Ummm . . . if you haven't had a chance to check out DCPD Bangerz, it is pretty much the best album of all time.
The backstory is that the DeKalb County Police website used to have these awesome different themed lo-fi crunk instrumental beats for each section of the website. So this dude took all the beats from the site and made an entire concept album from them. The real genius of it comes in how he writes lyrics based on the police website info. To me the tightest joint of all is "Meet The Chief."
People in Atlanta always want to whine about how we are second best at stuff. But I disagree. In my experience, Atlanta is a top tier town for chilling w crazy folk. You really don't have to do much digging to run into a guy who's screaming at his own hand while gesturing to some points of interest on an unseen wall map.
By way of example, I offer this piece of improvised furniture left by the two 50-year-old hermit dudes who used to live down the street from me, before promptly disappearing one day. There are plenty of second and third hand stories to share about these gentlepersons, but I think their own words (scrawled in blood-like red sharpie on a homemade bench) really paints the picture best:
Darryl Clarence Eating Food Happy Meals A Lot of Tickle Yes Yes Yes Yes Happy People Private Shopping List Remember to Have Sex Naked Penis Big Dick
I had been puzzling for an irritatingly long time about a made-for-t.v. movie I saw a bunch of times as a kid but couldn’t remember the name of. The thing is, I remember EVERYTHING, so when a face or memory pops up in my mind and I can’t place it, I go a little nuts. I’m usually able to solve these quandaries with a good ‘ole search on the interweb. That’s where I found the title of a book I remembered reading in my childhood but all I could recall about it for years was that the story involved a creature called “the wicked Oni” who lived under the earth and had one eye and that it was incredibly creepy. (The book is called, “The Funny Little Woman”, by the way. It’s a Japanese folktale. Glad I put that one to rest!)
There were a few concrete elements I remembered from the t.v. show but most of it was the mood of it... the vaguely menacing and nightmarish quality. I remembered there being some sort of alternate universe that a kid goes to and realizes he can’t stay in. That’s about it. Then last week I had a breakthrough: one of the main characters was played by Sam Waterston. I thought I was on the right track until my various Google permutations for “Sam Waterston” 80s and t.v. yielded a bunch of unrelated garbage.
Until last night, that is, when I was bugging B with my various fruitless searches and finally came upon a filmography for Sam Waterston and scrolled down to the 80s part. The title I’d been searching for for years literally jumped out at me and I screamed it out: “The Boy Who Loved Trolls”! Lo and behold, there exists about 15 minutes of it on YouTube and goddamn, it’s exactly as I remember it: the weird synthesizer music, the narrator’s voice, the depressing mall montage, the condescending parents, the prepubescent boy and his inappropriate fixation on trolls (while at the same time admiring ladies lingerie?).
Take a look:
But what I didn’t remember (and wouldn’t have) were all the obvious drug references and the general bizarre spaciness of it all. (What’s up with all the rainbows?) B and I were watching it and remarking to each other, “These people were totally HIGH!” It was part of a series that ran on PBS in the 80s and 90s called “Wonderworks”. Back when I was a kid living with hippie parents out in the woods, our little t.v. only got one channel (unless it was windy) and it was PBS. At some point we got a VCR and it was a pretty big deal, but the great part is that we almost never rented VHS tapes... instead we would tape things off t.v. and watch them over and over when, say, PBS was running a pledge break. I remember taping various episodes of Wonderworks and basically memorizing them from start to finish. The trolls episode was one of them and obviously it’s never really left my consciousness.
With all that settled, I feel like I’ve reached a new chapter in my life. Next up: ordering the DVD from Amazon and totally tripping my balls off.
I was doing some work at a coffee shop in my neighborhood and some dude, who is clearly about to graduate from business school at Emory, assumed that everyone there wanted to hear his conversation. But it was worth it. No shit, this is what he said...
"My resume is FUCKING money! I mean, I killed it on my cover letter!"
Then he proceeded to read his cover letter to his friend over the phone. Trust me when I tell you his cover letter was far from "fucking money". Still, I just want to thank that chump for providing me with such sweet overheard conversation.
For the first time in six years, B and I spent the holidays with his family in Florida instead of with my family in the Midwest. The benefits of this are numerous, not the least of which is: Christmas Dinner at the Club. B groaned and dragged his feet, dreading the unpalatable meal we would undoubtedly have, rushed by the unexplainable impatience of the elderly. But not me. I enjoyed every minute of the experience.
The last time we dined chez the Crub, you see, was Easter of 2007. The tables were decorated with pastel napkins, there was an ice bunny sculpture and, get this: a full Dixieland band. I wanted so badly to get up and dance (no one else was) but was cautioned against it in the name of humiliating B’s parents. Poor B passed the meal in an exceedingly hung-over state, begrudgingly ingesting one tiny bite of food every 10 minutes or so.
The Christmas experience was only slightly less entertaining than the Easter Extravaganza, due to the distinct absence of live music. But yet there was the requisite ice sculpture, the guy carving meat and making corny jokes, and loads of old ladies wearing sparkly vests and men sporting their holiday ties. I unabashedly loaded my plate with shrimp and crab salad and drank a split of Korbel before moving on to the dessert table for apple crumble and vanilla ice cream. It was glorious.
As if we had languished over our buffet-style meal (we had not), the room was nearly empty by the time we left. I was still finishing my wine when B’s father announced he would pull the car around (meaning, he would hand his keys to the valet) so I barely had time to avail myself of the free tampons and mouthwash in the ladies’ room before darting out to the running car to be whisked back to... nothing really. Door-to-door I’d say we were gone from the house for an hour and a half.
Sure beats being stranded in the Chicago airport for 11 hours listening to inane cell phone conversations and watching our delayed departure inch later and later.
