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Posts published in May 2009
Tiffany sent me “You Can’t Please Everyone” from the Cynical C-Blog, a site I had never heard of. Basically they take classic films, books, and records and collect the 1-star reviews from Amazon. Hilarious. Here are some of my favorites.
On This Is…Spinal Tap:
Okay, seriously, who the heck are these Spinal Tap fellas? I’m an expert on music (I studied the art form for four years, know every artist of the last 40 years, and scored an A+ on my math test…which really doesn’t have anything to do with music, but it shows you that I am intellegent), and have never heard of these guys before. Let me ask you a perfectly reasonable question: why would you want to watch a documentary on a band that you’ve never heard of before? And to top it all off, the interviewer is some guy named Rob (who resembles a pig! That’s right, a little piggy!). If I wanted to look at a hog for an hour, I’d make some bacon!
Also of note is that there’s some character named ‘Bobbi Fleckman’. How can you people be fooled so easily? Don’t you realize that it’s nothing but a cheap disguise? It’s really The Nanny, Fran Fine! Nice try, Fran, but I didn’t believe it for one second! I guess sometimes, you just have to get away from that butler and that old British guy!
People, whatever you do, don’t buy this trash! Just wait until Limp Bizkit (the greatest band ever!) makes a documentary on their wild and crazy and cool antics! It’s sure to put this to shame!
On The Godfather:
This movie was so violent I couldn’t believe it! On a scale of 1 to 10 on the violence in this movie I would give it a 9!
On Anne Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl:
The story of a teenage girl who spent some time in an annex and found out about love, sex and everything else related to that age group could have been quite interesting, but Anne Frank’s personality and written style is a bit weak. I think this book has been way overrated. Sure it’s sad that one had to be stuck under such circumstances at that age, but let’s face it, their situation was not the worst: people brought them food, they had a radio, books, pens, magazines and even partial freedom to fall in love. From all the positive criticism given on this book, I was very disappointed. Anne Frank may have become a big writer, but only because she was Jewish and “suffered” during the Nazi era, not because she was a particularly good writer. So if you’re in for feeling sorry once again for the Jews, do read this book, but if you’re looking for a literary masterpiece, then don’t even bother to pick this book up.
On Homer’s The Odyssey:
I thought this story was very gross. I mean come on. We are having to read this book in freshman English. Actually our teacher reads it to us, but it is still disgusting. We are also having to watch the movie of this, talk about gruesome. It’s like Scylla comes out of the water and chomps these people out of the ship and blood showers everywhere. I almost threw up every day when we watch this movie. We watch a little each day. I am over there about to puke up my toes and everybody else, all the boys anyway, are saying how cool it is. My boyfriend just laughs when I tell him I almost threw up in there, he is a freshman, so he has to watch it also. I’m sure he thinks it is awesome,but I don’t. If you really like gory stories you will like it. If you don’t then I wouldn’t read it or watch the movie if I were you. I am not saying to listen to me, you can have your own opinion, I’m just saying I don’t like it.
On The Sound of Music:
This movie was made in the sixties, we live in the 21st century, GET OVER IT!
On 2001: A Space Odyssey:
Rented this one just to laugh at how movie-makers in the 50’s and 60’s thought the world was going to look in the year 2001. I figured we would see ridiculous flying-cars, jet-packs, meal-in-a-pill, talking-robots, etc. Then I figured I was gonna write a review here talking about how wrong they were (since the year 2001 has already happened and it was nothing like that)and reccomend it just for a laugh. Here’s how it really went. I popped it in the player and to my surprise it just looked like a fake documentary about monkeys with a couple of guys in really fake looking monkey costumes. Kind of like Planet of the Apes. 5 minutes in: Still monkeys (no narraration or anything either). 10 minutes in I asked myself “How are they going to stretch this out for a whole stupid-movie?!” I will never know. Because when a monkey threw a bone up in the air so high that it went into space and morphed into a rocket-ship I was done with this garbage. Who on earth would predict the year 2001 would be like that!? I returned it shortly after that and rented Mortal-Kombat 2 which was way more realistic with better fighting. In conclusion, you would be much better-off renting a documentary about apes, or even Gorillas in the mist, or maybe Planet of the Apes which this movie is trying to be. AVOID!! Later.
On The Wizard of Oz:
So you think this is good eh? Well,it stinks! There is’nt much point in watching it. This movie should be a movie only babies watch. For some reason,my sister likes this movie!?! Now tell me,what could be more pointless then watching a little girl and other stupiod characters (tin man,scarecrow,etc) going to a castle where the Wizard turns them back to where they belong. Boring!
Graphics 0/5
The worst graphics in history. Even movies like Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer had cooler graphics. When I’m watching it,I force myself to see once I get to the castle part….. woooosssshhhh I run out of the room so I don’t see this totrure.Sound 1/5
The sound is okay. But difinitly not the bestOverall 0/5
Whatever you do,don’t buy this If you do,you are giving me your money and I’m going to buy you the Increbles. You will and I mean WILL be sorry if you by this
Seriously, I could go on and on and on. Such gold.
Many readers of this site know or have met JJ. He has been yutzing around South America for about six months now, stopping occasionally to send me delightful missives about his travels and adventures and women. He is incredible. A burgeoning legend in his own mind. The perfect guy to get into trouble with. Never too stressed out. Always down for a good time. I’m pretty sure that everyone has a JJ in their life. If you don’t, see about getting yourself one. You’ll be better for it.
A few days ago, JJ sent me a Word document that effectively sums up who he is. It’s written exactly like he speaks. Here it is, unedited, unabated.
Just like children hidin’ in a closet
Can’t tell what’s goin’ on outside
Sometimes we’re so far off the beaten track
We’ll get taken for a ride
GNR EstrangedSo let me tell you about the best fucking day of my life. I was walking completly shitskied in Buenos Aires just wasting a little time. As i head out of the apartment in Villia Crespo i look to my left and see a lady in a tank top holding a 3 foot long steel pipe like a baseball bat. Then i take two steps forward and skinny scrapy looking cat with a jacket rapped around his left arm and a butchers knife in his right. I stood there about 30 feet away and thought,
But there ain’t no peace to found
But if someone really cared
Well they’d take the time to spare
A moment to try and understand
Another one’s despair
Remember in this game we call life
That no one said it’s fair
GNR Breakdown“What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.
Some men you just can’t reach…
So, you get what we had here last week,
which is the way he wants it!
Well, he gets it!
N’ I don’t like it any more than you men.”
GNR Civil WarI mean fuck you dont see this shit every day. The ladies hair was a complete mess and she was yelling at the top of her lungs. She kept lunging forward but then stepping back, and he would do the same. Next thing i know she takes a swing at him. Let me tell you something she has swung this pipe before because if she would have made contact with a baseball it would have been a home fucking run. Anyways the guy jumps back and she takes two quick steps backwards. The guy then scrapes his knife against the ground, it was fucking the craziest shit. Then the two guys come running out from a side street, one goes behind the lady to her right and the other to the left. I mean this shit was getting crazy and there was no fucking way i was going to do shit about it.
Look at your young men fighting
Look at your women crying
Look at your young men dying
The way they’ve always done beforeLook at the hate we’re breeding
Look at the fear we’re feeding
Look at the lives we’re leading
The way we’ve always done beforeSo i dont know what the fuck to do but watch and be ready to run if the shit really hits the fan. My girl friend grabs me and says “Lets get out of here, JJ. Now!” So i take off down the street going the opposite thinking “holy shit”.
I don’t need one more war
Whats so civil ’bout war anyway
GNR Civil WarSo we get two blocks away and raceing down the street are the Policia. They were flying and rounded the corner at mock speeds, and you could hear the tires screaming. Once i saw the police car i could help but think of the begining of Guns n Roses – Breakdown where Axl is whistleing.
I mean think about it, “Welcome to the Jungle”, what other band would run through your mind.
So fuck it i am blown away at the chaos and slowly start to realize that i drank a little too much booze the night before. But fuck it right i dug my own grave and shouldnt bitch. I start walking through this flea bag market at Parque Centenario just looking at all the grabage. Well actually i was looking for a new shirt because all of my shirts are ripped. Anyways i get to this one booth and start looking through stuff that was obviously found in a trash can. Then out of now where i here music in my head,
Loaded like a freight train
Flyin’ like an aeroplane
Feelin’ like a space brain
One more time tonight
GNR NightrainThen i look at this leather jacket and i found the most amazing gem in a biggest pile of shit. I mean you would never believe how fucking amazing this jacket is. This jacket is aged to perfection, someone treated this jacket well. You can tell they went to see GNR live in Buenos Aires July 17, 1993. On the back is the GNR logo with the two guns wraped with roses. So i try this prized piece on and the thing is too fucking small.
He said turn me around
And take me back to the start
I must be losing my mind
“Are you blind?!”
I’ve seen it all a mllion timesI want to go
I want to know
Oh, won’t you please take me homeI want to see
Oh, look at me
Oh, won’t you please take me home
GNR Paradise CityWe go to grab a bite to eat and the thought of this jacket was killing me. I get the menu and open and say “I am getting the fucking GNR jacket”. That was it ate some food ran back to the booth. When i walked up it wasnt there, but the lady put it away because she knew that i would be back. So i dished over the money and fucking embraced this coat with so much love. I put the coat on and from moment on i knew noone was going to fuck with me.
Well I’m a west coast struttin’
One bad mother
Got a rattlesnake suitcase
Under my arm
Said I’m a mean machine
Been drinkin’ gasoline
And honey you can make my motor hum
Well I got one chance left
In a nine live cat
I got a dog eat dog sly smile
I got a Molotov cocktail with a match to go
I smoke my cigarette with style
An I can tell you honey
You can make my money tonight
GNR NightrainSorry i am getting side tracked here while listening to GNR while rocking my new jacket. So i am walking home like my typical badass self and with a ¼ of Frutilla de Crema Helado and i pass these young babes. They were checking me out from head to tow. I mean they couldnt hold themselves back . I mean who could resist a man with ice cream and a G N fuckin R leather jacket. My confidence has just sky rocketed with how these babes where checking me out. I keep strutin my stuff and….
Take me down to the paradise city
Where the grass is green
And the girls are pretty
Take me home (Oh, won’t you please take me home)
GNR Paradise CityJJ Zambrano 24/5/2009
I have to thank the original line up of GNR for inspiring my life in so many ways.
Luckily for you, intrepid reader, JJ was thoughtful enough to send me a photograph of the jacket.
Wonderful.
I think this is an interesting article: “A Life in Art” By John Camp
This is a particularly inspired idea.
Of the successful artists I’ve known, I’d say that the two things that led to their success were compulsion (virtually to the extent of mental illness) to do the work, and the eventual ability to monetize the effort. Most of them never get that success—they’re finally ground down and give it up….
Both suggest that while inborn talent is of some utility, the thing that really determines success in the arts (or any other field) is simply doing it. Gladwell even suggests a standard: ten thousand hours. He suggests that if you work very hard a particular art form—art in the widest sense, including sports, music, law, medicine and so on—that you will begin to reach a mastery of it after 10,000 hours of hard work. That’s 40 hours a week (no cheating!) for five years, or 20 hours a week for ten.
Check it out. Camp has some interesting ideas about what makes an artist and what it takes to excel at your chosen craft, writing or photography or editing or whatever. It boils down, as he notes above, to being a little crazy about it. Food for thought.
But most artists tend to be somewhat reclusive, because of the “compulsion” and “10,000 hours of work” aspects of their lives. They’re not back-slappers, drink-buyers, hale-fellow types.
So selling can be one of the toughest hurdles for a real artist to clear, even those who put in their time, who are doing excellent work.
Hah! I am definitely a “back-slapper, drink-buyer, hale-fellow type”, often to the detriment of my creative pursuits. I guess I have that working for me…and against me.
This has to be the worst thing I’ve heard in ages. It’s made worse, no doubt, by the fact that I always imagine the little boy saying “My daddy ate my eyes” is a totally dead, monotone voice. This story also confirms to me that Bakersfield is easily the worst town in California, if not the entire West Coast.
Holy crap. I don’t have anything else to say. Just terrible. Daddy ate my eyes?!?