The Backyardigans aren’t only my backyard friends, they’re also my backyard lovers.
THIS IS TROUBLE
I farted in this lake.
(via)
Being There was the last Peter Sellers film released when he was alive. It stars Sellers as Chance the Gardener, a simpleton assumed to be someone he’s not and propelled to fame, after being hit by a car as he’s watching himself on the television of a storefront video camera. It ends with Sellers walking on water, next in line as president.
My favorite part is Chance walking out of his house into the city for the first time in his life, an old man, with the soundtrack pumping Deodato’s Thus Sprach Zarathustra - a piece more commonly associated with apes gaining consciousness in 2001.
I think about Chance when I walk into a grocery store now or hear something about Sarah Palin. I can’t buy groceries without being accosted at checkout with an image of some famous bullshit nobody who lost 15 pounds, a famous bullshit nobody who was on reality television once and is now a star and, let’s face it, was the real reason ten million viewers watched The Today Show yesterday morning - yeah, Today might have led with a geopolitical/economic/ecological disaster story but WHO CARES, they tuned in for the country singer crooning in the street (so authentic!) and the interview with the famous bullshit nobody (so real!).
We are surrounded by famous bullshit nobodies, famous simply because they stumbled on television or television stumbled on them. No talent required. In fact, simpletons excel, because they’re more watchable, more trustworthy. And fame begets fame. Reality begets reality.
While Chance was innocuously dumb, too many bullshit simpletons today are poisonous - xenophobic, bigoted, ignorant and egotistical weasels who equate being famous with being right, weasels who make you wonder ‘why is anyone still talking about her? don’t people understand how empty her head is? or is that why everybody trusts and likes her?’
Celebrity used to require a modicum of talent, but now the talentless command celebrity, and celebrity is news. We propel those who have spent their lives isolated from the world to lead it, to lead us. We like to watch.
whltexbread asked: Marry me.
I’m sorry. I only do Jumbotron marriage proposals.
She rubbed her hand through his hair.
I don’t know, he said, we had some real differences. She would always choose what we listened to from a list of songs.
What’s wrong with that? she asked, picking up the scissors.
How someone chooses music to listen to in a given moment says a lot, he said. Choosing from a list of songs is like picking a snack. Whatever you pick might taste great for a second, but it’s fleeting. Shallow. Shortsighted.
And you choose from a list of artists, she said, trimming his ear hair.
No, he said. That’s oversimplifying things. Those people say ‘how about Italian tonight?’ But Beef Carpaccio is an entirely different universe from Gnocchi Caprese. They’re insensitive to nuance. It’s like referring to the entirety of Bob Dylan’s body of work as Chinese, he said.
Bob Dylan isn’t Chinese, she chuckled.
I choose albums, he said. They’re the full meal, everything fits together. You might not like every part, but that’s OK, it makes other parts even better. And when you’re done, you’ve had something of substance.
I like playlists, she said, cutting two hairs protruding from a mole on his neck.
Yeah, I know that about you, he said. But that’s like a bunch of snacks pushed together. You don’t have the artist’s statement. A playlist might fit a mood, but in the end it’s not the complete course.
I don’t know, she said, I think you’re too attached to your metaphor. When an artist makes an album, she makes a playlist of her recent songs. She arranges her snacks. Anyhow, I thought you two were cute together.
He sat in silence then, looking at his reflection in the mirror, and she moved on to trimming his eyebrows.
This one goes out to the best friend of all the brothers stuck at the mall shopping with their lady friends - the easy chair.
There you were, right by the dressing room, close enough but not so close that it would be creepy to be on you. You have no idea how happy you made me.
I love you, chair. I love you so much. I want to put my ass all over you.
Current status
Ladyhawke (1985) stars Rutger Hauer as a dude in love with a lady (Michelle Pfeiffer) who turns into a hawk at the break of daylight, and the bummer is he turns into a wolf at dusk, just when she turns back into a lady. So while they’re in love, they can never be together.
Except Matthew Broderick ends up helping them break the spell, and in the end the wolf and the hawk make love and the hawk ends up giving birth to a nest of wolf-hawks, and the wolf-hawks go on a killing spree. Wolf-hawks are the shit! You should see it.
Damn right it was a good day.