so here’s something i really like about austin:
they took one thing i like a lot–movies–and they added ANOTHER thing i like a lot–beer.
that’s right. they have movie theaters that let you drink beer.
now that would be awesome enough, really, but there’s more to it. see, b. doesn’t like movies. or i should say, she doesn’t like just any movie. she likes good ones. arty ones. ones that make you laugh and cry. she has no patience for king kong, or spider man, inside man, or anything that everyone knows is going to be bad but will still be fun. (she does have a weak spot for really terrible movies, like the omen. go figure.)
so i have not been seeing a lot of movies lately, as hollywood only puts out one good move that i should see for every ten movies i want to see. seriously. by the time we left l.a., i was BEGGING someone to go see x-men with me.
but now when i mention that i want to see something that she assumes wil be well beneath her, i can go “there’s beer!” and her eyes light up. her head stops shaking and starts nodding. it’s pavlovian. like jingling keys in front of a puppy.
so i have gotten to see movies here in austin! woo! movies that i would normally never be able to drag her to see.
we saw superman as the first “beer movie.” we arrived during the previews, and grabbed two seats at the back. having never done this before, i had to elbow the guy next to us to ask how we order. obnoxious? yes. but necessary.
having established that the waiters do come around regularly, we ordered a couple of pitchers and buckled down to watch the show.
that’s two and a half hours long. TWO AND A HALF HOURS. did i mention the two pitchers of beer? i don’t think i have to tell you, i didn’t make it through the closing credits of THAT one. i was in too much pain.
good movie, though, overall. certainly could have done without the last half hour of “will superman die?” cause i know this is a reinvention of the man of steel and all, but come on–will he DIE? not a lot of dramatic tenson there.
kevin spacey me love. in everything. though they could be a bit more clever with the scheming. i don’t know how many more movies i can deal with kryptonite being the central twist.
also–machine gun to the eyeball? in slow mo? yes please! and thank you!
welcome back, brian singer. we missed you on x-men.
(p.s. kudos on those retor opening titles!)
and then i got to go see lady in the water. which was…fine.
i like m. night’s stuff, usually. (unbreakable is my favorite, though signs was nothing special.) this one was not so twist-y (if you haven’t seen robot chicken’s “a day in the life of m. night shyamalan,” you are missing something amazing.), but it was certainly as good as any other kid’s fairytale movie. really. i mean, have you ever gone back and watched neverending story? or flight of the navigator? hell, even e.t. doesn’t hold up when you’re older. (though princess bride does pull it off.)
so yeah, guys come out of everywhere to help the good guys, and yeah, unbelievable things happen and no one bats an eye. and there are a few leaps on faith, er, logic. but nothing i wouldn’t have totally gone along with when i was eleven.
and hey–when you throw beer into the mix, i’m about sixteen.
so sure, i didn’t love it. but i didn’t hate it either. i will be waiting for m. night’s next one to win me back over. but i will certianly be there.
most likely with a beer in my hand.
it’s a pivotal time in my life, and something must be said. my life is about to change irrevocably.
i’m not talking about my move to austin. or the fact that i’m about to start school again with a bunch of kids more than ten years younger than me. not talking about moving in with my girlfriend, or the pack of four dogs that i have all of a sudden. no, i’m talking about the ’stache.
yessir, the end of an era is nigh; there’s a giant caterpiller on my face, and it’s about to go bye-bye.
but first let me tell its story:
it all started a few months ago, with the gogol bordello show. eugene hutz, the singer/guitarist/frontman sports a very impressive handlebar, both ends waxed into a nice little curl. his russian accent and rockstar antics definitely made his ’stache
something special. and it was remarked, by the lovely and compelling b., that i should grow one of those.
now, at first, i thought it was a joke. “ha ha,” i replied. “yeah, i should. that would rule.” but the subject was not dropped. her birthday–still a few months away– was mentioned. it was presented as a favor or a gift to her. it became, much to my surprise, a very real request.
now, i am under no illusions. i know the ’stache is not “in” at this point, in any other sense than the ironic one. i know that a lot of this request came from the fact that mr. hutz clearly works out all the time, and plays shirtless most of the time, and does know how to rock, and so definitely could be considered “sexy” and “doable,” and that me looking like him could make my girlfriend very happy (though it has been remarked that if i ever asked her to change her look to approximate some chick i would like to fantasize about, i would probably get socked in the jaw).
but i have to admit, i was a little intrigued.
herewith the dry run:
for most of my life, i have not been able to grow facial hair. and then just a few years ago, i started being able to do just about anything with the hair on my face, and i wondered (a) if i could truly grow one, and (b), if i could truly rock it just right. (b. assured me i could.)
research came next. i found websites with the complete “how to.” i learned that it would take two to three months. i read about waxing it, and that it was best to “keep from chewing it” as it grew out. and that was it for me. no way was i going to grow hair out so long that it could go in my mouth. for three months? hell no. i couldn’t commit to not chewing on my hair for three months.
then a funny thing happened. i stopped shaving.
i let the goatee get crazy long, and then about a month in, i shaved it down to a cowboy (what some call a “walrus”) ’stache. just dropping down the corners of my mouth.
b. was pleased.
the experiment worked. i could rock this look, i saw. sure, a little “macho macho man” for the rest of the world, but as long as i didn’t wear leather, it was fine. worked very well with my cop shades, too. in florida, b.’s 14-year-old sister commented that she “couldn’t imagine” me without the ’stache. (that was weird.)
one of the great things was how quickly the ’stache could morph into something else. it could be ironic and fun, but with the addition of a hat of some kind (baseball, cowboy) suddenly the irony was gone, and i was an honest to goodness redneck. awesome.
two months in, and it was getting pretty out of control. down on my lip. getting dangerously close to food. it was time–to wax it.
’stache wax is not so easy to find these days, i will tell you. it’s not at rite aid. it’s not at ralph’s. there was online searching. there was an old-timey beauty shop in the jew-y old hollywood part of town. where it came with its own ’stache comb for only $3.99.
problem: it comes in colors. and the girl who worked there obviously didn’t know that. neither did i.
result:
(clear was purchased a few days later.)
we moved to austin on her birthday. i fancied that moving to texas with a big cowboy ’stache all waxed just so would definitely make a good impression on all the texans that would soon be our neighbors and peers. i bought a confederate flag head wrap to go with it.
unfortunately, we don’t really know anybody here, so if i made any impressions, i have yet to hear about them.
it was three months in now. her birthday had come and gone. we lived in texas a week. and i was starting to spend more time grooming the ’stache than anything else. so i knew i couldn’t take it much longer. i initiated phase two: the handlebar.
this involves even more wax. and even more grooming. cause now that it doesn’t droop down over the side, it must curl up towards the nose. for a guy who doesn’t own a comb, and only checks his hair when his girlfriend asks him to, this is hard to deal with.
and so the end of the era. but before it happens, let me just say a few things.
it’s flexible. a walrus ’stache can be village people, or cowboy, or cop, or hillbilly. a handlebar ’stache can make me a wily villain, twirling it (which i can’t help but do all the time anyway) over the fair maiden tied to the railroad tracks, or a ringmaster (must have top hat). i can be a muscle man (must have shaved dome and unitard) or an extra on deadwood (must have soul patch, which i did for a while). i like that.
it is not good for allergies. a runny nose is a bad thing, because the old “flavor saver” thing that works so well for food works for…other fluids as well. (not that i’m happy about all the flavor saving either…you should have seen me eating an ice cream. seriously, i don’t know how sam elliot does it.)
also not fun standing next to actual ’staches being worn unironically. i blend too much. this is happening more in texas than in l.a. (obviously.)
yesterday, i got my student i.d. picture taken. ’stache immortalized. i think the end is nigh.
it was a good run. but i think i will leave the moustache wax for those that really need it.
cause i’m no magnum p.i.
Filed under: random
from a creepy old dude with a scratchy voice on the bus:
“You know you got problems when the buzzards fly higher than the helicopters.”
i bought walkie talkies for the road. it would be a long drive, with us in two cars. there were two dogs in each car, but since they couldn’t talk, they were little company.
hence the walkie talkies.
early on, some ettiquette was established.
“when you’re going to say something,” b told me ten minutes in, “you have to first come on and just say ‘hey,’ cause i don’t have it up to my ear, and i will have to turn down the radio and put it to my ear to hear you. otherwise i will always have to go ‘what?’”
so whenever someone wanted to talk, we started with “hey.”
“well then,” i said, “when you’re done, you have to say something so that i know that you’re done, and i don’t just sit there holding it to my ear like an idiot while you return to your music or whatever.”
“what should i say?”
“i don’t know. like…’over and out,’ i guess. that might be fun.”
so we said “over and out” at the end of every conversation.
for about the first two hours.
“this ‘over and out’ thing is kind of boring, don’t you think?” said i. “we should say something more fun.”
“like what?”
“like, i don’t know, ‘manatee.’ or ‘jumbo shrimp.”
it was discussed. and it was decided.
we ended conversations with “hippo scrotum.”
which eventually became “hippo sack.”
which, over the static of twenty dollar-walkie talkies, eventually evolved into “popo zao.”
and that, my friends, is the best way to end any walkie-talkie conversation ever.
pass it on.
Filed under: news
so i’m here. in texas. where it’s hotter. (than hell.)
when people call me to ask how it’s going, i tell stories about buying shears and trimming shrubs, or how we found a great bedroom set on craig’s list. i ask questions about homeowner insurance and how much it costs ro have a new porch light put in.
i think i might be Boring Homeowner Guy to my friends, but it’s new and exciting to me. and personal. oh yeah, this time it’s extreeeeemely personal.
i keep thinking that there will be this moment where i go, “oh shit. i live in TEXAS now.” like, no return plane ticket. no rushing to the airport.
no turning back.
tomorrow i go register for classes. maybe that will do it.
Filed under: l.a.
it’s been a long time coming. though i have not talked much about it, i have been moving closer and closer to leaving this town of swimming pools and movie stars. headed back to the land of oil (black gold. texas tea.)
texas-bound, baby.
it seemed so far away. and then it was suddenlyherebreathingdownmyneck…and suddenly we still hadn’t left, and we still hadn’t left…
well, we’re leaving in the morning. next time you read something i wrote on this site, it will have probably have been written using the free wireless internet i hear is so abundant out there, out austin way.
i will miss you, l.a. your beautiful weather, the beach, the mountains, even though i barrely ever took advantage. i will miss you movie stars doing boring everyday shit all around me sometimes. i will miss you, movie crews, and shit-talkers about pretentious movie shit that makes me roll my eyes. i will miss you evangaline in your pink corvette, and girls who look like pamela anderson talking to guys that look like ron jeremy, standing around at bars posturing and looking to see who’s looking at you like you are those people.
i won’t miss you much, but i’ll miss you a little.
