The Room

"I did not hit her, it's not true!  It's bullshit!  I did not hit her- I did NOT!  Oh, hi Mark"

-Johnny, The Room

OK, so if you have never seen The Room, I fully suggest you stop reading this post, and immediately find some way to watch it.  Let me give you a brief synopsis: it's almost unanimously decreed to be the worst film ever made, and it's absolutely hilarious.  Here's the trailer:

Towards the end, you can see there is a haphazard attempt to hastily re-brand this melodrama as a comedy-- you know, on account of how ridiculous it looks-- but rest assured it was made with every intention of being a serious, nuanced study of the psyche "with the passion of Tennessee Williams!"

The film is so bad/good that it's become something of a cult phenomenon-- a few months ago, Michael J. Saringer and I went to The Rio Theater to see a midnight screening, which was amazing-- people jeered, made loud jokes (some of which were choreographed, and actually performed in unison), and threw plastic spoons in the air every time a spoon was spotted onscreen (on a side note, this has completely ruined movie-going for me, as I now feel entitled to behave the same way when I see any crappy movie [you know, like Green Lantern, or The Hangover Part II], which pisses Dara off to no end).

Notice the guy with the serial-killer black hair and suit that is two sizes too big?  That's Tommy Wiseau, writer/director/producer/cinematographer, and, of course, star of the film (not to mention inspirational cinematic icon!).  So naturally, when Sarge and I saw that the laudable Mr. Wiseau was coming to Vancouver to perform a directing "Master's Workshop," (also at the Rio) we knew we had to see it.

Stoked.

Here's how you knew this thing was going to be good: the organizers of the event put out an ad on Cragislist asking for scripts to be submitted, which Tommy would then cast and direct onstage over the course of an hour. 


And go.

Sleeveless shirt, leather pants, and sunglasses.  Like Corey Hart if he was a child molester.

Very quickly, the "seminar" devolved into Wiseau yelling nonsensical, broken-English directions in his ambiguously European accent at a bewildered volunteer cast of cloyingly-drama-kid drama kids (quote of the day: Wiseau suggesting the line "Hey- you want me to punch your fucking ass?").  It was a little difficult to follow the Craigslist-solicited script, but from what I could gather, there are two guys talking (in a room-- I wonder whether it was an homage?), and the over-acting un-funny stout one shoots the one who's dressed as a hipster/ bootsmith from the Old West.  Since the dialog was more-or-less entirely improvised, this could well be the only plot point in the entire script.

Obviously, though, I now have all the inspiration I will ever need to become a meteoric film director like Tommy Wiseau.  It should be no time at all before you're all watching my soccer-virus thriller Field of Screams come to life (the title "Fever Pitch" was already taken by that terrible, masturbatory Jimmy Fallon/ Drew Barrymore tribute to the Red Sox)...


Fun Fact: I actually submitted Field of Screams to be produced by the USC 480 Short Film class, but I guess they didn't get it.  Philistines.


And then came The Electric Owl...

The Electric Owl

This sounds like it could be the chapter in a book where I describe a milk bar in which Kubrickian youths prepare themselves for "a touch of the old Ultra Violence," or some tech noir nightclub where Sarah Connor runs away while the Terminator manages to kill basically everyone in the club but her.  However, The Electric Owl is neither of these things- it's just a bar with a cool name where some stuff happened.

"Do you want to dance?"

The first time I went there was for the DJ Anjali show.  Anjali basically combines Bollywood music with techno-- possibly my two least favorite genres of music-- but I was told she was quite good, and hoped that maybe her music was one of those "greater than the sum of its parts" deals (I'm an incurable optimist, what can I say?).

Anjali fellates the microphone

Of course, I suppose I could hope that a cauliflower-and-mayonnaise soup would be greater than the sum of its parts, but it probably wouldn't help, either.  We gave it a shot, but Silverwood and I ended up leaving about 3 songs into her much-belated set.  Personally, I was much more entertained by this hilarious series of photographs Silverwood took during the opening act, which illustrates me "stealthily" improving my 7up with a water bottle full of gin I had smuggled inside, with the subtlety of an office memo typed in all-caps--

Look left...

Look right...

Oh, what's that you were saying, Dale?

God damn, I am smooth.  And also still 18 years old, apparently-- why am I bringing water bottles of alcohol into bars, you ask?  I can explain!  It was an accident!  When we left for the club, I had no place to leave my back pack!  They let me into the club with a backpack!  And, I mean, isn't that the truly criminal thing, here?  Do they let just anyone walk in?  This isn't sounding convincing, is it?  I could explain, but it's a tedious, boring story, so just please stop judging me and take my word that this douchery was not pre-meditated...


The next time I came to the Electric Owl was with Saringer, Vanessa, and Rhianna for the Metronomy show.  Sort of.


You see, Michael J. Saringer, professor of geography, master of electronics, cleric of bass guitar, had misread the tickets, and the show wasn't actually until the night after.  When we got there, it was standup comedy night.  It's incredible, the amount of influence that a minor time investment-- such as driving somewhere-- can have on your decision-making process.  "Well, we drove all the way out here to the Chilliwack Roast Badger Festival, might as well have a bite..."

Did you know badgers were this terrifying?

So, we decided to stay... and watch the single worst comedian I've ever seen.  Apparently, this guy was the winner of the comedian contest at Ceili's, which made us all shudder to think who he had beaten out, as he was about as funny as African famine.  His routine consisted mainly of jokes about how he looked like a leprechaun, and making deliberately outrageous and provocative statements like "Fuck Steve Jobs!  He drank pee!  Child slavery!" and other similarly impotent attempts at being "edgy."  After about 5 minutes, we walked out (this is becoming a motif!  This blog is so literary!), and I could hear him shrivelling in desperation to shit-talking the Canucks in a flaccid attempt to piss people off.  Penis.


(For you viewing pleasure):

I'm having a bit of a crisis here.  I mean, here I am, just shitting on this poor guy, who's trying to live out his dream of being a stand-up comic-- something I think we'd all be quick to admit is one of the most daunting artistic enterprises possible.  People are petrified of simply speaking in public, now add to that the expectation of being funny and topical?  And here I am, writing a blog-- putting a much smaller piece of myself out there than him, baring his Jack Black-ish soul to the world!  Is he not a kindred spirit?  A brother in the fraternity of artistic aspiration?  (For what it's worth, I thought the animé joke was sort of funny...)


Who are any of us to presume to criticize someone else's art?  For all I know, he's reading this right now, thinking, "This is awful!  Tripe!" and preparing a scathing and borderline-racist joke about me to perform at the Electric Owl next week.  Am I being an Olympic-class dick?  I didn't even pay to watch him perform!

Meh, you be the judge.


The third time I came to the Electric Owl was the next night, of course, and we finally did see Metronomy.

Fashionably disinterested.

(I didn't take any pictures of the show, but you can click here to see some pics that some other, much more professional person took with a not-iPhone!)


Tragically, I was battling a cold that week, and finally lost the struggle that evening, as my infirm alter-ego Sick Boy had reared his ugly head, and I felt myself descend further and further into the dizzying, delirious din of sickness and rampant alliteration as the show went on.

Not this Sick Boy

Or this one

Tip: when a pharmacist recommends you try some brand of medication you've never heard of, and raves that it's way better than the stuff you usually use, just try to remember that they're not real doctors.  Instead, defer to the eternal, immutable truth of Szentveri's Law:

The basic equation of my life.

I'd had enough of the Electric Owl for a while...


So, I traded dancing with hipsters for dancing with old people, as I went to my grandmother's 80th birthday at the Hungarian Cultural Club in Nanaimo!  At one point, some 90-year old woman (non-hyperbole-- I think her greatest social distinction amongst the other guests was that she was the oldest person there) grabbed me by the hand and took me to the dance floor.  Ever the obedient grandson, I decided to humor this sweet nonagenarian by obliging her a karaoke version of some generic 50's dance song.  It was a tad awkward, what with her withered claw of a hand not relinquishing its vice-like grip of my supple, youthful one for one instant during what seemed like a 10-minute song (somewhat understandable; I moisturize...).  You never truly know how utterly hopeless you are at dancing until a 90 year-old woman forces you to do the twist-- I don't think anyone had felt this out of place with 50's music since Marty McFly Van-Halen'ed the crowd at Hill Valley High.

Awkward white-dancing.  Your kids are gonna love it.

Let me now shallowly attempt to deflect my own embarrassment by presenting this video, which shows my grandmother's Ms. Havisham-esque friend singing an inspired and eerily melodramatic rendition of Besame Mucho:

If you listen close enough, you can hear Mark tell me I'm going to hell for filming this.


In keeping with the jarring seismic shifts in tone that have characterized this post (it's called juxtaposition, folks!  So literary!), we now move from dancing to Hungarian folk songs to a Skrillex concert with Silverwood and Aldora.


Imagine a giant crowd of hipsters, clad in two-tone raybans, deep-neck high-cut tank tops, glow rings, and gold pleather pants, copiously sweating like that gross underground dance scene in The Matrix Reloaded and drowning their ecstasy-thirst with bottles of Dasani while vigorously fist-pump dancing like a giant, teeming Jersey Shore audition with absolutely zero sense of irony (so basically every 80's night on frat row ever), and you've got an idea of what this concert looked like.

Here's what it sounded like:

Trashy cult-film workshops, Tuesday night standup, water bottles full of gin, twisting with Hungarian geriatrics, and Skrillex-- who am I?


In more life-y news, I got a job working as associate faculty at a high school, which means you can look forward to Facebook status updates like "OMYGOD.  Soooo cute... Today, one of my little poopsiekins said, 'Mr. Szentveri, [in my imagination, they've all learned to pronounce my name perfectly], when a boy pees in a girl, she gets pregnant.'"  Awwww.  Of course, when you consider the fact that the kids I'm working with are in grade 7-9, if they say anything remotely like this, I think the fine points of urine-based reproduction would be the least of their worries...


Sadly, this means my stereotypical post-collegiate tour-de-Europe will have to wait.  Alas!  What happens to a dream deferred?  Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?  No.  Not in Vancouver, at least. 


Congrats to the 0 people who got that reference.  Perhaps it's not all bad, though-- I hear Europe's having a bit of a rough time right now.  Anyways, my touristy tip of the entry is that The Marina Grill serves some of the best breakfast I've ever had.  Seriously.  You're probably all like, "O RLY?  That seafood place under the bridge that I went to that one time for my Grandpa's birthday?"  Yeah, that place.  If with this post I can convince just one person to go there for breakfast, I can die knowing I've made a real difference.

In bloggy news, we recently hit 500 views of this blog!  Yayyy.  I don't know if that's actually a lot, but it sure sounds like a lot, doesn't it?  Maybe?  Bueller?  Thank you all of you for reading, and for all of your feedback-- remember to feel free to use the comments section to promote free iPads and call Obama a Nazi.  And don't worry-- despite accumulating all these hits, I have no intention of whorishly selling out my work to advertisers just to make a few pennies.

Also, I guess I miserably failed with my whole "brief weekly entries" mandate, instead taking over 4 weeks to write a multimedia-rich tome.  You see, I just want to make sure everyone gets their money's worth.  However, my next entry should be along shortly, because it's mostly about Halloween stuff and, you know, it would be super lame to be writing about that in December.


Stay good,

-Max
Twitter: @MaxSzentveri






This Week's Winners
People in this post:

Aldora Chong:
Her favorite band is WOMP WOMP.

Dale Chang:
Best known as Chang-San from The Exchange Student.

Dara Djafarian:
Thought Indiana Jones 4 was the best of the series.

Ms. Havisham:
You should hear her sing Teenage Dream...

Rhianna Iverson:
Is probably going to love this headshot.

Vanessa Iverson:
Is related to Rhianna.

Michael J. Saringer:
Can't read.  So he probably won't complain about this bio.

Michael Silverwood:
Takes sweet photos (he took the Skrillex shots, too!)

Life After College

"'Your friends are the aperture through which you view the world'

-Max Szentveri"

-Karl Heilbron

I don't remember saying this, but, when I heard Karl say it, I remember thinking, "Sounds like something I'd say." Then Karl told me I actually was the one who had said it originally. Apparently, I black out and sprinkle these little pearls of wisdom around-- friends! band together, so that we can collect them, and make a Max Szentveri's Desktop Calendar of Inspirational Daily Aphorisms©, or something like that, with Anne Geddes pictures of adorable little shrimp-fingered babies for every day.

February 8th: 'Bitches ain't shit but ho's and tricks.'

Before he left for England, and constricted my worldly aperture like a metaphorical donkey punch, Karl and I went to "Science World After Dark"-- a place where the beer flows like wine; where beautiful women instinctively flock like the salmon of Capestrano!  Basically, it's adults-only Science World, a veritable orgy of drunken hedonists in high-cut lab coats sipping champagne from Erlenmeyer flasks, whilst sensually expounding about cephalopods and algorithms in hot, breathy voices.

Actually, it isn't really any of that, but there was beer.

I thought it was a fitting way to cap off the summer, ending it with a new twist on one of the first activities I chronicled in this blog. This time, instead of it being a facile, hackneyed idea to fall back on in the absence of real imagination, it was a novel, exciting way of experiencing something I was familiar with, which, after all, is the entire purpose of my Local Tourist™ endeavor.

Come for the science...

Stay for the beer.

This time around, we had a chance to see plenty of stuff I hadn't seen before, such as the awesome dinosaur exhibit, and a mind-blowing IMAX documentary about the Hubble telescope. If you want to drop some knowledge on your ignorant self, click here to see a pretty cool image that explores cosmic scale, and illustrates why we were all tripping balls during the Hubble movie.

T-Rex, bitch.

"God creates dinosaurs.  God destroys dinosaurs.  God creates man.
Man destroys God.  Man creates dinosaurs..."

Also, Kim got stuck--

It's a chick in a box!

And we did a lot of "hands-on" science:

This lovely evening was followed by the first and final instalment in Karl and I's Summer Concert Series®-- seeing the Butthole Surfers at the Rickshaw!  For those of you who don't know who the Butthole Surfers are, and are thinking that Karl and I went to some sort of gonzo coprophilic orgy, that was a completely different night.

Totally not sketchy at all!

Surfin' buttholes.

Some Dispute Over T-Shirt Sales (complete with the grotesque and charmingly sickening b-movie gore montage that played behind them the entire show):

Before the band came out, I had the distinct pleasure of being enthusiastically talked at by my wide-eyed, Hawaiian-shirted seat neighbour, whose wife was slumped next to him, looking suspiciously un-alive.  He said he was grateful for our ear (what with his wife not being the greatest conversationist, on account of being comatose and all-- quite inconsiderate, I should say), explaining that he was the Surfers' biggest fan, and pontificating about why they were the most influential band of the 90's.

Usually, our eager friend's ambiguous homelessness, combined with the dim venue full of belligerent, moshing possibly-meth-heads would have been enough to cause Karl to evacuate the obligatory $3 PBR's they served at the Rickshaw, but he remained steadfast, and as we stood mere inches from the stage (!), he courageously beat back the obnoxious lower-East-side Gollums as they attempted to claw their way to front of the crowd.

I swear to God this guy was right behind us.

In fact--

Not amused with my quasi-patronizing "I'm totally gonna put this in my blog" photo op.

That's right, this is a picture of Karl Heilbron willingly sitting down for a beer at- gasp!- the Cambie before the concert!  In fact, he's actually the one who suggested we drop in!

What inspiring personal growth.  Naturally, I am taking full credit for this, as my soul-plumbing quest to open my mind to new experiences was clearly the catalyst for Karl's admittedly derivative efforts.  This is, of course, not surprising, as we are the same person.

'I do like going to the Cambie!  I do like it, Sam I Am...bie...'

My next super-touristy expedition was my first-ever trip to UBC with Michael Silverwood, Esq. and Aldora.  I might have been there, like, once before, but I'd never really gotten to see campus that well, which may come as a bit of a surprise when you consider I applied there for undergrad, and it's only 45 minutes away from my house.  Of course, I never visited any of the universities I applied to (seriously), you know, what with being a complete tourist and all.

Naturally, I was all like, "Aw cool!" and began taking a ton of impeccably-lit pictures.

Just imagine me walking around looking like this.

Yes, they always wear matching sunglasses like that.  So cute (Aldorable?).

$3 beers and BBQ, and my sudden, very touristy onset of an appreciation for architecture all conspired to make me very impressed with the place, and nostalgically sort of wish I was back at school somewhere, studying history, or something equally romantic and silly.

Alas, it is (more-or-less) winter in Vancouver-- that time of year where the city trades its warm, verdant palette for a sombre, David Fincher-ian wash, we (ie. I) stop rolling down the window and cranking the Beach Boys, and begin listening to The National as we drive in the rain, mulling over whether Seasonal Affect Disorder isn't as totally bullshit as it sounds.  Lo! hear the plaintive, sunlorn teenage girls, as they sound their lament from the bus stops, "Summer has come and passed, the innocent can never last!"

At least September has ended.

This is the first Fall that I won't be going back to school in 16 years, which is an incredibly strange feeling.  On the one hand, I'd love to go back to school-- being a student is what I've been best at for most of my life-- and yet, I really don't have anything in particular I'd want to pursue there (I mean, just look about you at my infuriatingly sesquipedalian lexicon and indulgent prolixity-- obviously there is no more the idle, antediluvian pedagogues can teach me about the English language!)  I'm pretty sure Milton said the exact same thing when he graduated.

Life in watercolour.

As I've alluded to, many of my bestest buds (the components of my perceptual Hubble Telescope, if you will), have scattered to the four corners of the world to continue their studies, and I no longer have the warm maternal den of 2641 Orchard Ave. to return to.  Luckily, thus far, working at the golf course has kept me fairly occupied (you know, in that deferring, everybody-knows-that-Einstein-worked-at-a-patent-office-when-he-formulated-his-theory-of-relativity sort of way):

This is what it looks like when I get to work...

...This is what it looks like when I get home from work.

 I wonder if they're still casting for the upcoming Hobbit film...

Sadly, my days at the golf course have come to an end, and once again, I'm facing down those peskily persistent quandaries-- you know, those ones that keep bothering me about what to do with the rest of my life, and such.  In order to keep myself busy, I've begun doing some serious training to prepare for the upcoming Fall season: I've got 3 seasons of House to catch up on, 2 seasons of Community, and a season of Modern Family to plough through in the coming weeks (also, just watched the season finale of Breaking Bad OMFGWHATJUSTHAPPENED!?)

Yes, it's going to be a busy Fall-- Community, House, How I Met Your Mother (begrudgingly), It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, The League, Mad Men, Modern Family, 30 Rock, and, of course, Jersey Shore (I really hope Snooki finally breaks it off with Jionni-- I mean, day-um girl, have some self respect...).  Hopefully, I'll also have some time to devote myself to my other growing addictions, such as Red Bull and garage sales.

And also, Stieg Larsson novels.

But seriously, in between episodes, I have a lot of thinking to do.  What is life after college, after all?  I'm still not sure, and I'm not exactly sure how to find out.  So far, my most promising idea is to go on an (admittedly cliché) trip abroad to "find myself," and take this whole Local Tourist thing international.  Not, like, traveling to Nepal and drinking psychoactive tea in brick huts with sherpas or anything-- I was thinking more along the lines of reclining on a Parisian balcony, sipping a merlot and pretentiously pretending to know a lot about Edith Piaf as "La Vie En Rose" plays softly in the background on a "hip" vintage record player I picked up at the "quaint" local market, while reading Spanish poetry and sardonically chuckling in concurring faux-sagacity at its eternal, cosmic wisdom before deigning to confer a condescending, poignant shake of my head to the less-enlightened denizens of the streets below.

As the great philosopher Hume said, "See you in another life, brother."




Max
Twitter: @MaxSzentveri






Editorial Note: From now on, I think I'm going to keep posts shorter, which will make for easier reading and, more importantly, will hopefully enable me to post more often.  Maybe I can try to do a weekly thing?  Can I really commit to that?  Sure, let's be optimists!




Dramatis Personae
People in this post:

Aldora Chang
Did not think my "Aldora's Box" pun was funny at all.

Karl Heilbron
Has grown up, despite this propeller hat he wears that says "I Don't Wanna Grow Up!"

Kim Noble
Contortionist.

Michael Silverwood
Tour guide.
Check him out, yo, he's blowing up the interwebs:
Twitter: @michael_one
www.michaelsilverwood.ca
http://paper.li/michael_one
All fantastic stuff, if you're at all technologically-inclined.