FRIENDS

Peter: Hey man, how you doing?
Oh really? Do you have the day off today?
That's cool. How is your new job?
Yeah I bet you are pretty busy for the Holidays!
Everyone wants the books!
I am doing okay.
Yeah, just working, earnin' a buck ya know?!
haha
me: suck it
;)
Peter: :(
Well I guess that's the end of that.
I suppose I "enjoyed" being your friend.
We had some "laughs"
me: I gave you a wink.
That acquits me of all wrongdoing.
Peter: I was just curious how you were doing you piece of shit.
me: ;)
Peter: You have all he time in the world to talk to other people on here I am sure.
But me, nooooo, cant even type in a whole sentence!
I hope you die fucker.
Real soon.
And I MEAN THAT>
me: Listen I'm kind of in the middle of something but this convo is real important to me and we'll pow-wow later maybe over some salads. FACE TIME
ciao for now, babe
movin and shakin
you're fabulous, kid, don't forget it
Peter: whatver
me: you're gangbusters, babe
Peter: I dont ever want to hear from you again! EVER.
me: you're a superstar and I mean that
Peter: FUCK YOU FUCKER
me: love ya, you dazzler
Peter: "Listen I'm kind of in the middle of something but this convo is real important to me and we'll pow-wow later maybe over some salads."
FUCK YOU FOR THIS
YOU JUST GO EAT THAT FUCKING SALAD, YOU FUCKING COCKSMOKING FAGGOT BABY FUCKING SHIT EATING PIECE OF HUMAN WASTER
I AM GONNA COME TO CINCINNATI, THAT SHIT TOWN, WHERE SHITEATERS LIKE YOU LIVE AND EAT YOUR SHIT AND FUCKING KILL YOUR FAMILY DO YOU HEAR ME
I AM BUYING THE TICKET...
me: You are one in a million, my friend.
Don't let anyone tell you different.
You oughta be in pictures. Mattah fack, let me make a few phone calls...
Peter: (Blood curdling scream)

New Walgreens!

The city of Cincinnati is all a-twitter, and it's not hard to see why. A new Walgreens is about to open in the Finneytown/North College Hill area! This facility at the corner of West Galbraith and Winton Road replaces the Walgreens across the street, located in a strip mall next to the House of Tam (oriental food) and LaRosa's (Italian). Now, I don't think I need to tell you why this had to happen. The soon-to-be-vacant site was long known as one of the weakest Walgreens in the area, with its drab facade and lack of visibility due to its buried placement in the strip. I think I bought a Coke there once.

Forget all of that. The new facility will obliterate all memories of that sad old mausoleum. It will take up the entire corner where a Jiffy Lube once stood. Announcing itself so proudly, you won't be able to help stopping by for some razor blades, a hose, cereal, or your anti-depression medication. The trademark soft red glow and precisely arranged brick structuring will coo, "We'll take care of ya."

Expectations are high for this one. Some have predicted a branch that equals or even bests the quality of the Galbraith and Vine location, opened in 2003, or even the peerless East Goshen branch (but let's not get carried away). We'll just have to be patient together. In the mean time, keep hitting up the old locales, or just go to a CVS. (I'm kidding folks! I'm just kidding.)

Up To His Old Tricks!

From Gatecrasher in today's Daily News:

A man in a skeleton suit and mask stole the show at Q-Tip's surprise birthday party at Safe Harbor Loft on Saturday night - which was not, by the way, a costume party. "He jumped up on a $9,000 Asian armoire and started busting a move in front of the likes of Tory Burch, Lance Armstrong, DJ Clue, Andre Harrell and Sean Avery of the New York Rangers," says a witness. When the mask came off, it turned out to be David Arquette.


INCORRIGIBLE!

Black Man With Long Pink Tuxedo

Congratulations, It's a... Movie?!

It's official. The inexplicable coddling of 2006's worst movie, Mutual Appreciation, has spawned its first offspring! Let Them Chirp Awhile is "a film comedy about two over-educated, midwestern transplants struggling to make it as artists in New York City's East Village." It almost reads like a straight-up remake of Myooch Apreesh, and it does also star bedheaded, oval-faced Bishop Allen frontman Justin Rice. He is teamed here with Brendan Sexton III. You won't find any hate for the latter coming from LIQUID METAL's direction - his crustachioed (genuine) naturalness has elevated fare from Welcome to the Dollhouse to Boys Don't Cry to the under-seen indie gem Hurricane Streets (probably his biggest role). I hadn't heard from him, and thought that he might've quit the game, but no, I've just been snoozing on it.


So why does Chirp raise so many red flags for me? Could just be a knee-jerk reaction to the site of Rice's head. Or it could be the Pitchfork pigeon suit news item. Or the 9/11 element (heft!). Or the proud claim of "the first scenes ever filmed in American Apparel." Holy shit! That's just... too idiotic to think about. I think I'm upset because I know that it's the frustrating free pass given to Andrew Bujalski that's bafflingly lent authentic credence ("the rhythms of the everyday") to such numbing ineptness. A lot of people have to answer for this.

or maybe it'll be great!

THE FIRST SCENES.

EVER SHOT.


IN AMERICAN APPAREL.

Quote of the Day

Today's quote(s) (of the day) come from yet another Nicholas Coppola vehicle, the 1999 Joel Schumacher-helmed cautionary tale 8MM. Both are flying high at the box office right now with Cage's Ghost Rider and Joel's The Number 23. It is thoroughly, utterly baffling that Schumacher continues to be allowed to make movies, as he's made more than a few of the worst ever. But as that opinion is shared by many and has been widely noted, it's hackneyed to even bring up at this point and I'll leave it there. Suffice to say that he must have some REALLY serious, potentially career-snuffing dirt on one or more Tinseltown ballers.

Perhaps his worst (after the Batmans) is 8MM. An even dumber, sleazier homage to Paul Schrader's laughable Hardcore, it's about a P.I. who is hired to find out if a snuff film in which a young girl is murdered onscreen is the real deal or not. His investigations take him into the seedy extreme-video underground in L.A., lorded over by Max California (Joaquin Phoenix). Cage's Tom Welles (the P.I.) finally finds and views the tape, and his histrionic reactions while watching (gasping, biting his fist, weeping - he falls just shy of firing his handgun at the screen) have been much laughed at by Liquid Metal, when recalled.

One of the main sickos involved in the snuffderground is George Higgins, a devout Danzig fan (see his posters) who prefers the terrifying nom de plume, "Machine." Welles finally nabs Machine, who turns out to be pure, undiluted evil, through and through. OR DOES HE?

Machine delivers these lines at gunpoint, in the pouring rain:

[after removing his mask for the first time]
George Higgins: What were you expecting? A monster?

George Higgins: You know the best part of killing someone? The look on their face. It's that look. Not when they're threatened. Not when you hurt them. Not even when they see the knife. It's when they feel the knife go in. That's it. It's surprise. They just can't believe it's really happening to them. She had that look, the girl, when she knew it wasn't just porno.

George Higgins: There's no mystery. Things I do, I do them because I like them! Because I want to!


See what Schumacher and screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker have done here? That's right - shattered the barrier between good and evil.

We're all Machines.

Manhattan Special

I'd like to take time today to express my boundless enthusiasm for the Manhattan Special espresso coffee-soda, which helps me to start my day at a point ever-so-slightly further from completely intolerable (I work a block from the Hudson River; a leap is not out of the question).

As detailed at the company's fine website, Manhattan Special is the result of a "unique blend of the world's finest coffee beans (which are hand brewed to perfection), along with the use of pure cane sugar," a formula brewed "Since 1895" by the descendants of Neapolitan expats ("We are proof that the American Dream does exist" boasts a winning sepia-toned intro video, replete with simulated "arrival at Ellis Island"). And, put frankly: Manhattan Special's century-plus path to perfection makes NKOTB upstarts like Coca-Cola Blāk seem like a fucking joke.

Best of all, the bottle epitomises class, at least inasmuch as a soda bottle can--there's an iris-like image of some starchy be-tuxedoed fellow (one assumes, titled aristocracy) staring down at some lithe jazz-age cutie who's leaning in, velvety Mediterranean eyes closed, for a kiss, while a big fucking cup of coffee rests, in extreme deep-focus, in the foreground, all of this superimposed before the well-articulated silhouette of Manhattan from some impossible perspective with the Chrystler Building, Empire State, and Brooklyn Bridge clustered together and evenly-sized. The entire affair sets in an Italian tricolor frame, the bottom corners decorated with some obscure medallion that assures you the soda won a medal of some kind in Rome, circa 1925.


Apparently the good people at Manhattan Special also released a novelty record (cover art attributed to Paul "Teardrop" Ciaurella/J. P./Al Passaro) sometime in the 70's, described thusly:

"Promotional record produced by/for famed NYC coffee soda company with fantastic "Aunt Carmella" comedy skit (shown in wig, glasses front), some Italian restaurant/lounge fare and one un-credited, low-fi teen garage tune. Fun album and as New York as it gets for local vanity LPs."

Could this soda get any cooler? No, evidently, it could not.

Their bottling facility is a short walk from my front door, on Manhattan Ave; I don't discount the possibility of arranging a field trip. Oh, and evidently they make a bunch of other bottled drinks aside from their flagship product, including a recently introduced "Diet" line; I really haven't had occasion to delve into them. Suffice to say that in a world of ever-constricting horizons, faced with creeping Coke-Pepsi hegemony, Manhattan Special is an invaluable resource of deliciousness and independence and American dreams and whatnot; you need only glimpse at their Guest Book (it really is oddly moving) to see that this is a beverage that instills people with a sense of well-being and community.

You Don't... Wanna Fuck With Audie... ('Cuz Why?)

Here's a picture of the great American hero Audie Murphy, credited with killing 240-odd German soldiers and destroying 6 tanks during WW II, in which he served with the infantry from 1943 to '45 (he enlisted when he was 16!). A few choice chestnuts from Audie's wikipedia entry:


"Following its participation in the Italian campaign, the 3rd Division invaded Southern France on August 15th, 1944. Shortly thereafter, Murphy's best friend, Lattie Tipton (referred to as "Brandon" in Murphy's book To Hell and Back), was killed while approaching some German troops feigning surrender. Murphy went into a rage, and single-handedly wiped out the German machine gun crew which had just killed his friend. He then used the German machine gun to destroy several other nearby enemy positions. For this act he received the Distinguished Service Cross (second only to the Medal of Honor)

(from his Medal of Honor citation) Second Lt. Murphy commanded Company B, which was attacked by six tanks and waves of infantry. Lt. Murphy ordered his men to withdraw to prepared positions in a woods, while he remained forward at his command post and continued to give fire directions to the artillery by telephone. Behind him, to his right, one of our tank destroyers received a direct hit and began to burn. Its crew withdrew to the woods. Lt. Murphy continued to direct artillery fire, which killed large numbers of the advancing enemy infantry. With the enemy tanks abreast of his position, Lt. Murphy climbed on the burning tank destroyer, which was in danger of blowing up at any moment, and employed its .50 caliber machine gun against the enemy. He was alone and exposed to German fire from three sides, but his deadly fire killed dozens of Germans and caused their infantry attack to waver. The enemy tanks, losing infantry support, began to fall back. For an hour the Germans tried every available weapon to eliminate Lt. Murphy, but he continued to hold his position and wiped out a squad that was trying to creep up unnoticed on his right flank. Germans reached as close as 10 yards, only to be mowed down by his fire. He received a leg wound, but ignored it and continued his single-handed fight until his ammunition was exhausted. He then made his way back to his company, refused medical attention, and organized the company in a counterattack, which forced the Germans to withdraw. His directing of artillery fire wiped out many of the enemy; he killed or wounded about 50. Lt. Murphy's indomitable courage and his refusal to give an inch of ground saved his company from possible encirclement and destruction, and enabled it to hold the woods which had been the enemy's objective"


Lest you think Audie was but a well-greased killing machine, upon returning to civilian life he not only sat down to pen his autobiography, the bestselling To Hell and Back, but he also lent his somewhat weak-chinned, plasticine presence to dozens of Hollywood oaters and other assorted genre pictures (including, yes, To Hell and Back: the movie). Was he also a country music songwriter? Fuck yeah he was!

Audie's career of creating art and conducting state-sponsored mass-murder was tragically cut short by a plane crash in 1971, but feel free to see him live again this Friday at MOMA, where he appears in John "Book of the Month" Huston's 1951 adaptation of The Red Badge of Courage, which is being presented by The New Yorker mainstay Lillian Ross, who may very well have (in fact, let's just take this supposition as a given) succumbed to the legendary Murphy Charm a half-century ago when penning her on-set classic, Picture.

Mark Your Things...

Quote of the Day

classic exchange from Mike Bay's The Rock:

John Mason: Are you sure you're ready for this?
Stanley Goodspeed: I'll do my best.
John Mason: Your "best"! Losers always whine about their best. Winners go home and fuck the prom queen.
Stanley Goodspeed: Carla was the prom queen.
John Mason: Really?
Stanley Goodspeed: [cocks his gun] Yeah.

Album Cover/Title of 2007 (so far)

Rapper Lupe Fiasco went ahead and called his album Food & Liquor, and put himself on the cover hovering in space in some sort of Dark Side of the Moon-ish color spectrum, surrounded by an iPod, a Blackberry, some little Japanese robot toy, a few books, a wallet, a DVD, an NES game (in black slipcase), and a bunch of other fantastic stuff. Good work.

And The Award For Least Funny Thing In The World goes to....

... for the 16th year in a row, John Wilson and his irreverantly cheeky Golden Raspberry Awards, aka THE RAZZIES!! :) :) :)

Way to take the dream factory down a notch, fat moron!