I am not going to pretend that I can properly review movies. I’d rather leave that to hybrid toys. So, here’s a vlog by Waiterbot expressing his view on this film that everyone and their momma is talking about. (well not my momma she likes Shirley Temple movies) And this was made by the most talented Matt from x-entertainment.com.
1984 was the first year I remember the year being a year. At this time my musical tastes were basically limited to Bull Frogs and Butterflies. If you are not familiar with these tunes I suggest you take a time machine back to Sunday School of the 80s. But now I realize that the year held much of the greatest music of all time. And I am going to share it with you, cause I like you.
7. The Cure- The Empty World
The Cure in all their glory has a plethora of songs that I love to death. For whatever reason 1984 is not full of them. I would say my favorite song of theirs this year was Caterpillar, but I hate the video. So instead I bring you The Empty World which has this nifty little youtube video that someone decided to make. It shows us that at some times, Robert Smith is not wearing makeup and is quite nice to stare at.
6. Icicle Works- Birds Fly (Whisper to a Scream)
One time when I had a visitor in my old coffee shop I was sitting there and the visitor said out of the blue, “Icicle Works” while this song was playing on the sirus radio that I had installed. And I love this song. And I have no idea what it is about. And I don’t care.
5. New Order- Theives Like Us
I have nothing to say about this song, but I like it and the video here that I have given you is…different.
4. U2- Pride (In the name of Love)
Love U2. The first tape I ever bought with my own money was October. This is not off October, but off of The Unforgettable Fire, which I think I like better. And so you know, the greatest song of theirs is Stay (Faraway So Close) . There is a theme with parenthesis in titles here as you can see.
3. Echo and the Bunnymen-The Killing Moon
It’s just so much fun.
2. Replacements-Unsatisfied
I love this song because I can feel how unsatisfied the singer is. Maybe that’s not a reason to love a song, but I do not care. And the Replacements rule all.
The Psychedelic Furs- Ghost in You
There is not a person among us who does not love this song. If you say you don’t you are a dirty dirty liar. I bought this on tape in 1995 when I lived in Oroville and was not subjected to any radio or MTV or any current music of any kind. I was unaware that the album was 11 years old at this point. I don’t know why I told you that.
Sometimes I feel a like Kip, though I have yet to sing about it.
At six o’clock Monday through Friday I wake up to a brief but loud series of beeps. It’s coming from the desk in my make shift office between the living room and the dining room of my two bedroom apartment. This sounds alerts me to the fact that it is now time to get out of my fluffy bed and start my day. The beeps are coming from my Motorola Trio Q, or as I refer to it: my phone.
My son, who has at this point been up for an hour smearing Fruit Loops onto the living room coffee table, will usually bring me the phone at this time. This is so that the sound of it no longer interrupts his cartoon viewing that he holds so sacred to his heart.
First I turn the snooze function on so that I will not be bothered for another 10 minutes. I then, while still lying in bed, proceed to fire up the phones internet feature and check my email. After email I check to see if I have received any blog comments in the middle of the night. After which I place the phone next to my head and fall asleep for a few minutes longer.
When I wake up the second time I turn my phone’s alarm off and get myself ready for either work or school. Then I dress my son after cleaning the fruit loops off of his cheeks. We go on our way to our daily doings and just prior to arriving at my destination I turn the sound off on my phone but never actually turn the phone off. I keep it beside me at all times. There’s a lovely pocket on my apron at work which holds the phone for the moments when there is no boss around so that I can check to see if I have gotten more emails or comments. The other thing that I love to check for is texts. On any given day I will send and receive dozens of texts. I used to be bothered by the cost of these things until I found out that I could pay one sum a month and never worry about going over the limit. Sometimes life is good.
Other fabulous things which my cell phone is valuable for is checking the weather, reading news stories, and using mapquest when I get lost or turned around. I can basically get to any web site that I can on my computer at home via my cell phone.
On my way home from work I turn the sound back on so that I know immediately if and when I receive an alert. At home the phone goes back into the jack hooked up to my laptop where any photos I may have taken during the day are then fed onto the computer for backup.
As I get ready for bed I turn the alarm back on and know that the next day me and my phone will do the same thing once again.
And someday I am actually going to make a call with it.
You know those moments that are so awesome you can grab them and hold put them in your pocket to take out later and still enjoy them? My favorite of those moments of all time was last June. I had just sold the coffee shop I was not wanting to own and had this massive life plan ahead of me. I was taking a two week break between the old and the new to embark on a road trip. I spent the first three days driving across the country singing along to my favorite 50 CDs and my talkative son was bouncing behind me in the back seat. We had a detailed trip plan which included stopping at every single last one of “The World’s Largest…” oddball roadside attractions in the more than 3000 miles of highway we traveled. What made that moment was not that we were going on the super-fun-and-relaxing-at-the-same-time trip. It was that the final day of my employment ended on such a repulsively disturbing note that the act of walking out the door and starting up the ignition was quite possibly the purest form of joy I had ever felt. Yeah it’s darn cheesy, but it was Thelma and Louise-esque and someday I will own the rights to the story and you will pay 8.50 to watch it.
I have had other moments like that, and certainly not all were bittersweet. I recently got an complementary email that made my entire decade. I went to my first ever parent teacher meeting this fall and after weeks of wondering if my son was doing well I found out that he had received the highest scores on the reading and math skills tests of all the kids in his kindergarten (I am unapologetically bragging here)
But I want to have these moments more often. And they cannot be created. I think you just have to leave opportunity in your life for such moments. I think there is only one such solution to my craving. I need to go on another trip. Or maybe there’s two, I could win the lottery.
You know all those people you have had your lottery pact with? You know the one: If I ever win the lottery, you get a chunk. What a stupid thing to say.
I am in most ways a simple person who gets jollies out of simple things. Now I am going to tell you about one of those simple things:
I work downtown and therefore have to park my car in a ridiculously priced parking ramp. On my walk to work from said ramp I pass a building that has no storefront but is always having trucks go in and out through a large garage door type entrance. I couldn’t tell you what is done in this building but I would like to thing that it is a shady car stripping operation with a bit of smuggling on the side. The other day I was walking like a chicken because of the weather to get back to my car and I noticed a transparent object sitting in front of the building. I was in a hurry to make it across the street before the lit up little white man turned into an orange hand. (Which I always have wanted to high five by the way) So, I ignored the clear mound and went on my way home.
The next day I was proactive and took my cell cam out just as I was approaching the mystery object. It was an ice sculpture of a little pic in a Buddah-like pose. I imagine that in the next month there will not be an opportunity for the pig to melt. So I get to see it every day! There has to be a weird story behind why the pig is there,but I would rather you made one up for me.
My first thought this morning, as it is every morning was, “If I hustle I can get to the coffee shop to get my double short latte before dropping my son off at the bus stop.” In the car on our way to get coffee I heard the deejay complaining about the -31 windchill coming this weekend. This thought made me think of what those extreme temperatures mean, and how the term we often use is bitter cold but we really just mean pain.
After the bus stop I went to my first class of the day where I printed an article for my research project. I cannot believe we are already working on it. Those pages smelled like the office at my elemantary school with it’s Goliath like xerox machine that flashed so bright with every copied page. Between class one and two I went out for breakfast, as I do each week. I never order the bacon at the diner, but I love to listen to it sizzle on the grill. tg says that he wants that sound played at his funeral, though you wouldn’t know he loves bacon by looking at him.
As I was eating my eggs over easy with hashbrowns and green tobasco I heard a man say, “How’s Max doing?” “Funny.” I thought. “That’s my son’s name.” I looked up to see that it was the waiter who had served us many times before. I never knew he took care to learn our names. This moment has sealed this place as my number one all time diner. This makes me realize I better get on it and find some more diners to patron if I am to ever earn a real list.
The worst part about going to school for writing is that you are left with no time to write. There is more reading than there will ever be writing.
And then there’s poetry. I spent a considerable amount of time today in class, dissecting a poem which bluntly compared Minnesota Winters to blowjobs. I am paying for this privilege.
As we speak, I am sitting in class waiting for the start. I often wonder if anyone in my classes could ever stumble across my amatuerish blog. If they do it is fine. Just so long as it’s not the winter/blowjob guy.
One thing that most people hate that I kind of enjoy is doing laundry. I mean, if the option came up would I rather meet friends for drinks or try out a new detergent, of course I would choose the going out. But, I think of laundry as one of those things that you can win at. Yes, if you have no dirty clothes other than the clothes on your back, you have a victory. At my apartment I have no laundry room. I have been trying really hard to be thrifty and wash all of my clothes by hand in the bathtub. But sometimes I still want to win the game and have it all done at once. So, I venture out of my home and into the world of showing your underwear to strangers. Seriously, I would never allow someone to see the contents of my bra and panties drawer in the real world. The laundromat has rules all it’s own however. Things that are ever present in laundromats seem to be the following:
Vending Machines- These are problematic when you have a six year old that believes you went to the change machine for the reason that you wanted him to have a bag of skittles. Then you buy it for him because the peanut M & Ms are calling your name and you surely cannot eat in front of him without purchasing a bag of sugar for him to suck on as well.
Molded Plastic Chairs-comfy!
That one guy/gal who talks to themselves- There’s always and only one, right now it’s the laundromat’s attendant and it’s kind of freaking me out.
Mrs. Pacman- It’s a widely known fact tht I suck at the Pac Man Family’s Games. I’m over it, but I love seeing the old arcade games anyhow.
Mmm kay. I am getting funny looks from those people here who can see me cropping photos of the pinball machine. I am putting away the laptop now.
My son asked for three fish from Santa this year. We spent the night in a hotel on Christmas Eve. Santa left my son a note on Day’s Inn stationary as a IOU good for three fish and a tank from the pet store. Today one of the fish died. It’s tough to get upset over a dead fish. I swear the other two remaining fish are happier with one less in the tank. They are swimming around in a joyful glee like manner that I have not seen them display before. That, or they are gasping to their last breaths of life and are also desperately trying to swim towards the light.
Nah, I say dead fishy was bringing them down.
My sister got a new puppy last week. Now, dogs I can see getting amped over, though I don’t have one myself. She is taking more care to display his arrival to her world with more detail than I did when my son was born. He is in puppy Kindergarten and now has a MySpace page of his very own. Here is what it says in his about me section.
“I am an Australian Shepherd/Blue Heeler. Humans call that a “Texas Heeler.” I am only three months old. I have never seen a mountain, but will totally feel at home in them. I don’t smoke or drink, but I won’t judge you if you do, as long as you don’t judge me for peeing outside.
Hey, let’s go outside. You have a smoke, I’ll have a pee… it’ll be chill.”
When I was no more than five I asked my dad where he got the machete hanging on our basement wall. He then described to me the pirate adventures he had when he was a boy. The machete was his sword. I didn’t know the difference between machetes and swords, so I ate up the story. He showed me all his scars he’d received during his years as a butcher and told me how they came from knife fights with the bad guys and wrestling sharks. And he always reminded me that neverland was “second star to the right and straight on til morning.” He still quizzes me on that.
There was a good amount of time I believed those stories. But the ones from my teen years were better, and real.
When I was in Jr. High my dad volunteered to drive the church van around to the “lesser privileged” neighborhoods and pick up any of the elementary kids who wanted to come to AWANAs that night (awanas is sort of like a church based boy or girl scouts) My sister and I were ordered to sit in the back of the van with the kids and keep them calm. This was during the very early 90s when a band called Mr. Big had a hit song that was on every radio station simultaneously. So, these kids sang that song on the van rides…over and over and over. In a couple weeks time my father (who never sang ever) knew the words and would sing along with the kids. Yes, “To Be With You” is forever burned into his brain. It was hilarious.
That spring he took all the boys from the bus to a baseball game. My extended family’s business had box seats to that same game. During the seventh inning stretch my dad took the boys up to the box but they wanted nothing to do with it. It was the first game ever for many of them and they wanted to be out in their seats. I don’t blame them, there is a lot more high fiving going on in the stands.
In high school breaking curfew was punished with the following six words, “Sit down, I want to talk.” So I’d sit in that uncomfortable tufted yellow chair by the front door while my father hovered over me talking. I’m not going to lie, I don’t remember half the things he spoke about. In my mind I was recapping the nights events. When the lecture was over he’d bring out a gun, show me how to load and unload it. When it was most definitely unloaded, with the magazine on the floor he’d show me how to knock it away if someone ever held one to me. Yeah, that’s right, stay back.
Guns were always around in our home. I never took up the hobby though my father tried. If one of us three girls ever had a boy over you could bet that the guns would make an appearance. I recall once when a boyfriend was over my father simply walked past the room that he and I were watching television in with an AK-47 in his hand and a 9mm in his back pocket. There was an amused smirk on his face and he didn’t say a word.
Of course said boy had a bit of a cow. I told him to relax. “Hey, it’s not like he’s gonna shoot you.” I said. Still, I don’t think he ever came over again.
I was never really embarrassed of that. It was just Dad.
The Pilver 