Bongo Java is the coffee shop where A and I basically lived during our time in Nashville after Katrina. Sitting here today, it is a painfully familiar spot.

All A and I can talk about this week is how to be better evacuators. Because this time around has been, I’m going to go ahead and say it, was totally fucking miserable. There are several layers to why this has been true.

1. Automotive ridiculousness. Look, cars are fickle things. But, especially when they have over 200,000 miles on them. We spent the week leading up to the evacuation in various states of distress over this, especially since our “nice” car (read: AC) had a battery/alternator problem suddenly cropping up. And the thing is? We’re not stupid. We’ve been worrying about this eventuality all summer. We’ve been arguing over Hondas and Scions for months. In the end, we basically just decided to close our eyes and cross and fingers that please, please, pretty please, we could make it through one more hurricane season on the junkers.

This didn’t turn out so well for us. We decided to try to beat the odds by evacuating in both cars, which meant we braved the drive solo. I spent all 12 hours on the edge of total panic. It was a large and unwieldy kind of panic, but, in short, I was scared of having another seizure. Every time we stopped, I’d realize that my hands were shaking and my knees were noodles. It was dark and rainy and ridiculously long, so it was no picnic for A, either — or anyone who shared the road with us, I’m sure. Topping all of this off a constant, and quite legitimate (we did spring a major coolant leak on day 2, but A caught it in time and was able to make the repair, because he’s a hero), fear of one of the cars breaking down was too much.

2. Animals. The biggest problem with animals is that not everyone likes them. We have decided it would be much easier to evacuate with a baby, because everyone wants to see your baby, while nobody wants to see your stinky cats and dogs. My dad is allergic to dander, and my brother and his family are allergic to barking, so we’ve spent the last few days drifting from pet-friendly hotels to neighbors houses to, finally, now that it is neither Sunday nor Labor Day, to the kennel. In the process, we have spent roughly nine million dollars.

3. Evacuating just plain old sucks balls. Even though sometimes I think the world would be a easy place for us if we just had a brand new car, this is not actually true. We accept that this is part of the New Orleans package, inasmuch as we don’t think anyone needs to feel particularly sorry for us. (I feel PLENTY sorry for myself.) Our list of ways to make things better has some great ideas that will definitely help, but also, it is just a pain in the ass period. You make the best of it that you can, and then you take a deep breath and power through the rest.

And, now. Here’s a pic of the welcome wagon our niece laid out for us, which made both of us cry. The moment I saw this was the first (and only, so far) moment that I felt what all New Orleanians are hoping to feel these days: relieved.

Posted by jackson on 02 Sep 2008
Filed Under: Movies, Politics, Zuma, uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Yesterday I got a bad haircut. It is nothing particularly special or exciting to anyone but me. That’s just the lonely pain of hair gone wrong. I am the only one that has to walk around for the next month or so looking like a soccer mom with a bad haircut. Or, to take a page from my husband’s book of rich imagery, like a character from Dead Poet’s Society.

Hm. That’s nice, isn’t it? Let’s take a look, shall we?

Oh, Neil. When you shot yourself I cried so hard the stranger sitting next to me at Lion’s Head Cinema told me to get ahold of myself. You represented the dreams I was terrified I’d have to give up one day. You did not represent, however, the ‘do of my dreams.

Knox Overstreet! Such a hopeless romantic…You showed me that boys obsessed about girls as much as the other way around, and that was comforting, even if your determination was a little bit creepy. Later on, you took Christina Applegate to see the grunion run in Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead, further proving your dedication to creepy romance. Also, nice bangs!

Hey, big fink! You’ve got a fucking flat top.

Aw, Pitts. I always remember how Robin Williams called your name “unfortunate”, even though it is just one letter away from that of a pretty good looking actor-guy who ended up scoring one of the hottest women who ever lived. So take that, el capitano!

Todd. Toddy Todd Todd. You were really cute back then — your shy demeanor paving the way for some excellent desk-set tossing and poetry reading scenes. Looking at your picture here, I can almost forget who you became. I always thought Neil’s death would have hit you the hardest, you know? What I never could have predicted was that one day, I would be thirty years old and have your haircut. Who’s crying now?

Posted by jackson on 09 Sep 2006
Filed Under: Miscellaneous, Movies | 2 Comments »

At this point, I really will watch anything with David Boreanaz in it.

I don’t think it’s possible to have watched as much Buffy as so many of us did, and not sort of fall in love with Angel. I don’t care who you are, or what your type is. (Like me? Beefcake’s not usually my thing.) He’s the love you can’t quite reach — and not because he’s emotionally unavailable, but because he’s physically unavailable. He’s the ultimate one who got away.

Which is also why, I’d venture, he’s one of the few Buffy cast members that the world really needs more of. (Another is Anthony Head. I nearly bust a gut when he showed up at the end of Woody Allen’s Scoop.) We simply are not done with David Boreanaz. Because, to be frank, we never got to bed him.

It’s a bit of frustrating, though, to see him chose the role of Seely Booth in the new (and renewed!) CSI-but-with-people-who’ve-been-dead-longer drama Bones. Not so frustrating that I don’t TiVo the goods, but still. While Booth can physically do the deed without risking the apocalypse, he’s also stuck in a Moonlighting will they/won’t they with his co-star Emily Deschanel. This is to say, they’re not going to do it for ages and when they finally do, all of the show’s spark will be gone.

It wouldn’t be crazy to suggest that Boreanaz try to steer clear of hero roles for a while. Not just to avoid being typecast, but perhaps also for some, you know, satisfaction. Just as Peter Parker — sometimes even when the hero gets the girl, he still can’t get laid. Looking at Boreanaz’s IMDB page, it seems that he and his agent agree. In between his TV hero roles are a handful of straight-to-DVD romance movies in which, it appears, he gets a ton of ass.

I saw one of these movies last night. “These Girls” is an odd little Canadian picture in which three sweet and barely legal best friends blackmail our hunk into a rigorous summer-sex-a-thon while his wife works the night shift. It’s sweeter than it sounds. Sort of a sexual coming of age.
The best scenes are between Boreanaz and the baseball-loving born again who’s curiousity has gotten the best of her. Even in bed, she calls him “Mr. Clark,” which is perfect. Their sex is like a classroom experiment, in which Boreanaz talks her through what’s happening and asks for her thoughts on the subject. We all should have been so lucky to have a first time like this.
In terms of the larger Boreanaz picture, “These Girls” takes all the potential energy he’s built up over the years and finally makes something of itself. We even get to see his butt! And yet, it isn’t all its cracked up to be. When you turn Boreanaz into just some dude who’s a pushover for the ladies, that’s all you get. Some dude. A seriouslly hot dude, given. But, as Angel (and Booth), Boreanaz’s looks are just the decadent icing on a cake made of duty, honor and trustworthiness. As a hot guy, he’s basically pudding.
So, that’s it. The gypsy curse lives on. It’s frustrating, but it’s what keeps me tuning in.

Posted by jackson on 09 Aug 2006
Filed Under: Movies, Starf-cker | No Comments »

I used to watch scary movies a lot. I would voluntarily rent them with my friends, and then I would get irrationally, intensely terrified. Come bedtime, I would hover in my doorway for a while, working out the ten foot leap I’d need to make to get to the bed — the only way to avoid the ankle-grab from the beast under the dust-ruffle. Then I would spend a few hours in a sweaty debate with myself over which was the safest way to fall asleep. Like, is it better to face the door so I can see the ax murderer/rapist/Satan Spawn coming, and therefore be better able to defend myself. Or, is it better to turn away, and maybe slip under the evil radar? Should I be completely under the covers, protected by blanket-armor, or should leave one foot out just to show them who’s boss?

This is not, unfortunately, a description of myself at 8 years old.

A couple of years ago, I wised up and realized that I am not, as it turns out, required to put myself through this ritual of terror. For some people, getting a little scared is fun. For me, it is always more than a little scared and is decidedly unpleasant. So I stopped watching scary movies. What a revelation! There’ve been some exceptions, of course, (for some reason, I have seen the “Dawn of the Dead” remake twice) but I have largely avoided this genre and I haven’t missed it a bit.

Unfortunately, I am married to someone who really love scary movies. What’s worse, he is bar none the worst person in the world to watch scary movies with. A chronic older brother, he delights in making the movie even scarier, grabbing my arm suddenly during the high-tension hunt-down, or reciting eerie dialogue for hours afterward. Such antics actually made it easier for me to draw the line on horror flicks. But lately, he’s really been laying it on thick. “I never get to watch scary movies anymore!” Last night, he whined, “The only people I ever lived with who liked to watch scary movies are my mom and Tom.” Of course, this represents roughly 75% of his life, but he was making a point! And so after a number pinkie swears and “no-joke promises” to, seriously, no seriously, not do anything to scare me any further than I would undoubtedly already be, I agreed to flip through OnDemand and pick a scary movie to watch together. He would have to make the popcorn. In two different flavors.

I drew an immediately line at “Saw”. I don’t even remember what it’s about, but I remember it sounded pretty horrible. Won’t see it. So it was between “Hostel” and “The Hills Have Eyes”. Adam was rooting for “Hostel” but a quick look at the trailer revealed it to be about torture. Gross. Won’t see it.

Obviously, I’m not really up to date with what’s what in horror flicks these days, but I have my ear close enough to the ground to suspect that they traffic primarily in crossing the line. If it’s not beyond the pale, it’s on the cutting room floor. Maybe we have “Scream” to blame for this: having spelled out in schlocky detail the rules of horror movies, it must have made them less fun to follow. But of course, there are myriad reasons why people have to go so far to be shocking these days. Video games, gangsta rap, Cosmopolitan, Telletubbies. It’s a mean old world.

*
(For those of you who have not yet seen “The Hills Have Eyes” and are under the impression that learning its finer plot points will detract from your potential viewing pleasure, I’m about to lay down some spoilers. Consider your sad-self warned.)

We have a family on a road trip, and under the guidance of their ex-cop (and Republican) dad, they have not only gotten off the interstate for a scenic desert-route, but have taken the advice of a creepy gas-station attendant to take a short cut on the short cut. So, they get stranded, and there’s a bunch of genetic mutants around who, despite their resemblance to Sloth from The Goonies, are still pretty scary looking. They also appear to be cannibals, and pretty single-minded ones at that.

*
Adam and I spend the first half of the movie trying to guess who’s going to live and who’s going to die, and in what order. He thinks it’s a tough call, since they’re a family and “killing families is kind of hard core.” Maybe, he says, they’ll just all go through hell, but make it out alive. I think this sounds like a nice theory, but I should have known better. It takes a while for the blood bath to get going, but once it does, we see the following: Dad burned alive on a stake, the pretty blonde youngest sister getting gang raped by mutants , the mom shot gunned in the stomach, and the older sister/new mom having to sit there while one of the mutants drinks milk from her breasts while holding a gun to her infant’s head.

*
It is, Adam said, tough to be in horror movies these days.

Even tougher to watch them, I’d say. I know it isn’t completely fair to lump all of these movies together. I even get why catching all the heavy-handed symbolism and weak attempts at allegory is fun. The family in “Hills” owns two German Shepards named Beauty and Beast. Beauty is killed off instantly, and Beast, naturally, is set free. Also, there’s a sort of confused political message swarming about. The torched-Dad was a gun toting Republican, constantly belittling his weak-willed (read, Democrat) son-in-law. And of course, the mutant’s existence is the result of years of nuclear testing. The fun, in theory, is to watch the Brady Bill-loving cell phone salesman break down and bear arms to save his baby from the monsters that were created by politics he doesn’t share. But it isn’t campy enough to be fun, and it certainly isn’t interesting enough to make the above mentioned gore-fest worth watching.

I kind of can’t help seeing it as blood-porn, where everything surrounding the money shot (you know, the pick axe in the eyeball!) is just a way of getting to the money shot. Maybe that’s what it is, and I’m just not that into it.

So. As for the last part of my deal with Adam: the eraser film, which in this case was Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic. Trafficking as it does in shock, it is a funny eraser for “The Hills Have Eyes.” But, luck for both of us, it’s also just damn funny. Come bedtime, however, I hadn’t gotten the money-shots out of my head. When I refused to go downstairs alone to get a glass of water to take an Advil I really needed, Adam started to laugh and tell me I was being silly. But, because he is basically a good guy, when he noticed the tears welling up in my eyes he laid off, got the water for me, and curled up close for sleep.

Posted by jackson on 08 Aug 2006
Filed Under: Movies | 3 Comments »

Snakes on a Plane. I can’t get enough of reading about this movie. And Samuel L. Jackson giggling about the title: “That’s the only reason I took the job!”

It’s like calling “Baywatch” “Tits on a Beach”

More?

Posted by jackson on 17 Aug 2005
Filed Under: Movies | 1 Comment »