Jesse Hicks.com

Today in Miami an older Latina woman working the register at Walgreens told me, "There's nothing worse in life than your own kind...such assholes." As I couldn't grasp the subject of our conversation -- only the general tenor of misanthropy -- I agreed, paid my bill, and wished her a better evening (silently).

MySpace Interlocutor:alright, well what did u do today

My "friend": well, I went to work and then came home and sat on the couch, dying by seconds.

MySpace Interlocutor:lol u make it sound so bad. make it sound like a happier day

My "friend": well, I went to work and then came home and sat on the couch, dying by seconds! :)

So there's been some idle speculation about the conspicuous lack of updates on Jesse Hicks.com ("Your Home For All Things Jesse Hicks"*) since roughly, oh I don't know, the dawn of recorded time. This is a fair complaint, especially given Mr. Hicks's postings on $4K Millionaire and John Cougar Mellen Blog. (BTW, WTF on $4KM?)

I asked Jesse Hicks to offer some sort of explanation. This, of course, required parachuting into his island compound, where he lives with a menagerie of half-human, half-animal monstrosities. (This "project" is actually one reason for the lack of updates.) As I repacked my chute, his manservant, Standish, welcomed me into the foyer. I wiped my feet on the pelt of a Kodiak, and looked up into the glassy stare of a majestic elk (dead, stuffed, purple sash reading, "Miss Carolina 1976"). All around me: wood paneling. And classic cheescake posters hung at a jauntily ironic angle. Also, quotation marks.

I was admitted to Professor Dr. Hicks's sanctum sanctorum, a fortress carved out of arctic ice. As I entered I noticed several polar bears frozen in mid-paddle. I pondered how this simple hunting cabin could contain such a massive Citadel of Aloneness. Standish informed me that, like my head, Commandant Hicks's lair was bigger on the inside than on the outside. Then he gave me a wink and poked me in my third eye before vanishing in a puff of smoke.

Then emerged a voice. Crushed gravel on the surface of the moon: "Are you an assassin?"

No, I replied, I'm just a blogger.

He responded, "Then take up your quill and write, Dr. Blogenstein. You have come to me with a question, a single query that haunts you, and you believe that I will have answers for you. You come to me with the buzzing hive of the Internet in your tiny skull and you come to ask me...what? You come to me and say, 'Where are the updates? Where is the Entertainment? Why have you not seen fit to dance for us? WHERE ARE THE WORDS?'"

The voice thickened the air, congealing it around me with dread and malice. I knew not what had so enraged the great beast, but I knew silence held the only possibility of my escape. I kept quiet.

"You come to me," it boomed again, "and you demand words! WORDS! Explanations, thoughts, some semblance of a mind at work! Or perhaps links to zany hats and parking fails! Ha ha ha ha! You poor deluded fool! Would you ask the tiger to blog about his stripes? [What? Ed.] A shark to explain his love of human flesh** and his inability to remain still? But you would ask me to blog about my laziness?! BEGONE FROM MY SIGHT AND REST ASSURED THAT IN THE FUTURE I WILL TRY TO DO BETTER!"

And then he was gone. I woke up in bed, wondering if it was all a dream. Then I looked down at my hand. My hand was clenched, fist-like, in a fisty-type shape. I looked at that fist-hand and figured there must be something inside it, something important, because why else would my hypnagogic self have grasped it so tightly? Surely this was a relevant bit of information, this fist. Might be something inside, I bet.

THE END?

*"Your Home For All Things Jesse Hicks" is a registered trademark of The People's Republic of China.

** Not "technically" "true."

Drink every time Walt Kowalski (Clint Eastwood) has trouble expressing his emotions. This may include grunts, growls, scowls and grimaces. Includes talking to himself.

Drink after every line that would never be uttered by a human being, in this universe or any other. Example:

ASHLEY

I never knew you had a cool old
car.

WALT
It's only been in here since
before you were born.

ASHLEY
So, what are you like going to do
with it like, when... you die?

Drink every time the movie conveys a "message."

Drink every time someone says "Gran Torino" or the car is shown.

Speed Racer (2008)
The Plot:

Young Speed Racer: Vroom vroom! I have no attention for my schoolwork because I want to go fast!

Inexplicably British School Authorities: Speeeeeed Racer! Grr!

Unnamed Audience Surrogate: Hey, are you guys seeing this? These, like...colors? It's as though a bunch of Skittles threw up mini-Skittles, and then those Skittles learned to talk and drive cars made of ivory and neon. Is this what Japan looks like?

Morpheus: He is The One.

Time to Deletion: 12:37.

Crimes: brain-melting color palette, emphatically insulting the viewer's intelligence every thirty seconds

Prom Night (2008)
The Plot:

Generic Blonde Girl: Hey mom, hey dad, I'm home. OMG, a murderer! ... and then I wake up.

Psychiatrist: My purpose here is to bring the audience up to speed about some basic facts vis a vis your entire family being murdered three years ago by a crazed high school teacher.

Generic Blonde Girl: And they were murdered! Three years ago! I thought I was over it, but the dreams -- the dreams have started again.

Psychiatrist: That's heavy-handed foreshadowing. Let me cool your fevered brain with some made-up psychobabble.

Generic Blonde Girl: The psychobabble! It does nothing!

Psychiatrist: The important thing is that tomorrow is your prom, the most important night of your life, and there's no way a murderer who is imprisoned 2,000 miles away from here -- and has been for the last 3 years -- is going to ruin that. Now, how about some ice cream?

Generic "Teenage" Boy: I'd go for some ice cream. And so would my non-threatening good looks. I love prom, and I'm so glad I could spend it with my favorite cardboard cut-outs. When I smile, you can see the future in my pearly whites. Additionally, I'm 35.

Murderer: You're all gonna diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiie!

Time to deletion: 17:47, with 32x fast-forwarding.

Crimes: "everybody's a narrator" syndrome, BBF syndrome, casting Idris Elba in a utility role as The Concerned Cop

Currently watching Charlie Bartlett, which is so far only mediocre and thus tolerable. Updates to come.

Would look something like this:

I saw Be Kind, Rewind this weekend, Michel Gondry's paean to the do-it-yourself ethos of VHS movie-making. The movie certainly has its flaws; as with most of Gondry's writing, the script doesn't really move forward so much as inhabit an eclectic imaginative space. Gondry plays more than he shapes or hones, and Be Kind, Rewind should really use some more honing.

But I did appreciate his nostalgia for cultural community grounded in, you know, the real world. (The existence of such community in present-day Passaic, NJ, marks, sadly, the most unrealistic facet of the movie.)

Via GPC though, I found this nice homage to the culture of used books, tape trading, and bootleg VHS.