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We’ve Been Watching A Lot Of Documentaries Lately…

Heather Christena Schmidt 3 Comments

… and I’m not sure why.

Maybe Netflix is starting to get more lame than usual. I mean they just took Planes, Trains, and Automobiles off the Instant Streaming – just how in the shit am I supposed to watch it at least once a week now?

Really I think it’s that we go in cycles as to what kinds of movies we watch. Sometimes we go for marathon cartoon shows, like the Simpsons. Twenty episodes in one day and all that. Other times we go for scary movies or funny movies. Or new ones.

I should mention that we don’t watch regular television at all, with the exception of sports, so it’s either movies, On Demand, or Netflix…

Or nothing. Often it’s nothing.

ANYWHO, so we’ve been watching a lot of documentaries lately. And I’m not sure why. And all of them have a little bit of weirdness to them.

Here are the three we’ve watched this weekend:

Mansome

My husband and I watched Mansome Saturday night. Of course anything Morgan Spurlock and/or Jason Bateman is going to be a necessary win, though it was a little horrifying in and of itself in content.

I mean it was all about men and their grooming practices. And their balls.

It also prompted me to look up Jason Bateman on Wikipedia. You know, while I was sitting there next to my husband. I wanted to know if Bateman was in fact “happily” married. You know, while I was sitting there next to my husband…

So he is. And I didn’t realize that his older sister was the one that played Malory on Family Ties. No shit, right? Well I clicked on her Wikipedia page and BOY… does she look awful now. The 80s and Family Ties and show business really did a number on her…

Back to Mansome. So the best parts of this film were when they interviewed this total weirdo with a really long, red beard. Which was totally different in color than the hair on his head, I might add. He won some European beard contest – a little weird to travel across the world to participate in, but whatever gets you going.

And I should mention that – sure – he was all up on taking care of his beard, but in the scene that showed him getting in his car we learned that he wasn’t quite as enthusiastic about taking care of his car.

I’m saying his car was a total piece of shit. Maybe not relevant, but maybe it is. I mean if a guy is worried so much about his beard but not his mode of transportation…

The other completely off-the-hook part was when they showed the product creator and the focus group for this product called Fresh Balls. Basically it’s a gel that men rub on their junk to stop chafing and “batwings” (which I had no idea existed until watching this highly educational film).

And I suppose close seconds in terms of “greatest parts” of the film were when this totally closeted gay guy has his eyebrows threaded to remove five rogue hairs (he called himself metrosexual … I mean, who does that?); and, when the professional wrestler has his friend shave his ass with an electric razor.

Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense

This afternoon, my husband decided he was going to force all of us to sit down in front of the television and watch this.

He said it would be an experience. That it would be a musical experience we all should appreciate.

Now I can appreciate the nostalgia of remembering a few of the songs. And I can appreciate the aesthetics of the post-punk, avant garde era that made up the Talking Heads of the 80s.

But after a while it just got old. Very, very old. And could that bass player be any more doped out, in her 80s pantsuit that had its own wings? Obviously not batwings, because she didn’t (I don’t think) have testicles; but wings flapping out the side of her pants that just made me think of the whole batwings thing. Then I laughed out loud and my husband got mad.

Thanks a lot. Bitch.

At a certain point in the whole charade going on in this concert film, the tall, skinny, lanky, wiggly guy that is the lead singer just randomly started running around the stage like a complete moron. I’ve never seen anything like that before in my life – he just started jogging. Then sprinting. Then jogging a little bit more. Then at a point he got on the ground and sang while dry-humping the air. Then he went back on another jog around the stage.

It was just too bizarre for words.

Microcosmos

Finally, this evening, I was bored and we had nothing else to do but vegetate like broccoli. So I decided we would turn on another documentary.

Because you know. The others weren’t enough for the weekend, or anything.

I decided on Microcosmos for no reason other than I was seriously fucking tired of scrolling through the Netflix que. For those of you that do not know of it, this is a French documentary that utilized miniature cameras and specialized microphones to film bugs.

Insects. You get it? Fucking tiny little bugs. Spiders and flies and shit.

Here were my responses:

“Those caterpillars are complete morons.”

“Bees can seriously kiss my ass.”

“Jesus, could those snails suck face any harder? Need to get some Barry White up in there.”

“I think I have eaten one of those beetles on accident.”

“Hey look it’s like the 405 [freeway] only with bugs.”

“What’s so scary about those things is they’re fucking ugly.”

“That’s not a salamander, that’s an underwater dinosaur.”

“Wow look at that bird eat those ants… it’s like a trip to Hometown Buffet!”

“Is it weird this movie is making me hungry?”

So I highly recommend that you guys check out these movies. I’m not sure why. Probably because after all this poking fun and making random commentary I’m afraid of the legal ramifications by the filmmakers. Just kidding, I actually think you should watch them. If anything, for a good laugh.

Now here’s Snail Beauty, or as I like to call it Two Snails Get Busy.

If I Dress Like A Hipster, Will I Like PBR?

Heather Christena Schmidt 5 Comments

I don’t know what’s more disturbing:  the fact that I accidentally got drunk on beer before the afternoon was even over (ewww gross – beer!); or, the fact that it was so easy for me to find clothing and accessories in my house that fit the hipster milieu.

 In any event, for some reason I got this crazy idea that if I surrounded myself with hipster accessories, and even went as far as to dress like one, that I would somehow magically begin to like PBR as well.  I thought this would be the best way to test my hypothesis that it is being a hipster that makes you actually enjoy Pabst Blue Ribbon.  The only other possibility is that being a hillbilly will influence your actual enjoyment of PBR, and since we have already established that hipsters are just hillbillies in vintage, it seems pointless to test both.  (Not to mention, I would have to dress in overalls and take serial photographs of myself sitting on the toilet:  the former I am unable to do for I own no overalls; the latter I am sure you all do not really want to see…)

Here are the results (you will note I have added the typical, hipster photo effects to get the true feeling that – for this day only – I really became a hipster):

I decided to only sample four beers, because really I hate beer.  PBR was to be included as one of the four; my photographer and beer sampling administer (thanks dad!) chose these:  Tecate, Corona Extra, Coors Light, and PBR

As I said, I surrounded myself with everything-hipster.  That was to test my hypothesis that it is being a hipster that makes you actually enjoy Pabst Blue Ribbon.  Included in my surroundings, I had:  an unreasonable amount of Apple products, a pile of scarves (ready for wear if needed, despite the fact that it was 90 degrees out), colored sunglasses, a ridiculous hat (the only thing that would have been worse would be a vintage fedora … but the hipsters do love their retarded beanies), and an oversized and unmatched outfit … disturbingly put together from my very own closet.  The drinks were hidden behind a black box and a wall of the extra cans of PBR.

It was rough for me to choke down that beer, but I’ve had enough in my hey day to guess at 75% correctness.  This blogger hasn’t had beer in a long time, though, so obviously I felt a little rusty drinking it.

I got Tecate right!  I’ve had Tecate a lot in my life – and I still do enjoy the taste.

Coors Light was wrong.  I didn’t like it and never have, so it is no wonder I guessed it was Rolling Rock.  I’m not the biggest fan of American beers on the rare occasions that I do drink them, so it is no surprise that I had no clue (really) what I was drinking on the second round.

Obviously a little tipsy at this point, I got Corona Extra correct!  And I’m still a fan …

I was given a few different samples of the Tecate and the Coors Light before we moved on to the PBR, just for the sake of making sure I didn’t figure out what I was drinking.  Obviously the level of hatred I have towards hipsters would have skewed the results; nonetheless, when PBR came up I did guess it correctly and I still hated it.

This leaves us to a few possibilities:

  1. My hypothesis that it is being a hipster that makes you actually enjoy Pabst Blue Ribbon was just proved wrong.  This is quite obvious.
  2. You could further hypothesize that just surrounding yourself with hipster-esque things does not actually make you be a hipster.  This is a pretty big possibility and is an entire blog altogether, for that would mean that being a hipster is not about the material manifestations of it, but rather an inner state of being.  (I shudder to think that is the case.)
  3. What I really believe this proves is the idea that hipsters will do whatever to conform to the social standards of being a hipster.  It has been cited before on a number of different blogs, websites, and even news articles on Time and various weekly papers.  Hipsters want so badly to be against the grain of social norms that they conform to their own … social norm of (ironic) nonconformity.  
Back to my normal self …
… I am reminded that my real obsession with the hipsters is not that they like certain things or act in a certain way, but that they are complete hypocrites.  They will spend hundreds of dollars on things that look vintage.  They claim a nonconformist attitude by going at great lengths to conform.  They argue for individual rights and respect, while letting their parents pay for everything well into middle age.  They will even go as far as to drink a drink that really does taste like it came from a toilet bowl, merely for the sake of saying “we like cheap.”  But the Pabst Blue Ribbon wasn’t even really that cheap – it was comparable in price to all of the other beers I sampled.  A friend from Chicago even told me yesterday that at bars out there a pint of it will cost you about $6.50 – more than I have ever seen a person pay for a pint of beer.  Hipsters are one of my biggest pet peeves merely because in hoards they are creating even more stupidity and hypocrisy in American society, something I really think we already have enough of.
Special thanks to my dad, Raymond Schmidt, for setting up the beer tasting and taking the photographs.  He’s a writer too … you can find him on Amazon by clicking here.