because fuck Ginsberg and fuck Howl, fuck Naked Lunch and William Borroughs, Jack Kerouac is my man.
(I allow that Gregory Corso is also face-clawingly good, but Ti Jean just has a way about reading his own stuff out loud that just... I love it.)
(And fuck On The Road. It's a good book, but fuck that. Come back and talk to me when you've read The Subterraneans and The Book Of Dreams and Satori In Paris.)
(I could wax poetical all right about just how much I love listening to Kerouac talk into a microphone, but we'll skip that for now. Let's talk about some other stuff.)
***
I saw On Stranger Tides tonight, and I was..... sadly underwhelmed. I loved Keef and Swearengen, as predicted, but the rest of the movie seemed largely unnecessary. And the things that weren't unnecessary.... I didn't quite... get.
For example: Blackbeard randomly has a magic sword that controls... ropes? And he can... zombify people? I... where the fuck are you guys going with this?
And Jack's been to the Fountain of Youth before, and knows where to find all of the hidden doodads necessary to get there, but he doesn't actually really know how to perform the ritual to get to the Fountain?
And why the fuck am I supposed to care about this Random Guy and his Random Mermaid Girlfriend who... go off to swim the seas forever together? I think?
And Jack and Barbossa have this bizarre buddy-cop moment midway through, but not really, and...
Penelope Cruz, you were a mess.
There's a moment that I wish to hell I had a screencap of, because... going back to the theme of Blackbeard Is Randomly All Kinds Of Magic... they discover that Blackbeard has a cabinet full of ships in bottles. Not like... model ships in bottles. Like... real ships, shrunk down, stuffed in bottles.
It feels like a bad Xibit joke that never pays off.
(Hey bro, I heard you like boats, so I put these boats in bottles on your boat, so you can gloat about how much better your boat is?)
I don't get it. I think that what they were trying to say was that Blackbeard was actually The Devil, but... still desperately wanted to find the Fountain of Youth?
Shit, Tyrone, get it together!
I propose a do-over. Just have Keef and Swerengen glare each other down and mock each other mercilessly for an hour. Flat-out. I'd watch that movie. I'd watch the SHIT out of that movie.
***
Speaking of Shit, Tyrone, Get It Together.
Gaga, what the fuck is going on here?
The Fame was alrightish. Monster? Was fantastic.
Way to completely drop the ball on the third try, dude.
Born This Way kind of blows.
Not all the way. Just mostly.
Judas has grown on me, but it mostly has to do with the video rather than the song itself.
(Ivan and I actually had a conversation about Why That Video Is Good, and our conclusions jointly go something like this:
"Let's look at what the MacManus brothers have been up to lately. The good-looking one has done... fuck all in the past decade. The fuggo? Has... done approximately the same fuck-all, but has managed to kick around with zombies and pour a beer on Gaga's ass in a jacuzzi. I.... think we have a winner here.")
***
I also had to keep Ivan from dying today. While I was off being trained, he decided he was gonna infect himself with strep some way or another, and he kept... just sucking on cough drops, as though they were going to cure an infection.
Shockingly, the cough drops proved not to be enough, and he finally decided he needed to see a doctor. I even made the appointment for him and drove him there.
He tells me that when the nurse finally looked down his throat during the exam, she pulled a horrified face and asked if he'd SEEN the state of his throat.
Needless to say, he has a round of antibiotics in a bottle in his possession now, and shall live to see the summer.
(Fact: If you don't have insurance and are deathly sick, urgent care centers are cheaper than a hospital visit. If you have a common variety of infection, they should be able to shuffle you in and out pretty quick and make sure you get the cheapest prescription possible. Just puttin' that thought out there.)
