Thursday, July 28, 2005

Aaron vs. Vertical Fashion

No matter how hard I tried to avoid it, there was no escaping the attack of flying models. Target (yes, that Target) sponsored a fashion show, one that would show off the elegance of affordable clothing from the highly "posh" department store. Of course, how better to display low costs than to shrug off expense (along, obviously, with common sense) and allow your models to walk down a vertical runway, suspended by high tension cables. Nothing spells publicity like the possibility of models freefalling to their death.

A brief aside must be made here: I apologize for the previous sentence in which I made light of models dying. Tom Welling (a former model who now plays the young Clark Kent on Smallville) has a stunt double who just fell off a water tower while shooting a new episode. He's in critical, which just goes to show that God loves irony, because he keeps injuring people who play Superman in any capacity. So of course, I'm expecting some models (who surely know less than a stunt director) to hurt themselves.

Back to the main thrust: so I call Jeanette to tell her the good news (and no, it's not that I've converted to Catholicism) and we wind up going to The Rink Bar. Because it's been raining for the last hour (not like either of us would know, she inside her environmentally controlled workspace, me inside McDonald's, enjoying the black triple diamond landscape of iceberg thighs [only %10 showing] and overzealous moms) the bar is pretty empty, which is nice because it gives the both of us a clear view of the ten story building behind us, down which models are caroming in what can only be called synchronized free-falling. We're talking all-out expense from Target too; there are spotlights and the "hits" of the '80s and '90s, so it must be legit. Not like I'd know though, I had other things to look at.

A final thought on vertical runway modeling: if you've ever thought that we look like ants down there, you look like ants up there too. Not only could I care less about what you were all wearing, but I couldn't actually see it. You may have sparked the next best thing since base jumping, and yet I feel I still have better things to do in my life than walk down the side of a building while essentially dancing the Macarena.

RANDOM PLUG:
The one in your wall. As in, the electrical socket. That's pretty random, isn't it?

boo-yeah to: Anybody quitting their job on Friday. Apparently that's a synchronized event now too, 'cause everybody and their mother seems to be doing it.

CURRENT "MUSIC" VIDEO
The 'Bu #8, by The Lonely Island

MY LIFE (an update):
Well, AIM is ambiguous, but we've known this for some time. Once again, I find myself communicating my deepest thoughts electronically; thankfully, I'm not being allowed to do that today. So sorry, that's all you get for now.

Wednesday, July 27, 2005

Aaron vs. Hard Drugs

So I'm reading the Post today (yes, I know) and the big story is all about how Osama bin Laden wanted to buy up a lot of cocaine from the Colombian cartels so that he could lace it with poison before distributing it to America. Am I a terrorist for agreeing that this would not be a terrible thing? In one fell swoop, we not only kill off the majority of drug users, but we highly discourage other potential addicts through the dosage of fear. In fact, I'm surprised that the Bush Administration hasn't attempted this type of reform yet, and then I remember that the majority of their constitutency are surely snorting lines of something up every night. I'm not a violent person, and I don't really want to kill off those who are currently caught in the web of Coke (the caffenated ones, maybe), but if he's got to attack one portion of our population, that wouldn't necessarily be the worst of times. As it turns out, the Colombians decided killing off their clientel would be decidedly bad for business and - in the most overlooked case of racism yet - rejected the millions offered by a black bearded Muslim in favor of the millions offered by baby-faced white Christians. I'm told Rev. Al Sharpton is on the case.

RANDOM PLUG:
Okay, so the new "Su Doku" puzzles that I was first introduced to in London and which have now become so popular in the Post (yes, again, I know!) are actually quite addictive. And I found that trying to solve today's [Difficult Puzzle #02] helped me concentrate better on getting out of bad poker hands. At least, that's the bit of superstition I'm choosing to believe in today. All I'm saying is, the fact that I can solve them makes me smarter than you. I mean... I prefer logic games. That is... oh, screw it. I do
cryptic crosswords for fun.

boo-yeah to: Lance Cpl. Aaron Riccio, who has exactly one reference through the Penninsula Clarion if you ever, you know, stalk me through Google. He's all he can be, which is precisely not me.

CURRENT MUSIC VIDEO:
If You Can't Say Love, by Visionaries

MY LIFE (an update):
I see skies of blue. Things are definately looking up, whether or not I get this job 12 hours from now. Either way, you'll hear about it, 'cause I'll have a story for you. In the meantime, please support me and my fellow writers by going to WriteFight, where you can read the hottest amateur fiction ever! Guess which one I am for extra points.

Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Aaron vs. Old Things



You should know, while you can still avoid ever reading my blog, that I have a distate for old things. When I was younger, an old woman once hit me with her cane for sitting in "her seat" on an MTA bus. Never mind that the other five seats in the front were all empty, never mind that I was sleeping, never mind that I was ten. I have never really forgiven that older people seem to expect a double standard of respect that they never earn or return; it's also tended to wash overboard into my general disdain for all things classic (with the exception, perhaps of music). Not that I don't mind the occasional museum exhibition, but let's remember one crucial detail. These things are kept under lock and key in a museum, where they can't ever hit anybody with a cane. The one exception is my tolerance for the older crowd I encounter at the local Bridge Club, and I'm sure that's just because I'm taking deep satisfaction in beating life masters, hence making all the time they've spent aging behind a deck of freshly shuffled cards worthless. Also, I need to give myself some leeway sixty years from now when I'm arguing against euthanasia.

Anyway, my case in point will be this week's
Bryant Park movie, Suspicion. Aside from being in a monotonous (and "suspicious") black-and-white and despite being directed by Alfred Hitchcock, this movie represents the worst of H-wood. Granted, this was filmed before his biggest hits, but the studio refused to let him make Cary Grant a murderer because they didn't think the public would believe him. I don't really need to draw parallels to today's society, so I'll put it simply. Hitchcock: age 41; murky executives: old. Ageism knows no bounds. Besides, those who do not understand the past are doomed to be forever frightened of it, and I will never understand an audience that finds a fat, middle-aged man making quacking sounds or the endearing use of the term "monkey face" appealing. (Perhaps this is why the word appalling is so similar.)


And now, a few staple items.

RANDOM METAPHOR (as extracted from IM):
Jessie: He was telling me that after they retire monkeys from the lab they're sending them to a retirement home off the coast of florida and they want to make it a tourist place.
Me: Yes, their bites are like Bertie's Every Flavor Beans. Each one transmits a unique and undefined virus.


RANDOM PLUG:
Jeanette is very funny; she needs to update her Blog more often. Here is where you help me coerce her into doing so by clicking mercilessly on her site, affectionately titled Bagles, Boobs and Beer.

boo-yeah to:
Kamel. I've only met you once, but you are awesome, man. I'm going to laminatate a plaque for you. I'm also told you could make a leper on prozac feel better, and I believe it.


CURRENT MUSIC VIDEO:
Feel Good Inc., by Gorillaz

MY LIFE (an update):
I have my first job interview
here. It doesn't matter so much if I get it or not, so much as I feel vindicated in my resume and cover letter skills. Plus, I'm working as a film critic here. To tie things together, I am proud to tell you that none of the artists I saw were particularly old. Further vindication for youth: go us!