You're Not Funny, Clown

I'm stuck working tonight. I have just enough time on this break to send a quick MMS warning: I started my shift at 4:00, and 3 Jokers have already asked if I wanted to help make their pencils disappear. I start pouring hazelnut blend on the next clown's lap. And yes, I'm serious.

What Larry King Looks Like

Larry King looks like Gollum with suspenders, except his breath is eerily visible. Anyone see that interview? At one point he called McCain "Déagol" and devoured a fish on camera.

How Is This (Wait For It)...Happening?

There are bad ideas and there are bad executions. When both happen at once, if you're lucky, you get something so magically bad it's awesome.

I took part in a talent show last spring, and among the lamer acts that night, one guy decided he would do a dramatic reading of General Patton's speech from the beginning of that movie. Aside from the fact "Patton" wore Reeboks, the timing of the message was confusing at best (i.e. it may have gone over six years ago, but at the time it just felt...off).

The awkwardness as it unfolded was palpable.

I watched M. Night Shyamalan's movie The Happening on DVD, and I wondered how it ever got produced.

Who keeps greenlighting that guy's movies? Why didn't they stop after Unbreakable? His plots and dialogue are so horrible you can't help but laugh out loud.

I love the movie Juno, but one complaint I've heard is how "no one talks like that." That's the point, though. We go to movies to be entertained and I don't want to hear how people really talk. It'd be weak.

But when M. Night puts words in his characters' mouths, they say things like, "Cheese and crackers!" (This was a soldier expressing disbelief). Or you get Mark Wahlberg talking to a potted plant and saying, directly into the camera with his eyes wide, "I'm talking to a plant." (Long, comedic pause.) "I'm still doing it."

Hilarity.

That's the other thing, if you're trying to sell such bad dialogue, get someone who can actually act. Wahlberg always looks like he's attempting to act but knows full well it's not going smoothly.

(I couldn't keep from laughing every time Wahlberg's character tried to be serious, because of Andy Samberg's impression of him. Every time he talked to Zooey Deschanel I pictured him saying, "Hey, Zooey, I produce Entourage. Someday you'll be cool. Say hi to your mother for me.")

Shyamalan has been making unintentional comedies for years now.

Maybe he should remake Patton next. If he can get it greenlit.

Early Voting Shocker on the Block

Rider here, sending a quick post from my BlockBerry.

I just voted early--'cuz I'm cooler than your average American--and I discovered something none of you know.*

I was astounded to find out that Ralph Nader is running for President.

Seriously, did you know that?

I'd heard rumblings about him trying again, but that was last year. Since then...nada (so to speak).

How was this kept under wraps? Did Nader manage to not raise any campaign funds? Or did the mainstream media collectively decide to not mention it?

I consider myself a fairly well-informed citizen. I read most of my news online on a daily basis, and I have a subscription to Newsweek to make sure I catch the summary.

But this was a huge shocker.

I was so startled I voted for the man!**

* "None of you" meaning my two regular readers, not the 111 others who visit here daily and steal my images, or the kids in schools searching for "Beowulf"
** How much would you hate me if I really did? Sound off in the comments.
--
Sent from Gmail for mobile | mobile.google.com

Text About Country Music

My tolerance for listening to country music is akin to my craving for bananas: once a year if at all

Happy 300th and Happy 26th Bday

October 27, 2008 is the 300th day of the year, if you didn't know.

It's also the birthday of Patrick Fugit, who starred as "William Miller" in Almost Famous. He's 26 (but his hair looks the same).

Patrick is in a band called Mushman. Give 'em a listen here.

Potential band name: Sarah

Potential band name: "Sarah Going Rogue"

Busted For Virtually Nothing

We are three-bald-psychics- floating-in-skim-milk away from becoming the society in The Minority Report. Do you realize that?

Here in the U.S. a few years back, a teenager in Kentucky was arrested for writing a story about zombies taking over his school. He was charged with terrorism. But, see, the interesting part is that zombies don't really exist, no matter what Rider thinks, and the kid who wrote it didn't will them into existence to do his bidding...so no harm no foul, right?

But in the last two days there have been reports about folks being sentenced for crimes they didn't actually commit. It's getting ridiculous.

Two Amsterdam teens were sentenced by a Dutch court to hundreds of hours of community service for stealing virtual objects ("virtual" here meaning: not existing in the real world but only in digital form). They were playing an online game called RuneScape and "coerced" a 13-year-old to transfer "a virtual amulet and a virtual mask to their game accounts."

Doy!

In essence, an eighth-grader was talked into giving up nothing to nobody, and now two real kids are picking up real trash along a real highway (where, ironically, they could be struck by a scary-real semi truck skidding out of control).

Then there's the lady in Japan whose Second Life avatar was virtually married to a virtual dude, but when he "divorced" her she killed his avatar...and went to real prison. Can you imagine being so upset by an imaginary break-up that you delete your ex's character and wind up behind bars?

By this logic, when Johnny Baer ripped up my "Princess Unicorn" story back in third grade, I could've pressed charges because he committed genocide against an entire race of beautiful, pink mythological animals who answered to me and my magic rainbow staff that sprayed floating hearts. I'd like to see him hanged for that atrocity! Butter Gallop ran like the wind and I miss her dearly!

This just the beginning. Courts are going to have to decide where reality and digital worlds meet up, and law books will be rewritten. Judges will have to sentence the guilty for all sorts of criminal nonsense.

Avatars of parents will have to be created to answer for the shenanigans of their virtual kids. They'll appear on YouTube saying, "But we weren't logged in when UltraBobby was destroying MileyFan88's Spore civilization! How could we have known?"

Digital penitentiaries will house criminals with insect wings and giant heads and swords for arms, while their human creators sit blankly in front of monitors showing a jail cell with four walls and a cot...just moving their mouse back and forth as they pace impatiently, waiting for their turn in the exercise yard under the twin moons.

Real people held accountable for fake crimes. Nice.

Note: I'm in a virtual prison myself, as we have a substitute here in computer lab who's taking forever to check the class' work on our bouncing cube project. Jeez.

Word of the day: "abysmal"

Word of the day: "abysmal" - as in "the cafe served an abysmal cheeseburger that tasted like a sock off hurley's foot"

Stephanie Enters The Dead Zone

My friend Michelle was eligible to upgrade her phone, so I went with her to a cellular store. When the sales guy finished activating her expensive touchscreen device, Meesh was about to toss her old one in a donation box. Then she said to me, "Do you want it?"

The sales guy's eyes got really hungry. That's the only word to describe it. Hungry. He turned into Fat Bastard from that movie. He wanted to sign me up for a contract so bad he drooled a little. He wanted my money in his belly.

I haven't owned a cell phone before. Up until this past March I had no one to call. That's changed. So I was interested except...no credit rating.

He pitched a prepaid option, but it was more expensive than just adding a line to Meesh's brother's account. So that's what we did.

I offered to pay her the ten bucks a month, but she said not to worry about it. Except I don't like owing people. We made a deal instead: when I'm working she gets free coffees.

I love the phone. It's a "Chocolate." I'm loading some Kaki King tunes on it right now. I found a Heath Ledger Joker jpeg online for the wallpaper. (It's in my Photobucket album here.)

Anyways, I'm happy because now I can blog from my phone* and Meesh is happy because when she's driving I'm the "dexter" (designated texter).

The sales guy was happy because we fed him commission. He burped a little.

* I found out you can put an email address in your contacts, so you can send a text to your blog (under the Settings tab and Email option) which will publish as a post. SMS only allows 160 characters max, though, so it'd be a short entry. But still.

Rider's Fill-In-the-Blank Sarah Palin Word Problem

On the subject of secretive organizations protecting their charges from the press, pulling strings, and exercising masterful spin control to prevent their ultimate downfall and potential embarrassment...

Sarah Palin is to John McCain's campaign as Katie Holmes is to ___________.

Ponder that.

(This post was written by John Smith)

Another Reason To Avoid Fashion

I don't wish accidental death on any person. (I'm gonna have that embossed on my business card someday.)

There are times, though, when I have a good laugh at a freak occurrence in which someone is hurt.

Don't you judge me!

I avoid fashion like it's Ebola. Once infected by either it all goes downhill rapidly and you bleed out, cash or bodily fluid, until your stone cold dead.

So when a fashion contest winner in Australia couldn't collect her prize because she'd been bitten by a deadly snake, I vowed to never succumb to spending more on clothes than necessary.

Fashion kills, is what I'm saying.

This is the extent of my fashion sense.


Note: The above jpeg is part of a series of images I have deemed too "cute" for Rider's Block. When the pix were taken earlier this year, I referred to them as "My Chucks Now Match My Guy's Chucks." I was sad/pathetic/weak at the time, and I like to think I've matured. Here's the rest of that image, if you care. Know my respect for you will be diminished if you look.

Our Search For A Band Name, Part 1

I'm in a band and we're trying to choose a name that would look good on a flyer.

I'm on acoustic guitar and vocals. The bass player is a guy named "Peely Feet." Another dude named "Golden God" plays guitar and also sings. We have a female drummer named "Meg White Jr." (Names have been changed to protect the unaware.) Here are a few of the names we've come up with so far. My suggestions are in bold.

• Pageant Mom
• Blame It On Aiken
• Vegan Zombies With Bulemia
• BallSack SpeedBag
• Chillaxin' Fetal Pigs
• Olmos and the Pockmarks
• Everyone Is Autistic
  
• I'm A PC And I Sell Feesh
• Angelina's Forgotten Children
• Wee-wees 'n Ginees

Please leave feedback in the comments.

Loving Nick & Norah So Much It's Retarded

I loved Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist for so many reasons.

"Mikey" Cera was perfect (again). For those who haven't seen him in Superbad or his hilarious webisodes with Clark, you have to listen to everything he says, because just when you think he's done talking he says more under his breath...and it's always funny.

Finally a director who gets it, i.e. doesn't fall into the trap of putting together a soundtrack consisting of music from 20 years ago in a flick about today's teens. You know, a movie about what the director wishes his teen years were, set in the present, but with songs from his "Senior Year Was The Bomb" playlist on his old-ass iPod. Weeeeeak.

I have one criticism. It's the one thing that's keeping me from adding Nick & Norah to my favorite movies on my profile. "The Drunk Friend Who Looked 25 But Was Supposed To Be 18" was one of the best characters in the movie, but--as a girl who doesn't see the humor in getting sloppy--I wasn't laughing as hard as the rest of the audience. I'm not taking anything away from the actress (and hey, she is 25!), because her performance was perfect. At some point I just realized, "You're the daughter of a functioning alcoholic," and it wasn't funny anymore.

Anyways, I saw Nick & Norah with a few members of my band, and we all agreed: when we finally play our first gig, please let us have just one fan as enthusiastic as the guy literally doing flips for "Are You Randy."

A Return to the Funky Bunch, Mark?

Rider here with a quick filler post.

I'm not gonna rehash events that have been written about by a much funnier blogger than myself, but in just a few minutes, the country is going to find out three things:

1. Whether or not Lorne Michaels is smart enough to capitalize on this past week's buzz over Mark Wahlberg's unfettered rage at an SNL sketch about him.
   
2. Whether the marginal talent in question (and former convict/drug addict/overall dipshit) was actually smart enough to use the press to help boost ticket sales of his movie.
3. Whether the former underwear model will go above and beyond and participate in another "Mark Wahlberg Talks to Animals" sketch--which can only boost his star power and infuse his career longevity another year or two.
   

I try not to be a pessimist, but I fear only point #1 will be true, and Wahlberg will go down in Hollywood history as the celebrity equivalent of Fred O'Bannion in Dazed and Confused...just a sad blowhard with a paddle and an ax to grind.

Spirit Of Rock

I've played guitar since I was a munchkin. I like to think of myself as a musician, but technically I've only been onstage once, and that was a solo performance. Since then I've joined a band and we're trying to find our sound (and agree on a name). I've recently realized there's alot of responsibility involved in that...all because of a movie.

I saw Almost Famous for the first time this past summer, and it left a mark. A good one. It became one of my favorite movies ever, as a matter of fact. It affected me in three ways:

• It made me want to be honest in my song writing.
• It made me want to write more, period (songs, stories, poems, etc.).
• It made me not want to let Lester Bangs' spirit down.

I desperately wanted/needed to learn more about Lester the moment the DVD ended (imagine what he'd say about watching a digital movie on a disc read by a laser, you know?). He was so passionate about music and writing. More than anyone else I can think of. The night I watched it, I actually did stay up all night writing "pure dribble" in my notebook. (Minus the speed or cough syrup.)

Last Sunday I was checking out Boing Boing and found an old interview with Lester from 1980 (who died eight years before I was born.)

I put it on my Shuffle and popped in my earbuds yesterday for a listen while my Lit teacher screened the Great Gatsby under the pretense of comparing the book to the film but we all knew it was because she was hungover and wanted to sit in the dark with her eyes shut.

It's something every musician or music lover should hear. It's a great interview, and definitely worth downloading. The ambient noise of the street in the background annoyed me at first, but then I realized that made if more real...and Lester would've liked that.

Does anyone know where I can find more interviews with Lester? Please comment. (Oh, I'm also taking suggestions for a good name for an indie-alt rock band with a female on vocals and acoustic guitar.)

Stephanie Introduces Herself To The Block

Hello, Rider's Block lurkers. My name's Stephanie. I'm not exactly sure why I was asked to contribute to this blog, but it's flattering (I guess). You must be doubly confused.

I met the guy who calls himself Rider three years ago at a Neil Gaiman book signing in Naperville, Illinois. I wrote about it last year on my blog. Rider asked me not to link to it probably because I use his real name, but he did say I could post a jpeg. (And although he told me to "do whatever you want," he still sent some rules, which I'll get to.)


A few years went by and my life spun out of control. Remember that movie where Elijah Wood got electrocuted on the guardrail and his dead body slowly slid down that icy road? Ice Storm? I'll never forget that scene. If you could run that scene in reverse, that was my life leading up to my sudden electric shock. Boring, boring, boring, drifting slowly, slowly uphill, then ZAP!

I ended my blog after the ZAP (long story), but I was way into blogging for six months there. (I created my Blogger account in 2002 but I'd never gotten serious about it, because, hello?...no life!)

So anyways, last November I got an email from someone named "Rider." I didn't know the name. He blind-copied a Blogger URL to me. I clicked the link and read the very first post on Rider's Block, having no idea it was the same guy who took a picture of Neil for me. I read a few posts and even commented, which is totally unlike me. (I'm a proud lurker.)

Two weeks ago, I was with my boyfriend outside the Tivoli Theatre in my hometown, waiting in line again for Neil Gaiman (pimping The Graveyard Book), when a voice behind us said, "Stephanie?"

It was him. We talked, and he said he liked my writing. He'd discovered my blog after I commented here on The Block. Tracked it down through my profile. (Who doesn't immediately click someone's profile to see whats what, right?)

Long story short: he emailed me later asking if I had anything pop-cult related I wanted to blog about. He was taking a leave of absence. Would I help out? I told him between my job, my boyfriend, and my music, I didn't think so.

But I got ninja'd by another life-ZAP just a few days ago. Again, long story. My life's a disaster. I feel more like writing than ever before. So here I am.

Bored yet? Hope you come back for my first regular post anyways.

Oh yeah, I'll end this by C & P'ing the rules Rider sent me:

• If Valerie returns from her self-imposed Facebook exile, put her back on the Blockroll. (Never forget, though, she is our arch-nemesis.)
• Don't look directly at Slinger's head in sunlight, and don't feed him after midnight or he'll spawn evil mohawked clones. Remove him from the Blockroll if he hasn't returned to blogging by Hallowe'en.
• If I ever spell "Halloween" with an apostrophe between the Es, kill me.
• Dean Xene is size of a leprechaun. If you meet him, be careful so you don't trod upon him.
  
• Don't disclose what our Site Meter reveals about Zibbs. He'll be less smug and no one wants that.
• Don't get Jenks started on Notre Dame or chemistry or sports.
  
• McGone is your blogging ally, but he can turn on you without warning and is known to use the word "fucktard." He is like a drunken, Irish werewolf with Tourette's.
  

Rider Leaves the Block

I started this blog eleven months ago for one reason: writer's block.

I had a metric ton of projects I either wanted to work on or wanted to finish, but the ideas weren't coming. A blog seemed like the best solution to keep my skills sharp and, more importantly, to write something that I could finish to get that sense of accomplishment.

I can say I've had 170-plus moments like that in the form of published posts here on my blog. They were satisfying and they kept me sane during this dry spell.

But I'm finally back to fiction writing, and I'm going to focus on that for a while.

I've known for a long time that I experience creative bursts when I read novels. I thought that trick would work by listening to audiobooks, so over the past year I listened to quite a few of them.

That didn't help, so I went back to actual reading. I read Neil Gaiman, Stephen King, Sarah Vowell, David Sedaris...all normally my favorites. They didn't help me out of this slump (although the latter two probably influenced the essays on my blog).

Then last week a friend lent me a copy of The Quickie by James Patterson & Michael Ledwidge.

Have you read it?

It's shit.

Seriously, it's the literary equivalent of dried human waste in paperback form.

I've never read James Patterson before, and it seems I haven't missed a goddamn thing. I knew by the third page it was worse writing than the amateurish crap we read aloud in Creative Writing 101. By the third chapter I felt anger bubbling up from my gut that a publisher actually paid money for this. And by the time I finished the first third of the book I was ready to click open my "Projects" folder and get back to my writing because if James Patterson can sell his work then I sure as hell know I can do it, too.

It's funny how good writing didn't motivate me, but shitty writing kicked my ass into fourth gear.

So I'm leaving the Block for a while, but the posts will continue. I've invited another blogger to contribute to this pop culture block party, and she's agreed. I'll let her introduce herself when she's ready to start.

I won't be gone for good, my friends, so put down that noose. Rider's Block hits its one-year anniversary on November 16, and I'll probably log in and say a few words then.

If this is all too upsetting for you, write a hate letter to James Patterson.

I'm sure he's heard it before.

"Michael, Why Does Our Show Suck?"

No one in the United States watches NBC on Wednesdays between 7 and 8 Central, so I wanted to get to the bottom of this prime time black hole that, ironically, repels viewers.

Turns out that's when the new Knight Rider airs.

To ridicule the show would be redundant. You don't make fun of the mildly retarded kid in school unless you're a dick. And this show is severely retarded. It's the equivalent of Randy from My Name Is Earl recovering from a Cuckoo's Nest lobotomy.

I'll just say the show would be improved by having K.I.T.T. voiced by a Paul Lynde impersonator--rather than Val Kilmer!--which would include dialogue such as, "Michael, your jeans look fantastic!"

But the oddest thing about the show is Bruce Davison's hair. (Please--if you click no other link in this post, click that one.) The man is 62. And he wears his hair like that.

He looks like grandpa after grandma left him because he wouldn't lay off the Viagra and became impossible to live with. Time to get the Members Only jacket out of mothballs and fire up the Gran Torino and go nightclubbing.

Hey, Bruce, I hear Life on Mars is looking for supporting characters to play 1973 hippie informants.

Upcoming Democratic Strategery

Rider's Block is not a political blog, of course--and there's a very good chance this has been rumored elsewhere--so I'll keep this post short.

I know a guy who knows a guy who works for Obama's campaign, and the plan is to have Joe Biden bow out of the race due to "health concerns"...

...and for Hillary to step in as Barack's VP.

This is set to happen any day now.

If I'm wrong, I'm just another blogger spouting crap.

But if I'm right, expect me to put AdSense on the Block minutes after the official announcement. 'Cuz I could net twenty bucks a year from potential traffic, and I'll need that money to buy my Blu-ray copy of Beverly Hills Chihuahua in February.

As John Hodgman would say, "That is all."