The Gospel According to Prisco

Tomorrow, I shall cast the shackles of my twenties off forever, and plunge mercilessly into the wilderness of my thirties.  (Yes, I’m a Fourth of July baby.  Yes, I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy, a firecracker, and Tom Cruise in a wheelchair.)  Among my tight circle of high-school chums, I am the wee baby, so I am the last to make it across the line.  I had been giving much thought to what it means to turn 30. 

I thought I’d have everything figured out by now.  I thought I’d be married with a couple of kids.  I thought I’d already have my acting and writing career finished up by now.  I thought I’d be living in a palatial estate, revelling with the greats of society.  I thought things would be better than this. 

Many of my friends claim that nowadays, people get everything done in their 30s.  That people should spend their twenties fucking around, and fucking up.  They feel sorry for twentysomethings who have gotten the one job they’ll be working for the rest of their lives.  The ones who already have their families started, who have found the loves of their lives.   They have nothing to look forward to, nothing to dream for.   Of course, they tend to say this when they are already well into their thirties. 

It’d be easy for me to look at all the things I don’t have.  I love doing that.  I made a declaration (one that I bring up every goddamn birthday and chance I get) two years ago.  I swore that in five years, I would a) be married with a child on the way, b) support myself solely through acting and writing, c) be a produced screenwriter/playwright, d) at least be starting work on my first major writing/directing project, and e) have a home back in PA.  I have been out here in LA for two years now (just about, in August) and I have accomplished exactly zero of these tasks.  

I’m still working a miserable job, living in my shitty apartment, and don’t even have my own car.  I am part of a theatre troupe where most of the kids are signing with agents and getting SAG status.  I was the only member of the writer’s group who had a piece outright rejected by the troupe for submission to the showcase.  I am still massively overweight, have no savings account, and I own a Wii.  I haven’t been back to PA in over a year, I haven’t seen my parents face to face since last September, and even then it was for like one day.  I haven’t written anything screenplay wise since 2005.  I don’t leave my house to go places, because I can barely afford it.  I haven’t even been able to plan a birthday party for myself, because I can’t think of a place that people will be able to afford to go to, and my apartment is too small and cramped and cluttered to invite people over to.  I can’t even think of a bar to meet people in, because I don’t really drink too much anymore.  I can’t even have a 30th birthday party for myself. 

It’d be easy to look at my failures, and to give up.  To surrender to the constant mockery of my subconscious.  I’ve been beaten down by an overwhelming sense of failure.  That this town will eat me alive any chance it gets.  That most of the people I care about are 3000 miles away, living their own sad lives.  That I’m chasing a dream that might just be that.  To finally quit.  To take some middle management job in some faceless corporation and to work every day until I die of a coronary.  I can keep staring in the mirror and hating myself for all the things I haven’t done.

Or.  I can stop being a little bitch, pick myself up off the mat, and knock this motherfucker out.

I live in an apartment in North Hollywood that sucks.  But it’s a place that belongs to Higginbottom and me, so we don’t have to share it with roommates, and we’re going to move to a new place over in Sherman Oaks or Valley Village next month.   

Without even trying, I ended up on television.  I’m part of a theatre troupe, where I’ll be able to write plays and get things produced.  I will get them produced.  And people will be able to see it. 

I started writing my angry thoughts about stuff on a blog.  And some crazy sonofabitches on another website read it, and liked it, and gave me a job.  They say it doesn’t pay much.  But it pays enough that I am solely using it to support my creative endeavors.  I’ve got my own digital camcorder to make movies with.  I pay for my date nights with proceeds from Pajiba.  I pay the dues to my theatre company with that money.  I am going to put up my own website.  When you Google my name, there are like 100,000 hits, and most of them are people saying how much they like my writing.

I don’t have kids.  But I’ve got the girl who’ll be my wife.  And she likes me even though I’m tubby.  And she likes me even when I shave my beard off.  But she wants me to grow it back too.  And she goes and sees movies with me.

I’m part of a trivia team.  We meet every Sunday, and we win money which we use to go to dinners.  I’ve got people constantly inviting me for drinks and dinners and parties.  And tacos.  I can’t make them most of the time, but the social network is there, and I’m starting to embrace it.

I am flying back to PA in September for my friend’s wedding.  I’m going to Comic-Con at the end of the month.  I will see my friends and family.

I hate my job, but I battled with my boss until my pay rate is ridiculous.  And it’ll get higher.  And I’m typing this blog from my desk at work.  So I’m using it against itself.  And wait until you see the screenplay.  Oh, my god, just wait. 

I’ve done a lot more with my life than most people have.  The only reason I’m not satisfied is because I know I’m capable of doing even more.  I still got three years on my five year plan.  That’s more than enough time.  And now, I’ve got friends, and family, and a pretty-much-my-wife, to support me.   Nothing’s gonna stop me now.  If this world runs out of lovers, we’ll still have each other.  And I’m quoting fucking Mannequin and Anne Murray.   

Jesus Christ.  Thirty.      

It all started with a phone call.

I often complain about living in LA.  Because I don’t really live in LA.  I just exist here.  I work in a windowless cave during the beautiful sunny daylight hours that I don’t spend on a crowded smelly bus or in a car in the gridlock on the freeways.  Higginbottom and I rarely go out, and if we do, it’s to the movies. I don’t go to parties, I don’t go out with friends nearly enough.  I’m a social pariah.  I sit in my house playing at Pogo.com and watching Netflix DVDs or Law and Order marathons.  I don’t love LA, because I don’t get to experience LA.  I don’t often get to connect with friends or have a social life.  It’s no way to live.  I mine as well be back in PA, spending my weekdays playing bar trivia and playing Xbox at my brother’s house.

But then I got a phone call.  My buddy Zach leaves me a voicemail on my cell phone at work.  I never answer my phone.  So I check the message.  He says, “Hey, buddy.  Wondering what you got going on tonight.  The Kids in the Hall are playing at the Orpheum Theatre, and I might be able to get us backstage after the show.  Call me and let me know.”

 I run, not walk, but fucking run to where I can make a private call (which is next to impossible.  I’m standing in the middle of a warehouse next to a private airport.  All my phone calls sound like I’m in Kazhikstan taking heavy troop fire.  Ask Manny.)  I get him on the line, he tells me order my tickets through Ticketmaster, and then buzz him to let him know if I can go.  I immediately call Higginbottom.  We were supposed to go to the movies to watch Mister Lonely to review it for Pajiba and I would be her ride home.  I ask her if she wants to go.  She doesn’t know the Kids in the Hall, so she said it really wouldn’t be worth it to go.  I ask her if she’s okay with me going by myself.  She tells me she can get a ride, and go ahead.  I love her seventeen thousand times. 

 I feverishly get on Ticketmaster and order up a ticket.  Able to get one right in front of my friends and his three friends.  Score!  Paying the service fee?  Not score. 

 We meet up at Tom Bergin’s for beers and to meet another friend of ours who was unable to go to the show.  It was awesome.  A W&L theatre reunion of sorts, and we shoot the shit and eat potato skins.  I drink Guinness and it’s all good times.  I haven’t seen many of these guys in several months, and in some cases years.  We say goodbye to our buddy Truax, and I promise him that we’ll get together again.  Which we will.  In three months.  I need to fucking call people more often. 

It’s four of us on our way to the show.  The guys all start talking business, which is cool for me.  TW is an actor, he was on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and had a two episode stint on Heroes (he was the dude from the Mexican prison that Syler killed with his mindgrapes.)  He was also in the Bud Light commercial at the Opera where the guys sneak bottles in and they explode.  Which was, ironically enough, shot at the Orpheum.  My buddy Zach does voiceover direction.  If you’ve played Call of Duty 4, he’s the Scottish commander McCallan (?) in the sniper missions.   You’ve probably all damned his eyes a hundred times already.  And their buddy Dave is a writer on the Chelsea Lately show on E!  He does work at Improv Olympic and Upright Citizens Brigade.  You might have seen him in the Wendy’s commerical where the guy filming the political rally grows Wendy braids and starts demanding fresh not frozen.  Yeah, that’s Dave.  I can’t believe I know semi-famous folks.  And then there’s me.  Fat Nobody.  My ego boost comes from TW telling me that inevitably I will eclipse them all.  If only casting directors, agents, and managers felt the same way as you, my man.

 We get to the show, and Zach goes to will call.  They gather their tickets.  We’re supposed to go down to the lobby after the show and meet up with the tour manager Marnell.  So we go to our seats.  Which are literally the last row up to the left in the balcony.  I was hoping to maybe catch a fly ball.  Or a t-shirt fired out of a cannon.  Two downsides to the seats: a) A lot of the show takes place on a video screen on the back of the stage, so most of the short films and skits had the words cut off or the tops of the heads of actors missing.  b) There was an annoying chubby lass who took every opportunity to scream at the top of her lungs, “I LOVE YOU DAVE!”  Except it would come out like some sort of autistic bark.  Which she volleyed eight or nine times.

 I’ve seen both of the other tours back at the Tower Theatre in Philly.  The first one, “Same Guys New Dresses” which is featured in the T-shirt on my MySpace page, was neat, but it was mostly them doing live versions of the sketches from the show.  “Tour of Duty” was better, in that it was mostly all of their old characters but in new sketches, sometimes combining with each other.  Like Gavin answering to his principal who was Daryll.  It was many years and career shifts before this show, “Live as We’ll Ever Be”, so I was really interested in how the show would turn out.

Holy fucking fuck.  It was the most hysterical live show I’ve ever seen.  Two hours of incredibly tight material.  There wasn’t a bad sketch.  Not one.  They brought back a bunch of the old characters, but in totally new sketches that were hilarious.  Even the Buddy Cole monologue, which was weaker in the other shows, was fucking hot.  He explained why Jesus was gay.  The short film was about Carfuckers.  The encore featured The Head Crushing Guy, going around the audience and crushing people’s heads.  And then finishing off the cast members, while destroying their egos.  Fortunately, no Uwe Boll was mentioned. 

 We cruise down to the lobby and wait as the show empties out.  People are standing around, purchasing T-shirts as the show clears out.  Zach waits patiently for the tour manager to show up.  He says, if he doesn’t we’ll just talk to my friend.  We’re all cool, shooting the shit and discussing The Last Dragon and Big Trouble in Little China.  Dave does a mean Lo Pan.  Zach once directed that actor in voiceover.  He said, he wasn’t playing Lo Pan, he’s actually that fucking crazy. 

 Meanwhile, Dave Foley and Scott Thompson come out and start chatting with fans and posing for pictures.  Both guys, incredibly nice and accomodating. We’re chill about it though, because we figure, we’ll we’re going backstage to the aftershow, we’ll get to meet them, let the common folk mingle.  Mwhahaha.  So Zach’s starting to get flustered, figuring this is going to turn into a total cockblock.  Then he goes, oh, good, there’s Mark. 

Yeah, Zach’s contact was fucking Mark McKinney.  He left that part out. 

 So Zach goes over and waits for the gathering throngs to lavish him with admiration.  Dave Foley actually lays down on the floor with the one girl and they chat quietly, while a crowd gathers and laughs at his antics.  Kevin McDonald starts to come from backstage, but is quickly rushed off by a statuesque blonde bombshell who was either his girlfriend or manager or both.  Bruce stayed downstairs, presumably to celebrate his birthday.

 Zach goes up to Mark and they start talking, and then Mark tells him well, just go over to the guard and tell him that you’re my guests.  And then if that doesn’t work, have him get Marnell.  I smile politely, thinking to myself, “Yeah, this oughta work.” 

 We walk over to the yellowshirted guard and tell him, “Hi.  We’re guests of Mark McKinney.  Mind if we go downstairs?”  He says, “You guys don’t have passes.”  Zach says, “We need to speak to Marnell.”  The guard says, “Dude, I don’t work for the tour, so I don’t know Marnell.  But at the bottom of the stairs, there is another guard who’ll be looking for passes too.  Sorry.”  Zach asks if he could go downstairs to talk to the other guard.  The guard’s cool with it.  Zach takes off. 

 I ask the guard if my good friend Thomas Jefferson could get us through the door.  He says, “You know, people always talk about bribing me, but nobody ever actually takes out their wallets.”  I like this guy. 

 Zach comes back.  He says, No dice.  We’ll just wait until Mark goes down and then go down with him.  So we’re cool.  I mean, dude actually knows Mark McKinney.  So we’re that much closer.  Then a little spritely fellow who resembled Michael Weston from Pathology comes up.  Zach goes over to him and asks if he’s Marnell.  He is.  He gives us four passes.  We’re in.

 The passes are actually stickers, our friend the guard explains.  So we affix them to ourselves.  I slap mine prominently on my protruding belly and declare myself a Star-Bellied Sneetch.  The guard stops us and says, “Sorry, those passes aren’t for THIS night.”  We look at him in horror.  He laughs, “Nah, I’m just fucking with you.”  I love this guy. We descend into the underbelly of the Orpheum.  The irony is not lost on me. 

 I have never been to an aftershow.  It was wall to wall people.  And standing among them are the Kids in the Hall.  As well as other varied celebrities.  Stephen Root, one of the greatest comic character actors in the history of the world.  Who is very svelte and looks much younger in person.  The guy who plays Craig on Malcolm in the Middle.  Dave fucking Chapelle.  I’m awestruck.  My friends all break off at various points to speak with people they know from the improv world and from different projects.  I go to the open bar and obtain a Jack and Coke.  I am lost in Neverland.

 I start talking to Zach and my friends.  We all felt like at some point, they were just going to tell us that we’re in the wrong place and we have to leave.  And then Mark McKinney comes up.  And I am talking to Mark McKinney, and I feel like an ass.  I can’t find words that make sense.  I begin to tell him that “I’ve seen the other two shows, and that by far this one was the soooooo great.”  Because I simultaneously realize that I’m about to tell him that the other two shows sucked compared to this one, and that I really thought this was so much better, and the two thoughts conflict in my brain, and grammar and syntax and social decorum completely leave for parts unknown.  So I stand around gaping.  He mentions that they toured the show at the Montreal Comedy Festival.  I asked him immediately if he saw the nudey magician.  The stripper.  These are the words coming out my mouth and I can’t stop them.  I can hear them happening, but it’s too late.  He looks notably perplexed.  So I try to explain that she does an act where she makes a handkerchief disappear and then makes it reappear, each time taking off a layer of clothing until she’s completely nude, and that the entire bravery of the act is that you don’t believe that she will be completely full frontal naked, but she does, and it’s all choreographed to Henry Mancini and the grand finale was hilariously shocking.  However, this thought gets translated to, “Oh her name is, funny foreign sounding but not all of it, but she, you know pulls the kerchief out of her cooter.”  Complete with fucking acoompanying gestures.  I am retarded.  My brain screams at me and passes out.  Mark smiles politely and Zach starts up the conversation that I airbolted in the cowskull.  I turn to Dave and say, “That just happened.  I am a psychopath.  If any point you want to murder my skull with that beer bottle, have at it.”  He agrees. 

 (In my defense, I wasn’t insane.  Ursula Martinez is her name, she does an act called Hanky Panky.  Check it out.  Get the NSFW version.  It will blow your mind.  And she did perform it recently at the Montreal Comedy Festival.)

 I managed to redeem myself later when Mark was talking about how they were so nasty to each other in the old days, just screaming at one another and telling each other how much their sketches were fucking terrible and hating on one another.  Then he said, “We still do that Dave.  You suck, Foley!”  I laughed and said, “You got most of your revenge with Brain Candy, right?  Who are you?  Just a guy.  Gave him all the asshole parts.”  He chuckled and said, “You noticed, heh?  Hahahaha.” 

 The rest of the night, I chat with my friends, and with some of their friends.  People come to us, because we looked like we were having such clandestine and intriguing and hilarious conversations.  We were mostly shooting the shit.  I chatted up a guy from Jenkintown (apparently everyone from Philadelphia is in LA — GO FLYERS!)  I chatted up a school teacher who went to school in Boston and told her about my brother’s idea for Shut the Fuck Up Penguin.  (For legal purposes I can’t go into it here.  Someday, though!)  My friends kept explaining that I was a chick magnet (I was wearing my T-shirt) because I would inspire random strangers to strike up conversations.  Like how at Tom Bergin’s the only two girls at the bar asked me if I wanted to take the seat next to them.  I explained that it was because they thought I was a young Santa.  Which made things awkward at strip clubs.  And mall benches.  Hi-LAR-ious.  That’s me! 

 I managed to tell Bruce McCullough that I was a big fan of his directing work, and I really enjoyed the show. I forgot to wish him a happy birthday.  Because I didn’t want to be a creepy stalker guy.  Same to Dave Foley and Scott Thompson.  I never actually had long conversations with any of the Kids, afraid I would then break into insane gibberish again, or worse, quote the shows or the movie to them.  I’ve got Brain Candy memorized, and I tend to spout movie quotes at weird occasions.  But I did get to smile and sort of stand around as they chatted.  So I felt like part of the game.

 At one point, Dave decided he was going to go over to Scott Thompson and talk with him.  As he walked away, TW shouted, “Have fun.  Don’t be creepy!”  Which is always good advice. 

 All in all it was an amazing night.  And I felt like I could do it again.  My only saving grace was being able to mention that I was a film critic for Pajiba.  It sort of legitimizes me.  And my friends kept touting me as a writer/actor.  Which feels good.  I really felt LA that night.  And I loved the show.  And some day I’ll go from being little fat nobody to little fat somebody.  Those guys are awesome, and I really want to spend more time with them and the rest of the LA people.  It’s easier to appreciate LA when I’m actually in the city having fun. 

 Now I just need to get together with my fellow Pajibans for beers.  

So I’ve joined Twitter.  If you really want to hear what my brainfarts sound like, now you’ll have a direct link.  I probably don’t use it as much as I could.  Especially once I get a fancy new phone.  Then I can spatter the interwebs with my delicious.

I don’t care if I spelled the title of this blog correctly.  Eat me.

I think I just started a religion.  I always figured I would, just not this one.  More on that later.

I think I’m just going to start randomly adding other people’s blogs to my blogroll.  If you feel in anyway this is some sort of interweb rapery, feel free to cry about it to the Internet Police.  Or, seriously, drop me a line, and tell me to fucketh offeth. 

I am still behind in my postings.  Dagnabbit. 

I am about to purchase a camcorder.  I am going to do horrible, horrible things in the name of artistic validation.  All over your face!

That is all.  Go in the name of the Godtupus.

I spent this weekend coping with dystopia.  My current bathroom literature is 2012: The Return of Quetzlcoatl, which is a little hippie/hipster smart for my tastes.  It oozes self-righteous smarm while peddling new age enlightenment.  Essentially, the according to the Mayan calendar, the world as we know it, is supposed to end in December of 2012. Not necessarily, kaboom sayonara, but just that our collective unconscious may suddenly experience a paradigm shift.  We all decided to submit to the corporate borg of Apple computers, or whatever.  It’s an interesting concept, but a monotonously mountainous read.  But finish it, I shall nonetheless.  Through no purposeful forethought of my own, I managed to also start reading both A Canticle for Liebowitz by Walter Miller, Jr. and Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card.  And I queued up the next two available films on my Watch Instantly queue for Netflix.  Which were Logan’s Run and Soylent Green.

I am fascinated by the end of the world.  Usually, it comes at the hands of some sort of worldwide disaster, either Mother Nature claiming her revenge as in the uberstorm of The Day After Tomorrow, or the greenhouse effect withering crops in Soylent Green.  Technology makes for an interesting garnish when seasoning the future.  Consider the cell phone.  Ten years ago, I didn’t own a cell phone.  I didn’t need one, I couldn’t imagine why I would ever.  Then, because of an emergency car failure, I found myself bounding back and forth from where my car had broken down in a parking space that I shouldn’t have been parked in to the pay phone to find out when the tow truck was coming.  The second I was picked up from the garage where they repaired my car, I told my parents to take me to the Verizon store, because I was getting a goddamn cell phone that day.  Now, I can’t imagine my life without one.  I use it to keep in contact with my brother or my girlfriend.  I don’t imagine the future ending up like the Jetsons anytime soon, but there could potentially be colonization on other planets, video phones being common, all our entertainment being piped wirelessly to our computers and cable boxes.  I imagine it being very much like it is right now, only with shinier toys. 

But not in the futures set forth by the entertainment world. Society always breaks down under the rule of some sort of totalitarian regime or corporate overlord.  Don’t forget, most of this stuff was imagined over 30 years ago, so I can’t fathom how people won’t see this coming.  But then again, motherfuckers still vote Republican, so what can you do?  It’s always run by some sort of crazy megalomaniacal overlord, or else a cadre of old white men.  They revel in capturing people and subjecting them to inquistion like tortures.  You know, latching their eyes open and forcing them to be desensitized by graphic images, or throwing them in cold stone prison cells, or waterboarding them or….oh.  Wait. 

Inevitably, society is turned into some sort of desolate wasteland strife with mongrel hordes.  Either radiation-sick or chemically-poisoned zombies, or weird ass tribal clans.  These pseudo-gangs always have tattered rags for clothing, carry bizarre antique weapons crafted with hammers and soldering irons out of crap in the dumpster behind Lowe’s, and inevitably are just filthy, filthy monsters.  Usually, they are lead by someone with a beard or eye patch.  And no matter why there’s one woman in the gang, as if following the Smurfette rule will lead to better killing, she’s either a mannish brute or a skimpy whore.  Ladies can do killings too, you know.

Mostly though, the ladies are being saved for the rent-a-whore service that’s offered in the future.  I guess you can grow up to be anything, as long as anything means prostitute or wife.  Apparently, someone has to get the dick in dictatorship crammed in them repeatedly.  Usually by someone who resembles or actually is that fat guy from Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey.   It’s just really funny to me in a totalitarian society, concubinism is encouraged.  Drugs, too.  So apparently, the Republicans and Democrats can agree on something, provided that society resemble a mob-ruled Las Vegas.   But Ridley Scott knows that you can’t keep a good Rutger Hauer down.

Even if there are starships or futuristic weapons, they tend to be used to keep everyone in check, protect against an alien menace, or to defend against the warring tribes.  As is wisely communicated in A Canticle for Liebowitz, sure a nuclear bomb wiped out society the first time. But what are the chances of it happening again?  Now that we’ve got an even bigger bomb? 

The concept of 2012 is not that we will inevitably succumb to the mass zombie onslaught that we so richly deserve, but that society will eventually wake up.  It will change forever, hopefully for the better.  I suspect this will result in either some sort of ubertechnology, or some sort of universal Luddite movement, where everyone shuns the computers and starts farming for themselves.  If I told you that you can become smarter through meditation, you can live longer with minimal exercise, and you can be healthy without medication, you’d be on board.  But if I told you that to do that, you’d have to worship a science-fiction book and work on your imaginary internal ions, you’d look at me like an asshole.  However, if I told you that those imaginary internal ions were called medicholorians, and that you could train to be a Jedi knight, you’d line up like a motherfucker trying to buy the last Wii.  But if I told you that the secret to all my knowledge came from aliens, unless that alien was Yoda, you’d be all up in my craw again. 

I just don’t think society wants to accept slow change.  Change will have to come swiftly and electronically.  It’s going to involve technology, and it’s going to involve some sort of corporate overlord.   Society is run by five basic companies.  My wish is that if they were to pull the plug on our dependence on easy living and hurl a sledgehammer into the television blaring constant amusement, we’d start up theatre troupes and tell stories around campfires we read from honest to god books, and we’d learn to cook again, we’d start talking as people.  But in reality, we’d shriek and moan, and sit and wait for the power to come back on.  We’d start going insane.  We’d be uncomfortable.  In making a list of necessities for myself, I realized I had to include internet access and cell phones.  Two things I didn’t have ten years ago, but living this far from my family, I can’t live without. 

My wish for the future would be enlightenment and an artistic renaissance, but in reality, I see the world ending up like The Running Man.  Tell me you don’t honestly believe that we are but five or six years away from sponsoring criminal executions via a high-tech, corporate sponsored gameshow.   Where people can bet foodstamps on the end result.

But what the fuck do I know.  Arnold’s my fucking governator.

Because I run an international bi-coastal drug ring, for posterity’s purposes, I am required by Talmudic law to post my selections for the Oscars.  For the first time, in I believe EVER, I am actually pretty pleasantly surprised by the selections for the categories.  There were of course ones that set me off (Johnny Depp?  For reals?) but for the most part, everything was justified.  It was actually a great year for movies.

So here are my picks for tonight’s MPAA Final Twenty Four.  Because I’m a mouthy tool, I will list who I’ve selected to win, followed by who I’d like to see win.  Gentlemen, place your wagers!

BEST LEADING ACTOR

I Chose: Daniel-Day Lewis, There Will Be Blood 

Who Should Win: Daniel-Day Lewis, There Will Be Blood

The man just owned this film.  He lifted it on his angry Irish shoulders and hoisted that bastard straight through it’s entire 2 hour plus runtime, barreling aside anyone in his way.  Higginbottom and I agree that if by some cosmic fuckup he is not selected, he should storm onstage, and beat the other actor to death with the golden statue. 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

I Chose: Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men

Who Should Win: Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men

I was nervous, thinking these two would have to face off in the Lead Actor category, but then I forgot that the Oscars are as political as a PTA meeting in Brentwood.  So, they stayed out each other’s way.  And in a year that has a staggeringly, staggeringly good amount of performance for supporting males this year, Javier killed everyone in his path.  Though I really would have like to see these two fight each other onstage.  Maybe they’ll pull a Rainn Wilson/Philip Seymour Hoffman wrassling match.

BEST LEAD ACTRESS 

I Chose: Julie Christie, Away From Her

Who Should Win: Laura Linney, The Savages 

This was the one category where I hadn’t seen as many of the films.  And as much as I love Ellen Page with the fire of a thousand suns, I just think she’s not earned her credit yet.  She’s going to win something, some day.  But Laura Linney really deserves an Oscar.  And she was very good in The Savages.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

I Chose: Ruby Dee, American Gangster 

Who Should Win: Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone 

Cate Blanchett was a stunt performance; Tilda Swinton was amazing…as Tilda Swinton, the role she plays in every movie; Saoirse Ronan was good, but ask the little girl from Little Miss Sunshine how much we thank heaven for you; and Amy Ryan has been awesome in just about every goddamn thing she’s been in this year.  But she’s so good, people forget what movies she’s been in.  So Ruby Dee wins.  Because she’s an old black lady.  And the Oscars love white guilt.

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

I Chose: Ratatouille 

Who Should Win: Ratatouille 

Fuck your stupid kids who didn’t like this.  Pixar didn’t make it for them.  They made it for me.  And I loved this movie.  Although Persepolis was stylistically much cooler, it just couldn’t even come close to hanging with this film.

ART DIRECTION

I Chose: Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Who Should Win: Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street 

But it’ll probably go to There Will Be Blood or Atonement, because the Oscar folk love to vote in batches.  It helps them not to think.  The best part, the only good part of Sweeney Todd was the visuals.  It was staggering.  It actually made the movie watchable.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

I Chose: There Will Be Blood

Who Should Win: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly 

Everyone marvels at Paul Thomas Anderson and his ability to frame a long shot.  And it’s true, between him and the Coens, they’ve both made landscape paintings of the American Southwest.  But honest to God, Julian Schnabel’s camera dude actually captured what it looks like to be paralyzed and only see from one eye.  It was fucking haunting.

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

I Chose: Atonement

Who Should Win: La Vie En Rose 

Oscar voters love foreign films like white people love Toyota Prui-ui.  Especially British ones.  And in this category, I really could care less this year.

BEST DIRECTOR

I Chose: Ethan and Joel Coen, No Country for Old Men

Who Should Win: Julian Schnabel, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Tonight will be a fight between No Country and Blood.  But again, Julian Schnabel did things with this movie that I can’t believe are possible.   Using static shots, point of view, and the most effective narration I’ve ever known, he created ART.  Nobody has seen this film, and few will.  But if it was strong enough, as a foreign film, to stand out of the actual foreign film category, you know it’s gotta be great.

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

I Chose: Sicko

Who Should Win: King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters 

Yeah, it wasn’t nominated, and Taxi to the Dark Side will probably win.  They packed this category full of anti-Iraq films, and so Michael Moore stands alone.  And Sicko actually made me really furious at the state of healthcare in this country.  It’s definitely biased, and probably inaccurate, but it’s still gall-inducing.  It made me stand up and pay attention to the election.  Because I am pissed, FURIOUS, that we don’t have some sort of healthcare initiative in America.  And it’s all this pudgy hack’s fault.

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT

I Chose: Sari’s Mother

Who Should Win:  ?

Like the rest of the Academy, I haven’t seen any of the short features.  So I just choose based on a whim.  Or because the title makes me giggle.  Mother = good.

BEST FILM EDITING

I Chose: No Country for Old Men

Who Should Win: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly 

I’d love to see a Coen sweep, though it’ll probably be There Will Be Blood.  And do I need to gush anymore about Diving Bell?  I do not.

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

I Chose: The Counterfeiters

Who Should Win: Lust, Caution; Persepolis; The Diving Bell and the Butterfly; 4 months, 3 weeks, 2 days and The Kite Runner 

This is one of the categories where I am fucking flummoxed.  It was as if they said, well, if I saw it over in America, it can’t be foreign.  They essentially filled this with random shit, and some film nobody cares about will win, because that’s just how we roll.  Hollywood is so elitist, they actually have to choose foreign films even foreign people haven’t seen.  I picked Counterfeiters, because it was the only one I heard about, and I wanted to see it, and it’s about World War II.  And as Spielberg can attest, the old crowd of Oscar voters loves them some concentration camp stories.

BEST MAKEUP

I Chose: Norbit

Who Should Win: Anyone else.

I threw up a little in my mouth at this.  But frankly, the Oscars love controversy and stirring shit up.  They have to sit through these 4 hours when they could be drinking.  It’s like a particularly long Catholic wedding.  You want booze.  So you need to amuse yourself.  You do crazy shit.  That’s how the worst crime against America gets nominated and praised.

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

I Chose: Atonement

Who Should Win: Into the Wild

I’m banking on the whole we’ll just give it to Atonement where there’s no Country vs. Blood fiasco mentality of the Academy.  I honestly didn’t hear a score that impressed me this year moreso that what Eddie Vedder did with Into the Wild.  He perfectly captured the damn nature-loving adventure of the movie.  But because he was in Pearl Jam, you know, fuck him.  Well, There Will Be Blood’s actually irritated me.  Everyone was lauding Jonny Greenwood.  But as I said in my review, it sounded like he got high and tried to hump a theramin.

ORIGINAL SONG

I Chose: “Falling Slowly”, Once

Who Should Win: “Falling Slowly”, Once

The August Rush song is cute and all, but nobody cared about that movie.  ”So Close” must have been a mistake, that never should have been nominated.  It’s an AWFUL, AWFUL song.  It’s spot should have gone to Eddie Vedder.  Who doesn’t deserve to win either.   That leaves the two wonderful songs from Enchanted.  And since nobody will be able to choose between the two of them: either the Snow White dance number with roaches and pidgeons cleaning a house, or the huge dance number in Central Park, then you get the winner who should win, Once.  In an adorable movie, this moment, this song, was so powerful and sweet and captured everything about the movie, it deserves to win.  And I LOVED Once.

BEST PICTURE OF THE YEAR

I Chose: No Country for Old Men 

Who Should Win: Juno

As has been wisely pointed out on Pajiba!, Juno is going to now suffer, and is beginning to suffer, a painful hipness backlash.  Which makes me sad.  Because it was such a perfect, awesome movie.  Everyone rooted for it, but then when it became bigger than life, everyone started shunning it.  It suffered the hipster shun, being hissed at from behind geek-specs and tight sweaters.  Which is really sad.  But aside from, sigh, Atonement, everyone deserves to be here.  I just think No Country is a more palatable film.  Though There Will Be Blood will probably win because its so dark and dramatic, the audiences will assume they’re supposed to like it.  And No Country will suffer the same Coen backlash they always see.  Be like Spielberg, guys.  Make a movie about a concentration camp.  Then they’ll vote for you!

BEST SHORT FILM — ANIMATED

I Chose: I Met the Walrus

Who Should Win: ?

Didn’t see any.  It’s about a kid meeting John Lennon.  Beatles = votes.

BEST SHORT FILM — LIVE ACTION

I Chose: The Mozart of Pickpockets 

Who Should Win: Yeast

Didn’t see anything. I liked the title.  Also I had to give a shout out to my friend’s film, which is playing at SXSW next month.  Oscars 2009?

BEST SOUND EDITING/BEST SOUND MIXING

I Chose: No Country for Old Men

Who Should Win: Television viewers.

This is always the point of the night where they let the comedy SHINE, because nobody can care less.  Sound is a key element of film, but they are the drummers of the film world.  And nobody likes Drummers (take that Wexler, inevitable winner of this years pool!).  So it’ll probably go to No Country in a vast sweep.

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

I Chose: Transformers

Who Should Win: Beowulf 

Beowulf should have been represented this year.  And Transformers was awesome, but big shiny robots aren’t that impressive in big shiny closeup.  It’ll probably go to Pirates, because apparently Johnny Depp could take a shit on camera for two hours and people would be TiVoing that like Jesus’s return speech.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

I Chose: No Country for Old Men

Who Should Win: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

I’m ashamed to say, I’m totally befuddled as to who to pick for screenplays this year.  The Coens did great stuff with No Country.  Diving Bell was transcedant.  I think Blood will sweep this year, and I chose with my heart, as a true asshole.  Atonement will probably snatch this up, because the source material was stronger.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

I Chose: Juno 

Who Should Win: Lars and the Real Girl

I loved Juno so much I wanted to take it behind the middle school and get it pregnant.  It is my favorite movie of this year, hands down.  But Lars and the Real Girl is a brilliant, unbelievably good script.  It dances such a desperate and dangerous line between hokey and heartbreaking.  That’s tight stunning writing.  Johnny Depp needs to apologize to Ryan Gosling for taking his spot on the Lead Actor category.  Right after apologizing to Josh Brolin for cockblocking him also.  But Juno will win, because everyone wants to hear what Diablo Cody will say, which will no doubt be torn apart on the Interwebs tomorrow.  Lord knows, I might even tear into it.  

There is something almost anthropological about a mix-tape.  It’s like unearthing a scroll from Tunisia (something perhaps eaten by a wandering Dharma polar bear) and discovering a message perfectly frozen in time.  And it all depends on who the mix-tape is intended for, whether it is a romantic gesture, a way of educating someone on your musical tapes, or background music for a road trip or sexual liason.  You won’t necessarily make the same mix-tape for your boyfriend or girlfriend that you would your friend from college, or someone you know casually, or a sibling or cousin, or even yourself.  It’s a secret language between two co-conspirators. 

And it’s always relevant.  It’s like a newspaper saved from the day you were born.  Each song represents the way you feel at that exact time in your life, what kind of music you listen to, a message or emotion that gets latched on to my your brain.   Lyrics and beat flow through the stereo and set off fireworks in your mind.  And you may never feel that way again.   Or listening to the song after finding the tape in a drawer, or under a car seat, and having that feeling emerge even stronger before, swaddled in the warmth of nostalgia.  It’s like paging through a yearbook, or an old photo album, except it hits you with a different sensory synapse.  

A mix-tape should be as carefully constructed as an automobile or a human being or a delicious taco dip.  It’s not meant to be crap you recorded off the radio because your parents wouldn’t buy you the CD.  It’s not meant to be shit you throw haphazardly into a trunk or drawer to scrabble through later.  No, it should be painstakingly assembled.  That’s the beauty.  Garbage’s “#1 Crush” has an entirely different sound if its proceeded by Portishead’s “Sour Times” than it does when you start off with the B-52’s “Rock Lobster”.  It should be woven together like a tapestry so that when you play it start to finish, it deliver a message whether that’s “You and I understand each other.” or “I love you.” or “Let’s get fucking drunk.”

I have a long storied past with the mix-tape.  While I’m sort of the bastion of books and to some extent film for most of my friends, they have always been my source of music.  While I was in college for the first couple of years, I had no car.  So I would ride the bus, 10 long hours from Lexington, VA to Philadelphia, PA.  I needed music to pass the time.  And then I got a bright idea.  I wrote to my friends, and I asked them to make me mix-tapes based on our friendship.  Songs that remind them of me, songs that mean something to us, songs that they think I would like.  You know, a fucking MIX-TAPE.  Well, I got some beautiful gifts in the mail.  It was tear-worthy.  And it was awesome, because on those lonesome Greyhound journeys, and for the subsequent 5-hour car jaunts down the dreary stretch of I-81, it was like having that friend right next to me, with the entire history of our friendship right up until that point spilled out across the seat for me. 

Later on, I would use the power of the mix-tape to write a love letter to the women I cared about.  But I went above and beyond.  Sure, it is artistry to craft the perfect mix-tape, but I decided to not only sort the songs, but to then write a story that had each song title in order instead of a mere song list.  And each story was a semi-autobiographical account of our love up until that moment.  I have only ever done this three times.  The first was for the girl who moved with me to Boston, and I made her a double-disc set called “Tell Me A Story”.  The second was for a girl I pined for in grad school, but it wasn’t meant to be, especially due to my own ineptitude and pervosity, which was “I’m Sorry But Your Princess Is In Another Castle”.  And the third and last was for a girl who I feel desperately in love with for exactly one night, and she helped teach me that even after having my ass kicked by love, I could still fall in love again.  And that one was called “Green Tea With The Emperor of Japan”.   I’ve been working incredibly hard on the fourth one, which is for my current lady love Higginbottom.  There are no songs written yet that capture the way I feel about her.  That’s the cop out way of saying I haven’t been trying hard enough.

I’ve been rattling my cage lately about needing new music, and asking for suggestions, and in doing so I’ve been deluged with great stuff.  My dealer, Papa Dobs, has been wonderful: I tell him what I need, and he tries his damnedest to find it and kick it back to me gratis.  Then, my friend Wolfe, of the wonderful Filled With Monkeys blog, was even more ridiculously generous.  He recommended about 30 or so bands, and then because he knew I had no way of accessing them all, burned copies of all the CDs and mailed me an entire CD wallet full of new music.  I owe both handsome rewards, which will be paid upon my receipt of fame and/or fortune, or upon the occasion of my death.

But the inspiration for this entire blog came from my friend Tim.  Tim was apparently inspired by my desire to hear something new, and so his basically crafted a ton of mix-cds and wrote an email basically asking for addresses of anyone who wanted one, so he could mail them to them for free.  Which was cool, so I said, sure, hit me up.  In the mail comes a package with a vast, sprawling 3-CD mix across so many different genres and time periods, it damn near sent me a dither.  I promptly loaded it on my iPod and rocked out to it for days.   It was fantastic.

But the CD came with a small caveat.  Tim hoped that the power of the Mix Tape would be spread.  So since I got me a free CD, the price was that he hoped I, or anyone else who received it, would make the same trade.  It was then up to me to work on a mix CD and send it out to others.  And hopefully him, to spread the trend.  Yes, it was a chain letter, but not with the Voodoo for Dummies curse usually shaken like a shrunken skull tourist toy in your face, but instead, a hope, that the gift of music would be shared.  I remember a few years back, a similar book chain letter was sent around.  And I participated in that.  I never saw the fruit of that blossom, but I did manage to get three pretty damn good books out of it, one of which was Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet. 

I’ve been poring over my musical catalog like a desperate father of three before a fantasy football draft.  My sheet is overlong, with furious scribble outs and arrows.  I need a good Johnny Cash, but I can’t forget to put some punk.  No everybody’s going to put “Falling Slowly” on a mix tape (and to Tim’s credit, it was on there, and it’s just as beautiful a song having heard it again and again), I need something else.  It’s still not done yet, but I’ve managed to Igor up a nice assortment of songs to assemble.  I am trying not to include all of the new stuff I’ve discovered on there yet.  I’ll save that for the next one.

So, I offer unto you, not necessarily free of charge but a charitable donation none the less, what limited CDs I can make and mail.  I am calling the CD…well, you’ll have to get a copy to find out.  You might not like everything on it.  You might have never heard of some of the bands.  If I manage to get you interested in one or two new artists, then my job is done.  I have successfully kept the power of the Mix Tape rolling. 

Just send me your name and the address to which you would like me to mail this to my email account at priscogospel@hotmail.com.  I have limited funding, so there’s going to be a limited supply available.  So first come, first served.  And I hope that you’ll keep the mix tape gospel alive.

I subscribe to Very Short List, which is a neat site that makes recommendations on books, websites, CDs, and DVDs.  They were reviewing a book called Not Quite What I Was Planning by Smith Magazine.  It consists of biographies of famous and not so famous authors that are only six words long.  Ernest Hemingway wrote the shortest of his short stories in just six words that manages to be haunting: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

I haven’t read the book (oh, but I will), but it got me thinking.  Could you sum up your life in six words?  I thought about it and this is what I came up with:

Different costumes, always the same clown.

Just thought I’d throw that out for the masses.

I’m certain that my tens and tens of followers are painfully curious as to how I am generating these mysterious chapter headings.   Well, even if you aren’t, shut up, because let me explain myself. 

The entire purpose of this website was for cultural enlightenment.  Basically, I decided in December, that I every two weeks, I would try to read one book, listen to one new CD, and watch one movie, either DVD or in theatres.  I then would post up my thoughts on said absorbed piece solely for my benefit, and the benefit of anyone who wanted to agree or disagree. 

I miss the days of sitting around with my friends bullshitting over cold diner coffee and grilled cheese, jawing intellegensia over the latest book or film or music we were listening to.  When people would get into violent arguments over filmmakers or movies, when they would passionately extol the virtues of something they just read, or when driving me home, they’d click on a CD and go, “Dude, you gotta hear this.” 

Moving from the outskirts of Philadelphia to Boston for grad school was hard, but I soon gathered an army of fellow filmschool cohorts who would sit down in someone’s cramped apartment or in one of the 15 fucking bars in my Allston neighborhood and wax ecstatic about movies and books and music.  For God’s sake, I made some of my best friends that way. 

Then when I moved out to Los Angeles, I sort of lost that network.  I still keep in touch with my friends via MySpace (I will save my rant on this for another day) or e-mail or the occasional random phone call, but for the most part, it’s just me and Higginbottom sitting around the pad being all lovey-dovey with each other and churning through our daily grind.

I came out here on a Mission From Gahd: to become a screenwriter, poet, playwright, filmmaker, and actor.  I love all these things, and they have been the source of my unending joy for the past 15 years of my life.  So I realize that a lot of my proselytizing may smack of sour grapes.  Standing out here in Los Angeles, my face pressed to the glass of the restaurant I so desperately want to be feasting at, nary a penny to my pocket, fuming and ranting like the homeless drunk I am so feverishly bent on becoming. 

But my opinion matters as much as anyone else’s.  So I sit here, sharpening my blade against the rock of my thoughts, honing my writing skills, and making myself better.  Absorbing new things is great, processing them even greater.  I remember the first time I felt like an English major was the day I read Walden and when discussing it, I told the teacher I thought it was a pretentious piece of crap and we had no business reading it.   It felt good.  It felt good to be able to hate something.   It felt good to be able to say, “I will not take your word at face value.  I will have my own thoughts.”  I became a man.  Then I beheaded my teacher and painted my chest with the blood of the non-believers.  I can’t remember what happened after that.  At least that’s what my lawyer told me to say.

I’ve broken down my chapters into seven categories:  Book, Song, Film, Cinema, Revelation, Rage, and Love.  Book and Song are relatively self-explanatory, Film is DVD, Cinema is a movie release.  I distinguish between the two because there is definitely a difference between seeing something in the movies versus seeing them in the privacy and safety of your own humble abode.  Revelation is when I discuss something not pertaining to anything in particular or reveal a little taste of myself.  Rage is when something pisses me off or confounds me.  Love is where I tell people to go to websites or inform them of projects my friends are working on. 

The chapters and verses go as follows:  I change the chapter every month.  That way, I can keep track of how much I’m ingesting per month.  The verse is each new one.  Since I am but only a man, these numbers will often be severely out of order.  So while my rage and revelations will be in the moment, it may take me time to put up my reviews.  I like to swill them around in my brainpan like a fine wine.  As it stands, I’ve got two more book reviews and two more DVD reviews from December to put up. 

As always, please feel free to rage in the comments.  Or make recommendations.  If you would like to recommend something to me, be it book, CD, or DVD, please write to me at priscogospel@hotmail.com

Also, if you would like me to link to your page.  I know there are already folks out there who have linked me via their page, and I haven’t linked them.  It’s just me trying to be cyberpolite.  I’m not sure you want to be associated with my vitriol. 

Anyway, that is all.  Go in peace and rage against the dying of the light.

I’ve decided not to become an Amazon Affiliate.  This is sort of a pre-emptive strike, kind of like dumping a girl because you’re pretty sure she’s going to dump you, or finding a boyfriend before you leave your current one.  I guess what I’m saying is, I’m bisexual. 

I’m not going to take the tags down from the other ones, and frankly, it’s just a pain in the ass to keep tagging all this shit.  Let my laziness and illness abound.  Plus, it’s holding me back from riddling you with my witticisms. 

Onwards and upwards, people.  Onwards and upwards.

In the interest of making some money, I decided to take up a suggestion of  the ever so wise Matt Wolfe, and become an Amazon Affiliate.  What does that mean?  It means whenever I mention something I like, I’m going to set up a link through my blog to Amazon.com for it.  So you can go and you can buy it from Amazon immediately.  Or at least check it out.

If you buy it from my link, I get paid money.  So it’s beneficial for everyone.  How’s that for being a fucking whore?  If it becomes too annoying to have the little links flash up all the time, please let me know and I’ll probably discontinue the practice.  But hopefully, everyone thinks it’s neat.

And you buy shit, and make me money.  I’m like those fat shut-ins working from the safety of their couch!  My guidance counselor was right!  Dreams do come true!