Val Kilmer Is Not My Batman

I’m just sayin’, is all.

It’s Angry Washed-Up Actor Day Today

By which I mean today is Nick Nolte’s sixty-ninth birthday AND Gary Coleman’s forty-second. Respect to irritable 1980s icons.

Baby Dew

A few years ago, I was in the midst of trying to put together a book about obscure/fringe soft drinks like Surge, Jones, OK, Crystal Pepsi, and all that yazz. There were two inherent problems with this concept: 1) not enough of these forgotten sodas had truly interesting or “book-worthy” stories attached to them, and 2) I could not nail down in my mind an acceptable format for this tome (coffee table book, encyclopedia, etc). The whole thing just wasn’t gelling, and in hindsight I probably burned up way too much of my free time trying to figure the damn thing out.

Anywho, I took a job at the College Board while I was still slaving away on the soda book, and one day I mentioned it in passing to my boss. His eyes sort of lit up.

“You know, I was roommates in college with the heir to the Mountain Dew fortune.”

Yes, my friends, there is a Mountain Dew fortune, and one day it’s all going to belong to one man: Baby Dew. That’s not his real name, but according to my boss, that’s what the vanity plates on his zillion dollar sports car said. Like many children of money, Baby Dew was apparently an insufferable prick, the typical snotty ass who flaunted his wealth and made everyone else’s college experience just that much suckier.

The way my boss told it, he and one other guy roomed with Baby Dew for a few semesters. The fourth roommate was a ferret, which belonged to either my boss or the non-Baby Dew guy and was totally against the dorm rules. There was always an uncomfortable tension between Baby Dew and the plebes, and if I’m remembering correctly, things came to a head over the word “twat.”

My boss and the other guy were up really late one night, probably a tad drunk, loudly debating the correct pronunciation of twat. It was kind of a goof to annoy Baby Dew, because (as we all know) there’s only one way to pronounce twat. Baby Dew put up with it for as long as he could (an hour? hour and a half?) from his bed room until he finally lost it. From his cot he screamed:

“IT’S PRONOUNCED ‘TWAT,’ JUST LIKE IT’S SPELLED. ‘TWAT TWAT TWAT TWAT.’ WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT THIS?”

The next day when my boss and his buddy returned home from class, they found a note on the refrigerator. The text was something along the following lines:

“I can’t stand you guys anymore, so I moved out. Signed, Baby Dew. P.S. – I told the RA about your ferret.”

To this day, Baby Dew is proud of his soda connection. My boss showed me the guy’s Myspace page, and it’s all Dew’d out. There’s literally a huge bottle of cold, fresh Mountain Dew in the background. Epic.

This might not seem like the most amazing, hilarious story, but trust me, it’s way more interesting than the distribution patterns surrounding Coke Blak or Pepsi A.M.

The JG2 Weekly Reader

Extracurriculars you may have missed because you were too busy watching the eight hour premiere of “Lost” OVER AND OVER AGAIN LOOKING FOR CLEWZ OMG.

8 Million Stories: The Vampire Peacock Memorial – Staten Island. Schizophrenia. A peacock. You can’t script this kind of crazy.

Bad Religion or Philosophy? – A fun game I created just for you.

The Curious Case of the Second Bad Brains Album – Turns out that CD was pitchy because of Ric Ocasek’s bitch-ass tape equipment.

Talkin’ and Listenin’ to the Reverend Horton Heat – Interview with the psychobilly legend.

Ten Cherished Moments From “The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien” – In which I misidentify Snoop Doggy Dogg’s car as a Cadillac (it’s actually a Pontiac Parisienne convertible). On top of that, nearly all of the related video clips my editor(s) dropped in are “no longer available,” because that’s how NBC is rolling on their scorned lover Coco these days. Harrumph.

Hey, in case I haven’t said it lately, thanks for reading. I appreciate your love and support. Really, I do!

Field Guide To JG2’s Elementary School Teachers

Despite the fact most of these people are probably dead now, names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Mrs. Yam (Kindergarten)

Mrs. Yam was probably the nicest teacher I ever had, although I suppose you can’t really be a mean kindergarten teacher. The only time I remember her getting even slightly angry was when I spent fifteen minutes one day making another kid laugh by pretending to straighten a tie I wasn’t even wearing (yes, I have always been this way). Even then, the max punishment was a concerned look and maybe a check instead of a smiley face on my daily report folder. Mrs. Yam owned a flower shop in the small Florida town where I attended kindergarten; last time I visited, the shop was still in business. That made me happy the same way super vibrant rainbows and iguanas wearing hats make me happy.

Mrs. Grandma (1st Grade)

Typical white-haired school marm type. The only memory I have of her personality is how upset she became when the Challenger exploded. We watched it slowly rise in the distance from our classroom window (our school was maybe an hour from the launch site?) and then slowly fall back to Earth. They made some kind of announcement about what happened and Mrs. Grandma starting bawling. I think this was the first time a lot of us kids had seen an authority figure lose their shit, and we were pretty stunned. Aside from that, life with Mrs. Grandma was pretty uneventful.

Mrs. Strudel (2nd Grade)

Notable because she almost sliced her finger off in the paper cutter one day. This was before school had started, while all the kids were still on the bus. The ambulance came and everything. Luckily, they managed to save Mrs. Strudel’s finger before gang green set in. This lady kinda looked like Frau Farbissina from Austin Powers, but she was way cooler. Her son graduated from medical school the year I was in her class, though, and for a while that was all she talked about. I have a feeling that’s why I suck at math now. She distracted me with talk of her doctor son.

Mrs. Kelp (3rd Grade)

The Johnny Ramone of my elementary school teachers in that she had a bowl haircut and seemed eternally pissed off. The day she found some kid’s copy of MAD with a bunch of naked people drawn in it was like 9/11. We weren’t allowed to move or talk from the first bell to the last. I’m not sure the owner of that naughty magazine was ever identified (although I’m pretty sure it was [REDACTED]). Mrs. Kelp was never much fun, but I became very embittered toward her the following year when I saw her in the hall and she pretended not to know who I was. Uh, how could you forget Jim Greene, the kid with orange Converse who gave that ball-smashing presentation on Emily Dickinson? They’re still talking about that poetry report in the hallowed halls of Farmingville Elementary.

Mrs. Kaleidoscope (4th Grade)

A really great teacher who rocked a Richard Simmons perm with Hillary Clinton mom glasses. Unfortunately, Mrs. Kaleidoscope had a nervous breakdown midway through our year, crippling us with idiot substitute after idiot substitute for two or three months. At least I heard it was a nervous breakdown. Who knows, maybe she secretly worked for the government. At any rate, Mrs. Kaleidoscope taught us in really fun ways when she was there, like walking us around the school grounds and showing us different kinds of plant life or having us write letters to pen pals in Russia (I can’t believe I sent that kid a Nolan Ryan Topps card from 1986; he never even wrote me back!). It’s unfortunate Mrs. K was absent so much that year. She really knew her shiz. Plus, she was pretty nice to us dumb kids. Kaleidoscope presented yours truly with a large volume of Superman comics on the last day of school because she thought I was a talented artist and could benefit from the inspiration. Kindest thing any public educator ever did for me. I still have that book somewhere.

Mrs. Hufnagel (5th Grade Homeroom/Science)

Squat blonde Roseanne Barr clone. Had the same voice, too. That’s all I remember, aside from some lesson she tried to teach us about Easter which I’m sure would get a teacher in this day and age fired faster than you can say Eucharist.

Mrs. Yinky (5th Grade Math)

Mrs. Yinky came down from the middle school and had this legendary hard-ass reputation because she had made an eighth grader cry once. She was sorta bitchy, and I remember hearing some weird stuff about her later on (weird SEX stuff), but as far as the math teachers in my life go, Yinky was just the tip of the iceberg. I mean, she was nothing compared to some of the dicks I had to deal with in high school. Oy vey. It should also be noted that Yinky sort of resembled a short brown-haired version of David Coverdale. Their faces were interchangeable.

Mr. Lulu (5th Grade History)

Just a slob of a man. Grossly overweight, always unshaven, shirt never tucked in or buttoned right, greasiest hair this side of Pennzoil. My main memory of Mr. Lulu revolves around his where-I-was-when-Pearl-Harbor-happened story. I remember hearing that and thinking, “Fuck, bro, you’re old as hell!” Lulu’s classroom was a hall of JG2 firsts: first time I saw blood during a school fight, first time I purposely swore in conversation with an adult who was not my father (Lulu laughed this off, thankfully), first time I threw out completely unchecked statistics about America’s homeless. There was also this totally bad-ass model of the Titanic in Lulu’s room that I spent hours pouring over with my eyes.

I Wish Punxsutawney Phil Was More Like This

I hate those Pentagon gravy-suckers.

Announcement Of Medium Importance

Beginning Monday, I will be blogging on a daily basis for Crawdaddy!, the rock n’ roll website I have been regularly contributing to since 2007. I am thrilled to be given this opportunity and promise to deliver as much awesome as humanly possible within the context of day-to-day music news/criticism.

What does this mean for JG2Land? I’m guessing less rock, more other stuff. Life provides plenty of inspiration outside Finnish wig core and the other basement audio genres I tend to champion. There’ll always be something to write about here.

So, yeah, make sure you’ve got your dials set to Crawdaddy! next week. I plan to lead off with a post centered around Bad Brains – specifically, how the CD release of their 1983 album Rock For Light ended up being half a step faster than originally recorded. According to bassist Darryl Jenifer, I was the first person to ever inquire about this somewhat serious gaffe. Interestin’ stuff, folks. I hope you’ll take the time to check it out!

In the meantime, you can get your JG2 rawk fix with this just-posted Reverend Horton Heat interview. Probably one of the nicest people I’ve ever had the pleasure to speak with. Rev is keepin’ it real and totally down to Earth.

Captain America’s Dad Died

J.D. Salinger: 1919 – 2010

Finally, A Western That Speaks To Me

And the psychopathic clown what dwells inside me:

Suggestion for future entry: Big Honey Rustlas (Insane Clown Posse + bee hives).

An Important Plea Directed At Hollywood

Unless you’ve been trapped under Louie Anderson for the past few years, you are most likely aware the movie industry in this country is currently waist-deep in another wave of 3-D, the headache-inducing view technology that shames you with dorky facial accessories. Apparently there have been some major breakthroughs since I first strapped on cheap paper glasses to watch John Wayne’s Hondo in the marvelous third dimension all those years ago on WPIX Channel 11. 3-D technology is now better than ever, they say, which is why studio bigwigs are tacking the shiz onto every major release they can think of.

Yes, my friends, it looks like 3-D might be here to stay this time. People are going so nuts over it they’re actually going back to old two dimensional movies and repurposing them for maximum screen-poppin’ action. While I welcome a new Star Wars prequel franchise where I can actually reach out and touch Hayden Christensen’s awful performance or a My Dinner With Andre where Wallace Shawn’s spittle seems to soak the top of my head, there’s actually just one film from my lifetime that I feel desperately warrants a transfer to the third dimension.

Of course I’m talking about Stripes, the 1981 Bill Murray army comedy which also featured Harold Ramis, Sean Young, and John Candy.

Just imagine how grand the illusion would be, to be magically find yourself IN Bill Murray’s apartment as he angrily plays basketball with himself and attempts to do five pushups. For the first time, you could actually taste the sarcasm dripping off every quip Harold Ramis delivers. Judge Reinhold’s pudgy, youthful face would be almost close enough to kiss (you know you’d try, don’t even front). Plus, Sean Young and P.J. Soles in 3-D? Homina homina homina HOW WOW!

I suppose the true selling point would be the film’s ending, wherein Murray and Ramis invade what is now the Czech Republic in order to save their hapless platoon. There’s explosions, there’s gunfire, there’s gratuitous Joe Flaherty. Who doesn’t want to see all those elements flying out at dangerous speeds towards their general ocular area? Communists, that’s who. Communists and mental patients.

Come on, Hollywood. Don’t let us down. Give us Stripes in 3-D. I want to see Sergeant Hulka fall off that training tower right into my lap. Make the dream a reality instead of shoveling all this animated crap up in our noses.

You see Bill Murray there? He’s pointing at you, powerful studio bosses. He want you…to do the right thing.

Stripes in 3-D. The time is now. Let’s make this the most significant event of 2010.