We Are...Entertained

In mid-August we attended a test screening for an upcoming film called We Are Marshall. We signed some sort of non-disclosure agreement, and although I don’t remember everything it said, I do remember the part about "not discussing the details of the movie verbally or electronically especially on the Internet". Per Imdb it’s based on the true story of the Marshall College football team that died in a plane crash in the early 70s, so I think it's safe to say at least that much about it. Suffice it say, I liked the movie a lot.

Anyway, while we were in line, some guy with a clipboard came by and asked, "Why are you here?" My wife replied, "because it’s free". He countered, "So if we were screening Dumbo II (he spoke in Italics) you would’ve came to see it because it was free?" We said probably not, and that we knew this was a football movie, and we liked Friday Night Lights, which was also a football movie, so...

He then asked us to be part of a 20-person focus group that would stay after the film and discuss our opinion. We were issued nametags, I said I would like to be addressed as Snake. and then we were seated in a special roped-off area of the theater. At the end of the movie we all moved down to the front two rows and met the moderator. He asked for our thoughts on the film and the first few minutes went like this:

Focus Member 1: "It was inspirational"
Moderator: "It was inspirational…"
Focus Member 2: "It was uplifting"
Moderator: "It was uplifting…"
Focus Member 3: "I really liked the way the characters interacted with each other"
Moderator: "You really liked the way the characters interacted with each other…"

I began to wonder to myself if perhaps the moderator was a moron. He then said, "I’m repeating everything for the benefit of the tape-recorder - I’m not a moron". Mystery solved.

Speaking of people of the not-smart persuasion, there were some doozies in that focus group. One or two people said the movie needed to be more "light-hearted". Light-hearted? Yeah that's what a movie about a tragedy needs, maybe some fart-jokes.

I was made to wonder if any movies have been ruined by paying too much attention to test audiences.

Kevin Smith has an interesting article about test screenings from the perspective of a filmmaker on his blog. So, keep on trucking, or something.

Viewer Mail

Dear Daddy,

I’m writing to you today to express my concern over several areas that, I think, warrant improvement.

First, I notice on your blog you have used my photograph without, as my attorney Mr. Poof-Poof puts it, “my express written consent”. You may consider this missive a demand to cease and desist. Furthermore, I have outlined a number of areas that are unacceptable and the way in which you and mother (hereafter referred to as ma-ma) can rectify said infractions.

My demands are as follows:

1. I want better “num-nums”... milk and oatmeal is fine, but how about the occasional “nanner”? Also, I hear steak is nice.
2. A stricter adherence to the “warm wet-wipes only” rule after I have done my - how can I put this delicately – business.
3. Speaking of waste disposal, no more cries of “Lord have mercy” or gagging sounds when removing my diaper. Seriously, you people act as if your shuey-poo doesn’t stink.
4. There appears to be some communication problem with the both of you. Just last night when I clearly indicated my need to unwind with a vintage bottle of Similac ’06 you mistook my cries for a request for snuggle time.
5. Finally, for the love of all that's holy, please, no more bi-lingual flash cards. Should I require the need to speak Esperanto at some point I'll deal with it then.

In conclusion, if my demands are not met there will be severe repercussions. I’ve spoken with some of the other babies in our area and we’re considering unionizing. Nothing is set in stone yet, but we have a charter and we’re tossing around ideas for cool uniforms.

Assuming that we infants are afforded the same rights as any other toothless, bladder-incontinent citizen of this country, and I submit to you that we are, then something is not right around here and needs to change, as the French say, tout-de-suit.

Sincerely,

Sammy

SB:pp

Behind the Music: W.E.S.

As I have pointed out on numerous occasions, when not working as an arc-welder in the greater Lodi area, I do a lot of charity work with the underprivileged. However, I also like to take a little time away every now and then. So it was a couple of years ago that I started moonlighting in a local rock band. We called ourselves Wendi’s Electric Stapler and we performed every 3rd Thursday in August and November at The Salad Shooter Juice Bar & Vegan Deli. We considered ourselves a Twee pop-Gothabilly-Grebo-Jangle-pop band. And although that’s hardly original, our true claim to fame was that we only did Jim Croce cover tunes.

When I first joined the band I met the woman pictured above, and this lovely yet diabolical woman haunts my waking nightmares to this very day. Her stage name was Lori, though she also went by L-Dog, Snake, and sometimes Peaches. We soon became embroiled in a whirlwind romance and shared the kind of cosmic symmetry of spirit that you only read about in Harlequin romance novels. In the beginning I was arrogant and cruel while she was innocent and chaste and spoke with a southern accent.

I'm not sure if you can make it out in the picture, but she has a tattoo on her arm that says "Larry & Peaches Forever". Well like Prince says, forever is a mighty long time and, "when you call up that shrink in Beverly Hills, you know the one, Dr. Everything'll-Be-All-right, instead of asking him how much of your time is left, ask him how much of your mind, baby". Anyway, it was at that moment, what alcoholics (and Jules Winnfield) refer to as a moment of clarity, that I realized either our relationship or my sanity was doomed.

As so often happens in the real world, everything ended in tears. My tears to be specific. She was an exacting woman, I remember a particularly nasty fight we once got into when I asked, “Where's the dog at?” and she replied, “don’t ever end a sentence in a preposition again or I’ll cut you”.

The worst was yet to come because, as with so many break-ups, politics would be our undoing. I remember the day she told me she advocated the plan for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge like it was yesterday. “You’re willing to destroy a wildlife refuge and speed up what is sure to be the coming global apocalypse for just a few months worth of oil?” I asked incredulously. She said, “I’m not planning on going to Alaska anyway, so I doubt I’ll miss it”. On the other hand she was, she assured me, against drilling in Disneyland.

I was crestfallen. I tried everything I could think of to change her. I tried Therapy (not professional therapy, rather Therapy: The board game. It's surprisingly cathartic). I tried an intervention, a seance and a Pampered Chef party...I even called her close-minded, nothing worked.

You see, Lori was the worst kind of evil: She was a Republican. You might have noticed the red eyes in the picture and assumed it was a photographic anomaly caused by light reflecting off the retina - you couldn't be more wrong. That’s her actual eye color. Her eyes burn with a fire as if from a woman possessed. Anyway, it was over for us the day she stole the keys to my Prius and tried to run me over. The band broke up a few months later, and the rest as they say, is history.

Noblesse Oblige

Perhaps I should relate a bit of history so the reader can better understand what I like to call "the big picture"...

Long time fans of the site will remember last summer when I started my own business called Crazy Larry's House of Discount Cheese. Well, I won't rehash the entire story now, but suffice it to say that there is such a thing as bad publicity and even a relatively mild dysentery epidemic will scare off the lion's share of ones clientele.
At any rate, my earlier failure was probably a blessing in disguise as it allowed me to move on to an occupation that allows me to give something back to the community. Fast forward to today where I am currently employed as an arc-welder at the medium security Men's Correctional Facility in Lodi, California. It was in the daily course of my duties that I met the man pictured above.

As usual a person's privacy is sacrosanct here at the Spatulas news desk. I'll refer to him only by the completely chosen-at-random name "Barry" or by his prison name, "Baby Buns". Barry, I soon learned, had been a semi-professional ball player that everyone expected would go on to be the next Nomar minus the OCD. His downfall began the day he fell for a woman that convinced him armed-robbery was "cool".

I've been working with Barry for a while now and I've seen some marked improvement. I told him it was ok to cry (just not around me because that kind of stuff will get you stabbed here in "the joint"). I've also taught him to redirect his passion to constructive ends by turning him on to a personal cause of mine: the environment.

Finally, I passed along a verse that has proved invaluable to me over the years. In the immortal words of Meatwad from Aqua Teen Hunger Force:

“It doesn't matter what you look like on the outside, whether you're white, black, or Sasquatch, even. As long as you follow your dream, no matter how crazy or against the law it is... except for Sasquatch. If you're Sasquatch, the rules are different”.

Smooth Criminal

Startling new revelations from a close family member:

Re: "Don't Do It!".

I too know this lady...as a matter of fact we grew up together singing in the same family musical group...the Collins 5. From a very young age she has been interested in animals...birds, dogs, fish, you name it. We never thought anything of it until one day she renamed the bird Princess Jennifer Jr and the fish Bubbles. Today she lives in quiet seclusion on her sprawling "Nevermind" estate in Santa Barbara, vindicated after being acquitted on all 11 counts of cruelty to animals. It is unsettling to see her up to her old tricks again. Who would have ever thought that after her 1975 chart topping hit "ABC-123" that she would fall so far from grace. Truly sad. - Tito Collins

When a plan comes together

As many of you know, I do a lot of work with the disadvantaged. So it was in the course of an outing of the Defining Opportunities for Redheaded Kids Society that I met this man. We'll call him "Tim" to respect his privacy. Anyway, Tim explained to me that he had served two tours in 'Nam and in the years since returning he had hatched a plan. He said he was going to organize an elite band of mercenaries that would hire themselves out to help people in need.

The poor fella was devastated when I explained that someone had beat him to the punch. Such a group had indeed already been formed; it was called the "A-Team" and had operated from 1983 to 1987.

Later that day, I met his wife "Kay", and she told me Tim was afflicted with a rare disorder whereby prolonged exposure to the sun rendered him completely insane as well as mildly congested. Unfortunately, this is an all too common story where redheads are concerned. There is no cure, she informed me, only containment. Education is the key.

Meet me in yonder window embrasia

Two of the best character actors of early cinema (according to me) were Eric Blore and Robert Grieg. Both were masters of the uppity servant role. As soon as is humanly possibly, I demand that you see a film with one of them, or better yet both. As it turns out, they were both in The Lady Eve and Sullivan's Travels. It was in Sullivan’s Travels that Grieg (playing the part of the Burrows the butler) delivers the following admonition to his employer:

"You see, sir, rich people and theorists - who are usually rich people - think of poverty in the negative, as the lack of riches, as disease might be called the lack of health. But it isn't, sir, poverty is not the lack of anything, but a positive plague, virulent in itself, contagious as cholera, with filth, criminality, vice and despair as only a few of its symptoms. It is to be stayed away from, even for purposes of study. It is to be shunned."

And speaking of Sullivan's Travels, this is a movie worth seeing. The main character is a movie producer that sets off to make a movie of social commentary, a "message movie". In the end he discovers that a) he isn't really qualified to make a movie about the poor, because he doesn't really understand the subject matter and b) movies are entertainment (who knew? certainly not the Hollywood of today) and as such, entertainment provides the only social benefit it needs to. It distracts the audience from the cares and complications of the real world for 90 minutes, and that's a good thing.

Preview THE LADY EVE at www.videodetective.com

Don't Do It

There's this lady in my neighborhood. Let's call her "Jenny" to protect her identity. So anyway, one day I'm walking along and I notice her up in her balcony with her little dog. I smile and wave because it's a wonderful day and Oprah is on in 30 minutes, but my high spirits are soon turned to horror as I notice she is dangling her dog over the balcony a la Michael Jackson. I attempt to reason with her. I say, "Ma'am, put the dog down and step a-wayyy from the balcony". She then proceeds to tell me that a) she is not dangling her dog over the ledge and b) that I'm violating the edict of the restraining order by approaching within the 150 feet limit.

A Masterpiece of Understatement

On Tuesday May 28th, the Turner Classic Movies channel is presenting a bunch of Howard Hawks movies, including:

• Scarface (1932)
• Bringing up Baby (1938)
• Only Angels Have Wings (1939)
• To Have And Have Not (1944)
• The Big Sleep (1946)

If you're one of the 5 people in the world without TiVo, a DVR, a VCR, or a DVD burner then this would be a good day to stay home.

No respect

Here's my son Sam at about 5 months of age. His mother picks out his clothes, obviously. Well, I shall have my revenge just as soon as I can find a "My Mother Shakes Me" outfit.

Inaugural Post

Welcome to The Spatulas of Doom blog.

So begins my foray into the Blogosphere. My intention is to post pictures of friends and family. Sort of a photo diary of my life, except that the captions are all a pack of lies. I found that when setting down the events of my life for posterity, the truth was considerably less exciting than outright falsehoods. So there you go.

I fully anticipate I will have abandoned this hobby in a few short weeks, but until then I shall try my best to update the site with useful information. And by useful, I mean: useful to myself.