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Over the past year, this column has been criticized, lambasted and sautÈed by would-be critics for its shitty attitude. It should go without saying that I have a shitty attitude. The Another Perspective column naturally reflects the acidic bile that’s forced down my throat on an almost hourly basis by the university, its irritable professors, neighbors with an aversion to shrapnel, bill collectors, ultra-smug classmates and nimrods that walk, three abreast, down 13th Ave. The universe shoves these poopy pet-peeves down my mouth and I spit it back out into a shoddy Toshiba laptop. _ What can I say? The bi-weekly task of hacking up a magazine column is almost as refreshing and cathartic as an ice-cold Mountain Dew. Ahhhh, the cool, crisp taste of Mountain Dew! Do the Dew!™
Besides coming up with cranky editorials that no one reads in a magazine that few know exist, there are things in this world that I’m actually indifferent to and (gasp!) even kinda, sorta like. _ In a reluctant attempt to offer “another perspective,” instead of one more bitter rant, I have suppressed my ever-cynical mindset and come up with the following list. It took a long weekend of Zen meditation to compile this, but here it is: A Collection of Things that Brandon Hartley Actually Approves of:
1. Big, fat checks for promoting Mountain Dew. Are you
out there Pepsico? One column filled with cola propaganda would run you a mere $22,000 (the amount that it’s going to take to pay of all my pesky student loans). I accept checks and money orders, but would prefer cash. Send it all: money, trips to Amsterdam, Honda Insights and talking parrots to:
Brandon “Corporate Shill” Hartley
c/o the Oregon Commentator
P.O. Box 30128
Eugene OR, 97403
Do the Dew! The joy of Pepsi, the joy of fun, the joy of Pepsi on your tongue... that’s all you conglomerate sharks get until all my free stuff arrives in the mail. If you can give Britney millions, you can easily cut me a check for a few grand.
2. Boobs. They’re nice. I like boobs. I guess that just about covers this one.
3. Butts. While nice, they’re not as nice as boobs.
4. Alyssa Milano (see numbers 2. and 3.).
5. Tiki torches, tiki lounges and especially tiki torches in tiki lounges. Eugene boasts of but one tiki bar and it’s Gilligan’s, which sucks a big fat [insert animal or annoying celebrity here] wang. Tiki lounges are supposed to be poorly lit and devoid of: Greek brats, KDUK-approved DJs and dance floors. All those belong at Doc’s Pad. A good tiki bar consists of the following, essential ingredients, which Gilligan’s lacks altogether:
a. Tikis.
b. Lounge music.
c. Huge aquariums.
d. Properly mixed Mai Tais, under $6.00, with actual alcohol that don’t taste like Rockin’ Raspberry Kool Aid.
e. Karaoke.
Oh tiki gods, won’t you descend from the heavens and obliterate Gilligan’s? And replace its vacant spot with a three-dimensional copy of Portland’s much-loved Alibi? Please?
6. Weed whackers are sooooo much fun. There’s nothing like coming home from a long day of staring out the windows in countless upper division classes to tear apart a backyard jungle. The experience is only heightened with sound effects from Predator blasting out of a nearby boom box. If weed whackers were invented before the 1950s, World Wars I &II would have probably never happened. The Germans, instead of starting shit with everyone around them, could have gone outside with weed whackers and taken out their pent-up, economically-strifed aggression on overgrown black berry bushes. Stupid Krauts.
7. Corona tastes like south of the border donkey urine, but there’s a reason why a six-pack can easily sell for $7.00. When mixed with a slice of lime, Corona goes from being yet another watered down bottle of suds to the Nectar of the Gods™. A perfect world would have Corona and lime stands on every corner during the summer months. Apart, they are nothing; together the two become perfection.
8. For reasons I can’t quite explain, the 1985 film The Goonies is as entertaining now as it was when I was six years old. I’m not exaggerating when I say that I’ve seen that movie well over two hundred times. While it may just be a kiddie flick with preteens and pirates, its incredibly vivid characterization, hilarious one-liners, finely honed plot structure and dead-on actors make it one of the best movies ever made. If I ever find myself standing on a ledge, ready to throw myself off, I’m sure I would probably reconsider if the scene with Mouth and the Spanish Maid were projected on the building across the street.
Simple childhood nostalgia can’t explain the public’s continued infatuation with ‘80s movies like these. Back to the Future, The Goonies and Gremlins are among the few movies out there that I can watch over and over again and never get bored with. I can’t say this for The Big Lebowski, The Godfather or, yes, even Charlie’s Angels. During a brief period in the 1980s, Hollywood nailed the art of making great movies with creative plot lines and likable characters, without having to drown everything in sarcasm, irony and self-conscious posturing. Steven Soderbergh’s colored filters and the sight of Chow Yun Fat flying around can’t hold a candle to the exhilaration that comes with watching the DeLorean get blasted through an era by a bolt of lighting for the 50,000th time, or the sight of the Goonies zooming off down Oregon Highway 101 on their Huffies.
9. (a) Did I mention boobs? Oh yeah. Egad, this is hard! Crumbs!
(b) There really should be more old Buicks on the road — vehicles the size of SUVs, but with infinitely more class. If I were rich, I’d open an automotive company that specializes in making fuel-efficient, Red Shark-sized convertibles. And I’d take all the profits and open up drive-in movie theaters all over the country. What ever happened to drive-ins? Do multiplexes really beat sitting out in the open air where you can enjoy a double feature from the comfort of your own hood or lawn chair? Anyway, if MC Hammer didn’t already have it, I’d sell my soul for a ‘65 Mustang that gets 40-miles per gallon in the city.
10. MC Hammer saved my soul, and therefore, I like the guy. On a night a few years back, I wandered into the Lighthouse Temple to watch a sermon by “The Hammer” himself. Afterwards, he asked “unsaved” members of the audience to step up to the altar and accept Jesus Christ into their hearts. Maybe it was the peer pressure or the green-colored Joker gas the parishoners had subtly pumped in through the ventilation system, but I obliged. Surrounded by one thousand rabid Mormons (or at least they looked, acted and smelled like Mormons), MC Hammer placed a hand on my shoulder, mumbled something I couldn’t hear, and wham-o! I was a Christian. I don’t know if this blessing has already worn off. Maybe I should call Hammer every few months for a spiritual tune-up. It sure beats going to hell and hanging out with Tom Hanks and Princess Diana.
11. Beck, in my eyes, is the most talented musician alive. The guy could stand in a recording booth without making a sound, and I’d still lay down good money for the subsequent recording. There’s no one else out there that can match the looping waves of sound that start “The New Pollution” or the lyrics of “Satan Gave Me a Taco.” Beck, simply put, is Frank Zappa with a keen pop sensibility. Somehow he’s capable of fusing nearly every genre out there with his own brand of weirdness to produce pure sonic splendor. He makes the sort of music everyone’s beloved Radiohead might produce if Thom Yorke were capable of cracking a smile. The fact that Midnite Vultures didn’t sell over two million copies keeps me awake at night.
At a concert in Portland last year, Beck put on the most entertaining concert I’ll ever witness in this lifetime. With an elaborate stage and his band decked out in hockey uniforms and attached to IV units for no reason other than that they looked really fucking cool, the man dashed around the stage as if he were trying to outperform Mick Jagger in his glory days. Beck did the splits, seduced a velvet pillow (you would have had to be there) and bopped around like a hyperactive iguana for two-plus hours. At the close of the show, Beck and his band tore apart the stage and tangled themselves up in the neon pipes that lined it. It’s all most bands can do these days to even bend their knees during a concert. Beck is the only artist I know of that’s capable of actually putting on a concert worth the price of a $20+ ticket. I think I was the last person to leave the Rose Garden that night.
If you have not heard the words “giant dildo crushing the sun” on a car ride in July, I pity you. Do yourself a big favor, go out and buy Mellow Gold, Odelay and Stereopathetic Soulmanure... hell, get Beck’s entire catalogue, stat. Rush home, blast it all until your ears bleed and snot runs out of your eye sockets. Or, at the very least, be sure to catch Beck’s cameo on Futurama in reruns this summer.
That’s it. I guess I only like ten things. That’s all I could come up with. This world’s filled with all sorts of wonderful, shiny stuff and a measly ten is all I could think of. And, despite my efforts, this column is still filled with snide remarks and pessimistic ramblings. Shucks, I guess you can take a boy out of the bitterness but you can’t take the bitterness out of the boy. Can I get an A for effort?
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