Movies of Influence

Movies of Influence

 

I’m a pretty avid movie viewer, or so I’ve been told.  In the theatre, I’d say I average about 30 movies a year.  At home, movies I haven’t seen, maybe 10 a year.  These are movies I am seeing for the first time.  Including repeat viewings of movies (both old and new); add maybe 15 more theatre viewings and 30 more home viewings.  What can I say, I like movies.  And I like seeing them in the theatre.

 

As this is a discussion regarding movies that have influenced me, I will save the discussion of theatre over home; big screen over small screen, for another time.

 

I decided I needed to start getting these things down on “paper” while my memory still serves me relatively well.  What better place than in this blog.

Given that I see a fairly good sized number of movies I am often asked, what is your favorite movie?  Often that question is answered by the questioner with, “It’s Star Wars[1], isn’t it.”  Well, this may come as a surprise, but no, it’s not.  It is near impossible to determine a favorite film.  It has a lot to do with when I saw the movie and the mood I am in at the time.  Here’s a list of my top 10 in no particular order.

 

Star Wars

2001

The Producers

Phantom of the Paradise

The Muppet Movie

Horse Feathers

Carrie

Star Trek 2

Young Frankenstein

Sleeper

Annie Hall

Stripes

Night at the Opera

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

And yes, I know I’ve listed more than 10.

These are all movies that influenced me in one way or another.

The next tier is quite extensive:

The rest of the Star Wars movies (Empire, Jedi, Sith, Clones, and Menace in that order), Top Secret, the Indiana Jones movies (well Temple of Doom and Crystal Skull aren’t exactly this high up), Star Trek (in order) 6, 4, 3,1,5, What’s Up Doc? (even though it stars Barbra Streisand), Rocky Horror Picture Show, The Muppets, Take the Money and Run, Guardians of the Galaxy, Planet of the Apes (the whole series, in order), Logan’s Run, Citizen Kane, M*A*S*H, Shampoo, Airplane!, A Few Good Men, American Werewolf in London, everything in the View Askewniverse (Clerks 1 and 2, Dogma, Chasing Amy, Mall Rats, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back – not in order cause I don’t know the order I like them in), Superman 2 and Superman: The Movie, Everything You’ve Always Wanted to Know About Sex, Batman Begins, Dark Knight, Batman Returns, Heaven Can Wait (Warren Beatty), Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang.  All the great Universal Horror movie series (well, the Frankenstein series – maybe not Son of and Ghost of, and Dracula, and The Wolfman.

7 Faces of Dr. Lao, Bananas, Night of the Comet, Animal Crackers, The 10 Commandments,  Animal House, In and Out, Man of La Mancha, Ghostbusters 1 and 2, Little Shop of Horrors (the musical), Jesus Christ Superstar, Real Genius, Godspell, Holy Grail, Pit and the Pendulum (Vincent Price), Altered States, Edward Scissorhands, Blow Out, Love and Death, Ed Wood, Network, Play it Again, Sam, And Now for Something Completely Different, Clockwork Orange, Fiddler on the Roof, Beetlejuice, Big Fish . . . oh this is getting ridiculous.  I am having trouble finding a movie that hasn’t influenced me in one way or another.

 

I guess the bottom line here is that I love seeing movies.  I love sharing them with my kids.  I love seeing them on the big screen with my kids (where appropriate).

 

For shock value, here are some flicks I haven’t seen (that people find hard to believe that I haven’t):

Pulp Fiction

Godfather (all 3)

Apocalypse Now

Singin’ in the Rain

Good Fellas

Saw (any of them)

And I’m sure there’s a few more.

 

Once again, a self indulgent blog but, what can one say.

 

Next up, movie theatre vs. home viewing.  Or maybe favorite quotes.  Or maybe more movies.  Well, more than likely something cinematic.

 

 

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[1] For the purposes of this discussion (as well as most), references to Star Wars relate to the original film released in 1977.   You know, the one now referred to as Episode IV and/or A New Hope.

What Makes You So Funny?

What Makes You So Funny?

 

Yeah there’s going to be some egomania in this one.  Perhaps.  But I’ve been listening to a lot of old stand up recently and have been thinking of how my sense of humor developed.  And, after all, the blog is really my musings.  By the way, I am honestly asked that question a lot.

 

I’ve always considered my sense of humor more of the verbal and cerebral sort, as opposed to the physical.  Though I do like to pick up on physical characteristics of others and mimic them, I’m really more about the words.  This becomes obvious as I consider who my main sources of influence have been.

 

George Carlin was an early influence for me.  I memorized his albums FM & AM and Class Clown at a young age.  They taught me what was funny and a bit of timing.  Woody Allen came into my life a few years later.  More through his films and plays and then ultimately his stand up.  He taught me (unwittingly I might add) about word usage and irony, as well as the benefit of self deprecating humor.   As a kid I also listened to a lot of Bill Cosby.  Stand up routines, especially on records, really taught me about the verbal conveyance of ideas and timing.  Things I wasn’t learning through more visual media.  Add in the Marx Brothers (specifically Groucho) to assist in developing wordplay.

In my later years (and well after their introduction to the US) was Monty Python.  Here was irony and to an extent verbal farce.  I learned that a joke didn’t need to have an ending and didn’t need to even make sense.  These were my professional influences.

In my real life, my greatest influence was my Mom.  My mother had quite a biting wit.  She could cut through all of the layers and go, as they say, directly for the jugular.  Though my Father had a great sense of humor he was more of a charmer.  I think I’m able to combine the two so that I can pretty much say what I need to in order to get a laugh yet still leave the offended party (at least a good part of the time) in on the joke as opposed to being the butt.

I also have a good memory for useless information.  And I have a pretty quick ability to access it.  This is what I attribute a lot of my wit to.  I generally would consider myself a quick wit though I am (most of the time) able to filter it for appropriateness.  At one point when asked how I come up with those comments so quickly, I responded, without giving it much thought, that I have a book at home with a funny thing to say in any situation, and I memorized it.  Think about it.

It really is about the words for me.  The only area in which I find physical humor part of my makeup is in facial gestures and expressions.  Often I will hear a comment and make a very slight facial gesture and the full meaning of what is going through my head is conveyed.  This really is the case with people who have gotten to know me.

 

“You should be a comedian!”  How often I’ve heard that over the years.  Unfortunately it is not my style (though I did think about it when I was much younger).  It’s just not the kind of funny I am.  I think I would work best “on the couch” like they had on the old talk shows.  Just kind of chatting and joking.  This is where the wit comes in.  I also tend too much to storytelling.  Whenever I have considered doing stand up and putting a routine together I find that I am much too verbose, taking quite awhile to get to the payoff.  If one expects a story teller, one is more accepting of that style.  If one expects a stand up, they want a series of quick laughs, not a build.

 

 

And yes, I am well aware that everything I try to make a joke of is just not funny.  Let me rephrase that.  I am aware that there are things that I may say in order to elicit a laugh that won’t, that aren’t funny at all.  Or funny to most.  This has an interesting evolution.  Back in High School I was a real humor snob.  If I didn’t find something funny (or even just mildly funny) I wouldn’t laugh.  Not even crack a smile.  Friends actually would go out of their way to see if they could get me to laugh and usually to no avail.  It was quite a compliment if someone got a smile out of me.  An actual laugh, a grand slam.  And I was very particular in what jokes I would tell.  It had to be funny to me for the words to come out of my mouth.  Interesting and kind of related sidebar.  I got pretty good at getting people to get milk to come out of their noses in the school cafeteria.  It’s really more an issue of timing than anything else.  People tried to do it to me, but never.  The only time I ever had anything come out my nose from laughing was ice tea.  I was home alone, just took a nice big swig of ice tea and thought of something funny.  I t was cold and gross ad a bit embarrassing.    Anyway, back to the story.  After a long stint of being a humor snob it struck me that people laugh at different things and in certain contexts just about anything can be funny to someone.  I changed my whole attitude and started blurting out just about everything that either I found funny or I figured somebody, somewhere, would laugh at.  The less funny I thought it was, the harder I pushed it and add self congratulatory laughter.  I’ll admit some of the snobbery has stayed with me.  I love the look of joy and surprise on my kids’ faces when they say something and I actually laugh out loud at it. 

 

Here’s something I find interesting that comes up a lot as well.  People tell me they just don’t get me.  They laugh because some of the stuff is pretty straightforward but some of the obscure stuff has a funny feel to it, whether it is understood or not.  I recently had this conversation with a friend.  I thought maybe I should create a Buzz Feed survey “How much do you GET Gregg?”  She got that!!

 

I have a very good friend for a long, long time now.  He and I share very similar senses of humor.  Our conversations are usually way out there and it’s honestly for us and not an audience of any kind.  I have a very similar relationship with my nephew as well.  The interesting thing with both of these guys is that it’s like watching a comedy team with no straight man.  It’s like guerilla comedy; just nonstop jokes.  Well, not exactly jokes, just funny stuff.  These are two people who have the ability to make me genuinely laugh as well.   On a regular basis.  The three of us have never had a conversation together but I would be afraid for anyone within earshot of that discussion.  I once asked this friend why people reacted to us the way they did.   They would just sit back and watch us talk (yes watch is the appropriate verb here).  He told me it’s because they want to be in on the joke.  What joke I inquired.  “The joke they think just the two of us know.”  And that made perfect sense to me.

 

So there you have it.  Do I think I am funny?  Yes.  Some of the time.  Do I enjoy making people laugh?  Yes, but then I am a performer at heart.  Do I think this blog is blatantly ego?  No, not really.  As I mentioned at the beginning, I’ve been listening to a lot of stand up recently.  Old stand up.  And I got thinking about how much I was influenced by some of the masters.  Just wanted to get it all down.

 

So thanks to –

Mom, Dad, George Carlin, Rich, Gaeson, Groucho, Woody, Max, Hawkeye, Monty Python, Tom Lehrer, Alan Sherman, Rowan & Martin . . .

. . . and all the people out there that I have had the privilege of observing for all these years.  You are really the ones who have made me funny.

 

And a special thank you to all of my family and friends who really just put up with it.  I know it can be a challenge.

An Early GGG'ism

Back before I knew what to call them, every now and then one of these little phrases would pop out of my mouth.  I can't remember a lot of them, but I do remember this one. 

"Who do I have to fuck to get a blow job around here?"

Just popped into the brain one day.  since this blog is called GGG'isms, thought it necessary to add to posterity.  More to come (after my regression hypnosis).

Online Dating Continues

So I've kept the sites active and I check back every so often.  I seem to really attract the 25 to 35 year olds. 

I had one of them ask me to contact them on Yahoo Messenger.  After a few chats back and forth, I asked her what she did for a living (I wanted to hear more about the fashion industry).  She told me she was out of work at the time.  I responded with a simple Oh.  She quickly retorted with something akin to "Well I guess that bothers you, goodbye."  And that was the last I heard from her.

There are also those that send me long emails about their lives and how they really want to meet me as they have fallen for me.  These women I believe are from other countries as they write in a broken English and usually they arrive in the middle of the night.  Honestly, I don't have a lot of time to write back so I just leave them unanswered.  I usually get a couple of "What happened to you?" emails before they disappear.

My favorite recent experience was with a young lady who looked exactly like Crystal from a previous encounter.  "Hey, I was looking at your picture and I'd like to get to know you, " she wrote.

"Hi, how've you been.  Remember me, Crystal?"  was my response.  Haven't heard back.  Maybe I should ask her about her Mom.

As I've mentioned before, I have met someone who's company I enjoy.  we've had a few meals, watched a few movies.  Talked a whole bunch.  I told her that the reason I could only see her once a week was because that was the only day the house I claimed is mine was vacant of the real residents as they go away for the weekends.  I get in there about 2 hours before she arrives to hang up family photos and toss clothes and stuff around.. She doesn't buy it.  Damn!!

If you are looking for a fake relationship with someone named Sandra or whose last name is Scott (and has fashion industry and orphan experience), the best place to go is Singles Around Me (SAM).  Second, Gk2Gk -- Good Luck!!


Oh, here is the original piece about this

http://stickeler.blogspot.com/2015/07/on-line-dating.html