words of wisdom from the genius tommy wiseau

hey yall (or as my brother loves to correct me, you all)
i have nothing to blog about so here are some words of wisdom from one of the most "infamous" filmmakers of our generation. name: tommy wiseau, age: unknown, origin: supposedly new orleans, grasp of the english language: better than both my grandmothers, I.Q.: infinity

"Think about first 20 percent, then you think about 100 percent. We have a tendency, including myself to say “I’d like to have this 100 percent,” but you cannot have it. Because you have to plan, you see. Let’s say you want to build a house. You need a foundation first before you have a window. You may think about window but guess what? If you don’t have a foundation, I guess you cannot build a house. As simple as it is. Simplicity is a virtue of success and we tend to ah, forget about it."- tommy wiseau

interview with the room's tommy wiseau

team coco for life

as i am sure you have all seen/read/heard conan "coco" o'brien is no longer the host of the tonight show. for those of you who live under a rock or are still depressed because of avatar, here is what happened: after the clusterfuck of "the jay leno show" in primetime, coco quit because nbc wanted to push him to 12:05am in order to give jay leno a half-hour show. he felt that moving the show would damage the institution that is "the tonight show".  the seemingly unfair treatment of the beloved coco struck a chord with millions of young people, many of which don't know a late night tv without conan. as both a coco fan and a communications major, it has been disappointing yet fascinating to witness this all happen. conan's ratings rocketed his last week prompting many critics to say smart ass things like, why weren't you watching the whole time? while i watched this last week, i proudly turned my little brother into a coco fan as well, better late than never. i even found myself crying during his closing monologue and promised to coco and myself to try and be less cynical. i will google what that entails later.

as this whole mess unfolded, at times i felt my despair over the whole situation was a bit irrational. yes, i have been a legit conan fan since high school and i actually watched him host the tonight show before the whole mess, not every night but enough to say i watched, but i still felt (on occasion) that maybe i was too emotionally involved. i found myself thinking, am i really going to not watch 30 rock, the biggest loser, and the olympics over this? (yeah that's pretty much all nbc has to offer me now anyways)

another comedian i like, michael ian black, was sorta able to rationalize the situation on his website, norma rae i say sorta because while, i understand where he is coming from and don't disagree completely, i have to say.... dude,  i am not that upset. i can't speak for anyone else but i am pretty sure people have the capacity to be passionate about more than one issue in the world, be it "frivolous" or not. maybe he is just hating a little because no one  rallied around the cancellation of stella. (loved that show) however, i think he made a few decent points including this one:

We see Conan as a victim because we feel as though, like us, he wasn’t given a fair shot. If a guy like that, a guy who has everything, can be downsized and demoted, what hope do the rest of us have?

i don't really view conan as a symbol for my struggles or someone i can relate to, but rather a reminder that no matter how educated, well-trained, or talented you are, nothing is guaranteed in life, and you can either act like a petulant child about it or you can have integrity and class and keep going.

stay classy coco!

All I ask is one thing -- and I’m asking this particularly of young people -- please don’t be cynical. I hate cynicism, for the record, it’s my least favorite quality and it doesn’t lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.- coco o'brien

always look on the bright side of life...

since watching monty python's life of brian, i have always tried to look on the bright side of life. it's meant to be a bit tongue and cheek, but it's pretty spot on, life really can be a piece of shit.

it's never easy to look on the bright side of things when things are pretty awful. sometimes, you never find it and sometimes it takes a while to figure it out. for example, being unemployed sure sucks but i've been able to build up my portfolio, do some post-adolescent soul searching (blah, blah,blah), and most importantly, be there for my family when they needed me (but seriously, i've been to the hospital more times than i've been to the mall).

when tragedy strikes, it's nearly impossible to see the bright side. last night, i sat alone in the basement, in tears, watching cnn coverage of the earthquake in haiti. it was heartbreaking to watch the destruction and despair, the pictures of missing family members. i thought of my uncle robert, who is haitian, and praying that his family and friends were alive and as safe as they could be. i was beginning to feel that same depression i had felt when watching coverage of the tsunami, 9/11, and hurricane katrina. i knew it was in my best interest to turn the tv off. but then i saw that small glimmer of light, the only bright side to any tragedy...

images from google/my desktop collection

anderson cooper...and his unbelievably tight t-shirts.


i remember the first time really noticing anderson cooper ( i had totally forgotten he hosted the mole), i was in a hotel in milan watching coverage of hurricane katrina. while most journalists were seeking refuge indoors, he was outside braving it all.  last night, seeing the silver fox reporting in his black t-shirt, with his bulging biceps, and shimmering silver hair made me feel a tiny bit better. it doesn't make things any less tragic. yet, watching him provides a bizarre sense of assurance that eventually things will improve, that help is on the way, and that the silver fox is there to make sure it all happens.

for haiti

i urge the five people who read this blog to pray for haiti (or think about it if you don't pray). donate anything you can. even if it's a couple dollars, it's a couple dollars they need. i prefer to go through the most reliable routes since there are darksided people who try and take advantage of people's generosity in times of need:

mercy corps

red cross

i try not to be preachy about donating or anything but haiti is the most impoverished country in the western hemisphere and i have family members from haiti so it's a country that is close to my heart.

xoxo
bonnquisha

i wish you would step off from that ledge...

okay, so despite what may have come across in my avatar post, i have always really liked james cameron's work. sure aliens and terminator scared the crap out of me but they were still awesome; and i appreciate his consistent use of strong female characters. i think i watched true lies a dozen times when i was a kid. i think he has a gift of creating fictional universes that feel so real. he is able to captivate people and move them beyond belief. literally. beyond belief. because according to cnn, people are suicidal now, all because the world of pandora doesn't exist.

"Ever since I went to see 'Avatar' I have been depressed. Watching the wonderful world of Pandora and all the Na'vi made me want to be one of them. I can't stop thinking about all the things that happened in the film and all of the tears and shivers I got from it," Mike posted. "I even contemplate suicide thinking that if I do it I will be rebirthed in a world similar to Pandora and the everything is the same as in 'Avatar.'

CNN: Audiences Experience 'Avatar' Blues

i know it's only tuesday but...jesus, take the wheel!

this is just ridiculous. i totally understand that people make profound personal connections with movies (its the only way to explain my love for spice world and the room.) but at the end of the day, you have to put on the breaks and remember these are movies. sure you can dissect them and analyze them to find the meanings and metaphors, but they are still movies, moving pictures, pretend, make believe, not real life! i don't even know, this is escapism gone too far. sigh, oh the humanity.

old people just don't give a shit

when people get past a certain age, before it was sixty but with botox and stuff it might have gone up to seventy, they don't give a shit anymore. they say what they want, do what they want, and don't apologize, why?...because they are old!

when my great-grandmother (who i was named after) met my father, she told him if he ever hit my mom, she would beat his ass with a baseball bat and didn't care if they'd send her to jail because she was old. he never did and even though she passed a way, rip, i'm pretty sure she'd still find away to come after him if he ever did.

today my friend sent me this story: man crashes car into restaurant, eats breakfast

basically, a 92 year old man pushed drive instead of park and crashed into a diner, instead of being fazed and concerned about the restaurant or his car, he sat down and ordered breakfast ( i hope it wasn't eggs). sure he asked if anyone was hurt, but he was probably just thinking about some warm fluffy pancakes. why? because he is old and he doesn't give a shit.

the article stated:

"Come out of his car, no problem. He sat down at the table, has his breakfast, and God bless America, beautiful,"

this was beautiful?.....um...huh?...did he sing god bless america? whose quote is this? probably someone who got hit by the car and forgot about it or just a redneck. oh well.

oh james cameron...i see what you did there

if you haven't seen avatar, go see it! it is truly an awesome movie and it deserves every technical award ever made, i don't really know what those are but the movie deserves them. it is nothing like you've ever seen before.

but, like many people i have my grievances with the film. my issues with avatar aren't very unique and have been pointed out by many people. it's not because great minds think alike but rather,  james cameron is as subtle as a hockey puck to the face. (i used hockey b/c he's canadian and i used to play)

for those of you who haven't seen the movie, this is where you stop reading this post. buh-bye.

maybe they'll produce my film: The Last Nigga on Earth starring Tom Hanks how 'bout that?"- paul mooney

anyways, so my problem with avatar began back during the world series when fox would air those five minute trailer/promos for the movie. i said to the inefficient detective, "ah this is some ferngully shit." she replied, "what's a ferngully?" this was the opposite of the problem i posted about a week ago, instead of being tricked by the trailer, i pretty much knew the entire story of the film, beginning, middle, and end. i didn't predict the giant bird but i knew he'd make alien love to the daughter and end up becoming their leader.

it's actually a bit ironic, for something that felt like something i've never seen before, it felt a whole lot  like something i had seen before. that is because avatar is basically  dance with wolves+ fern gully+ a made up language (ala lord of the rings) + the blue man group. you can't really say the movie has environmentalist or anti-imperialism undertones because that would mean they were underlying, which they were not. 

the dialogue was  corny, "i see you" = "i'll never let go", and the characters were exaggerated and one dimensional, such as, villain is villain, hero is hero, except the tree, the tree wasn't just a tree. and similar to titanic,  you know a lot of people are going to die, something epic will be destroyed, and you'll probably feel more for the hundreds of randos that died than any peril for the main characters. (yes i confess, i didn't cry when jack died in titanic, mainly because it didn't make sense, there were lots of scraps he could have held on to and bitch said she'd never let go but she did. i apologize for this rant but i felt this was an appropriate time). and jake and jack, james cameron that's practically the same name!

however, this is all feels like a  moot point, because avatar isn't a movie you go to see for the story. you go for the visuals. and james cameron sure is an effin visionary! plus, society recycles stories over and over, because it's easy and because in a weird way it's comforting. sure avatar had some white guilt, something i would usually go on and on for hours about, but this time  i choose not to for a few reasons but mainly because i am lazy right now and every once and a while i wish i could watch a movie and not think, hmm what would spike lee say about this?

instead, i will just hope that hollywood will be so amazed at the epic-ness of the film that they will never want to create another story like it, ever again. (or for at least 20 years) because i honestly don't even want to know what other kinds of spin someone can put on the white guy saving native people story. they've already done: dif native american tribes, the japanese, fairies, and blue alien people.

EDIT: i came home and found this article: avatar=pocahontas in space...how did i forget about pocahontas? probs bc i only think of the colors of the wind and forgot the story once i found out it wasn't acurate b/c she was like 10 when she met john smith (calling chris hansen)