This American Life - 443 Amusement Park
Perfect for: Nostalgic Stoners
To Be Used: En Route to the Job You Hate.
I’m fond of telling people that at one time in my life, I was a professional actor. It’s true, but not in the cool way. When I was 15, I worked at an amusement park. Three times a day, we would don this terrible 60’s beachwear, hooked up to a pair of terrible speakers, and perform this retro beach variety show ala Frankie and Annette.
If history was rewritten, I’d say it was the summer of my life. I’d say I got laid a lot and spent the time between our shows getting stoned and going down the water slides. But, unfortunately, it wasn’t anywhere near that cool.
This week’s This American Life brought me right back to those glory days of youth. The whole episode takes place at an amusement and listening to the stories of young people and immature managers who fucking love their jobs is really awesome.
This American Life - 443 Amusement Parks
Perfect for: Nostalgic Stoners
To Be Used: En Route to the Job You Hate.
Photo by Todd Klassy.
I don’t know if you’ve ever seen Vanilla Sky, but there’s this scene at the end of the movie where all these little moments of the ever-crazy Tom Cruise’s life flash before his eyes.
Enter Pummelvision, this excellent site that takes all your facebook or flickr photos and converts them into a sweet-ass music video. If this is what everything you’ve done looks like when you die, then I’m already looking forward to it.
Make one of your own and post it in the comments. Best life wins.
Pummelvision
Perfect for: Nostalgic Stoners
To Be Used: After a hearty Obsession with Facebook Photo Albums
PS. Did you do this Internet thing yet? How about this?
The Wilderness Downtown is a sweet-ass interactive music video. You type in your childhood address and it integrates google street views into the short. Damn cool, if you ask me… and further fucking cool because it’s for the Arcade Fire.
PS. Like us on facebook or view a random post.
You no doubt saw Honey I Shrunk the Kids when you were a wee lad and didn’t give it a second thought. Maybe you were obsessed with it like I was. Maybe no matter how much you pretended, you just couldn’t will yourself to be tiny enough to transform your dad’s tiny plot of backyard into the huge jungle scape that they enjoyed.
When you’re a kid, the movie feels huge and expansive. But watching it again, there are really only a few scenes where they are actually tiny and in the back yard, but these scenes are huge in my memory. Nothing like the nerdy kid having to face his allergies by getting launched into a massive dandelion. Or battling a scorpion. All in excellent super 80’s claymation.
Honey is worth a watch again. It’s only an hour and a half, but if you smoke enough weed, you can be right up there with them, zipping down the blades of grass and feasting on massive discarded cream puffs.
Twin Peaks - The Definitive Gold Box Edition Anytime a show gets canceled, its fans declare it was simply “ahead of its time”, as if some other, future, more literate audience could understand it better. In the case of Twin Peaks, a show set in a mysterious, Lost-like Northwestern town, the other, future people I’m referring to are… us. Shot entirely on film before the days of digital, the series gives off a saturated pallet such that when Laura rolls up onto the shore, famously “wrapped in plastic” at the beginning of the series, her water-logged body gives off a chilling sky-blue color. Blood, later, comes vividly in crimson. It’s beautiful. …And it’s scary too. I cannot tell you how unsettling it is when people look, marble-eyed off-screen and acknowledge that “the owls are not what they seem”. It’s even worse when the grimacing Bob turns his unblinking eyes toward you and starts to laugh. *It is a good thing, however, that the show did air a decade ago, because David Lynch has since gone off his rocker, and any attempt to make the series today would have resulted in him writer/director ejaculating crazily onto the screen and not giving a fuck what any of it meant or who seemed to enjoy it. Twin Peaks - The Definitive Gold Box Edition
Perfect for: Geeking Out
To be Used: Over a Long Summer
Airing in the early 90’s, this show was ahead of its time*, but only by a decade, because now that series like The Sopranos and Weeds arch over the course of a season, audiences today are much more inclined to settle in and watch the residents of Twin Peaks
Perfect for: Geeking Out
To be Used: Over a Long Summer
Yellow Submarine DVD by The Beatles
Perfect for: Nostalgic Stoners
To be Used: Just as a Hangover Sets In
My friend, who easily smokes a quarter a week, approached me with the following riddle: “Imagine if a bunch of super-wealthy, experimental stoners sat down right in the middle of the acid revolution and pieced together a psychedelic cartoon bit by bit without a script or even, really, a plan. Think that’d be something you’d be interested in?”
I looked at him. Of course that would be something I’d be interested in! “I’m talking about Yellow Submarine, man… By the Beatles!”
Though there are a lot of my friends who have fond memories of watching this when they were kids, I somehow missed the boat (no pun intended!), so when I caught it a couple weeks ago, it was my first time. Let me promise you, this cartoon is a trippy mess. It - though rambling and, in some parts unclear - basically tells the story of the Fantastic Four on their crazy adventures in Pepperland and on the Yellow Submarine. (Fun fact: The Blue Meanies are what people used to call the police). There is much you can gather about the style and sweetness of this movie from the following clip:
See. It’s the fucking shit, and it seems perfectly designed for one of those hung-over days where everyone is unable to move from the couch, and all you want to do is pack another bowl and put on a movie that’s light and easy and will help you forget about how close you are to throwing up.
Yellow Submarine DVD by The Beatles
Perfect for: Nostalgic Stoners
To be Used: Just as a Hangover Sets In
The Lost Boys
Perfect For: Nostalgic Stoners
To Be Used: For Halloween or To Break Up A John Hughes Marathon
Okay, I’m watching Donnie Darko right now as I write this and the fucking bunny is scaring the shit out of me. Yes. I’m high. What ever happened to Jake Gyllenhal any way? I just got an HD TV. Jesus. It’s fucking gorgeous.
Oh. Oh, yeah, Lost Boys. I figured it would be a great Halloween review. If you’ve never heard of it, Lost boys is the deliciously 80’s flick about a gang of Vampires - headlined by a much younger Jack Bauer - who recruits this heartthrob to join them, so the heartthrob’s little brother does what any little brother would do and sets out to defeat Jack Bauer by recruiting the help of the wildly successful, now non-existent Corrie Feldman (see below).
In other words, the movie is a mess.
But if you’re a fan of Sixteen Candles or Breakfast Club or Say Anything or that music video for Take On Me, then this thing is a real gem. The film opens with Jack Bauer riding the Merry-go-round. He’s surrounded by a bunch of fuck-offs and shamelessly starts hitting on some guy’s girl. The guy tries to fight Bauer, so the security guard comes over, looks at Bauer and says, “I already you told, you ain’t welcome here.” Cut to the guard, walking to his car after work and getting swept into the sky by an unknown, yet very terrifying force (see below).
The film proceeds campily forward. The Heartthrob and his family move into town and, well, he’s angsty and his kid brother’s a pain in the neck and he’s desperate to meet somebody cool and that’s where he gets tangled up with the wrong crowd… the vampire crowd. There’s a really cool scene where he’s dangling from a bridge and Bauer’s like, comeon, man, drop down with us and Heartthrob’s like, are you crazy! and then Bauer lets go and slips into the fog (see 0:37 mark below).
What’s great about this movie is that its age makes it funnier. Everyone’s dressed in Neon and the special effects are awful and the dialog is shit. It’s as if The Warriors spawned a child with Ferris Bueller and that child was a gothy and kind of bitchy. Still. If Bauer’s movie-poster Bowie hair entices you in any way, you might as well drop eight bucks (or netflix it) and see for yourself.
The Lost Boys
Price: $7,99
Perfect For: Nostalgic Stoners
To Be Used: For Halloween or To Break Up A John Hughes Marathon
Brian Jonestown Massacre’s Tepid Peppermint Wonderland
Price $14.99
Perfect for: Nostalgic Stoners
Let’s face it, there’s something about vinyl that was lost forever once the world gave way to CD’s. I’m not sure what it is exactly, but the two just simply sound… different. Compact discs are supposed to be clean, crisp, and perfect for hearing those tiny musical details. Records, on the other hand, are to sound more holistic. They smooth over the details in favor of a rounder, increasingly robust listening experience. If CD’s are consciousness, records are unconsciousness. If CD’s are coffee, then records are definitely weed.
There’s a culture, too, that has been lost since the days of the record. We no longer consume music as connoisseurs, but as 12 year-olds with Attention Deficit Disorder. We’re constantly flipping songs, artists, and radio stations and while I’ll admit, things have started to change what with the LSD-esque iTunes visualizer, it remains a rare day where we seat ourselves before a pair of speaks for the sole purpose of getting stoned and listening to music.
Now, if you own a record player, as every good stoner should, and you’re looking for what may well be the White Widow of Vinyl, I would strongly recommend you make an investment in Brian Jonestown Massacre’s retrospective album, Tepid Peppermint Wonderland.
Listening to this two-volume collection with its neo-psychadelic guitar riffs, dissociated vocals, and trance-enducing bass lines will make you feel immediately high, even if you aren’t. Adding weed to the mix is an experience not unlike hearing White Album for the first time, it will fill your entire self.
I remember the first time I listened to Tepid. I was at a friend’s house, it was the middle of July, and we’d just finished a bowl of home-made red curry. I carved a pipe out of an apple, while she cleaned up the kitchen. It was her first time getting high. At first, I had to light the bowl for her, but eventually, she was the able to do the whole thing herself, exhaling smooth, smoke-filled breaths.
“You know what this needs?” she asked about an hour later. Before I could answer, she slipped this album into her record player and dipped the needle into what would become may favorite track, Open Heart Surgery. What’s great about the internet, is you can easily listen to it without me having to describe it for you. You’ll love it, but, also be warned: this shitty youtube version is nothing like hearing it high and on vinyl.
They say true art teeters on the edge of nostalgia. Tepid Peppermint does even more than that - it not only makes you wish days that have long-since passed, but for days you never saw and have only just begun to think about.
Your stoner friends will thank you for bringing this into their lives.
