hard living | Clayton Diggs

June 13, 2012

Prometheus, Charlize Theron’s Spacey Butt, and Blood Piñatas

(Editor’s note: clicking on links might lead to insanely amusing schlitz. Or just informative schlitz. Depends on the link)

You ever just sit around and think about aliens? I did recently, when I heard talk of the new Ridley Scott flic, Prometheus. Haven’t seen it yet, but hot damn! it looks like a wacky ride!

And I’m not just talking about Charlize Theron’s very fine derrière, which, despite Pulp Fiction’s Marcelus Wallace’s admonitions about asses to the contrary, has aged like a very fine wine, and not at all turned to vinegar (well, unless she hasn’t showered in a few days).

In case you’ve been living in an outer-space cave for the last few weeks, here’s what this month’s sort-of-Alien-prequel, $130 million dollar blockbuster is about:

Charlize Theron, wearing a grey, overly manly Star Trek getup, plays the badass Corporate Leader of the space-exploration vessel Prometheus, emotes The Matrix’s Morpheus in her smugness, and says crap to her crew like: “My job is to make sure you do yours.”

Wait, Char…what’s the job? Is it spanking your fine behind with a light-saber? Sign me up! Hot damn! I’m sorry. I’m not!

Anyway, between harsh quips from hottie Theron and mounting sexual tension between laconic android-thing Michael Fassbender (the creepiest looking pederast-candidate in Hollywood) and female crewmate Noomi Rapace (Sweden’s Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) – prompting audiences to wonder about android genital design – Prometheus makes its inevitable way toward some planet where the slimy origins of humanity are thought to be hanging out, shooting the slime, so to speak.

It’s no surprise, of course, when the expedition goes horribly, slimily wrong. The only thing no one can explain to me though is why, when the Prometheus exploratory crew sees a weird cobra like creature slithering out of a slimy tree trunk thing, one of them decides it’s time to try and make friends with the local slime-life.

Promethean 1: “Look, it’s an adorable cobra slime-thing. It’s so cute how it’s hissing at me and bobbing its head menacingly.”

Promethean 2: “Um. Dude, I don’t thing that’s a good idea.”

Promethean 1: “Coochie-coochie-coo…”

Alien slime spore cobra, lunging, attaching itself to Promethean 1’s face: “Stupid human douchebag, now I’m going to eat your nuts.”

Promethean 1: “Aaaaaaargh! My nuts! It burns.”

Promethean 2: “Um. Dude, party foul. Now humanity is doomed to destruction. Total party foul. Um.”

You’ll never guess what happens next! The so clever Prometheus crew brings the slime monsters on board their floating space-home to see if they’ll make decent roommates. General disagreement ensues about what constitutes good roomie behavior. The humans, you see, feel that it’s rude of the slime monsters to invade a human body cavity and then rupture it from the inside like a bloody piñata. The slime monsters, for their part, politely insist that turning humans into exploding blood bombs of screaming misery is perfectly okay, kind of akin to borrowing a glass and milk from the communal space-fridge now and then. We can only hope they all find a way to make friends by the end of the pic, you know? It’s all about good-roomie communication!

Despite the fact that we’ve seen this exact space/horror thing a thousand times before, I’ve read that Prometheus serves up on a slimy platter a few surprises, such as the scene in which a woman performs a damn C-section on herself inside some kind of plastic auto-surgery tube. The surgery wound is closed up with big-ass metal staples and the slime-monster baby is gripped tight in a vise. Aww…how cute is that?

“It’s not exactly a traditional fetus,” says humanoid robot-thing Michael Fassbender (he’s chosen “Lawrence of Arabia”’s Peter O’Toole as his role model – for real). That is so funny! LOL! ROTFLMVAO! (Roll On The Floor Laugh My Vomiting Ass OFF!)

So yeah, I can’t wait to see this adorable sendup of MTV’s the Real World. It’s like the Real World, but in outer space. It’s The Real World, Aliens and Their Dumb Human Food.

LOL! ROTFLMVAO!

Well, amigos, that’s it for this week. I’ll write another bit when I’ve seen Prometheus. Hmmm… why do I feel like I already have? Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to down a couple Mint Juleps with my new, friendly, slime-monster neighbors. That shouldn’t be problem, right? I mean, how bad can it be to become an exploding blood bomb of human misery? Hey, you’ve gotta make nice with the neighbors, you know!

“Give me your fiery know-how, you gorgeous Promethean slime-monster, you!”

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June 9, 2012

Mr. Rogers Gets Autotuned, Navy Snipers, and Gardens of the Mind

(Editor’s warning: clicking on links might lead you to some insanely funny shit. Or just to some informative shit. Depends on the link)

You ever just sit around and think about Mr. Rogers? I did recently when someone passed me a link to PBS Digital Studio’s autotuned video of Mr. Rogers singing “Garden of Your Mind.” Have you seen this thing? If not, put down whatever you’re doing and check it out. It’s an almost supernatural trip down memory lane, featuring some of Mr. Roger’s greatest moments, set to a tripped-out, synthed-up dance beat. I actually thought I must have downed a couple ‘ludes when I first saw it. Mr. Rogers, meet Bourbon and Xanax; Bourbon and Xanax, meet Mr. Rogers. Hot damn!

Remember Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood from when you were a damn rugrat? You probably remember him much the same way I do: walking into his little house, putting on his sneakers, slipping into a red cardigan, talking so slow and earnest you felt compelled to throw the bottle of moonshine your uncle Remus gave you for your tenth birthday at the TV, watching it shatter the screen, realizing you weren’t at all sober, then getting chased around the barnyard by your uncle who was getting chased around by your dad who was wielding a stick and screaming, “Remus, if you give my boy just one more bottle of ‘shine, so help me God I’m gonna hog-clip your nuts.” Man, it brings a tear to my eye.

Fred McFeely Rogers was born on March 20th, 1928, in Latrobe PA, just in time for the Great Depression and just a tad late to get his rocks off with some flapper hussy. Might account for why he never in all his years took a drink of liquor or had a smoke – don’t worry about it, Fred-o…nobody’s perfect.

Anyway, over the 75 years he was alive, he put on just about every kind of cardigan you can think of: he was an educator, a Presbyterian minister, a songwriter, and an author. Oh, and I forgot to mention, he was also a television host. He also testified before those fat assholes in Congress on behalf of funding for children’s television and public television in general (he actually pretty much saved both), was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom (the highest civilian honor available in the US, and pretty much equivalent to getting a cozy BJ from the Commander in Chief), a Peabody Award, and he was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame. Hot damn! Fuck you, Mr. Rogers! You’re making us all look bad! I’m sorry. I’m not! I am!

I’m sure you’ve heard all that before, but here’s some stuff about the most-eerily-calm-man-not-on-life-support you may not have known:

Koko the gorilla loved him so much that when he showed up at her place she’d hug him and take his shoes off. Rumor has it that after the cameras were off she may have taken off a lot more.
Even fucking criminals loved Mr. Rogers. Once, when his old Impala was stolen from the street near the TV station where he worked, he filed a police report that got picked up by every newspaper and radio show for a million miles. Less than two days later, his car popped up in the exact spot from where it had been taken, with a note taped to the dashboard, reading: “If we’d known it was yours, we never would have taken it. Also, we heard you were a tattooed navy sniper. If this is true, please don’t maim, torture, and kill us. We want to be your neighbors. Won’t you please, for the love of all that is holy, pretty-please be our neighbor?”
He composed all the songs on the show himself. All of them. He could play a mean jazz piano, whiskey or no whiskey. He wrote over 200 songs, including “Garden of Your Mind”, “Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood”, and “No, I’m Not Gay. I Just Speak Slowly.”
He was color-blind. He couldn’t see the color blue – so when his wife, Sara, would give him blue balls, she was able to convince him that it was just his imagination. He was also color-blind when it came to folks in general. When he was a kid, his family adopted a black foster child. I have no idea how to make fun of that.
His dear old momma hand-knit every one of the cardigans he wore on his how. I have no idea how to make fun of that.

Mr. Rogers gets autotuned in “Garden of Your Mind”

What I found especially cool and interesting about Fred, apart from all the stuff just mentioned, is that he hated TV. He plain old hated it, but thought it might make a hell of a good medium for educating children, if handled properly, so he got involved in TV to make sure the job got done right. And just about right was how the old boy did just about everything. He took home over 40 honorary degrees in his life. Congress grew a big fat chubby in the presence of his divine good-heartedness. Presidents fawned over him.

But I think, as do folks who knew him well, that it wasn’t the big stuff that meant the most to Fred Rogers. It was the intelligence, kindness, and awareness he was able to bring to the lives of his many, many fans across several generations, kids and adults alike. And I think he was right about the potential for TV, and video in general, to reach out across time and space and touch our hearts and minds. My own son, just a year and a half old, already loves watching old Fred, and, unlike with so much other hog-shit that’s on TV, I’ve got no problems with my boy doing so whenever he damn well pleases.

Fred McFeely Rogers died of stomach cancer in 2003, at the age of 75, in Pittsburgh, PA. But, thanks to the communicative medium to which he brought so much integrity, his presence is still very much with us through the immortal power of memory as brought to life on a screen of any size. In “Garden of Your Mind” he asks a potent question, and provides an even more forceful answer: “Did you ever grown anything, in the garden of your mind? …all you have to do is think.”

I’m thinking, Fred. I’m thinking you were a hell of a fine human being. You made the collective mind-garden of humankind a more fertile soil for the development of all that is good, kind, and intelligent in our race. You were one of a damn kind. You sure will be missed.

I raise my glass of milk to you, Sir. I truly do.

“I’m so fucking nice I make you look like an asshole. But I love you.”

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May 26, 2012

Ernest Hemingway, Hard Living, and Sharks

You ever sit just sit around and think about Ernest Hemingway? We’re coming up on the 51st anniversary of Hemingway’s death, and it got me thinking. Isn’t it kind of weird that we remember him on the day he died? I mean, remember how he died? He grabbed a shotgun and shot himself in the face, decades before Kurt Cobain thought of it. You know what else? His wife was in the house and she was the one who found him.

That must have sucked it.

You see, for months and months, maybe even years, old Ernie was convinced that the Feds were tapping his phone, bugging his house, and basically driving him nuts, and nobody believed him. They just thought all the years of scotch and sodas were taking their toll. Eventually, he couldn’t take it; not the feeling of being hunted like an animal, and probably not the feeling of everyone thinking he was batshit. He actually tried to off himself several times before he bought the farm. He also spent time in a mental institution. And you know the worst of it? Turns out the Feds were tapping his phone, bugging his house, and driving him nuts. The fuckers!

See, that’ s not really how I want to remember Hemingway, as an old guy, kind of fat, full of regrets, telling anyone who would listen that the government was trying to get him. I grew up reading his stuff. I love The Sun Also Rises. Those people in the book are screwed up, big time, but I’d still like to hang out with them, have some wine, some more wine, more wine, fall down, see a bullfight, get in a fight, and go fishing. Hell, you substitute bourbon for wine, that pretty much describes my youth. Oh, and Brett Ashley? Apart from having a dude’s first name for a last name, hottest woman in literature.

Thanks, Papa Hemingway!

I like to remember all the times Hemingway probably should have done himself in (accidentally) but made it through. I once read this book about him and there was a rundown of all the accidents he suffered during his life. It was like two damn pages long, and included: two plane crashes, two car accidents, bringing a skylight down on his head by mistaking its rope for the toilet chain, breaking his foot kicking a door in anger, and (my favorite) shooting himself in the leg while trying to gaff a shark. (If you want the full list, check out the book Intellectuals, by Paul Johnson.) Hell in ‘tarnation, that’s my kind of boy. You think he was drinking a lot to have that much bad luck? He was. He was putting down 17 scotch and sodas a day and going to bed with a bottle of champagne (he often wasn’t going to bed alone, so you’ve got to wonder about what else that champagne bottle might have been for). Anyway, point is, for years and years the son of bitch did a bunch of stuff that by all rights should have ended in a funeral, but didn’t. He was this tough bastard who drank and hunted and boxed and fucked.

So that’s how I like to remember him. I know, in the end his fucked-up, self-destructive side took over, but why dwell on the last chapter of his life? Look, we’re all going to end up six feet under eventually, so let’s remember him like he was in his glory days. The hell with the day he killed himself. I’d rather think of old Hem on the day he shot himself in the leg trying to gaff a shark and then had a drink. I think that’s more who he was.

So, here’s to you, Ernie. You weren’t a perfect human being, but you sure were cool.

Thinking of Hemingway makes me thirsty. Want another great way to remember Hemingway? I once heard that he’s the guy responsible for making daiquiris popular in the States. Don’t know if it’s totally true, but here’s a good daiquiri recipe just in case:

Hemingway’s Daiquiri:

A fat shot of white rum
Juice of 1 lime
1 tsp maraschino juice
A little bit of grapefruit juice
Some sugar
Ice
A gaffing hook
A shark
A gun

Stick all the very fine, good, clean, bright shit into a shaker with ice and shake until your hands sting. Serve in a highball on the rocks. Chase with some rum or bourbon. Then gaff the shark and shoot yourself in the leg. Avoid medical treatment because you’re a tough bastard. Have another daiquiri and some more rum. Cheers, friends!