Erik Grayson, �A Mind of Summer�
Ok. So I�m back in Hawaii, meaning I wasn�t killed by Kelly�s father, he of the unspeakable government military job.
Yet.
I mean, really � any assassin worth their salt would do a little research into their target, and if Kelly�s father is amongst these people, he would have seen me leaving a trail that would lead to questions which pointed to him. It simply wouldn�t do to take me out immediately. That would be too obvious. No, he � assuming he has the inclination and authority to take me out � would have to bide his time until people dropped their guard.
So I�ll just say this now: If I die, Kelly�s father did it. And I expect to be avenged. Also, as I�ve said before, I want to be buried with all my stuff.
I do have stories from the trip. Tales including churches, airports, and white folk by the score, but I�m afraid those will simply have to wait as I read this book before I left and I�d like to have some semblance of a structure where the book I read parallels my own life. The only problem with that is this book isn�t comparative to pretty much anything I�ve been involved with. But I�ve has a few (or seven) Newcastles tonight and I�ve since moved on to Barcardi, so I�m sure I can think of something.
I got this book as a review copy for Maximum RockNRoll, which makes it the fourth book they�ve sent me which I�ve read, but haven�t written anything for. This makes me feel like an asshole. It�s rough, because the small amount of free time I have in front of a keyboard lately is regulated to writing bar reviews for the Honolulu Weekly, which I get paid for, or for this site, which I enjoy doing. Hell, I still owe my mom a letter.
Hi mom!
In any case, I�ve been slacking. But this book has been on my mind and I still feel the need to get my review written, mostly because it�s so bad. I feel I have to warn people. When I got it there was something bothering me, mostly because I felt I knew the author, but had no idea why I felt that way. After a tiny bit of research, I figured out how I knew the name.
And really, am I the only one who recognizes the name Erik Grayson? I don�t think so, because other people who saw me reading this (those who were semi-literate, anyway), knew the name as well, but it still took all of them a while to figure out who it was. As it turns out, Grayson is one of those early forerunners on the entire blog movement, and because of his early happenstance, he�s considered an authority on the subject and is invited to discuss the impact of blogging on the media at such unlikely venues as CNN, The New York Times, and Fox News.
Which would, I suppose, make it seem like Grayson would have some interesting things to say. Judging by this book, most of which consists of previously written cyberspace entries of his own, however, he doesn�t. In fact, he comes off as a blowhard who is far too interested in repeatedly mentioning his Ivy League education instead of saying anything of real substance.
I could write more about how much I hate this guy, but I won�t for a couple of reasons. One, if I still intend on writing an actual review for MRR (which I do), I should save it for that. Two, I�ve already fell asleep twice sitting in front of my computer monitor. I think that says I should wrap this up. Suffice to say I think Grayson has a following only because his pop culture value as a forerunner to the blog scene instead of having anything of substance to say. The fact that he has a result through a search through Wikipedia proves my point, methinks.
So fine. He�s a veritable who�s who in the blog community. Still though, I think of Grayson as I do with Henry Miller. Sure, Miller may have been one of the first authors who put the word �cunt� into a book, but it doesn�t necessarily make his works any good. But like I said, even without having read his work previously, I knew his name. I understood the pop reference. And sometimes, that�s enough. And so, even though after reading about half of his book (enough to write a review, in any case), I slogged through the book entire, just to make sure I wasn�t missing something.
And so, if you�ll allow me to clumsily use Grayson as a jumping off point into my own life, that�s why I went to go see X-Men: The Last Stand.
[WARNING: This goes heavily into unnecessary Geek mode, so feel free to stop reading]
I wasn�t expecting much. In fact, I suspected that I�d hate it since they turned the franchise over to a new director � a director in charge of many a poor film previous. But I loved X2. And I�m such a dork that I�ve been looking forward to this third movie since the end credits rolled for the second film.
Frankly, going to a movie and paying the full ticket price felt like a goddamn extravagant luxury to me. After all, I passed on seeing V for Vendetta, figuring it would eventually hit the theater near my house where ticket prices are 50 cents before 3:30, and a dollar for the rest of the evening. And so I waited. And waited. And waited. Still it never showed, and eventually, the film was showing nowhere on the island.
I couldn�t take the chance on that happening again. And in fact, I was worried on hearing too much from people who had seen the film, hawking back to the time of The Empire Strikes Back where I found out who Luke�s father was through friends before getting to see the film myself. I mean, hell, I saw it just 37 hours after opening and in that time people had already spoiled two major plot points for me.
So I treated myself to the full ticket price extravagance, partly because I�m a slavering dork fanboy who wanted to see what happened next and also because I suppose I�m like the creepy person who lingers too long at an accident scene and I wanted to see what kind of mess was made out of something I liked. But mostly I went because I�ve learned that patience isn�t always its own reward, because there isn�t any guarantee that a film will show up at my favorite discount theater.
I�m not going to give anything away, though I should warn people to sit through the end credits (which I didn�t), because there is one final scene. My verdict � Eh. It�s not horrible. It�s not anywhere near the quality of the second film, but I�m glad I saw it. A few things, though: Why the hell does Hollywood think people need to say some sort of idiotic line after hitting people really hard?
There were probably about eight of these groan-inducing moments, most of which didn�t make any sense. If this movie was real life, the defeated person lying on the ground would most certainly get up and kill the person who would make such a lame statement just on general principle. And the person who uttered the inane statement would be so embarrassed that they wouldn�t put up a fight.
Second, when they introduced all the new mutants (and no, I didn�t mean that as a geeky fanboy reference), what the hell was with The Mark? Am I the only one who started giggling at that point, simply because it reminded me of Suburbia? I fully expected them to be sporting �TR� on their forearms, replete with the skinhead mutant arguing with the surfer mutant:
�Where�s my fucking shirt?�
�You�re wearing it, asshole.�
�Not this shirt, my yellow one.�
All right. Raise your hand if you got that reference. I think it�s about eight of you.
Finally, feeling geeky enough to be seeing this movie on opening weekend, there was the caption about ten minutes into the movie where it read �THE NOT TOO DISTANT FUTURE.�
It took all my strength not to start singing the theme song from Mystery Science Theater 3000.
But I thought it. The fact that I made myself into an even bigger dork at this dorkfest is something to be proud of. Or ashamed. Whatever.
Oh, and by the way � V for Vendetta opened today at the discount theater. I�ll be going in about nine hours.
