One Damn Good Trip

In the last week I have seen Devin the Dude, Method Man and Redman, Snoop Dogg, and Ghostface Killah. If you don't know, these are all very successful hip-hop artists. The first three were all in a one night show at The Vogue. Ghost came to The Bluebird in Bloomington on Sunday night. If you do not know, Method Man and Ghostface Killah are veteran members of the incredibly successful and celebrated hip hop group, Wu Tang Clan. I am not twenty one but one of my good friend's dad owns The Vogue and we got in for free. My friend and I who went to Bloomington to see Ghostface couldn't get into the club since it was twenty one and up. So we sulked and cursed the guy who wouldn't let us in. We walked around the club to the back to see if we could listen to the show at all. At the back door there were a couple guys standing around and they told us they knew how to get on the roof and had done it before. So we followed them and climbed the pipes over the barbed wire to the roof where we had a damn good view of the stage from a vent. To me and my friend seeing Ghostface was like seeing Chuck Berry or Bo Diddley back in the day. I probably listen to his music every day. What made the trip so damn good was the fact that we saw it for free and even got to say what up to Ghost before he got on the tour bus, and he played all the classics. It was certainly worth the trip even though we got back home at two in the morning and I had class at ten thirty the next day.

Psycho

Last night for the first time ever, I watched Psycho. Of course my entire life I had heard about Psycho and how it was probably Alfred Hitchcock's greatest or at least most popular thriller. I knew that it was good but I didn't realize how good. If I was a kid, lets say fourteen at the time Psycho came out in 1960 and saw it in theaters; I would have been scared out of my mind. I probably would have needed a new change of underwear. Even though I had already scene all the key scenes in the film, and new exactly what was going to happen already, it was still scary. The incredibly famous shower scene was put together so well, with the music and the angles. When the private investigator gets killed at the top of the stairs, when we find out Norman's mom had been dead for however many years, when we finally see Norman's dead mom and see Norman dressed up as his mom. The ending was so damn good, how the psychiatrist explains everything to us, about Norman and how his mother has taken over his mind. I never really care for the Academy Awards but there are certain times when they are probably very wrong. Even though Psycho wasn't nominated for Best Picture, Hitchcock should have won for Best Director. He lost to Billy Wilder for The Apartment, which had dominated that year anyway. That year the Academy messed up for sure because Psycho is a masterpiece and certainly one of if not the greatest thriller/horror film of all time.

TV zombies

TV has to be one of the biggest reasons for people not reading as much as they used to. It turns you into a zombie, and I watch just as much as everybody else so I'm a TV zombie as well. You sit there just staring at the screen, when something isn't on that you like you just stare and flip through channels and commercials. I think that the majority of what is on television is a bunch of crap. Most people probably think this as well. However for some reason, it is just too easy to sit on your comfortable couch and just stare at whatever is on. Shows, the news, commercials, whatever is on just sucks you in somehow. My generation and younger generations probably watch the most television. It is too easy to come home from school and say your going to watch the TV just for a bit, when it actually turns into maybe two or three hours. You sit and you stare and you don't think about anything else. A little TV a day is good but too much and we all become TV zombies.

Books

I sincerely think that everybody should try to read as many books as possible. It is remarkable and amazing the stories that people can think of. It seems like most of my friends and people I know don't read any books. I don't think there is an excuse for that. There is always time to read; when your in the bathroom, before going to sleep, riding the bus, when you are waiting for anything, doctor, dentist, waiting for class. Maybe people just don't like to read as much as they used to. I guess this is due to television, the internet and video games. But compared to the nonsense that is on the majority of TV nowadays, many written works are way better. Why sit and watch a bunch of idiots on MTV or VH1 when there are incredible stories from authors like Kurt Vonnegut, Chuck Palahniuk, Mario Puzo and a whole bunch more. (Those are just a few, I was only naming the authors who's books were right in front of me.) Reading is also very beneficial to one's brain. It expands your vocabulary, helps you to read better, and increases your knowledge on literature, and the stories are amazing. Even with all the new mediums that are taking over the world, people should try to embrace reading books as they did fifty or a hundred years ago.

The Basterd's Inspiration

I am sure that many of us have seen Inglorious Basterds. I think it is one of Quentin Tarantino's most brilliant and clever movies. Well they all are but this one is certainly one of the best. If you don't know Tarantino's films take huge inspiration from exploitation flicks of the 70's, kung fu flicks, spaghetti westerns, others and obviously war movies. The main story of Inglorious Basterds can be traced back to a couple of films. The original Inglorious Bastards which was somewhat similar and The Dirty Dozen just to name a couple. All three of these films have a group of renegade soldiers going undercover to terrorize the Nazi's in some way and all three are damn good. Here is the trailer for The Dirty Dozen.

Hurling

The past labor day weekend I played in the Hurling National Championships in Boston. Indy Hurling won the Junior C league Championship last year but we lost this year. I am sure none or very few of you know what Hurling is so watch this video. And look at indyhurling.com