December 13, 2007 - Thursday

December 13, 2007 - Thursday

captain weather, and the fool in school

Well, It's that time of year again:
Time to wonder what the sweet fuck the early settlers of Canada were thinking. Were they on crack? I mean, we have a central heating and fireplaces, they had beaver hats and breezy log-houses.

Romantics would say they made love to stay warm. I would say that by the time they got through all the smelly layers of fur coats, scratchy hides, and wooly long-johns, spring would have already rolled around and it would be time for a shower. As far as the smart ones who thought they'd get a head start by trying to shag in early autumn –have you ever tried to screw in the bitter cold? It's like trying to fit a shrieking ferret into a calzone.

"Oh, the early settlers of Canada were a hardy bunch." No. They were a stupid bunch. They were the pawns of the warring British and French who were jostling for position in the new world. They heard "free land" and freaked-out trying to get on the boats that headed across the Atlantic. They were shuttled down the St. Lawrence where they were arbitrarily dropped off with their luggage and told to "settle where ye may". If it was summer they only had to deal with hungry grizzlies, mosquitoes the size of Cessnas, and very angry tribes of Indians who couldn't resist shooting arrows at them because they were slow-moving targets.

Then winter came along:

(Insert North London accent)
"Wot?"
"Wot?"
"It's fackin' freezin'!"
"I know mate, it's fackin' cold!"
"They didn't tell us it was goin' t'be this fackin' cold."
"Fackin' Hudson Bay Company twats…"
"Fack me. Where did we park the fackin' boat?"
"I don't know mate, I can't see shit..."
"Well, we have to get the fack out of here, which way is south?"
"Don't know mate, my eyeballs have frozen shut."
"Fack…Yeah? My toes just fell off!"
"Yer toes? Grab me one mate, I'm fackin' starved."
"Yer not eatin' my fackin' toes ye fackin spastic! Eat yer own fackin' toes!"
"'Ow the hell am I supposed to eat my fackin' toes if I can't feel them and I'm fackin' blind? Just give us a toe mate."
"Well…"
"Well, wot?"
"Fancy a quick shag first?"

Okay. I'll stop. I spent enough time last year griping about the cold so I'm just going to grin and bear it like a good little Canadian. Of course, last year it only started to get this cold in Mid-January when it was proper cold-getting time. This year it kicked off in November. Literally, in one day, it went from chilly autumn to three feet of snow and the kind of weather that Russians like to send their political prisoners to.

So I'll talk about other stuff. Like school stuff.

The first semester of my academic year has ended. I have learned many things:
It's possible to drink a pint of beer outside if you transfer it to an extra-large paper coke cup.
Algonquin College is a labyrinth that I wouldn't tackle without a map, compass and a fairly good knowledge of the stars.

The 174 bus only manifests itself once a day through the careful use of the dark arts.
As a matter of fact, trying to divine when any bus will show up anywhere requires some kind of knowledge that is beyond me. Trust me, I've tried everything from the internet to reading pig entrails.

College dorms look like sanitariums run by Desk-Nazis. Not that I live in one, but I've wandered through one in a drunken state and was met with Kubrick-like lines of repeating doors down very long, narrow, hallways. A tricky thing when say, your hat, umbrella, and scarf are all in separate rooms and you'd like to leave.

Beat-boxing is as un-cool as it was 15 years ago. Beat-boxing, by the way, is attempting to make drum-like sounds with your mouth by spraying spit on anybody standing within a meter of you. If you were watching someone beat-box with the sound turned off the impulse would be to pepper-spray them like a rabid dog.

The human brain has the consistency of crème brulée (actually it's not really a school thing. A neurosurgeon friend told me this last Saturday).

Some people, nearly half my age, can actually be pretty funny.
Some people, nearly half my age, watch too much television.
Some people, nearly half my age, are truly decent folk.
Some people, nearly half my age, need to sort it out.
Some people, nearly half my age, are quite bright.
Some people, nearly half my age, have crème brulée wobbling around inside their skulls.

Along these lines –and I knew this already– age is just a number. Take one particular soul who had a night of drinking and then continued it on for two weeks after... and dropped out. I am half that guys age. It's all relative and comes down to experience.

The phrase "…coming back to you in no particular order…" actually means stuff is coming back to you in a very particular order. Namely, alphabetical order.

"A" is not "Ay" it's "Ah", and It's not "kil-O-meter", it's "KILL-o-meter".
Singing Aqualung on air unhinges people.

People in radio do not have stupid hair.

People in marketing do.

The number 384 is a magical number. More so than 42. And like 42, nobody seems to remember what the question was.

The mic should be on when you speak.

The mic should be off when you swear.

My disdain for pop culture is narrowly outweighed by the overriding mandate that I need to understand it a little more. Trying to understand it is twisting my melon, man. Liking it is going to require a major mental re-adjustment. Like a lobotomy.

As far as writing news for the radio goes: I'm doing it wrong…The reasons will remain unclear.
The "On Air" light being on outside of a closed door is your cue to walk in and start talking very loudly.

I know less about breathing than I thought I did.

Some guys throw like girls, and vice versa.

Some people actually like the music they hear on the radio.

Along those lines, the music people like that's popular is unbendingly generic and steadfast: a lot more rock, a lot less roll. Same hip, same hop.

Some people actually care what Ottawa Mayor O'Brien is like in person.

It doesn't matter how many notebooks I have and what I have written on their covers, the notebook in my bag will never correspond to the class that I'm in. As such, studying is less studying and more of an 80's action movie.

With Adobe Audition I can have you saying anything I want.

A "Code Blue" is a tense time for medical personnel.

All the retarded people generally show up in the campus pub at about 11.30. Thankfully they keep to themselves.

The campus pub is owned and operated by twats.

Thus, it's a venue filled with retards and run by twats.

It could be the Canadian Government.

Asking yourself "What would Conan do?" does not always help in exam-type situations.
The term "flipping their shit" should not bring to mind a dude with a spatula over a toilet-bowl.In order to operate in the College I need to have in my head approximately 30 numbers, from computer login to Student I.D. For a numerophobic, such as myself, this is no easy thing. I often get a bad case of willies just opening my locker.

Timing is everything. Lateness; you should be shot and pissed on (I knew this already, but the point has been forced home).

A large man can be quite comfortable in a small space if he has all his stuff.

People shamelessly wear a baseball cap that has roughly the same shape as a cooking pot.
People shamelessly wear clothing with other people's names on them.Some people just need to learn how to operate a goddamned belt (shit, I am getting old).In many cases, intelligence can be measured in direct inverse proportion to the amount of time someone operates their mouth (mull over that one for a while).

Oh, I've learned a lot of other things; generally practical, technical, and theoretical things that I'm not going to bore you with. Needless to say a glaring light has been shed upon the radio industry. It's rather like an open cadaver: shocking and gross at first, and then interesting and alluring as you see how all the bits and pieces work.

Ideally the goal with school is to get the highest marks possible. In that sense I'm not doing too badly. This is a new thing for me. When I think about the last time I was in a scholastic environment I need to think in terms of a decade. A decade throughout which I spent most of my time whipping my crème brulée into tapioca in a place with cobblestones and a very weird atmosphere. I still miss that place, and all the people in it. That hasn't changed.

What has changed is that I live a lifestyle that is healthy, calm, and in word: "boring". I rarely get as twisted as I used to, and am not very good at it any more –out of practice. This can be illustrated by drunken argument I had outside of bar with a total stranger about the relative stupidity of our hats… Hats, for fuck's sake… I have unwillingly snapped back to a Canadian style of life with all the trappings: grinning about ridiculous weather, watching things move around on a large television set, stuffing my face like Caligula, and exercising. Which brings me to a strange point:

When does "exercising" become "working out"? I'm sore as hell right now. Did I just exercise, or did I just work out?

Well, whatever.

I suppose when you picture me, you should picture me sitting in a classroom hovering over a notebook. Any notebook. I won't be able to make heads or tales of those notes when I go over them later (if I can find them). Or I'm slouched in a semi-reclined posture listening intently. I focus on what the professor is saying and try to ignore the jack-asses whispering behind me. I'm getting old because I consider the whispering people to be jack-asses; there was a time when I cared what they had to say. I engage when I'm piqued. I avoid hypothetical questions. Just the facts.

What you see around me hasn't changed since many of you were wondering halls of academia many years ago. The walls are still hospital colours: pale blue, white, light grey. The bathrooms still stink and the toilets don't flush properly. The janitors still look annoyed and the dean still wonders how someone managed to get a dead elk into his office.

You still get the guys in the mullets wearing biker jackets with the word "ANARCHY" written in studs across the back. You still get the dorks with their pants hitched up too high who play D&D and are really into Star Trek. You still get the gloomy slouchers dressed entirely in black, with black lipstick, and black trenchcoats, even in the hard burn of summer. They don't call them "goth" anymore though. No, apparently they're called "emo" because they feel really deeply about hating everything and are considering killing themselves. You still get the concept of "Valley Girl", kept alive by people that talk and think like them, only with more of an ironic slant. They still have nothing to say. The hippy/bohemian types still exist in full force, smelling of Indian incense and marijuana smoke. I fear they might hug me because when I wear certain clothing, under a certain kind of light, I look like a tree.

And then you get me: tall, bald, incongruous, and strange, in a strange land.

August 23, 2007 - Thursday

August 23, 2007 - Thursday

review: andrew loyd webber’s phantom of the opera

Last night I went and saw the Phantom of the Opera here in the Nation's Crapital. It is my third viewing of it. The first was when I was about 15 with my father in Toronto, then about two years later with my girlfriend at the time and two other teens. I was a big fan of the musical; awed by the faux disco theme music, throbbing violins over a rock beat, the juicy organ, the cool story, and the neat stage effects. I had a small case of Phantom-mania back then; buying the album and cherishing one of those pricey glossy magazines with full colour pictures you get at Kiss concerts and Baseball games.

I never, however, got around to stalking girls in my high school with back corner lurkings, and notes signed 'O.G.' That was reserved for my dear friend, who, although was not a musician like myself, made a hell of a better beleaguered Phantom of the Opera than I did. He also made a pretty good Jim Morrison for a while too.

Anyway, as these things go, everything shiny and good is behind you. Happiness trails like a shadow at dusk. The rocky innocence of the past is tarred over with the jaded machines of the present. And blah, blah, blah –because I spent most of the three hour musical with my eyebrows screwed together trying to understand why I thought the thing was so amazing the two previous times I saw it.

Maybe it was the acoustics in the place. The orchestra was not loud enough; often being drowned out by the singing and clattering about on stage. Maybe it was the stage direction; large groups of actors seemingly milling around in confusion and drifting here and there on what was actually a pretty small theatre. Perhaps it was the actors themselves who were chosen for their particular physical mutation and lacked the chemistry to pull off love, friendship, and fear. Perhaps it was the myriad of set changes and the two-act format designed for people that, because of modern television, can't bear to watch the same thing for longer than 20 seconds. Maybe it was the music itself, essentially circling around three major melodic themes:

'The Phantom is Scary'
DUUUUUH! . . duh duh duh duh DUUUUUH!

'The Phantom Wants to Shag Christine'
Ding donggg, ding donggg, ding-dong-ding-dong-ding-donggg

'Christine Wants to Shag the Phantom but He Looks Like He Got Hit in the Face with Vanilla Pudding'
Do de do de do-dooo. Do de do deee

Or maybe, just maybe, Andrew Lloyd Webber is a pretentious twat.

Is there a similar rule about blowing the plot in musicals as there is for movies? Will you hate me for giving away the ending to the Phantom of the Opera as you would the ending to Fight Club? I'm about to. Besides, nobody reads these things anyway.

The Phantom of the Opera has two acts, helpfully entitled 'Act 1' and 'Act 2'.

ACT 1
(In which we meet the characters and the plot develops.)
The stage is set with many dark lengths of cloth hanging at weird angles. Thankfully, not too much singing going on here, just the occasional phrase or so. The actors are engaging in the slowest auction in history; trying to sell off left-over crap from the now-defunct Opera Populaire. They auction off item 665 (a music-box monkey) to an old Count in a wheelchair. The next item, 'Lot (gasp!) 666', is a restored chandelier in a shroud, purportedly related to the 'mysterious tale of The Phantom of the Opera'. With a bang the chandelier suddenly flashes, temporarily blinding and deafening the audience. Dimly we are aware that it's being hoisted to the ceiling while…

Overture:
DUUUUUH. . . duh duh duh duh DUUUUUH! Duh duh duh duh DUUUUUH! Duh duh duh duh DUUUUUH! Ding donggg, ding donggg, ding-dong-ding-dong-ding-donggg. . . Do de do de do-do. Do de do deee. . .

Scene 2 (many years in the past):
Here we meet Carlotta. She is singing in a loud warbling voice and looks like a Gaudi building wearing a circus tent. We clearly don't like her as she is engaging in more postulating and prissing about than the rest of the cast. She is obviously not the love interest either, as there is a silly fat man doting on her who is an Important Baritone rehearsing Hannibal, along with approximately eight or nine ballerinas with excellent legs. . . And one extremely annoying topless ballet dude who prances around in a figure-eight formation and keeps cracking his whip against the stage thus drowning out the dialogue.

This is also where we meet the two new owners of the Opera Populaire. Think of Dupont et Dupond, the two bumbling detectives from the Tin-Tin comics. Failing that, think of Bush and Cheney, in terms of their excellent administrative prowess. These guys are also the comic relief.
Three things are going on at the same time here. Firstly we are learning to like Carlotta less and less. Secondly the former owner of the Opera is trying to explain that the 'Opera Ghost' demands 20,000 francs payment a year (which Dupont et Dupond think is extortion, which, in effect, it is) and thirdly, we meet Christine Daaé who is supposed to be a Swedish chorus girl, but in fact looks like Sarah Jessica Parker if she were Jewish. We also learn that, aside from having excellent legs, Christine can sing Mezzo Soprano.

When asked, how is it possible she can sing? She replies that she's been taking lessons. When asked, from who? She replies, "I don't know."

Huh?

Anyway, after the cast sings the odd phrase here and there a large piece of set falls out of the sky nearly braining Carlotta who then stalks off the stage with her silly fat man. Now we meet Christine's friend whose name is –after meeting Carlotta Giudicelli, Monsieur Richard Firmin (Dupont), Monsieur Gilles André (Dupond), Ubaldo Piangi (silly fat man), Joseph Buquet (stagehand), and Monsieur Lefèvre (previous owner)– 'Meg'.

Meg's job throughout the performance is to be cute (with excellent legs) and further the plot. In this instance she furthers the plot by convincing Dupont and Dupond to let Christine sing the lead in Hannibal. . .

Which she does at the actual performance with great success, despite the distractions of a huge plastic elephant being wheeled around a stage space that's already cramped with eight or nine ballerina's with excellent legs, one prancing shirtless ballet dude with very white teeth, a bunch of other miscellaneous set, and some guy cutting in with lines of his own while she's trying to sing.

This is how we meet Raoul, Vicomte de Chagny, who probably just narrowly avoided being called 'Jeff' by Webber. As it turns out Raoul is dashing, has wonderful hair, and is generally a nice guy. Not only this, but he knew Christine as a young girl when her name was 'Lotte' (Huh?) and still finds her hot.

This is indicated by the lines:

Can it be?Can it be Christine?Bravo!What a change!You're reallynot a bitthe gawkish girlthat once you were...

Apparently personality does not go a long way with this guy.

After the show we see Christine in her dressing-room in front of a very large incongruous mirror. People walk in and out congratulating her and keep leaving her door open. This struck me as redundant because her room is missing one entire wall. Meg, unsatisfied with Christine's "I don't know who my music teacher is", asks Christine how she got to be so good. Christine then launches into a hairy-fairy song about how when she was called 'Lotte' her dad promised her an Angel of Music. A Honda Civic might have been a bit more realistic, but hey, it's the opera.

Meg sings the operatic equivelant to 'Yeah, whatever.' and leaves.

Christine, now alone, aside from an audience of about 2,000 people, sings:
Father once spoke of an angel . . . I used to dream he'd appear . . . Now as I sing, I can sense him . . . And I know he's here . . . Here in this room he calls me softly . . . somewhere inside . . . hiding . . . Somehow I know he's always with me . . . he - the unseen genius . . .

This is how we learn that the Phantom is less of an 'Angel of Music' and more of a 'Pervert of Playgrounds'.

Lights dim and someone in the orchestra pit starts playing a single note on a bass guitar.
And there, there! In the mirror –the Phantom of the Opera! The mirror opens, smoke billows out. . . Actually wait. . . This is a problem I had throughout the whole production: there was not enough smoke. I know there was supposed to be more smoke in many key scenes, but either the smoke guy had the day off, or he was skimping on the dry ice. So a few whiffs of smoke trail out and the Phantom takes Christine's hand. The mirror closes behind them just as Raoul walks into the room, again using the door instead of just walking in through the missing wall. Now we get. . .

DUUUUUH. . . duh duh duh duh DUUUUUH! Duh duh duh duh DUUUUUH! Duh duh duh duh DUUUUUH! DUUUUUH. . . duh duh duh duh DUUUUUH! Duh duh duh duh DUUUUUH! Duh duh duh duh DUUUUUH!

. . . Except with a disco beat on the drums and some electric guitar. Frankly, the drum kit was not loud enough; too much Simon and Garfunkle and not enough Bee-Gees for the effect Webber was going for.

Through the use of clever stage design we see that The Phantom and Christine are descending into the bowels of the Opera House. Smoke (but not enough) and candles are used to indicate an underground lake. The Phantom, while poling through the lake with Christine in what appears to be large, half-sunken sombrero, sings about himself. Eventually they arrive at his gloomy abode where there are many large nine-prong candle holders. Jews would probably recognize these as the menorah used on Hannukah (which raises all sorts of questions about the denomination of the Phantom, and may explains the Jewish appearance of Christine, but not her name). They sing to each other until the Phantom uncovers a mirror in which there is a mannequin decked out to look like a bride. This scares the beejesus out of Christine who passes out in the sombrero.

Abruptly Christine is awoken by the Phantom who is very loudly and very badly playing an organ. Clearly annoyed and grumpy by this rude awakening she sings a bit and then rips off the Phantom's mask. The Phantom covers his face and starts screaming at her; calling her things like a 'prying pandora', a 'little demon', a 'lying delilah', and a 'viper'. Both of them, now exhausted from all the quarrelling (you can just tell this relationship is off to a bad start), settle down a bit. The Phantom tells Christine he hopes she can love him despite having a face that looks like it's covered in vanilla pudding. She looks pretty unsure, even from twelve rows back. He tells her to leave.

Meanwhile up in the Opera House Dupont, Dupond, Carlotta, and Raoul are puzzling over some notes they've received, presumably from the Phantom. This is when we learn that –even though the Phantom is a sociopath, and aside from being a lousy poet– he's got a pretty good sense of humour.

The notes read:

"Dear Andre,
what a charming gala!Christine enjoyed a great success!We were hardly bereftwhen Carlotta left -otherwisethe chorus was entrancing,but the dancing was alamentable mess!"

Another, focused more on the extortion side of things:

"Dear Firmin,just a brief reminder:my salary has not been paid.Send it care of the ghost,by return of postP.T.O.:No-one likes a debtor,so it's better if myorders are obeyed!"

And finally he abandons any modicum of rhyme and meter and writes:

"I shall watch the performance from my normal seat in Box Five, which will be kept empty for me. Should these commands be ignored, a disaster beyond your imagination will occur."
They decide to do the exact opposite of the Phantom's intructions and cast Carlotta as the Countess and Christine as the mute page-boy in Il Muto, they don't pay the Phantom his twenty grand protection fee, and they put Raoul in Box Five.

This causes the Phantom to heckle the performers like the two old guys in the gallery seats of the The Muppet Show. He tells Carlotta she sings like a toad, which she does. He says her singing is so bad it's messing with the chandelier, which it does. He laughs loudly at innappropriate times, doesn't turn off his mobile phone, takes pictures with the flash on, and constantly clears his throat of a phlegm ball the size of a toaster throughout it's duration. Actually, that last was the guy sitting next to me.

Everyone freaks out. Raoul and Christine freak to the roof of the Opera House where they declare undying love and make plans to hang out after the show. The Phantom overhears and –in what has to be the winner of the Guiness Book of World Records category of Worst Audience Behaviour– brings the chandelier crashing down. Again the audience is temprorarily blind and deafened by the effect so that we are bumping into each other during intermission and can't find the bathroom.

A thing about the chandelier crashing down: This is actually a climactic point in the musical. One that I look forward to every time I see the show; the chandelier flashes and then drops like a rock towards the actual audience, swooping above our heads at the last minute before landing on the stage with a crash.

To put it in the words of my companion that evening, "The chandelier fell too slowly." And it did. It kind of flickered a bit and then lazily lowered towards the orchestra pit where it did an abrupt gravity defying change of direction and landed casually on the stage. Then there was a flash.
Not very impressive.

ACT 2
(In which arin starts drinking beer and is grateful he doesn't have to work today)
It's a year later and everyone including the ballerinas with excellent legs are partying at the annual New Years Eve Masquerade Ball. Christine and Raoul are engaged, and they have repaired the chandelier (Chandelier Repair People, not Christine and Raoul). Everyone is generally having a good time until the Phantom crashes the party.

Everyone is bummed out when he starts talking business at a social event. He's been busily writing an opera called Don Juan Triumphant (irony intended) and wants them to perform it. This causes chaos at the party and everyone starts singing completely different songs at the same time which drowns out the orchestra whose maestro is desperately trying to keep everyone in line by waving a little white stick (note to the conductor: bring a taser next time). It's at this point that a matronly lady with a big stick who had been somewhere on the stage throughout the whole performance and whose purpose I couldn't devine explains that the Phantom is an escaped fairground freak with a brilliant mind, who was presumed dead.

Everyone sings, "Ah?"

This chaos continues to the next day when the Phantom shuts everybody up by leaving a few notes lying around, again illustrating his power as a comedic writer with bad timing:
"Dear Andre,Re my orchestrations:We need another first bassoon.Get a player with tone -and that third trombonehas to go!The man could not be deafer,so please preferably onewho plays in tune!"

And:
"Dear Firmin,vis a vis my opera:some chorus-members must be sacked.If you could, find out whichhas a sense of pitch -wisely, though,I've managed to assign arather minor role to thosewho cannot act!"

Carlotta –bringing to mind the wistful thinking of the type of girl one meets in bars around here– refuses to perform on the grounds that the Phantom might capture her. That's when Raoul gets the brilliant idea of using the performance to trap and shoot the Phantom.

Christine, meanwhile, has been pining away about the 'Angel of Music' her dad promised her. She visits the grave of her father to try to sort herself out. There, the phantom creepily disguised as her father's ghost, starts offering her the proverbial 'stranger's candy'. There ensues a kind of Fatal Attraction mindfuck in which everybody keeps calling everybody else 'Angel':

PHANTOM Wandering child So lost, so helpless Yearning for my guidance

CHRISTINE Angel or father Friend or phantom Who is it there staring?

PHANTOM Have you forgotten your angel

CHRISTINE Angel, oh speak What endless longings Echo in this whisper

PHANTOM Too long you've wandered in winter Far from my fathering gaze

CHRISTINE Wildly my mind beats against you

PHANTOM You resist PHANTOM/CHRISTINE Yet your/the soul obeys....

PHANTOM Angel of Music! You denied me Turning from true beauty Angel of Music! Do not shun me Come to your strange Angel...

CHRISTINE Angel of Music! I denied you Turning from true beauty Angel of Music! My protector.... Come to me, strange Angel...

PHANTOM I am your Angel of Music... Come to me, Angel of Music

Christine is starting to get suckered in again when Raoul studs onto the scene and shakes her out of her reverie. The Phantom, pissed at this interruption (seriously Phantom, next time: chloroform), declares war on them both while unleashing four or five roman candle fireballs from his walking staff in a generally Stage Left direction. Raoul and Christine flee. Even more enraged the Phantom declares war on both of them.Later, during the actual performance of Don Juan, the Phantom switches places with the silly fat man and takes over the lead role while wearing a really big hoody. It dawns on Christine that while the Phantom is really ugly he is actually quite buff –as opposed to the silly fat man who is just. . . well. . . fat. The incongruity, despite the clever hoody disguise, does not escape Christine who wrenches off the hood exposing the Phantom in his mask. She then wrenches off the mask too, which shocks the audience because we learn that it's not just a mask, it's a mask and wig. The phantom is no longer the menacing cloaked figure looming around throughout the musical. He is, in fact, a Mr. Potato Head covered in vanilla pudding. His embarrassment is evident as he grabs Christine and flees back to the caverns beneath the Opera House.

Raoul, in a righteous fit of originality, declares war on the Phantom (Can you do that? Can you declare war on somebody that has already declared war on you? Aren't you already at war?). With the help of the matronly lady with the big stick he finds the underground lake that doesn't have enough smoke on it and jumps though a trap door in the stage.

In his lair, the Phantom forces Christine to put on a wedding dress while he watches. Christine puts it on with much soulful singing and trepidation. He says, you don't love me because I'm ugly. She says, I don't love you because you're an asshole. Once again Raoul shows up, interrupting what was about to be a very interesting exchange of thoughts. Distracted by his fiancée, who is in a wedding dress, he isn't aware of the Phantom who sneaks up behind him and drops a noose around his neck. Despite the tightening loop of rope around his throat Raoul sings the operatic equivalent to 'Oh shit.'

The Phantom then makes his ultimatum: Marry me or Le Viscomte de Manliness will spend the rest of his short life with the kind of long necks attributed to certain rare African tribes. He repeats his demands several times and is saved from becoming redundant by Christine grabbing his Mr. Potato Head and planting a deep operatic kiss on his lips. She repeats this again until the Phantom is utterly flamoozled because he's never been tenderly touched by another person, let alone tongue-battered by a hot Jewish bird.

He's so befuddled and frazzled that he proceeds to make the largest leap of logic since 'Jesus died for our sins.' and frees Raoul and Christine, telling them to get the hell out of there and to stop screwing around with his mind. He then takes a seat on his big chair and pulls the shroud he's often seen wearing over his head, but not before saying to no one in particular (except the 2000 viewing public), "Christine, I love you."

It's then that Meg shows up with her excellent legs and overall cuteness and cautiously approaches the covered Phantom in a chair. She yanks off the shroud and. . . He's gone! But what's this? He left behind his mask, without the wig. She holds the mask up to the spotlight.
The audience leaves to the underground parking garage where we sit in our idling cars for half an hour breathing in noxious carbon monoxide fumes and start to marvel gigglingly about how good the show was. Except the chandelier didn't fall fast enough.

Hope I haven't ruined it for you.

THE END

July 25, 2007 - Wednesday

July 25, 2007 - Wednesday

everything i know i learned from hollywood: part I

In my never ending effort to illuminate the finer points of North American culture for my European friends I would like to offer up a few thoughts about the Hollywood Blockbuster movie.
Hollywood Blockbusters have been ravaging the European lands for hundreds of years. They are worse than the Black Plague in that respect. They seemingly come out of nowhere preceded by a fierce and colourful marketing campaign designed to beat you into senselessness about it's imminent arrival ("ON JUNE THIRTEENTH BE PREPARED TO SHIT YOURSELF "). Aside from the plastering of ancient walls with colourful posters of booty and explosions, or half-lit serious actor faces, they attack Europeans on the radio, television, and before the films themselves. These snippets of an impending Hollywood Blockbuster are called 'trailers' and usually involve a rumbling dramatic male voice saying things like:

"WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU WERE BALSAMIC VINEGAR TRAPPED ON A PLANET OF ANGRY WARRIOR SHITZUS… AND YOU HAVE NO WAY HOME? BILLY IS ABOUT TO FIND OUT."

"MEET ALBERT. ALBERT'S LEFT HAND IS A SKILLET. MEET JENNIFER. JENNIFER'S FACE IS A CHICKEN CORDON BLEU. ALBERT AND JENNIFER ARE ABOUT TO MEET FOR THE FIRST TIME."

"…JEAN CLAUDE VAN DAMME IS ERIKSON MEGAWOOD –HE IS ANGRY… AND HE WILL KICK YOU IN THE FACE!"

Europeans have a very dim view of Hollywood Blockbusters because they feel that it insults their intelligence and turns their brains into split pea soup. They feel that inherently crap writing, bad acting, and unrealistic scenarios are often thinly disguised with cheap theatrics, loud noises and colourful special effects. They feel jaded having to filter through the twaddle to find anything half-way decent. They are annoyed with constantly being confronted with sequels in which the plot is vaguely re-arranged for the next movie in the series.

They feel that it is difficult to actually see a Hollywood Blockbuster Movie as you have to sit through about twenty minutes of production house logos ("TriStar Pictures in association with 20th Century Fox, present a film by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Touchstone Pictures, brought to you by New Line Cinema") flying towards you at a great velocity accompanied by loud noises that sound like car doors being slammed, or cellos being beaten with a human skull. When you have actually reached the point where the movie begins you are then forced into a state of nauseous vertigo. Hollywood achieves this by giving the special effects department enough crystal meth to fuel a donkey-run from Paris to Dubai. The special effects department then sets to work creating an intro which makes you feel as if you're traveling rapidly somewhere: you are skimming over some countryside or a cityscape dangerously low to the ground, or you are zipping through a tunnel made up of stylized computer graphic spider webs which then morphs into a tube of hot molten lava which then morphs into zipping through a glass of pink lemonade whereupon you end up in someone's mouth, which is dark, and cues the actual plot to kick in. A very common trick of making you ill during the intro is to zoom in on something: you're in space approaching earth, which becomes a landmass, which becomes a city, which becomes one apartment, which becomes one dude in that apartment, which becomes the dude's eyeball, which then becomes his iris, which then becomes his brain, which then becomes his neurons, which then… well, you get the picture.

Anyway.

Luckily for my daunted European friends I have absolutely no life and spend most of my time watching films; from Hollywood Blockbusters to, as I like to call them, "Decent Flicks". Through careful research of the scientific variety, and long lonely nights of staring bug-eyed at my dad's television which is slightly larger than a sedan, I have accumulated extensive insight into the world of the Hollywood Blockbuster and have found them to be a dynamic suppositories of wisdom, integrity, and fundamental education.

Here are some things I've learned from the Hollywood Blockbuster:

From Action Movies:
People…
There are Good People and Bad People.
Bad People can be divided into two categories: Underlings, and the Very Bad Person.
The Underlings usually outnumber the Good People seven to one. They never have a proper shave and are into rape. Often they have accents (usually British) and are very insulting. They sweat copiously. They tend to hang in groups of two or three and, although wily and overly-confident, are easily dispatched in ascending order of hierarchy.

The Very Bad Person is always the last to die. Despite being the brains of any nefarious operation they often don't get the hint that it's time to leave. Even though all their Underlings are being systematically killed in ascending order. Maybe it's because they themselves know that they are quite tricky to kill; often needing to die in an extremely elaborate –yet somehow Dr. Seuss poetry– manner that involves much pain, screaming, and righteous rage at being killed. After slaying a Very Bad Person it is often helpful nudge them a few time with your boot in order to verify their death. If you have dropped a building on a bad person, thrown them off a cliff, drove over them with a car, and blew them up, be sure to find the body so that you can shoot them in the face. Then nudge them with your boot. Never ever bring your face close to them to check for vital signs. This always revives them.

Good people can also be divided into two categories.

Helpful But Easily Killed People, and the Very Good Person.

Helpful But Easily Killed People are often helpful but die quickly. Usually they are fairly likable and simple folk. They can come in any shape, financial background, creed, or colour –but generally are not quite as good-looking as the Very Good Person, unless they will fuck (or are fucking) the Very Good Person. Sometimes they can start off as an Underling and laterally shift to a Helpful But Easily Killed Person via the moral berating of a Very Good Person. This shift often lowers their sex drive –although they still like to do it. They are often quickly confused but always have a single useful skill; such as being adept at reading blueprints. Sometimes their particular skill is explaining the plot to the Very Good Person.

The Very Good Person, in many ways, shares the traits of the Very Bad Person: they are never very ugly, they have clever things to say about many situations, and they are difficult to kill. Generally they are not as cool as the Very Bad Person (in my opinion) but are very athletic with Olympic-level skills in the Long Jump, the Hundred Meter Dash, and Boxing. Although they are equipped to expertly use any vehicle including an F16, mini-submersible, hovercraft, llama, and dragon, they are particularly good with cars, often able to drive them at great speeds while hanging on to the hood. This serves greatly in their favor when attempting to commandeer a car from an Underling, as Underlings tend to fall out of cars quite easily.

Very Good People also bounce. They can fall great distances, sustain several gunshot wounds, and have buildings collapse on them but are able to recover from their injuries fairly quickly –often forgetting about them entirely. This is partially because Very Good People know that a good cauterization will solve any medical condition; from being stabbed in the neck, to a burst appendix.

The Very Good People also do not scream like a girl, piss themselves, or emit staccato farts while walking up stairs.

Explosions…
Explosions do not kill or even maim. They do not deafen, shock, or cause enough shrapnel to turn you into a cheese grater. At the very most they can launch a normal human several hundred fun meters. They generally occur moments after someone has thrown themselves out of a house (or building, or car, or cupboard, etc.) and often aid people by tweaking their flight farther out of range of the billowing flames.

People themselves can, however, explode, but this sometimes does not kill them. Especially if they are Very Bad People.

Bombs are always disarmed at the final millisecond before detonation.
Toasters, mobile phones, lamp posts, trees, and gloves can explode with the same intensity as a large metal container filled with pressurized gasoline.

Shooting large metal containers of pressurized gasoline will always cause them to explode. Usually they are located near Bad People.

By the same token, a fierce gun battle amidst explosive items (such as a nuclear power plant) will not cause anything to explode. Until, of course, the main Good People have just left.

Guns…

Guns are mostly harmless.

They rarely have recoil and the safety is never on. Furthermore, no one significant can be killed by a single gunshot. Often to put someone down for good, especially if they are a Bad Person, requires several gunshots. Usually to the chest. This is because if you blow someone's face off it is difficult to glean their look of utter shock at being shot in the first place.

Very Good people are never shot in the face. Very Good people are usually shot in the shoulder within inches of their heart. Sometimes they are shot in the leg, arm, and –but very rarely– the belly. All such wounds are easily ignored within seconds –except for the belly wound. The belly shot will cause major discomfort but still allow the woundee (sp?) to run for cauterization many miles away.

People wearing kevlar vests are never shot in the head.

Ammunition is cheap and magical. Many guns are able to fire hundreds of bullets without needing reloading. If they need to be reloaded this is done quickly and efficiently. Reloading occurs as often as necessary because, although bullets may be limited, clips containing them are not.

Bullets hit the dirt in a series of minor explosions behind someone that is running, especially if they are running in a straight line to an obvious place of cover. The bullets will never out-race the running person to their sanctuary, even though, through basic laws of geometry, it is easier to turn a gun muzzle a short distance than to run a great one.

A hail of bullets is not necessarily a bad thing if you have some cover; like a rock, some deep water, or a piece of foam.

The ricochet and subsequent injury by flying bullets is very rare unless it has been established that an environment has this effect on bullets. If the environment has this effect a bullet can ricochet up to five times before coming to a rest. Usually in someone's thigh.

It is possible to disarm a person with a gun pointed at you three inches from your face.
If they are farther away it is possible to disarm them with a kick.

A person can be rendered unconscious via a single blow to the head with the butt of a gun.
Guns are very light and can fit anywhere on your body without any discomfort. Often this place is on the waist or in a jacket pocket without noticeably weighing them down. It can also be in your sock, shirt cuff, butt crack, or hair.

Good People have better aim than Bad People.

Other things that poke holes in people…
Swords are deadly, keep away from them. Although Very Good People and Very Bad People are generally spared the embarrassment of becoming an amputee as a result of sword-play a single thrust will kill them more surely than several shots in the chest. The same can be said about spears. Though, be wary Underlings and Helpful But Easily Killed People; you are quite prone to losing limbs, eyeballs and such.

Arrows, although generally not deadly, can be of great annoyance, causing you to have to wrench them out of your body with a great roar of rage.

A warning to Very Bad People: You tend to impale yourselves on things that poke holes in people as part of your elaborate death. As a general rule you should stay away from anything sharp.
Being chased by things…

Often people are chased by things. Sometimes these things are Very Good People, Underlings or Helpful But Easily Killed People, sometimes they are very angry mammals, sometimes they are electronic; like robots or washing machines, or sometimes they are simply gifted children who want your autograph. Whatever the case may be, the best way to escape (and this is amazing to me) is to be faster than them. The most convenient form of escape tends to be the automobile. Automobiles are easily had anywhere that is populated. They can be started by jiggling some wires beneath the steering wheel, or –as I've mentioned before– throwing an Underling or a Helpful But Easily Killed Person out of a moving one. Remember, if you don't like the car that you're in you can always throw yourself out any speed. The same goes for ski-doos, horses, and aircrafts.

If you decide to escape in a car just remember to squeal your tires whenever you accelerate or stop. Horses should rear on their hind legs by the same token.
Escape: Windows…

Escape is always possible by throwing oneself through a plate glass window. As it turns out, the higher the window is from ground level, the less thick the glass is. This is useful to know for causing the death of an Underlings on your way up to elaborately kill the Very Bad Person. Simply bouncing off glass, as you would the Surprise Sliding-Door at the shopping mall, rarely occurs.

Escape: Just jump…

It doesn't matter whether you are on the top of Petronas towers in Kuala Lumpur or the edge of Angel Falls in Venezuela; if you are a Very Good Person surrounded by Underlings, or the Very Bad Person themselves, just jump. It's that easy. There will always be something to break your fall, like some bushes or a toddler.

Escape: Stealth…

It's possible to be stealthlike even when a very dramatic musical score is blaring right in your ears. Although it might be difficult to escape in utter darkness because you bump into things, be thankful that utter darkness does not exist. There is always a little light coming from somewhere, even if it's your wristwatch. Generally the people that bump into things in semi-darkness are Helpful But Easily Killed People and Underlings, so it's okay. These people exist to die in order that you live.

Remember: If you are wearing black you cannot be seen.

Okay, time to sneak out of here.

To Be Continued.

July 25, 2007 - Wednesday

July 25, 2007 - Wednesday

everything i know i learned from hollywood: part II

If there is one thing Hollywood Blockbusters do it is uniting the perceptions of the common man. They show us what is true and consistent in the world throughout all walks of life, all economic statuses, all languages, and all races. Except for black people.

And if there is one thing that is universally understood planet-wide it is that love is hilarious. Love, passion, jealousy, anguish, adulation, obsession, and all things associated with romance, lost or achieved, is made up of a series of whimsical occurrences and misunderstandings which, in the end, will be for the greater good of the couple involved.

But before you embark on your amusing and sometimes comic-tragic romantic escapade there are a few things you should know about love:

You need to be incredibly good-looking to truly be in love. If you are not incredibly good-looking this can pose serious problems, because people don't love people that are not incredibly good-looking. People that are less than incredibly good-looking tend to lose people, or, at the very most, end up with the less than incredibly good-looking friend of an incredibly good-looking person.

But don't despair those of you that are less than incredibly good looking, because often all it takes is some make-up, a glamorous dress, a few sit-ups, or a black turtle-neck sweater to catapult you straight past the moderately good-looking people into the category of incredibly good-looking. And when that happens –usually with the assistance of moderately good-looking people who are always amazed and sometimes chagrined by the result of their efforts– you will get your One True Love.

Generally, again, this doesn't work with black people. They tend to either be incredibly good-looking, or not at all throughout the whole quirky romantic escapade. Of course, black people rarely experience the same amount of love as white people, and are generally relegated to the level of Helpful Abettor by their white incredibly good-looking friend.

People are really nice…

Aside from a few bad apples, who will never find true love anyway, people are really nice and helpful. They will always forego their personal problems to have the plot explained to them by one or more of the central romantic figures. Strangers are also very nice, whether you're running around an airport like a terrorist, dashing across a busy intersection, walking across people's heads in a New York city subway station, getting the hotel room number of your One True Love over the phone, or writing 'Will You Marry Me?' in burning flames on someone's front lawn, people really don't mind. As a matter of fact strangers find this kind of behaviour endearing and may even applaud.

Always remember that people that may seem like complete degenerate assholes at first can be swayed to extreme perfection. If you find yourself in love with an incredibly good-looking (of course) person who has the personality of a rage-crazed Rottweiler all you need to do is make them cry. It doesn't matter how cynical or embittered that person is, how nasty, sardonic or cruel –they will change because you love them. This is a difficult concept for many to get a bead on because nobody loves stupid people, and it tends to be stupid people that can about-face 180º personality-wise. But hey, that's amoré.

Everyone has lots of money…

To truly be in love you need to have a lot of money. Maybe not both of you, but one of you for sure. Even the person that doesn't have a lot of money usually has a loft-flat in New York city the size of a football field. This is because one of you has a high-paying and interesting job that isn't entirely satisfying (because you're not in love yet). The careers of people that will fall in love are as follows:

Journalist
Lawyer
Any PR Agent
Successful artist (because all artists are very-to-mildly successful)
Military (although, usually these people are in love to begin with)
Major Sports Athlete
Student
Criminal that Does not Deal Drugs
Teacher
Waitress
International Spy or any other kind of Random Adventure Person
The careers of people that will NOT fall in love are as follows:
Janitor; Porno Theatre
Drug Dealer
Fishmonger
Plumber
Anybody that works with sewage or waste matter
People on the Dole
Telemarketer
Any kind of extremist or fundamentalist leader
Royal Executioner
Barnyard Masturbator

(Other people that will never fall in love are: retards, perverts, disabled people, and fat people)
One of you having a lot of money facilitates having conversation-laden adventures together while going to the zoo, constantly going to trendy restaurants, skating in the middle of a major city, or staying at the George V Hotel in Paris. It is important to note that people in love tend to spend a lot of time on rooftops, balconies, and other high places. People in love like to be quiet, near a nice view with a slight breeze.

If you are worried about not having a lot of money don't fret, because your parents most certainly do. They have a house with 17 rooms and a dining room-table that seats 30 people in a small town (population 178) somewhere in the American Mid-West. This is handy for the awkward but hilarious meeting of the parents and family. Remember, if you are a man be wary of the woman's father. He will most certainly hate you at first. But don't worry, he will come to eventually like you and respect you.

In every true love scenario there needs to be a comic and witty dialogue around a large dining-room table. This is another reason why wealthy parents are useful. In this dialogue you find out that Grandma thinks you're a fag, Dad thinks you're a pervert, Mom thinks you're kind of sweet, younger siblings either have a crush on you or think you're a jack-ass, the youngest sibling makes irrelevant but funny comments, and the dog pooped in your shoe.
Lies…

All true love begins with a colossal lie. This lie may take the form of a simple misunderstanding or the complete failure to relate a fundamental aspect of your personage. Such as; you are royalty, or you are three other people.
Sex…

People in love have beautiful tender sex. Often this sex is in slow motion with many indistinct close-ups of your bodies. Sex is never dirty or involving the use of depraved language. Anal sex is only permissible if you are a homosexual. On that note: chances are if you're gay you're the hilarious and secondary Helpful Abettor to heterosexuals who are attempting to experience real love.

Bodily functions…

Just as Action People never sleep, people in love never go to the bathroom unless it's to brush their teeth, have beautiful tender sex in the shower, apply make-up, or change slowly and seductively into something slinky. It's never to piss or shit.

Note: It is common for people about to be in love to see one or the other naked, either by surprise, or via a contrivance.

Your friends are meaningless…

Your friends exist for one purpose, and one purpose only: to Helpfully Abet you achieving your One True Love. Are you perhaps in love with you best-friend's wife? No problem, simply steal them away. Don't worry about it, your friend will get over it in time, and may in fact apologize for causing you grief in acquiring his wife in the first place. Friends are also useful soundboards for explaining the plot to during the inevitable slump which occurs after you have first met, and fucked up, the relationship with your One True Love. When you get back together again forget about them. They are of no further use to you.

Friends may appear to be engaging in strange activities during the pursuit of your One True Love. Perhaps they're an alcoholic, or freely trading partners amongst each other, or have leprosy. Maybe their mother just died, or they've been missing for days. Just ignore all that weirdness. Unless it directly helps you in achieving your One True Love it will only distract you from your goal. All that stuff is for comic relief to lighten your load anyway.
Stalking is normal…

You can always get your One True Love if you are willing to do anything necessary. Because with die-hard perseverance, and relentless chasing, they will eventually come around. Show up everyday at their home, throw rocks at their house, sleep on their porch, leave notes and flowers at their office, follow them all over town, attck anyone that comes near them, lead a yak with their name tattoed on it through a café, chase them screaming through heavily populated places –whatever it takes, just don't stop, because relenting equals failure, and failure means you'll end up like your Helpful Abettor friends: slightly comical losers. They may have no pride, but you're swallowing yours for love. What better reason to stand naked in the piss rain at midnight screaming, "But I love you!" at your One True Love's dormitory window?

Note: loudly singing love songs to your One True Love in crowded places is never awkward and always works in shifting their opinion in your favor. In this manner everyone around you becomes an Abettor, and thus can help you in pressuring your One True Love into coming around. Your One True Love will appreciate the nuances of this.

A good rule of thumb to remember is that you are one in a pack of starving hyenas, and the gazelle you're all chasing is awfully small.

The fishing line…
There is always one good line that will sway your One True Love your way. These lines are best delivered in the rain, or after you have been running for a bit, or while you are crying. Either way, you should be wet.
Some lines that work:
"You complete me."
"Don't forget. I'm just a girl standing in front of a boy...asking him to love her." (not to be used on paranoid schizophrenics)
"You had me at 'hello'"
"You are what I never knew I always wanted" (only for extremely intelligent One True Loves)
"I can't imagine life without you."
"Don't ever leave me."
"You're the one that I love (Oo-wap shoo-walla-walla doot-doot-doo)!"
Some lines that don't work too well:
"My apartment had many leather-bound books and smells of rich mahogany."
"If you don't love me right now I'll hammer this nail into my eyeball."
"You are a doughnut to my box of Pringles."
"I require the love of a slutty-hoer. And that slutty-hoer is you."
"If you don't love me right now I'll hammer this nail into your eyeball."
"But I engraved your name into my forehead for you."
"They make take our lives, but they will never take our FREEDOM!"

And there you have it. Through romantic comedies Hollywood shines it's rich immortal light on matters of the heart itself. As long as you're extremely good-looking, have one of the jobs people who fall in love get, have rich parents, stalk relentlessly, and are not black or gay, love is possible for anyone. Helpful Abettors are exempt from this categorization of course. And if you don't fall into any of these categories you should probably check your social insurance number because it's doubtful you exist.

And yeah, the sequel is rarely as good as the original.

To Be Continued.