I have to escape from the deluge of friends who are well-meaning but try to play armchair epidemiologist on Facebook. Sometimes I re-watch The Sopranos or The Wire or The Godfather- and then realizing that I have kind of a one-note movie watching style, I’ll switch it up and watch Portrait of a Lady on Fire – which is Amazing, by the way.
My need for connection with folks in the midst of not seeing them leads me to having online hangouts. You can use Zoom or Google Meet or whatever you have available to you. My friend and I used Discord because it allows for simultaneous screen sharing where you can also hear the audio (not available on Zoom unless you do some trickery).
And out of the pain that is also called Nostalgia, my friend fired up Dungeons and Dragons from the year 2000. Let’s use some similes to describe it: This is like they took a Zena episode and made it one hour and 45 minutes and also included Marlon Wayans. This is like they went into the past, cloned Shia LaBeouf, realized Justin Long existed back then, then couldn’t afford him so they went with Justin Whalin instead.
The acting is terrible. The CG is terrible. The plot is very convoluted, but to be fair I fell asleep at multiple points in the movie because I had been consuming the deadly combination of Oreos and drinking Sierra Nevada IPA.
What is kind of impressive is that this movie came out before Lord of the Rings. (My hot take is that LOTR is okay but it doesn’t really hold up when you’re actually watching it. It’s too long and cumbersome.)
In any case, I kind of half way watched it. Don’t make that mistake. Just all-the-way don’t watch it.
Dungeons and Dragons gets the D+ grade from me just because I kind of liked the supporting actresses and Thora Birch deserved better.
We are all inside now. If we leave the house and visit our friends, then it’s against all medical science and logic or a place where the absurdity of existence has taken over. “Stay at home!” – You’ll get screamed at. You’ll shuffle on and grumble to yourself, “Well, if I’m going to get this thing, I’m going to get this thing. If I’m not, I’m not.”
And that’s about the mantra you can take with Coen Brothers movies. You’ll either get them or you won’t.
Here are some podcasts for those of you who get them. The episodes are not a complete bowing to the source material or lauding the Coens for being geniuses, but the podcast episodes also don’t rip the movies apart.
I’m listening to The First Edition song “Just Dropped In”. I would have never listened to this song had it not been for The Big Lebowski. They take obscure music, cartoony characters, bumbling thieves, and over the top violence and put it all together. The Coens’ movies are about music and mood and characters. Plot is something to be meandered through. Add all of those things together, and you get something that hits my brain and soul in the sweet spot.
I think Fargo and The Big Lebowski should be watched as close to back-to-back as you can stand. The same day, ideally. The same weekend is also acceptable.
The Big Lebowski is a retort to the brutalism of Fargo. Fargo is mostly violent and brooding, but funny in parts. The Big Lebowski is funny, but sometimes brutal and brooding.
Enjoy the Yin and Yang of these two gems. Tumble on.
For a slew of reasons, it’s gonna be tough this year. Mostly family related.
You ever invite folks over and then all of a sudden, you’re knee-deep in a Google Hangout messaging barrage with a family member? And simultaneously on the phone reading verbatim that family member’s hangout messages to someone else who lives 2000 miles away?
If you have 70 year old chronically ill narcissistic parents you might relate.
So, at only 2 days into the new decade, I felt it appropriate to bring you this gem again:
The Mountain Goats released this anthem for all of us, the ageless anxiety ridden denizens of the planet that is literally on fire, back in 2005. The Australian Fire was not happening in 2005, but we also didn’t have an Obama presidency yet. Either way, this is an anthem that will stand the test of time. Although it’s arguable for me whether this or Palmcorder Yajna is their best song.
In any case, I was extremely hungry because I was waiting for my friend to get to my apartment so we could eat a brunch of eggs and tater tots and orange juice and other assorted things that I was attempting to use up to free up some much-needed fridge space. The lesson here: do not wait until you get jittery to eat. That is bad news. Especially when the absurdest urgent but actually not urgent phone calls and texts pour in.
The hangry-ness probably affected my ability to juggle the explaining to someone on the phone what a 70 year old was typing to me on Google hangouts with any sort of decorum. My insides are incapable of producing empathy at times like this and I just go into full blown John Cusack in the rain mode.
So, having eaten a thing and gotten the ever-so-urgent requests taken care of, we watched the truly confounding and horrible movie The Holiday (2006):
I won’t get into it here, but suffice it to say that Amanda and Juliet and Kari from theringer.com ‘s The Rewatchables podcast convinced me that I should check this monstrosity out. I loved the podcast episode about this movie way more than I liked the movie. My friend who is way more acquainted with rom com type flicks defended it at parts because it’s truly a nice movie.
Just coming off of the juggling of hangouts and carbs and eggs, this movie did kind of wash over me and put me in a state where I was in desperate need of a nap. But the movie is atrociously acted and written. So many good stars were in this. Kate Winslet. Cameron Diaz at the height of her powers. Jack Black as a romantic lead? Jude Law as a supposedly nice dude?
Go watch it if you’re looking for a huge puzzling mess of a movie.
Set boundaries, breathe. You’re gonna make it through this year, y’all.
Listen to this: A great podcast episode about giving up something you love.
Yesterday I was out walking my dog, which I do multiple times a day and I came across this podcast episode while scrolling the Slate Podcast Daily feed on Spotify:
The Man Up podcast by Aymann Ismail, and this particular episode is about a 24 year old football player who retired from the game due to primarily concussions, but also other nagging injuries.
(First off, yeah, the name of this podcast isn’t something I’d gravitate to. I’m a dude, but I’m not really a jock-bro-dude, and the name of this thing sort of screams that out to me.)
But, what did appeal to me was an athlete talking about something he loved due to concussions. This ties back to my own life because I suffered a concussion while coaching a roller derby practice.
The backstory is that I played (I almost typed “play”, present-tense, because I’m still dealing with this whole can’t play because of injury thing) roller derby on an all-genders team. I had some pretty rough injuries – herniated disc, torn rotator cuff, and finally the concussion. It happened really suddenly and for a dumb reason. I was demonstrating how to block someone, and I fell backwards, and hit my head. It wasn’t a dramatic fall. It wasn’t something that stopped practice. I was wearing a helmet. Right away I could tell that something was amiss. Over the course of a few months, I’d have to stop skating. I went to a concussion doctor and they basically told me to take it easy and not skate for 3-4 months. This was pretty devastating to me because I loved the sport of roller derby. I loved my friends there, the liberal and welcoming community, and I loved pushing myself like crazy to do physical things I didn’t think I was capable of before.
A lot of those sentiments are reflected in that podcast episode with Joshua Perry. He brings up things I hadn’t thought of, either. How these sports like football (or in my case, roller derby sometimes) cause you to push yourself and not listen to your body. Sure, there are times in exercise and in sports when you need to push through, but playing with a broken rib, for example, is not one of those times.
Aymann reacted comically when Joshua Perry said this about playing a game with a broken rib. What is funny to me is my own reaction – I’ve known MANY derby players that came back and played with a broken rib. Or played derby with a cast on their arm, or a concussion that they sustained the day before.
Joshua Perry also said how ultimately he decided to quit because he thought about the long-term effects of what that sport would do to him.
I feel similarly about roller derby. I’m not 24 anymore by a long shot, and still thinking I can handle a full-contact sport. I think it might be time to put myself out to pasture and not risk further head or back injuries.
Read this: A great book about working in normal, yet terrible jobs.
I’m usually a person who takes forever to read a book. Especially lately. My attention span gets grabbed and twisted toward other things – walking the aforementioned dog. Finally making my room, which I moved into back in May, habitable. Playing endless amounts of phone games. Guendelsberger caused me to defy my own slothful reading habits and plunge through this book faster than I usually do.
She worked at three places – an Amazon warehouse, an AT&T call center, and a McDonald’s. Rather than interview people at length about the conditions at those places, she got employed at them and thereby was able to report back on things that journalists usually don’t have access to firsthand, like what the inside of the Amazon warehouse looked like, or the precautionary talks from the call center trainers about how using the bathroom could be construed as “time theft”, or how at the McDonald’s her shift manager had her refuse a cup of coffee to a person who had the money to pay for it. (I won’t spoil the reason for that one. You should definitely read the book.)
It is conversational enough to be a page-turner and also theory based enough to be substantive. I checked it out twice from the library because I forgot to copy down the further reading list at the back. This book lead me down the path to check out Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich (a little old now, and her written voice doesn’t appeal to me as much as Guendelsberger’s), and Scarcity by Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir (haven’t started it yet, but I’m looking forward to it.)
This book reminded me that these types of jobs are totally normal for people in the United States to have. It’s totally normal to go to work sick because your job doesn’t allow you any paid sick leave. It’s totally normal to have your bathroom times monitored. “Normal”, not in the sense that it’s good or should be that way. “Normal” in the sense that so many people have to deal with that kind of crappy work environment that saps your soul.
Watch this: An old movie about dudes that say the F word a lot, but has a lot to offer in terms of work today.
Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet, directed by James Foley.
Here is a quick grab of probably the most memorable moment of the film, featuring this speech we’ve all probably heard by Alec Baldwin’s character.
CAUTION- lots of F-bombs and assorted language. Mute if you care about that sort of thing.
And, let’s get this out of the way, Bill Hader’s rendition of this speech on the HBO series Barry:
There’s way more to say about Glengarry Glen Ross, but I’ll keep it brief. Watch it just for the over the top 90s noir vibe. The music, the shots, the rain in the first part of the movie. Watch it to see Jack Lemon act the shit out of that part and say more curse words than you’re comfortable seeing come out of someone who could be your grandfather. Also watch it because Alec Baldwin’s character is pretty much who I think Donald Trump thinks he is at all times.
Play this: a time waster of a game for your phone that takes legitimate finesse and is also pretty fun.
Walk Master is a game where you guide ridiculous and lovable cartoony characters through a cartoon landscape on stilts. It’s a little puzzle-y at parts and reminds me of another game in a very opposite sort of aesthetic – Limbo.
The sounds are nice and calming – crunching through grass, wind in the trees, the bleat of your cartoon goat as it falls down a cliff.
Last week, here in Minneapolis, we experienced the polar vortex.
-26 degrees outside. -49 degrees with wind chill.
Then we got a reprieve. 30 degrees (positive this time!) with a little bit of rain.
It was delightful. It was something we could handle.
Then the temperatures plunged again down into the single digits the past two days so everything is covered in ice.
I’m watching movies, I’m reading comic books, I’m trying to be a creative person while also juggling friends, working out, hobbies, and being almost in my 4th decade of life.
What is a slog (boring): just reviewing movies willy-nilly. I really enjoy talking about movies with my friends when I do it, but there is a part of me that screams about it since I don’t want my life to be simply critiquing and commenting on others’ works.
There’s something so enjoyable, though, about saying: I’m going to watch ALL of the Oscar Nominees this year.
Even though the Oscars have plenty of things wrong with them. I almost never agree with who wins Best Picture. I think people are given awards for movies that we know are just for them being who they are. (Hey Denzel, we should have given you this Oscar for Malcom X, but instead here’s an Oscar for Training Day. [I love Training Day and Denzel, but that’s just one example.])
I appreciate those recap podcasts. Rewatchables, Lower Decks (For Star Trek Discovery), A Cast of Kings (podcast with Dave Chen for Game of Thrones), but I don’t think I could have the mechanical brain to sit there and map out each episode and talk about it in that length. It’s very satisfying to hear, but I don’t know that I would be good at it.
In no order, here are some movies I’ve watched recently:
-Blackkklansman
-Thor
-Roma
-Total Recall
It’s like I have to throw in some white guy bullshirt type of movie in between a good culturally relevant movie.
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I’ve started keeping a little notebook of what I spend my cash on. I’m not terrible with money, but I think I often don’t realize how much per week I’m spending because I don’t look that often. Let’s see how that goes.
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I would like to write more. Not just for the sake of writing, but create some fiction. I suppose a short story would be a good place to start.
I am probably starting in the wrong place. This shall go out into the internet as-is.
Okay, so Trump decides to end a government shutdown after what is it, 35 days?
I think this management style is known as the abusive boyfriend / father / spouse / significant other. They take something away from you that was yours to begin with. They blame you for the problem. “Look what you made me do! This is all your fault, you’re forcing my hand to do this!” They make you agonize for over a month, and then act like they should be applauded when they end whatever doom they themselves were responsible for to begin with.
That said, I really do wish the professional politicians on the other side were able to finagle something before now. Compromise. Negotiate. That’s what you’re paid to do.
We’ll float along in this state of euphoria having navigated (weathered) this disaster on behalf of our political system until the next one rolls around. (Which will be soon, I’m sure.)
Rating: Worth your time. Watch it or listen to it while you’re doing something else and you’ll still get a lot out of it.
I think I liked this special more than any of Marc’s other specials. It felt, as the title suggests, pretty real. I’m sure he wrote this whole hour plus up and performed it based on what he wrote, but it felt like him just getting up there and saying things off the cuff, but in a good way.
He recorded this special right here at the Pantages in Minneapolis, but I didn’t get a chance to go see it. He kind of nailed the reason why I didn’t go- he joked about it in the midst of his set. I’m in my late 30s. I hate dealing with parking, and I figured I’d get as much or more enjoyment watching it at home on Netflix than paying $35 and sitting WAYYYY up in the rafters of the Pantages. (That’s what I did when I saw him the first time, here in Minneapolis.)
Was his shirt weird? I kept getting distracted by his shirt.
The bit about the Stones was pretty great. And I totally agree with his assessment of Dave Matthews fans. You’ve got an uphill battle on your hands, friends. (I also made a Dave Matthews joke later in the day. Sorry man, didn’t mean to steal your joke when I was at Midtown Global Market getting burritos.)
Talking about a standup special is more difficult than talking about a piece of scripted TV, I think.
Marc’s one of my favorite comedians and personalities. I listen to his podcast a bit, so I feel like I’ve heard some of these jokes in different forms as he tries them out on his show, it seems.
Anyway. Great special. Go watch it. It’s worth your time.
The introduction of the Jesus having sons storyline. The directors decided to forego making the historical part feel real and instead gave Jesus and all of the other characters a modern surfer-dude dialect. It felt different than the first season with the flashbacks for the Saint of Killers. The show, overall, is taking on more of a comedic vibe than a horror / intense vibe that the first season had.
Denis continues more down his evil vampire path. Tulip and the Grail lady are playing Rock Band and becoming better friends (meaning she’s manipulating Tulip). Herr Starr shows Jesse Humperdoo the Messiah. I’m not thrilled with that portion of the storyline. I mean I get showing the Messiah as the inbred son of 20 centuries of incest, but there was something that felt kind of like picking on the disabled for a laugh. It felt wrong not in a funny or shocking way, just in a cheap privileged kind of way.
Tulip finds the guns and the sword underneath the floorboard and the episode ends. Still not that thrilled with this season.
Oh but I do love the addition of Malcolm Barrett into the show. He was great on Better Off Ted. He doesn’t have much to do but that guy is just super charismatic, in my opinion.
This season had gotten bogged down so much that I stopped keeping up with it as the episodes were airing. This episode introduced a few more elements that kept it more interesting, though: The FPS – video game style scene was cool and fun. The mystery of who B.R.A.D. was was pretty good. (Although I kind of wish it was the big crazy ogre-looking dude.) Jesse’s power of The Word and using Genesis is getting very boring to me. A Deus Ex Machina is only good for like one or two uses at best. Jesse can tell Tulip to fall asleep, can tell cops to obey his orders, can have one of the crazy Grail officers kill his friends? I mean if he’s having the cops work for him in a protective capacity, why not just order all of the Grail guys to be on his side and help him find God? I’m trying to suspend my disbelief, but it’s wearing kinda thin on me.
I can’t stand New Orleans anyway. Can we move on from this city, please?
I loved the comic book series, but it’s been years since I’ve read it so I can’t remember how they kept things fresh. I do remember that it didn’t feel as stale as this does.
Cyborg Astronaut Dog 