Star Whackers

So, since I mainly post entries of notable things that I have taken part in versus talking about my thoughts on particular subjects, or hobbies I have (because I don't have any), or marathons I run (because I don't), I feel what I am about to share with you all definitely fits the bill. 


On friday, I went to the world premiere of Randy and Evi Quaids docudrama "Star Whackers". 

For those of you who don't know of the Quaids plight, a short explanation: 


With charges of fraud and burglary plaguing the couple in the States, in October of 2010 the Quaids sought refugee status in Canada because they believe they are being pursued by a nefarious group of assassins and life-ruiners the "Hollywood Star Whackers". They claim this group is responsible for the death of Heath Ledger, and are currently targeting (alongside themselves) Lindsay Lohan. 


In short...the Quaids have gone crazy...and made a film about it. 


TJ, Jenna and I, being morbidly curious and appreciative of all things wonderfully bad, bought tickets at our earliest convenience to see the world premiere of this ridiculous movie, and to see the Crazy Quaids defend themselves in front of a live audience. 


In a moment of true Jenna class and propriety, she tried to smuggle a few PBR's into the theatre, but upon reaching the front of the line, in the presence of a camera man, they were actually checking bags (presumeably to keep the Quaids safe from all the Canadian assassins). Not wanting to toss out three perfectly good PBR's, Jenna decided she would negotiate with the man. 


"How about I give YOU one, and then I keep two?....No?..."

Eventually the guy just told her to go behind the venue and shot gun them all. The best thing about the whole exchange, as previously mentioned, was the camera man filming the entire encounter. So damn classy. 


So, beers shot-gunned, seats procured, we sat down with our snacks and waited for the first Randy Quaid feature to begin. A semi-entertaining Canadian film called "Real Time", it mostly just lulled the audience into a false sense of numbness, likely on purpose to soften the blow of the upcoming "Star Whackers". 


Evi Quaid came out before the main event and made a bit of a speech. It was more of a "Hey, it's not done yet, so don't judge it too hard" kind of things, but she ended it with the warning that "the bullets were fake and the penis is prothsetic". O RLY???


The opening scene of the movie is Randy Quaid, stuck in the last role he played, Shakespeare's Hamlet, spewing Elizabethan prose wearing a fur coat...and nothing else. The picture is over exposed, the wind howling in the handy-cam's microphone...and Randy Quaid's penis projected on a large screen...larger than any screen has any right to be in this context. 


You would think that some sort of plot would emerge after 15 minutes or so...but no! The Hamlet thing goes on for a good long while, reaching a it's peak around the time RQ sticks a spare bit of red hair in his ass crack, before we are introduced to another of Randy's characters: and eye-liner wearing hit man who is trying to kill Shakes-Quaid. 


Finally, making no sense in the flow of the over all "story arc", if that is even possible, a scene where hit-man Randi is talking to a third, brand spankin' new RQ, I will here-on-out refer to him as Sheep-skull. Why? BECAUSE HE HAD A SHEEP SKULL ATTACHED TO HIS HEAD WITH FISHNET STOCKINGS AND A SEATBELT! 

We realized early on that there wasn't going to be too much to this film; it was not actually going to be an informational docu-drama of the trials and tribulations the Quaid's went through to escape the Starwhackers in Canada. It was just nonsense...pure and utter nonsense. There were however some decent moments enacted by all three of the Quaid characters: 

• Shakes-Quaid had a staring contest with a Camel
• Hit-man Quaid manhandled a donkey for information about Shakes-Quaid's whereabouts. 
• Sheep-skull...well he wore a sheep skull on his head for the whooooole thing. I think that deserves a bullet point. 

And that "prothsetic" penis? On display for the entire hour and a half. Is there such a thing as too much penis? Some would say it's debatable, but after seeing this movie, if I never see a fat naked man again, I could die happy. 

The grand finale was when RQ himself came out with "his" band (i'm pretty sure they were pretty embarrassed about the whole thing) and sang a few songs he'd written about their ordeal: "Mr D.A. Man" and "Star Whackers". Utter madness.

I don't even think I have anything constructive to say about the whole thing. It was like visiting the freak-show at the circus, or one of those things that's so bad it's good: you just couldn't look away. 

Dean Winchester: So Hot, Even Hell Kicked Him Out

I am going to regret this is in the morning…but I just can’t keep it in any longer!

I have only just recently, in the past few hours, been able to recover fully (and maybe even not that fully) from an encounter I just had at my usually uneventful retail job here in Vancouver. This I being said, I am jumping the gun. I promised a post about “Supernatural” and this just has to be it.

If any of you have read my Peroxide Bunnies in a Van blog, you will remember my mentioning of this show several times throughout. TJ got me hooked on day two of the Van Plan and we watched all four seasons (that were out on DVD) whilest traveling the country. For those of you who have never seen Supernatural, a short synopsis:

Two brothers, Sam and Dean Winchester, travel the US in a black, 1967 Chevy Impala with a trunk full of guns and rock salt, hunting demons, making obscure classic rock references and being all-around BAD ASS!

Does it hurt that the actors they cast as Sam and Dean are possibly the most beautiful male specimens on earth? Of course not! But as I’m generally drawn to supernatural television shows (Buffy/Angel/True Blood/Being Human/etc) this show goes so far down my alley it hurts…Jesus that sounded bad. Let’s just say, I was fated to love this show.

That being said, when the drive shaft fell off the van in Indio, California, I pitched in to help pay for the repairs, with TJ promising to pay me back as soon as she was able. Things have gotten a bit more complicated since then for reasons I will not divulge at the moment, but TJ and I decided to keep things both simple and fun, and instead of lump-summing that moolah back to me, she would be the treasurer of my social committee, thus providing us with concrete days I could book off of work and devote to having a rad time with the Teej.

Fun Money Event #1: Supernatural Convention!

We are full on going to nerd it up convention-style tomorrow, after celebrating with Pancakes (something we also did at IHOP after acquiring all 4 seasons from the Best Buy in Casa Grande Arizona) at The Templeton. I have been beside myself for weeks with the knowledge that I would be sharing the same breathing space as Dean Winchester. *Dramatic sigh* that boy makes me want to claw my face off, he’s so beautiful! Look at it!

It’s just ridiculous how hot he is! And this is full on, me going into girl mode, dithering about a mostly inconsequential (but not really, he is very consequential…and pretty, and funny, and probably smart-ish?) actor, but I just can’t help it. I’m totally THAT girl! I get little obsessions (see: Hanson 2008, and Friends Don’t Let Friends Drink Friends) and I run with it until I’ve exhausted myself into a whole new obsession.

So tomorrow is the convention…and what happens today? Jensen Ackles comes in my damn store!

I had just been telling Vivi, a lovely co-worker of mine, all about my excitement at the prospect of seeing the brothers Winchester tomorrow, and not fifteen minutes later I feel her iron grip clamping onto my arm.

“Oh my God, what Vivi?!” I say, alarmed at her apparent panic.

“Jensen Ackles is in the store!”

“FUCK OFF!” I say, probably too loudly as we were on the sales floor and I was the supervisor in charge. Whoops!

“He's in aisle 6!”

I dashed unbecomingly over to the end of the aisle to confirm her statement. Would you look at that! Dean Winchester is buying Perrier water. My reaction: immediate retreat

Cowering at the cosmetics counter, “Vivi! What should I DO???”

“I don’t even KNOW!”

(I’d like to say this was less ridiculous than what I am writing…it’s not)

Realizing that I was not going to get any direction from Vivi about what I should do, I pondered for a few seconds what I would ideally like to get out of this situation. At the most: an autograph; the least: tell him how much I love his show. Okay brain, good work!

Not knowing what I was going to say, I thought to myself: ‘You will kick yourself if you don’t at least talk to him’. He was approaching the register, preparing to leave the store and taking my golden opportunity with him.

I took a deep breath and walked over to till #3 just as he and someone who looked so much like him I must assume they were brothers (just not Winchester brothers) passed in front of me.

I literally slid beside him and just let the word vomit erupt:

“I’m sorry, but I will kick myself if I don’t tell you that I love your show.”

He smiled and said ‘thank you’. I think an angel may have gotten its wings when he spoke; such is the melodiousness of his voice. His companion looked bemused and I’m 99% positive my fan moment would be subject to some ribbing upon exit of the premises.

I looked up at him hopefully, “Could I possibly have an autograph?”

He got this look on his face, like he was slightly embarrassed, supremely flattered, and entirely humouring me, which I couldn’t even contemplate until later because all of those expressions were accompanied by a grin.

I am going to interject this with a relevant tidbit of information: Jensen Ackles is from Texas; Texas’ biggest export? DIMPLES! I shit you not, I have never seen so many heart-shatteringly wonderful dimples as I did when we were in Texas.

Being Texan, the object of my affection has dimples; however, unlike his fellow Texans, Jensen’s dimples look like GOD inserted those fuckers with a smudge of his thumb. This is the only conclusion I can come to, because there is no earthly reason why that man’s smile radiated such an ethereal glow. RIDICULOUS!

Momentarily stunned, and quickly losing my ability to for coherent thoughts, let alone comprehensible sentences, I turned to Jason, the cashier behind me, interrupting his transaction, and said:

“I need paper and a pen, immediately!”

As Jason was following my barked orders, I could hear my manager talking to Jensen:
 

“Do you get that a lot” Mike asked.

“No, not really.”

“It must be really flattering then,” Mike continues.

“Yeah, totally!”

At this point I turned back to the receptor of God’s smudged in Dimples and handed him the pad of customer return forms that would become my autograph. He asked me my name, and after telling him I mentioned that I would be attending the convention tomorrow.

“Oh really?” he said handing me my autograph, “Well, I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

The dimples shone upon me like a double rainbow of full on ‘Oh my God’, and then, dear sweet Jesus, he put his hand on my shoulder. I am never washing my work shirt again. 

UPDATE:

I went to the convention. I brought back this: 

The Supamug

And saw this again:

Totally stole this. But it's from the Con!

We're like friends now.

Goodbye Ottawa, Hello Vancouver!

So…I’ve been back from the Van Plan for a few months now and have embarked on a whole new plan…oddly enough, also involving a “Van”.

My old roomie MV and I decided to move to VANcouver together as a sort of fresh start after university. Both of us had a gap year where nothing really changed, or at least nothing really started with our lives, the way it was supposed to after graduation, and moving to Van just seemed like the right thing to do.

I remember my father suggesting that I move to Vancouver several years ago, oddly enough when I was in another situation that involved contemplating my future. At that point in my life, before I ever went traveling, before I went to university, and I was just a menial working slob in Edmonton Alberta, the thought of moving to a metropolis the size of Vancouver was possibly the most daunting thing I’d ever heard of. Why not suggest Hong Kong, Dad? Or how about New York City?

I told him as much, and his response was:

“Hun, everyone moves to Vancouver at some point.”

Somewhere deep in the Kootenays my Dad has begun a strange victory dance involving paint brushes, bass guitars, fishing lures, and every odd hat in his possession, which are many. I am here in Vancouver, eating my words.

We moved into our quaint little apartment on May 1st, full of optimism and determination. We are University Grads! We are educated! HIRE US! The month of May was a cruel mistress.  

June brought me two employment opportunities, both of which pay me more than I have ever been paid before, but still not quite enough to live the life of luxury (or at least relative comfort) that I had imagined when we first moved in. “I gots the smarts people, bring me the monay!” I get by, but my mother has been a constant and superior helper in the wallet department (You are the best mother in the world!), and I really have to start using that whole “budgeting” thing I keep hearing about.

  
I like my jobs. One, unfortunately for my heated resolve to never work retail again, is a retail job, but the people I work with are probably my favourite thing about this city so far. I have never met a more colourful cast of people, condensed into one small space like a sardine tin full of awesome. They make the monotony of the process practically painless and on more than one occasion, outright hilarious.

Job number two is an administrative position, which is more in line with what I was hoping to achieve in my employment when I moved here, but unfortunately only gives me six hours a week. Hence the retail job (the cool beans I work with are just a bonus).

I feel I need to dedicate an entire post to the awesomeness that IS my new favourite pub. Keep your eyes peeled for a rundown of what happens during a night at The Ouisi with my bitches from work. Hell. Yes.

So that’s Vancouver so far, in a nutshell anyway. I have a/some job/s, I have an apartment, I have most of my belongings (and am praying that the stars will align so my victory dancing father will bring me the rest) and I have some new friends. Both my sisters live in town, though I don’t get to see them as often as I’d like, I love that I’m not hours, or provinces, or countries away from them anymore. There is this miraculous thing called TRANSIT here that, unlike almost every other city I’ve lived in, is actually convenient. Huh, who knew?

Even beyond the basics, I love it here. The people are (mostly) friendly, my hippy quota has been met in spades, my favourite television show is filmed here (the hunt for Jared and Jensen shall also be outlined in a future post), and there are mountains! I honestly could not ask for more.

Well…maybe more money, but that’s really just besides the point…