Over Thanksgiving I watched Planes, Trains, and Automobiles for the first time (I know). But it reminded me of a video I started making years ago, which I have unearthed and accepted that it’s something I’ll never “finish”, and this is all that it is.
I’m not sure what it would have been, but I’ll tell you this: the first 25 seconds still crack me up consistently. The combo of the Insane In The Membrane intro and John Candy being obnoxious on a flight… that just does it for me.
I’d like to see a sketch where Haley Joel Osment is going around living everyday life, doing everyday things, and wishing he’d get recognized, but nobody does, despite the obvious hints he drops.
Here’s two scenarios.
[Scene: A grocery store checkout line. The customer before Haley got his very heavy groceries bagged haphazardly, and starts walking out of the store.]
Haley: [to the clerk] That’s gonna break
[Bag breaks as customer reaches exit, groceries everywhere]
Clerk: Whoa, you called that one
Haley: Yeah, I guess I have a Sixth Sense [chuckles]
Clerk: Yeah, I guess you do.
Haley: [Raises eyebrows]
Clerk: …I’ll… make sure to double bag yours…
[Scene: Getting a coffee at a hipster coffee shop. American Beauty by the Grateful Dead is being played.]
Barista: How’s your day going?
Haley: Pretty good. Did you put this album on?
Barista: Oh yeah, I’m a big fan of the Dead.
Haley: Me too. And actually, I’ve seen lots of the dead. [chuckles]
Barista: [blank look]
Haley: [whispers] I see dead people
Barista: They’re called deadheads.
AND THAT’S JUST A TASTE. C’mon Haley, let’s get together and make this. I know people who make great videos.
I’m 33 years old, and I enjoy talking on the telephone. There aren’t many of us left — my generation has fully embraced texting. Not just embraced, either, but essentially substituted all former phone communication with text messages.
I accept this as a reality of modern society when it comes to easily communicating with platonic friends. And in the cases of just needing to tell someone I’ll be a few minutes late, I welcome it. But with dating — especially in the early stages — I find text-only communication incredibly frustrating.
My attempts at talking to dates and potential dates on the phone have only been met with friction. I met a girl at a bookstore once, and we chatted for a while. She gave me her phone number, and told me to call her sometime. So I called her, only to have her say “Why are you calling me? Who talks on the phone anymore?”
I do. The 33 year old unicorn.
If you’re wanting to date someone, you’re trying to get to know who they are. The sooner you can get to the truth, the sooner you can move forward, or move on. And with the explosion in online dating where you’ve never actually met the person in question, who wants to spend all day staring at chat bubbles and sending flirty messages before a first date, when a three minute conversation could’ve told you definitively: this person is bat-shit crazy. Or less severely, “wow, this person is awkward.”, or simply: “I can’t stand this person’s voice”.
With texting, you’re forced to extrapolate personality characteristics with how they write, and it doesn’t always paint a pretty picture. Never before have ellipsis at the end of a sentence carried so much weight, or has a typing indicator had so much power over your emotions. And never before has incorrect spelling so easily sullied the prospect of a potential spouse.
Phone conversations offer so much more than texting can: instant feedback, subtle inflection, and easy-to-understand sarcasm. When it’s all transcribed to text, how can you tell what’s real and what’s edited? Are they actually witty, or did they think about what to say for an hour and run it by a couple of friends first? Was that sarcasm? Did they actually think what you said was funny, or was that a courtesy “haha”? Who sends five texts in a row, one after the other — is this person insane? So many questions.
I want to hear how you talk. I want to hear the inflection in your voice when you tell me about the crazy close-encounter with the shark you had or the excitement in your voice when we exchange opinions on the last few episodes of True Detective. Screens full of well written paragraphs and sentences with a few extra exclamation points just can’t compare.
So forgive me for wanting to use some dying nineteenth century technology in a twenty-first century world, but I don’t want to be your pen pal. I want to talk to you.
Call me sometime.
Jake loves lunch. I’m more of a breakfast fan, but he’s nuts over lunch.
And further, 7 out of 10 times he’ll want pizza or a burger. So for his birthday I wanted to make him a shirt that just said “Lunch?”, and this is the design I ended up with, using some very helpful design advice from Bennett.
My friend Mark posted the following MC Hammer video on Facebook with the caption:
Good morning everyone. Your day is about to get better. You’re welcome.
What followed in the comments is some of the finest extemporaneous creative writing I’ve ever done.
Me: This is where Hammer peaked as a lyricist.
Mark: I’m not the Hammer historian you are, Jeff, so correct me if I’m wrong, but might this also be his speedo-wearing, schlong-slinging peak as well?
Me: It’s not that simple, Mark. With great work comes great struggle, and this Hammer masterpiece is no exception.
It’s widely believed among Hammer historians that this video is layered in metaphor with Hammer’s feelings on his celebrity. The remote controlled waterfall symbolizes the unhinged excess that piles of money can cause, and the stark change from his extra-baggy silk parachute pants to his fully-exposed banana hammock symbolize the complete loss of privacy Hammer experienced as he became more famous.
But he keeps up the facade of happiness for the public, and “goes through the motions” (symbolized by the choreographed dance moves in the second half), with his true emotions hidden by the dark black sunglasses he wears throughout the video.
So while the layman may view this video as his speedo-wearing peak (no offense), it actually marks the peak of Hammer’s sadness. And his genius.
Mark: Profound. Could it then be said that, in Hammer’s philosophical search for the true self, that his speedo, as juxtaposed with his harem of bikini clad ladies, is intended to symbolize the Anima Jungian archetype?
Me: I go into that in the seventh chapter of my book, When Parachute Pants Don’t Break Your Fall: The Untold MC Hammer Story, hitting bookshelves in October.
Body.
Everyone’s head turned and followed your path when you entered the room. While they all turned back to their meals and conversations after you passed, you landed a couple of tables away from me and we locked eyes for a few magical seconds.
I was the tall blonde bearded man wearing tortoise shell glasses and a green, blue and white checked shirt. You were petite, with well-kept gray and brown feathers, and a lovely long black beak.
I must have looked silly sitting there frozen with my fork full of salad, inches from my open mouth, but I really wasn’t expecting you to capture my gaze so fully. Looking into your glossy black diamond eyes felt so familiar—I swear I’ve seen you before.
Do you ever perch in the ash trees in the Central Market parking lot? I drive the blue Acura.
I doubt you’ll ever see this, but in the slight chance you do, I wanted you to know that you have magnificent poise, a captivating presence, and remarkable courage. I have never seen another bird—male or female, big or small—get so close to a human wielding a plastic knife and fork, so obviously prepared to crush your beautifully slender body and pick out your little eyes if given the chance.
You probably get this all the time, but you truly are a bird of a different feather. To demonstrate such fearlessness for a few stray crumbs of cornbread and an abandoned sweet potato fry really makes me wonder how you live the rest of your life.
I’d love to find out.
I drove by Greene Auto on South 1st one day and loved the text on the side of the building, and thought it’d be fun to make a vintagey commercial sign on my garage wall, which I wanted to paint anyway.
I also thought “Auto Storage & Laundry” was a pretty good thing for the sign to say, my garage being where I put my car, and where I wash my clothes.
So I first came up with this design, which I really liked, but it looked too much like P Terry’s.
After several iterations, I ended up here. With the help of a projector and a couple of free nights, my garage wall is now a lot more interesting.
I’ve been slowly going through some boxes of files I’ve been holding onto for more than a decade. The things my former-self chose to keep are mostly pointless: assignments, notes, tests… from as far back as the seventh-grade. I’m sure I didn’t keep everything, either, but the mound of paperwork I did keep is still overwhelming.
And that’s only in print. My digital collection of files extends back even further (all the way back to 1987, I believe) and in some ways, the digital problem is much worse. Need that conversation we had about CoCo Puffs in 1999? I probably have it, somewhere.
Before you start calling me a pathetic pack-rat, allow me to say that I am aware of the problem, and have identified it even further—“sentimental pack rat” is the term, I believe. The hardest part of resolving this issue is behind me–admitting that I have a problem. Now comes the hard work of eliminating the trail of my past that I’ve kept in two or three bankers boxes for most of my life.
While most of the things I’ve kept are completely useless and shouldn’t have been kept in the first place, there are a few gems.
Here’s one of them, from 8th grade:
English 8, 10-10-94
What I Want To Be When I Grow Up
When I grow up I do not want to be sitting behind a desk, wearing a suit and tie, talking to a guy from another country whose name I can’t pronounce having to watch every word I say so that I don’t offend him, trying to sell him a product or buy from him a patent.
I would rather choose a more exciting job like being a test pilot for McDonnel Douglas or Grumman, for instance. I would like this job because I would never have to worry about what to wear. I’d put on a flight suit, with no worries about matching colors, about brand names, or the latest fashion. No choices and no thinking while I am getting ready. Cool.
When I am in the plane, I’m in charge. I would not be driving a bus in the air (like the pilots of Northwest Airlines) and I would be able to fly the plane how I want to and see if it works to the specifications expected of its designer. I would also be testing myself, my knowledge and skill of flying, every detail about the aircraft and even my instinct. If things go wrong I’d have to make a quick decisions, not only to complete the tests but to perhaps save the plane.
I would hardly get bored because new planes, new instruments, and new weapons come out for me to test all the time. This is what I call a cool job, flying a plane, having fun, and getting paid.
There is only one setback to this job if the designers make a mistake, I might not be around to complain about it.
Hilarious. I also included a drawing.
I’m not sure how this happened, but at this point of my life—one year before discovering the Beatles, and two years before discovering programming—I was really into planes. Between the ages of ten and fourteen, my bedroom walls were covered with pictures of jets. I regularly absorbed books about the design details of anything with wings, and drew pictures of planes all the time. I remember all of that very clearly. What I don’t remember, however, is my apparent worry of what I might wear in the future, and fear of one day not being able to pronounce someone’s name.
It’s finding gems like this that assuage my negative feelings of being a sentimental pack-rat. For once, my former-self was correct in the prediction that my future-self would someday take great pleasure in reading this.