You Made Me Do This, Moviegoing Public

On my way to work this morning, I saw a woman in a battery-operated wheelchair walking a dog, and I felt compelled to laugh. I immediately regretted the compulsion, but I think it's important for me to get all defensive right now and note that what I was reacting to was not the wheelchair or the dog, but rather the comedic possibilities if she were to walk (or roll) into a bar.

If this kind of lowbrow humor offends you, you have nobody to blame but yourself. I was all prepared to make a more sophisticated joke, but I am as sensitive to my cultural surroundings as a flower is to being shat upon. Because while the nitrogen in said shit may be nourishing, on the whole, it fucking stinks.

So if you want a return to finer things, to campaign updates from Oscar '08, to tales of the Dole Fruit Plant and the Canning Ops division, to letters to Jesus, and to spotlights on my junk mail, you have a responsibility not to let fucking Beverley Hills Chihuahua finish anywhere near the top of the box office standings ever ever again.

Otherwise, my next post will start something like, "so this gay Jewish crippled woman taking her dog for a walk from her wheelchair walks into a bar," and you'll have nobody to blame but yourself for that either.

Seriously. Which of you fuckbags saw that movie this weekend? Raise your hand. Good. Now chop off your hand, pick it up, and pound yourself in the head with it as hard as you can until you pass out from the combination of concussive blows, shame, and blood loss. Then get some kind of unconventional object to replace your hand, like a desk lamp or a maraca or a rubber chicken or something, and write your story into a hilarious movie called Johnny Desk Lamp Hand and make a million dollars. It won't buy you a new hand, but at least you'll have a million dollars. You're welcome.

Here today, gone to Maui.

It's 78 degrees in Honolulu right now, according to the forecast on Knickers the iPhone. There's no point to my mentioning that, just the observation that it is seventy-fucking-eight fucking de-fucking-grees in fucking Hono-fucking-lu-fuck-lu right fucking now.

New York, meanwhile, is clocking in at a balmy 18 degrees with the wind chill. Jealous, Hawaii?

I'm beginning to wonder why I keep the forecast for Honolulu programmed into my phone. I used to think it was a goal. But right this minute, it feels a lot more like pointless masochism, as opposed to the more poignant masochism of suffering through a movie directed by Clint Eastwood. Seriously, that guy should change his name to Clint "Piece of Shit"wood, to more accurately reflect the content of his "artistic vision." Mystic River made me want to shoot someone's brains out on the banks of the Charles River. We should bury that movie. We should bury it deep.

Word. Out.

My recommendation for a Groundhog Day Resolution #1

Oh hi! I has returned from the AMC Loews theater on Broadway and 19th Street Saturday night, where Karyn and I saw Cloverfield, and where the bottled water may or may not be very high priced - I really wouldn't know. Cloverfield is not the kind of movie you where you want to bring water with you because of the pants-shitting fear the movie induces. Trust me, you will either spill the water all over yourself, or, if you are dumb enough to actually drink the water, you will pee it out into your already poop-laden pants - it is THAT scary. I spent much of my MLK Day performing an elaborate re-enactment of the movie's destruction of Manhattan on my 19-foot scale-model Lego replica of New York City for Sarah who, inexplicably, has no desire to have the crap scared out of her.

I don't do movie reviews, as I've said before. I also don't make New Year's resolutions. I recommend making Groundhog Day resolutions, actually, because at that point, you've had some time to see how the new year is working out for you, and also because the crowds at the New York Sports Club have thinned out by then. Personally, I won't be making any Groundhog Day resolutions either, since I made a New Year's resolution not to.

But I do make life decisions based on broad, fictional portrayals of massive destruction at the hands of a terrifying CGI monster, because terrifying CGI monsters, if nothing else, certainly make you think about what's important. And what I discovered was important after watching Cloverfield was this: I NEED TO BUY A VIDEO CAMERA! Not only because something crazy like a monster attack could happen, and much like in the words of tries-so-hard-to-be-funny-but-mostly-you're-rooting-for-him-to-bite-it character "Hud" from the movie, "people are gonna wanna know... how it went down," but also because it took me like eight years to build Lego New York, which has now been laid waste. I guess I just went a little overboard with the Goldschlager, like I do almost every year on Martin Luther King Day. I really should have thought it through first. Or at least, I should have taped it. Idiot!

Anyway, make a Groundhog Day resolution to SEE THIS MOVIE! Unless you live in New York, are afraid of monsters, or have a mild coronary condition, in which case, make a Groundhog Day resolution to NOT SEE THIS MOVIE! Whichever way you go, though, make sure you make a Groundhog Day resolution to WEAR A DIAPER! And also, please BUY ME A VIDEO CAMERA BEFORE MLK DAY 2009! The video highlights will ROCK YOUR WORLD!

I have to go BACK TO WORK NOW! Cans are FALLING OFF THE CONVEYOR BELTS! All because I AM NOT PAYING ATTENTION! It's just too bad I DON'T HAVE A VIDEO CAMERA SO I COULD SHOW YOU! Hey - there's ANOTHER REASON TO BUY ME ONE!

Leave me alone until Hot Rod comes out on DVD

It would have been upsetting for ANYONE to stand in the ticket line at a movie theater in August only to receive the inevitable bad news that all the showings of Hot Rod that day had been sold out by 11:00 in the morning. I am only human. I have my limits*. "Sold out by 11:00 in the morning? For serious?" The man at the ticket counter just wagged his finger at me and muttered something in Croatian before shutting the metal shade on my fingertips.

11:00 in the morning, though? It's not my fault that some of us are supposed to be canning fruit at that hour. I don't make the rules. Which is a good thing. If I did, the streets of New York and Seattle would be overrun by kids hopped up on half-caf soy lattes from Starbucks, and there would be free servings of My Mom's Apple Crisp™ twice a day for every homeless person, leper, and aspiring political pundit in this great land of ours.

All of which is why I negotiated, as a condition of my return to Dole Fruit, to take this week off in preparation for the DVD release of the instant American classic that is Hot Rod, starring the dudes from The Lonely Island, with the notable exception of Brooke Shields.

Here is why it didn't work out: there is apparently a vampire in the suburban house in the suburbs.

This was reported, loudly, yesterday, at 7:15 in the morning, in the upstairs hallway of the suburban house in the suburbs, by my six-year-old nephew, who is incapable of lying. No six-year-old can lie. Children only develop the capacity to lie after they first begin experimenting with sex and/or cigarettes and/or alcohol. I didn't tell my first lie until I was seven years old. But I always was precocious.

Anyway, I heard about the vampire at 7:15 yesterday morning, at the exact same time as the sun decided to pay a visit to the pillow where I was resting my previously sleeping head. I don't mean sunshine, I mean the actual sun. Was in my room. On my pillow. No kidding. There are still scorch marks on the pillowcase if you don't believe me.

For a minute, I thought I was an ant under a magnifying glass. Then the news about the vampire registered, and it occurred to me that maybe (gasp!) I was the vampire! Then I remembered that it was my week off from Dole, that I was supposed to be sleeping in, and that the sun, according to a Calvin & Hobbes strip I read in middle school, lived in Tucson, Arizona. By that point, of course, my brain was switched on and beginning to melt from the close proximity of the star of Phoebus.

I woke up grouchy.

Then, at 2:35 in the PM, like the sun landing on your pillow, came the good news: an email from Netflix with the subject, "For Thu: Hot Rod." Hallelujah. And also, bring on the garlic, just in case my nephew was right about that vampire.

*Note: Okay, the thing about having limits is only partially true. As of the writing of this blog post, the following things about me are unlimited: the size of my ego, the size of my penis, my ability to exaggerate the size of my ego, my ability to exaggerate the size of my penis, my generosity toward children and old people, my cruelty toward cephalopods, the enormity of my vast oceans of humility, and rabies.