Just so we aren't as behind as we were with Krumpin'

Here's the Chicken Noodle Soup

love it. learn it

Of late i've been tied up with writing an essay on political hegemony and the "terminator" films. It will be over soon and we can return to my regularily scheduled musings.

til then....

VANCOUVER + SNOW = POST-APOCALYPTIC HELLSCAPE (apparently)


these cars have been abandoned like this outside our place for at least a day. A DAY

Cam

All Work and No Play

So Robert Altman is Dead. He was one of my favorite filmmakers. It's not sad really because it shouldnt be sad when a person you don't know dies. But he always made big crazy movies about cool little subjects so here's a list of some of his work I really liked and feel is worth seeing (and youtube links to a few tidbits).

So everyone's probably seen Gosford Park so I should start with that.

For M*A*S*H Altman developed a system of recording sound which allowed characters to talk over eachother and still be audible and allowed the director to control where the audiences hearing goes.

Gosford Park is the best example of this because everyone is cramped in little parlours and 98% of the dialogue is amazing and hilarious. I've seen this 3 times but every time it's on I watch again to see if I can hear another little tidbit which will keep me laughing.

Popeye is weird and bad but also amazing to watch.

Its a musical that doesn't sound like a musical or act like or and you can't tell whether he loves Popeye or hates it. Also...it's maybe a popeye prequel. I'm constantly confused.

It explores a lot of weird and beautiful life-related peccadillos I'm not sure Popeye ever did and it clearly played a strange and large influence on the films of Paul Thomas Anderson.

Watch it and both see why it's a flop but also maybe fall in love with it a bit in spite of, or because of those facts.

Nashville is the best example of Altman's crazy writing/adaptation style.

It's based on true reporting yet, through some unknown process, produces a mostly fictional story including some characters who probably are based on real people.

He also made the actors write and preform their own country songs so it has a pretty wicked soundtrack of unique sounding 70s country and after watching it I always find myself pulling some regrettable nu-country of I-tunes to keep me rocking.

Short Cuts may not be the inventor of but it's certainly the watermark for me of the "bunch of characters interconnected each dealing with a dramatic story" genre which has become so popular of late.

The thing that bothered me most about "Crash" was the contrivances to bring characters together and in Short Cuts Altman mixes characters from Raymond Carver stories, and just his own brain, seemlessly and with interesting happenstance which both makes the movie believable and totally effective.

Also, it's about 4 hours long but I can always sit through it and enjoy it end to end. Thats pretty high praise from someone with self-diagnosed borderline ADD.

If I had to choose a favorite of his though it would be Brewster McCloud.

It's a part improvised, party scripted, part industrial experimental film about a person who wants more than anything to fly.

It's insane and completely watchable and works on the same kind of weird humor you see in movies like "The Graduate" and "The Man Who Fell To Earth".

It involves many of the older key actors in the Altman regime who tend to be creepy and interesting (also you may see why I love some of the people who constantly show up on 'Boston Legal' through seeing these movies).

The above link sends you to a full capture of the entire movie of Brewster McCloud and I urge you to see it on youtube while it's still free. It's a movie thats hard to get a hold of but completely worth it to watch. Strange and crazy and awesome.

Good Job Rob

CAM

I don't think it's possible to like your upstairs neighbors.

Sure outside my many upstairs neighbors have seemed to be a quiet Japanese family, an east-van upwardly mobile young family and a happy-go-lucky gay couple with a newfound female pal but...Man oh man...

In reality they've been blaring Japanese t.v. at 4am, a constantly crying child and "Train" blaring as they shower the same time I try to shower.

All of these are minor annoyances though. I think in reality it's some deep seated psychic pain involving the connotations that living under someone else makes you their indentured servants and the semi-constant fear that one day you'll wake up to a bell ringing and have to start bringing them their saltpork and kippers from the larder every day lest you be sent back to the isle of wight to live with your cripple uncle the blacksmith.

So be extra nice if you live above someone. Tread quietly, say hello because they are weirded out to do it to you, give your kids a swig of gin and turn down everything you listen to. All we have to fight back right now are mildly raucous parties, not taking your garbage out to the curb when you forget and muffled laughter through the vents.

But someday we'll sleep with your daughters then convince them to kill themselves because you won't let us be together.

just for kicks.

CAM

Possible Characters for My Many Successful Future Novels
1) I keep running into the same burlesque dancer on the bus.

It's not that I can just read off someone's face what their torrid occupation is (though of course any man can tell you every pretty girl on the bus has one) but she's talked about it on recent trips a few times.

A few days ago she seemed to sink into the background as semi-well-made-up-tired-and-puffy-faced-thirty-something while plucky-yet-misguided-constant-pen-dropping-clubroom seemed to suck up all the interesting. That is until they sat side by side.

promoters regarded they'd met at shambala the year before. Instant connection (one would assume associated with various smells I'd prefer to stay out of). But then wait...there was another meeting. Dancer brought up her very artistic, very mature and mindbending association with the world of burlesque. You know, the world that takes stripping and turns it into an art form via pasties, no handjobs and being slightly chubbier than normal strippers. She poo poos strippers a bit and discusses an upcoming convention for burlesque dancers (conventions=artistry times a million).

She briefly extolled the virtues on the enamored promotress who admitted before she was married she wanted nothing more than to trod the boards spinning various things off her nipples.

But then the thought came

"OF COURSE!" exclaimed the excited promotress "We were both in that wet t-shirt contest at the club!"

The facade of artistry is a distant memory.

"I WON!"

2) There were a fun looking group of 10 year olds of all races tearing around the lobby of the Church Of Scientology playing tag.

The one in the corner got his hands on an e-meter and brought down the house by talking into it like an old time telephone.

Then somebody yelled at them.

CAM

p.s. Novels aren't my thing

P.s.s. 'Stranger Than Fiction' is the first cute movie in a while to make me fall for the cuteness end to end. You should bring a cute boy or girl to it. When you expose one cute thing to another...Well...I'll let you find out.

The Blog That Never Was
I was going to write a nice, funny blog about how I survive when it's rainy out. It was going to be cute. With maybe like a picture of a frog umbrella.

But then accidently Vancouver decided it was the apocalypse.

Crazy rain/wind. Trees a fallin'. Now we can't drink water without boiling it. Seriously? SERIOUSLY?

The worst parts of this are twofold:

1) We didnt know

I didnt know until Sharon and I went to starbucks before going out tonight and they were selling nothing. NOTHING.

So basically a dirty bomb could blow up Robson and we wouldnt know.

Alien attack, biological threat, free sex and we'd miss it all.

If I die from this I'm going to drag my 20 something basement dwelling zombie ass out of the ground and wreak havoc.

2) i have to keep studying.

And by studying I mean doing an oral report on "Comic Relief in Science Fiction" and a 10 page essay on "U.S. Hegemony as represented through the Terminator Trilogy".

When did school become a trail of bullshit I just have to plough through? When did I stop hating school because I was afraid I was too stupid and couldnt comprehend and start hating it because it was just ridiculous crap? Now I'm more worried about getting so-so marks because I don't care than failing. Failing CAN'T happen anymore. God I need to graduate.

God I need water

and that free sex from before. It's kind of like water....

...or so I'm told

CAM

Today's Gleaned Lesson (from an unbusy day)
care of: Kirikou
A child who can speak from his mother's womb can give birth to himself

furthermore a child who can give birth to himself can also give himself a bath.

Writing which has recently inspired me...unexpectedly:
Myspace? Really?
New York Times? REALLY?

Also who knew animated movies can give you nightmares...sure nap nightmares...but still

CAM

Paraphrased Lesson of the Day
care of 'Dragon'
Sometimes the krump takes you

and maybe...maybe your lady is taken by the krump too

And then you might just bump into eachother and have to take it on to the battleground

but it ain't nothing

it's what you gotta do

and y'all will be fine after

The Road To Recovery
I've been drinking a lot lately. Not college student a lot...but Cam a lot.

My favorite parts are apparently how I am when I'm drunk and the hungover day after. Both of those really show the magic and beauty that is alcohol and why we always keep coming back.

Apparently last night there was a lot of staring on my part. Half the people thought I was depressed and the other half thought I was in love. Sometimes i'll go a night sick and out of my mind and people will think I havent been drinking at all (and often I'll be sober and people will mock my drunkenness). I worry I have an ill defined drunk persona.

I'm not "Uh Oh...here comes drunk Cam". I'll never be a drunk Jacqui who dances instead of walking. Or a drunk Warren.

Maybe I react differently every time. Maybe different drinks give me different personalities like the many rings of the mandarin (really the best similie i could come up with).

Anyway puzzle for the ages. Hopefully when I'm Peter O'Toole age I'll have gotten the hang of it.

But the next day. So many people hate the hangover day but I've come to love it just as much.

I do all my homework the day before just to make sure little to nothing should rouse me from bed.

The trick is to wake up and just sit there...staring at a wall or ceiling or slowly climbing i-tunes until you physically cant anymore.

Then the "morning" is there for any amount of watching OC or Smallville or trash while via MSNs and Myspaces you try to piece together the night before. You never quite do it either. That's the beauty. The niggling question of 'what really happened?'.

Then the rest of the day is free for wearing shirts you dont usually wear, not shaving, strolling to fast food, shopping indescriminately for questionable purchases invigorated by the fact that yes you do have fun once and a while and that fun ought to extend to your whole life, trying your hand at a fancy dinner, playing zelda games on gameboy, watching romantic comedies on t.v., thinking about projects to do for the week when you are feeling better and overall just loving the ability to feel every single organ and their specific functions as they work overtime to stop your body from completely dying.

romanticizing terrible terrible things is my antidrug

CAM

To Make up for Two days lost

Sorry, Housewarmings come late some years and one must make up for them later.

Regardless the past few days have been little beyond getting my affairs in order for essays regarding hegemony and the Terminator trilogy and a whole lot of The Legend of Zelda.

But somewhere in there I redecorated my room.

Is that a rasterized poster of a busty 50s model feeding a porkchop to a hippo you say? Well you'll just have to find out.

Oh and to make up for missing yesterday:

(either made up ingeniously or overheard on the bus)

"It's not that I don't love her...I don't hold her hand because she has knobbley joints"

CAM

Today was the first day somebody threw out an idea for a sex comedy and we all went: "Hey we should really make that".

It's not that I haven't made/am making my share of sex comedies and not that this isn't a really really good and original idea it was just disturbing to realize that, yes indeed, this too can be a turning point in your life.

Every single idea we have could be THE idea. And thus does every one deserve pursuit? Endless tail chasing sessions and constant failures?

Luckily I was hungover from too many tetrapaks of wine today so the bigger thoughts were drowned out by BLTs, videogames and naps.

praise french rabbit

Dialogue of the day:

" No I can't just ask her out. What am I? American?"

CAM

Things I've meant to say

With the recent additions of Corinne Bailey Rae and Amy Winehouse the British Isles have officially taken the titles of best producers of soul music in the world. Both traditional and sass filled, they simply make life more enjoyable for poor little white boys like myself.

Come on Canadian girls. Get on it for fucks sake.

Oh and to qualify that I know more than cabaret singer/songwriters: The Defranco Family was Canada's mostly lame answer to The Jacksons and The Osmonds but goddamn if when you hear Tony belt "Listen to My Heart Pound" over those toms you don't realize why so many people felt like 8 year olds could be totally crazy in love in the 70s.

In other news: Have we all signed up for the Chaucer seminar?
Just think, this time next year we'll all be such renaissance men we'll be able to say
"J'aime le Chaucer"

sure people will think we love shoes but fuck 'em.

CAM

It's Election day.

So I elected to go shopping, redecorate and overall find a million ways to put off being interesting or creative.

But back to old business first.

How did the movie go?

It went both better than I could have hoped and terribly.

It went mostly smoothly (save when we made up problems due to tiredness and needing to find problems), quickly (save when something caused a small bump of a couple hours) and cheaply (except once we spent a crapload on pizza which still confuses all parties involved).

I attribute this mostly to a crack team of people who I place in jobs that aren't usually their main job but they are good at. People try their best when out of their element. Also I had many people who could deal with my sass which always helps.

The worst part of set was its continuing ability to piss me off and put me in a bad mood even when things are going well. As much as I want to either a) attribute it to the whole low budget filmmaking thing or b) be Lars Von Trier it still worries me. And it seemed to get worse as it went along which I, in hindsight attribute to one thing: My can't be asked attitude.

That little term was coined by Rosie Tooby and is in reference to tha fact I don't seem to give a fuck about anything so most of the time nothing can phase me.

The problem is, I really really really do care about my movie. A lot. But when I'm mad all I can yell is "I DON'T CARE!" because...well...the attitude is so ingrained and loved by me generally it's tough to ditch without careful consideration.
So for future notice "I dont care" can mean:
- I trust your opinion on this more than my own
- I agree with any ideas you have but dont have time to deal with this
- yes! great idea!
- I actually do care but dont have time to deal with this
- I dont understand what you are talking about
- you are a good actor
and probably in other contexts - I love you

So there's another deamon which ought to be dealt with to save millions upon millions of more miscommunications.

Oh and for the sake of producing something new every day here's some dialogue:

a- "There were a lot of errors."
b - "Errata."
a- "What?"
b - "The plural of errors is errata. For example: your grammar is rife with errata."

Cam

For the past few months I've been terrible at this. Distracted by movies and living on couches and things like that. But, with the wrap of 'Feels like Christmas' and it finally being revealed that I have an impending graduation I realize that professional writer may actually be a viable career option which out to be explored.

And every piece of advice ever from any writer is respect is: Writers write.

So I'll do the next best thing and blog.

A commitment to a blog a day or every couple days. A blog about anything and everything but an attempt to produce something of interest often. Spellcheck and all. A new era of blogging...or maybe a return to an old era.

And on days with nothing to say I can always post hilarious snippets of dialogue from my little writing books to shock and amaze.

Lets see how long this lasts.

To begin:

If you've seen or drank with me in the past few weeks you know how excited I was for generic taco kits to come to Safeway. Well after an unexpected 2 hour nap I gained the strength and fervor to try it out and GODDAMN they are as good as name brand.
And I was a pineapple for Halloweening.
It begins,

CAM

A brief lesson in mathematics

cover = 9

-

drink for 'coming out' = 5.25
___________

Net gains= 0.000014% good impression

Net Losses= self respect