Smells Like Art...are we not consumers?

Peter Gabriel - s/t (1980)
Nirvana - In Utero
R.E.M. - Murmur

I saw DRUGSTORE COWBOY shortly before or shortly after I graduated high school in 2002 (spring/summer).  I had seen SINGLES (1992) also starring Matt Dillon, so I always mentally link those films together and DRUGSTORE COWBOY with the arrival of Nirvana's BLEACH (both 1989).  A cursory look at the photos in the dlx ed of BLEACH really brings it home.  DRUGSTORE COWBOY and the photo(s) I remember seeing on the booklet of BLEACH both have that cloudy day haze atmosphere.  I keep thinking of buying DRUGSTORE COWBOY, then I think SINGLES!  Thankfully SINGLES is (finally) being re-issued, not in a keepcase DVD but a full fledged blu ray, which is fair enough.  I still find it odd that of all the movies Warner Home Video converted from snap case to keep case that SINGLES wasn't one of them.
And then I think about re-buying BLEACH by Nirvana.  And everyone knows that BLEACH is Nirvana's least impressive album.  IN UTERO is their magnum opus as most serious music aficionados would agree.  So I have IN UTERO, BLEACH and DRUGSTORE COWBOY in my Amazon dot com shopping cart.  Now that SINGLES is coming to blu ray, albeit not 'til April, I can keep it that way and have SINGLES on pre-order.

In other news, there's a ULTIMATE VISUAL HISTORY of GHOSTBUSTERS and its related stuff coming in Sept, '15.  Cool!!!  It's supposedly only 160 pgs and it's $37 with an MSRP of $50.  Huh?  I don't care.  I'm in.  I was IthiscloseI to buying the TOTAL CONTAINMENT omnibus but decided not to b/c I need to put more attn. on God, and quit wasting my time and money (borderline[?]) worshipping Ghostbusters.  I doubt I'd read TC anyway and if I did, would I really enjoy it?  the UVH on the other hand is the visuality of GHOSTBUSTERS w/ no electricity required.  When the power goes out and never comes back on b/c the economy tanks and the taxpayers are no longer willing to support the "welfare" of welfare check recipients, I won't need a DVD or Blu ray or internet streaming device to see and behold the wondrous images contained in GHOSTBUSTERS and GHOSTBUSTERS II.  If nothing else, a photograph of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man will be included (oh, my beloved crème...)

My Sears dot com shopping cart hasn't abandoned me --- does anybody care?

I actually started writing this yesterday b/c Sears sent me this poor put upon sounding email b/c I left the website w/o buying anything.
If I ever have any desire to keep what I buy instead of pawning it off, I'll need to get a TV stand and some kind of shelf/media tower/rack to hold my media - CDs, DVDs, books etc...the table that holds my TV is WAYY too wide for its own good.  My DVDs and books are lined up horizontally so I'm almost out of room to hold anymore despite a total of 6 books and 3 DVDs + 1 Blu ray combo pack.  My CDs are in a small rack that maybe holds 40 CDs and I've cleared out the rack at least a couple times due to not having enough room to fit more.

What's in it...

It occurred to me that Hell exists as a mirror of Satan himself.  As for Satan's existence, the angels existed before Adam.  Perhaps he's more human than people say he is; it's possible that God didn't choose his supernatural powers.  God gave the angels superpowers and Satan and his former-angel followers have used them to ruin mankind's relationship with God.  People always say that God's plan will not be foiled, and to some extent that may be true, but I don't think God's plan was for so much of the planet he created to burn in Hell.  He calls the Israelites a "stiff necked people".  The choice Adam made to eat the apple did not come from the forbidden tree.  Did the Israelites' stiff-neckedness stem from the forbidden fruit?  Mankind IS made in God's image.  So, minus the God-status of mankind and the superpowers that certainly do not belong in mankind's possession, we are quite like God.  And God certainly does a lot of "shameless self promotion" proving a commitment to himself that raises a red flag of egocentrism.  And while it may be easy to call that hypocrisy, the fact remains that our happiness, pure and complete, will not be found outside of our Father's presence.  We can connect with our father or be orphans.  Obviously, the rift between man & God is very strong.  But, to the best of mankind's frail abilities, it's important to reach out, and try to touch his hand.  Selfishness and bitterness I find are the two things that get in the way of acknowledging God.  Why is this?  I don't know and I cannot say for sure that God knows either.  That may be the same as asking "why is water wet?"  Is there an answer to that question other than "It just is"?  I don't think when we get to Heaven, it's going to be fruitful to ask God "How did you get here?"  He'll probably say just that: "I didn't.  I just am"
  God is perfect as far as perfection is relevant.  Mankind is at home with the Lord.  It is not at home anywhere else.  In the eyes of a man with sin extracted from his being, God IS perfect.  He provides everything we need.  He provides everything we want.  Entertainment, art, hobbies, food, everything that mankind wants on this Earth is a means to make do with the sin that exists in us.  Like the earth itself, and those who do not realize this, it will all crumble and lose its shape and form and no longer will be able to make do with our sin.

Names w/o Faces - who the heck is RTM Distributors?

I'm really starting to become annoyed with Amazon's marketplace.  Electronics items by the zillion are offered as "brand new" when they are not in fact BRAND NEW, but rather NEW.  If you're going to use a word, it should mean something.  BRAND NEW should mean it's hot off the press or as much so as humanly possible.  If you buy a CD or a DVD from somebody claiming it's BRAND NEW and the fact of the matter is that person and/or business is just selling some item that they bought from some other retailer and never got around to opening, then the seller you bought it from is a fraud.  With CDs and DVDs, I get called an uptight guy whose wasting my time and emotional energy when I bring out these points.  With electronics items, you're in the dark until you buy one and even after that, it's anybody's guess when the item will fail on you.  Without a VALID warranty, the fact that it's un-used and comes in a bright shiny box is completely irrelevant.  Granted, a lot of warranties leave you wondering why to bother; the maker of my ex- tablet - Lightahead - required me to send a $20 money order and pay return postage.  That was almost half what I paid for the item.  The makers of those Ninja blender thingies have a similar policy.  And those Ninjas are not especially cheap, although I guess blenders aren't generally cheap anyhow and Ninjas are not your run of the mill blender......I still think that coffee press that me and my mother were using before we got rid of it would have been a much better experience had we not used that $20 Burr grinder from Target but instead shelled out what looked to be the more normal price for a Burr grinder (a cursory search on Amazon gave me the impression that Burr grinders of low quality are generally $60 and a good one is closer to $200 & up).

Eh.  People suck.  I guess I should get used to it....

GOODFELLAS - exempt from classifcation...

During jr high and high school - 1997-2002 - it was largely considered uncool to watch anything with a positive vibe or message.  So aside from WARRIORS OF VIRTUE (1997) and a handful of PG-13 comedies, it was violence upon more violence.  It wasn't until after 9/11 that more kid and family friendly options started becoming available...neverminding that little to anything of any artistic value has made its way to theaters this past decade and a half or that R rated movies are more violent and sex-filled than anything that could have come out in the 1980s or 1990s.
But anyway; when I first saw GOODFELLAS in 2001 or 2002 I didn't know why I'd spent 2.5 hrs of my life watching it.  My mom seemed to get it - she said if even half the disregard for one's fellow man depicted in that film is accurate, it's still a chilling truth, or something to that effect.  I rolled my eyes and a few times later found myself racking my brain going "WHAT???!!!!"
  I don't know if GOODFELLAS serves any actual reason for existing.  Did the film benefit society at all?  Was there really ever any controversy over the FBI's take down of the Italian mafia groups?  If there was, I can see how the film has neutralized such controversy, as you rarely hear any badmouthing of the FBI's anti-mafia efforts.  I can't pretend to know anything about it, because until less than 10 years ago, when I was in my mid-20s, I didn't realize that the mafia was a real threat to people in many big cities in the USA.  The idea of "the mafia" always struck me as a cartoon of sorts.  I knew it was real, but it never had anything to do with any facet of my life that I was aware of. 
But anyway; the idea that kids could get their hands on it and be warped for life doesn't apply in this case.  You have to be the polar opposite of a child in order to understand and appreciate the movie.  It IS very slow paced and it's a long movie regardless of that fact.  It's not fast paced and colorful like Oliver Stone's NATURAL BORN KILLERS or many of the action films that Arnold Schwarzenegger starred in from 1984's THE TERMINATOR up 'til his unsuccessful attempt at regaining mainstream and critical acclaim (1999's END OF DAYS) after wowing audiences with his participation in the epically awful BATMAN & ROBIN (1997).  And if you have kids sleeping in the next room, you could consider using headphones, although a lot of name brand TVS don't have a headphone jack (My Seiki 22" LCD does, hehe).
Aside from the fact that GOODFELLAS is "so boring that your kids will fall asleep before they become de-sensitized and its' rallying cry against "the" mafia, the film does have some other positives, but if you haven't the patience to sit through it, you probably won't notice them as they are quite subtle.

The reality missing from your window w/ style!

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

This is How to remind me...

...but I'm drawing a blank right now.  Pastor said some stuff that got my mind going in a positive direction, but now I've totally forgotten the street names...as far as what the Pastor said, I'm not good at quoting people and I don't think the specific sentiment he was speaking was necessarily what I was picking up...I'm new to this Christianity, most of the other congregation members are not, so a lot of what he says is lost on me...

Sowing Season "I'm not your friend, I'm not your lover, I'm not your friend/yeah yeah yeah"

Wow.  Some friend I am.  I've spent roughly $3.50 on Amazon.com in the past 30 days, all in digital orders.  Everything else I paid for on Amazon was with gift cards from Swagbucks, mostly from free trials for stuff I had very little interest in to start with and searching the internet for stuff I already know how to access w/o Swagbucks Search engine.
INSERT gangly hunchback emerging from street alley in 1848 France, with a gruff voice: "Amazon doesn't want your friendship.  They just want your money.  Move along, rat.  You ain't gonna find what you need here.  All you'll find is hurt"/EXIT into the shadowy night....

This Is Not A Bleachers Song

I feel better now.  I guess I ate too much earlier and, after typing three posts of despair, decided I needed to do what needed done and I read 3 or 4 pages of Proverbs and 7 pages of Exodus.  I may or may not read some of The Story before I go to bed.

I did myself in at the gym Tuesday.  Which is good.  I usually walk out of there and can't tell I did a thing.  I was sore last night.  UH!  Today's much better, not 100% repaired.  I might need to lighten the load a little tomorrow.  I'm going TWICE this week!  Which is good.  OneXweek isn't really enough, from what I've heard my Gramma say and from the general impression I get, ya know, what with life and everything it encompasses being how it is and isn't...

I was this close...

...to not turning the computer back on.  Then I did.  It's like me and the household's desktop computer are joined at the hip.......rrrg.  Now I'm bored.  Sick of all this!!

CRASH by J.G. Ballard

I feel like reading.  By " reading " I mean fiction.  Does that count as "chasing dreams"?

A loss of unthinkable proprotions...

The Bible talks rather poorly of people who chase dreams and sleep during harvest time...I feel like schit.  The flesh surrounding my head feels hot, my brain is sore (headache?), my stomach is shot...my legs feel useless...I may have the flu, I know I've eaten way too much today and many of the previous days of recent and I also haven't walked in a couple days...the ache in the head is probably from thinking too much...maybe I've been listening to my music too loudly...maybe...idk...I know I should read The Bible and get caught up on The Story.  I also know I should take a shower and go to work/earn my keep etc....it all sounds so big yet in the moment it's so small...it's one small particle that needs to be constantly replicated.  It's depressing and exhausting just to think about.  What the hell is wrong with me!!![?]

the 1975 - appearances can be deceiving..

...I assumed The 1975 was one of those Rolling Stones/G'N'R beer-stained-toilet revival bands, glorifying "The good ole' days" when rock & roll had nothing to contribute to society except ugliness in every shape and form.  Turns out, they're a great band, full of emotion and melody!  Their lyrics are questionable, "If you wanna find love, you know where the city is".  Is that an unabashed misuse of the word "love"?  Anyone who knows what REAL LOVE is knows the city has nothing more than whatever dinky little town in question has.  Unless of course you're looking for your soul mate and "the universe" has pulled a Tower Of Babel on you & (s)he...and in that case, there's no telling which city your soulmate is in, because A) said person is not necessarily in ANY city (why not a suburb or a midsize town or a Population 30 ghost town?)  B) It's disgustingly pessimistic to assume God would do something like that to a person.  Yes, I know a lot of people don't find their soul mate at birth.  Yes, often times they're not in the same city/town/ghost as you, but when you need them, you'll probably have moved two or three times and if they're still not in the same city as you, A) there's the internet for those who are inclined to use it for dating and B) you ever heard of a tourist?

Ok, so enough of that.  It's obvious with any honest logic that The 1975 are using "love" as a euphemism for sex.  However, weather or not that's their personal outlook is not clear, at least not to me.  I don't understand half the lyrics of the verses, and I don't care that much anyway.  I'll get tired of the album soon enough.  And I only paid $5.99 for the mp3 version at Amazon.
I was seriously gunning for the physical copy (CD), but A) I'm poor and B) it's the music that matters.  The farther humans get from this tangled up obsession with packaging (cover art, box graphics, etc.) the better it will be for all forms of music.  Not to mention, the extinction of cover-art is inevitable.  If it's not, let the filthy rich do their part in keeping it alive.  As for me, I'm still low on groceries.

Target Gift Cards

Since Target hasn't posted anything on THEIR website stating this, I should warn my fellow shoppers that shipment of Target gift cards bought on Target.com are being delayed.  If you need it before Christmas, you're better off going to the store and buying it/them.

I can see why men & women don't get paid equally.  Men buy a suit and never need another set of clothes again.  Meanwhile, women need a different outfit for EVERY DAY of the YEAR!!

Harry Adam Knight's CARNOSAUR

Starburst Magazine heralded Harry Adam Knight as being "The New Stephen King"...interesting how John Brosnan worked for Starburst Magazine and Harry Adam Knight is a pen name for John Brosnan...the cover for CARNOSAUR (ISBN: 978-1557850836), the 1989 re-print, doesn't say who of the employees of Starburst Magazine wrote that quote, but it wouldn't be surprising if it was indeed John Brosnan himself, trying to raise sales for Harry Adam Knight's books...
I remember watching the movie back in 1998 or so, and being confused as all get out by the ending.  I understood it was horrifying, but not understanding it kinda made it more so.

Also, I remember watching the 1986 musical re-make of THE LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS back around 1991 or so, and almost cowered to bed when the mean green mother from outer space started wreaking havoc on the plant shop, and my mom told me it would be less scary if I stayed and watched to the end.  Little did my mom know, if Frank Oz had had the final say, watching to the very end of that movie would have kept me up all freakin' night.  For, you see, there is this little thing called a "director's cut", which as, AT LAST(!), been released to DVD (and blu ray).  It's probably not fair to call Frank Oz's decision to take a lite-horror/horror-comedy/horror-comedy-musical and tack on an ending that defies all expectations one would have of the movie a precursor to George Lucas' decision to ruin the STAR WARS trilogy, but you can kinda see some parallels there nonetheless...the movie goer should be satisfied.  SATISFY ME PLEASE, GEORGE LUCAS!!!  (Yes, satisfy us all!)

CS

Target.com is bogged down in customer communing.  They sent out an email specifically stating this after two days of waiting for a response.  Two days?  What's the freakin' hold up?
Any store of any caliber - that isn't run by greedy hooligans - will anticipate this kind of situation to be occurring no later than Dec.1.  The security breach issue of earlier this year seems likely to be caused by the same greed that limits the number of jobs avail. at Target customer service desks.

I guess Target is still a leader in dealing with people.  They always make sure to open lines when there's a slight back up.  It was a little hectic this past Monday (Dec 1), but A) it was midday B) it was Monday) and C) it's Officially the Holiday Season.  Maybe the lax security and the long winded wait times are unrelated.  Maybe the lax security that contributed to the hackers' success at gaining access to Target customers' information was just Target being stupid?

Oh well.