Halloween Weekend Playlist for Jason Segel

And so it is a Halloweenn Weekend!

Last night was quite, uhm, normal.  Met up with my friend whom I haven't seen in a month, went to a couple of bars (the New Penguin hey!), and then a Halloween-ish thing happened --- we got lost.  And what I mean by lost it involved going around in circles and eventually discovering, "Ay, may hotel pala dito sa Pateros".  Yep, we discovered, amazingly, that there's a hotel in Pateros while we were on our way to Taguig.  Go figure.

I was driving and oddly enough the streets were too dark.  Or I just decided to take us to the ends of J.P. Rizal (I was curious), and refused to take Kalayaan, and --- alas! --- we discovered that there's a decent-looking hotel in Pateros!

Okay, so other than the getting lost bit my friend and I went to his apartment to pick up a small pile of DVDs I should seriously start watching by next week: Days of Being Wild, The Class, the first film directed by John Krasinski, and a couple of "tastefully" made local titillating films: Tuhog and Salawahan.  And then we drove back to Makati Avenue to have Healthy Burgers with Cheese at the WG Diner, that place just adjacent to the A.Venue compound where the Cream Halloween Ball was taking place and that GODAWFUL videoke place which basically ruins the sanity of those who are hanging out around the area.  Seriously?  Very bad, peria-like singing from yuppies which echoes as far as a two-kilometer radius?  That place will drive customers out of A.Venue, and even Makati Avenue!

So anyway.  As I woke up sans hangover and still full from those healthy burgers, I thought of those scenes in movies where somebody digs up from a pile/library of records, discs, books, and etc., pulls out of a couple of objects, holds them up, and says, "Here, this will change your life".  Like in Almost Famous, those scenes with Lester Bangs and the one with his sister Anita.

Since it's a weekend --- and I haven't done my NLP assignment yet --- I thought of doing something similar to Jason Segel.  Call it pretending to have those Almost Famous moments with him.  Or that part from last night when my friend selected from his DVDs which ones I should watch because they're brilliant, and which one I should watch because it's simply "pathetic", as he stressed in his typical, lovely drama queen fashion.

And the list goes ---

Movies to Watch

1) Drag Me to Hell - what can I say?  Star Movies (or was it HBO) has been showing this, uh, hilarious film last week.  It's just a ride watching this, and although it can be scary, it's just hilarious.  A seriously entertaining watch.  And Justin Long and Allison Lohman are generally likable.

2) The Exorcist, Poltergeist, Nightmare on Elm Street - you cannot deny classics this particular weekend.

3) The Others - an incredible, incredible movie.  For me it beats The Sixth Sense.

4) Chocolat - because it's just delightful, wink wink.

Music

1) Beck's One Foot in the Grave - it's tumbleweeds, cowboy hats, and being on an acid trip.  Makes you want to role play, which is pretty appropriate for halloween.  Favorite line from this album via the track "Girl of My Dreams": You're just the girl of my dreams but it seems my dreams never come true.  How fitting.

2) Elliott Smith's Either/Or - great music to think about, uh, death.  Just a generally amazing album, from an amazing artist.  Rest in Peace Elliott Smith.

3) Jeff Buckley - I don't need to explain.  Go Grace.  Stop me before I add another dead artist to the list.

4) Air's Moon Safari - just some mood music, that coffee you sniff before smelling another scent, the light sorbet before the third course.

Reading

1) Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas - oh you know, just some light reading.  Klosterman is the literary rock n' rollah.

2) It's A Mystery Charlie Brown  by Charles M. Schulz - Aaawwww.  Save these Charlie Brown/Peanuts/Snookpy books for Christmas as well.



I do think that these stuff would interest Jason Segel.  It's not glamrock nor classic rock, but hey, I wouldn't be surprised if he mourned the deaths of Elliott Smith and Jeff Buckley.  And Charles M. Schulz.  He's a funny guy, and well, probably with an impeccable taste!

I guess this is the point of any art.  You share what you appreciate and open up other people's perceptions and tastes.  To be honest I managed to finally move on from 90s rock and that period of musical limbo at the turn of the new millennium when a friend of mine made me mixed CDs of indie music, i.e. Stars, Broken Social Scene, etc. Coming up with lists such as this becomes a venue of sharing and a discussion of certain treasures, if they're not yet found.

As for my weekend, I have some very important writing to do which is VERY exciting.  I am writing a feature to help a friend win this filmmaking grant.  YEHEEEYY!  Back to my heaven.  And as for my watching list, I think I'll watch a very appropriate film  my friend reunited me with as a reference for the work I am doing: Youjiro Takita's Departures.  With Dutch subtitles.

Pre-programming

In the last episode of this blog ---

I mentioned about NLP or neurolinguistic programming, which a fortune-teller taught me years ago.  I admit I tried doing it, but it somehow became a pain.  In a way, it felt impossible that the "guy I want" exists out there.  I mean, at that time I wanted a piano-playing lawyer who is above six feet tall.  It's not like I had impossible standards (though some of my friends would say otherwise), but those preferences do not have to be literal. Though I did ask my dates in the past if they could play the piano (hahaha).

What I meant by a piano-playing lawyer is, well, I want someone who has an amazing talent, someone who can intellectually stimulate me (and in other areas as well), and someone who is bigger than me --- not big, but someone I look up to, admire, etc.  But of course, over time those standards changed.

I guess --- and this is a pretty recent, uh, awareness --- Jason Segel is the closest thing to a piano-playing lawyer who is above six feet.  Well, fine, he's not a lawyer but he plays one, alright?  And I can tell he's a smart guy.  He may not know where on earth Timbuktu is --- but maybe he can give an elaborate explanation as to how the Mayan calendar works!

At the end of the day, I just want to be with a great guy who makes me laugh, someone I can talk with --- you know, the male-female dynamics is not that complicated, really.  You meet someone, you hit it off, you fall in-love.  And then you get to WORK.  Yes, it is work.  You make sacrifices.  You make time.  You patch things up.  You try not to piss each other off.  You ask for forgiveness.  You forgive.  You say what you mean. You mean what you say.

Keeping things alive is not easy, but it is something you choose to make.  Otherwise you will lose it.  And don't complain if you do.

Alright! Now that the ranting is out of the way ---

I think it is going to be tricky putting together the First Column because I do not know Jason Segel.  I mean, I know bits and pieces via Wikipedia, but that 's it.  I can just assume.  Hence, based on certain assumptions (i.e. he writes all these lovely soundtracks hence he must have an appreciation for theater and musicals) I can make intelligent assumptions for the Second Column.  And then the analysis is going to show up in the third.

I think the Third Column is going to be so much fun!

Mind you --- the Third Column is not about not being myself.  It's more of about having an open mind.  So I get to learn new things.  For instance, in I Love You, Man he's a Rush fan; I'd assume that Jason Segel at least likes Rush.  I have heard of Rush, but my rock n'roll appreciation is mostly concentrated on the 90s and not so much on the 70s/80s.  So this will open up new worlds for me!

Exciting, innit?

Well. I hope I'll get to work on the columns in a day or two.  It's just that at the moment I am a bit busy, and can only spare less than an hour on this blog today.

Alrighty then!

Neurolinguistic Programming Jason Segel - Part One

Have you heard of NLP?  Or have been at least tagged on Facebook for some strange NLP event?  Are you intrigued with this scientific-sounding, uber-sophisticated term?  Neuro --- brain.  Linguistic --- language.  Programming --- er, computers?  Brain language computers.  Very high-tech.

I was actually introduced to NLP by a fortune teller.

*enter flashback music*

My friend Chin told me about this Psychic Fair in Eastwood a few years ago, during the time the term "psychic" meant how "promo" means to me now.  So I went to the Psychic Fair... not with Chin, I think, but with Liz.  Or maybe it was the second Psychic Fair that Liz tagged along, or was it the first Psychic Fair that the fortune teller lady gave me a magic mantra and free precious stones to boot, and I was with Chin at that time?  Hmm.  Anyway, I forget.

So!

It was actually a male psychic I ended up with because I chose him from a menu of psychics available that night --- which basically shows that even at the event of having your fortune told everything is still up to your decision.  As it was a few years ago, I really can't remember my fortune, but I probably opened up to him via a tirade of expressed frustrations: Am I going to travel overseas?  Will I ever have my dream job?  Will I ever meet Michael Vartan?  Will I ever find true love?

Well, he read my cards, and for some reason, he discussed neurolinguistic programming.  And as I had too much questions, he only remembered the most recent one, and that was, Will I ever find true love?  He then told me, Here's what you should do.

I was already liking this psychic.  At last, someone was not just giving me an "intelligent" guess, someone was telling me what to do!

*break music!*

As I am "scheming" to eventually marry Jason Segel, I have been thinking how to pull it off.  I mentioned in my last entry that I had no idea what to write, which also means I didn't know what to do.  And as I need to know what to do, and the last I checked Chowking did not have any fortune cookies available, I suddenly remembered this particular fortune teller!

And this particular fortune teller told me how to get someone I want!

*continue flashback music*

So this psychic told me to get a piece of paper ... I didn't have one.  So he told me he'd give me a piece of paper.  Check, piece of paper!  And he told me to make three columns from that piece of paper. I didn't have a pen so I started folding the bond paper.  Three columns, check!  And then he told me to write the first heading: Traits of the Guy I Want to Marry.  I didn't have a pen so I absorbed everything he said.  Afterwards, he told me to write the heading of the second column: the Traits of the Girl This Particular Guy Would Want to Marry.  And so he explained.  And the last column... I really can't remember now, because I didn't have a pen and it was so long ago and I was already thinking answers and all, but I think it has something to do with What I Must Do To End Up Marrying That Guy That Will Not Include Killing the Girl the Guy I Want to Marry Will Likely Want to Marry.  Something like that.

I was so amazed with the idea that I never got around doing it because I did not want to lose the amazement!  I had not heard of neurolinguistic programming before!  And I have no idea if this process is indeed part of NLP!

So.  Since I have no idea how to actually execute this process of marrying Jason Segel, well, I guess I need to sit down and actually do that three-column list.  I guess that is the first logical step.

And that's the second part of this entry that I will be writing about as I am just about to hunt for that piece of paper.  And a pen that does not poop.

The calming before the stormy

Obviously, I gave it a few days before making another entry.  I did think about it.  I have been a lousy blogger in the past few years, as compared to my "golden age" of blogging more than five years ago.  At that time I had so much to say.  I'd write about anything.  So many thoughts.  Maybe it was because I was younger and less jaded.

But I guess I just got tired of blogging because, really, I found that I was still writing about the same old things.  Like finding love and the entire crap that comes with it!!!

Well, one of the things I enjoyed about blogging before was that writing gave me the chance to play with humor.  See, I can be funny, BUT --- I can be too serious too.  I guess that's what attracted me to Jason Segel in the first place; so far, he's played characters I fully understand.  Funny, charming, a bit of a dork, potential loser, but really substantial deep down.  And I can assure you, even though I know that he is a good actor, there is a significant amount of the real Jason Segel in those characters.  I kinda have a theory, but this is something I am keeping to myself.  To give you a clue, he wrote Forgetting Sarah Marshall.  There you go.

And like I mentioned before, this infatuation with Jason Segel is pretty recent.  As in, say, like, two weeks ago.  Or the week before the week before.  You know.  That week HBO was airing I Love You Man, like THREE FUCKING TIMES A DAY.

To narrate in the voice of That-Older-Ted in How I Met Your Mother, I was having a pretty lousy week.  October was turning out to be a pretty awful month, career-wise.  So I got into doing this shitty projects that particular week.  So as I was getting my shit together (which is still a big FAIL at this point), I decided to go on isolation and just worked.  The thing is, you can't solve a shitty situation with a shitty solution, right, but desperate conditions call for drastic measures.

So in order for me to breathe from the stink (man, was I feeling really screwed that week), I turned on the television.  And there it was.  I saw I Love You, Man Monday.  And then Tuesday morning, Tuesday evening.  Wednesday afternoon.  And so on.

See,  every time I saw I Love You, Man on HBO that week I dropped everything I was doing and watched it.  To be honest, I don't think I ever saw it in its entirety in one sitting, but still, I saw it more than five times in five straight days.

And yeah, I thought Jason Segel was adorable in the movie.  I like his comedy.  But see, I like other people's approach to humor as well, and I don't go around setting up blogs scheming-schmanning some off proposal.  I mean, like Adam Sandler and Ben Stiller.  And Steve Carrell.  And the Monty Python guys.  You know.

And to be honest, I've had celebrity crushes before who are waay gorgeous than Jason Segel.  Michael Vartan.  And Alexander Skarsgard.  Seriously!

If anything, it's like a movie.

Jason Segel reminded me of someone.  I usually associate him with the character Marshall and didn't even know his name was Jason Segel.  And I don't even watch How I Met Your Mother that regularly.  But I knew Marshall and this person who kinda reminded me of Marshall who was (is) important to me.  Eventually, I was watching Sarah Marshall and a bit of How I Met Your Mother, and I did not want to eat my head.  As time does heal, I stopped seeing that other person in Jason Segel, and started seeing Jason Segel.  And it was in that movie where he looked the slobbiest of all, in all his Bromance glory that I realized, "Yeah, hit it Steve Dunne, whatdidyasay again re: Linda Powell?  Oh right.  If I had a conversation with God I would ask him to create this girl.  This guy. Right on, rock n' roll."

See?  Like a movie.

Anyway.  To be honest I am a bit stumped at this point as to the "outline" of this blog.  But I did think of, say, an episode to keep this thing going.  As  I love Top Chef and I love to cook, so --- I will post dishes I personally created which are inspired by the characters played by Jason Segel.  I think by next week I would already concoct something.

I have some chicken breast fillets in the freezer.

Answering questions that need to be answered

So the first question comes to mind can be summarized with W-T-F???!!!  with an endless line of exclamation marks trailing the F, which, in real life, is pretty typical.

As of typing this, Nick Jr is airing that male Dora counterpart, Diego, and I guess it was that commercial for that uber-weird Yogabbagabba that the idea dawned on me.

But see, ideas are not just ideas.  You see, many artists --- writers, filmmakers, musicians, etc. --- are constantly asked, "Where do you get our ideas?  What's your inspiration?".  Jessica Zafra, whom I read A LOT back in college (which seems like a galaxy far away), addressed this question and wrote that her main intention was world domination, with a nyahahahahaha following the statement in Jessica Zafra fashion.

So basically, where'd you get The Idea?  

The idea is --- blog about the PROCESS that needs to be undertaken in order to end up marrying Jason Segel.  Why on earth did I think of that?  What drove me to even think that I should blog about the steps I need to take so that I'll end up becoming Mrs Jason Jordan Segel?  Oh, yeah, and just so to be clear (and I am addressing the universe here), I am referring to the actor, musician, writer, etc. Jason Segel of How I Met Your Mother, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and I Love You, Man.  So no Jason Segel of any other sort, yeah?

See, ideas are strange.  Let's take a few steps back, the minutes leading to this particular point of revelation which could change my life.

I am currently in between projects, and as I have slacked off the last few days, I am now in a frantic mode.  So I have been looking for projects, marketing myself, trying to write an article which can lead me to a better writing job, etc.  My 2 year-old nephew, in order to have him settle and stop running around looking for his Benten collectibles, had to be restrained hence he was sent to the couch with a bottle of milk, his security blanket, and the Power to the Remote Control.  Prior to that I was watching Australia's Next Top Model, but for some strange reason, Star World disappeared and was replaced by that lovely Korean channel, Arirang.  I surfed channels for a bit and nothing really took my interest, not even CNN (which was focusing on the American Politics Situation).  And so I kinda "bribed" my nephew to keep quiet and told him, "Fine, let's watch Nick Jr" at which point he kicked me out of the couch and reminded me that I have work to do by finding work (the latter was actually me reminding myself).

And as I was writing emails, checking out my website, looking for project listings, The Backyardigans started playing on the tube and I thought, "These characters are so weird".  And then I corrected my thought as I realized it was Yogabbagabba that was weirder.  And for some reason, I was reminded of Michael Vartan.

See, thoughts can be so strange.  

I am going to discuss Michael Vartan in my next entries, but the thing is, it was after the nanosecond image of Michael Vartan in my head that I remembered, I WANT TO MARRY JASON SEGEL.

So.  The Questions.

1) Do I really want to marry Jason Segel?

Let's say I am in this stage of absorbing things, and using these things I really absorbed has become a means for me to express myself.  What I am saying is, if I can't think of an answer, I have the tendency to quote things which is either brilliant or a display of (faux) smarts.

I am not going to share now the history of my infatuation with Jason Segel (which is VERY recent, but my "awareness" kinda dates back, say, early this year), but to answer the question, I am quoting this line from one of my favorite movies of all time, Cameron Crowe's Singles.

"If I had a conversation with God, I'd ask him to create this guy (girl)".

That line actually flashed in my head whilst watching Jason Segel doing the crazy, Rushed ax-man in I Love You, Man on HBO, for the nth time, last week.  You know HBO.  It's not just TV.

Let's be realistic. I don't know if I really want to marry Jason Segel, I just think he's brilliant.  But of course, as I think he's brilliant, I would like to get to know him and that's the ONLY way I'll know if I really want to marry him.  

2) If you're not sure you really want to marry Jason Segel, why write about the ways HOW to marry him?

Ooh, I am probably going to give the corniest answer: inspiration.

Let me put it this way, as I get going with this thing, I am probably going to pull some miracles out of my ass.  So this is not just a blog about me "being inspired" by Jason Segel.  I am going to establish goals.

If I am not going to marry him, I would at least like a true date.  Not just dinner; a real date, something to the effect of, "Hey, let me show you the secret room in my secret room of puppets while some string quartet play Pachelbel in the hallway".

And by the way, as I live in Manila, and it can be a nightmarish situation to get a U.S. visa, this is going to be quite a task.

3) Are you a stalker?  Or just completely insane?

I have never stalked anyone, and I have no intention of becoming one EVER.  Well, okay WE ALL have had stalker moments, but like most people,  it's pretty juvenile.  And I find the least insanity in my own madness, but I am not even borderline.  

Hey.  I am just a normal fan.  Who wants to make use of this energy into something useful.

4) Why blog about it?  Can't you just keep it to yourself?

Well, how else will Jason Segel ever realize that I exist?

I know, I know.  There are several fan pages out there, and some can be pretty psychotic.  I am approaching this in the most logical, effective manner possible.  

Besides, blogging this keeps track of my progress.

5) What if you suddenly meet someone else?  And this someone else is the one you really want to marry?  And then you guys fall in-love, etc.?

You mean, like in the movies?

6) Okay, so humor me.  How are you going to marry Jason Segel?

Let's find out, shall we?

7) Seriously.

Seriously.

8) You're crazy.

I just realized that I talk to myself a lot in a Pete Bretter manner.  And I have had weeping moments getting over ex-s, i.e. while cooking, stalking an ex's Facebook page, in Pete Bretter fashion.  

Maybe I should just marry Pete Bretter.