE
UNIFORMS and the treasured emotional experience of hanging out with your Mom
watching MARIA CONCHITA ALONSO overacting “HEY PACMAN! LOOOOK AT ME PACMAN!
LOOOK AT ME PACMAN!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Plus Duvall clearly
wears WRANGLERS, which made my mom go “SEE? SEE? I GET YOU WRANGLERS!” as if
ninth graders look to skid-rocking Robert Duval for fashion pointers.</b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">But one thing that
REALLY STANDS OUT is Penn’s hair, this CRISP TIGHT SLICKED BACK JERFRO OF
LACQUERED BEEFARONI.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From the second it
ends and we’re back in the family Truckster I’m like “Mom, do you think I could
make my hair look like Sean Penn???? Do I look like Sean Penn?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now I have this fucking TRAVOLTA MOMENT BY
MOMENT head of Italian Meatball Hair back then, like STALLONE ON THE MOTORCYCLE
IN ROCKY II montage hair, can’t even get a comb through the fucking stuff, but
there’s a part where Penn SCULPTS HIS SLICK with an ACE COMB or something and
the SECOND WE GET HOME, I’m in the bathroom wetting and slicking my BOUNTIFUL
BOUFFANT to kingdom fucking come, but it won’t stay down and TIGHT like Penn’s,
my hair’s so thick it just COLLAPSES if I move two steps.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So I bring out the big guns and bust out this
REALLY GAY MOUSSE my Mom had bought me the summer before, which I didn’t like
the smell of.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As an aside, one day that
summer or fall while I had the house to myself, I tried jerking off to the end
credits of HOWLING II while using said MOUSSE as a LUBE, which I do not
recommend whatsoever.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">So I’m plastering my
fucking pompadour with enough jerkoff lube mousse that it’s up to like Kelly
Lynch heights when I finally BRUSH IT into what I feel is an approximation of
the esteemed Mr Penn in COLORS, which in fact it resembles in no fucking way
whatsoever, when I remember, oh, yeah, I should probably go check out Scott’s
plane up at the park.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is obviously
in the pre-cellphone days on a late afternoon, but I decide to top my PENN
CREATION with some SHADES which are like 2-dollar Kmart Ray Bans with ORANGE
STEMS and WHAT’S MORE SEAN PENN THAN A HAWAIIAN SHIRT?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a GAG GIFT my dad bought me an obnoxious
Aloha shirt for my birthday, and of course it’s SKIN TIGHT AS FUCK but I got
the POMPADOUR GOING and the SHADES, never mind I’m topping his ensemble with
some nut-hugger BURNT ORANGE GAY SHORTS courtesy of Mom’s impeccable fashion
sense, and I’m off to the park <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Scott’ll
be so happy I came to see his plane he’s so proud of.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">On the way over, the
WIND STARTS KICKING a little and takes hold of my PACMAN COIF and by the time I
get there I can feel that this shit is sky-high like fucking Mark Blankfield as
Mr. Hyde.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now imagine that then imagine
me coming over a big green hill looking like an absolute DORK and spot my best
friend and his dad FLYING THE SKIES with their prized fucking RED BARON RC
whatever-the-fuck, swear to God The Founder half has a tear in his eye, this is
a beautiful moment between father and son, TOTAL Chris Cooper-Jake Gyllenhaal
moment from OCTOBER SKY, they handcrafted this plane and tested it and tweaked
and it DID THIS TOGETHER, probably the last beautiful formative moment before
Scott gets into girls and other interests and they lose touch a little, don’t
have that same closeness, but they’ll always have this, this plane, this
amazing experience….</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Then me shouting “HI
SCOTT! HIIIII!” from up on some fucking hilly plain in my BURNT ORANGE SHORT
SHORTS with my hair nine feet high with a HAWAIIAN SHIRT on running at them
flailing my arms, blurting in on their great day and beaming “I JUST SAW
COLORSSSSSS WITH SSTHHHEAN PENNN! DOESN’T MY HAIR LOOK JUUUUUUSTTTHT LIKE SEAN
PENN?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If the Sean Penn of 1988 had been
the political hot-potato Sean Penn of 2016, I swear the fucking Founder
would’ve flown that goddamn Red Baron right into my ballsack then and there,
but even then and no chance he even knew who the fuck I was talking about, the
dude’s rage-glare was one inch from horse-whipping me like the fucking DUKE,
this nancy tubby goober rambling about some Commie cop movie on his BIG DAY, me
just CLUELESS and FUCKING STUPID AS EVER blaring I LOOK LIKE SEAN PENN I LOOK
LIKE SEAN PENN….</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Until Scott cuts the
tension and goes “You look more like Sam Malone.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His dad broke character and hit the fucking
DECK, holding his belly and pointing HAHAHHAHA HOLY SHIT IT’S SAMMY!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>HEY SAMMY POUR ME ANOTHER BEER! which wasn’t
really a particularly clever line but it brought down the house for those two
dumbasses, “You look like TED DANSON!” Scott kept repeating, obviously his dad
having no idea what the actor’s name was so he kept with the HEY SAMMY! HEY
SAMMMMY! for what seemed like nine fucking years til it finally ran its course
and they quickly, their moment totally ruined, showed me one quick loop of this
little contraption they’d put all this effort into before the dad packed it in
for the day, semi-dejected, and they went home muttering and half-chuckling
about “Sammy” as I stood there, yet again, red-faced, deflated, ashamed, and
confused that discussing a stupid movie could EVER be ANYTHING but the most
important subject at any given moment in time.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">All that said, Scott
remained a fairly good pal and long after I moved away and moved on, we’d keep
in touch a little and have a few laughs, though the last time it seemed like
maybe enough time and distanced had passed that not much was there to riff
about anymore, and that’s fine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Things
even seemed to come full circle as he was in total Dad mode around his kids
last I saw him, bellowing WISDOM and FOUNDER RULES, and he and his nice wife
seemed about as mystified by this awkward dorky lone wolf dude from California
they both probably barely recognized or remembered, yet knew all too well and
nothing had really changed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were
excited about me meeting their awesome kids, and as per usual I was weird and
dropping ill-timed movie references about BURT REYNOLDS to a five-year-old showing
me his matchbox cars, and I was still asking incessantly about old high school
people they likely hadn’t thought of in a decade, me in De Niro The Fan mode
living in the distant past.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Much as I
think I’m more self-aware now than I was in the Sammy Malone days, I guess
maybe I’m really not, or I only see how off-putting I am when I wallow in and
fixate on the past rather than being normal in the present.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When we all said farewell that night, I
kinda got the feeling it’d be the last time we’d hang out, and indeed a day or
two later we were supposed to hit a bar but one or both of us canceled, no hard
feelings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Eighteen years later, I’m
still pushing away real-life relationships and opportunities to make sure I
catch “Triple 9” at the first available matinee, so I guess literally nothing
has changed, except I don’t have the Ted Danson hair anymore.</b></div>
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LexGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15868677491486898267noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8859849344180914437.post-84788744016613875782016-06-17T19:13:00.001-07:002016-06-17T19:28:24.496-07:00MY FAVORITE MOVIES: ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">When I was a kid,
“Escape From New York”
was basically my favorite fucking thing ever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I was already into movies from like 6 ot 7, and to frame it this way, my
mom was the big movie fan and my dad was the sports guy, and there was almost
no overlap between the two, so my childhood in my younger years was like a
perfect 50% enthusiasm for baseball with the old man, then lounge around
watching movies on HBO with Mom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With
what would become my single-track mind later in life, I guess I could’ve gone
either way and you’d be reading my moony 2016 reminiscence about Tim Foli’s
fucking ‘stache and hair combo right now, but that’s for the alt-universe
version of this blog you ain’t reading anyway.</b></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Anyway, 1982 is
considered by every guy my age some SEISMIC YEAR for cinema, in particular geek
cinema and horror and sci-fi and that kinda thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I was a total HBO kid;<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My Mom wasn’t big on going to the theater,
really, so I got everything exactly 11-12 months later when it hit HBO.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So as this heralded year of “geek classics”
like Blade Runner and Conan and Halloween III and The Thing were dropping in
theaters, I was just getting to the GEMS from the last year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is the year I was 9 years old and I was
working up this psychotic obsession with movies and the HBO GUIDE and
memorizing what movies were showing what days, I had been into Bond and Rocky
and The Pink Panther and Jaws and Alien – those were all my favorites up to
this point, but I guess I didn’t really have that “personal Star Wars moment”
so many kids pinpoint as being EXACTLY when it all came into focus what<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a director did and what style was and how
transportive movies could be and how in that INSTANT all you guys knew you
wanted to be George Lucas or Luke Skywalker or whatever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But this particular year a lot of stuff that
shaped my tastes came into my world, from Looker to Wolfen to Nighthawks (which
I should do one of these on next) and all these other awesone-ass movies that
gave me this fantasy of some big, awesome scary nighttime world of cops and
long hair and hotness and guns and Puerto Rican muggers in cities with big-ass
skyscrapers and stuff.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I was also still
dazzling the old man with my OMAR MORENO Topps and Fleer completism and even
starting to like music like some regular dork, like all these little formative
influences coming together but still being really young and jolly in our little
super laid-back part of Maine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My dad
generally couldn’t have cared less about movies unless it was Airplane! or some
SNL-type comedy with Belushi or Aykroyd who he loved, and he especially latched
on to “Caddyshack,” a big favorite that just busted me and Dad up, completely
mystifying to my mom who thought it was in bad taste and “juvenile,” but I
didn’t give a fuck, I thought Rodney was the funniest fucking shit EVER.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But generally he didn’t care for flicks, so
when he did, I took that one to heart because it would mean a rare time we’d
bond over that instead of just sports.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Anyway, one day he’s cracking up telling me about some epic-sounding
shit he watched the night before and as his MO, even when he likes something he
ALWAYS describes at as being stupid, terrible, the worst thing ever. No idea
why, and I’ve kind of inherited this too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Like<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a slight tendency to bag on
something so you don’t sound too fucking lame gushing over it, I guess.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s like ROLLING about this ”stupid movie”
that had “Isaac Hayes” (doubt he knew who any of the other actors were by name
at that point)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>that I just had to see,
and I was DOWN..<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’d seen it in the HBO
GUIDE, and it had some awesome looking pic of a guy with long hair and an
eyepatch and a weird long gun on one page and other pages it had the head of
the State of Liberty with people running around it, and I thought, “Yeah, that
does look fucking awesome.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I didn’t
know who Kurt Russell was from Adam, and I kinda still didn’t know what a
director meant, but it was described either there or in the TV Guide as being
“from the director of Halloween,” which I’d watched half-hiding under a blanket
with my mom yelling “turn your head, this is the bad part!” when they showed
P.J. Soles’ tits.</b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">So next time it was
on, I was THERE, on our BROWN-ASS ICE STORM COUCH in my fucking GLORY from
frame one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s like everything I would
ever think was exciting and forbidden and scary and COOL all in one movie,
starts out with that SINISTER-ASS SYNTH music over those SATANTIC CARPENTER
FONT CREDITS, then the words “1997 – NOW,” I was like NINE and this SCARED THE
SHIT OUT OF ME, like wooooah, this could really happen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What if the world ends?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What if the world’s a prison?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I won’t be that old! I want to live to be old
but they’re gonna turn New York City
into a fucking MAXIMUM SECURITY PENITENTIARY,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I was hooked, I was scared, it was fucking AWESOME/</b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I’m sure I’m blurring
together a LOT of formative viewings of it, because I was off to the races
spazzing out like Feldman seeing tits in Friday Four, watched it EVERY TIME it
was on HBO, first time maybe had my dad’s “hahaha it’s so bad it has Isaac
Hayes in it!” riff in mind but even then I knew that meant he kinda dug
it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My mom didn’t get it at all and
thought it was “stupid” how they keep repeating lines like “I thought you were
dead,” like she really thought that was just bad moviemaking, which would
probably come as a surprise to a million Film Studies scholars with a Howard
Hawks encyclopedia in their heads.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
the whole thing was at NIGHT and SCAR, this guy with an EYEPATCH who didn’t
give a fuck, with LONG HAIR. LONG. LONG. ALSO HIS HAIR IS LONG.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I had became obsessed
with having LONG HAIR already from the “major leaguers” whose coked-out Deke
DaSilva disco coifs came out the sides of their ballcaps, so much so that
instead of practicing my swing or developing any hand-eye coordination I’d
stand in front of mirrors trying to “wing my hair out” sides of the ballcap,
which between that and the uniform seemed way more exciting than actually
playing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But seeing Kurt’s GLORIOUS COIF was amazing,
like as good as seeing a real naked lady.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>My mom would NEVER let me grow it like that but any time my choppy Danny
Torrance bowl cut felt a mild breeze I pictured myself looking exactly like
SNAKE FUCKING PLISSKEN my whole childhood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And he had an eyepatch and shit, and EVERY SECOND OF THE MOVIE just
seemed to have some riveting image that my 9-year-old head was blown away by,
from SNAKE’S OUTFIT to TOM ATKINS WALKING UNDER THE STATUE OF LIBERTY lighting
up a smoke in that control booth, they bring in Snake on some BUS and the BUS
BREAKS HISS and it lowers and Snake rolls out and you’re like ‘Who’s this
awesome motherfucker,” then he WALKS THROUGH THE HALLWAYS and the HALLWAYS ARE
SUPER SINISTER and LOOK AT THAT POINT and is that creepy voice lady saying
“debarkation” or “deportation” –<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m 43
and have seen this movie 200,000 fucking times and still don’t know.</b></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Then HAUK his name is
fucking HAUK, how much does that owns has HORN RIMMED GLASSES and when he sets
them down the STEMS REVERBERATE and MAKE THIS AWESOME NOISE and he interviews Snake
and if there’s one mild complaint I have about this movie, it’s that really?
You can’t picture KURT RUSSELL DOING AAAANY of this shit, like FLYING THE GULP
FIRE as I thought Lee Van Cleef was saying and being some MASTER CRIMINAL and
PSYCHOPATH, even as scary as his outfit was Kurt seems like such a GOOD SOLID
DUDE, so it’s kind of the DUKE thing where he’s this legendary outlaw but
really it’s some amiable oaf with an obvious shit skid.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But then THAT FUCKING MUSIC, like E CHORD
REPETITIVE MUSIC, changed my whole life and explains how I got into metal
because it had that dark repetitive sound, even though that wouldn’t come till
YEARS later, Atkins and Van Cleef showing him these AWESOME LOOKING
WEAPONS<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>yet there’s like some sun dial
looking thing on the table as the music goes DUH-DUH. DUH-DUH. DUH-DUH.
BRRRREEURRR ROWRRRRR….. BROWRRRRR RRRRROWRR.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>You know the part.</b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Then HOLY SHIT they
shoot him with like NEEDLES IN HIS NECK and NOBODY WHO’S EVER SEEN THIS MOVIE
has understood if the charges were real because he gets the NEUTRALIZER at the
last second instead of the timeline that CRONENBERG describes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then fucking GOD KURT is SAILING OVER NEW
YORK CITY with this HIGH-TECH AS FUCK DOT MATRIX ASS OUTLINE OF THE CITY ON HIS
SCREEN and his HAIR IS SO WINGED OUT IN THIS PART I LITERALLY WANT TO FUCK IT,
and they play this AWESOME AWESOME synth part that Carpenter or somebody said
was based on DEBUSSEY whoever the fuck that was, but I guarantee that doesn’t
sound as cool as the EFNY soundtrack with the HOWARTH SYNTH.</b></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Then he rolls around
the city and there’s a little bit of downtown as he MEETS THE HOTNESS and
almost steps on a RAT and the best shit EVER I MEAN EVER I MEAN EVER in a
movie, Snake’s exhausted and the leads aren’t panning out and he just had to
endure GEORBE BUCK FLOWER singing LA-DEE-DA-DEE-DA, and what does he do?</b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">What does Snake do, I
ask?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>HE PULLS UP A CHAIR AND JUST SITS
DOWN. FUCK YEAH. Got electrodes in his neck, double-crossed by everyone, doomed
die, completely fucked, he pulls up the card table chair from my grandma’s game
room in 1974, just SITS DOWN and flops his hair.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>GOD RUSSELL.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Like watching all
this shit as a kid was like LEVITATING TO VALHALLA, EVERY SECOND OF IT, or that
CHINESE GUY WITH THE GLASSES FRAMES THAT HAD NO GLASS IN IT and HAYES TWISTING
THE ARROW and scariest of all, ROMERO who I later saw again as THE ICE CREAM
TRUCK KILLER in Assault on Precinct 13 and whose hot daughter is on Mr Robot
and once sat behind me at the movies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Has this ALL-NIGHT ADENTURE and that seemed best of all to a kid, the
idea of STAYING UP ALL NIGHT, being in a SCARY CITY at NIGHT. NIGHT.
NIGHT.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I see so many Marvel homos talk
about how they wanted to be a SUPERHERO as a kid but I wanted to SKLUK AROUND A
BOMBED-OUT 1981 HELLHOLE WITH A GUN ducking from Puerto Rican muggers and BLACK
DUDES WITH CHANDELIERS on their car.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>HAHAHAHA and how about that OVERACTING ROMERO does when DUKE OF NEW
YORK’S POSSE ROLLS IN and he steps out of the car and does this exaggerated
coast is clear search motion, HAHAHHAA ROLLING just THINKING ABOUT.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Then what does
Carpenter hit you with????<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>THE SUN
STARTS COMING UP.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You have STAYED UP SO
FUCKING LATE that it’s THE NEXT DAY.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
LEE VAN CLEEF smoking a probable WINSTON looking EXACTLY LIKE YOU KNOW CARPETNER
IMAGINES HIMSELF STANDING AT THE TOP OF THIS 50-FOOT CONTAINMENT BRIDGE with
this BIG-ASS CITY BEHIND HIM at dawn.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The best image Carpenter ever shot,
completely destroys The Thing which rules and I’d never say an ill word about
but when it’s not in the GORGEOUS BLINDING WHITE SNOW, there’s a lot of parts
in The Thing that are in some DEPRESSING BUNKER BOILER ROOM HALLWAY and look
kinda BROWN.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">But this is all BLACK
AND BLUE cinematography, though in early viewings on HBO and the eventual
EMBASSY CASSETTE with the two-tone white-and-black box my Dad later bought me
for my birthday in 1984, the palette was almost DEVOID OF COLOR, all washed out
and somehow that made it even scarier.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>HALLOWEEN used to have that look too on cable and the MEDIA VHS.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">So they bring in OX
BAKER and his GOATEE is scary, his BALD HEAD is scary, and most of all his
fucking MATTE of back hair is SCARY, and he gets a SPIKED BASEBALL BAT into the
back of the head and everyone starts changing SNAKE! SNAKE! SNAKE! And like
Snake becomes this GODLIKE LONE WOLF CELEBRITY WHO KICKS ASS and GETS THE
HOTNESS and HANGS OUT WITH HARRY DEAN FUCKING STANTON and hey as an aside
CHARLES CYPHERS in this looks almost exactly like my old man.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">And then HAWKS
SUPERFAN Carpenter’s MOST HAWKS MOMENT EVER, when BARBEAU in her BIG CANS is
given this MOMENT OF ASS-KICKING DIGNITY and Snake forks over that
AWESOME-LOOKING GUN and gives her a Forster-worthy tip o’ the cap, respect,
props, feminist solidarity and all that a thousand times better and more believable
than some CW cheese chick in gay-camp catsuit in the MCU.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Even the last
fuck-you from Snake, RIPPING UP THE CASSETTE, as a kid I was like WOAH I HAVE
CASSETTES.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>CASSETTES ARE SINISTER.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I would never do that to a cassette.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like I think I wanted to re-enact SNAKE
PULLING OUT THE TAPE on my Memorexes but didn’t have the nerve because I’d have
nightmares the tape itself would come back and strangle me, like Videodrome
before its time or something.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Long story long, I
watched it every two days every time it was on HBO, and if I missed ONE airing
because it was on at like 3am or something, I’d CRY ABOUT IT.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It aired on HBO that year and into 1983, and
in December 1983 we were in the process of moving to Pittsburgh, and I was
really down about it, and the old man was on the phone from down there scoping
out houses and stuff and in his hotel room said, ‘Guess what’s on!” and he put
the phone up to the TV and it was HAUK’S INTERVIEW WITH SNAKE and it cheered me
up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That same month it played on the local
Boston channel
in an edited version and I was fucking FASCINATED how they dropped some
profanities, like HOW DO THEY DO THAT?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
was so consumed by this that on the re-air I HELD A MONO TAPE RECORDER,
MacReady type one, to the CONSOLE TV SET and made like TWO AUDIO CASSETTES
worth of ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK because we hadn’t figured out the VCR yet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’d sit in my fucking room and LISTEN TO AN
AUDIO RECORDING OF THE MOVIE. </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Also somewhere in
there right before we moved, I “wrote” a treatment in my head for a ripoff
called “1997.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I didn’t realize you
couldn’t just wholesale ripoff remake a movie from your bedroom in Portland
Maine at age 9, but I’d whip up little STORYBOARDS for “1997,” a TOTALLY
DIFFERENT MOVIE where Snake Plissken did the exact same plot except I’d change
the actors around a few of the plot points and references.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I drew a fake HBO GUIDE picture ad for “1997”
and fuck, I wish I could remember who I fantasy-cast as Snake in my alt-world version, I wanna
say it was TIM MATHESON or something.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>HAHAHAHA.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Anyway we moved and I
sucked at sports and got lonely and depressed and my happy childhood kind of
ended around age 11 thanks to bullying, but as said, my dad did buy a $79.95
copy of ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK for me summer of 1984 or maybe 1985 because it
hadn’t been on cable in an “eternity,” which then was probably like six months
but to a kid that’s two decades.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of
FUCKING COURSE a week after he bought me this cassette, it came back on HBO,
and when I saw this in the guide I got ashamed and felt really guilty and kept
trying to hide the TV Guide so dad wouldn’t find out I could’ve just taped it
off HBO for free.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">But I still watched
that thing almost daily, one day my WORLD RECORD was some lazy humid July day I
watched the fucker FIVE TIMES IN A ROW, and would do little IMAGINARY INTROS in
my head like I was fucking Dana Hersey or Ben Mankiewicz or something.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It started my interest in directors, because
along with Landis and Spielberg those were my first guys where I put together
what a director did, what a “style” was, what a “sheen” was, and how you could
watch movies by some guy like that and recognize little winks and stuff
recurring from one flick to the next.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My
obsession with it was shaped by and then flip-side informed my interest in LONG
HAIR, in BEING UP LATE, working NIGHTS, staying up til the sun comes up, it
MADE ME WANNA SMOKE (what brand is Snake repping, anyway, almost look like
100s)…. It made me get into Lee Van Cleef when THE MASTER came along where he
played the world’s only 94-year-old white Ninja who walks with a fucking
limp.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Basically made me wanna work in
film and wanna look like Kurt Russell and direct movies like John Carpenter and
only listen to heavy, downcast repetitive scary music…. It had fucking
everything, not even the other chestnuts in JC’s career have this much cool
stuff all in one place.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">So I guess I’m saying
I liked it.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
LexGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15868677491486898267noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8859849344180914437.post-90899534159339424292016-05-31T05:05:00.002-07:002016-05-31T05:05:29.510-07:00FAILURE DIARIES: BEING HORNY<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">It is inconceivable
how hard it was to come across VHS porno when I was growing up in the ‘80s and
early ‘90s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This quaint notion of course
sounds supernaturally ridiculous today, where every bozo with a smartphone or a
laptop has been watching gag-ball clips and Sasha Grey blow-bangs for so long
it’s as tender a honeyed formative memory as the goateed goober who saw “Star
Wars” front and center in 1977.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But even
well past being voting age, three years into college (where I definitely wasn’t
getting laid), and three years after Mark Wahlberg had been a pop icon Calvin
Klein star having sex with supermodels…. I, at age 21, had still not seen
actual video pornography.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Doesn’t mean I hadn’t
wanted to, since it had been a Byronic quest since I became a veritable Mad
Whacker during puberty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whereas other
dudes are, like, normal, and do crazy shit like playing sports and having
friends, whereby they meet these things called “girls” and go on, like, dates
and pass notes and go to parties and become, like, fully functioning human
fucking beings who go on to flip houses in pink shirts with three happy kids
and an SUV….my weird mix of super-strict fire-and-brimstone-level Catholic
upbringing and seemingly paradoxical Movie Obsession made me process human
sexuality in the most fucked-up way this side of a ‘70s Paul Schrader
character.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sex was like The Forbidden
and Women Were Terrifying, but I loved all these movies and models and
actresses, and, long story short to spare you the psych self-exam portion of
the show, the concepts of women and sex and dating became not some normal-guy
rite of passage in reality, but rather like another form of movies, entirely in
some fantasy realm in my moron head.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
only way I could relate to adult humanity was through what I’d seen in movies I
was probably too young to process properly.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">There were cute girls
in school that I’d get little crushes on, but as a man-titted Poindexter in Bob
From Halloween Glasses, I was catching beatdowns and getting the Trapper Keeper
knocked out of my hands like clockwork, and no girl was gonna be seen within a
hundred yards of me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And lucky them, I
remember one time, age 13, I was in study hall next to some chick who legit
looked like Bozo the Clown, had a literal Red fucking Afro, and my Big Move of
chatting her up was to explain the diamond-heist plot of William Petersen and
John Pankow in “To Live and Die in L.A.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I got all EXCITED like a spazz recounting the car chase and how it all
played out, doing that Boring Guy thing of telling someone who So Doesn’t Give
a Shit the plot of some movie they could watch in less time than it takes for
your long-winded ass to retell it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At my locker afterwards I heard Bozo rolling
down with the hall laughing it up with her friend Lisa – “What the HELL was he
talking about?” and mimicking my nerd voice “…and then they rob the diamond
guy!” and MUAHAHAHAing “What a nerd!”</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">But there was no such
ice bucket to the balls to be had in the Hannibal Lecter Spank Bank Fantasy
Chamber in my junior psycho mind, where from even younger than that, I’d had
Little Fantasies of being a Rich Guy who had a mansion and an inexplicable
harem of model/actress type women based on the girls I’d see on TV and glamour
mags.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why they were with me of all
idiots was like a “what’s in the trunk from Repo Man” McGuffin that I never
dwelled on, since clearly I had no charisma or experience in real life and
absolutely no idea how women talked or behaved.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">But in my mind every
night, I’d play out these rich, three-act cinematic masterpieces in which the
girls would fight over who I liked more, and they’d paint each other’s toenails
or TRY ON LITTLE OUTFITS for me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I’d
sometimes bust out the General uniform to have them line up in formation as I
went down the line critiquing their beauty and deciding who had the prettiest
face, eyes, lips, tits, etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">There were sexier
parts, but oddly as a consummate burgeoning cinephile, I was more interested in
the long-form character arcs of whether imaginary April would or wouldn’t do
some light lesbianism with Courtney, who was subtly based on Courtney Cox, or
if Teri was going to spread her wings and leave the mansion to backpack around
Europe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Stupid shit like that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Especially since I basically had NO IDEA what
sex even looked like.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I seem to remember
thinking a vagina was like a huge round hole, which is why I once tried to
replicate the Great Unknown by fucking my tae kwon do glove, and Rodney had had
some standup line about fooling his neighbors that he was getting laid by
“doing push-ups in the window.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So I
took this literally and thought you hovered over a naked woman and did pushups
into this wide mystery area.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is
probably where an anal obsession was born, since I had no fucking clue what a
vag was like but had a running start on what an asshole was.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">One of my very few
friends was this fun dude Bobby from across the street, who was way cooler than
me in a Dennis Gilder-to-Arnie Cuntingham way, and who had a drum kit and had
Run DMC and Slayer records on vinyl right from the jump, and whose rage-case ‘Dad
(who looked like Danny Noonan’s father) allegedly had this hidden cache of old
Penthouses that we concocted a Hot Rock-worthy caper to break into sometime in
summer of 1985.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like working out signals
and codes and shit (“He’s on the move, go!”) and then racing out with the one
measly 1979-ass copy Bobby managed to find.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We took it up behind a tree and were passing it back and forth, geeking
out over the chicks in Guccione schmear-sheen and epic bushes – I don’t mean
Bertolucci style dicks out, but I was flopping around like fucking Josh Baskin.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I was hooked on the
naked female form from this moment, and no jelly-shoed, poodle-haired
gum-snapping Yinzer in our junior high that fall was ever gonna compete.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Anything “sexy”
became about the visual, about objectification, and if this was the last era
where clueless guys were this wantonly sexist and voyeuristic and meatheaded,
it sure was the right fucking era for it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This was the time of David Lee Roth mugging like a jackass with four bikini
chicks on either arm, the time of titty comedies with PeeWee sticking his dick
in the peephole, those movies where “four guys on the make” go to a tropical
resort and just OGLE WOMEN and try to get them naked then do lots of mugging,
and that’s the whole fucking plot – this firm grasp on reality all helped shape
the middle-aged bozo who’s still excited about Selena Gomez movies because there’s
an off chance she might wear a PG-13 bikini, while long since giving up on having
functional adult relationships of any sort.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">But said comedy romps
would come on late at night, and if I could stealthily record one while nobody
was looking, I’d be in my GLORY in the days ahead when mom worked and I had a
precious hour with the house to myself to pore over “Porky’s Revenge” or the
Linda Hamilton “Terminator” tits or “Tomboy” with Betsy Russell over and over
again, rewinding and leaving it stuck on SLP pause with the snowy lines across
the screen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They always had really
blatant tan lines back then which fascinated me so much that one day I went out
on the deck I gave my fat fucking ass a wedgie to see if I could get a thong-style
TAN LINE on my already enormous man-ass.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Yeah, I was a REALLY fucking weird kid.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I hadn’t actually
figured out stroking off at this point, but I was just consumed with seeing
tits and especially bush – I must have been carrying around a Dark Star beach
ball-sized sac of wad before I finally started wet-dreaming from all this
hotness kicking around my head.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
remember being horny ALL the fucking time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I remember going to some zoo on a family vacation and blatantly walking
around with a massive boner I couldn’t keep down while ‘Sweet Freedom” played
on the P.A.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now I have full blown E.D.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I think the first
time I realized what jacking off was, I accidentally scraped my sweatpants
around my knob and figured it out, and blasted off a round of Flubber I had no
idea was coming.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I of course spent one
hour that night praying for forgiveness and promising God he could send me to
burn in the pits of Hell if I ever did that, whatever that was, again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Also worth noting, in 2016, high schoolers
and younger are eminently enlightened authorities on gender and sexuality, we
live in a no-judgment culture where kids come out of the closet and everyone basically
respects everyone’s identity, orientation, fetishes, lustings and longings and
Hailee Steinfeld has a song about playing with herself..<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But in like 1986, forget coming out or being
trans – you would get bullied like a motherfucker just for whacking off.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>NOBODY would admit to this, even though
everyone surely was, and some dumbass named Kern cut class to go in the woods
to jerk his dick one time, and the kid got brutalized and mocked so bad, his
parents had to put him in a different school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He never lived it down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
remember two bullies getting in my face with the intensity of Harvey Keitel and
Chris Penn one day, fuming and fists clenched, demanding that I swear I’ve
never beat off or they would murder me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like
I said, it was a joyous era.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">But I still wanted mags
and pics of the hotness to support this addiction, but the Playboys and
Penthouses were impossible to come by on any regular basis, and that Bobby dude
soon moved away and thus so did his dad’s cig and porno stache.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Along with the Mansion of Models
in my head, I started day-dreaming things like that I’d be on a walk and happen
upon a lost cache of mag porno.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Other
kids wanted to be Joe Montana or Barry Bonds, I wanted a stack of dirty
magazines.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The swimsuit issue came along
for me then, with its glistening supermodels doing the foot thing and wet boobs
and pretty hair, and through my mid-teens this became an absolute must.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It actually sort of replaced nudity as the
principal obsession.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like the
nonexistent girls that still lived in my head, these models had Little
Personalities and sexy Names! – Names!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Paulina!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Elle!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Stephanie!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They were my Little Buddies and I definitely incorporated them in
fictionalized form into my daydreams, plus the relative tameness of ogling
bikinis and legs and sandy feet melded nicely with my judgmental Catholic boy
superstitions and movie-loser delusions about fame and cult of
personality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Speaking of
magazines, and movies, and VHS, I was a little movie nerd like I said, and
would always get this magazine called “Video Review.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It would have little capsule reviews of what
was out on video, and little articles about the EXCITING HIGH TECH WORLD of VHS
HEAD CLEANERS, about coaxial cables, about some rumored SUPER VHS technology
that would truly be the dawn of a new age.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Mostly a tech wonk mag that you’d see that embarrassing HEY PADRON! Guy
from Videodrome reading, but I liked it, especially when I realized it had this
special SEALED SECTION in the back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Why
whatever could be in here”,” I wondered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If you didn’t crack the seal, you’d be none the wiser, hence why my
parents would buy it for me…but lo and behold it was ads for – gasp – VHS
porn.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Woooooah.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The ads were careful to put little stars on
the nipples and such, but they promised a World of Adventure – I was shaking
and nervous reading the titles like “Lez Be Friends” and what that could
possibly entail.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All that vintage
mid-80s headband and tube socks type porno that probably had Two Quarts North and
Ginger whoever, filmed a hazy “Mike’s Murder” coke haze, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Porno.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This
was some next-level shit.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Yet somehow I still –
still – didn’t really realize that actual porno would should a dick going into
the vag.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was such a goob I figured it
was naked chicks hopping around or doing light kissing or something.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Absolute idiot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was like 16 by then and had figured out how
to rig the manual channel tracking on the top of my VCR that scrambled Cinemax
would show up in snowy black-and-white with no sound.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was this way that I watched some late-night
Euro Skinemax gems like “Fiona,” “Young Lady Chatterly,” the Emmanuelles, and
my personal fave, “Island of 1000 Delights,” which was absolutely filthy and had
this lesbian scene on a beach that I wanted to will myself into like Chris
Reeve in “Somewhere in Time.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Somehow in
’88 I browbeat my folks into subscribing to Showtime – get this – because
otherwise I could never have a 3-to-a-tape VHS recording of fucking “STAKEOUT”
because HBO didn’t have the rights.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This
was like literally a pressing, emotional concern of mine at age 15.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Anyway, Showtime had their own version of
Skinemax’s fare, and late night Saturdays soon became a prime era to whack the
dick electric to more ‘70s naughty fare that usually had a British bobby in
fast-motion or that weird Casanova movie with Tony Curtis and a bunch of
Playmates.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">To slide back to real
life, this was now getting closer to 11<sup>th</sup> and 12<sup>th</sup> grade,
and in fairness to myself I somehow was FAR less of an inept loser by the
latter high school years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’d worked up
a little comedy persona that won over most, if not, all of the jocks, and with
a few exceptions the bullying had really subsided.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I traded in the coke bottles for contacts,
and looked like something approaching a functional high school kid circa
1989-90.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>started having female friends, especially this
chick I’ll call Jody who I went full-on over-the-moon for.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course I was friendzoned but didn’t remotely
realize it, in my infinite inexperience I assumed I was the love of her life
and we were “just like Harry and Sally!” or something, and we hung out in her
house together a couple times watching MTV until her asshole lawyer dad who
looked EXACTLY like that motherfucker from the “Cradle of Love” video would
come home and throw me out.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Of course this was
short-lived as she started inviting her big-sized camp-hag pal and my INDIAN
BOZO ROLLING PARTNER along on our adventures, since in her rational mind we
were just pals, and frankly she was on and off with some Marlboro Lights
100s-smoking preppy god who had a brief stint in rehab because he couldn’t take
the pressure of being TOO GOOD AT EVERYTHING, guy was a walking John Hughes
character.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I remember thinking me and
Jody had a “date!” together to go see fucking Alan Alda in “Betsy’s Wedding,”
but at the last minute she suggests we invite the Indian Bozo along and make it
a group scene, then doubles down by having him sit between me and her as I’m in
fucking ALDA AGONY, and as slow on the uptake as I am about everything, even my
idiot ass sussed this one out that this great love was not meant to be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think I had one more conversation with her
where I embarrassed myself royalty, and from there it was a fucking
Gettysburg-worthy retreat from the comparative pain of reality back to punching
the fucking cork like Fast Times Reinhold to my imaginary swimsuit girlfriends
Showtime tits and fantasies where I not only could command pussy, but I had the
fucking General costume to prove it.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Was bummed and
dejected about this through most of senior year, especially since my “posse,”
such as it was, were all starting to date these really cool chicks, and I was
always fifth-wheeling like the clown, striking out when I tried, and in the
last few months of that year I remember already drifting apart pretty good from
my little crew.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I just wanted to move to
L.A. to be a
comedian, but because I’m a pussy first and foremost,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wanted to please my folks who desperately
demanded I get a proper four-year college education, which we all know is the
cornerstone of every great famous actor and comic.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I ended up that fall
as a motherfucking COMMUTER at the University
of Pittsburgh. Right from
Semester One I started noticing I was riding a bus and going home nights to
work as a grocery cashier in my PAISLEY SHIRTS and Dockers, I was hanging out
with high school kids thinking I was The Fonz but was really The Douche,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and the nadir of my life came one December
weekend (I believe the one where Last Boy Scout was released) that was
officially Christmas break and on Friday night I was drinking a case of Coors
in THE WOODS with a bunch of 15- and 16-year-olds, and the next night my BROS
who’d gone away for college all called an Applebee’s meetup, and they’re
regaling me with TALES OF THE VAG that sounded right out of a Phil Kaufman movie….
And my comeback is that I finally had TWO VCRs and was able to make a faded
copy of GOLDFINGER I’d rented.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This guy
Phil and this guy Scott who’d been total losses when we were in HS suddenly had
college girlfriends and made it sound like they’d just wander the dorm and
behind each unlocked door was a different waiting 1991-hotness chick taking the
D as Sad But True played and the Jack and the jizz flowed in equal measure.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">This was when
WHACKING OFF became less a “hopeful fun someday somehow” sunny fantasy of a
LIFE I WOULD SURELY LEAD, to a LIFE THAT WAS PASSING ME BY.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I still had hope that I’d ride out this
MISERABLE FUCKING COMMUTER LIFE, but each visit home in the SNOW-OPP-USE YOUR
ILLUSION era from the increasingly distant posse was a gong resounding what a
lonely pathetic worm I’d become.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">It’s almost a fucking
footnote that somewhere around here in 1992 I finally kinda sorta got some makeout
NECKING (ooh! See ya at the sock hop!) and light petting action fumbling around
in my fogged-up K-Car from some chick in an event so low-rent I had to ask her
to hold off making out one more minute so I could finish a fucking Skoal Mint
Chew Dip.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But that wasn’t what I wanted,
which by now was MAGAZINE PORN and HUSTLER and HIGH SOCIETY, and if I wasn’t
meeting any chicks on my daily travails on campus, they had a newsstand and I
was an adult now goddamn it, and while my buddy Scott was off on some campus in
Erie regaling me with stories of how his TWO girlfriends’ pussies tasted
different, I was nervously waiting in lines buying a pack of Marlboro Box with
a squack mag in plain view of every freshman chick who happened by.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I would RACE HOME with these glorious
low-rent Hustlers and bust a nut over their incredibly tacky shots of wide-open
vag.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And yet, and YET, this is 1992-3,
I’m 19, 20 years old, and to get back to whatever the FUCK I was on about 11
hours ago, I still had never seen video porn.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Never. Not the real stuff.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
still thought MAGAZINES were the height of human eroticism.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I got my first glimpse
of said VIDEO MAJESTY, finally, around age TWENTY YES TWENTY I MEAN TWENTY,
this is the first time I’d ever seen any kind of sex in video form, thanks to
some cipher-like bro Ryan who works at my market as a bagger.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His stepdad was some wiry drunk asshole who
looked like Rex Brown who would get all fucked up and roll out and get lost and
wake up in a storm drain or something, so me and this dude and some other rod
Eric who looked like the kid from The Toy despite being 18 are ALWAYS looking
to get our hands on beer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We work up a
Reed/Dirk/Todd plan to just straight-up fucking boost a case from Ryan’s deadbeat
stepdad some night he’s out getting loaded at the dive bar, figuring he
wouldn’t notice it or remember.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’re in
this wood-paneled eminently West View PGH dumpy house, I got a case of warm
Coors in my hands and we’ve almost gotten away with it when Ryan offhands,
“Hey, my stepdad has some pornos, you guys gotta see this!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even the fucking spazz from The Toy-looking
dweeb was like “Eh, let’s just go get fucked up” but I heard a HEAVENLY CHOIR
AND THE CLOUDS PARTING and at AGE 20 was BOUNCING AROUND A FUCKING SOFA going
“Put it in! Put it in!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And dead-voiced
Yinzer throws in some cassette from a HUGE FUCKING BOX, I mean those old porno
boxes were way bigger than even the MGM HOME VIDEO BOX that like YEAR OF THE
DRAGON came in, and hits play and the first thing I see is some dude’s HUGE
FUCKING COCK, just an EPIC FUCKING LOOFAH LOOKING HOLMESIAN COCK and on cue it
BLOWS A LOAD, like jizz flying fucking everywhere, I’m then basically the same
age as MATT DAMON, MARK WAHLBERG, BEN AFFLECK, DREW BARRYMORE, and COREY
FELDMAN were, and I’m like SCREAMING IN A WHINY VOICE in Pittsburgh
Pennsylvania, “It’s a COCK! OH MY GOD HE’S SHOOTING CUM! OH MY GOD THEY’RE
SHOWING A COCK!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like my voice went up
nineteen octaves high in a shrill squeal, COULDN’T BELIEVE THAT THERE WERE
MOVIES THAT SHOWED JIZZ, which was blasting all over some tacky DD tits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My mind, at age 20, was FUCKING BLOWN that
they made movies that showed THE ACTUAL SEX ACT (er, a load), I was wholly
unprepared for the view of GENITALIA, had no idea that was what PORNO
entailed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Almost on cue, the dude’s
stepdad barged in and I’m standing there shrieking like a bitch and Ryan has
the sense to shut the fucking TV off, and drunk-ass Stepdad has a Winston
dangling in his Chevy ballcap and goes “Heh, heh, heh, you boys doing some
drinkin’?” then shuffles off to pass out.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I don’t have the
nerve to still steal the beer, but next phone call with SCOTT FROM PENN STATE
BEHREND, I’ve finally got a STORY WORTH BRAGGING ABOUT!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Oh, my God, man, I watched some PORNO!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>THEY SHOWED A DICK!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>YOU ACTUALLY SEE THE DUDE SHOOTING
SPERM!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Guarantee I said SPERM even at
that age.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This dude’s been eating
pussy like a fucking Michael Douglas champ for a year-plus and my big brag is I
saw SEMEN EMITTING on a VHS tape.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have
finally seen pornography as a grown adult mere months from legal drinking
age.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I didn’t even really see the chick,
or the chick taking a dick, or the vag in closeup, or the anal I’ve been
curious to see for a fucking decade in the goddamn fucking general costume of
my mind….. My first porno, in my third year of college, was seeing a random
dick shooting jizz for 11 seconds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With
both my hands clutching a case of beer.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">From here I
absolutely needed to see THE FULL ACT – aka, like, you know, a fucking chick,
on a video screen, getting fucked or doing super-hot-lesbianism or something,
like the ads of VIDEO REVIEW had promised oh those many years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I started CRUiSING TOWN like a fucking
creeper surveilling magazine stands and out-of-town newspaper shops downtown
that promised the VIDEO BOOTHS or whatever like it was the days of THE HOWLING
and CRUISING.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again, I sure was never
good-looking in life, but if there was EVER an era where I was passably human
looking with a working head of hair, it was the 90s, and instead of going to
college events on campus or chatting up NotAlexandraPaul in the library, I was
PROWLING THE NIGHT like fucking LIGHT SLEEPER in the quest of not actual pussy
or hookers or company or a girlfriend or a nice girl with a friendly smile whom
I could see as human, but rather…. A fucking BIG OVERSIZED VHS CASE that might
have shots of girls’ assholes and lesbian stuff.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was consumed by this, picturing blonde
girls all naked with bare feet doing insane porno stuff, I’d go downtown and
stake a place out in Ferrara Sheen with my head down like I was scoring a fix,
roll in, and get intimidated by some Spinell-looking asshole and stalk out in a
hurry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On MCKNIGHT ROAD they had some
video store with a porn section, I got all emboldened one day and STODE IN like
Wasson in Body Double, only to come face-to-face with a Female Employee.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I went through the saloon doors like an idiot
then realized this, doubled back and, for reasons I’ve never understood, asked
for a job application.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She’s all
incredulous, “You want a job here?” I confirmed yes, God knows why, and she
slapped down an application all “I don’t think we’re hiring, but whatever,” and
like a dumbass I filled out a fucking job application complete with personal
info <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>to a jack-vid store instead of just
buying some tapes or racing out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They
never called me back. </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The by-now
anticlimactic (ZING) last act of all this came (ZING!) in late 1994, they’d
bumped me up to PRODUCE MAN (GREEN SUITS COMIN’!) mostly because the
chain-smoking, hard-drinking asshole Zubaz-wearing alpha-male stock guys and
managers loathed me and were trying to Gaslight me into quitting the
supermarket job where I’d dandy in like a bitch bragging about how I was the
next Tom Hanks, despite wearing wire-rims and rocking size 38 waist black
Levi’s in suburban fucking Pittsburgh for the fifth year going.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the very least they’d try sticking me in
BAKERY and DELI where I’d be far the fuck away from the “cool guys” in
stock.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was such a monumental fucking
douche, but by now the RAGE LEVEL was at an all-time high, I was 21 and never
getting laid, was starting to go to STRIP CLUBS by my SELF, prime of my life just
a fucking dork, this was also the last year I was clinging on to METAL!, trying
to browbeat GROCERY BAGGERS still in TENTH GRADE into going to metal shows with
me even though I would show up in shit like a fucking gay-ass SALMON COLORED
DRESS SHIRT (SO METAL).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The other
produce guys were this hate-filled burnout named Gary who looked like Andy
Richter and hated me, especially since I was lazy and depressed and a whiny
bitch and wouldn’t stack the potatoes right;<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This fat Italian awesome mook named Dom who looked like the fat kid from
EVERY aforementioned ‘80s tit-flick and who I’d occasionally grab a brew
with;<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And this disco-ed out weirdo
called THE REFT – I don’t know, I think his last name was Reft – who rocked
CHAINS and BIG COLLARS and the closest approximation was that swingin’ douche
in FRIDAY THE 13<sup>TH</sup> PART V who did coke while waiting on the waitress
he was hoping to fuck in his car.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>THE
REFT was total Pittsburgh pure-comedy buffoon and would BAG ON ME mercilessly in
his thick stupid fucking accent, especially once he found out that at age 21,
four years into college, I was still a virgin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I’m going for an English Lit minor and Film Studies major and whipping
up these incisive analyses of cinematic thematics through the prism of
contemporary American politics and Marxism and The Revenge of the Repressed an
the Mulvey Gaze and ALL that bullshit, but come dayjob time I got this
cock-of-the-walk Pittsburgh fucking shithead calling me a “fag”and pointing
fingers even though he’s a 46-year-old man with a Dawn of the Dead accent
packing strawberries on the shrink wrap machine.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Around this time (OJ
era,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>for the record) I’m doing movie extra
work and trying to network to set up some opportunities for when I GRADUATE
COLLEGE in a few months so I can move to Los Angeles…..but then facing epic
shit from this Reft asshole come day, and he’s telling EVERYONE IN THE STORE
I’m a virgin and shooting RUBBER BANDS at my dick.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again this fucking moron was pushing like
fucking 50.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Produce is right by floral
department and some AWESOME blonde chick actually is kind of ALL ABOUT the
Lexman BLACK JEANS GREEN COAT COMBO and likes the HAPLESS DORK VIBE <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and we’re always hanging out when the Three
Losers are taking a powder, and one time she teases my dick in the cooler
(pretty sure I got some precum on some poor sap’s fucking cabbage) and FUCKING
REFT rolls in like an asshole and cockblocks me at my finest hour as this girl
was letting me dry hump her ass crack in a moment I replay every fucking HOUR
of my life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Idiot fucking REFT rolls in
and shuts it down and I spazz out like fucking CUCKOO’S NEST DOURIF by way of
Ray Babbit slapping his head, going off on this fucking cocksucker like he just
took away all I got and all I was ever gonna have.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Actually went off on
the guy so bad he backtracked and, knowing of my lack of pussy and complete
obsession with said topic, starting talking up some PORNO TAPR he had. WOO-HOO,
this guy had PORNO.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Imagine how fucking
absurd in the world of 2016 that sounds, some absolute mind-blowing asshole
mortal enemy you fucking hate, and he seeks to smooth over the bad blood by
giving you a spank-vid from his VHS collection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Fucking monumentally insane to even conceive of now, you’re all, we’re
all two clicks away from seeing any and every fetish and fever dream we could
ever concoct in our wildest fantasies, but the idea of a VHS PORNO was still –
still – so fucking verboten and supernatural that YEARS after everyone my age
was knee-deep in pussy, I still wanted to see FEMALE NAKED BODIES IN A VHS
PORNO SHOWING THEIR VAG.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And he had me
hooked from the jump, I was like “It better have lesbianism! It better have
female assholes!” and he fucking milked that, “Oh you better believe it does!”
and I was SHAKING, FUCKING SHAKING at the thought that all these years later,
of dreams and fantasies and images and movies and softcore and Euro fake porn
and some Indian asshole stealing my girlfriend who had no fucking idea she was
my girlfriend, all of it, ALL OF IT, came down to this slimy, strawberry-slicing
fucking jagoff in his ill-fitting green coat with his promise of porn oblivion.
“So it’s all girl?” I asked.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“No, it’s about this
guy, Rocco,” he replied.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rocco?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Who the fuck is Rocco?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Plus he made it sound like a fucking biopic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>THE ROCCO STORY.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Had no idea who that asshole might be, but he
assured me despite the presence of a GUY WITH A DICK, which I’d seen before,
there’d be plenty of female masturbation and lesbians and assholes and tits and
feet and the other fucking thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
needed this tape now now now now now also? Now. Also now.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Like the true
gentleman he was, this fucking asshole shows up with a blank black VHS cassette
the next day, no labels, no case, nothing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I’m TWENTY-ONE YEARS OLD and shivering while snapping up this glazed chocolate
donut of a VHS that this idiot SURELY RUBBED HIS DICK ALL OVER just to fuck
me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Speed home in Liotta Vision with the
Nilsson practically playing in my head, fantasizing about what lesbionic
majesty was in my grip.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Raced into the door
and, lo and behold, in a striking contrast from the 1986 days of
pause-rewinding “Porky’s Revenge,” Ma has taken an unexpected day off from work
and has decided to delight me by whipping up some spaghetti for her son.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ma’s all “Can you get out the Parmesan
cheese? It’ll be ready in 10 minutes, go wash up, and I race down to the GAME
ROOM to slap this fucking GLORY into the VHS, knowing my SPAGHETTI BONANZA is
almost ready, and it’s this porno called “ROCCO UNLEASHED.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Title comes on and this dead-eyed Italian
cipher who looks like Troy Aikman on downers is strolling around in some
establishing footage, I’m pounding on the FF button with pre-ejaculate in full
effect, then a minute in, some NAKED CHICK is playing with her vag and I’m like
WOAH WOAH WOAH and with a 2/3 limp dick FULL ON BLAST A LOAD into my jeans
before Rocco so much as starts fucking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This was a moment a decade in the making.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I came in my pants over a chick rubbing her
vag then went up, hosed down, and couldn’t wait to see what erotic glories were
contained past the 2 minute mark.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Turns out it was
Rocco fucking 10 or 12 chicks in an apparent stupor, and after all this time I
had my dream in my hands…. Of watching some zonked-out cipherous idiot fuck a
bunch of chicks on my TV set.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I still
watched the tape again and again, and a real highlight of ‘ROCCO UNLEASHED” is
near the end when GOD ROCCO is balls deep in a haze fucking one of the chicks
and kinda glazes over then a light bulb goes off and he deadpans, “Hey! Who’s
the chick who wanted to get fucked in the ass?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And he proceeds to fuck some chick in the ass.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As long as I live, I’ll never get to utter
those glorious words or that glorious command outside of my late-night
daydreams in my general costume.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It took
21 years just to WATCH a chick getting fucked in the ass, I’m now pushing 44
and this seems to never actually be on the horizon of occurring in my real
life.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I finally drove
across the country the first of two times to make it as an actor in late 1995
through early 1996.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I brought the Rocco
tape with me, but never ended up in a motel with VCR capability, so I
backtracked a half-decade and spanked to some fashion ad with Christy
Turlington in a West Covina Motel 6 as the Rocco tape fried in the San Gabriel
Valley heat in my trunk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I failed
to get famous and drove home to Pennsylvania
in 1996, Rocco and the gals made the trip back with me, and got a few more
horned-up views as I wasted away that summer prepping to go back and take L.A. by storm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I eventually did that winter, I decided
it was time to put immature things behind, and found myself at some white-trash
K-Mart dumpster where I tossed “Rocco Unleashed” in, but not until after I
pulled out a healthy amount of VHS cassette tape and broke it off lest anyone
ever see the forbidden treasure contained on it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The magnetic tape wound around my knuckles
and I snapped it with shame and embarrassment and yet a certain anticipation
that the things held on said cassette would one day be a reality for me.</b></div>
LexGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15868677491486898267noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8859849344180914437.post-71091930078532340352016-02-24T04:52:00.000-08:002016-02-24T04:52:05.836-08:00A 4AM ODE TO LOS ANGELES<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">A 4AM ODE TO LOS
ANGELES.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">BARRY LYNDON
FONT:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(This is a brief riff about L.A..<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Probably of no interest to anyone who doesn’t
or hasn’t lived here, or who doesn’t want to be famous and fuck models and
cruise around in cool shades in a Geo Tracker with PSSYHND vanity plates and do
coke and go to parties with models and fuck them in an infinity pool like you
see in sock-fuck fake pornos in the dead of night.)</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">All my life I wanted
to live in Los Angeles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like to me Los Angeles was HAZY SOFT FOCUS
and hot pussy and blondes also blondes also blondes, like this LOOKER glow with
fucking Albert Finney fixing up these imperceptible flaws in obviously
beautiful women.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was John Ritter in a
skintight-as-fuck pits-stained banlon shirt doing mugging faces in front of
Chrissy Snow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was SOAP with Ted
Wass.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And Blake Edwards movies where
guys who looked like Robert Weber and Richard Mulligan were surrounded by
always-willing topless blondes at some Malibu
Colony pool party at all times.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Jan-,Michael Vincent and William Katt were surfing a few hundred yards
up the beach.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">It was this era of
hermetic 70s-ness that gave way to MARK BLANKFIELD IN FRIDAYS AND JEKYLL AND
HYGE TOGETHER AGAIN, and Fast Times and tons of 1983 titty movies, that gave
way to To Live and Die in LA and Less Than Zero and The Morning After, coke and
deadness and ANTISEPTIC SHEEN and aloofness and THOSE SOFT-FOCUS OVERHANG
LIGHTS over Hollywood Blvd that you see in Lethal Weapon that they don’t have
anymore, then HAIR METAL and GNR and SUNSET STRIP with the Crue, and then JIMMY
HOLLYWOOD and GRAND CANYON, before the 1994-5 L.A.-IS-EXCITING thrill-ride of
the O.J. CASE, PULP FICTION, and of course Michael Mann’s HEAT.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On one hand it still had that Altman-ass
Topanga-groover bullshit health-foods vibe for aging Democrat pussies, but fuck
all that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was the edgy of BIG
SKYSCRAPERS AT NIGHT and FAME and PUSSY and MONEY and I was hell-fucking-bent
on moving here.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Drove out once and
flopped in a fleabag motel for a month before running out of cash, went home
tail between legs not having become “the next Jim Carrey!” as I’d promised,
saved up and tried again the next fall.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Fully hoping to be CAPTAIN LOS ANGELES.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They’re gonna fucking LOVE ME.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>When I got back to town, it was that NEW BRAT PACK era of LEO and
JOAQUIN and McCONAUGHEY an AFFLECK/DAMON all starting to really blow up, late
1996 with DETAILS magazine covers and LONG DECEMBER on KROQ 17 times an hour
when they weren’t playing BEN FOLDS BRICK or Soul Coughing, and I thought I’d
made it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yeah, I had some wack-fuck job
but at NIGHT I’d hop in the TAURUS and drive that motherfucker RIGHT DOWN to
SUNSET BLVD almost every night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Drive
around listening to my BUSH music or whatever, not really having any friends
yet or anywhere to go where I’d be wanted, but passing by all the “COOL SPOTS”
like THE VIPER ROOM and the ROXBURY and the ROXY and THE RAINBOW, imagining any
day now I’d be a super famous actor and comedian and chicks would be willing to
bang me just for being me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was gonna
SELL SCRIPTS and FUCK CHICKS, and basically I’d be Hollywood’s cross between
TOM CRUISE and PAUL SCHRADER and QUENTIN TARANTINO and THE DICEMAN and JOHN
CARPENTER when I wasn’t being STEPHEN KING.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Probably should have been CLUE ONE I wasn’t gonna be ANY OF THAT SHIT
that even in my “back home” hometown I was a TOTAL FUCKING DORK yet I somehow
thought I’d be pulling mad pussy on the basis of my nonexistent looks,
never-been-to-a-gym physique, and REALLY HORRIBLE WRITING SAMPLES and grainy
Pennsylvania extra-work headshots.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
more pressingly, the cliché “jack of all trades, master of none,” while it
would be giving my no-talent ass 1000x more credit than I warrant, it’s pretty
true – if you come to LA or NYC (WELCOME TO NY SWIFTY POWER), come with an
ACTUAL VISION.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you’re gonna be an
actor, come with a real and hit the audition circuit and live in the fucking Y
if you have to, and blow some old men if you have to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you wanna be a comic, stand outside the
fucking comedy club begging to wash dishes and hang out till they give you a
spot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you wanna be a writer, actually
spend time honing your craft.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As opposed
to ANY of that shit, I just thought BEING IN LOS ANGELES was SO FUCKING EXCITING
that all those, you know, LITTLE DETAILS would take care of themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Through the sheer force of my personality,
I’d make it!</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Instead I worked my
dead-end job because I’d blown the nest egg I had trying to get my FUCKING CAR
REGISTERED.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Absolutely the source of my
hatred for any hilljack hayseed I see driving around LOST AS FUCK in L.A. with their Podunk
outta-state plates, usually living at the fucking Oakwood, but IN THE END those
dudes are probably hitting the scene, posse-ing up with some other pussyhounds,
and making a true go at this town.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They
aren’t setting themselves up solo in a 2-bedroom, blowing their cash on CASH
REGISTRATION, and working in a cubicle where you get 1 week off per year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So I’m doing that, no freedom, total desk
jockey, total loser, but all I wanna do is be on the SUNSET STRIP.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The most exciting place in the world in my
head, that NIGHTTIME SOFT HAZE and CHICKS OUT IN LITTLE OUTFITS, I imagine this
world where movie stars and rock gods just go into clubs and snap a finger<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and they’re having sex with 400,000 women a
night, every night, blowing loads, doing coke, fucking chicks, fuck the ass,
fuck the pussy, eating asshole like a fucking Belladonna video, and I’m sitting
in the ass-end of the East Valley wasting away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Like there’s a whole world of pussy and drinking and coke and assplay
out there, and I am a nobody.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">And nothing
symbolizes any of this shit more than Sunset Boulevard, and maybe nothing
moreso than the glorious CHATEAU MARMONT, the PLACE OF MY DREAMS, my PERSONAL
VALHALLA where Belushi overdosed and which overlooks the city with those
MICHAEL MANN-ASS LIGHTS over Sunset Plaza.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The fucking HILLS, THE FUCKING HILLS, all I’ve ever wanted to do is have
that RACK-FOCUSED CITYSCAPE BEHIND ME like in HEAT as I’m on some rooftop of
pool over L.A., maybe fuck a chick in the BODY DOUBLE HOUSE.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I like ELEVATION and I like parties and I
like a blue sheen and GOOD-LOOKING PEOPLE being AWESOME.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One thing I NEVER EVER EVER get about “movie
nerds” is how asexual most of them are.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Was watching some “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” “Movie Week” last
night where the contestants were all “Movie Nerds.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And Chris Harrison asked one dude, what’ll
you do with the money, and his stupid answer was like “buy the BTTF DeLorean
and the Ghostbusters car” and reconfigure his house to look like some sci-fi shit.
LIKE WHAT? WHAT? How about calling a brothel that specializes in LA RICH GUYS
and setting up a DAILY SYSTEM OF FUCKING BY WHICH THEY SENT OVER a new girl
every TWO HOURS, all blonde, maybe one brunette, all anorexic, promise of NO
STDs and you can stuff like anal and anilingus and facials and record it all
while shouting YAHOO YA MOTHERFUCKER like GoodFellas then post it on your
personal site so everyone ON EARTH knows how much PUSSY YOU GET which is all
that counts?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like do other guys REALLY
not think of fucking 75 women an hour, or are they just too square and sheepish
to admit? I want to fuck, and I want to fuck a lot, and I want to fuck hot
chicks, and I want do a shitload of coke and then HANG OUT ON A SUNSET AND
CRESENT ROOFTOP with the BIG-ASS EXCITING CITY BEHIND ME AT 4AM with the ONE
GIRL who’s a little special above all the others named APRIL or maybe AMBER or
maybe EMMA but she’s a little high right now but she’ll do that thing with me
where we put our HEADS TOGETHER and FEEL THE ELECTRICITY AND SOULFULNESS but
she ultimately has to go get high and I ultimately have to go eat the asshole
of a girl who turned 18 last night.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">And do I get ANY of
that? A) NO B)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>NO C) FUCK NO.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You know what I get? This un-remarked-upon
part of L.A. that TERRIFIES the poseurs and the fake-shakers who front to act
like they’re in the biz when they’re clinging on by fingertips about to break
off like Mia Sara’s in THE MADDENING.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Nope. God fucking forbid any of those poseurs and pussies ever stepped
off the strip to hang in the hellscape<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>no-man’s-land of the San Gabriel Valley, or Pasadena, or Glendale, or
Christ fucking forbid, Burbank, where the Town Shuts Down at 4pm and the only
action you’re getting is waiting for the sunscorched St Josephs Resident with
Red Hair and Bloody Scrubs to take too long at the fucking Poquito Mas salsa
bar.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">That shit is a Clive
Barker netherworld Purgatory Los Angeles, So
Close But So Far, no Marmont, No WILSHIRE (whatever the fuck that is), no HOLLYWOOD CITY TED WASS SHEEN WITH THE ERNIE
ANDERSON ABC VOICEOVER.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just DOUGHBALLS
and working stiffs, lined up in rows, all up and down Pasadena and Glendale and
Sunland and parts unknown to Ben Affleck or Bachelor Ben – a never-never land
shitbox where you might as well be back in the fucking Rust Belt, paying LA
prices<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>for the privilege of never having
made it, never gonna make it, and all you got to fucking show for it are some
sweet fucking California plates, so you can have the high ground in flipping
off the next out-of-work “actor” dawdling up Vine with a Newport out the window.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">And don’t even get me
started on how some new-to-LA fucking HAYSEEDS know enough to move into the
relatively happening WHITE PEOPLE PARADISE of Los Feliz instead of the East
Valley. HOW? HOW DO THEY KNOW THIS? Is there like a White Dork Beacon there? If
so, why didn’t I get this message in 1996 instead of immediately seizing on
those sun-baked studio apartments behind Sardos when I got here? Just fuck
everything.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Everything. </b></div>
LexGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15868677491486898267noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8859849344180914437.post-25224707952836437062016-02-11T05:30:00.003-08:002016-02-11T05:30:28.988-08:00HELPING CHRIS PINE MOVE A SOFA<br />
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>HELPNG CHRIS PINE MOVE A SOFA.</b></div>
<b>
</b><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><div class="MsoNormal">
<b>What would be like if Chris Pine called you up and was like
“Hey, bro, yeah, it’s C-PINE. SO, yeah, I’m moving on Saturday and I need help
with the sofa”?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Would you be able to
help him?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Could you be all normal and be
like “Sup bro, yeah bro, what’s going on, bro, hey howyadoin’? Sure I’ll be
there”?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All casual like BROS are with
other BROS, just a couple of dudes hanging out and MOVING A SOFA and drinking
like ONE CORONA in the sparse living room thereafter and talking about positive
things with a Positive guy?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then roll
out for some WAHOO FISH TACOS with a WHEAT TORTILLA while Pine’s insouciant
coif flips and flows and his eyes BEAM as he recounts his latest conquests and
you struggle to keep up with some comparatively mundane story about, like,
getting Achnad at 7-11 to sell you a sixer of Rolling Rock at 1:58am, getting
it in JUST under the wire before he locked the booze cage?</b></div>
<b>
</b><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Saw THE PINE on Kimmel a few weeks ago, and dude is weird as
fuck, did some “funny” song about school closures that hanged in the air like
Robert Blake getting lynched at the end of “In Cold Blood,” then our erstwhile
Captain Kirk rolls out for his interview proper, and Jimmy Kimmel, who used to
slug beers with The Fox and blaze up with Snoop and insult all of womanhood in
tandem with his long-left-in-the-dust rolling partner Adam on “The Man Show”
back when Durst was telling us ‘Cause This is How We Learn – sorry, I got off
on a rant there – But Jimmy’s earlier in the show been doing Some Shtick with
two Absolute Fucking Dorks in the crowd, one of whom/whose (who gives a fuck)
GOAL IN LIFE is to break into porn acting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The Porn Dude is this scrawny rentboy-looking cipher, and his
cipher-like buddy is, oddly, some Sorta Fat Guy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This has been discussed earlier in the show,
and once movie star Chris Pine is out on stage, Jimmy throws the attention back
over to these two harmless bros, and mentions one of them wants to be a porn
star.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Pine, sort of squinting, gamely
playing along but probably not THAT interested regardless, sizes up THE FAT GUY
and WINCES something like “THIS guy?” before he’s course-corrected that it’s
the OTHER, skinnier dude, and the bit goes on from there, whatever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But this QUARTER-SECOND of the star of STAR
TREK and, more pressingly, SMOKIN’ACES and UNSTOPPABLE, visibly fucking
CRINGING at a LESS-THAN-PERFECT physical specimen, SENT ME INTO A RAGE.</b></div>
<b>
</b><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Like, sorry, Chris, we weren’t all born to the SARGE FROM
CHIPS and born in SUNNY LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA,
full well knowing there was a 90% chance we could slide into SAG like a KY’d
cock and get automatic auditions and movie parts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I kinda ate ABSOLUTELY ANY showbiz scion
anyway, unless it’s a Hot Chick or Michael Douglas, but while I’m at it, I
fucking hate ANYBODY who was lucky enough to grow up in LOS ANGELES – even the
biggest Valley loser who came up in that haze-fogged FREE FALLIN’ time and
place or anytime thereafter gets to grow up with a certain cognizance of
niceties like diversity, forward thinking, Mexican food, and physical fitness
that are a fucking CHAMBER MYSTERY to us hilljacks in the other 48.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Growing up in L.A. isn’t just a leg-up on breaking into
showbiz, it’s a leg-up on being an acceptable human being in modern enlightened
society.</b></div>
<b>
</b><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><div class="MsoNormal">
<b>So here’s fucking Captain Showbiz Kid snarking on these two
losers, and I got somehow terrified.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m
terrified of actors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A lot of absolutely
morons, mouth-breathers, and no-charisma fatbodies I read online seem to have
this ABSOLUTELY MYSTIFYING LACK OF SELF-AWARENESS by which they think they have
ANY BASIC HUMAN WORTHINESS to talk to celebrities, but they’re deluding
themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like Clint in Torino says, these guys don’t wanna have anything to do
with you and I DON’T BLAME THEM.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How do
you talk to a celebrity? Like how how how how how, also how?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What do you say to CHRIS PINE or CHRIS EVANS
or CHRIS HEMSWORTH or CHRIS FUCKING ISAAC?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>You’re a douche, they’re normal, and they’re famous.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is there any point deluding oneself into
thinking they even REMOTELY value you as even a basic human being?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They probably do not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like fucking Hemsworth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like this dude rolling in like a fucking
Norse God with that physique, if he was in line at fucking Vons with a HEAPING
SHOPPING CART of PROTEIN POWDER AND RUBBERS that would take six fucking hours
to ring up, and I hate a sixer and some CHIPS AHOY and was actively in FRONT OF
HIM, I’d let him cut AND genuflect out of sheer inferiority.</b></div>
<b>
</b><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><div class="MsoNormal">
<b>And taking it back wider (TM LAUER), the root of this is
something that’s plagued me my whole life:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>How do I, you, us, we, whatever, as a REGULAR GUY, a sadsack, a schmo, a
chump, a bitch, a fatty, a loser, a nothing, INTERACT with POSITIVE,
GOOD-LOOKING DUDES?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>HOW?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was never a huge sports guy, never played
sports, wasn’t in the service, so that EASY-BRO INTERACTION is more mystifying
to me than the fucking Virtual Insanity video.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>As TERRIFYING as a hot chick is, I at least know my place there (leave
her the fuck alone and go get drunk and depressed and pathetic by yourself),
but the COMRADERIE OF BROS has MYSTIFIED ME my entire life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like when you’re at the shitty Chandler Post
Office in North Hollywood and some black dude with a shaved head, Right Guard
working, and camo pants gets a ring from one of his CREW, he’s all “YEAH. YEAH
MAN, SO WE’RE GONNA GET THIS DONE, IT’S GONNA BE GOOD, “ all straight and
narrow, NO IRONY, like a JOCK POSTGAME INTERVIEW from David Justice, ABSOLUTELY
COCKSURE he’s gonna go out that night, hit a club (whatever the fuck that is)
and meet chicks and hang with his BROS have UTMOST CONFIDENCE, SERIOUSNESS, and
NO SENSE OF SELF-DEPRECATION.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like how
do you talk to men like THAT?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What
incredibly mundane bit of self-hatred can I offer up in the face of “YEAH MAN
IT’S GONNA BE A GOOD TIME” which is what ever Positive Guy always seems to be
saying.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“It should be fun, it should be
a good time, it’ll be cool.”</b></div>
<b>
</b><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><div class="MsoNormal">
<b>In my experience, NOTHING is EVER cool, there’s no good time
to be had, I’m a drag to be around because I have manboobs and a bald spot and
I’m wearing FRUIT OF THE LOOMS where the Tide on the 1.25 apartment simple
cycle<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>couldn’t entirely get rid of the
ass-skid.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s my lot in life, and
when Regular Guys get together and talk about their travails and conquests and
the Super Bowl in that soul-deadening Jock Voice, it’s an absolute mystery to
me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These are the guys who could move
Chris Pine’s couch and be effortlessly easygoing, no fear and no intimidation
amongst men – no fear that, hey. CHRIS MIGHT CALL and ask to move the sofa on
the day TRIPLE 9 comes out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Real dudes
don’t care about this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They get the
call, they go and be positive and NORMAL together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can’t tell a dude like fucking Chris Pine
that “Hey, Chris, love to help you out, but today’s KNIGHT OF CUPS day and I
gotta see it at 11:40 at the Arclight or otherwise if I go to a later show I
might have some fat guy choosing a seat within 10 rows of me and it’ll RUIN THE
ENTIRE MOVIE.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Pine would give you that
DEAD-EYED look of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“What the fuck, man?”
earnestness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Normal guys don’t
understand self-loathing and anxiety and insecurity and basically just WANTING
TO BE LEFT ALONE until the PRECISE MOMENT they can help you with something (ie,
hand-deliver a paid-for, STD-free escort under perfect circumstances) at which
point they roll the fuck out and leave you alone.</b></div>
<b>
</b><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><div class="MsoNormal">
<b>The easy camaraderie of men.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Confounding.</b></div>
LexGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15868677491486898267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8859849344180914437.post-8420413595871197022016-02-01T04:16:00.004-08:002016-02-01T04:16:53.662-08:00THE HEART WANTS by LexG<br />
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Herman sat in the plastic green booth, sipping at his shake,
alone in the corner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The ‘70s décor in
full Hal Ashby sheen, his horn-rims sliding down his sweaty nose with each sip.</b></div>
<b>
</b><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Flo the waitress came by again, more than she needed to,
“You okay, Herman?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A slight dribble of
the vanilla shake dribbled onto his long-since faded-and-dated short-sleever.</b></div>
<b>
</b><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><div class="MsoNormal">
<b>“Yeah, thanks, Flo.”</b></div>
<b>
</b><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><div class="MsoNormal">
<b>She cracked her gum and smiled warmly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Okay, hon, just say the word.”</b></div>
<b>
</b><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><div class="MsoNormal">
<b>She shuffled off to Buffalo
and he sat under the ‘70s-game-room, two-seater booth to himself, alone, alone,
also alone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Meredith had sat on the
opposite side for many a low-key post-church lunch, spinning her yarn about
Christ-knows-what when he wanted to fucking shoot himself from the echoing
walla cacophony of sameness, as he scanned the low-rent vista of the diner
imagining the other people getting to fuck their girlfriend in the ass and blow
loads, while his big day was a free Steelers cookie.</b></div>
<b>
</b><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Whole world of wonder out their beyond the Alcatraz
gates, “eat some pussy, eat some ass,.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Aging to 40, to 50, and yep on to 60, hating church and basically not
giving a fuck but being a champ, standing by and supporting, as things faded
away, hope faded away, sameness kicked in, true hope gave out, and then things
REALLY started to fade away, like for real.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></b></div>
<b>
</b><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Now alone. In the booth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>By himself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Drinking a flat diner
shake wanting it all back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’d had
sex<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>2 times in 50 years and now was
fully impotent.</b></div>
<b>
</b><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Herman finished his shake, smiled at Flo as he left a 10 dollar
tip, went into the shitbox, pulled out a .38 snub from his ‘Nam days, and blew
his fucking brains out.</b></div>
<b>
</b><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><div class="MsoNormal">
<b>The couple at the booth next to him went home and the guy
drilled the girl in the asshole then came on her back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The cum ran like Herman’s brain matter on the
humming florescent overheads.</b></div>
LexGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15868677491486898267noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8859849344180914437.post-83547148313551326862015-09-15T03:57:00.004-07:002015-09-15T17:48:19.529-07:00FAILING AT METAL by LexG<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>FAILING AT METAL</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Flashback to 1994.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
was 21 and an English major at UNIVERSITY, splitting time between a (worthless)
Film Studies degree (Robin Wood Represent) and English Lit classes, but I was
also a Commuter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which fucking sucks for
a trillion fucking reasons and you really might as well not even go to a major
college at that point, because all this “social life” and “political awakening”
shit that people spin about college like it’s some perennial fucking Bertolucci
movie where you’re stapling anarchist proletariat posters and engaging in
ménage a trios in a nonstop opium haze is all out the fucking window when
you’re taking the PUBLIC TRANSIT down to campus like a total part-timer, making
no friends and rocking some idiotic SURPLAS JACKET hanging at the library like
it ain’t no thang while you’re really dying inside that Fucking Flounder is up
at frat row motorboating sorority tits while you’re tucked in safe and sound in
your family bedroom each and every night.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Through most of these horrible college years, I maintained a
depressing-as-fuck job at the local supermarket, alternately unloading trucks
or working the produce detail.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
pretty much everybody there was like 15, 16, 17 tops, baggers and stock and the
occasional paisley-shirt wearing cashier douche.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All the guys my age had gone off to college
and were ensconced in apparent Eyes Wide Shut fucking orgies where behind every
dorm room door on campus lay another bacchanalia, but no, I had to COMMUTE and
front like The Fonz come the weekend, pathetically rolling with some posse of
high school Yinzer wiggers dipping Skoal Mint Bandits and Zubaz.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>This was, crucially, the Grunge Era, the Voice of My
Generation, Nirvana and Pearl Jam and Soundgarden creating these amazing sonic
landscapes of the era that encapsulated the full Gen X malaise and ambivalence
that ought to have touched my very soul…. But because I was an ABSOLUTE poseur,
I was still carrying the torch for METAL!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Truth told, I was always a Johnny Come Lately fucking douche fucking
poseur fucking part-timer about music anyway, getting on board with like GNR
not during Appetite but wholesale during USE YOUR ILLUSION, never listening to
any Metallica before “One” then becoming Captain Superfan during “Black Album,”
loading up on CASSETTES of MOTLEY CRUE not in appropriate 1985 but on campus at
National Record Mart in like 1991 WAY past their original, pre-nostalgia
prime.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And working with this slew of
high school doofuses throughout this era had me getting into “heavier” shit
when I was surely a notch too old for it and concurrent with when the
alternative scene that might’ve actually, you know, spoken to a 20, 21 year old
college snob was at its fucking height.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>REM and RHCP and Jane’s Addiction and Lollapalooza and Rollins and Tool
and Rage, ALL that incendiary stuff blowing up right around this time, changing
the landscape…</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Meanwhile I’m chew dippin’ in a ’79 Malibu and cartin’
around the fucking Class of ’95 with zero dignity, feeling On Top of the World
(TM GOD HAGAR) when some rod dubs me off a TAPE of ‘Hell Awaits,” meanwhile I’m
some MIDDLE PART DANZA-HAIR ITALIA-FRO DORK in POWDER BLUE DOCKERS roosting
come daytime in Russian Lit class, whipping up an essay on Karamazov before
bussing it home to catch a Danzig show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Yeah, SO fucking metal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hey,
Professor, let me hurry up and whip up this essay on Lord Byron so I can get to
the Cannibal Corpse 45-capacity club concert.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>So for a year or two I’m CAPTAIN CONCERT, browbeating
whatever posse or dumbass 11<sup>th</sup> graders I can summon up to go catch
these meathead club shows<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and the
occasional mellower power-ballad-ass already-over HAIR METAL SHIT<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Firehouse/Tesla at the Palumbo, WHO’S IN
MOTHERFUCKERS, might be chicks????), but by third year of college, this act is
wearing noticeably thin, and even the guys a year or two behind me had gone off
to THEIR colleges.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some jerkoff I
formerly knew as a TOTAL LOSER came back that past summer of 1993 at a Van
Halen show bragging about getting some road head<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>from a hot chick from his school, and sent me
into a stratosphere of depression that haunts me to this day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dude had been some megadork I’d condescended
to prior, younger than me, now completely usurping my station in life.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>All those guys a year or so younger had outgrown this
fucking shit, but One Man Stood Alone, spraying Produce Lettuce come day,
hitting up World Cinema 101 by night, and come weekend like Manero at the
fucking Odyssey I was Walkmanning my BIOHAZARD CASSETTES and seeing FUDGE
TUNNEL AT THE CITY LIMITS, only 21 years young but easily 4 years older than
ANYONE in the room not in the band.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>So the Show of Shows announces it’s coming to Pittsburgh,
PANTERA/SEPULTURA/BIOHAZARD, this is some summer outdoor amphitheatre tour to
celebrate Pantera’s FAR BEYOND DRIVEN album, which I had on a warped
cassette and was air-guitaring mean-mugging in my bedroom mirror at roughly the
age that Tom Cruise was shooting Risky Business and probably at that very same
time Ben Affleck and Matt Damon were filming major Hollywood movies, but MR
METAL had to be at THIS SHOW, THE MOST IMPORTANT EVENT OF HIS LIFETIME or so it
seemed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The three greatest bands IN THE
WORLD in 1994!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To clarify, Pantera might
be the awesomest shit in human history in retrospect, but for metal guys of a
certain age it was a crucial cutoff dividing the ’80s old-school thrash guys
who were age-appropriate to Metallica, Anthrax, Megadeth…. and the younger set
of ‘90s roid-rage, shaved-head, meatball “kids.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it’s never lost that ALL bands refer to
their fans as “the kids,” because trust me, ain’t a lot of investment bankers
and certified CPAs at a metal show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This
was when classic thrash was splitting off into more hardcore new sound, and you
either had the vintage stuff of four longhairs up their doing open E-chord
speed riffs flinging their hair, or all this Pro-Pain, Biohazard, Madball stuff
with shorter-hair mooks grunting and spitting and playing Drop-D in
balls-stinking small rooms with your face unfortunately mashed into some
asshole’s disgusting fucking back sweat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Pantera was like the new great hope to both bridge this gap AND keep
metal going in the face of “alternative,” whatever the fuck that really
meant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now I could do a dissertation on
grunge and alterna-rock with its detached lyrics and mopey tone and snide irony
and shaggy-haired coffee-house dropouts in clunky glasses wailing with an
earflap cap and nerd glasses and thrift-store cardigan, but to me it just
seemed like a bunch of Sanka-stinking, rain-soaked assholes droning on about
being a pussy, or something.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Whereas PANTERA BITCH and BIOHAZARD was about BEING A MAN,
ranting about TRANSFORMING INTO A BADASS and OVERCOMING and BEING INDEPDENDENT,
YOU CAN’T HOLD ME DOWN, ROWR, and other shit that should’ve at least seemed
vaguely comical to an ENGLISH MAJOR and scholarly sort prone to wearing The
Corporate Guy Collection to unload a fucking a watermelon truck.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But, nah, I was somehow ALL about it in the
face of absolute embarrassment, some HIDE UNDER THE UNIVERSE moment where I
drew a HEMP LEAF on my hand in GREEN PEN and gleefully showed it off to some
jailbait bagger chick at “work,” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>telling
her I BELIEVE IN LEGALIZATION OF POT because Pantera had some ridiculous shit
in their LINER NOTES about “joining the fan club being cheap so it doesn’t cut
into your SMOKE POCKET” or some dumb shit like that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just me being an ABSOLUTE POSEUR OF ALL
POSEURS, hair all DORKED OUT with BOB-FROM-HALLOWEEN COKE BOTTLE EYEGLASSES
fooling fucking NOOOOOBODY, having smoked pot like once, ever, when I was 19
with some rods who liked Rusted Root.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Anyway this JUGGERNAUT OF A TOUR is hitting The Burgh and
I’m on the phone like fucking Shelley the Machine Levine, cold-calling absolute
losers, high school kids, and even some prick in my EngLit courses at Pitt,
trying to sell him on, “Hey do you like Brazilian death metal? This band
Sepultura will be crazy!!!” (they’re not even death metal, btw) and the guy
basically asking, “Uh, who are you again?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Anything or anybody to RALLY A POSSE to see this must-see event….for
kids 8 years younger than me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just
absolutely NOBODY giving a fuck or anyone my age thinking this could possibly
be up their alley, this NASCAR dude and future Republican I was boys with in
high school, us out at the bar one night, both 21, him with his future wife and
doing professional internships for his eventual lucrative career and me begging
him to see METAL!, guy looking at me like Rob Cohen’s 1964 nerd posse must
react to the news that Rob wants to hit the “dope-ass clubs” with the
rice-rocket racers of 2002.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Striking out
across the board everywhere with everywhere, and got word that a younger cousin
was going with his FULL CREW of other 16-year-olds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I couldn’t get USURPED on this matter by a
COUSIN, I was MR. METAL.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I couldn’t
quite tag along with them with any dignity, so I persisted, badgering EVERYONE
who worked at my miserable grocery store job, finally CORRALING two of the
least METAL! motherfuckers in the history of the globe.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Some Latter Day Saints-looking rodnozzle named TUPPERTY,
glued-down middle part and Howdy Doody grin, rocking the SHORT-SLEEVE WHITE
DRESS SHIRT-N-TIE look, and some big hillbilly fucking, chew-dipping oaf named
BENEER, neither of whom had ever and I mean EVER heard of Pantera, or probably
fucking Metallica or The Beatles or George Washington or even knew what fucking
country we lived in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just absolute
Yinzed-out PA fucking hayseeds, just grinning like dumb fucks that some older
kid asked them to roll to this concert where I promised there’d be girls, like
ANY fucking chicks of any real discernment were at a fucking METAL SHOW in
1994;<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Guys were like high school seniors
and had no clue about this scene or anything, but all I knew was I had two willing
victims so I wouldn’t have to roll out solo to the OUTDOOR VENUE, some shitballs
amphitheatre on the Ohio border called Star Lake.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Where I’d seen such esteemed acts as Ozzy and
Aerosmith and Vince Neil and Ugly Kid Joe not 12, 24 <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>months before, but all those semi-likeminded
“bros” had moved on to actual lives and, you know, GROWING THE FUCK UP.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>So we’re in the PLYMOUTH RELIANT K-CAR and I think I’m
trying to PRIME THEM for the MAGIC by blasting Pantera “Becoming” on the AUDIO
VOX CASSETTE PLAYER, and Tupperty’s plugging his ears and Beneer’s just
spitting Skoal dip into a Dr Pepper can in a daze, and my dignity’s flying out
the fucking window faster than the Winston cherry that’s sparking out the
driver window as I barrel down the highway, more excited than if I was gonna,
you know, lose my virginity or something.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Which I hadn’t done.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But this was
BIGGER THAN THAT.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>We get there and I can LEGALLY BUY A BEER at this point in
my life, and somehow I’m not even getting lit up for this experience, sober as
a fucking judge and not even bothering to offer the BROS one on the sly, pretty
fucking sure Mormon dude is ACTUALLY rocking the fucking TIE and white shirt at
the Pantera show, the big lurch in a THREE-QUARTER LENGTHER softball jersey and
mesh hat, we’re out on the LAWN part behind the seats, and I’m wondering where
the ACTION is gonna break out, ie the PIT.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I want FULL ON MOSHING for this shit, like real insanity moshing and
KICKING ASS (ie jumping in long enough to duck the fuck out).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These 2 dorks have never even heard this kind
of music, and to be frank, other than some spazz-metal kids in the early 90s,
NOBODY ON EARTH really knows, has ever known, ever will know who BIOHAZARD is,
was, etc…. They come out dropping some URBAN DISCIPLINE and Tupperty’s
contorting the same flummoxed mugging face John C Reilly pulls when Borat puts on
the musette music in Talladega Nights, Beneer tries to nod along but looks
horrified, and I’m WAVING MY HANDS like an absolute retard, yelling YAY
BIOHAZARD in some reedy voice and reacting to this NYC club act like fucking
Hendrix just came out of the ground from the dead Creepshow Father’s Day-style.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Somewhere around this point, my 16-yr-old cuz and his POSSE
OF BADASSES roll through, each with a big-ass fucking beer and some CHICKS in
tow, and I’m all MEAN MUGGING that stupid YEP METAL! FACE OF MANLY RESPECT at
them as I pretend I’m totally not with the two fucking dorks from My Three
Sons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Pretty soon the place gets more
frenetic, probably when Sepultura came on, the pits inches over toward Tupperty
and he recoils like he just caught a dick in his face, and my cuz and his boys
hop the barrier into the seated section to bum-rush the front, where REAL PITS
were breaking out RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE BAND.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Like Beau Bridges getting Jeff Bridges’d, I’m seeing a family member
SEIZE THE DAY and I won’t have this, will not be USURPED, so after some stewing
I plan my escape.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When the lights go
down and Pantera’s about to come out, I’M HOPPING THE BARRIER TOO and leaving
these two punching bags on the lawn.</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>These two fucking sorry fucking kids, at a show they didn’t
care about, music they clearly hated, just trying to hang with MR COOL METAL
MAN THE 21-YEAR-OLD, I leave them in the dust the split-second Pantera kicks
in, rushing for the front but getting no further than the back row of SEATS, stopped
by security (or probably some old fuck usher), ending up standing on a SEAT
like it’s a Bon Jovi show the rest of the night, mooning from afar how the Real
Action was up front, this huge pit breaking out before the stage, Phil from
Pantera doing his crazy rants and bringing dudes up to smoke weed and
browbeating some local Pittsburgh stripper into showing her tits (which seemed
to take 45 minutes), and my cousin and crew are 7 feet from all this chaos, and
I’m 20 yards back in THE SEATS, basically watching the show by myself for the
next 2 hours, which I had gone to all these lengths to avoid. Even when it
finally wrapped up for the night, I stood around like a douche waiting for
AUTOGRAPHS – SCORE, I got the guitar player from Biohazard to sign a BUMPER
STICKER! – still keeping those two rods I came with waiting….</b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Apparently they’d begged off to the parking lots HOURS ago,
sitting there on the ground, arms folded, waiting in absolute boredom and
misery, probably clutching their ears the whole time, one of them asking “Are
you finally done?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My cousin’s crew
popped by and one of them opined, ‘GREATEST NIGHT OF MY LIFE!” probably en
route to fucking one of the chicks they came with, everyone there all
boisterous and buzzed and drunk and happy and MY “posse” all depressed and
hoaxed about it waiting for their ride home like I’m some suburban Griswold dad
who just made his bored kids suffer some awful vacation they never wanted to
take.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Managing to get OWNED by “family”
and push away “friend” alike, fucking embarrassing myself as always.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And now 21 years on I still remember this
shit as THE ONE TIME I SAW PANTERA!, this band that I was probably too old for,
surrounded by a bunch of dorks I was too old to be hanging with, who couldn’t
have fucking cared less, still managing to miss that precise mix of interest
and likemindedness that it seems like everyone else but me can so skillfully
navigate, me always the lone-wolf voyeur taking it in like the solo act I’m
destined to always be. </b></div>
LexGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15868677491486898267noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8859849344180914437.post-55003058844232563022011-06-22T03:29:00.000-07:002015-06-25T22:05:41.334-07:00test........header....LexGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15868677491486898267noreply@blogger.com4