Bandwidth

I never credit these illustrations but I really should.  That saying about a picture being worth a thousand words?  Will always gets that picture.  I think you’ll all agree his artwork is the best fuckin’ thing about my posts.

We all wake up with the terrible shame now and again.  Not fully fledged regret over any particular occurrence, just a horrible sense of dread eating at your balls that says ‘you acted like a tit again last night’.  Yeah, I guess everyone knows it, but I think maybe I know it too well.  Maybe it’s because I should have been writing last night, except I didn’t have anything, so I went out drinking.  And after leaving the bar and heading back to a friend’s house for a final glass of wine I might have drunkenly encouraged her dog to hump my leg.  People wonder why it comes as such a shock to me that women aren’t interested in me.

But that’s bullshit.  It doesn’t come as a shock at all.  Sometimes even I don’t like being around me, and I’m not a beautiful woman.  Hell now I’m just stating obvious facts.  Maybe I should just keep doing that until I’ve got a couple of pages:
Grass is green.
Shit stinks.
Beer is delicious.
Kanye West is a twat.
No I really do have a point – I’m just going the long way around getting to it.  I’m not an attractive guy.  I don’t have much money.  I’m very often drunk.  And I still live with my parents.  Essentially, I’m not what is classically considered a ‘catch’.  HOWEVER.  I’m not evil.  I’m pretty good at cooking.  And I don’t listen to Kanye West.  So I’m not a total zero either.  I’m just kinda okay.  I suppose I should be content, but it’s not in my nature to settle for okay, which is why I am so often depressed and, incidentally, why I am so hard to please when it comes to movies.  See, the world is teeming with beautiful women, but I want Ava Gardner.  People who can sing are a dime a dozen.  I want Sinatra.  [Editor's Note: Jesus, there's a necro-three way I'd like to see.] And when I go to the movies, I don’t just want two hours of entertainment, I want that fucking thing to move me.  And as with my life situation, I am very often disappointed because, just like me most movies really aren’t amazing.  They’re just okay.  I usually see a couple of new movies a week so I hear the question all the time, ‘Is it any good?’  In fact the only question I hear more often is ‘Could you stop staring at my breasts please?’  Anyway I find it very telling that my default answer is ‘It’s pretty good.’  Here I am Mr. Hot Shot Film Graduate and the most insightful comment I can conjure up is ‘it’s pretty good.’  And usually that’s not lack of imagination on my part, it’s just the best way to describe most movies.

It’s like asking someone how their lunch was.  It’s lunch.  You eat it every day and usually it’s unremarkable, but when you’re hungry a sandwich still hits the spot so usually, lunch is ‘pretty good’ right?  Well I see a lot of movies and most of the time I enjoy them, but very few of them rock my world.  So you’ll ask me what I thought of it and I’ll say it’s pretty good and you will remain unenlightened until you go see it yourself and think ‘that was pretty good.’  This is not as depressing as it sounds, even for someone like me.  Movies can’t always be The Godfather.  Women can’t always be Ava Gardner.  Jackasses can’t always be Kanye West.  And that’s okay, because we need the pretty good stuff.  Just because a movie isn’t the best one I’ve ever seen doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy it.  It just means when I see that movie all the other critics tell you is ‘mind-blowing’ or ‘unmissable’ or (my personal favourite) ‘the best [genre] movie in the last ten years’, I’ll probably just tell you it’s pretty good.  I’ll save the hyperbole for the movies that really deserve it.  But where the hell am I going with this?

Well, I’m trying to say you should go see the movies.  Even when I just tell you it’s pretty good and you forget about it because shit, if it was really worth seeing I would have grabbed you by the shoulders and screamed it in your face, you should go see it.  Because they all have something to offer, even if they aren’t the best movie you’ve ever seen, or even the best movie you’ve seen this week, they still have their place.  They’re still worthwhile.  I saw Green Zone yesterday, and you know what?  It was pretty good.  I won’t buy the DVD, but I’m glad I went to see it because it’s a good movie, and you should see it too, for the same reason.  Don’t wait around for the perfect movie with your favourite star – go see ‘em all, because even if it’s just pretty good, it’s worth your time.  Pretty good is what makes the world go around.  I have seriously high standards and even I understand this concept, because if pretty good was never good enough, those of us who don’t quite manage awesome – guys like me – would be fucked.  In the end life will kick you in the ass and if you’ve spent your life pissing on everything that didn’t quite measure up, that kick is gonna hurt like hell.  We’re not here long enough to have such high standards or to feel shame every time we get drunk, so go to see the pretty good movies and forgive yourself when you have one too many.  See the movie.  Have the beer.

Just don’t actively encourage a dog to hump your leg – you’ll look like a fool.

[Editor’s Note: This is just a thinly veiled apology for the fact that you had no material this week and as such turned in a sub-standard article!]

[Shearer’s Note: Shit.]

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