THE JO-TEL … illegal blog downfield

Give me matter, and I will construct a world out of it!

-Kant

#24

Last weekend Patsy and I were supposed to have a romantic getaway in Napa. Patsy found a hotel online that had huge rooms and tons of stuff like hot tubs, wet bar, DVD players and balconies for $250 a night or something. It was too good to be true. When we arrived we discovered that it was located in the heart of a commercial wasteland. After contemplating the hotel’s stucco veneer and the possibility of a picnic under the power lines, we decided to just head back to San Francisco. We went to dinner at McCormick and Kulettos and Patsy got sick later so then I went out and drank with Thrill. The next day I got drunk and spent too long making the below Top 15 Songs mix with Johnny D. Man, this is a boring post. I blame my fellow Jo-teliers whose lack of posting forced me to hurry this Transvaluation during the holidays no less! I’m really pissed at you dudes.

#25

Dear ladies,

There is no sensitive part of my penis. I know that you’ve been reading in your women’s magazines about how this or that part of a man’s penis is sensitive or that focusing attention on this or that part will get a guy particularly aroused. But as someone who’s been the frequent victim of ill-advised focusing on various penile areas [FN1], trust me, and ignore Cosmo, Seventeen, Sixteen, and Vogue there is no part of my penis that is more sensitive than another part. It’s a penis. It’s all sensitive. Just put it in your mouth, butt or vagina. That’ll work good enough.

#26

I’ve been bothered of late by bad DVD commentaries. To be honest, I didn’t used to be much of a commentary track guy. I usually wanted to watch a new movie instead of the commentary to an old one. Plus, I always buy the price-slashed original release of the DVD after a special edition comes out– so my DVDs usually don’t have many features beyond chapter selection, theatrical trailor, or the dreaded, useless production notes (there’s something abjectly uninteresting about reading written summaries on a TV screen). But recently– after a few enlightening commentary tracks– I’ve been rocking the commentary track more often (and much to Patsy’s displeasure). But for every excellent commentary like those for L’Avventura (Criterion is always reliable) and the surprising good one for Farewell My Lovely, there are really bad commentary tracks. The worst are always the ones were the commenter resorts too often to summarizing the plot. Occasionally this is helpful, like with a complex plot like in Chinatown, or something like that. But for the most part, it’s totally useless except to signal that the commentator has nothing better to say. The worst case of this I’ve encountered by far is the commentary to The Trial (Focus Films edition). The movie, directed by Orson Welles, has roughly the same plot as the novel. So those familiar can tell you, its interest does not lie in the labyrinthine complexity of its plot. Needless to say, it’s entirely uninteresting to hear Jeffery Lyons of ABC-TV tell me how “strange it must feel to have inspectors just show up in your apartment.” He will continue, describing the famous opening scene:

“And look, Joseph K. has just woken up and this man is in his apartment … asking questions … ‘What is this,’ he asks, as if it’s his business. ‘This is a serious charge,’ he says. But what is the charge? What is the crime that K. has committed? Has he committed a crime? We never know. And now another man is coming in. And here he comes. Joseph trying to put his clothes on and, again … who are these men? What do they want with K.? Who let them into the apartment? This all goes to create that feeling of nightmare. Again, K., scrambling to put his clothes on. The inspectors, still asking questions. ‘Does he have an attorney?’ ‘Why is he acting suspicious?’ …. ”

It as if this commentary track is Lyons’ own Kafkaesque nightmare– one where he wakes up with a gun to his head and an unknown man forcing him to comment awkwardly on a movie that he is not familiar with. Like a dog. As if the shame of it would outlive him.

-Shark

FN1: And not, of course, by my loving and sensual future wife.