Sister Act

Reasons Bobby’s wife, Natasha Monster, and her sister, Lilian Monster, are better than Dorothy Gish and her sister, Lillian Gish:

• Didn’t die decades ago.
• Upper body strength.
• Inoculated against more diseases.
• Many more Instagram followers.
• On average, married to .5 rock stars more.
• Did not become hardened and bitter by the patriarchal studio system of early Hollywood.
• Neither of the Gish sisters met Mickey, whereas both Natasha and Lilian Monster see Mickey on a regular basis.

Cheese, Cake

I posted the photo of this the other day, so obviously all I’d like to discuss is Alex’s comment; here’s the best thing about it: that John Mayer is a cheesedick is not in question, just the size of his cheesedickery. It’s like he’s writing a mathematical proof and gave his axioms upfront.

Also: “L?” Is that acid? That’s a terrible name: L is a letter without any panache to it. X is percussive and sibilant and dangerous; H has a breathy cool to it. L just don’t make it. Plus, if you were an acid dealer and only called it L and wished to sell your product to folks from Japan, that drug deal would be racist.

Also also, were you aware that T dropped yo ass? I was not, but now am.

Also also also, does Young John Mayer love that van that much? Over a guitar, or a replica of one of his many watches? Wow.

Also also also also, that van has herpes.

Also etc., if you Photoshop the table and cakes out, then Bobby and John Mayer are karate-bowing to each other and about to karate-kick one another.

Roll The Bones

My brother enjoys traveling to foreign places, as you can tell from the picture above, which is some of the most foreign bullshit I’ve ever seen.

I’d take this option, though. Burial’s a scam and a waste of good land; cremation is spooky. Give my organs to bass players and make art from my bones. Scare children with me for a thousand years.

Also, the coccyx bones at the bottom make up the collar of the chalice, while the ball joints in the middle of the stem would properly be called the knop. We all just learned something, besides the fact that residents of Prague in the 10th century were metal as fuck.

Dubya, Eh?

To all my Canadian friends: Yay? Boo? Sorry? Harper was a true cockknocker, but–and I mean this with all love and respect and poutine–Justin Trudeau does not seem like the smartest moose in the forest.

Good hair, though.

 

Thoughts On The Star Wars Trailer

• This trailer, more than the previous ones, fleshed out our three main characters – the two good guys and the bad guy.
• There is a pretty white lady, who is mysterious, and would have been played by Keira Knightley fifteen years ago, and in fact kinda was played by Keira Knightley fifteen years ago.
• Her name, according to the Wookiepedia, is Rey and she is exploring the innards of a crashed Star Destroyer on a planet that looks like Tatooine, but is supposed to not be.
• Then there is a sweaty black guy, who is a Stormtrooper; his name is Finn and he doesn’t want to stormtroop any more.
• The trailer implies that his TIE fighter goes down, but he wasn’t wearing TIE pilot armor, which is black and has breathing tubes snaking out of the muzzle of the mask and is AWESOME.
• The TIE (Twin Ion Engine, please keep up) hurtles out of control and if you find yourself wondering how a one-man orbital fighting ship survives re-entry, then you should stop wondering that.
• Quite a few problems in science fiction can be solved by yelling “Shields,” at them as loudly as possible.
• “Inertial dampers” is also good to say when physics starts yet another argument.
• Then there is the scary bad guy, Darth Rabies, and he is being a bad guy out loud, and he is on some sort of ship.
• In his hands is Vader’s burnt, broken mask.
• Vader’s mask is so much cooler than Darth John Mayer’s mask that it’s unchartable.
• But it raises a large dramatic question: how’d this jabroni get Vader’s mask?
• Luke burned that on a pyre after the Battle of Endor during the celebration with the Ewoks.
• He pretty much did it in the middle of the party.
• “Hey, Luke? Mind not setting your father on fire in front of the bar? Thanks?”
• It’s a party, and people were trying to sing Yub Yub, and Luke is dousing his estranged dad in lighter fluid and burning his corpse.
• Jedis are weird.
• So is Darth Systemic Racism actually Luke?
• Or someone related?
• Or a handyman who stole the mask?
• Probably not the last thing.
• Then the Millennium Falcon chases some TIE-fighters above the crashed Star Destroyer and Rey (I guess) says something about “the stories” being true and then Finn and Rey are in the Falcon with Harrison Ford, who says something while wearing the Han Solo costume.
• Which is like 90% of the way to being all I need to call this a success.
• The other ten percent might be Chewie doing that high, gargling cry while waving his hands above his head.
• I love when he does that.
• Then, the Falcon makes the familiar leap to hyperspace.
• Hyperspace bears very little relation to Warp Speed, which had different levels and there were, like, limits and rules and nacelles: hyperspace is just a guy with a beard writing “and now they’re on the ice planet,” and never thinking about it again.
• Which makes all attempts to saddle hyperspace with any sort of scientific explanation hilarious.
• This does not stop people from trying, and if you have the rest of your life to waste, go visit the aforementioned Wookiepedia.
• Yesterday, a child starved to death at the same time the guy who maintains the server for the Wookiepedia had lunch.
• Humanity squanders itself so willingly.
• Anyway, then there’s all sorts of space goodness and war action.
• There are X-Wings dogfighting TIE-fighters right above the ground and if you think you’re some sort of fancypants by pointing out that a TIE-fighter is as aerodynamic as a potato with two waffles stapled on it, then I will shout “repulsorlift technology” at you until you stop asking those kind of questions.
• Star Wars isn’t for thinking about.
• Star Wars is for feeling about.
• There is a shot of Finn, who has now joined the rebellion or the Republic or whatever they are, scrambling for an X-Wing as Harrison Ford grumbles disconnected snippets of dialogue.
• “Dark side.”
• “Jedi.”
• “Bananas.”
• “I like to fly planes.”
• There’s a trench, because there must be.
• Ditto a lightsaber battle, this one between Finn and Darth Shit, but after watching it fourteen or fifteen times, it looks like Finn doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing with the lightsaber so maybe he’s not a Jedi.
• Harrison Ford then harrumphs “he’s real” as Luke pets R2-D2 with his robot hand, no longer covered in human-like skin.
• Do droids enjoy being petted?
• There is also a shot of BB-8, who is the cute little orange one with a soccer ball for a body: he is an astromech droid like Artoo and he is plugged into an X-Wing.
• It is here that I must circle back to a point I’ve made before: droids are slaves.
• They’re sentient beings; they act in their own self-interest; they adapt their surroundings to fit their needs; they’re as capable of navigating through the civilized galaxy as any Ithorian or Rodian.
• And they’re bought and sold like property.
• here’s the thing: giving them self-awareness and locomotion was completely unnecessary.
• How big can the thing that runs the X-Wing be in Artoo?
• It’s a flight computer.
• Let’s say it’s the size of a briefcase: carry it like a briefcase.
• Why embed it in a living being?
• There must be a way to translate things in the Star Wars Universe that don’t involve a humanoid robot who argues with you about things.
• Google Translate has never argued with me.
• In his defense, Threepio is a much better translator than Google Translate.
• In Google’s win column is the fact that it has never been blasted apart and needed to be carried on the back of a space monkey for half a movie.
• I hope we can agree on this point: droids–Threepio and Artoo at least–are sentient beings.
• And it was perfectly permissible for Jawas to snatch their shiny asses up and sell them to the first flea-bitten moisture farmer they saw.
• There was also a device called the Restraining Bolt and a memory wipe every now and then was a good idea.
• The “a long time ago” in the opening crawl means 1850, and the galaxy is Space Mississippi.
• #DROIDLIVESMATTER
• Princess Leia and Chewie make cameos.
• There are many explosions, and Rey cries prettily, and a new Imperial Shuttle.
• It wasn’t so new that you didn’t immediately recognize it as an Imperial Shuttle, though.
• The X-Wings are also a little bit different, but I would bet good money that the phrase “change them just enough so the dorks notice” was said.
• There are many Stormtroopers stormtrooping, and they are in armor that is, again, slightly different but not all that much.
• The same goes for the Rebel (or Republic, whatever: the good guys) pilots.
• The helmets are a bit pointier, and the suits are more red than orange, but the inside-the-cockpit shot is exactly the same.
• There may not be one image in this film with a shred of originality to it, and I’m utterly fine with that.
• A decent Star War is a small thing to ask.