Mostly True

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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Summer Trip

It’s summer and I’ve just finished cutting the grass and I’m lying on my back with my sunglasses on wearing my ripped checkered stained shorts I always wear when I do lawn work and no shirt and a bunch of tan lines that represent I’ve spent the summer working outside for prolonged moments during the hottest points of the summertime day.

I could dive into the sky and the blue would barely register a ripple, but today I’m content to gaze up and into its expanse and wonder when the whole thing will come crashing down upon me. I grow smaller or the blades of the grass grow taller and I find myself sinking deep into my lawn – the stalks rise like a forest of green Greek pillars and I tumble further and further into their embrace.

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12 Years a Slave (2013)

9/10 – Grilled Seal of Approval

So, I realized what is wrong with America today. I know, I know, that sounds like a terribly arrogant foolish stupid thing to say, and I don’t disagree with you about that.

But I stand by what I said anyway! Today I was reminded of the terrible, terrible people who inhabit this grand land of sweeping plains, vast meadows, cavernous caverns, mountainous mountains, and valley-ous valleys. Ohhhh sayy can youuu seeeeeeee byy theeee dawwwwwnnssss earrrrrlyyyyyyyy liggghhhhhhhhhhhhht.

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Best Unintended Uses of OkCupid

I added some new edits to my OkCupid profile yesterday. There’s a constant ebb and flow between presenting myself in a manner that would be appealing for “normal” people and diving headfirst into some of my more unusual characteristics and mannerisms that signify I am unsuitable relationship material for most of the globe. And therein lies the rub: Do you display your freak flag proudly? Do you string it up the flagpole, pour gasoline throughout the fairgrounds, and then immolate the land as a beacon to individuality? Freaks attract freaks and weird follows weird and if I am looking for a relationship, shouldn’t I be wearing my honesty like I do my favorite pants – daily, through every holiday and every season, and regardless of stains or clumps of dirt or affinity to attract the snaring hook of a drawer or a corner of a desk?

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Julie the Fortune Teller

I had a few interactions with death during my time abroad. One Cambodian friend was drunk and drove his dirtbike into a wall. An expat I knew in Cambodia succumbed one day to his many ailments. Everyday he had come to the bar at 6am, sat in the exact same spot, took out his book for the day, and then drank and smoked until nightfall. Every single day. I’m told he had been holding this schedule for the past five years. The day came when he wasn’t there for the opening shift of the bar. We knew what had happened, and we left his spot at the bar open for him.

And then there was Julie.

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‘Hunters’ of Asia

I turned on Facebook earlier this evening and – wait, wait, wait – turned on? That’s an odd way to talk, Dom. You sound like you’re a grandmother.

Alright, logged on then. Is that better?

Ehhh.. just say, “I went on Facebook. That’s all you need.”

… So… So, I went on Facebook earlier this evening… I mean, I go on Facebook everyday, multiple times per day. It’s not like today was a special day for Facebooking or anything. No, it was a regular day. Facebook is boring now. Have you noticed that? Maybe I’ve just exhausted my patience for other peoples bullshit. If I want to read about a bunch of bullshit I can just log onto my own site (har, har, har).

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