Things I Learned From CNN Today

• Meghan McCain is kinda sorta awesome.
• Walter from The Big Lebowski was based on the writer of Apocalypse Now and Dirty Harry.
• Quoting films to other people in lieu of actually talking "stirs passion." Presumably because it makes you look like a twat.
• They found and authenticated an actual portrait of Shakespeare.
• Bad marriages are bad for your health. Ice is cold. The ocean is deep. Snow is white.
  
• Barbie is based on a German gag-doll of a gypsy prostitute named Bild Lilli. Also there is a life-sized Malibu dream home that features, among other insane things, a chandelier made out of Barbie's hair.

• There's such a thing as a "green" bullet.
• The article "Some banks should be allowed to fail, say two top Republicans" looks like a parody because Sen. Ron Shelby cuts a figure that makes me imagine his inner life to resemble that of Montgomery Burns:

• When Republicans are talking about stem cell research it is of dire importance. When a Democrat is talking about it, it's a distraction. Also, Republicans fear that soon we will be "embryo-harvesting." Wait, is that a distraction or something to get hysterical about?

ALSO:

If you missed The Daily Show last Wednesday night it was a really fucking great episode. Ch-ch-check it out.

ALSO:

Maybe I got out of Northern Ireland at the right time.

Get off your cellph, that cow's talking!

Today while I was scouring the Prelinger archives for some old films to watch I ran into an ad for a Northern Irish horror movie called Shrooms. It's about American students (like me!) who go to Northern Ireland (like me!) to get high in the woods (not yet).
Seeing as how it looked like B-level, straight-to-DVD horror I was pretty sure that someone would have loaded it onto Megavideo and I was right. Unfortunately this isn't B-level fun horror like Basketcase, nor F-level fun horror like Plan 9 From Outer Space. Rather, this is D-level terrible horror by an Irish sub-Eli Roth (who himself is strictly sub-par) that is so mind-numbingly, skull-scrapingly awful it makes you want to throw a petrol bomb. The dialogue bears no semblance to how real people speak, coming from three identical bimbos, a backwards-hat-wearing thug with roid-rage (named Bluto!), a muscley Jay from Jay and Silent Bob and an Irish guy who's obviously actually English.



Oh, also some drooling, livestock-screwing locals in the vein of Texas Chainsaw Massacre and every other movie that ripped it off. One of them confesses that, unlike his brother, he never fucked pigs. "My only weakness now would be for a bullcalf tied to a gate. Lovely tongue on a bullcalf - like... sandpaper." That's the authentic Irish flavor I've been trying to communicate in this blog. My other favorite moments:

British guy: One rule - no mobile phones.
Roid-rager: But I'm lost without my cellph!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Roid-rager: (on finding a strange girl in an abandoned car in the middle of the woods while wandering in his underwear) Lemme in lemme in lemme in!
(she rolls down the window)
Roid-rager: (pulls his dick out) Look what I got for you baby? Yeah, you like that.
(she obviously gives him a blowjob)
Roid-rager: Oh yeah! Yeah, babygirl. So soft. Oh!
(Oh no! It wasn't a girl at all, but an ancient druid! It pulls his dick off)

The choicest dialogue comes from the girls. Writer, Pearse Elliot must have never heard real human females talk, because judging by Shrooms their only conversations are about is sex and tampons, plus these true-to-life exchanges:

Bimbo 1: (on being charged with voyeurism) What, you think we wanted a peak at your hairy 'stache?
Bimbo 2: You know what, bitch, at least my tits are real!
Bimbo 1: Oh you wanna play like that, Chewbacca? 'Cause I will rip that hair right off you!
Bimbo 2: Fuck you.
Bimbo 1: Eat me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bimbo 2: (on a hike in the woods) I wish I'd brought adequate footwear.
Bimbo 1: Yeah, well maybe if you took better care of yourself your boyfriend wouldn't have to check me out every five minutes.
(catfight)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bimbo 1: I'm so sick of this - our bickering, the mood swings, our stupid fights when you go on the steroids, and your pimply ass... and most of all your perverted behavior.
Roid-rager: You know you're not so hot yourself.
Bimbo 1: What?
Roid-rager: You fart in your sleep
Bimbo 1: No I don't! (farts)

Slather that class on top of a bunch of quick cuts, fish-eye-lens and "am I scaring you yet?" wannabe-Ring cheap-shots and you have Shrooms! Not only is this film unrelentingly stupid, but it's never scary (watch out for those druids!). Maybe now is a good time to mention that this film was nominated for two Irish Film and Television Awards, including Best Film. Really, Ireland? Really? This?

Perhaps the scene that put it in the running is the following exchange where Roid-rager, sulkily pondering his pimply ass downs some shrooms, vomits on his own face, follows a mysterious naked girl into the woods and discovers a talking cow that sounds like the movie trailer voice-over guy. To get the full effect of this scene you have to imagine dissonant strings in the background, a cool, blue color palette and a cow speaking with the most sinister, gravely voice imaginable:

Roid-rager: Holy shit. Huh huh huh. Hello?
Cow: Well well well...
Roid-rager: Haha, you can talk.
Cow: That's cuz you're out of your mind.
Roids: You see a girl?
Cow: She went that-a way.
Roids: Thanks.
Cow: Wouldn't do that if I were you!
Roids: Why not?
Cow: You know you're fucked.
Roids: EEEEe, yes I know.
Cow: I mean.... dead fucked.
Roids: What, you're just a fuckin' cow.
Cow: A fuckin' cow... that can fuckin' talk.
Roids: I gotta go.
Cow: Yeah... bye bye.
Roids: (vomits)

Does Northern Ireland just hand out awards to every Tom, Dick and Paddy who figures out how to make a cow talk? Or is this movie actually a sly commentary on American students?
Whatever it is, I thought I'd turn it off pretty quick, but this movie sucked so hard that it sucked me in. I really wanted to see if it had bottomed out early or if there was deeper to go. Does that make Shrooms a success? Maybe...
Let me ruin the ending for you and you can decide. As she's being carted away in the ambulance after the ordeal is over, protagonist, Bimbo 3, realizes that all along the killer was, in fact HER! Why?
Because the whole time she was tripping...

...ON SHROOMS!

Shock and Sadness in Video Form

There's nothing exciting going on in my life right now, but the world is full of exciting things. Among them:

CNN inexplicably posting the whole audio of the Jonestown Massacre. It's like near an hour long, so unless you're in for about 48 minutes of bummer you can skip it.



Miriam Makeba passing away. :-(


For an even better video click here.


Also, Chris Russell has notified me that Barack Obama is actually not American/Kenyan, he is in fact Irish.

Top o' the mornin' to you

Hey dudes,
While I'm here in N. Ireland I thought I'd start a blog to let friends and enemies know I'm still alive.
I hadn't planned on starting a blog. I really don't like the word blog, to start out with; it's a word that doesn't need to exist, like "GILF" or "staycation." But here we are.

My computer's being mailed to me. I didn't bring it because my exchange program told me that I wouldn't have the internet in my room (false) and that the outlet adapter might make the computer blow up (hopefully false). In two days I'll hopefully have it back in my fat, pale embrace and be able to load pictures of Belfast onto the internet for your web enjoyment as well as be able to charge my ipod.

But let's catch up, shall we?

When I left a week ago I had three connecting flights and a total of 15 travel hours ahead of me. The flight connections were so tight that I wasn't able to grab anything to eat for the entire trip. I was reliant on the pretzels they gave me once (which I devoured greedily and summarily regretted) and the most fucking awful airplane food I've ever head (which I devoured greedily and summarily told myself to stop being a baby and suck it up). Remember when airlines stopped serving food and everyone complained? Those people forgot the wisdom of the standup comics: airplane food is a soggy mush of despair and shattered expectations. It is the excretion Satan produces in the final layer of Hell having eaten history's most reviled traitors. It's very bad and I don't like it.
After dinner I fell into an uneasy sleep, only to wake up at three in the morning from hunger pains and air-sickness. The whole plane was asleep, making me feel like the last kid awake at a sleepover in a strange house. A strange, flying house. As I rocked back and forth, sweating and hoping I wouldn't throw up the only thing that kept me sane was the Wachowski bros' "Speed Racer" movie, which, can we all agree, is fucking awesome? I initially watched it because the steady action and candy-colors were soothing and there was no needless exposition or subtlety to distract me, but I ended up watching it twice and falling in love with it.

When I landed I found that the airline had lost my bags and I went to the hotel without. In two days I got my clothes back and, after a week of expensive calls to BMI and the airport, they found the guitar Hanju lovingly gave me (thanks Hanju!).

I'm living in student housing with a bunch of first year students and two other Americans. Most of the Americans that I've met here make me hate Americans.

Speaking of which, did you know that we dress like slobs? Every European male I've seen is really well put together. Even their bums dress nicer than our bums! In comparison, my aesthetic of found-clothes/no-aesthetic looks awful and makes me very self-conscious. I've been buying new clothes and actually paying attention to fashion, relying on latent instincts picked up from Matt. It's not that I'm a metrosexual yet, but if things keep going the way they are I might look quite nice when I get home.
I'm also picking up the accent, which is fucking bizarre and sounds weird coming out of my yankee mouth. Being around foreigners has also opened up some strange knee-jerk demon in my brain which is now inventing slang without my consent. Today I found myself something was "street-legal," which is fucking idiotic. I was talking to a bank clerk! What does that even mean? The strange thing is that, while Americans would question me, Europeans just assume I'm saying American things and they don't bat an eye, which has spurred this demon on. It's just not street-legal.


I'm going to go explore the gym here while it's free this week. Next week I'll have to start paying £12.50 a month, which is, like, twenty-four dollars. It's exhorbitant!
My next post'll probably be when I get my computer and it won't be as acidic. In all honesty, this place is really awesome and I'm having a great time (or a craic as people say here). It's just that writing about having a great time is boring to write and read. That's why even childrens' books have conflict in them. Did you soak up that bit of wisdom I just passed on? I'm an English major.

I'll write again soon, put some photos up and share some of my dream journal with you. Hope everyone is having a sweet time at Bennington/other and, if I ever get a microphone and camera, we can Skype. Or I'll long-distance call you.