Some day, Becks, when your Flophouse days are far behind you, you'll watch that movie again and sob.
When you've been out on the ocean for weeks, anything new is fascinating, especially if it may be a supernatural omen.
The movie? Sucks. I don't think I've ever made it all the way through it. And it made less money than Brewster's Millions, so it's not like we were confused about that at the time. (OTOH, it made more money than "The Last Dragon," which is a favorite of mine.)
There's a really gruesome painting in Milan of St. Elmo's (or St. Erasmsus') martyrdom, which was inaccurately believed to have involved having his entrails pulled out with a windlass.
Actually, that was a pretty good year for 80s movies: Sure Thing, Ladyhawke, Weird Science (bad but fun, at least in memory), Desperately Seeking Susan, Teen Wolf, Mad Max, Pee Wee's Big Adventure, Breakfast Club, and Fletch. And, of course, The Care Bears Movie.
8: Eh, you have to include it. It's pretty eighties. You wouldn't know who he is except for it, and everyone remembers the dance, and "Dottie."
Also dropped "Back to the Future." I can't believe that year. I might work my way through those on a nostalgia tour.
You wouldn't know who he is except for it
Excuse me?
Okay, I guess I do remember the dance. Point.
I've seen Breakfast Club so many times I can recite the dialogue verbatim. Sure Thing would be a good nostalgia flick though.
10: How many people actually watched the show?
Come on everybody, this is a safe place. Say what you know in your heart to be true.
Breakfast Club sucked.
I watched the show when I was a kid. So did a lot of my friends. It was one of my favorite kids' shows because it was so unpredictable.
I've seen Breakfast Club so many times I can recite the dialogue verbatim.
Your poor brain.
Come on, Dick. The kids haven't changed, you have.
Yes it's a curse.
No wonder you drink. Maybe someday you'll be lucky enough to kill off those brain cells.
Alcohol kills brain cells very slowly, unless you use methanol. Frontal lobotomy is cheaper and easier.
If you're going to watch a movie with Emilio Estevez in it, the title should contain the words, "Young Guns".
They was hackin' on me.
Nope, not an improvement. More whiskey!
re: 11
An ex-girlfriend of mine used to watch the Breakfast Club as part of an exam/studying ritual. She watched it everyday for about 3 months as she was finishing high school.
She could also recite the dialogue verbatim.
Strange, too, as Hughes' teen castes -- jocks, brains, etc -- don't translate at all to the actual high school environment she'd have been familiar with.
And yet, like all great art, its message is universal.
If you're going to watch a movie with Emilio Estevez in it, the title should contain the words "Men at Work."
I've never seen the Breakfast Club. I guess I wanted to around the time everyone else did, but I never got around to it and then it turned out I just didn't care.
the title should contain the words "Freejack."
So you guys are in agreement, that I should run out and rent Young Guns Freejack Repo Men at Work?
"Young Guns." "Repo Man." "Men at Work."
And that's it for Emilio Estevez!
"Freejack."
This is some Canadian kink thing, isn't it?
max
['Mick Jagger, King of Rubber.']
Sure Thing, Ladyhawke, Weird Science (bad but fun, at least in memory), Desperately Seeking Susan, Teen Wolf, Mad Max, Pee Wee's Big Adventure, Breakfast Club, and Fletch. And, of course, The Care Bears Movie.
Dear Becks,
Don't watch any of these movies. There are other, more vital and life-affirming things to do with that many hours of your time. Such as needle drugs!
Sincerely, your friend in good taste, &etc. &etc.
max
['p.s. except the movie that doesn't belong to that year. That's pretty good, especially if you're really drunk.']
Ladyhawke is a good movie, come on. "Lord, we appear to have come full circle. I'd like to think there is some higher meaning in all this. It would certainly reflect well on you." Plus the Overload of Nordic Beauty when Pfeiffer and Hauer's characters confront the Bishop. Come on.
Friends in good taste say &c., not &etc.
</w-lfs-nesque>
Well, the lyrics are good, in my opinion at least, and you can't deny that Fripp's solo is pretty great.
Also: The Bed and Breakfast Club.
2: In an old Twilight Zone, or two, ok maybe a bunch, the wonderousness of flying in the then new "jet age" was exaggerated, hurtling through the stratosphere became a chance for the unexpected time travel, alien visitations, etc. When these TV shows were made, jet aviation was literally the closest thing to space travel, and new concepts like the jet stream, and sudden catastrophic aircraft structural failure due to metal fatigue in the real world emphasized the weirdness and potential unpredictability of going 600 miles per hour through air too thin and too cold to breath seven miles above the surface of the earth.
As an aviator in Air Force, it was easy to try to start taking flying for granted, making the old Twilight Zone episodes seem quaint and dated.
But then, every once in a while, I'd experience something so strange, it'd shift my safe, taken-for-granted everyday reality back into that twilight zone wonderland. St. Elmo's Fire dancing on the canopy at night was one such experience. True, it wasn't aliens or time travel, but it was a severe dose of what-the-fuck-is-that weirdness.
You've been to college, you know the score, the world is waiting for a knock at the door...
According to our new arrival
Life is more than mere survival
We just might live the good life yet.
Gretchen Phillips and Cibo Matto
Leslie Feinberg and Faith Ringgold
Mr. Lady, Laura Cottingham
Mab Segrest and The Butchies, man
St. Elmo's fire! Dearly do I hope to see it! Perhaps when I make my sea voyage to Singapore, I shall.
wait, dude, are you coming by sea? that's awesome.
Somebody please explain the attraction of St. Elmo's Fire.
this movie is amazing.the first time i saw it,it was just great. this is the type of movie that has pretty much every mmovie genre in it.there are no other words to describe how wonderful this movie is.buy it,watch it with a friend or by yourself or with anybody,and see for yourself how fantastic it is.
Also recommended: the breakfast club!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Does that help?
Noah's watching TV and this just came one. He was transfixed.
Somebody please explain the attraction of St. Elmo's Fire.
It looks pretty when you're out at sea.
So I just looked up St. Elmo's fire, and now I understand what was happening in that chapter of Moby Dick I read a few days ago! (Also, it is pretty impressive in that context.)
Gretchen Phillips and Cibo Matto
Leslie Feinberg and Faith Ringgold
Mr. Lady, Laura Cottingham
Mab Segrest and The Butchies, man
What's the story? He says Butterglory
I say what's the news? He says the Silver Jews
His Heavenly hang-up is getting me down
And it's making me wonder why he's hanging around
Cause I don't fit into his indie scene
Huggy Bear and Helium and Half-Japanese
Sebadoh and Sentridoh and Superchunk and I don't know
Doug and Lou and Calvin too and Kim and Kim and Kim and Kim
12: [Pee Wee]10: How many people actually watched the show?
I watched it as an adult, and I did not have kids at the time.
And to for Emilio Estevez, I found Stakeout to be a nice little pic if you don't expect much from it.
Color tv was very exciting when it first came out also.
There was once this time when we didnt have internet or cable. We had very few choices. Atari and space invaders were very high technique. Computers involved lots of set up before they would work. Nothing was plug and play.
Phones did not have push buttons on them. And the phones were attached to walls and couldnt move around. Busy signals were a pain in the ass because dialing the number was a pain in the ass.
Gas stations only sold gas. Driving after 9 pm involved not being able to stop at WaWa or Sheets and get food and drinks.
Thus, St. Elmo's Fire was interesting.
Gramps tell me about back when. You know, when a coke was still a coke, and a toke was still a toke. And if you said "I'm down with that" it meant you had the flu.
Let's have a dumb thread! You're either with me or your with the Doctrine of Liberal Internationalism Thread terrorists.
The dumb thread is all love, all the time. For example, I'm trying to fit my whole fist in my mouth at the moment.
Now I'm trying to get the cat to put his whole paw in his mouth. Mouthful of fur, ptyugh!
Heebie would have had to wear hose every day to teach. No pants suits for her either.
Show off those hose encased legs!
The dumb thread wants you to drink a bottle of Robotussin with me.
You want me to teach in 'hos? Sexist.
The dumb thread is huffing Scotchguard and spray-painting anarchy symbols down by the railroad tracks.
Only if you take pulls from the bottle.
heebie buys dry eraser markers to sniff them while she teaches.
The dumb thread stashes cigarettes in the couch cushions so Mom doesn't find them.
Only because it makes the kids seem smarter.
The dumb thread had to spend detention scraping gum off the underside of the desks for sassing their English teacher one too many times.
The dumb thread felt bad on the inside, but wouldn't admit it.
The dumb thread suspects it might be gay, but intensely dislikes the openly gay kid at school, and so feels at a loss.
The dumb thread is terribly ineloquent, and turns to music a lot, to feel stuff.
The lonely thread just met a boy!
He brought a couch down to the the railroad tracks.
He speaks in a monotone but says interesting stuff, like "The bass line in Sonic Youth is what makes it revolutionary," and "My mom keeps pretending to ignore my dad's affair, and it makes me want to scream." The dumb thread is engaged.
Other times they sit on oppposite sides of the couch and just watch the sun set. The couch has become permanently damp.
The boy hasn't come by for the past few days. The dumb thread was all set to show the boy its poetry, too.
The dumb thread can't decide if it writes poetry or song lyrics. Song lyrics are better. No! Poetry is better!
When the boy finally returned, he said, "Did you ever think about how a justification of Kosovo might leave it indistinguishable from a justification for the invasion of Iraq in 2003?"
The dumb thread furrowed its brow.
73:The boy enlisted in the Army in a deal to avoid being charged with fraudulently obtaining oxycontin. He is being sent to Iraq, to take part in an imperialistic exercise of power.
"...So you're leaving?" the dumb thread asked, heart sinking.
The dumb thread slept through its SATs the next morning, because it was so depressed. It wasn't going to do very well on them anyway, but it was a lot of money to go down the drain.
77: "Yes, you're too good, I can't keep up" said the other commenter.
The dumb thread becomes slightly paranoid and protective of the couch, once the boy leaves. One day the dumb thread takes a needle and thread out to the couch, and repairs all the slight nicks and tears. Afterwards, the dumb thread regrets using black thread because it looks like medical stitches on the mauve and gray flowers.
The dumb thread bleaches its hair, so that when the boy comes back, they'll both seem changed.
The dumb thread's scalp burns.
I can feel St. Elmo's Fire burning in me.
Breakfast Club is awesome. Issues with St. Elmo's Fire: Emilio Estevez's character is fucking creepy, not a person to be cheered on. And they're totally Georgetown douchebags.
The dumb thread hears voices. "Am I losing my mind?" the dumb thread wonders. "Are other people in here?"
i never watched the movie, so i don't have any opinion on why it's attractive
heebie-geebie, sorry for my yesterday's mistemper
i was wondering what are you arguing over here
The lonely boy plays "St. Elmo's Fire" loudly in his room, along with "Kyrie" and "Eye of the Tiger". He wonders if he can sit next to the dumb thread on the couch now that the other boy is away. But probably she will just talk about the other boy all the time.
No problem, read. :) Sorry to tease you in ways that are difficult to interpret.
Over here I've just been entertaining myself while the international policy thread soars above my head. I'm just bored while grading final exams.
The dumb thread loves "Kyrie" and wonders cautiously if the lonely boy likes "Blinded By The Light".
His musical taste alone will certainly disqualify him.
That might be true. The dumb thread yearns to reject someone, like it's been rejected.
But thanks to borrowing his gay friend's records, he also likes Elvis Costello.
"Struck loose like a deuce another runner in the night". Bruce Springsteen wrote that. "Growing Up" is on the same album.
The dumb thread thought the song was about douching.
The boy is obsessed with Bruce Springsteen because he sings anthems about leaving town. Two more years till we can leave town. Two years is forever.
Here's Bruce singing "Growing Up" way back in his open mike days, when he was barely older than the dumb thread:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dy7RTicVr0
The lonely boy also spent some time pondering the douche/deuce question, before he tracked the song to the original album and found the lyrics printed on the sleeve. In the pre-internet 80s, this was a considerable research project.
I have to go now, but I think Heebie needs to write a movie script. I'm sure she's a great math prof, but it's still a waste.
Just heard that song yesterday for the first time in years, courtesy of the painters across the street and their classic rock listening habits. Learning that "wrapped up like a douche" is actually "revved up like a deuce" (Manfred Mann version) long ago was the most unsatisfying explanation ever, because I still have no idea what it's supposed to mean (apart from cocaine; still unsatisfying).
95: So it was the lonely boy who stole my Springsteen vinyl at that party way back when!
but I think Heebie needs to write a movie script. I'm sure she's a great math prof, but it's still a waste.
If I were being compared to creative-types, I'd be another washed up starfish waiting for a girl to throw me in the ocean. Whereas as a math professor, everybody sets the bar really low and fawns over me.
96: that first "Greetings From Asbury Park" album was full of meaningless yet brilliant (Dylanesque!) lyrics. It had the great "Spirit In the Night" too, which Manfred Mann also covered but I don't know if they had a hit with it.
I love that video, PGD. Lovelovelove.
Suspended in her masquerade,
oudemia
100: I prefer to think of them as Blakey. Blakean. Wev.
Songs on innocence and experience, indeed.
I'd prefer it if the girl took me home and put me on her dresser. I'd dry up and die, but we'd be together forever.
He wonders if he can sit next to the dumb thread on the couch now that the other boy is away. But probably she will just talk about the other boy all the time.
I'd prefer it if the girl took me home and put me on her dresser. I'd dry up and die, but we'd be together forever.
I believe this is a John Collier story.
Yeah, Oudemia, that video is an amazing find. It might even be from before John Hammond signed him at Columbia, have to check the dates. It's like getting a glimpse back at the creation. And such a perfect song too.
"about becoming a man...it can be a song about becoming a woman too...but i don't know". Priceless!
At the convenience store today, the dumb thread noticed an ad for a job at a dog grooming parlor. The dumb thread thought that might be a job it could do.
The dumb thread thought it might be okay if it got to interact with dogs all day, and wash them, as long as someone else dealt with the people.
And maybe no one would care if the dumb thread came in stoned.
At the convenience store today, the dumb thread noticed an ad for a job at a dog grooming parlor.
Was the dumb thread at the store or at the parlor? Make up your mind!
The dumb thread applied. It pays $5.50/hr which beats sitting on the couch by about $5.50/hr.
"Was I at the convenience store or the dog grooming parlor?" wondered the dumb thread. "I don't get it."
"The reason is because the location is ambiguous," explained Ben.
The dumb thread washes dogs now. Two of the three managers let it listen to music while it works, as long as it keeps the volume down. It's an okay gig.
The dumb thread thinks it'd be pretty cool to hotbox the grooming room with the big friendly yellow lab named LizardBreath.
Which is how the dumb thread got fired.
41: You know, I just looked up whether it was possible to travel from SF to Singapore by sea. It doesn't seem that there's anything available. And the people at NUS might get pissy and not reimburse.
In other news, I haven't quite got the rhythm of commenting at unfogged. Namely the fact that I should check comments immediately after posting to see people's responses, instead of checking back the next day.
Also, I'm going to have to keep rechecking this thread, because heebie's story has me hooked. I may start writing bad fanfiction about me and the thread.
(The dumb thread has to go get ready for a soccer game, budgeting extra time because I-35 around Buda is closed down over the weekend. But the adventures of the dumb thread will return!)
You can probably travel from the West Coast to Singapore by sea if you're willing to go on a container ship.
Hey, how come I'm stoned all of a sudden?
Woof.
I didn't think container ships did that anymore. Cool. Probably not so great in bad weather though.
One day the dumb thread takes a needle
Whew, thought that was getting dark for a second.
hought that was getting dark for a second
Oh, Slack.
Sorry. What I meant was, I thought it was taking a turn for the Mexican.
Go Jorge! Extra-funny YouTube comments thread, too.
96, 127: Always assumed (and Wikipedia agrees) that it meant a deuce coupe (like the Beach Boys song), which is a 1932 Ford Coupe, the classic hot rod car (what John Milner drove in American Graffiti).
Thanks to all for indulging my grading-induced manic silliness on this thread yesterday.
129: Did we have a choice?
Very entertaining; in fact I think dumb thread has a future as a Harvey Pekar–type character (the blog comment structure gave it a nice comic book w/o the pictures flow).
Who wants to draw the dumb thread?
128: That makes sense!
131: See if you can talk Julie Doucet into it.
Heebie, you're not bored or anything, are you?
There are lots of things for you to do out on the bleak Texas plains. You could get yourself a pet armadillo.
Bah, I've got plenty to do!
Thirty calculus final exams, thirty differential equations exams, thirty precalculus exams, and thirty calc II exams, and grades are due tomorrow at 5:00.
Have your armadillo lick your toes while you do the grading. It makes the time pass.
You should assign all multiple-choice and T/F tests in the future.
The eternal Texas highway Zen question: Why did the armadillo cross the road?
Trick question: he only tried to cross the road. Can't fool me, Mr. Smartypants Analytic Philosopher Person!
136: That's what I did this semester -- (the multiple choice and T/F, not the armadillo toe-licking). My TA loves me.
138: How many Gödelians does it take to eat an armadillo?
Two, but don't ask me to prove it.
