Supertrain

See, this is how it works. This is how my mind runs with things. Vodka till two, coffee in the morning, and then it's like gentlemen start your engines, run and gun, June Jones calls the play and then it's Bobby Hebert to Andre Rison for the touchdown, Left Eye burns down his house but wasn't it a damn shame when she got taken away from us so early like that?

Sometimes it's frenetic. Sometimes my mind gets in a place where it's looking for somewhere to roost. Hoping for a challenge or some kind of idea to stick with. Sometimes when I get like that and I can't find the right thing it gets frustrating, and I feel all restless and caged up. Drives me nuts. Other times I link into one idea only to ping pong off to all sorts of different tangents connected to it by some little detail I've picked up along the way in my life.

Like the other day -- I'm at my place, looking for an escape from broken air conditioner hell and I end up at Jackrabbits to catch a few bands. When I get there the place is wall to wall with annoying stoners, which gets under my skin to the point where I get an idea for a story.

So I'm hashing out the piece and connecting all the dots, and somewhere along the line I was reminded of all the funny rips Jake Busey (btw, am I the only one out there that liked Shasta McNasty for the 5 seconds it was on TV back in the day?) and John Favreau were making about stoners in that great old flick PCU.

Instantly I have a title for the rant (although to be honest I almost called it "Jerrytown"). I write the thing and I feel pretty good about it -- but then all I can think of is how long it's been since I've actually seen PCU, so after I get off work I jump over to the video store and get it.

So this morning I'm all hair of the dog watching the DVD, and despite the fact that it's always been a second-rate Animal House and the script is so steeped with jokes about 90's culture that it can't escape being dated -- it still kills me every time. That scene where they throw all the raw meat on the Vegans, The Caine-Hackman Theory, -- and of course, one of the my favorite movie lines of all time:
What's this? You're going to wear this to the show? You're wearing
the shirt of the band you're going to see? -- Don't be that guy.
But I'm watching the flick and one of the things that I notice (which is one of the things I really like about the film) is just how natural the interplay is between the actors, especially with guys like Jeremy Piven, John Favreau, and Alex Désert (who I've always thought was great) and it dawns on me that Favreau and Désert were both in Swingers with Vince Vaughn (which is also a great film, I need to rent that next).
Quick Sidebar here, because I don't want to lose the train I'm on, but -- Favorite Scene
in Swingers -- Is it Making Gretzky's Head Bleed, Double Down on 11, or You're So Money?
Hmm..Gotta think about that one.
Anyways, I'm kinda distracted by whole Swingers connection to PCU when an action montage comes up on the screen featuring a song by Steve Vai, who did the score for the film. I know that because the tune is on an album I own called "The Elusive Light And Sound" featuring Vai's soundtrack work.

Of course the great thing about that disc is that it's got all the music from the sequence in Crossroads where he played the Devil's hired-gun guitarist Jack Butler for the head-cuttin' duel against the Karate Kid (Vai actually wrote and performed both guitar parts in the scene -- but I love it when he acts like he can't figure out how to play that one arpeggio at the end and ends up throwing his guitar on the floor in disgust [Take that, ..Satan?] -- maybe I need to rent that again too, eh?).

Man, watching this really makes me want to go play some guitar.
..Which probably would be a good thing since I've completely forgotten what it was I sat down to write about in the first place.
Dammit Steve!
[Listening to:    Steve Vai"Now We Run" ]

Comments