Further Parallels

I loved The Dark Knight Rises. Hmmm...That didn't come across correctly, so let me try again: I absolutely LOVED The Dark Knight Rises! That's more like it. I'm not going to write too much about it. There's a million billion bloggers sat behind a million billion laptops banally blogging about how super awesome the conclusion to Christopher Nolan's Batman Trilogy was. I don't want to follow that trend. (It really was super awesome though). All I'll say about it was that it was the best movie in the trilogy, that Bane made The Joker look like a total chump, and that I am amazingly happy with where the story finished. And that's that. I loved it.

What I want to talk about today is the experience I had that furthered the parallel I drew previously between Batman and The Phantom from Phantom of The Opera (or between Batman and The Phantom of The Opera). It was amazing. I would never have realized what was going on if my wife hadn't pointed it out.

So...

We're sitting in the movie theater waiting for the previews to start. We were early because I'm a slight Batman nerd and I didn't want to miss a damn thing. I'd drank a pint of Coca-Cola at dinner and was already desperate to urinate, even though I'd already been 2 times in the twenty minutes between dinner and entering Screen 1 of the Glasgow Quay Odeon...but I digress. We were sitting in our seats, the room buzzing with anticipation, the smell of  Jalapeno Nacho's wafting around the room (they had a special going; you got a free Batman magnet with every purchase), and there was atmospheric background music playing. What music you ask? FREAKING PHANTOM OF THE OPERA MUSIC!!!

It was amazing! 24 hours before this I'd been blogging about the similarities that I see between Batman and Phantom. Then I'm sitting in the theater waiting for the biggest film of the decade when out of nowhere my wife points out that they are playing Phantom of The Opera music...unbelievable, right? I know!

There are no coincidences when it comes to this shiz right here yo! This shiz is serious!

Batman and Broadway

No direct link has ever existed between Batman and Broadway; until now. I think I may have discovered that link. The similarities are undeniable. How could we have missed this? How have we not seen this before? 

Broadway is the home of the worlds fruitiest musicals. Every day thousands of people wander along this one New York street, amazed by bright lights and billboards. Every night thousands more flock into one of the 40 theaters that line Broadway to experience big voices and bad acting. It's not my bag, yo! People eat this junk up though! Right now there are two big budget television shows playing to millions of fans that exclusively revolve around dreams of success on Broadway. Two of them! Broadway seems to be the thing of the moment. Bearing this in mind, it makes sense that this years potentially monstrous summer blockbuster The Dark Knight Rises (and it's main man Batman) will be all Broadway'd up. 

The link between Batman and Broadway isn't easy to spot. You gotta be familiar with this shit to notice. You have to understand the subtle differences that exist between the DC Universe and our Universe, then look past them to the even subtler similarities between the two. The link I originally started speaking about doesn't directly involve Broadway geographically. Instead it involves one of Broadway's most famous productions: The Phantom of The Opera.

If your not aware, the story of Phantom (as it's affectionately known to those that care about this crap) involves a creepy misanthrope who lives under a building, plays the organ and stalks women that are WAY out of his league. Oh, and he wears a mask! Because he's disfigured, or ugly or something...I don't know; I don't research this beforehand. He also sings a lot (I assume) and doesn't have any friends...because he's so über creepy. 

I only started thinking about this because my wife mentioned "Batman" and "musicals" in the same sentence. Immediately I noticed the striking similarities between Batman and The Phantom. These are the links between Batman and The Phantom of The Opera, and therefore, between Batman and Broadway:

1. They both wear masks - One wears the mask 'cause he's ugly or something; the other wears a mask so that super villains don't f-up his billion dollar business, and so that he doesn't get jacked by the cops for breaking multiple laws every night (because you know, it's actually a crime to physically assault someone. Even if they are a criminal). Different reasons; same choice.
   
2. They both wear capes - One because he's the star of a Broadway show; it's all drama and theatrics (obviously). Of course The Phantom's going to have a cape! Batman has a cape because a great deal of his intimidation tactics involve drama and theatrics. Oh, as well as this it helps him glide. What vigilante doesn't need to glide?
   
3. They both live in caverns - The Phantom lives in his cavern because he's a well established creep; Batman doesn't exactly live in his cave, he just spends inordinate quantities of his time down there... spelunking or something. They are both usually alone down there, The Phantom playing on his organ; Batman playing Solitaire on the Bat-Computer.
   
4. Neither is very good with the ladies - The Phantom kidnapped a broad for some company...possibly with the intention of raping her...or having her sing his perfect musical, or something. Batman has never had a girlfriend and continually rebuffs the advances of one woman who is interested in him, the super-foxy Catwoman...in fact he's usually threatening her. Not exactly a Casanova, is he? When one threatens women and the other kidnaps them, clearly they both have lady troubles. Just saying...
   
5. They are both self-loathing super depressives - all the time! Batman's pissed 'cause someone killed his parents; The Phantom's pissed because he has no friends...enough said.
   
6. They are both potentially gay - Batman spends all his time with Alfred; The Phantom writes Opera's.
   

These are the glaring similarities between Batman and The Phantom. Please ignore any factual errors about The Phantom of The Opera...like I said, I don't research. It's the reason I won't get my law degree...well that, and the fact that I spend way too much time thinking about stuff like this.

Look at this creepy Mofo!

I guess it's relevant to me because tomorrow I will be going to see The Dark Knight Rises. I am pumped for this! Phantom (the 2nd musical show) was written by a (super-creepy) Brit, Andrew Lloyd Webber; Christopher Nolan, Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Tom Hardy and Gary Oldman are all British too...and they are all in The Dark Knight Rises...so I guess that's another similarity that Batman and The Phantom have in common.

I didn't make this up; the evidence speaks for it's self. Batman and Broadway are linked. Inseparably linked. Forever...

Okay I made it up! 

Some Stuff That's Pertinent

• Thursday Night: Glasgow. A five hour documentary/live concert entitled Something for Nothing: The Art of Rap is showing in the Odeon Cinema. How do I feel about this? Well, I'd have to say that it's like waking up on your birthday, finding out that Christmas has come early and that your parents also caught the Easter Bunny and now he's gonna be spending forever in a cage in your bedroom crapping out foil wrapped Cadbury eggs at your behest. It may be the best news EVER. 15 year old Graham soiled himself when he heard about this. £12.50 per ticket for 5 hours of aggression and rhyming slurs? Hell yeah, I'm there. 

• Nas released a new album! I haven't listened to it yet, but he references Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on track one...so I'm going to assume that it's going to be something special.
  
• After spending countless hours over the last month watching old horror movies I have figured out the secret to surviving a horror massacre...I will have to outline it sometime.
   
• I got a job today, which means I'll have less time to think about pointless things and will have to spend a lot of time doing boring things.
   
• Even the President of the United States gets knocked back on Kiss Cam's. Barely finished watching the video of Michelle Obama leaning away from the Pres when they landed on the Kiss Cam at Monday's Team USA vs Brazil b-ball game. I feel the pain bro, happens to the best of us. Could have been worse though, right? He could have been rejected at a Rockets match...it's on YouTube. 
  
  Rockets Fan's Marriage Proposal
  
  ...That went down like cancer jokes in a hospital's oncology department...this is what happens when you make the conscious decision to become a Rockets fan...just sayin'...
  
• And also...THEY ARE MAKING A TOY STORY 4!!!! I DON'T KNOW IF ANYONE REALIZES HOW HUGE THIS IS?! CAP LOCKS DON'T DO THIS NEWS JUSTICE! I'm more excited than I've ever been! This is more exciting than The Art of Rap. This is like waking up on your birthday, finding out that you've been adopted by billionaires who've bought you your own mansion on your own private island...while Christmas also came early and the billionaires also caught the Easter Bunny too...and there are some foil wrapped eggs waiting for you already.
  ...I ran out of exciting things...I guess the only thing more exciting for me than the above scenario would be waking up to discover that I grew a foot over night and became black, developed a killer jump shot and I've been signed by the Celtics. Hasn't happened just yet...so for right now, I'll get by with TOY STORY 4!!!! OH YEAH!!!

• I have no more pertinent things to mention...this was a useless bullet point...

A quick thought about Channel ORANGE

I'm not sure what to say about Channel ORANGE.  It's beautiful.  It's haunting.  It has songs about girls AND guys.  It's incredible.  All I can go by is what I'm feeling when I'm listening to a piece of music.  And this album makes me feel something.  This jazzy, breezy and subtly experimental album is full of smooth melodies, soft beats beautiful harmonies and some pretty intense lyrical content.  Frank Ocean also has a seemingly flawless, beautiful voice that must make picking up girls easier than beating a midget in a half court game of one-on-one.  There's some pretty sweet guitar riffing in there too.  There's an ambiance to the whole album that just tells the listener that Frank Ocean is not playing around.  He is very very serious about what he's doing.  It's bold.  Beautiful and bold.  Now, the avant-R'n'B scene is not one I'm intimately familiar with.  I'm also not an expert on music, so my views are probably questionable at best; like I said all I know is what I feel. And like I said, I feel something.


Channel ORANGE is a hip-hop record, albeit a beautiful one...but it's still a hip-hop album.  There's still plenty of sex, drug references, socioeconomic commentary and some n-bombing.  It's a hip-hop album after all.  But it's different, and I'm sure most people now know why...

Frank Ocean, R'n'B's new golden god is bisexual apparently.  Good for him.  Seriously.  Listening to the lyrics and melodies on his debut album, it doesn't surprise me.  It doesn't bother me either.  It shouldn't bother me...it shouldn't bother anyone; but I'm sure it bothers some people.

Rap music has always been mildly homophobic (and by "mildly" I of course mean "super-mega").  I can name drop at least 17 rap songs off the top of my head that slur homosexuality or allude to homosexual acts in a derogatory way, without even trying.  Rap music has possessed a very juvenile attitude towards homosexuality in the past.  It's almost schoolyard; "Your gay"... "NO! Your gay! And so's your dad!"  This kind of exchange has permeated hip-hop beefs since the earliest days of MCing and freestyling.  Calling an enemy or target "Gay" in your rap has often been seen as one of the most disrespectful labels usable. Worse than suggesting you slept with your opponents wife (think 2Pac to Biggie in Hit 'Em Up).  Obviously this is wrong.

No popular male hip-hop artist has ever come out as being either gay or bisexual.  We may secretly harbor suspicions about Andre 3000 or Kanye West or Vanilla Ice or whoever; it's not suspicions that matter.  Orientation makes no difference to anything here.  And more importantly it's really none of our business. It's not anyone's business who does what with who, save those doing the actual business in question.  I guess Rap music became intensely pigeonholed in it's stereotypical masculinity and blatant homophobia for a while.  Homophobic's were to hip-hop what the KKK were to the NAACP back in the '60's.  This has always been an issue with hip-hop.  It's not a new thing.

Amazingly though, support for Frank Ocean has seemingly been universal.  Maybe this is what hip-hop's been needing for a long time.  He's worked with Jay Z, so he's got the seal of approval; sorta like Moses with the burning bush and the locusts, etc.  I doubt homophobia will cease to be an issue, not only in hip-hop but in society generally.  Expecting homophobia to become eradicated completely is like expecting a rainless summer in Seattle, or expecting your favorite sports team to win every title available in their sport every year for the rest of forever.  It's most likely not going to happen.  But we can hope.

Even though homophobia still exists in Rap and in society generally, no one seems to care about this.  Therefore the open letters on Tumblr and the lyrical inspiration behind Bad Religion don't make a difference.  They are important, yes. They are significant to us culturally, yes; they are especially important to those of us who care about the culture of hip-hop.  It is a big deal.  But they don't take center stage here.  The music does. The music on Channel ORANGE is the focus, and it speaks for itself.

Channel ORANGE is probably the best album I've heard all year.  It's better than anything I've heard from the hip-hop world in a long time.  It makes everything that other artists like Chris Brown and Usher are putting out sound like recycled garbage that's been auto-tuned and set to a club beat by the Swedish House Mafia or David Guetta.  It's just a damn good album.

I've listened to Channel ORANGE twice now and I'm still blown away.  To me the mark of good music is it's ability to make you feel something.  I can't really relate to Frank Ocean's experiences.  I've never had unrequited feelings for a man, and I've never lost my recording studio to a hurricane.  But this doesn't mean that I can't enjoy the emotion that he shares with us on his songs and that I can't relate on some level to the things he's describing.  I've been down, just like he has.  I've had strong feelings for someone that weren't returned just like he has.  I sometimes just want to party like Mr. Ocean just wants to party.  The feelings I'm feeling as I listen to this masterpiece are familiar to me, because they are ordinary.  He sings about ordinary things in a really beautiful way.  That's why this album is so good.  Because we can relate to it.

I am buying this album tomorrow so I can bump it in my car as I drive home from my job interview. I know that whether or not the interview goes well will be extremely important, but my feelings won't be; because this album will help me emote on the whole thing.  I'll either want to party or sit in the back of a taxi and confess all my sins to a middle eastern cabby.  Either way I'll be sorted.  I take some comfort in that.

About last night...sorta.

Something quick today:

Last night we had some friends over to hate-watch horror movies. Initially I didn't realize we here hate-watching, (maybe no one else noticed at all; maybe I was the only hater present?) but about 45 minutes into Prom Night it dawned on me that this is what we'd been doing all night. We'd already made it through one awful movie (Rogue River) commentating on almost every scene...hell, maybe every frame. It was so bad. No lie. Never watch this movie. Hold on...the DVD case is sitting on my living room floor right now, I can see it sitting there and I want to destroy it! It's tempting me to destroy it. I'm going to destroy it...

Graham walks away from the laptop, strolls over in front of the TV, picks up the DVD case ignoring the indignant glare from Kim (who only wants to watch Smash damn it!) looks at the abomination he's holding in his hands (with the same look you give feral cats); he opens the case and removes the DVD carefully... then, after 5 minutes of uncontrolled smashing...

We're back. That was an ordeal. I owe you £3.00 Heather. 

I don't want to waste anymore time talking about Rogue River. It was a bad movie that was amazingly fun to make fun of. That's that.

We also watched Prom Night (1980). The original; they did a remake a few years ago that was completely different and infinitely more enjoyable. I'm going to do a quick run through of what I can remember for my own amusement.

Prom Night opens with panoramic shots of an old, abandoned school building. Some badly dressed '70's kids pull up on bikes and run inside.

The little bitch whose the leader of this group decides to play Killer which I'm assuming is a morbid version of hide'n'seek; instead of getting caught you get killed, then you become a killer. In this game your Freddy Kruger.

Some more badly dressed children show up outside the building. They really need to erect a fence around this bitch. It might save lives. And yes, I did just use the word erect. Ha. Two of the kids are wearing matching turtleneck's. Wow. 

Cut scenes of little kids running around a dangerously old building. A door that's not on hinges falls when one kid runs through it. This is why America will never regain global dominance. Two of the three new kids leave including turtleneck boy. His sister stays.

She goes inside, she finds a little boy with a perm, he glares at her; when he realizes he's about to get caught he snitches and turns on her. If this was the joint homeboy would be getting sliced, yo.

The killers chase her, they corner her but wont stop shouting "Kill, Kill, KILL, KILL!" in her face. She falls backwards out a window. She's dead. The four kids in the building watch, then have a conversation. The dialogue goes like this:

Kid 1: She's dead. We need to go home. 

Kid 2: Yeah, we need to go home. 

Leader Bitch: "This didn't happen! We need to go home"

Kid 4: "See you all in Math tomorrow"

They all get on bikes with huge wheels and flee the scene. Over the dead girls body we see a shadow fall; someone was watching. Someone saw. OH. MY. HELL. This won't end well...

Fast forward 6 years; Some pervert with a perm is making prank phone calls while scribbling names in a notepad. He makes obscene calls in a creepy voice. He's rocking back and forward and tapping the page like he's Keith Moon. He's excited. Was this ever a popular thing to do? In Scotland we go to McDonald's...I think the shadow with the perm making the phone calls is the same person who saw the little girl in the hideous turtleneck die...uh oh!

There's a lot of pointless plot details. The little girl who died had a sister. She's Jamie Lee Curtis. The little bitch from the start hates her for some reason, even though she killed Jamie's sister! The brother who was once the one in the matching turtleneck is now somehow a ninja. Oh, and Jamie Lee is dating the guy who was the little boy who bitched out and snitched on her dead sister...THIS KID HAS SOME SET OF BALLS ON HIM!!!  

There's also some guy who's got a mono-brow and he's wearing a medallion! He moonlights for the mob! He's Donnie Brasco. 

 Anyway after 59 or so minutes of useless plot lines and should-I-shouldn't-I's regarding virginity finally someone dies. The killer is someone who wears black pointy toed boots, black bell bottom jeans, a brown belt (because he's supa-fly) a black turtleneck (again with the damn turtlenecks!) and a balaclava. He stalks his victims while simultaneously pimp-strolling to disco music. Why disco music? Because he's decided to go on his killing spree during the graduation disco! Not the Prom; a disco! A proper Saturday Night Fever disco! With a glowing dance floor and everything! This movie is too awesome! 

Balaclava boy prances! He kills one of the girls who killed turtleneck girl by stabbing her in the throat with a shard of glass (impractical weapon). While he does this he sorta pirouettes and stabs, going down and up, down and up. He looks like a ballerina using a plunger on a super clogged toilet. He is not an effective bad guy.

I can't bear to describe this anymore, turns out it was the dead girls brother. Oh, and he's obviously Jamie Lee Curtis' brother too. She cold clocks him with an ax, kills him. Why was she the main character in this movie? She was never in danger! If your the main character in a horror movie, shouldn't your life be threatened at least once? Yeah. Thought so. Screw you Jamie Lee.

I'm so glad I had friends with me to watch this awful movie...otherwise I might have missed out on something totally memorable that's totally memorable for all the wrong reasons.

Rap and Country.

I discovered Spotify last night. Ever since I downloaded the free Spotify app for my iPhone I've spent the better part of 14 hours searching the database for obscure rap/hip-hop albums. I've also downloaded some not so obscure albums too. There's really only so long you can search "Bun-B" before you need to separate yourself from one genre and search another. I naturally shifted my focus to Country Music.


I'm a huge Country Fan (seriously) and as such I was extremely excited to see that Spotify has a huge Country Music selection. This doesn't mean that I'm tired of Hip-Hop. Never. Rap to me is as soap to water in a shower. One without the other won't function correctly. I'll always need a dose of Rap in my life to fully function. I'm not entirely sure why I'll always need mildly threatening Urban American artists who rhyme about things I'll never fully understand, or be able to relate to to get as much out of life as I enjoy getting. It doesn't make sense. It's just an irrefutable fact of existence. 


But alone, it's not enough to get me by. It used to be. As a thirteen to seventeen year old, Rap was my my sole source of musical nourishment. After a while it got boring. I couldn't figure out why. I now realize that this is like eating nothing but white bread, then wondering why you find your diet bland. It doesn't mean you don't enjoy white bread, it just means you need something more than that alone. Same with Rap. I love Rap but it's just not enough to nourish me totally.

This is where Country comes in. I've been experiencing Country since I was 7 years old listening to Come on Over during summer visits to Modesto, California. I never actively realized that I liked what I was hearing. I just jumped around to "Man! I Feel Like a Woman!" In hindsight this seems a little odd...but I'm not questioning anything. I listened to Country on vacation. Whenever my Aunt got behind the wheel of a car we were tuned in to the local Country station. So to me, Summer sounds like steel guitars and Southern Charm.   


As far as musical similarity and style goes you really can't get two musical genres so different. There's a huge musical divide between Country and Rap. I like to play both sides of this musical divide. Country fans rarely enjoy Rap; Rap fans rarely enjoy Country. There are exceptions but usually this is a general rule. Alan Jackson fans don't regularly bump N.W.A. between Chattahoochee and Precious Memories. But I will do this. Regularly. Right now I'm bumping Nu Mixx Klazzic's by Tupac, and following this I plan on throwing some Kenny C (as in Chesney) on up in this bitch! 

I may have found in Spotify my new substitute for crack. Bless you Spotify. You have created a credible way for me to enjoy all the terrible music I want. 


  VS      

Now that I possess access to both Netflix and Spotify, I sense a technological battle of semi-epic proportions. Both sides vying for my attention. Not a little here and a little there. No. The attention will be undivided. I fear there can only be one winner.

It'll be like the battle between:

 

Small Soldiers was an awesome movie, right? There could only be one winner in the end in the showdown between the Gorgonites and the Commando Elite. So too with Netflix and Spotify. There can only be one winner. I think Spotify edges ahead because I've watched all the Breaking Bad available and now it's time to discover music.

I remember a time when I used to read...

Screw it! I like music, television and the internet. Make the three available in one convenient location (my iPhone) and that puts an end to any literary integrity I once possessed.

Oh well...I wonder what else I can find on Spotify.

Insomnia

Last night I said I'd write something about something less serious than nostalgia. I think I mentioned the ballooning density of Nicki Minaj's butt as a possible topic of bloggersation (because that is afterall a real word). Well, I was lying when I said that; I have no intention of ever writing anything about that...not unless it mysteriously grows again and my friend Iona is there to point it out...then I'll have to comment. I'll have no choice.

No, today I'll write about something that's not so much dear to my heart, but more a pain in my ass...


"When you have insomnia, you're never really asleep... and you're never really awake"

 This may be the truest line of dialogue ever spoken in an Edward Norton movie. That's from Fight Club which is, excluding maybe American History X,  Ed Norton's best movie. Be honest, you never saw Incredible Hulk, did you? Didn't think so. But you have seen Fight Club...or have you? (If you have, and your not talking about it then good; you clearly know the rules of Fight Club.) If you haven't then shame on you. It's pretty awesome. 

Edwards unnamed protagonist in Fight Club suffers from crippling insomnia. He can't sleep soundly on his IKEA bed, or anywhere else for that matter. He's never asleep, but then again; he's never really awake either.

That's an awful way to live, going day to day with little sleep. Often no sleep. Insomnia. I get it. I've got it.

This is the eighth straight day that I've been awake to see the sunrise (I'm speaking figuratively here; the sun never shines in Scotland.) I'm awake when the day begins, and I'm still awake when it ends. I get maybe 2 hours of sleep a night. If I'm really lucky. Obviously this is not an ideal situation. I climb into my own IKEA bed, hike up the duvet close my eyes...and then I open them again minutes later, when I realize that I'm not actually going to sleep tonight. This has been going on for eight days. I have had roughly 17 hours of sleep out of a possible 192.

The two weeks previous to these hellish eight days were much the same, only I eventually crashed one afternoon and ended up sleeping for seventeen hours. That was semi-restless, full of nightmares, but it was still sleep. I've pretty much been awake since then.

I'm starting to understand how this guy felt:

  

I'm not advocating attempted murder; no way! But remember when Jacky went a little stir-crazy in the Overlook Hotel? Yeah, I get it. All work and no play (plus no sleep, probably) makes Jack a dull boy indeed. It also severely pisses Graham off too.

There's that great scene in The Shining where we see Jack just standing over his wife in their room, looking at her with mad eyes, a homicidal demeanor and you can tell, just plain old exhaustion; I can totally relate to this exhaustion. I'm more than exhausted.

I just went out to my car and had a conversation with an English man who was walking down the hill that our street sits on, he was carrying a thermos and talking about cats and drunk teenagers. it's 5:41am. I am about 62.7% sure that this didn't actually happen. I think I'm starting to lose it. For someone who likes to pride himself on his rationality this is slightly worrying. And by slightly I mean terrifyingly.

I'm so damn tired that I'm actually sitting here listening to Santana tracks. Which Santana tracks? I'm not sure; ones with guitar solos. I'm hoping they bore me to sleep eventually...but the prognosis on this is not looking too great.



He sorta looks like Jerry Stiller, or more appropriately, Arthur from King of Queens...

The blogging probably isn't helping, but I'm not going to sleep anyway So why not do something that's enjoyable? it beats the hell out of staring up at the ceiling for hours counting the minutes and hours that slip by.

I can pinpoint where this started, but not why. I know that it started around about the middle of the Playoffs. It hasn't gone since. If watching basketball is what caused this insomnia then it totally wasn't worth it! Okay, that's a lie. It was. But damn, if I'd have know it was going to become such a major imposition I'd have just payed for the ESPN package, recorded the games then watched them later! Would have saved me a lot of stress and headaches (I've got one long headache that's perpetually pounding on my frontal lobe)! I wouldn't be awake at 5:50 listening to the same long Santana guitar solo on ten different Santana songs from three different Santana albums (shake things up a bit hombre!). I'd be lying asleep next to my wife in my IKEA bed.

I can relate to the feeling of the protagonist from Fight Club. I get what his deal was. He couldn't sleep and it was playing with his emotions (What up Big Perm...Big Worm!)* I understand because my emotions are being played with too.

* Please tell me someone got the Friday reference there?

I'm done with Santana.

"Bad Medicine" by Bon Jovi just started up on the old iPod. Possible the greatest song ever written, right? Maybe that's just my exhaustion talking. I hope so, Bon Jovi actually suck (in a totally listenable way). If I'm starting to believe that this is the greatest song ever written then I really have problems. It's not even the best song ever written about medicine! That accolade totally goes to "Sexual Healing" which I know technically isn't about medicine (well, it's never explicitly mentioned) but medicine heals, and that's good enough for me.

Okay, I guess it's time to go and continue watching Charlie Murphy: I will not Apologize on Netflix. Yup, I actually did just say that. And I actually will enjoy it. I will not apologize.

Nostalgia.

                                                                       Nostalgia

I've never quite understood nostalgia. I do however understand that people experience it daily. It's failed musicians who couldn't make it past the bar scene in the 80's, or high school athletes who never made it in college who now run used car dealerships that experience overwhelming nostalgia...I assume. Maybe everyone experiences it equally, I just don't know.

Some people experience nostalgic feelings for a time or place that they never experienced. People my age (apparently) just want to go back to the 60's and hear The Beatles when they were fresh and new, for example. Or they want to go back to the 50's and attend Happy Days style rock'n'roll jive/twist/swing dances. I don't know all the desired destinations or time periods, but I know that people who were there want to go back and do it all again while people who's parents didn't even exist at the time want to go back and see it and live it "first hand". To be eye witnesses to things that (allegedly) matter to (some) people. Like I said, I've never quite understood this feeling. I like living at a time when we have the polio vaccination, HBO and other stuff like that. iPod's and junk. I freaking love the time we live in. Always have. Always will, even when Skynet gains self awareness and all across the world we see things like this:

 I like including pictures to illustrate my points (I learned how to operate the "copy" and "paste" functions of this laptop. It's pretty awesome, if I do way so myself.

Anyway, I've never really got nostalgia. I just don't get it. Well, I didn't anyway; not until tonight.

Not until I started writing about my love of basketball at age fourteen/fifteen. Not until I thought about all those hours I spent watching Andrew Bogut (that years no.1 NBA Draft pick) dominate the Mountain West Conference (back when they still played in the MWC). Or Alex Smith (the no.1. Draft pick in the NFL Draft in 2005) tear it up on the field. Not until I thought about all those hours I spent in Utah watching snow fall on the Wasatch Mountains, or skiing in Park City. Or when I thought about all those friends I made that I miss. Not until I thought about any of this did I understand nostalgia.

But now, after all that - I think I finally get what nostalgia is. I think I'm starting to understand it. At least what nostalgia is for me, anyway. I think it effects all of us in very different ways.

To me it feels like a strange kind of happy-sadness. It's being grateful for great times, but missing them. Remembering the beauty of a sunrise over the mountains, but being sorry that it's gone. It's remembering waking up on the floor of your friends basement on a Saturday morning and realizing that the day is full of possibilities but now understanding that those possibilities passed and they're gone forever; but your glad that the possibilities came your way and that you seized them when you could. It's tears shed for lost loved ones maybe and lost friends too, but a laugh or a smile when you remember how much fun you had when you were with them. How awesome they were.

I understand now what people are talking about when they talk longingly about someone they once knew, or something they once had or did. I know it because as I typed those last sentences my mind was flooded by pictures and sounds, faces and voices from my past. And I'm smiling, even though I'm holding back tears.

I remember the time I sat in a dark living room with 7 or 8 friends and watched The Grudge for the first time. I remember being absolutely terrified, then not sleeping a wink that night because every shadow or creak was potentially a death waiting to strike. I'm thinking about that and I can't help but smile. I can't help remembering sneaking up behind a friend at a tense moment, waiting until the climax of the scene, then grabbing her arm from behind the couch; possibly taking away 3 years of life in the process, An early death due to fright.

I remember this and I can't stop smiling.

I remember playing basketball in a good friends driveway, jumping up pretending I was LeBron and slamming the ball into the 7 foot hoop. The hoop snapped off the backboard, staying in my hands; I panicked. I remember hiding it in her rose bush then guiltily going inside to wash the blood from the thorn pricks off of my hands. I can't stop smiling again now too. I was an idiot.

I remember, and I miss it. I really miss it.

I wouldn't trade my life now for my life then. Not for anything. But I still miss it. I really do.

Damn you nostalgia. I wish I'd never started to understand you.

As I think about these memories, these friends, these little moments that I'd forgotten for so long I can't help but think about who I was then and in a round about way, who I am now.

I got my first iPod when I was sixteen, for Christmas. I was stoked! A black, 60GB box with a two inch screen that was ready for my music/videos. I remember getting on iTunes, begging my aunt to let me use her American Express card and then going nuts and downloading hundreds of hip-hop/rap songs. Fifteen year old Graham was gangsta, bitch!

I can't stop thinking about all those songs I got, how I sat in my room for hours (it was too cold and wet too play basketball outdoors that December - February) listening, rapping along and writing my own raps. I can't help but smile in a "man, I was a goofy loser back then" sort of way.

The first 6 items that I downloaded onto that iPod were:

1. Deep Cover - Snoop Dogg ft. Dr. Dre

2. California Love  - Dr. Dre ft. Tupac

3. Mo' Money Mo' Problems - Notorious B.I.G. ft. Puff Daddy and Mase

4. Boyz-N-the-Hood (Remix) - Eazy-E

5. Wonderful - Ja Rule ft. Ashanti and R.Kelly

6. Boundin' - Disney Pixar

I realize in hindsight that a kid as gangsta as I shouldn't have had Boundin' on the same iPod as Dre and Eazy, but hey; I was 16! I was an idiot. But I could be wrong; gangsta's watch Disney too.

I'm thinking about that iPod and all those nights I lay awake listening to hardcore beats and profanity and I'm smiling more. I thought I was so cool, I thought I was awesome. I was awesome! I really wasn't, but I tried and I can't help but laugh when I think about that awkward 16 year old who thought he was black. He had no responsibilities, yet he still acted like the world was on his shoulders. He liked to read Tolstoy and super-long Stephen King novels and watch Desperate Housewives, but pretended to be the coolest thing on the whole damn planet. He was an idiot, but a lovable one. And I miss him.

I started off by saying that I've never understood nostalgia, and that is totally true. That's not too say that I never thought about these memories until today. To say that would be totally untrue. I think about them a lot less than I used too, yet I still think about them all the time. I suppose until tonight I never really felt anything majorly moving about them. They were only memories until tonight. When I got started on all that basketball stuff on my last post I guess  I stopped simply remembering what happened: I started feeling what these memories mean to me. They mean everything. I can feel that.

They mean everything to me now, just like they meant everything to the guy who experienced it back when it all happened. We're the same person, just years and wisdom apart.


I guess that's nostalgia. Thanks nostalgia, for letting me remember and feel...well, everything. I guess I forgot a lot. And to anyone reading who helped me create some awesome memories; thank you. For everything. I wouldn't change any of it (except maybe those really mean comments I made to you...sorry! I was an idiot, remember? Of course you do). Thank you. 

This was kinda serious, but tomorrow I'll get back to some pointless crap about Wimbledon, or the worryingly increasing increase in the size of Nicki Minaj's ass (the video for Starships was on a music channel a few days ago and at one point they could literally only fit one massive cheek into the frame...that's unnatural).

I still don't get how people can be nostalgic for something they have never experienced though...like people born after 1985 who wish they were teenagers in the 50's...to you I say: why? We have HD and iPhones now; stuff Buddy Holly records. I guess that's nostalgia I'll never get.

Body Betrayal

Today something happened that I've feared for a long time. My body betrayed me. Finally. I've been expecting this for about 3 or 4 years, but I've put off thinking about it for as long as possible. Today was the day that reality caught up with me. At first.

Now, a bit of back story is required for this to really make sense. When I was fourteen I moved to America for a year, where I lived with some family friends and I attended a local high school. I was not a good student. I'm Scottish: we have a good education system but we're a nation of terrible students. In Scotland I was average bad, but in America I was exceptionally bad. Super bad maybe.

From what I can remember of my year in an American high school, I recall that the American education system is not stellar, but they are a nation (or maybe this is exclusive to the State of Utah) of studious students who want to learn. I was not ready for this. I was a terrible student. After three months of acting out in every class finally several of my teachers had had enough of me. I was evicted (once, famously, for making pirate noises) and I was punished. They don't mess around over there. As punishment I was put on school clean up duty. It was sorta like detention, except they made you scrub toilets and mop floors, etc. so that they could hire fewer janitors. I was stuck at Gulag High, 5'000 miles away from home.

I became an amazing cleaner. I would get my mopping and scrubbing and snow shoveling (this was Utah in the winter time!) super quickly, and I was left with three free periods during the day. (Yes, I was a student who had three classes a day, I was evicted from 50% of my scheduled classes). I needed something to fill my time. I needed something special. After two days of wandering around aimlessly like a reject ghost from Hogwarts I figured out that I already had what I was looking for to fill my time. I had basketball.

I became mildly obsessed with basketball when I arrived in Utah. I was lucky enough to live three miles away from the University of Utah and more luckily still, I acquired football and basketball season tickets and I attended every game. I loved football! But basketball captured my heart. It became my first love (I was fourteen and hadn't yet come into my own as a teenage lion, a foreign predator who preyed on the hearts of the neighborhood girls he was befriended). (This never happened, I didn't get my first girlfriend until I was sixteen and living with my aunt back in Scotland). Really I was just a loser teen who became addicted to a sport. Like millions of others worldwide. Only I had a cool accent.

Our neighbors across the street had two sons roughly my age, and one son was an excellent basketball player (who only played in his back yard), so everyday after school I would go over to their backyard and play on the small cement court. For hours. This was all I did. No school work. No studying. No TV (except King of Queens every night at 9). Nothing. All I did was play basketball. And since I did this at home everyday, it made perfect sense logically to do the same thing for two-hour long periods every day in the schools empty gymnasium.

I became pretty good. Good enough to be offered a spot on the school team. Now, I was a rebellious teen who didn't want to conform to what anyone wanted from me. I said no. Actually I told the coach to go screw himself (he was also in charge of clean up duty), I was a bad-ass. I read Tolstoy at lunch time and fought in the parking lot (I was so freaking cool). I had better things to do. Instead of playing in a structured league I played on the street! Eventually I considered playing for the team the following season...but my family showed up in mid-April and promptly dragged me home; away from clean up duty, away from my new friends and away from basketball.

I came home to find a hoop installed above the garage that adjoins our house (a kind of peace making gift) and again the cycle continued. All I did was play basketball. No studying. No anything else. It drove my family mad. It served me well in P.E. though, I got an A for basketball (the only A that I ever got! IN YOUR FACE FAMILY!) I continued to play until maybe two or three years ago but then, as it's prone to do, life got in the way.

Since I was fourteen I have been proud of my basketball ability. Until today. Today my body betrayed me. My body was Fredo, I was Michael. I can no longer play basketball like I used to. Today while attempting to shoot free throws (and failing like Shaq from the line) I probably ended up looking like Matt Saracen did when Coach Taylor replaced him with Voodoo Tatum as the Panthers QB-1.

I probably looked a little something like this:

  

Or maybe it was maybe more like this:



I can't remember the face I made; regardless of how my facial muscles contracted it was a sad day. My body let me down. It betrayed me...

...At first anyway.

There was some hope, after loosening up and letting go of the frustration that was building up, I was able to shoot a respectable 78% from the field. (Yes, I worked out my free throw percentage; sometimes I just like to pretend I'm Ray Allen, okay!) I'm not gonna be starting for the Celtics or the Lakers or anyone else any time soon (although, if Charlotte need a PG, I'm free! $4 mill is the price when the price is right; think about it Michael). But, it's a start.

I just want to be able to stand on court again and not look like a sweating idiot. Sweating's OK, but only when your doing something worth sweating over, and tonight sadly my performance was not sweat-worthy. I taste like a salty biscuit.

But there was hope, sorta. I may taste like a salty biscuit, but I have achieved something. It may just be something little, but it's something nonetheless.

Initially my body may have let me down, and I'm disappointed about this. But, in the end after some perseverance and some serious focus (I was like Einstein solving complex-quadratics up in that 'mutha...) I was able to see a small part of the ability I used to have, return.

I should mention that I played for four solid hours trying to master my jumper, my three point shot and my foul shot. I'm 5'7, so I'm not really a drive to the basket kinda guy, but my lay up has remained surprisingly consistent. After four hours of sweating like a desert camel and swearing under my breath like a trooper under fire I saw something. I saw a little bit of skill. Not much, but some. A grain of sand on a dirty beach. Small, but existent. And for me, after the shock of being betrayed by my own body, it was enough to fend off the comfort eating.

I will practice. I will sweat. I will become a golden god. I will not comfort eat.

My body betrayed me tonight, but I'll be damned if I don't show it whose boss.



"You disappoint me Fredo..." but not for long. Not for long.

Wow...

For certain blessed individuals the day of the NBA Draft will be the the most significant day of their lives. It's the first step of the most important journey of their lives. It'll be the start of something special; something we sports fans only dream of. It'll be the day that all of their hopes and dreams are realized; the day when all that they've been working towards their whole lives finally happens for them! Obviously it's important to look amazing! You need to look smart, super fresh, super-fly and just generally awesome. With that in mind...take a look at this...

Wow...

Now, bear in mind that this guy has won an NBA Championship... but back when it all began, right back at the start LeBron James showed up to the 2003 NBA Draft dressed like Morgan Freeman's "God" in Bruce Almighty. Bruce Almighty came out one month before 20003's Draft, so LeBron could have seen it before the Draft, providing him with his inspiration...so really this is really a feasible possibility (as well as this, the nickname "King" possibly got him thinking about Deity), so when you put all of these elements together like 'Bron (possibly) did then obviously you settle on "Celestial Pimp Suit" as your Draft Day outfit of choice...either that or his inspiration was whole fat milk. LeBron James, King James, came to the Draft dressed like a bottle of whole fat milk. Beautiful. 

Maybe this guy was his style icon?

Damn...iconic Basketball player, sure! But he has one godawful personal shopper! He's not slapping himself because he made a terrible investment in the Charlotte Bobcats; he's slapping himself because he got dressed in the dark, didn't check himself in the mirror before leaving for this game, then saw himself on the JumboTron...then the Bobcats lost...(he did win 6 NBA Championships though, so who the hell cares how he dresses...except anyone with ANY sense...)

I guess last weeks 2012 Draft got me thinking about this stuff...and that's because my beloved Boston Celtic's drafted Fabricio Fab Melo with the 22nd pick of the first round. 

Now, a guy with an abbreviated name like "Fab" better have some serious style chops! He better be the stylish Brazilian answer to Carmelo "Melo" Anthony (who I assume is rather stylish, although he did marry a Tellytubby)... so I'm expecting big things! He better show up on E!'s Fashion Police, weekly!  

 

I'm guessing this won't happen...I'm disappointed in you already Fabricio!

I know that I'm about a week late to be talking about the Draft...I only just researched the Draft today in fact, I've been preoccupied with Wimbledon. I do know that Anthony "The Brow" Davis wen't first to the New Orleans Hornets (sucks to be you, Brow). 

I know that Davis has one serious eyebrow

 

(Look at that eyebrow! His family must have denied it's existence for the entirety of Anthony's existence! How else could you not notice that? How else could you not care?! There must have been University of Kentucky law which prohibited any mention or mockery of the Brow. To Davis' credit he is a phenomenal player who will contribute massively to the Hornets both offensively and defensively. So yeah "Fear the Brow" is right! I just found out he had it trademarked...this is the most amazing news I have ever heard! You go Glen Coco).

I also know that almost every Draftee wore Grey...  

And I know that this guy has nothing to do with the NBA, or anything that I've been talking about...

...but whatever! I just love Thundercats! A cartoon that's potentially the most overlooked show in the entirety of recorded history...

This may be the most random thing that I have ever written... but it's late, I've been up for far too long and I've watched two movies with Mr. T. in them! Two! He's not even a main character in these movies! How can I have watched two random movies that both cast Mr. T. as a peripheral character? How is that even possible?!

Sorry MJ, LeBron, Fab Melo, Anthony Davis or anyone else I offended in this post...I take solace in the fact that they will never read this... 

Oh! And Big Up Mumra! You evil S.O.B.

E! got me thinking about Zombies...

I spend far too many hours of the day watching the E! Network. Far too many hours than is recommended for the average human being, and far far far! too many hours for a man. A lot of men probably do watch E! I'm probably just self conscious for no definable reason. It's amazing how many hours can slip by as I sit in darkness, watching E! images flicker on screen...I become a Zombie every time I turn to channel 151.

So, Zombies it is then...

I don’t know much, but I do know one thing for sure; I will survive the Zombie Apocalypse.  I have no physical evidence to support this claim. I can’t shoot a gun (I can’t even aim), I’m not particularly fast, or stealthy, or strong. I possess no basic survival instincts; I hate camping, I can’t build a fire - from scratch or otherwise - and I can’t hunt. I assume I’d be able to exercise basic foraging skills if required (however these foraging skills may be limited to certain circumstances involving, say, abandoned supermarkets), but this is a stretch. Essentially I have no evidence to support my claim. But, when the zombie wars start – and they will - I will outlast you. I will survive and you will not. I will help repopulate earth (or more likely, Glasgow), while you will become one of them. This is an irrefutable truth. I don’t like it any more than you.

How, you ask, can I make such a bold claim? It’s simple. Because, in my 22 years I have essentially achieved nothing; surely God won’t deny me this. (I’m not really sure how God fits into the whole zombie-doom scenario, but it’ll all work out, trust me). He can’t. It’s just not feasible. I will have luck on my side. I will catch a break for once. God owes me one; he let them cancel Gilmore Girls.

 Maybe I’ll manage to band together with a group of survivors, board up my home, stock up on supplies, guns and ammunition (that I can’t use) and wait it out while everyone else cleans up the mess. Perhaps I may occasionally use my Mark McGuire signature Louisville Slugger to maintain order on the streets. Maybe, I’ll sleep through it all (win and win!). I don’t know how it’ll work. I just know that it will. I can feel it “In my plummmms.”

So when is this hypothetical end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it scenario going to occur? I have no idea. None. But, when it does – I have a plan. My plan is genius, if I do say so myself. I plan on having no plan. I’m going to survive thanks to pure dumb luck. I’ll work it out as I go along.
Now, you’re probably thinking to yourself “Wow, this guy’s screwed when it all hits the fan,” but this is not true. You’re probably just jealous because you, my friend, are boned! My reasoning is sound. I have drawn it from history. We see that through the entire history of recorded time no one who ever had a plan made it happen.  Not one person. Ever.  Think I’m lying? Satan, Cain, those idiots in the tower of Babel, Genghis Khan, Golum, Napoleon, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, the KKK, The BNP, Osama Bin Laden, Homer Simpson, Pinky or The Brain, O.J. Simpson, Rebecca De Mornay in “The Hand that Rocks the Cradle”, Paris Hilton, Scientologists and the entire nation of France…to name a few. The only person that springs to mind, when considering who attempted and successfully accomplished a pre-determined plan, is LeBron James (and that plan was orchestrated by Dwayne Wade, so go figure). His move to Miami defied the universes laws of order. Basically it’s been done once; I can’t happen again. So I’m not going to sweat it. When the time comes I’ll make myself ready.

If countless teenage girls across the world magically become” mothers” when their spawn arrives all covered in placenta (as MTV’s “Teen Mom” teaches us) then that logic dictates that I too will be ready, magically, when the time arrives.

It’s like Geordie Shore. I can’t explain why, but I just know what’s going to happen in an episode before I watch. I know that Gaz will sleep with Charlotte, and she will then assume that he is in love with her. Then the next night the whole gang will go to a nightclub somewhere in Newcastle, where Gaz will inevitably hook up with a blonde tramp-like-type while Charlotte looks on sadly, he will take her back to the house where they will have vigorous sex in the garden shed, while everyone else sits in the hot-tub (that’s only 15 feet away) and Charlotte will cry, then throw shoes at the swaying shed.  The next day she will say it’s over for good (She’ll “swear down” on it, in fact) and the episode will end on a cliff hanger…sort of. Now, this does not mean that in the next episode she won’t follow through with her pledge…but she won’t. I just know in my bones that she won’t. And so too, do we all. (Well…all us sad people who watch Geordie Shore anyway. I’m surely not the only person…)

In the very same way that I know this outcome is inevitable, I know that I will survive zombies. Sure, Geordie Shore lore suggests that what continually happens to Charlotte will continue to happen while nothing suggests that I will still be alive when the men in Biohazard suits show up with flame throwers to end the onslaught (I assume it will end like this, just like in the end of that movie “The Mist,” but hopefully I won’t have to shoot my wife seconds before humanity is saved…man, that movie was bleak from start to finish and beyond). But, just like I know Geordie Shore will play out like this, I know I’ll be alright in the end. I don’t have that same feeling for any of you. Sorry.

Maybe it’s all just bravado and ego. Maybe I’m just delusional. Maybe these Zombies won’t ever show up (but, we all know they will). I don’t know. I just know that when I play Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare, I kill cowboy zombies like a boss. I slay ‘em like ‘Pac slayed B.I.G. on “Hit ‘em Up.” (I am to Zombies what Heroin was to Courtney Love’s career). There’s just no way that that Zombie slaying ability won’t translate into real life. Even though I can’t load, aim or fire a gun, it doesn’t mean I can’t improvise when required (I was a pretty awesome improv-artist in high-school drama class after all!) I’ll just dumb-luck my way through. I have to. God owes me, remember.

A Quick Note to Self...and some other stuff

Graham,

You are not Dr. Who. You don't want to be Dr. Who. You have never watched a full episode of Dr. Who. in your life. Hell, you don't even like Dr. Who. Therefore, you should never wear neon blue socks with a grey suit and black shoes. Ever! Dr. Who shouldn't even do it, because it looks awful. You are the master of your own soul, you are not a sad act, or a charity case (regardless of all the evidence supporting this idea); so, just don't do it, alright? Cool? Good.

It's July, it sorta feels like July outside, but aesthetically it looks more like a February. It's certainly not beautiful. Grey sky's become mundane after so many days...right now I think we're sitting at roughly 9'996 days of cloud; nothing but overcast grayness. I don't think the sun has shone since 1998...since the first time I saw Scream.


Tonight I watched Scream for the first time since 1998. I remember watching this movie as an 8 year old and having my perception of reality altered forever. Here was art imitating life, all the while referencing art as an extension of reality. Simply, in the movie the "real" people played by actors spend huge chunks of time referring to other movies that exist in both our reality and the movie reality; these old horror movies effect their reality. Art imitating life relying on art as an imitation of life to highlight the central themes and ideas of the movie. As a result of all this self reference and all this reality altering, our ideas and our beliefs about what a horror movie can actually do change.

Obviously this is a complicated idea to put down into words, but when you watch the movie you just get it (well, I did anyway). Maybe your not supposed to look that far into it. Maybe your just supposed to watch it as what it is, a slasher movie that highlights the cliche's of the horror genre. 
As an 8 year old I was prone to looking to deeply into things that didn't have a deeper meaning. I used to philosophize about episodes of Pingu with my friends. I would hypothesize that Pingu's relationship problems with his father stemmed from his fathers strict and unloving relationship with his father. My main theory being that his father was possibly abused by his father...that's why when Pingu wet himself on the floor of the igloos toilet his father gave him a verbal beat down, (and possible whupped him off camera)...obviously my friends ignored me. I was a weird kid. That's why when I watched Scream I became obsessed with reality.


I couldn't twist my head around these supposedly real people using movies made twenty years previously to survive their current situation. Using "The Rules" of the horror genre to survive their lives as a though they were in a horror movie in a freaking horror movie! That blew my freaking mind! By that logic I felt I could use Babe to help myself understand the relationship that farmers have with livestock. Believing that farmers actually use Babe as a frame of reference for their particular line of work. That all over the world farmers were feeding pigs, quietly muttering "That'll do Pig, that'll do" as they watched the piglets sup. 

I think that's where my obsession with movies and TV started. Right there, with Scream! It also scared the hell out of me. I was terrified of these lunatics in long gowns...and strangely, their massive mobile phones. I was scared of mobile phones! Everyone became obsessed with that movie when it first came out.  I remember watching the move with my own Ghostface mask sitting beside me. On Halloween in 1997 for as far as the eye could see, the streets of my neighborhood were teeming with mini serial killers in training...or at least little kids dressed as serial killers. Everyone had one of those masks! Everyone! Now, I hadn't seen the move that Halloween, but I was a bit tripped out by all the Ghostface wannabes strolling around with fake knives covered in fake blood. By the time I did see Scream the fad hadn't died down, everyone was still wearing those damn masks. I didn't spend much time outside that Halloween.


Anyway, I never looked at a movie, or life in the same way ever again. After that, movies became a way for me to relate to any situation that I've ever found myself in. Now, I've never been chased by a homicidal maniac and used the "Jamie Lee Curtis Survival Method" (blissful unawareness followed by sheer dumb luck) to help me get through it alive. I have however broken up with a girlfriend then ran into her with her new boyfriend and used the When Harry Met Sally "Harry Burns Method" (insult someones table) to tough it out. I've also on more than one occasion thought to myself "Wow, y'know this is kind of like what happened to --- in ----". Movies became a way to understand life after Scream.

From watching Scream I realized that I should:

1. Never trust my boyfriend (which is easy, because I don't like men.)


2. Memorize horror movie trivia so that when psycho's come calling I can out wit them with my slasher movie savvy.

3. A television can be used as an effective weapon in the right situation

4. Never try to crawl through the cat flap of a raising garage door...ever! If it starts raising the for goodness sake get out and go under the door! Go under it damn it! #dumbblondegirlsalwaysdoingdumbthingstosurvive

5. Never have an affair! If you have an affair, then four movies worth of hell will rain down on you and possibly your children. (This realization only dawned on me now...damn you Maureen Prescott! She's the real villain of all this!)


6. Never sleep with someone who's father had an affair with your mother! It's like crapping where you eat...or where your boyfriend/girlfriend's father eats...or something.

I'm now watching Scream 2 which from what I can gather is Scream, only with more Black people...There are exactly zero Black people in Scream and exactly four black people in Scream 2. Between the first and second movie in the Scream franchise Sydney Prescott discovered racial equality. 

I guess horror movies really do affect you...however Scream's only effect on me was that it turned me into a reality second guessing child who philosophized Pingu and who was afraid of mobile phones. I don't think that this was Wes Craven's vision for the Scream franchise...

And to think...I was going to rant about Wimbledon again tonight...thanks to Netflix and heavy rain in England I ended up here...wherever here is.

OH! MY! GOODNESS! The black guy survived! He made it! One out of four black people survive Scream 2! After this he had a thriving television career. Just kidding...he probably dies in Scream 3. The Rules of horror taught me that.

Something New

For the last 5 days or so my life has revolved around Tennis. For the month before this my life revolved around the NBA playoffs. For the 6 months before that my life revolved around being newly married, and around NBA statistics. For the year before that my life revolved around convincing the love of my life to become my wife, then planning the wedding and somewhere in between these pursuits I factored in pro-football (barely) . For the 5 months before this my life revolved around convincing the love of my life to date me (this was not easy, she's much prettier than me). Before that...I'm not sure what I did with myself...I vaguely remember it involving music, YouTube, books, my friend Ryan and at one point Pokemon - but that was probably years ago. Anyway, no matter the time, through out my life I've always had something to revolve my life around...or at least something to keep me vaguely interested. When I didn't, time seemed to stop moving completely and existence became remarkably similar to what life in an old folks home must be like; nothing ever happened and my back mysteriously hurt a lot. I guess my life needs to revolve around something; when it doesn't, I really don't know what to do with myself. I am so glad that I have Wimbledon! And of course the love of my life. Bearing this in mind....

Today I'm going to avoid Tennis completely...well, almost completely. Did you see that Andy Murray match? Marcos Baghdatis looked like an overweight middle aged Greek fisherman out there! The fact that Murray took 4 sets to beat that guy is awful. In my humble opinion anyway...I'm no expert on Tennis. And besides, it wouldn't be a proper Murray match without the usual "OH NO!" moments. Anyway...I digressed into Tennis once again, even though I promised I wouldn't.

This isn't a Tennis blog. Promise.

So, something new...something new...

DAMN!! Cyndi Lauper was a scary looking MoFo back in the 80's! I'm currently watching the "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" music video with my wife and I am starting to realize that I have NEVER seen a scarier looking can-can in all my life. Also...if girls really do just wanna have fun, does that fun need to involve copious amounts of confetti? Because if that is indeed the case then the house party that Cyndi and her posse crash/create at the end of the video was totally Off. The. Chain.    

This brings me around to what I was intending to write about tonight. Kinda. In all honesty I had no idea coming into this what I was going to say...I only know that I planned on mentioning Wimbledon. Again. I lied earlier. 

Well, we do have the 80's.

My wife LOVES everything about the 80's. The music, the movies, the fashion, Corey Haim. Every. Thing! I don't get the 80's. I lived the first month of my life in the last month of the 1980's and I am not ashamed to say that I am glad I got out of that mess fast! This is mostly because (excluding hair metal) I hate everything that the 80's had to offer musically. We'll get to that.

Growing up I was accidentally totally anti-music. My friends would waste time talking about what they had seen on Top of The Pops, music they had heard on the radio or who they were listening to at that point in time and while they were doing this I'd be off in my own little world pretending to be the BFG, making a dream trumpet and running around with a cloak on. I was totally cool, honest. They would ask me what music I liked and I would respond by nervously saying that I didn't actually listen to music. I didn't. And I was strangely ashamed of this.

I think I didn't listen to music because I was raised by my grandparents, they were old and as such they had pretty much forgotten what music was! Occasionally I'd visit my mom and my sister; they would always be listening to popular music. I tried to listen along with them, but I realized that I couldn't relate to it at all. I spent my days listening to The Lord of the Rings on cassette and pretending to be Macbeth. I was not a normal child.

In my defense this was the 90's and music wasn't exactly stellar. In Scotland in the 1990's people were listening to Steps, The Venga Boys, and a million shitty boy bands. I wasn't touching that! (My wife will hate me for this.) The 90's did have redeeming bands like Nirvana and the rest, but no one was listening to that where I came from...and if they did, they certainly stopped after 1996. I discovered what I call "the gems's" of the 90's much later.

When I eventually discovered the power of music in my early teens, I was drawn to Hip-Hop. I was attracted to the controversy of it all! The swearing, the glorification of violence, the misogyny (which is wrong!) and the unknown. Hip-Hop was initially something totally unknowable! I couldn't relate to the life of urban African-Americans! I was a white 14 year old from Scotland, attending a posh boarding school. This music was not meant for me. But like a fly drawn to the neon glow of a hanging bug zapper, I was pulled in. Hip-Hop helped me express complex emotions that I never even knew existed within myself. Thanks to 50 Cent I realized that I truly don't give a f**k if it's your birthday, shawty, even though we're gonna party like it is in fact your birthday.

Now, back to the 80's. I just don't understand what was happening musically during that decade. It seemed like it was required by law that every song/album to involve synthesizers, key-tars, keyboards steeped in ambiance, or saxophones to make it releasable. Why?! From my observations I have also noted that awful hairdo's were a prerequisite of success, music video's couldn't make sense and every man had to dress and act (in at least one video) like a Geisha. For someone who was initially drawn to Hardcore Hip-Hop and who now favors Classic Rock (with abundant splashes of rap in there also) this does not make sense. You will never see Scarface act like that. You will never see Eazy-E act like that! (Not just because he's dead, but also because that dude was real!) R.Kelly technically did molest children a la Gary Glitter, but come on! He's about as real as Superman's love child! He does not count! You will never see these things. I know KISS wore make-up, Mick Jagger was extremely camp and at least 20% of the bands that I LOVE were founded in the 80's...this does not mean that I can relate to that decade. Maybe that

I married someone who loves 80's music...so one day I may learn to understand it...maybe even love it. Who knows? Certainly not me. You will never totally escape some things, no matter how hard you try. I fear that the influence of certain aspects of 80's culture certainly fits this mold. Forget fearing it, I know this is the case! I guess all that's left then is to find some girls that just wanna have fun, start a can-can, get plenty of confetti, throw a raging confetti filled house party and then slink off quietly to an empty room, put in my ear phones and cradle myself while listening to "Poppa Was a Player".

What The Hell Just Happened?

I imagine that after Lukas Rosol spanked Rafael Nadal like a petulant child during the fifth set of tonight's incredible Center Court match at Wimbledon and sent him crashing out of the tournament, the remaining three of the worlds top four got together on the phone. They had some MAJOR issues to talk out. I imagine that their imaginary conversation was strained...even painful. They had just watched their brother in arms, their friend and common enemy be beaten, ball-gagged and sodomized like Marsellus Wallace in Pulp Fiction. This happened in front of millions. On Center Court. At Wimbledon. Did I mention that millions of people were watching? Because they were! And as Djokovic, Federer and Murray sat watching, they probably all thought the same thing: who the Hell is Lukas Rosol?

That's what I was thinking. I was watching this massacre with my family, getting more and more drawn in; with every Ace, every 99mph return of service, every crushing forehand that Rosol delivered made me ask again: who the hell is this guy? What am I watching? It's been two hours since Nadal crashed like Oceanic Airlines Flight 815 and I'm still in shock. I can't believe it. This is what it must have been like being a bystander at the fall of the Roman Empire. Rafael Nadal is to Tennis what Kryptonite boxing gloves are to Superman in Apollo Creed's Americana shorts. He's the guy that keeps on grinding. He's the Tennis world's equivalent to Michael Jordan, John Elway and Muhammad Ali in their respective sports. I'd say he's second only to Federer on the list of all time Tennis greats. So really he's like Bill Russell, Joe Montana and whoever they consider to be the second greatest boxer ever...I don't follow boxing. The point is; Nadal is incredible! He's the guy you never discount. He's never out of the game, even when he looks like he's out of the game. He can always come back. Except when he can't...and tonight, for the first time I can remember - he couldn't.

That's what made tonight so unbelievable. I've never seen Rafa look so scared. Never. Occasionally he looks shaken, even nervous; but never scared! And tonight in that fifth set, he looked, like Liv Tyler in The Strangers scared. Going by tonight I wouldn't be surprised if Nadal's career just simply imploded. His uncle won't let him touch a racquet after this. No way. Nadal will be serving up paella in a cantina in Barcelona by Saturday. Maybe...

A lot has to be said for Rosol. Tonight he played the game of his life. He played like the Albanian Mafia had abducted his little sister, and her only hope was an upset over Nadal (can you imagine the odds on this game? If you bet on Rosol - Congratulations! ) tonight. He couldn't play a bad shot! It was like he was channeling Djokovic or something. (I sense a Freaky Friday style sports comedy could come out of that idea.) Rosol was in complete control of that fifth set. Nadal was out played. Purely and simply out played. The whole match was an anomaly.The first set went to tie break; this was unexpected. Rosol commanded the second and third sets; this was really unexpected. Nadal went wild in the fourth set; this was typical. Then Rosol made Rafa his bitch in the fifth; this was insane! Lizzy Borden level insanity. Like I said, kudos has to be given to the Czech. In his post-match interview he looked like Moses after he saw God for the first time. He struggled to put words to his emotions. Not because of any language barrier, simply because he was stunned by what he had accomplished. He couldn't believe it.

I'm wonder if this Rosol thing might turn in to the Tennis equivalent of Linsanity. Linsanity on a much smaller scale, but insanity none the less. "Rosolmania" maybe. If Rosol continues in the same manner for his next match, it'll happen. Unquestionably. He'll be the new tennis wunderkind (at 26...maybe not). Just like for those 5 or 6 weeks between February and April when Jeremy Lin was king of New York and the king of the NBA, he'll be the king of the court. If that happens I'll be amazed. 

What's more like to happen is an exit in the next round, tonight's game proven to be a fluke, a freak occurrence...an ATP double rainbow. Rosol will be forgotten (just like Tennis) and Rafael Nadal will come back with the ferocious intensity of a wolverine on crack. Andy Murray will crash and burn in the quarter-finals, Djokovic will win Wimbledon, Federer will continue to dress like he's going fox-hunting with the Duke of York, and like I emphasized in my last post: Tennis won't matter until next year. Everyone who isn't Rafael Nadal or Sue Barker will forget who this guy is, or was. 

Even so...it was still something. To someone like me, someone who loves Tennis (and really any sport, I'm becoming "That Guy", we all know a "That Guy" he's that guy who stays up late to watch basketball games and researches baseball statistics) tonight was really, really something special. Something to remember.

I know the top guys were watching. They had to be. How could the not be drawn to this? One of their own slapped around like Whitney. Philipp Kohlschreiber was probably watching too, thinking to himself: "What can I do against that?!"

When Federer, Djokovic and Murray had their imaginary conference call to discuss the "Rosol Problem" they probably couldn't figure out what the hell to do. Steal his racquets? Tell the Albanian Mafia to raise his sisters ransom? I'm sure they couldn't come up with anything, because if he plays again like he played today, he will be unstoppable. 

I come back to my original question: who the hell is Lukas Rosol? Where did that come from? If every male player at Wimbledon isn't asking themselves that same question, they should be. And they also should be asking: what the hell can we do to stop him?

I just spent the last 3 hours of my life thinking about one Set of Tennis...at times like this I have to ask myself something very important: why did my wife marry me? 

I'm sure she asks herself that question too...

Thirty-Love: Why only Wimbledon matters.

There’s a small tennis club that’s about five miles away from the house that I grew up in; it sits just off of the main road. It has six courts that sit side by side, the court surface a roughly 50-50 sand/AstroTurf mix. For eleven months out of the year it sits, deserted. The gates are always open, and every two days or so you might see a car or two in the adjoining gravel car park as you drive by. The club has lighting, but presumably you need to be a member with a key to turn the system on. Usually the club remains deserted. Except for two weeks out of the year when you see nothing but hive-like activity. Two weeks when this small tennis club, and thousands around the country like it, are swarming with life. The two weeks of The Championships, Wimbledon. During these two weeks the club literally buzzes with small children holding over-sized racquets, old couples playing back-and-forth and sulky teenagers who’ve suddenly become sporty after years of hiding in their bedrooms listening to Slipknot and Megadeath. The courts teem with activity during the two weeks of Wimbledon except, of course, when Britain’s annual number one seeded buzz kill Andrew Murray – or Andy to his, well…everyone – steps on Centre Court and ruins the Great British Summer.

Now, I’m not here to rag on Andy Murray. Not at all! The sporting press and anyone who has ever seen a tennis racquet will do enough of that when his tank runs out of gas in the quarter-finals. I’m not here to pick on poor Andy, we all know that he’s useless, and really that’s all that needs to be said about him. He’s like Jessie from Breaking Bad: he means well, but he is just useless. What I want to look at is this: why does tennis suddenly become important when it’s being played here? Why is it only during Wimbledon that tennis matters?

Question: why does no one care when they’re playing tennis in Australia, or France or Uzbekistan? I’m sure they have tennis players in Uzbekistan. And presumably (if it exists – I haven’t done any research here…) the Uzbekistan Open is a semi-prestigious event. I’m sure that they even clean the camel turds off the court before play commences. I’m sure Andy Murray plays this event if it actually exists. So why don’t we care about tennis then? Why aren't the nation’s children out buying cheap Wilson racquets and sneaking over the fence on to private tennis courts year round to practice (weather permitting, of course) during that tournament? Again I’ll ask; why is it only during Wimbledon that tennis matters? 

I feel that a lot of it has to do with deeply rooted British pride. We are a nation of prideful Brit culture-junkies. We love to love being British and we love everything this involves. We’ll complain until we are blue in the face about the state of things in this country. We’ll complain to anyone that will listen. But we here in Britain are proud of our mess. We love our mess! We wouldn’t have Britain any other way, even though we spend inordinate amounts of time talking about how much Britain needs to get its act together. We have that British pride that just won’t quit. We love our music festivals, our mediocre musical acts that have somehow attained prominence in America (another British Invasion, only this time the “music” isn’t music, the “artists” are actually talent show hacks and it definitely hopefully won’t last); we love our traditions, our Queen, football, football violence and more than anything else we just love being British.

 Wimbledon falls in with this great big bubble of Britannia. It’s our tournament. It’s a sport the French invented, but we brought it here and we Brits will be damned if we’re gonna let those bastards lay claim on anything. It’s our tennis tournament. Of course these feelings are subliminal, we don’t even realise that it’s an international struggle against the French. We probably don’t even realize that we care, or why we give a damn. We just do. It’s in our blood. We just love Wimbledon. It’s a tradition.

This kinda illustrates why Britain will never embrace “American Sports” like Football, Basketball or Baseball. We have our sports. We don’t want or need any more. We can’t relate to these modern sports. We like our sports like we like Sunday dinners, TRADITIONAL! We have football (how'd America get Soccer? Really?) a sport that peasants used to play with  pig bladders during feudal times, a sport that the British working class have been able to get drunk to for over 140 years! We’re not going to replace this tradition with ten tall black men, two hoops and a bouncy orange ball. Hell no! This isn't because we're racist here (we are) it's because we don't get it. We also have rugby, a sport that the inbred aristocracy and pompous middle class have been using to hash out their daddy issues for well over 150 years. It’s a sport (and really, just something) that the Welsh have actually succeeded at! There’s no way that that’s going anywhere anytime soon. Then we come right back to Tennis. Tennis is all manners and restraint. Whereas in Yankee Football there is no restraint, just sheer brute force and trash talk; pure power and aggression. Even though the majority of Britain is working class, we’re really still all about our traditions, even if we don’t like to admit it and even if we don’t realize it. And where British sports are concerned, it really doesn’t get any more traditional than Wimbledon. I mean come on! I saw Prince Charles at Roger Federer’s Centre Court match today! Royalty attend Wimbledon! You’re not gonna see the Royal Family roll up at the Super Bowl. You can count on that. American Sports will never make it in Britain because we are too hung up on our “old” sports to welcome in any new sports. Not only that, we SUCK at all of our sports on an international level. When sports are concerned, we Brits SUCK on all the levels you can think of. There’s no way that we’re getting shown up on a Baseball diamond.


Like I said, it all (probably) comes down to our national pride. We have a lot of pride in Wimbledon. It’s part of our culture. Like it or not (usually not) we watch Tennis between June and July. It’s what we do. It’s Britain’s Tennis tournament. We have to care. Just like you wouldn't see the Royal Family in throwback Patriots jerseys at the Super Bowl (you’re more likely to find Drake and Chris Brown sharing Gazpacho in a Canadian Bistro tomorrow afternoon), you won’t see them at the Uzbekistan Open. It’s a fact. You won’t see it because it doesn't matter. Only Wimbledon matters. It matters because it’s British. 


I've only driven past that local Tennis club once since Wimbledon started, and it was during Andy Murray’s first round blow out against Nikolay Davydenko. It was deserted. No cars in the car park, no one on the courts. I didn’t drive past today, but I didn’t need to – I know what I’d find. I know that it was packed, that it’ll be packed tomorrow (until the Andy Murray game) and that the trend will continue until Wimbledon ends. It may last for a week or two after that, but then the inevitable will happen: those courts will again be deserted. They’ll be used maybe once or twice a week. Tennis will be forgotten until a) next year’s Wimbledon, or b) Andy Murray wins a Grand Slam. Whichever comes first? All those racquets bought across Britain will find themselves bagged up and thrown to the backs of hallway closets. Neglected, forgotten, gathering dust and Tennis will once more cease to matter.

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