No offense...but you're broken.

The other day I was coerced into watching a film called "The Strangers". Granted, the film was a little suspenseful, and the hype for the movie was a bit over-inflated, but overall I was able to watch most of the movie without being too scared. Keep in mind, this is coming from the guy who brings his own pillow to the theater in order to cover his eyes during scary scenes. I am such a pussy when it comes to scary movies that I make up excuses (embarrassing excuses) in order to get out of having to see a scary movie. One time I actually hit myself in the face and gave myself a bloody nose to get out of the movie "Identity"; and, apparently, that movie wasn't even scary.

Anyway, I sat through the whole first 3/4 of The Strangers and actually kind of liked it. It was suspenseful, jumpy, and dark. It worked for me. Until the end. If you haven't seen the movie yet, please discontinue reading as I am going to rip the finale of this film apart and use it to belittle people who intentionally subject themselves to the tasteless, morally vacant, trash, which is produced by those emotionally and psychologically scarred individuals who should be under clinical care as opposed to being free to walk the street. Showing people being violently, and ruthlessly murdered is not acceptable entertainment. There are certain things in this world that both the human mind, and soul, cannot recover from without repercussion; watching the depiction of another human being in the act of getting tortured or violently murdered is one of those things.
The Strangers puts a young man and woman into kitchen chairs, bound by their feet and hands. Three masked figures; a father, a mother, and their daughter stand in front of the two bound individuals. They then proceed to take turns slowly pushing a kitchen knife into the two hostage's stomachs while the two beg for their lives and watch each other die. The director makes sure that, even if you semi-decent onlookers looked away to avoid seeing it, you would accidentally see at least one section of the brutal murder as the camera does not cut away until both individuals have been stabbed multiple times. We are then lucky enough to see a mutilated girl crawl across a dining room floor, only to suffer in a pool of her own blood as some 11 year old Mormon kid finds the brutal scene and for some reason stands above her body as she finally spits blood, screams, and dies.

In my irrelevant opinion, which will have less than little effect on anything, this movie changed my life in a negative way. I have had difficulty sleeping, I've had random flashback type images pop into my head of people being tortured, and I find myself looking over my shoulder when walking out to the street at night from my house. Some people may say, "Wow, that movie was a good one if it left you that scared", and with this statement I do not disagree. The suspenseful elements of the movie did their job and I actually enjoyed that part, but the emotional scar that was imprinted on my subconscious was unnecessary.

In a society that is already deprived of empathy and compassion for those around us, I would think these types of movies would be discouraged by most and considered detrimental not only to an individual's sense of morality but also viewed as irresponsible to our community as a whole. I can see why we have so many heinous crimes all across our country and people don't take a second look when they are blipped across the television at a rate of 10 per minute on the 5 o' clock news. Long story short, if you do not feel at least a bit uncomfortable and even a bit juxtaposed in emotion when seeing something like this then you should consider taking a look at your self as a person.

What in the world...

Every neighborhood has its less-than-desirable household on the street that is able to single-handedly drop property values simply by existing. In some cases this house comes in the form of the only young people living on a street of retirees, while in other cases the house is one that looks as if the residents are using the front lawn as an alternate dinning room. On my street it is the latter. Not only does the white trashiness of this house spill onto the sidewalk and neighboring residences, there is a house of identical trashballdom sitting right next door. Combined, the two homes consist of approximately 2 husbands, 2 wives, 12 children, two sets of aunts and uncles, 8 dogs and cats, and an occasional llama(seriously). In addition, the fence between the two homes has been knocked down in an effort to expand the storage and "Nascar Party" capabilities.
The first house is owned by a man who looks excruciatingly like a red-headed Jeff Foxworthy and house #2 guy looks like the love child of Billy Crystal and Marissa Tomei. Jeff Foxworthy look-a-like owns a towing company in town and conveniently has enough of a broke down car collection that his company is only working 4 days a week in order to allow him more time to move his shit around his yard with the tow truck. Billy Tomei over there does maintenance on school buses for the city and has no apprehensions about parking an entire broke down school bus on the street (towed there by Jeff) while drinking beer, listening to the Oakridge Boys, scratching his balls, and wondering how he can scam the city out of a 30 passenger people mover.
Now that I have painted a fairly decent picture of Kid Rock and the gang I can get to the story. The story that blew my "Believe it or not" Breaker. With all of the shit these people have accrued over this last year, we always drive by their homes to see what kind of new, mutilated vehicle either of them have acquired while we were all at work. Most recently both men decided to buy dune buggies/sand rails and put Indy Car tires on them and race them through the neighborhood, prompting the locals to call the sheriff and put a stop to the 1st annual Lander 500. Before that it was some type of para glider which they attempted to take off using the street as a runway. This venture was cut short when a jeep wrangler took an unfortunate left turn down our street and was halted "with extreme prejudice" by two drunks in a semi-aerial expedition. And though these occurrences may seem too extreme to be true, yesterday the "Kings of The Refused" were able to top even the most extravagant of stories.

David and I had gone to the store yesterday as the light bulb in my bedroom decided to give a brief fireworks display moments before exploding all over my bed spread and it was time to replace it. As we pull into the garage, David walks into the house and I stop, listening to what sounds like a just-about-to-explode vehicle. The sound started from the left side of the house and began growing louder and louder as I stood patiently looking out into the street from the safety of my garage. The swelling tension from the intense sound of the vehicle forced me to walk out toward the driveway in an effort to see what terror was about to reign down on my quiet little street. At that very moment, doing roughly 60 miles an hour, two men (lacking shirts), beers in hand, go flying by on what can only be described as a Military Issued...



...wait for it...



...Hovercraft.



I swear to God if these men could legally blow themselves up with Napalm they would split the cost and sell their bodies to science.


The hovercraft blows by my house as the two men scream wildly and hang on for dear life. Jeff Foxyworthy's long red hair whipped in the wind while the speed forced back his screams of fear and joy while Marissa Crystal's beer was being forced vertically through the top of the can from the sheer force of the wind. 2 wives, 12 children, two sets of aunts and uncles, 8 dogs and cats, and a llama stood on the sidewalk cheering as if Lance Armstrong were racing to dinner at their front yard buffet while I stood motionless in my driveway watching these two grown men break enough laws to make Colin Farrell turn down the role in the feature film. And all of a sudden, after the months of embarrassment and ridicule I had placed on these men, and the countless times I had avoided eye contact while driving down the street in an effort to avoid them ever coming over, I actually felt a new sensation. Envy.