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gruby88 · 3 years

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The story clerks is kind of amazing. A lower-middle class kid from suburban New Jersey starts working at a video store, where he mets a guy heavily into movie. He broadens his horizons enough with some Independent Film Fair hangouts, a place where future classics like Linklater’s „Clacker” would appear. The kid, known as Kevin SMith, get so into it he ges to cheap canadian film school to make his own movies.

He drops out mid-semester, because school is boring and boring things are just not interesting. But he assembles a rudimentary crew of rpoducer Scott Mosier and cinematographer Klark, makes some credit card fraud for 30k dollars and starts making his debut movie - Clerks.

Shot over a month at a store Smith worked at - the movie is basically two dudes just having a weird day at work. They talk in a very verbose style, giving this sophistication to the most inane of topics while serving wacky customers and slowly bulding up to a broader lesson the love subplot signifies.

In spite of it’s blue collar setting of a convinience store, the movie appears to be ideologyless. IThe characters, or rather maybe SMith himself, seem to have no real thoughts about politics. There’s no big boss acting as villain. there’s no goals. A guy who sells chewing gum starts a riot in the store but that never gets any commentary, it’s just a gag. There’s just empty void of depression. And 90s kinda were like that. Reagan and Tatcher turned the world into a capitalist hellhole, everything seemed meaningless beyond monetary value, with no real way out of the system.

It still does btw.

And thus, the valued commodity of early 90s was realness. The was a market for what we believe to be real. Swearing, being drunk in public, greasy haired rockers were not the world finally manning up to some sick guitar riffs, it was an open craving for somethig real. Something raw. Or at least as raw as we can stomach, there’s a reason why pretty boy Eddie Vedder got famous, and shit-slinging rockers like GG Allin just remained too hot for tv.

And realness wasn’t just to be consumed, it gave us hope that we can too become recognizable for just being ourselves. And it times before reality tv, vlogs, instagram stories and facebook posts - to scratch that itch we had to look for people like us on the big screen. For validation that our averageness is significant in some way.

And Clerks was the perfect movie for the generation of directionless stoners, loners, geeks, nerds, outcasts, mclovins of their time. It was just two dudes being smartasses for 90 minutes.

So how does CLerks hold up in 2020?

Welp.

The movie itself is kinda good. Very funny still. It encapsulates early 90s attitude of not giving a fuck pretty flawlessy with worst attitued played up to maximum. There’s no stakes, characters hardly have an arc to follow, it just kind of is. It meanders with no purpose and that kind of is the point. It’s lack of effort seems to be intentional to signify the lack of effort in the characters. It’s as dull as your life, but also has all the things that make it bearable. The funny friend. The fact that low-paying jobs have the best stories because you mostly deal with other low-income people wh are usually insane from all the stress.

C A P I T A L I S M

One thing that caught my eye was contempt for store customers. You’d think Smith would find compassion for fellow low-classians, but no. I wroked commerce so I know, the best stories are the ones about people you don’t hold too dear to your heart and called names to their face because they just put you past the tipping point. But politics of clerks is basically - look at this dumb motherfuckers interrupting me doing fuck all at my job. There’s no hint of irony or self-awareness. Like, at some point the cool guy, Randall fucking GRAVES, just spits water at a guy point blank for being kinda stupid about tabloids. And is presented as the guy we want to be, the cold calculated friend with instant funny comment about anything.

I guess this is a display of Kev-dawgs immaturity. He is not aware, that what he perceives as cool carries a broader social commentary and a lesson that’s beyond a joke about customers being weird. Which is kinda part of the charm. That Smith doesn’t know, or simply doesn’t care that he shows us the worst people ever, which is why it’s so authentic. It’s brutal when put like that, but it is the voice of the part of america that gets the worst jobs. And this is what they think of you. That you’re assholes for making them work. ANd that speaks to countless generations of kids who would never have a voice in cinema. There was never a cool representation for chubsters with affection for superheroes. They want to believe that their lack of sex skills will result in a girl mistakenly fukcing a corpse in pursuit of them and not just straight rejection.

And it works like that because the movie is pretty consequenceless for our main characters. Randall has no stakes in anything and just spits onelines. He throws some food around which I guess is pretty dramatic, but that’s about his impact on the story.

The story centers around the main character of Dante. A guy who has unexplanedly two women fight for his affection even thouth his bed skills seem to be comparable to rigor mortis. And is just an asshole to both off them. He scolds his girlfriend for having broad sexual past, and then gets mad when he learns that his ex moved on. Lots of room for improvement as a person.

Anyways, his lesson? Ditch the ex who will most likely never recorver and is now useless as you can’t fuck, and go back to your main chick. This is actually the whole arc of the movie. Dante learns that his options are limited, and he should bank on girls that actually can stand him. And it’s not even my interpretation, the movie ends with the director, playing the iconic SIlnet Bob, explaining the movie to us via a monologue to the main character.

But all of this makes the movie work. Becuase it perfectly captures tht moment in life when you’re kinda too naive to figue out that having good taste in movies does not a good person make, but also old enough to not be dismissed or get in trouble for challanging the status quo.

Even after dogma, where peoles good will towards smith reached its peak and for a second he was about to enter the mainstream legit, not just as an indie wonder funny guy. He was not treated as seriously as after Clerks. And smith ate it up. He played into it. 90s Kevin is way more full of himself than his later laid back slacker persona of the public speaking era. Kevin loves the implication that he is this working class genious, the smartass philosopher of the gen x, taking popular culture and treating it like art. Big words. And he is not wrong, lthout his takes.. usually are.

Kevin is prominently featured as an intro interviewer for Josh petersen, indie distributor that wrote book about how he performs the most boring aspect of the movie making - selling the thing.

But seeing this movie now, being 10 years older than kevin when he made it. I can feel the excitement of voice emerging, and „that’s beautiful, man”.

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daveywankenobie · 4 years

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This week I’ve made a concerted effort to stick to the guidance outlined by the government – and when I did my (rather large) shop at Tesco last Sunday the aim was to not leave the house even for a pint of milk until the following week.

Prior to that I have to admit I’d been popping into the Co-op near my workplace a couple of times a week on the way home to get cow juice and other small ‘necessities’. However – when you weigh the need for a packet of hot cross buns against the danger of catching something potentially deadly such tasty treats somewhat lose their appeal.

Therefore this week I’ve only left the house to go to work and to exercise.

One thing I’ve realised lately though is that now the fallback tactic I’ve been using for dealing with stress, life and weight issues for the last four years (namely going for a ****ing long walk) has been rationed I’m really struggling.

Working every day in an isolated and unfamiliar office without people around me can be a lonely and stressful affair. As you might imagine at the moment anyone that’s in the business of enabling or supporting home working solutions is in high demand from their users.

The pressure to not only provide quality but rapid support is ever present.

It’s a never ending challenge – and I go home a lot of the time feeling like I’m somehow not good enough or that I should know more or be better in some way. I’m still new at what I do and it’s difficult having no-one around me, regardless of how industrious I try to be.

I try to throw myself into my work but with no-one to talk to I find my breaks either get later and later, missed altogether, or taken at my desk reading work e-mail in an attempt to catch up.

It’s mostly because I’m a people person who has no-one nearby to bounce off that I’m struggling.

I’m only a couple of weeks into the current working arrangements (which show no sign of returning to normal any time soon) and I’m already preoccupied with wishing it will all end ASAP.

However I’m not completely alone – there are other people dotted about in other rooms elsewhere in the building. Also, once a day I get to say hello to a cheerful cleaner that comes in to disinfect all of the contact surfaces on doors and work tops nearby.

He’s a nice fellow – and has been keen (since I first engaged him in conversation) to share funny texts that his friends send him, as well as amusing songs he’s found that parody the current lockdown events.

On Wednesday he showed me something that I knew I had to take home – especially given the current national obsession.

As soon as I saw the picture on his (2 metres socially distant mobile phone screen) I knew my other half would be tickled pink by them – and I immediately googled it on my own phone – initially intending to buy a pair for her.

The moment passed however and I was pulled back into my work.

When I returned home I remembed what I’d seen and showed her the picture from my search (the above pair are from Etsy – the link to the page is here) and to my surprise she matter of factly said ‘I think I can make those myself.’

‘Really?‘ I said.

‘Yes – I think I have the beads upstairs…’ she replied.

She’s got loads of craft supplies in teeny little drawers – and loves making jewellery so I guess this shouldn’t have taken me aback – but in some respects we’re still learning about each other’s talents.

Making little trinkets is definitely something that she’s really good at, and although my other half still buys earrings and necklaces all the time (we have several special storage areas set aside in the house) she also makes a lot of her own – such as this chain maille bracelet and pendants.

I remember visibly gulping back when we first started thinking about eachother romantically – becuase she admitted over text that she had a quite a thing for jewelery.

I have always associated this kind of thing with gold and precious stones – and (maybe wrongly) viewed ladies that wear a lot of it as ‘high maintenance’.

We all have our own likes and loves mind you – so who am I to judge?

If I’m willing to spend £1k on an Apple product then why should I expect other people not to do the same with things that they like? However I still find it really hard to dissasociate the ‘high maintenance’ stereotype in my mind from ladies that wear a lot of expensive finery.

Pleasingly none of what my partner chooses to wear is something that you’d find in a regular jewellers shop – and neither is it particularly expensive.

Instead her tastes are really funky and unique and she’s genuinley changed my perspectives on the subject.

Over the last couple of nights I’ve watched her in spare moments re-create the earrings I showed her and make the design her own,

I’ve been taking occasional pictures along the way – until today when she finally finished them and popped them into her ears to ask me for my opinion.

How cool are they?!

They’re flipping awesome not just because of how funky and fun they are – but because she made them – and thats sooooooo cool!

Part of life under lockdown is that (perhaps for the first time since we met) my (currently) captive Geography teacher has had the time to herself in the evenings is usually denied to her.

There’s currently no 90+ minutes of travelling followed by at least two hours and a half hours of marking and lesson preparation every day. In its place is instead an early start and a reasonable finish time in a home office looking out onto our garden that (at least from the outside looking in) seems to be infinitely less stressful than wrestling classes of teens into submission face to face.

It’s still a lot for her to do though – and I think that we’re both sitting well outside of our respective comfort zones. It’s difficult to adjust to a completely new setting at the best of times – but I’m pretty sure that from a career perspective she has always had a much tougher time than I do on a day to day basis.

Being a teacher is damn hard work – and when a month or so back (when we discussed the pressures related to her profession) I worked out that she spends at least 60 hours a week working.

At the moment (although she’s essentially locked up in the house) things are slightly different – and we’ve managed to spend a little more quality time with eachother in the evenings and weekends.

When we’re not doing things together we’re pursuing our own interests side by side on the sofa.

A mutual friend (commenting on her own enforced lockdown with her husband) remarked how awful it would be to be trapped in the house with the knowledge that you’re in a bad relationship hanging over you and the person that you’re trapped with.

I’m sure over the last few weeks that many couples all over the world have been re-considering their life choices – but not me.

I genuinely love spending every moment of the day with my partner – and since we became romantically involved we’ve not managed to fall out, annoy eachother or funamentally disagree on anything .

I’m not saying that arguments are the sign of a bad relationship – because in the right context a disagreement aired can be a healthy thing – but it just doesn’t seem to happen between us.

This is something I’m still bending my head around – because all of my previous relationships led me to believe that compromise and falling out over mundane things (such as the loo seat being left up) were just a fact of life.

It seemed like every relationship was destined to be this way (all of mine were) but now I realise that it was just the fact I wasn’t with the right person.

As nice as life with ‘er indoors‘ is though – there’s still nothing I’d love to do more today than to go for a long, languid walk and sit on top of a hill with a picnic for two. However spending any time together is thankfully something that makes me happy.

Even doing the gardening together cheers me up.

I genuinely thank my lucky stars that we met one another almost two years ago – and if the current crisis tells us nothing else it’s that we damned well have to appreciate what we’ve got while it’s there becuase you never know what’s around the corner.

Although there are no picnic capable hills near enough to where we live (to meet the government’s requirement to exercise ‘locally’) we did manage to get out for a walk around the park earlier today.

The sun spent its time periodically creeping in and out from behind cloud cover but our time there was still lovely.

Maybe becuase the traffic is so reduced on the roads surrounding the park there was a strong scent of flowers in the air as we passed the daffodils and formally planted beds.

I might be wrong but I think this lovely odour hung in the air for a good quarter of the distance around St Nicholas’s ‘measured mile loop’.

If nothing else – having a sense of taste and smell in the current climate is a positive indication of good health!

By the time we returned home we had around 3 miles in the bank.

It’s not much distance (compared to my previous standards) but it’s better than nothing and I’m grateful that the weather was good enough to wander hand in hand – and pretend for a few minutes that the world wasn’t imploding around us.

I’m also pretty damn grateful that I have a garden – becuase the little tweety birds are industriously busy building things.

They’re doing this at exactly the same time the television informs us moment by moment that everything is falling apart so it’s nice to have a counterpoint to focus on.

As the grim statistics just got worse and worse (a five year old just died…) this little fellow flew back and forth for about twenty minutes as we watched it (and it watched us) from a respectful distance.

Again and again this delightful little creature ferried materials back and forth – turning random bits and pieces into the building blocks it needed to create a nest full of little eggs and eventually new life.

I’m going to support it as much as I can – and will be filling my bird feeder to make sure that it’s chicks get the start they deserve.

On that (hopefully upbeat) note I think that it’s time to get something to eat. I should have started cooking ages ago – and my little jeweller looks like she’s in need of a chicken salad.

Who am I to deny her such a simple pleasure?

Of I trot!

Davey

‘Er indoors This week I've made a concerted effort to stick to the guidance outlined by the government - and when I did my (rather large) shop at Tesco last Sunday the aim was to…

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renfys · 6 years

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Our Three Brilliant (but cold) Days In Dublin

For Christmas this year I took my wife and son to Dublin for a few days. Last year I decided to take Snappy on a trip to see the Festival of Lanterns in Birmingham and the SeaLife Centre. He was only four months old and wouldn’t really know what the fuss was about. He liked lights and fish and I knew it would be something he would enjoy. I decided then that every year his Christmas present would be a trip rather than toys every year. He has a large extended family that buy him gifts.

So this year, as my best friend Mel couldn’t spend Christmas with us, we went over to Dublin to spend Three Kings with her.

We flew out on Thursday, and back again on Monday giving us three full days in Dublin. We managed to pack quite a bit into those three days. Snappy had so much fun, everything was exciting for him. He spent twenty minutes every morning standing on the bed by the window shouting at the cars in the hotel car park. We needn’t have done half the stuff we did I think but then he loved all of it. Even the museums.

It was cold though, very, very cold. And we were all wrapped up the entire time we were outside the hotel room. I think we had hot showers and baths nearly every night to warm up. But the entire trip was worth the cold, even if my wife and I were sick the entire time and it was so bitterly cold. My advice: don’t go in January. May or September, visit Dublin then.

So, what did we do in those three days?

Dublin Zoo

We went to Dublin Zoo on Friday. It was pretty easy to get to from our hotel in Liffey Valley, though a bit of a trek up the hill through the largest enclosed park in Europe. We stopped off to see the swans in the lake and got slightly overwhelmed by gulls and other birds. The zoo was awesome, though not enough reptiles for my liking. A lot of the animals are almost tame in some ways and definitely used to lots of humans wandering by their habitats. Becuase it was so cold many of the animals were inside, but still visible. Though mostly we could only see the elephants bums.

The Tigers were the best, and Snappy’s favourite. They came right up to the glass and showed off. The male’s tiger’s head was bigger than Snappy but he loved it. Wasn’t scared. It was just a really big Reb Brown as far as he was concerned. He liked the giraffes too, as they were reaching right over the fence around their enclosure (and people were – wrongly- feeding them leaves). He also liked the sea lions too. I liked the penguins because, well I love penguins. We took our own lunch and ate it around the park and had hot chocolates in the cafe.

Wild Lights

Wild Lights was also at the zoo. So after our daytime trip, we went back to the hotel to grab something to eat, warm up and change Snappy into his snowsuit to make sure he was warm enough to go out again. Then we headed all the way back to the zoo to see the lantern festival – Wild Lights. We’ve been to a lantern festival before – as part of last years Christmas present/trip but we weren’t sure how much Snappy would’ve remembered from that. We couldn’t miss it though as we had been lucky enough to organise the trip for the last night.

We saw most of the lanterns during the day but it was nothing compared to seeing them lit up a night. They were stunning. Some were huge, some were pictures and there were a lot of animals. Everything from tigers to penguins. And Snappy learnt to say the word flamingo – though it came out more like’ mamingo‘. The `elephants were pretty impressive as well as the lantern in front of it that was made out of 1000 medical pots.

Archeology Museum And Botanic Garden

On Saturday after two treks around the zoo (and up the hill), we were pretty tired and needed a low key day. Plus Mel was the run director for her local Parkrun that morning too. So we needed a low-key day, so while she stood in the cold and watched people run (for fun?!) we headed into Dublin and found the Museum of Archeology. It was really interesting and free so that’s always good. They have a collection of items and skeletons that were found in bogs around Ireland. Snappy liked walking around, eating grapes and slapping his hands on the glass. Oh and spilling water everywhere. There’s no lift in the museum though, so my wife went upstairs to look at the medieval exhibitions (her speciality). While she did that, Snappy and I met Mel in the cafe for a brew and a snack.

We weren’t sure what to do next but when we realised that my mother-in-law would never forgive us if we didn’t go to the Botanic Gardens for the afternoon. And as Snappy was in the walking mood, it was a good option for him to run around and talk to himself and hit plants. He had a lot of fun and there were some gorgeous plants there. It was warm too and we spent a few hours there before heading back for dinner and more sleep.

Children’s Museum

Imaginosity – as it’s also called – is a three-floor playground for kids. It’s awesome. You have to book ahead for your two hours slot but Snappy had so much fun. My friend Mel found out about it and bought the tickets. The first floor has a real Audi you can sit in and pretend to drive with a screen in front of you. There is a hospital with an x-ray machine (not real), a train set, a supermarket, a post office and diner. Snappy liked wandering around and ‘shopping’ with the little trolley. There are costumes you could put on but I couldn’t even convince my son to put a hard hat on.

Upstairs there were little houses, with foam brick walls you could pull apart. Sensory play, a floor full of gel that lit up when you stood on it. A crane that had seen better days (from kids swinging on it). There was also a little animation maker and a news studio and a couple of areas for under 12 months and under two.The third floor is actually outside and with it being winter it was closed but seeing as it was freezing I’m pretty sure this was the best choice. We had a quick snack in the cafe before heading back to the tram and back into Dublin.

Natural History Museum

We wandered around St. Stephen’s Green Park for a little bit while Snappy napped and we waited for the museum to open at two (because it was a Sunday). We read about the parks history in the Easter Rising and my wife let some pigeons land on her and eat seed from her hand and Mel and I played Pokemon Go (I’ll get back to that). When it was time we walked down to the museum. Again there was free entrance and they had little books to fill in about the museum – a seasonal one and another general one- for kids to fill in. The Natural History Museum (also known as The Dead Zoo) is small but packs a lot in. Pretty much everything we saw at the zoo was in there as it’s a large collection of taxidermy and insect and butterfly collections from the 19th century.

Downstairs were all animals and insects and fish you would find in and around Ireland. There was everything from tiny insects you could barely see to a massive dear which is the first thing you see as you walk in. Upstairs (again, no lift, we left the pushchair downstairs with all the others) were animals from all over the world. Including s giraffe and an elephant. Some hamsters – including a skeleton of one that included its massive cheek pouches (which was awesome) and even some lion cubs that had died in Dublin zoo at just six days old. Before that, everything was cool and awesome and that sobered me a little but I think it’s a good learning experience for older kids and Snappy had a lot of fun (and a tantrum) while we were there.

Pokemon Go

Another thing we did while in Dublin (well me) was play a lot of Pokemon Go. Dublin has so many pokestops and gyms I couldn’t help myself. I don’t have as much opportunity to stock up like I did when in Dublin. I left Ireland with over 200 regular pokeballs and a whole host of new Pokemon as some new ones had been released. Mel plays too but I really took full advantage of the city before I came back to my tiny village of limited Pokemon going.

Home Again

There’s so much to do in Dublin, and there are doughnut shops everywhere and street art tours and more stuff we didn’t get a chance to do. But hopefully, we’ll get to go again. When it’s warmer. Ignoring the hell that was the train trip home (the flights were easy) we had a great trip. I know Snappy might not remember this when he’s older but I will and as the years go by there will be more trips for him to experience and remember.

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