This is one of the filmed segments from Party Hall's first sketch comedy performance last August...
Get this video and more at MySpace.com
Saturday, April 29, 2006
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Deconstruction of a MySpace Bulletin Post
Original Text:
for those who are on my friend list...
I totally have to agree with all of you who say people are getting fake In here. So I gave in and let's see who really reposts this. This is a test to see who's paying attention. It serves to eliminate people who are desperately trying to add "friends" like its a popularity contest in High School. This is a test to see how many people in my friends list actually pay attention to me. Copy and repost in your own bulletin. Lets see who the true friends are and I think I know who you are.. Repost this if you are a friend.. if you don't, you get deleted.. Don't reply... just copy and paste this in a new bulletin as "bye myspace"
for those who are on my friend list...
That means everyone who is reading this, because if you are able to read my bulletins, you are obviously on my friend list. So, I guess I should say "for you who are reading this", but even then I am kinda stating the obvious, unless of course this is meant for those who are NOT reading my bulletins, in which case I would make a plea to the reader to relay this message for me. I am not entirely sure how I would go about doing this. Perhaps I would make a list of all those people I would suspect of not reading my bulletins and provide their phone numbers so that the persons who do read this would be able to call them and notify them of the following important information, which I felt inclined to share with both friends, strangers, bands I'll never listen to, performers I'll never see perform, and anyone else i've decided to accept friend requests from, by posting this bulletin. i.e. the people on my "friend list". This message is for them(you).
I totally have to agree with all of you who say people are getting fake In here.
Who the hell is saying this? Really. Aside from posts like these, I've never had anyone honestly come to me and complain that people are being "fake". And what does that mean? It means that I feel that I am being ignored by you. I may have 1,893 "friends", but dammit, our particular myspace friendship really means something to me. And I'm a little upset that the only time I hear from you is when you have a show to promote. Who do you think I am, buster? Some kinda myspace whore?! Well fuck you!!
So I gave in and let's see who really reposts this. This is a test to see who's paying attention.
That means you Little Miss High-and-Mighty. Don't think I haven't been reading your comments. I know that you went to TGI Fridays last Saturday and got ripped on shooters. Shall I refer you to Karen's comment on the 13th? And who the hell is Sebastien?
It serves to eliminate people who are desperately trying to add "friends" like its a popularity contest in High School.
Because myspace is not like high school at all! I mean, why don't we hang out? I thought we were tight, yo. (Did you get that? I was trying to sound "street" there. Sometimes it's hard to get the inflection right in emails and stuff. That's why we should hang out more. I'm sorry i said those things earlier. i didn't mean to say fuck you. I was in a weird place. It's just...you seem to be having a lot of fun...with only 34 myspace friends! You realize I have 1,859 more friends than you? If this WAS high school, I certainly would've been invited to TGI Friday's last Saturday, don't ya think?)
This is a test to see how many people in my friends list actually pay attention to me.
Why aren't you paying attention to me? I mean, like, I go out of my way to add cool Flash animations to your comments and you, like, never write back, or send a message that says "Hey! Cool comment! I noticed you put that Neutral Milk Hotel song on your page. Even though I hear it on 6 out of 10 peoples' pages, I still think you're cool." Like, that's not a lot to ask, is it?
Copy and repost in your own bulletin. Lets see who the true friends are and I think I know who you are..
I've never even met the three people who always respond to these things, but I guess they are my "true friends". Unlike you.
Repost this if you are a friend.. if you don't, you get deleted..
Sometimes an ultimatum is the only thing that works. But, I mean, I won't really delete you. Just in case you were on vacation or were too busy to repost. Or maybe you've got too many people on your friend list and get way too many bulletins each day to sift through. I know that happens. I mean, like, sometimes I'll spend almost 28 minutes just going through my bulletins just to see if you posted something. You always post the coolest things. Most of the times it's just bands posting about their upcoming shows...I know, right? Like I'm really gonna come see you play. Be happy I added you to my friend list dude. So, like, if you don't repost, I'll still be your friend, don't worry. But it'd be real cool if you DID repost. Then I'd know we were meant for each other...
Don't reply... just copy and paste this in a new bulletin as "bye myspace"
That way, if someone really does think about you as much as you think of them, they'll click on it and try to talk you out of leaving. Cuz that's what "true friends" do!
for those who are on my friend list...
I totally have to agree with all of you who say people are getting fake In here. So I gave in and let's see who really reposts this. This is a test to see who's paying attention. It serves to eliminate people who are desperately trying to add "friends" like its a popularity contest in High School. This is a test to see how many people in my friends list actually pay attention to me. Copy and repost in your own bulletin. Lets see who the true friends are and I think I know who you are.. Repost this if you are a friend.. if you don't, you get deleted.. Don't reply... just copy and paste this in a new bulletin as "bye myspace"
for those who are on my friend list...
That means everyone who is reading this, because if you are able to read my bulletins, you are obviously on my friend list. So, I guess I should say "for you who are reading this", but even then I am kinda stating the obvious, unless of course this is meant for those who are NOT reading my bulletins, in which case I would make a plea to the reader to relay this message for me. I am not entirely sure how I would go about doing this. Perhaps I would make a list of all those people I would suspect of not reading my bulletins and provide their phone numbers so that the persons who do read this would be able to call them and notify them of the following important information, which I felt inclined to share with both friends, strangers, bands I'll never listen to, performers I'll never see perform, and anyone else i've decided to accept friend requests from, by posting this bulletin. i.e. the people on my "friend list". This message is for them(you).
I totally have to agree with all of you who say people are getting fake In here.
Who the hell is saying this? Really. Aside from posts like these, I've never had anyone honestly come to me and complain that people are being "fake". And what does that mean? It means that I feel that I am being ignored by you. I may have 1,893 "friends", but dammit, our particular myspace friendship really means something to me. And I'm a little upset that the only time I hear from you is when you have a show to promote. Who do you think I am, buster? Some kinda myspace whore?! Well fuck you!!
So I gave in and let's see who really reposts this. This is a test to see who's paying attention.
That means you Little Miss High-and-Mighty. Don't think I haven't been reading your comments. I know that you went to TGI Fridays last Saturday and got ripped on shooters. Shall I refer you to Karen's comment on the 13th? And who the hell is Sebastien?
It serves to eliminate people who are desperately trying to add "friends" like its a popularity contest in High School.
Because myspace is not like high school at all! I mean, why don't we hang out? I thought we were tight, yo. (Did you get that? I was trying to sound "street" there. Sometimes it's hard to get the inflection right in emails and stuff. That's why we should hang out more. I'm sorry i said those things earlier. i didn't mean to say fuck you. I was in a weird place. It's just...you seem to be having a lot of fun...with only 34 myspace friends! You realize I have 1,859 more friends than you? If this WAS high school, I certainly would've been invited to TGI Friday's last Saturday, don't ya think?)
This is a test to see how many people in my friends list actually pay attention to me.
Why aren't you paying attention to me? I mean, like, I go out of my way to add cool Flash animations to your comments and you, like, never write back, or send a message that says "Hey! Cool comment! I noticed you put that Neutral Milk Hotel song on your page. Even though I hear it on 6 out of 10 peoples' pages, I still think you're cool." Like, that's not a lot to ask, is it?
Copy and repost in your own bulletin. Lets see who the true friends are and I think I know who you are..
I've never even met the three people who always respond to these things, but I guess they are my "true friends". Unlike you.
Repost this if you are a friend.. if you don't, you get deleted..
Sometimes an ultimatum is the only thing that works. But, I mean, I won't really delete you. Just in case you were on vacation or were too busy to repost. Or maybe you've got too many people on your friend list and get way too many bulletins each day to sift through. I know that happens. I mean, like, sometimes I'll spend almost 28 minutes just going through my bulletins just to see if you posted something. You always post the coolest things. Most of the times it's just bands posting about their upcoming shows...I know, right? Like I'm really gonna come see you play. Be happy I added you to my friend list dude. So, like, if you don't repost, I'll still be your friend, don't worry. But it'd be real cool if you DID repost. Then I'd know we were meant for each other...
Don't reply... just copy and paste this in a new bulletin as "bye myspace"
That way, if someone really does think about you as much as you think of them, they'll click on it and try to talk you out of leaving. Cuz that's what "true friends" do!
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
The Messenger
Several months ago, a girl I went to high school with (but never interacted with) contacted me via myspace.com. She acknowledged the fact that we weren't friends back then, but added, "so what! we both live in brooklyn now. we should hang out."
Last night we finally were able to meet up at a bar in the Lower East Side.
She had kept saying we should catch up. Since I don't remember anything about her, I didn't think there'd be much catching up to do. And there wasn't. Aside from going to school together and now living in Brooklyn, we didn't have much in common. What we did was tenuous. We talked about tattoos for awhile. She has them, I work on a televiion show about them. Each of us kept bringing up old names of people we knew in high school and we both drew blanks at each others' remembrances. We were from two different worlds.
But I did walk away from our encounter with some important information.
One of the first things she said, as I sat at the bar, was, "When I think of you back then, I think of Aaron Parsons." (That is not his real name, in case you are wondering. I've decided to change it to protect the innocent.)
Aaron Parsons was one of my best friends growing up. We had been pals since kindergarten. Our parents would tell us about parent-teacher meetings with our kindergarten teacher, who was at a loss as to how she could control us. We apparently took control of our kindergarten class every morning by clowning around and entertaining the other kids. This was something we continued to do throughout our schooling. By the time we had reached high school we had started making videos of our shenanigans. Aaron was my partner in comedy growing up. He had one of the most fertile imaginations of anyone I've ever known. And he was goddamn funny. Always.
"Am I wrong in thinking that?" the girl I had met at the bar said. I explained that she was correct. We were good friends. I went on to explain that I had lost track of him in 1999 and have been thinking about looking him up.
"I saw him last month,"she said.
"No shit?"
""His family is good friends with mine. His parents and mine went to Hawaii together last month," she continued. She explained that Aaron has been living at his parents' for the last six months.
"He's a little...odd...isn't he?"
Aaron was always a little over the top. Like Robin Williams. He had a lot of energy, as I remembered. "I guess he is," I chuckled.
She explained that he had disappeared for three years.
What?! Apparently I wasn't the only one wondering where he was. So were his parents and siblings. His brother got married three years ago and Aaron never showed up. And no one ever heard from him. He just dropped off the face of the earth. Until six months ago.
She told me that one night his parents came home from a trip and there he was sitting on their porch. He's been living with them ever since.
As odd as the story is, I was excited to know that he is around. More importantly, I now know where he is.
We kept talking about high school stuff. She had gone to the ten year reunion a few years ago and talked about how lame it was, and told me about her job as a teacher, and what she's been doing with herself, and I told her what i've been doing, but the whole time I wanted to go home and call my old childhood friend and ask him how he's been and tell him that I've missed him.
I think I will do that later today. He's obviously got some stories to tell.
Last night we finally were able to meet up at a bar in the Lower East Side.
She had kept saying we should catch up. Since I don't remember anything about her, I didn't think there'd be much catching up to do. And there wasn't. Aside from going to school together and now living in Brooklyn, we didn't have much in common. What we did was tenuous. We talked about tattoos for awhile. She has them, I work on a televiion show about them. Each of us kept bringing up old names of people we knew in high school and we both drew blanks at each others' remembrances. We were from two different worlds.
But I did walk away from our encounter with some important information.
One of the first things she said, as I sat at the bar, was, "When I think of you back then, I think of Aaron Parsons." (That is not his real name, in case you are wondering. I've decided to change it to protect the innocent.)
Aaron Parsons was one of my best friends growing up. We had been pals since kindergarten. Our parents would tell us about parent-teacher meetings with our kindergarten teacher, who was at a loss as to how she could control us. We apparently took control of our kindergarten class every morning by clowning around and entertaining the other kids. This was something we continued to do throughout our schooling. By the time we had reached high school we had started making videos of our shenanigans. Aaron was my partner in comedy growing up. He had one of the most fertile imaginations of anyone I've ever known. And he was goddamn funny. Always.
"Am I wrong in thinking that?" the girl I had met at the bar said. I explained that she was correct. We were good friends. I went on to explain that I had lost track of him in 1999 and have been thinking about looking him up.
"I saw him last month,"she said.
"No shit?"
""His family is good friends with mine. His parents and mine went to Hawaii together last month," she continued. She explained that Aaron has been living at his parents' for the last six months.
"He's a little...odd...isn't he?"
Aaron was always a little over the top. Like Robin Williams. He had a lot of energy, as I remembered. "I guess he is," I chuckled.
She explained that he had disappeared for three years.
What?! Apparently I wasn't the only one wondering where he was. So were his parents and siblings. His brother got married three years ago and Aaron never showed up. And no one ever heard from him. He just dropped off the face of the earth. Until six months ago.
She told me that one night his parents came home from a trip and there he was sitting on their porch. He's been living with them ever since.
As odd as the story is, I was excited to know that he is around. More importantly, I now know where he is.
We kept talking about high school stuff. She had gone to the ten year reunion a few years ago and talked about how lame it was, and told me about her job as a teacher, and what she's been doing with herself, and I told her what i've been doing, but the whole time I wanted to go home and call my old childhood friend and ask him how he's been and tell him that I've missed him.
I think I will do that later today. He's obviously got some stories to tell.
Friday, April 21, 2006
Briefly...
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
The Wedding Videographer
Dear Mr. Sullivan,
I am writing to inform you that I will be able to capture your "greatest day" (i.e. your marriage to Hope) for posterity next Saturday April 29th. In fact, I will be able to create a nice little DVD package for you, so you can have it close at hand to pop in the player whenever you come across guests who refuse to leave when the party is winding down.
I must say, however, for a man who spent the last three years engaged to this woman, and the last year and a half attending classes and converting to Catholicism for this occasion, asking a friend with a digital video-camera to provide his services 2 weeks before the wedding, shows an amazing lack of planning. And your chicanery in this matter does not escape me. I realize that "employing" a guest who has already RSVP'd, instead of hunting down a professional wedding videographer, will certainly save you some cash.
Your offer of "there might be some beer in it for you", was particularly Scrooge-worthy. Assuming that there will be free beer at the reception, of course. Or did you scrimp on that too? If so, good day sir!
Since you seem unwilling to put forth the dough for a proper production, here are some meager requests I have:
1. Assuming we won't be permitted to lay down dolly-track on the aisle of the church, I would require a wheelchair or a shopping cart to achieve the desired effect. Nothing screams "high production value" like a nice tracking shot. If he has RSVP'd, I can use Mr. Michael Shaughnessy's services as dolly-grip. If not, I request that one be provided.
2. Permission from the priest performing this little marriage, to get POV shots. This would require the priest to wear spy-glasses. The pair I have are equipped with night-vision, which would serve to distinguish the priest-eye view from the audience's. In post we can add cool scrolling numbers to make it look like "Terminator" or "Predator". Of course, this is an artistic choice I will leave up to you.
3. I would also like to be able to pump in my own music over the sound system, to get the audience members pumped up. There is nothing more amateurish than background extras who don't appear to be "real". By blasting some hardcore dance anthems, we can achieve this. Some will get into it and begin dancing, while others will become annoyed and want to leave. When I call action, some will be sweaty and some will be looking at their watch, and it will have the appearance of a real wedding.
4. Green M&Ms in the sacristy. Please.
Hopefully, we can work out these details. Please feel free to give me a call so we can further discuss things.
Yours,
Dave Orsborn
I am writing to inform you that I will be able to capture your "greatest day" (i.e. your marriage to Hope) for posterity next Saturday April 29th. In fact, I will be able to create a nice little DVD package for you, so you can have it close at hand to pop in the player whenever you come across guests who refuse to leave when the party is winding down.
I must say, however, for a man who spent the last three years engaged to this woman, and the last year and a half attending classes and converting to Catholicism for this occasion, asking a friend with a digital video-camera to provide his services 2 weeks before the wedding, shows an amazing lack of planning. And your chicanery in this matter does not escape me. I realize that "employing" a guest who has already RSVP'd, instead of hunting down a professional wedding videographer, will certainly save you some cash.
Your offer of "there might be some beer in it for you", was particularly Scrooge-worthy. Assuming that there will be free beer at the reception, of course. Or did you scrimp on that too? If so, good day sir!
Since you seem unwilling to put forth the dough for a proper production, here are some meager requests I have:
1. Assuming we won't be permitted to lay down dolly-track on the aisle of the church, I would require a wheelchair or a shopping cart to achieve the desired effect. Nothing screams "high production value" like a nice tracking shot. If he has RSVP'd, I can use Mr. Michael Shaughnessy's services as dolly-grip. If not, I request that one be provided.
2. Permission from the priest performing this little marriage, to get POV shots. This would require the priest to wear spy-glasses. The pair I have are equipped with night-vision, which would serve to distinguish the priest-eye view from the audience's. In post we can add cool scrolling numbers to make it look like "Terminator" or "Predator". Of course, this is an artistic choice I will leave up to you.
3. I would also like to be able to pump in my own music over the sound system, to get the audience members pumped up. There is nothing more amateurish than background extras who don't appear to be "real". By blasting some hardcore dance anthems, we can achieve this. Some will get into it and begin dancing, while others will become annoyed and want to leave. When I call action, some will be sweaty and some will be looking at their watch, and it will have the appearance of a real wedding.
4. Green M&Ms in the sacristy. Please.
Hopefully, we can work out these details. Please feel free to give me a call so we can further discuss things.
Yours,
Dave Orsborn
Saturday, April 15, 2006
Wiki-what? Wiki-who?
Wikipedia is a fascinating way to waste a few hours.
What started as a quick reference stop to look up some info on filmmaker Roger Avary ended with enlightening research on where I grew up.
West Chester is the county seat of Chester County, the county in Pennsylvania where I grew up. (Wow. I just used the word county three times in one sentence) It is also where i went spent my first two years of college.
From the Wikipedia page on Avary, I discovered he is an Atari aficionado. I linked to a page on Atari, and then on to a page about the wonderful Commodore 64. From there it was just a click away to finding out more about West Chester, Pennsylvania.
Some facts about West Chester:
It was the birthplace of composer Samuel Barber (I knew that already), famous for his Adagio for Strings, and also Hasidic rap sensation Matisyahu. (I didn't know that)
I also discovered that humorist Dave Barry began his career as a writer for The Daily Local News, a newspaper I was "lucky" enough to have had my picture on the front page of back in 1995.
The per capita income for the borough is $19, 073, and almost 10% of the population lives below the poverty line. And yet every time I visit, there are more and more $400,000 homes being built.
The newly-constructed West Chester Transportation Center cost 1.25 million dollars to build, and though I've never been to it, I am looking forward to not waiting outside for the bus to Philly. I wonder if they have a food court. And juggling clowns who sell popcorn. That would be sweet.
I was also interested to find that there was an actual Wikipedia entry for the band Plow United, one of Creep Records' "biggest acts". Ah, West Chester Rock City. (That actually should be the title of the documentary my brother and I are planning to make about our friends and the whole WC music scene and the enigma that is Arik Victor.)
You can spend forever clicking around on this site. And there are so many random things that actually have listings and articles. Crazy.
I really should get out more.
What started as a quick reference stop to look up some info on filmmaker Roger Avary ended with enlightening research on where I grew up.
West Chester is the county seat of Chester County, the county in Pennsylvania where I grew up. (Wow. I just used the word county three times in one sentence) It is also where i went spent my first two years of college.
From the Wikipedia page on Avary, I discovered he is an Atari aficionado. I linked to a page on Atari, and then on to a page about the wonderful Commodore 64. From there it was just a click away to finding out more about West Chester, Pennsylvania.
Some facts about West Chester:
It was the birthplace of composer Samuel Barber (I knew that already), famous for his Adagio for Strings, and also Hasidic rap sensation Matisyahu. (I didn't know that)
I also discovered that humorist Dave Barry began his career as a writer for The Daily Local News, a newspaper I was "lucky" enough to have had my picture on the front page of back in 1995.
The per capita income for the borough is $19, 073, and almost 10% of the population lives below the poverty line. And yet every time I visit, there are more and more $400,000 homes being built.
The newly-constructed West Chester Transportation Center cost 1.25 million dollars to build, and though I've never been to it, I am looking forward to not waiting outside for the bus to Philly. I wonder if they have a food court. And juggling clowns who sell popcorn. That would be sweet.
I was also interested to find that there was an actual Wikipedia entry for the band Plow United, one of Creep Records' "biggest acts". Ah, West Chester Rock City. (That actually should be the title of the documentary my brother and I are planning to make about our friends and the whole WC music scene and the enigma that is Arik Victor.)
You can spend forever clicking around on this site. And there are so many random things that actually have listings and articles. Crazy.
I really should get out more.
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Noisy Neighbors
"Good neighbors keep their noise to themselves."
My landlord's family, the neighbors upstairs, have a pretty regular schedule of noisy hobbies. My brother and I have started to map out the various daily activities. We can fairly accurately guess when the next one will take place. We have had to do this, in order to figure out when is a good time to go to sleep.
I am not sure if it is a cultural difference (the family is Indian) but as a family unit they all stay up really late. They continue to make noise until long after I have turned in and am trying to get to sleep.
The first event in the Noise Triathlon is The Moving Of The Furniture.This begins around 4:30 or 5 in the evening usually. When everyone has returned home from work and school. My brother and I are often preparing dinner and watching the news, when the sound of tables, beds, and sofas dragging across the floor overhead starts. This lasts for about 15 or twenty minutes. I imagine the look of their apartment constantly changing, like the buildings in the movie Dark City.
Next up is the operating of the Weird-Jackhammer-Sound-Making-Device. We are not sure exactly what they are doing. But every evening we hear, in five minute intervals for about half an hour, a rhythmic drilling/pounding sound. It is very loud. I think it may be a device used in cooking. Perhaps they are slaughtering their own animals for the lamb curry. This often happens around 7 or 8 in the evening.
The third event takes place at least three times a night. That is The Running Of The Kids. This is a less structured sport. The only constant is that it must be done three times a night, and the last running must take place shortly after midnight. The event itself is merely the youngest child, who is two or three, running back and forth through the apartment in sets of seven. Seven full sprints from one end of the apartment to the other. Sometimes one of the other children runs around as well, but their participation is not always necessary. For a child no taller than my knee, she sure has a heavy footfall. The stomping is very loud and quite annoying at 12;15 am.
I don't know why a child of two is awake and running around at 12:15 at night. But then, I don't have kids.
Perhaps some day you may like to visit Brooklyn for The Running Of The Kids. You are more than welcome to stay and enjoy the noise with us. You all have an open invitation. I'm sorry I can no longer offer you a freezing cold shower as well. Maybe, if you are lucky, the apartment will flood during your stay.
My landlord's family, the neighbors upstairs, have a pretty regular schedule of noisy hobbies. My brother and I have started to map out the various daily activities. We can fairly accurately guess when the next one will take place. We have had to do this, in order to figure out when is a good time to go to sleep.
I am not sure if it is a cultural difference (the family is Indian) but as a family unit they all stay up really late. They continue to make noise until long after I have turned in and am trying to get to sleep.
The first event in the Noise Triathlon is The Moving Of The Furniture.This begins around 4:30 or 5 in the evening usually. When everyone has returned home from work and school. My brother and I are often preparing dinner and watching the news, when the sound of tables, beds, and sofas dragging across the floor overhead starts. This lasts for about 15 or twenty minutes. I imagine the look of their apartment constantly changing, like the buildings in the movie Dark City.
Next up is the operating of the Weird-Jackhammer-Sound-Making-Device. We are not sure exactly what they are doing. But every evening we hear, in five minute intervals for about half an hour, a rhythmic drilling/pounding sound. It is very loud. I think it may be a device used in cooking. Perhaps they are slaughtering their own animals for the lamb curry. This often happens around 7 or 8 in the evening.
The third event takes place at least three times a night. That is The Running Of The Kids. This is a less structured sport. The only constant is that it must be done three times a night, and the last running must take place shortly after midnight. The event itself is merely the youngest child, who is two or three, running back and forth through the apartment in sets of seven. Seven full sprints from one end of the apartment to the other. Sometimes one of the other children runs around as well, but their participation is not always necessary. For a child no taller than my knee, she sure has a heavy footfall. The stomping is very loud and quite annoying at 12;15 am.
I don't know why a child of two is awake and running around at 12:15 at night. But then, I don't have kids.
Perhaps some day you may like to visit Brooklyn for The Running Of The Kids. You are more than welcome to stay and enjoy the noise with us. You all have an open invitation. I'm sorry I can no longer offer you a freezing cold shower as well. Maybe, if you are lucky, the apartment will flood during your stay.
The Cable Guy
Last night I watched the first four episodes of IFC's reality series "Film School", via my Netflix. Today as I was walking around, I passed one of the students from the show, Leah, on the street. I thought,
Hey, that's the girl from the show I was watching last night. I wonder how she's doing. How long has it been since they shot that show? Is she still in school, making movies? How has her relationship with her multiple-sclerosis-suffering mom turned out? Does she still have that obviously-gay-boyfriend who she likes to dress up in costumes with?
And then I thought,
Damn, I sure know a lot about a total-stranger-I-just-passed-on-the-street's personal life. I feel creepy.
Hey, that's the girl from the show I was watching last night. I wonder how she's doing. How long has it been since they shot that show? Is she still in school, making movies? How has her relationship with her multiple-sclerosis-suffering mom turned out? Does she still have that obviously-gay-boyfriend who she likes to dress up in costumes with?
And then I thought,
Damn, I sure know a lot about a total-stranger-I-just-passed-on-the-street's personal life. I feel creepy.
Monday, April 10, 2006
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Fungus-faced Toad-sucker
One of my favorite films as a child, Six Pack starring Kenny Rogers, is being released on DVD next week. Yes, I have moved it to the top of my queue on Netflix.
My strongest memory of that movie was when one of the kids called another kid a "fungus-faced toad-sucker", which I thought, at the age of 8, was the most derogatory thing you could call someone. You were telling them their face resembled a spore-producing organism, and that they also sucked on toads.
Needless to say, I started using the phrase all the time.
In fact, one particular neighbor was known only as "Fungus Face". And yes, the name was appropriate. His face did resemble a yeasty, fungal infection. He was about 13 or 14 and plagued with severe acne. I had no idea who he was. But one Saturday afternoon, while my neighbor Tony and I were building a dam in the creek that ran through the woods behind his house, our paths crossed and the wheels of destiny were set in motion. It sparked a small neighborhood war, of which Tony and I became the chief instigators. Our encounter became "the shot heard 'round the neighborhood".
As we were splashing around in the creek, fashioning our make-shift dam out of rocks and mud and tree branches, laughing and having a grand time, we were beset upon by three teenagers on their BMX bikes. Their leader, soon to be dubbed "Fungus Face", pushed me into the creek and smacked Tony with a stick.
We had never seen these kids before. They weren't from our neighborhood. They were from the neighborhood that bordered the woods on the other side. But we had never encountered them, in our limited dealings with the kids from that neighborhood. They were foreigners. And they scared us.
Earlier, Tony and I had found a rusty oil drum which had been sawed in half to use in burning leaves in our neighbor's yard. We requisitioned it for use as a boat, to sail in the "lake" we were creating with our dammed-up creek. Our "lake" had a diameter of about 8 feet. Tony was in the middle of said "lake" floating in the oil drum when the BMX bandits had rolled up on us.
As I crawled the out of the creek after being thrown in it by the leader of the gang, I reached to help Tony out of the boat. My hand was smacked away by one of the other teens and everytime Tony tried to row closer to "shore" one of the teens would push him back to the middle of the "lake".
"What are you little shits doing out here?" Fungus Face asked.
"We're just, um, making a dam," I said.
"You can't do that unless you have permission. This is my property," he said.
"Nah-ah," I said. "These woods don't belong to anyone! They are the county's property." I was pretty certain of this information. I think I had actually asked my father once, "who owns the woods behind Tony's house?" And he had told me something about it belonging to the county and the surrounding properties only reaching back half-way.
So we were well within our rights, I believed, to conduct our mini-TVA projects.
Fungus Face and his goons disagreed. They hassled us for about 15 or 20 minutes, broke apart the dam we had constructed, threw our Huffy bikes into the creek and tossed mud at us repeatedly as we tried to retreat.
As Tony and I ran back to his house, I began to fill with rage. Whatever rage an 8-year old boy could muster, I called it all up.
"That fungus-faced toad-sucker!" I yelled to Tony. "We should do something!"
"What?"
"Let's fight them," I said.
"With what?" Tony asked.
"With everyone we know."
And thus began our day-long recruiting efforts.We figured we'd get a small band of kids from our neighborhood together and get them angry enough to fight the battle for us. I knew I wasn't much of a fighter, but after years of neighborhood "wars" involving tree-forts and slingshots and rotten walnut husks, I knew I had the mind of a general. I had always been able to gather and organize my forces, equip them with the proper weapons (sticks and stones), and lead them into battle with whoever we were fighting that day.
So we knew we had to get as many friends together as possible. These were teenagers we would be fighting. Our strength would be in our numbers. If we had a group of ten 8 and 9 year olds, I was sure we could take at least three 14 year olds.
We first recruited our friend Brian, who was a scrappy kid, always looking to wrestle or fight. You always knew when he was going to turn on you because he would begin chewing his tongue and his eyes would glaze over. If we were playing football or basketball and Brian sudddenly stared at you and began chewing his tongue, you knew you had made an illegal move. It was best to forfeit a few points in the game, lest you incur his full wrath. his hero was Ric Flair, in 1982 the star wrestler with the NWA, and Brian had mastered Flair's trademark move, the figure-four leg lock. We knew we wanted him on our side and it wasn't hard to convince him.
Brian went around the neighborhood with us recruiting others and his passion abut the upcoming fight was addictive. we had no problem getting people to join us.
No one knew who this Fungus Face kid was, but Tony and I painted him up to be an evil monster, threatening life in our secure little neighborhood as we knew it, unless we all banded together and did something about it. I was like William Randolf Hearst helping to start the Spanish American war. Remember the Maine, boys!
When we finally had about seven neighborhood guys, ranging in age from 6-12, we went back to the site of our encounter to see if we could find them.
As luck would have it they were still there, riding their bikes through the creek and splashing mud as they slammed their brakes. They were trying to see who could spray it further. If you haven't figured out by now, I really had some redneck moments in my childhood.
The group of us approached.
"Fungus Face! Fungus Face! Fungus Face!" I had the boys chanting.
Brian, who was all of four feet tall at the time, asked, "Which one of these nasal drips is Fungus Face?"
Whereas "fungus-face toad-sucker" had been my catch phrase that summer, Brian's favorite phrase was "nasal drip". He had heard it from his older brother and laughed for several days about it. As a matter of fact, he and I laughed about it at his wedding a couple years ago, when we were reminiscing about the old days.
I pointed to the leader of the group and he looked at Brian.
"What are you gonna do you little Monchichi?" he said. And then he swept his leg, knocking Brian's feet out from under him. The other teenagers laughed.
Brian jumped up and started punching the kid, but he just swept his legs out from under him again. The rest of us moved in. The other two teens goaded us on, then jumped at us. Several of the kids we'd brought scattered and ran into the woods.
We watched as Brian kept getting knocked to the ground.
Everytime we tried to move in, the other guys looked more threatening.
More of our "army" left as the minutes dragged on, until it was just Tony and I.
Brian kept getting thrown to te ground each time he stood up. he looked at us.
"Anytime guys," he said. "Feel free to jump in." he swung punchs but they never hit their target as Fungus Face held his head at arm's-length.
Then Tony and I sat down and watched.
Brian looked at us with a sense of defeat in his eyes. Here were the guys who'd provoked him into joining this fight, and they were sitting on their asses watching him get his ass kicked.
I felt gutless. But I didn't do anything. I sat there and watched my good friend get thrown around like a rag doll by a kid nearly twice his age. But Brian never gave up. He fought and fought, and laughed at us for getting him into this and then not joining in. He couldn't believe it.
Eventually the teens got tired of the game and left.
We helped Brian up and we all started walking home.
"Thanks for helping out," Brian said. "Who wanted to fight these guys again?"
Tony and I just shook our heads. But Brian wasn't mad at us. He'd fought a new enemy. The "Legendary Fungus Face". We'd hyped him pretty good. And no one else saw the outcome of the fight. As far as we were all concerned he'd won by default. The teenagers quit. He'd stayed in the ring until the end. Fighting.
And so that is how the story would be told in the weeks to come. As the mythology of Fungus face grew, the story of Brian's epic battle with him grew proportionately. We knew that's how the story would be handed down. We knew that from the moment we walked away from the woods on our way home and Brian turned to us both and said,
"Those guys were a lot bigger than you described them."
My strongest memory of that movie was when one of the kids called another kid a "fungus-faced toad-sucker", which I thought, at the age of 8, was the most derogatory thing you could call someone. You were telling them their face resembled a spore-producing organism, and that they also sucked on toads.
Needless to say, I started using the phrase all the time.
In fact, one particular neighbor was known only as "Fungus Face". And yes, the name was appropriate. His face did resemble a yeasty, fungal infection. He was about 13 or 14 and plagued with severe acne. I had no idea who he was. But one Saturday afternoon, while my neighbor Tony and I were building a dam in the creek that ran through the woods behind his house, our paths crossed and the wheels of destiny were set in motion. It sparked a small neighborhood war, of which Tony and I became the chief instigators. Our encounter became "the shot heard 'round the neighborhood".
As we were splashing around in the creek, fashioning our make-shift dam out of rocks and mud and tree branches, laughing and having a grand time, we were beset upon by three teenagers on their BMX bikes. Their leader, soon to be dubbed "Fungus Face", pushed me into the creek and smacked Tony with a stick.
We had never seen these kids before. They weren't from our neighborhood. They were from the neighborhood that bordered the woods on the other side. But we had never encountered them, in our limited dealings with the kids from that neighborhood. They were foreigners. And they scared us.
Earlier, Tony and I had found a rusty oil drum which had been sawed in half to use in burning leaves in our neighbor's yard. We requisitioned it for use as a boat, to sail in the "lake" we were creating with our dammed-up creek. Our "lake" had a diameter of about 8 feet. Tony was in the middle of said "lake" floating in the oil drum when the BMX bandits had rolled up on us.
As I crawled the out of the creek after being thrown in it by the leader of the gang, I reached to help Tony out of the boat. My hand was smacked away by one of the other teens and everytime Tony tried to row closer to "shore" one of the teens would push him back to the middle of the "lake".
"What are you little shits doing out here?" Fungus Face asked.
"We're just, um, making a dam," I said.
"You can't do that unless you have permission. This is my property," he said.
"Nah-ah," I said. "These woods don't belong to anyone! They are the county's property." I was pretty certain of this information. I think I had actually asked my father once, "who owns the woods behind Tony's house?" And he had told me something about it belonging to the county and the surrounding properties only reaching back half-way.
So we were well within our rights, I believed, to conduct our mini-TVA projects.
Fungus Face and his goons disagreed. They hassled us for about 15 or 20 minutes, broke apart the dam we had constructed, threw our Huffy bikes into the creek and tossed mud at us repeatedly as we tried to retreat.
As Tony and I ran back to his house, I began to fill with rage. Whatever rage an 8-year old boy could muster, I called it all up.
"That fungus-faced toad-sucker!" I yelled to Tony. "We should do something!"
"What?"
"Let's fight them," I said.
"With what?" Tony asked.
"With everyone we know."
And thus began our day-long recruiting efforts.We figured we'd get a small band of kids from our neighborhood together and get them angry enough to fight the battle for us. I knew I wasn't much of a fighter, but after years of neighborhood "wars" involving tree-forts and slingshots and rotten walnut husks, I knew I had the mind of a general. I had always been able to gather and organize my forces, equip them with the proper weapons (sticks and stones), and lead them into battle with whoever we were fighting that day.
So we knew we had to get as many friends together as possible. These were teenagers we would be fighting. Our strength would be in our numbers. If we had a group of ten 8 and 9 year olds, I was sure we could take at least three 14 year olds.
We first recruited our friend Brian, who was a scrappy kid, always looking to wrestle or fight. You always knew when he was going to turn on you because he would begin chewing his tongue and his eyes would glaze over. If we were playing football or basketball and Brian sudddenly stared at you and began chewing his tongue, you knew you had made an illegal move. It was best to forfeit a few points in the game, lest you incur his full wrath. his hero was Ric Flair, in 1982 the star wrestler with the NWA, and Brian had mastered Flair's trademark move, the figure-four leg lock. We knew we wanted him on our side and it wasn't hard to convince him.
Brian went around the neighborhood with us recruiting others and his passion abut the upcoming fight was addictive. we had no problem getting people to join us.
No one knew who this Fungus Face kid was, but Tony and I painted him up to be an evil monster, threatening life in our secure little neighborhood as we knew it, unless we all banded together and did something about it. I was like William Randolf Hearst helping to start the Spanish American war. Remember the Maine, boys!
When we finally had about seven neighborhood guys, ranging in age from 6-12, we went back to the site of our encounter to see if we could find them.
As luck would have it they were still there, riding their bikes through the creek and splashing mud as they slammed their brakes. They were trying to see who could spray it further. If you haven't figured out by now, I really had some redneck moments in my childhood.
The group of us approached.
"Fungus Face! Fungus Face! Fungus Face!" I had the boys chanting.
Brian, who was all of four feet tall at the time, asked, "Which one of these nasal drips is Fungus Face?"
Whereas "fungus-face toad-sucker" had been my catch phrase that summer, Brian's favorite phrase was "nasal drip". He had heard it from his older brother and laughed for several days about it. As a matter of fact, he and I laughed about it at his wedding a couple years ago, when we were reminiscing about the old days.
I pointed to the leader of the group and he looked at Brian.
"What are you gonna do you little Monchichi?" he said. And then he swept his leg, knocking Brian's feet out from under him. The other teenagers laughed.
Brian jumped up and started punching the kid, but he just swept his legs out from under him again. The rest of us moved in. The other two teens goaded us on, then jumped at us. Several of the kids we'd brought scattered and ran into the woods.
We watched as Brian kept getting knocked to the ground.
Everytime we tried to move in, the other guys looked more threatening.
More of our "army" left as the minutes dragged on, until it was just Tony and I.
Brian kept getting thrown to te ground each time he stood up. he looked at us.
"Anytime guys," he said. "Feel free to jump in." he swung punchs but they never hit their target as Fungus Face held his head at arm's-length.
Then Tony and I sat down and watched.
Brian looked at us with a sense of defeat in his eyes. Here were the guys who'd provoked him into joining this fight, and they were sitting on their asses watching him get his ass kicked.
I felt gutless. But I didn't do anything. I sat there and watched my good friend get thrown around like a rag doll by a kid nearly twice his age. But Brian never gave up. He fought and fought, and laughed at us for getting him into this and then not joining in. He couldn't believe it.
Eventually the teens got tired of the game and left.
We helped Brian up and we all started walking home.
"Thanks for helping out," Brian said. "Who wanted to fight these guys again?"
Tony and I just shook our heads. But Brian wasn't mad at us. He'd fought a new enemy. The "Legendary Fungus Face". We'd hyped him pretty good. And no one else saw the outcome of the fight. As far as we were all concerned he'd won by default. The teenagers quit. He'd stayed in the ring until the end. Fighting.
And so that is how the story would be told in the weeks to come. As the mythology of Fungus face grew, the story of Brian's epic battle with him grew proportionately. We knew that's how the story would be handed down. We knew that from the moment we walked away from the woods on our way home and Brian turned to us both and said,
"Those guys were a lot bigger than you described them."
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Monday, April 03, 2006
The Month of Living Dangerously
I need to pay rent.
I have $7.89 in a savings account. $0 in checking. I have about $2,000 in a 401K, but have no idea how to get to it. I tried accessing my account online, but in all the information I've collected from them (statements, letters about new fund opportunities) I can't find anything with an account number or passcode or anything like that.
It's frustrating!
A friend of mine said, "Don't take that money. You need to have something put away for your future."
My answer, "If I don't have any money today to live on, what future am I saving money for?"
Also, if I can't figure out how to access this money now, how will I be expected to do so when I am a senile old man?
I have $7.89 in a savings account. $0 in checking. I have about $2,000 in a 401K, but have no idea how to get to it. I tried accessing my account online, but in all the information I've collected from them (statements, letters about new fund opportunities) I can't find anything with an account number or passcode or anything like that.
It's frustrating!
A friend of mine said, "Don't take that money. You need to have something put away for your future."
My answer, "If I don't have any money today to live on, what future am I saving money for?"
Also, if I can't figure out how to access this money now, how will I be expected to do so when I am a senile old man?
Sunsets Ripped By Crows
I’d been talking about death and the pointlessness of life for about an hour. I was drunk and in the depths of an incredible funk. She had heard about as much as she could take.
“You just need to get laid,” she said, matter-of-factly.
I paused and looked at her inquisitively. Was this an offer? We had been borderline lovers many years ago. Now she was just my drop-dead beautiful “friend”, who would flirt with me incessantly, secure in the knowledge that she was “taken” and I was too much of a chump to act upon anything.
I studied her eyes. They didn’t belie any secret want to sleep with me. She was not trying to subtly tell me anything. That was merely her assessment of what was ailing me. I needed to get laid. And then the world would be right again. Right?
I shook my head and turned away.
She really thought that it was that simple. That all I needed at this stage of my life, to cure me of my morose outlook, my debilitating self-loathing, was to go out and get laid.
It was a simple panacea that I had overlooked all these years. Why hadn’t I just gone out and gotten laid, she wondered.
And that was certainly a part of my condition. But beautiful women will never understand the complexities encountered by us lay-people in our attempt to “just get laid”.
It all seemed so elementary to her. If I was so lonely and needed companionship and was so hung-up on my interminable solitude, why didn’t I just go and have sex with someone. Clear my head. Connect with another person for a brief, flickering instant.
But what she didn’t understand, because she was beautiful, and would never, in her life, have a short supply of men who wanted to sleep with her, was that “getting laid” did not come naturally to guys like me. Whether it was my low self-confidence or my complete and utter lack of upward mobility, I was severely handicapped in this game. I had a lot to overcome.
Her summation of my “problem” was insensitive to the tribulations I had endured.
The attitude was akin to a trust fund kid telling a homeless woman, “Just go get some money. Then you won’t be so poor.” It was fundamentally true. If you had money, you wouldn’t be poor. But it didn’t offer any steps to achieving that end.
And so I snapped.
I swung around and stared at her, nose to nose.
“You got three options, toots,” I said. “One: you and I leave this joint right now and go make love. Two: you give me $75 to find a cheap hooker. Or C: you buy the next round and hope I pass out soon.”
She called the bartender over and ordered a pitcher of beer and four shots of Jameson. I laughed, plopped my head on the bar and woke up several hours later as she and her boyfriend were helping me out of their car and walking me to my apartment.
“You just need to get laid,” she said, matter-of-factly.
I paused and looked at her inquisitively. Was this an offer? We had been borderline lovers many years ago. Now she was just my drop-dead beautiful “friend”, who would flirt with me incessantly, secure in the knowledge that she was “taken” and I was too much of a chump to act upon anything.
I studied her eyes. They didn’t belie any secret want to sleep with me. She was not trying to subtly tell me anything. That was merely her assessment of what was ailing me. I needed to get laid. And then the world would be right again. Right?
I shook my head and turned away.
She really thought that it was that simple. That all I needed at this stage of my life, to cure me of my morose outlook, my debilitating self-loathing, was to go out and get laid.
It was a simple panacea that I had overlooked all these years. Why hadn’t I just gone out and gotten laid, she wondered.
And that was certainly a part of my condition. But beautiful women will never understand the complexities encountered by us lay-people in our attempt to “just get laid”.
It all seemed so elementary to her. If I was so lonely and needed companionship and was so hung-up on my interminable solitude, why didn’t I just go and have sex with someone. Clear my head. Connect with another person for a brief, flickering instant.
But what she didn’t understand, because she was beautiful, and would never, in her life, have a short supply of men who wanted to sleep with her, was that “getting laid” did not come naturally to guys like me. Whether it was my low self-confidence or my complete and utter lack of upward mobility, I was severely handicapped in this game. I had a lot to overcome.
Her summation of my “problem” was insensitive to the tribulations I had endured.
The attitude was akin to a trust fund kid telling a homeless woman, “Just go get some money. Then you won’t be so poor.” It was fundamentally true. If you had money, you wouldn’t be poor. But it didn’t offer any steps to achieving that end.
And so I snapped.
I swung around and stared at her, nose to nose.
“You got three options, toots,” I said. “One: you and I leave this joint right now and go make love. Two: you give me $75 to find a cheap hooker. Or C: you buy the next round and hope I pass out soon.”
She called the bartender over and ordered a pitcher of beer and four shots of Jameson. I laughed, plopped my head on the bar and woke up several hours later as she and her boyfriend were helping me out of their car and walking me to my apartment.
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