AKA: A Bunch of Shit You Probably Don’t Even Want to Know!
So this is one of those internet questionnaires that probably went around in emails and then into the blog and online journal spheres until it became a narcissistic series of THIRTY POSTS that are supposed to reveal your ~true self~ to the internet. And since I am nothing if not a COMPLETE NARCISSIST, I’m doing it.
Day 1: Introduce Yourself
My name is Ash. I’m 25. I’m getting ready for my second and last year of grad school where I am trying to get an MFA in writing (fiction) and writing a book and being a reader for a pretty okay group of other writers.
These are the three most recent pictures taken of me, least to most recent:
The top and bottom were taken by my gf because she is obsessed with my hair and also putting things into my bun, like pens and flowers. The middle one is a self-portrait! Told you I was a narcissist.
I like all of the media things that I talk about: books, movies, tv shows, the internet, music, and comic books/graphic novels. I also like taking pictures of shit, but I think all of the conceptual/technical photography stuff is really, really boring. If I like a picture, I like a picture. Fuck your rule of thirds.
I’ve been writing since I was little and I spent all of third grade carrying around those black and white composition books where I wrote stories about the kids in my class then told them that I wrote stories about them, but wouldn’t show them the stories unless they did things for me and then always, 100% of the time, refused to show them anyway.
I was, and am, kind of a dick.
I am not a great or a dedicated writer. I have never been a devoted or hardworking person. Ever. I write because I like it and it comes easily and my basic number one goal in life is to never, ever have to work hard at anything.
My first novel is a young adult story and I love it even when it’s a huge fucking cunt that I want to punch in the face over and over again. I am pretty certain that young adult is really where I belong as a writer (and a reader!) so I am already looking at other MFA programs that specialize in YA/children’s lit to go to after I finish this program, since I am obviously not at all ready to try and be part of the real world.
Also, I have no marketable or useful skills to speak of. I have only ever taught and written for money. I am useless at everything else except for working at a video store, which I was great at! But is now totally obsolete as a career choice. God damn it.
I am really fat and loud and usually smart and funny. I am not into outdoor activities at all unless it’s going to Disneyland or walking from my car into a place of business. I am into fat acceptance and body positivity and feminism and equalism and gay rights and human rights and the general ability for awesomeness that I believe the human race probably does possess deep down inside somewhere under all the evil and body odor.
I’m an adamant atheist and I think religion is basically stupid. I don’t understand people who aren’t pro-choice or pro-gay marriage. Basically, I was born and raised in California.
I have absolute faith that there is intelligent life somewhere in the universe. I will absolutely punch you in the mouth if you somehow infer that believing in the statistical probability of aliens is comparable to believing in ghosts/werewolves/vampires/Jesus.
I live with my parents (fail!twenties, represent!) and my girlfriend and four dogs and two cats and we are all pretty awesome. I am close to my parents and my older (by nine years) sister. My family is really weird and one of my neighbor friends once said to me, “You guys are, like, really loud.” and she was totally 100% right. I don’t think she meant it as a compliment like we took it though.
I can be really rude and brash and obnoxious and because of these awesome personality defects, I have a really hard time making friends. The few I have are basically stuck with me whether they like it or not. I never know if the people around me actually like/tolerate me because I have a really hard time reading people and body language. I am also sort of bossy and demanding and I have unreachably high standards when it comes to public decorum. I AM A GREAT PERSON TO BE AROUND. CAN’T YOU TELL?! WHY DOESN’T EVERYONE LOVE MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE?!
Basically, I have spent my entire life being incapable of keeping my mouth shut, completely unable to stop the torrential outpouring of verbal diarrhea that makes up my personality.
So, earlier this summer, I made a summer wishlist post with only one item on it — a god damn pool I NEVER GOT.
And it’s the second to last day of August now and the first draft of my book isn’t finished yet (I’m at 177 pages though, YEAH THAT IS RIGHT.) even though I set September 1st as my ABSOLUTE CONCRETE FINAL DEADLINE and I DO NOT WANT TO GO BACK TO SCHOOL but there’s still only one more thing on my summer wishlist:
FALL
Yeah, part two of my summer wishlist is for it to FUCKING BE OVER ALREADY. I don’t want to go back to school or have to leave the house for any reason other than Disneyland or hangs with the BFFs, but I am ready for my financial aid disbursement (I bought one gallon of gas today. ONE GALLON. Because that was LITERALLY all that I could afford. But at least I got that damn gallon.) and cooler weather and rain and for some other shit too, like:
STRAIGHT UP READY FOR SOME HALLOWEEN SHIT RIGHT NOW. Including:
And:
How fucking awful are these? I made a sexy/trashy/stereotypical Native American costume for the GayBFF last year that was better than that thing!
Also ready for these:
And always ready for some of these:
Fuck yeah, FALL CLOTHES! TACKY SWEATERZ 4 LYFE.
Anyway, yeah, ready for some cooler weather! And some changing leaves and stuff. I always envision fall like some glorious orange, yellow, and red spectacle of color and breezes! Like Disney’s Pocahontas painting with all the colors of the wind and shit except with grandma cardigans and jeans and flip flops because let’s get real, I live in southern California and I am not putting on real shoes unless it is absolutely necessary. Except for the part where I LIVE IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, so the chasm between dream and reality is pretty monstrous.
And also fall is starting RIGHT NOW. My bank parking lot was knee-high with leaves this weekend because the trees were like, “FUCK I AM TIRED OF HOLDING THIS SHIT UP. IS SUMMER EVER GOING TO END?!” and then got pissed and took a massive dump everywhere. Except it was a million degrees all last week, so it’s not red cable knit sweaters and running and high-kicking through the leaves and giggling, it’s stomping through sticky leaves basically barefoot in shorts and tank tops with sweat squirting out of your armpits like ejaculatory geysers. Fuck you, California, fuck you.
In spite of (or because of, it’s a razor-thin line) all of that, I am fucking ready for fall already. But it won’t come. We still have at least a month and a half of summer left, if not two full months. A month of which will involve my commute further east where it will be twenty to thirty degrees hotter than where I live! (MY LIFE IS GREAT! I AM SO EXCITED FOR SCHOOL TO START! CAN’T YOU TELL? AREN’T YOU SO JEALOUS?!) Which means that I will be going to class on 100 degree days and waiting for my eventual death from heatstroke. In October.
HOORAY FALL.
Anyway, all of that is really just to say, I fucking hate candy corn. Fuck that shit. If you like candy corn, our friendship is over. Get out. And take your fucking candy corn with you. Because it’s bullshit.
Let’s talk about how I am really excited about this movie! And not just because I love everyone in it!
It’s pretty uncharacteristic of me — I like movies where things (literally) blow up and where there are fart jokes and dick jokes and violence and blood and sex and stuff. I love comedies, but not generally ones that are about chicks or relationships. Not that there are a lot of comedies about chicks! WHICH IS WHY I AM SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS MOVIE!
If a man tells someone that he likes comedy movies, they think about stuff like The Hangover (which I love) or Clerks (which I love) or maybe animated movies like Shrek or Toy Story or Groundhog Day or Hot Fuzz or Ghostbusters or The 40 Year Old Virgin or American Pie or Tropic Thunder or Animal House a ton of other movies that I DO in fact love.
If a woman tells someone that she like comedies, they think about stuff like Love, Actually or The Bounty Hunter or Moonstruck or Sleepless in Seattle or You’ve Got Mail or Splash or 27 Dresses or a million others JUST LIKE THOSE.
The commonality between these two groups is that most of those movies have predominantly male leads. The ones that have a female lead are usually the “romantic comedies.” As if women are unable to laugh except when the jokes come between bouts of relationship drama. Female-starring comedies, straight-up comedies that are NOT primarily about a relationship, just don’t exist. Off of the top of my head, I can honestly not think of a single one. NOT ONE.
SO I DON’T LIKE ROMANTIC COMEDIES. Generally. I don’t like them because the women are USUALLY: weak, boring, self-involved, only concerned about the men in their lives, insecure, unstable, vengeful, bitter, catty, stereotypical, anti-women, anti-man, anti-human, baby-crazy, often in competition with one another, and rarely fleshed out as anything other than half of the relationship dynamic.
I’m not saying that romantic comedies don’t exist where this isn’t the case — though it isn’t perfect, I actually think the women of Love, Actually are pretty well done — it’s just incredibly unusual.
This is where You Again comes in. Based on the trailer: There are women! LOTS OF THEM. And they’re not competing for a man! Or worried primarily about the romantic pleasure of a man! They are successful! And driven! And smart!
Granted, it’s still women: in competition, being catty, man-oriented (even if it’s family), petty, and stereotypical, but it looks like they learn a decent lesson about being human, forgiveness, all that great stuff.
So I remain cautiously optimistic and hope that maybe, just maybe, studios will learn that female-driven movies don’t all have to be Eat, Pray, Love or Bride Wars because there is an eager audience just waiting for them to do it right.
So! Today I went and saw Inception again. I KNOW, I KNOW, WHATEVER, I DO WHAT I WANT.
Plus it was free because I had an old-ass coupon.
So anyway, the parts that I liked, but had to bear through gritted, angry teeth the first time were SO MUCH MORE enjoyable this time around, since I already knew I hated the ending and didn’t have to sit, waiting, knowing what was going to happen, but not being able to be CERTAIN, and the parts I didn’t like were… some were more tolerable (the snowscapades were still so incredibly idiotic, but they became almost transcendentally watchable in their idiocy) and others were still completely and utterly hateable in every way (that last shot, Mal, NO ONE MOVING THEIR FACE AT ALL).
The thing that was MOST frustrating was that, on the first viewing I was like, “Hey, there are some legit plot holes up in this motherfucker.” and on second watch it was like, “WAS ANYONE EVEN WATCHING THIS MOVIE AS IT WAS BEING MADE? WAS THERE EVEN A SCRIPT?!”
It was as though every time someone said, “Hey, Christopher Nolan, there’s this GLARING error in your story and it’s kind of ruining the pretty cool mythology that you are trying to build up in herrre,” Christopher Nolan was like, “I’M CHRISTOPHER NOLAN, SUCK MY DIIIIIIIIICK. MAKE THE SLO-MO GO SLOOOOOOWER. NO ONE WILL NOTICE. I AM BUSY FUCKING BATMAN. I AM THE GOD DAMN BATMAN. SLOOOOOOOOOOWER!” or some approximation of that.
And hey, man, I liked Transformers! And, awkward racism aside, I found the second one to be pretty watchable! It’s not like I am over here expecting some Citizen Kane or Vertigo master work up in my AMC. I just want movies to like, I don’t know, make sense beyond their first viewing.
I’m not even going to talk about the actual plot holes (Google that shit, son!) because I will just feel a lot of awkward, now passion-less rage again, instead I am going to, SHOCKER, talk about some shit I liked.
Like I said last time, I really dug the zero g ballet. I think a lot of the effects in the movie are sort of hokey and plastic looking, but the shift in gravity after everyone except Arthur has descended to the next level is incredibly cool. It looks like a practical effect as the world is tilting (the Fatboy Slim video wall crawling portion) and whether or not it is a practical effect, the fact that it looks like one delights me. The extended sequence beyond that is a little too long and a little too graceful, but I still think it’s good-looking enough to warrant some interest/credit.
The train blowing through the middle of Downtown L.A. scared the holy shit out of me both times I watched the movie. The sound mixing is perfect for it and even when I knew it was coming, it was startling.
Arthur and Eames’s banter and antagonism toward one another is fabulous. “You mustn’t be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling” is the kind of smarmy charm that the movie would’ve been infinitely weaker without. Plus, more importantly, they both seem to really love their jobs. Cobb hates his skills because they’re all he has left, Ariadne is terrified of it, Saito and Yusuf play their roles willingly, but without a lot of joy. Arthur and Eames know what they’re good at and they’re more than willing to do it.
The initial kick (Cobb into the bathtub) is a great, lively use of ramping. Granted, it’s TOO SLOW and too long, but it changes speed in a way that looks really cool and helps the audience understand the difference in time between dream levels. It doesn’t serve that last purpose particularly well (it doesn’t when he overuses it through the rest of the movie either) but god damn if it don’t look cool for twenty seconds.
I kind of loved the crap out of Fischer. Cillian Murphy is the WEIRDEST LOOKING FAMOUS PERSON EVER, but he’s pretty damn good at under and over-selling shit in the right places. I don’t know, maybe I am just tricked by his weird face.
A visual motif with which I am down:
I am sure there were other instances of those Tetris-ish pieces showing up (Ariadne’s mazes, the paradox construction, Mal and Cobb building in limbo, etc.) but I really noticed the top and bottom ones here as directly referencing each other. Since I occasionally like to overthink things (I know that’s shocking, I KNOW.) I like to think that they’re subtle visual cues nodding to the completion of whatever “puzzle” Nolan was trying to draw. The first image is from Arthur and Cobb’s helicopter ride with Saito, the last is from Fischer’s safe room at the end. In the end, the puzzle is complete.
Draw what you want from that! Regardless of it’s intentions (or unintentions), I like the look. Especially in that last scene.
ANYWAY. What the hell is up with no one moving their face? Marion Cotillard looks like she’s made of wax and Joseph Gordon-Levitt talks like he’s got Bells Palsy. WHAT IS EVEN GOING ON IN THERE? Were they trying to make up for Leonardo DiCaprio’s constant fart-smelling face? DOES INCEPTION WORK LIKE BOTOX?
Inspired by this nostalgic-seizure inducing post by the oft-hilarious Kevin Babbles, I am compelled to talk about the ridiculous summer playlist I put together this year.
It’s like… 70% flashback 90s/00s music (mostly rap, hip hop, and pop), 10% awful dance music, 10% indie bullshit, and 10% newer but still outdated rap and hip hop.
A sample of the randomized, 467 song playlist:
Some of my favorites:
L’Trimm, “Cars with the Boom” — 1. I love how similar this video is to JJ Fad’s, “Supersonic” and how fucking awful and great they both are. I have way too many memories of hearing this song blasting from my sister’s bedroom growing up and hearing her and her friends laughing and talking about dudes and generally allowing me to grow into a hateful, resentment-filled pain in the ass. Bitches.
Vengaboys, “Boom Boom Boom Boom” — What horrifies me about this song is that I have this really distinct memory of singing and dancing to it at a slumber party at my house and I always though, “LOL SIXTH GRADE” until I looked it up and this didn’t come out until June of 1999. I was FOURTEEN. What the hell? My shame, let me show you it. Second, what the actual fuck is happening in this video, man? Gay cowboy! Blue lipstick! All those horrible outfits! Titties everywhere! Drunk bros! Ejaculatory champagne! Rampant lesbianism!
Come to think of it, that explains a lot about why I would have been into it at fourteen.
Sarai, “Ladies” — This is the EMBODIMENT of my trip to Las Vegas after high school graduation. I still remember rolling down the strip in my BFF’s dad’s Explorer Sport Trac SCREAMING this song at everyone on the street.
Like this.
Oh, to be eighteen. Additionally, watching this, I do not understand how I didn’t figure out I was a lesbot earlier. I MEAN, COME ON. Also, watching Sarai rap is like watching my BFF talk. We call her DJ Xis.
Khia, “K-Wang” — THIS WAS THE DANCE. I remember watching one of my BFFs (Bryce) teaching DJ Xis how to do this shit in front of the big screen TV in my living room. Their dance was closer to this version (although people are CRAZY adamant that this is NOT THE RIGHT DANCE in the comments) but they disabled embedding because the world hates me. Better version of this TERRIBLE SONG here.
Mr. C, “Cha Cha Slide” — I wasn’t going to embed this one because, seriously, line dance hip hop is so god damn terrible, but this is every dance I went to in high school. Gym full of uncoordinated white kids being led by all the black kids. Diversity at work, y’all. And the video is just spectacular.
Edvard Grieg, “In the Hall of the Mountain King (Techno Remix)” — Also a high school dance thing. Just a representative of the terrible, terrible techno remixes that plagues the late 90s/early 00s. See also: Tetris Techno Remix, Super Mario Bros. Theme Techno Remix (not the one of my youth, but close). I listened to a lot of god awful techno in the early days of mp3.com, OKAY. Don’t judge me.
Monifah, “Touch It” — Bringing the troops joy since 1998, girl.
Eminem, “Role Model” — Every white person I am friends with knows every word to this song. I don’t know what that means, but it’s nice to roll down all four windows of my 2010 Honda Insight and blare this motherfucker with a bunch of white girls in the car. Oh wait, awkward, I meant awkward.
