The Sh– To Just Sh–ty… De-Evolution Of The Bar Scene, Explained By John Travolta’s Movie Choices

(UPDATE: I feel like I shortchanged the comparison. See the nickel’s worth improvement below.)

From Night Clubs to Sports Pubs to Corner Bars

The older you get, the more your tastes change.  Whereas you once lived and breathed for laser lights, booming bass, and whatever is in those smoke machines (I like to imagine nerdy children are in the basement clapping erasers in front of fans), one day you couldn’t.

So then you hit up the deal bars (the theme bars, chain restaurants, and sports pubs) because it was still counted as “going out” and “being social” and you were still “getting yo’ drink on” (does anyone say that anymore?), but then it was too far to travel.

So then you just go to the bar closest to home.  You know… those places where the nicotine absorbed by the ceilings and the walls are the only things holding it together.

Here’s a brief history of John Travolta film options that illustrate the de-evolution of the bar scene the older we get:

From Saturday Night Fever to Look Who's Talking to Wild Hogs

From Saturday Night Fever to Look Who's Talking to Wild Hogs

Saturday Night Club Fever – There are no limits to the unexplained popularity of something that’s not quite so good.

Look Who’s Talking On The TV – The possibility that you are dancing at a sports bar is directly proportionate to the possibility that a baby thinks in Bruce Willis’ voice.  Also relatable – beer prices and John Travolta’s paycheck.

Swill’d Hogs – Ever hear of the phrase, phoning it in when referring to something that’s easy?  Well, walking to the corner tavern and starring in a lame film are synonyms.  If phrases can have synonyms…

“The Reflex” Rewrite (A Drunken Recollection/Musical Musings Joint)

Intel was years ahead of its time... (Happy New Year!)

Sorry for the graphic nature of this post.  But it’s reality.  And reality is graphic.

Enjoy the start of this new decade with a karaoke song about beer shits…

The beer shits (4x)

“You’ve gone too far this time”
But I’m sleeping on the hard cold tile
A puddle spilled out around me
Good chances it came from my inside
I’ll crawl cross the bathroom floor
There’s no way that I can stand oh oh
Last night I had a hard time deciding
To have one or two beers in my hands oh oh

CHORUS
Budwei-yi-yi-yi-yi-ser goes right through me
Miller Li-yi-yi-yi-ght cuts right through me
Coors  Li-yi-yi-yi-yi-ght spills right through me
The beer shits is the morning after, keeping my rear parked
The beer shits is the discharged treasure that can be quite dark
And leaning over the bathtub isn’t that bizarre
Every little thing the beer shits does
Leaves behind another set of skid marks

I’m on the bowl and I want to get off
Butt won’t slow down the flush roundabout
I drank the whole bar watching TV sets
Don’t want to be around when this gets out

CHORUS

Oh the beer shits what a game I’m playing with my innards
The beer shits is the discharged treasure that can be quite dark
And leaning over the bathtub isn’t that bizarre
Every little thing the beer shits does
Leaves behind another set of skid marks

Drunken Recollection… Saturday Night (Blake) Lively Wasn’t Awful

Here's Blake... not so lively, more so lazily resting

The lovely Blake Lively hosted Saturday Night Live this weekend, and pretty much given any chance, the writers threw her in a skimpy outfit that showed off her gams.  Sorry.  Sometimes when I’m tipsy, and I see a pretty lady, I get all roaring 20’s upinhere.

Anywhosaidwhat, the Gossip Girl star held her own, and performed unabashedly well.  But then again, after the train wreck that was January Jones, everyone looks better.

I’m not saying January Jones isn’t a looker… she was just a terrible host.  Heavens  to betsy!  I’ve put myself in quite a pickle.

There unfortunately weren’t any stand out skits for her.  This skit only has three stars on Hulu, but I thought it was one of the better bits.  Could be because I live in Michigan – home of the Insane Clown Posse and their fervent followers, the Juggalos.  The video of their documentary is below for comparison.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

more about “Underground Festival“, posted with vodpod

BONUS SNL HIGHLIGHT

Christmas Gift Ideas For Your Loser Family

To begin… these aren’t special deals.  These are suggestions I’ve hand-picked for you.  I’ve categorized them into groups for those hard-to-buy-for loved ones.  A lot of them happen to be USB products.  Go figure.  (Click each image for more information.)

FOR GRANDMA:

Grandma collects good luck trolls and loves cats, so why not get her one of these!  (Possible setback: Grandma doesn’t have a computer… hey, there’s another gift idea on the house!)

Yoda blushes when his lightsaber glows! Wait, that sounds NSFW...

Transforms your jump drive into a cat!

FOR GOTH SISTER:

She hates almost everything… except cigarettes and ironic murder!

When Texting & Driving meets Smoking & Typing...

Even unicorns hate mimes...

FOR ANNOYING KID BROTHER:

Known for liking gross things and dumb things, you can’t go wrong with these!

Saves the mess of squeezing a real frog.

This ain't your daddy's Pet Rock! It has a USB cord!

FOR PERVERTED UNCLE:

I’d suggest having these delivered to his house.

She gyrates whether or not there's any porn surfing.

I'm not here to judge. Only to provide ideas.

FOR DOUCHEBAG BROTHER AND MASSEN-GIRL SISTER:

Oh brother… oh sister…

Leave your guitar at home and play Maroon 5 songs on this shirt!

Perfect for when girls go wild!

FOR DAD:

Dad thinks he’s funny.  I mean, he maybe once was, but times change.  Time to change his towel:

FOR MOM:

Mom would like to be funny as well.  This might provide her the chance to freak everyone out.  Maybe.

FOR GRANDPA:

He’s classy.  He maybe fought in a war or two.  He married your grandma and stuck around as the above brood grew.  Get him this:

It's understated, and upside-down.

Drunken Recollection… Video Games Look Better Than Movies These Days

While kicking back brews and shooting the breeze with my pals, the glow of the TV showing whatever game we’re interested in holds our gaze.  And that’s what it’s all about with us men, so they say.  We’re “visual creatures” allegedly.  Our eyes are too big for our stomachs, and our stomachs are the way to our hearts.  Wait, I got off topic…

Oh, yeah.  During said television events, especially of late, companies have been promoting the hell out of two video games: Left 4 Dead 2 and Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City.

And all I think upon watching these previews is how much more like movies video games are becoming.  I have Unchartered 2: Among Thieves and it’s better than any action picture I’ve seen in a long time (The Dark Knight notwithstanding), and it makes me laugh…

Haven’t we as a public (well I know I have) been bitching about how much movies are starting to look like video games?  I could give two shiitake mushrooms about James Cameron’s Avatar or Robert Zemekis’ A Christmas Carol*, and they’re really no different from the games.  Except for the fact that I partake in one and watch the other… Hmm…

Perhaps men aren’t just “visual creatures” after all… We’re touchy, too.

*I do want to see 2012, and it’s as heavy a CG feast as Avatar.

In My Brain While Sleeping… It Has To Be Better Than Crystal Pepsi, Right?

This dream happened to be a spanning, time looping dream à la Timecrimes, an interesting if not perfect Spanish film involving, um, time looping.

I was on a college campus trying to kill my other selves, contemplating the dynamics of it.  Am I the proper incarnation?  Can all the versions coexist?  Am I committing suicide if I exterminate an alternate me?  (Heavy stuff for a sleeping noggin.)

Anyexistentialism, the entire episode finished at the student center bookstore which had a McDonald’s in it.  The banner above the Golden Arches read, “Now serving Subway subs and Pepsi Golden!”

I was excited to order a Pepsi Golden, thinking it was beer.  It was just yellow Pepsi.

And in case you were wondering what it tasted like – carbonated cake batter.

pepsi_golden

DREAM INGREDIENTS: Back-to-back soccer games… and four pints of Guinness

Drunken Recollection… Holographic Ghouls, Medical Fools, And A Munchkin Talent Pool

Sit back, have a drink, and swim with me down the channels of nostalgia.  What that trip entails – a fleeting thought, a jotted note in the ol’ iPhone, and Google research later.

1) “What were those holographic, flat-front action figures called?”

A good question, with a simple answer: Visionaries.  They had a cartoon and a comic book series (which I still own)!

Wait, what? There were two hologram toy lines?

Wait, what? There's a different hologram toy line?

super_naturals_tonka

The exact toy in question. Well the one like this that's yellow...

But that wasn’t the answer being looked for.  The correct answer to the question in question: Tonka put out a series called Super Naturals.

Sure, holograms were a fad in the 80’s, but so were 3D stereograms in the 90’s, and no one made toys based around them. (Probably because companies were too busy ripping off updating successful 80’s lines… of which the neither Visionaries of Super Naturals were a part.)

2) “Does anybody remember St. Elsewhere?  Anybody?”

Every once and awhile it becomes apparent that I’m older than I pay more attention to pop culture than the people around me.  I was wondering if St. Elsewhere was available on DVD, and no one knew anything about it.  Answer: only the first season.

Why I wanted to know is because I never watched the show (because I was too young… srsly), and I wondered if it was any good.

There were only two things I knew about the show:

  • Howie Mandel was on the show.  I knew of him because he’d put a rubber glove over his head and blow it up with his nose.  He was famous for this.
howie_mandel_double

Howie Does It

What I learned after researching the existence of the DVD:

  • Mark Harmon (the main dude from NCIS) was on it.  His character died from AIDS, and was one of the first major characters to contract HIV (heterosexually, of course… it was the 80’s).
  • Denzel Washington also got his start on the show.  Denzel!  That just blows my mind.  Next you’ll be telling me Will Smith or George Clooney got started on TV.  Or 30 Rock’s Alec Baldwin got started in film.  Crazy!

3) “What was the name of that famous midget little person from the 80’s?”

This inquiry arose out of a terribly written trivia question that confused Tiptoe Through the Tulips’ Tiny Tim with a little person.  Come on.  You’ve got to know Tiny Tim (not the “God bless us, every one” one).  He was like the Marilyn Manson of the 60’s and 70’s, in that was as shocking as he was able to be.

Anyukulele, I knew there was a little person that was so beloved in my youth that even as I child, I knew his name, but it escaped me.  I knew he was in a Wizard of Oz spoof I had never fully seen.  So I started with that and found:

under_the_rainbow

Young Chevy Chase AND Carrie Fisher? Must See!

And that lead me to the recesses of my memory.  Without further research, it hit me!  Billy Barty!

billy_barty

Verne Troyer, take notes...

And on that note, I shall pour out some of my next drink in your honor, Gwildor

Drunken Recollection… Tara – The Drunk Girl At The Bar

I intended to write a Drunken Recollection on another subject (you’ll just have to wait for that now), but someone my friends and I met tonight changed all that:

Tara – The Drunk Girl at the Bar.

My friend, Chris, hosts a live trivia show at a particular bar on Mondays, and I typically don’t attend.  Nothing against him, but Mondays are one of my “laying low” days.  On this particular Garfield’s favorite day of the week, I had planned on picking up some topsoil to do some yard work before winter hits, but I got stuck late at work.  My other friend, Jeremy, had his class cancelled, and Chris’ wife Venessa was going to trivia, so  I bit.

Upon arriving, the three of us sat at the end of the bar, and Chris was at the windows.  He had to inform us that he had a fan – Tara.  As she repeatedly told everyone, she was his “ass-sistant,” and she thanked everyone with a kindly “konnichiwa” as if it was a “domo arigato.”

She was there alone no domo arigato to her friends.

She alleged it was her birthday.

She was 100% superhero drunk.

She was having fun and being goofy.

She met Chris’ “wifey” and shared the tale of how she was engaged for four years until she broke it off

…in May or March… one of those M months.  Maybe April…

because he wanted her to be a baby making machine.

She had school and worked nine-to-five and didn’t seem much older than 22.

What Tara made me question about life is this:

How responsible are we for other people?

She somehow became attached to our group (namely Chris), and I wondered who was looking out for her.  Luckily, her parents came to pick her up, but it made me think about a creepy dude I had seen in Best Buy’s parking lot prior to heading to trivia.  He stood at the edge of the lot, near his rusted minivan, with his hipster ensemble: too tight vintage clothes, an over-sized snapshot camera, and a creepy beard.  He surveyed the adjacent Meijer’s parking lot.  Something about it didn’t feel right… like I should intervene and do something…

Four Quadrant Nightmare

Four Quadrant Nightmare

Damn, this post isn’t funny at all.  It’s only the second one I wrote while slightly intoxicated, and it will no doubt (*crosses finger*) be the last.

It probably all had to do with this video I saw about Baxter earlier today…

Drunken Recollection… So Many Questions, So Many Beers

Here are some drunk items that popped up and required follow up (mostly because either my iPhone’s battery was dead, or I was too sauced to check at that moment).  But it further proves my point.  Well, maybe not my point as much as my slogan – “I’m Thinking Meets Drinking.”

Q: Have I ever heard of the song In The Year 2525 by Zager and Evans?

A: No.  Well maybe.  But I like this video somebody put together:

Q: Have I ever heard of Saturday Night Live alum, Charles Rocket?

He's a real person? I thought was a robotic character, perhaps.

He's a real person? I thought was a robotic character, perhaps.

A: No.  Well maybe.  He’s familiar looking for sure:

In further research (wassup Wiki?!), I uncovered these additional tidbits:

  • He was touted as a cross between Bill Murray and Chevy Chase during the 80-81 season of SNL.
  • He uttered the word “fuck” at the end of a show, and ceremoniously got canned with the bulk of the cast and crew (save Joe Piscopo and Eddie Murphy).
  • He committed suicide… by slicing his own throat.

Q: Have I ever heard of author David Foster Wallace?

A: You mean the man behind Infinite Jest, which Time magazine included in their 100 greatest English-language novels since 1923?  You mean the man behind Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, which John Krasinski of The Office adapted into a film?  No.  Not at all.  I just learned all this. 

Also learned: he killed himself.  (Wassup withat?!)

Q: Have you heard the original version of Unchained Melody by Al Hibbler?

A: I have now.  But FYI – it technically wasn’t the original.  But it did pre-date Ghost’s theme song the Righteous Brothers version.

Q: Who was I hanging out with that asked me so many questions?!

In My Brain While Sleeping… Battling Princesses

A Princess I Can Get Behind

A Princess I Can Get Behind

Apparently, I’m a thirteen year old girl.  Why else would I have a dream about princesses?  Well, I could understand why I’d have a dream about princesses, but this dream… well, here it goes:

  • There were two Disney-esque princesses – Pink Dress and Light Blue Dress.
  • They were best friends since the were children, and they somehow lived in the same kingdom.  So maybe they weren’t both princesses, but I digress.
  • In their teen years, a rift grew betwixt them (like that verbiage?), and Pink was banished.  Light Blue ruled alone.
  • Pink went away and learned the art of telekinesis*.
  • When she returned to reclaim her position in the kingdom, she used her new power to easily make her way to Light Blue.
  • In the time Pink was gone, Light Blue had built up an army – an army of heavily armed soldiers.  I’m talking like SWAT team style.
  • Pink stood before Light Blue, ready to make peace or make pieces (you see, she had a sword… I should have mentioned that).
  • The soldiers surrounded Pink, ready to fire.
  • Light Blue mocked Pink, stating the futility of her efforts.  She wondered aloud if Pink could stop an onslaught of bullets…
  • Without hesitation, Pink used her telekinesis* to spin the soldiers to face each other and fire.  They dropped like flies.

And I woke up.  At least the princesses were bad asses…

*(What’s the difference between telekinesis and telepathy?  Oh!  Thanks Wikipedia!)

INGREDIENTS: A Tigers win (sniff), a Lions loss (eh), lotsa beer, a couple of burnt hot dogs, and 12 hours sleep.

princess-peach

If you happen to Google Image Search "Princess Peach" or "Princess Toadstool," please enable SafeSearch. You've been warned.