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December 01, 2002
losing my religion
OK, so God wants me to go back to work.
I’m not a religious man by any means. I think it’s basically a fine idea, minus the thousands of years of holy wars, but take that away and you’ve got something in theory not too shabby. I’m talking here about organized religions versus religious tendencies in general. Religion good, church/war bad. Anyways.
So God/Allah/Jehovah has been sending me signs. He realized I was finally really getting used to this “no work but still collect paycheck” deal I was swinging on my two weeks of vacation. So he threw me two thunderbolts. Firstly, he knocked out the heat in my apartment. For 36 hours, the difference between outside and inside? Nil, as Australian Rules Football announcers would say. (Anyone else go around school making that cool “score” hand movement those ARF refs made? Um, yea, me neither.) So I am freezing my little tush off. Can’t go to my folks’ house, since I was due there today and I needed to hit the gym (post-Thanksgiving and all). Can’t go to my only friend’s place nearby since her ex was staying over that weekend and putting us in the same team is a little like putting the main characters in the same holding cell in “The Usual Suspects”, only substitute the “master crime plan” for “general snarling and ill will”. So, I bundle up nice and tight and brave the cold.
Not, however, before embarking on God’s second lighting bolt---watching “Tomcats” and “On the Line” within a 15 hour span.
Yes, it’s true, those two cultural highs themselves, “Tomcats” and “On the Line”. For those of you who don’t know, “Tomcats” was the movie so bad that it singlehandedly put the nail in the coffin of low-budget, high-grossing gross-out comedies. It has Jerry O’Connell, Horatio Sanz, and the guy who’s the brother of Gary Busey, I think. These were the marquee names, people. I think a family trip to Subway would pay for these actors’ salaries.
Speaking of the Busey thing…just freaky. It was like a bad genetic experiment. Take a cool Gary Busey (ie, pre-“Dop Zone”), remove a few genes, and let him loose on cinema. I think every line this guy had in the movie had the phrase “do her”, “ride her”, or “tap that ass like I’m in Drum Corps”. Yikes.
The Commander was over, in town for the weekend. This was the basic conversation watching this:
Tim: Oh my…
Me: Did they just…
Tim: Sweet Mary Mother of…
Me: Oh, that ain’t right!
Tim: You know, this actually went through DRAFTS.
And we hadn’t made it through the CREDITS yet. So I start the timer, seeing how long we could stand watching it. Tim made it through about 13 minutes and wept like a baby. He left, but now I had to watch the rest, sort of like a train wreck, I couldn’t look away. To be fair, I did actually laugh once. But never has an 80 minute movie felt…so….long. I think the “chase around the cancerous testicle scene” was the moment I went, “OK, this is unrealistic. I could buy Bill Maher as a Vegas loan shark, Shannon Elizabeth as a top-notch cop, and Jaime Prestley actually wanting to marry Horatio Sanz, but I simply can’t believe a ball could go through all this and survive. Honestly.” This is the worst cinema can get, I thought.
Well, until “On the Line”. Morbid curiosity, and a general lack of contact with the outside world recently, left me vulnerable to watching Joey Fatone fart throughout a movie that had everyone watching with baited breath as Lance Bass tried to give a different line reading other than “completely and utterly dull.” It was almost a feat to have absolutely no variation in tone, intonation, or emotion whatsoever. Kinda rooted for him after a while. And when I say Joey farted through the movie, literally every scene featured some sort of flatulence. Just...ugh. The less said the better. (Ditto on the "guy" who sings "Gotta Get Through This". Seriously. We have to stop castrati pop.)
And after the movie, completely out of nowhere, they do a weird skit during the credits where Justin and Chris from N Sync are flamingly gay hairdressers. I kid you not. I can’t even really describe it; my brain went into “Sleep” mode like C3PO in that first Luke/Obi Wan scene in “Star Wars”. Just….ack. I felt dirty.
Luckily, I got out of the house tonight. I bartended for a family friend’s engagement party. Got to show off some spiffy new threads. If you care to peek, click on the MORE button. I mostly took these for Jenny, who insists that I never dress up nice. And as usual she’s right. So here ya go.
Posted by Ryan McGee at December 1, 2002 12:59 AM
Comments
Jake is his son. You're right, the movie sucked.
Posted by: SLL at December 1, 2002 10:35 AM
I've got you beat. I too watched Tomcats. But I also paid to watch (rented) Van Wilder. And Tomcats was about 3 times better.
Ugh.
Posted by: 3L at December 1, 2002 06:23 PM
so you dress up (and look quite spiffy i might add) but then pick me up from the airport in sweats? sigh. you tease!
Posted by: jenny at December 1, 2002 11:07 PM
What makes the picture, I find, was the upside-down ketchup bottle in the bottom lefthand corner.
Posted by: Commander Foley at December 2, 2002 10:28 AM
Yeah, I liked the ketchup bottle too. I think I'll get rid of the candles and pictures that now adorn the coffee table and switch to Heinz. And is that a Magic 8 Ball I see??
Posted by: Lori at December 2, 2002 12:07 PM
the best laid plans. sigh.
Posted by: ryan at December 2, 2002 12:22 PM
Seems Ryan is starting a trend...the ketchup bottle is THE decorating accessory for the Holiday season. Really, I just read it in Martha Stewart Living.
Posted by: moxie at December 2, 2002 05:47 PM
McGee!! How could you taked pictures with our apartment looking so dirty.
Posted by: Jen at December 2, 2002 05:59 PM
errr strike that -ed on take
Posted by: Jen at December 2, 2002 06:00 PM
well, i'll just file this post under "why bother trying"...
Posted by: ryan at December 2, 2002 06:08 PM
Japhet, the place doesn't look that bad... nothing on the floor, for example. Really, the ketchup bottle is the only evidence of untidiness, and we all know that's just McGee's homage to the Ketchup Song.
Posted by: Commander Foley at December 3, 2002 09:44 AM