Remember when Bon Jovi was the biggest band on the planet? Selling millions of albums, and doing stadium shows, etc.? Well, it’s now 2010 and this is their typical fan. Woooooo!! <sideways devil horns, pursed lips> Greatest. County Fair. Evar! …Oh, my hip!
Just thought you should know.
There’s a large grocery store near our house that recently expanded their hours to 24 hours a day/7 days a week. I think they closed at 10 pm until just a few days ago, and not too many people realize the change.
And I was driving home from work last night, around 2:15 am, and got a sudden craving for corn flakes. Yeah, and what of it? I like the simple cereals, especially late at night. I’m not a morning cereal guy, but it often hits the spot in the dark of night.
So, I went to that store, grabbed a big box of Kellogg’s corn flakes (on sale for $2.50), paid for it, and walked out — without seeing another human.
I’m not kidding, there was nobody around. I thought I heard two people talking way off in the distance, but never laid eyes on anyone. I went to the cereal aisle, made my selection, and paid via self-checkout without encountering a single employee or customer.
It was weird. And seemed to be operating on the honor-system… Oh, I predict they’ll have to make a few changes in the near future. Right after someone walks out of there with a shopping cart full of Yuengling and Kobe beef. Ya know?
The cereal was fantastic, in case you were wondering. I like it simple, and slightly soggy. Rice Krispies, corn flakes, Honey Nut Cheerios… That’s the way I roll.
Tomorrow I will be ordering my new Motorola Droid phone. I reach some sort of new threshold today with Verizon, and will have an additional $100 credit (on top of the first $100), starting on Wednesday.
So, I’ve been waiting patiently (ha!), and will pull the trigger tomorrow before leaving for work. My nipples are exploding with delight.
But, of course, the mobile phone gods are taunting me with this news. I’ve decided to ignore it, though, and pretend I never read it. That sometimes works, ya know. Aggressive ignorance is highly recommended.
I watched Adventureland on Saturday, and enjoyed it. It was completely predictable, but fun anyway. Great soundtrack. And tomorrow I’ll be receiving Inglourious Basterds from Netflix. Have you seen it? Any good? Will it be worth the time invested?
And that leads me to the Question of the Day.
This one is from the Stealing Clive Bull‘s Topics desk, which hasn’t been very active over the past few months. There’s a general election coming up in England, and that’s been the main topic for a while. I doubt Surf Reporters are too interested…
Anyway, on last night’s show he was asking callers if they’ve ever walked out of a movie or concert, and the answers were pretty interesting.
So, I’d like to know the same thing from you guys. Use the comments section below, to give us all the details.
I don’t think I’ve ever walked out of a movie. I should’ve abandoned Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, but stuck it out all the way to the end. Wotta fantastic, fully-realized turd of a film.
And I used to date a woman who was into incredibly pretentious arthouse/foreign crapola. Some were OK, a few were good, but many were walkoutable. Yet, I never did. What about you?
As for concerts, I walked out of a Moody Blues show in Charleston, WV once. On account of dullness.
And a few times I’ve gone to see the opening act, with no interest in the headliner. I saw Joe Walsh open for Stevie Nicks, and made my escape before the sheep bleating could commence. And in Atlanta I watched Squeeze open for Sting, and got the hell out of there.
So, there’s your question. Do with it what you will.
And I’ll see you guys again tomorrow.
Have a great Tuesday!
Walking out:
The movie Junior with Arnold S.
Left after nine inch nails when he was opening for Bowie.
I bought a droid over the weekend. Haven’t stopped playing with it yet. Not sure about all the features yet, and it’s going to have to grow on me a little, but the internet is cool, facebook rocks on it. I can see getting addicted to four square, and I’m currently listening to Pandora at work on it. The 30 bucks for the data package isn’t a bad deal. the camera is pretty good, too.
Not sure if this will translate, but this is Murphy the Iguana at the winking lizard in Macedonia, OH taken last night from my Droid (J1B5, by the way) uploaded directly to facebook.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=31152490&id=1332131335#!/photo.php?pid=31152490&id=1332131335&fbid=1424270970087
I walked out on Cloverfield about 40 minutes into it because the shaky camera was going to make me puke.
A long time ago a girlfriend and I broke up and after a couple of days got back together. We decided our first date back together would be to go see the Tim Burton “Batman”. She started some type of an argument with me before the movie. I told her if she started in on me again during the movie I would leave her ass there. Well, she started about 10 mins into the movie. I just got up and left her there and literally never spoke to her again (I don’t even think I’ve seen her since that night.). Hell she could still be sitting there for all I know.
Thanks, Hot Fuzz!
Congrats, Tilly!
Retrollama: “We’re a fun bunch of guuuuuys, and we come from outerspaaaaaace!”
Bikerchick: I still have never seen The Exorcist in its entirety (just the most famous parts, which is enough). Possession always freaks me the hell out.
My mother walked out of Conan the Barbarian. Right about the time Conan threw the witch into the fire (after sex, of course), my mother was gone. She swears that the bathroom was full of women who left the movie. I don’t believe it though because (1) I don’t think they would all hang out in the bathroom, and (2) the theater didn’t seem to empty out.
Myself, I’m too stingy to leave a concert or movie after paying for it.
I tried to join a band once called “Ban Jovi”. You guessed it, an all banjo tribute band to Bon Jovi. They never replied, I guess my WV banjoing wasn’t good enough for them…
I left a Sonic Youth show two songs in, in like 95 or 96 because i had a fight with my girlfriend,I left her there. More recently i had to leave a Type O Negative show before they ever played because my friend i was with had some kind of allergic reaction to something, I was pissed but i felt bad a about being pissed when i found out he had to go to the hospital that night
Walked out of the movie “Zoot Suit” back in the early ’80s. Boring.
Walked out pre-concert for Alabama at the West Virginia Motor Speedway in like 1987. They kept pushing back the start time because of all the traffic backed up on I-77 trying to get to the concert. After an hour and a half of the promotors announcing more excuses, I split.
Oh, and my brother and his wife walked out of a Journey/REO Speedwagon/Kansas concert at the Gorge in Washington several years ago. Journey and REO were great, playing all the good ol’ stuff. Kansas got onstage last, and announced they were going to be playing stuff from their new album…and it was lucky that people weren’t trampled on their way out the exits!
I’ve only walked out of one movie. I can’t remember what it was called but it came out about 1980 and was supposed to be a comedy focused on the cast of “little people” during the filming of The Wizard of Oz. I wanted to walk out of UHF after that lame “wheel of fish” gag but I was with friends and I needed a ride home.
Never walked out of a concert, but I came close: I saw Oasis about 4 years ago in Toronto. Arctic Monkeys were opening, which is why I went (I wanted to see what all the hype was about), but as soon as they were done I had to endure 90 minutes of the Gallagher brother’s arrogant bullshit. Worst part was the gaggle of drunken frat boys, complete with popped collars and Von Dutch trucker hats, sitting beside me who kept howling “play wonderwall!!!!!” in slurred mongoloid voices for the entire show.
Speaking of crappy music, I was just given a couple of tickets for Nickelback’s show in London, Ontario on April 6. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Nickelback, they’ve pioneered the genre now known as “douche rock”, a label that pretty much speaks for itself. I can’t go to the show because, well, they suck and I’d rather stay at home and grind shards of broken glass into my testicles; so if anyone wants the tickets they’re yours. All it will cost you is your dignity.
There was a movie from the people who did “Rocky Horror Picture Show” that I just had to see, and after about half an hour into it, I was in the lobby demanding my money back and guaranteeing a scene if they didn’t fork it over. Ugh.
I was dragged out of a Van Halen concert in ’82 (when they were AWESOME), because the air conditioning in the arena didn’t work, and I was passing out from the heat. It still hurts to remember hearing Eddie and Diamond Dave in their prime on stage while I was on the stairs outside with my head between my knees.
When we rent movies, we’ll shut them down in a heartbeat, like Marley and Me. When the kids ask in a trembling voice, “Daddy, is the doggy dying?” we’re done.
I have been thinking… (and it friggin hurts!), does walking out on wives count?
“I Am Curious (Yellow)”. Walked out two minutes before the film ended because there were no car chases. Stayed all the way through “I Am Curious (Blue)” a year later because they depicted a pretty fast Volvo.
Quite a ruckus over those movies in 1969 and 1970. Seems almost quaint now, with flesh-on-demand and 24-hour porno in the Information Economy. As the big-picture laws require, every time you gain something you lose something.
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Sidney…
Thanks for thinking. My experience is that walking out on wives counts and counts and counts and counts.
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Jersey Scott…
“Postcards From the Edge” is one of my top 50 films. I always thought my “straight” credentials were in pretty good order (not that there’s anything wrong with other credentials). I remain unconvinced that a female lead automatically constitutes a “chick flick”, but I guess opinions vary. Having walked out you missed the last five minutes in which Ms. Streep did her own singing and really nailed the scene.
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Ginger…
Seems like paying to get in, then staying in misery constitutes, in effect, paying twice. I’m no economist and we’ve already established that I came to fractals too late in life, but an hour of joy (assuming you can find some readily) must be worth at least six bucks (roughly half the price of the ticket). This calculation is derived primarily from Cheeger’s finiteness theorem, and might not be true in all universes of n-dimensions.
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Storm…
If we can just make up names of cities, come on out west and we’ll road trip to Montenegro, Washington.
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0240 on Wednesday morning in the great Pacific Northwest, and it’s raining baloney and wildebeests out there.
best as always…
jtb
The ‘rents walked out on the academy award winning “Deliverance” once. Hillbilly gets an arrow in the gut from Burt Reynolds, nasty, painful-looking wound. My mom says “We have to leave,” and it’s curtains for the rest of the film.
About a decade later it was curtains for the marriage, but that’s another topic.
I walked out of “Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot!” with Sylvester Stallone and Estelle Getty. Even with a six-pack of Moosehead in the seat next to me, it was more than I could stand.
RE: Inglorious Basterds; that’s the most realistic choking scene I have ever witnessed. Has anybody seen Diane Kruger lately?
Guten Morgen, Surf Reporters! It’s a fine day here in Shitsburgh, especially when you’re operating on 1.5 hours of sleep and a hell of a lot of vodka and chemicals….
I have only walked out of one concert in my life, not counting shitty local bands: The Lyres at Coney Island High in NYC, late late 90s. Jeff Conolly (“Monoman”) was fucked outta his head on booze and whatever, and it took them at least 20 minutes to half-assedly play 2 songs. It was a real letdown for me as I had been listening to them for a long time but had never gotten the chance to see them. At any rate, my ex and I walked out and went to catch cheaper – by Manhattan standards – drinks at some other bar.
The wonders of youtube: I’m somewhere up front, and apparently Monoman was pissed about the sound mix and a bit wired:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV0gyrX9yRE
Have a good week, Surf Reporters!
@ Dudley Dawson: That’s cool as hell that you got to see Rockpile. Dave Edmunds wrote some goddamned good songs way back when.
@ bikerchick: The Exorcist scared the hell out of me the first time I saw it too (on VHS tho).
Inglorious Basterds: first movie I’ve seen in a long time that I thoroughly enjoyed.
Hey Rat Bastard, the Lyres sound pretty good in that YouTube clip. But MonoMan was looking surprisingly bloated, and that was 12 years ago. I can’t imagine what he must look like today. I saw them back in the mid-’80s and they were great — and MonoMan was still skinny. (But then again, so was I; so who am I to talk?)
Swami, I think right after that song Monoman kept fucking around with his equipment for 10 to 15 minutes, then they played with little enthusiasm. He was pretty bloated and out of it, at least when he’s playing in that clip he has some energy to him. It wasn’t that the band was bad, just that the whole thing was a mess. But hey — that’s rock’n’roll, right?
@jonthebasket: There are some great film clips of interviews of patrons leaving I Am Curious. Mostly, they’re pissed because it was some sort of weird foreign film, not the porn they expected. Funny stuff.
@Tyrosine: “Under the Rainbow”
@Rusty: “Shock Treatment”
are the film titles you are looking for
I took another gander at that Lyres video. Is that a bunch of keys dangling from MonoMan’s belt? What’s up wit dat? What is he, a janitor?
I saw a great Iggy Pop show in Florida about 20 years ago. I watched his set from front and center stage due to the fact that the entire club (minus about 30-40 folks) emptied out after Jane’s Addiction’s opening set. I even got landed on at the end of the show by Mr Pop during his closing stage dive. He was slippery!
I walked out of “Ace Venture: Pet Detective” – my God that sucked. I hate Jim Carey when he is trying to be funny – he just comes off like an aging frat boy.
As for concerts, in 2000 we saw the Flaming Lips open for U2 in Detroit. We left and got food during the Lips – they were possible the worst band live that I have ever seen in my life. They were getting booed even.
http://thewvsr.com/ugliest.htm
Scroll down halfway to Mr. Pop Surf Reporters and tell me if you would want this “slippery” man landing on you? I think not, but then again I’m not much of a fan.
Swami — damned if that isn’t a bunch of keys on Mono. You know what’s fucked up? I have a bunch like that hanging off my belt loop right now, only because half of them are from my old house. I feel like Snyder the Super. Ouch.
Misselle — I saw the Flaming Lips way back when (’93?) and they looked like a bunch of garbage can junkies, played stripped down r’n’r, and the bass player sat in a chair the whole time. Not exactly my cup of tea musically, but I did respect the junkie factor. Never followed them though…I think they got the major label makeover shortly thereafter.
WB: I met Iggy, and he was by far one of the coolest, down to earth “rockstars” that I’ve been around. Just sayin’.
RB-I was just having some fun linking a comment to one of Jeff’s Best Of’s. I watched a youtube video of his from 79, I don’t know when Jeff’s picture was taken but he has not aged gracefully.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbLRf0j80wU
I like the Stewie comment.
Walked out of The Wiz. I was only eight years old and even then I knew there was some terrible acting going on. Diana Ross and Michael Jackson were in it and they were god awful.
WB –indeed, these days he looks like (to steal a line from Dead Moon) 40 Miles of Bad Road. Amazing that the bastard made it this far.
HEY THANKS FOR ALL THE WELL WISHES ON THE BIG RAISE!!!! YOU GUYS ROCK!!!
@ retrollama: thanks, you would think the trauma would have burned the title into my brain, but I must have blocked it.
I realllllly wanted to walk out of Jarhead when we went to see it years ago, but my douche bag asshole of an ex boyfriend (hence, ex) claimed he paid good money for us to see it and we were gonna watch it (12 bucks, really?) That movie was absolutely horrible and depressing. That movie gave me such a migraine from boredom, I almost threw up leaving the theater. Yes, it was that bad. It effected me negatively in so many ways, that the mere sight of the front cover in a video story makes me cringe. I can’t really explain to you what it was about it that I hated so much…I think it was the part where one of the dude’s wives sends him a video of her banging another dude and he can’t do anything about it because he’s stuck there. I declared defeat at that very part I believe.
As far as concerts, the only concert we left early was a Primus show at Rothbury Music Fest in 08′, and we didn’t leave because we wanted too, God I didn’t want to leave, but we’d failed to bring warm clothes for the night shows (as its 90 something degrees during the day and a solid 45-50 by night) and all I had on was a skirt and a tank top. Not an outfit you wanna wear when you can see your breath. I was so upset. I love you Les Claypool, and I will see you again.