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SIMPLY PASSING THROUGH HISTORY Has Moved, Yo!
Posted by nickdoll on March 9, 2013
http://simplypassingthroughhistory.com/2013/03/09/simply-passing-through-history-has-moved-yo/
This Is Ground Control To Cyber Cat
Dear Kitt,
I wish I could believe that you were still out there somewhere, but I’ve been to your grave multiple times a day for months now, and I’ve scoured the interwebs looking for any sign of a possible cyber-cat ghosts. You’re dead.
As I sit here watching The Dark Knight, it should be you on my chest, not this cold laptop.
The flip of Harvey Dent’s coin and the gruff of Batman’s voice distract me, but only temporarily. Work, video-games, comics, giant toy shields, Driver jackets, all but a distraction from the pain I feel every time I look out your window, see a movement out of the corner of my eye, or catch a wiff of tuna (Reminds me of your terrible breath. We both need to brush more.)
Last night, I swear I felt the weight of your body on the covers when I rolled over. Was sure you were there, nipping at my toes, which is what they deserved for hiding under the blanket from you, like that. Bastard toes. Joy filled my heart, if only for not-even-a-second.
I don’t know what that weight was, perhaps a clean shirt folded on the corner of my bed, or some half-read graphic novel. But it wasn’t you.
It’s never you.
It’s never going to be you.
Honestly, I thought I’d be past you by now. But, no dice.
God, Maggie Gyllehaal is even worse as Rachel Dawes than Katie Holmes, somehow.
So I keep the distractions coming.
Maybe someday I’ll find the right one.
Damn, Jordan’s right, the Heath Ledger’s Joker does lick his lips way too often. It’s more distracting than anything if you look for it.
A comfortable distraction.
I like when movies deal with death. Like this scene, where Dent thinks he is going to die and that Rachel will be saved. The moment he realizes his was picked (albeit accidentally) to be saved by Batman, is pure cinema bliss. Raw emotion on the screen.
Which is where I prefer it.
Death isn’t some great finale. We all make quite a bit of a fuss entering this world, it’s unfortunate that most of us exit with such a whimper.
No buddy cop explosion. No melodramatic fall from grace. Just you, going limp in my arms, already 1/3 your size from the year before.
The always watchful Kitt, watches no more.
No ear flick or slight eyelid movement to indicate that you are not so secretly keeping tabs on all of us. Because though you trust me, your instinct is still there.
A most correct instinct.
The most peaceful I’ve ever seen you, while in life, was on my stomach. I actually think you really fell asleep once, not just a catnap. You were out, cold. Purring, but so oblivious to your surroundings that I bet your arch-nemsis neighbor cat could have even snuck up on you (not that I would have let him. He was a ripe bastard, that one).
I betrayed that trust, and it is really the moment of your death that haunts me more than anything else. Sure I fed you, scooped your poop, and gave you more attention than most thought a cat deserved, but the only real agreement we had was that we wouldn’t hurt .
You trusted me when you slept. Just as I trusted you would not actually harm my blanket covered toes. You’d be playful, but never break the skin. If there is such thing as unconditional love, we shared it. Obviously, not a physical or romantic love, because I’m into human females… who are usually less hairy than you, but a certain type of love that I’ve never quite understood and I can’t quite define.
I remember feeling 3 years old when I pulled your body out of that kennel and wrapped in your real favorite person’s old towel. Holding you there, on my lap, on the new sandstone Dad installed in the backyard, the sun warming your body just the way you liked it before mom and dad installed the glass patio door that soaked up all the extra heat.
I’ve never felt like less of an adult.
I’d trade it all.
Trade all my blurays, all my posters, all my possessions for an hour with you in the sun. Just the two of us, not having anywhere better to be, not having anything to do but just lay there, stealing each other’s warmth and being rocked to sleep by each others’ heavy, sleepy breath.
I don’t even want to say what I’d do to have those five years back where I left you for my CA adventure.
Let’s just say, if anyone has a time machine or can resurrect you (Jesus/Oliver Tate style, not at all like Pet Cemetery or Frankenweenie), and that one person happened to enjoy any sort of sexual favors — you know, blowies, handies, the dutch-rudder, whatever — I’d grin and bear it. I’d take a chubby for the team. I will suck it up.
Like I said, I’m into “human females,” but I would do anything for you, Kitt… including that. Meat Loaf is a pussy.
Someday I will join you in nothingness. We can “not exist” together, but let’s face it, we’d be just a productive dead as when we were together.
I might be lazy, but you were the laziest mother fucker I ever knew. A standard for which all lazy people can aspire to be, but never reach.
I miss you, cyber cat.
Posted by nickdoll on April 16, 2012
http://simplypassingthroughhistory.com/2012/04/16/this-is-ground-control-to-cyber-cat/
Spring Cleaning… Of The Brain
I’m free!
I’m finally free from movie news!
I'm like that tiny spec escaping while the damned time traveling Romulans under Eric Bana's command meet their doom.
During college I fell into a hole that many film students get trapped in. It is a black hole from which nothing escapes… except the U.S.S. Enterprise when it jetisons all of its explosives at once in order to blow itself away from said black hole.
The black hole I speak of is the need for all film geeks/students/assistants/wanna-be filmmakers to follow every bit of movie news.
Who was cast in what? Who is on the shortlist to be casted in what? What director just left the project? Did you know they’ve already hired a writer to pen a sequel even though the original film has yet to be released?
I can get very obsessive, and obsessive I was about movie news whilst misguidedly pursuing a career in Hollywood.
From freshman year at Chapman in 2006 ’til the tail end of 2011, I checked movie news at least five times daily.
The first set pics from Star Trek 2 have leaked? They have a teaser poster for Total Recall now?
That’s the kind of stuff that got me all hot and bothered, the useless shit I shared with everyone (which included those who don’t care and those who already read the same article from the same site).
FBook has lead us all to believe we have something we need to say or share with the world. (Not at all like blogging about one’s self, which is the least narcissistic activity to preform). I’d read some minor casting update and immediatly jump to FBook to share what I and every other film geek had already found.
I would have to check movie news sites every few minutes, mostly because my desk job at NBC was mind numbingly boring… but also because I had to know EVERYTHING. What movies are on the horizon, what favorite actors like Tom Hardy will be in next, etc.
Then, I went “off the grid” for a few weeks surrounding Christmas back in ’11, cutting myself off from any con-updates, press releases, or those intolerable Nikki Finke “Toldya’s”!
After the initial withdrawal (which I was told was very similiar to withdrawels from drugs like Heroin. Bugs under my skin! Bugs under my skin!), I no longer miss it.
In fact, I’m happier not knowing what I’m missing, not knowing which articles I wish I was sharing with my acquantices on FBook.
Do I need to know a movie is in production years before its release?
Fuck no! It will be all the better the surprise when I see a teaser for Mission: Impossible 5 at work crap my pants with surprise and delight.
Though I lost interest in movie news by Jan, but I’ve been trapped writing news articles for months on a website that I will no longer name, due to a wee bit of bridge burning (though that bridge was already ricketier than the one in Temple Of Doom.)
Now, I can finally remain completely in the dark about what’s to come.
I no longer care who is writing or directing what with whichever star; all I’m looking for now are good trailers and/or word of mouth.
The only disadvantage to not knowing what’s coming, is that I can’t use my extremely useless movie knowledge to request posters looooong before they come out at the AMC theater where I work.
I already requested posters for movies years away, like Star Trek 2, Captain America 2, and Iron Man 3. Without my movie know how, I won’t be able to request posters for the followup to Skyfall.
Last year I requested Skyfall merch, before anyone at work even knew what that movie was (answer: a Bond movie).
(And in writing this column, I just realized it may already be time to claim the Arrested Development movie goods… there, now that’s done too.)
These days, I only get on the internet to check e-mail (once every few days) and post random shit that delights me on FBook. And to blog… and to buy shit from Amazon… and to play PS3 with my friend who lives across town.
I’m free of all sorts of news that used to enslave me, whether it be video game news (high school obsession), movie news (college and onward), or comic book news (I would fall into this, but Moulton at my comic book shop gives me a booklet to order from, so no checking the news is required).
While I’m on the topic of movies, I also have to point out that now I see less movies that ever. We’re three months in, and I’ve only seen The Grey and 21 Jump Street (which were both excellent choices).
I don’t know if it’s my job, or being in Colorado were there are less cinephiles, or what, but a movie has to earn my time, even though it is free per my job.
All those movies that were on the bubble before aren’t even on my radar now. Do I like Will Ferrell? Yes. But is Casa De Mi Padre worth my time? I’m betting, no.
Same with Jeff Who Lives At Home. That movie stars two comedians I like and may actually be really good, but I just don’t want to waste 3 hours of my day making a trip to the movies.
I never even saw Star Wars in 3D. And that’s my joint!
I’ll see the essentials like The Avengers, Amazing Spider-Man, Men In Black 3, Prometheus, and The Dark Knight Rises multiple times even (saw Ghost Protocol 4 times on IMAX, and A Game of Shadows and The Grey twice), but I’ll let mostly everything else slip.
Don’t get me wrong, movies are still my main passion (I did, after all, watch Batman Begins twice and Dark Knight once in the last two days). I just don’t want to make them or see them all.
As for Begins and Knight, I still plan on eventually writing discussion about the new aspects I brought away from both following my reading of Year One and Long Halloween,as well as what we know about Dark Knight Rises.
Until next time… Carrots!
Posted by nickdoll on April 5, 2012
http://simplypassingthroughhistory.com/2012/04/05/spring-cleaning-of-the-brain-75/
Manifesto
Hello! And welcome (back) to SIMPLY PASSING THROUGH HISTORY, called the “best/most-worthwhile/most necessary-toward-mankind’s-survival blog on the interwebs” by Nick Doll.
First off, fair warning: I don’t exactly understand what “Manifesto” means, but ANCHORMAN: WAKE UP RON BURGUNDY leads me to believe it is some set of rules that will dictate my future actions; in this case relating to the art (oh, yes, it’s an art) of blogging.
Several years ago, when I was still living in Hollywood (okay, Los Angeles… though it was officially ”West Hollywood” [and annoyingly called WeHo]) and working at the Barnes and Noble on Pico Blvd (which no longer exists. what can I say? I was indispensable.), I started blogging… daily.
Sometimes those blogs were things of beauty, like my Disneyland conspiracy theories or my longtime war with my arch-nemesis, Panda Express fortune cookies, or my defense of Doc Ock . Other times, they were lazy, like when I wrote a blog about why I was watching S.W.A.T. instead of writing a longer post. And sometimes, I pushed the boundaries of what was appropriate, like my last blog post in which I really gave it to Liam Neeson’s deceased wife.
This new blog will hopefully look a lot like the last one, only this time hopefully I will make it the entire year. Rather, hopefully I will post one blog a day until the world ends on 12/21/12. (Who am I kidding? We all know I never finish projects I set out to complete – see Web Series, Podcast [Oh, that will happen in 2012!], all my screenplays, and going all the way with a woman).
Sometimes my blogs will be lengthy, sometimes they will be hilarious, sometimes they will offend, sometimes they will be mundane, and sometimes they may be less than a paragraph long. They will nearly all be geeky, because in 2011 I finally came to except what I am inside: a raging geek. I just hope to blog everyday until 2013.
And for those smart asses out there (my ass only has an IQ of 69) who notice that this entry was posted on January 2nd, 2012, don’t forget my “sleep cycle” rule! If I wake up on the 1st and don’t post till after midnight, I still count it as a post for the 1st because I am still awake from waking up on the 1st. The 2nd doesn’t start for me until I return to bed and awaken tomorrow morning.
So, Ha!
Anyway if you look forward to tales of geekiness, comic books, working at NBC & interning in Hollywood, obsessing over movies, ridiculous rants and conspiracy theories, please join me every day at www.SimplyPassingThroughHistory.com.
If you’re still not sure what you’re in for, please visit the old iteration of SIMPLY PASSING THROUGH HISTORY by clicking HERE (that’s right, all those underlined sentences were links! [Why didn't your smart ass with the 140 tell you that?]).
I’ll try to be less crude that before, but I can’t help but make the tasteless joke every blog or two… sowwy.
So, cum (see? tasteless, but it makes me chuckle all the same) with me, my digital friends, as we simply pass through history together!
Love,
Nick Doll
Posted by nickdoll on January 2, 2012
http://simplypassingthroughhistory.com/2012/01/02/manifesto/
