Kanye West Has Lost His Fucking Mind, And I Love Every Second Of It

Soooooo Kanye "I'm A Crazy Person" West decided to make a 30-minute movie called Runaway in order to promote his new single Runaway (the movie features new Kanye West songs, including the single Runaway).  I decided to document my experience...

Runaway: An “As I Watch It” Description

Open on Kanye running.  Cut to Kanye in an expensive car, speeding through the woods.  Kanye rapping in the background of course.  With only a few deer as witnesses, shit goes down.  Fire everywhere, the car destroyed.  The news thinks a comet has hit the earth, but in front of his car Kanye finds a beautiful winged-woman lying in front of his car.  Clad in only the wings on her back and the trace amounts of feathers that wrap around to cover her naughtiest of parts, she awakes in Kanye’s apartment.  She sees the news, which is explaining its theory.  The TV is shut off, and Kanye has his first line: “First Rule In This World Baby, Don’t Pay Attention to Anything You See on the News.”

Boom.  More music.  More images of explosions.  The winged outer space woman, who has two yellow, extra long fingernails on each hand, begins crawling around Kanye’s backyard, which features a rabbit, a sheep, and one of the deer from earlier.  Inside, she does some sort of erotic dance.  Kanye takes her to see fireworks.  A marching band plays, but we don’t hear them over Rihanna.  She laughs.  There appears to be a giant blow-up Michael Jackson head in the center of the marching band.

Back home.  Silence.  She is very intrigued by an ornate mug.

More Kanye music.  Cut to a long white dinner table in a large, otherwise empty warehouse.  Everyone at dinner wears a nice white suit or dress, except of course for the unnamed woman from outer space with wings – though she does appear to have her hair done nicer and a brand new golden headpiece.  She smells her soup, then picks up what looks like a bejeweled loaf of bread.

FUCKING EXCELLENT.

A woman just served water, then got silent, and the man next to Kanye looks at him and says, “Your Girlfriend is really beautiful.”

Kanye: “Thank You.”

Man: “Do You Know She’s A Bird?”   (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Kanye: “Nah I Never Noticed That.” (NOO FUCKING WAY!!!!!!!)

Man: “I mean, like, is a monkey in a zoo?”

END. Yes. Holy Shit. Yes. Great Fucking Dialogue. This is fucking CHAOS!

Kanye walks to a random piano and hits a few keys.  About twenty ballerinas run into the room. Back to Music.  Plays that song that goes “Let’s Have a toast for the douche bags…” and they dance to it.  The winged woman… err… bird watched intently in the background.  Everyone toasts but her.  It’s been a few minutes since I’ve seen any explosions – have they gone away from that?  Line of note in the song: “24/7, 365, Pussy stays on my mind.”  Lots of ballerina close-ups.  Dragging on a lot, this is probably their big break.  The Shins ballet idea was definitely ripped from Kanye.  Oh my goodness who wants to get this on a big screen and have a viewing party??  It’s just one ballerina now, having a pretty long and intense solo.  Kanye gives a half-bow with his hand over his heart.  Everyone seems pleased as the ballerinas run out.

Back to dinner.  NO WAY.  They serve a giant turkey RIGHT IN FRONT OF HER!!! Her wings, now fully extended for the first time, are revealed to be fucking huge and begin to flutter.  She backs up and starts crying and doing some weird bird scream thing as more Kanye music starts.  Side Note: she now has long fingernails on all her fingers. 

Cut to explosions – Phew, I was getting nervous.  She is depressed and sitting next to the sheep.  Cut to clouds.

Bird-Woman: “Can I ask you a question?  All the statues that we see, where do you think they came from?”

Kanye: “I think that artists carved them years and years ago.”

Bird-Woman: “No. They Are Phoenix Turned To Stone.”

Kanye: (laughs) “Baby…

Bird-Woman: (interrupts) “They are phoenix turned to stone.  Do you know what I hate most about your world? Anything that is different you try to change.  Try to tear it down.  You rip the wings off the phoenix and they turn to stone.  And if I don’t burn, I will turn to stone.”

Kanye: “What do you mean burn?” (Kanye’s voice honestly sounds like a 3-year-old’s)

Bird: “If I don’t burn I can’t go back to my world.”

Kanye: “But I don’t want you to go back to your world.  I want you to stay here with me.”  (Is this shit ripped out of a kids movie or something? Peter Pan, don't leave Neverland?)

Bird: “I have to go back.”

Kanye: No. I’ll Never Let You Burn.

END CONVERSATION.  WOODS by Bon Iver starts playing as they kiss for the first time. Fantastic! Great segue!

Cut to the bird-woman riding him, though Kanye is still in a full suit.  Only 6 and a half more minutes of this masterpiece.  Cut to another explosion (I guess he came?). 

Overhead shot of backyard pans to show Kanye waking up on his sidewalk in a blue suit and slipper shoes.  He goes into a dead sprint into the woods.  Cut to explosion where bird-woman arises as a Phoenix!!!!! Cut back to Kanye’s sprint from the movie’s opening.  It’s still the song where he samples Woods.  She is flying above the woods.  Now she is wearing a golden chest piece over her breasts.  Shit is going down.  This is a fucking must-watch for everyone.  What looks like a comet is soaring straight up in the air, but we all know it’s her, the unnamed bird woman from a different world, the phoenix.

The End.

FUCK.  I wanted that shit to last forever.  I was cheated of the last three minutes because I wasn’t anticipating the credits.  Rookie mistake I guess.  I do recommend listening to the ridiculous thing that plays during the credits.

Anyways, here's the movie... Do Enjoy...

Ps. Does anyone remember this?

DK: Vonnegut

Thanks to (http://www.robertlpeters.com/news/?paged=5)

JG: Bars in Baltimore.

Sooooo, someone had to do this, and since I’m better at procrastinating than all of you, here goes…

Since I arrived in the Charm City, I realized it was a place that could be very fun (the day I hit 21).  I’ve longed to explore the city that a bench once described as ‘The Most Beautiful City in the World’.  This is our last year here, and my first as a legal drinker.  As much as I want to see everything I can, I also want to drink in as many places I can.  I have finally drank in Powerplant, but at the end of the day it truly perturbs me that I’ve already been inside Favorite’s Pub approximately six times, so lets start moving.  Here’s to exploration (and alcoholism).

Canton:

Looney’s:

It looks like a hole-in-the-wall, but apparently its pretty big and fun. 

******My goal is to explore Canton this Friday, as I hear its great and any time I’ve been down there I’ve noted my desire to drink there.  My plan is to get dinner and drinks at Mama’s (cool little seafood place next door)  or Portside Tavern and then venture here and a few of the other bars.  Hopefully all will join – expect mass texts soon.******

Portside Tavern:

No idea on price, but supposed to be a good time.

Fell’s Point:

Max’s Taphouse:

Now, I’ve wanted to go here since freshman year, but generally assumed I would not be allowed in.  This will probably get a bit pricy, but the food menu is reasonable and they have happy hour specials during the week.  Plus, it’s basically my beer heaven.  Hell, it even has an A rating on the always-snooty Beer Advocate site.

Let’s go to the numbers: 3 bars in 1, 102 (yes, 102) beers on tap at any time, and a selection of approximately 1200 bottles from around the world.

Word.

J.A. Murphy’s:

Happy Hour Mon-Fri, 4-7p.m. = $1 shots of anything in the bar. 

Slainte:

Apparently, this is THE place for day drinking (and soccer (and rugby)(is it acceptable to put ( ) within ( )?).  Since we don’t live in Europe, there are basically soccer games played all day every day.  This place shows them all (and some rugby) live, and ensures that you can always go and have a pint with some Pat Taylor-types (the common nomenclature is hooligans).

Cat’s Eye Pub:

Old school, music every night, supposed to be a great place to drink a beer.

Federal Hill:

The Abbey Burger Bistro:

Got voted the best burger in Baltimore… What else is there to say?  Oh, there’s beer too.  And apparently they’re big into Arsenal Futbol.

Random:

Hamilton Tavern:  This seems more up me & DK’s alley – it’s not supposed to get too wild and apparently has a bangin’ without the G burger. (Hamilton)

Pratt Street Ale House:

Passed it and it looked cool.  Apparently has 27 TVs and brews its own brew.

The Laughing Pint: This is a dive bar, apparently with some solid food and microbrews.  This is meant solely for those who love Jerry’s Famous Tavern.  There is no TV, but there is pool, board games, shuffleboard, and I’m pretty sure ping pong (yes!).  The goal here is conversation, folks (calling all Jacob’s Lofters?). (near Canton)

Brewer’s Art:

Not sure where this is, but Shauna tells me I would like it, so I must go soon.

Random Events/Good Excuses to Day Drink

Oct. 2-3: Fells Point Fun Festival (Free)

(lots of shopping and a beer garden with live music)

Oct. 7-17: Baltimore Beer Week

(Random events at random bars for eleven random days)

Oct. 9: Octoberfest ($20)

(I think this is the day of Craig’s Bi-Annual Fest anyways, but just fattening up the list)

Sunday Oct. 17: 2010 Baltimore Beer Festival ($35)

All Saturdays & Sundays Through Oct. 24:

The Maryland Renaissance Festival

Ok, so this is about outside Baltimore (just outside Annapolis), but this sounds awesome, so let me know if anyone’s seriously interested.  Tickets are $18.  Check out their link… http://www.rennfest.com/index.php

A Brief Background of our Show:
The Maryland Renaissance Festival has become the region's premier outdoor event and the second largest Renaissance Festival in the country. Since the Festival's first season as a ramshackle village in 1977, the event has matured into a large theme show with more than 1,300 participants and 280,000 guests per season.

The Maryland Renaissance Festival employs more than 600 people during each season, working in entertainment and customer service. Eighty-five acres of parking space handle an average of 14,700 customers daily. The English Tudor village is 25 acres of woods and field that transport patrons to an era of chivalry, bawdiness, and good fun. There are more than 130 craft shops displaying many wares handmade by the village artisans. Forty-two food outlets provide a feast of foods rarely seen at other festivals. Each season, more than half a million beverages are served at the Festival's eight soft drink stands, five beer stands, and five taverns.

More than a single business, the Festival attracts thousands of tourists and tour groups to the region. The Festival has twice been recognized by the American Bus Association as one of the 100 best events in North America. United States Department of Commerce figures show that special events generate $2.40 in the local economy for each $1.00 spent at the show. An exit poll reveals an extremely satisfied customer base with 99.6% saying they will return the following year.

The Maryland Renaissance Festival, more than a fun event of entertainment, food, crafts, and attractions, is a success that has exhibited continued growth without compromising customer satisfaction.

That's all for now... see you at high school drunk.

SB: The Adventures of Smeagol

This is Smeagol at the Chinese Grauhman's Theatre

This is Smeogal at the In and Out burger eating a burger animal style.  Yeah he's a carnivore.

This is Smeagol and I in front the treacherous Mount Doom!! EEEEK!

This is Smeagol in San Francisco with a foggy view of Alcatraz in the distance.

This is Smeagol in a fabulous lagoon in Rarotonga Cook Islands!  

This is Smeagol on the Hobbiton set in Matamata New Zealand!

This is Smeagol in Beverly Hills.  Classy fellow.

This is Smeagol getting in touch with some art.  He's an intellectual.

PT: Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit

She took both my hands,
Looked me in my eyes
And said
"There's something I've wanted
to tell you for years.
I know you hate vodka
And I know you love beer.
You can hold your shit
But please don't boast
Always remember that






JORDI DRINKS THE MOST

MM: Oh Crap! My Book Just Died...I Gotta Go Plug It In And Recharge!

The title to this post is a sentence that was never meant to be spoken in the past, present, or future of the universe.

I’m starting to realize that almost all of my posts on The Stairs are me complaining about change. I apologize. But I feel very strongly about this so here we go again…

A few days ago I went to Barnes and Noble with my mom because I wanted to buy a book and I knew if I went with her she would offer to buy it and I would insist that “no, no, I got it, don’t worry about it,” and then she still wouldn’t let me pay for it and I would get a free book. Win!

Anyway, we walked into the store and were greeted by a giant display counter with Nook stuff all over the place. For anyone who is not in-the-know on the latest technology, the Nook is this small rectangular device on which you can buy and read books. That’s about as technical as I can get describing it without making a fool of myself, but I can explain it in plenty of other ways. A tragedy in the world of literature. The end of books as we know it. One of the many steps society is taking toward a future of lazy, boneless individuals who are unaware of the simple pleasures of the world around them. Picture the future depicted in WALL-E. That’s what we’re headed for. All because of the Nook. (Let’s just hope WALL-E and Eeeeeeevvvvvaaaa will be around to save us from imprisonment within our lifeless bodies and unstimulated minds.)

My mom had been considering looking into buying one of these satanic devices for a while, so the display grabbed her attention. I made the mistake of abandoning her to go search for my book, and returned to find a Barnes and Noble employee asking her which cover she would like for her new Nook. NOOOOO!!!!!!

I’ll admit; the Nook guy was pretty convincing. If I wasn’t so opposed to change and a little bit less poor, I probably would’ve been walking out of there with a Nook too. My mom ate up everything he said, but my skepticism and love for books had me rolling my eyes as he exclaimed that you could buy a book in seconds and that it didn’t hurt your eyes and that it had a built-in dictionary. I got the impression the guy didn’t like me very much. But whatever, I will never turn to the Dark Side.

Unfortunately, for my mom to get anything out of her new Nook, she needed me to help her set it up. As most of you know, parents and technology should never be combined. While I didn’t want to enable the use of this blasphemous purchase, my mom had bought me a book before we left the store, and she would be providing me dinner for the next week, so I begrudgingly set up the device. I got to know the thing pretty well, so I think I am informed enough to argue against it. Here are just a few of my problems with the Nook and eBooks in general:

BOOK vs. NOOK

Something tells me the Monster Book of Monsters
 wouldn't be the same as an eBook

1. The Nook can hold up to 1500 books and if you somehow own more than 1500 books there’s some backup archive thing so no worries!

That’s all fine and great, but it’s no replacement for an actual library. How are you supposed to build up a façade of intelligence and sophistication with shelves of Hemingway and Tolstoy and Faulkner for all the people that walk into your home if your books are contained inside 8x5 computer? Buying a Nook means you forgo the colorful covers and spines that give your book character and an identity. The Nook makes your favorite book just a few megabytes in a digital database that no one will ever see.

2. The Nook makes life easier for you: no need to lug heavy books around or even use the energy to turn pages! And you no longer have to get up off the couch and drive to your nearest bookstore the buy a book – just power up your Nook and download it in seconds!

It is true that the Nook does make reading-on-the-go way easier. There have been many times when I couldn’t decide which book I wanted to bring along on a journey, so I brought two or three, which take up a good amount of space in my bag. And the fact that you can put all your textbooks on it is pretty convenient. I cannot deny any of this. But I think having a backpack bursting with books as you run to catch the bus builds a lot of character, especially if it splits open and spills all your precious documents into a puddle. Children are now going to grow up to be a bunch of softies that complain if they have to carry anything more than a pound father than five feet.

3. The Nook is saving the environment! Less paper equals more trees, fresher air, less trash.

Yeah it’s saving the environment, but it’s also going to take away jobs from countless people. The companies that supply the paper, the companies that make the covers, the companies that bind everything together, the companies that print everything…I’m sure I could come up with a dozen others. And going back to the previous point, by eliminating the need to go to bookstores, the Nook actually eliminates the need to even have bookstores. Soon enough, that dude that sold my mom the Nook will be sitting on his couch, unemployed, cursing the Nook he is holding in his hands because he is out of a job and cannot even afford to buy anything on the blasted device.

4. The Nook charge lasts for about 10 days worth of reading (or 20 hours!).

Twenty hours of battery life is more than I would have estimated, but the fact that you have to recharge your book still baffles my mind. Like every piece of technology, the battery life will deteriorate and the system will start to lag and you’ll probably have to return it or get it fixed at least twice. This is not how reading is supposed to work! You’re supposed to be able to take books on the beach without worrying about getting sand on them. If you get caught in a thunderstorm and your book gets wet, that’s unfortunate but once you let it dry it has a nice weathered look to it and is still completely readable. Dropping your nook in some sand or dirt probably won’t end too well. In fact, I would guess dropping it at all isn’t advisable. And spill some water on it you’re out $150.

5. The Nook offers so many things that books never could: digital lending, a built-in dictionary, Wi-Fi that gives you instant access to pretty much every book ever written…

Here’s where I just throw up my arms and turn into an old person who says “what is this world coming too!? Back in the good ol’ days we drove to the library if we didn’t want to buy a book. Or we’d borrow one from friends. Or we’d save up and go to the bookstore and browse the shelves with the physical books right before our very eyes. Shelves and shelves of thousands of books! It was quite the sight…”

The dictionary is pretty cool though. But there’s always Google. Or an actual dictionary but that’s something that our grandparents can lament the obsoleteness off.

My main point is this: Nooks take away what books actually are – binded pages that tell a story. The essential parts of the book-reading experience are opening up to that first page, turning each one as you feel it beneath your fingertips, leaving a ticket stub or receipt in the spot you stopped reading. All of this disappears with the Nook. You have to press a power button to read your book. This is just absurd, I cannot put it any more eloquently. No matter how many times you read your favorite book on a Nook, it will never show the wear and tear and love that that book received. No more bent spines or dog-eared pages or coffee stains. Just an impersonal, weightless file on a computer.

To each his own, I guess. My mom is so proud of being more technologically advanced than me and makes a big show of stretching out on the couch and powering up her Nook every night when she reads. She’s happy, so I’ll let this particular Nook customer slide. But if you run across me ten years from now sitting on a bench reading from a Nook, please slap me in the face, steal it, and throw it in the nearest trashcan or body of water. I’ll be eternally greatful, I’m sure.

Peace out!

Meag 

JF: A Poem for Toys R Us Kids

Ed. Note: After reading Meag's post on graduation/general explosions of youthful glory, I decided to post this similiarly-themed poem I wrote last week. Also, this poem was originally written on my kickass typewriter. Enjoy.

Miracle Bubbles

Mother mixes soap & water in a stone washbasin
      & combs the mixture with a wooden fork.

You & I take turns raking the wind,
     berthing a stream of translucent planets,
     a rainbow in e v e r y o n e.
We haunch low beneath their wobbling orbit
     & do our best to break them on our nose-bridges,
     another miracle exploding into the afternoon sky.
You & I, we giggle like little kids
     because that’s what we are.