Rags to Rags

hit movie ideas I plan to sell for a billion dollars.

Eminent Domain

Matt Damon stars as Elliot Jewstein, a New York City stock man whose blood is found to be the cure for HIV/all cancers/ juvenile diabetes/ rickets/leprosy/dyslexia, and that Michael J. Fox disease that I think Annette Funicello has too. At first he’s happy: “I’m happy!” he says as he cures America’s ill. Soon, the combination of stress and track marks becomes too much for him to handle: “THIS IS TOO MUCH FOR ME TO HANDLE!!” He stops giving his blood until government big wigs claim eminent domain over his body. He escapes from the secret government facility, and with the help of Annette Funicello, sets out to get his life back AND save the economy from collapse (something he’d been working on before his blood became a big deal).

Grumpy Old Men 3: Trouble in Hong Kong

The ghosts of Jack Lemon and Walter Matthau have been training as warrior ninjas ever since they got to purgatory. One day, God asks them to earn their wings by helping a young Hong Kongese woman named Ayako Nguyen (played by Raven Symone), stand up to her mob-boss father, who wants her to be a Ballerina. Hilarity ensues when a cultural misunderstanding ends with Lemon and Matthau accepting positions as head ballerina teachers at Ayako’s dance school. They use their aliases to ingratiate themselves to her father, and help bring down the mob AND give Ayako the courage she needs to make it on her own. Everyone dies from bird flu in the end, and they make some joke relating the bird flu to them getting wings.

Fool Me Twice…

Job obsessed Bridget Blake, played by Jennifer Anniston, is at the top of her game when it comes to her career, but unlucky in love. One night, while drinking pink colored Martinis in a sexy, LA club with her girlfriends, Bridget strikes up a drunken conversation with her old high school crush, Drake Mathers, (played by Raven Symone). When she realizes that Drake doesn’t remember her, Bridget takes the opportunity to reinvent herself, and says her name is Roberta Jordache, heiress to the Jordache Denim empire. When things get serious, Bridget must decide whether to come clean and bare it all, or go back to her job obsessed, manless, sexless life. Everyone dies of bird flu in the end,

one time, I got kidnapped.

Twenty-one was a big year of firsts for me. Most notable among my firsts were getting drunk, and getting kidnapped. Both of which, coincidentally, happened on the same night.

I was nearing the end of my semester in Granada, Spain and decided it was due time I let loose. My fellow travelers had spent the better part of the preceding five months in various states of altered consciousness, but I’d dubbed myself as being “above the influence.” “I don’t need alcohol to have a good time!” I’d ignorantly exclaim. But tonight was going to be different. Freshly showered after a day of hiking through olive tree laden hills, I felt on top of the world, and decided to make use of my unexpected spike in confidence and ask out a girl I’d had my eye on. “Definitely” She said, “Let’s grab tapas at 8.” I readied myself for a night on the town while jiving to the calming vocal stylings Steve Winwood’s seminal classic, Spanish Dancer. I was getting changed in my dorm room when a dreadlocked gentleman with scabs on his knuckles offered to sell me marijuana through my bedroom window. I had no interest in any drugs that hadn’t been concocted in a pharmaceutical lab, but in appreciation of his entrepreneurial spirit, I offered him a fist full of cashews “Gracias amigo.” He replied, before trying to sell me a stolen camera. “THIS IS LIVING!” I thought closing the window in his face. There’d been so many adventures already that day, and I was over the moon. I could hardly wait until 8 to start my night of drinking so I cracked open a liter of beer I’d picked up and drank in celebration of my life. This would later prove to be the beginning of the end.

Me in a tree during my hike.

When eight o’clock rolled around I was feeling fantastic. I had a healthy buzz and an appetite for romance as I headed to the restaurant to meet my date. Upon arriving, I was surprised to see that my date had invited several friends. “Now it’s a party!” she said as I raised a glass of sangria to my lips, irritated at myself for not having specified on the phone that I was looking for sex. For close to four hours I sat as my date and her girlfriends gossiped about tampons and cooking, or whatever it is girls talk about. I hadn’t signed up to play a supporting role in an episode of Gilmore Girls, so I quietly stumbled out and got to work coming up with a new plan to salvage the night.

I called my friend Alex who’d also been out courting a lady. His date had ended with her telling him how pleased she was that they were such close platonic friends, and he was ready to drink his feelings away too. We determined the best course of action for dealing with such mortifying humiliation was alcohol, and as much of it as we could stomach, and made a beeline for the biggest nightclub in the city.

Three hours later, things started getting rough. I’d been drinking consistently the entire night and had unknowingly passed my limit. I’d never been in that particular club so late and after witnessing a man openly masturbate on an unassuming young woman, I realized why. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow” I mumbled to Alex who dancing to trance music which what I believe was a transsexual.

I couldn’t even see without closing one eye, and was using the majority of what brain power I had to avoid falling on my face , It seemed like a good idea to walk as little as possible, so I opted to take a short cut through the city, something I wouldn’t have done with a machete had I been sober. Within about four minutes it happened. Three men, who I can best be described as shadowy and mean, approached me from behind, hit me on my head, and pushed me to my knees. “Is this a raping?!” I screached in a panic. Nobody responded. They then preceded to empty my pockets while holding me down. A fist came at my face, and there was blackness.

It was still night when I awoke. The first thing I saw was the far off skyline of the city I’d just been in. I was in a ditch on the side of a back road, on what seemed to be a mountain barren of life. The Hills Have Eyes had recently been released so I knew exactly what was going to play out if I just stayed in the ditch. I ran to the only building around. The door was unlocked and the light was on, so I let myself in and right in front of me was an older, mustachioed fellow who looked terrified to see me. Still fairly drunk, I decided to forgo attempting pleasantries in Spanish and simply asked if he had any rooms I could lay down and rest in. “No” he replied “Este es un mortuorio”. I may have been drunk but I knew the word for mortuary when I heard it. This couldn’t be happening. I’d watch my fair share of afterschool specials and episodes of Saved by the Bell about the perils of drinking too much, and this scenario hadn’t played out in any of them. I turned and ran until I found a tree to sleep under for the night. Things were looking grim.

I woke up sweating the next day as the Spanish sun beat down on me. “Fuck, now I’ll have an uneven tan to boot. What a night.” Not wanting to return to the mortuary, I walked until I came across a taxi and had him drive me back to my dorm. I had no money and didn’t care. At that point I would have paid him in sexual favors if he’d asked. Fortunately, my bloody face and twitching eye won his sympathy, and he decided to take me back to my dorm, pro bono.

After arriving back, I called my parents to have them cancel my stolen credit cards. My mother was certain I’d been using illicit drugs and wasn’t about to let me off the phone until I fessed up. “Was it ecstasy?” she asked “It puts holes in your brain…go take a cold shower that should help you snap out of it.” After successfully answering questions about my childhood and completing several long division problems, she was satisfied that my brain damage was minimal at worst, and let me off the phone to rest. I proceeded to sleep in the fetal position until that afternoon, when, still bloody and cut, I showed up 30 minutes late to my Spanish History final exam. I approached my professora to get an exam and she looked at me in horror “¡¿Que Chico, Que!?” As I told her my story, her eyes welled with tears. She grabbed the exam she’d just given me and wrote “10” on the top of it. Getting a 10 is the Spanish equivalent to receiving an “A”. I was surprised, and thrilled by what was another first: a sympathy “A”. I then went to the lobby of the building and sat surrounded by friends, all curious to hear my story, and enthralled by what I had to say. I was the center of attention, and I’d found a way to ace any exam. It was one of the happiest moments of my life. That night I went out drinking to celebrate my new found celebrity status, and had my first shot of tequila…I never looked back.

get your priorities straight, east coast.

Word on the streets is we’re in for one heck of a storm indeed! As I type, Hurricane Irene is laying into the the Carolinas like Ike Turner on a bender, and there’s an element of excitement in the air that I haven’t felt since “What About Bob?” was released into theaters.

That said, I’m growing concerned with the low intelligence level of our society. CNN just played a video of people wiping stores clean of food and water. The food I get, but why are they buying water? We’re expecting a hurricane that’s going to be dumping 10-18” of rain on the city over the course of 24 hours. If anything people should be stocking up on buckets and straws. You wouldn’t buy matches if you were expecting wildfires would you? Same logic applies here.

I, on the other hand, have amassed all the right provisions to weather the storm in style from the comfort of my apartment when it arrives in the Northeast.