9:43pm

I have so much I need to do, and I'm ready to do all of it, but now it's 9:43pm and I can't do anything. I can't go to the post office, I can't sell my nintendo, I can't do anything.

I'm in such a funk right now. I should have never moved back to Kalamazoo. It was a stupid choice to make. I forgot why it was that I left in the first place. I thought that maybe this place would be better now. I was wrong.

I've been here for a month and a half, and haven't found a job. Granted, I didn't start looking right away, I gave myself about a week and a half before I filled out my first application. All the jobs I wanted were dependent on my reel, and my reel was lost when I lost my hard drive so I had to redo that. So I've just now turned it in to all the places that would take it.

Jamie Flynn quit her job, and now I may not have a place to live. I was pretty sure I wanted to pack everything up and move to Denver, but I don't have the money to move to Denver. I can find a place to crash here if need be, I'm sure, at least until I get my own place. I might not even have to move out of here.

I really want to go to Denver though. It's such a better environment. Much more indy film, much more job opportunities.

I'm afraid of getting stuck in Kalamazoo. I'm afraid that the only job I'll ever land here is the one that I can barely survive on, and I'll never be able to afford to leave.

I already feel stuck. I've got intense writer's block, and no job.

Why am I falling apart all of a sudden? I busted my ass through school. Now I just feel like I'm collapsing.

I'm so frustrated. I'm trying not to focus on it. I'm trying to focus on what's important, and getting through that.

I'm either staying in Kalamazoo, or moving to Denver, or moving back in with mom and dad until I figure out just what the hell my next step is.

I think overall, I need to breathe. I think I'm just getting overwhelmed. I generally don't get overwhelmed.

I think I'm starting to lose my cool.

I'm not going to get trapped in Kalamazoo. That won't happen.

I just feel like I've not been able to get started, to get going.

Tomorrow is monday. Maybe I'll get a call from Absolute Video, and find out that I can keep my room. Then I'll be all set. At any rate, I think I just need to calm down. I'm convinced that stressing out does nothing but complicate a situation, and therefore is completely useless. By freaking out a little, I'm not doing anything but making it worse. Usually that's enough to chill me out.

It's not working tonight.

What the freaking crap is going on... in my life.

-j

Okay...

So, now what do I do...

This could be a sign, I'm pretty sure I know what it says.

Adios.

Old School

I'm watching a KTMA episode of MST3K on WinAmp, which I think is pretty cool. Mystery Science Theater 3000, the show where a guy and his robots are trapped in space and forced to watch bad movies, was on a local public access TV station in Minnesota called KTMA before it was on Comedy Central and eventually Sci-Fi. The show was much more low budget (if you can believe it) and Tom Servo was voiced by J. Elvis Weinstein, until 1990 when he was voiced by Kevin Murphy.

Yes I realize I'm kind of dorky for writing about this, but it was one of my favorite shows growing up.

80's Movies pt II

Nopa wrote a post about 80's movies on his site, coincidentally, I watched the Breakfast Club last night, and wanted to write a little about it.

The Breakfast Club... WTF?!
By Joseph Parcell

Upon watching John Hughes' "The Breakfast Club" I have some significant issues that I feel need to be addressed. I've seen this movie what seems like hundreds of times at least in parts on TBS, and had these same issues, but now I feel the need to list them.

First of all, The Brain, Brian Johnson, played by Anthony Michael Hall. The nerdy kid who is the only one who doesn't end up with a girl at the end. Brian is the only one who would still be friends with everyone on monday. Yet for being such a genius, he can't figure out how to make an elephant lamp in shop? He can't tell the difference between a handgun and a flare gun? And if he was going to kill himself, why do it at school, unless he wanted to do it "Jeremy" style. But he didn't seem particularly angry with the rest of the student body, so I doubt that was his intention.

Then there's The Jock, Andy Clark, played by the incredibly unjocky Emilio Estevez. The guy who duct taped the hairy kid's butt cheeks together, because he wanted everyone to think he was cool. Because that's what his old man would've wanted. The guy who wants to boof Allison after she becomes pretty (and makes out with her easily afterwards). When they ask him what his problem is, he doesn't answer until she says "He can't think for himself" to which he responds "She's right." The only major problem I had with Andy was when he told Bender "Hey wastoid, you can't blaze up in here." Did kids in the 80's really talk like that?

Of course, Allison Reynolds, The Basket-Case, played by Ally Sheedy was really the only cool one there at the beginning of the day, and by the end, became another popular kid conformist. She was way hotter in the "black shit." Then Claire "fixed" her and Andy and Brian kept staring at her, and she was acceptable. Screw that, she was so much better when she was using her dandruff to make snow on her covered bridge picture. And where did they get her pink clothes? And now that she is pretty and hooked up with the jock, is she now popular and therefore doesn't want to hang out with Brian on monday?

Speaking of which, the Princess, Claire Standish, Molly Ringwald. What a bitch, eh? She's all nice and sweet and everything towards the beginning of the film, even a little bit of a victim of John Bender, and you feel kind of sorry for her. But then she pulls a complete 180 at the end of the film. After screaming "I hate you" at Bender and crying her eyes out, she tells them all that she can't be friends with them on monday because they are all beneath her. Then she gets Brian to write her paper for her (and incidentally, everyone else). Then she goes and sneaks out of the library to make out with Bender in the janitors closet (after he's been tormenting her and making her cry all movie).

And Bender, The Criminal, played by Judd Nelson. He's just in it for the nookie. When Claire realizes this, she'll thing all men are pigs. Then in ten years, she'll find Brian again, and he'll be a millionaire genius, and then she'll try to hook up with him, but he'll shoot her down because he knows she sucks. I digress.

Overall, what kind of saturday detention goes THAT unsupervised. I had two of them in my lifetime, and there was a teacher in the room at all times. We didn't have anytime to blast music and dance, or sit around and learn each others deepest secrets, or smoke a lot of marijuana. If it was like that, in that really cool library, I think I'd go because I had nothing better to do too.

And as far as the letter saying who they thought they were...

Dear Mr. Vernon,

We accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. But we think you're crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us... In the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain and an athlete and a basket case a princess and a criminal.

Does that answer your question?

Sincerely yours,
the Breakfast Club.

They never found that out. I mean, they're all basket cases, and the basket case became a princess, but no one really learned anything. The princess was still just a princess who (typically) hooks up with the bad boy criminal who made her miserable, and he's still a just criminal. The brain is still just a brain, and won't get to hang out with the princess or the jock on monday, the basket case WAS cool because she was her own person, and the jock is still just a jock. I think the point they were actually trying to make is that they have much more in common than they previously thought.

I'll buy that.

-j

Illin'

I've got the worst sinus infection ever. I feel miserable. I need to go to the store and get some medication and some OJ. I couldn't sleep last night because I couldn't breathe.

List of things to do today:
1.) Take a shower
2.) Get medicine and orange juice
3.) Don't move for the rest of the day

"I've been a long time coming, and I'll be a long time gone. You've got your whole life to do something, and that's not very long."
-Ani Difranco

HBO? More like HB no! Cuz it's... nevermind....

So I'm still upset at HBO for cancelling Carnivàle. Especially because it was announced this week that the show has been nominated for seven Emmys.

That's all I have to say.

-j

I had this uncomfortable factory hidden up my ass for two years, and now, Charlie, I give it to you.

I got to see the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory up in Grand Rapids the day before it was released, on an IMAX screen, for free. Thanks entirely to Charlie DeBone.

I read an interesting fact today, that one of the other people considered for the role of Willy Wonka besides Johnny Depp was in fact Christopher Walken. I think that would have been awesome.

exhausted

i don't know why i'm so tired this morning. actually now it's the afternoon. my room is a mess. i need to do laundry. ugh.

-j

my bad

Hey,

I didn't realize you were serious all this time. All the talks and little arguments we've had, I never meant to offend you personally. I was just kidding around. Arguing just to argue. I really meant it when I said that in the car that time that I was just trying to spark conversation. Personally, I don't know or care if time exists or if Picard is better than Kirk, or if people watch Star Wars 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or 4, 5, 6, 1, 2, 3. I just disagreed with you because it made for a lively, and what I thought was a fun and harmless debate. If you really feel as if I was trying to attack you, or I was asking for that shot you gave me last night for years, then I apologize. I really never meant to piss you off.

So I'm sorry. I won't argue with you anymore.

-j

Oompa Loompa Doompety Don't.

Anybody ever see the film Fear Dot Com? I have.

Unfortunately.

It was a long time ago, probably back in the days of the 1530K Bad Movie Nights. I'm not really sure why it popped into my head, but it did.

Again, unfortunately.

Right now I'm watching MST3K, and after watching Blood Gnome last week, I've decided to make a point that I think needs to be made after a discussion about Uwe Boll.

In Hollywood terms, there's no such thing as a good movie or a bad movie. There's profitable and not profitable.

Like or hate Napoleon Dynamite, it was a success. Like or hate House of the Dead, it sucked, but I bought it.

Sadly movies have stopped being art and since Star Wars or Jaws, become get rich quick schemes for investors. What those investors don't understand is the concept of the art of film. It's like left vs right brained people I guess.

What happens is a film does well, and investors who didn't get in on it want to repeat it. So they look at what they think made the movie good, and repeat it in another film. The problem is, these people don't actually understand what made the movie good, because they honestly don't care.

Terminator 2 does well, then come 100 movies with amazing special effects, reminiscent of Robert Patrick's T-1000. 99 of them suck because execs don't realize that the story, the characters and the action were also extremely important in the success of the film.

The Matrix comes out, then come 200 movies with wire fighting and bullet time shots. 199 of them suck, because execs didn't realize that it was the story, the philosphy, the originality were what made it so popular.

Then there was X-Men. Big hit, because people love the X-Men. Then comes Spiderman (also good), then Daredevil, Elektra, the Hulk, Catwoman, Fantastic 4, Hellboy, Batman Begins, X-Men 2, Spiderman 2, Men In Black 2, Blade 2, Blade Trinity, Sin City, Punisher....

The old TV show remakes... I can't even REMEMBER which one of these was good. Brady Bunch, Scooby Doo, Starsky and Hutch, Charlie's Angels, Dukes of Hazzard, Flintstones....

The old Movie Remakes... War of the Worlds, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Oceans 11 (then Oceans 12), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory... the point is.....

Lack of originality and raising cost of movies is the reason Hollywood's profits are continuously dropping, and why indy film (Jared Hess's Napoleon Dynamite, Richard Kelly's Donnie Darko) and artistic films (Focus's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Miramax's Finding Neverland) are doing so well.

However, all these remakes, all this cookie cutter junk coming out of Hollywood IS still making money, and so it will keep coming. Original stuff, like Carnivàle or Push, Nevada will get shot down by studios before it gets it's legs under it.

The point is, 95% of movies that come out suck. Of those 95%, you've only heard of 10% of them. For example, before reading this blog, had you ever heard of Blood Gnome?

-j

What to do, what to do...

It's one of those days. I feel like I've not really accomplished anything in the last month that I've been here. I've still not gotten work, I've not started writing, then I lost harddrive again.

I've got an itinerary for this week. Things that I need to work on.

Tomorrow I'm going to the temp agency.

I'd like to get to St. Louis this weekend to visit my parents, but I'm not sure I'm going to be able to.

I'm tired too. I had to take Jamie to the airport this morning at 4am. She's moving to Aspen very very soon. Which means there's a spot open at Jason's. The room is over twice the size, the parking is better, the rent is cheaper, I think I'm going to move over there. I'll pay my rent here through August, and let Jon and Johanna know. It's not that I don't like this place, it's just a much better place there.

First thing's first though.

I got in contact with the Absolute Video place. Actually I left them a message. I'm hoping Jon can help me get my foot in the door at Lawrence, and/or WWMT. Preferably Lawrence. I've decided that if I haven't got anything going for my career in 8 months to a year, I'm leaving for Denver. As in, if I'm working at a McDonalds, I'm leaving, if I'm working at Lawrence, I might stick around.

I'm trying really really hard not to lose momentum.

phew!

Okay. I just got a call from my brother who got a call from my parents. They're okay. They apparently were on the train 20 minutes behind one that exploded.

So, wow. That was unbelievably close.

I'm pretty much shot for the day. This morning is going to take a little while for me to digest.

-j

Now What?

My parents are in London. They aren't in their hotel room. They don't have cell phones. I can't get ahold of them. This morning there was a terrorist attack in London that has killed at least 33 people. They targeted busses and trains that my parents could have been riding, as they didn't rent a car. My brother and I left messages with the hotel clerk, and one with my dad's voicemail. We haven't heard anything back yet.

So now, I just sit and wait and try to stifle my imagination. There's nothing to worry about until there's absolutely something to worry about.

This is going to be a long day.

-j

Live 8 pt II

Okay. I've been watching this pretty much all day. If you're missing it, you're missing a lot.

Right now Paul McCartney is closing the London show with George Michael. They're playing "Helter Skelter." Velvet Revolver's set was awesome. U2 and Paul McCartney played "Sgt. Pepper." Madonna was good. Green Day was awesome. Coldplay played "Bittersweet Symphony" with Richard Ashcroft. Will Smith and DJ Jazzy Jeff got together and played a cool set, including getting the entire Philadelphia crowd to sing the theme song to The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Joss Stone was great, Alicia Keyes was great. Annie Lennox did a really good set. The absolute best moment of the night though has got to be the reunion of Pink Floyd. After not playing together for twenty years, they got up and played a flawless set. It was absolutely breathtaking. It was something special. They played "Money," "Wish You Were Here," they closed with a perfect rendition of "Comfortably Numb." Completely amazing.

If this ever comes out on DVD, I highly, highly recommend it.

-j

Live 8

If anyone wants to actually watch Live 8 without all the MTV interruption, go here.

I swear, the people at MTV are utterly ridiculous. They're running this show like they run TRL.

John Norris: "Let's go up to the stage! U2 and Paul McCartney are playing Sgt. Pepper!"

Bono, Paul: "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hea...."

John Norris: "Wow! That was great, let's talk to Jimmy Fallon! Jimmy what do you think of Live 8?"

Jimmy Fallon: "I like it, it's really cool. I can't wait to see Pink Floyd."

John Norris: "Let's go out to the crowd!"

No name MTV VJ: "We're out in the crowd! What did you think of U2 and Paul McCartney?"

Random Kid: "I liked it! I want to see Jay Z!"

No name MTV VJ: "What do you think of poverty in Africa?"

Random Kid: "I don't like it. It's bad. I do like Jay Z."

No name MTV VJ: "Okay let's go to Philly now."

No name MTV VJ in Philadelphia: "Wow, we just saw the most awesome performance of Coldplay! Back to you John Norris!"

John Norris: "Wow, this is a great show! Brad Pitt just said some really inspiring stuff! Annie Lennox is on stage behind me! Let's go backstage now and talk to the janitor!"

On the above link you can actually watch the content going on as opposed to hearing some asshole commentators talk about how cool it was.

Also to help the cause, please sign the petition here. It takes five seconds, and it's extremely worthwhile. You don't need to donate anything, and if you don't want to put your email address, put down "thecoughingdog@yahoo.com." They won't spam you.

Also, there's a spot to add your name to the Live 8 list on the link above. Please do that too.

Do what you can.

-j

welcome back

Johanna left for Los Angeles at about 1am. Jon is on his way to Hawaii. My parents just left for England.

I'm going to a Tigers/Yankees game on sunday, because I've got an awesome friend named Laura Barb who thought to invite me. Very nice of her.

I'm attempting to reformat that burned out drive. Cesar said the likelyhood of NYFA having those tapes was quite high, and so he said he'd look around for them today. The likelyhood of me being able to pull the files of the dead drive, like I said, it would take years.

I stayed up way too late last night watching the first season of 24. I'm a winner.

-j