B-Movie Central Cheese Blog

No, it’s not the title of one of those mellow, instrumental CD’s that are sold mostly to adult women to listen to in the bathtub while surrounded by candles. I’m talking about those perfect moments in life that can’t be created, but simply happen on their own now and then. I was thinking about it the other day, how few of these moments we actually have in life. It’s a shame really that we can’t experience moments like this more often, but I guess if we did, it would take some of the specialness out of them.

Now some people might consider their first kiss or the birth of their children perfect moment, and while they are special times, they are not in fact perfect moments simply because they are stressful. A perfect moment is one in which you are completely relaxed, completely at peace and feeling at one with everything around you without actually thinking about any of it. When I describe a few of these moments that I’ve experienced, I think you’ll understand what I mean.

The first one I can remember having, and I’ve had several of these throughout my life, was during a power outage caused by a severe thunderstorm. We never really notice the background noise around us in our daily lives until we suddenly realize it’s not there anymore. Computers, refrigerators, heating and air conditioning systems, fans and a variety of other sounds all mesh into a blur of background noise that fill our daily lives. At night though, when there’s a raging thunderstorm tearing apart the skies while the rain is being driven down hard by the winds and pounds against your windows with a rhythm that swells and fades with each passing gust, a power outage simply completes the moment. The storm becomes the only background noise and it allows you to lose yourself as you sit silently, not really thinking about anything, while yet at the same time feeling as though you are one with everything. You become a part of the moment, feeling everything, yet thinking nothing.

Another perfect moment I’ve experienced, I never actually experienced until we moved here to Idaho. See, it basically never snowed in Northern California, where I was born and raised. I never really experienced heavy, sticking snow until we moved here. One of my favorite experiences is to go outside at about 2 or 3 a.m. to stand on the deck when we have weather like that. The snow is on the ground, the ice crystals in the atmosphere create a haze that is lit by the city lights, which makes the entire scene light up to levels that are usually not seen until just before dawn, and the traffic is non-existent, hence…no extraneous noise to ruin the scene. Everything is utterly silent and still, and again, this is one of those moments when you feel at one with everything. There’s no wind, no background noise, just a perfect stillness, and as it is with the storm related power outage, you just simply stand there and become a part of the scene, not thinking about anything and completely lose yourself in the moment.

The ocean has created many perfect moments for me as well. Back in California, we lived about a half hour’s drive from the coast, so I used to go out there once in a while at night just to relax. The hypnotic effects of driving along the winding coast road led eventually to my perfect moment on the beach with nothing and no one around me. I would sit, listening to the waves crash over and over against the shoreline as the heavily misted wind blew against my face. My coat was my only shield against the elements. My spine would tighten and my whole body would tingle as the chill of the night infested my very soul, and yet I was at one, once again, with everything. All of my thoughts would fade and, for a time, I could simply just “be”.

There are many other moments like these, and everyone I’m sure has had them from time to time, and yet, so many of you probably don’t even realize it, or appreciate these moments for what they are. The world isn’t going anywhere, and in the grand scheme of the universe, our lives and our problems mean virtually nothing. So when you find yourself experiencing a moment like these, let everything else slip away and simply enjoy it for what it is. We have so few moments like these in our lives, to throw them away out of a morbid preoccupation with our petty day to day problems is just sad. Grab on to these moments and cherish them, for they are few and far between, and every one that is missed, diminishes our lives in ways that are simply immeasurable.

I haven’t ever done this before, but Georg Goehner saw my post from a long time ago about a bad experience my wife and I had at the theater and he requested that he be able to do a guest post here about his bad experience.  His experience was pretty damn horrible, so I agreed.  So, without further adieu, here’s what happened to him in his own words.

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Guest post: How To Easily Annoy People At The Cinema

First of all I have to thank Duane for allowing me to write this post: Thanks Duane, I appreciate it 8-).

I’m going to describe a horrible evening I had recently while watching “Public Enemies”. After I got home I checked online to see if other people had similar experiences and that’s how I found a post here from 2005 called “I hate people… (My trip to the movies.)”. [http://www.bmoviecentral.com/bmoviecentral/blog/?p=985]

Back to my recent cinema visit:

Unfortunately some annoying people were sitting behind us – and what happened is unlike anything I can remember when at the movies:

1. They talked with their friends from the start of the movie until the end credits rolled.

2. They repeatedly hit our seats – and the floor.

3. They took phone calls during the movie (”I’m in the cinema.”).

4. They debated friends whether to leave for a cigarette, then finally left.

5. They came back and had a lively discussion on what to do after the movie.

All this happened during one single movie – and I bet many of you fellow movie lovers had a similarly bad experience at one time or another.

So excuse me while I borrow a famous movie quote:

I’M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GONNA TAKE THIS ANYMORE!

(wow, I think even my typing got louder 8-)).

I’d love to read your comments if something similar has happened to you.

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About the author:

When I’m not writing rants like this I publish posts on a variety of topics such as “How to Promote Your Blog”, Web Development – and of
course positive movie memories – over at http://originalarticles.wordpress.com.

Honestly I was only going to write about the music industry thing, but I’ll get to that in a minute.  First I need to say a little something about Kate Gosselin.  My wife Sharon showed me an article with the headline, “Kate Gosselin says her marriage is definitely over”.  Basically, she was on an episode of Live with Regis and Kelly and apparently when they asked her if there was any chance of saving the marriage, she basically said no, it’s over.  So I’m sitting here looking at that headline and thinking, “Gee, what was your first clue?  Could it have been the freakin’ DIVORCE???  Or maybe it’s all the chicks your ex-husband has been seen hanging out with, all of whom are far more intelligent and appealing than you.”  Seriously, I watched like two or three episodes of that show, and for the life of me I can’t figure out how he ever tolerated her as long as he did.  To say she’s an airhead is like saying Einstein was a little bright… – complete understatement.

Anyway, enough of that.  She’s gotten FAR more attention than she ever deserved.  I mean, if your only claim to fame is that you can pop out eight kids like a friggin’ jackovasaur on South Park, that’s really not saying much about you as a person.

Now, onto the music industry.  You suck.  ‘Nuff Said.

No, it’s not enough actually.  What got me in my current state of intense hatred for the industry was the other night when I was watching Brooke Knows Best.  At the end of the episode, she did a performance at some Latino festival down there in Florida.  So she comes out lookin’ just smokin’ hot.  She’s got an ear-mic on and she’s ready to go.  So the crappy ass “music” starts, and as she starts dancing around and gyrating with her backup dancers, it turns out she’s just lip syncing it.  Now, not only does that piss me off, but it’s just yet another example of how the music industry has gone totally wrong.

This massive pool of crap that the music industry has become can be broken into two categories.

1. Destroying artists who actually do have talent.

2. Making “singing” stars of dancers who can’t sing.

Brooke Hogan falls into category 1.  I’ve heard this girl sing, and she has a wonderful voice.  She really can sing, but she’s gotten so wrapped up in this crap music she’s doing that her talent has become totally buried under it.  Now her vocal talents are completely wasted because the music she’s been doing is SO over processed that you can’t really hear any of her natural talent in it.  At this point, all you can really say about her is that she’s a good dancer, because that’s all she does on stage.  She’s not the only talented singer who’s been screwed over either.  There are lots of them, and the only way they’ll ever have careers with any staying power at all is to get away from the people who are dragging them down.  Otherwise they’ll end up with either short, forgettable careers or they’ll have long, worthless careers.  Brooke Hogan is especially screwed with the kind of “music” she’s been doing, because the older she gets, the more ridiculous it’ll become for her to be doing that crap.

Category 2, well we’ve all seen those “performers”.  They’re dancers who happen to be hot, so they stick a mic in front of them just to get some tracks out of them, which are then processed and auto tuned all to hell.  Those tracks are then simply used as backing music for lip synched dance shows.  Again…worthless.  How many artists with actual talent go undiscovered while these musically talentless idiots are raking in the big bucks from their overly promoted careers?

Couple all that with the way the industry has used the legal system to harass and screw over their customers, and you have an industry that is swiftly collapsing under its own stupidity.  People may say music pirates aren’t customers.  I beg to disagree.  Music pirates DO buy cd’s and they DO buy tunes off of sites like iTunes.  They also share a variety of music with their friends, who may otherwise have never been exposed to it, and those people may go out and buy that music as well.

Out of touch and focused more on image than talent, the music industry is a dinosaur, and unless it wakes up and makes some massive changes, it’ll soon go the way of the dinosaurs, which would actually be a boon for indie labels and those artists who have tons of talent but can’t get the time of day from the industry.

Yes, this is actually my second post in one day, though by the time I finish it it’ll probably be tomorrow, but whatever.  Anyway, somehow I ended up on the WE channel today.  Yes, it’s that women’s channel.  Don’t ask me how, but I was flipping channels and something caught my eye…and my ears.  It was some dumb bitch having a hemorrhage over her wedding.  Yes my friends, i had stumbled helplessly into a Bridezillas marathon.

I had heard about the show before, but I had never actually seen it.  For those who don’t know what it is, basically they follow these women along on the journey to their wedding day.  What’s the hook?  Well, it just so happens that the women they’re following are the most worthless, self centered, rude and utterly selfish bitches ever.  I mean seriously, this one behemoth sized, wobbling mound of flesh went with her normal sized fiance into a jewelry store.  They had a $700 budget for rings.  So they go in there and look at a few, and suddenly this bitch wants to see the most expensive ring in the store, which happens to be a three karat, $30,000 ring.  She tries it on and suddenly the princess decides that that’s the one she wants, and if he won’t buy it for her, then he’s just cheap and doesn’t think she’s worth it.  EXCUSE ME???  First of all, this guy was a moron in the first place for even sticking around for more than two seconds after she started giving him grief about not getting her the $30,000 ring, because if that gold digging cow is acting like that now, that’s a pretty damn good indication of what you’re life together is going to be like.  He should have told the behemoth that if she wanted that ring so bad, she could go out and get two or three jobs, work ‘em for a year and then buy it for herself.  That’s not even mentioning how many times she belittled him in front of the clerk for being cheap.  Man, that bitch needs one of Fred Sanford’s patented “five across her lips” so she can learn not only a life lesson, but a lesson about how to treat others with respect and dignity.  Honestly, that guy should have lifted up a few folds until he found an ear, told her off and then walked the hell out of there a free man.  Naturally he didn’t, so now he’s stuck with her, which leaves me torn over how much sympathy I should actually have for him.

So I’m sitting there, literally for several hours, watching episode after episode of these dominating bitches and the men who are too spineless to put them in their place, totally fascinated by the fact that people this utterly worthless even exist.  These chicks treat their future husbands, bridesmaids, families, friends, caterers, cake makers, hairdressers, make-up people and anyone else who gets in their way like utter crap and like they exist only to serve their every whim so that they can have a perfect wedding day.  The funny thing is, the way they act, I can’t believe that any guy ever stuck around long enough to walk them down the isle.  All I could do was stare in disbelief at what I was seeing and being totally thankful that I had the great fortune to marry someone who was the complete polar opposite of these worthless cows.

Anyway, enough of that.  Now on to something funny that happened today…

Our new puppy buddy, who we’ve had for just over a month now, was in the living room today, and I happened to walk out just in time to see him doing the hunchback and getting ready to crap on the carpets that I JUST FINISHED STEAM CLEANING YESTERDAY!!!

My wife Sharon was there too, and as I looked over at Buddy and saw him hunching, I was like, “BUDDY!!! NO!!!…NO!!!”.

So what does he do?  Well it had already started coming out, and my yelling at the top of my lungs scared the hell out of him, so he promptly turned and ran under the coffee table and over behind the couch.

What’s so funny about that?  Well, in his fright, he sort of…evacuated.  As he turned and ran, he left a big long turd streaming out in a perfectly straight line behind him like a freakin’ Play Doh machine.  I was pissed, but it was so damn funny I couldn’t stay pissed for too long.  After a long day of playing, he’s now crapped out (figuratively) under Sharon’s chair here, snoring away with his little puppy snores and dreaming about whatever it is that puppies dream about.

Anyway, that’s it for now.  I’ll post again when I have something to say.

For me, I think the three biggest difficulties in my life have always been related to three key elements – time, ambition and patience.

As far as ambition goes, I think my distinct lack of it relates back to my parents and how I grew up.  They always did their best to give me everything they could manage to give while I was growing up.  I never really learned to work for what I wanted, as it was generally always handed to me.  That’s not to say we were rich at all, because we weren’t.  We actually struggled a lot financially while I was growing up, which is something I feel really bad about today.  It became easy to just ask my parents for things and have them handed to me without working for them.  In the ignorance of my youth, I didn’t realize at the time how much of a hardship I was putting on them.  That sort of a realization only comes with maturity, and once that realization hits you, it’s something you feel bad about for the rest of your life.  I love my parents very much, and I’ve made it clear to them many times now how much I appreciate all they did for me, and they also know how bad I feel about all of the financial burdens I put on them.  Still, having it so easy not only didn’t teach me the value of hard work, but it also left me with a distinct lack of ambition in life, simply because I never developed the type of a personality you need to have in order to succeed, and as such, success has always eluded me.  Oh sure, I have the occasional tastes of it now and then, but in general, I lack the innate ability to maintain it, and as such, it always ends up being a fleeting thing, leaving me with even less ambition than I had before simply because with every failure, I grow more and more tired of having the carrot of success dangled in front of my nose, only to have it yanked away time and time again.  I am a good person, and I’m highly intelligent, but unfortunately, that isn’t enough to succeed in life.  You really need to have one of two personality types to succeed in work or business.  You either have to be a “networker” or a “brown noser”.  Networkers  are the types of people who build up a great network of acquaintances to help them along the way in business.  You have to have a very outgoing personality for that.  Brown nosers don’t need a network.  They simply act like boot licking toadies to their bosses in order to get advancement.  You don’t need to be intelligent to be a brown noser, you just have to lick the boots of the right people and you can climb your way up the ladder of success.  As for me, I’m neither a networker nor a brown noser.  I’ve always had a great distaste for the shallowness of acquaintance relationships, and I refuse to brown nose anyone.  The biggest problem I have is that I an unable to deal with inept people (often brown nosers) not only being in positions of authority over me, but also making considerably more money than I do while my hard work does nothing more than make them look good and help them to get advancement while I am never offered advancement because I’m “too valuable” where I am.  Some people can deal with that sort of thing.  I can’t, and ultimately, it has always led to problems for me throughout my life.

As for time and patience, they’re two distinct and separate things, while at the same time, inseparably intertwined.  They say time is fleeting.  That is as true a statement as any, and as I look back upon my life, I can never really understand where all the time has gone.  While my memories of my childhood are limited, I have  always retained one special and distinct memory of a rainy day back when I was in the second grade.  I was leaning on a counter next to the windows and staring out across the courtyard over to where the seventh and eighth grade classrooms were, and I remember thinking to myself that one day I’d go to sleep and then suddenly I’d wake up and be in the seventh or eighth grade and I wouldn’t even realize that the time had passed.  Pretty deep thinking for a seven year old, isn’t it?  Still, I think I overshot the mark a bit…or just overslept, for not only did I make it through the eighth grade without realizing all the time that had passed, but now as I sit here at 38, all I can think to myself is, “What the hell???”.   Why time is so fluid and so fleeting I do not know, though I tend to believe that it’s because our lives are marked by milestones, and as we skip from one milestone to the next, all that occurred in between seems to be relegated to just being unimportant filler that is of little note or consequence.  We all have milestones in our lives.  I won’t list all of mine here, for they are numerous and of varying importance, but as for what happened in between each one…I really couldn’t tell you.  Oh sure I could mention a few things, but overall, the only thing I could really compare it to is watching a movie and fast forwarding to all the good scenes, skipping all the filler that happens in between.

That leads us to patience.  Lack of patience is probably the biggest bane of my existence.  With time as fleeting as it is, I have a really difficult time waiting for anything, simply because in the waiting, I feel like time has been wasted.  We are all cursed by a very limited time on this planet, and existing through all the filler simply to get from minor milestone to minor milestone can be torturous at best, because all of the time that was wasted could have been better spent if only that milestone had come sooner.  Often times it’s only a minor thing in the grand scheme of your life, but even the smallest of milestones means something, and the faster you can get to them, the more of them you can fit into your life, leaving you far more fulfilled in the end.  To use the film analogy again, it’s like the difference between watching a film with a lot of great scenes and very little filler to fast forward through, and watching a film with maybe four or five great scenes and a whole lot of filler to fast forward through.  I think we would all prefer our lives to be filled with great scenes, and to that end, the more closely we can pack those great scenes (or milestones) together, the more we can fit into our lives before it’s all over.  Filler is a waste, and there’s nothing more depressing than having your life dominated by it, so a lack of patience is simply a reflection of that.  It does however make life more difficult, as the eagerness to have things happen sooner rather than later often leads to disappointment and depression, both of which I’ve had in abundance in my life.

Is there a conclusion to all of this?  Not really.  It’s just something I was thinking about as I sit here in the dark at six a.m. on a Sunday morning.  I’m thinking about the day that lies ahead of me.  More likely than not, it will be yet another filler day.  Is that a bad thing?  Well, yes and no.  Sure it’s likely that nothing all that special will happen to me today, but then again, nothing all that bad is likely to happen either.  So I will simply exist, waiting impatiently for the next milestone of my life, and this day, like so many others, will eventually be forgotten entirely.  It’s depressing really, but it is true nonetheless.

I don’t usually post pictures in my blog, but in this case I’ll make an exception.  This is from a site called TotallyLooksLike.com.  My wife Sharon was going through it the other night and they have TONS of these that are just spot on and totally hilarious.  This one just struck me really funny when I saw it so I figured I’d share it with you guys.  Enjoy!

Hey folks,

After some really crappy technical issues that I had to deal with, the new issue is finally up and running. Here’s what we have for you this month…

Interviews:

Leah Ann Cevoli
Paul J. Alessi
Elisabeth Fies
Melanie Robel (Will be posted on Sunday)

This Month’s Sleepover Girl:

Multi-talented stunner Rachael Robbins is helping us close out the summer as our August Sleepover Girl.

Articles:

Philip Smolen is back with another incredible article all about the progeny of The Thing. In this article, Philip covers varous common aspects of five different films that spawned from the original, and compares and contrasts each one according to a list of common elements. It’s an amazing piece of work, and if you love classic monster movies as much as we do, you’ll definitely want to check out these flicks!

2009 marks the 35th anniversary of the release of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. And all these years later, filmmakers from around the world still copy Tobe Hooper’s seminal low-budget horror classic. Whether from Europe or America or whether it’s an out-and-out copy or merely a homage, let’s take a trip over the past few years to explore how The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is still influencing the horror genre nearly four decades after its initial release. – By Cary Conley

Your Heart Pounds…. Your Pulse Races….. You bite your nails…… That’s right your watching a thriller! This month Independent Filmmaker Jason Lockard brings you the little known but one of the best thrillers of all time! Audrey Hepburn in Wait Until Dark!

Danny Runion’s back with a whole new collection of mashed up movies, and boy does he have some doozies this time. Apple Dumping Gangs of New York? How the hell does he keep coming up with this stuff? I’d have a total brain lock trying to come up with even one! We all have our talents I guess, and Danny’s is mashing up movies. So read on to find out what he’s come up with for us this month!

Movie Reviews:

Abraham Lincoln
Alien Trespass
Bart Got a Room
Becoming Charley Chase
Bite Size
Change is Coming
Clash of the Criminals
Ghost Month
House
Identity Theft
Infinities Lock
Knock Em’ Dead Kid
Live and Die
Livestock
Prophecy
She’s So Cold
Sister Mary Martha’s Martyrology Episode 2
The Open Door (Duane’s Review)
The Open Door (Nic’s Review)
Wannabe

Book Reviews:

Lloyd Hamilton: Poor Boy Comedian of Silent Cinema
New Books on Voiceover Artists

So head on over to Rogue Cinema (http://www.roguecinema.com) and check out all the goodness in this month’s issue.

Hope you all enjoy it!