guest blogger: JK Johnson

cartoonish

i live in the middle of the bible belt. born and bred.

i popped out at the hospital located right next to the conservative college that i go to now.

a college where w stickers outnumber any other type of sticker on vehicles.

where when you ask pretty girls why they are voting for bush, it’s either because of abortion or gay rights or daddy told them too, and daddy would never lie to them.

they want suv’s and say what the hell are mp3s?

plez is the name. operation tennessee freedom is my game.

before i get off the bus: small world, isn’t it. i had a speech class this summer and the professor was originally from cali. he moved here in the eighties when his brother signed with the tennessee volunteers to play quarterback. many around here remember that quarterback’s nickname: “same ol’story” alatorre.

the class format was spectacular. our daily assignment was to interview one person in the class per day over twenty two days. we could not ask filler questions or the same question twice, meaning that excellent gems like “define god” or “have you ever
considered actually killing yourself?” were forced to come into play. one girl, a blonde super hottie from new york, told me about life in the apple. she hates it and is never going back. another girl from around here had just returned from china, hated it, and felt that all buddhists were going to hell—period—and that jesus would not tolerate their religion. most amazingly i met and became friends with an actual
chinese fellow who had just moved here from beijing. Talk about culture shock: this is one of the most boring towns in the planet and he had never been anywhere else besides smack dab in the middle of the heart of the communist order. he is one of the friendliest people i have ever met and I am now considering moving to china to teach conversational english.

he feels that our definition of communism is not the same as their definition of communism.

he openly disagrees with many of china’s past policies, but begs for me to realize that mistakes can be made on both sides of the ocean.

he says anyone can run for office and be in the government but no political parties besides communism, thanks. Oh, and they have to have money and know the right people. imagine that.

meeting people like this just isn’t common ‘round here. this is a back country—rarely do such opportunities come up. there are no excellent bars or clubs. the one bar that resembles an excellent bar or club is not somewhere you really want to go.

i got to express my views in my speeches as well. in one of them, my side was advocating human genetic cloning (stem cells stuff) a transcript of my closing argument:

i am amazed at how so many people feel that they know god’s exact intentions. rarely do some of these people ever stop and look at where they are or where they’re at. rarely do some of these people look at earth as god’s canvas or god’s promise.

yet consider with me for a moment if you will the possibility that god wanted us to create a heaven on Earth. science exists on earth because god put it here. science exists because god created it. As people, we have the possibility—the ability—to make the human experience—life itself—better, safer, longer, more secure, more loving—for ever individual person on this earth. some will say that we are trying to play god. i say to them, we are using what god has given us to use.

the jury was our classmates. our team lost.

dc + verbungle + nickerblog + sk smith

war of the worlds

a huge bouncy castle
starring dakota fanning, tim robbins, and tom cruise
directed by steven spielberg

tom is making a fool of himself right now and maybe its because hes in love, maybe its because hes pretending like hes in love, maybe its cuz hes going through a midlife crisis due to the fact that he looks quite young for his age (56) and for the first time in his life has to play the role of a father of an alleged teenage boy who looks like hes in college.

maybe hes making a fool of himself because he really believes that the aliens are coming down to eat us. maybe he doesnt know that its just a radio show.

and then maybe hes not the fool, maybe we are. his fingers smell of katie holmes dont they. dont they?

even if they dont he has one thing going for him, he knows how to get into the right movies and directed by the right directors at the right time. every single one of the movies that he has been in has been a hit except one. lets go down the list: endless love, taps, the outsiders, losin it, risky business, all the right moves, legend, top gun, the color of money, cocktail, young guns, rain man, born on the fourth of july, far and away, a few good men, the firm, interview with the vampire, mission impossible, jerry mcguire, eyes wide shut, magnolia, mi2, vanilla sky, monority report, the last samurai, collatoral, and now war of the worlds. amazing.

especially since hes not that great of an actor and much of his popularity has been, in my opinion, due to the fact that he was in these dynamite movies that rose to their heights, in many cases, despite him, or because of other people in the film.

he has always been stiff he has always been unlikeable and in his best films we are happy when terrible shit happens to him.

without spoiling any part of this classic remake lets pretend that in war of the worlds the aliens are coming the aliens are coming and you know what if they get anyone i want them to get tom cruise and i bet im not alone.

who didnt love in vanila sky when his face turned hideous? who didnt love in risky business when his porsche fell into lake michigan? who didnt love it when in jerry mcguire cuba gooding jr made him his little bitch? dance white boy, squirm, and in this movie, run.
i love steven speilberg because he isnt afraid to put his characters into great harm, and oftentimes this means loveable characters, and in my favorite examples it means children.

jurrasic park for many years was my favorite movie of all time because speilberg had me believe for a quick second that he was going to show one of those big ass dinosaurs eat a little kid.

perhaps you remember the scene. a trex had pinned either the boy or the girl i forget in the explorer and the only thing between the child and the dinosaur was the cracked sunroof that was being held up by the young person as he cowered.

part of me was all no dont eat him and part of me was all speilberg is going to establish ruthlessness by making the dinosaur eat that kid, what an amazingly brilliant evil genius.

enter wide eyed and precosious dakota fanning who is on her way to being so incredibly annoying that she too is being saved by all these great films she finds herself in.

the trick of a good director is to make us root for these somewhat unlikeable overly rehearsed over-actors even when the dinosaur is about to do precisely what in any other situation we want him to do: eat the rich.

tom cruise is far from likeable in this movie and dakota is intentionally annoying and it only adds to the tension that is deliciously thick in speilbergs best film since schindlers list.

make no mistake this is a steven speilberg scifi horror suspense war film. its masterful and creepy and not in the slightest bit tailormade for cruise. if you ask me mel gibson would have been better cast in the lead. but he muscles his way through every scene with the cruisian stiffness we’ve grown used to.

because it really is part war film, there was an opportunity with tim robbins character that speilberg could have very easilly slid in a few lines about the nature of war, the nature of violence, and the paradox that as long as there is life there will be beings who want to bring death through war and violence, it could have given this film a human heart that it never finds in cruise, the star.

it could have been as simple as a tag line from either cruise or robbins delivered like eastwood along the lines of “everyone wants someone to die”, but like most special effects films, dialogue takes a back seat to spectacle, which is top notch and disturbing.

two thumbs up.

caitlin + fil + flagrant + leah

a year ago

today

danielle (not pictured) said lets blow this taco stand and i said i dont have any more c4. she said no, i mean lets make like a tree and get the fuck outta here. i was all language madame! she was all vous les vous couchez avec moi c’est saw. i was all c’est saw? she was all, can we please have lunch now?

so we cruised over to the new thai place at the strip mall on crescent heights and it was valet only and she doesnt let anyone driver her benz cept me. so we rolled. then we went over to the grove and at lunchtime traffic and parking was a bitch. youd think it was christmas.

then we cruised down beverly and she found some “cute” restaurants, which obviously means the food is great. but we got swooped from our meter parking spot and danielle pounded on her steering wheel cursing the good lord. i was all easy on the blasphemy baby. and she was all, where is your god? where! where!!!!?

and i said hes at kfc whipping up some popcorn chicken and she said fine.

i was all, what are you going to get there.

she said nothing!

i was like, you have to get something, its lunch, we’ve spent a half hour driving. get a salad.

no.

get a ear of corn.

no!

get a thing of mashed potatoes or mac n sleeze.

hell no!

and she didnt. we drove thru, got my deal and she huffed.

i was all, i cant eat this with you sitting there all pissed. lets go to the dog.

so we went to black dog and there she stood in line for another 10 minutes longer than normal and i swore she was either going to throw a chair through the plate glass window or cry.

so when she marched to the car i said lets do a quickie little photo shoot

and that cured her.

baby bee + annika + kevin whipps

chad from chokey chicken wins the secret prize

of a mystery box from the busblog prize closet which includes a busblog tshirt, a data dvd of porn, and a copy of the BlackSmiths cd among other valueable items. chad wins because he was the first person to take a picture of himself with his Tsar cd, which recently got this review on Amazon dot com

Best Album Ever Recorded in the History of Music, June 30, 2005
Literally, we have been waiting for this album for years. Figuratively, this is the album we have been waiting for our entire lives. Tsar is the best live band in America. Goodnight.

although it is definately the best album to come out so far this year, but im not sure its the best ever in the history of music, in fact im sure its not.

the wall was a little better, for example. physical graffiti, back in black, the number of the beast, london calling, darkness on the edge of town, paul’s boutique, blonder and blonder, blonde on blonde, king of america, lets see if we can do this for twelve minutes, sandinsta, three squares and a roof, vu, axis bold as love, the blue album, pinkerton, white blood cells, kiss me kiss me kiss me, double nickles on a dime, tim, let it be, hootenanny, gold & platinum, dirty deeds, straight outta compton, doolittle, nothings shocking, rock animals, turn 21, animal boy, toys in the attic, lifes rich pageant, rain dogs, frank’s wild years, …and out come the wolves, never mind the bullocks, staring at the sea, screaming for vengance, 2112, paranoid, appetite for destruction, moving pictures, powerage, women and children first, nebraska, glass houses, trouble in paradise, this year’s model, bleach, nevermind, incesticide, master of puppets, smell the glove, electric warrior, sail away, good old boys, thirteen, goo, this toilet earth, 100 miles and runnin, death certificate, the chronic, blow your face out, 1984, live thru this, stoned and dethroned, jar of flies, so tonight i might see, fear beyond driven, very necessary, animals, american beauty, hotel california, thriller, doggystyle, black sunday, thug life, the predator, guerillas in tha mist, 3 feet high and risin, beautiful mess, ritual de habitual, unforgetable fire, for ladies only, overkill, ragged glory, syncronicity, people are people, flesh of my flesh blood of my blood, blood guts and pussy, big science, the mind is a terrible thing to taste, siamese dream, (), fought down, dark side of the moon, transformer, whoops times up

i had another interview yesterday, something i totally forgot about so it doesnt look like im going to vegas any time soon, not that i could have afforded it but i was half thinking about putting a hundred on black as soon as i got there and either eaten at the buffet and turn back immediately or spend the night with the winnings. dont think i wouldnt do it.

dont think i wouldnt do it now.

k lets do ten minutes with tony and call it a night.

its 208am and bro was writing about blog celebrity and i will tell you that it isnt at all the goal of the busblog but i must say that it doesnt suck.

loyal readers of the busblog have sent a wide variety of things to the busblog mailing address at 4845 fountain #15, hollywood, ca, 90029 and right now im listening to a cd that someone who wishes to remain anonymous made for me which is like 100 musical moments in the howard stern show. like bands playing acoustic, like howard and the gang singing karaoke, like some of the parody songs, i love it.

i also love that i could ask the blogosphere for a little help.

for example:

people of earth, what is the best device for recording a phone conversation into the computer?

i need the piece that connects to the phone and the piece that connects to the computer.

thank you.

now see the problem is, i have a plan b. i could always go to Ask Metafilter, but lets see the power of this miniuniverse. in fact lets compete. ok this will be fun. busbloggers, thats my question, im going to ask the same question with the same words on Ask Metafilter and we will see who returns the best answer(s). no fair cheating and seeing what theyve said. ok its 213, five minutes left

fell asleep watching tv at ten pm today and woke up at midnight and now my body doesnt want to go to sleep so im thinking about driving the streets of la and taking pictures. if i was smart i would have done it a half hour ago and snapped pics of all the party people leaving the bars because theres nothing better than pictures of well dressed drunkies smoking and drinking on a wednesday night.

the cubs if you havent noticed are back. kerry wood and mark prior are back and derek lee is the best hitter in baseball and lets spend the last two minutes talking about derek lee.

bro isnt quite batting .400 but i have watched about 25 of the last 30 cubs games all the way through and watching lee right now is like watching somebody get a hit every time up. its freaky. and hes getting great cuts. so is ramirez so is burnitz. you watch these guys and they load up before that ball gets there and they explode on that shit. all we need is a little help from corey patterson and i think the cardinals can be caught. dempster has proven that he can hang in there as a closer and with all the great arms the cubs have and now these great bats im thinking the cubs might not lose again all summer.

chad congrats on your win, email me your address and your box will be in the mail eventually

im a slampig + anti + nay has a new layout + xiaxue totally rules