It Hurts So Good...

There's a lot of new people reading this, evidently. So I figure I could kill two birds with one stone. The first bird kinda shows an example of who I am to you random newbies. The second bird is to address the fact that I "playa hate" a lot; that I'm "down on the man" and get a "perverse pleasure in putting down others", and I "need to insult to boost my own anorexic ego", and I "don't know how to use quotes properly". Well fine, to all those that think I'm nothing more than doom & gloom, sturm & drang, Laverne & Shirley, I give you my

GUILTY PLEASURES

Now then, it should be pointed that some of these aren't really that guilty. I'll defend them to the death, and would unabashedly exclaim my love for them. Others I would deny until my dying, slowly slipping from this mortal coil, gently whispering, "Really...I don't like movies about ski patrols..." Oh, and to answer yer questions, Sex Scenes at Starbucks, about whether I'm single, cute, sexy, and flirty: I'm definitely single (does desperation and loneliness drip off every word on this blog? Then I guess I'm not doing my job), I can be flirty (put a bottle of Goldschlagger in me, and not only will my stomach be bleeding, but I will also be making drunken attempts at "come hither eyes"). As for "cute & sexy"...um, I mean, at some point in the history of man, at some specific place in time, every body type has been considered "cute & sexy"; I'm sure there was a point where a fat guy with a unibrow was hot, or a midget with a hare lip. I guess that's my way of saying: no. No, i'm not. Anywhoski, On with the list!

1) Ski Patrol Movies. This includes not just the classic Ski Patrol, but also Ski School, Ski School 2, Hot Dog: The Movie, the fairly recent addition Out Cold, and to a lesser extent Better Off Dead. Holy crap are these movies unearthed goldmines of unintentional comedy and cheese. Just like slasher films, these snowbound comedies have their own formula to which they adhere.
First off, everyone can ski really well, and so can their stunt doubles who usually end up wearing a really bad wig. There tends to be one character who can't ski, but he's the goofy one! What he lacks in Ski prowess he makes up for in wackiness! The main character is a nice, genereally outgoing type, that just wants to have fun, meet the love of his life, and ski really well. There's usually an evil land developer/conglomerate/suit type that wants to take the pure fun of skiing down a mountain while drunk, and make a profit out of it. The hell? What a buzzkill! Also, the Villain usually has a Henchman who's the main guy's opposite: a really good skier, with feathered hair, a black outfit, and a total submissive to his boss. Watch for all of the homoerotic undertones, they're scandalous.
There's almost always a lot of bar/drinking scenes. Which is fair, because, there's not much to do on them thar mountains, except drink, ski, fight, and screw. And that brings us to the love interest and the slut, or the Madonna and the Whore. the love interest is sweet, kinda suspicious of our main guy, but he wins her over; oh yes, he will win her over. She is usually related to the owner of the ski resort, or else has some sort of vested interest in preventing the villain from turning a profit and feeding his family. She'll make out with the main character, and cheer him on, all while fighting off the advances of the Henchman. And then there's the Whore, a chick who is usually brought in to seduce one of the Good Skiers; she can either work for the Villain, and is therefore evil, or else is just the one woman on the set who agreed to show her boobies in the hot tub scene.
This subgenre was parodied really well in the South Park episode, "Asspen". Also, the reason why Better Off Dead is (partially) in this category is because there's far too many skiing montages, and also John Cusack's character, Wayne Meyers, tells his antagonist, Stalin, "You think you're so cool just because you're captain of the Ski team." Now, I didn't grow up in Switzerland, and maybe my school is the anomaly, but the kid who was the captain of the ski team was never anywhere close to be regarded as cool. He was either a stoner, who was amiable but lame, or a skitard, that took way too much pride in his pathetic sport. But then, that may just be me.

2)Fine Young Cannibals, "She Drives Me Crazy". Yeah. I like it. wanna fight about it? Seriously though, take a rocking eighties beat, complete with that sweet synth-drum noise, and combine it with a kickass falsetto, and you've got a recipe for a guilty pleasure, my friend. Wow, that sounded way too much like VH1 narration. I apologize. time to go flog myself. hehehehe...flog. Also, how fun is it to sing this song? Pour a little alcohol on your inhibitions if you must, but if you have ever belted out this high pitched tune, you know you loved it. you can't deny it!

3) The Proclaimers, "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" I hate that I like this song. But it's the sort of undeniable beat, that strumming guitar, the harmonizing Reid twins from Scotland, and the post-punk pop abandon of just having a good time while being a total spaz. Is it corny as hell? You betcha. Does it make me think of that horrible Benny & Joon movie? I wish to Christ it didn't. But still, for a song to bop around to like a four year old tweaking on a box of Sweet Tarts, you can't do much better.

4) Camp movies. Unfortunately, I don't mean those darling movies from the 50s and the use of kitsch in John Waters's films Hairspray and Crybaby. Oh I like those things, but that wouldn't make me feel guilty. No, I would be standing amongst a legion of hipster doofuses (doofii?). I'm referring to movies such as Ernest Goes to Camp, Heavyweights, and Camp Nowhere. I don't know why I have an affinity for these films. Ernest Goes to Camp I watched as a kid, and Camp Nowhere came out in middle school, and Heavyweights came out around the transition from junior high to high school. So it's not like I'm a complete weirdo, clearly these all clue me into something from my childhood. I always have a soft spot for movies that show a small, but devoted group of friends; I think it's a combination of my love of superhero comics (with all of their teams like Avengers and Justice League of America) and my lack of a tight friend group in my developing years. But for some reason, any time I catch any of the above three movies on TV, I will watch it. I'm just that lame. And I know they're not funny, or realistic, or even good. I don't sit there and cry with tears of laughter while I extoll the virtues of turtles with parachutes and Christopher Lloyd mugging to the camera. No, but for some reason, this trio of crappy camp flicks captivate me and my attention. There's no rhyme, no real rationale behind it, and if I were to try and defend it, I simply couldn't. I acknowledge that it's pathetic and weird, and join you in mocking me.

Although, I will point out a funny little connection: Writer/Director/Actor Paul Feig is in both Ski Patrol AND Heavyweights. He's also the author of Kick Me: Adventures in Adolescence, and the creator of Freaks & Geeks. So the guy's got some nerd pedigree, and he and I have some weird connection. I assume it all means that one day I will meet and eventually slay, Mr. Feig. But I will tell him on that grim day, "Sir, I am a bigger fan than you will ever know!" And then I'll probably stab him or something. I dunno. I'm not big on planning, you know? Not a forward thinker, per se.

5) Occasional Reality TV. I hate reality TV. Mainly because I hate seeing the machinations and manipulations of salacious executives who cut up people's lives, personalities, and words like paper dolls. I despise how editing is used to such evil purposes on these shows. Also, I hate that most of the people on them are jackasses and stereotypical and only chosen because they are jackassy stereotypes. But, with that said. There is some reality TV that I have watched on occasion. Namely -- The Apprentice, Fear Factor, Road Rules/Real World Challenge, Project Runway, and select episodes of The Surreal Life. Yes, I get sucked in like all of the other mouth breathers out there. I pick people I like, and people I don't like. I root for one team or one person. Listen, there's no pretentions of respectability here. In my defense...I don't have one. Sometimes the shit is just interesting to watch. And I do prefer the reality programs where the people have to make something, or utilize their brain and talents, like in The Apprentice & Project Runway. I like seeing the products of other people's minds.
And then I like seeing hot chicks threaten each other on RR/RW Challenge, and a midget pissing in the corner on The Surreal Life. But that's me. I march to the beat of my own autistic drummer.

6) Journey. Yeah. JOURNEY. Not the new version, with the frontman who used to work for The Gap and then took over Steve Perry's job. Oh no. And not all of Journey either. Just most of the songs on their Greatest Hits CD. It started out ironically enough. The song "Anyway You Want It" was played on The Simpsons and in Caddyshack, so I thought it was such a funny and tacky song that I should have it, and play it ironically, like the good hipster in training that I was. But then things changed, and my unabashed love of these cheesy ballads came about. But it's not just an unironic love of their music; there's plenty of irony left. I mean, I hate this band. they sound horrible, cheesy, generic, lame, unoriginal, and pretty much go against all of my taste in music. But I do love listening to the Greatest Hits CD. If someone would ask me to explain what "cognitive dissonance" meant, I would tell them to look at my relationship with the band, Journey.
Or Fluff. the food group, not the band. I don't even know if there is a band named Fluff. there should be. But the point is that fluff is disgusting. You look at it, and you know there's absolutely no way that this gooey white substance (don't giggle) can be good for you. Even the name "fluffernutter" sounds like a diseased organ hemorrhaging inside someone's body. But it's delicious! It compliments peanut butter perfectly. So there's that. One aspect, the nutritional standpoint, you hate it; on the other hand, the flavor side, you love it. That's me and Journey. My mind, my logical brain that objectively states what I like and what I hate, says Journey = Shite. But some other part of me, my inner eighties skeezball I guess, thinks that Journey is Thomas Gray reborn with a keytar.

So there you go. There's some other stuff I was thinking of putting on here. Like Pat Benatar, but I think she's actually respectable now. Shocking. And I was also going to say putting grape jelly on grilled cheese sandwiches. It sounds disgusting but it's delicious. It's one of those things that you're family does, and you think is totally normal, but the second you do it outside of the safe confines of your kin, everyone else stares at you like you made an anti-semitic joke at the Holocaust Museum. But that's not a guilty pleasure, per se; it's just weird.

But that's me. that's the side of me that I'm ashamed of, at least in terms of personal taste. So I'm letting my freak flag fly high, so y'all can take aim and fire if yer so inclined. But I guess the point of this was to say that there's a lot of things that I like that is just crap, and I know they're crap, but I'll still defend them. And I'm sure there's some people that feel that way about some of the things I've insulted on here before; maybe Ashlee Simpson is your personal diva while you're driving your kids around in yer Explorer, or else you really like Survivor (the band or the show, both suck) and it gives you a moment of pleasure to watch them all bicker. The point is, when I criticize or insult these things, I'm insulting the things, not the people that enjoy them. As long as you can have a mildly good reason for your tastes, or as long as you derive true joy from them, who gives a fuck what a loser with a keyboard says? You could be the smartest, funniest, most beautiful woman in the world, and I would miss out on that because I think Pharrell Williams is a jackass? No. I may judge people on what they like, but I will never dismiss them on that basis. As everyone knows, I pick who I respect and who I befriend based solely on the color of their skin and their politics, just like every good American should.

Just kidding.

Seriously, though; Fuck Bush.