On Writing

When in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand.
-Raymond Chandler

The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof shit detector.
-Ernest Hemingway

If you really want to hurt your parents and you don't have nerve enough to be homosexual, the least you can do is go into the arts.
-Kurt Vonnegut

The More I hear Obama speak

the more wowed I am.
This man is for real.
His hope we hear.

5 Reasons to Rent Wonder Boys:

1. It co-stars:
a) Robert Downey Jr.
b) Tobey Maguire
c) Katie Holmes
d) Frances McDormand (who makes more out of her 11 minutes of screen time here than Josh Hartnett has managed in his entire career)

2. Playing way, way, way, against type Michael Douglas is Grady Tripp, a professor who smokes dope, wears bad glasses, and occasionally dresses in a pink women's gown

3. It was written by Steve Kloves, the guy who wrote & directed "The Fabulous Baker Boys"

4. It features the immortal line: "I never forget an Oola"

5. 8 years later and I'm blogging about a movie that couldn't break 20million at the box office



James Leer (Tobey Maguire) [eating from a box of powder donuts]: These are incredible. Incredible!
Grady Tripp (Michael Douglas): Finish the rest of that joint, James, you can start chewing on the box.

A SUNDAY IN JAPAN - as to why Japanese don't beat each other up after drinking, and one possible reason why they live longer than anyone else on earth

This was supposed to be the sequel to A FRIDAY IN JAPAN


I've tried writing this guy a few times. Tried writing him out in my journal (for some reason he's male) before ever I was into blogging, then tried a couple drafts here on the old blogaru. None worked. Sometimes that happens. Try and try and it just won't come out. Some say that eating prunes or smoking cigarettes helps. Not much of a prune lover and too much of an ex-cigarette lover to know (anymore). In short, know that this one ends badly.

Needless to say Japanese don't beat each other up after drinking cause it isn't culturally accepted to do so. Cool in Canada and most other Western countries dictates than men become fuckheads when in presence of alcohol. The cooler the man, the angrier, more aggressive, more prone to violence. This kind of cool Japan lacks. Excessive drinking here leads to passing out, puking and smelling up the trains at night. But that's about it. Oh and liver poisoning. Basically it's a culture that just isn't into showing anger. It isn't acceptable.

One possible reason why the Japanese live longer (but not the one I was going to mention) is that they eat smaller amounts. Another is that they don't live in urban sprawl where it's necessary to drive to the gym. People walk everywhere they don't ride bicycles. Your grandparents, if alive, if in Japan, would still be riding bicycles to get their groceries. And of course because the food, when traditional, is boiled, saltless, healthy fun for all.

But as I explained none of that is what this blog was supposed to be about. And never mind the prunes and smokes, sometimes it won't come cause it wasn't meant to, not this way. This one I realized (eureka!) is for the old fiction folder. Save it for a story. Make it poetry.

In short though, or, at least, in hint, if you ever come to Japan and have reason to come through Osaka, I recommend taking the Hankyu train line from Umeda station. Take the line bound for Takarazuka. Take the express cause the local will take you forever. Get off at the second last stop, Kyoshi Kojin. Oh, and most imortantly - go alone at night. A 15 minute walk up from that station, up a winding road with stall-shops on either side, closed after dark, you'll come to a temple, Kyoshi Kojin. Up there on top of that big hill/small mountain ...



Sorry if cryptic. Read the book.
Love,
me

Movie Otaku

The following is inspired by reading Chuck Klosterman's "Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs" and is thus pretty narrowly aimed at people born in the 60s, 70s and, yes, maybe even the 80s.

Rent Them (or illegaly download them) Again for the First Time (this list attempts not to include the most obvious, or at least, older classics, ie. Godfathers I & II, When Harry Met Sally...)

1. Wonder Boys
2. Beautiful Girls
3. About a Boy
4. High Fidelity
5. Monsoon Wedding
6. The Cider House Rules
7. Almost Famous
8. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
9. The Silence of the Lambs
10. Groundhog Day (-"You speak French." -[ever so slight Bill Murray pause] "Oui.")
11. True Romance (at least the first half hour - but might just be that it "hits my spot" as my wife puts it)


Movies that you'd think you still love but won't on repeat viewing:
1. Stand By Me (I'm gonna get killed for this, I know)
2. the entire John Hughes oeuvre
3. Die Hard (or is that because I now watch movies with my wife?)
4. Pulp Fiction (but now I'm getting racy, bold, cause I'm inviting scorn, disagreement and hatred)
4. Garden State (I'm cheating cause I hated this movie the first time round; most empty dumb movie that too many people i love, respect, enjoy talking movies with liked or really really liked. for them then, please watch again to see how stupid this movie is, great soundtrack notwithstanding)

Movies no one saw but really should have:
1. Half Nelson (if for Ryan Gosling's performance alone)
2. Once (but with the Oscar win people have/are going to see it)
3. Downfall (the German movie about Hitler and the Nazi regime's last days).
4. Nobody Knows (Japanese title: Dare Mo Shiranai)
5. In the Mood For Love (ok, many saw and repeat seeing; it's already a major art-house classic, but it's an all-time fave and had to get up here somewhere)

Glossy Slick Hollywood Movies that really are their own art form:
1. The Thomas Crown Affair (newer one, with Pierce Brosnan)
2. Top Gun (duh!)
3. Point Break ("You can't just call timeout and stroll along the shore; you have to make a commitment to the surf!")
4. I'm missing tons here. Will add if/when they come to me. Thoughts?

And finally,

The best first half of a Stanley Kubrick movie to truly shock your first year Japanese university students with:
1. Full Metal Jacket

Barenaked Ladies "Bedside Manor" - The Bathroom Sessions

wait for ed (with the guitar) to throw steven (sans guitar) off near song's end. and a nice bridge of Van to boot.