AVENGERS : ENDGAME
I’m trying to let myself daydream more. I think allowing your mind to relax and wander, or just kinda zone out, is probably good for you. I read this in a book about creativity and then heard it again in a podcast. This unbridled daydreaming fires up some lotus-o-delta brain waves and allows your subconscious space that’s beneficial for creativity.
To be honest it’s hard for me to do, I have a mind that always like to be working, or at least doing something. I feel better when I’m lifting something heavy. Regardless, I’ve been trying. The wife and kid will just pop in and I’ll be staring at the wall. I tell them “I’m working.”
BLACK KKKLANSMAN
‘Remptional Boner’
We saw this written on the wall in a graffiti strewn green room somewhere in Oregon.
I am still just in awe and wonder of whatever the fuck a Remptional Boner is.
THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY
I forgot to put this on my Top 10 List. That’s one of the things that went through my head in the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep.
Another thing that went through my head was a potato slowly floating through space playing the Star Spangled Banner, kind of like a boom box type of deal.
BUMBLEBEE
We’re thinking about getting an alpaca. It’s apparently the nicer and cuter version of a llama. Looked at a few at a farm nearby. Those things are going through life neck first. I’m in.
CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME
You don’t necessarily notice it happening, but over time your spouse can turn new age. At first it’s just some rocks and feathers on the porch, then it’s crystals by her bedside, then it’s crystals by your bedside. Eventually it’s spirit animals, chakras and chanting. Conversations turn from Game of Thrones to healing auras. Spotify turns from Foo Fighters to Flutes of the Wind.
The thing is, you just kinda gotta roll with it, and I feel like I do a pretty good job. I try and learn. I get involoved in weird conversations. I allow space for spirit rocks and sacred feathers on my bedside. I don’t complain about the incense, nor scoff at the power chanting, nor turn the breath lesson when offered.
However I do seem to insert humor when it’s not appropriate. I add seriousness when I’m suppose to laugh. I accidentaly move sacred crystals which apparently throw the whole cosmos out of whack. Sometimes my very energy in a room is deemed….
Regardless, through all of this I have managed to cultivate a few things. One of them being a pretty strong spiritual animal totem. We’ve all heard about spirit animals and such, but upon further inspection, you get to basically pick your own. I mean yah sure you should have a cosmic connection or reason, but it’s basically the wild west out there for Spirit Animals. So here his mine as it currently stacks up, and I feel pretty good about it…..
The base of my totem is my Spirit Animal: Dave Grohl. (Strong, I know.) Then my Power Animal is fuckin’ Goose. (Again, strong I know.) And then to top it off my totem animal is Facial Alopetia. I know right!? I mean I think I have this thing pretty dialed.
ANT MAN AND THE WASP
I read this post that made me laugh…..
“Don’t tell me my marraige doesn’t still have romance, I just texted my wife from the toilet saying: ‘bring me more toilet paper. bring a lot.’”
SICARIO: DAY OF THE SOLDADO
“What song did you wish you wrote?”
I asked Kevin as we stood by the van in the wee hours of the morning, waiting for the others to pull themselves out of the club we had just played.
“You mean like any song, or one of ours?”
“Any song, all time”
“Hmmmm….
You see, it was a good question and we got some mileage out of it, but we were just killing time.
What happens most nights is that half us of lead the load out brigade and the half of us wanna stay and party, so those of us who exited the club find ourselves in the late hours of the night, early hours of the morning, just twiddling our thumbs. It’s a strange time to be awake and in the world.
“Maybe Halelujah? or….”
“Boring…. thats just easy”
“Ok well what do you got?”
“Let’s see… maybe the Monday Night Football theme song?”
“You’re an idiot.”
“Yah but I’m the idiot that wrote the Monday Night Football theme song”
FREE SOLO
I love going through the car wash, the ones where you stay in the car and go through the womb of joy with all the swirly washing things.
Fucking love it.
BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY
I have this idea to put magistrate at the end of my name. Like Ph.D or ESQ.
I took this idea too far and looked up the term magistrate and it’s basically a civil officer, or lay judge….which is just a normal dude. So it would be, like, basically me, who judges people. Stop there, I’m in.
Trevor Mendhelson, Magistrate. Boom
SHOT CALLER
I’m tyring to get my buddy Nick to put j on the end of his name like the actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. Maybe he could make it a capital J, like NikolaJ. Or maybe he could just put it on the end Nick, like Nickj.
THE DIRT
Most toilets flush in E flat
SOLO
Something I’ve been dealing with lately is being comfortable with discomfort. I’ve been trying to learn how to walk around with a weight on your back rather than trying to buck it off. I’m talking about emotional and psycological weights, like anxiety and stress. Just learning how to walk with it and wear it, feeling the weight of it, getting comfortable with it like it’s a part of your body. Similar to when you have a broken arm, or a stubbed toe and you have to go through life with it. It’s part of your reality.
It’s a new thing for me. I’m not sure if it’s working out well or not, don’t know if it’s gonna stick, but it’s what I’m working on right now.
A STAR IS BORN
Random job I think I’d be good at: placing cows on a farm for prime aesthetic enjoyment.
I’d call it simply Cow Placement Artisan and advertise myself as such. Farms and Ranches would hire me to come and place cows (and other livestock) around their land for greatest beauty. So yah, I got it covered if this music thing doesn’t work out.
AVENGERS INFINITY WAR
I’m not even gonna front, this movie was incredible.
For all my jawing about indie movies and docu-dramas, sometimes these big tent pole blockbusters really get me.
Took the whole family to the theater, snuck in our special organic bio-popcorn and hot damn was this good time.
THE RIDER
My current favorite fake dog breed names I hand out at the dog park:
Gloinchester, Korean Dock Worker, Heavy LeBeouf, Bishops Grumpleton and Mark Wahlberg.
INCREDIBLES 2
Close Standers. It’s my working term for people who stand too close to you in lines. Like at the grocery store, in the bank, getting tickets to a movie. People who crowd too close to you in the rear. Personal space people, learn about it.
Same goes for people walking behind me.
LEAVE NO TRACE
New name for a band if anybody’s interested:
Powerbottom and the Four Tops
SORRY TO BOTHER YOU
I’ve never liked showers. My wife’s friends liken it to dogs who dislike getting in the bathub. My wife herself doesn’t give me too much crap about it but she is curious (in a scientific way) so I’ve been giving it some observation and examination and here are some early conclusions:
1. First off it’s not the shower itself, the standing in the water part, that I dislike. That part is damn near enjoyable.
2. The pre and post shower is where the majority of the problem lies. These parts, the terrible bread around the glorious sandwich, is what I am not a fan of.
3. Worst of all is the post shower. I mean you step out into a frequently cold bathroom and frigid floor tiles, you can’t see into the mirror and then and it takes way too much time to dry off. Coupled with the length of time, I just don’t enjoy drying off, damn near dislike it. It feels like having to do a chore when you’re a kid. I loath it, get annoyed by, put it off, slump my shoulders, whine about it the entire way through. Terrible.
4. Then there is the required squeegee-ing of the shower glass doors. Right there the shower experience could take about a 10% jump in acceptability if I didn’t have to do that.
5. Following that I always find a place to errouneously place the towel. There is apparently one
acceptable place to put a towel and I still haven’t found it yet.
6. And the shower experience doesn’t just end there…It trails on and keep going like an
annoying piece of gum stuck to your shoe. My hair stays wet for about a day and a half and
then inevitably dries into some type of cubist art piece that is dramatically worse than what I
had before entering the shower.
And then to add insult to injury, you will just need to do it all over again next month.
WON’T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR
As I get older I have less and less threshold for needy people. If you require extra care, attention, or delicate handling….I’m kinda out.
I feel the same way about fruit. Apples and blackberries, boom they can go right in your mouth. Oranges and pomegranets are more needy, you gotta peel em, they’re messy, you gotta deal with rinds etc. And grapefruits I mean forget about it, you need a specific spoon to eat it!?!
MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: RIMJOB
The other day my folks had a British mystery show on the TV and as I walked by I overheard the line “don’t sell me a dog.”
I could have misheard this but either way, since I am a fan of antiquated phrases and words, I immedietly took a liking to it. I’ve just been throwing this out in conversation and acting like I know what it means.
READY PLAYER ONE
This could be different for everybody, but I’ve realized that once you decide what you are going to do with your life, career wise, things around that settle down. Once you make that real life decision the seas calm, waves that once might have capsized you now only grace your bow with a splash.
This is certainly true in my case as I can remember early on when a bad review would send me into a tailspin, or a great show meant that we were destined for fame and fortune. Little things that used to send me into ecstasy or rage no longer have such an effect nor leave an emotional residue. Now those things are just passing signs on the freeway. We can have whole tours that are rough, or a years worth of good press. The waves out in the middle of the ocean are different, they are slow and massive, unlike the quick and chaotic ones where you first enter on the beach.
I have made a number of ‘big decisions’ regarding my career. I laugh when I recall the first one about 20 years ago when Tyson and I said, flushed and joyfully, “Yah dude, lets start a band!” Almost as if we couldn’t think of anything better. Five years later it became “Eh, what the hell… let’s carry on.” Then it became “damn this is hard living.”
Time went by. I saw friends and colleagues slowly and steadliy fall away into less stressful, more lucrative and well travelled career paths. I saw the industry rise and fall a few times, I watched our own star do the same. Life happens.
My last ‘big decision’ was a year ago. I said to myself that I’m going to live a creative life. I’m going to hone my crafts and be an artist in the truest sense of the word. I’m sure it’s gonna change and look different as time passes, but I’m settling in. I can hear the waves break against the bow. I feel the weather and the water against my skin. I think I can do this. If not for the money than at least so the kid can see it can be done.
ANNIHILATION
I’m nervous every time I say we’re out of something and then my wife gets up to go look for herself.
THELMA
I feel like we, as a society, are currently buried under the weight of information. I believe the problem is that we mistake this information for knowledge.
Here it is ladies and gentlemen, after all the clamour and requests,
we give you the Top Five films from both
Trevor and Curt for the
The First Official:
NAKED TOP TEN LIST WITH TREVOR AND CURT
1. WARRIOR
– Still cry everytime I watch it.
2. ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND
– Charlie Kaufman, just brilliant
3. HELLBOY 2
– At this point I have to put this on my list just because I’ve been raving about it to everybody who doesn’t like these types of movies. Hellboy has kind of become my spirit animal
4. PULP FICTION
– I remember watching this in High School and it changed everything I thought about movies.
5. GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL
– Gotta put a Wes Anderson one on here and this might be my fav.
6. SNATCH
– I wanted to put Star Wars but its a trilogy and I couldn’t pick just one so blah blah blah…Snatch, it’s like the British Pulp Fiction. And here’s a picture of Star Wars.
7. TOY STORY 3
– I think in broad terms you can substitute any Pixar film in here but this one will always occupy a special place in my heart.
8. SWISS ARMY MAN
– I can’t put my finger on why I love this movie so much, but I do. Curt loved it too.
9. BEING JOHN MALKOVICH
– Did Trevor already mention Charlie Kaufman? That guys kills me.
10. FIGHT CLUB
– I loved this movie when it came out. I was living in China at the time and got a poster for my room with the title in Chinese. I wonder what the hell happened to that poster.
So there it is folks. Our Top Ten for now
BABY DRIVER
I have this thought that repeatedly gives me pause for chuckle….
When I’m stuck in traffic, I imagine pulling up to a car next to me with it’s window down, leaning over and casually delivering the line: “So, like I was saying…..”
JUSTICE LEAGUE
I had a great childhood. My adulthood has been hit or miss but I look back with great fondness on my wonder years. The other day I walked by a garage sale that had a BMX bike and it reminded me of this story which quite frankly made me stare into the distance and smile.
Growing up in a small town we all had bikes and rode everywhere. A pack of like 6 of us `terrorizing’ the town, jumping over curbs and spitting up gravel, we were probably 8 or 10 years old. My buddy Mark had just gotten a new bike and it was called The Screamer. I remember this clearly because not only was the logo rad (it looked like a heavy metal magazine cover) but also Mark used to always shout, or scream, his bike’s name when he was riding. “Screamer!!!!”
One day we were riding around town, Mark yelling out “Screamer!!” and jumping off the sidewalk, when our other buddy Ian then shouted “hey you should raise your fist in the air when you yell, that would look badass.”
Now I’m unsure if Ian was secretly diabolical or if this was just a funny coincidence, but Mark did exactly as was suggested, and as we all turned back to watch, Mark raised his fist, yelled “Screamer” and promptly went head over handlebars, biting it hard into the street.
This was a real digger. He went splaying into the concrete, rolled a few times, his bike flipping over him. And we all lost it. Sully laughed so hard he wiped out himself, I saw milk come out of Berto’s nose and I had to stop just so I didn’t go down. Mark was fine, all little boys do is hurt themselves, and we all got up and went to the park to play baseball.
Man we laughed for like a week about that. Those were the glory days.
A QUIET PLACE
There are so many concerns and complaints about social media. It’s a place where we project who we want to be, not who we genuinely are. It’s a place of insecurity, bickering and trolling. But my biggest concern is that we are self revealing before self reflecting. I feel like this one in particular is going to lead to problems and helping raise a kid I am particularly aware of trying to instill the opposite.
We probably won’t know the long term effects of the social media age on our brains and psyche for ages. Culture and society will be changed forever, maybe for the better maybe for the worse…. but hey I don’t want to shout at clouds, and happiness is never perfect, so let’s do some likes.
Is that what people say?
THE FLORIDA PROJECT
I have this idea. It’s basically a long play joke which will take patience and dedication, but here it is….
Everytime the wife takes a shower, in the middle of it knock on the door, peak my head in and ask an irrelevant question. So it would look like this: knock knock…. “Hey hon, do you know anybody who ever fell into a drain pipe?” or “Are we out of Ben Kingsley?”
Ok ok, I know it sounds absurd but stick with me. Part of the humor, I believe, will be in the questions themselves, the more creative adding to the general absurdity of it. So inquiries such as “Do you think I have the strength of 120 babies?” and “How much do you think the heaviest dog weighs?” will start adding to the intrigue.
In addition I think she would start looking forward to it, almost start laughing before I even ask. A smile born just upon the words “Hey hon….”
I don’t know. It’s funny in my head. And I’m always looking to improve and hone my craft.
MY LIFE AS A ZUCCHINI
Funny thing to do when you order food to go at a restaurant…say to the waiter:
“This is for Gene Hackman, he’s waiting outside.”
Almost say it like an apology to really add to the confusion and intrigue.
DUNKIRK
Watching this movie made me think about how much I liked The Shape of Water. Everything about it, the colors, the score, the story, the acting…I’d like to officially place my vote for The Shape of Water to win everything at the oscars.
I thought it was delightful.
SPLIT
9 out of 10 times I put USB cords in the slot the wrong way.
I shake my head and smirk before I even try it because I know its gonna happen, and it always does.
THE BIG SICK
My cooking skills seem to be atrophying the older I get.
What made me realize this recently was when the wife and kid went away for a weeklong retreat. She very lovingly but with a bit too much concern asked if I’d be ok and get enough to eat. “Sure, no problem babe, I got this.”
But I didn’t have it. I had pizza and popcorn, that was about it. I ran aground on day 3 and ate out the rest of the time. What’s more, I have determined through observation and shear experience, is that I have no interest in improving my competence in this area. I might just take this startling lack of food acumen to the grave.
I mean I have a number of simple recipes I can whip up for the kid like mac n cheese and noodle soup, but for the most part I am absolutely worthless in the kitchen. I mean truly worthless.
This precipitous decline isn’t happening with everybody around me. Just the other day I was hanging out with Jason, our fiddle player extroadinaire, and he whipped up an elaborate toasted walnut, smoked salmon spinach salad. And the ol’ Tyler Mullins loves everything about cooking, talks endlessly about bullshit like pine nuts and the correct way of roasting em.
So yah, adult life moment, big fucking goose egg in the culinary drive department and I am totally ok with it.
BLACK PANTHER
Lets talk for a quick second about theater etiquette.
I feel like a lot of this stuff should be instinctual but apparently it’s not….
Rule 1: Never make any sound, ever. Once the trailers are done, no more talking. If you have to open something that’s in a wrapper, do it during an action sequence, not in the middle of a quiet monologue.
Rule 2: Always refer to Rule 1.
PHANTOM THREAD
The wife has this thing where she gets easily spooked in movies.
The slightest scare will illicit a full blown blood curdling scream, often times in close proximity to my ear. Shit scares the hell out of me.
This, I believe understandably, illicits not only shock but acute annoyance. This annoyance doesn’t land well and we’ve gotten in full blown tiffs about it. We both can’t seem to help it, I mean it’s a knee jerk reaction for her to scream and then knee jerk for me to get pissed, then she gets pissed that I’m pissed.
This is a real thing.
Phantom Thread had no such moments and we both enjoyed it quite a bit.
THE SHAPE OF WATER
Wouldn’t it be funny if when somebody handed you a newborn baby to hold, you just set it on the ground and said “Oh, no thank you.”
I, TONYA
This movie reminded me of one of my favorite digs a woman can say which is “Suck my dick!”
Always puts a smile on my face.
THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI
3 sounds within a film that I hate:
1. The chewing of food, or lips smacking from eating.
2. Ringing phones. I just wanna scream at the actor “pick up the god damn phone!”
3. The sound of liquid being poured into a glass. Shit is like nails on a chalkboard to me.
The wife hated this movie. I thought it was at least interesting but I get it. Don’t expect to feel good afterward.
THE LAST JEDI
Curt is just pissed, he thinks it was terrible and vows never to watch another Star Wars.
Trevor loved it and is just happy to watch any Star Wars.
Clearly the debate about this one will rage onwards. Be patient, we might have more to say after a second viewing, or if you see us out by the bar of a DU show we’re happy to pick up the discussion.
