Going Deep?

It's not often that I find a book, movie, song, or piece of art that "speaks" to me. I don't know why, maybe I'm just not one of those people. But not too long ago (again, as usual, as of me writing this) I read a book for a class called If on a Winter's Night a Traveller, by Italo Calvino and experienced this. By the way it is a very....um...interesting story.
I think the reason why this happened was because of the fact that he wrote large chunks of it in the second person narrative. The section in question is one where he states "...you don't reread books, you can't. You commit them to memory and they become associated with events in your life..." That is totally me in a nut shell! Of all the books I own I have reread maybe, maybe three of them (Suck It Wonder Woman, 13 Bullets, and The Great Gatsby), yet I can recall most of what happens in the books even if it has been years since I read it; the same goes for music. I can go months sometimes years without playing a song then suddenly decide to play it, and without pulling out the sheet music, I can play it nearly flawlessly within three tries!
Anyways about the other part of that statement, I tend to associate what I read with where I was, who I was with, what was going on in my life at the time. For example (and don't judge me here) Jose Canseco's second book, Vindicated, I got that when I first moved to San Francisco in July 2009. I remember who I got it with (my fiance), where I got it from (Books Inc. in the marina), where I was living at, what I was doing, where I finished it, what I did the day I finished it, etc... It's like this with most books I read.
It's not that I don't want to reread them, I flirt with the idea all the time. It's just that when I want to, they get buried in the depth chart of my reading list. And I'm one of those people who doesn't like to read multiple books at the same time. It's not a focus thing, because I think people who say that are full of shit, it's more a case of me giving the book my full attention.
So I guess the lesson here is to read a book in the second person and see if it "speaks" to you. By the way in case you stumble upon this and do not know the differences of the P.O.V.'s here they are: 1st (me, I) 2nd (you) 3rd (he,she).

...also this switched between 1st and 2nd P.O.V.

Mental Endurance

I usually pride myself in being able to start AND finish something, there are a few exceptions that I can name however. One is a Clint Eastwood biography by Richard Schickel, aptly titled Clint Eastwood: A Biography. I was excited because a) I love Clint Eastwood b) Clint Eastwood is a bad ass & c) I know how to read. Unfortunately, this book was TERRIBLE! I think I got up to when he did that weird movie The Beguiled. Maybe I'll finish it...
ANYWAYS, this is about a work of pure dog shit mixed with some horse shit on the side. It's called The A-Team (the "film"version). Yes I know, I know it came out in 2010 but I just got around to "watching" it. Well, I should say I got around to watching the first 17 minutes before the stupidity got the better of me. Now I have seen reruns of the original series on FX when I was a kid (any guesses when that was?) and I am aware of how cheesy and over the top stupid the show was. Also how they never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever could shoot anyone. But for some reason this was stupider.
I guess I should have figured something was up when Liam Neeson (who I love) was beat the fuck up in the beginning of the movie YET he had barely a scratch on him. Then throw in Bradley Cooper, Rampage Jackson, and Jessica Biel ( yes I know she is supposed to be hot, doesn't matter) and you have a surprisingly have a shitty movie.
I think the turd that broke the camels back for me was when the helicopter they were all in did that flip, had heat seeking rockets shot at it, BA fell out and was saved by Face...IN MID GOD DAMN AIR. Then I don't know what happened. I turned it off. I ended up watching reruns of the criminally underrated and sadly canceled Better Off Ted with my fiance.

Also before I wrote this, I checked this movie's rating on IMDB. 6.9.  A god damn 6.9. Although I will give this film some credit, it was much less stupid than Ninja Assassin.

Advanced Symbolism

I went to go see The Hunger Games movie with my fiance the night that it opened, it was pretty good. Although this short and sweet entry isn't aboot that, rather it's aboot what I overheard on the bus ride back. It was some dumb ass sorority girl who was trying to get all deep and intellectual with her equally dumb sorority friend. Here is verbatim what I heard:

Dumb Sorority Girl #1: You know what I realized about that movie?
Dumb Sorority Girl #2: What's that?
Dumb Sorority Girl #1: That movie has a lot of symbolism in it. A lot of it is about birds, I mean the Mockingjay and Gale...
Dumb Sorority Girl #2: ...you're so right.

Wow. Simply wow. She really set it up like she was going somewhere with that list/point and all she could muster up was 2, yes 2, examples. Go sorority girls, go public schools, go America.

I Ran Out of Toilet Paper

One of my favorite things to do, is listen to or read interviews with musicians or actors regarding either an album or film they made in the past. Like say 10 or so years in the past. With the advent of Youtube, this is SUPER easy...and I guess the rest of the internet as well.
Why do I like this? Because it's super funny and they almost always look like a jackass BECAUSE whatever the title of said album/movie is, they always try to put the theme of the project into some sort of life (style) philosophy. Here's a made up example:

Interviewer: What does your album I Ran Out of Toilet Paper mean to you?
Musician: That's an excellent question. What it means it that we as a society can't stop wasting resources.     It's a lifestyle we live. We can't stop. There is only so much toilet paper left in the world. There is almost no 3 ply left in the world. It's sad. That's what the title track means.
Interviewer: Interesting...

Again, totally made up but not unheard of. Don't believe me? Try finding something online. It's funny, I promise.

Funny Story Time: Part Duex!!!!!

Place: The Silkscreen room at school.
Time: Oh let's say.....about 11:00 on a Saturday.
Event: I'm prepping some screens for class on Tuesday, and there is a school tour that comes through.

Not the "twins" he was asking about.

So I am cleaning and prepping some screens  while listening to Steel Panther and I'm there by myself: it's a god damn blast! I'm back where the big sink is, had the hose going, so I couldn't hear a damn thing; no Steel Panther, nothing. Then out of nowhere I hear someone talking to what seems like a bunch of people. Turns out a tour came through the studio. What song is playing? Super Sonic Sex Machine; which is just one of many hilarious Steel Panther tunes by the way. That must have been an interesting song to hear for the unprepared.
Anyways, so this tour guide asks how it's going and I tell her "super duper". She keeps talking, and I notice someone's dad in the background looking at my iPhone on the docking station, which happened to be playing the album Balls Out with the cover photo you see on the side. He then makes his way up to me and says this:

Guy: What's with the twins?
Me:  I'm sorry what?
Guy: The twins. What's with the Twins?

I'm totally lost. He then reaches up to my head and pulls of my Minnesota Twins cap. He was from Minnesota. He wanted to talk about how shitty the Twins are. Here I thought he was asking me why the woman on the album cover had huge boobs.

Funny Story Time

Setting: San Francisco

Time: Fall 2011

Event: the Vikings just lost ANOTHER god damn game in what was an unbelievably shitty season

I was walking down Van Ness after the Vikings got the shit kicked out of them AGAIN. I was wearing my Minnesota Wild hoodie and my Vikings hat. I come upon this dude who was wearing a Vikings jacket and hat. He look seriously pissed off. As I get close to him I see what he is wearing and he sees what I am wearing. In mid stride as we pass each other, we both stare at each other and begin laughing out loud as we pass each other. God damn Minnesota Vikings.

Books from My Childhood Part II

...and now, for another exciting installment in this thing I wrote a few weeks ago...part II!

Boogity Boo you little bastard!

So in the first installment of Books From My Childhood, I looked at the Boxcar Children and all the messed up things in that train car of crazy. Now, I'll examine one set of books I LOVED as a kid, until they got ridiculously stupid; Goosebumps.

First off, my very first one that I got was Say Cheese and Die, scared the shit out of me. Actually all the early ones did. Maybe R.L. Stein was like a kids version of Stephen King? But those books scared the shit out of me. I mean who would write stuff like that for a kid? Books about cameras that will show your death, parents who turn into crazy plant scientists, dummy's that come to life in the middle of the god damn night, or Halloween masks that become part of your face?! Seriously what the shit? Probably what was more messed up was the fact that I was in a stupid competition with kids in my class to see who could read as many of this child sized versions of It as fast as they could without getting admitting how much of a puss you were. Another messed up one was the classic Attack of the Mutant. That god damn book made me not want to read comics, for fear of becoming made of ink.
 But then all of a sudden something happened with this books, they jumped the shark (that would have been a crazy one!). Every kid in Murrica started to read them, they became super popular to the point where one was coming out like every month! They started making "chose your own adventure" books. But probably the most damning thing was that TV show. It took the scare right out because of the shitty acting and props. I guess they were going for a children's version of Tales From the Crypt (good idea?). I guess as these things became more popular R.L. Stein started to make them less scary to rake in the dough. I mean seriously, how many Night of the Living Dummy's did he write? 15? 59?
Looking back on those books now, it makes you wonder; "why did my parents let me read this shit?".