Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Dancing scenes in teen dramas

If it were not already obvious I watched (the new) 90210 tonight. I made the conscious choice to follow this TV show - I have not followed a show since the first season of "White Rapper" and TV is slowly creeping back into my life thanks to Darcy from Degrassi and her black adopted brother.

At the homecoming dance tonight, Adriana and the other main character girl whose name I forgot had a heated discussion in the middle of the dancefloor, mostly in whispers, while the music played quietly in the background. I have serious suspension of belief issues during any teen dance scene, mostly because I can never hear people at a bar or a danceflor and I'm always too aware that those extras bumping-and-grinding in the background are so clearly dancing to nothing but dialogue, and who the fuck whispers at a dance? Which reminds me of that great scene from Naked Gun where the bad guy had Priscilla Presley hostage and is shooting at Frank Drebin while making demands, and Drebin's response is "I can't hear you over the shooting!"

Friday, December 5, 2008

I went to a movie theatre tonight.

It was called "Nobel Son," and the main character looked a lot like my junior year English teacher, Mr. Goldstein. Mr. Goldstein's dad won the Nobel Prize so then this other dude kidnapped Mr. Goldstein. And then oh yeah Mr. Goldstein is a PhD student studying cannibalism. In the end of the movie he is on a beach and he is a millionaire. He walks by some babes and the movie's monologue, which he narrates, says "I just finished my thesis" and then he nods at some babes, one of whom is wearing a camo thong. This movie also features Bill Pullman and I can't look at Bill Pullman without thinking of Independence Day, so when he starts talking seductively to the female protagonist (i.e., Mr. Goldstein's mom) about how good he is at making scrambled eggs, I got this monologue conflated with "Today is your independence day" and I started laughing out loud, thus deflating the romantic tension for everyone else in the theatre.

Monday, December 1, 2008

My childhood pizzeria has a website

Check the vintage internet gifs

I found this while trying to scope an e-mail address. I then found one and decided to spend half an hour baring my soul in the form a heartfelt pizza testimonial only to have that shit bounce back at me.

So here you go. The pizza diaries:




Hi.

So I could write an e-mail about how I've been eating your guys' food since I was 2 or I could write about how I remember Adam Kopala's birthday party and throwing shaken soda cans we bought from Thrift Drug for 25 cents a six-pack at eachother in the parking lot behind your place and thinking it was so nice that guys didn't get pissed at us, or how my friends and I sat in the same seat in Scotto's (where the ATM is now) everyday after school, until Scotto's closed, and on the last day of Scotto's we stayed from afterschool until the place closed for good around 10 and you guys fed us free pizza and cheesesteaks and even were nice enough to not disassemble our table until we left. I could write about how loud it was in Coppola before you installed soundproofing tiles or I could write about going to Coppola on my 17th birthday and letting down all my younger friends by telling them I didn't have my license yet, or how when we got open lunch senior year it only meant that I ate at your place twice a day rather than once, or how after graduation my best friend Dana and I walked to your place in our graduation robes and ordered cheeseteaks.

But this is not an e-mail for all that.

I am writing to tell you this story:

Last Friday my housemates and I weren't in the mood for Thanksgiving leftovers so we ordered pizza. We ordered from Sam's Pizza and they deliver and we paid 25 dollars for a large spinach, garlic, and tomato pie. The cheese tasted like salted cottage cheese and the tomato sauce tasted like ketchup on which someone had farted. I swear there was no more than single clove's worth of garlic spread over the whole large pie. The crust was dense and too doughy. And I am not kidding when I tell you that Sam Pizza is hands down the best pizza in Iowa City, Iowa, which is where I currently reside. It's not terrible pizza (and trust me there is plenty of opportunity to taste terrible pizza in Iowa) but, you see, I have high standards.

I'll let you take a guess why.

I swear I've read dozens of "BEST PIZZA PLACES IN NYC!!!" articles where writers who probably grew up in Oklahoma start flapping their lips about NYC pizza. And every time someone writes a gushing review of some "classic New York Pizza joint," I think "hey I've eaten at that place, and Coppola's is just as good, if not better."

So just think how you guys compare to Iowa.

Sincerely,
Steve Sherman

I GOTTA SERVE A SUBPOENA FOR CHILD SUPPORT HA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0M5vFwaJoBo

That's you with that shot calling clique ha.

I chopped off a slice of my index finger this Thanksgiving. I had nothing to do but walk around town and pretend I was the survivor of a nuclear siege. There was an East African dude who asked me if any place was open and I thought about the spirit of the holiday and then I remembered that there were no East Africans at the first Thanksgiving so I told him that the Bread Garden was open and that they were having a buffet. What's more American than a buffet and an empty store packed with non-unionized workers on a holiday?

I am thankful for fake fingernails and Thomas Hardy Night at the local sports bar.