You Got It (The Right Stuff)

Ok people. Settle down. Here it is. The big announcement.

NKOTB is back!

They're not really new. Nor are they kids. But no matter. They are actually back together.

I was obsessed with them. OBSESSED. I first loved Jordan. But then the rat tail was really getting to me so I switched to Joey. Joey was my man. I swear I would sit there and take his age and subtract my age and think to myself, "Well, when I'm 20, he will be 28. That's not bad!" This was when I was 9 and thought that 20 was a perfect age for me to meet the love of my life and get married. ha ha indeed. May work for some people, and props to them truly, but not for me.

And merchandise? I had everything New Kids. The dolls (casual wear and concert wear complete with stage!), sleeping bag, pillows, trading cards, fake autographed glossys, key chain, buttons, oh my. My friends and I would bring in our newest New Kid item and oooh and ahhh over it. I remember Julie's favorite was Jon, Gina's was Donny, Michelle's was Jordan. She became upset when I abandoned Team Jordan for Team Joey but I believe she too eventually saw the error of her ways and joined with me.

They were also my first concert. And second. Yes, I saw them twice! Age 8 and age 9. My poor sweater bound uncle held me on his shoulders the whole concert while I was swaying to the music, screaming, and acting embarrassingly ridiculous. He was sweating buckets and he had back and shoulder pain for days that he didn't tell me about until I was much older and he could give me a hard time about it. At that concert, he was the age I am now. He had to take on the "father role" at 21 when my parents split up and he didn't have to do that. He saw countless dance recitals, choir concerts, plays. He even dressed up as Big Bird for my 2nd birthday in the middle of a heat wave in November. And of course, went through the hell of seeing New Kids surrounded by thousands of screaming pre-adolescents with me on his shoulders...twice. He deserves a medal. A giant medal adorned with jewels and gold. Something very tacky and loud that gets my statement of love and admiration across correctly.

So anyway, back to NKOTB, at the age of 9 1/2, I was over them. Basically, it wasn't popular to like them anymore so they were dropped.

Then I went through a long phase of listening to movie soundtracks.

Cat Power!

When I was a kid, I loved the Garfield comic. I would look through any newspaper lying around in order to read the strip. Every year I would get a Garfield desk calendar, even though I didn't have a desk, just so I could have a new strip everyday.

Recently, I came across a website that publishes a Garfield comic everyday....but with Garfield removed! How?? you may ask. How is this possible?? How will it make sense?? The comic strip is called Garfield! What followed was one of the longest laughs I have ever experienced. Take Garfield away, and you have one crazy ass, manic depressive Jon. Here are some examples:

Click here for the site.




Enjoy.

No Cars Go

So much to write about! Last week was a pretty intense week. What with temping, planning a closing night party, trying to go to spring training for my softball team, and my car getting stolen. Oh that's right. My car got stolen!! From my locked garage at my apartment! Here's the recap:

I get home last Tuesday from spring training around 8. Then D and I load up my car with a few things to take to his parents house, including his drum set and three bins full of electronics. Since we were both off the next day, we thought we would go ahead and take care of it so we could sleep in and drive up in the afternoon. So we do just that. We sleep in. We take our time getting ready. Leisurely walk down to the garage to find that there is no car in my spot. The first thing that ran through my head was, "Ok, which one of us had the car last and where did we park it?" because I have done that before. Then I noticed the trail of glass on the right side of the parking space.

We run upstairs, cursing and panicking the whole way. We get inside the apartment and I immediately call the police. They show up over 2 hours later. Ugg. During that time, I'm on the phone with my insurance company almost constantly while getting the occasional call from a member of my family. My mom quietly freaking out, my uncle staying cool. Our family friend who has worked at my family's business since I was born getting on the phone and telling me that I should have a drink.

After the cop leaves, my insurance company arranges for me to have a rental car. I get in a cab to go to the rental car company and, as I'm en route, my phone rings. It is a DC detective asking if I knew I had low jack on my car. For those of you who don't know, low jack is like a GPS device. In other words, they were tracking my car! Very high tech, James Bond shit going on. And an hour later, they call me back telling me they recovered my car and made an arrest. Then they asked me if the drum set belonged to me. D about jumped out of his skin he was so excited. So while he was doing his show, I went down to the precinct to retrieve all of my belongings from the car. This included D's drum set, two of his bins, and my CD's. The only thing missing was my iPod and one of D's bins that had a GameCube in it. There were also some additions to my car. Stolen merchandise. Several XXX-Large t-shirts with loud print on the front, a carry-on bag, and a Dora the Explorer hat. Score!

As of now, I'm still in the rental car. The guy will go to trial and I will have to go to give my statement, which I am very much looking forward to just to see this guy. They did an estimate of the damage, which was just the window. Now my insurance company gets it repaired and I can have my car, Maximus, back very soon. I miss him.

The moral of the story: it apparently doesn't matter if your car is in a locked garage. And low jack is awesome. Get it if you can. Or maybe The Club. The Club is not a bad idea.

Videotape

Good news on a couple of shorts I was in.

The first being "The Kumbio Takedown" with my buddies at Intergral Arts, Barry Gribble and Kevin Good. We shot this short last spring for the 48 hour film festival in DC. It ended up winning Best of DC, Best Acting, Best Screenplay, and the Audience Award. It also starred the very cool Missy Doty who was in "Sideways". Well I just found out that "Kumbio" is going to be shown at Cannes! Like the film festival Cannes! We aren't competing in the festival, but our film and about 10 others will be shown twice during the festival as apart of a 48 hour film presentation. You can watch the film here:

The Kumbio Takedown

I'm in it at the very end. DFG is in it too getting his ass kicked in jail.


The other film is "Lizzie Strata". I did this with the boys of Integral Arts too in January. "Lizzie" is a 40's period musical comedy road movie based on the Greek classic of a similar name. Basically it was me sitting in a 40's Cadillac for a few hours with some really cool chicks. Hard job, I know. The boys had been selected by a panel of judges to be one of five teams competing in the Panasonic HD Showdown. Which meant that Panasonic sent them this amazing, high tech camera is use to make a brand new 48 hour film, being "Lizzie Strata". The film took first place in the showdown, winning the boys a Panasonic HVX200 camera. I don't know what that means, but it sounds expensive and high tech and awesomefantastic. And it showed on the big screen at the festival, which kicks ass. You can watch "Lizzie" here:

Lizzie Strata


Good times!

Welcome mat

I have created a blog. I'm not really new to this. I used to blog on myspace but, since I have been eaten up by facebook, I am not on myspace as much as I used to be. But I still had the urge to blog. Mostly because I'm temping and get bored very easily. I don't know if I will offer much profound, life altering posts. But I do come across the occasional fantastic youtube video or article. I do rant. There will be ranting. I get annoyed. Mostly about stupid things that don't matter. So I purge them so I can worry about real things that actually matter.

Now about the blog name.

Southern.

I am. I'm proud of it. I'm proud of my family, who are all still living in the south. It has become a place to visit for me, not so much a home. But it is apart of me, and always will be.

Bellicose.

- adj. Warlike or hostile in manner or temperament.

Ok, so, I'm not really like this. I am fiesty, opinionated, and passionate. But I'm not looking for a fight. I don't like confrontation. This is mostly a play on words. Southern Belle. You get it. My good friend, Barry, came up with the title of this blog. So all the credit must go to him. What do you expect? He is a writer. Clever bastard.

Anyway, welcome. Thanks for reading. Be seeing you soon.