Life

Hangin’ With The Homies

Today I have a sore ass.

I assume it is because yesterday I went on my first bike ride of the new year and not as a result of some sort of violent sexual assault that happened after I went to sleep last night. I was visiting some friends of mine, so you never know.

We headed to a local bar (local for them, just a bar for me) and had a drink and watched the middle-aged cover band play songs so the middle-aged crowd would have an excuse to sway their hips and lift their feet and move their elbows and hands in the rhythmic motions most commonly known as ‘dancing.’

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A Compulsion For Chaos

So, I’m supposed to start a new weekly editorial series in a couple weeks. I’ll have a platform to write just about whatever I want as long as I can somewhat relate it to film. Or, at least that’s what I’m hoping for, but it remains to be seen if that becomes reality. I have these warped ideas of what I will write about, and it is possible (read: very likely) they will all be denied and I will be forced to resort to writing the same kind of film analysis as the other “film critics” or else be kicked out entirely.

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A Scanner Darkly (2006)

6.5/10

Fear and Loathing? The good kind of insane paranoid cinematic adventure. A Scanner Darkly? Much more tedious. Druggies do love spastically talking until they fall asleep or fall into their next drug induced stupor, and while it can be entertaining for a while to watch someone unhinged from reality, it does get to be a bit grating. These people need too much care and attention and constant babying – which I thoroughly detest. I don’t want to have to baby a person who isn’t a baby or an invalid or elderly or having any good reason for needing to be babied.

We’re not necessarily even talking about just drug users who find themselves in the midst of a bad trip or partiers who find themselves retching up their dinner into a back alleyway corner or, if they’re lucky, a toilet. Let’s also throw those perennial “needy” people into the mix. The people who just can’t seem to function without your help.

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Kicking and Screaming (1995)

8.5/10 – Grilled Seal of Approval

In honor of the college friends in Kicking and Screaming who cannot seem to move on from each other and begin their lives, let’s take roll call for my own motley bunch of loons who are my regular drinking mates and romantic misadventure confidantes. And, unlike the character’s of Baumbach’s debut, they have all (unsurprisingly) led very successful lives upon finishing college.

We tend to have the good luck/misfortune of being referred to by other people as “the guys from Africa” or “the African guys.” Africa was the name of our college house during senior year. The name could be (and often is) misconstrued as something racial, but, in actuality, we were just paying homage to a song we could all agree was awesome – the 80s hit of the same name by soft rockers Toto – and then the name stuck. Go figure.

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Fast Times At Dominick’s High (School)

As a ghost, I spent most of my time haunting the hallways and flitting between cliques with enough frequency that none would ever be able to accurately recall if I was there or not, so I was ecstatic to reach my fourth year of high school – senior year – when I would only be required to attend a half days worth of classes before I would be allowed to run, jump, and skip down the hallway and out the door to the parking lot and to my car and into it and out and away from that fucking waste of a place that occupied less of my mind while I attended than it does now.

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Philomena (2013)

9/10 – Grilled Seal of Approval

So! Three days down at my new internship and we’ve reached the weekend. (Remember I’m writing these from the future – *Twilight Zone Music* Do Do Do Do Dooo.)

I have a 1.5 hour bus ride in the morning and a 1.5 hour bus ride in the evening, and in both of those times I get the lovely chance to witness my fellow New York Bound/ New Jersey Returning worker bees trying to get a few moments of rest or skipping ahead on their workload or catching up on their workload or looking at porn on their computers or something else entirely.

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Back to Work, Yo.

“Back to wooork, back to wooork, to prove to the ‘rents I do more than lurkkk.” Sing it to the tune of “Back to school” from Billy Madison.

Well, tomorrow’s the day. I’m heading into New York to start an internship at a new video start-up. It’s been a while since I was in an “office” kind of setup, so hopefully I don’t trip and break a couple computers or pass out in the bathroom or do something else unfortunate. Onward and upward right? Perhaps if this goes well they will offer me a full-time job, but, hopefully, I will realize if an offer will come sooner rather than later seeing as it will cost me more to head into work then I will be receiving as a weekly stipend.

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Took Personality Test: Failed

So, I took the Myers-Briggs personality test today and according to the test I am an ENTP. To that I resoundingly say, “Okay, maybe,” because I always kind of see myself in all of the personalities. That being said, the ENTP does seem to explain me a little better than I expected (or maybe my mind is just looking for answers and chooses to look at the results in a particular way).

Some things I learned about myself according to the test:

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Certified Copy (2010)

8.5/10 – Grilled Seal of Approval

Turkish auteur Abbas Kiarostami’s first film outside of Turkey is a pleasant commentary on the changing state of relationships over time. When I watch one of these films (and by “these” I mean films with middle aged actors trying to figure out why their relationships went wrong or how to spend the rest of their lives or any number of other midlife crisis problems) I can’t help but wondering how my reaction to them will change over time.

I am currently young and able and as experienced in love and sex and relationships as one normally is at 25, so I look at these “midlife crisis” films from the far off perspective of an outsider. I can identify with the feelings and the situations, sure, but I will never truly understand the content until I have lived through it and have made similar mistakes and have had similar successes and conquests.

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Moon (2009)

8.5/10 – Grilled Seal of Approval

Moon is the story of Sam Rockwell on the moon. Replace the moon with the New Jersey countryside. Replace Sam Rockwell with Dom (yours truly for our new readers).

Nope, the story doesn’t change much. We’re still watching a character toil fruitlessly in the center of a great big vat of nothingness. I did spend a good portion of my time while watching Moon thinking about if I would choose to go to the Moon for a three year solo work commitment. Give me a steady supply of films, a desk, a chair, a laptop to type on, all the music I want, and I think I’ll be plenty happy. I may be bored from time to time, and, sure, I’ll miss human interaction, but I have existed inside my own head for most of my minutes and hours and days and weeks and years so I don’t think I’ll face much trouble.

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