These are the people in your neighborhood

Ladies, lemme axe y’all something: Would you, a college-age young lady in apparent gainful employment at a legitimate above-the-board business, whose car sports decals which indicate current student status at a degree-granting institution, be willing to regularly spend overnights at your boyfriend’s house – when it’s not really his house at all, as in, he lives with his parents in a 3BR/1BA bungalow (within spitting distance of the Gleemonex residence), a house in which one of his brothers also lives with HIS frequent overnighter-gf, a house which he could not legitimately rent (or rent a room in) himself because he apparently has neither a job nor any school, training, or apprenticeship commitments at all? If so, would it bug you that his “friends” seem to drop by at all hours in groups of one to three for visits of five to fifteen minutes, the purpose of which brief visits seems to be the exchange of cash for consumable herbal preparations, the gains from which seem to be your boyfriend’s sole means of income? And if you’re OK with all of that, would you get annoyed by the constant amateur-hour koff koff koffing from the backyard when his friends stay for longer than the usual time it takes to transact the exchange of goods for tender and decide to partake of such refreshment together?

Just a hypothetical.

It might be better than Transformers 2, but I won't chance it.

Internets, I love John Krasinsky. I do, a real lot. And if you don’t, it’s probably because you are medically, clinically frigid. But I don’t love everything he’s in (that lump of dog schmear he was in with Robin Williams? If ever humanity needed proof that the Holy Shatner, while loving, is also cruel …). And this new thing, this Away We Go? I’m afraid I find it simply unsupportable.

It was written by Writers, y’all. Capitalization intended. Precious famous-indie Writers. Those are the WORST. When Writers go for to make a movie, the result is much more often than not a turgid, in-love-with-itself thing that nobody really likes, but they have to say they do so they can seem cultured and smart and high of brow.

I mean, come on. Krasinsky’s bearded. Maya Rudolph is involved and Mike Judge isn’t.

I could be wrong about this one – but I probably won’t find out unless I get, from y’all personally, a good reason to.

Three Things That Are Great

I didn’t forget you, dear Internets, I just got lost for a piece. For you, three things that don’t make a post on their own but together form a family:

Best Fourth of July Ever
This year I plan to eat lots of marinated meat foods, drank 'till I'm drunk, possible say something regrettable (more possible than not), stumble into a tumbleweed or two, lay on my back on the ground and yell at no one in particular and maybe, just maybe blow off a finger or two with an illegal firework purchased at the Indian reservation.

Best Movie Review Ever
Could you sum up the film in one line of its dialogue?
"I am standing directly beneath the enemy's scrotum."

Best Political What The Fucking Fuck of the Last Week
Palin. Flame-throwing pig-roasting mai-tai-drinking SHATNER, y’all – this is even funnier than that hypocritical asshole who had to go to Argentina to get some strange, and THAT was a fuckin stone cold laff riot! Godamighty I love this nutty bitch. Girl CRAZY.

When it’s time to change / you got to re-a-RAAANGE / who ya are and whatcher gonna be

Further proof that I’m raising this kid right: She can correctly identify, by name and photo, each of the nine persons in the Brady household.

We don’t go to church, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have Values.

I know what you did last summer

You guys, every once in awhile I come across something that is just jive-turkey bullshit.

Today, that thing is a short article in Parents magazine (shut up, I already explained about the free subscription of unknown provenance and goddammit I need something to read before bed that doesn’t involve sponsored years, Quebecois separatists, Eschaton, drug dealers, people’s eyes getting stitched open and a guy being trapped like a bug in a glass, OK?).

But so anyway. The bullshit, let me show you it.

These jive turkeys want you to “have your kids make a lemonade stand,” the profits from which are supposed to go to “a charity” that they pick (so they’ll hustle harder to sell sell sell). You, the parent, are supposed to set it up and make it fancy (with “an old sheet” for a tablecloth, and “bright, eye-catching signs” to attract passing custom). Also they advise you to “Add an element of fun by having the kids set up a simple ring-toss game that offers customers the chance to win a free goody.” Also you’re supposed to do the following, which I will reproduce in its entirety because it defies my powers of excerption:

Offer tasty treats like baggies of a fun trail mix made with Cheerios, dried cranberries, M&M's, and pretzel nuggets. And you don't have to limit yourself to classic lemonade. Offer a variety of drinks (berry-flavored and sugar-free refreshments are great options).

This is the most wee todd did thing I’ve ever read. Lemonade stands are supposed to be the kids’ own goddamn idea. They’re supposed to filch supplies and furniture for it from your house and their friends’ houses (LW’s mom once made us pay her for the sugar and Kool-ade packets, because she could be a battle-axe like that. I think she thought she was teaching us Econ 101 or something, when really she was just fuckin up our Christmas). Signage, pricing and product offerings are supposed to be the kids’ domain. Nobody likes a fuckin killjoy Flandersy bag of goddamn trail mix, either. “Sugar-free refreshments” are the WORST. And what’s this game shit? “Simple ring-toss game” my ass. Toss rings all day long, I ain’t givin away any “goodys” for free, Chuck. Besides -- what, lemonade & cookies aren't fun enough? Fuck you. And finally – profits to charity? HELL to the no. I’m a kid, I gotta earn whatever way I can. See above re: fuckin killjoy Flandersy bullshit. It’s like Laura Ingalls’ sister Mary up in here – Laura’s all “Oh, I love these beautiful Indian beads we found down by the river!” and Mary, right in front of Ma and Pa so Laura can’t object without looking like a major shitheel, “Yes – let us make a necklace for baby Carrie with ALL of the beads! Which she is too young to play with, so nobody gets the beads! HA-ha!” And Laura’s all, “ … yeah. Yaaaaay.”

Parents -- and Parents -- please: Don't fuck with summer. Seriously. Leave your kids the fuck alone for a little while, why doncha?

Don't go around breakin young girls' hearts

Michael Jackson. GOD, you guys.

My sister and I used to put on the 45s of his songs and dance around like maniacs in our bedroom. I was convinced I’d meet him someday – preferably when he came to my school to thank me for starting a fan club for him. I had that poster of him with the yellow and white vest and shirt combo (and a button of the same image, which I wore everywhere). I was convinced I’d win the lottery for Victory tour tickets (I did not). I listened to Thriller so many times I wore the record out (you kids today think that's a figure of speech -- it's not). The videos were the first non-cartoon, non-Muppet TV I really truly mainlined in an obsessive way (MTV, unlike other channels, could just be left on all day long and you’d see the same things over and over and over and over). I just about DIED, watching him moonwalk w/the silver glove on that Motown special. I had a scrapbook into which I pasted a photo of him and the careful, hugely-written Magic-Markered words “Oh no!” over the headline about his hair catching fire in that Pepsi commercial. I tried to do his moves – no dice. Heh.

I grew out of it eventually – the obsession, not the original bunch of hits; those stand the test of time (I defy you to listen to “Billie Jean” or “Beat It” and remain unmoved).

And as he got weirder and weirder over time, I did what I always do with Teh Real Crazay: I mentally cut him off. I – like most people, I suspect – didn’t want anything to do with a Krazy that huge. I never knew what to do with it, you get me? I’d read news of his latest antics or legal trouble or whatever and just recoil with disgust and helpless dismay – but that’s all. And the news yesterday that he was dead … well, that just seemed like it was probably bullshit, some very weird publicity stunt, or an attempt to get out from under his various debts and obligations.

But it’s true, apparently. And of all people, Corey Feldman, on (of all things) Larry King, last night had some insight about the man that made me just power down. Feldman refused to discuss his personal falling-out with MJ, but said that the thing about MJ and kids was, kids were the only people on the planet who didn’t want something from him. He said, “[T]he reason why he was able to get along with children so well is because they didn't demand anything of him. So you could have a conversation with him, and it wasn't like you were secretly waiting for him to write a check or sign his name to a contract.”

That’s about the loneliest, saddest thing I’ve ever heard.

Also: Suburbia and Its Cultures, Sense and Sensory Perception, and Aerobics

Internets, Mr. Gleemonex recently asserted that he took Chinese Literature and Film and [Something-Paradigms & Contradictions-something-or-other] In Japanese Film (both of which sound unbelievably obscure and dense to me) to satisfy the two-semester “cinemas of foreign cultures” requirement for our major “because they were easier to write papers about.” I myself took French Cinema and Italian Cinema for the same requirement because I thought THEY would be easier to write papers about.

Mr. Gleemonex, indignantly: “How can you write a paper about French movies? It’s just a bunch of people sittin around smokin and beatin dogs!”

Touche, Mr. Gleemonex. Touche.

However, for your continued amusement:

------------------------------

Courtesy of the 1992-1993 Columbia University Directory: Actual Classes I Took In College

History of world cinema: the sixties.
1960-64: From Psycho to Dr. Strangelove, absurdism, alienation and anomie begin to take hold on screen with the collapse of censorship and the onslaught of violence and horror. The nouvelle vague erupts along with the radical youth culture in Europe and America. Among the directors represented are Bunuel, Bresson, Truffaut, Godard, Fellini, Hitchcock, Wilder and Losey.

History of world cinema: the sixties.
1965-69: From Blow-Up to Bonnie and Clyde, the moral center of the cinmena cannot hold as psychic and social disruptions become the order of the day. Among the directors represented are Preminger, Polanski, Bergman, Penn, Hopper, Rohmer and Peckinpah.

Film aesthetics and theory.
An introduction to the main currents in film theory, from Eisenstein to contemporary feminist criticism. Using such films as Wild Strawberries, Rear Window, and Fatal Attraction, topics include the realist/formalist debate, the function of ideology in film, and the relation of word to image.

Race, gender, and the politics of rock 'n roll.
A study of rock music from the perspective of issues in contemporary cultural theory, with special emphasis on political significance and diverse representations of race and gender.