12 posts tagged “rubbish”
At work, I used to listen to Myspace music--it's how I came across the Ed Banger folks and various crazy indie rock bands--but at work that's, like, against the rules now, so I listen to Pandora, which is good as hell anyway. My point is, my Ghostface station is very fulfilling. Some of my rap stations play a lot of crap, but this one doesn't--it's mostly Wu-tang, but that means it's largely good (but not all, obv). My Beck station is also tops (I've influenced Pandora to only play me mellow Beck songs, nothing too up- or even mid-tempo). Whatever, they told me I work too fast at work (not patting myself on the back, this is not a good thing) so this post is in lieu of doing my job, as requested by my job. Pandora, people.
What I hate is being in the bathroom at work (or anywhere), washing my hands, then someobody walks in. That person makes the bum's rush for the nearest stall and locks themselves in. Now, I'll be done and out of here in two seconds, but does he use this time to make himself comfortable, warm up the pot? No. He unleashes a hell-torrent squeaky-explosive ass rips that send me staggering out of the restroom in shock. Dude--we get it: you're taking a dump. Give me a chance to leave you with some privacy, bro! Is this not etiquette, because it should be.
Further, I got like no hours of sleep last night, so have minimal energy. I blame my roommate, because I only have one for a couple more weeks, and I've gotta get my blamin' in while the blamin's good. Plus, it's his fucking fault.
Nothing a Red Bull can't fix...
I work out and crap, and, I, like, I assume, most people who do the same, hold myself to a physical template, and this concept will be discussed in this area, on this post, later. I can't figure out how to get my computer at work to accept the level of granduer I expect from my posts, so I have to think of this shit while I'm here, and wait 'til I get home to actually flesh it out, oh, poordom!
I'M BACK: Anyway...So where was I? Right. America's blog, Gawker, calls attention to a study that concludes that pictures of skinny, pretty models advertising a product, makes women feel worse about themselves and, inversely, makes them think the product is representative of some sort of ideal that is better than them, making them want to buy it. I see this happen with dudes as well--they walk by Abercrombie and see the ripped guy posing some jeans, call him a homo, then go buy the fucking jeans, as if Levis doesn't sell just as good of quality. Now, the thing about models, whether male or female, is, if being a model is their primary source of income, then they have all the time in the world to work out if they want to. They don't have to spend all day in the office, or the daycare center, or Applebees, then hit the YMCA on the way home. All they have to worry about is looking good, so holding yourself to look like them can be dangerous, because you are not them.
BUT, I kind of feeling like a dude trying to get ripped like a model can be done in a good way, and the person can become overall more healthy because of it. Of course, anything can be abused, including your body, in the name of obsessing over how you look in the first place. But if girls are trying to look like Kate Moss, and they want to get that way within a year, there really can't be a healthy way to acheive this. She's fuckin' super skinny and (allegedly) does drugs, so even if you're dieting, it's probably a shit diet. If you're working out, it's probably too much. I mean, she's good looking, but why would you want to look like her?
What I mean is, besides the implication of being in perfect light and having a world renowned photographer play up your best features, maybe we can consider the dozens of different body types that come off as attractive, instead of whatever one type we all, respectively, have fixed in our minds as the bees fucking knees. So here's a bunch of pictures of people's bodies, and you can decide which ones are healthily attainable (and worth going for, if only to be healthy, if you need a reason not to feel supeficial about it). Mixed up, boys and girls (click on pictures for larger).
link to gawker
link to Adage covering the study
model portfo pics from COACD
One of the most e-mailed articles at the New York Times the other day was a little something about literacy, and how kids these day don't read actual books. When I was younger, I'm pretty sure it wasn't "cool" to read it, but I did it. I had friends who read, but, then, most of my friends were as socially outcast as myself, so we were in no way a barometer of what people (who don't want to be called fags) should be doing. I had RL Stine and the girls had their Babysitters club, and people with no taste had their Hardy Boys, and all was right. Nowadays, what is there even? Harry Potter can only teach so many of us how to read (right, Fantasia?). But the article mostly focuses on high school kids and they'd rather read fanfiction and flirt on Facebook than read Catcher in the Rye. Plus, books have too many fucking rules, right, dudes?
Clearly, reading in print and on the Internet are different. On paper, text has a predetermined beginning, middle and end, where readers focus for a sustained period on one author’s vision. On the Internet, readers skate through cyberspace at will and, in effect, compose their own beginnings, middles and ends.
Young people “aren’t as troubled as some of us older folks are by reading that doesn’t go in a line,” said Rand J. Spiro, a professor of educational psychology at Michigan State University who is studying reading practices on the Internet. “That’s a good thing because the world doesn’t go in a line, and the world isn’t organized into separate compartments or chapters.”
Yeah, chapters suck, bro! Life doesn't have a beginning...well, birth, but...and I guess it has an end too, with there being no cure for death or anything. Whatever, I read as many blogs as the next asshole, but I'm not trying to act like doing so makes me any smarter. I mean, I don't read Perez or anything, but I do read Gawker, and those guys can actually write, for the most part, but it's not a substitute for literature. And I don't care how good your Gossip Girl fanfiction is--read a book, it's different. It doesn't have to be Hemingway, but it would help if it's not just Buffy novelizations (though I've read that shit). I understand not reading a book to study (I have never read a book assigned to me at school except Gatsby, but I've read a lot of fucking books) or write a paper, since I also use Wiki and other information resources for tasks like that. And if a kid who only gets credit for his physicality has trouble reading, but likes reading online, then that's a solid; it's helped someone not feel inadequate, and maybe even a little brighter.
But...there's something to be said for someone devoting their life to a style and expressing themselves through writing, and focusing their energy on getting their work out there, and suffering just to be heard. There's a million stupid quotes from the article, so I shall direct you to it (I wrote a whole diatribe on it, but my work computer didn't save it, so fuck that) but i'm over it:
There's a new Harry Potter trailer out, though! It looks good. David Yates, the director, won over every Potter fan I know with OotP, but I'm still diggin on Azkaban pretty hard, though I'm rooting for this guy to kick my ass. He's got three tries, including the 2-part final movie, so we'll see.
The movie comes out on the 21st of November. Go read a goddamn book!
The New York Times peice.
Here's an awesome video of French party person Kavinsky's song "Testarossa Nightdrive" set to footage from Miami Vice. It is awesome, which I have already noted.
And, to go the other way, do you remember Kittie? That band that your goth friend liked but you only really liked until the novelty of them being female wore off, and, by the time they started making actual, strong compositions, you stopped paying attention? Well, I actually still listen to them sometimes! Here they are playing live in their latest incarnation. Enjoy loudly!
Okay so, Darren Aronofsky is great, because I believe there are very few dramas as effective as Requiem for a Dream. There are very few horror movies or head injuries as effective as Requiem. It reminds of the Shining in its use to manipulate a reaction or an understanding from you through the use of music and editing and shot composition. In me, Mr Aronofsky has a FFL. I dug the Fountain too, just not as hard.
Anyway, the point is, according to THR, this guy is doing the next Robocop movie, which won't be a remake, but a sequel (we hope they mean in the Bryan Singer way, in which the director does a sequel to the installation he liked, instead of a sequel to the last one that came out--meaning we want this to essentially be Robocop 2). What sayeth ye Reporter of Hollywood?
Phoenix Pictures' Mike Medavoy, Arnold Messer, Brad Fischer and David Thwaites will produce. Cale Boyter, executive vp production at MGM, will oversee for the studio. Although the Lion has not greenlighted the reinvention, it has fast-tracked "RoboCop" for a 2010 release, when the studio plans to roll out its new slate.
"Darren is undeniably one of the most talented, original and visceral filmmakers, and David is one of the greatest writers in Hollywood," said Mary Parent, chairman of MGM's worldwide motion picture group.
The original "RoboCop," written by Edward Neumeier and Michael Miner, was directed with camp adroitness by Paul Verhoeven in 1987 and released by Orion Pictures. It focused on a mortally wounded cop in a futuristic, crime-ridden Detroit who returns to fight corruption in the guise of a tough-talking cyborg. Sequels followed in 1990 and 1993, along with TV series and video games. RoboCop retains a sizable fan base online.
Since hearing his music, I always thought that if they ever did a remake of Robocop (which technically they're not, but it's probably gonna amount to as much) that they should get French electronic artist Kavinsky to do the music. Only because it would be completely awesome. Just picture it:
Anyway, full article.
Because I am easily influenced, and if i read a bad review, I can't always assure myself that I won't let it affect my judgment. This is why I can't read Dark Knight anythings, because I have an active imagination, and it ruins my regular life; I can't let it ruin my artistic experiential life. I used to bury myself in reviews before seeing a movie, and I called it research, and, sometimes it helped, sometimes it hindered. At this point, I don't even ask my friends what they think of movies before I see them, because I have become one with my own opinion. Previously though, I was an opinion sponge. This also effects my regular life; the last movie I saw that suffered from this, though, was Transformers.
Today I finished a manuscript. I took a while (but not too too long) and so I am pumped about this. To celebrate, I will have one last drink then get up at 6 for work tomorrow. (So best!) I just wanted to share.
When I was a freshman in high school, there was this goth girl, who was actually kind of nice, and seemed more or less well-rounded. She used to rock Marilyn Manson shirts, though, and one of my friends asked me if I ever saw one of his videos. I was going to go on a long diatribe about how my family is sort of racist against white people and white music, and so I have to pretend to only like black stuff, but I just said no, and he told me to catch some MTV when I got home, and I would see some weird shit by Mr. Manson.
So, I watched it, and I was immediately infatuated/intrigued. I like scary shit. I like scary-sounding classical music, rock music...I like horror movies, even shitty ones. I like scary paintings, books. So this was not scary to me, but entertaining. America, on the other hand, was over it.
So time passed and it became necessary for me to think on my own. This was ushered along by the split of my blahparentsblah. So I had to look at everything in the world in a different context, which involved me evaluating what I hated and why I hated it, and if I really did. I was a sponge and acted like whatever I thought I was supposed to--whatever would make me not be left out or not stand out in a bad way. I got over it because I was angry as fuck, because I was a teenager, and teenagers have hormones and think they are the first people to notice that things are fucked up, if they're lucky. Some people never notice this. I wanted to, and thought about how to.
Then this guy. Okay, so, sonically, musically, this is the best shit this motherfucker has ever done. Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails is all over this record, and for the better. It's loud, it's scary, and most of all, it doest give a fuck.
It wasn't the Beatles, but I didn't know shit about the Beatles back then. But these guys all did, and so who gives a fuck? Paul, John, Ringo, and George went through the same thing!
My point is, I learned that people will talk shit about stuff they do not understand from this record, and that the joke isn't always obvious, and that just because people agree with you, doesn;t mean you're right, and so it's tits to me.
On the fourth of July, a friend of mine from college (there aren't that many other kinds) threw a barbecue and I went because I wanted to get drunk and eat food, and those were the offering for this particular dig. I recently went clothes shopping (fashion shopping, as I call it) with my Neverending War, Novelty Stimulus Check from the IRS, which I very much appreciated. I'm recently back from a bad case of the funemployments, so any money is good money (as if this were never the case). Anyway, I was all excited for my outfit of Levi's skinny jeans, Quicksilver straw hat, and random t-shirt, which would capture the beer-goggled hearts of the Independence Day masses.
Like Dale Ernhardt in girls' jeans.
So whatever, I got wasted, because that's what I do. This one kid, as I first walked in, had already outdone me, clothes-wise, rocking a cutoff Jack Daniels shirt and short jean shorts. Try maintaining eye-contact when shaking the hand of someone wearing something like this. It's hard.
"Need a beer-pong partner, bro?"
I managed to not hurt anyone's feelings, which I am wont to do when drunk, but in a polite way. I might say, "Wow, you're not as big of a bitch as I used to think you were." Or, "You still talk to your girlfriend who dumped you for that Parisian sales consultant four years ago?" I don't do it on purpose, but when I drink, I want to say stuff, and, though it makes people laugh sometimes, I often end up with an apology on my hands the next day. Anyway, I don't often celebrate holidays, and now that I've celebrated this one, I realize it doesn't really matter what you're doing. You know people in your demographic are likely getting tossed (whatever that means for them) so you just don't want to feel left out by sitting at home and watching the Harry Potter marathon on ABC Family and fashioning nooses out of old Nine Inch Nails t-shirts.
"I know you asked for a noose, but I just couldn't help myself."
I was also involved in a fire cracker melee, and made it out unscathed, though I do have phantom pains in both my forehead and my abdomen. These pains will go away before i remember where they came from. Anyway, cheers, and, like, go America!
