SHP Fan Letters: Nicolas Cage 9:55 PM

It looks like Nicolas Cage has gotten himself into more trouble.  As if being on the IRS shit list isn’t enough (he owes 13 million in back taxes and has had to sell a mansion or two as a result), he was recently arrested in New Orleans for domestic violence, public drunkenness and disturbing the peace.  TMZ posted a fantastic video of him arguing with his wife and others in a tattoo parlor before his arrest.  I sent this letter to Nic a few days ago.  I wanted to let him know that his true fans are rooting for him and I also asked him for an autograph.  Click on the images below for a hi-res copy of the letter.  If you would like to send Nicolas Cage a letter of your own, you can mail it to:

Nicolas Cage

Creative Artists Agency

2000 Avenue of the Stars

Los Angeles, CA 90067

USA

Click to read the letter.

I hope he autographs this.

Sleeping Horse Pills really has been a longtime Cage fan.  The very first paper issue of SHP that was published so many years ago by Verne H. Coleman and I includes a piece I wrote called Nicolas Cage: Amazes and Disgusts.  In it, I review a handful of Nicolas Cage films that pretty much do exactly what the title says.  The image on the left is an illustration that Verne did for the piece.  It depicts Cage with what we imagined the tattoo he has on his back of a monitor lizard wearing a top hat might look like.  If you’re interested, be sure to hit me up and I will send you a copy of that first issue.  But be prepared, if you think my writing is crude and profane now, you’re in for a real treat!

One of the questions I asked Nicolas Cage to answer in my fan letter was what he was planning on getting tattooed before the unfortunate arrest.  If they come back at all, responses to fan mail can take up to 3 months.  Until then, here’s a short list of some tattoos I think he might have had in mind: 

1. A reminder tattoo a la Memento that says:

        
         1. Sell Mansion

         2. Pay Taxes

         3.

2. A chameleon, an iguana and a gecko holding hands and wearing a fedora, a sombrero and a bowler hat respectively.

3.  “Kryptonite Sucks”

4.  A music staff with the notes to the “Low Rider” bass line.  Underneath it says “Let’s Ride”.

5. Finally getting around to covering up his Lisa Marie Presley tattoo, he was going to get a heart with a banner that reads “Alva”.

Five Pilgrims 5:08 PM

I have been watching a lot of teenager movies of late because my daughter is a teenager. Having eclipsed the average demographic by eighteen years myself I think I now qualify as an out of touch, not to be trusted, middle-aged old person. Having far more insight than any movie reviewer I’ve ever read, I thought I’d offer a few small insights I’ve seen in film recently.

First, let me mention the movie Easy A staring Emma Stone. This film pushed me over the edge into "creepy old guy in love with girl half his age".  Look at the film's premise. Total modern/inclusive family that’s o.k. with any permutation of social standing in a southern California high school. Based on a Hawthorne novel set in supra puritanical times on the opposite coast with dire results. The Children/Adults are self imposing and policing morals in a post nuclear, thoroughly flaccid age.  

The teenager films of the eighties (my teen years) were written by older sex starved perverts, resulting in a glut of deeply flawed “Do-it-yourself” films on how to bed the female interest. The zenith of which was John Hughes, with the elevated notion that the plain Jane was the one you were with in the first place, and whom was willing to give it all away the whole time. Oh yeah, and what you’re feeling is Love and this is the best way to lose your virginity. Basic concepts muddied once again by yet another generation. It must have worked, by the end of the 1980’s my only focus in life was to consummate my lust. The classic prime directive to make more people without a conscious understanding that the act was to make babies. This brings us full circle to my thirteen year old daughter and me watching films.

Friday night, recent weekend. Fire up the DVD player and put in a Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World.  The intro scene prior to the opening credits. My daughter looks to me in astonishment, “Are you crying already?” I was. Before the very start of the film I was swept away by catharsis. I recognized Scotty Pilgrim from many life times ago. I was instantly and personally sympathetic to the protagonist. 

Because he was me.

What’s a Pilgrim? Why was John Wayne always calling everyone a Pilgrim? Well, in short, Pilgrim is a sort of western version of Hajji. But that’s unfair seeing that in this case the west has about a six hundred year head start on the Muslims. But that’s another story entirely.  Pilgrim is a funny sort of word in that it’s not really in common usage. We tend to think in terms of the pre-founder style clothing of black and white with starched collars and funny hats. I was always focused on my positioning during the Thanksgiving season in school, so that under no circumstances would I end up being a Pilgrim instead of the Indian! A foolish perspective but not surprising. See, the real badasses, the people with real sand, were the Pilgrims; not the shiftless, lay about Indians of the Iroquois League. Again, another story. Shift your focus as you remember the old tales you heard about the Mayflower. Sure these people probably made shitty neighbors but they had the discipline to leave the only world they knew in order to commit wholly to a belief system. The term Pilgrim connotes more of a commitment to a trip abroad than stationary holy sacrifice. So what was Scott Pilgrims’s trip about? He never even left Toronto. Historically, in popular culture the pilgrim has represented the common man, or you.

Let’s go back to 1678 and the publication of The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan. Here, the main character “Christian” travels to a celestial city meeting characters along the way that represent virtues. Step forward three hundred and fifteen years and enjoy C.S. Lewis’ answer book The Pilgrims Regress, in which he focuses his laser wit and understanding at the phoniness, hypocrisy, and intellectual laziness of the modern world.

Billy Pilgrim. I used to set up all night and watch T.V. in the root cellar of my home. This spider rich environment was referred to as Boys Club. No Women Allowed. Not that any woman would ever volunteer to go into that dank, cold area. It was here in the days before the advent of Cable I would watch the three channels we had until the stations went off the air. One night ‘Slaughter House Five’ came on. The previews showed war, suggested time travel and I caught a whiff of a sage-like understanding by the protagonist. Since the original viewing I’ve read the book a couple of times. For the first time in my life someone else understood being unstuck in time and shifting periodically to an alien planet to make love to your film star zoo mate! Sure I wasn’t involved in the battle of the Bulge nor am I a doctor, but if this hadn’t been written before I met Vonnegut I would have thought someone was following me.

Scott Pilgrims journey is one of overcoming the gods' stumbling blocks represented by the Evil League of Seven X’s. So in each scene I get to enjoy not only an Odysseian struggle but also; I recall the chemically overwhelming  inclusiveness of the age, the thunderous creativity of making music and the sexual yearning so palpable in a twenty year old.

Good Clean Fun Is Annoying 9:02 AM

Lately I have wondered at the groups of people in matching t-shirts, some in costumes, some with face paint, running around Downtown Austin every weekend as I am getting myself to work.  I have seen them in groups of two or more, sprinting across intersections, assailing local businesses and walking in a circle; seemingly dazed, with heads bent towards a sheet of paper or a smart phone.  I quickly realized that it was a large scale scavenger hunt of some kind, but did not know exactly what it was until recently.

I was unfortunate enough to have a close-up look at so many of these matching t-shirts the other day that I was able to glean some information from one of them.  It took me a while to visually sort through the hundreds of sponsor logos and discern exactly what was going on but I finally saw the words "Downtown Dash" positioned just between the MGD Light (only 64 calories!), Miller Lite and Bacardi logos.  Upon further investigation I found out that this was an activity produced by the Austin Sports and Social Club (Austin SCC), the same group that has organized the ever popular kickball league here in Central Texas.

Good Clean Fun!

 I have many friends that participate in kickball leagues across the nation for fun, for sport, for meeting people and for casual sex.  Cool.  I myself have gotten out there and acted as a substitute on a well established kickball team (I was lousy on the field, but I feel like I really contributed at the after party).  What I am talking about here is really more of an issue with the "Downtown Dash" scavenger hunt than kickball.  The downtown dash is a scavenger hunt where teams decipher riddles and collect photographs or actual objects from around town and from local businesses.  I think it's awesome to have an outlet for young 20-30 somethings to get together, socialize, be active and interact with peers.  It's a great way to meet people if you happen to be new in town or just plain shy and besides that, it gets us away from our computers and social networking sites to go out and exercise while interacting with real human beings live and in person.  Seriously.

Girls do it because it's a fun activity to do with their friends.  Dudes do it because of these girls.

However, while city wide scavenger hunts might give you the opportunity to meet people, connect with existing friends, discover a new city and exercise, what it doesn't do is give you a license to be a fucking asshole.  Think for a moment before you are insanely rude to me while I'm at work.  Understand that I might not be there to help you solve the riddle for the next clue in your professionally organized social event.  Don't be a bitch because you don't understand that what you are doing has nothing to do with me or my employer.  Try to recognize the fact that you are in a place of business.  I know that you might only be aware of the 8 other people in your group "googling" the answer to a clue on their iphones.  Your group is only one of hundreds that have been blissfully running around town, cutting people off and making it a nightmare for people that are here working or here to actually shop.  So,  in the brief moment it takes for you to look up from your phone and confront me with your ignorance, I hope the look on my face helps you realize that there are other things going on that don't involve you.  I will be glad to help you, but I don't really give a shit if you don't finish in time to meet everybody at some lame sports bar for the after party.

"What the fuck do you mean you don't know where you keep whatever it is we think we're looking for?!"

College kids are great, they really are.  But regressing towards our favorite childhood pastimes as an excuse to be a douchebag must also come with an equal progression towards becoming aware that the universe does not revolve around you.

To be honest, I'm just jealous that I'm not a college kid anymore. I would probably do it too if I didn't know that non-traditional students are a million times more annoying and uncomfortable at organized collegiate social events than they are in the classroom.  The only scavenger hunt I would be truly excited to participate in would be if Elsa Maxwell herself came back from the grave and threw a party and that's not gonna happen anytime soon.  So, I have decided to have the first annual Sleeping Horse Pills Downtown Dash!  A preview of the items on the SHP scavenger hunt checklist can be viewed below.  If you're not up for it, here is a link to the Austin SSC Downtown Dash site.  See you downtown!!

SLEEPING HORSE PILLS DOWNTOWN DASH SCAVENGER HUNT CHECKLIST:

    1.  A scab picked off the arm of the first junkie you see nodding off in the park.


    2.  Two VHS tapes from Dreamers with the words "Amateur", "Creampie", "Amazing"& 
         "Diaper" in the title.                  


    3.  A human hair either shorter than 3" or longer than 6" found inside a menu item from any 
         food trailer or taco stand.


   4.  A receipt from 6 different bars showing total paid for one shot per each team member of 
        your team.


   5.  A cardboard sign with the signature of the person who was standing at a busy intersection 
        holding it.  The sign cannot include the phrase "Why Lie, I Need Beer" or the words 
        "Ninjas", "Smile" or "Jesus".