Posted in General, Rants on July 23, 2011 by Michael Louis Calvillo
…is as crazy as anything I’ve ever encountered. They have deep fried butter! Butter?!!! They also fry Kool-Aide, frog’s legs (?), Oreoes, Klondike Bars, Avocados (doesn’t sound too bad), Twinkies, and a chicken sandwich with Krispy Kreme Doughnuts for bread (holy crap!). What have we become? Lines remained steady all night. Since I would eat such food only if it were part of some Fear Factor like show for cash and prizes – there’s no way I’m paying $6.75 for Kool-Aide saturated puffs of fried batter – I kept it simple with a nice corndog.
(Fair goers love, love , love chocolate covered bacon. Seriously.)
My fam and I just got back from the OC Fair where we walked the midway, checked out the infomercial quality sales displays, and watched an awesomely joyous pig race. Afterwards, fair staff handed out coupons for free bacon (seriously). Those little running pigs are the cutest things on four legs. How can anyone fathom eating such an adorable beast? (to which I confess – I eat pork here and there – Michelle NEVER eats it, which curbs my pork intake, but I’ll wolf it down when I can get it).
(The coolest thing ever.)
I must apologize, Loyal Reader, other than my little rant on fried fair food, I’ve got nothing else. I’ve lured you over here for a post as light and airy as the middle of a Churro. Sorry. But I promised I’d write a blog EVERY SINGLE DAY. So here I am. It’s already two minutes after midnight and as much as I’d like to spend a few hours blogging on some topic or another (finding pictures, linking links), I have to spend the next hour decompressing and then heading off to bed. The missus and I are trying to temper how late we stay up. School is starting soon and we have to start getting up early!!!
Okay then, good night. Oh, and if you haven’t had the chance yet, be sure to go back and read past blogs. Comment on them if you find them interesting and maybe we can discuss some stuff?
Posted in Rants, Television on July 18, 2011 by Michael Louis Calvillo
Okay, I admit it, I watch ABC’s trainwreck of a reality show, THE BACHELOR (same goes for its sister show, THE BACHELORETTE). Sure, I can play my Man-Card and evoke The Wife. I can shuck the blame. My wife watches THE BACHELOR, so by default I watch THE BACHELOR. And my wife (who’s awesome) would have no problem covering for me. Except that’s not really the truth. You see, my wife loves THE BACHELOR and THE BACHELORETTE – she even reads the gossip magazines for dirt on the contestants – but we, or I, don’t watch the show because she wants to watch it, we watch it because I got her started.
(Evil. Pure evil)
The first season of THE BACHELOR (2002) debuted a couple of years after we got married. If you read yesterday’s post (A Regal Afternoon), you learned that I’m the TV/movie/pop culture maven of the family. Most of the time (there are exceptions here and there) my wife defers to me when it comes to planning what we watch. She has her opinions (vetoing every so often), but since we share similar tastes, she trusts me when it comes to selecting our entertainment. So it went with THE BACHELOR.
We didn’t watch the first or second season. Working and finishing school kept us pretty busy. I’d program the VCR with our staples (MTV’s THE REAL WORLD, Comedy Central’s short lived sketch show THE UPRIGHT CITIZEN’S BRIGADE) and leave it at that. But bits and pieces of THE BACHELOR began popping up on the late night news and invading the cultural zeitgeist. ABC had themselves a hit, and being the pop culture freak that I am, I couldn’t stand not knowing what the hell was going on. By season three I was way too intrigued to pass it up. Michelle was a little leery, but she got hooked pretty quickly. I don’t think we’ve missed a season since. Our daughter even jumped in a few years ago.
I’m not proud, Loyal Reader. In my heart of hearts I loathe the show. It’s evil by design. The first few weeks are too crowded to figure out who’s who, but you hang in to see who makes the cut. Mid-season drags some. The fantasy dates and hometown visits reinvigorate things because you actually start to care about the players, but then, in the end, someone has their heart ripped from their chest and stomped into oblivion. It’s horrible! But I can’t stop watching! I always figure I’ll let it go, yet when the new season starts up it’s impossible not to watch. Why? I began this blog rather defensively. My headline’s subtext screams, “Back off,” or, “Don’t judge me.” It comes off playful in a Real Men Eat Quiche sort of way, but you see, Loyal Reader, this isn’t a declaration of power, it’s not a man making a case for trash TV, it’s a cry for help.
Damn ABC and their insidious brainwashing tactics! What have I done to my family? The monkeys on our backs are fully enraged. Every Monday night they start pounding away… We can’t look away… It’s too late! It’s too late! THE BACHELOR has us!
Quick, watch this Upright Citizen’s Brigade clip before ABC gets its claws into you too!
As a film aficionado I’m the go-to-guy in my family for movie advice, or this actor’s name, or this actor’s filmography, or who starred in what with who, and on and on and on, and I’m happy to dispense the useless information that has somehow filled the nooks and crannies of my superbrain with the trivialist of celebrity trivia. Sometimes I’m proud of my encyclopedic ability to retain film fact (mostly horror stuff, but I’m goood across a variety of genres), other times, it’s kind of embarrassing. It’s a geeky quality for sure. I can satisfy curiosities, and it feels good to be of use and when Jeopardy has a pop culture category, I slay, but in the end, it’s an empty skill. When things mean the most, pop culture trivia usually means the very least. I’d probably do awesome against the SCREAM killer(s) should my life depend upon horror factoids and if VH1 brought back The World Series of Pop Culture and cast me, I’d bring home the big money (come on VH1, try me), but in a real world crisis, nobody cares that Fred Dekker directed 1986’s NIGHT OF THE CREEPS (awesome fun, BTW). In the end, year after year after year of reading movie magazines amounts to very little.
(Screw you, Ogre! Quick – Name me three Stuart Gordon films! Can’t do it, can ya, you big buffon?)
Fortunately, we are not locked in any particular crisis situation and my gift is still of use (sometimes). For instance, as of this afternoon, I can now tell you that THE KING’S SPEECH, last year’s Academy Award winning feature, was NOT the best film of the year. I spent a regal afternoon watching a kingly double feature (KING paired with an episode of ANTIQUES ROAD SHOW) with my wife and daughter and while I enjoyed my time with the family, I found the film to be…um…I guess a resounding meh sum it up.
Look, it’s a decent movie. It’s well directed (Tom Hooper), edited, and acted, but it doesn’t really do much more than plod along and tell its simple tale. Which is fine. More movies should simply do just that, but an Academy Award winner should do something, it should work on you in someway or another and by the time the credits rolled, well, I wasn’t moved. I didn’t feel anything. There’s no denying Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush are fine actors, but can you really argue that the film is better than TOY STORY 3 or BLACK SWAN or INCEPTION or THE FIGHTER? I think I chuckled once or twice. The art direction was nice. But TOY STORY 3 made me tear up! BLACK SWAN had me recoiling with disgust! INCEPTION tickled my brain and got it to marvel over time. And THE FIGHTER, well, it cracked me up with its wild over-acting (not an Academy Award winning quality, but the film is memorable and funny to boot). THE KING’S SPEECH kind of just lays there. It tells its story, touches on a bit of interesting history, doles out inspirational cheese, and that’s about it. It is one of the most unremarkable, well-made films I’ve ever sat through. I enjoyed it, but my brain is already making space for stuff that’ll stick whereas THE KING’S SPEECH is stuttering for a foothold. Ask me next year and I’ll be able to list some nerdy facts about the film’s production, (Hooper also directed the HBO mini-series JOHN ADAMS, or, though Hooper is two years older than me, he directs like an old man) but as a story, as a compelling narrative, it’s about as affecting and weighty as Kevin James’ ZOOKEEPER (which I actually liked more).
(Note: There’s more of a connection between these two movies than you might imagine. Both films are ultimately about friendship and confidence. They follow very different paths, but theme-wise, they are basically trying to say the same thing. Though, that I’d rather watch poo jokes and Kevin James’ pratfalls is purely personal preference)
Anyway, if you happened to fall in love with THE KING’S SPEECH during its award-winning run, no offense, we can still get along, we just like different sorts of art. One thing we can probably all agree upon is that THE ANTIQUES ROAD SHOW is the best thing on TV. Am I wrong? Am I wrong? Come on! Don’t roll your eyes. The Roadshow rocks like nothing else! Talk about drama. The appraisal! The nervous chatter! The big reveal!
A woman on this evening’s particular episode had a beautiful diamond necklace that turned out to be worth $250,000! Another lady had a chintzy painting she paid $500 bucks for twenty years back. Turns out, the well-preserved watercolor was worth $30,000 at auction! I don’t know why this show thrills me so, but it seems to work on my wife and kid as well, so it’s not just one of my weirdo quirks (of which there are many). If you’re not watching, tune in to PBS and check it out. Play guessing games. Is the old, dinged up chest of drawers worth anything? Are those little, ugly, porcelin figurines junk or treasure? Even more exciting – is the item’s owner gonna sell or keep a particularly pricey heirloom in the family? It’s an easy call when we’re talking a thrift store painting brought on a whim for fifty bucks. Why not auction it off for thousands? But, what if you owned a brooch, or taurine, or a dress or something that has been passed down from generation to generation? What if it’s worth thousands? Do you sell out and go for the cash, or respect familial obligation and hang on to it? The Roadshow never tells, but then, that’s part of the fun.
Check out this 1,000,000 appraisal. Oh yeah, she’s selling…
Posted in Music, Rants, Raves on July 13, 2011 by Michael Louis Calvillo
I love me some music. I try to play it (not too well). I raptly listen to it (not too loud). And I collect it (not too discerningly). Used to be that I’d hit the record stores once a week. I’d comb the used racks, seeking out gems that I read about in SPIN or NME or ROLLING STONE. Once I got out of Victorville, Ca (the quintessential dead-end hometown – no offense Victorvillians), I found awesome used record stores in mostly every town I settled down in.
While living in the High Desert, I’d have to scrounge enough gas money to travel 40 miles or so to Rhino Records near the Claremont colleges or The Mad Platter in Riverside, Ca (R.I.P). In Reno, NV (where I spent three aimless years), I shopped at Recycled Records, a great little shop that sported a large selection of indie discs. If I wanted an obscure import from a fairly obscure band, say a Flesh for Lulu import from an early 80s European concert date, damned if RR didn’t stock it. After getting married, I moved to Northern California and found Used Disc Nirvana at Rasputin Records (Berkley and Concord, Ca) and Ameoba Records (San Francisco, Ca). Then I “grew up” (real homelife and a real job and real responsibility) and the whole MP3 explosion exploded and my weekly trips to the used bins ceased. Now, when I want some fresh jams, I search iTunes (I refuse to provide a link for the easiest entity to find on all of the Internet). It’s effective, I get my music, but not nearly as fun. Oh well. This technology thing is a double edged sword is it not?
Michelle and I tried to recapture a bit of that heady glory this afternoon. We waltzed into the local Best Buy (no indie record stores ’round here) and spent fifty bucks on some new music. We do this a couple times a year. It’s not nearly as cool as when we used to take weekly trips to the seemingly endless used racks (flipping through title after title in search of something…invigorating…and cheap). Still, browsing Best Buy’s moderate CD stock satisfies those old cravings and keeps us rocking along. We picked up, ARCADE FIRE – FUNERAL, MY MORNING JACKET – CIRCUITAL, and BAD MEETS EVIL (Eminem and Royce da 5’9″) – HELL: THE SEQUEL. I can’t really comment as of yet – we just loaded up the disc changer and the music has yet to settle in, but when I feel it, I ‘ll let y’all know.
Okay, one last gasp = While waiting in the car (Michelle was off doing errands), I heard Head On by THE JESUS & MARY CHAIN on the radio (San Diego’s 91X) and was reminded how AUTOMATIC, their 1989 rocker, is one of my favorite albums of all time. I played the CD so much it up and shattered a few years back. I have the album on MP3, but haven’t listened to it in a while. If you’re jonesing for some good music and want something INCREDIBLE give them a listen…
Okay then, how about some comments? Maybe your latest music recommendation? How about your latest musical let down (damn you, Adele!)?
Michael Louis Calvillo Must Be Destroyed 