9.26.2004
Why Gary Sheffield wear such tight pants?
There's nothing like going to the ballpark with ma. There's nothing like getting to the ballpark early and beating the rush. There's nothing like getting to the ballpark early and beating the rush, so ma and I can start drinking before the lines form out by the bleachers. There's nothing like razzing those f&*king (ma don't like me swearing) Yankee fans. There's nothing like getting drunk and belligerent and razzing this G#$%DAMN F&*KING S*()T-EATING YANKEE FANS with ma. There's nothing like the sight of my ma, coming back up the aisle with four fresh beers, since I'm too young to buy them myself. There's nothing like taking a break somewhere around my tenth beer so ma and I can go down and share a cigarette. There's nothing like fighting with ma about how I'm going to have at least seven more; I mean it takes me like a dozen beers to really get a buzz and I've spilled so much on the poor kid in front of me that it's more like I've only had eight or nine and not really ten, and she knows I love her, even though I'm shouting. There's nothing like getting into a shouting match with ma, then shouting at Yankee fans, shouting a little more at my Red Sox to put some f@#$king runs on the board, shouting so the sausage guy doesn't skip us and then shouting an apology to the kid in front of me who I keep spilling beer on. There's nothing like seeing the cops come up the aisle to boot out those Yankee fans--F#$% YOU, THIS IS BAW-STON, YOU B^&*CHES! I hate Yankee fans as much as I hate cops--F^&* YOU, PIGS! What ma? I know, they can't hear me. F^&* THE POLICE! Hey ma, go get some more beer before the seventh. MA! ... What's that? Okay, officer. There's nothing like going to the ballpark with ma, then getting kicked out of the game with ma.
9.21.2004
because if I actually hyperlinked to all of dave tompkins' references, the whole world would be underlined
Dave: "Hey can you put a disclaimer saying the writer didn't know about the changes in Star Wars? Before he knew that Darth Vader had his eyebrows removed?"
Hua: I'm doing that as we speak. Hey, is this appearing somewhere?
"Yeah, it's going to be in Stop Smiling."
Do they have a website?
"It won't be appearing on the website, but they do have a website."
What is the site?
"Huh? Yeah."
No seriously, what is the site address?
"They do have a website but it won't be appearing on the website. It will be in the magazine."
I know. You know, I'm writing all this down.
Laughs all around
Seriously Dave, what is the address? For Stop Smiling?
"I don't know. I'd have to get off the phone and check..."
Never mind.
"I just chased a roach around my kitchen with a fork."
Let me read you what we just said to each other.
"Perfect."
I'M TOO THXy FOR MY LIBIDO LEVELER
REVIEWED BY DAVE TOMPKINS
THX 1138: THE GEORGE LUCAS DIRECTOR'S CUT
(2-Disc DVD)
(Warner Home Video/American Zoetrope)
This one's gonna be close. My friend Richard is trying to finish THX-1138 before his airport ride arrives. Robert Duvall's on the ladder. Richard's nervous. Duvall's escaping a subterranean city that's all numb and numbers. The phone rings. Richard stands up. Duvall pops the manhole lid to some glorious Bach. "Your maroon Lincoln sedan is waiting outside." Richard's suitcase disappears through the doorcrack. Duvall, bald as the bulb of ABA star Slick Watts, squints into a giant livid orange, the first sunset in the drudged life of a man named after a license plate. Watching any movie at high noon is disorienting. Watching one set several leagues underground, one where the sets are white, everyone's glabrous and black people are holograms, is another story, one that is finally getting the attention it deserves. Bonus material includes THX-1138 4EB, the original short George Lucas did at USC, with Gregorian psyche score and someone who looks an awful lot like Mr. Bean. This might get Lucas out of the red fans have been seeing since Phantom Menace. (Amateur video of Jar Jar Binks' amateur beatboxing does not.)
Added footage expands Lucas' blank futuristic vision, which was filmed entirely on location in San Francisco. The ladder out is actually pre BART track as a lens flip makes ground go wall. You also get more time with THX (call me Thex) flubbing up on the job. His eyeballs go eggwhite when reproached with a brainlock. No eyeballs go eggwhite in the original. In this bald new world, you can't kick meds and you can't make out--alive or wasted. This gets THX and mate LUH (Maggie McOmie) in big trouble with robot CHIPs who are silver, polite and occasionally walk into walls. This makes Donald Pleasence (SEN) twitch with glee. Catch that grin as Don pivots his right said head after popping an Etracine. It's these nuances that give
THX-1138 a sense of haha (and a-ha, repeated viewings a must). The guy standing in Unassigned Space #33, the munchkin shell dweller drumming his fingers, the iguana blinking behind the switchboard, the Ren & Stimpy eye gurgle, the helpful intercom memos. "A libido leveler has been mislaid near the false buffering gate." Walter Murch's pre-Conversation sound design is ingenious, as is Lalo Schifrin's shark fin cello (David Axelrod had been considered for the soundtrack). So sweat the bits and sit next to the speaker.
Hua: I just checked and Stop Smiling does indeed have a website.
Hua: I'm doing that as we speak. Hey, is this appearing somewhere?
"Yeah, it's going to be in Stop Smiling."
Do they have a website?
"It won't be appearing on the website, but they do have a website."
What is the site?
"Huh? Yeah."
No seriously, what is the site address?
"They do have a website but it won't be appearing on the website. It will be in the magazine."
I know. You know, I'm writing all this down.
Laughs all around
Seriously Dave, what is the address? For Stop Smiling?
"I don't know. I'd have to get off the phone and check..."
Never mind.
"I just chased a roach around my kitchen with a fork."
Let me read you what we just said to each other.
"Perfect."
I'M TOO THXy FOR MY LIBIDO LEVELER
REVIEWED BY DAVE TOMPKINS
THX 1138: THE GEORGE LUCAS DIRECTOR'S CUT
(2-Disc DVD)
(Warner Home Video/American Zoetrope)
This one's gonna be close. My friend Richard is trying to finish THX-1138 before his airport ride arrives. Robert Duvall's on the ladder. Richard's nervous. Duvall's escaping a subterranean city that's all numb and numbers. The phone rings. Richard stands up. Duvall pops the manhole lid to some glorious Bach. "Your maroon Lincoln sedan is waiting outside." Richard's suitcase disappears through the doorcrack. Duvall, bald as the bulb of ABA star Slick Watts, squints into a giant livid orange, the first sunset in the drudged life of a man named after a license plate. Watching any movie at high noon is disorienting. Watching one set several leagues underground, one where the sets are white, everyone's glabrous and black people are holograms, is another story, one that is finally getting the attention it deserves. Bonus material includes THX-1138 4EB, the original short George Lucas did at USC, with Gregorian psyche score and someone who looks an awful lot like Mr. Bean. This might get Lucas out of the red fans have been seeing since Phantom Menace. (Amateur video of Jar Jar Binks' amateur beatboxing does not.)
Added footage expands Lucas' blank futuristic vision, which was filmed entirely on location in San Francisco. The ladder out is actually pre BART track as a lens flip makes ground go wall. You also get more time with THX (call me Thex) flubbing up on the job. His eyeballs go eggwhite when reproached with a brainlock. No eyeballs go eggwhite in the original. In this bald new world, you can't kick meds and you can't make out--alive or wasted. This gets THX and mate LUH (Maggie McOmie) in big trouble with robot CHIPs who are silver, polite and occasionally walk into walls. This makes Donald Pleasence (SEN) twitch with glee. Catch that grin as Don pivots his right said head after popping an Etracine. It's these nuances that give
THX-1138 a sense of haha (and a-ha, repeated viewings a must). The guy standing in Unassigned Space #33, the munchkin shell dweller drumming his fingers, the iguana blinking behind the switchboard, the Ren & Stimpy eye gurgle, the helpful intercom memos. "A libido leveler has been mislaid near the false buffering gate." Walter Murch's pre-Conversation sound design is ingenious, as is Lalo Schifrin's shark fin cello (David Axelrod had been considered for the soundtrack). So sweat the bits and sit next to the speaker.
Hua: I just checked and Stop Smiling does indeed have a website.
Labels: TOMPKINS
animal or vegetable
when your name suggests femininity to western ears, perhaps you expect to get the cute promo baby boy beater rather than the promo XXXL men's nighty-slash-gunnysack. label payoff or no, this is one of my favorite albums of the year, at least the parts that mainline that 80s groove sound.
piotr pointed out that jason sehorn was a WCB, and a damn good one, too. but the question remains: why the helmet on the dolphin on the dolphins' helmets? pretension?
piotr pointed out that jason sehorn was a WCB, and a damn good one, too. but the question remains: why the helmet on the dolphin on the dolphins' helmets? pretension?
9.20.2004
escape from mccarver
Thoughts While Watching Football
10. Isn't it weird that the Dolphin on the Dolphins logo is wearing a helmet with a Dolphin on it?
9. Was the Uncle Rico character from Napoleon Dynamite modeled after Dave Wannstedt?
8. What is Eugene Chung up to these days?
7. Why can't I remember any white cornerbacks from the 1990s?
6. A.J. Feeley is never the answer.
5. Sarah Jessica Parker is not hot, even remotely, at a distance, forty feet away, on drugs.
4. Tom Brady sure loves smacking people upside the head.
3. Dennis Miller: Was it all just a bad dream?
2. Kickers should never, ever make the "money" sign, unless they are getting ready to snap their fingers.
1. You may have watched football for much of your life, but there will always be some arcane rule that will inspire a tiny spasm of self-doubt when your better half asks what was so illegal about that last procedure.
10. Isn't it weird that the Dolphin on the Dolphins logo is wearing a helmet with a Dolphin on it?
9. Was the Uncle Rico character from Napoleon Dynamite modeled after Dave Wannstedt?
8. What is Eugene Chung up to these days?
7. Why can't I remember any white cornerbacks from the 1990s?
6. A.J. Feeley is never the answer.
5. Sarah Jessica Parker is not hot, even remotely, at a distance, forty feet away, on drugs.
4. Tom Brady sure loves smacking people upside the head.
3. Dennis Miller: Was it all just a bad dream?
2. Kickers should never, ever make the "money" sign, unless they are getting ready to snap their fingers.
1. You may have watched football for much of your life, but there will always be some arcane rule that will inspire a tiny spasm of self-doubt when your better half asks what was so illegal about that last procedure.
9.19.2004
means to an end
Left the house just now, ostensibly to deposit some mail, but actually because the groove in the sofa is starting to remind me of this afternoon, which reminds me of yesterday afternoon, which reminds me of October 16 of last year, which reminds me of Exley, which reminds me of October 27 of the year before, which reminds me of another time I realized that the cosmos don't care about justice (it's a long story...).
THE FIRST OF MANY SUCH CONVERSATIONS IN SEPTEMBER, AND MAYBE FOR A FEW WEEKS IN OCTOBER
Trudged down Massachusetts Avenue and spied Casey, who I hadn't seen in a while.
H: Hey man!
C: Sucks about the Red Sox.
H: How are you doing? How is the band?
C: At least the Patriots won.
H: Yeah I want to check you guys out some time.
C: And even the Patriots didn't play well.
H: Sigh.
***
Importanter things...
Eddie Adams died today. There are plenty of present-day images - or more importantly, threats of images - that remind us why Adams may have been so troubled by his own legacy. Images have played a pivotal role in how people perceive Iraq (Abu-Ghraib), the election (a younger, feistier, medal-chucking John Kerry) and 'Homeland Security.' (one of the strange consequences of homeland paranoia is the sudden concern over sensitive photography involving subways, major thoroughfares, air, etc.) Adams is best remembered for his photo of the South Vietnamese General Loan executing a captured Viet Cong prisoner, and the soon-ubiquitous image, like "murder at Kent State" and "girl and napalm," helped shape public sentiment about the Vietnam War. The only problem was that it often drifted about free from its context - the VC prisoner had just murdered eight people and in Vietnam the general was considered a hero. This wasn't just another example of subhumanity abroad, the cheapness of life over there, the madness our boys were up against and the forfeiture of 'hearts and minds,' since they couldn't possibly have any if they just walked around shooting each other in the street; this was a rash and supremely human act that would be denied its sad complexities by prejudiced, eager misreadings. Upon Loan's death, Adams, who occasionally admitted to regretting the photo, remarked, "The guy was a hero. America should be crying."
As Adams explained many years later, "The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera. Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world. People believe them, but photographs do lie, even without manipulation. They are only half-truths. What the photograph didn't say was, 'What would you do if you were the general at that time and place on that hot day, and you caught the so-called bad guy after he blew away one, two or three American soldiers?"
THE FIRST OF MANY SUCH CONVERSATIONS IN SEPTEMBER, AND MAYBE FOR A FEW WEEKS IN OCTOBER
Trudged down Massachusetts Avenue and spied Casey, who I hadn't seen in a while.
H: Hey man!
C: Sucks about the Red Sox.
H: How are you doing? How is the band?
C: At least the Patriots won.
H: Yeah I want to check you guys out some time.
C: And even the Patriots didn't play well.
H: Sigh.
***
Importanter things...
Eddie Adams died today. There are plenty of present-day images - or more importantly, threats of images - that remind us why Adams may have been so troubled by his own legacy. Images have played a pivotal role in how people perceive Iraq (Abu-Ghraib), the election (a younger, feistier, medal-chucking John Kerry) and 'Homeland Security.' (one of the strange consequences of homeland paranoia is the sudden concern over sensitive photography involving subways, major thoroughfares, air, etc.) Adams is best remembered for his photo of the South Vietnamese General Loan executing a captured Viet Cong prisoner, and the soon-ubiquitous image, like "murder at Kent State" and "girl and napalm," helped shape public sentiment about the Vietnam War. The only problem was that it often drifted about free from its context - the VC prisoner had just murdered eight people and in Vietnam the general was considered a hero. This wasn't just another example of subhumanity abroad, the cheapness of life over there, the madness our boys were up against and the forfeiture of 'hearts and minds,' since they couldn't possibly have any if they just walked around shooting each other in the street; this was a rash and supremely human act that would be denied its sad complexities by prejudiced, eager misreadings. Upon Loan's death, Adams, who occasionally admitted to regretting the photo, remarked, "The guy was a hero. America should be crying."
As Adams explained many years later, "The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera. Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world. People believe them, but photographs do lie, even without manipulation. They are only half-truths. What the photograph didn't say was, 'What would you do if you were the general at that time and place on that hot day, and you caught the so-called bad guy after he blew away one, two or three American soldiers?"
9.18.2004
T-Mackadocious
The Yankee and Red Sox announcers are all homers - I have no problem with this. Kay and Steiner have that eternally annoying, haughty, indignant smirk whenever something 'bad' happens to the Yanks; Joe, Orsillo and Jerry slink back into that downtrodden, contagiously sad-sounding talk-sigh 'Red Sox voice' whenever something truly bad happens to the Sox. I mean, one of my favorite duos of all-time is Duane Kuiper and Mike Krukow, and they often sound so invested in the fate of the Giants that one can imagine them anxiously rappelling down from the broadcasters' booth during bench-clearning brawls, or post-game celebratory scrums.
But what truly gets my goat is partisan announcers on national broadcasts who just can't keep their cool. In the mid-1990s, there was Chicago hater Bill Walton and the delight he took leaning into the last syllable of "Horribulllllll." For the past few years, there has been the abomination known as Tim McCarver. The guy has had a good life, more or less, and I have no problem saying I would love to see his head explode on national television. Manny Ramirez would then walk by the mess, do his two-finger point and laugh. Can we get something intelligible, Tim? When you offer up a case for why you think Gary Sheffield should be AL MVP, can you be a little more insightful than, "I do." How about a cable channel that just shows Tim McCarver getting doused by Deion Sanders, over and over, until the end of time?
If there's anything good coming out of this blowout, it's that I can stop watching and thereby stop trying to force this pen through my eye every time Tim McCarver says something.
But what truly gets my goat is partisan announcers on national broadcasts who just can't keep their cool. In the mid-1990s, there was Chicago hater Bill Walton and the delight he took leaning into the last syllable of "Horribulllllll." For the past few years, there has been the abomination known as Tim McCarver. The guy has had a good life, more or less, and I have no problem saying I would love to see his head explode on national television. Manny Ramirez would then walk by the mess, do his two-finger point and laugh. Can we get something intelligible, Tim? When you offer up a case for why you think Gary Sheffield should be AL MVP, can you be a little more insightful than, "I do." How about a cable channel that just shows Tim McCarver getting doused by Deion Sanders, over and over, until the end of time?
If there's anything good coming out of this blowout, it's that I can stop watching and thereby stop trying to force this pen through my eye every time Tim McCarver says something.
9.17.2004
O R T I Z Z L E
back from my penultimate red sox game of the year.
before that: saw james brown, flanked on either side by smug suited-and-sandal'd undergraduates, overseeing a monster truck demolition jam at the harvard lampoon. this place is on some serious next shit.
even earlier: finally read a copy of T.J. Clark's eulogy for Rogin, one of the most influential teachers-slash-thinkers-slash-friends I've ever shared time with. it was very good.
all things considered, an interesting day.
sitting in the stands with mcguirk an hour before the first pitch. it's one of those ugly, grey new england days right on the cusp of autumn. we're about thirty rows up and the hapless devil rays are taking batting practice; the few fans milling about on the green monster cheer when one of the rays finally hits one out. "there he is!" mike, whose name I have forgotten, is coming down the aisle and pointing. he has clearly forgotten my name too, but since this is a modest friendship founded on the true, warm chatter shared during five games a year, we shake hands, reintroduce ourselves, make sure the other person has been "doing well" since that Dodger game in June and gush that this "could be the year." mike helps his son with some ice cream, served in a small plastic red sox batting helmet. joe points to our left: "you see that red seat?" the red seat is the lone bleacher seat painted red and it marks the farthest home run ever hit by anyone at fenway park, a 502-foot blast off the bat of ted williams in 1946. "yeah, it's crazy." "totally crazy. david ortiz looked at it, laughed and said, 'no fucking way anyone will ever do that again.' just crazy." "I love ortiz. he's really come into his own since coming to the sox...it seems as though he truly loves playing here, with these guys." "I've been trying to get people to say 'Ortizzle.' Fa shizzle, Ortizzle. It really hasn't caught on." the sky finally surrendered to its own ominous suggestions, and it began to drizzle. the clouds over the third base side of the park parted, the sun pierced through and it started to rain. sky was grey except for yellow-orange glow over on the third base side, the colors swaying and mixing like schlieren. the rain-fey, tenatative, harmless-sent Mike and his boy to the grandstands. hugged my scorebook under my jacket and thought about how much of my life I might spend waiting for something magical to happen.
before that: saw james brown, flanked on either side by smug suited-and-sandal'd undergraduates, overseeing a monster truck demolition jam at the harvard lampoon. this place is on some serious next shit.
even earlier: finally read a copy of T.J. Clark's eulogy for Rogin, one of the most influential teachers-slash-thinkers-slash-friends I've ever shared time with. it was very good.
all things considered, an interesting day.
sitting in the stands with mcguirk an hour before the first pitch. it's one of those ugly, grey new england days right on the cusp of autumn. we're about thirty rows up and the hapless devil rays are taking batting practice; the few fans milling about on the green monster cheer when one of the rays finally hits one out. "there he is!" mike, whose name I have forgotten, is coming down the aisle and pointing. he has clearly forgotten my name too, but since this is a modest friendship founded on the true, warm chatter shared during five games a year, we shake hands, reintroduce ourselves, make sure the other person has been "doing well" since that Dodger game in June and gush that this "could be the year." mike helps his son with some ice cream, served in a small plastic red sox batting helmet. joe points to our left: "you see that red seat?" the red seat is the lone bleacher seat painted red and it marks the farthest home run ever hit by anyone at fenway park, a 502-foot blast off the bat of ted williams in 1946. "yeah, it's crazy." "totally crazy. david ortiz looked at it, laughed and said, 'no fucking way anyone will ever do that again.' just crazy." "I love ortiz. he's really come into his own since coming to the sox...it seems as though he truly loves playing here, with these guys." "I've been trying to get people to say 'Ortizzle.' Fa shizzle, Ortizzle. It really hasn't caught on." the sky finally surrendered to its own ominous suggestions, and it began to drizzle. the clouds over the third base side of the park parted, the sun pierced through and it started to rain. sky was grey except for yellow-orange glow over on the third base side, the colors swaying and mixing like schlieren. the rain-fey, tenatative, harmless-sent Mike and his boy to the grandstands. hugged my scorebook under my jacket and thought about how much of my life I might spend waiting for something magical to happen.
9.03.2004
ouchie wally
Sam: "Do you have anything from Queensbridge?"
Huh?
Sam: "Some kid just poked his head in the booth and requested 'anything from Queensbridge.' Dorky white kid."
Ah. We've seen him before.
...mere minutes later...
(Dorky, well-meaning white kid pokes head through booth) "Queensbridge? Anything?"
Hmmm...not sure.
"M-O-B-B?"
Didn't bring any tonight, sorry.
"Awwwwww...I can run home and get some if you want."
Uh, you don't have to do that.
"I just live around the corner, I can run back to my apartment and get my Mobb Deep records."
Okay, but, I can just bring them next week.
"No Mobb at all?"
Well, if there's really something you want to hear, go for it. If you go home and get some records, I will play whatever you bring.
"That's all right. Do you have any Nas?"
...hours later...
"Do you have any Prodigy?"
Prodigy?
"Prodigy. Yes."
Prodigy the rapper, or Prodigy as in The Prodigy? 'Firestarter' Prodigy?
"Not the rapper, just Prodigy."
I'm sorry, we don't have any. Anything else you might want to hear?
"No."
(Girl exits)
Wow, that would have been pretty thug if she had wanted to hear Prodigy the rapper.
Sam: "Yeah, but girls like that ask for shit like that. They like that thug shit. It's like, they met some really thugged-out guy once, and it reminds them of the past."
...minutes later...
That girl...is...really...getting down.
(DT, Sam and Cameron peer through the booth's faux window. The girl is getting freaky with her friend, who also happens to be a girl.)
DT: "Uh, yeah they are."
Sam: "Uh-huh."
Cam (non-lecherously): "Yeah."
I wonder how long this can go on for.
Big Daddy Kane - 'Warm It Up Kane'
(Girl yawps consent. Much dancing...)
Tuff Crew - 'My Part of Town'
(So damn tuff. Perplexed, but more dancing...)
Trick Daddy - 'In Da Wind'
(See above...)
Too Short - 'Burn Rubber'
(Girls dance. And by dance, I mean 'take turns freaking each other.')
and so on. if it was possible to say this without sounding sleazy, we just wanted to see how long this could possibly last. after all, anyone who has ever been to the enormous room knows that cantabridgians don't really get down: my boys don't dance they just pull up their pants and...hit the books. hard.
so this was more of a social experiment than anything resembling voyeurism.
and it ended, oddly enough, with this great song here.
...walking home at 2 a.m...
dave tompkins, excitedly, with brows in full effect: "we got paid for that?"
Huh?
Sam: "Some kid just poked his head in the booth and requested 'anything from Queensbridge.' Dorky white kid."
Ah. We've seen him before.
...mere minutes later...
(Dorky, well-meaning white kid pokes head through booth) "Queensbridge? Anything?"
Hmmm...not sure.
"M-O-B-B?"
Didn't bring any tonight, sorry.
"Awwwwww...I can run home and get some if you want."
Uh, you don't have to do that.
"I just live around the corner, I can run back to my apartment and get my Mobb Deep records."
Okay, but, I can just bring them next week.
"No Mobb at all?"
Well, if there's really something you want to hear, go for it. If you go home and get some records, I will play whatever you bring.
"That's all right. Do you have any Nas?"
...hours later...
"Do you have any Prodigy?"
Prodigy?
"Prodigy. Yes."
Prodigy the rapper, or Prodigy as in The Prodigy? 'Firestarter' Prodigy?
"Not the rapper, just Prodigy."
I'm sorry, we don't have any. Anything else you might want to hear?
"No."
(Girl exits)
Wow, that would have been pretty thug if she had wanted to hear Prodigy the rapper.
Sam: "Yeah, but girls like that ask for shit like that. They like that thug shit. It's like, they met some really thugged-out guy once, and it reminds them of the past."
...minutes later...
That girl...is...really...getting down.
(DT, Sam and Cameron peer through the booth's faux window. The girl is getting freaky with her friend, who also happens to be a girl.)
DT: "Uh, yeah they are."
Sam: "Uh-huh."
Cam (non-lecherously): "Yeah."
I wonder how long this can go on for.
Big Daddy Kane - 'Warm It Up Kane'
(Girl yawps consent. Much dancing...)
Tuff Crew - 'My Part of Town'
(So damn tuff. Perplexed, but more dancing...)
Trick Daddy - 'In Da Wind'
(See above...)
Too Short - 'Burn Rubber'
(Girls dance. And by dance, I mean 'take turns freaking each other.')
and so on. if it was possible to say this without sounding sleazy, we just wanted to see how long this could possibly last. after all, anyone who has ever been to the enormous room knows that cantabridgians don't really get down: my boys don't dance they just pull up their pants and...hit the books. hard.
so this was more of a social experiment than anything resembling voyeurism.
and it ended, oddly enough, with this great song here.
...walking home at 2 a.m...
dave tompkins, excitedly, with brows in full effect: "we got paid for that?"
Labels: ACTUAL CONVERSATIONS
9.01.2004
Let Freedom Kick Some Ass!
I've long maintained that pro football is the realest thing one can possibly watch on television. I started thinking about this one afternoon as a Seattle Seahawk was splayed across the turf, possibly paralyzed, and the network broadcast did nothing but zoom closer. Violence is crucial to the logic of football, so the extreme ends of that violence-real, disgusting physical harm--doesn't get the cut-away or the commercial break, it gets replayed, over and over.
Anyhow, the RNC has renewed my faith in the possibility of seeing profoundly nutso things happen on live television. Tonight: Zell Miller challenging Chris Matthews to a duel. A truly magical moment.
"Let freedom reign" is a strange, somewhat disturbing figuration of a genuinely well-meaning idea-it doesn't make any sense. One wonders why reign was substituted for the traditional and kinder, gentler sounding ring, as the former doesn't exactly cue a lot of positive images. Mnemonically, to me at least, reign calls to mind Robespierre, Slayer and pixelated blood. But maybe they're just referencing this.
Lastly, the RNC has yielded few moments I'd call 'cute,' but this is surely one of them.
Anyhow, the RNC has renewed my faith in the possibility of seeing profoundly nutso things happen on live television. Tonight: Zell Miller challenging Chris Matthews to a duel. A truly magical moment.
"Let freedom reign" is a strange, somewhat disturbing figuration of a genuinely well-meaning idea-it doesn't make any sense. One wonders why reign was substituted for the traditional and kinder, gentler sounding ring, as the former doesn't exactly cue a lot of positive images. Mnemonically, to me at least, reign calls to mind Robespierre, Slayer and pixelated blood. But maybe they're just referencing this.
Lastly, the RNC has yielded few moments I'd call 'cute,' but this is surely one of them.
