“WHOOO! I am in LOVE! And it is aMAZing!” – Tom Cruise
“Maybe if you say it you’ll mean it”- Coldplay from “White Shadows” off X&Y
It’s everywhere. It’s taking over in fact. In every store and restaurant. At the gym and on the street. Even today at the post office the lady in front of me had her headphones turned up so loud I could hear it as I waited in line.
It’s Coldplay’s X&Y and it’s here to claim your summer.
In a sense it’s very exciting. I mean past summers have been owned by “Lean Back” and Sisquo, so it’s heartening that good music is actually threatening to dominate the summer. And while it’s disheartening that that’s so heartening, it’s nevertheless nothing but a good thing. And the fact that such a worthy band has achieved crossover universal appeal is outstanding. I mean I never thought there would be another straightforward rock band that would be beloved by people who don’t usually like rock. But Jay-Z, Timbaland, and, well, Timberlake, along with countless others, have all professed their love for Coldplay. It’s also very exciting to see a band become superstars right before my very eyes. I was starting to think there’d never be another band would achieve that kind of success. Another band that could claim to be “The Biggest” and at the same time “The Greatest” Rock and Roll Band in the world. A band that could sell out stadiums in minutes. A band that could cross cultural boundaries and be universally known and accepted.
A band like U2.
But Coldplay seems on the brink of doing just that. Becoming the “next U2”. Which is of course their stated goal. In case you couldn’t tell by listening to the album. Because listening to the album the fact that that is their goal is pretty obvious. For example, “Fix You” is the greatest U2 song U2 never wrote. Well except for the fact that they did and called it’s “Sometimes You Just Cant Make It On Your Own”. And it’s not just one song. The whole album, for all its merits, is a blatant attempt to be U2, and as Chris Maddox so accurately stated, the effort shows. The last two albums worked because they were Coldplay doing what they do. This album feels somewhat Cold because they are Playing at something. (Excuse the joke I almost made there.) But yet the album is selling like hotcakes and I suspect it will continue to do so. And so how their quest to be U2 plays out as they release “Talk” and “Fix You” to the airwaves in the coming months could be the story of the summer. For those into such things it’ll be fascinating to see what happens. In fact it could be the biggest thing going on this summer.
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In case you have been living in cave and in that cave you have no access to other people, television, radio, the internet, or any loose scrap of paper which might happen to be floating in the breeze then let me fill you in on the most important development in the history of man: Tom Cruise is insane. And he’s taking Katie Holmes with him. Wherever it is that he’s going exactly. Crazy Town perhaps. Cause they had that song that one time. Crazy Town did. It was about butterflies. But I digress. Point is, Tom Cruise is fucking nuts.
And I love it.
(And if you haven’t seen the Oprah footage for yourself and have only heard about it or seen still pictures of it I really cannot urge you strongly enough to go find it somewhere on the Internet and watch it for yourself. It’s even more astounding than you think. You really wont believe it.)
Now there are many things you could say about the whole Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes thing. And USA Today, The New York Times, Newsweek, Entertainment Weekly, Rolling Stone, the various succubae and pond-dwelling leeches who run US Weekly and People, and every website every created have all said most of them already. But still there are some things that could be delved into deeper. Like how this is now definitive proof Tom Cruise is gay (ask me to explain it to you and I will, but not right now). Or the significance of the fact that the biggest movie star of our generation has turned out to be absolutely insane. Or about how this all coinciding with the Michael Jackson verdict provides a startling and ironic comparison between the two biggest icons of the 80s and a look at the type of people America in the Reagan years chose to elevate to superstar status. But while I could make a whole article out of any one of these angles, it is another “angle” that is of more interest to me. Because while Tom Cruise’s insanity is clearly very real, his reasons for accidentally letting us see it are not. And unlike most people I am much more interested in his real insanity than in his fake relationship. And that’s where Russell Crowe comes in.
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Russell Crowe is the greatest actor working today. If you even want to try and argue with me I present you with the following list: “LA Confidential”, “The Insider”, “Gladiator”, “A Beautiful Mind”, “Master and Commander”, and “Cinderella Man”. There are two Oscars in that list (I refuse to acknowledge Denzel’s win in 2002) and there will soon be four nominations in there as well. Also, look at the diversity of characters he was able to play. And look at the quality of each of the movies (well except for “Gladiator” but I know I’m alone on that one) and realize that most of them would have mediocre at best with another actor in the lead. So the fact that with “Cinderella Man” he has now cemented his place as the greatest actor working today is pretty much not debatable. As such, it’s pretty much a given that he’s a little crazy. I mean lets look at past holders of the title “best actor working today” for proof:
Marlon Brando- I think this one’s pretty obvious but I do always like to tell the story about how he often would refuse to wear pants while filming “The Score” and would only refer to Frank Oz as Muppet Man.
Al Pacino- In case you missed “Salome” on Broadway or any of his awards show appearances from the past 5 years, he has completely lost it.
Robert DeNiro- By all accounts he is barely functional in social situations has as has been evidenced many times, has difficulty speaking in public.
Dustin Hoffman- At whatever old age he is, he still enjoys mooning people and farting in their faces.
Meryl Streep- She is a woman.
(more hate mail coming right about….NOW)
But anyway point is, as we all know, to be a truly great actor you have to be a little nuts. (Which explains why I am comparatively normal.) So it’s no surprise that Russell Crowe has the Renee Zellweger “I stare at the ground during the entire interview” thing going on a lot. And that he almost always comes off a bit awkwardly when doing anything other than acting. And that he also has a very bad temper. So maybe that why when he recently threw a phone at a hotel clerk who wouldn’t let him call his wife no one really seemed to notice. Oh sure it got some press for like a day, but no one was really too surprised and everyone moved on pretty quick. The public seemed to chalk it up to Russell being Russell and within a day were back obsessing over TomKat. TomKat was clearly the story that was much more interesting. But why? Why were people more fascinated by a clearly fake relationship than a real one? After all, everyone knows that TomKat is a publicity stunt and that his Oprah appearance was all planned to some degree whereas Russell and his wife have an actual relationship and his throwing the phone throwing was very much spontaneous. Why were we more interested in someone who is “enacting” his version of love than in a guy who is being driven by his version of love to act? Why are we more interested in someone trying to convince us that they’re something they’re not rather than in someone who, try as they might, couldn’t help but be true to who they are? Maybe the answer is obvious, but maybe it also has something to do with the fact we’ve been listening to X&Y too much.
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Now before going on there are three important things to know.
1.) I think X/Y is a very good album and I like it a lot. So as with my articles about "Garden State", "Love Actually" and any number of other things I don’t want anyone to misinterpret this as I’m trashing the album. I criticize to make better, not because it’s not good in the first place. As you know, the flaws of something almost bother you more the more you like it.
2.) I’ve already used that dashed line trick far too many times and its really breaking up the flow of this thing.
3.) U2 is the defining band of our times.
So now that that’s all clear I’d like to elaborate on the third point. And that is that there hasn’t been in bigger band in our lifetimes. Michael Jackson, Madonna and Prince are all solo artists, no one has bought an R.E.M. or Pearl Jam record in 10 years, Nirvana only released two real studio albums, and one of them was deliberately designed to alienate mainstream audiences, and other than “Creep” there’s not a single Radiohead song the average person on the street would know. So there’s really no one who can even remotely challenge them. By almost all accounts and by nearly all lists of such things, “Joshua Tree” was the best album of the 80s, “Actung Baby” was one of the top 10 albums of the 90’s and “All That You Cant Leave Behind” is one of the top 10 albums of the 2000’s so far. No one, not even The Beatles or Led Zeppelin, has had that sort of long lasting and continuous artistic and commercial relevance. And this isn’t just my opinion. Ask anyone who is in charge of critiquing, ranking or talking about these sorts of things. Like Brandon Flowers, the lead singer of The Killers, and Mr. Brightside himself. Here’s what he had to say about it:
“The Beatles were the best, but they broke up after, like, six years. U2, it’s been the same four guys for 25 years and they’ve never put out a shitty album. What other band can you say that about? The Stones have put out some pretty shitty albums…plus what they’ve done is incredibly tough…It’s hard to pull off something that big and that sincere without being corny”.
And it’s the last point that is what makes U2 so great. While I could write for several hundred pages about what makes U2 special, it comes down to this: who else could proclaim themselves the greatest rock and roll band in the world, say “the purpose of our music is to change the world”, have a lead singer with an unabashed messiah complex, be as passionately over the top with their emotions in our current age of irony, and not only be able to pull it off without seeming cheesy, ridiculous, or annoying, but instead be the most popular band in the world as a result? No one. And best of all through everything U2 has remained true to themselves and never tried to be something they were not. No matter how over the top they get, that is truely who they are. And of course there was the Zoo TV and Zooropa tours, and the period when Bono became The Fly and then became MacPhisto, and then their “dance/electronica” phase in the 90’s. But even at their most self-aware and ironic their music never lost the underlying heart, passion and righteousness. And any period that produced songs like “One” can’t be accused of being emotionally detached. Plus during that stretch they were simply following their muse and being who they were at that phase in their musical development. They weren’t trying to “be” any other band and they weren’t doing it to try and necessarily sell more records. If anything, the 90’s were their least productive period commercially, but they stuck with their direction anyway because that’s who they were at that time.
Now of course I may feel more strongly about U2 than many people my age. I mean I am the person who defines my religious beliefs with the sentence “I don’t believe in God, but I do believe in Bono.” But maybe that’s the problem. Maybe we should all embrace real genuine emotion instead of playing at it. We should embrace U2 for being genunine and fault Coldplay for "tyring" to be genunine. We should embrace Russell Crowe for being real and fault Tom Cruise not for his real insanity but for the fake emotion that brought it out. But instead we often scoff at genuine emotion as being cheesy and cliché and embrace the imatation. We can’t deal with people who are too intense or too passionate or too “over the top”. Like Jack Nicholson said (to Tom Cruise ironically enough) we “can’t handle the truth”. So instead we are fascinated by TomKat, but scared of Tom Cruise. We embrace Coldplay for trying to be U2, but we ignore the fact that you cant "try" to be genunine. But even when we try to hide from it, some truth comes out. When Tom tried to act like he was in love, the truth of his insanity came out. When Coldplay tried to act like a big life-altering rock band, the truth of their “limitations” as a downbeat intimate band came to light. Truth and emotion always somehow find a way out. And so for every “Guero”, there’s a “Sea Change”. And for every “Being John Malkovich”, there’s an “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”. And for every thing that appeals to the “idea” of feelings there is something equivalent that appeals to the true feelings themselves. And that’s the art that truly lasts. And the people who are truly memorable. So we don’t need another band trying to “be” U2 or another actor trying to “act” all “crazy in love”. The real things will work just fine thank you. Unlike what U2 said, there’s nothing that’s “even better than the real thing”. And that’s why I wish more artists would stick to simply being who they truly are, for better or for worse. Stop with the safe answers and the image consultants and the plans on how to break through to the big time. We need more throwing phones and less publicity stunts that unintentionally backfire. So accept who you are and what you do, and put it all out there for us to see. And if it doesn’t sell or if it scares us off, well, hey, at least it’s real. And thats what I value. And so that’s why as someone who spends my life obsessing over pop culture I try to gravitate to the few things that are real about it.
And as such, I love uninhibited emotion not filtered by publicists or concerns about making money. I love the gossip about the unguarded moments. I love heartfelt passion. I love feeling the artist’s soul.
I love Tom Cruise's insanity.
I love Russell Crowe.
And Coldplay, I love U2.
Second Thought of the Week:
I VERY recently got Chuck Klosterman's new book "Killing Yourself to Live". I have never been more excited about anything in my entire life. And that is much less of an exageration than you think. I have yet to even read a whole page but its already my new favorite book. Here's why:
1.) The book jacket expalins the purpose of the book "He wanted to know why the greatest career move any musican can make is to stop breathing...and what that means for the rest of us." A sentence VERY similar to one I worte about John Lennon back in December.
2.) The first sentence of the book is "I am not qualified to live here"
3.) The subtitle of the book is "85% of a true story"
4.) Its been described as "Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs" only with narrative structure.
As those who have ever read "Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs" or Spin Magazine know, Chuck Klosterman is my literary soul mate. More than Mcsweeneys or Bill Simmons this journal is intentionally/unintentionally modeled after Chuck. So if you at all enoy Fred, go buy Chuck.
Otherwise, youre not worth knowing.
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Sunday, June 19, 2005
Lists Mostly About Music
As you’ve probably noticed, me and VH1 have a lot in common. We both like music. We both love the 90’s. We’re both the bastard stepchildren of MTV. And we both like to make lists of things and rank them. And so I thought it would be fun to share this love of lists by making you read a bunch of pointless ones I came up with off the top of my head. Alcohol might or might not have also been involved. Plus I thought since me making lists was pretentious, self-involved, uninformative, not funny and required very little writing ability it would go in well with the rest of my entries. On the mr. brightside, this will be an entry you'll able to read in under an hour. So fire up your illegal downloading software, or if you are a massive loser, your iTunes music store, and prepare yourself for a bunch of lists (mostly) about music.
Top 3 & 1/2 Unanswered Questions About Music from the 90’s
1.) What exactly is it that the Backstreet Boys wanted and what way did they want it exactly?
2.) When Kurt Cobain said "I don’t have a gun, no I don't have a gun", was he lying? Because it sure seems like he was. Maybe his band mates shouldn’t have taken him at his word. Perhaps they also should have checked his attic
3.) But really, where WERE you while we were getting high?
3 & 1/2.) What the fuck was Michael Stipe talking about?
Top 3 & 1/2 Early Frontrunners for “Song of the Summer”
1.) “Talk” by Coldplay
2.) “I Predict A Riot” by The Kaiser Chiefs
3.) “Best of You” by Foo Fighters
3 & 1/2.) “Don’t Phunk With My Heart” by The Black Eyed Peas
Top 3 & 1/2 Responses to “Who’s There?”
1.) Banana
2.) Banana
3.) Banana
3 & 1/2.) Orange you glad I didn’t say banana again?
Top 3 & 1/2 Suggestions for Your Mix CD
1.) “Hot Black Silk” by Songs:Ohia
2.) “Lovers Spit” by Broken Social Scene
3.) “Too Young” by Phoenix
3 & 1/2.) “Biomusicology” by Ted Leo and the Pharmacists
Top 3 & 1/2 Sigur Ros Lyrics
1.) Sé sjálfan mig syngja fagnaðarerindið
2.) Ityoowoohoo
3.) Stari a ryðið sem vex á mér
3 & 1/2.) (silence)
Top 3 & 1/2 Albums From 2004 You Should Have But Probably Don’t
1.) Rilo Kiley- More Adventurous
2.) TV on the Radio- Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes
3.) The Arcade Fire- Funeral
3 & 1/2.) The Go Team!- Thunder, Lightning, Strike
Top 3 & 1/2 Kurt Cobain Lyrics
1.) “I wish I could eat your cancer when you turn black”
2.) “Who needs actions when you got words?”
3.) “Rape me, my friend”
3 & 1/2.) “What else could I say? / Everyone is gay / What else could I write? / I don't have the right / What else should I be? / All apologies”
Top 3 & 1/2 Uses of a Pre-existing Song in a Movie
Note: trying to narrow this down was as hard as trying to come up with a decent analogy
1.) “Tiny Dancer” in Almost Famous
2.) “Ooh La La” in Rushmore
3.) “The Weight” in The Big Chill
3 & 1/2.) “In Your Eyes” in Say Anything… (I know, I know, how obvious, but I couldn’t leave it off)
Top 3 & 1/2 Thoughts Had While Watching the “Preshow Entertainment” at Loews
1.) I enjoy motion pictures.
2.) That Coke commercial about the guys making the documentary is the best thing I’ve seen in theaters all year. That is sad on so many levels.
3.) I can’t believe I’m even thinking this, but I kinda miss the Fanta girls.
3 & 1/2.) If you want to know why Jodie Foster has had a great career and Kate Hudson hasn’t, then you should compare Skeleton Key and Flightplan.
Top 3 & 1/2 Great Songs That Thru Their Association with a Tragedy Became Transcendent
1.) “Where The Streets Have No Name” (from the 2002 Superbowl Halftime)- 9/11
2.) “All Apologies”- Kurt Cobain’s suicide
3.) “Let It Be”- the breakup of the Beatles
3 & 1/2.) “Lets Get It On”- my prom night
Top 3 & 1/2 Songs on My Ipod That in Some Way Involve Male Royalty
1.) “Kings” by Steely Dan
2.) “Charlemagne in Sweatpants” by The Hold Steady
3.) “Richard III” by Supergrass
3 & 1/2.) “Paper Doll” by Louis XIV
Top 3 & 1/2 Ways Kanye West's Lyric "The Way School Need Teachers / The Way Kathie Lee Needed Regis / That's the Way I Need Jesus," Could Be Adapted for Other Religions. (Stolen from Mcsweeneys.net)
1.) Islam
The way Madonna need the Kabbalah / The way Skee-Lo needed more royalties from "I wish I was a li'l bit talla" / That the way I need Allah
2.) Shintoism
The way the Bush camp needed to find some WMDs / The way Scottish tourism needs the Hebrides / That how I need various "kami," nature deities
3.) Zoroastrianism
The way the troops need to come home from Basra / The way my friend Terry's dad needs his '96 Mazda / So, too, do I need a Mazda, except I am of course referring to Ahura Mazda, the single supreme god of Zoroastrianism
3 & 1/2.) Atheism
The way the Red Sox need the curse of Babe Ruth / The way Abraham Lincoln needed Booth / That's how much I need a deity of any sort / That is to say, not very much at all
Top 3 & 1/2 of the Week
1.) http://dutchwest.tv/
2.) The music from "In Good Company"
3.) Micheal Moore's The Awful Truth: Season Two, Episode 5 - "Ficus for Congress"
3 & 1/2.) RENT: the Movie anticipation
See the trailer: http://movies.channel.aol.com/franchise/exclusives/rent_movie
Thought of the Week:
Since we're now 4 episodes in, its safe to say that not only is Family Guy back but its better than ever. The Van Gough flashback a few weeks ago and the Hiroshima flashback this week were two of the finest moments in the show's history. Just astounding that show is. Sometimes its brillance makes my head hurt.
Top 3 & 1/2 Unanswered Questions About Music from the 90’s
1.) What exactly is it that the Backstreet Boys wanted and what way did they want it exactly?
2.) When Kurt Cobain said "I don’t have a gun, no I don't have a gun", was he lying? Because it sure seems like he was. Maybe his band mates shouldn’t have taken him at his word. Perhaps they also should have checked his attic
3.) But really, where WERE you while we were getting high?
3 & 1/2.) What the fuck was Michael Stipe talking about?
Top 3 & 1/2 Early Frontrunners for “Song of the Summer”
1.) “Talk” by Coldplay
2.) “I Predict A Riot” by The Kaiser Chiefs
3.) “Best of You” by Foo Fighters
3 & 1/2.) “Don’t Phunk With My Heart” by The Black Eyed Peas
Top 3 & 1/2 Responses to “Who’s There?”
1.) Banana
2.) Banana
3.) Banana
3 & 1/2.) Orange you glad I didn’t say banana again?
Top 3 & 1/2 Suggestions for Your Mix CD
1.) “Hot Black Silk” by Songs:Ohia
2.) “Lovers Spit” by Broken Social Scene
3.) “Too Young” by Phoenix
3 & 1/2.) “Biomusicology” by Ted Leo and the Pharmacists
Top 3 & 1/2 Sigur Ros Lyrics
1.) Sé sjálfan mig syngja fagnaðarerindið
2.) Ityoowoohoo
3.) Stari a ryðið sem vex á mér
3 & 1/2.) (silence)
Top 3 & 1/2 Albums From 2004 You Should Have But Probably Don’t
1.) Rilo Kiley- More Adventurous
2.) TV on the Radio- Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes
3.) The Arcade Fire- Funeral
3 & 1/2.) The Go Team!- Thunder, Lightning, Strike
Top 3 & 1/2 Kurt Cobain Lyrics
1.) “I wish I could eat your cancer when you turn black”
2.) “Who needs actions when you got words?”
3.) “Rape me, my friend”
3 & 1/2.) “What else could I say? / Everyone is gay / What else could I write? / I don't have the right / What else should I be? / All apologies”
Top 3 & 1/2 Uses of a Pre-existing Song in a Movie
Note: trying to narrow this down was as hard as trying to come up with a decent analogy
1.) “Tiny Dancer” in Almost Famous
2.) “Ooh La La” in Rushmore
3.) “The Weight” in The Big Chill
3 & 1/2.) “In Your Eyes” in Say Anything… (I know, I know, how obvious, but I couldn’t leave it off)
Top 3 & 1/2 Thoughts Had While Watching the “Preshow Entertainment” at Loews
1.) I enjoy motion pictures.
2.) That Coke commercial about the guys making the documentary is the best thing I’ve seen in theaters all year. That is sad on so many levels.
3.) I can’t believe I’m even thinking this, but I kinda miss the Fanta girls.
3 & 1/2.) If you want to know why Jodie Foster has had a great career and Kate Hudson hasn’t, then you should compare Skeleton Key and Flightplan.
Top 3 & 1/2 Great Songs That Thru Their Association with a Tragedy Became Transcendent
1.) “Where The Streets Have No Name” (from the 2002 Superbowl Halftime)- 9/11
2.) “All Apologies”- Kurt Cobain’s suicide
3.) “Let It Be”- the breakup of the Beatles
3 & 1/2.) “Lets Get It On”- my prom night
Top 3 & 1/2 Songs on My Ipod That in Some Way Involve Male Royalty
1.) “Kings” by Steely Dan
2.) “Charlemagne in Sweatpants” by The Hold Steady
3.) “Richard III” by Supergrass
3 & 1/2.) “Paper Doll” by Louis XIV
Top 3 & 1/2 Ways Kanye West's Lyric "The Way School Need Teachers / The Way Kathie Lee Needed Regis / That's the Way I Need Jesus," Could Be Adapted for Other Religions. (Stolen from Mcsweeneys.net)
1.) Islam
The way Madonna need the Kabbalah / The way Skee-Lo needed more royalties from "I wish I was a li'l bit talla" / That the way I need Allah
2.) Shintoism
The way the Bush camp needed to find some WMDs / The way Scottish tourism needs the Hebrides / That how I need various "kami," nature deities
3.) Zoroastrianism
The way the troops need to come home from Basra / The way my friend Terry's dad needs his '96 Mazda / So, too, do I need a Mazda, except I am of course referring to Ahura Mazda, the single supreme god of Zoroastrianism
3 & 1/2.) Atheism
The way the Red Sox need the curse of Babe Ruth / The way Abraham Lincoln needed Booth / That's how much I need a deity of any sort / That is to say, not very much at all
Top 3 & 1/2 of the Week
1.) http://dutchwest.tv/
2.) The music from "In Good Company"
3.) Micheal Moore's The Awful Truth: Season Two, Episode 5 - "Ficus for Congress"
3 & 1/2.) RENT: the Movie anticipation
See the trailer: http://movies.channel.aol.com/franchise/exclusives/rent_movie
Thought of the Week:
Since we're now 4 episodes in, its safe to say that not only is Family Guy back but its better than ever. The Van Gough flashback a few weeks ago and the Hiroshima flashback this week were two of the finest moments in the show's history. Just astounding that show is. Sometimes its brillance makes my head hurt.
Sunday, May 29, 2005
Marymount Musings: Graduation Edition
It’s hard to believe that I am finally, at long last, a college graduate. It seems like college took almost as long to complete as it took me to update the journal. Yet at the same time it also seems like just yesterday I plagiarized my first college paper. Yet now its four years later and I have my cheap paper folder that is supposed to contain my degree but that I know likely never will as there’s at least a 60% chance the school will fuck it up somehow and I’ll never receive it. And although the past four years were fun, I cant help but feel that I somewhat missed out on the full Marymount experience. I mean I made it through four years at Marymount without not getting cast, developing a nicotine addiction, or having sex with a guy. Which I guess actually means I have a lot in common with most of the girls at Marymount.
I’m sorry, that’s not entirely fair. I take that back.
Most girls at Marymount are addicted to nicotine… Regardless, it’s quite an accomplishment. But nevertheless it’s over, and all I have now is the memories. Well that, and the emotional scars. And the soul crushing debt. And the deep-seated hatred for all humanity. And of course…the musings.
*Top 3 &1/2 Observations About Graduation:
1.) I feel like the valedictorian got that speech out of Valedictorian Speeches for Dummies. Either that or out of Mad Libs but instead of putting “penis” and “fart” in the blanks she put in “momentous” and “exacerbate” instead.
2.) I think I speak for most of us when I say: who knew Shawn McLaughlin was such a nerd?
3.) Which name was most surprising to hear being called out: Nick Billotti or Joe Muto? Its hard to say.
3 & 1/2.) Some people have said Hilary’s speech was boring and uninspiring because she’s got the personality of a piece of lumber. Others have said it was because she didn’t take Crit. III. Others have said it was because after she heard the first guy’s speech she knew she couldn’t top him so she decided to not even bother. And while all valid, none of those are completely right. I think deep down we all know the real reason…
It’s because she’s a woman.
(First piece of hate mail coming in 3…2…1…Hey there it is!)
*Barbara Adrian makes me go “OOOOO”.
*I thought I should share this email I got the other day…
To: Andy Stokan
From: Peter Baker
Subject: Kudos on your shit
Dear all involved with your shit last night,
What a grand and stimulating excrement of feces you partook in last night! The lugubrious deliverance of the soupcon of excrements into the tranquil pool of liquid below evoked Renior’s masterpiece Loir-et-Chait de Blois and the voluptuous enormity of each fecal matter caused a hardening to transpire in mine own pants. While watching, I was reminded of Bernard Pevou’s fine work Les Triumph du Poopoo in which he states so majestically, “Quicon du la pori cara wei”. And I think we can all agree on that! The lighting and set too were of such splendor and magnificence that I myself did shit mine own trousers several times over. Kudos!
-Peter Baker
*Specially Requested Shout Out of the Week: Theater Bakeshop - baking quality plays since Spring ‘05
*Top 3 & 1/2 Ways Java City is Different Than the Real World:
1.) At Java City, Carmine gives you free smoothies; in the real world, Carmine makes you eat cake.
2.) At Java City, I can’t have my iced coffee because they are out of two key ingredients: ice and coffee; in the real world, I shoot them in the face.
3.) At Java City, you get coffee and hip-hop at the same time; in the real world, not so much.
3 & 1/2.) At Java City, if they are closed you can always go use the vending machines; oh wait no you can’t because they are fucking broken!
*Who is “Kelly” and how can I thank her?
*I have a math problem for you:
1 building + 8 floors + 3 elevators + (1 elevator that services all 8 floors) – (2 elevators that only service 3 floors) + 10,000 decrepit old people = sheer chaos. Seriously did the people that run this school not pass basic math? Wait, don’t answer that…But seriously the express elevator idea is like the worst idea the school has made since whatever the last decision they made prior to that one was.
The only good thing the express elevators have done is given worth to the 7th floor. Before it was the armpit of the school, now it’s the place to want your class to be. As Martha Cary said, only with much funnier wording, the 7th Floor is now like the 86th Street stop of Marymount. Now if only the cross-town bus stopped there too we’d be all set.
*My first three years at Marymount saw a lot of change, but through it all there was one thing that always remained the same. If you were at school and you had time to kill the only place to do it was the Nuge. Regardless of if you had to kill five minutes or five hours, the Nuge could meet your time wasting needs. It was the place to see and be seen. Whether you were Nairoby Otero or just one of Nairoby’s friends, the Nuge was the place be. It didn’t matter if you wanted to bitch about every aspect of human existence with the musical theater kids in the corner or just practice your scene at a really loud volume; there was a place for you in the Nuge. But this past year the Nuge just wasn’t the same. I would often have to search for several seconds before even finding a familiar face. Some of the computers actually functioned. And on occasion, Katie Gorum was nowhere to be found! It got so bad I almost considered doing my jewelry shopping somewhere else. Most days I could barely even kill half a Fox 5 News Segment in there. So while I have moved on, there are those who are just begining their days at Marymount who will sadly never know about the thriving civilization that once existed in the very room where they eat their daily Graces’ salad. And it is for them that I feel bad. May they find their social life somewhere new.
“The Nuge is dead, long live the Nuge!”
*Top 3 & 1/2 Potential New Slogans for Marymount:
1.) “High School: The College Years”
2.) “Our students are just like the kids from “Fame”, only minus the talent and ambition!”
3.) “Putting the liberal back in liberal arts!”
3 & 1/2.) “Got coke?”
*Rumor has it that one time a guy ate an entire Java City chocolate chip cookie in one sitting. He’s dead now.
*In closing I wanted to say something slightly heartfelt. But then Lauren Morelli stole my thunder. So to elaborate on what she said, I will say that the fact we like to bitch about things, and the fact that we’re a tight community who deep down loves our school aren’t facts that are in opposition. In reality, they go hand in hand. It’s not just 9/11 that bonded us, but moreso it was the little things. The waiting outside at 4am in the cold to register for classes. The first days of 55th Street. Knowing what things were like pre-Jim Hundriser. The Black Sheep being our college bar. Having to rehearse your scene with eight other groups in the Rat. Having to sit through The Seagull. The entire Ben Prior Administration. And the list goes on and on. All these little things joined us together as much as “the big thing”. And bitching about them all is what made the bond so strong. It gave us a common goal and shared pain, and as a psychology major would tell you (if they existed), that’s one of the strongest ways to create an emotional bond with another person. The crazy thing is that sometime during all that bitching we actually changed things. It’s hard to believe, but the school is now actually a functional institution. And sadly as the school gets better, each incoming class gets worse. (If you don’t believe me, ask David Mold.) And it breaks my heart. Because the new kids will never know the Marymount we knew. The Marymount that made us who we are. They know the post-surgery Marymount, but we knew her back when she was fat and acne ridden. We knew her when she was real. But they will never know her, because we killed her. They say love hurts; well I guess our love did. Because the Gucci purse carrying, low rise jean wearing, fabulously manicured English majors who now populate the Nuge are not Marymount. And I’m sure there are also females who match the same description, and they aren’t Marymount either.
We are.
Scrappy, disgruntled, and never taking anything for granted. “The Golden Class.”
We may not have been able to buy a plasma TV as a Senior gift but we did something else.
We built a school.
And for that we are very sorry.
I love you all.
Top 3 & 1/2 of the Week:
1.) THE WEST WING! (A full length article on why The West Wing is the greatest thing in the history of man might be forthcoming. But dont hold me to that.)
2.) 1845 1st Avenue, Apt. 2S
3.) neverending summer
3 & 1/2.) Black Rebel Motorcycle Club- "Whatever Happened to My Rock N Roll"
Thought of the Week:
Would the opposite of the video game "Street Fighter" be "Street Lover"? Would it be the game for pacifists? I mean I feel like thats really a large untapped market for fighting games. And if they did make it, would its theme song be "Why Dont We Do It In The Road"? Someone should look into this...
I’m sorry, that’s not entirely fair. I take that back.
Most girls at Marymount are addicted to nicotine… Regardless, it’s quite an accomplishment. But nevertheless it’s over, and all I have now is the memories. Well that, and the emotional scars. And the soul crushing debt. And the deep-seated hatred for all humanity. And of course…the musings.
*Top 3 &1/2 Observations About Graduation:
1.) I feel like the valedictorian got that speech out of Valedictorian Speeches for Dummies. Either that or out of Mad Libs but instead of putting “penis” and “fart” in the blanks she put in “momentous” and “exacerbate” instead.
2.) I think I speak for most of us when I say: who knew Shawn McLaughlin was such a nerd?
3.) Which name was most surprising to hear being called out: Nick Billotti or Joe Muto? Its hard to say.
3 & 1/2.) Some people have said Hilary’s speech was boring and uninspiring because she’s got the personality of a piece of lumber. Others have said it was because she didn’t take Crit. III. Others have said it was because after she heard the first guy’s speech she knew she couldn’t top him so she decided to not even bother. And while all valid, none of those are completely right. I think deep down we all know the real reason…
It’s because she’s a woman.
(First piece of hate mail coming in 3…2…1…Hey there it is!)
*Barbara Adrian makes me go “OOOOO”.
*I thought I should share this email I got the other day…
To: Andy Stokan
From: Peter Baker
Subject: Kudos on your shit
Dear all involved with your shit last night,
What a grand and stimulating excrement of feces you partook in last night! The lugubrious deliverance of the soupcon of excrements into the tranquil pool of liquid below evoked Renior’s masterpiece Loir-et-Chait de Blois and the voluptuous enormity of each fecal matter caused a hardening to transpire in mine own pants. While watching, I was reminded of Bernard Pevou’s fine work Les Triumph du Poopoo in which he states so majestically, “Quicon du la pori cara wei”. And I think we can all agree on that! The lighting and set too were of such splendor and magnificence that I myself did shit mine own trousers several times over. Kudos!
-Peter Baker
*Specially Requested Shout Out of the Week: Theater Bakeshop - baking quality plays since Spring ‘05
*Top 3 & 1/2 Ways Java City is Different Than the Real World:
1.) At Java City, Carmine gives you free smoothies; in the real world, Carmine makes you eat cake.
2.) At Java City, I can’t have my iced coffee because they are out of two key ingredients: ice and coffee; in the real world, I shoot them in the face.
3.) At Java City, you get coffee and hip-hop at the same time; in the real world, not so much.
3 & 1/2.) At Java City, if they are closed you can always go use the vending machines; oh wait no you can’t because they are fucking broken!
*Who is “Kelly” and how can I thank her?
*I have a math problem for you:
1 building + 8 floors + 3 elevators + (1 elevator that services all 8 floors) – (2 elevators that only service 3 floors) + 10,000 decrepit old people = sheer chaos. Seriously did the people that run this school not pass basic math? Wait, don’t answer that…But seriously the express elevator idea is like the worst idea the school has made since whatever the last decision they made prior to that one was.
The only good thing the express elevators have done is given worth to the 7th floor. Before it was the armpit of the school, now it’s the place to want your class to be. As Martha Cary said, only with much funnier wording, the 7th Floor is now like the 86th Street stop of Marymount. Now if only the cross-town bus stopped there too we’d be all set.
*My first three years at Marymount saw a lot of change, but through it all there was one thing that always remained the same. If you were at school and you had time to kill the only place to do it was the Nuge. Regardless of if you had to kill five minutes or five hours, the Nuge could meet your time wasting needs. It was the place to see and be seen. Whether you were Nairoby Otero or just one of Nairoby’s friends, the Nuge was the place be. It didn’t matter if you wanted to bitch about every aspect of human existence with the musical theater kids in the corner or just practice your scene at a really loud volume; there was a place for you in the Nuge. But this past year the Nuge just wasn’t the same. I would often have to search for several seconds before even finding a familiar face. Some of the computers actually functioned. And on occasion, Katie Gorum was nowhere to be found! It got so bad I almost considered doing my jewelry shopping somewhere else. Most days I could barely even kill half a Fox 5 News Segment in there. So while I have moved on, there are those who are just begining their days at Marymount who will sadly never know about the thriving civilization that once existed in the very room where they eat their daily Graces’ salad. And it is for them that I feel bad. May they find their social life somewhere new.
“The Nuge is dead, long live the Nuge!”
*Top 3 & 1/2 Potential New Slogans for Marymount:
1.) “High School: The College Years”
2.) “Our students are just like the kids from “Fame”, only minus the talent and ambition!”
3.) “Putting the liberal back in liberal arts!”
3 & 1/2.) “Got coke?”
*Rumor has it that one time a guy ate an entire Java City chocolate chip cookie in one sitting. He’s dead now.
*In closing I wanted to say something slightly heartfelt. But then Lauren Morelli stole my thunder. So to elaborate on what she said, I will say that the fact we like to bitch about things, and the fact that we’re a tight community who deep down loves our school aren’t facts that are in opposition. In reality, they go hand in hand. It’s not just 9/11 that bonded us, but moreso it was the little things. The waiting outside at 4am in the cold to register for classes. The first days of 55th Street. Knowing what things were like pre-Jim Hundriser. The Black Sheep being our college bar. Having to rehearse your scene with eight other groups in the Rat. Having to sit through The Seagull. The entire Ben Prior Administration. And the list goes on and on. All these little things joined us together as much as “the big thing”. And bitching about them all is what made the bond so strong. It gave us a common goal and shared pain, and as a psychology major would tell you (if they existed), that’s one of the strongest ways to create an emotional bond with another person. The crazy thing is that sometime during all that bitching we actually changed things. It’s hard to believe, but the school is now actually a functional institution. And sadly as the school gets better, each incoming class gets worse. (If you don’t believe me, ask David Mold.) And it breaks my heart. Because the new kids will never know the Marymount we knew. The Marymount that made us who we are. They know the post-surgery Marymount, but we knew her back when she was fat and acne ridden. We knew her when she was real. But they will never know her, because we killed her. They say love hurts; well I guess our love did. Because the Gucci purse carrying, low rise jean wearing, fabulously manicured English majors who now populate the Nuge are not Marymount. And I’m sure there are also females who match the same description, and they aren’t Marymount either.
We are.
Scrappy, disgruntled, and never taking anything for granted. “The Golden Class.”
We may not have been able to buy a plasma TV as a Senior gift but we did something else.
We built a school.
And for that we are very sorry.
I love you all.
Top 3 & 1/2 of the Week:
1.) THE WEST WING! (A full length article on why The West Wing is the greatest thing in the history of man might be forthcoming. But dont hold me to that.)
2.) 1845 1st Avenue, Apt. 2S
3.) neverending summer
3 & 1/2.) Black Rebel Motorcycle Club- "Whatever Happened to My Rock N Roll"
Thought of the Week:
Would the opposite of the video game "Street Fighter" be "Street Lover"? Would it be the game for pacifists? I mean I feel like thats really a large untapped market for fighting games. And if they did make it, would its theme song be "Why Dont We Do It In The Road"? Someone should look into this...
Monday, May 16, 2005
Advice From God
Due to the countless hours spent editing and adding on to last week’s entry, along with many other factors, including incredible amounts of laziness, the Graduation Edition of Marymount Musings I have been promising is taking longer than expected. And by taking longer than expected I mean I haven’t started it yet. And since I care greatly about the quality of my work, I would never want to give my loyal readers anything that I didn’t spend a long time on and pour my heart into. So therefore I give you this Jon Stewart graduation speech that I cut and pasted here from a random website instead.
Hey, don’t complain; its better than anything Ill ever write. Plus, well, its awesome. And it’s a perfect example of what my writing would be like if I was blessed with God-like humor and writing ability and/or was Jon Stewart. Plus, I don’t know if I mentioned this yet or not, but its pretty amazing. Probably the most amazing graduation speech you’ll ever read. And I thought it would be nice to be exposed to at least ONE good graduation speech this week. So stop complaining and enjoy the fact that I’m giving you anything at all this week.
I know you’re really hungry for a new article but hopefully this will tide you over until the main course comes. In that sense, this is like going to dinner and being given a free appetizer, only the appetizer is deluxe nachos and mozzarella sticks and the entree you ordered was poop in a bucket.
So the point is, enjoy.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jon Stewart's (Class of '84) Commencement Address
Thank you Mr. President, I had forgotten how crushingly dull these ceremonies are. Thank you.
My best to the choir. I have to say, that song never grows old for me. Whenever I hear that song, it reminds me of nothing.
I am honored to be here, I do have a confession to make before we get going that I should explain very quickly. When I am not on television, this is actually how I dress. I apologize, but there’s something very freeing about it. I congratulate the students for being able to walk even a half a mile in this non-breathable fabric in the Williamsburg heat. I am sure the environment that now exists under your robes, are the same conditions that primordial life began on this earth.
I know there were some parents that were concerned about my speech here tonight, and I want to assure you that you will not hear any language that is not common at, say, a dock workers union meeting, or Tourrett’s convention, or profanity seminar. Rest assured.
I am honored to be here and to receive this honorary doctorate. When I think back to the people that have been in this position before me from Benjamin Franklin to Queen Noor of Jordan, I can’t help but wonder what has happened to this place. Seriously, it saddens me. As a person, I am honored to get it; as an alumnus, I have to say I believe we can do better. And I believe we should. But it has always been a dream of mine to receive a doctorate and to know that today, without putting in any effort, I will. It’s incredibly gratifying. Thank you. That’s very nice of you, I appreciate it.
I’m sure my fellow doctoral graduates—who have spent so long toiling in academia, sinking into debt, sacrificing God knows how many years of what, in truth, is a piece of parchment that in truth has been so devalued by our instant gratification culture as to have been rendered meaningless—will join in congratulating me. Thank you.
But today isn’t about how my presence here devalues this fine institution. It is about you, the graduates. I’m honored to be here to congratulate you today. Today is the day you enter into the real world, and I should give you a few pointers on what it is. It’s actually not that different from the environment here. The biggest difference is you will now be paying for things, and the real world is not surrounded by three-foot brick wall. And the real world is not a restoration. If you see people in the real world making bricks out of straw and water, those people are not colonial re-enactors—they are poor. Help them.
Lets talk about the real world for a moment. We had been discussing it earlier, and I…I wanted to bring this up to you earlier about the real world, and this is I guess as good a time as any. I don’t really know to put this, so I’ll be blunt. We broke it.
Please don’t be mad. I know we were supposed to bequeath to the next generation a world better than the one we were handed. So, sorry.
I don’t know if you’ve been following the news lately, but it just kinda got away from us. Somewhere between the gold rush of easy internet profits and an arrogant sense of endless empire, we heard kind of a pinging noise, and uh, then the damn thing just died on us. So I apologize.
But here’s the good news. You fix this thing, you’re the next greatest generation, people. You do this—and I believe you can—you win this war on terror, and Tom Brokaw’s kissing your ass from here to Tikrit, let me tell ya. And even if you don’t, you’re not gonna have much trouble surpassing my generation. If you end up getting your picture taken next to a naked guy pile of enemy prisoners and don’t give the thumbs up you’ve outdid us.
We declared war on terror. We declared war on terror—it’s not even a noun, so, good luck. After we defeat it, I’m sure we’ll take on that bastard ennui.
But obviously that’s the world. What about your lives? What piece of wisdom can I impart to you about my journey that will somehow ease your transition from college back to your parents' basement?
I know some of you are nostalgic today and filled with excitement and perhaps uncertainty at what the future holds. I know six of you are trying to figure out how to make a bong out of your caps.
So I thought I’d talk a little bit about my experience here at William and Mary. It was very long ago, and if you had been to William and Mary while I was here and found out that I would be the commencement speaker 20 years later, you would be somewhat surprised, and probably somewhat angry. I came to William and Mary because as a Jewish person I wanted to explore the rich tapestry of Judaica that is Southern Virginia. Imagine my surprise when I realized “The Tribe” was not what I thought it meant.
In 1980 I was 17 years old. When I moved to Williamsburg, my hall was in the basement of Yates, which combined the cheerfulness of a bomb shelter with the prison-like comfort of the group shower. As a freshman I was quite a catch. Less than five feet tall, yet my head is the same size it is now. Didn’t even really look like a head, it looked more like a container for a head. I looked like a Peanuts character. Peanuts characters had terrible acne. But what I lacked in looks I made up for with a repugnant personality.
In 1981 I lost my virginity, only to gain it back again on appeal in 1983. You could say that my one saving grace was academics where I excelled, but I did not.
And yet now I live in the rarified air of celebrity, of mega stardom. My life a series of Hollywood orgies and Kabala center brunches with the cast of Friends. At least that’s what my handlers tell me. I’m actually too valuable to live my own life and spend most of my days in a vegetable crisper to remain fake news anchor fresh.
So I know that the decisions that I made after college worked out. But at the time I didn’t know that they would. See college is not necessarily predictive of your future success. And it’s the kind of thing where the path that I chose obviously wouldn’t work for you. For one, you’re not very funny.
So how do you know what is the right path to choose to get the result that you desire? And the honest answer is this. You won’t. And accepting that greatly eases the anxiety of your life experience.
I was not exceptional here, and am not now. I was mediocre here. And I’m not saying aim low. Not everybody can wander around in an alcoholic haze and then at 40 just, you know, decide to be president. You’ve got to really work hard to try to…I was actually referring to my father.
When I left William and Mary I was shell-shocked. Because when you’re in college it’s very clear what you have to do to succeed. And I imagine here everybody knows exactly the number of credits they needed to graduate, where they had to buckle down, which introductory psychology class would pad out the schedule. You knew what you had to do to get to this college and to graduate from it. But the unfortunate, yet truly exciting thing about your life, is that there is no core curriculum. The entire place is an elective. The paths are infinite and the results uncertain. And it can be maddening to those that go here, especially here, because your strength has always been achievement. So if there’s any real advice I can give you it’s this.
College is something you complete. Life is something you experience. So don’t worry about your grade, or the results or success. Success is defined in myriad ways, and you will find it, and people will no longer be grading you, but it will come from your own internal sense of decency which I imagine, after going through the program here, is quite strong…although I’m sure downloading illegal files…but, nah, that’s a different story.
Love what you do. Get good at it. Competence is a rare commodity in this day and age. And let the chips fall where they may.
And the last thing I want to address is the idea that somehow this new generation is not as prepared for the sacrifice and the tenacity that will be needed in the difficult times ahead. I have not found this generation to be cynical or apathetic or selfish. They are as strong and as decent as any people that I have met. And I will say this, on my way down here I stopped at Bethesda Naval, and when you talk to the young kids that are there that have just been back from Iraq and Afghanistan, you don’t have the worry about the future that you hear from so many that are not a part of this generation but judging it from above.
And the other thing….that I will say is, when I spoke earlier about the world being broke, I was somewhat being facetious, because every generation has their challenge. And things change rapidly, and life gets better in an instant.
I was in New York on 9-11 when the towers came down. I lived 14 blocks from the twin towers. And when they came down, I thought that the world had ended. And I remember walking around in a daze for weeks. And Mayor Giuliani had said to the city, “You’ve got to get back to normal. We’ve got to show that things can change and get back to what they were.”
And one day I was coming out of my building, and on my stoop, was a man who was crouched over, and he appeared to be in deep thought. And as I got closer to him I realized, he was playing with himself. And that’s when I thought, “You know what, we’re gonna be OK.”
Thank you. Congratulations. I honor you. Good Night.
Hey, don’t complain; its better than anything Ill ever write. Plus, well, its awesome. And it’s a perfect example of what my writing would be like if I was blessed with God-like humor and writing ability and/or was Jon Stewart. Plus, I don’t know if I mentioned this yet or not, but its pretty amazing. Probably the most amazing graduation speech you’ll ever read. And I thought it would be nice to be exposed to at least ONE good graduation speech this week. So stop complaining and enjoy the fact that I’m giving you anything at all this week.
I know you’re really hungry for a new article but hopefully this will tide you over until the main course comes. In that sense, this is like going to dinner and being given a free appetizer, only the appetizer is deluxe nachos and mozzarella sticks and the entree you ordered was poop in a bucket.
So the point is, enjoy.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jon Stewart's (Class of '84) Commencement Address
Thank you Mr. President, I had forgotten how crushingly dull these ceremonies are. Thank you.
My best to the choir. I have to say, that song never grows old for me. Whenever I hear that song, it reminds me of nothing.
I am honored to be here, I do have a confession to make before we get going that I should explain very quickly. When I am not on television, this is actually how I dress. I apologize, but there’s something very freeing about it. I congratulate the students for being able to walk even a half a mile in this non-breathable fabric in the Williamsburg heat. I am sure the environment that now exists under your robes, are the same conditions that primordial life began on this earth.
I know there were some parents that were concerned about my speech here tonight, and I want to assure you that you will not hear any language that is not common at, say, a dock workers union meeting, or Tourrett’s convention, or profanity seminar. Rest assured.
I am honored to be here and to receive this honorary doctorate. When I think back to the people that have been in this position before me from Benjamin Franklin to Queen Noor of Jordan, I can’t help but wonder what has happened to this place. Seriously, it saddens me. As a person, I am honored to get it; as an alumnus, I have to say I believe we can do better. And I believe we should. But it has always been a dream of mine to receive a doctorate and to know that today, without putting in any effort, I will. It’s incredibly gratifying. Thank you. That’s very nice of you, I appreciate it.
I’m sure my fellow doctoral graduates—who have spent so long toiling in academia, sinking into debt, sacrificing God knows how many years of what, in truth, is a piece of parchment that in truth has been so devalued by our instant gratification culture as to have been rendered meaningless—will join in congratulating me. Thank you.
But today isn’t about how my presence here devalues this fine institution. It is about you, the graduates. I’m honored to be here to congratulate you today. Today is the day you enter into the real world, and I should give you a few pointers on what it is. It’s actually not that different from the environment here. The biggest difference is you will now be paying for things, and the real world is not surrounded by three-foot brick wall. And the real world is not a restoration. If you see people in the real world making bricks out of straw and water, those people are not colonial re-enactors—they are poor. Help them.
Lets talk about the real world for a moment. We had been discussing it earlier, and I…I wanted to bring this up to you earlier about the real world, and this is I guess as good a time as any. I don’t really know to put this, so I’ll be blunt. We broke it.
Please don’t be mad. I know we were supposed to bequeath to the next generation a world better than the one we were handed. So, sorry.
I don’t know if you’ve been following the news lately, but it just kinda got away from us. Somewhere between the gold rush of easy internet profits and an arrogant sense of endless empire, we heard kind of a pinging noise, and uh, then the damn thing just died on us. So I apologize.
But here’s the good news. You fix this thing, you’re the next greatest generation, people. You do this—and I believe you can—you win this war on terror, and Tom Brokaw’s kissing your ass from here to Tikrit, let me tell ya. And even if you don’t, you’re not gonna have much trouble surpassing my generation. If you end up getting your picture taken next to a naked guy pile of enemy prisoners and don’t give the thumbs up you’ve outdid us.
We declared war on terror. We declared war on terror—it’s not even a noun, so, good luck. After we defeat it, I’m sure we’ll take on that bastard ennui.
But obviously that’s the world. What about your lives? What piece of wisdom can I impart to you about my journey that will somehow ease your transition from college back to your parents' basement?
I know some of you are nostalgic today and filled with excitement and perhaps uncertainty at what the future holds. I know six of you are trying to figure out how to make a bong out of your caps.
So I thought I’d talk a little bit about my experience here at William and Mary. It was very long ago, and if you had been to William and Mary while I was here and found out that I would be the commencement speaker 20 years later, you would be somewhat surprised, and probably somewhat angry. I came to William and Mary because as a Jewish person I wanted to explore the rich tapestry of Judaica that is Southern Virginia. Imagine my surprise when I realized “The Tribe” was not what I thought it meant.
In 1980 I was 17 years old. When I moved to Williamsburg, my hall was in the basement of Yates, which combined the cheerfulness of a bomb shelter with the prison-like comfort of the group shower. As a freshman I was quite a catch. Less than five feet tall, yet my head is the same size it is now. Didn’t even really look like a head, it looked more like a container for a head. I looked like a Peanuts character. Peanuts characters had terrible acne. But what I lacked in looks I made up for with a repugnant personality.
In 1981 I lost my virginity, only to gain it back again on appeal in 1983. You could say that my one saving grace was academics where I excelled, but I did not.
And yet now I live in the rarified air of celebrity, of mega stardom. My life a series of Hollywood orgies and Kabala center brunches with the cast of Friends. At least that’s what my handlers tell me. I’m actually too valuable to live my own life and spend most of my days in a vegetable crisper to remain fake news anchor fresh.
So I know that the decisions that I made after college worked out. But at the time I didn’t know that they would. See college is not necessarily predictive of your future success. And it’s the kind of thing where the path that I chose obviously wouldn’t work for you. For one, you’re not very funny.
So how do you know what is the right path to choose to get the result that you desire? And the honest answer is this. You won’t. And accepting that greatly eases the anxiety of your life experience.
I was not exceptional here, and am not now. I was mediocre here. And I’m not saying aim low. Not everybody can wander around in an alcoholic haze and then at 40 just, you know, decide to be president. You’ve got to really work hard to try to…I was actually referring to my father.
When I left William and Mary I was shell-shocked. Because when you’re in college it’s very clear what you have to do to succeed. And I imagine here everybody knows exactly the number of credits they needed to graduate, where they had to buckle down, which introductory psychology class would pad out the schedule. You knew what you had to do to get to this college and to graduate from it. But the unfortunate, yet truly exciting thing about your life, is that there is no core curriculum. The entire place is an elective. The paths are infinite and the results uncertain. And it can be maddening to those that go here, especially here, because your strength has always been achievement. So if there’s any real advice I can give you it’s this.
College is something you complete. Life is something you experience. So don’t worry about your grade, or the results or success. Success is defined in myriad ways, and you will find it, and people will no longer be grading you, but it will come from your own internal sense of decency which I imagine, after going through the program here, is quite strong…although I’m sure downloading illegal files…but, nah, that’s a different story.
Love what you do. Get good at it. Competence is a rare commodity in this day and age. And let the chips fall where they may.
And the last thing I want to address is the idea that somehow this new generation is not as prepared for the sacrifice and the tenacity that will be needed in the difficult times ahead. I have not found this generation to be cynical or apathetic or selfish. They are as strong and as decent as any people that I have met. And I will say this, on my way down here I stopped at Bethesda Naval, and when you talk to the young kids that are there that have just been back from Iraq and Afghanistan, you don’t have the worry about the future that you hear from so many that are not a part of this generation but judging it from above.
And the other thing….that I will say is, when I spoke earlier about the world being broke, I was somewhat being facetious, because every generation has their challenge. And things change rapidly, and life gets better in an instant.
I was in New York on 9-11 when the towers came down. I lived 14 blocks from the twin towers. And when they came down, I thought that the world had ended. And I remember walking around in a daze for weeks. And Mayor Giuliani had said to the city, “You’ve got to get back to normal. We’ve got to show that things can change and get back to what they were.”
And one day I was coming out of my building, and on my stoop, was a man who was crouched over, and he appeared to be in deep thought. And as I got closer to him I realized, he was playing with himself. And that’s when I thought, “You know what, we’re gonna be OK.”
Thank you. Congratulations. I honor you. Good Night.
Sunday, May 08, 2005
Facebook.com and the Nature of the Universe
Before you begin to read I have prepared a brief quiz to help you determine whether or not you should spend your valuable time reading this entry. Because it’s long. Very long. In fact I considered titling it “Das Kapital II: The Facebook Manifesto”. So the point is, answer honestly…
1.) When I wake up in the morning the first thing I do is:
A. Turn off my alarm clock
B. Open my eyes
C. Get onto my computer and check facebook
2.) When I meet someone new my first thought is:
A. What an interesting person, I would really like to get to know them.
B. They are so cool, I could see myself having a long-lasting emotionally fulfilling relationship with them.
C. Alright! A new facebook friend!
3.) I would like to have a boyfriend/girlfriend because:
A. Of the emotional comfort and happiness it would bring me.
B. “The greatest joy in life is to love and to be loved in return”.
C. Then I could update my facebook profile to read “in a relationship”!
If you answered C to any of the above give yourself a point. If you scored 1 point or higher then you are qualified to read this entry. If you did not score any points then you should probably not waste your time with this article because clearly you do not own a computer or otherwise you would know about facebook and therefore be obsessed with facebook. Because to know facebook, is to need clinical help regarding facebook. And if you do not know facebook then might I ask, what the hell is wrong with you? Might I also suggest that you get yourself to a computer and join facebook post haste. Because your life is incomplete.
(Now granted I know the facebook obsession is dying down and writing about facebook is like, so February, but hey it was either this or my article about Ricky Martin and the Latin pop explosion so just be grateful...)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thinking back on the 1910’s, as I often do, it’s hard to imagine how our great-grandparents ever were able to interact with each other. If they wanted to talk to one another they had to actually physically travel to where the other person was, even if they only wanted to ask a simple question. Or if distance was prohibitive, they had to write long well crafted letters to one another that would often take days or weeks to reach their destination. If you think communication is crucial to a good relationship now, I can only imagine how vital is must have been back then. And of course all of this is if you were already securely “in a relationship”. The whole process of meeting someone and dating must have been even more difficult. You couldn’t wait three days before calling someone whose number you had gotten and were clearly interested in simply in order to make it seem like you were less interested in them than you actually were. No, if you were interested in someone you had to tell them face to face when you first met them because otherwise you didn’t know when you would see them again and there were no such things as phones to call them on to set up a date later. And since there were no phones, at the end of each date if you wanted another date you had to say so and set one up right then, face to face! That means you had to make your intentions known by telling someone face to face that you were indeed interested in them and wanted to see them again! In fact you had to do EVERYTHING in person!! All of your fights had to take place in person. You had to break up with someone in person. You had to express all of your thoughts and feelings in person because the postal service took too long and was unreliable and the technology did not yet exist to make a mix tape.
(Actually I guess poetry, with its careful selection and ordering of words to send a message to someone on an almost subliminal level, was the mix tape of its day but still…)
The whole thing sounds excruciating.
Thankfully, with the help of current technology, we have progressed as a society. All the important communication in a relationship can now be done solely on the phone or over the internet, allowing you to spend your actual time together for more important business, like sex, or watching TV. And that’s pretty much it. And technology hasn’t just helped romantic relationships, but relationship of all kinds. Now it is possible to maintain relationships for years with people you never cared about in the first place by simply IMing their away message every few weeks. Now all your BFFs from High School really can K.I.T. And best of all, we now have facebook, the website that has made it possible to reduce all human interaction into its essence: a measurement of your popularity. Now making friends with someone in real life is almost secondary to making friends with them on facebook. Now we will tolerate people we hate just to claim them as a friend. In fact now not only can we be friends with people we don’t care about, but we will use them to draw our sense of self worth from how many of them will claim us as their friend. At last, we think, tangible proof that I am indeed popular! And it’s on the Internet, the province of the innately unpopular and the insecure - the very people who worry about such things!!!
Ain’t technology fun.
Now if you’re not a member of facebook, I understand. I used to be intelligent like you. I swore I would never join one of those stupid online community things like friendster or myspace or underagecumguzzlers.com. But then one day I caved. And now look at me. I’m obsessed. Although I’m starting to think that some of the cumguzzlers aren’t actually underage. But that’s neither here nor there. What IS here, one Alt-Tab click away from this very document, is facebook. And it has changed my life, in so much as I am no longer a productive human being. Because facebook, unlike friendster or any of those other services, isnt a way to meet new people, but is instead a way to meet people you already know. And whats more exciting than that!? Plus its the most addicting thing to happen to the world of computers since solitaire. So come join the revolution. Get with the times. Become a part of the website that puts the “super” back in “information superhighway”. But before you do, there are a few rules to being a facebook member you should know.
Top 3 & 1/2 Rules a new facebook member should know:
1.) The first rule of facebook: Above all else, have standards. Unless thou art a Marymount dancer, thou does not have sex with every single person who requests to sleep with you. So why should thou accept every friend request thou recieves? Thou should not. Reject some people and be selective with who you send out friend requests to as well. Thou should have standards regarding other people. For example, thou should never request to be friends with someone who you would not feel comfortable acknowledging in real life. Also, there should be a waiting period between meeting someone and requesting to be their friend. Much like buying a gun, a friend request is a very serious matter.
2.) If thou art poked once by a friend, thou art allowed to return the poke. If thou art poked a second time by that same friend then quickly delete that person from your friends list because they are clearly insane. Somewhat like poking is.
3.) When such time comes that His Divine Majesty Greg Lynch requests to be your friend (which if you are just now joining facebook should be sometime in the next few seconds) bow down and give thanks to him and his almighty friend gathering powers. He is your master. By accepting his friend invite you are now a valid member of the facebook community. Congratulations.
(Editors note: This is not in any way to denegrate Mr. Lynch or to imply that he is in any way pathetic. It is simply to imply that he is much cooler than you. Now drop to your knees and offer your blessings up to him.)
3 & 1/2.) Thou shalt not edit thine’s own wall as that is pathetic. Even moreso than being on facebook in the first place.
So now that you know the rules, go join and let the good times roll, as the kids say these days. Seriously, go do it. Ill still be here when you get back.
You back?
Great!
Now will you be my friend?
No but seriously, by joining facebook you’ve just embarked on a journey that has to do with much more than just obtaining friends.
There are also clubs.
But be warned: the facebook journey is long and tough and it often veers about wildly. Almost as much as the tone of this entry. But spend enough time on the journey that is facebook and you’ll learn a lot about the world you live in and the nature of the universe. Which of course brings us back to the title of this entry. And although facebook can tell us many things about our lives, to me there seem to be, conveniently, 3 & 1/2 main things that we can learn about our world from facebook. And to explain these 3 & 1/2 things I have surprisingly created a handy list:
Top 3 & 1/2 things Facebook can teach us about the nature of our universe:
1.) Our taste defines us.
What’s most interesting about facebook is that through being able to view the profiles of people we may not already be friends with it allows to “meet” people and get to know something about them. Now that facebook has become a verb, whenever someone tells you a story or an antidote about someone you don’t know you can immediately go “facebook them” to find out more about them. And what is this “more” about them that you can find out? What is this information that often is the sole basis for your judgment of them as a person? Well, besides their picture, who they are friends with, and what it says about them on their wall, it’s basically their taste in movies, music, books, and quotes. Unless of course they wrote a lot under their “About Me” section in which case they are a loser. (Unless of course YOU did that, in which case you are very cool and I judge you only in a very positive way.) But basically the main thing you can learn about someone through facebook is their taste in quotes and entertainment. And using that information, you make some sort of opinion about them (don’t deny it). But the thing is that that’s a pretty valid opinion. Now its pleasant to think human beings weren’t born shallow and judgmental, and that way back in the 1910’s our grandparents would have found it absurd that we would judge people based on their taste in entertainment rather than their personal moral beliefs and convictions. But what today is “Biggie or Tupac” was surely back then “Jane Austin or Emily Bronte”. And there’s nothing wrong with taste based judgment; it’s human nature. Common interests have always been a key part of any interpersonal relationship. People have from time to time tried to go against that fundamental truth and almost always been proven wrong. Paula Abdul for one once said that opposites attract and, well, look how her life has turned out. I, on the other hand, say alike people attract and human nature backs me up. It makes perfect sense - you love yourself so of course you would love a version of yourself that you can hang out with or maybe even have sex with. I know that sounds awful, but the truth often is, and much like John Leguizamo in Moulin Rouge, Fred the Online Journal only speaks the truth. How facebook plays into all this though is that it reduces what was once a broad spectrum of potential common interests discovered only through discourse and discussion into a simple list of movie and book titles. There is no explanation or reasoning behind any of the information, it’s just simply listed there. We now measure compatibility not through discussion but by checking things off a list. “Likes Monty Python. Good.” “Likes Whitney Houston. Bad.” And so on. This person knows nothing about this other person other than the elaborately constructed presentation this person has made of themselves and what movies, music, books, and other such things they like. They know most likely nothing about this person’s values, their religious views, their outlook on life, their background, or any other similar matters. They don’t even know why or to what degree they like the things they do. But in the end, a list is all that facebook gives us. A list of their taste in entertainment, or at least they way they choose to present their taste in entertainment. Taste in music, movies, books and TV shows - are these really the qualities on which we want to base our opinion of someone? Well. Maybe they are. As a wise man once said, “Its what you like, not who you are that’s important.”
2.) Life is high school; high school is life.
You thought you were done with high school when you graduated didn’t you? Well you thought wrong. It never ends because life is just like high school, only on a much bigger scale. As a wise man once said “high school is life in concentrated form” And if you need proof, look no further than facebook:
On facebook some people join every club under the sun and even start some of their own and other people only show up once every few weeks just to check out what’s going on. Some people have gone to elaborate lengths to create a cool persona for themselves and other people just don’t give a shit. Some people have a new picture every week and others have had the same one since the first day. There are cliques, elaborate and specific social networks, and even groupies. There are rivalries, competitions, and far too many people who like Harry Potter. There are guys who want you to know how “straight” they are, people who want you to know that they really like beer, and apparently still a group of girls who like totally love their boyfriends SOOO much!!! Hell there’s even a way to leave each other yearbook style messages like “keep it real” “you rock” and “I didn’t want you to break up with me so I got pregnant with your kid”. But just like high school, ultimately none of it really matters. Because in the end, it’s all only really about one thing:
Popularity.
3.) As society grows more impersonal, we grow more “personal”
As a wise man once said, “The Internet is like beer, it lowers your inhibitions. Also, its how I met my wife”. And of course what is "the Internet" other than email, “sources” for your research paper, and facebook? And if you don’t think people express things on facebook that they never would in real life then how do you explain the “Best Deep Throats at MMC Club”? Or all the half naked pictures of people? Or the Bea Arthur Club having almost 40 members? Or the surprising number of girls apparently in lesbian relationships with their roommates? Or all the people who have tracked people down who they haven’t talked to since junior high or even elementary school? Or the people who confess to having a crush on their professor? Or just to having a “secret crush” in general? Okay so maybe facebook isn’t like beer. Maybe it’s just like a junior high sleepover. Or a game of truth or dare. Only without the dare. Or the soul crushing fear that you might get picked. But whatever the case, since facebook seems so impersonal it allows the personal revelations to flow out much more freely. What were once diaries kept under lock and key are now blogs linked to in our profiles. Now our phone number and address are there in the open. Our personal messages from others posted on a wall for all to see. Now that there’s a safe haven for us all on the Internet, there’s nothing left to hide.
Except the homemade sex tape of course.
3 & 1/2.) We are very self-involved.
As a wise man once said, “Damn, I’m a sexy bitch!” Now as a person surrounded by theater majors, the fact that people are self-involved is not a news flash, but the extent to which we are in love with ourselves is definitely highlighted by facebook. And surely you’ve realized this if you have ever tried to convince someone they should join facebook. That conversation always goes something like this:
Person 1: You should like totally join facebook! It’s like totally awesome!
Person 2: Why?
Person 1: Well, you get a chance to be friends with people who you’re already friends with or with people you don’t care about in the first place, but now you get to do it in a forum where you get to tell them information about yourself without having to put up with them doing annoying things like talking or changing the topic of conversation away from yourself. It’s so addictive!
Person 2: Why is that?
Person 1: Well because...because…because...hey look! Shiny things!
(Person 1 runs away )
And much like shiny things, it’s hard to not stare at yourself as you walk by a mirror because you’re just so damn fascinating. That’s why its lucky facebook came along so you could share the fascinating fabulousness that is YOU with the world. And you don’t even have to feel bad about it because everyone is doing it. And hey, at least its not as bad as having one of those damn online journals…
Now of course the lessons of facebook extend far beyond these 3 & 1/2 things. What more lessons can we glean from facebook? Many more. Like, maybe we shouldn’t let the Internet supersede face-to-face contact. Maybe we should all improve our communication skills. Maybe the intERpersonal is more important than the intRApersonal. Maybe we shouldn’t be so desperate for distraction. Maybe we should spend more time listening to the voices in our heads and in each other’s mouths than the words on the monitor (and in “The Monitor” for that matter). Maybe society is going to hell. But then again maybe it always has been. And maybe in the end all we have is each other. So I guess what I’m trying to say is:
Will you be my friend?
Top 3 & 1/2 of the Week:
1.) Ben Folds - “Songs for Silverman” (album)
2.) Ben Folds - “Gracie” and “Still Fighting It”
3.) Ben Folds - “Landed”
3 & 1/2.) Ben Folds - “There’s Always Someone Cooler Than You” (Live)
(New feature alert!) Thought of the Week:
I think I figured out why I respond to Ben Folds so much. Hes a writer. Now of course all song writers are techincally writers, but Ben, at heart, is a "writer" writer and he just chose songs over novels, shorts stories, or online journals. To help illustrate my point I think I should first outline a fact about songwriting. And that is this- There are several basic styles of song writing:
Poetic- Bob Dylan, Michael Stipe, etc.
Confessional- Joni Mitchell, solo John Lennon, etc.
Random- Beck, Anthony Kiedis, etc.
Straight forward- Marvin Gaye, James Taylor, etc.
Ambigous- Bernie Taupin, Mick Jagger, David Bowie, etc.
Universal- Bono, Kurt Cobain, Robert Plant, etc.
Of course there are many more styles and these styles all overlap, but I think for the point of this discussion thats a good list. Now what leads to believe Ben is a writer at heart is the fact he falls, most consistantly, into another unmentioned category: Storyteller.
His songs are most often stories about specifc people or incidents, thus one of many reasons for the constant Billy Joel comparisons. But unlike much Billy Joel, or Fountains of Wayne, or most anyone else for that matter, his stories are specific yet ambigous enough to reflect universal themes while at the same time expressing the feelings of the author, or in this case the songwriter. Sounds like a description of alot of the best writing, both fiction and non out there today. Which is why I believe Ben is a writer at heart and just chose to write songs rather than say, magazine articles. Which is why I respond to him so much. And why you do too.
1.) When I wake up in the morning the first thing I do is:
A. Turn off my alarm clock
B. Open my eyes
C. Get onto my computer and check facebook
2.) When I meet someone new my first thought is:
A. What an interesting person, I would really like to get to know them.
B. They are so cool, I could see myself having a long-lasting emotionally fulfilling relationship with them.
C. Alright! A new facebook friend!
3.) I would like to have a boyfriend/girlfriend because:
A. Of the emotional comfort and happiness it would bring me.
B. “The greatest joy in life is to love and to be loved in return”.
C. Then I could update my facebook profile to read “in a relationship”!
If you answered C to any of the above give yourself a point. If you scored 1 point or higher then you are qualified to read this entry. If you did not score any points then you should probably not waste your time with this article because clearly you do not own a computer or otherwise you would know about facebook and therefore be obsessed with facebook. Because to know facebook, is to need clinical help regarding facebook. And if you do not know facebook then might I ask, what the hell is wrong with you? Might I also suggest that you get yourself to a computer and join facebook post haste. Because your life is incomplete.
(Now granted I know the facebook obsession is dying down and writing about facebook is like, so February, but hey it was either this or my article about Ricky Martin and the Latin pop explosion so just be grateful...)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thinking back on the 1910’s, as I often do, it’s hard to imagine how our great-grandparents ever were able to interact with each other. If they wanted to talk to one another they had to actually physically travel to where the other person was, even if they only wanted to ask a simple question. Or if distance was prohibitive, they had to write long well crafted letters to one another that would often take days or weeks to reach their destination. If you think communication is crucial to a good relationship now, I can only imagine how vital is must have been back then. And of course all of this is if you were already securely “in a relationship”. The whole process of meeting someone and dating must have been even more difficult. You couldn’t wait three days before calling someone whose number you had gotten and were clearly interested in simply in order to make it seem like you were less interested in them than you actually were. No, if you were interested in someone you had to tell them face to face when you first met them because otherwise you didn’t know when you would see them again and there were no such things as phones to call them on to set up a date later. And since there were no phones, at the end of each date if you wanted another date you had to say so and set one up right then, face to face! That means you had to make your intentions known by telling someone face to face that you were indeed interested in them and wanted to see them again! In fact you had to do EVERYTHING in person!! All of your fights had to take place in person. You had to break up with someone in person. You had to express all of your thoughts and feelings in person because the postal service took too long and was unreliable and the technology did not yet exist to make a mix tape.
(Actually I guess poetry, with its careful selection and ordering of words to send a message to someone on an almost subliminal level, was the mix tape of its day but still…)
The whole thing sounds excruciating.
Thankfully, with the help of current technology, we have progressed as a society. All the important communication in a relationship can now be done solely on the phone or over the internet, allowing you to spend your actual time together for more important business, like sex, or watching TV. And that’s pretty much it. And technology hasn’t just helped romantic relationships, but relationship of all kinds. Now it is possible to maintain relationships for years with people you never cared about in the first place by simply IMing their away message every few weeks. Now all your BFFs from High School really can K.I.T. And best of all, we now have facebook, the website that has made it possible to reduce all human interaction into its essence: a measurement of your popularity. Now making friends with someone in real life is almost secondary to making friends with them on facebook. Now we will tolerate people we hate just to claim them as a friend. In fact now not only can we be friends with people we don’t care about, but we will use them to draw our sense of self worth from how many of them will claim us as their friend. At last, we think, tangible proof that I am indeed popular! And it’s on the Internet, the province of the innately unpopular and the insecure - the very people who worry about such things!!!
Ain’t technology fun.
Now if you’re not a member of facebook, I understand. I used to be intelligent like you. I swore I would never join one of those stupid online community things like friendster or myspace or underagecumguzzlers.com. But then one day I caved. And now look at me. I’m obsessed. Although I’m starting to think that some of the cumguzzlers aren’t actually underage. But that’s neither here nor there. What IS here, one Alt-Tab click away from this very document, is facebook. And it has changed my life, in so much as I am no longer a productive human being. Because facebook, unlike friendster or any of those other services, isnt a way to meet new people, but is instead a way to meet people you already know. And whats more exciting than that!? Plus its the most addicting thing to happen to the world of computers since solitaire. So come join the revolution. Get with the times. Become a part of the website that puts the “super” back in “information superhighway”. But before you do, there are a few rules to being a facebook member you should know.
Top 3 & 1/2 Rules a new facebook member should know:
1.) The first rule of facebook: Above all else, have standards. Unless thou art a Marymount dancer, thou does not have sex with every single person who requests to sleep with you. So why should thou accept every friend request thou recieves? Thou should not. Reject some people and be selective with who you send out friend requests to as well. Thou should have standards regarding other people. For example, thou should never request to be friends with someone who you would not feel comfortable acknowledging in real life. Also, there should be a waiting period between meeting someone and requesting to be their friend. Much like buying a gun, a friend request is a very serious matter.
2.) If thou art poked once by a friend, thou art allowed to return the poke. If thou art poked a second time by that same friend then quickly delete that person from your friends list because they are clearly insane. Somewhat like poking is.
3.) When such time comes that His Divine Majesty Greg Lynch requests to be your friend (which if you are just now joining facebook should be sometime in the next few seconds) bow down and give thanks to him and his almighty friend gathering powers. He is your master. By accepting his friend invite you are now a valid member of the facebook community. Congratulations.
(Editors note: This is not in any way to denegrate Mr. Lynch or to imply that he is in any way pathetic. It is simply to imply that he is much cooler than you. Now drop to your knees and offer your blessings up to him.)
3 & 1/2.) Thou shalt not edit thine’s own wall as that is pathetic. Even moreso than being on facebook in the first place.
So now that you know the rules, go join and let the good times roll, as the kids say these days. Seriously, go do it. Ill still be here when you get back.
You back?
Great!
Now will you be my friend?
No but seriously, by joining facebook you’ve just embarked on a journey that has to do with much more than just obtaining friends.
There are also clubs.
But be warned: the facebook journey is long and tough and it often veers about wildly. Almost as much as the tone of this entry. But spend enough time on the journey that is facebook and you’ll learn a lot about the world you live in and the nature of the universe. Which of course brings us back to the title of this entry. And although facebook can tell us many things about our lives, to me there seem to be, conveniently, 3 & 1/2 main things that we can learn about our world from facebook. And to explain these 3 & 1/2 things I have surprisingly created a handy list:
Top 3 & 1/2 things Facebook can teach us about the nature of our universe:
1.) Our taste defines us.
What’s most interesting about facebook is that through being able to view the profiles of people we may not already be friends with it allows to “meet” people and get to know something about them. Now that facebook has become a verb, whenever someone tells you a story or an antidote about someone you don’t know you can immediately go “facebook them” to find out more about them. And what is this “more” about them that you can find out? What is this information that often is the sole basis for your judgment of them as a person? Well, besides their picture, who they are friends with, and what it says about them on their wall, it’s basically their taste in movies, music, books, and quotes. Unless of course they wrote a lot under their “About Me” section in which case they are a loser. (Unless of course YOU did that, in which case you are very cool and I judge you only in a very positive way.) But basically the main thing you can learn about someone through facebook is their taste in quotes and entertainment. And using that information, you make some sort of opinion about them (don’t deny it). But the thing is that that’s a pretty valid opinion. Now its pleasant to think human beings weren’t born shallow and judgmental, and that way back in the 1910’s our grandparents would have found it absurd that we would judge people based on their taste in entertainment rather than their personal moral beliefs and convictions. But what today is “Biggie or Tupac” was surely back then “Jane Austin or Emily Bronte”. And there’s nothing wrong with taste based judgment; it’s human nature. Common interests have always been a key part of any interpersonal relationship. People have from time to time tried to go against that fundamental truth and almost always been proven wrong. Paula Abdul for one once said that opposites attract and, well, look how her life has turned out. I, on the other hand, say alike people attract and human nature backs me up. It makes perfect sense - you love yourself so of course you would love a version of yourself that you can hang out with or maybe even have sex with. I know that sounds awful, but the truth often is, and much like John Leguizamo in Moulin Rouge, Fred the Online Journal only speaks the truth. How facebook plays into all this though is that it reduces what was once a broad spectrum of potential common interests discovered only through discourse and discussion into a simple list of movie and book titles. There is no explanation or reasoning behind any of the information, it’s just simply listed there. We now measure compatibility not through discussion but by checking things off a list. “Likes Monty Python. Good.” “Likes Whitney Houston. Bad.” And so on. This person knows nothing about this other person other than the elaborately constructed presentation this person has made of themselves and what movies, music, books, and other such things they like. They know most likely nothing about this person’s values, their religious views, their outlook on life, their background, or any other similar matters. They don’t even know why or to what degree they like the things they do. But in the end, a list is all that facebook gives us. A list of their taste in entertainment, or at least they way they choose to present their taste in entertainment. Taste in music, movies, books and TV shows - are these really the qualities on which we want to base our opinion of someone? Well. Maybe they are. As a wise man once said, “Its what you like, not who you are that’s important.”
2.) Life is high school; high school is life.
You thought you were done with high school when you graduated didn’t you? Well you thought wrong. It never ends because life is just like high school, only on a much bigger scale. As a wise man once said “high school is life in concentrated form” And if you need proof, look no further than facebook:
On facebook some people join every club under the sun and even start some of their own and other people only show up once every few weeks just to check out what’s going on. Some people have gone to elaborate lengths to create a cool persona for themselves and other people just don’t give a shit. Some people have a new picture every week and others have had the same one since the first day. There are cliques, elaborate and specific social networks, and even groupies. There are rivalries, competitions, and far too many people who like Harry Potter. There are guys who want you to know how “straight” they are, people who want you to know that they really like beer, and apparently still a group of girls who like totally love their boyfriends SOOO much!!! Hell there’s even a way to leave each other yearbook style messages like “keep it real” “you rock” and “I didn’t want you to break up with me so I got pregnant with your kid”. But just like high school, ultimately none of it really matters. Because in the end, it’s all only really about one thing:
Popularity.
3.) As society grows more impersonal, we grow more “personal”
As a wise man once said, “The Internet is like beer, it lowers your inhibitions. Also, its how I met my wife”. And of course what is "the Internet" other than email, “sources” for your research paper, and facebook? And if you don’t think people express things on facebook that they never would in real life then how do you explain the “Best Deep Throats at MMC Club”? Or all the half naked pictures of people? Or the Bea Arthur Club having almost 40 members? Or the surprising number of girls apparently in lesbian relationships with their roommates? Or all the people who have tracked people down who they haven’t talked to since junior high or even elementary school? Or the people who confess to having a crush on their professor? Or just to having a “secret crush” in general? Okay so maybe facebook isn’t like beer. Maybe it’s just like a junior high sleepover. Or a game of truth or dare. Only without the dare. Or the soul crushing fear that you might get picked. But whatever the case, since facebook seems so impersonal it allows the personal revelations to flow out much more freely. What were once diaries kept under lock and key are now blogs linked to in our profiles. Now our phone number and address are there in the open. Our personal messages from others posted on a wall for all to see. Now that there’s a safe haven for us all on the Internet, there’s nothing left to hide.
Except the homemade sex tape of course.
3 & 1/2.) We are very self-involved.
As a wise man once said, “Damn, I’m a sexy bitch!” Now as a person surrounded by theater majors, the fact that people are self-involved is not a news flash, but the extent to which we are in love with ourselves is definitely highlighted by facebook. And surely you’ve realized this if you have ever tried to convince someone they should join facebook. That conversation always goes something like this:
Person 1: You should like totally join facebook! It’s like totally awesome!
Person 2: Why?
Person 1: Well, you get a chance to be friends with people who you’re already friends with or with people you don’t care about in the first place, but now you get to do it in a forum where you get to tell them information about yourself without having to put up with them doing annoying things like talking or changing the topic of conversation away from yourself. It’s so addictive!
Person 2: Why is that?
Person 1: Well because...because…because...hey look! Shiny things!
(Person 1 runs away )
And much like shiny things, it’s hard to not stare at yourself as you walk by a mirror because you’re just so damn fascinating. That’s why its lucky facebook came along so you could share the fascinating fabulousness that is YOU with the world. And you don’t even have to feel bad about it because everyone is doing it. And hey, at least its not as bad as having one of those damn online journals…
Now of course the lessons of facebook extend far beyond these 3 & 1/2 things. What more lessons can we glean from facebook? Many more. Like, maybe we shouldn’t let the Internet supersede face-to-face contact. Maybe we should all improve our communication skills. Maybe the intERpersonal is more important than the intRApersonal. Maybe we shouldn’t be so desperate for distraction. Maybe we should spend more time listening to the voices in our heads and in each other’s mouths than the words on the monitor (and in “The Monitor” for that matter). Maybe society is going to hell. But then again maybe it always has been. And maybe in the end all we have is each other. So I guess what I’m trying to say is:
Will you be my friend?
Top 3 & 1/2 of the Week:
1.) Ben Folds - “Songs for Silverman” (album)
2.) Ben Folds - “Gracie” and “Still Fighting It”
3.) Ben Folds - “Landed”
3 & 1/2.) Ben Folds - “There’s Always Someone Cooler Than You” (Live)
(New feature alert!) Thought of the Week:
I think I figured out why I respond to Ben Folds so much. Hes a writer. Now of course all song writers are techincally writers, but Ben, at heart, is a "writer" writer and he just chose songs over novels, shorts stories, or online journals. To help illustrate my point I think I should first outline a fact about songwriting. And that is this- There are several basic styles of song writing:
Poetic- Bob Dylan, Michael Stipe, etc.
Confessional- Joni Mitchell, solo John Lennon, etc.
Random- Beck, Anthony Kiedis, etc.
Straight forward- Marvin Gaye, James Taylor, etc.
Ambigous- Bernie Taupin, Mick Jagger, David Bowie, etc.
Universal- Bono, Kurt Cobain, Robert Plant, etc.
Of course there are many more styles and these styles all overlap, but I think for the point of this discussion thats a good list. Now what leads to believe Ben is a writer at heart is the fact he falls, most consistantly, into another unmentioned category: Storyteller.
His songs are most often stories about specifc people or incidents, thus one of many reasons for the constant Billy Joel comparisons. But unlike much Billy Joel, or Fountains of Wayne, or most anyone else for that matter, his stories are specific yet ambigous enough to reflect universal themes while at the same time expressing the feelings of the author, or in this case the songwriter. Sounds like a description of alot of the best writing, both fiction and non out there today. Which is why I believe Ben is a writer at heart and just chose to write songs rather than say, magazine articles. Which is why I respond to him so much. And why you do too.
Sunday, April 24, 2005
Who You Know Do It Better: The Wit and Wisdom of P Diddy and the Fam
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Sunday, April 03, 2005
Fred the Online Journal Recommends
*Making crappy self-indulgent lists and putting them in your online journal rather than actually writing a real entry about something people will care about even though it’s already been like forever since you last wrote anything:
The only thing worse than someone with an online journal is someone who doesn’t update their online journal for three weeks and then when they finally do update it its with some lame half-assed stop-gap measure written only so that people will stop asking them “when are you going to update your online journal”. Well, actually there is one thing worse than that: people who read other people’s online journals. Those people are losers. And they have no lives. Or friends. Despite what facebook might say.
*Your Mom:
She keeps getting better and better all the time. In fact, it’s getting to the point now that when she requests that I “give it to her” I’m starting to think she might not always be referring to my money.
*Jordan Schildcrout:
Per Katie Woodruff’s request I feel I should say a few words here about Marymount’s best-kept secret. If you haven’t had the privilege yet of taking a Modern Drama course from Jordan your life is incomplete. Sure he seems constantly nervous and uncomfortable, his age could be anywhere between 15 and 40, his speech patterns and mannerisms are almost unbearably awkward, and he might be the least fashionable gay man in history. But like a fine wine he just gets better with time until eventually you fully drink from his bottle of knowledge and become drunk on the rich taste of sweet education.
Or some shit like that.
Plus part of me thinks he could totally kick Mark Ringer’s ass in a bar fight. And even if he couldn’t, Id pay a large sum of money to see him try.
(Speaking of Katie Woodruff, is it too early to recommend her Christopher Durang monologue she’ll be doing in Senior Showcase? It is? Okay, well when it comes time to get your tickets for Showcase make sure you’re the first in line because you don’t want to miss it. It’ll be the best $0 you’ll ever spend.)
*Not being so negative and critical:
Seriously, I am so sick of people being critical and negative about things. People who are like that really suck. They are losers and I hate them. But yet they are everywhere. Seriously, what is this hellish God-forsaken world coming to?
*Having a picture of your real self on facebook:
Yes your drawing of Jesus is both humorous and ironic. Yes I like Mr. T as much as the next person. And yes your choice of picture is exceedingly clever and reflects well on your character and your worth as human being. But it makes it impossible to figure out if I know you or not. And if I don’t know if I know you or not how can I know whether or not to request to be your friend? Now I know that doesn’t stop most people from requesting to be someone’s friend, but I guess I’m just old fashioned like that. But really though, facebook is like the yearbook for the 21st century and you wouldn’t put a picture of a monkey having sex with George Bush as your yearbook picture would you? So why would you put it as your facebook picture? Seriously get with the program people…
*The ending to Being There
Granted you’ve probably never heard of Being There but then again you probably didn’t even know they made movies before 1980. Well they did. Being There for example came out in 1979. I hear there are movies even older than that too! Like Star Wars, Annie Hall and The Godfather(s). Other than that though, Being There might be the oldest movie ever made. Which makes the fact it has the best ending in movie history even more impressive. And if you don’t believe me (and frankly that’s probably wise on your part) then you can take USA Today’s word for it as they said the same thing a few weeks after I had come to a similar conclusion myself. Now of course part of what made the ending so good was that I had no idea the movie had anything unique about its ending, and by telling you that it does I am ruining it partially for you. But no matter, you’ll enjoy it nevertheless. With apologies to Say Anything..., The Sixth Sense, Fight Club, Before Sunset and of course the former champ, The Graduate, Being There has what is without a doubt the best ending in movie history. And on top of that, it's an amazing, unique, one of a kind film that best exemplifies the phrase “they don’t make ‘em like the used to” (although lord knows Wes Anderson tries) and also contains a BRILLANT performance by Peter Sellers. So, long story short, go rent this movie.
*Mcsweeneys.net:
Other than porn and some killer tuna casserole recipes Mcsweeneys.net is the greatest thing to ever happen to the internet and if you are not reading it daily and basking in its brilliance then your life is decidedly not complete my friend. I hesitate to recommend it to you if you are not already aware of its existence as everything I write I pretty much a blatant rip off of the stuff they do (well that is the stuff I write that isn’t a blatant rip off of Chuck Klosterman or Bill Simmons) and as soon as you read their stuff mine will seem painfully bad by comparison. For example this whole entry is based on a feature they do called “McSweeneys Recommends” where every few weeks they recommend random things like “blowing gently on a baby’s face” “The University of Illinois basketball team” or “binder clips” and then write commentary about them. But I am willing to give up whatever shred of respect you might have for me by recommending that you check out mcsweeneys.net and thus enhancing your life greatly. I can’t explain to you their brilliance in words. The best I can do I give you a random sample of the type of writing you might find on their site. For example here is a letter written to them by one of their readers (mind you, at the time this letter was written, nowhere on the site had anyone ever mentioned The Clash):
From: Patrick Cassels
Subject: Go. Clearly
Dear McS,
Why did The Clash feel the need to write such a perplexed and long-winded song for such a simple question?
“If I go there will be trouble
An' if I stay it will be double”
Clearly, to go is the better option, as it will cause half the trouble as staying. It's pure logic.
I'm as embarrassed for them as you are,
Patrick Cassels
Marlboro, NY
Now that is FAR from the best example of something you might read on their site; it was just the first thing I saw short enough to paste here. But it is a fairly good example of the random, exceedingly clever and very humorous stuff on their site (even though it was contributed by a reader and not by one of their writers). But you can pretty clearly see how it influences Fred. Sure it can be a little too clever at times and not everything works like it should, but when its good, there’s no writing anywhere that’s better. And I can’t stress that strongly enough. Plus its run by Dave Eggers and employs many of the same people and principles that the old Might Magazine did and Might Magazine is the greatest magazine in the history of human kind so that counts for something. So anyway if you at all even remotely enjoy my shitty ramblings then you should check mcsweeneys.net out. Because I think in my next life it would be my goal to write for them.
That is if we’re not both cats.
*Pringles:
Unlike you, I’ve never tried crack. But if it’s anything like Pringles I’d be doomed.
*Winona Rider in Reality Bites
I never got the whole Winona Rider thing from back in the day when people liked her and she was some kind of indie/underground sex symbol or something. Granted it was a little before my time, but I still remember it and it never really made sense to me. I mean she looks like a boyish elf and clearly is a little mentally unbalanced. But then I recently saw Reality Bites for the first time and I got it. So if you happen to be Winona Rider circa Reality Bites give me a call so we can get married and stuff. Now believe me, this development is as shocking to me as to anyone. I mean it violates two of my major rules about girls I won’t date:
1.) girls with really short boyish haircuts
2.) Winona Rider
But I guess there are exceptions to every rule. Even #2 apparently…
*The Pope:
Oh. Nevermind...
(Too soon for Pope jokes? Well as I pretend to cater to all audiences maybe so, but I will say its better than the Jesus joke I was planning to use here. Just trust me on that one.)
*Rice:
Since I go to Marymount I feel I should come out of the closet about something at some point. So here goes: I love rice. Yes I know, it’s shocking but I just can’t keep it a secret anymore. I like rice, and I like it dirty. In fact I like it almost as much as I like plain Cheerios. Now, I know what you’re thinking “Rice and Cheerios? What is cardboard too flavorful for you?” And yes, as a matter of fact it is. Plus it has sort of a grainy aftertaste. Just like your mom.
*Making up your own advertising campaigns for things:
For example:
-The board game “Life” should really adopt as their slogan, “There are no winners in the game of Life”. Of course it would hurt their sales, but oh the irony would be delicious. Almost as delicious as rice.
-Indiana University, home of the Hoosiers, should make bumper stickers for parents of students that read “Hoosier Daddy”. In fact if those bumper stickers don’t already exist then there is something seriously wrong with the fine folks on the Indiana University bumper sticker making committee.
-Emerald Nuts should make brilliant commercials involving random things that start with the letters E and N. Oh wait, those already exist…
-You know the hand sign you make for “West Side”? Well the actors on The West Wing should totally make one of those with each hand, hold them both up and yell out “West WING!” randomly.
-And so on…
Now you see why when my Mom always tried to tell me growing up that I should go into advertising that I decided to into a low paying, highly unstable, soul crushing career of playing dress up and doing funny voices instead.
*Guess Who:
I was watching Katherine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy and Sidney Poitier in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner a few months ago and I thought to myself “if they remade this movie you know who would be good to star in it? Bernie Mac, Ashton Kutcher and some random girl.” And wouldn’t you know it, Hollywood stole my idea right out from under me. I feel liked I was punked.
*“Hey Ma” by Cam’ron:
Now surely you know the song and enjoy the fact that it is quite tuneful and pleasing to the ear. But if you study the narrative closely you will realize something that will greatly enhance your enjoyment of the song as well as your enjoyment of life. About halfway through his sordid tale he is “speedin’ up the West Side, hand creepin’ up her left side, ready to bone” when he, our narrator Cam’ron, suddenly realizes “55th exit, damn already we’re home”. At first glance that bit of information might seem inconsequential, but when you think it about it further it means that Cam’ron lives, or lived at one point, on 55th Street. Now granted it might have been on the West Side but you never know. He might have taken the 55th Street exit all the way over from the West Side to the East Side. Possibly even to between 2nd and 3rd Avenues. Possibly even over to The Capri. Regardless though, the point is that I have at one point in my life lived on the same street as Cam’ron. We have been neighbors. And I’ve also now found a rap song that I can literally relate to in a very personal way. Well, except the part about picking up a hot girl in bar and taking her home for sex. But the stuff about living on 55th Street and being in a car at one point in my life, I’m all about that shit homie.
*The New York Times:
I’ve always hated the Times. In fact I used to pass judgment on people who read it. And not judgment in a good way. It was always so stuffy and old school and pretentious and full of itself that I couldn’t stand it. I mean it’s a paper that’s too good to give stars or numerical ratings in their reviews of things. And speaking of reviews, they found fault with both Citizen Kane and The Godfather in their original reviews of them. And don’t even get me started on Frank Rich. But now that I have to read it every week for class I find myself actually enjoying it. Sure it’s still not my favorite paper but now in my old age I “get it” and I am glad that it exists. In fact a lot of the articles are really great. Nevertheless, I’ll always be a Post guy. Even though the Post is not a valid paper, and even though its pretty clearly got a conservative bias, and even though its still published in that ridiculous tabloid format rather than like a regular newspaper, I still get more enjoyment out of reading it than I do from any of the other New York papers. Plus with the Post I can still hold out hope that one day a house that Usher lives in will collapse and that therefore a paper will exist with the headline that reads “The Fall of the House of Usher!” And when/if that day comes all the Post’s faults will be forgiven. But until that time comes the Times is worth a look as well. And I can’t believe I just said that…
Do you have anything you’d like to recommend? If so, you should comment below…
Top 3 & 1/2 of the Week:
1.) Jane’s Addiction- “Ritual de lo Habitual” (album)
2.) Monty Python’s Flying Circus on DVD
3.) The Smiths
3 & 1/2.) NCAA Basketball
Editors Note:
Fred the Online Journal will be on hiatus for the next few weeks due to Marymount’s production of “There are Crimes and Crimes”. But don’t forget about ol’ Fred here while he’s away. He’ll be back in a few short weeks with all new material like “Facebook.com and The Nature of the Universe” “Who You Know Do It Better: The Wit and Wisdom of P.Diddy and the Fam” as well as, if you’re lucky, a graduation edition of “Marymount Musings”. So ya’ll come on back now ya’ hear!
The only thing worse than someone with an online journal is someone who doesn’t update their online journal for three weeks and then when they finally do update it its with some lame half-assed stop-gap measure written only so that people will stop asking them “when are you going to update your online journal”. Well, actually there is one thing worse than that: people who read other people’s online journals. Those people are losers. And they have no lives. Or friends. Despite what facebook might say.
*Your Mom:
She keeps getting better and better all the time. In fact, it’s getting to the point now that when she requests that I “give it to her” I’m starting to think she might not always be referring to my money.
*Jordan Schildcrout:
Per Katie Woodruff’s request I feel I should say a few words here about Marymount’s best-kept secret. If you haven’t had the privilege yet of taking a Modern Drama course from Jordan your life is incomplete. Sure he seems constantly nervous and uncomfortable, his age could be anywhere between 15 and 40, his speech patterns and mannerisms are almost unbearably awkward, and he might be the least fashionable gay man in history. But like a fine wine he just gets better with time until eventually you fully drink from his bottle of knowledge and become drunk on the rich taste of sweet education.
Or some shit like that.
Plus part of me thinks he could totally kick Mark Ringer’s ass in a bar fight. And even if he couldn’t, Id pay a large sum of money to see him try.
(Speaking of Katie Woodruff, is it too early to recommend her Christopher Durang monologue she’ll be doing in Senior Showcase? It is? Okay, well when it comes time to get your tickets for Showcase make sure you’re the first in line because you don’t want to miss it. It’ll be the best $0 you’ll ever spend.)
*Not being so negative and critical:
Seriously, I am so sick of people being critical and negative about things. People who are like that really suck. They are losers and I hate them. But yet they are everywhere. Seriously, what is this hellish God-forsaken world coming to?
*Having a picture of your real self on facebook:
Yes your drawing of Jesus is both humorous and ironic. Yes I like Mr. T as much as the next person. And yes your choice of picture is exceedingly clever and reflects well on your character and your worth as human being. But it makes it impossible to figure out if I know you or not. And if I don’t know if I know you or not how can I know whether or not to request to be your friend? Now I know that doesn’t stop most people from requesting to be someone’s friend, but I guess I’m just old fashioned like that. But really though, facebook is like the yearbook for the 21st century and you wouldn’t put a picture of a monkey having sex with George Bush as your yearbook picture would you? So why would you put it as your facebook picture? Seriously get with the program people…
*The ending to Being There
Granted you’ve probably never heard of Being There but then again you probably didn’t even know they made movies before 1980. Well they did. Being There for example came out in 1979. I hear there are movies even older than that too! Like Star Wars, Annie Hall and The Godfather(s). Other than that though, Being There might be the oldest movie ever made. Which makes the fact it has the best ending in movie history even more impressive. And if you don’t believe me (and frankly that’s probably wise on your part) then you can take USA Today’s word for it as they said the same thing a few weeks after I had come to a similar conclusion myself. Now of course part of what made the ending so good was that I had no idea the movie had anything unique about its ending, and by telling you that it does I am ruining it partially for you. But no matter, you’ll enjoy it nevertheless. With apologies to Say Anything..., The Sixth Sense, Fight Club, Before Sunset and of course the former champ, The Graduate, Being There has what is without a doubt the best ending in movie history. And on top of that, it's an amazing, unique, one of a kind film that best exemplifies the phrase “they don’t make ‘em like the used to” (although lord knows Wes Anderson tries) and also contains a BRILLANT performance by Peter Sellers. So, long story short, go rent this movie.
*Mcsweeneys.net:
Other than porn and some killer tuna casserole recipes Mcsweeneys.net is the greatest thing to ever happen to the internet and if you are not reading it daily and basking in its brilliance then your life is decidedly not complete my friend. I hesitate to recommend it to you if you are not already aware of its existence as everything I write I pretty much a blatant rip off of the stuff they do (well that is the stuff I write that isn’t a blatant rip off of Chuck Klosterman or Bill Simmons) and as soon as you read their stuff mine will seem painfully bad by comparison. For example this whole entry is based on a feature they do called “McSweeneys Recommends” where every few weeks they recommend random things like “blowing gently on a baby’s face” “The University of Illinois basketball team” or “binder clips” and then write commentary about them. But I am willing to give up whatever shred of respect you might have for me by recommending that you check out mcsweeneys.net and thus enhancing your life greatly. I can’t explain to you their brilliance in words. The best I can do I give you a random sample of the type of writing you might find on their site. For example here is a letter written to them by one of their readers (mind you, at the time this letter was written, nowhere on the site had anyone ever mentioned The Clash):
From: Patrick Cassels
Subject: Go. Clearly
Dear McS,
Why did The Clash feel the need to write such a perplexed and long-winded song for such a simple question?
“If I go there will be trouble
An' if I stay it will be double”
Clearly, to go is the better option, as it will cause half the trouble as staying. It's pure logic.
I'm as embarrassed for them as you are,
Patrick Cassels
Marlboro, NY
Now that is FAR from the best example of something you might read on their site; it was just the first thing I saw short enough to paste here. But it is a fairly good example of the random, exceedingly clever and very humorous stuff on their site (even though it was contributed by a reader and not by one of their writers). But you can pretty clearly see how it influences Fred. Sure it can be a little too clever at times and not everything works like it should, but when its good, there’s no writing anywhere that’s better. And I can’t stress that strongly enough. Plus its run by Dave Eggers and employs many of the same people and principles that the old Might Magazine did and Might Magazine is the greatest magazine in the history of human kind so that counts for something. So anyway if you at all even remotely enjoy my shitty ramblings then you should check mcsweeneys.net out. Because I think in my next life it would be my goal to write for them.
That is if we’re not both cats.
*Pringles:
Unlike you, I’ve never tried crack. But if it’s anything like Pringles I’d be doomed.
*Winona Rider in Reality Bites
I never got the whole Winona Rider thing from back in the day when people liked her and she was some kind of indie/underground sex symbol or something. Granted it was a little before my time, but I still remember it and it never really made sense to me. I mean she looks like a boyish elf and clearly is a little mentally unbalanced. But then I recently saw Reality Bites for the first time and I got it. So if you happen to be Winona Rider circa Reality Bites give me a call so we can get married and stuff. Now believe me, this development is as shocking to me as to anyone. I mean it violates two of my major rules about girls I won’t date:
1.) girls with really short boyish haircuts
2.) Winona Rider
But I guess there are exceptions to every rule. Even #2 apparently…
*The Pope:
Oh. Nevermind...
(Too soon for Pope jokes? Well as I pretend to cater to all audiences maybe so, but I will say its better than the Jesus joke I was planning to use here. Just trust me on that one.)
*Rice:
Since I go to Marymount I feel I should come out of the closet about something at some point. So here goes: I love rice. Yes I know, it’s shocking but I just can’t keep it a secret anymore. I like rice, and I like it dirty. In fact I like it almost as much as I like plain Cheerios. Now, I know what you’re thinking “Rice and Cheerios? What is cardboard too flavorful for you?” And yes, as a matter of fact it is. Plus it has sort of a grainy aftertaste. Just like your mom.
*Making up your own advertising campaigns for things:
For example:
-The board game “Life” should really adopt as their slogan, “There are no winners in the game of Life”. Of course it would hurt their sales, but oh the irony would be delicious. Almost as delicious as rice.
-Indiana University, home of the Hoosiers, should make bumper stickers for parents of students that read “Hoosier Daddy”. In fact if those bumper stickers don’t already exist then there is something seriously wrong with the fine folks on the Indiana University bumper sticker making committee.
-Emerald Nuts should make brilliant commercials involving random things that start with the letters E and N. Oh wait, those already exist…
-You know the hand sign you make for “West Side”? Well the actors on The West Wing should totally make one of those with each hand, hold them both up and yell out “West WING!” randomly.
-And so on…
Now you see why when my Mom always tried to tell me growing up that I should go into advertising that I decided to into a low paying, highly unstable, soul crushing career of playing dress up and doing funny voices instead.
*Guess Who:
I was watching Katherine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy and Sidney Poitier in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner a few months ago and I thought to myself “if they remade this movie you know who would be good to star in it? Bernie Mac, Ashton Kutcher and some random girl.” And wouldn’t you know it, Hollywood stole my idea right out from under me. I feel liked I was punked.
*“Hey Ma” by Cam’ron:
Now surely you know the song and enjoy the fact that it is quite tuneful and pleasing to the ear. But if you study the narrative closely you will realize something that will greatly enhance your enjoyment of the song as well as your enjoyment of life. About halfway through his sordid tale he is “speedin’ up the West Side, hand creepin’ up her left side, ready to bone” when he, our narrator Cam’ron, suddenly realizes “55th exit, damn already we’re home”. At first glance that bit of information might seem inconsequential, but when you think it about it further it means that Cam’ron lives, or lived at one point, on 55th Street. Now granted it might have been on the West Side but you never know. He might have taken the 55th Street exit all the way over from the West Side to the East Side. Possibly even to between 2nd and 3rd Avenues. Possibly even over to The Capri. Regardless though, the point is that I have at one point in my life lived on the same street as Cam’ron. We have been neighbors. And I’ve also now found a rap song that I can literally relate to in a very personal way. Well, except the part about picking up a hot girl in bar and taking her home for sex. But the stuff about living on 55th Street and being in a car at one point in my life, I’m all about that shit homie.
*The New York Times:
I’ve always hated the Times. In fact I used to pass judgment on people who read it. And not judgment in a good way. It was always so stuffy and old school and pretentious and full of itself that I couldn’t stand it. I mean it’s a paper that’s too good to give stars or numerical ratings in their reviews of things. And speaking of reviews, they found fault with both Citizen Kane and The Godfather in their original reviews of them. And don’t even get me started on Frank Rich. But now that I have to read it every week for class I find myself actually enjoying it. Sure it’s still not my favorite paper but now in my old age I “get it” and I am glad that it exists. In fact a lot of the articles are really great. Nevertheless, I’ll always be a Post guy. Even though the Post is not a valid paper, and even though its pretty clearly got a conservative bias, and even though its still published in that ridiculous tabloid format rather than like a regular newspaper, I still get more enjoyment out of reading it than I do from any of the other New York papers. Plus with the Post I can still hold out hope that one day a house that Usher lives in will collapse and that therefore a paper will exist with the headline that reads “The Fall of the House of Usher!” And when/if that day comes all the Post’s faults will be forgiven. But until that time comes the Times is worth a look as well. And I can’t believe I just said that…
Do you have anything you’d like to recommend? If so, you should comment below…
Top 3 & 1/2 of the Week:
1.) Jane’s Addiction- “Ritual de lo Habitual” (album)
2.) Monty Python’s Flying Circus on DVD
3.) The Smiths
3 & 1/2.) NCAA Basketball
Editors Note:
Fred the Online Journal will be on hiatus for the next few weeks due to Marymount’s production of “There are Crimes and Crimes”. But don’t forget about ol’ Fred here while he’s away. He’ll be back in a few short weeks with all new material like “Facebook.com and The Nature of the Universe” “Who You Know Do It Better: The Wit and Wisdom of P.Diddy and the Fam” as well as, if you’re lucky, a graduation edition of “Marymount Musings”. So ya’ll come on back now ya’ hear!
Thursday, March 10, 2005
Love Actually?
You know how you have that friend who is really great and you like a lot but who every now and then does something really embarrassing or displays some of their worst qualities at the most importune times and then you just get embarrassed for them and frustrated with them, yet you forgive them because their glaring defects, although definite defects, are part of their charm? (If you are reading this then I assume you are friends with me, in which case the answer for you would be “yes!”) Well I too have a friend like that. One that I not only like, but actually love: “Love Actually”
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Used to be that when I heard people say that protesting was patriotic I disagreed. Not that I had anything against protesting but I failed to see how doing so showed that you loved your country. It seemed to me to indicate just the opposite. But now in my old age I realize that that statement is indeed somewhat true. People protest often because they love their country enough to passionately care when it does things they feel are wrong. Like a parent disciplining a child. If they didn’t have love in their hearts for their country then they wouldn’t care enough to care. But they do love their country and so that’s why they don’t want to see it do dumb and unnecessary things. Like bomb other countries. Or elect stupid people to represent it. Or expect us to believe that a child with no musical training or experience can become a proficient drummer in less than two weeks. By all this I mean to say that the criticism that is to follow comes from a place of true love. See, I really, really love “Love Actually”. This is of course because I am a human being. And as such, I posses a heart. And everyone who meets this criteria also loves “Love Actually”. In fact if you suspect that someone you know might not a be human being and might instead be a life-like cyborg I think a good way to determine if they are or not is to ask them if they like “Love Actually”. If the answer is “no”, then shoot them, because, they are clearly evil and heartless and, well, cyborgs are usually up to no good anyway. Even the cyborgs WITH hearts. All that being said, much like I do with my country, I have some problems with “Love Actually”. And much like Thomas Paine did with “Common Sense” and NWA did with “Fuck tha Police” I will discuss these complaints with you now.
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(Now that you’ve read the second section of this entry it’s pretty clear that the first part was completely unnecessary isn’t it? Bet you wish you had the two minutes of your life you spent reading it back now don’t you? Well all I can say is “haha, joke’s on you.” And what a funny joke it was too!)
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If, as my last analogy implied, “Love Actually” were a country, in a world, say, called Romantic Comedy Land, it would be a superpower much like the United States (okay now I’m really forcing the analogies. I might want to stop before someone gets hurt…) It has so much going for it. It is romantic and comedic without ever sacrificing one for the other (a major flaw of almost all romantic comedies). It makes GREAT use of music. Really obvious music, but nevertheless music that is used VERY well. (Is it any surprise that a movie all about love is almost wall-to-wall pop music? But that’s a discussion for another time…) It somehow manages to pull off the Pulp Fiction “the storylines all intersect and overlap each other” thing. And most of all, it is ruled over by Richard Curtis. Richard Curtis never gets the respect he deserves, but he’s written basically every charming witty British comedy staring Hugh Grant, since, well, ever. He’s a master at what he does and yet he never gets much respect. If Billy Wilder is George Washington and Nora Ephron is JFK then Richard Curtis is definitely the Woodrow Wilson of romantic comedy screenwriters. Profoundly great, yet unjustly ignored and forgotten. Wilson had a genius level IQ and was in fact like the anti-George Bush as he refused to take the country into World War I even though there were daily protests by people who WANTED the country to go to war. In a sense he tried to save people from their own stupidity. Richard Curtis does the same thing by making witty Hugh Grant movies when what the world is clamoring for is stuff like “Hitch”, “The Wedding Planner” and “Kate Hudson Throws Her Career Away”. But unfortunately Richard Curtis is not actually president of the United States. Which is a shame in more ways than one. Because if he was, he would have been subject to our lovely system of checks and balances that seemed so important in high school government class and yet gets discussed in daily life about as often as trigonometry. But it would have been important to Richard Curtis, because he could have used a little less checking and a little more balancing while making “Love Actually”. By that I mean a little less sitting there with his list of possible human relationships in which love could be involved and checking them off as he inserted them into his movie. By that I also mean a little more balancing of the storylines so that keeping things from getting “lost in the shuffle” wouldn’t have felt so forced. In fact, while watching the movie it can be somewhat difficult to keep the storylines straight and even to figure out exactly how many there are. Well, that’s where I come in as I have broken the storylines down into nine main ones and then ranked those nine in order from best to worst. Let the discussion/debate begin.
1.) Kiera Knightly/her new husband/his best friend
I’d really like to hear someone try and argue against this being the best storyline. I’d like to hear their arguments because I don’t think it could be done. If the scene when the guy holds up the poster boards for Kiera Knightly to read doesn’t touch the deepest reaches of your heart then you don’t have one. If you could combine it and the scene when she discovers what is on the wedding tape into one scene it would be arguably the best scene in a movie in the past 10 years. Maybe more. Speaking of hyperbole, in a statement that almost completely contradicts what I say a few paragraphs down about female body types, Kiera Knightly in this movie makes a strong claim to the prestigious “most attractive appearance by a British actress in a movie in my lifetime” award. Not exactly the same as winning an Oscar but it’s close…
2.) Emma Thompson/Alan Rickman/his secretary
This storyline finishes a very close second to the Kiera Knightly one, so close in fact I almost declared it a tie because it was too hard to compare them. One touches your heart and the other one breaks it. I guess I’m just more into “touching” than “breaking” because, as my Mom always said, “if you break it, you are in deep shit young man. Hey don’t you try and run from me you little fucker! I have a belt made of solid steel and I damn sure now how to use it on your little ass! Now get back here and take it like a man!” But I digress…point is, is there anyone who does strong British female resolve better than Emma Thompson? The Christmas present scene when she manages to cry and at the same time keep her composure is acting at its finest. If it had come in any movie other than “Love Actually” she would have gotten an Oscar nod for it. In fact, for my money, it was an even better controlled crying scene than the one she WON her Oscar for in “Howard’s End”. And the most heartbreaking part about the whole thing is that the audience sees it coming so far ahead. The lesson to be learned, boys and girls, is, as always, never get involved with any character played by Alan Rickman. He’s up to no good. And just in case you didn’t catch that, his secretary conveniently wears devil horns to the costume party in perhaps the most obvious case of symbolism since every Tennessee Williams play every written. I guess at the costume shop they were all out of evil seductive home wrecker costumes.
3.) Hugh Grant/the “chubby girl”
As anyone who has ever mentioned “Love Actually” in my presence surely knows, my number one issue with the movie is the “size”, or lack thereof, of Hugh Grant’s secretary. The characters in the movie go on and on about how she’s fat and yet SHE IS NOT AT ALL FAT! She is a normal size. If a major part of the dialogue revolves around the fact that a character is supposed to be fat then why not cast someone who is actually fat? Did the casting director think the audience wouldn’t be able to handle watching someone who was actually fat? Did they think we wouldn’t buy that Hugh Grant could be attracted so someone who is actually overweight? The worst thought though is that the people involved with the movie really thought the woman they cast WAS overweight. And that’s the really scary part. Is Hollywood so out of touch with reality that they think the woman in the movie is actually overweight? And not just a little overweight but overweight to the point where people would constantly tease her about it? I mean I think the woman in the movie has a very nice body and I think we would be very lucky if ALL women had bodies like hers. I know this is digressing slightly from topic but I don’t know a guy alive who thinks Laura Flynn Boyle has a nice body and yet I’m sure I could find tons of them who would say that the woman who plays Hugh Grant’s secretary does. This issue bothers me so much it really hurts my enjoyment of all the scenes in this storyline. Which is saying a lot since this is the storyline that involves Hugh Grant. And Hugh Grant is Hugh Grant. And there’s really nothing else to say about that.
(On a somewhat related note: have you ever watched a movie or a TV show where there was someone who was hideous and really overweight and was the butt of a joke because of it. You know, a situation where it was imperative that the actor playing the role be very fat and ugly? Do you ever wonder what the casting notices for those parts say? I mean does it say “male, 5’10”, dark hair, very overweight, hideously ugly”? And as an actor, are you glad if you agent submits you for that part? And also, how would you feel if you didn’t get it because you weren’t fat and ugly enough? Or more importantly how would you feel if you DID get it? It makes me think of those “Shoot the Freak” games they have on Coney Island where people pay money to shoot paintballs at a real person known as “The Freak”. Do the people who apply to be “The Freak” feel bad if they don’t get the job? “Oh man, I guess I’m not freakish enough looking, damn!” And do they feel good when they DO get the job knowing that they were the freakiest looking person who applied? “Yes! I’m freakish enough looking to have paintballs shot at me!” It’s all just something to think about…)
(I also thought I should comment on the striking similarity between Hugh Grant’s dancing scene and the Fatboy Slim “Weapon of Choice” video featuring Christopher Walken. So there. I commented on it.)
4.) Liam Neeson/his son
Okay, so there’s no way he could learn the drums that quick. And there’s no way that any school production could be that elaborate and well done. And the relationship Liam Neeson and his son have is one that could only ever exist in a movie. And there’s ESPECIALLY no way anyone could make it through airport security like that. And okay so basically everything about this entire storyline is utterly implausible. But then again the whole movie is implausible. And then again life is implausible. So I guess I cant fault it too much. Plus it’s just so darn cute and charming. And you gotta give it major bonus points for making the girl he loves black and yet the movie never making mention of that fact. You have to deduct points though for the fact Liam Neeson seems very out of place in the movie. But then it gets one million kagillion bonus points because the kid is such a freaking phenomenally good child actor. And as you all know, it’s hard to counter one million kagillion bonus points.
5.) Bill Nighy/his manager
The first time I saw the movie I thought that when “Billy Mack” tells his manager that he loves him that he meant he loved him in a homosexual way. And clearly that indicates that I have been at Marymount for too long. But now that I realize that it’s simply the requisite friendship love story in the movie it’s not quite the same. Nevertheless the scene in which he reveals his feelings is so well played and with a surprising level of complexity that it is one of the stand out scenes in a movie full of standout scenes. And his character serves a strong purpose in the rest of the movie providing great comedy and serving as a common thread that glues all the other stories together however loose that gluing might be. It’s just an all around great comic turn for Bill Nighy and a pleasurable if slight addition to the movie as a whole.
6.) Colin going to America
The main problem I have with the movie other than its utter implausibility (and the “fat” thing…) is the fact that it feels like it takes on a little too much. As I mentioned earlier, it feels like when writing the screenplay Richard Curtis had a list of like every possible human relationship involving “love” that he could think of and then tried to fit them all in a movie. But in the end some of them are unnecessary as there’s no reason a romantic comedy should run two and a half hours. Not that I am one who should be criticizing others for an inability to edit themselves when something is clearly going on too long and becoming unnecessary and filled with stuff that it doesn’t need but that the person just wants to put in there because they don’t know any better and cant realize that some things should just be cut because otherwise things go on too long and become redundant and annoying, but nevertheless I will level that charge at Mr. Richard Curtis the writer and director of “Love Actually”. This storyline is one of those cases. It is charming and cute and all, but it’s basically a one joke premise and not a very good one at that. In fact the first time I saw the movie, I absolutely HATED this storyline because it was so ridiculous and unnecessary. It’s grown on me, but still it takes up too much time for basically one joke that’s not even all that funny. It also completely violates the spirit and world of the movie, which is otherwise realistic (however implausible that reality might be). But with this storyline it veers into pretty overt comedic fantasy and as such, it seems like it exists in a different realty than the rest of the movie. And that always bugs the crap out of me. And as always, I need to get a life…
7.) Porn actors/Body Doubles
This storyline is suffers from pretty much the same problem as the one just above except its not even really a one-JOKE premise so much as one-CLEVER IDEA premise. “Hey they’re porn stars and yet when it comes to love they are just as awkward and tongue tied as we all are!” Are you laughing yet? Are you cracking a smile? Are you maybe internally commenting to yourself what a clever idea that is? Anything? Bueller?
Now I realize they do mention standing in for Brad Pitt and so maybe they arent working in porn all the time but if you look at some of the scenes they are filming I ask you what mainstream movie would they be filming? Most body doubles come from porn because its an easy place to find people who dont have a problem with nudity so it would make sense they could do both porn and Brad Pitt movies as body doubles. Anyway, wether they are porn actors/body doubles or not, the point is that they are people whose job it is to be naked and simulate having sex with each other so the essence of the joke of their storyline is the same wether they are actual porn actors or not. If they ARE shooting a porn though, which it would seem that they very well could be, then I have to ask: is it the worst porn movie in history? I mean, is that what porn is like in England and if so, remind me never to do my adult video shopping in Britain. I know the British have a reputation as being repressed and dignified but if that movie they are filming is hardcore triple-X action to them then they need some serious help. In America we may not have produced Shakespeare or The Beatles or “Pride and Prejudice” but we have given the world some of the best hardcore X-rated fucking they’ve ever seen. And to that I can proudly say “My country ‘tis of thee!” whatever the hell that means.
8.) Colin Firth/“Aurelia”
I know this storyline is like every girl’s favorite, but all I have to say to that is “you’re wrong”. It’s even weaker than the two one-joke pointless storylines. Now before you start sending me hate mail let me explain. I have nothing against Colin Firth. He seems like charming enough fellow and I know he gets your knickers all in a tither. And that’s all well and good. But what is he thinking marring someone who doesn’t even speak his language? You can’t do that! Tom Cruise already tried that with Penelope Cruz and you see how that worked out. It’s not sweet or charming or romantic that he marries her. It’s stupid and utterly implausible. It doesn’t show that love knows no boundaries. It shows that he’s an idiot. I mean, how would they communicate? What would Dr. Phil have to say about that? They didn’t even have that strong of a connection or great chemistry or anything. Plus she’s clearly a rebound girl for him and doesn’t everyone know that you don’t marry a rebound girl? That’s just bad news man. And speaking of things everyone knows, perhaps he missed the memo that you don’t write outside inches away from a lake on a windy day with hundreds of pages that you don’t have backup copies of. In the words of Napoleon Dynamite: “Idiot!”
9.) Laura Linney/”Karl”
This story line is just so bad on so many levels I don’t even know where to begin. Wait, actually I do: Laura Linney. Why the hell was she cast in this movie?!? I mean what were they thinking? “You know what this movie really needs? A dose of that special not quite good but not quite completely terrible quality of acting that only Laura Linney can bring”? On top of her general “averageness” as an actor, she is also so completely and totally wrong for her part that I hope the casting director who chose her gets trampled to death by a large mule. I mean do you buy for a second that Laura Linney would be a neurotic nervous wreck who can’t bring herself to even speak to a guy she has worked side by side with and had a crush on for like two years? If you are an actress who could ever be cast as someone who would throw Sean Penn down on a bed, straddle him and grab his crotch then you are not someone who should be cast as the “40-year-old, awkward, painfully shy girl with a crush on her coworker”. Plus who in their 40s would act like that anyway? It’s not a believable role to begin with but someone out there could have maybe pulled it off. But that person’s name is not Laura Linney. Even if Laura Linney COULD pull it off, she’s American. And everyone else in the cast is British. And this makes sense due to the fact its set in Britain. What doesn’t make sense is why one, and only one, of the members of the cast is American and why that one person is Laura Linney. Did they think that they should include an American in the cast so Americans would go see it, and if so why Laura Freaking Linney? I mean did the producers expect a reaction like this to Laura Linney:
American 1: Do want to go see “Love Actually”?
American 2: No that movie looks stupid. And British.
American 1: But Laura Linney is in it.
American 2: Laura Linney! Well why didn’t you say so before?!? I am SO there!
I really don’t understand. Every time I watch the movie the casting of Laura Linney upsets and baffles me more and more. And yeah, yeah she cares for her mentally handicapped brother and yeah that’s sweet and all, but at the expense of having sex with the guy she’s been pining after for over 2 years? Gimme a break. Besides if the producers really wanted to attract Americans they should have had Laura Linney and “Karl” have sex. Graphic hardcore sex. Because we as Americans really don’t give shit about some lady and her brother, all we really want is hardcore fucking.
And in America isn’t that what Love is Actually all about?
Top 3 & 1/2 of the Week:
1.) Ranch flavored Wheat Thins
2.) If only Saturday Night Live had thought of it first: http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2005/3/4gavaler.html
3.) Bill Simmons on U2: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/050303
3 & 1/2.) money
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Used to be that when I heard people say that protesting was patriotic I disagreed. Not that I had anything against protesting but I failed to see how doing so showed that you loved your country. It seemed to me to indicate just the opposite. But now in my old age I realize that that statement is indeed somewhat true. People protest often because they love their country enough to passionately care when it does things they feel are wrong. Like a parent disciplining a child. If they didn’t have love in their hearts for their country then they wouldn’t care enough to care. But they do love their country and so that’s why they don’t want to see it do dumb and unnecessary things. Like bomb other countries. Or elect stupid people to represent it. Or expect us to believe that a child with no musical training or experience can become a proficient drummer in less than two weeks. By all this I mean to say that the criticism that is to follow comes from a place of true love. See, I really, really love “Love Actually”. This is of course because I am a human being. And as such, I posses a heart. And everyone who meets this criteria also loves “Love Actually”. In fact if you suspect that someone you know might not a be human being and might instead be a life-like cyborg I think a good way to determine if they are or not is to ask them if they like “Love Actually”. If the answer is “no”, then shoot them, because, they are clearly evil and heartless and, well, cyborgs are usually up to no good anyway. Even the cyborgs WITH hearts. All that being said, much like I do with my country, I have some problems with “Love Actually”. And much like Thomas Paine did with “Common Sense” and NWA did with “Fuck tha Police” I will discuss these complaints with you now.
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(Now that you’ve read the second section of this entry it’s pretty clear that the first part was completely unnecessary isn’t it? Bet you wish you had the two minutes of your life you spent reading it back now don’t you? Well all I can say is “haha, joke’s on you.” And what a funny joke it was too!)
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If, as my last analogy implied, “Love Actually” were a country, in a world, say, called Romantic Comedy Land, it would be a superpower much like the United States (okay now I’m really forcing the analogies. I might want to stop before someone gets hurt…) It has so much going for it. It is romantic and comedic without ever sacrificing one for the other (a major flaw of almost all romantic comedies). It makes GREAT use of music. Really obvious music, but nevertheless music that is used VERY well. (Is it any surprise that a movie all about love is almost wall-to-wall pop music? But that’s a discussion for another time…) It somehow manages to pull off the Pulp Fiction “the storylines all intersect and overlap each other” thing. And most of all, it is ruled over by Richard Curtis. Richard Curtis never gets the respect he deserves, but he’s written basically every charming witty British comedy staring Hugh Grant, since, well, ever. He’s a master at what he does and yet he never gets much respect. If Billy Wilder is George Washington and Nora Ephron is JFK then Richard Curtis is definitely the Woodrow Wilson of romantic comedy screenwriters. Profoundly great, yet unjustly ignored and forgotten. Wilson had a genius level IQ and was in fact like the anti-George Bush as he refused to take the country into World War I even though there were daily protests by people who WANTED the country to go to war. In a sense he tried to save people from their own stupidity. Richard Curtis does the same thing by making witty Hugh Grant movies when what the world is clamoring for is stuff like “Hitch”, “The Wedding Planner” and “Kate Hudson Throws Her Career Away”. But unfortunately Richard Curtis is not actually president of the United States. Which is a shame in more ways than one. Because if he was, he would have been subject to our lovely system of checks and balances that seemed so important in high school government class and yet gets discussed in daily life about as often as trigonometry. But it would have been important to Richard Curtis, because he could have used a little less checking and a little more balancing while making “Love Actually”. By that I mean a little less sitting there with his list of possible human relationships in which love could be involved and checking them off as he inserted them into his movie. By that I also mean a little more balancing of the storylines so that keeping things from getting “lost in the shuffle” wouldn’t have felt so forced. In fact, while watching the movie it can be somewhat difficult to keep the storylines straight and even to figure out exactly how many there are. Well, that’s where I come in as I have broken the storylines down into nine main ones and then ranked those nine in order from best to worst. Let the discussion/debate begin.
1.) Kiera Knightly/her new husband/his best friend
I’d really like to hear someone try and argue against this being the best storyline. I’d like to hear their arguments because I don’t think it could be done. If the scene when the guy holds up the poster boards for Kiera Knightly to read doesn’t touch the deepest reaches of your heart then you don’t have one. If you could combine it and the scene when she discovers what is on the wedding tape into one scene it would be arguably the best scene in a movie in the past 10 years. Maybe more. Speaking of hyperbole, in a statement that almost completely contradicts what I say a few paragraphs down about female body types, Kiera Knightly in this movie makes a strong claim to the prestigious “most attractive appearance by a British actress in a movie in my lifetime” award. Not exactly the same as winning an Oscar but it’s close…
2.) Emma Thompson/Alan Rickman/his secretary
This storyline finishes a very close second to the Kiera Knightly one, so close in fact I almost declared it a tie because it was too hard to compare them. One touches your heart and the other one breaks it. I guess I’m just more into “touching” than “breaking” because, as my Mom always said, “if you break it, you are in deep shit young man. Hey don’t you try and run from me you little fucker! I have a belt made of solid steel and I damn sure now how to use it on your little ass! Now get back here and take it like a man!” But I digress…point is, is there anyone who does strong British female resolve better than Emma Thompson? The Christmas present scene when she manages to cry and at the same time keep her composure is acting at its finest. If it had come in any movie other than “Love Actually” she would have gotten an Oscar nod for it. In fact, for my money, it was an even better controlled crying scene than the one she WON her Oscar for in “Howard’s End”. And the most heartbreaking part about the whole thing is that the audience sees it coming so far ahead. The lesson to be learned, boys and girls, is, as always, never get involved with any character played by Alan Rickman. He’s up to no good. And just in case you didn’t catch that, his secretary conveniently wears devil horns to the costume party in perhaps the most obvious case of symbolism since every Tennessee Williams play every written. I guess at the costume shop they were all out of evil seductive home wrecker costumes.
3.) Hugh Grant/the “chubby girl”
As anyone who has ever mentioned “Love Actually” in my presence surely knows, my number one issue with the movie is the “size”, or lack thereof, of Hugh Grant’s secretary. The characters in the movie go on and on about how she’s fat and yet SHE IS NOT AT ALL FAT! She is a normal size. If a major part of the dialogue revolves around the fact that a character is supposed to be fat then why not cast someone who is actually fat? Did the casting director think the audience wouldn’t be able to handle watching someone who was actually fat? Did they think we wouldn’t buy that Hugh Grant could be attracted so someone who is actually overweight? The worst thought though is that the people involved with the movie really thought the woman they cast WAS overweight. And that’s the really scary part. Is Hollywood so out of touch with reality that they think the woman in the movie is actually overweight? And not just a little overweight but overweight to the point where people would constantly tease her about it? I mean I think the woman in the movie has a very nice body and I think we would be very lucky if ALL women had bodies like hers. I know this is digressing slightly from topic but I don’t know a guy alive who thinks Laura Flynn Boyle has a nice body and yet I’m sure I could find tons of them who would say that the woman who plays Hugh Grant’s secretary does. This issue bothers me so much it really hurts my enjoyment of all the scenes in this storyline. Which is saying a lot since this is the storyline that involves Hugh Grant. And Hugh Grant is Hugh Grant. And there’s really nothing else to say about that.
(On a somewhat related note: have you ever watched a movie or a TV show where there was someone who was hideous and really overweight and was the butt of a joke because of it. You know, a situation where it was imperative that the actor playing the role be very fat and ugly? Do you ever wonder what the casting notices for those parts say? I mean does it say “male, 5’10”, dark hair, very overweight, hideously ugly”? And as an actor, are you glad if you agent submits you for that part? And also, how would you feel if you didn’t get it because you weren’t fat and ugly enough? Or more importantly how would you feel if you DID get it? It makes me think of those “Shoot the Freak” games they have on Coney Island where people pay money to shoot paintballs at a real person known as “The Freak”. Do the people who apply to be “The Freak” feel bad if they don’t get the job? “Oh man, I guess I’m not freakish enough looking, damn!” And do they feel good when they DO get the job knowing that they were the freakiest looking person who applied? “Yes! I’m freakish enough looking to have paintballs shot at me!” It’s all just something to think about…)
(I also thought I should comment on the striking similarity between Hugh Grant’s dancing scene and the Fatboy Slim “Weapon of Choice” video featuring Christopher Walken. So there. I commented on it.)
4.) Liam Neeson/his son
Okay, so there’s no way he could learn the drums that quick. And there’s no way that any school production could be that elaborate and well done. And the relationship Liam Neeson and his son have is one that could only ever exist in a movie. And there’s ESPECIALLY no way anyone could make it through airport security like that. And okay so basically everything about this entire storyline is utterly implausible. But then again the whole movie is implausible. And then again life is implausible. So I guess I cant fault it too much. Plus it’s just so darn cute and charming. And you gotta give it major bonus points for making the girl he loves black and yet the movie never making mention of that fact. You have to deduct points though for the fact Liam Neeson seems very out of place in the movie. But then it gets one million kagillion bonus points because the kid is such a freaking phenomenally good child actor. And as you all know, it’s hard to counter one million kagillion bonus points.
5.) Bill Nighy/his manager
The first time I saw the movie I thought that when “Billy Mack” tells his manager that he loves him that he meant he loved him in a homosexual way. And clearly that indicates that I have been at Marymount for too long. But now that I realize that it’s simply the requisite friendship love story in the movie it’s not quite the same. Nevertheless the scene in which he reveals his feelings is so well played and with a surprising level of complexity that it is one of the stand out scenes in a movie full of standout scenes. And his character serves a strong purpose in the rest of the movie providing great comedy and serving as a common thread that glues all the other stories together however loose that gluing might be. It’s just an all around great comic turn for Bill Nighy and a pleasurable if slight addition to the movie as a whole.
6.) Colin going to America
The main problem I have with the movie other than its utter implausibility (and the “fat” thing…) is the fact that it feels like it takes on a little too much. As I mentioned earlier, it feels like when writing the screenplay Richard Curtis had a list of like every possible human relationship involving “love” that he could think of and then tried to fit them all in a movie. But in the end some of them are unnecessary as there’s no reason a romantic comedy should run two and a half hours. Not that I am one who should be criticizing others for an inability to edit themselves when something is clearly going on too long and becoming unnecessary and filled with stuff that it doesn’t need but that the person just wants to put in there because they don’t know any better and cant realize that some things should just be cut because otherwise things go on too long and become redundant and annoying, but nevertheless I will level that charge at Mr. Richard Curtis the writer and director of “Love Actually”. This storyline is one of those cases. It is charming and cute and all, but it’s basically a one joke premise and not a very good one at that. In fact the first time I saw the movie, I absolutely HATED this storyline because it was so ridiculous and unnecessary. It’s grown on me, but still it takes up too much time for basically one joke that’s not even all that funny. It also completely violates the spirit and world of the movie, which is otherwise realistic (however implausible that reality might be). But with this storyline it veers into pretty overt comedic fantasy and as such, it seems like it exists in a different realty than the rest of the movie. And that always bugs the crap out of me. And as always, I need to get a life…
7.) Porn actors/Body Doubles
This storyline is suffers from pretty much the same problem as the one just above except its not even really a one-JOKE premise so much as one-CLEVER IDEA premise. “Hey they’re porn stars and yet when it comes to love they are just as awkward and tongue tied as we all are!” Are you laughing yet? Are you cracking a smile? Are you maybe internally commenting to yourself what a clever idea that is? Anything? Bueller?
Now I realize they do mention standing in for Brad Pitt and so maybe they arent working in porn all the time but if you look at some of the scenes they are filming I ask you what mainstream movie would they be filming? Most body doubles come from porn because its an easy place to find people who dont have a problem with nudity so it would make sense they could do both porn and Brad Pitt movies as body doubles. Anyway, wether they are porn actors/body doubles or not, the point is that they are people whose job it is to be naked and simulate having sex with each other so the essence of the joke of their storyline is the same wether they are actual porn actors or not. If they ARE shooting a porn though, which it would seem that they very well could be, then I have to ask: is it the worst porn movie in history? I mean, is that what porn is like in England and if so, remind me never to do my adult video shopping in Britain. I know the British have a reputation as being repressed and dignified but if that movie they are filming is hardcore triple-X action to them then they need some serious help. In America we may not have produced Shakespeare or The Beatles or “Pride and Prejudice” but we have given the world some of the best hardcore X-rated fucking they’ve ever seen. And to that I can proudly say “My country ‘tis of thee!” whatever the hell that means.
8.) Colin Firth/“Aurelia”
I know this storyline is like every girl’s favorite, but all I have to say to that is “you’re wrong”. It’s even weaker than the two one-joke pointless storylines. Now before you start sending me hate mail let me explain. I have nothing against Colin Firth. He seems like charming enough fellow and I know he gets your knickers all in a tither. And that’s all well and good. But what is he thinking marring someone who doesn’t even speak his language? You can’t do that! Tom Cruise already tried that with Penelope Cruz and you see how that worked out. It’s not sweet or charming or romantic that he marries her. It’s stupid and utterly implausible. It doesn’t show that love knows no boundaries. It shows that he’s an idiot. I mean, how would they communicate? What would Dr. Phil have to say about that? They didn’t even have that strong of a connection or great chemistry or anything. Plus she’s clearly a rebound girl for him and doesn’t everyone know that you don’t marry a rebound girl? That’s just bad news man. And speaking of things everyone knows, perhaps he missed the memo that you don’t write outside inches away from a lake on a windy day with hundreds of pages that you don’t have backup copies of. In the words of Napoleon Dynamite: “Idiot!”
9.) Laura Linney/”Karl”
This story line is just so bad on so many levels I don’t even know where to begin. Wait, actually I do: Laura Linney. Why the hell was she cast in this movie?!? I mean what were they thinking? “You know what this movie really needs? A dose of that special not quite good but not quite completely terrible quality of acting that only Laura Linney can bring”? On top of her general “averageness” as an actor, she is also so completely and totally wrong for her part that I hope the casting director who chose her gets trampled to death by a large mule. I mean do you buy for a second that Laura Linney would be a neurotic nervous wreck who can’t bring herself to even speak to a guy she has worked side by side with and had a crush on for like two years? If you are an actress who could ever be cast as someone who would throw Sean Penn down on a bed, straddle him and grab his crotch then you are not someone who should be cast as the “40-year-old, awkward, painfully shy girl with a crush on her coworker”. Plus who in their 40s would act like that anyway? It’s not a believable role to begin with but someone out there could have maybe pulled it off. But that person’s name is not Laura Linney. Even if Laura Linney COULD pull it off, she’s American. And everyone else in the cast is British. And this makes sense due to the fact its set in Britain. What doesn’t make sense is why one, and only one, of the members of the cast is American and why that one person is Laura Linney. Did they think that they should include an American in the cast so Americans would go see it, and if so why Laura Freaking Linney? I mean did the producers expect a reaction like this to Laura Linney:
American 1: Do want to go see “Love Actually”?
American 2: No that movie looks stupid. And British.
American 1: But Laura Linney is in it.
American 2: Laura Linney! Well why didn’t you say so before?!? I am SO there!
I really don’t understand. Every time I watch the movie the casting of Laura Linney upsets and baffles me more and more. And yeah, yeah she cares for her mentally handicapped brother and yeah that’s sweet and all, but at the expense of having sex with the guy she’s been pining after for over 2 years? Gimme a break. Besides if the producers really wanted to attract Americans they should have had Laura Linney and “Karl” have sex. Graphic hardcore sex. Because we as Americans really don’t give shit about some lady and her brother, all we really want is hardcore fucking.
And in America isn’t that what Love is Actually all about?
Top 3 & 1/2 of the Week:
1.) Ranch flavored Wheat Thins
2.) If only Saturday Night Live had thought of it first: http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2005/3/4gavaler.html
3.) Bill Simmons on U2: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/050303
3 & 1/2.) money
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