the ark
Category: illustrations
Jay’s Take: Ford v Ferrari
Let me set the scene: you’ve had a shitty week and you want to escape. You haven’t seen a movie in theaters for a while and the January “dumping ground” of unmarketable trash is overflowing with sub-tier titles to get your tiddies hard from the thought of the camp value. You convince your wife to go with you to a double-feature (but nothing subtitled, so you still haven’t seen Parasite). What do double-features in my family mean to me? It means sneaking-in from one movie to another. It doesn’t mean LEAVING THE THEATER to re-up only to have to come back in and pay for the second ticket. You need to be prepared: bring edibles; make sure you’ve gone to the bathroom; and go on a day when the ticket-taker wicket isn’t set up at the West Wing entrance where your two movies are going to be (the apps let you check your theater number now too). We had it all worked out: Ford v Ferrari was at 12:15 and ended at 15:00; Dolittle started at 15:00; and the theaters were side-by-side. Dolittle is really what we wanted to see but the timing wasn’t working: sometimes the second movie starts right away, and sometimes the gap between them is too long. This sounded like it would have worked like a dream. THANKS GOD. And then I had to piss. And Ford v Ferrari is not a short movie. A good movie, but not short. So I held my pee. And what happens as I leave the theater? They have the wicket set up at the end of the hallway, AFTER the men’s bathroom. Granted it was “Cheap Tuesday” but usually they have the L-shaped divider set up and it wasn’t there this time. The women’s bathroom doesn’t have any security: it’s halfway down the hall. And the East Wing of the theater doesn’t have the wicket set up after the bathroom! So I had two choices: either pee into my water bottle that I sneaked McDonald’s ice tea into and try to remember not to drink from it for the next two-hour movie (because we couldn’t get any snacks from concession either because of where it was located; that’s why my wife brought her purse the size of a knapsack) or pee like a normal person and skip the second movie. So we skipped the second movie.
Continue readingNow Available on Laserdisc: Rapid Fire
Rapid Fire is a celebration of the legacy of Bruce Lee, and an attempt at passing the cinematic torch to his son. Make no mistake, this movie’s primary excuse for existence is jerking off deprived Martial Arts movie fans stuck in a time before Bruceploitation. Both father and son died before their fame really took off but from the eerie slo-mo Kung Fu of the opening credits to the blown-out hair to his Liberal philosophies it doesn’t feel like a proverbial torch being passed so much as the smooth transition that can only be granted generationally. Nature-before-nurture. You won’t believe how many times it felt like I was watching an extension of Bruce himself as opposed to his son carving out his own niche: from the finesse to the wit, if only tweaked by their Lizard Oversee’r (cough… EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) to meet the demands of audiences in 1992. Think Enter the Dragon X Die Hard. But aside from the occasional motorcycle stunt or brandishing a gun, or fondling GRATUITOUS TIDDIES, Brandon sticks primarily to what made his father famous: kicking the shit out of dudes! And kick he can. Or could? What is a more appropriate tense?
Continue readingthe shotgun room
The first entry in the “Shotgun Room” trilogy. For mature readers.
“An overburdened mother starts her first day of work for a new legal euthanasia program.”
No one wanted to admit to the idea, even when it was passed unanimously through Congress. The right to die. Lethal injection was tried and passed-on: there was never any real guarantee those people were conscious enough to legally decide whether to press the shiny red button – nestled atop a comfort handle in a debilitating grip; not to mention specialized staff that required specialized training that only a country in a recession could fantasize of. “Heaven forbid,” said the Men In Suits who decided everything for everyone else. They had to be sure these selfish casualties knew what they were doing, and that there would be no court action. No future action, period. A shotgun. One slug to the face would take anyone out; and anyone ballsy enough to shoot themselves in the face were prepared to die as far as the government was concerned. Every hospital was given a modest sum – taxpayer-supported, of course – to retrofit an unused area of some set measurement in the most private area of their grounds. Each was to be insulated with an industrial-sized FDA-approved compostable vacuum bag made of one-hundred percent consumer-grade recycled plastic, connected to a high pressure suction system powered by a sponsored vacuum system by Inc in an adjacent room. After willing participants were “sure this was what they wanted” and all the proper paperwork was signed they were escorted to this room. The bag would be zipped open for the volunteer and inside was a chair and the single-shelled shotgun. All they had to do was sit down and make the necessary adjustments: the federally-mandated sign that hung off the back of the door facing the chair helpfully suggested in a clear, legible font that your eyes should stare directly into the barrel.
Continue readingcaw
theory of a daskeman 