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Post by Kevin Smith on Dec 13, 2007 13:46:26 GMT -8
We should have get all the film music fans who actually play an instrument and form an orchestra and perform some film music. Then we invite all the composers to come and laugh at our efforts. We would probably butcher every piece we play. We'll give Tharp the triangle. And no one should bring their guitar.
Or
A film music road trip, have six or seven fans in a minivan and drive somewhere. Imagine the fighting in the car over what to put in the CD player. With Jon, threatening to turn the van around so no more Disneyland. The journey might smell with Southall's goat in the van.
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Post by Brendan Anderson on Dec 13, 2007 16:22:25 GMT -8
A film music road trip, have six or seven fans in a minivan and drive somewhere. This has already happened. August, 2002. In the car were Christian Kuhn, Myself, Zack Behrendt, Jens Dietrich, and Nate Underkuffler. A very WIDE degree of musical tastes there. ;D But it was a good time, and nobody was severely maimed. It was a very long drive - from Minneapolis, MN to Akron, OH for a John Williams concert. -Brendan
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Post by Christian K on Dec 13, 2007 16:30:46 GMT -8
~~~ Hell and Back Again -- A Ranger's & Nemotode's Tale ~~~
_______________________________________________ PART I "THE GATHERING" STORM
or the more aptly titled
I MUSTA BEEN DRUNK Thursday July 25th 5pm - Friday 1 pm
N8:
I arrived at the huge seething mass of consumer superlative- The Mall of America - and met one Brendan Anderson near a giant red snoopy dog dish. I felt it was a very appropriate way to begin such an adventure. From there Brendan and I had some time to kill so we wandered the mall wasteland, Brendan deftly making his way through the crowds while my inexperienced self did it's best to keep up. After an hour of searching for the eight legged freaks score in countless CD stores, likely more than are in all of the state of Maine, we headed over to the Airport and braced ourselves for the German invasion. While waiting Brendan got a random call from his former composition professor informing Brendan that he was in the presence of the original Kentucky fried chicken and was having an enlightening religious experience. I was not surprised when Brendan informed me that this professor had been on road for a very, very long time. Little did I know what powers the long road trip has on one's mind...
Suddenly we were bombarded by the two Germans and had little or no time to react or prepare ourselves. At this point I knew this was not going to be no usual vacation, for these were no average travel partners. Jens was constantly expressing himself very enthusiastically about film music and everything else which came in his path, he was a very...jovial jens. Kuhni was a bit more mild mannered but anyone who listens to the Fellowship of Ring score 5 times a day is no average German. Once in the van Brendan covertly slipped in Independence Day and the track of the same name blared away very fittingly as we exited the parking garage and entered out into the city and the endless urban sprawl of America. I must say of all moments in the Gathering odyssey this was one of the most surreal, what had I gotten myself into?! I wondered. Whatever it was, it was not to be soon forgotten. Immediately after the Independence day track ended Jens preceded to take control of the CD player for the first but certainly not last time and Medal of Honor frontline was blasting as we pulled up to Brendan's very nice accomdations. We went out to dinner at a very pleasant Old Chicago restaurant where we ordered pizza, and Jens in particular a barbecue chicken and pineapple pizza the likes of which I had never seen eaten before. After this we walked to a nearby used CD store and raided the soundtrack section where I picked up a number of discs influenced strongly from other's suggestions appriciated suggestions. (First time I'd ever had that in a CD store) It also seemed as though most got the MIIB score, which we heard to on the way back to the Dorm room. There we listened for the first time to Brendan's impressive "I Believe" piece (Anyone who has yet to get his CD very much should) and not long after midnight I retired to the couch in the living room where I did my best to sleep although I was much to wired to relax much. I woke the next morning to wonderful sounds of the "Roll Tide" track from Crimson Tide. I guess someone had forced Jens to listen to it in the living room and in a half slumber I remember saying something about the awesome theme and build up without even waking up, since didn't come to full consciousness until the action theme. Anyways, it was a very cool way to start the day! And after picking up Zack to the sound of little giants we were off into the great heartland of America. Jens had stratedically positioned himself securely in the front passengers seat and played for us all his compilation of the greatest film themes. (In his of course humble opinion ) This was no single 50-minute disk, it was like 6 disks filled to brim with Goldsmith and an army of pseydo-Goldsmith composers. Now don't get me wrong, this is alright music, but after 2 hours of constant Brass fanfares and then 3 hours of snare drum driven Goldsmithian action music things began to get rather loosened in my skull. Eventually we made it through Wisonsin and in a non-despcript, desolate parking lot on the outskirts of Chicago we met up with the next martyer of our Gathering pilgrimage....
Tex:
So next thing ya know, I'm minding my own business at the local AMC Theater, when I'm suddenly accosted by two Germans, two Minnesotans, and some creepy serial killer type from Maine. With one hand fingering my pocket knife, and another tapping my cell phone (9-1-1), I told these goons they weren't getting a taste of me without a fight. That's when the spry one with sunglasses and Snoopy complextion said, "Tex, it's us -- Filmtracks!"
"Oh great!" I added. Then I called the police.
***
After the cops verified that this "f@cking geek convention" (as they put it) was legit, I only found myself more frightened.
"Jesus Christ," I thought, "These people actually exist!"
I was first introduced to Brendan -- a darling of a man with all the looks, sensibilities, and taste of a Saturday Morning Cartoon show. His preppy wardrobe spoke of another place and time when mankind had just bridged The GAP and Yuppies roamed the earth. Obviously, this dinosaur was in charge because he had the spindly legs and quivering look of pure, abject horror that can only come from driving 2 Germans, 2 Minnesotans, and a creepy serial type for over 8 hours. His choice of vehicle was a 1994 emerald green Dodge Minivan... a doomed car that get's Tex's '"Vehicle Most Likely to Reenact a Scene from Stephen King's Christine" Award for 2002'. But we'll talk about that later...
Next out was the second guy in charge, which I figured out quickly because he was sitting uncomfortably close to the CD player and everyone else was giving him dirty looks. Decked out in a hypnotic Hawaiian shirt that screamed "No sense of shame," and sporting spectacles and hair straight from Hogwart's, this guy looked like Harry Potter after letting himself go at a wicked sabatical/bachelor party on Waikiki. I'm told this guy was Jens (spoken as "Yens" by everyone else, but pronounced as "Jens" by me in an effort to annoy him). Part German, Part Brando, this guy hails from Atlanta, Georgia but talks like a Beatle. But on the bright side he has a marvelous singing voice. Next out was Zack Behrentd... Bearhead... Bedrent... Boydent... er... Zack. Just Zack. Anyway, with his half assed Elfman goatee and smart ass grin, he had "Christ, I'm too cool for this $#it" written all over him. He wins the Ranger's "Only guy who could probably kick my goddam ass into next Tuesday" Award'. The first thing he does is light up and start smoking with me (I think we both had the same idea -- tobacco is the only way we're gonna get through this). So then I ask this beefy 30-something Minnesotan if he wants to join me for a drink to wash away all that Goldsmith Jens had no doubt been playing non-stop for the last 8 damn hours; to which he replies, "Dude, I'm underage!" Curses, foiled again -- oh well, wouldn't be the first time I had to drink alone. Needless to say, his coolness factor dropped a few notches after that... but with every cigarette I bummed off of him, it shot back up an extra point.
Behind Zack was some sorta James Bondish criminal mastermind type -- tiny glasses, buzz hair cut, beady eyes, sharp eyebrows, a devilish grin, sneaky demeanor, and nondescript clothing. "Obviously the other German," I thought. It was Kuhni (with an umlaut over the "U", so you pronounce it like you're barfing -- try it now! Stick your finger down your throat and dry heave! 'K-"oohgh"-ni'). Now Kuhni hails from Bavaria, better known as the Deep Dixieland of Deutschland. Like most Bavarians, he has a fun loving attitude that comes with either being drunk or with the ignorant bliss of not speaking very good english. In his case, it could have been either. Incidentally, I couldn't figure out what was funnier -- Kuhni's endearing attempts at English, or Jens' less endearing attempts to make fun of Kuhni's English with his own equally ridiculous German-Georgian-British accent. Ah... those wacky Germans.
Finally, the last kid out was Nate (yes, that guy who posts here). He's a real quiet type with hair by Burton and face by Bundy**... the type of kid you just know is gonna climb up a bell tower some day and take out the jerks who said Zimmer's music sucks. But in the meantime, he's a nice guy. Brendan told me Nate only speaks on command*, so I had to go out and purchase some Scooby snacks to entice him to talk.* Why Nate didn't speak all that much is anybody's guess, but I think he had, "Oh my god, what the hell did I get myself into?" written all over him. Dealing with the Minnesotans is bad enough, but then thrown in a coupla rowdy Germans and a Texas Ranger from Chicago, and I think the stress was more than he could bear. Still, he represented the Zone well -- defending the underdogs and chastising the ignorant. I think my favorite moment was in the hotel suite on the second night, when Jens called Zimmer a hack and Nate shot a glance over to him that was worth a thousand words, but can be summed up in three: "YOU WILL DIE."* My second favorite moment was driving junior up there in the Rangermobile and educating him on Herrmann and Boingo -- only to be educated myself when he dissected Zimmer's Black Hawk Down and made a fairly convincing case for why it's the greatest, most awesomest, in-f@cking-credible film score ever written in the history of the entire known universe.*
So anyway, with this motley crew of International Nerds standing in front of me, there was only one thing running through my head: "What the hell was I thinking!?"
No, scratch that, there were two things running through my head: "What the hell was I thinking!?" and "I musta been drunk."
_______________________________________
**famed serial killer and general @$$hole who charmed women with his good looks and/or con schemes. Part of the basis for Silence of the Lambs' Buffalo Bill. *Editor's note: Slight exaggeration was likely used
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Post by Jens Dietrich on Dec 18, 2007 0:35:52 GMT -8
Into The Trap
Tex: So, the Geek Convention meets me at an AMC in the Chicagoland area and everyone starts staring at me like I’m the risen Christ come back to deliver them from the evil of mediocrity – at one point I swear Kuhni even started pawing me to see if I could heal his rotten leg. That was enough to send me lighting up a clove ASAP. “Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit smoking,” I thought. Zack lit up too and said he was grateful that he finally had someone to smoke with – together, we blew noxious fumes in the faces of the healthy heathens who valued clean lungs over precious nicotine – infidels. The rest of the group, not satisfied with their helpings of tar and secondhand smoke, were hungry. Fortunately, there was a Max and Erma’s nearby, which gave the group ample opportunity to show off their nerdiness like a peacock in heat. Jens gets the award for “Most Overtly Nerdy Scoreboarder at the Table” on account of his laugh – a combination Theremin and turkey call. But, in all fairness to Jens, the whole group pretty much made asses of themselves. In fact, I’m absolutely positive the other customers thought we were drunk. Still, the funniest moment came when Brendan tried to explain our trek to the waitress, and she seemed more impressed with Kuhni’s Monopoly… er… Euro money. “Hey, Stacy! Check it out! Foreign cash! Sure more interesting than these losers!” At that point, I think I simply buried my face in my hat.
After tarnishing my good reputation, the group split up, Brendan gave me “directions” (if you can call them that) to the Sheraton, and we were off, straight into a classic Chicago traffic jam. It’s a well known scientific fact that Chicago is the center of the universe, and as such, draws in a lot of people. This is hard for corn shucking crybabies like Brendan to grasp (since they live in harsh, desolate wastelands that tend to attract more professional wrestlers than actual human beings), but more people means more traffic. Amazingly, Brendan seemed somehow shocked that it was stop and go for three hours – perhaps if he had joined civilization sooner, he wouldn’t have wound up in that mess. Better yet, though, was the look on his face when I later told him that he had only tasted the beginning of rush hour. “The fairy tale is over, Princess – welcome to real life!”
After the three hour jam the road really opened up and I took this an opportunity to educate Nate on real music – God only knows what damage Brendan and his orchestral cheese did the poor kid’s psyche. So, after some healthy doses of Herrmann, I decide to throw on one of my compilations – a little sci-fi fun that started off with the Total Recall end credits suite. Next thing I know, Nate has a total freak out: Principal Skinner Nam style. “Oh Jesus! Not that!! It’s all coming back!!!” Before I could ask, “What?,” Nate jumps out the window and runs off into a forest preserve, ranting about POWS, or Charlie, or Goldsmith, or being held hostage by Jens or something. I eventually found him cowering beneath a blanket of leaves, shivering like a Chihuahua and chewing on a piece of bark. After slapping him around a bit, Nate explained to me that the group had been listening to nothing but Goldsmith (or anything remotely resembling Goldsmith) the whole way up. Apparently, Jens had acquired some naughty pictures with Brendan and a beagle, and used them to secure full control of Anderson’s CD player for the whole trip – a trip that Jens had somehow managed to fill up with over “8 damn hours of compilations.” So I let Nate put on some Zimmer to wash all the Goldsmith out of his system, and he gave me some nice analyses of Black Hawk Down and The Peacemaker (great scores, by the way). After dark, I put on some Boingo (starting with Insanity and moving up to Little Girls), which had the desired effect of screwing with Nate’s head.
Now, unbeknownst to me, but beknownst to Mr. Anderson, his directions were comprised of an unending series of left turns that basically spiraled endlessly around the hotel for at least a couple hundred miles. Put simply, if the Akron area was a mall wishing well, and the hotel was the hole at the center, we were the coin endlessly circling round and round and round, inching just a little closer to the center with each consecutive spin. As far I’m concerned, this was Brendan’s first of many attempts to try to kill yours truly – probably to get back for all those arguments I won. It wasn’t until I pulled off of I-77 and then thirty minutes later passed right under it not once, but twice, that I finally sat up and began to take notice. I really started to worry when I passed the same house, bedecked in porch-rockin’ inbred ‘idjuts’ playing the theme from Deliverance, no less than three damn times. Finally, when I saw the sign proclaiming “Welcome to West Virginia!”, I realized I had been screwed, and probably will be again if I didn’t get the hell out of there. To cut a long story short, we made it to the hotel after passing through downtown Akron no less than four fucking times!
I checked in with Nate “The Baggage Man” U in tow at about midnight. Since we left Max and Erma’s at about 3 pm, this meant we had been on the road for seven hours. Woof. Despite the fact that Brendan sent us into the Forbidden Zone to suffer a horrible death, he somehow managed to arrive an hour after us – so it was up to me to entertain Nate. Needless to say, the first thing I did was check the mini-bar, a glorious assortment of tiny liquor bottles of all colors of the rainbow. Like any good alcoholic, I completely disregarded the price listing sheet and opened her up – “Looks like I picked the wrong week to quite drinking.” Eight bucks worth of Jack Daniels and Irish Whiskey later, Brendan and the gang pulled in. Almost immediately, I confronted Brendan: “Hey! You left us to die, man!” Brendan replied with something to the effect of, “Tex! I’m surprised to find you here… alive…” and then grumbled to himself. Then he explained to me that had found an alternate route that took him straight to the hotel. How convenient for him.
On a lighter note, I did get some small joy out of the fact that Brendan and the gang had hillbilly problems of their own. Apparently, Zack was nearly ass-raped at a rest station by some beefy yokel who was admiring his Wendy’s Super Biggie Burger… not to mention his “perdy super biggie mouth.” “Good God,” I thought.
The Plot Thickens Like Cheap Maple Syrup
I wake up at noon and knock on Nate and Kuhni’s door. After chatting a bit, we went next door and met Brendan and Zack – both of whom had more rings under their eyes than a Dark Lord on D-day. Tex: “Yikes! Didn’t you guys get any sleep?”
I seem to remember Zack laughing incredulously while Brendan said, “Dude… Jens.” I guess Jens snores, not that he’d notice – when I got there he was still sleeping like a baby. Nate and Kuhni later told me that, despite the three inches of solid brick separating the two rooms, there was still some bleed over from Herr Dietrich. I can only wonder what the hell the people riding the elevator next door must’ve thought as their lift chugged along to the sound of Jens.
I can’t be too hard on the guy, though – he let me listen to Black Sunday (a HIGHLY underrated Williams score) and even gave me a copy. This was my first exposure to Jens’ legendary collection – a collection so large it spans two time zones and an International Date Line. Zack, Brendan, and I joked that Jens had “connections” – most likely with the German mafia. As I said: “Jens makes a call, and some film score fan in Frankfurt dies under ‘mysterious circumstances.’” Jens: “If there’s anything you ever need from me, Tex, just call.” Tex: “Man, I don’t know, Jens…” Jens: “Whatever it is, you’ll get it.” Tex: “I don’t doubt it… It’s just that I don’t know if I want any innocent bystanders to die for me. That’s a lotta responsibility, man.”
Anyway, we spent most of the early afternoon doing what the Scoreboard does best: talking about really useless $hit. That was fun, but after awhile, I felt myself slipping into pure geekdom … sliding down the slippery slope from distant observer to pure fanboy nerdjob as I started talking about old PC Games like Tie Fighter and/or the Admiral Thrawn books. Somewhere after Jens dissected all the plot holes to Attack of the Clones, he turned to me and asked if I had ever played the role playing game Freedom Force. Zack suddenly said, “That’s it, this conversation’s too geeky for me – I’m goin’ for a smoke.” Before he could step out the door, I was already halfway to the elevator.
N8: Tex indeed was right in the middle of all geeky, nerdy conversing. I found it difficult to get at all involved...I simply hadn’t seen these horrible movies, or played Rebel Assault 2&3 director’s cuts! At one point I announced that I liked the Rogue Squadron games, and I was immediately shot down like a helpless formation of tie fighters and informed that those games were “Horrible”. Whoops. But now at the crack of 2 it was time for a classy breakfast...
Tex: After washing away our sins with carcinogens, we decided to take Kuhni to a REAL American experience: Taco Bell. Kuhni sat there and asked us what he should get as we tried to explain to him that it’s all the same meat’n’cheese out of a hose. My favorite moment came when Kuhni, sitting there with god only knows what stuffed into a sickly little soft shell, looked at MY Mountain Dew Red and said, “Dat lookz like poison.” Smart man. Even smarter was Jens – who decided to use the restroom. Tex: “So, Jens has lived in this country HOW long? And he’s using a Taco Bell restroom?” Zack: “Guy’s gotta death wish” Tex: “Thousand bucks says he doesn’t last thirty seconds in there.” CUT TO: Thirty seconds later -- we catch Jens running out of the Men’s Room, screaming like a woman. Ah… those wacky Germans.
After following Brendan “Maniac” Anderson home (we had to detour wildly around the Cineplex so Jens wouldn’t make us go see Goldmember), we got into a classic movie discussion. By the end of the day, I felt like we had shot a sequel to High Fidelity. The biggest irony was listening to the sheer number of stupid movies Jens and Zack see on a daily basis – for a couple of guys who always bitch about bad movies, they sure are asking for it. Zack at least works at a Suncoast – I’m not sure what Jens’ excuse was. Still, at least these are MY people – most of the prudes back in Chicago don’t have a stomach for Italian Zombie Cannibal films like Zack, Jens, and I do. And don’t even get me started on MST-3K. Of course, I got to learn a little more about Jens each time he’d open his mouth. Take this little number, for instance: Zack and I were talking about the Evil Dead DVD Commentaries (Zack, by the way, is the only other person besides me who can quote the commentaries more than the actual film). Somewhere, I mentioned that Producer Rob Tapert must be screwed up, because he came up with a lotta sadomasochistic $hit, including the infamous (and universally offensive) “Tree Rape Scene” in Evil Dead 1. Tex: “Did you know he came up with the Tree Rape scene? That makes so much sense when you think about it.” Zack: “Yeah, that guy’s a piece of work.” Jens: “Oh, I LOVE the Tree Rape scene!” All I remember was the longest, most uncomfortable silence I’ve ever had the displeasure of experiencing while Zack and I slowly turned our heads and stared at Jens in total disbelief. We tended to get a lotta of those whenever Jens was talking. Tex/Zack: “What!?” Jens: “Oh yes. The Tree Rape scene is great.” Okay…
N8: You folks at home have no idea the Zombie cannibal films and tree-rape porno flicks those guys have seen. Probably best if it never leaves that hotel room...
Tex: Anyway, Brendan had to go pick up the Canadians, and seeing as how the conversation had degenerated into foliage f@cking and/or solving the age old question of which version of Stars Wars was the definitive (the original release, the re-release, or the re-re-release Special Edition), I decided to ride with him. The ride to the Greyhound station featured yet another attempt on my life at the increasingly incompetent hands of Stoopy the Wonderdog. No less than five minutes out of the hotel and Brendan manages to miss the interstate. Still, we did get a nice tour of Jerry Springer’s hometown, which shares a lot in common with his show – it’s full of white trash. Plus, I did get to see no less than three episodes of Cops being filmed simultaneously.
Once back on the road, things picked up when I put on some of my own compilations (those would be the compilations I wanted the gang to listen to on the way up to Ohio, but barely even saw the light of day thanks to a certain German-American). And then there was the bus station – what a pretty little pile of crap that was. There was nothing more surreal than listening to Alan Silvestri’s saccharine sweet synth score to Flight of the Navigator as a rogue’s gallery of America’s poorest, fattest, and slobbiest disembarked from a steel gray bus in the middle of a neighborhood that even David Fincher would have thought was too grungy. At first, we thought we might have trouble finding these Canadians – after all, neither of us knew what the hell they looked like (I didn’t even know their screenames). Then this quartet of gangly, well groomed, pasty white teenagers steps off the bus and stands around like a bunch of dazed mopes – it was as if they had never seen a bad neighborhood before (I’m told they don’t have those in Canada). Although it seemed obvious to us that these guys had to be them, it was the Toronto Blue Jays duffle-bag that gave it away – no Clevelander would carry a Toronto Blue Jays bag… hell, no self respecting AMERICAN would carry a Toronto Blue Jays bag.
After a long series of introductions, we experienced our first round of Canadian stereotypes as Josh said, “Hey, thanks for the ride, EH.” I followed that up with a lengthy interrogation session – “We have ways of making you pronounce the letter ‘O!’” Kevin L. and the rest of the gang, in turn, wanted to see the free handgun they were told every American receives with his/her birth certificate.
Meanwhile...
N8: Back at homebase we remaining gatherers (Gasp!) listened to some more film music, the highlights being the awesome N8 ed Asteroid Chase cue which Jens for no logical reason likes (I sure can’t blame him though!) And I actually found a score Jens didn’t have, A tigger movie promo, and played him a track which he approved. A great victory on all fronts indeed! Then I remember he put in his own personal version of the Mummy Returns, and we listened to the entire awesome 20 minute unreleased finale. What a massive score. But it wasn’t long before the Canadian invasion was upon us and giant cheesy CGI scorpions with a professional wrestlers head pasted on seemed like a trip to sesame street...
Tex: Back at the hotel, I witnessed one of those uncomfortable moments that made me ashamed to be an American. As the Canadians (all of whom are about as apple pie a la mode as you can get) checked in, Frau Bissena - The Hotel Fuhreress stepped in. The second I heard her nasally, Church Lady-esque voice, I knew something stupid was about to go down.
Die Fuhreress: “Now KIDS, where are you from? California?” Josh: “Umm… Canada.” Die Fuhreress: “Now, you do realize we’re going to have to remove ALL of the liquor from the mini-bar, okay?”
While the Frau silently judged these guys, I’m thinking, “Jesus, lady, these KIDS can drink in their own stupid country.” Meanwhile, I’m only one step away from drinking myself to death every night because these geniuses gave ME, the OVERAGE guy, the key to the goddamn mini-bar. Fascist morons. Needless to say, I apologized on behalf of the United States and promised Josh and the gang I’d write to my Congressman as soon as I got home.
Once back in the room, there was an even lengthier series of introductions, during which Jens scared everybody. Then it was my turn as we talked about stupid films, for like the zillionth time, and the Rocky films came up. The Canadians took this an opportunity to humiliate me and my awful Sylvester Stallone impression. No matter… we’ll annex them soon enough.
Then at some point, Brendan dropped the double bombshell that Daniel2 was back (proving once and for all that he’s not me), but more importantly that Clemmenson was engaged. This spawned a series of reactions from “Yay” to “Wow” to “Oh my God! He’s breeding!” I was also told that Clemmenson plans to ban anyone responding to Daniel2, which delighted me to no end, since I can’t wait to welcome the new arrivals at the crimson red gates of Scoreboard Hell.
N8: The Canadians turned out to be a surprisingly easy going bunch, and a welcome grounding in reality from all of the insanity going on. One of them had almost seen as many bad movies as the three movieteers had, though. For the rest of the afternoon we pretty much all just cracked Canadia jokes until Brendan got us to do something again...
Tex: That night, we all decided to drop by Best Buy and Applebees, despite Jens’ increasingly aggressive push for seeing Goldmember. At Best Buy, we stampeded to the soundtrack aisle like a bunch of hogs to the trough. Needless to say, we were the only ones in that section (probably the most action that aisle ever saw). In typical Dietrich fashion, Jens waded through the feeding frenzy with a list of recommendations, proclaiming just how “fan-f@cking-tastic” or what “f@cking bull$hit” they all were. I tended to avoid him like the plague and made my own stupid decisions. In the end, I picked up Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Dr. Zchivago, and some Pink Floyd and System of a Down albums. While checking out, the cashier noticed my erratic taste in music and wondered if I was going to OzzFest or something. I explained to him that I was seeing a John Williams concert with the losers behind me. The look on his face said it all. Dickweed. The last person I needed a lecture from was Beavis and Butthead from behind the counter.
N8: A great mass of film music fans it was indeed who stormed that best buy, probably more people at a soundtrack section at one time then had ever been seen before. I was able to snag the last remaining copy of the K-19 score and that was good enough for me. After a while of people wandering around the store, from the soundtrack section to DVDs, (I had no idea Tex had been poisoning his mind with pop music...I hope he faces dire consequences) we all sort of coagulated at the checkout and were on our way to dinner, and more innocents to victimize.
Tex: At Applebees, we did a pretty good job of scaring the straights. Kuhni took advantage of America’s gracious free refill culture and nearly drank the place out of business. Meanwhile, the Canadians sat with Jens -- starting a seating pattern which proved once and for all that Zack, Nate, Kuhni, and I were just too cool for them to handle. This must’ve freaked the waitress out, since she was the most apologetic little sprite I’ve ever seen (which Zack dug, since he seems to have a thing for waifs). Though, in retrospect, perhaps she just pitied us. The whole experience ended with Kuhni explaining to me why singing “Deutschland, Deutschland Uber Alles” can land your ass in jail in a German jail. With yet another international incident narrowly avoided, we headed home… without seeing Goldmember.
N8: At Applebees I remember some good conversing about posters (Who and what none of you will ever know! Ha Ha HA!) And I must mention we loitered about in the parking lot for a while some of the best making fun of both Canada and the US I’ve ever experienced took place and I learned for the first time that we had bombed a whole load of our northern neighbors supposedly “by accident” a couple months prior. Hehe...whoops
Tex: Back at the hotel, we all settled down for a round of score talk, set to the head banging rhythms of JNH’s Waterworld, which Zack seems to use as a substitute for religion.
N8: This was a good example of Zack’s very physical expressions, whether pounding his own hand to a bloodied pulp when the subject of the conversation was dissatisfactory or act out a shooting spree during a rousing JNH action cue. Glad I was able to repay the guy the money I briefly borrowed from him at Taco Bell
Tex: The highlight of the evening was our WWFilmtracks Smackdown over Media Ventures. I remained fairly neutral, but Nate, who usually sat in a corner and kept his mouth shut like a good little boy, suddenly pounced like a ninja and ripped Jens a new one, Crouching Tiger-Hidden Dragon style (I guess no one calls Zimmer a hack). Jens then somersaulted over the gang and threw multiple CD-Rs of Gladiator at Nate’s head as if they were Chinese stars. Both of them then lunged at each other and fell threw the window. According to the cops, they were picked up on Highway 8 after some terrified farmer phoned in that Harry Potter and the Night Stalker were wrestling outside his barn. According to the police report, Nate’s foot was stuck in Jens’ mouth and Jens’ head was stuck in Nate’s death grip. A statistical tie, to be sure – but there will be others.
N8: Anyone who says the guitars in Black Hawk Down are “stupid” is just asking for it, I’m sorry.
Tex: Of course, the Canadians missed out on all of this because it was way past their nine o’clock bedtime. That was a shame, since I never did get the chance to smack some sense into good old Kevin L. for not appreciating the pure perfection that IS Elfman’s Spiderman. But they needed their beauty rest – I mean, hey, their bus ride must have been such an ordeal – far worse than driving out there THEMSELVES all the way from Chicago(!) or Minneapolis(!!) like Brendan and I did.
Anyway, before we knew it, it was like 3 in the f@cking morning. Many thanks to Kuhni for having the sense to finally get up and leave the room – since that’s when we all finally snapped out of our chat induced daze and went to bed.
N8: I wasn’t about to go down anytime early because I knew one does not get many chances to talk with people like this, but at one point around 3:30 I realized that the discussion had turned from reasonable episode 2 wars to actually arguing the logics of Star Wars, (Like: Why would the speeder clone ships be so much more slick looking and advanced then the imperial walkers of the empire?) I knew it was time to leave and join heir Kuhni. We all have standards.
Tex: I didn’t get to sleep till six in the morning, though… the thought of all those little Clemmies and Clementines, running around in the 1st Grade and telling their classmates that the latest Saturday Morning Cartoon score to hit the airwaves was “repulsive,” pretty much kept me up most of the night. “Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit drinkin’ Nyquil.”
The plot thickens indeed.
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Post by Kevin Smith on Dec 18, 2007 19:02:29 GMT -8
I just thought it would be fun to have a minivan of
Broxton, Southall, Jock, tj, Jans, me, and franz in a minivan driving somewhere. Or have a big tour bus with all the forumers on it.
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