More Out-Of-Context Fun

Dick Tracy is only palatable as a comic if you look for that one really odd frame that is bound to appear and examine it completely out of context.
For instance:

But this kind of fun isn't limited to Dick Tracy comics. You can use it to improve almost anything! Like movies. One of my favorite movie scenes out of context is from M. Night Shyamalan's Signs. I'm not going to set it up, because it would make the scene less funny. Instead, here is a direct excerpt from the script, courtesy of The Internet Movie Script Database. Graham is played by Mel Gibson.

GRAHAM
I don't want to hear anymore talk
like that. And I don't want to see
anymore faces like the ones I'm
looking at.
We are going to enjoy this meal.
Nothing can stop us from enjoying
this meal! Enjoy!

Bo sits next to her three glasses of water and begins to cry.

GRAHAM
Stop crying!

MORGAN
Don't yell at her!

Morgan's face is hard, but tears start to fall anyway.
Graham watches as both his children cry at the table.

GRAHAM
Fine, if you all don't want to eat,
then I'm going to have some of
everything.

Graham takes big scoops of every dish and piles it on his
plate. He digs his fork into the pile and starts to shove it
in his mouth. He swallows.

GRAHAM
This tastes so great.

After this, the kids start to cry really hard. I just love that Mel Gibson is a monster who eats his children's food and makes them cry. I'm guessing he suggested a rewrite of the script to include snippets from his own childhood. If you own the movie and have the chance to watch the one-minute cut, I strongly urge you to do so. It's breathtaking.

Do you have any suggestions for other scenes that are great out of context? Email them to me at meatsweatsjk@yahoo.com, and I will include them in later posts.

Dick Tracy vs. The Blue Man Group

Wanna be the next Apprentice?

I'm going to have watch a re-run of this week's premiere of NBC's The Apprentice - something I thought I'd never do after the second season ended. The reason I'm going to watch is that one of the contestants, Rebecca Jarvis, is a girl we went to school with in Chicago. In fact, she lived a couple of floors above us in Pierce Hall. We were neighbors! Oh, but there's so much more history between us than that...

Six years ago, I was at college continuing my journey into adulthood by exploring the wonders of alcohol. It was a cool autumn night in the clear Midwestern air, but I was oblivious to it - sequestered away in the seedy basement of the Phi Delta Gamma fraternity house, drunk off my stump. Ah "Drinks Around the World", such a sad little event hosted by such a sad little society. I believe I had made it around the world (having downed the requisite number of beverages) and was resting, holding onto my prized plastic trophy of a cup. I don't even remember how I got into the basement, let alone that room. I was probably following young Messrs. Ungar and Flanagan who probably summarily ditched me in the room with all the skeezy guys and their drunken prey. One of their charming fratboy schemes was keeping all the young ladies in the room by making them remove the funny bone out of an Operation game before they allowed them to leave. Everyone was laughing and drinking and enjoying the plight of the pretty girls and the incessant buzzing noises they made. Everyone except me - I was trying hard just to stay conscious.

At this point, I should probably point out that this was maybe the fourth time in my life I had ever had more than a single beer. An Emmanuel Baptist education instilled in me the righteous fear of alcohol so strongly that I didn't drink at all during my first year of college. Therefore, I didn't really know what kind of drunk I was: a violent drunk? a happy drunk? From the looks of things, I was a dopey drunk: sitting, staring at a spot on the wall, bobbing my head to the techno and the shrieking. And then Becky Jarvis changed me into a slavering, angry-hulk drunk. But still with the short little body.

She was one of the screechy first-year girls who was getting along so swimmingly with the Phi Delt guys. She may have been catching eyes and flirting all around, but she was nobody's fool. No one would ever get the best of her. When the loud, grinning ape sitting on the floor next to me said something smart, she didn't mess around. Immediately, she flung the contents of her drink at him with the air of someone who did that sort of thing a lot. Unfortunately, I think she was actually trying it out for the first time, because her drink went wide and sailed straight into my slanty eyes.

Intense, seering, sterilizing pain blinded me, but it wouldn't keep me quiet. "Fuck!" I loudly announced. "FUCK!" I demanded to know what corrosive agent was buring my retinas! Someone told me they thought it smelled like vodka. "SHE THREW FUCKING VODKA IN MY FUCKING EYES!" I wanted the entire room to know the injustice I'd received, so I let loose with obscenity after obscenity deploring her miserable aim. As I continued to bellow, hands lifted me and ushered me to what I thought was sure to be running water. Instead, I was merely taken outside of the room; lucky me - I didn't even have to take out the funny bone. I found my friends upstairs and told them what happened. We yelled some, drank some more, and left.

It didn't occur to me until months later that nobody in the room actually cared that I was in pain. They just wanted me to leave, because they were afraid I would try to harm her. This to me was the most hurtful slight: that they thought of me as the weird asian guy who seemed a bit unstable and might punch women when agitated. Sure I was loud and angry, but I only wanted everyone to know what a horrible person she was. Instead, they thought of me as an even greater monster.

Over the next three years, I would cross Becky's path occasionally on the way to class. She would smile very sweetly at me each time we passed. I, in turn, would pretend that nothing had ever happened - maybe I was too drunk to remember - and give her one of those smiles that says, "Hey, I know you!", and maybe I fooled her into thinking I was oblivious. But as soon as she passed, I would turn around, point to my eyes and whisper to her back, "I know you. I know you."


Anywho. I'm going to watch tonight and root for her to win, because if she does win, I'm going to charge future contestants $20,000 to throw vodka in my face for luck.

I'm so fancy

We get the New Yorker now. Actually, we've been getting it for the past couple of weeks. I'm so fancy. So fancy that I haven't even bothered reading a single article. I am the living end!

Book tag

I got book-tagged by Brent awhile back, meaning that I'm supposed to answer a bunch of questions about my literary habits. I put off responding for so long, because I wanted to come up with brilliant replies that would impress and inform. This is similar to how I approached regular "tag" as a kid. Given the choice, I would've opted to not play tag with the other kids until I'd practiced enough to be good at it; which, of course, I never would've accomplished; but I wouldn't have minded so much, because anything was better than being "it" for too long. I especially hated it when the fastest kids would hang back and let me see how close I could get to touching them before they took off like jackrabbits. Straight-up tag was the worst: no base, no rescue from being frozen, no tag-backs, just running the entire damn time. I didn't mind Chinese tag so much back then. Now, I think I might. Frantically crawling through a person's spread legs, I'd probably overstrain myself to avoid proximity with his/her genitalia to the point that I'd get the knees of my jeans extra scuffed with blacktop that would never come out. And it would always be there reminding me that I wasn't fast or graceful enough to save my comrade and myself from being playground permafrost. There aren't even any veteran's war stories that end that way, but I'd have to live on with the shame. And what the fuck is "Chinese" about it?

Anyway...

1. Number of books I [have] own[ed]:
God only knows. My immediate thought is in the high hundreds. Further thought argues with this. I really don't know. I'm not God.

2. Last book I bought:
Medallion. I got it off Amazon after remembering that we had read it in the fourth grade at EBCS. I can see why I liked it: it's fairly entertaining, and it's not overly Christian. In fact, one of the lands in the fantastic realm the book describes is named "Litoris". Heh heh It's one of the evil countries.

3. Last book I completed:
Lenny Bruce is Dead by Jonathan Goldstein, my favorite contributor to This American Life. Before that was The Sun Also Rises. I was kinda waiting to finish it before I responded to the tagging so that I could sound smart, but then I ruined it by reading another book really quickly.

4. Ten books that mean a lot to me:
- Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, Danny the Champion of the World, and Good Night, Mr. Tom -- These are books that my mother got me one Christmas as a kid to get me reading. They're one of the few gifts I actually remember receiving. Unfortunately, to this day, I mostly read kids' books. Probably not what she was going for.

- Soup and Me -- Another choice inspired by my mother. Namely that she wouldn't let me borrow it from the library because she thought it was too stupid. I read plenty of stupid books now, but I've never read that one. That one would be an admission of my lingering stupidity.

- The Encyclopedia Brittanica Volume "R" -- I spent many an adolescent hour scouring the descriptions and explanations of "Reproduction: Sexual: Human". My parents thought I was going to be a genius. I did too, but at sex.


- The Magic of Sex by Anne Hooper -- This represented the ultimate goal of my frequent library visits during junior high. It was while nervously flicking through this book that I invented the brilliant scheme of taking a dirty book into another section of the library so no one would suspect.

- Bad As I Wanna Be -- I've never actually read Dennis Rodman's autobiography. I'm just glad that it's out there.

- General Chemistry (3rd Edition) (Hardcover) by John W. Hill, Ralph H Petrucci, Terry W McCreary, Scott S. Perry -- And that's when I learned I'd never be a doctor.


5. What I'm currently reading:
- Ghosts of Tsavo
- Mossflower
- A Gesture Life

6. TAG! 5 diff bloggers:
- Rush Limbaugh -- You fat-ass bastard! Can you even read? Prove it muthafucka!
- Scarlett Johansson -- Baby, I just know we'd have a lot in common.
- "Dr." James Dobson -- Because I'd really like to know what motivates this man.
- Oprah -- Has she actually read the books on her list?
- Wes Andersen -- Because I like Roald Dahl too.
- Megan's turn & anyone else who wants to do one.

7. A new question that I made up: What percentage of your library books return unread?
I'm hovering around 70%.

Dick Tracy is Best When Taken Out of Context

This one looks like it comes from a Dick Tracy After-School Special.

Cover letter

Dear Human Resources Department at Elsevier,

I am writing to apply for the position of Journal Administrator you advertised for on your website; however I’m having a little difficulty with the process. You see, I have always hated the application process for anything: school, internships, jobs, etc… Nothing is more humbling than self-examination and subsequent self-dismissal. Not that I wouldn’t be well-qualified for the position (after all, it’s pretty much just grading papers, isn't it?), it’s just that I usually don’t do well with the initial resume/cover letter step. Cover letters especially.

It might have helped if I could have addressed this letter to an actual person. Every cover letter template that I’ve looked up stresses the importance of identifying an addressee, but when I called, your receptionist wouldn’t give me a name, just “Human Resources.” Now I can’t figure out what tone to strike, since I don’t know who or how many might actually read this letter. Also, it just feels ridiculous to write a letter to a department instead of a person. I can’t be the only one who feels this way.

Anyway, I feel that I would be a good fit for your company, because…becauuuuuuuse...I have always gotten along with my coworkers? Because I always wear clothes to work? I really don’t know what else to say that would impress you. I went to college, so I know how to read and write. I have a history doing boring work in scientific fields, but you could see all that from my resume.

That’s another thing. You asked for a copy of my “cv”. For a position that prefers but doesn’t require a college education, don’t you think asking for a curriculum vitae is a bit hoity-toity? I thought only academics have cv's. I have a resume. It’s not as impressive as a cv, but at least I got rid of that bit about working in a bagel shop.

Getting back to things, I’d like to work for you, because I’ll be applying to programs that contrast greatly with my science background, and having a reference letter from someone in your company would help my cause a lot. Also, I learned a bunch of grammar in high school when I should’ve been learning literature, and I’d like for that to pay off finally. Also, you’re really close to where I live, so I’d always be in on time, and it’d save me a fortune in gas.

I’ve attached a copy of my resume. I will contact you within the next week to discuss any further information you might require. Thank you for your time.


Sincerely,

J Kim

p.s. I didn't forget to mention my salary requirements. I just always feel like money matters are rude to mention in a letter.

Because C.S.Lewis was a dirty, dirty man...

The Chronicles of Narnia movies will start to come out soon. I've been thinking about some of the books and what I can remember from them. The Magician's Nephew has always stuck out in my mind, because it had so many cool things: the "Wood Between the Worlds", the magic rings, and especially the "Deplorable Word." For those who don't remember, the "Deplorable Word" was a word so powerful and wicked that, when spoken, it would destroy all life. The evil queen that terrorizes the children in the story was said to have spoken the word when she destroyed her universe, but we never get to find out what the word is. How could we? Almost anything would be a letdown. But still, I'm pretty sure I know what the word is. Can we all agree the word was probably "Cunt"? It's by far the most deplorable word I've ever come across.

I hope I haven't destroyed your world.