My grandmother (on my father's side) is approaching 100, will probably live to 120, and no one really likes her. That is expected when you act like a cold bitch to the kids you raise; my father never heard "I love you" from her ever or got a hug or anything resembling warmth and it's no surprise that he (and most of his siblings) left home before the age of 17. On the opposite end of the Mutha scale, my aunt (on my mother's side) is an incredibly nice and loving person, probably never went without telling her kids how much she loved them or giving them a hug, and she's in her 60's, so it makes perfect sense in a God's-A-Mean-Asshole-With-A-Fucked-Up-Sense-Of-Humor sort of way that she now has terminal cancer.
I went to see her and came out admiring her fearlessness about dying; a religious woman, she believes in an afterlife, so I guess she has faith in being taken care of on the other side. Me, I'm not so sure what happens but I certainly hope there's somewhere we go to after we die. Watching her children at her side, taking care of her, it made me think of the difference between how quick and easy it was for my cousins to take care of their mother whereas my dad and his siblings are basically playing hot potato with their mother, trying to find a place for her to stay (she got kicked out of a nursing home for hitting someone there) and I wonder if this reflects on how they were raised. My cousins had a sitcom mom and my dad and his sibs had Livia Soprano.
Thoughts started flooding my head (for a change); thinking not just about my aunt's mortality, but my own parents' as well. It didn't faze me too much because it's always been something I've been -- for lack of a better word -- *prepared* for. I know that day will come, unless God decides to have another one of his pranks and decides to have me die before them (he's a vindictive fuck who hasn't gotten over the ownage his son received) but while I'm prepared for the day they shuffle off this mortal coil, I'm not prepared for the process of watching them die. But then again, who IS ready for that shit? Who is ready to watch someone they love slowly die? Aside from those who are preparing to kill them slowly, of course. But I'm pretty sure the rest of us want it to be quick for them, painless, but chances are when the time comes for our parents to hop the Death Train, they're gonna end up taking the scenic route.
Anyway, the day that happens is the day that happens and I guess the
best you can do is always let them know how you feel. I don't regret
always telling my parents (and my sister's family) whenever I see them that I love them, and I
won't regret it. I am such a fag. You wanna hear something pathetic on top of the sadness pile I've just plopped down on you? I actually cried while writing this, somewhere around the second paragraph. Took a break and then continued. It's not the first time I've cried while writing these ramblings, usually I cry while writing these ramblings because I know how badly written they are and how they're ultimately a waste of everyone's time. These are the jokes, folks. OK, fine, here's an actual joke, then:
It's a guy's first day in prison and he's crying. His cellmate has had enough of it and turns to him and says "Buddy, relax. Enough of that. Prison's not so bad. For instance, do you like movies?"
New fish is like "Yeah, I love movies."
"Every Monday, they show us first-run movies on the big screen." says the Lifer.
"That's great!" responds the new fish.
Lifer continues. "Do you like baseball?"
"Yeah, I love baseball." says new fish.
"Every Tuesday, we arrange a baseball game" says the Lifer.
"That's terrific!" says the new fish.
Lifer continues. "Do you like Italian food?"
"Yeah, I love Italian food." says the new fish.
"Every Wednesday, in the cafeteria, it's all Italian food." says the Lifer.
"Wow" the new fish says with a smile.
Lifer continues. "Let me ask you one more thing, are you a homosexual?"
"No way!" the new fish responds.
Lifer shakes his head. "Oh, you're not gonna like Thursday."
I can't take credit for that one.
After I left, I didn't feel like going home, I knew my mind would continue to be occupied by these nonstop thoughts and I wanted at least a couple hours of sensory distraction. So I stopped by a dispensary and bought some medicated cookies and then I went to my neighborhood theater and I asked the girl behind the counter what was the next IMAX or 3D showing of whatever, and she said there was a RealD presentation of Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole that started 5 minutes ago and I was like "Yeah sure, whatever". How's that for a goddamn segue? I should win a fuckin' award for that segue. Oh yeah, the guy who owns Segway is dead now. It happened fast, his death. Lucky son-of-a-bitch.
So in case you didn't know that Zack Snyder directed it, he lets you know by having the opening shot be one of those regular-motion-now-super-slow-motion-back-to-regular-motion deals while a feather comes off a flying owl. Some mouse is chilling out on a branch, then the owl swoops in and clutches the motherfucker. That owl is the mother to some English-accented motherfucker, who with his older asshole brother ends up falling off a tree and then they get swooped away by a couple other asshole birds and taken to Asshole Bird Island where the Helen Mirren bird runs shit by mind-wiping kidnapped birds (with the help of the moon) and turning them into either soldiers or slaves in the mission to rule the world or something.
The older brother ends up doing the soldier thing and our lead owl ends up escaping with some elf owl and they end up hooking up with the Good birds and train for battle while some laaaaaame-ass Disney Channel style song plays over them. I guess because the band/singer calls themselves/himself "Owl City" that got him the job. They didn't think to hear the music, the producers probably just said "Hey, with a name like Owl City, that's gonna blow like dynamite and sell like hotcakes!" or something. Somewhere along the way, the cookies took hold and I don't remember much else aside from creepy 3D owls looking at me and the use of that "Seraphim" song by Dead Can Dance that was used in The Mist, proving once again that Zack Snyder is like the Quentin Tarantino of taking songs/music tracks from other movies and using them in his own movies. He used Johnny Cash's "The Man Comes Around" on his Dawn of the Dead remake a year after William Friedkin used it in The Hunted, he used a Philip Glass track from that Godfrey Reggio flick called Bunchoffastmotionslowmotionimagesqatsi for Watchmen, and he used one of those This Is Sparta songs that you see all over YouTube, took out the music, and had Gerard Butler lipsync over the vocal for 300.
I guess it was an OK movie, I was way past being able to make sense of it (or anything else for that matter), having purposely taken enough pot cookie to ensure that I might possibly be the first guy to die from it (to steal a line from a comedian whose name I can't remember), and even then I would occasionally have flashes of visiting my aunt earlier that afternoon. Also, I was listening to the little girl a couple rows back who kept talking out loud to her family, only taking breaks from disrupting the movie with her mouth so she could then disrupt the movie by walking around the other rows and hopping over seats. It was so awesome to be completely fucking insanely baked at the time, because otherwise I would've been livid and swinging Little Miss Girl by her ankles, playing xylophone with the handrails in the aisles by using her head. Instead, I was absolutely fine with it. I even went to sit at the very back of the theater during the movie, so I can observe this considerate kid (oxymoron) and the movie at the same time. It's like her mother (didn't see a male in the group, so I figure it was all sisters and cousins and aunts with her) was just so tired from raising her excess number of kids that were most likely never planned (but hey, no plans are needed when you use the never-fail method of pulling out, right?) to do anything about it. I guess I shouldn't talk because I don't have kids, therefore, I have no right.
I imagined what would happen if I complained to her. I'd go up to the mother, tell her "That's it, lady. Take your kid home, because it's over. It's over!" and she'd get all pissed and stand up and point at me and go "Nothing is over! Nothing! You just don't turn it off! It wasn't my fault! He asked me to get off the pill, I didn't ask him! And I did what I had to do to not have the kid! But somebody wouldn't let me abort! And I come back to my neighborhood and I see all those maggots at Planned Parenthood, protesting me, spitting. Calling me attempted baby killer and all kinds
of vile crap! Who are they to protest me? Who are they? Unless they've
been me and been there and know what the hell they're yelling about!" and then I realized that I'm completely lost in this blog and I haven't even had a drink or a smoke. I'm completely sober now and it doesn't make a difference.
The comic relief was bullshit in this movie. Fucking lame. Two of the bad guy birds are comparing intimidating looks and I guess we're supposed to find that funny but instead we found it a miserable failure, and by we, I mean the royal We. It was pretty cool to watch the birds go into battle because it was some straight-up cockfighting (rather than dogfighting); they either have blades attached to their talons or they're actually carrying the fuckin' blades and swinging them around. Of course, it's still got to be kid-friendly, so there's no actual blood. I think one bird gets impaled, though. That was pretty awesome.
I looked up this whole Guardians of Ga'Hoole deal on Witwickypedia and there's a bunch of books in this series. All I could think about was how long it would take to make them all. Harry Potter's what, like 7 books and it took 10 years to make movies out of those. Ga'Hoole's got 16. But since the shit's animated, they don't have to worry about aging actors like with Harry Potter; The Simpsons has been on the air long enough to have kids and drop out of school and the actors supplying the voices sound the same. I'm sure the filmmakers expect to make more, considering that there are more books out there, not to mention the open ending. That's kinda risky, though, because I'm sure the guys who made The Golden Compass expected to make follow-up flicks as well.
For the record, I pronounce "Ga'Hoole" in a manner similar to what this guy does at the 0:33 mark of this video. Shit, I don't know what else to say other than Hooray for 3D or something.
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