Mem'ries...That's What Malt Liquor Is Foooooor... In which our intrepid Birthday Boy (ME!) does his best to remember his special day April 28th, 7:49 a.m. (EST): Your beloved Japhy first entered into this realm of existence, shedding light and poorly executed blogs onto this fair fair little planet. The year was 1979, Jimmy Carter was in charge (heh heh) and Ma Japhy (the first name being the ancestral signifier in my clan) looked upon her darling bouncing blue-haired boy and turned to Pa Japhy and said "When's 'Welcome Back Kotter' on next?" Flash forward twenty-four long years. Now back up two days, since nobody celebrates their birthday on a Monday. Now, for those who couldn't make it (Jill- I'm looking at you. Teleportation troubles my lily-white ass!) I'm going to recount my birthday party for you. Unfortunately, I remember none of it (or at least that's the conceit this blog is based on), but I just got back from the one-hour photo lab, where the disposable cameras that I gave to my Smizmar and Mme. Producer-Face (nicknames make other feel excluded!) have come back. Their job: To document my party for posterity. So, without further ado, I will tell you what happened on my birthday, based on what these telling documents provide. Roll #1: We start with Mr. Producer-Face's roll. It looks like I started the evening by being blinded by a big white flash of light. More accurately, it seems my shoulder was the target, snappily outfitted in a herringbone jacket that appears to fit just right. Next, I am sitting on a bench next to my Smizmar (Google it, if you must). My Smizmar is smiling smarmily, I look on in terror. Next it appears I was in some kind of tropical forest with chandeliers. The men (and there are a lot of them, it seems) are all dressed either like extras for "Rushmore" or an Annie Lennox video. Strange. Wherever could this place be? It seems then that I attacked Mr. Producer-Face, beer in hand in hand in mouth, who was busy telling people, "I know what you are" (It's coming back to me). Next people around me, people like Fiona and Sammi and Dyann and her long-lost-brother Denver, all drink. And here's some more pictures of people drinking. And some more. Sammi drinking. Dyann drinking. Little plastic red straws in little plastic cups. My drinks were all in glass. And Fi called my drink (a gin and tonic), "bourgeois"! Whatever plastic cup girl! Oh, here's some more shots of people drinking. My Smizmar looks drunk and is giving the hang-ten sign. Go Wildcat Go! There's an awful picture of me here. I look like a crackhead. Actually, in all these pictures, I look like a crackhead. More drinking pics. Oh look! My Smizmar is necking Fiammi (no small feat, come to think about it, considering the nature of Fiammi). Some Smizmar you are. Next, I'm outside smoking with my former roommate, Ms. Bette Davis. (You're still reading this?) I look like a crackhead, but it looks like someone gave me a rose. Was it Bette? No, no- Ms. Davis only brings herself, and that's enough. She talks about how she is dating an eighteen year old and how he thinks she's a homophobe. Poor Bette. Next, I am drinking again. Ah- here we enter into a series of shots. It seems I was serenaded by a group of Amazons. Large, statuesque Amazons in heels.Picture after picture. Why, Mr. Producer-Face seems to have gone crazy with taking pictures of these statuesque creatures. So very many pictures. All this film. It seems Mr. Producer-Face loves those Amazons. Thank God, I have all these pictures of Amazons to remind me of my birthday. Oooh, look! drunk people that I know! They're all having the kind of fun that comes from a .09 blood-alcohol level! Huzzah! Roll #2: On to my Smizmar's photo's. My Smizmar , being a professional Smizmographer, manages to get the smizography in focus far more than Jared..er- Mr. Producer-Face. There's some photo where I am in shock. I think it has something to do with one of the Amazons. Perhaps it was Hedda Amazon. Oh look, my Smizmar is taking photos of himself! There's Denver, Fiona and Sammi each in a pose that perfectly encapsulates their personality. If only I had decided to get the Photo CD, you could see what I mean. They all look great! I'm really white it seems. So chalky. Do I really look like this? God, I'm old and white! It gets better though- because now, I am singing. But not really singing, because I am drunk and this is karaoke. Somehow I manage to turn "Suddenly Seymour" into a hard rock song. What the hell is musical-theatre doing at my party?!? There's so much beer on the karaoke table, but look, look, Jared drinks it all down. I look so weird. Everyone else looks great. I'm a freak, I'm a chalky, white, old, freak! To hone in the point, my Smizmar and Producer-Face sing me a finale of, "Space Oddity", showing me that the path of all chalky white, old freaks. Dyann, seeing a buxom young woman in lycra on the karaoke screen, screams out, "That's Ground Control!" That's Ground Control indeed, Dyann. I'll never forget you. I'll never forget all of you who came to my 24th! Except for Charlie, since he's only in one blurry picture and is half-cut off. I'll forget you. The rest of you, however- thank you so much for making my birthday so unforgettable. Now that I had these rolls of film developed, that is. Fer the record- I loved loved loved loved loved my birthday party and loved loved loved all who attended for making it so great- even Jared! P.S.- For a more cogent description of my bday celebration, I suggest you check out Ms. So-Much-Modern-Time, who I am forever indebted to. I owe you taquitos galore!

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posted by Japhy at 4/28/2003 05:08:00 PM || #

A Day Late For Shakespeare* Here in this seasons melancholy winter'd spring, My roach-filled room and convalescents robe becomes the scene by which I play out a plotless tale of self-reckoning. Where Stratford's long-dead son's the mirror I think most keen, Most like in Plato's form, to that future thing I long to be, Or not; more likely just a younger versions daydream of quilled keyboard skills that have no bearing on impotent me. You've become a bronze-hewn statue and an idolater is what I seem. Born the date you died, a lousy worshipper, I miss the mark by a day and bring your feastly offering too late, a dish now served cold, So your bright candle's spark will surely fail to light my way. Thoughtless, thankless, I will depart from your folio's temple fold. If I must choose between slavish love to your storied everlasting flame and nothingness, I'll forget you Will, take to the storm, and seek out my own quicksilver fame. *Shakespeare's birthday/deathday was April 23rd. Yesterday.

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posted by Japhy at 4/23/2003 09:35:00 PM || #

Dirty Girls Come Clean A big day for feminist entertainment: "Spirited Away" is released on DVD and "Buffy: The Vampire Slayer" airs the first of it's finale-arc episodes. Inevitable comparisons follow. In Hayao Miyazaki's brilliant Oscar-winning animated epic, "Spirited Away", out on DVD today, a bored ten year old girl finds herself in a world where she must confront horrific and wondrous creatures and in doing so, finds her own inner power and and joy for the world. In Joss Whedon's seven-year long show, "Buffy: The Vampire Slayer", which begins its five part finale tonight, a spirited young girl finds herself in a world where she must confront horrific and morally ambiguous evils and in doing so, finds her inner power and loses her soul. These two heroine's, Chihiro and Buffy, both represent a neo-feminist vision of girl power, where women are warriors without being Amazons, but they achieve their ends through wildly different means. Both begin their journeys as typical girls, more or less, but while "Spirited Away"'s Chihiro succeeds because she opens her eyes to the magic and beauty around her and rises to her challenges with silent determination, Buffy has railed against her calling for five years and then when she finally resigned herself to her fate (and rising from the dead), she abandoned her lust for life in the process. I've been wishing that Buffy would die (for good) for a while now. She has become bitter and caustic and sees saving the world as a real chore. Though series creator Whedon has long been tauted up as a feminist, it seems that the later-day Buffy, after suffering death, abandonment, near rape and betrayal has more in common with hard-drinking 40 year old divorce's than with Chihiro's soft-spoken dreamer. Buffy is a hero, but inhuman, while Chihiro is a hero because of her humanity. Chihiro is driven by her love for her parents, Buffy is driven by- god, will somebody please tell me? This isn't to disparage "Buffy". It remains a show that is a cut above the average television fare, but with five episodes to go, it seems that the once sweet and wisecracking girl who gave her one-true-love a tear-stained kiss right before she was forced to kill him is unlikely to return. Perhaps "Buffy" is the truer vision: People, when confronted with the incomprehensible, tend to cauterize their emotions, but give me Chihiro's kindness to No-Face any day. Any girl who can ask a monster that just tried to eat her to join her for an enchanted train ride is fine in my book. Chihiro wins us over through the purity of her heart, Buffy just knows how to stake them.

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posted by Japhy at 4/15/2003 12:54:00 AM || #

Gone Fishin' till Sunday.

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posted by Japhy at 4/11/2003 08:11:00 AM || #

V-I DAY Well, unless you're living in a bunker, you've seen it: Hundreds of Iraqi's surrounding Firdos Square, taking individual shots with a sledge hammer at the base of a giant statue of Saddam. You've seen the Marine tank come over to help, first covering the face of Saddam with a U.S. flag and then replacing that with Iraq's pre-Saddam national flag. You saw Saddam's statue with chains around it's neck, then pulled from the base by the Marine tank. Then you saw the fallen statue covered with cheering Iraqi's. You saw the head of the statue being dragged through the streets, Iraqi's riding their former leader's head. You saw Iraqi's taking off their shoes and throwing them at the fallen statue, one of the greatest insults in Arab culture. Congratulations to the people of Iraq. Congratulations to the U.S. and British men and women who have had the courage to make this day possible. What you haven't seen is infighting between all the Shiites, Suni's and Kurds in the city, as old scores suddenly feel an urgent need to be settled. You haven't seen civil war break out sporadically. You haven't seen the struggle to feed and provide medical aide to a war torn country. You haven't seen the long hard road to peace, but you will. Let's not win the war and lose the peace. Whatever feelings you have had about this war, I think we can all rally around the task ahead. What a day. Footnote: We still don't know if Saddam is alive or dead. Al-Jazeera is claiming that Saddam may be seeking refuge in the Russian Embassy in Baghdad. Who knows what the truth is, but I post it here because it hasn't shown up in any of the U.S. coverage. Needless to say, Saddam's power has vanished.

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posted by Japhy at 4/09/2003 10:05:00 AM || #

Cécile de Brunhoff, Creator of Babar, Dies at 99 In 1930, Cécile de Brunhoff told her sons, Mathieu and Laurent, a bedtime story about an elephant who leaves the jungle to live in Paris. Mathieu and Laurent told the story to their father, Jean de Brunhoff, an artist and book illustrator, the next day he turned his wife's story into a book called "The Story of Babar". Yesterday, at the age of 99, Cécile de Brunhoff died. I adored Babar as a kid. I had the kind of enthusiasm for Babar that only a child can have for something he loves. My Mom and Dad would read me the stories constantly, and there were over forty in all. I don't know if it was the beautifully illustrated drawings that seemed to come from a different universe entirely or if it was simply that the elephant's name was fun to say, but I could not get enough of Babar. The things that happened to Babar were not unlike the things that happen in many children's books, but Babar seemed to take it all in with a sense of detached wonder. Clearly, being from the Indian jungle, he had picked up some Buddhism. He was also defiantly not cute. His eyes were mere pinpricks and his ears were wrinkly. Compared to today's saccharine, google-eyed cartoons, Babar was downright homely and I loved him for it. Babar's genius was that he showed kids just how ridiculous the lives of grown-ups are, but also how fun it is to be a part of it all.

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posted by Japhy at 4/08/2003 12:37:00 AM || #

Saddam & Me In which our intrepid author explores the nature of good and evil, admits to some troubling desires and reminisces on what it's like to share a birthday with one of the most evil men on the planet. While most people share birthdays with celebrities like Melanie Griffith or maybe at worst, Don Rickles, I share my birthday, April 28th, with none other than Saddam " I've named everything in Iraq after me" Hussein. I found this out on my fifteenth birthday, when my parents bought me one of those tiny little books they sell at Hallmark filled with useless facts about your special day. I can only assume that the good people at Hallmark must have had a hell of a time finding famous people born on my birthday and having to include somebody, included Saddam. April 28th also happens to be Holocaust Remembrance Day, which is ironic to you, I'm sure, but really a bummer for me. Since I turned fifteen (almost nine years ago), I occasionally have thought about this man who usually celebrates his birthday by having his Republican Guard fire several hundreds rounds of ammunition into the air over Liberation Square. Like him, I enjoy making a big deal out of my birthday. I consider birthday's to be the one day out of the year that someone can do whatever they please and everyone has to like it. Unlike Saddam, though, I limit my megalomania the other 364 days of the year. Still, I can't help but wondering what it is that divides us, Saddam and I. I mean other than the fact that he's a despotic torturer who has ruled with fear and force, while my most notable leadership position so far has been being the Senior Patrol Leader of my Boy Scout Troop. Saddam was born in the tiny town of Auja in 1937, growing up in a mud brick village northwest of Baghdad. I was conceived in a trailer park just downwind of the the local race horse track in Pawtucket, Rhode Island in 1979. His parents were poor farmers, mine were a policeman and a respiratory therapist. Saddam joined the Socialist Baath Party when he turned 19. In my high school's 1996 mock presidential election, I campaigned vigorously for Monica Moorehead, who was the Socialist candidate. She lost, but garnered a remarkable 15% of the vote. Of course, I did that just for fun, though I think Saddam was more serious. Three years after Saddam joined the party he took part in a failed assassination plot against Iraqi Prime Minister Abudul Karim Kassim and was forced to flee the country for several years. I have not tried to assassinate anyone, though I have been known to say mean things about my "former high school rival" Andy Hicks, making me a definite part of his own personal Axis of Evil. In 1968, Saddam took part in the revolt that put Gen. Ahmed Hassan Bakr into power in Iraq. Eleven years later he deposed Bakr and made himself sole ruler of Iraq. I moved to New York and pretended to be living in a tony West Village apartment in a 1999 interview with the New York Post, after a real estate friend of mine was unable to get any of his own clients to agree to be interviewed. I was also on MTV, briefly, where I "boy band danced". I failed to depose Bryan McFadden. In the 80's Saddam used chemical weapons to quell a Kurdish uprising in the North. In the 80's my favorite television shows were "Punky Brewster", "Mr. Belvedere" and "Silver Spoons". Hussein has tried to invade Iran (with the help of the U.S.) and Kuwait (not so much help). He was unsuccessful on both occasions. I spent many of my underage years getting into clubs and bars with fake I.D.'s and was, most of the time, pretty successful. Saddam has posters of himself plastered on almost every building of any importance in Iraq. I admit, I'd be pretty cool with having my face plastered all over Times Square, but not if it requires the brutal slaughtering of women and children (heck, men too). Mr. Hussein is surrounded by a cadre of elite soldiers and yes-men who follow him out of fear. I am occasionally surrounded by a cadre of hard-drinking friends who on occasion, regardless of their sobriety, feel the urge to tell me just how dorky I am. Unlike Saddam, I do not summarily execute them. Saddam uses dozens of doubles to confuse the populace as to his exact location. I've been told I look a little like "An American Werewolf in Paris" star Tom Everett Scott. In short, we have a lot in common. Other than the fact that Saddam is a man with utterly no morals, who is willing to kill his own people if they get unruly and who has absolutely no respect for the lives of anyone other than his own. Also, I am not a dead man.

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posted by Japhy at 4/07/2003 09:00:00 PM || #

Sunday Brunch @ Japhyjunket: The Last Picture Show Ed. Note: Starting today, Japhyjunket will be featuring a "Sunday Brunch" each week. In the spirit of the Sunday Brunch, Japhyjunket will serve up some of life's little pleasures for you to enjoy over some eggs benedict and mimosas. As a major snowstorm threatens to hit the NYC area, this week's brunch is designed to be enjoyed from the comfort of your home. Only a trip to your local non-Blockbuster video store is required. In 1971, a little known director took a cast of unknowns to the unknown town of Wichita City to film "The Last Picture Show", a film that, while it was nominated for eight Academy Awards and won two, has become once again, unknown after years of being unavailable on video. The film is now on video and DVD, and it's easy to see why at the time it was released, it was called "the most important work by a young American director since Citizen Kane". Set in Texas in the fifties, "The Last Picture Show" is an honest and sexually frank depiction of one year in the life of town that is barely alive when we first meet it, and is on life support by the time the picture ends. In stark contrast to the town's poverty and desolation, the people who inhabit Abilienne, Texas are full of passion and desire, even if it is boiling under the surface. The story focuses on two friends, Sonny Crawford (Timothy Bottoms) and Duane Jackson (Jeff Bridges), both the stars of a losing football team, and both with eyes for the innocent, yet withering Jacy Farrow (Cybil Shepard, in her screen debut). Sonny works for Sam the Lion (Ben Johnson) who owns the local pool hall, diner and movie house, which are the only sources of entertainment in the town. Along with Sam, three older women: Jacy's comfortably bored mother (Ellen Burstyn), a wise and bitter waitress (Eileen Brennan) and the sexually frustrated coach's wife (Cloris Leachman) mirror the younger sets lives and seem to point to their own future. This, of course, is all the stuff of soap opera potboilers, but the way it is handled by director Peter Bogdanovich, is stunning. Sonny finds himself in a clandestine relationship with the coach's wife, awkwardly getting undressed on separate sides of the bed. Sonny then drops her when Jacy takes an interest in him, even though he seems to know that Jacy's interest in him is out of boredom. There is a scene where Jacy's mother is in her home and she hears a car coming into the driveway. Recognizing the engine's sound as belonging to the car of her own lover, she races to the door in excitement, only to see her daughter in the doorway. Without saying a word, we see Jacy's mother register confusion, realization, jealousy, disappointment and then maternal concern. Jacy makes out with Duane, who she is going steady with, only to appease him before she announces she's going to a pool party with a rich kid (Randy Quaid). He gives her a watch that he has spent months saving up for and then, when she gets to the pool party, she jumps into the pool with the watch on. She shakes it to see if it's still working, but catching the eye of a boy, she abandons the effort and smiles at him. These moments are so beautifully realized, so abundant and so cohesive, that you find yourself becoming intimately aware of the rhythms and limits of these characters' lives. They are all bound to the town, even though it can barely sustain them and really, it's one of the most involving things you'll ever see on film. In stark black & white, the film is shot and lit in a way that is at once luminous and gritty. If Ansel Adams were to have photographed people instead of landscapes, I imagine it would have looked something like this. The film made its cast into stars, but it in some way, by virtue of being so perfect, also set them up for failure. Jeff Bridges and Cybil Shepard have had moderate success, while Timothy Bottoms, who is the heart and soul of this picture and who's every glance from his sad puppy dog eyes is pitch perfect, has spent the past few years impersonating George W. Bush in things like the cancelled Comedy Central sitcom "That's My Bush!"and "The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course". Director Peter Bogdanovich even went so far as to create a sequel to the film called "Texasville", which was universally panned. It seems that the film, like the town in the film, has made them who they are, but refuses to let them leave. Get it @ Amazon.com!

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posted by Japhy at 4/06/2003 01:21:00 AM || #

I Think I Just Changed My Mind From the New York Times: ``Tonight we will do something unconventional, not by the military,'' [Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf ] said. We will do something which I believe is very beautiful. Those remaining soldiers who did not surrender I don't believe they have a great chance of surviving.'' Asked whether ``unconventional'' meant the use of weapons of mass destruction, he replied: ``No. that's not what I said ... What I meant are commando and martyrdom (suicide) operations in a very new, creative way.''

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posted by Japhy at 4/04/2003 10:06:00 AM || #

The NotABlog Hey there gentle readers. This is one of those blogs where I aim to entertain you because I've failed to blog for the past few days. See, I was going to do an April Fool's post, but I couldn't think of anything non-snarky to say (ie: "George W. Bush announced today that once he takes over Iraq, he will hand out 3 million dictionaries with "revised spellings" for such tongue twisters like "nucular" and "misinderestimate", in lieu of humanitarian aide") so I just kept my mouth shut. I was then going to write about "McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales", which has just been released, but Slate beat me to it. I was then really depressed when I heard that my friend Daryl had gone and visited some quirky roadside attraction without inviting me and I debated never blogging again. Also, I was busy celebrating my producer-friend Jared's birthday at Hooters, which sounds like as blogworthy a topic as you can come by, but really, what can you say about a Hooters in New York? I see more ta-ta's on my daily subway ride. Then there was the "April is Poetry Month!" blog that never materialized. It is, you know. Once again, Slate beat me to it- introducing us to one of America's most underrated poets, Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfield. A sample: The Unknown As we know, There are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know There are known unknowns. That is to say We know there are some things We do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, The ones we don't know We don't know. —Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing I almost wanted to write about a discovery I made: If you have an MP3 player or Walkman and play anything by Phillip Glass, somehow everyone around you seems to match perfectly to the soundtrack. Subways speed away with import and when the deli guy puts mayonnaise on your sandwich, you suddenly realize the indescribable beauty and sadness that comes from condiments. I tested my theory and did jumping jacks while listening to Phillip Glass and still somehow, my jumping jacks matched the soundtrack. Of course, they were melancholy jumping jacks. Then, Jill called and since she's who I write this blog for anyways, there really was no point. I'm working on a song about our conversation- It's called "You know it's funny but I have more freedom in Japan then you do in New York" (The "6 year old draws me as a naked stick figure" mix). What I've settled on is to pass along an AP article from South Korea about people named Kim Jong Il. Clearly the good folks at the AP News Desk in Seoul are a little bored as of late. However, all those Kim Jong Il's gives me an amazing idea for a show- "The Many Lives of Kim Jong Il", wherein we see various KJI's dancing, cavorting and possibly breaking out into song. Tee hee, right? Tee fucking hee. Hey, on a positive note, our troops have now taken over Saddam International Airport (Don't get any ideas George, your Dad's boss already got Dulles. Oh God- Will there be a George W. Bush Airport someday?). It seems the Republican Guard aint so elite after all. Although, my screenwriter's brain says, "That was easy. Too easy." See, the reason we haven't found any chemical or biological weapons is because Saddam is combining them together to create a transformation serum that, while untested, will make him into the fire-breathing monster from the U.S. Marines recruitment commercial (you know the one), thereby causing mass destruction (by the way, Boston bands take note: "Mass Destruction" would make a wicked name for an emo/metal band). Yes, I'm detaching from reality. Did I mention I have a tiny Swiss flag on a toothpick?

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posted by Japhy at 4/03/2003 11:53:00 PM || #