AVP, easy as 1-2-3, A touch of Gray and weekend with Buds. A weekend review round-up...

MOVIES:

AVP (alien vs. predator)

Wow. What a gem. Now I knew when I was checking the box to have this movie sent to me that I wasn’t requesting an epic film or anything, but damn! After watching this movie I felt like Christopher Reeves must have felt when he woke up from falling off that horse. How do you fuck up an Alien vs. Predator movie? Even the Predator with Dannys Glovers is good shit! I mean, the creatures basically sell themselves right? You’d think they could just have an hour and a half with just a woman sitting on the shitter screaming as aliens and predators run around her fighting and it’d be entertaining at least. But oh no.

The movies starts off with some guy running away from “something” and from the setting you know its taking place in the past. Then they show the year “1904” and you don’t feel so smug anymore. After that you switch BAM right into a sequence with some black chick (who isn’t too shabby) climbing some glacier and she gets a phone call. She talks on the phone while climbing some huge ice wall using a pickaxe looking thing. From the looks of it, it looks like hard work… if you’re some pussy ass glacier climber! This chick on the other hand was TOUGH! Talking on a cell phone while climbing a glacier while swinging a pick is just how this bitch rolls! Turns out the guy on the phone is on the top of the glacier and they meet up and get in a sleek looking chopper. You KNOW it’s important business when they pick you up as-is and throw you in a whirlybird, right?

They show some other guys get recruited, but it’s just like watching the beginning of the first Jurassic Park so picture those scenarios instead. That’s a far better pic. After a while they are all gathered at this “location” that looks like its some industrial joint. They introduce some other toughies and scientists to the viewers, giving a little bit of individual personality along the way. One of the people is Ewyen Bremmer, who played Spud in “Trainspotting”. This guy was cool in that movie because he played some junkie who was a bit slow, but had a heart of gold. He looked every bit the part too. Well, this movie has Aliens and Predators…no heroin. Not that he isn’t a prime actor or anything, but he was all twitchy and shit in this movie so he might as well have been Spud the junkie. Turns out Spud is a Biochemist or some important shit like that. The others are spiky haired tough chicks, a couple of archeologist guys, and some other tough guys with bad haircuts and scars on their faces. ERRR! TOUGH! Then they’re told why they were all gathered up by…BISHOP! The android from ALIENS! See the connection now? It’s not actually Bishop though, it’s Charles Bishop Weyland. He’s a big time investor and business owner. In the other movies the scientists and companies are all WEYLAND employees or products. ANOTHER CONNECTON! This movie was on a roll. Bishop is just a model of this guy…his father if you will. SOOO, he tells them one of his satellites picked up an image of a pyramid in the middle of the North Pole, or somewhere icy…I forget. So all the people there have their purpose, even the cell phone dialing mountain climber.

A bunch of pointless drama goes on for a bit here and then they all head down to the location of the pyramid. There is obvious build up and finally we see the Predators then after a few climactic running around we see the Aliens. This is pretty much the rest movie EXCEPT for one thing. After a good bit of running around some killings later we are left with the hero of the movie taking charge! Yes that’s right, Cell Phone Glacier girl is the BIG CHEESE in this movie. She is going to be the main surviving hero and the build up is TERRIBLE! Like I said before, there is a bunch of killing and running around so it’s down to the final two human survivors. One of the archeologists and Sista Cell Phone are the only two left. Sista girl tells the main dude that the only way to get out of the situation is to team up with the Predators and give them some guns they found earlier. Sure enough a Predator runs in and when he’s about to snuff the two dem Sista girl yells to him and tells him “HEY! Here’s your gun, now let’s be bestest friends!” After the Predator, who is also a horrible actor, sees her make an ass of herself he decides to take her on as a partner. Now the other guy who was with the girl has been abducted by an alien and we don’t know if he’s alive or not. Back to Sista Girl and Predator (whom I think is a brutha underneath all that Predator gear) who now see eye to eye and The Prizzedator makes his new buddy some weapons. Really, the Predator grabs a dead Alien and rips the head off like a crawdad. Then he takes the Aliens tail and cuts off the spike at the end of the tail to make his new ebony warrior a SPEAR! Are you kidding me!? These Predators have all sorts of lances, guns, knives and throwing discs that cut through cement like butter and the best he can do for his new buddy is make her a racist spear and shield thingy from the alien skull! She looks like one of the kids in Fat Albert getting ready to play hockey in the junkyard. During their pairing up you get to see such profound communication between the superiorly advanced Predator and his Sista Warrior Girl. During one rousing scene he lets her know he has a bomb by holding his fist up to her face…THEN OPENING IT UP! She nods in agreement and now they are connected beyond words. Only warriors know such precise hand movements mean “this is an atom bomb, after this we gots to run like the wind ok?” They run, they escape, they have one last battle and finally the Predators come in a big ass ship to take the last Predator home and reward the Sista Girl (who’s hair has really taken a toll during this adventure and now makes her look like Chaka Khan) with an authentic “I killed a bunch of Aliens and learned to fight like a Predator and all I got was this lousy spear” Predator spear. THE END

What a shame. On a scale of 1* being the worst and 5 *’s being the best I give AVP:
** Stars.




BOOKS:

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
(a leather bound edition too! Ain’t I just oozing with class)

I actually only picked this book up because of my recent affliction of insomnia. I had always wanted to read it because the premise of the story seemed very interesting, but it was still an Oscar Wilde book, so it would have its slow points. I tried an Oscar Wilde book before and think the only reason I did it then was because Morrissey mentioned him a few times. Does that last statement shake a proud hetero pride fist in the air, probably not after re-reading it. Whatever, I still decided to expand my reading horizons.

The story starts out with the banter between an extinguished gentleman and an artist. Right away you could tell the homoerotic overtones between these two men. They talk about this Dorian Gray guy and how when the artist met him he couldn’t get him out of his mind and Dorian was now his muse. He would paint Dorian and only Dorian. He even had Dorian come into his studio, and from the way they talk it happens an awful lot. In my day this would be stalker material, but back in those times I guess it was just friendly admiration. Sure, ok, but what about the guy dropping a load every time he looks at you?! Now that my dear readers is where the flattery ends and the creepiness begins. Not once while he is cooing over Dorian and what he means to him does his buddy butt in with, “WHOA! It sounds to me like your queer for him! What’s up with that? Are you trying to tell me something?!” Instead his buddy, Lord Henry, seems to be falling in love himself – but in a more butch way. A few LOOONG pages of this exchange between the two men I take a break to wipe the blood out of my butthole, then get back to the story…enter Dorian Gray. Now Oscar tries to describe him as this breathtaking Adonis, but the only thing he ends up doing is describing those annoying ultra fem guys who are cherubic in appearance and bitchy in persona. This doesn’t apply to gays or straights either, it’s just a description of a down right no holds bar bitch. The kid is described as having a flawless face, head of curly gold hair and being 18. Now do you understand the “bitch” assumption?

Dorian comes over for his sitting appointment at the Artists (Basil) studio and chats it up with Lord Henry. LH decided he adores Dorian and they must become best friends forever. If I just had to sit in the studio and listen to these three converse with each other I would have longed for the earache situation I just dealt with. If anything I would work on the right ear so I can be 90 % deaf in BOTH ears! Basil tells Dorian he has finally finished the portrait he’s been working on, and he’s spent. He couldn’t paint a bit more and starts to explain how he would rub one out when Dorian wasn’t looking and using his semen as paint so he and Dorian could always be together. Not really, but he might as well have the way he was going on and on. When Dorian finally gets to lay his peepers on the picture he is speechless. How beautiful he looked, he almost made himself cry he was so beautiful (or so he tells himself). At this point Dorian loudly claims he would give his soul to let the picture get old and let him stay young. The way he says it though it just sounds like a fruity kid being loud and talking nonsense. There area few boring chapters after this. Chapters filled with more people admiring how pretty Dorian is and inviting him to dinners and parties. I started to realize that no one ever ate at home? I also thought about how they probably ate roasts and potato’s with good wine and rolls on the table. The kind of meal where there was always a slab of meat and some veggies. It made me hungry, that I know. Anyway, they all seem to go out to dinner and most of them have large amounts of money.

Dorian goes to a theater one night and falls madly in love with some actress he sees performing “Romeo & Juliet”. THIS IS THE ONLY TIME YOU READ ABOUT A GIRL AND A BOY LIKING EACH OTHER IN THE WHOLE BOOK! Really. And when a girl of interest finally comes up, she’s from the slums and working in some run down shitty theatre. She’s poor and lives with her mom, who is also an actress, and they work for some greasy Jew who runs the shitty theatre. That isn’t a racial slight on my part either, they really say the guy is a Jew and greasy? It seems that in the olden days it was the norm to talk about Jews like nobody’s business. I don’t get it.

More chapters on Dorian loving himself and men calling each other names like “delicious” follow for a bit after the first run in. Dorian tells his peeps that he is in love with some actress and he is going to marry her! They seem troubled by it but agree to meet the girl after catching one of her shows. On the other end the girl is telling her moms about how she met “Prince Charming” and is smitten with him…and they are going to be MARRIED! Oscar makes a point to breeze over the age of this young hussy; we find out on the sly that she is the ancient age of 16. She seems juvenile when talking to her mother and brother about a man she is going to marry who she will only refer to by the name “Prince Charming”, but she is only 16 and it makes sense. Dorian on the other hand is even girlier when talking about his lady and he’s supposed to be the guy in relationship, not to mention the book! After all this fawning over each other to their peers and family we go to the big show where Dorian’s comrades will finally get to see the special lady who has won over Dorian’s heart.

At the crumby theatre the greasy Jew is more than excited to see Dorian with his entourage and gives him the royal treatment. Fact is, Dorian has been obsessively catching every show this girl has been in DAILY! More than one show a day. The grizzy Jew thinks Dorian is some big shot and also knows that he has a sweet tooth for his little actress, Sybil. The curtain rises and Sybil gives a performance equal to a diaper full of ass-plosion. Basil and Lord Henry are aghast at the wretched performance and break the news to Dorian. Being the fine example of masculinity that he is, Dorian takes the new rather hard and proceeds to cry to himself aloud and curses the girl. His pals leave and Dorian goes to learn the young girl an important lesson about embarrassing him. He verbally brutalizes the silly young girl, who explains she deliberately gave a shite performance for love, and tells her he wants no part of her and she is a huge mistake. She crumbles, as young girls often do, and he leaves her in disgust.

Dorian goes home and is damn proud of himself for crushing his little piece of ass. He catches a gander of the portrait of him and notices a difference. The lines around his mouth seemed to have changed, but only slightly. They were now giving the illusion of a slight sinister smirk. Evil if you will. He spends a few pages in denial that portrait has changed and more pages are filled with such mind numbing boredom I don’t even recall what I was reading.

Finally it gets back to the juicy part of the story and you find out the next morning that Sybil had killed herself in the theatre and some said it might have been an accident…but Dorian and his peeps know it was that awful curly haired Dorian’s words that sealed her doom. Dorian doesn’t seem to mind and goes about his business. If you haven’t picked up on it yet, Dorian is turning into a real asshole and every time he is a dick to someone or does something shitty his portrait takes the toll and Dorian stays absolutely fabulous! Again the story starts to wonder off in things I could care less about or even understand and somewhere in between years pass and Dorian is getting a reputation for being a creepy guy who frequents dive bars and wears disguises. I only remember this part because I wondered if Michael Jackson has a portrait of himself that is even worse looking that he is. It was very reminiscent of the king of pop in these parts.

The picture gets so vile that Dorian puts it in a private room that only he has the key too. The days go by and Basil stops by to tell Dorian he had a boner for him since day one and he doesn’t like hearing bad things about Dorian in the social circles. Dorian cracks, takes Basil to the secret room and kills him. Yes, kills him! I’m pretty sick of this book by this point but read a few more chapters because I have nothing better to do at 3am. Dorian blackmails a former buddy into disposing of the body and…I GET SOME MEDICAL MARY JANE SO I DON’T HAVE TO FINISH THE BOOK! This is a dandy lead into my final review.

The Picture of Dorian Gray - ** stars. And that’s one extra star for Morrissey.


DRUGS:

Medical Marijuana

Now this is the stuff that is supposed to be the cat’s meow! I’m not really a pothead and I haven’t purchased any greens in…well a month, but it had been almost years before that. I usually take hits off my cousin’s stuff or get a few nuggets thrown my way from friends. If and when I do indulge by my lonesome, it’s usually to get some much-needed sleep. A friend of mine had come into some medical Maryjane from a friend of theirs but had no use for it since pot isn’t their thing. DAMON! Let’s give it to Damon! Yay for me I say, yay for me. I get the offer to get free weed and MEDICAL WEED at that so I snatch it up. I hadn’t slept well in over a week and I was crippled with some freakish ear infection so why not give it a shot. Right off the bat my friend is apologizing for the weak amount of MM they have but I tell them not to sweat it, free is free. This guy really was in the dark about pot and what was considered “a little”. I get the goods and there is EASILY a dime bags worth. Now back in the day I could snap my fingers and roll a joint. I knew all there was to know about Maryjane and had smoked almost every kind of dope you could get in the U-S-of –A. This stuff my friends, this stuff was clean. It was the brightest of green with wondrous amounts of red hairs sprinkled here and there. To top it all off each cluster was covered with crystals and it smelled heavenly. I couldn’t wait to get home.

In almost a ritualistic way I set up my smoking utensils and settle in for the night. Vacation was finally starting and I was ready for it. I was so stoked to be taking something that would help me sleep I almost forgot about the pain on the left side of my head. I clean out my bong and put some nice cool water in the bowl and test the level with a little practice hit on an empty bowl. Perfect. I clean the bowl with a poker and look through to stem and see the light coming in through the hole. Perfect. I refill my Zippo lighter that has a built in pipe attachment and give it a few test lightings. Perfect. Now for the moment of truth. I reach my nimble fingers into the canister and pick out the first nugget. Ever so gently I break off the first little cluster and set it into the bowl. It’s almost like surgery the way I’m being so meticulous with the whole process. I turn the bowl just the right way so that the flame from my lighter will light the top of the whole nugget and not just the sides. I put the top of the bong to my mouth and it feels cool from the ice-cold water I filled it with. Putting the lighter to the bowl I take a huge drag. The air feels cool, but dirty at the same time as it goes into my lungs. When I feel like I don’t have any more breath I pull away from the stem of the bong. I take one final “clean up” hit and hold the smoke for a while. POOF! I blow the smoke out and while doing so I realize how smooth the smoke and taste are. I wasn’t sure just how big a hit I took so I continue to blow smoke out until my lips look like a snooty French waiters. Instantly I feel the head change and the sensation of relaxation works it’s way throughout my body. HOT DAMN! This was some smooth smoking! And tasty too!

I don’t remember much after that except that I finally passed out and got TONS of sleep and woke up at odd times only to drink some water, smoke another bowl and go back to sleep. It felt great and I wasn't all sluggish when I woke up. The only downside to the whole thing was I didn’t eat more than once a day, but on the first day I ate after smoking this heavenly bud I ended up consuming 8 chilidogs. Shit, I had a craving! What would you do if you were in that situation?! Don’t judge.

Medical Marijuana - ****Stars. It would be 5, but seriously, I could have gone to jail getting this stuff.

DJB