Hard Work Thoughts

I spent much of my day today stacking firewood in my backyard. Yes, I know it’s July, and about 95 degrees with the humidity topping out at around 120%, but you can never be too prepared for the coming winter months. Now this article has absolutely nothing to do with my firewood, but it’s a good setup, so just follow along. Most people in this situation would let the time pass with their iPod blaring in their ears, rocking out and dancing around with their wood in their hands (get your mind out of the gutter) but I am the one person on Earth who doesn’t own one. (Those who know me know that I have an aversion to technological dependency and therefore shy away from many such devices.) I do tend to have music running through my head though, so I guess I am sort of a mePod. Unfortunately it is usually the same song over and over. Today it was Peter Gabriel’s Shock the Monkey. Great song, but what the hell are those lyrics even about? We’ll discuss this another time, because this isn’t about music either. Just keep up, we’re getting there.

So, I was out there for almost 4 hours, just me, a bunch of dead logs and my thoughts. This is my time to think. I ruminate about things affecting my life, make plans for the future, wonder about situations I may encounter, think about movie ideas to write and find new things to complain about.

While out there today I kept remembering a commercial I’ve seen multiple times, usually late at night and on the less traveled channels. It is the one for Uncle Majic: The Hip Hop Magician. Now if you live in my area, you probably know the commercial I’m talking about; an annoying guy, with an improbably high pitched voice, yells at you while simultaneously attacking the camera with moves that I can only assume are meant to be edgy. If you don’t know the commercial, you can check it out here (and I suggest you do – those 30 seconds you take will allow the rest of this to make much more sense) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46sZcYmDLnw

You've seen it? Great, so let's get started. Let’s start with the obvious; what exactly makes him a “hip hop” magician? Nothing in this commercial leads me to this conclusion. There’s no musical beats pounding away, no flashing lights, not even a girl in a shiny gold bikini and glitter eye shadow dancing seductively on a pedestal. Are we to suppose he is hip hop simply because he is black? (Or for the fact that he can’t spell magic for that matter?) If so, wouldn’t that make me a racist? No no no; I’m not falling into that trap. So now that we’ve dispelled with this assertion let’s move on. The next thing we see is Uncle Majic’s partner Shock-Kim the Clown. Who is he kidding? It is obvious that it is just Uncle Majic in a cheap dime-store costume department red nose. He wouldn’t fool a blind 2-year-old with that disguise, but we are to believe that he has a business partner with whom he splits the profits. This is obviously just a ploy to fool the IRS; so maybe that’s what makes him hip hop – a criminal background. Either way, now he begins to argue with his evil doppelganger as they each make the claim that they are the one who celebrities call for their kids birthday parties. I find this claim suspect at best and an outright lie at the most. Where is his verification for this? Who are these so-called celebrities? I have a feeling he is using the loosest definition possible of the word in order to avoid any false advertising claims. But let’s make the assumption that, in some strange far away alternate universe, there is some celebrity who hired this clown (double meaning). What kind of celebrity could this be? I’ll tell you what kind. The kind who hates his kid, that’s who. The kind who feels his child isn’t worth any more than hiring a late night television, low rent advertising, public access worthy magician as opposed to a competent entertainer who may be able to hold the attention of a room full of third graders on a birthday cake and ice cream high.

But let me tell you what I think Uncle Majic is really about. He is a cult leader whose commercials are meant to bolster his flock. That’s what all those quick hand movements at the camera are – some sort of attempt at hypnotism. And when he does succeed in luring unsuspecting lambs to his compound, how does he get his followers to obey him you may ask? Violence is his answer. The proof is right at the end of his indoctrination video… um, I mean his commercial. He asks the question I am sure he has posed over and over in order to brainwash his victims – “Who’s your favorite uncle!?” (It really comes across more as a demand than a question actually.) The child who yells his insisted answer is missing his front teeth, clearly from Uncle Majic going all Chris Brown on him on the many occasions when he provided the incorrect relative as an answer. Come to think of it, maybe that’s what makes him hip hop.

It's A Wonderful Night For Oscar

As many of you know, Oscar night is my holy night. It is the one night of the year that I don't answer the phone, I ignore all others and concentrate on the flickering images emanating from my television set. I set up an alter and pray to the little golden idol that is Oscar. And with that comes a great responsibility. the responsibility of making my picks. But it's not just a matter of making them, I have to make them right. Luckily I am extremely adept at this, so I usually am correct, and if someone else goes home with the statue, my pick is the one that should have one so really they were wrong. So with all that, I present to you my picks for this year's Academy Award telecast.

http://www.deadtention.com/oscar2012.html

Summertime, and the Living's Easy

I recently returned from a trip to Maine I had taken with my girlfriend and our two dogs. We went up to Bar Harbor to do some hiking in Acadia National Park. It’s a trip we’ve taken before, twice before to be exact. Our first time was just the two of us and then, after discovering how “dog friendly” Bar Harbor is, the second time we took the dogs. Now dog friendly, for those of you who don’t know, means that the town not only welcomes people with their dogs as they walk down the street, but many of the establishments allow the dogs in the stores themselves. Even some of the restaurants in town, as long as they have outdoor seating, welcome the dogs to come on in and enjoy a respite. As we strolled one day, an employee in one of those stores that sell the t-shirts that change color when you go out in the sun actually got on the ground, put a dog treat between his teeth and tempted the dogs to take it from him. Now this is a dangerous task with my girlfriend’s dog. You see, Murphy is without a doubt a food hound. He will eat anything, anytime and anywhere. Basically, that employee is lucky that he still has lips. Now my dog is a different story. Tink could not care less about food. To tell you the truth, she’s a bit of a priss. She will not even drink water out of a bowl that another dog has taken a drink from. This is an animal that will lick her own privates and eat poop, but she draws the line at a hint of saliva in a large amount of water. She even ate a slug one day, granted she didn’t like it and it took quite sometime to get all that slime out of her mouth, but the slightest lingering aroma of another canine floating around a ceramic bowl on the ground puts her off. One hot summer day, at an event at a local estate where there were scores of dogs all around, our dogs were baking in the sun, so we brought them over to a community water bowl. Tink, with as hot as she was and as long as she had been in the sun, refused to take a drink. Murphy on the other hand walked over to the bowl, sniffed it, and in an attempt to claim it as his own, began to lift his leg and pee right in the water. Embarrassed does not even begin to describe my feeling. Mortified comes close, but even that leaves room to believe I had a bit if dignity left.

Now I will admit that Tink probably got her OCD tendencies from me. I tend to be very picky about my food. Not just in the fact that I have a limited palette, which my girlfriend claims is that of a 7-year-old, but because I do not eat food that other random people have had the opportunity to touch. It is like when a store has chips and dip on the counter to taste, or those warehouse stores have sample food they are microwaving and giving away; why in the world would anyone take any of that? With all the odd, filthy and/or downright skeevy people that go around, sticking their hands who knows where and touching who knows what, I may as well excuse myself to the public restroom and take a bite of the urinal cake. You can literally see the ebola growing on that food as it sits.

However this isn’t about my, or my dog’s, anal retentive eating habits. No, this is about my summer vacation. (Ugh, it sounds like I’m writing an essay on the first day of school.) But to tell you the truth, it’s not really about my vacation either. It is about a question my girlfriend asked me regarding our vacation. The question was, “What was your favorite part of the trip?” Now, as any warm-blooded man knows, questions like this are loaded. You cannot just blurt out the first thing that comes to mind. You need to roll the question around in your mind for a while and come up with a happy medium between what will please her and what will sound like something you would actually say. You need to go through a slideshow of every moment from the trip, highlight a few of the high points, and pick the proper one that will make everyone (note: she) happy. And you have to do all of this in about 3 seconds so it doesn’t seem like you’re thinking about it.

So after doing all this, my options boiled down to hiking with the dogs around Jordon Pond, watching the dogs run free and swim in Little Long Pond – leeches and all, walking through the downtown streets, sitting by the water on a beautiful evening, or “I can’t pick just one moment because it was all so special.” (Always the fallback choice but not the most sincere – they can see right through that one.)

What was my answer? It doesn’t matter, because what is more important than what I said is what I thought. What did I truthfully think was the best part of the trip? Some of the previously mentioned times were great, and any one of them could be an actual answer if there was not one thing that was monumentally larger than any of them. In all honesty, the absolute best part of the trip was the fact that the hotel room that my girlfriend had booked had a television. This was a bigger deal than you can imagine. You see, when we went away to Shenandoah National Park earlier this summer my girlfriend booked three different rooms at three different resorts, as we were hiking from lodge to lodge along the Appalachian Trail. While they were very nice places to stay, with nice rooms and restaurants, not one of the rooms had a television. I am not trying to be shallow about this or seem like someone who cannot live without frying my brain in front of the idiot box for hours a day. What you have to understand is that I don’t care about what is on the tv as much as I just need it for background noise. And really I only need it a couple of times a day. You see… how do I put it… I only want the television for those times when I need a little relief. Yes, I am referring to the fact that I want the television on when I have to use the bathroom. My eating habits are not the only thing that I am a bit OCD about. I need the tv to, at least in my mind, drown out any sounds that may emanate from the bathroom while I am in there. When we stayed at the places without a television, I would make my girlfriend go outside and enjoy the scenery or maybe go to the giftshop or I would run the water in the tub while I did my business. At least when there is a tv I can imagine that Judge Judy’s tantrums will overcome any natural reverberations that may be overheard otherwise. Now I know that it may not be true and I may be fooling myself, but I don’t want someone to tell me that the television is not doing the job I believe it is. In my demented mind, my body shuts down if I even have the thought that someone may be able to hear the slightest biological noise. But I am not just one sided in this: I also have no desire to hear anyone else. I don’t care how well I know someone, or what I share with them otherwise, or the fact that it is a natural thing that everyone does and everyone knows everyone does, there are just some things I don’t want to share.

Paddy Chayevsky, regarding television, once said, “It's the menace that everyone loves to hate but can't seem to live without.” I say that I could live without it, but only if I had the need for a colostomy bag.

A Real Hairy Situation

I’ve just spent the last 15 minutes cleaning hair out of my shower drain. If you know me, and even worse know my hair, you would have one question right off the bat. So let me begin by clarifying that this was not my hair. While my hair may be leaving me at a rapid rate, rest assured it does not have the ability to clog a drain. No, this would be the very long locks of my girlfriend which has been occupying my plumbing for some time now. I’m not really sure why she cannot complete the simple task of bending down to dispose of the bird nest herself after a shower, but I guess if that is the worst of what I have to put up with, with everything she tolerates from me, then I shouldn’t complain. But getting my pipes cleaned is not what this is about.

While I was kneeling over the tub, I thought to myself, “God, life really sucks sometimes.” They never show you this stuff on television. You never see the day-to-day minutia. Now of course, television is all about entertainment, so why would some writer put in a scene of someone doing something that everyone hates to do. It would be off putting, and not very interesting to boot. But if a writer wouldn’t put it into a sit-com or a crime drama, why do we not get to see it on one of the plethora of reality shows that permeate the airwaves?

Speaking of reality shows, and hair in the drain, forgive me if I go off on a tangent here for a moment. (Although if you have read any of my posts, you would know that all I have are tangents.) I was watching a show last week on A&E called, well I’m not positive really, but it was something along the lines of Strange Addictions or Weird Obsessions or something like that. Anyway, if you haven’t seen it you are missing out on one of lives great oddities. It’s a show where a parade of weirdoes discuss the bizarre habits they have. There is a girl who is obsessed with eating toilet paper (hopefully clean), one who eats drywall and a girl who eats her own hair. Now speaking of hair, this is getting close to what I was discussing. The show last week had a young man who was obsessed with pulling hair out of people’s drains. He would be invited to someone’s house, excuse himself to use the restroom, and then go to work. He would use a wire to snake the pipes and would not give up until he pulled out a big, stinking, dripping rattail of hair. He had to go see a therapist for it and everything. Just earlier I was wishing that I knew this gentleman. I could call him up, invite him over and hope that at some point he would want to use the facilities. Then I could avoid this whole messy job I was doing. But trust me, the show is a true guilty pleasure.

Now I realize that what I have just done is disprove my point, because here was a show that portrayed the very task I have just bemoaned television for not portraying. But really, it didn’t. It did not show someone doing a menial task that is derided in a realistic way. It wasn’t a chore someone had to perform because the water in their shower was slowly creeping up past their ankles, like a filthy, soap-scummy soup. And why is this? Because nothing on television is real. All of the so-called reality shows are scripted messes. Don’t you wonder why on Survivor when it rains everyone suddenly has yellow ponchos? Do you take the time to think about why some of the worst singers stick around for so long on American Idol? (Psst. It’s because the producers choose who they want for ratings and your votes don’t actually count.) Haven’t you thought that there is no way the Bachelorette is going to fall so deeply in love in just a few short weeks? Especially after she sleeps with all those guys. What is the deal with that anyway? This show is little more than televised prostitution. What guy would even want her after she’s been befouled by all those others? But I guess, seeing as how it’s all fixed anyway, and these “relationships” are phony and just for show, it doesn’t really matter. The Real Housewives are not. If they all hated each other that much they would stop going to each others houses. The Biggest Loser people do start out fat and end up skinny, but I don’t know how seeing as how much scenery is chewed throughout all that household drama. I will concede to watching this show though. I mean, come on, I could watch blubbery masses falling off a treadmill all day. That's just good tv. While I will admit that the Jersey Shore characters are stupid in real life, nobody is that dumb. If they were, they would have to be reminded to breathe every few minutes. Also, the continuity on that show is not very good, where clothing and props change from shot to shot. Go to Jersey and watch them film sometime. You’ll see how much standing around is done between takes. (On second thought, don’t go to Jersey. Ever!) Some of the worst offenders are the set up shows on TruTV. (Has a station ever had a more ironic name?) Operation Repo, Hardcore Pawn, Southern Fried Stings and all those other shows are more set up than your ugly cousin on prom night. Be smart people. All you have to look at is the perfect camera angles whenever something unexpected happens. Ultimately, isn’t it odd that the credits of everyone of these shows lists writers? I have spoken with several people from one of these shows and they have confirmed that scenes are re-shot and that producers, while maybe not telling them exactly what to say, lead them in the direction they want the drama to take.

So what does all this mean? It basically means that there is no such thing as reality television. If you want to watch it, go right ahead. If you choose to enjoy it, that is your prerogative. But please, whatever you do, do not make yourself sound like an uneducated neophyte and discuss how you can’t believe what a certain character did on a nondescript show the night before as if it really happened. If you want reality, that’s what I’m here for.

Late Night Musings

It seems that odd things happen all around me on a daily basis. Now, I may be overstating the point, but I really don’t think so. Maybe it’s just that the same things happen to me that happen to nearly everyone else but that I’m more in tune with observing them. Either way, the events I do notice tend to lead to thoughts of wonder - mainly why?

The other night I went to a local diner with my girlfriend and a couple of co-workers. Now, I would expect to see some odd characters at a Long Island diner, especially with the lateness of the hour. I don’t know if it is the neon lights, the chrome accents or garish decorations, but weirdos are attracted to Greek diners like virgins to a Star Trek convention. And why is it that the Greeks have decided to monopolize the diner trade in the first place? I understand that 7-11s, gas stations and nail salons were already called for, but was there nothing else left? I think that an official at Ellis Island was just hungry one day as the ship from Athens came into port. I can envision the exchange now.
“Name?”
“Dinapolous.”
“Trade?”
“Dinapolous.”
“I don’t have time for this and it’s almost lunch. Make me a sandwich and you’re in.”
That’s how I see it at least. Of course I can’t even imagine the discussion over those placemats. Never has a more eclectic group of businesses been thrown together for the sole purpose of attracting customers than here. It’s almost as if someone tossed the Yellow Pages into a wood chipper and grabbed the first things that came out. But I’m getting off track here. We were discussing observations.

As I was saying, we were in the diner having typical diner food: grilled cheese (with bacon of course), burger, fries, club sandwich, coffee. Granted it was July and 80 degrees out and my girlfriend got a hot chocolate, but so far so good. No strange beings seated around us either. As a matter of fact, with the conversation that was emanating from our booth, we would have been considered the oddballs that night. The waitress was even semi-normal. She actually laughed at our attempts at humor, so bonus for her. She knows how to the increase the tip. So service was good, the food passable, and the bill in line with what we ordered. Even the fact that we were going to pay with $34 worth of singles isn’t too far out of the norm. I won’t go into why we had that many singles with us, but we had them and I’ll leave it at that. We leave the aforementioned tip on the table and proceed to the register to pay. Of course two of our group reached for that ubiquitous plate of stale cookies that they leave by the register for some reason. Does anyone think this is the perfect end to a meal? Dry, stale, flavorless, crumbly cookies that 300 people have had their filthy hands in throughout the course of the day? This is enticing why exactly? Anyway, suffice it to say, they took cookies and then continued to complain about how bad they were. But it was while we were discussing the free dessert offerings that the odd happened. A pizza delivery man came into the diner. This wouldn’t be too bad if he was maybe picking up an order to go so he could make it through his final runs with a decent meal in his stomach. No. Instead he came in carrying three pizzas which he promptly delivered to the manager, took his payment and left. Huh? Doesn’t this place serve food? And not just the same food all night long. You can quite literally get pretty much anything you desire. I could understand if they were a specialty restaurant that served the same thing all day long. Then people who work there could easily get tired of the same cuisine day after day, such as is possible with the pizza delivery guy, but that isn’t the case here. I could also understand if one person in the back maybe had a craving so he wanted to grab a slice – but three pies? That is more than a craving. That is dinner for the entire crew. How can I trust the place I have just eaten at if they won’t even eat the food they serve? And if you are going to order out, why do you have the guy come right through the front door? You would think that the people who created the Olympics, founded democracy and pretty much invented theatre would have enough imagination to sneak a pimple-faced teenager bearing Italian cuisine through the back door. Isn’t that something else the Greeks are famous for anyway?

I know I will never get an answer as to why this particular diner feels that their food isn’t fit for them to eat, and I know that worse things happen at restaurants on a daily basis, but those restaurants don’t flaunt it as brazenly as this one did. But maybe that’s a Greek attribute too. After all, I guess the ancient leaders in science and philosophy are allowed a bit of an ego.

Let Me Explain

When discussing with a friend how I wanted to start this blog (God, I hate that word), he said to me, “You are becoming what you hate.” Now what he meant by this was the fact that I am viewed as anti-technology and I am slowly falling into the virtual void. To get something straight right away, I am not anti-technology. I am anti-dependent upon technology. I am against those who constantly text, feel lost without their cell phone attached to their hip and cannot go 20 seconds without checking their Facebook page. I personally love being out for a day, or even a week, without a phone or computer around me. With the exception of not being able to find some ridiculous piece of memorabilia on eBay, I would be fine with the Internet going dark.

But that is a topic for another posting. This is about defending my reason for starting this… this… I need another word for blog, which I detest. What does that even mean? Ugh! Let’s go with “virtual soapbox” for now. If anyone has a better suggestion let me know.

Now on to our main point. Those who know me, know I have opinions. Those who know me well, know that I do not mind expounding upon those opinions. My passion for what I believe in runs deep, and I, maybe like is too strong a word, don’t mind arguing those points.

Also, my opinions tend to skirt the fringe a bit and that bothers some. I don’t mind saying what is on my mind, and what is probably on the mind of others but are too afraid to say it themselves for fear of looking heartless or cold. I don’t have that fear. Honesty has always been important to me, and beating around the bush or straying away from controversy just rubs me the wrong way. So, as I say, I am the world’s reality check. But even that does not address my original point of this post.

Am I allowing technology to creep into the crevices of my life? Yes, I did start a Facebook page, which I have always felt is the bane of modern society as I am not one to put every little thing I do out in the public view. But those who have seen my page know that I have no photos uploaded and I have made a total of one posting on it – and that posting stated that I would not be posting personal stuff. I have never “liked” anything anyone else has posted and I don’t even know if I have ever responded to what others have posted. So why do I have it? Networking. It’s as simple as that. I have a screenplay I am trying to either sell or get made, and I have been meeting actors and others within the industry who always ask me to “Facebook them.” (I would really rather call someone and actually talk – Oh, the humanity!) Sadly it has become a necessary evil in certain aspects. So, while I have it, I rarely use it and it will probably die a slow death if this whole movie thing doesn’t take off.

As this is getting a bit long, let’s cut it hear with some final rules I have set for myself.

1. I will not edit myself. What I mean by that is I will never go back and change a post I have made. If I change my opinion on something or, while not likely, admit I am wrong on a topic, I will state so in a new post. I will not delete or change a posting already up. I do not believe in revisionist history.

2. I will not hold back. If I believe something or have a certain opinion, I will tell you, no matter how unpopular it may be.

3. I welcome your thoughts, whether they be the same or in contrast to mine. Who knows, maybe you’ll change my mind on something.

4. This won’t just be rants on current events. I will mix it in with thoughts on films, television and other pop culture events.

So with that, I welcome you here. Thanks for reading and don’t forget to subscribe so you know when I have something else to say.

Dead Celebrities

So, Amy Winehouse is dead.

Hold on, let me rephrase that, I don’t think it really came out how I meant that.

Amy Winehouse is dead. So?

That’s the only word that keeps running through my mind – so. Was this a surprise to anyone? I see the news outlets, and especially the music sector, treating this as a great tragedy. I hear odes to her talent and people spewing about how sad it is. Let’s face the truth.

Number one: she had one catchy tune, that in all honesty got overplayed, which everyone knew was a call for help. Or rather was a call that she needed help, but didn’t actually want it. Quickly, name another song she had. Buzzzzzz – too slow! So where was this great talent that she had? I mean, that hairdo may have possessed a great deal of flair, but then every woman in the sixties should have been as famous.

Number two: she, for all intents and purpose, committed suicide. She was an alcoholic and drug abuser who drank and injected/smoked herself to death. The only difference between her and the common junkie lying in the gutter was that someone claimed she had talent and gave her a record deal.

What is it with people embracing the so called talent of celebrities who off themselves? There has to come a time when we say enough. Enough of people with too much money who don’t know what to do with it except put it up their nose/in their veins/down their gullet.

Now don’t get me wrong, I understand the loss of a talent, and how it can be wasted, but maybe we should focus our attention on those who deserve it. While I am not going to waste space with a list of dead celebrities and who we should and should not mourn, I am going to point out that there are others who are headed down the same path. For all the Lindsey/Paris/Charlies out there, you can find a dozen more. Bring up any of their names and people will have more disparaging remarks about them than Bin Laden in his prime. But as soon as one dies, which we all know is on the horizon, the papers and news programs will be bemoaning the loss of a talented young actor/actress/pseudo-celebrity with so much going for them. When does the switch happen and why?

I don’t have an answer for all this, but I do know where my sympathies should go and who they should not be wasted on. So enough with all the misplaced condolences already. Save them for someone who deserves them.