True change begins when we can reshape the horrendous attitudes possessed by some of our youth, and of course that's a direct reflection of the parents in most cases.
I caught a few minutes of Bridge to Terabithia tonight and I can honestly say it reminded me of the attitudes of many Americans, especially voters.
In other words, one particular kid in the classroom annoyed the hell out of me.
Leslie Burke: What if you don't have a TV?
All: [laughing]
Leslie Burke: My dad says that TV destroys brain cells.
Scott Hoager: Your dad doesn't know anything. We watch TV like every day!
Leslie Burke: I rest my case.
Mrs. Myers: Well then Leslie, you could write a report on something else.
Scott Hoager: Yeah, like how to live in a cave!
Some people just never grow up after adolescence. That was but one example. There was another annoying little red-headed brat that needed a good thumping.
txrad and I started talking about school and he mentioned that study hall in his school was a reward you had to earn. Wow. What a contrast to the pathetic little all-white Christian academy I attended.
Study Hall: It's what you do to the kids when you don't have time or resources to teach them.
Then I brought up university life. Not all colleges are equal; that's for certain. I spent a bit of time bouncing back and forth between the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville and Little Rock trying to figure out what I was supposed to do with myself. College was a bit of a jolt for me. With each campus having well over 10,000 students, life was different. The adolescent behavior which was present throughout high school did not exist here. (Well, not in the classroom; dorm life and frat houses were another matter!) Suddenly I bore responsibility for my life. Everyone, including myself, had to make new friends.
What I really wanted was to experience some life outside of Arkansas for a change. So one semester I had applied and was accepted at the University of Denver. What a colossal mistake. I'm not saying it's a bad school but dorm life was a big contrast to my previous experience. My roommate was this New Yorker, the son of a cop if I recall, and he had a bad-ass attitude. And he smoked pot.
If you are wondering why I'm complaining about that, keep in mind that I was still emerging from a very conservative upbringing and I was still trying to make of myself what I thought other people expected of me. I had no clear directives and felt adrift. I realize now what I was looking for was less responsibility; I wanted to be guided and I wanted a strict environment that would not allow me to deviate. I had also dragged along some conservative emotional baggage from home and I wrongly assumed that since the University of Denver was affiliated with the Methodist Church, it would be a place far from home yet familiar.
Not only was I unpleasantly surprised by my first impression of the students I met upon my arrival, but the cafeteria food sucked. And that was the last straw. I called my parents and told them I had to leave, and I painted a rather unflattering portrait of the school in an effort to diminish any resistance I might face from my parents. I can't imagine how many thousands of dollars they had to scrape together to get me enrolled.
I packed my stuff, got in the car and headed back to southeast Arkansas. I will never forget the sense of relief I felt as the Denver skyline faded from my rear view mirror, and later, the front range of the Rockies would fade, leaving me in the barren rolling plains of eastern Colorado and a whole lot of Kansas ahead of me.
When I arrived back at home with my parents I felt lost and faced a lot of uncertainty. It was late in the first week of January and the prospect of a wasted semester fueled my anxiety. As luck would have it, and I use the word luck very loosely here, the University of Arkansas at Monticello wasn't starting their spring semester until the following week and getting admitted there was pretty easy. Best of all, the campus was only 30 miles from where I lived with my parents, so I could commute each day and save money on housing costs.
I was not thrilled with this outcome because this was not a large school -- probably about 2,000 students -- and the majors offered were very limited. But since I was still a sophomore and taking only basic required classes, it didn't matter.
My first week of classes was an eye-opener. Talk about a contrast! If what I wanted to find was the familiarity of high school, I hit the jackpot. The students here all seemed to know each other and many of them didn't seem that serious about college. The professors were also noticeably more like the high school teachers I'd known.
It became clear to me that one semester of this was going to be quite enough, and in the summer or fall I'd return to either Little Rock or Fayetteville and try to get serious again. I don't remember which campus I went to first, but as before, I bounced between the two of them before finally getting the easiest possible degree in Liberal Arts, with the least amount of effort, and after nine years of being in and out of colleges. My parents must have been proud of me after squandering so much money on a degree which was worth about as much as the parchment on which it was printed. (It's in a drawer around here somewhere.)
To cut a long story short, all of this was flashing through my brain last night after catching a few minutes of the aforementioned film which, ironically, we shut off in order to watch another high-school themed film, Rocket Science.
It was just last week that I mentioned having seen The History Boys and loved it. In the comments, Minstrel Boy recommended Rocket Science.
There's nothing like the feeling of seeing a film and immediately looking forward to a 2nd viewing. As one who was definitely an outsider in both high school and college, I could relate to this film on so many levels.
It's also just quirky and offbeat enough to score valuable bonus points which will rank it pretty high in my list of memorable independent films. And the use of music was brilliant. If you have seen the film, I'm sure you'll understand why I selected the title of this post, even if it took me a while to get to the point.
Not very economical but enjoyable nonetheless. On Wednesday and Thursday night we watched two films which have been sitting in our living room since July 21, 2007 from netflix.
Last night's selection was C.R.A.Z.Y. -- a gay coming-of-age story with a focus on the boy's relationship with his father. Great acting and a good film. I've had the film so long I totally forget it was a Canadian film, not that it would matter, except it was French with English subtitles which we have to read. Again, no big deal unless you're a bit cross-eyed from tequila consumption. We were, but we got through it.
The film on Thursday night was better though: Brick, with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Lukas Hass, started off with a bit of violence -- nothing extreme, just a good ass-kicking which was repeated again and again throughout the film. I wasn't sure I was in the right frame of mind for that but the film was amazing. Good writing, good directing, good cinematography, GREAT acting.
This unconventional film noir -- set in the halls of a modern-day high school -- marks a promising debut for writer-director Rian Johnson. Teenage loner Brendan Fry is forced to navigate his school's social network when a secret crush turns up dead and the murderer is anyone's guess. Through intense interactions with thespians, band geeks and druggies (including a grown-up Lucas Haas), Brendan works to crack the cliques -- and the case.
I could easily sit through this one a 2nd time, but not right away. Besides, I'm ready to get these two flicks sent back so we can get two more -- and hopefully not sit on those for 7 months.
Oh, and the 3rd film we have? Pedro Almodovar's "Bad Education." That was has been here since March 25. I'll get it watched and sent back before the 1st annivarsary. Promise.
Or maybe I was just a catalyst. Or maybe I was just an accessory to a catalyst. I don't want anyone to think from the title of this post that I'm seriously taking credit for anything; this is a philosophical humor piece.
Last night we were watching an incredibly entertaining Motown documentary: Standing in the Shadows of Motown. In fact it was so good I stayed up until almost 11:00 watching it. That's way past my usual sleepy time.
Aside from dishing out some good history of Motown and the players, there were some very lively performances by Bootsy Collins. Meshell Ndegeocello and Joan Osborne got quite a bit of time on the screen as well as Ben Harper.
Near the end of the documentary though was a performance by Chaka Khan and Montell Jordan, who is probably best remembered for his hit, "This is How We Do It," back in 1995 and earned him a MTV Music Award nomination as well as a Grammy nomination in that year.
Back around late 1992 I was moving into a supervisory position at my advertising agency to lead a department which was responsible for tracking calls and product orders from infomercial 800-numbers and other "direct-response" commercials which also utilized the "order now" approach with a toll-free numbers to push goods and services. We were also hiring new staff at the time to help with the workload and one of the people we hired was Montell.
I was also interested in production and since we had a department dedicated to that function, I managed to get my foot in that door for a brief period. One of our clients at the time was Def Comedy Jam and we were doing a production for several commercials to promote videos of some of their rising comedians. That was probably the only pleasantly memorable experience from my brief time in the production department. I got to dabble in a bit of scriptwriting for the spots, a few lines of which may have ended up in the final creative, give or take a word or two.
It was fun because I HAD to watch a lot of video footage and I was a big fan of those very funny (but not workplace safe) folks. I also got to spend a bit of time in the editing studio as the video footage was being assembled for the commercials. I even got to meet Stan Lathan who was the director of the Def Comedy Jam and was overseeing the production for the commercials.
While the video editing was lovely, the voice-over person was not up to par. I was in the edit bay with a colleague from our production department. I'll call her Miss R. She was supervising the actual edit and I was there as a backup and as a second set of eyes.
Stan asked Miss R. if she had any recommendations for a voice-over talent as we were in a time crunch and needed to get this done soon. Miss R. thought for a second and mentioned Montell. She looked at me and asked, "Don't you think he'd be great?"
I agreed. We got him in there to meet Stan and do some quick auditions. The deal was done. He was perfect.
It wasn't very long after that when Montell left our agency to pursue his music dream. I often speculate about whether that coincidental blip in history which introduced him to the director of Def Comedy Jam helped propel him into meeting Russell Simmons, the co-founder of the hip-hop label Def Jam, and ultimately (and quickly) into an extremely successful record deal less than 2 years later.
When Montell left, we didn't have any idea if he would make it or not. It wasn't until he showed up in the Billboard charts that we knew for sure.
Those coincidental introductions and the proverbial forks in the road have always been fascinating to me. We all have them, but not all of us have such a driving motivation to recognize the right move and capitalize on it. And few of us will ever face a crossroad of such startling contrast. Luck and talent do count for something. So does having clarity and focus -- knowing what you want from life.
Just wanted to share that little bit of history. Now, about that Bootsy Collins...
Blog about the black man on the keyboard in the 1920s banging on the black and whites smoking a joint, and the daughter saying something like, "put that out dad, it's not like it's medicine or nuthin." And the mother rounding up her unruly daughter to pacify the times.
Quaker Dave has the latest Darfur outrage, and there's plenty to be outraged about, if only we could get motivated. Perhaps some visual aids might help.
Take a look at this movie trailer for The Devil Came on Horseback, directed by Ex-Marine Brian Steidle.
Are all the nations who could help really so busy with other problems that the Darfur crisis has to ride at the back of the humanitarian bus? I don't think so.
After today's 25 degrees drop in temperatures from previous days, and lows expected in the low 40s, it's a perfect night to pop the cork on this lovely bottle.
A 2000 Old Vines Tempranillo Reserva from Spain. $12.99 and as succulent as some of my favorite Tuscan wines. I just need to get in the kitchen, whip up a pizza pie, put on a movie, and prepare to relax.
Speaking of movies, last week when there was a Halloween costume contest at my place of employment, one of the guys there was dressed and in character as Walter Sobchak from The Big Lebowski.
Supposedly he won first place in a Lebowski fest here in Austin awhile back, and hung out afterwards with The Dude (the guy portraing the dude, I mean the guy at the festival portraying the dude, not THE Dude, dude) and that just had to be a hoot and a half.
"Has the whole world gone crazy? Am I the only one around here who gives a shit about the rules? Mark it zero!"
Nothing was easy. I had the most work-intensive week of my entire 17-year career in the advertising industry.
I said today that I had a new drinking game: I'd drink a shot for every Excel spreadsheet I'd manipulated all week and I'd be in the hospital Saturday morning. I'm serious.
As long as I'm not expected to do advanced level stuff like pivot tables, I can work wonders and magic with Excel. I've done it for about 15 years. And I did it this week, but not without trials and tribulations.
I massaged a HUGE amount of data. It wore me to the bone. But I accomplished what I set for myself as goals for the week, and I'm amazed. But I had problems along the way.
By the end of this week, even simple tasks like sorting data were proving to be a hassle. Nothing was as easy as it normally is.
So when I came home, after a 10.5 hour work day, I realized even the week fucked me over. Despite working more than 8 hours all week, I got no overtime because of the Monday holiday. So basically I worked harder than I have in my entire life and made less than I normally do in a routine 5-day workweek.
Great.
And the last thing I needed when I got home was MORE hassles with Blogger and Photobucket, which shut down everyfuckingtime I tried to upload a photo.
The program would just close and leave me facing my desktop.
So, without further ado, I bid you adieu.
Adieu, adieu, to you and you and you.
Remind anyone of any blonde Austrians?
I'd post a photo, but I'm sure I'd get shut down.
There's a sad sort of clanging from the clock in the hall And the bells in the steeple too. And up in the nursery an ubsurd little bird Is popping out to say cook-coo cook-coo, cook-coo Regretfully they tell us cook-coo But firmly they compell us cook-coo To say goodbye cook-coo...To you... So long farewell, auf weidersehen good-bye Marta: I hate to go and leave this pretty sight So long farewell, auf weidersehen adieu Freidrich: Adieu, adieu, to you and you and you So long farewell, au revior auf weidersehen Liesl: I'd like to stay and taste my first champagne Yes? Captain: No So long farewell, auf weidersehen goodnight Kurt: I leave and heave a sigh and say good bye - goodbyyyyyyeeeee! Brigitta: I'm glad... to go.... I cannot tell a lie Louisa: I fleet, I float, I fleetly flee I fly... Gretl: The sun... has gone... to bed and so must I...So long...farewell...auf weidersehen goodbye...Goodbye...Goodbye....Goodbye.... Guests: Goodbye...
That's gotta be surburbia, and you can't deal with my infinite nature, can you?
Haven't you people ever obsessed over I Huckabees?
22704 was a house number in one of the shots. I don't know why, but it made me laugh, because any five digit street number on a house is definitely not inner city. The rest of the line about "infinite nature" was a quote from a character in the movie. I think. Hell yes I was doing tequila shots! Now, carry on.
Or is he? txrad suggests that Quentin Tarantino has listened to Jack White. I countered that Jack White, rip off artiste that he is, has probably watched some Tarantino.
Huckabees?
