A Day at the Hospital.

Hey, folks. Ren's back after a few days being absent. The reason why is beccause of the ulcer pains that I was dealing with for the past two days. So I wised up and finally went to the hospital. Trust me, having stomach burn and sitting in the waiting room for two and a half hours is not a good combo. So I didn't bring my laptop with me (bad enough I have stomach pains, I don't want a somewhat heavy backpack containing my electronics weighing me down) nor my mp3 player for some insane reason. I love music, and I've should have known to bring it when I was sitting in the waiting room as well as taking the bus home. So I killed some time by talking to a kindly old gentleman who was waiting on his wife. We chit chat about the evil and ills of addiction, films (my forte of course) and the good ol' days. I was called in by the doctor and wished the man in the waiting room well. I got my ulcer medicine and a "cocktail" which is pretty much a cup full of a tooth paste like substance that I drowned to relieve my stomach, which also resulted in a numb tongue. Plus, I pissed in a cup and no one wanted it. So I'm planning to cut back on my vices,. which is spicy foods and soda. BTW, did I mentioned that the doctor who gave me the cocktail is named Amy Adams?

                                                  
 So I'm feeling good and I'm watching Chris Rock: Never Scared, getting my laugh on. So now I should stop blabbing and relax. 'Til then, laters. :-D

Writing with a Headache

Hey, folks. Ren's back. It's 1:48 AM and I'm watching In Living Color in my bed. Sound's cool, right? Well, it's not if you're lying there with a big fuckin' headache to deal with, under a semi-cool room temperature, especially since coming off of 4th of July, which I didn't enjoy and did not wanted to be bothered with anyone who was there for today's.....I mean yesterday's cook-out. I even took this pic to show y'all my inner pain.

Yeah, I'm not trying to look sexy or anything with the wife-beater on. Or am I? Anyways, I trying to keep myself cool and remain in this room alone watching these shows while having a good time laughing. I know this ain't nothing worthy to post about, but I clearly stated in the headline for Ren's Blogs that I specialize in cultural references, film talk and day to day Bulls**t. (or bullshit if you want me to spell that out for you), so....this is the bullshit part. Well, maybe that and the "Ditch Aaron" post, which is enough to devoid anyone of intelligence, but not as much than Aaron himself. LOL. So, right now ILC is talking up much of my typing time and I guess it's time for my to split. I'll be back soon with a more lengthy post. So 'til then, laters. :-)


BTW, that was my "headache-had-went-away smile".

Out of the Bin: The Richard Pryor Show

 Hey, folks. This is a post I will refer to as "Out of the Bin", where I discuss DVDs straight out of...well, my own DVD bin. I do these reviews because I'm that fucking bored and the same time I want to be a show off as well. I promise the readers this a few days ago that I would review a DVD and I have it right now. First off let me talk about one man; a hysterical personally who influenced countless other comedians and continues to leave his mark as a king of comedy to this day with his profanity-ridden observations and social commentary. This man in question is Richard Pryor.

Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor (goddamn that's long!!) had branched out as a seminal comedian throughout the 60s and 70s with his brand of stand-up acts and series of albums such as "Live & Smokin'" and "Is It Something I Said", leading to film roles and writing gigs for television, such as Sanford and Son. It all paid off with a television special on NBC that became such a critical and ratings success that the network offered Pryor a chance to host and star in his own sketch comedy show. Thus giving us The Richard Pryor Show.

The show suffered a lot from through it's short run: it ran against Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley, two of ABC's top-rated sitcoms, a lot of executive meddling and time slot issues that provoked Pryor to quit before production began, and of course the restriction of Pryor's "Motherfucker"-heavy blue humor, which was a pending destruction of this series. Pryor acknowledges this in an cold opening that was cut from the air, featuring the comedian, in a close up, talking about how he would never give anything up for his humor to be displayed properly, leading the camera to pull back to reveal his nude, dickless body, as a way of showing how the network "emasculated" him in terms of toning his humor down. The close-up of Pryor's akward face has provided the show's title card above.

The restrictions reared it's ugly head and did no justice to some of the skits, in particular, one where Pryor, as Santa Clause, saying some raw things regarding Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, which was repeatedly blocked out with the word "censored" against a black background and completed with the audio "bleep". With no deleted material involving this skit surfacing, we, the viewers, are pretty much left to use our imaginations. (I assumed he said Rudolph was a crackhead, as he finished that statement off with "Why do you think he's nose is so red?" ) While the rating were poor, Pryor decides to put the show to rest after finishing only four episodes rather than 10 as he was obligated to do according to his contract. The show was released on DVD for the first time in 2004, which I have on me right now.

The show at best was decent, if pretty uneven in concept, as we get occasional dramatic skits and extended musical acts to act along the existing comedic material; the results kinda come off as jarringly mismatched rather than unpredictable than what Pryor and co intended it to be. For instance there's one skit starting off with Richard doing a hilarious Little Richard impression, which is randomly interrupted by a white noise that fades in on a woman sitting in a chair, telling a story about her first lesbian experience, which is, of course, ridden with the censored bars at each mention of the event. Then it resumes to Pryor's Little Richard performace. That came completely out of nowhere and added absolutely nothing. Another odd, but notheless powerful, skit involves richard going into a gun store to purchase a gun, only to hear several guns talking to Rich in need of being bought. The collection of voices drove Richard out because of the evil and ills of possessing gun control. What made it powerful is the one gun telling Rich, with an innocent, child-like voice, that it didn't mean to hurt people. Like the bit with the woman telling her story, it seriously lacked a laugh track, but for more important reasons. It was a funny concept that took a dramatic turn; representing the social commentary Pryor was also known for, although it was a stark constrast to his stand-up act about how he shot up his car while drunk.

Of course, some good laughs abound as well; with Pryor portraying a cowboy who gets shot repeatelly in the gunfight while struggling to pull his pistol out, a samurai spouting out side-slitting Japanese gibberish, and Santa in the aforementioned censored skit. The first episode has a funny one involving a bar similar to the Cantena (I think that's how you spell it) from Star Wars, complete with the creatures and everything. All Rich does is interact with them like regular people in a way, saying to one big alien that he "looked like a nigga from Detroit I knew". Then some comedy could fall into "Your Milage May Vary" territory (that's TV Tropes talk). Like one skit where Pryor portrays a death metal rocker.

He starts growling, chanting and kissing on a groupie. He exclaims, mid lyric, "I'm gonna kill all of you", then proceeds to pull out a machine gun and slaughters his audience. It's funny if you're into that type of dark humor and disturbing with the silent overview of the corpses. All Rich, as the rocker, says after all of this is "Far out". Indeed. In-fucking-deed.

The DVD is a must have regardless of the restrictions and some of the half-brained skits. The three disc set come with all four episodes and the tv special that inspired them. Along with it is a bonus script containing unfilmed skits, deleted scenes, an extended roast, the alternate series opening, Q&As and a monologue with Pryor as his popular alter-ego Mudbone that cannot be missed. If you come across it on Amazon or ebay, give a shot if you're interested.. Overall it's a 7.2/10.

I'll have more DVD reviews in the future. 'Til then, laters. :-D




The Richard Pryor Show is courtesy of Burt Sugarman INC, Indigo Productions, and Image Entertainment DVD.

My Bad

Hey, folks. Remember a few days ago when I promised to do an DVD review? Well, turns out that I was bullshitting. I was suposed to review the DVD box set of  the short-lived sketch comedy show The Richard Pryor Show, starring.......well, Richard Pryor.

Well, for those of y'all who read the last part of my "It's a Beautiful Day" post regarding my review of a DVD involving a certain "controversial, yet influential comedic figure", y'all pretty much saw it coming.....unless if I was talking about this guy....

I haven't got around to watching most of the show because, believe me, there are times when some of the sketch material don't go anywhere or occassionally falls flat, but I will get to those faults with my actual review as soon as I get to watch the damn thing again in it's entirety. When I do see it sometimes, it's when repeats are shown on the African American-centric tv network TV One, but those are just glimpses when I go channel surfing. But that's all I have to report, I will get back with you sooner or later with my critique. 'Til then, laters.


 R.I.P. Richard Pryor and George Carlin.

                                                        


(sighs) If only this cover was honest.










The Richard Pryor Show is courtesy of Indigo Entertainment/Image DVD, Car Wash is courtesy of Universal Pictures

It's a Beautiful Day

      In case you're wondering why I chose that for my title, I'm currently spending much needed time to myself at the Culver Center in Culver City, California. It's a shopping center consisting of several notable food joints (Panda Express, Subway, California Pizza Kitchen, etc.) Health and Fitness centers (Bally's) and retail stores (Best Buy, Game Stop, etc.) and I happen to be sitting next to the Subway typing my ass away on how much sun I'm getting in addition to the cool breeze coming in. The view from here is great as I'm sitting several feet away from Sony Pictures Studio; watching cars go by and people crossing the street.

Those are few of the pros about chilling here. The cons involves the wi-fi I'm recieving, which lapses back and forth from good to fucking ridiculous, and this steel black table I'm typing on, in which one of the screws is loose and I pretty much have to put up with the constant scrapping sounds as I'm pressing on the laptop with my palm while typing, therefore pressing on the table top as well.

                                      
 Despite that, I'm still enjoying my time here and think about what else that's notable or mundate that I can blog about for the sake of y'all getting some sort of entertainment value. So...that's all. I'm done typing for the day but I will return soon with a DVD review regarding one of comedy's controversial, yet influential figures. BTW, if you ever roll by Washington and Overland, feel free to drop by the Culver Center, it's a clean environment,  has a nice selection of stores to shop at and restaurants at dine at, and there's a chance that any of you people can spot me there...or not.  'Til then, laters. :-D

Late-night Mallrats Salvation.

     I thought I was going to endure another boring-ass night of late-night premium cable viewing. It's one of those moments where no matter how many times I scroll through the channel guide, I find nothing that would hold my interest, at least until Star Trek: TNG comes on, which will not be on until 3:00AM. So I figured "screw it" I planned on resorting to my DVD collection or view something on Youtube or Spill.com, until I came across Kevin Smith's Mallrats on one of the Starz! channels. My spirits were up high and I was ready to laugh my ass off...again....for the seven hundreth time!!

We all know that this is Smith's 2nd film after the low budget Sundance hit that was Clerks. Sure it was box office flop and recieved poor reviews (well, not too bad since it has a 50-something rating on Rotten Tomatoes), but it gained a strong cult following over the years and became a well-regarded entry in Smith's "Askewniverse" Films, which were, at it's time, the irreverent, foul-mouthed, crude humored equivalent of today's Marvel Cinematic Universe. Like those films, past events are referenced (Julie Dweyer's passing, the unhinged sexual activities of a Cousin Walter, etc.), characters are crossing over (the always omnipresent Jay & Silent Bob), foreshadowing (the orangutan at the end of this film had a prominent role in Jay & Silent Bob Strikes Back), and the reconcilliation of the film's tones being slightly off-kilter (Clerks and Clerks 2 have fairly realistic settings, Mallrats and J&SBSB have a pretty cartoonish, but riotious tone and Dogma was religious fantasy-cum-bitting satire), with the exception that none of these guys have armored suits, gamma-induced mutations, or godly powers with guys named Loki being invol.....oh, wait, never mind..

The point I'm trying to make is that these are normal, hopeless, hair-brained and otherwise shiftless guys that we could connect to and laugh at as well, being that those qualities make them acceptable targets. It's just a idiotic but neverheless fun movie with a few moments of brilliance that revolves around two guys getting over their respective break-ups by heading to a mall, where they plot to win their girlfriends back, discuss the sexual activities of superheroes, and run afoul of one of the gf's dad. The conversations they hold are hilarious of fucked-up proportions and their actions are morally uncompromising, and that's what make this film a great late night viewing.




Mallrats and Dogma are courtesy of Universal Studios and Lionsgate Entertainment respectively.

Ren's Friend Advice: Ditch Aaron.

    Hey folks. Ren is here and I got some insane, jerkass wisdom (or wis-dumb) to share with y'all. With all have friends in our lives. They're there with you through the best and worst of times, shaped you in some ways, and helped you out. Then we also have friend's that fall into the "dysfunction junction" territory. We still have the aforementioned traits, at times, but we like to crack jokes on one another, battle each other on who can drive to In-N-Out Burgers first, and play some pretty shitty games on each other as well. Among these games are "Ditch Aaron". I know what y'all thinking; "What the fuck is that?" Well let me school ya. Ditch Aaron is named for a very "distinctive" member of our five-man band named Aaron Lacy.

Well, seven actually.

                              

He's pictured in the middle, sitting between me (wearing the black and gray jacket, looking pretty lost) and Lance, and holding a laptop, looking up with a borderline creepy stare. That among other things are his key characteristics (bad driving, overeating, lack of impulse control, etc.) but we'll delve into that next time but get to the game. It involves a group of friends leaving a fellow man behind when he is frequently distracted by the opposite sex to the point that he disregards his comrades. This action can apply to anyone of the group, especially Aaron. Whenever we are out and about (usually to a mall) and Aaron trails off to try to mack to a girl, Jeremy, our group's (de-facto) leader, initiates the game by saying "Quick, leave him". Before you know it, we stormed down the escalater and out of that motherfucker like if we had stolen something, then jumped into the car and started it up before Aaron caught up with us, just so we can drive around him in circles, taunting him. It wasn't the first time this has occured; there have been many great stories told of this on-going game.

It may sound like cold blooded torture, but for us, it was epic. In a way it was Karma directed at him, for his repeated attempts hooking up with chicks by coming on very strong. So we had to keep him in line and calm him down hormonally. But still, Aaron's a determinator. He does not feel remorse, he cannot be reasoned with, he will not stop until you are defiled. To make a long story short, never leave your fucking crew behind just to get lucky for selfish reasons or else you will be left behind. Never! Have self control in your game. Allow the target....I mean girl have some space. With that said you can continue to use this tatic to get back at your own horn-dog buddy. I mean it; do it. It can happen to somene at the club and your pal would say "Hey, brosky. Ronny has a massive hard-on and he's talking to those girls. You know, the ones with jealous bfs. What should we do?" Then that's when you would say "Let's pull a Ditch Aaron on him."
"Who the fuck is Aaron?"
"Don't worry about it, let's just leave his ass."
So fellas, if you're looking to screw with your own boy, take this cruel act of hilarity in consideration.