So, I'm in Memphis one weekend my senior year of college, because when you attend a private religious university in the middle of the Texas desert, driving 650 miles one-way to spend less than 3 days walking Beale Street and eating pork barbecue makes sense. I went with a friend and his fiancee, which was a whole other barrel of awkward that will not here be addressed, but the point is that I was with Friend and Fiancee at the grocery store one night procuring some drinks, and as we wandered the refrigerated aisle looking for the happy medium between price and quality, we were approached and engaged in coversation by a pretty hyperactive little guy.
He was about 28, black, maybe 5' 7", glasses, a short-sleeved yellow-plaid-based button shirt. Maybe cargo pants. It was a while ago, and you should be impressed I remember that much. I'll be honest, at the time we assigned him a hypothetical nickname that we found hilarious and was used in running jokes for at least a year, but I've forgotten it, and will make no attempt to re-create one. So what the hell, call him Willy.
So Willy comes up to me and Friend and Fiancee, and asks us if we're partying that night. Then he guides me over to the Schlitz and says, "This is it, son, this is panty-dropping stuff. You drink this and their drawers be off." Something to file away. Thanks, Willy.
Then he looks at me through the fog of semi-drunkenness, since he was obviously voted most sober at his party and tasked with making the beer run, and he notices that I'm sporting some pretty substantial sideburns (college), and gives a little jump back and says, "You look like my boy, you know ..." and here he holds up his fists and makes a couple of "shink-shink" noises, "from X-Men..." and he just kind of stands there.
"Wolverine?" I ask.
"Yeah, yeah!" Man, that made his night. "Wolverine!" Then he drops his voice into what could only be considered a conspiratorial tone and says, "You be poking Storm, right?" Then he spins around a couple times (he's still got his fists up, by the way), apparently as happens when Wolverine and Storm get freaky.
My friends and I slowly sidle away. Willy checks out at the cashier next to us, and walks out behind us to the parking lot and asks for a ride. We politely decline as we book it over to our car, though we can still hear him calling after us, relentless as Michael Myers. In our haste to leave Willy in the parking lot, we ran right over the curb.
Lessons:
1) If you're drunk, I look like Wolverine.
2) Memphis is well worth visiting.
|
|
||||||
|
The Photo
the info
Los Angeles, California I'm a twentysomething white male with ambitions to be a professional film critic and generally spend my days getting paid to watch movies and write about it. I try not to think too hard about how I want to build my life around talking about other people's creations and not mine. A compulsive reader and stubborn cineaste, I take an often contrary stance to my more fundamentalist peers and upbringing by celebrating the pursuit of the good, and the Good, in life, love, art and film. If you watched enough episodes of a few TV shows ("The Hungry and the Hunted," "The Cut Man Cometh," "The Body," "Waiting in the Wings," "Out of Gas," "April is the Cruelest Month," "20 Hours in America," "Colonial Day" for starters), you would understand me completely, and you'd also realize that much of my worldview and philosophical insights are heavily influenced by fictional works/programs, and many of the good things I've said in my life are just a regurgitation of someone else's imaginings. I guess I was made to be a film critic. This Month
Login
the counter
the world
the ratings
Search
the library
The Words
the shots
www.flickr.com
This is a Flickr badge showing public photos from dan_carlson. Make your own badge here.
the politics
The Alumni
The Clock
|
I Saw Prince Mongo: A Bizarre True Story That, Believe It Or Not, Relates To The X-Men
Comments
Re: I Saw Prince Mongo: A Bizarre True Story That, Believe It Or Not, Relates To The X-Men
by
Jesmus
on Fri 02 Jun 2006 03:05 PM PDT | Profile | Permanent Link
I remember that night well, but I haven't thought about it in years man. So glad you wrote this.
|
the post
the quotes
"The critic is the only independent source of information. The rest is advertising." "Film lovers are sick people." "I hope I strike a blow for chubby bald men everywhere. I hope they rise like an army." "Let others praise ancient times, I am glad I was born in these." current reading
in rotation
the humor
the screens
Pajiba
HSX IMDb MovieWeb Box Office Mojo Dark Horizons BFI RT New York Magazine Cinema Treasures Metaphilm Onion A.V. Club Film Comment Criterion Empire Drew's Script-O-Rama MCN Greatest Films Second Spin AFI The Hollywood Reporter Metacritic Defamer Dave Poland Dave Kehr AllMovie Movie City Indie Austin Movie Blog The Screengrab GreenCine Daily FirstShowing Fimoculous Chicago Reader: On Film Sunset Gun Bordwell and Thompson the tube
The Plugs
The Sis
The Oldest Guy I Know Creatum This Guy Borrowed My Dave Shirt Historian Emeritus Never Met This Guy Tucker Tucker Mother [Uh-Oh] Steve Holt Peter-Wecker Man vs. Clown! Susan the Canadian Halbey RozieD J. Scott Kendall-Ball Geoff Klock Bells On A Special Way of Being Afraid Down in Texas One More Curious Mile Jennifer, Who's From Weatherford, And Now Lives In Virginia They Call The Wind Jehiah Bad Movie Club Girish That Little Round-Headed Boy Tom The Dog's You Know What I Like? Hoyden's Kibitzing Brady Lane My Best Friend's Girl Mimi in NY No More Marriages! My Experiments Miles To Go ... litelysalted Recent Entries
Month Archive
the wisdom
Remembering speechlessly we seek the great forgotten language, the lost lane-end into heaven, a stone, a leaf, an unfound door. Where? When?
O lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again. — Look Homeward, Angel, Thomas Wolfe Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives. — John Stuart Mill We are all under the same mental calamity; we have all forgotten our names. We have all forgotten what we really are. All that we call common sense and rationality and practicality and positivism only means that for certain dead levels of our life we forget that we have forgotten. All that we call spirit and art and ecstasy only means that for one awful instant we remember that we forget. — G.K. Chesterton We were, for the briefest of moments, something greater than the sum of our uncertain parts; we were youth itself, in all its painful glory and sharp joy. — August Van Zorn There is a time in the lives of most writers when they are vulnerable, when the vivid dreams and ambitions of childhood seem to pale in the harsh sunlight of what we call the real world. In short, there's a time when things can go either way. — Stephen King Los Angeles, give me some of you! Los Angeles come to me the way I came to you, my feet over your streets, you pretty town I loved you so much, you sad flower in the sand, you pretty town. — Ask the Dust, John Fante |
||||