Michael Jackson

I saw this painting, of course modeled after the Norman Rockwell self portrait, on USA Today, though I think it's from Billboard. It's a little too much like an editorial cartoon (I hate them) but I'm putting it up anyway.

I know it's been slow here

The month of June has flown by but I've hardly posted here at RJ Battles. I put up 50 posts in May and some of them were realy good.

Sometime around the beginning of this month I was at WalMart wih my friend at 11pm while he bought some things for work and while we walked around I played with his new phone, the Droid. It has a really nice picture and when I looked at RJ Battles on it I loved the way the site looked. All the record sleeves and other pictures were so crisp, even at the smaller size.

Anyway, I have not been feeling well the past few months but I should be doing better soon so I think some of the best days at RJ Battles are in the future. I hope you'll be here.

Big Y

Last night I caught Adventureland on cable- it was exactly, EXACTLY, what I expected. It wasn't bad, but I wouldn't recommend it either. It wanted to be a late-80s love story but it also had an obligation to a Judd Apatow-type teenage movie.

My favorite parts were the jokey-moments, usually involving old friend Frigo (played by Matt Bush from the AT&T family rollover ads), and those scenes weren't even that funny.

I was much younger than the Advetureland characters during the late 80s, but I don't remember Lou Reed being that cool back then. In this movie everybody seems to have posters of him in their bedrooms and his name gets thrown all over the place.

I wasn't too impressed with Em (played by Kristen Stewart- Bella from Twilight) either. She was just OK.

But the big problem was the male lead, played by Jesse Eisenberg. He's the usual sensitive "good guy". Boring.

I wish Frigo was the main character; it woul;d've been a better movie.

The other day I caught the second half of Truth or Dare on TV so yesterday I watched the first half on Youtube.

I first saw it when it came out. Back in 1989 and 1990 I was obbsessed with Madonna. I loved the Like A Prayer album and all the videos. My brother and I were gonna see the Blond Ambition tour in Worchester, Mass.- it was the third of three shows there and it was cancelled due to throat problems.

A Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors

I just watched A Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) for the second time. The first time was when it first came out.

It scared me at the time. There was one scene that i couldn't watch and I actually covered my eyes. That's when the kid in the wheelchair was in a long corridor and there was a razor-covered wheelchair headed straight for him. I thougt he got mowed down by it. Actually, Freddy stabs him.

Since I was seeing it tonight as an adult, nothing scared me the way it did back then, and really, none of it scared me at all.

I thought it was funny how the nun kept disappearing. The first time, OK, it was in a crowd of people. But the second time? One moment she's talking to the doctor in a cemetary in the daytime, the next she's just gone. Does she go hide behind a headstone? And why not just say, "Goodbye". Manners, Miss Kruger.

There are three elements that place this movie in a different era. You wouldn't see these in Freddy vs. Jason:

One of the kids at the mental hospitol says to Nancy, "Welcome to the snake pit". I don't know if people got it then, but I know they wouldn't now- in the early 1900s a writer went undercover as a patient to expose the treatment in asylums and her book was titled The Snake Pit.

The opening title card, "Sleep, those little slices of death, how I loathe them", a well-chosen quote from Edgar Allen Poe.

Dick Cavett makes a cameo. I don't know why he decided to be in this movie but it's always good to see him.

By the way, I watched it on YouTube and there were Spanish subtitles and at one point Kristen's mother was telling her to go to bed and then says "Andale" and the subtitles say "Andale".

Teen Wolf

Did you know that Cyndi Lauper named her son Declan after Elvis Costello?

This morning I was watching the second Christmas episode of The West Wing. That's the one where Josh Lyman is suffering from post-trumatic-stress-disorder after the shooting. The man he talks to is played by Adam Arkin. I looked him up. I'd always liked him; he was in Halloween H2O and on Chicago Hope. I hadn't realized that his father is Alan Arkin, the killer from Wait Until Dark.

I think Wait Until dark was originally a play. I love movies that were plays first. I don't mean West Side Story and The Producers and shit like that. I mean The Bad Seed, The Miracle Worker, and 12 Angry Men. They always have the best dialogue.

I'm watching Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors tonight with the intention of writing about it here at RJ Battles.

The other night my friend and I watched Teen Wolf on TV. I hadn't realized that the penis scene came at the very end. cause I've been wanting to see it ever since I first heard the story.

You may or may not know that one of the extras in the bleachers exposed himself and nobody noticed until years later. His pants are unzipped and his briefs are pulled down a little, then he covers up. But it's very visible once you're looking for it. Anyway, we were watching it and I was on the computer and I looked up just as the movie was ending and it was happening.

I missed it so we looked it up on YouTube and a lot of people had left comments saying that Yoda sent them there- There's a Family Guy DVD that says check out the end of Teen Wolf.

Purple Rain cassette

I got the Purple Rain cassette in the fall of 1984 or 1985 so when I hear it I always think of falltime. This poster came with the LP.

I wrote a short story today

Well, I've been off for the last three days and I mostly stayed in bed and slept and the rest of the time I did next to nothing. But last night I went for a walk in the park with two friends and some kid I hate. This afternoon a wrote a short story that unfolds exactly like things did last night except the guy I don't like gets torn open by a bear.

I'm not very good at judging the value of my own writing but I'm guessing that the short story is very bad.

I know, why don't I post it here? Because it's bad and it's not just bad; it's short. Like it would print out to about a page. Here's the story: Nothing happens, a bear jumps out, dead guy, the end.

I don't know. Maybe.

I had a good time anyway

Since I was broke I decided not to go to the Kristin Hersh show last night. I read a few reports online and it sounds like it was a good time.

I ended up spending the night with my friend. We walked to my parents' house- it was 11pm and they were sleeping but we woke up Clementine and gave her some treats. Then we watched The Goonies. I forgot how corny it was. Remember when Mikey was alone with One-Eyed Willy and then the goonies snuck up on him-

"How long have you guys been there?"

"Long enough...long enough."

My favorite parts are when they're watching the video for "The Goonies 'R" Good Enough" and the wishing well scene when "What A Thrill" plays on the radio. I love both songs. "What A Thrill" goes all the way back to Cyndi Lauper's time with Blue Angel.

Blue Angel made some really good songs (True Colors's "Maybe He'll Know" is a BA song) and even though they're from 1980 they don't sound dated because they're done in a 1950s style.

90210

Today I watched Beverly Hills 90210 for the first time. Then I looked it up- I didn't realize it ran from 1990 to 2000. It's odd; it seems like most big shows are part of two decades- Facts of Life, The Jeffersons, Alice, The Golden Girls.

In the first episode I saw the were studying Shakespeare and at one point Brenda said "To be a bitch or not to be a bitch". The writers must've done that on purpose because of her reputation. The scene looked familiar to me and I didn't understand why. then I realized it was probably used on VH1's I Love the 90s.

The second episode I saw ended with everyone on the beach at night- I started to hear Elvis Costello's "The Other Side of Summer". I remember he wrote in the liner notes to one of his records- I think it was Extreme Honey- about that song being used once on the show. I never thought I'd actually see and then the second time I ever watch the show, there it is.

In other news, I'm not sure if I'll make it to the Kristin Hersh show tomorrow night. I hate to miss the opportunity but it's around $17 for the ticket, then the drinks (even if I put nips in my pockets and socks like usual), plus extra expenses. We'll see.