Wednesday, May 08, 2013

The one where I end my silence with my own quote

Sometimes you need to step away from yourself to gain a different perspective about who you are and other times you just stop writing on your blog because you're pretty sure you're not even reading them anymore. I am not going to say why I stopped because I didn't even read the implication I just made. Enough said, I'm shattering my silence. Today I received a message from a gentleman who is friends with a cousin of mine. I do not know the gentleman but he felt the need to tell me he lost ten pounds. Feeling fairly certain that this poor fellow was simply a proxy for some internet predator hoping to spread the internet equivalent of scabies, I responded thusly. I hope you enjoy!!

"Oh my gosh Juan!! I am so proud of you. I always said you would be much happier if you lost 10 pounds. You are going to move from the Willmer Valderrama category of handsomeness into the Douglas Fairbanks category of handsomeness. Seriously, congrats!! You and Ezekiel Adebayo, a Nigerian that emailed me today to inform me that he found out he was a prince, are having the best day. I wish I could visit your site but I can't. It's a long, intensely private story I've never shared. But for some reason I feel comfortable sharing it with you in this private space known as Facebook because you seem like a good egg. As a child I was diagnosed with edema. It is more commonly known as dropsy. This disease caused me grief as I was subjected to ridicule by my classmates and left with calves shaped like butternut squashes. My classmates called me "Crops tops drops" as they karate chopped my legs. I don't know why but I was wearing a crop top as well. To this day I haven't been able to use eye drops, eat gum drops, or let the beat drop. If I hear Skrillex I'm in tears for at least 24 hours. Often times I am required to be hospitalized due to potential dehydration. In fact just to write the word of my disease I needed to speak with a mental health professional for an hour. In fact, I had my meemaw type it for me. My fingers simply couldn't constructed the word. Anyways, I am so happy for you!! I wish you so much success in the future. You are an inspiration and a gentleman."

Let the great experiment begin!!

Friday, February 25, 2011

Oscar Watch

So what does $13.00 and 24 hours get you? Lots of things I imagine. Even more, if you live in the "developing world." However, for me, it was the opportunity to watch the unseen films nominated for Oscars this year. This would have been easier but, the Academy decided that they would bestow this honor on 10 films once again. Don't they understand, a young man can only deceive his friends and family into seeing so many of these films. To be honest, its because the movies have a restricted rating (Its hard being moral-less amongst the moral-ful).
The only film on the best picture list I haven't seen is 127 hours. I had the chance to see this film but chose to watch Blue Valentine instead. This experience was capped off by the fact that I was the only viewer in a theater for 200. It is however, the perfect way to view that film. Walking out from Blue Valentine I felt so bad for you married and committed people. Single life is the way to go because I sure as hell don't want to end up wearing those hideous glasses committed people like Ryan Gossling had to in that movie.
I don't really know how people decide what the best film of a year is. I would think it difficult because each film is intended to affect its viewer in a different way. So I have decided to make a list of least to greatest affect a film nominated this year had on me. Here is my list:

The Kids are Alright
The Fighter
True Grit
The King's Speech
Black Swan
Toy Story 3
Inception
The Social Network
Winter's Bone

127 hours-N/A

Now I am able to admit that this list is arbitrary. The movie I think should win best picture is the Kids are Alright. I found all the acting performances to be moving. Annette Benning as always truly shined. I realize that the King's Speech will most likely win and it was a great movie too. I probably ranked it a little lower because I felt like it didn't treat the final speech with the full weight it deserved. For heaven sakes Colin Firth is declaring war and everyone is declaring the King a success rather than treating the moment with the somberness it probably deserves. Social Network was good but it felt sanitized of emotion. The rest were all pretty good just didn't have the kind of catharsis the Kids are Alright had for me.
In the other categories I think best director should go to either Daren Aronofsky or The Coen Brothers. Both films had great vision. Best Actress I think its obvious I would want Annette Benning to win however all actresses in this category are great (I haven't seen Rabbit Hole so sorry Nichole). Natalie Portman will most likely win so it is a moot point. Best Actor is tough because I felt like Colin Firth should have won last year and Jeff Bridges should have won this year. What Jeff Bridges did was take an already iconic character and showed what it was like done well (sorry to those that like John Wayne). Colin Firth was good in The King's Speech but so much more understated, and moving in A Single Man. So Colin will win but in my mind it will be for A Single Man and vice-versa for Jeff Bridges. In supporting actress I have no preference. I liked Amy Adams a lot but also found Helena Bonham Carter to be quite good. Have yet to see the Animal Kingdom so I can't speak for Jacki Weaver but my heart belongs to Hallie Steinfeld. For a jewish girl to play precocious, tomboy, southerner so well I have to hope she wins it even if her big scene is with obviously CGI-ed snakes. Lastly, I really hope that John Hawkes, Christian Bale, or Geoffrey Rush win best supporting actor. It's a toss up. Yet, I have to wonder why Geoffrey Rush is in this category. His part seemed to be a co-leading role but I can understand the politics of it, not wanting to compete against Colin Firth. I like most people want not to reward Christian Bale seeing as how he is a complete Douche. However, what he did in the Fighter was fantastic, suddenly, and haltingly moving. And I found John Hawkes to be so compelling in Winter Bone. I would watch him endlessly. Welp, these are my thoughts, take them for what they are, the musings of an amateur film enthusiast. Here's hoping the Oscars don't suck.

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Movies FYE won't buy II

2 Days in Paris
About a Boy
Away From Her
Cabaret
Factotum
Fur
Heckler
l'enfant
Little Miss Sunshine
Michel Gondry Music Video Collection
Milk
Munich
Music and Lyrics
My Kid Could Paint That
Notes on a Scandal
Quinceanera
Rocket Science
Secret Agent Club
Smart People
Snakes on a Plane
Syriana
The 11th Hour
The Edukators
The Evil Dead
The Little Shop of horrors
The Lives of Others
The Station Agent
There Will Be Blood
Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story
Water
What Just Happened
Year of the Dog

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Movies FYE won't buy

A Mighty Wind
A Prairie Home Companion
A River Runs Through It
Art School Confidential Battle in Seattle
Born into Brothels
Bottle Rocket
Breakfast on Pluto
Bubble Chisolm ‘72
Easy Virtue
For Your Consideration
Good Night, and Good Luck
Hollywood Land
Home for the Holidays
Joshua
Lions for Lambs
Lovely and Amazing
Me and You and Everyone We Know
Murderball
Pieces of April
Pretty Persuasion
Punch-Drunk Love
RedBelt
Saturday Night Live the Best of 06/07
Savages
Spellbound
Strangers with Candy
Talk to Me
The Boys of Baraka
The Devil Wears Prada
The Dying Gaul
The Jolly Boys Last Stand
The Painted Veil
The TV Set
Tracey Ullman Live and Exposed
TransAmerica
Vera Drake
W.
Welcome to Collinwood
What the Bleep do We Know

Sunday, October 25, 2009

MEme

Hey everyone out there who still finds it to this digital neck of the woods. It is dark, scary, but often worth the fear inducing trips. I haven't blogged regularly for sometime. This is due to a cyclical brain pattern that basically revolved around the theme of hatred for self-centered rhetoric. I began to think that so many people are interested in only producing there are little people left to consume. I guess this super-saturation of digital voyeurism is an economic principle. And as more people put out printed ego-massage less people will have time to view them so make yours good so others will want to read. That is all.

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Baby pedals


This is a story I wrote for my storytelling class and I thought it might be fun to share with those who care.

Baby Pedals
by
Jeff Denison

This story begins like many stories, with a dare. This dare came from a certain Kenneth C. Denison, AKA destroyer of my universe, AKA hater of everything good, AKA my brother. Typical of brothers, we had a Whitney/Bobby thing going on. That is to say he was my enabler. In the summer of (Radio Edit) I had just turned six and for my birthday I received a brand new, dark blue, without training wheels bike. I loved that bike, it was like a transformative rite, moving me from babyhood to boyhood. I spent weeks with my mom and dad at my side trying to ride carefully, and not fall. Also trying to avoid the dreaded slime pond of Swazey Circle. This pond was lined with a mold previously unknown to man, I was sure. Because no matter what the temperature was, there was always a pond with that mold on Swazey Cirlce. Mold so powerful it was capable of making even grown men fall to their now drenched knees and then openly weep.
The dare previously alluded to was one that took me from my six-year old, six-block world to the great big world. It was to "ride your bike to Truman Elementary." Truman Elementary, TRUMAN ELEMENTARY, this was huge. Truman Elementary was my grade school and it was a mile away. To my six-year old brain, this was like going to Las Vegas, or California, it was practically in a foreign country. "Should I pack?" I thought,"No, I'm not going." But then that awful feeling came. I knew that if I didn't go, it meant that my brother was going to call me a baby until I was twenty-five. Unless I could just ride to my friend Chris' house and hang out there , then come back in ten or so hours. NO, he would want details. He would ask,"did you get past the pit bull O.K.?" I would freeze and then answer,"yes." Then laugh to diffuse the tension of the situation, like Michelangelo always did in TNMT. But he'd counter,"there is no scary dog, you never went, YOU'RE A BABY." My life would be over.
Resigned to my "Trail of Tears," I strapped on my new, white with confetti design bike helmet. I made my way to the big road. Cautiously, Slowly, shakily I rode my bike. I was doing it, I was going to make it to the grade school. I was a boy, no I was a big, brave boy, maybe even a man. Suddenly I looked with horror on a BIGGER street but, wasn't on the big street. How can there be a street bigger than the big street. I looked, I looked again. In my childhood wisdom, I decided, not only could I do this but that it would be safer to cross in the middle of this bigger street than the crosswalk. I could do this. I was basically a man minus the body hair.
So I followed Ronald's counsel as best I could. I planted my feet and looked both ways. Though wasn't really sure if I should look both ways for each of the seven lanes or just once. I decided I was riding my bike, Ronald gave no rules for that, so I'll make my own. I was going fast enough, so once should be sufficient. I looked, and looked, and I was off. Peddling, shakily I made it past one lane, two lanes and thre...I kept moving but now it was not just forward, but sideways and forward. Then my bike separated from my body, and I was flying and I thought, I'm not a man, minus the body hair, I'm superman and I'm flying and I'm pretty sure I can feel follicles growing in my armpits. I was alive, I was flying, I was falling. I was on the ground, my chin was on fire, my new, white with confetti design bike helmet was cracked.
"Are you O.K.?" asks a twenty-something, dark haired man asks as he exits the car that just hit me. Stunned, I'm not sure what I answered.
Sirens, that is what I remember next. A police officer queried, "Do you know your mother's name or your telephone number. Suddenly a familiar tune entered my mind. It was the safety kids. "I know my number, my telephone number 9-6-7-3-2-9-7" Funny, the safety kids don't really have a song warning you against riding across a busy road to prove your manhood. Even then I knew that was ironic.
"Hello," said my mother over the telephone.
"Yes, Mrs. Denison. I'm sorry to inform you but you're daughter has been hit by a car," replied the emergency dispatcher assigned to tell my mom about the incident.
"Really?"
This was perplexing to my mother because my three-old sister was taking a nap upstairs. After checking on my sister, my mother clarified,"Are you sure it's not my son?"
"Oh yeah, that's probably it. It's your son."
This was terrible. Not only was I not superman or a man minus the body hair. Now I was a girl.
I had been big and brave, sitting with the police and ambulance on the side of the road, refusing to cry. I wasn't hurt. I wasn't scared. That was until my mom showed up and then I can only equate my action to that of the tragic Teton Dam failure of the late seventies. My eyes rained enough to sustain a small Irish peat farm for at least two years.
I was taken by my mom to the hospital (I was too scared to ride in the ambulance) for stitches and then brought home. I was terrified, I hadn't made it to Truman Elementary, my brother was going to make fun of me. My Dad was going to kill me. But something strange happened. My Dad didn't yell at me and I wasn't a baby. I was cool because I had stitches and probably a scar. But you know, if it meant that I had to be hit by a car to prove I was a man. I was O.K. with being a boy.

Thursday, April 30, 2009

Swine Flu? I just hope it's kosher.

Just musing to myself about how the swine flu is raising the pandemic level roof and I am sitting here not even worried about it because I have finals to prepare for. It's funny how goals have a way of shutting the rest of the world out. I just hope the swine flu doesn't interrupt my study schedule. Oh and PS this is not the first time the world has seen a swine pandemic. I refer you to cheesy PSAs on the matter as evidence.



http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601124&sid=a0NYYjUy._xo&refer=home