Tuesday, July 20, 2004
In the summer of 2001, The Satan McNuggit Travelling Roadshow came to town. Janice and I attended and I picked up a number of zines. One of them being a zine called Sick Punx or maybe it was Sick Punks, regardless I bought it and it deal with punks and illness.
There was one article in the zine about eczema and how the writer felt socially crippled because of it. I had had eczema a few years back and I remembered how embarassing it was to attend swimming lessons with awful looking eczema patches all over my feet. I used penaten cream a lot, I always confused penaten with penitent (as in "Only the penitent man may pass"). Anyway I felt like a leper and I was glad that I didn't have to deal with eczema once adolescence kicked it. Adolescence was hard enough with a nickname like 'Permie', I didn't need a skin disorder complicating matters.
It had literally years since my skin itched so bad that I felt the need to stay up all night and compulsively itch and scrap away my skin. Once I read that article though I started to find that my fingers were becoming more itchy and it wasn't long before I started trying to hide my eczema beneath bandaids.
I scratch at work, I scratch at shows, I scratch at the movies, I scratch in the shower, I scratch while I sleep.
The skin on my fingers often looks raw like I've been fingerbanging a leper. It's been three years since I read that article and I'm still scratching.
I fucking hate zines.
There was one article in the zine about eczema and how the writer felt socially crippled because of it. I had had eczema a few years back and I remembered how embarassing it was to attend swimming lessons with awful looking eczema patches all over my feet. I used penaten cream a lot, I always confused penaten with penitent (as in "Only the penitent man may pass"). Anyway I felt like a leper and I was glad that I didn't have to deal with eczema once adolescence kicked it. Adolescence was hard enough with a nickname like 'Permie', I didn't need a skin disorder complicating matters.
It had literally years since my skin itched so bad that I felt the need to stay up all night and compulsively itch and scrap away my skin. Once I read that article though I started to find that my fingers were becoming more itchy and it wasn't long before I started trying to hide my eczema beneath bandaids.
I scratch at work, I scratch at shows, I scratch at the movies, I scratch in the shower, I scratch while I sleep.
The skin on my fingers often looks raw like I've been fingerbanging a leper. It's been three years since I read that article and I'm still scratching.
I fucking hate zines.
William Holden would beat the shit out of Holden Caulfield
He tried to smoke because he thought it made him look William Holdenesque, little did he know...
>Hold on a second here, just what's that crack supposed to mean?
Well it just seems as though you're trying to affect some sort of non-existent tough guy man's man image. I mean it just seems as though that illusory image was shed and left behind in the 50's. Don't you think maybe it's time to let it go?
>We're not gonna get rid of anybody. We're gonna stick together, just like it used to be. When you side with a man, you stay with him. And if you can't do that, you're like some animal, you're finished. We're finished! All of us!
You're not only perpetuating an image that doesn't exist, but you're using words that really have no meaning. It's debateable that even in the 'Good Ol' Days' that those words held any meeting. You're like the guy with the awful moustache in Westworld. You're play acting at something you're quite obviously not.
>You make me sick with your talk of rhetoric. There's a stench of academia about you. You carry it in your pack like the plague. Explosives and L-pills - they go well together, don't they? And with you it's just one thing or the other: destroy an image or destroy yourself. This is just a game, this conversation! When the only important thing is how to live like a human being.
I think you're overreacting, I was just trying to explain...really it's tragic that you cling so steadfastly to this image especially when you're old enough to know better.
>There's nothing tragic about being fifty. Not unless you're trying to be twenty-five.
Wait, wait...I am twenty-five.
>A lot of people say that, and the first thing you know it, they get married, and live happily ever after. If I ever run into you bum on a street corner, just let's pretend we've never met before.
Uhm... ok
He tried to smoke because he thought it made him look William Holdenesque, little did he know...
>Hold on a second here, just what's that crack supposed to mean?
Well it just seems as though you're trying to affect some sort of non-existent tough guy man's man image. I mean it just seems as though that illusory image was shed and left behind in the 50's. Don't you think maybe it's time to let it go?
>We're not gonna get rid of anybody. We're gonna stick together, just like it used to be. When you side with a man, you stay with him. And if you can't do that, you're like some animal, you're finished. We're finished! All of us!
You're not only perpetuating an image that doesn't exist, but you're using words that really have no meaning. It's debateable that even in the 'Good Ol' Days' that those words held any meeting. You're like the guy with the awful moustache in Westworld. You're play acting at something you're quite obviously not.
>You make me sick with your talk of rhetoric. There's a stench of academia about you. You carry it in your pack like the plague. Explosives and L-pills - they go well together, don't they? And with you it's just one thing or the other: destroy an image or destroy yourself. This is just a game, this conversation! When the only important thing is how to live like a human being.
I think you're overreacting, I was just trying to explain...really it's tragic that you cling so steadfastly to this image especially when you're old enough to know better.
>There's nothing tragic about being fifty. Not unless you're trying to be twenty-five.
Wait, wait...I am twenty-five.
>A lot of people say that, and the first thing you know it, they get married, and live happily ever after. If I ever run into you bum on a street corner, just let's pretend we've never met before.
Uhm... ok
I was reading someone's livejournal just a few moments ago and they were writing about 'The Apartment' . Their comment about wishing that Jack Lemmon would have lived forever got me to thinking about Mister Roberts (Part of me wanted to write "The 1955 classic with Henry Fonda as the titular hero, Mister Roberts", but that would have made me sound like a complete and utter jackass).
I really like Mister Roberts because it's a shouty movie. There's lots of great shouted dialogue and heated exchanges between Henry Fonda and James Cagney. Lemmon won an Oscar for playing the weasely, Ensign Pulver.
Some of my other favourite shout-y movies are :
From Here to Eternity. I saw this on the waterfront once. They also showed 'On The Waterfront' that summer. I'm quite sure the joke wasn't lost on anyone. I went to see 'From Here to Eternity' with my roommate who had tried out for the Lion King earlier that summer. My other roommate that summer was the Altoids girl. I never went anywhere without fresh breath. I like 'From Here too Eternity' because Ernest Borgnine goes by the moniker, Fatso Jetson, and he gets in a fight with Frank Sinatra.
Stalag 17. I didn't use to have a vcr or a living room so I was encouraged by my bosses to use the library as my living room and take full advantage of the tv and vcr that was available there. It'd be sort of neat watching old black and white movies at 2 in the morning on a Sunday night at the library. Maybe 'neat' isn't the right word. Anyway William Holden's great in this movie about a prisoner of war camp. He also doesn't make many friends, 'Sefton ' (William Holden) : If I ever run into any of you bums on a street corner, just let's pretend we've never met before.
Philip and I watched Cross of Iron a few nights back and I was surprised at how good it was. Peckinpah ran out of money before the film was completed and James Coburn had to improvise the ending. Philip and I read the original script online (almost immediately after we finished watching the movie which...well it definitely proves something) and the scripted version of the last scene was pretty awful. There's lots of talk about how hard the main character is and it ends with him killing both himself and his commanding officer with a grenade. It's really quite contrived and it seems like it would make the movie pretty much unwatcheable. Basically it was a colossal piece of shit ending. The improvised ending is way badder. By 'badder' I don't mean worse or even as a short hand form of 'Black Adder', which of course would make no sense, I mean badder in the way that Philip's leather jacket makes him look badder even when he's wearing jogging pants, I mean in the way that I'd say that Jim McAlpine looks badder when he has a sunburn or Mike Bigelow looks badder when he says he's really into Slayer. You get the picture.
Last night I watched one of my all time favourite shout-y movies, The Wild Bunch. It has both William Holden and Ernest Borgnine in it. I use to confused Ernest Borgnine with Victor Borge. I think I did this especially when I saw Airwolf, the Single Guy, and All Dogs Go To Heaven 2. I like the part in the Wild Bunch where the guy who is nicely attired gets shot in the face and he's all like "I can ride, I can't see, I can ride" and you're thinking 'Guy, your face is blown off, you can't ride, don't be the guy that makes everyone wait for him, don't be that guy that noone wants to upset because he's got it bad enough, but they all secretly hate. And then the guy mulls it over for two seconds and comes to his senses, "...ah man who the fuck am I foolin' I can't, finish me off." Before he even thinks about changing his mind, 'Bang!'
If I'm ever keeping anyone late for an important appointment or I'm slowing you down while we're running from a posse, do the right thing and shoot me in the face.
I really like Mister Roberts because it's a shouty movie. There's lots of great shouted dialogue and heated exchanges between Henry Fonda and James Cagney. Lemmon won an Oscar for playing the weasely, Ensign Pulver.
Some of my other favourite shout-y movies are :
From Here to Eternity. I saw this on the waterfront once. They also showed 'On The Waterfront' that summer. I'm quite sure the joke wasn't lost on anyone. I went to see 'From Here to Eternity' with my roommate who had tried out for the Lion King earlier that summer. My other roommate that summer was the Altoids girl. I never went anywhere without fresh breath. I like 'From Here too Eternity' because Ernest Borgnine goes by the moniker, Fatso Jetson, and he gets in a fight with Frank Sinatra.
Stalag 17. I didn't use to have a vcr or a living room so I was encouraged by my bosses to use the library as my living room and take full advantage of the tv and vcr that was available there. It'd be sort of neat watching old black and white movies at 2 in the morning on a Sunday night at the library. Maybe 'neat' isn't the right word. Anyway William Holden's great in this movie about a prisoner of war camp. He also doesn't make many friends, 'Sefton ' (William Holden) : If I ever run into any of you bums on a street corner, just let's pretend we've never met before.
Philip and I watched Cross of Iron a few nights back and I was surprised at how good it was. Peckinpah ran out of money before the film was completed and James Coburn had to improvise the ending. Philip and I read the original script online (almost immediately after we finished watching the movie which...well it definitely proves something) and the scripted version of the last scene was pretty awful. There's lots of talk about how hard the main character is and it ends with him killing both himself and his commanding officer with a grenade. It's really quite contrived and it seems like it would make the movie pretty much unwatcheable. Basically it was a colossal piece of shit ending. The improvised ending is way badder. By 'badder' I don't mean worse or even as a short hand form of 'Black Adder', which of course would make no sense, I mean badder in the way that Philip's leather jacket makes him look badder even when he's wearing jogging pants, I mean in the way that I'd say that Jim McAlpine looks badder when he has a sunburn or Mike Bigelow looks badder when he says he's really into Slayer. You get the picture.
Last night I watched one of my all time favourite shout-y movies, The Wild Bunch. It has both William Holden and Ernest Borgnine in it. I use to confused Ernest Borgnine with Victor Borge. I think I did this especially when I saw Airwolf, the Single Guy, and All Dogs Go To Heaven 2. I like the part in the Wild Bunch where the guy who is nicely attired gets shot in the face and he's all like "I can ride, I can't see, I can ride" and you're thinking 'Guy, your face is blown off, you can't ride, don't be the guy that makes everyone wait for him, don't be that guy that noone wants to upset because he's got it bad enough, but they all secretly hate. And then the guy mulls it over for two seconds and comes to his senses, "...ah man who the fuck am I foolin' I can't, finish me off." Before he even thinks about changing his mind, 'Bang!'
If I'm ever keeping anyone late for an important appointment or I'm slowing you down while we're running from a posse, do the right thing and shoot me in the face.
