7-Song EP

1) I watched Forrest Gump again last night. I must have watched it a dozen times, and it still manages to get me choked up. Because it's still real to me, DAMMIT!

2) Anyone else read Cracked magazine as a kid? Turns out the magazine, which was originally a rip-off -- but still funny, at least to my 10-year-old, sugar-addled mind -- of Mad, has relaunched, only this time it's a rip-off of National Lampoon and Maxim. Hopefully the humor of the former outweighs repetitiveness and vapidity of the latter. Having yet to read an issue of the new version, I probably shouldn't heap too much praise on the mag; however, visiting http://www.cracked.com, I found this Benny hillarious piece about the hard truth behind James Frey's A Million Little Pieces:

Oprah Winfrey tore into author James Frey last week, after allegations surfaced that his Oprah's Book Club memoir A Million Little Pieces had been falsified. Frey, whose memoir recounts his problems with drug addiction, was scolded by Winfrey that he had "betrayed millions of readers" by fictionalizing his story.

CRACKED has excerpted some of the more contested passages below:


Excerpt from Chapter 3: A Date With Destiny

...didn't believe that I'd had sex with the Queen. I invited DiCaprio to smell my fingers, holding them out to his face, but he couldn't hear me over the sound of the helicopter blades. 'No time for that now, boys, Captain Mactaggart yelled at us. "This assassination mission of Osama bin
Laden won't execute itself."

As I turned down a parachute, electing to drop the 15,000 feet unassisted, I knew in my heart he was right.

Corrected Version: Having polished off a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon the day before, I awakened around 3 am, slightly hungover, on my couch. I saw my pants around my ankles while my golden retriever, King, licked my groin feverishly. Meanwhile, sounds blared from the sole speaker on my 12” black and white television. I soon realized that I was halfway through an especially action-packed episode of The A-Team. The week would not be a complete waste after all.


Excerpt from Chapter 6: A Deadly Romance

"We've never seen an eight-inch penis before!" agreed the Dallas Cowgirls hungrily.

"What, you mean this ten-inch penis of mine?" I laughed dismissively.

"That is the biggest twelve-inch penis we've ever seen!" they chorused.

After that I boned them with my massive fifteen-and-a-half-inch penis until they collapsed in exhaustion, thanks to my secret Black Ops training as a championship Sex Magician.

Corrected Version: It was an especially fierce orgasm that rocked my whole body, causing me to hit my head against the cellar pipe. As my mom came down the basement steps to do some laundry, she had no idea of the horror that would haunt her for years to come: seeing her 37-year old son passed out, penis exposed, having just masturbated onto one of her knitting magazines.


Excerpt from Chapter 9: The Secrets of the Galaxy

...the Moon wasn't as cold as I expected, so I took my space suit off despite a chorus of objections from Ground Control. Clint Eastwood and Kofi Annan went to collect moon rocks from the lunar surface while I did some 500-pound benchpresses.

I'd only gotten to rep 487 when the Martians contacted me through telepathy. "Are you the one called James Frey, written of in the Galactic Records as the Chosen One?" they asked. 'That's my name, don't wear it out,' I said, and the Martians laughed at my joke.

Corrected Version: I sped off in my Pinto, set to finally return Spaceballs to the Blockbuster near my house. When I got there the pimple-faced teen behind the counter said to his co-worker, “Dude! It’s that guy Frey from the picture we have up on the wall!” I pushed the tape into the Quick Drop box and wittily replied, “That’s my name, don’t wear it out!” No one laughed at my joke.


Excerpt from Chapter 10: Two-fisted Tales of Valor

...distracted from my upcoming heavyweight boxing championship fight while I waited for news back from the doctor.

Would the cancer be recessive? The suspense was killing me. Finally, after what seemed like years, my doctor called with the news. 'Mr. Frey, I don't want to alarm you,' he said. 'But our tests show no evidence of cancer in your bowels.'

'What's the problem, then, doc?" I said, relieved.

"Our x-rays did find gold," my doctor said slowly. "Mr. Frey, against all documented medical science, it appears you can shit golden apples."

Before I even had time to digest the news fully, I heard the first rumblings of an earthquake. "No time to talk now, doctor!" I yelled, putting down the phone and getting into costume. As I flew out the window towards the collapsing bridge, I reflected briefly on how difficult kicking drugs had been. It had been really really hard.

"What a great memoir," I thought, as my heat vision tore into the rupturing ground.

Corrected version: After a long wait in the emergency room, the doctor finally took me to have the x-ray taken. How would I explain getting one of those long pepper grinders up my ass? The reality of the coming embarrassment weighed heavily on me.

By Jay Pinkerton

3) The Superbowel is tomorrow! That's not a typo. It has been 2 days since I last delivered the mail. I'm anticipating tomorrow to be a doozy. Rest assured, I'm planning to detail the experience right here. So if you have plans for tomorrow night, cancel them. Trust me, you'll thank me later.

4) I finally got around to watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I've wanted to see it ever since it was released 2 years ago, but the DVD came out only last week. Strange, since, I believe, the film had a theatrical release in Korea, and it has aired on cable (not 100% sure on that one, but CGV -- aka The Lord of the Rings Network -- was running promos for it, and why would they do that if they weren't showing it? Actually, don't answer that; I just remembered again what country I'm living in. For a second there I thought I was back in French Somaliland. You might know it as Djibouti, but it'll always be French Somaliland in my heart and mind). The reason for the long delay to DVD is probably some utterly boring legal bullshit, so let's all pretend that the DVD did in fact arrive in Korea 2 years ago, but all the copies were stolen by a giant cyclops, and it was only recently that the Korean government, due to mounting pressure on the part of a civic group named "Earth Citizens Against Cyclopean Tyranny," finally did something and sent an army to slay the cyclops and bring back the missing Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind DVDs. Thinking like that makes watching the film that much more rewarding.

Not that it needs it. It's a nice film (see what I did there?), and I'm glad the wait is finally over. I'm not going to write a full review (I don't want it to overshadow a review I have planned about the pizza mandu I ate for breakfast this morning), but here are some thoughts:

- Jon Brion could score every film made for the next 20 years, and I don't think I'd complain about it.

- Similarly, Tom Wilkinson could star in every film released for the next 20 years, and I'm positive I wouldn't complain. Can you imagine T-Dub as Peter Parker? John Maclaine? I don't think I'm alone here.

(In all seriousness, T-Dub MUST in the near future be the star of an hour-long police drama. It is his destiny. I have forseen it.)

- And the award for Most Convincing American Accent By a Non-American goes to...Kate Winslet! It's absolutely jaw-dropping how convincingly she nails it. Contrast this with Naomi Watt's American accent in 21 Grams, and it's like watching Kobe Bryant play against a team of 5-year-olds. Or the Toronto Raptors.

5) Speaking of the Toronto Raptors, welcome back, Antonio Davis! I know your children's education might suffer, but look at the bright side: maybe the frigid Canadian winter will freeze your crazy wife into some sort of stasis. She can legally cross the border, can't she?

6) Item: Jody Sweetin, who played Stephanie Tanner on the much-beloved and timeless sitcom Full House, is a meth addict. Now I know there is a god. It's only a matter of time before she applies to become an English teacher in Korea. And I'll be waiting.

Jody, sweetheart, give me a call.

7) If you're not already a convert, do yourself a big favor and check out http://cheston.com/pbf/archive.html, home of the Perry Bible Fellowship archive. I'm not one for hyperbole, but Nicholas Gurewitch's comic strip is, without a doubt, the best comic strip ever subjected to mortal man.

A sample:



Bonus Track:
http://www.youtube.com/w/in-effect?v=zYA9Q5M_VGQ