'Ameripendance'
It's the 4th of July, Independence Day, tomorrow. Granted, that means nothing to my English readers, but I'm sure the Americanos are already chomping at the bit for my thoughts on the matter.
Last year, of course, I was in the States for this greatest of days. I spent the day with Natalie(a girl who worked at Subway and found me understandably charming) going cliff diving in the morning, eating dinner with her parents in the afternoon and shooting fireworks into the sky come nightfall.
That last one isn't a metaphor.
The only experience of fireworks I'd had before then was, of course, on Guy Fawkes' Night. We're understandably safety conscious in the UK, and any event where gunpowder has been lit on fire and shot into the sky has therefore kept the crowds somewhat away from the action.
Natalie, her Dad, a bunch of her friends and I were less cautious. It being New Mexico, illegal fireworks were plentiful, and we set them alight and merely took a few steps back as they careened away. The whole thing was quite cavalier - at one point some disused plastic tubing was used in conjunction with some rockets to form a makeshift cannon.
It took me a while to get used to this (perhaps foolhardy) attitude towards fireworks, though. The first time one of them was set off I became convinced that it was going to fall back down towards us, and I instinctively hit the ground and covered my head.
Apparently, Natalie was asked several times that night if I was 'special'.
I was not told what her response was.
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'Velocifero'
Readers who have been with me for a while will know that in september I made and posted a short video to YouTube. It featured, for a few seconds, footage of my naked behind. The brief nudity(in addition to the sarcastic title of "See My Bum") led to it being discovered and enjoyed by many gay and paedophilic communities on the internet, to the extent that the video has now been viewed 92,992 times.
Which is a lot more than my other videos, believe me.
The other day I received a comment on the video. Nothing new, I've been receiving them for months and usually deleting them due to inflammatory sexual or racist(what the hell?) content. This comment was especially interesting, though:
The reason for this video is just an excuse to show off a young bare ass for gay men to watch for their attention cause that's the only way gay men and paedophiles(same diff)know how to give their attention to young boys! Encouraging sexual behavior rather than discouraging videos like these which can later come back to be used against them as adults and destroy their lives and destroy whatever they'll try to acheive for themselves in the future while it's no skin off gay men's asses!
Obviously, this person is one of the few true intellectual greats. I had to engage in some discourse:
Hi,
My name is Avery, and I made that video(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4UyoA3kYt4) purely because I was bored and thought it was a mildly funny idea(the central joke is that the main character puts so much effort into getting ready for the day, only to shoot heroin and go back to sleep).
I named the video 'See My Bum' because I knew that when my friends saw it, that would be the first thing they commented on. I wanted to diffuse that by ironically implying that that was the main focus of the video, when it isn't at all.
A glance at my other videos will hopefully confirm that I'm not at all about providing content for gay men, especially paedophiles(which are two different things). It is unfortunate that the brief ass shot in the video caused it to be noticed and linked to by a few online gay and/or paedophilic communities, but just because my work was found by an audience other than I intended, doesn't make it illegal.
The video is not illegal, or pornographic - the guy on screen(me) was 19 years old at time of shooting, and the naked shots are not intended to titillate/arouse.
I hope that clears a few things up for you.
Avery Edison(fortyeyes)
Naturally, this illicited a fairly humble apology for being so judgmental in the comments section. Oh, wait, it didn't:
Thanks for the lovely e-mail! That's the funniest thing i've read in a while! I love reading silly messages like yours that are very pretentious and hardly convincing that only a fool would buy into that story! Something that I didn't mention is that youtube is a Family video sharing/viewing site with rules and regulations to keep it that way! It is to ensure that Families can enjoy a site that does not contain nudity, vulgarity and gay-themed content. Parents like myself want to have that piece of mind knowing that our children are watching and sharing good, clean amateur video's without having to worry about people like you showing something that could have been left out of a Family site! Disagree? Read the TOS Bitch!
By this time I've looked into the user's previous activity on YouTube. Her profile(http://www.youtube.com/user/menareevil) is pretty much full of comments from other YouTubers she's ticked off, and a Google search for her username shows all the videos she's left comments on. It's pages and pages of pure bile, pretty much, with the repeated mantra of "gays and pedophiles(same difference)".
This is clearly an ill person, who deserves at least some measure of pity. But screw that, her homophobia annoys me, so I reply back:
Wow, that was... uh... wow. Geez.
As I said - the brief nudity was for humour, and not to titillate. So I haven't violated the terms of service. Not that I'm worried, since you have clearly been exacting a campaign of misandry and homophobia without repercussions, and using YouTube as a platform for harassment is very much against the TOS.
But why am I even typing this? You're not going to change your opinion, and I'm not going to change mine.
Still, glad you thought the message(and it was a message, not an "e-mail") was funny. I'm a comedian, so I'll take all the laughs I can get.
Avery
PS. You totally need to look up the word 'pretentious'. You're using it wrong.
Just for the record? She's not using it wrong. But what the heck, right?
You are peretentious! I know the meaning of the word and loved how you use insult to use on me when you can't use the whole real truth to use back at me! It shows just how young and immature you are which explains your pretentious attitude!
Thanks For Replying, You Silly, Little Bitch!
God Bless You!
It's been a few days now, and I'm still trying to wrap my brain around the sentence "I know the meaning of the word and loved how you use insult to use on me when you can't use the whole real truth to use back at me!"
And of course, you gotta love the insult followed up with "God Bless You!".
In all seriousness, there's a lot of inappropriate content on YouTube, and a lot of videos featuring underdressed minors performing for camera(knowledge of this due only to the 'related' vids that show up next to my video, and the videos that received comments from 'menareevil'.
Still, this isn't the way to combat them. 'menareevil's campaign is just a big blanket of hatred that achieves nothing except to give actual paedophiles something else to hate, and possibly upset the 'false positives' such as myself.
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'Continental'
I unicycled from Wareham to Swanage yesterday, and back. It's about 20 miles round trip, 22 with the detour through Storborough. It's really hilly, and the wind was blowing pretty fiercely. It took me about 4 hours.
So, yeah. I'm pretty much the best at everything, ever.
I've suffered mildly from hayfever in the past, but only sniffles or a bit of trouble breathing. It's not like I'm the outdoorsy type. But yesterday's marathon took it's toll somewhat. I took a nap when I got home and woke up 4 hours later with giant, puffed-up eyeballs. They still haven't entirely gone down after a night's sleep and the cold shower blasting on 'em.
So, yeah. Going outside sucks. You heard it here first.
Of course, there's not much to do in Wareham. Admittedly, there wasn't much to do in Southampton(especially when one is homeless) but at least in Sotton I had my Cineworld unlimited card - I could always go catch a movie. The nearest Cineworld here is Weymouth. Which is a 40-mile round trip. I could totally do that.
So, yeah. I'm a glutton for punishment.
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'Dr. Pepper'
Every now and then I'll dabble around in sound. Here's today's bash -
2.5mb, 2 minutes 40 seconds
The relevant articles, for those interested, are:
PM hits back over civil liberties
Thousands mark summer solstice
'Gus' crowned world's ugliest dog
Cats 'spark eczema in vulnerable'
Britain battered by summer gales
Bodies of soldiers return home
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'That's carbon for you.'
I distinctly remember feeling the most ashamed of myself I'd ever felt in one of Mr. Dr. Rowe's biology classes in year 11. The subject of that day's lesson was reproduction, and nothing in the world was funnier to me at that moment than our teacher's necessary and repeated use of the word 'ejaculate'.
No-one else was laughing, of course, and I remember getting very stern looks from both Dr. Rowe and Leo, who was sat next to me. I tried really hard to hold the laughter back, which people who know me will know is a Herculean task, and the giggles intsead bubbled up underneath my skin, shaking my body in my seat and contorting my face with a pain that tickled.
It was like I could read the minds of everyone in the room, and they were all thinking 'Grow Up!'. My face burned with shame, but I couldn't stop. I don't know why everyone was so shocked, I was a four-foot-barely-anything sack of bones with a bowl haircut that, at 16, hadn't even taken one step into puberty-land, that mysterious place where all my other classmates had vacationed over the summer and came back from, changed. It was a little unfair expecting me to 'grow up' - I was hardly oozing maturity.
Now, of course, I know why it was so funny. Something I couldn't explain to my friends at the time, other than with the childish mantra "He kept saying it!". Now I know that I laughed because I, like every other child in England, had spent years in a system that discouraged(sometimes even outright punished) use of that kind of language.
In fact, in year 11 I gave a brief talk on the yearbook to the rest of my class in assembly. It was so ingrained in us that references to sexual activities were verboten that after a pejorative allusion to the mere existence of pornography there was a half-second where people turned their heads ever so slightly in the direction of our year head, waiting for approval to laugh.
The fact that Dr. Rowe was using words I'd been told not to for so long (and using them so casually, too!) clashed with everything my brain know about polite conversation. My brain apparently could not reconcile this contrast, so reacted with laughter. Peals of it.
Still, everyone else seemed to do okay, so we should probably put it down to childishness too. Which I don't seem to have lost, really. Because earlier I remembered that the word 'turgid' exists and burst out laughing.
It probably says something about me that this story is not my most personally embarrassing event that took place in Dr. Rowe's classroom. Right, Leo?
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'Fun with Friends'
Question: When I watch this video the audio goes out of sync in a blatant and annoying way. Is this happening for anyone else?
Also? YouTube sucks.
So I found this video tape that I couldn't remember filming on. Turns out it had about an hour's worth of me, Jack, Dave and Leo dicking around on it.
Here are the 'highlights'.
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'Liveblogging 'Drillbit Taylor''
Liveblogging 'Drillbit Taylor'
Okay, just to get you all up to speed - 'Drillbit Taylor' is a film starring Owen Wilson(crook-nosed wrist-slasher) as a b0dyguard for some kids. I think - that's the deal, I've only seen the trailer and that was a fair few months ago. I've since been told that the film is bad, but I've downloaded(naughty) it to find out for myself.
Here we go.
0:00:00 - It occurs to me that I have no snacks, the film may have to be paused at some point. I hope my critical faculties are not affected, nor afflicted, or adjusted.
0:01:41 - These kids don't talk like kids. Particularly the fat one who, despite being a freshman and thus 14 years old appears to possess the gruff snarl of a salty Brooklyn dock-worker.
0:03:22 - Fat kid showering and rapping. Simultaneously. From here on out, you're on borrowed time, movie. You hear me? Borrowed time.
0:06:40 - "Don't spend it on food, porn only" "Ha ha ha ha!" See, kids? Being homeless is super fun!
0:08:31 - They're probably legal, it's okay to stare. They're probably legal, it's okay to stare...
0:10:30 - Okay, let's chalk up another Hollywood film that gets bullying completely wrong.
0:18:35 - "Whaddaya mean by 'bodyguard'?" - Oh, I get it. The fat kid is special.
0:21:03 - The kids ratted on the bullies, so the bullies are trying to kill them with a car. I can only conclude that this movie takes place in the hellish world of Robocop or perhaps Mad Max 2: Beyond Thunderdome.
0:30:33 - Okay, we're at the point in the movie where we're meant to hate Owen Wilson. Of course, for me, that's all of the movie.
0:43:10 - "I'll be there, like a silent, deadly poltergeist." A legitimately funny line, there.
0:46:10 - "Holy crap you guys are retarded!" I am inclined to agree.
0:51:30 - Snack time. Accidentally bought cheddar and onion crisps, instead of salt and vinegar. I attribute this to it being late, not any kind of neurological disorder.
0:57:15 - "Life skills, I need Life Skills!" See, not only is he searching for the classroom in which 'Life Skills' lessons are taught, but he is also homeless, and therefore literally needs life skills. See, it's layered.
1:00:00 - As the film hits the one hour mark, we get this beauty: "Now Castro, he knew that he was not gonna get any action with Marilyn Monroe. And that is why John F. Kennedy was shot." Blew me away[no pun intended].
1:05:27 - I just checked. There's 45 minutes of this movie left. There totally isn't enough plot for 45 minutes. I guessing the last quarter of an hour must be a complicated, show-stopping Bollywood dance number.
1:21:28 - I have officially given up. This movie is playing in the background whilst I complete New Super Mario Brothers for the 40th time.
1:48:12 - It did not end in a complicated, show-stopping Bollywood dance number.
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'Wrong Plot Summaries #2 - Romeo + Juliet'
So we should probably get this out early so I don't he to constantly reinforce and reiterate - Romeo is a douche. I mean, Juliet's not much better, and don't even get me started on the various assholeries of Tybalt, but Romeo is straight up King of the Dicks. Just for future reference.
Okay, so we start off with this whole "two households, both alike in dignity" thing. I know Shakespeare is hard and stuff, but it's like 30 seconds in and I'm already confused. What does that even mean? My guess, it means everyone in this film sucks. I think I guessed right.
Anyway, Romeo is after some chick, so he's going to a party dressed as Heath Ledger a Knight to try and get some. 'Cause I guess clanking around really gets the ladies hot nowadays. Anyhow, he totally bags on the girl he came for once he sees Juliet, who is dressed as an angel. Although, Juliet? Wearing a white dress and some wings from a costume store? Not really making an effort. I mean, Romeo probably had to go to a blacksmith or something to get his outfit. You got some coathangers and a glue-gun, from the looks of things.
Eyes meet, and it's love at first sight. That'd be neat and stuff, but it turns out their families hate each other. Like, a lot. Like I said, this is Shakespeare, so I have absolutely no idea why. Romeo has to run away and live in a desert for a bit(yeah, what?) but then Juliet comes up with this awesome plan that involves faking her own death.
So the postman screws things up and Romeo and Juliet end up dead. Spoiler Alert. 'Course, this is Shakespeare, and if you've read 'the Tempest' or 'Macbeth'(which I haven't) you'll know that crazy stuff is about to go down. And it does.
Because Hamlet totally shows up. I know, right?
Romeo's friends are really sad that he died and stuff, so they go and visit this Wizard to bring him back to life, and while it's not mad, like, obvious that it's Hamlet(the Wizard is wearing this big hood) he answers the phone and says "Who is this? ... Tybalt? Or not Tybalt? That is the question..." and you totally know.
So the Wizard brings Romeo back from the dead, but he does it wrong, and now Romeo is a zombie. First point of order? Eat Juliet's corpse.
The rest of the film is pretty much zombie-Romeo going around and killing everyone who wronged him. His friends try to put a stop to it, but they're like "We can't lose him again."
Luckily, this is a film, so the Hulk shows up and takes care of some business.
Man, these things are fun to write. You would not believe how fun.
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'Wrong Plot Summaries #1: The Shawshank Redemption[UPDATED]'
The Shawshank Redemption is the story of these two gay guys, Tim Ribbons and that black dude who isn't Samuel L. Jackson. They pull off a heist that goes wrong, and they get thrown in pokey for like a hella long time, a thousand years or something I dunno. So anyway, White guy has totally seen Prison Break or something, because he wants to break out of the prison, and the other dude is like "Nigga, please! I ain't gettin' no map tattoo!" 'cos that's how he talks.
He also calls the white guy a 'cracker' a lot and I was offended.
There's this really hilarious montage where you see all their escape attempts(giant catapault, wings made from feathers and wax, etc) fail, and in the last one they get caught by the prison warden, and I was like "Ohhhhhh shit!" at this point.
The prison warden says they can have their freedom if they survive a fight to the death with him.
The winner also gets to wear the nice shoes, which I guess is a intercontertexuality reference to Wizard of Oz or something, but I didn't get it 'cos I'm straight.
So the two main guys pull out their swords and try and kill the warden guy, but I guess he's warden for a reason 'cos he totally whups their asses. Black dude gets totally cut in half and dies right there in the ring. This makes the other dude really mad and he turns into the Hulk
And that's when shit gets really crazy.
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'Loose Ends'
I re-watched Jurassic Park again recently, the first time I'd done so in at least ten years. I remember it being a big deal when I was little - I saw a report on Meridian News about the film, asking my Mum why there was a fuss. "It's very scary, and children are allowed to see it."
I can't really remember seeing it in the cinema, I just have brief flashes; the seemingly endless(and therefore boring) helicopter ride to the island, the cow being fed to the T-Rex, that same T-Rex breathing loudly in the rain. I recall being huddled in my seat.
Mum bought me a big Jurassic Park book. I would have been 5 years old, if only by a few months. The book contained behind the scenes info, two-page spreads of iconic moments from the movie, and a long list of everything Spielberg had directed. I devoured it.
When we went to the Isle of Wight for a week and I got homesick, Mum bought me some JP trading cards. They smelled amazing. Every now and then I'll come across a book or object with that same plastic scent, and my olfactory memory will pull me right back to the image of the Velociraptor card in my hands.
I don't remember much from my childhood, especially before 1997, but something about Jurassic Park stuck with me, apparently. When I watched the film back it didn't scare me, obviously. I've seen it more than enough for any sense of suspense to be lost. But looking at the Wikipedia entry I found this image. It's a go motion test screencap. There's something chilling about the image of that Tyrannosaurus Rex stomping around in darkness. It gives me chills to look at.
Coda: I became slightly obsessed with dinosaurs for a little while. It can clearly be argued that that's a very little boy thing to be obsessed with. True. Still, I also became obsessed with Sylvanian Families for a short time, too. So let's call it even on that front.
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