Final Approach
There really isn't any new movie out there that either I a) have no intention of seeing or b) has a high enough profile for me to bother mocking it. I mean, there's Talladega Nights, the new Will Ferrell movie, but critics are basically dismissing it as Anchorman on a racetrack. To which I say: yes, please! You don't abandon repetitive, one-note actors two films in. You just don't. Especially not if they're funny. And I thought Anchorman was funny. I mean, look how much time we've given Mike Myers. It took six or seven films before that same shouting Scottish accent he does in everything got old. Give Will Ferrell a break.

I'm feeling a little bit pensive this morning. Are you wondering why? Well, this is my blog, so I'll fucking tell you anyway.

As the major milestones in my life come and go, I usually take the opportunity to reflect, to take a bit of an inventory. Sometimes I mean that literally (I don't like it when people touch my stuff) and soemtimes I mean it in more of the limp-wristed New Age hippie way where you sit and stare at a wall thinking about the irrevocable passage of time, the callous and unthinking ways you wasted your youth and then you cry so hard you throw up blood. Like that.

Sometimes the milestones sneak up behind you unawares, bash you over the skull, take whatever money you have on you and run. Not much pre-event reflection happening there.

Other times (like now) we are afforded the opportunity to prepare ourselves mentally for a coming world where nothing will ever be quite the same again and mourn the death of the people we were.

And in those most rare of occasions (again, like now) the coming event is something global, something you can share with your fellow man. A little wider perspective born out of shared experience is healthy; it helps us realize that even though Other People are assholes, by gosh, they're our assholes and we should treat them accordingly.

OK, that didn't come out like I wanted it to, but you get the idea.

What's this event we're all about to experience? Come on, you know.

Two weeks from now, Snakes on a Plane is going to be released.

I know. It's hard to wrap your head around. It's like December 1999 or V-J Day or New Coke all over again. Who will we be as people when this milestone comes to pass? How will we define ourselves with this momentous event behind us at last instead of in front of us? With nothing to anticipate, will we all wither and die?

We can enjoy the hype-machine as it revs up into full gear these last two weeks. It will be the last gasp of a frighteningly over-covered internet advertising that I've been told by the media is a "phenomenon" that people like me are totally excited about.

Will I be able to comprehend a world where I'll never see this again?


It's been internet gold for like a year now. I've incorporated fully--as I do all advertising--as an essential, fully absorbed, indistinguishably-integrated part of my absolute Self. What happens to it when the film comes and goes? What will it mean then? What will I be?

This is not a new problem for me, however. I've become overly attached to internet imagery before. And not all just porn either, look:

There was this one...


And this other one...


And this one too...


And man, how could anyone forget this old chestnut...


But these ones don't age. There is no expiration date for the picture of the guy with his head up his own ass. That's a timeless expression of basic human frustration that dates back to our earliest days as beings capable of emotion. You know, assuming we had digital photo-manipulating software back then. I don't know a lot about what kind of computers primordial man used.

So I guess these web images aren't really good analogies for the Snakes on a Plane thing. I guess the closest analogue I can think of would be this:


I know, I apologize. I should have warned you before breaking out the skeevy on you. But trust me, this is the least skeevy picture I could find in reference to the point I'm about to make.

In the late 1990s, the internet was in the grip of Pam & Tommy fever. People on the street would stop me and ask me "Hey, how do I download this internets thing? I heard Tommy Lee has a HUGE one and I need to see it." And I was all, "OK mom, fine, just never obliquely mention anyone's penis to me again." I didn't even ask what the hell she was doing "on the street."

Back then, it was part of the zeitgeist which I believe is German for "celebrity porn." It's gone now, though. Sure, I can download that video of Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson doin' it and watch it over and over and over and over and over and over and over again now, but it would just be sad. Back then, I was being social. In my room alone with my computer. Just like everyone else.

Same thing with SoaP. Ten years from now I'll bring it up at a party and people will think I'm talking about the 1970s TV show where Billy Crystal played a homo.

Hey, I wonder if there are any funny internet pictures of that?



This post on the Narcissus Scale: 6.3



Pops
- posted by Pops @ 11:32 AM