My life is a fucking mess

Sometimes I think back and wonder how I got to this point. I was a promising kid, maybe a little unpolished, but brimming with potential and enthusiasm. I never thought I would be a brain surgeon, or a famous celebrity, I just hoped that I would be a car mechanic and maybe have my own auto body shop eventually. Instead, I'm a bloated, balding, twice-divorced lackey for some pencil-necked geek and his priveleged family. The very same geek I used to beat up on in high school. I can't prove it, but I have a sneaking suspicion that his son went back in time and completely fucked up my life.
I know it sounds crazy. I know time travel isn't supposed to be possible. But there's a few inconsistencies and nagging doubts that lead me to believe that this McFly kid has traveled through time for the express purpose of making me look like a douchebag. For one thing, he's always hanging out with that crazy old fruitcake Doc Brown. I remember that crazy old son of a bitch from my childhood, always yammering about some cockamamie nonsense and setting his barn on fire with his failed experiments. We used to cover that guy's house with eggs every Halloween. It makes no sense that Marty would hang out with that loser, unless Doc Brown has some kind of time machine they could use to go back in time and fuck up my life. It's really the only logical explanation, especially in light of the other strange facts.
For one thing, Marty is the spitting image of that asshole Calvin that seemed to appear for a week in high school for the express purpose of making my life a living hell. The kid is really a dead ringer. And it was strange how this new kid showed up, befriended George McFly--the guy I was bullying--and then suddenly George has the grapes to haul off and sucker punch me at the Enchantment Under the Sea school dance. I'd say it went all downhill from there. There was the weird incident where some old kook gave me a book of phony sports records and told me to keep it under wraps, but that just led to Calvin making my car skid into a truck filled with manure again. No one ever heard from him again. I'd love to see that little prick now, I'd break his fucking face open. But I'm not bitter.
I mean, I really appreciate what George did for me. He didn't have to give me a chance, not after the way I treated him in high school. When I was going through my second divorce and that fat bitch was going to garnish fifty per cent of my wages, I was probably at my lowest point. I was drinking three liters of bourbon a day, plus a six pack of brewskis or so. I was almost a year behind on rent. My '72 Chevelle had been impounded for unpaid parking tickets. To be honest, I probably would have done myself in if George hadn't offered me the position to be his personal car maintenance technician. At least, that's what my official title is. Everyone knows I'm just his goddamned lackey. Where did I go wrong? I used to fold twerps like that with one punch to the midsection. Now I'm begging George for forgiveness every time I miss a spot when washing one of the family's cars. I have no confidence in myself anymore. And I swear to God, somehow, some way, it has something to do with the McFly kid and that addle-brained old wizard Doc Brown. If I ever find out he did have something to do with screwing up my life, I'm stealing all the change out of his car's ashtray.

Ladies, hold on to your dignity

I don't know what's happening in the rest of the country, but here in New York City, Spring is in the air, and that can only mean one thing: that pervasive warm weather urine smell is back. More specifically to this blog, however, is that cosmopolitan women have broken out their Spring wardrobes. Ladies, I have no problem with most of the clothing you choose to highlight your various body parts with, however there are a few articles that I think have been sprung on you by prankster fashion designers, which I will note here:

The Net Slipper: These might not be as fashionable elsewhere, but here in the Northeast, women are wearing these flimsy little slippers with beaded netting at the front to hold in the toes. They look like something you could get on Canal Street for a dollar a pair, but judging by the fashionably wealthy women that frequently wear them, I'm sure Bloomingdale's is hawking these at fifty bucks a clip. These certainly maximize the exposure of one's feet to the open air, but what kind of grosses me out is that they also keep a woman's tootsie hanging about one-eighth of an inch above the pavement. Last time I checked, pavement wasn't an easily-cleanable surface. I've been lobbying the city to re-do the city in moppable linoleum tiles, but until then we are forced to walk on top of refuse, excrement, and general grime. I think maybe you could use more than a length of cardboard and four inches of gauze between the soles of your feet and the ground.

The Fred Flinstone Shirt: These actually came into fashion during the 1970's and have made periodic comebacks during the subsequent decades. With today's snug, huggable fabrics, the result is less flattering than ever. You know the shirts I mean: basically a tank top with one strap crossed over a shoulder a la Fred Flinstone. While I appreciate the "safety first" look of having your seatbelt on outside the car, I must confess that this look is not altogether flattering unless you are purposely covering an acid-scarred shoulderblade or something. Otherwise, let's either see spaghetti straps or tube tops. You can't have it both ways, sister, except maybe in college or at a bachelorette party.

Gaucho Pants: Another fashion abomination inherited from the 1970's, this piece of outerwear is called "gaucho" which loosely translates to "dork in highwaters". This is possibly one of the least-flattering bits of clothing that women regularly wear, often with a pair of high-heeled boots to really cap off the whole pirate effect. Add a ruffled blouse and a parrot, and you're ready to sail the high seas. Women seem to be under the illusion that gaucho pants are effectively a skirt you can wear like pants, but this is not the case. Skirts are flowing, bouncy numbers that swish while a woman walks and puts men in a hypnotic trance. Gaucho pants look like you've lost the cuffs to your bellbottoms. Do yourselves a favor and just wear culottes.

Not Fast Enough, McDonald's

I was first put on to this new practice from Deebo's Blog, where she waxes rhapsodic about coffee on a regular basis: McDonald's is now offering the perfect cup of coffee. I don't drink the stuff, but I can certainly understand how this would be enticing to caffeine addicts. Based on the information I gleaned from the aforementioned blog and a few commercials for McDonald's I have seen, what makes this coffee "perfect" is that they now add the cream and sugar for you, instead of giving you the necessary condiments and letting you apply them yourself. Maybe I am naive about the whole coffee-drinking populace and their weird customs (which also apparently include talking a mile-a-minute and slightly perspiring), but wouldn't the "perfect" cup of coffee be one where you added cream and sugar and whatever else yourself?
Don't get me wrong here. It isn't like I don't trust McDonald's to provide me with rapid, banal service everytime I go in there. I'm just wondering how "perfect" they can make my coffee. What if I like exactly one and a half teaspoons of cream and four granules of sugar? Can they handle this request? I get the picture here, though: it's convenience. No more fumbling with foil-covered cream containers and paper packets of sugar, just a perfect (and legally piping hot) cup of coffee that you can throw down the gullet before you even get back on the freeway. I'd say the bigger problem here is the outdated delivery system. A cup of coffee? Take that shit back to the 19th century. Why don't you load my coffee into a Super Soaker and just shoot it right into my throat? I've got my Speedy Pass ready so I don't want to hear any guff. And if you can puree my cheeseburger and fries into a liqueous solution, we can wrap this whole thing up in under thirty seconds.
It really saddens me to see McDonald's bow to the pressure of coffee snobs and health nuts. I don't go to McDonald's to eat a salad and quaff some French Roast, I want a gummy little burger that was formed in a giant Play Doh factory and a cold, tasteless drink to kill the heartburn. I don't want yogurt and granola, I want a doughy little pie microwaved to the temperature of a nuclear core that has a teaspoon of apple sauce in it. This is what we go to McDonald's for, not the food, but the near-death experience. What McDonald's needs to understand is that there's still a market for bland, rubbery food marketed by circus clowns and anthropomorphic biplane pilots. And that market is known as Los Angeles.

The Good, the Bad, and the Mediocre

Freaky Friday rip-offs

THE GOOD: Vice Versa
Every now and again, a rising star and a falling star meet each other and create a work of art that stands the test of time, and is ultimately seen as a turning point in both their careers. More frequently, two middle-of-the-road actors are thrown together to rush out some forgettable crap in order to capitalize on a trend, and unwittingly create a sublimely moronic piece of trash that can be studied and enjoyed for generations. Such is the case with Vice Versa, a film starring Judge Reinhold (fresh off the heels of his successful role in Beverly Hill Cop 2) and Fred Savage (an unexpected Tiger Beat heartthrob due to his starring role in the television series The Wonder Years) as a father and son that end up switching bodies when they touch some ancient clay vase at the same time, or something like that. There are many stupid things about this movie that we could discuss at length, but perhaps the most tickling is the way Fred Savage acts the pants off of Reinhold in nearly every opporunity. While Reinhold seems to portray his teenaged son as a naive, brain-damaged doofus, Savage plays the adult role adequately, and hold the entire picture together (well, as much as can be expected). When they return back to their original selves, they each take away with it a little lesson about life, love, and box office failure. Actually, I suppose Judge Reinhold already learned that last lesson.

THE BAD: Big
Really the culprit that restarted the Freaky Friday rip-off movie craze, this movie is technically better than either of the other films listed here or any other movie in the category. The directing, the acting, and the overall script is lightyears ahead of the other motion pictures. What bothers me is this: Josh (played by Tom Hanks as an adult) wishes to be big and live in the adult world where life is perceived as being easier. He gets his wish, and immediately moves off to Manhattan where he gets an incredible studio apartment, an amazing job as a toy developer, a hot chick that can't get enough of him, and is generally loved by everyone he comes into contact with. So then the fucking kid gets homesick and returns back to his parents! Some of us adults that had to get "big" the normal way take a little umbrage at that. I like to satisfy myself by believing that Josh did grow up, went to college, developed a serious heroin addiction, and wound up panhandling on the steps of the New York Public Library. Lesson learned: don't look a gift horse in the mouth, asshole.

THE MEDIOCRE: 18 Again!
Almost simply by virtue of having an exclamation point in the title, 18 Again! is a comedy that easily surpasses Freaky Friday, a requisitely simple matter that must be accomplished to even be considered for this list. It stars stage and silver screen legend George Burns and some nobody twerp named Charlie Schlatter. Burns is a smug, wealthy grandfather that wishes to be--you guessed it--eighteen again, and through a series of events that I only vaguely remember, switches bodies with his grandson (played by Schlatter). Burns ends up in a coma, while Schlatter carouses around his university campus, impressing hot chicks with his ballroom dancing and penchant for big, smelly cigars. Turns out all those airheads wanted all along was some gum-sucking, petrified weirdo that could sweep them off their feet and regale them with tales of the Herbert Hoover era. What sets this movie apart from so many comedies made in the 1980s is that there are no gangsters or racketeers following Schlatter around the whole movie that force him to have to switch bodies again, he just has an ethical crisis and the deed is done. Reportedly, Burns did this movie for a lot less than his usual fee because he got to sleep throughout most of the shooting. Lukily, the audience was able to sleep throughout most of the viewing.