The Greatest Job I Ever Had

Welcome to my inaugural Positive Blog, where I only blog about things that make me happy, and give the reader, you, a warm, fuzzy feeling in that dark pit of despair during these gloomy, troubled times. This blog is about the greatest job I ever had. The reason for this topic? Because its topical. And why is it topical? Because I held it yesterday. But only for one day.

Nope, but close.

As reconciliation for not getting any love on Valentine's day, God (or Job. I hear he's in the bible...God of Employment?) gave me a wonderful present: a promotional job at a ski-resort. And what did I have to do for the entire, glorious, sun-soaked day? That's right. Snowboard and do tricks off of jumps.

Clocking in for a hard-day's worth of work

I basically snowboarded up and down the mountain representing (or representin') Emergen-C vitamin C drink. I wore a large, bright-blue backpack, occasionally handed out the packets like your favorite neighborhood drug-dealer, and busted gnarly tricks off of sick-ass jumps. Oh, and I got to ride for free, plus another free lift ticket. And I got paid a lot. And, the icing on the cake: I won a free pair of socks. 

Socks: the black sheep of the cake-icing-metaphor industry

So, in honor of this being the first annual Positive Blog, I'd like to get a little Positive Feedback from those who read this blog. What is the best job you, the reader, have ever held? And, what cool stuff, if any, did you end up stealing/walking away with accidentally/handed and told "this is yours to keep, for free" at the job?

Please comment! I need to generate enough ad-revenue to pay for all of these copyrighted photos I keep stealing.

Blog War: The Black Dahlia

An epic duel between two bloggers regarding the scandalous frock-line of Lady Guinevere

Welcome to my first, and quite possibly last, installment of Blog Wars. In this episode, I go tete-a-tete against the formidable Lady Nordeen AKA Heather the Chaste, a seasoned veteran in the blog game. The topic: the 2006 movie Black Dahlia. No no no, not THE Black Dahlia, the critically panned Brian De Palma flick starring Scarlett Johansson, dummy! I would never spend 3.99 of my hard-earned cash at my local mom-and-pop Blockbuster for a movie that got 34% on Rottentomatoes.com. We got the Ulli Lommel classic Black Dahlia, which, at the time, had NO critical ratings ANYWHERE, thus we knew we were in for a diamond-in-the-rough, cinematic treat. Or a steaming, fetid pile of dog-shit that no one would touch with a 10-foot hazmat pole.

Anyway! Here is my submission into the fray. Let the Blog War begin!

ULLI LOMMEL'S The Black Dahlia

Over the course of my life I have witnessed all sorts of Bad. Camp Bad. Ironic Bad. Bad Bad. Revolting Bad. Bad the Creeps up on You. Bad that hurts your Forehead. Bad the leaves a Bad-Hangover for a Week. Even Bad that leaves Bad-Bugs rabidly crawling over your skin from a particularly atrocious Bad-Binge. The best kind of Bad movies are the kind that you can hunker down with a friend, throw a bunch of peanut gallery comments at, and WALK AWAY from with a feeling of superiority and minimal amount of residual discomfort. The worst kind of bad, on the other hand, are those that make you question Existence, re-evaluate your feeling of living in America, and worst of all, who you are friends with. It is with much chagrin that I have to say, Ulli Lommel's Black Dahlia, in short, is the absolute worst movie I have ever seen in my entire life. And the reason I am filled with such sorrow, is that my good friend, Christopher Woolsey, was kidnapped by Ulli and his gang and forced at rubber knife-point to star in this horrible, horrible movie.

Christopher Woolsey AKA Sutton Christopher. Photo taken shortly before disappearing.

Before I launch into this movie, I want to make this clear: Chris is my friend and I would never slam him; I think he is a very fine and capable actor that desperately needed money and was lucky enough to get paid movie work down in LA. That being said, it is unfortunate that he ended up in this incomprehensible pile of garbage. 

Black Dahlia capitalizes on the torture-porn craze sweeping the multiplexes by essentially being a sequence of shots of young ingenues being systematically murdered at a "casting call". There really isn't much else to it, really. Interspersed is a pathetic detective "back-story" involving the cold case of the Black Dahlia--a notorious real-life case of a young starlet who was gruesomely murdered in the late 40's--and a shit-load of additive-dissolve bursts and ambient whispering. Thats REALLY it. You could read this whole paragraph and probably take away more from it than watching the actual movie.

My genuine hope for this movie is that it be revitalized 20 years later a la Troll 2 and shown at midnight screenings, though its so revoltingly bad I'm not sure people would be able to muster the energy to lob insults and/or food at the screen.

Lady Nordeen, additional thoughts?

lbk

Juno: Stop the Madness

Though it will never, ever happen, the 9 most feared words in the human language right now are And the Academy Award for Best Picture Goes to Juno. And not because it is wrong, or it proves once and for all the Oscars are entirely irrelevant, or because having to read that off of a script without laughing breaks WGA code, but because of the horror, oh the horror, that will ensue once the studios realize not only does indie over-preciousness equal box-office gold, but it can be sweet gold statue-bait as well. And this means, oh yes, this means my friends, year-round, factory-assembled hipster garbage will be pumped out at the same rate of J-horror remakes and Tyler Perry films. Which is to say, we will be literally buried in twee. 

So why didn't I like Juno? It has a lot of things going for it, thats for sure. I love Michael Cera and Jason Bateman. I enjoy the movies of Judd Apatow, even though he had absolutely nothing to do with Juno. Oh, and I do love strippers, especially when they can turn the tables they occasionally stand on and go from being exploited to doing the exploiting (in this case, the commercialization of indie culture).

Cody Diablo, wondering whether to use MLA or Chicago-Style editing

Then what did put me off? Juno starts out with an indie-by-numbers approach to filmmaking. Main character has established, albeit superficial, quirk? Check. Title sequence done over a handmade looking animation sequence? Double check. Does the main song have a whimsical, earnest quality that evokes feelings of childhood and/or sounds like it could possibly be a song originally intended for children? Check and Mate.

All is forgiven for a movie like this, though, if a script has a good, natural flow and quality dialogue. Diablo's method of screenwriting appears to be coin as many catchphrases and deliver enough quips to satisfy an hour-and-a-half long prime-time sitcom. Its good to have clever dialogue in a movie, but having every other line work-in some sort of pop-culture reference ("honest to blog", which may become this blog's new header, is one that seems to gather the most hatred from critics) or witty retort can easily make once was an aspiring movie look like a bad episode of Gilmore Girls.

Although the tidal wave of cutesy, quippy lines of dialogue tend to annoy, the final weight that sank the SS Juno for me was the sappy and contrived placement of lightweight indie music within the film. Although the soundtrack stands alone pretty well for containing some great Belle and Sebastian and Belle and Sebastian-ish tracks, their forceful entry into the movie is almost laughably ludicrous. Its the equivalent to being repeatedly smashed over the head with a twee-pop hammer, and it has the same, disorienting and derailing effect.

And because of its success, it is only certain now that the dawn of Juno copy-cats is upon us now. Like moths to the light, Hollywood execs are scrambling to assemble the next adorably hip, Movie-Of-Our-Generation, and probably hoping an ex-Circe du Soleil acrobat will have written it so every single entertainment rag, newspaper, and blog will write about it. In fact, the dawn of this age seems to already have come upon us (although I don't think, unfortunately, this one was written by anyone from a french-clown background).

Did punch-up for No Country for Old Men

So if Juno does get the accolades it so-much-doesn't-deserve (there's a decent chance Diablo's rags-to-riches backstory may sway the Academy to give her best original screenplay), we have nothing to look forward to but jugs of Sunny D and orange tic-tacs in our horizons, ill-placed children's sing-a-longs, and the tendency to emphasize quirk over character-development in our horizons. So do us all a favor, and if you want to see the movie, and still don't trust me, watch it illegally on the internet. Then maybe there will only be 10 of these things tops this year.

We Formed a Blog

Right now my throat is heavily breaded, much like a fish-stick, with a sooty coat of smoke from ye' olde emphysema-ridden establishment, The Horse Brass. Less than one year from now, patrons and bar employees alike should be enjoying a collective gasp of fresh air, as Oregon will follow suit of most of the States and adopt a smoking-ban, effectively keeping your hair and clothes from smelling like the basement of hell when you return home. I, for one, am giddy with anticipatory excitement. I no longer will have to be concerned about my laundry cycles, nor will I any longer will I be forced to wear ugly "bar clothes" when I go out. I will sadly miss you, though, generic gray shirt.

Getting laid success-rate: 0.00078%. 

So, as I sit here in bed, recovering from a night of second-hand smoke and hard cider, I will wistfully recall those smoke-free Washingtonian days of yesteryear by inaugurating this blog as the Best Of Blog. Within it you shall find delicious old morsels of writing from my Northern days in Bellingham, nuggets of wisdom from my fleeting moments in Vancouver, and all things in between. I'll even throw in a few free steak-knives in the form of Portland blogging and, of course, the ubiquitous "more-to-come".

So what's first up? My about my watered-down indictment of Costco, a pretty tame screed considering I wrote it as a employee with a slowly forming hernia:

Casket 2-Pack Sale!

Originally Posted June 21, 2005



Many people think Costco was an invention of California. It wasn't. Costco was born and raised right here in the verdant NW, corporately masterminded in Issaquah. The first one sprouted up in the environs of Seattle almost a quarter of a century ago. Costco, a wholesale retail outlet that typically settles in remote locations to keep real-estate overhead at minimal levels, became embroiled in a heated battle with Priceclub in the mid 80s, winning out and buying out the rival company, skyrocketing Costco as the dominant membership based warehouse-seller in the US economy. It's no-frills, cement and re-bar environment paved the way for a new era of consumerism-- one that focuses less on flashy displays and superfluous marketing techniques and settles on the nitty-gritty: selling high-volume with rapid-turnover in addition to procuring membership fees in order to pass on staggering savings to the customer.

Costco has becoming synomous with exogenous perceptions of American culture: big, bulk, and uniform. Nothing at Costco comes "Le Petit". You don't go to Costco to buy a few items, or an impulsive pack of gum: you leave with more than you feel like you can digest. Costco is one of the only retailers where flatbed-carts are offered as a reasonable alternative adjacent to normal-sized shopping carts. It is based on the same subliminal and nebulous marketing technique known as "upsizing", where the consumer typically leaves with more material than he/she intended to leave with, at an inversely exponential fraction of savings. The lure of this indelible practice in our culture for retailers is as obvious as the gaudy displays of marketing grandiosity. Get the consumer in for a taste, then offer the whole pie for a little bit more. It preys on American's inability to eschew greed for moderation, and it works great.

When I was in Europe, I never saw any mega-stores quite like Costco. Sure there were markets that carried a bevy of goods, but none that held the sheer volume and selection of a Walmart or Target. Everything was localized. Most items were purchased at specialty stores, patissaries, boulangeries, brasseries, or open flea markets. European's last bastion of national individuality is held in this informal decree. When someone talks of the non-stop barrage of globalization, "Americanization", or "Mconaldization", they aren't specifically referring to the employment of 11-year-old Laotian amputees in sweatshops, but the growing tide of encroachment on these slowing drowning beacons of culture. The sad fact is, however, the economy is pretty much unstoppable. French people will begin to realize they would rather pay 11 cents for a baguette instead of 1euro40, and these monolithic superstores will begin sweeping into the historical outposts of civilization. Costco's tentacles only sinew up into the UK and Japan right now, and I doubt that it will spill into any of the EU for a a long time.


Neoclassical economics aside, and cultural morals aside, there's something I love about these stores other than the rock-bottom prices, the quality-control of the goods, and our AMAZING level of customer service in America (If there is one thing we take for granted in this country, its how respected the phrase "Can i see your manager?" is). It's the well-lubricated efficiency, the briskness of a management based structure, and all of it being a throwback to the heyday of the Rockafellers and Morgans and Pullmans (minus the employee-abuse).

Easiest way to smuggle-out 5 pallets of Kirkland Bottled Water

The other week Costco announced they would be teaming up with a California based funeral-services company to sell coffins. All obvious jokes aside, Costco has become an organization that is a microcosm of the country. You could live there and have all of your worldly needs attended to, from life to death.

5 Actors Who Could Never Play Convincing Normal Dudes

Originally posted January 10th, 2008.

Well, with my last blog landing in far more esoteric realms, I decided this week I would make it simple: a list of actors with some acute and witty observations about their amazing talent and complete lack of ability to play normal people. These are all actors in the peak of their histrionic prowess that possess certain features, physical or eerily subliminal, that disallow them from playing the average Joe Shlub in the latest shitty comedy. Some of them "could" hypothetically summon all of their dramatic energy and channel it into being best buds with Adam Sandler, but it'd still leave us with an unsettling feeling afterwards. Here's the list:


1) Cillian Murphy




Most of you know him as Dr. Crane AKA the Scarecrow in Batman Begins. I know him as "The Eyes". Even if you see him telling someone he loves them, or is petting a kitten, be warned: some horrible shit is about to go down. You know just by looking into those bulbous, infinite blue orbs that whatever he does is going to be followed by slicing your throat with a penknife and unleashing locusts in your parents house.

2) Ben Foster



Most notable for playing characters that are absolutely, positively fucking nuts, you probably know Ben Foster best as Russell, Claire's mercurial, bi-sexual, sometimes-boyfriend in 6 Feet Under. From there he graduated to playing a self-loathing Jewish Skinhead that makes Edward Norton's American History X neo-nazi look like Hello Kitty. He's also played an Archangel of Death, a blood-thirsty vampire, and a nihilistic murderer. So no, he's probably not going to be in the next Hollywood heart-warmer anytime soon.

3) Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick



The fat guy on the right is looking calm, but right after this photo was taken, Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick AKA Damien turned towards him and said "You promised to take me to Baskin and Robbins before this. We didn't go to Baskin and Robbins" before releasing a pustule of blood-soaked larvae and fire-ants from his forehead. There is an obvious reason why this kid was cast in the newest incarnation of The Omen. It's because he IS the child of Satan. Sheesh, when are they gonna start hiring actors instead of reciting incantations at casting calls and conjuring up the spawn of Beezelbub?

4) Christian Bale



I'll admit, Christian Bale has played normal guys before. Hell, he was even a Newsie! But that doesn't mean he can convincing pull down the Everyman schtick like, say, Tom Hanks. Want proof? Try to find evidence of him telling a joke in any of the movies he's ever been in. Do you get the creepy feeling that he's about to stab whoever he's joking with? If not, maybe you have a sick, sick sense of humor or you're somehow missing the perpetual maniacal glow in his eyes (the same glow that allows him to lose 200 pounds for a low-budget indie film like it was no big deal).

5) Jeremy Davies



Jeremy Davies will always be a slimeball. Or a sleaze-bucket. Or someone with 1001 ticks, idiosyncracies, and obsessive-compulsive neuroses. But he will never, ever, ever be the guy you trust to diffuse the bomb and save the city in the nick of time. Davies has played a lot of great characters over the years, from a small part as a Press Corps member in Saving Private Ryan to an emaciated, Mansonish character in the new Werner Herzog film Rescue Dawn, and he's definitely an underrated and underused actor. Just don't expect him to be Aquaman.

The Bucket List

Originally posted December 28th, 2007. The start of my "writing reviews without seeing the actual thing" thread.

So I decided instead of actually waiting for a movie to be released and then reviewing it, I would submit a movie review sheerly based on watching half of a trailer, online hearsay, and whatever gaps my mind filled in for the rest.

The movie I've decided to review is "The Bucket List", a movie about to be unleashed upon the age-ed, decrepit, movie-going masses; in other words, those that don't illegally download movies and who are wooed in by Morgan Freeman's authoritative baritone and the come-hithering, arched-buttresses of Jack Nicolson's eye-brows.

The title "The Bucket List" derives from the age-old trope of the list of the 10, or 20, or, hell, even 100 things one should do before they die. The Acropolis, Skydiving, Same-Sex Experience; What sort of things would you do if you all of a sudden woke up and realized "Hey, I share the same hospital room as the narrator from every Frank Darabont movie and we're both going to be gone soon?".

So you wake up, put on your slippers, kick aside your academy awards, step-around your Harley that was a gift from Peter Fonda, stick the keys to your Crown Victoria in the ignition, and meet with the director of "This is Spinal Tap" and "Kate and Leopold" and talk about the great watermark-leaving opus you want to make before you die. You both discuss the details of the movie: Will there be an initial salty dis-ease between the two hard-veneered leads? Will they get into sticky situations with high-potential for comic pratfalls unbecoming of men their age? And will they, oh for the love of god will they, uncover the true meaning of Christmas (hint: it lies in the doe-like eyes of a adorably naive 6-year-old)?

You decide on the demographic of your picture: septuagenarians with adopted Chinese children who aren't yet old enough to know good from crap. Should there be a hi-larious scene where the two lads attempt to ride motorcycles? Would a PG-13 rated scene of sexual-misunderstanding and naughty euphemisms be too much for the adopted Chinese child? Will Annette Benning be willing to phone-in a scene with a burned Thanksgiving turkey?

And while wistfully looking back and reminiscing about the movies you've made, you decide you've created the perfect denouement to your solid-gold careers. The Bucket List has been completed. You can go home now.

And no, this man is not in it: