Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Good Will Hunting

I haven't seen Good Will Hunting since high school and all I can remember from it is the "dem apples" line. I was clicking around on One Good Move in order to catch some of the Daily Show/Reporrrr excerpts they post, when I saw this:



If you can't watch at home, it's the scene in the movie where Will is explaining why he wouldn't work at the NSA. Here is the long quote from IMDB:

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Why shouldn't I work for the N.S.A.? That's a tough one, but I'll take a shot. Say I'm working at N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. Maybe I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I'm real happy with myself, 'cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people I never met, never had a no problem with get killed. Now the politicians are sayin', "Oh, Send in the marines to secure the area" 'cause they don't give a shit. It won't be their kid over there, gettin' shot. Just like it wasn't them when their number got called, 'cause they were pullin' a tour in the National Guard. It'll be some kid from Southie takin' shrapnel in the ass. And he comes back to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, 'cause he'll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile he realizes the only reason he was over there in the first place was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the skirmish over there to scare up domestic oil prices. A cute little ancillary benefit for them, but it ain't helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. And they're takin' their sweet time bringin' the oil back of course, and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink martinis and fuckin' play slalom with the icebergs, and it ain't too long 'til he hits one, spills the oil and kills all the sea life in the North Atlantic. So now my buddy's out of work and he can't afford to drive, so he's got to walk to the fuckin' job interviews, which sucks 'cause the shrapnel in his ass is givin' him chronic hemorrhoids. And meanwhile he's starvin' 'cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue plate special they're servin' is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State. So what did I think? I'm holdin' out for somethin' better. I figure fuck it, while I'm at it why not just shoot my buddy, take his job, give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? I could be elected president.

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Please keep in mind that this movie came out in 1997. I didn't remember a word of this until I saw it again today. It doesn't mean that Matt Damon is a prophet (though Ben Affleck may in fact be a temple whore) but I can imagine seeing this in high school and thinking that it was funny. I would have found it funny because it's the classic liberal hippie "they're out to get me" screed and at the time it seemed comically farfetched for a young man who (at the time) cared more about purple poetry than politics.

Saturday, April 07, 2007

The Ubiquitous Foil Wrapper

I believe in full disclosure. I have a lot of dignity, but very little in the way of shame. Most people who know me know this to be true.

So, Mom sent me mail-order English Muffins for Easter. I don't think there's any specific symbolism there, unless the nooks and crannies are meant to symbolize... Golgotha? There were two kinds, apple and mixed berry. I had an apple one right when I woke up this morning, S____ was in the gym and I had just done three days' worth of dishes. I baked it with some cheddar and swiss and it was very good.

We take a shower and I realize that I'm still hungry. I throw one of the mixed berry muffins in and think of how good it will be with cream cheese oozing all out the sides of it. Keep in mind that I ride my bike 36 miles a day to work so I have a pretty hungry metabolism.

The muffin comes out of the oven all warm and crusty on top and I open our cheese drawer (full of so much cheese!!) in the fridge and grab a foil-wrapped package. I cut off two quarter-inch slabs and notice that the foil wrapper says "not for use as a spread" which leaves me to wonder if this is a weird type of cream cheese that's meant for baking. It's sure as hell not spreading on the muffin very well, so I press the two halves together into a sandwich and this spreads the white substance out nicely.

I eat half of my muffin sandwich when S____ comes out and asks how it is.

"It's pretty good, but I think this cream cheese might be stale."

"Really, let me have a taste." Bite. Chew. Chew. "That's not cream cheese. I think it's mozzarella."

"No, I cut some off of a foil-wrapped package."

We go to the fridge and discover that on flipping said package over, it very clearly says "Crisco."

Keep in mind that I thought the "cream cheese" tasted weird, but I kept eating it until I got about halfway through. It feels like I'm carrying some horrible shortening baby through to term.