The DJ's on a Yacht

While thinking about something humorous that has happened in my life, I kept thinking about all the embarrassing moments that were absolutely horrifying at that time, but are now some of the funniest moments I can remember. I was trying to think about what some of my favorite clips are from some funny movies or TV series, and finally I came up with one that relates to my personal life. I thought about a clip from the movie Dumb and Dumber. Dumb and Dumber isn’t really one of my favorite movies that I watch over and over again, but one scene stuck out to me and when I thought about how it could relate to me in my own life, I started laughing and knew it was perfect. In one particular scene, Lloyd slips turbo lax into Harry’s drink before he is supposed to meet Mary at her house. On the drive over, his stomach begins to make strange gurgling noises, and he realizes the fact that he is about to have an explosion. Once he gets to her house, and slips into the bathroom and has, what my family calls it, an “ass-plosion” or the "DJ's" (deucy juicy). After he has experiences some violent action on the toilet, Mary knocks on the door and informs him that the toilet is not working properly. He is mortified and tries desperately to think of everything he can to fix the toilet. I personally experienced an incident very similar to this. My father lives on an island called Isle of Palms which is fifteen minutes away from Charleston in South Carolina. While visiting him for a week one summer in middle school, we were invited to party on one of his friend’s yachts. We were all having a great time on his yacht and had a great dinner, then suddenly it was interrupted by my stomach making some obscene and obnoxious gurgling noises. Attempting to be sly and nonchalant, I slipped away unnoticed and hid in a bathroom on the boat. Minutes later, I heard a knock on the door and the sound of my father’s familiar voice saying “Matt, are you ok? I hope you’re not using the toilet, it’s broken and won’t flush.” I was absolutely horrified. I immediately felt my heart sink out of my butt along with everything else and my face turn bright red. I opened the door and revealed to him what had happened. Thinking back on it now, I can’t help but laugh at myself and the complete misfortune I had, but at the time I was completely embarrassed and had no idea what to do. The worst part about the whole unfortunate incident was the fact that it was on a yacht.

The link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7GoswzefcY

You've just driven into F*ckville, and she's the Mayor!

To anyone who has seen one of Dane Cook’s performances, I don’t think it’s any big surprise then when deciding on what makes him stand out or comedic, one of the first things you think about are the motions he does with arms, hands, or any other part of his body. He involves his whole body while describing his stories, keeping the audience’s attention for the whole duration of the routine. During one specific routine, women winning 99.9% of all fights, he describes how women have a way with dealing with fights and how they react under certain circumstances. He goes into detail about how they position their hands crossed in front of them, then move them under their chin, place their legs sticking out, and how they have a certain phrase of two they always use. They will always start to agree with the guy they are fighting with in order to prove a point at the end. Dane used his positioning so well that he almost perfectly reenacted what women actually do while getting in fights with their significant other. He used the same girly movements with his hands, the same girly stance with one leg sticking out in front of them, then at the end, positioned his hands under his chin then walked off with a very exact stride. Everyone laughs at him for two reasons mainly: one, because he has pinpointed every single motion and positioning perfectly and hit the nail right on the head, and secondly because everyone has gone through one of these experiences and knows exactly what he’s talking about. He finds a way to connect with the audience and relate to them on a level they understand. He captivates their attention and holds it the entire duration of the routine with his voice impersonations, flamboyant gestures, and ability to relate on a personal level.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AOUl8731Jg&feature=related

...and the greatest of these, is love.

I believe the character who loves most truly is Cyrano. Even though he may seem rough around the edges to some people and his is unfortunate when it comes to good looks, he still finds the courage to go beyond all that criticism and build a strong heart. His intentions and desires are admirable and his heart is truly in the right place. His character comes out and the true Cyrano is revealed. Even though he can sometimes throw up a front and have a rough appearance to some, he is still honest with himself and stays true to who he really is, no matter who accepts it or not. There is a very short amount of people like that today in our society. People are either fake to themselves/others or they are rude/crude when attacked by others. Cyrano seems to have every intention of loving people and caring for them. When Christian is trying to profess his love to Roxane, he gets tongue tied and finds an extreme lack of words to describe what he is actually feeling. He acquires help from his good friend Cyrano who basically spoon feeds him words and produces a beautiful arrangement of words that cut deep to her heart. His hidden stance under the balcony in the movie provided him the opportunity to give Christian every word he needed to capture the attention of his love. This example goes to show how dedicated he was to his friends and how thoughtful he could be. He not only provided a beautiful arrangement of words that demonstrated how thoughtful and loving he could be, but also he went the extreme effort of helping out his good friend. We see a soft side of Cyrano behind that big nose of his and how caring he could really be. He showed not only a love for the other gender and his friend, but also a love for love itself.

Assume makes ass+u+me

Sometimes it’s hard for people to imagine what life is like beyond what we are used to. After being surrounded by a certain environment for an extended period of time, it can be harder to picture what life is like beyond the walls you see every day. Douglas Adams goes into detail about how his assumptions were changed after some experiences during his travels. During the first section of the Blind Panic chapter, he describes the differences between the western and eastern hemispheres. He was impressed with the water spiraling down the drain the opposite way in Australia and how it caught him off guard at first. Another example is how the telephone dials in New Zealand are the completely different. It is just a habit to jump to the conclusion that everything is going to be the same as you’re used to it being so when you’re faced with something completely different, it takes awhile for you to concentrate on what you’re having to do and to reverse the whole process. He goes on to explain on page 144, “The habit of telephone dials is so deep that it has become an assumption, and you don’t even know you’re making it.” Even though the water drained the same way and the telephone dials were the same in China, some of their other traditions or habits were different. He expands upon the fact that he grew an obsession with aftershave and bought cans wherever he went. While in China, he attempted to get rid of some of these cans but failed due to the maid who cleaned his room. He also had a hard time attaining clean, cold water to brush his teeth. It becomes humorous to both him and the readers that he has such a hard time getting rid of his new obsession of aftershaves and can’t find a way to cool the boiling water without the maid revoking it from its hiding place. No matter where he tries to hide the cooling cup of water or the can of aftershave, it’s always found and stored perfectly in place with the other items. I thought this was humorous because I could semi relate. I went with my mom and sister to Italy in the summer of 2006 and our stops was Venice, Florence, then Rome. Whenever we traveled, especially through the trains from location to location, we would save some of the food we gained or was given for if we ever got hungry in between meals or while walking around. In our hotel room we set the food out but evidently the maid thought it was trash because she threw the food away. Different cultures have different ways of doing things and thinking, and one can't help but laugh when faced with awkward or difficult situations through assumptions.

Oh the memories...

In Slaughterhouse Five, Billy is famously known for having flashbacks of his past. He experiences and relives everything that has happened to him, both good and bad. He can even see into the future as well, even to the exact day and time of his death. However, on his eighteenth wedding anniversary, what he experienced was a memory instead of his a flashback. His nice white house was full of guests, mostly optometrists and their wives, for a wonderful celebration of their marriage and how long it had lasted. A group of optometrists who attended the party were also known for being in a quartet who called themselves “The Febs”. They entertained the guests with their rehearsed songs and had prepared a special song for the “happy” couple. The quartet began their song, and the chords being sung struck Bill in an unusual way, even to the extent of his facial expressions being distorted. The words of the song also had a big impact on him, one that he did not understand why. On page 220, the song says “So long forever, old fellows and gals, so long forever old sweethearts and pals – God bless ‘em – And so on.” Billy did not understand why this had affected him in such a strange way, seeing as though he had never had old fellows or old sweethearts, yet he missed them anyways. Billy wandered up to his bedroom in an effort to compose himself once again, but instead had a memory visit him. The memory was in Dresden and it was the day of the attack. He had been down in the meat locker with the other Americans and four of their guards while the town around was being destroyed and eaten alive by fire. After spending quite some time in the locker, they resurfaced to find themselves alone with no other survivors. On page 227, it states “The guards drew together instinctively, rolled their eyes. They experimented with one expression and then another, said nothing, though their mouth were often open. They looked like a silent film of a barbershop quartet.” The quartet that was still singing along throughout the night underneath his feet downstairs had reminded him of that tragic day in Dresden. The memory was not one of his famous flashbacks that he relives, but simply a reminder of something that had an impact on his life. It’s just like when we catch a scent unexpectantly that takes us to another place, like home, or a certain holiday, like Christmas.

From the outside looking in

The two drastic perspectives that are revealed to us of the boxcars at the end of chapter 3 are beyond belief to us. At least to me it was. I couldn’t imagine existing in a state like those soldiers did in those boxcars when I first read the passage. The author portrays a sense of mere existence and demonstrates the view of an unwanted hassle as he describes the boxcar from the point of view of a soldier. On page 89 he states, “To the guards who walked up and down outside, each car became a single organism which ate and drank and excreted through its ventilators. It talked or sometimes yelled through its ventilators, too. In went water and loaves of blackened bread and sausage and cheese, and out came shit and piss and language.” The insensitive soldiers who were numb to the whole idea of caging human beings simply saw this boxcar as something they had to babysit and endure during the day. It was just a job…to feed and water these “animals” until they were passed off at the next stop. It was simply a big piece of steel that yelled and consumed their food that was starting to run scarce. From the inside looking out, it was a whole different point of view. These soldiers were cramped and in need of fresh air, exercise, and the right to be treated as a human being rather than a piece of cargo. The guards who watched over the boxcars had one of their own. Billy described it as “heaven” on page 87 and went into saying “There was candlelight, and there were bunks with quilts and blankets heaped on them. There was a cannonball stove with a steaming coffeepot on top. There was a table with a bottle of wine and a loaf of bread and a sausage on it. There were four bowls of soup.” These two different groups of people were treated extremely different. The regular reader would read this passage with sympathy for the cramped soldiers and disgust towards the guards. It affects the reader because it shows just a slight extent of what these captives had to go through and how they were treated. It just goes to show a little glimpse of what soldiers had to endure.

Say what?

I have grown up in a Christian household all of my life. I went to a private Christian school from fourth grade until graduation from high school, and cussing was always looked down upon. If a student was caught saying a certain word or announcing language that was inappropriate, we would have been reprimanded and given a consequence. When I arrived here at Young Harris, it was a whole different ball game. A person’s ears can catch the sound of four letter words being spouted out all around campus all of the time. In someone’s dorm room, in a classroom, and just walking across campus. I was never extremely sheltered as a teenager because my mom wanted me to be aware of things going on and didn’t want me to have a rude awakening when I headed off on my own to college, so none of these words were new to me….I just hardly ever heard them spoken. Taboo words do not offend or bother me usually, although some words do set off a trigger. I have a hard time listening to people cuss using Jesus Christ’s name or putting God in front of words. Growing up in the Bible belt and a Christian this has had an impact of the way I view certain aspects of the English language. I still hold true to my morals and beliefs in college because I have made them my own, but I am still not innocent of using profanity every once in a while. I screamed out “shit” earlier this week when I ran over a deer in my 4runner on my way to dinner in Ellijay followed by “what the hell was that?” when all four of my car’s wheels made it back onto the ground. Slip ups happen… shit happens…and A.R. Ammons does a great job of demonstrating this concept in his poem. Ammons carried out his poem into a creative and organized passage keeping the reader’s attention. He made the point clear that shit happens to everyone and it’s something that can’t be avoidable. He brings about images of panda shit and scorpion shit that I would never have thought of on a regular basis. The reader is aware after observing the different styles of shit that it is a part of life and how we were all created. One thing is not better than the other because of some defecation, everything shits and it all smells. Some very conservative people may find the shit poem offensive and uncalled for, yet others, like myself, may find it more artful in the way of carrying out an organized and deeper meaning. Our generation also has a lot do with it. My grandmother, and even my mother, would find a poem saying shit over and over again offensive and uncalled for, but it is a normal word our vocabulary today. It all depends on the audience and their beliefs. No matter what you believe, just remember...shit happens and you can't avoid it!

Bout to be a what? Girl fight!

While reading this excerpt from the book Emma, I honestly did not have a strong emotion one way or the other. I did not find any humor in this chapter and caught myself wandering off in my thoughts and having to re-read a few paragraphs over again. At certain times in different situations, it can be a little more challenging to picture a scene the way a writer wants it to be perceived. It is a little more difficult to understand the exact tone or severity of a situation when it is written in text. Nothing beats actually experiencing a situation in person and having a firsthand view of what is happening. Viewing the video in class put the whole scene into perspective for me. I was able to feel more emotions and feel more sympathetic towards Miss Bates. I got more of a sense of what was really happening. Even though Hollywood does have a habit of sometimes distorting novels to make them more dramatic and appealing to an audience, it can put scenes back into perspective for a viewer. Immanuel Kant expressed “Laughter is the eruption of emotion that arises from a strained expectation suddenly reduced to nothing.” The reading brought about no “eruption of emotion” for me, but I did break out into laughter after watching the clip. The laughter that erupted was a type of sympathetic and “feel bad” laughter. No one really knows exactly what to do in awkward situations, therefore it’s common for people to let out a giggle or two as a way to express their emotions. The reader couldn’t really tell the extent of the remark and the exact damage it did to Miss Bates’ feelings. The video brought out the emotions and added a dramatic twist to the scene. The long and drawn out pause was a great way to add in more emotional appeals and a great example of how an “eruption of emotion” can arise.

Laughter: something worth being contagious

When thinking about the word laughter, I can’t help but remember the events that have defined the word for me. Right before I sat down to write this blog, I was watching TV with a group of friends and while channel surfing we stumbled upon America’s Funniest Home Videos. We sat there with our eyes fixed on the TV as we watched people of all ages make fools of themselves and receiving the honor of having someone else catch it all on tape. We discussed how most of the videos were not amusing to us (unlike they used to be back in the old days when we were younger) except for the few exceptions to where we all laughed simultaneously for a few seconds until the next clip flashed across the screen. One particular girl was the exception to this. She laughed at every single mishap and seemed to enjoy the hurt and embarrassment of others caught on tape (but then again, who doesn’t from time to time?). During one clip of a man falling off a ladder and a bucket of paint falling onto his head, she busted out laughing uncontrollably. The rest of us uttered out a single breathe of laughter or a chuckle, but she basically split her side from how hard she was laughing. We all sat there in silence, exchanged looks, then simultaneously belted out the loudest laughter. We weren’t laughing at the dumb man covered in paint, we were laughing at the fact that she was laughing, and laughing to the point of tears running down her face. One guy even shouted out “this isn’t even funny at all, but I’m laughing because she is!” Robert Provine states, “Another attraction of laughter is its remarkable contagiousness. Think of the last time you sat in an audience, laughing and letting waves of laughter wash over you. A pleasant experience – one of life’s best. But consider now the primal nature of the animal chorus and the way members of the audience synchronize their noises. How odd that we can’t help laughing when we hear others laugh!” I believe this to be true because I experience it firsthand tonight. No, it wasn’t my first time laughing only because someone else was or because their laughter was contagious, but it reoccurred to me how easy it can be done. The majority of people probably have a person or two in their life that is known for their laughter or for having a contagious laugh. I know I have someone very specific whom I always think about whenever I laugh extremely hard or for an extended period of time. One of my best friend’s laughter is extremely contagious, and you can easily hear it from a mile away and automatically identify who it is without actually having to visually see her. I believe that laughter is a vital part of our lives and it’s one thing that is worth catching from someone else.