What the WTF?!?: Let's Buy Me a Town

Earlier this month, I found myself tempted to purchase a lighthouse after reading that the General Services Administration (GSA) was selling off some of America's premiere lighthouses to any and all interested parties. "Think of all the things we could do with our very own lighthouse," I told my wife. She told me to think about it and gave me the number of the hotel where she and my daughter would be staying until I got this whole "lighthouse-owning business" out of my mind.

Thankfully, I didn't waste my money on any stupid old lighthouses. Who needs a lighthouse when you can own A WHOLE DAMN TOWN?!? That's right, plebs, you're reading the blog of the future owner/mayor/chief parade planner of Scenic, South Dakota. All I need is a 800,000 dollars and a mayoring hat.

You're probably saying to yourself--or to the person in the next cubicle, I don't know what you do--"800,000 dollars? What do you get for 800,000 dollars? Not much probably." Well, my friend, you--and your cubicle neighbor--are dead wrong. When you buy Scenic, SD you not only get the streets, dirt, and any wild animals that wander by, you also get " a dance hall, a saloon, two jails, a train depot, two stores, and some more empty buildings." Yeah, you read it right: two jails! I don't know what "two stores" I've got, but as long as one of them is a Bed Bath & Beyond, things are gonna be A-OK.

Now, here's where you come in! Obviously, I don't have 800,000 dollars, but I'm willing to bet at least one of you does. If you are that one loyal reader with 800,000 dollars just lying around, can I have it? For reals? If you give me the 800,000 dollars I so desperately need to make my dream of owning a ramshackle ghost town in the middle of nowhere a reality, here's what you'll get:

*Free admission to the dance hall FOR LIFE!
*2 free nights in one of the "empty buildings" I will be turning into a Comfort Inn or something.
*A complimentary Bud Lite at our saloon.
*Half-off a walking tour of beautiful downtown Scenic led by me, the owner/mayor/parade planner/ominipotent overlord of Scenic.
*Two of the "some empty buildings" to with whatever you'd like. (NO Hostel-style torture dungeons, please!!!)

So, c'mon, rich guy--or girl--give me money. Or, heck, I'll settle for donations. Just contact me at giantpengy@gmail.com and I'll let you know how your money can reach me. Thanks in advance. Next summer, I'll see all of you in Scenic, South Dakota: Home of the Matt Lawson Memorial Indoor Waterslide & All-You-Can-Eat Pizza Buffet!

The Most Horrific Thing I've Read This Week

Nothing ruins a vacation--or shatters a child's fragile pysche--like witnessing an accidental death. Well, nothing other than being the victim of the accidental death, I guess.

I think we can all agree that death is probably the last thing we'd want to experience when taking a summer trip with our families. A little sightseeing. A few nice meals out. A couple hours of lounging on a secluded beach. These are the hallmarks of a successful vacation. Getting sucked into a blowhole and drowning OR watching a man be sucked into a blowhole to his drowning death would be pretty low on my vacation "to-do" list, as I assume, gentle reader, it would be on yours.

Last Saturday, tourists in Hawaii were treated to just such a sanity-shattering sight when California resident, David Potts, was sucked into a blowhole where he, presumably, drowned. Now that's pretty sick, but even sicker is how Potts was described just before his watery death

Witnesses who watched a Northern California man get sucked into a Maui blow hole to his apparent death say that the tourist was dancing around and frolicking in the sprays of water moments before a wave knocked him down.

Rocco Piganelli, of La Jolla, Calif., said he stared in horror as he watched a large wave push the tourist into the hole off Nakalele Point on Saturday afternoon. The man popped up briefly with the next wave, then disappeared.

He was dancing? And frolicking? I don't know why, but these simple details make the story so much more disturbing to me. There Potts was, hanging out in Maui with his lady-friend and her brother, dancing around a famous blowhole, cavorting and being goofy and BOOM! He's gone; sucked away into an underwater tunnel of death. The fact that he popped up briefly before disappearing into the briny deep forever, just makes me nauseous.

You might be thinking to yourself, "Hey, at least Potts spent his last moments on Earth--besides those few seconds when he popped back up before being dragged to his final resting place at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean--engaged in summertime frivolity. It could've been a lot worse." Feel free to put a positive spin on it, man, but if I'm in Maui, frolicking and dancing, the last thing I wanted to do is get sucked into a fucking blowhole. If I'm dancing, I'm probably on top of the world. Maybe he'd just proposed to his girlfriend and she'd just said "yes." Did you ever think of that, Happy McBrightside?! Huh, you jerk!

It's the tourists (and anyone who reads this HORRIBLE article) that I feel sorry for, however. Potts is gone, but a bunch of people trying to get away from the daily grind for awhile watched him get gone. How are you supposed to enjoy the luau you have scheduled for Saturday night? Is watching beautiful Hawaiian girls perform a sultry hula dance while muscley, tattoed man whip fire all around (yeah, that's right, I've been to a luau!) going to erase the memory of watching a man be sucked into the ocean to his demise? Not bloody likely. Not only is your vacation ruined, but your life is ruined as well. That's not how kids are supposed to learn about death. They're supposed to have a goldfish die or watch Bambi. No kid needs their first experience with death to be watching a happy dancing man on vacation get dragged into a blowhole. Ugh.

Notes from a Boat

From: Matt Lawson 
Sent: Fri 5/01/09 9:22 PM
To: Jonathan Cook

I'm writing to you from a boat. Isn't that fucking sweet!!?

So, a cruise vacation is apparently my biggest nightmare. At first I thought it was going to be the trapped feeling or the rocking, but no...it's the forced communal activities, the constant fucking noise (just now, another fucking band just started playing behind me...ugh), the barrage of twits asking "bar service?" every ten seconds, the lack of anything interesting to do but pay 55 cents a minute to reach out to a friend from somwhere on the Atlantic Ocean. The food is good, but I just back from watching a bunch of drunken idiots play Family Feud and it was terrible.

Anyway, I just thought you'd like to know what's going on. I would do anything to be back in Raleigh not on a cruise ship and not hearing this fuckwit sing terribly behind me. I mean, WTF????

I'm probably gonna drop some money at the casino and cry myself to sleep.

yours,
matt.

Just look at this crap-hole!

From: Jonathan Cook 

Sent: Fri 5/01/09 10:12 PM
To: Matt Lawson 

But, dude, you're on a boat! I've never been on a boat, so I can't say just how awesome it is, but popular songs and legends tell of wonderful mermaids, ice sculptures, communal dining, life boats, portholes, Kathy Lee Gifford, autotune, and sex with mermaids. Did you hit golf balls at whales? Did you have boat sex just so you could clumsily hit your head on a bulkhead and say the knot on your head came from when you hit your head on a bulkhead during boat sex? Did you yell "man overboard" even once? If not, you're not enjoying the full boat experience. Your experience sounds awful and makes me not want to have anything to do with boats. Feel free to try my ideas.

Jonathan

Welcome to Hell is more like it!  God, Nassau sucks!

From: Matt Lawson

To: Jonathan Cook
Subject: RE: from a boat
Date: Sun, 3 May 2009 18:00:01 -0400

I'll admit, yesterday's stop at Royal Caribbean-owned island Coco Cay wasn't that bad. I don't know if it's because I was finally off this infernal cruise ship or because I was already drunk by 11:00. I purchased a whiskey sour and the dude made it in a huge souviner cup. Also it was more of a 'whiskey hold the sour'. Soon after I indulged in something called a Coco Loco then stumbled off into the ocean to snorkel and check out a fake plane crash. Filled with a new sense of purpose, I tried to make the best of my time back on the boat. I watched drunk people sing karaoke and that was OK, but the midnight buffet was a bust.

Today we visited Nassau and, what a surprise, it sucked. It was boring, sad, and my father only let us go back to the boat when he decided that my sister could take no more. Ugh. We got back to the ship, I ate some truly awful buffet food, and slept for three hours. Only dinner, a second karaoke extravaganza, the unfunny headlining comedian's Late Night Dirty Show for Adults, and a full night's sleep and I will be back in Miami and then it's on to Raleigh where I plan on blotting this trip out with either heavy amounts of alcohol or a blow to the head.

Thank you for your suggestions. I appreciate you trying to help me make the best of this experience. As I suspected, I am not a cruise guy and I don't care if I ever, EVER set foot on a fucking cruise ship again.

yours,
matt.

Blotting out the memories

Worst Vacation Ever: Vacancy

Destination: Home after an uncomfortable visit to the in-laws for an anniversary party.

Disaster: Snuff film producer, Frank Whaley, and his creepy buddies.

Let's just leave the snark by the wayside on this one, folks.  Vacancy is a taut thriller, a sleek, no frills horror film set in a creepy old hotel that makes the Bates Motel look like the Ritz-Carlton.  Vacancy doesn't break any new ground, but it doesn't need to.  It's a well-crafted piece of cinema and everyone involved is on point.

First of all, I want to see Luke Wilson in more horror films.  I mean, he doesn't have to make a career of it--I know he likes to appear in half-baked indie comedies and laughless Hollywood tripe (he's also been a Wes Anderson player, so he's got cred), but I found him refreshing in the role of the put-upon Everyman who has to put up with his soon to be ex-wife (an excellent Kate Beckinsale) and figure out a way to elude the three psychopaths who have made the couple the stars of their latest snuff production.  Frank Whaley (where the hell has he been?) plays a super-creepy hotel manager/film producer who watches the couple from his control room and Ethan Embry (ok, seriously, where the hell has he been???) plays the friendly mechanic/diabolical killer fiend who sets the whole sequence of events into motion.

At 85 minutes, Vacancy is short, tense, and brutal, like any film of the "Couple in a Seemingly Hopeless Predicament With No Means of Escape" variety ought to be.  Director Nimrod Antal cuts out the bullshit and delivers a endlessly satisfying film for horror pros and novices alike.

I was going to write something like "check in as soon as you can" or "have no reservations, rent this one today," but I decided that would probably be kind of dumb, so I won't.

Worst Vacation Ever: Sleepaway Camp

I never went away to camp when I was younger. My parents probably would have allowed me to go, but it was more of a personal choice. I prefer familiar surroundings and I don't like leaving my stuff unguarded. I don't know though, summer camp could've been super sweet. Sadly, I'll never know, but I do have the summer camp movies of the 1980's to give me a glimpse at what I may have missed. Let's take a look at Camp Arawak, for example, and compile a list of pros and cons:

PRO: Corn on the cob for dinner! Yummy! CON: Camp Arawak's head chef is a dangerous pedophile who isn't opposed to molesting young girls in his walk-in freezer.

PRO: Judy. Oh, man, is she ever hot! She's really developed since last summer.

CON: Judy is kind of a slut. She'll make out with anyone. Actually, that might still be a pro.

PRO (or CON-depends): All male campers and staff members are required to dress in 70's gay porn attire.

PRO: All the canoeing, camp socials, and overnight camping trips you can shake a stick at!

CON: A gender-confused psychopath could murder you at any minute. My advice to you: do not fuck with Angela. There's something up with that chick.
PRO: You can totally swear as much as you want.

CON: Oh, but if you swear at and fight with the dudes who are relentlessly picking on your autistic cousin, the cigar-chomping camp director will assume you are the pyschopath who has killed a bunch of people, including his underage girlfriend, and beat you to death.

PRO: Four words: Rooftop Water Balloon Fight!

CON: You more than likely will not survive the summer.

Worst Vacation Ever: Two Thousand Maniacs

Destination: Atlanta, GA (for the teacher's convention)

Disaster: Vengeful Southerners

It is 1965. One-hundred years ago Union troops entered the sleepy town of Pleasant Valley and slaughtered all the inhabitants. To celebrate the centennial of this horrific event, the spirits of those murdered arise from the grave to exact revenge on six vacationing Yankees they've trapped and made "guests of honor" at their mysterious festivities.

Activities for the two day celebration include a horse race, the Barrel Roll, the Teetering Rock Game, and an opening night barbecue in which no one actually eats anything. Each guest of honor gets to participate in a different event. There's only one catch: in the end, each will be covered in oodles of stage blood.

You see, the menu for the barbecue consists of Blackened Arm of Bea Miller; the horse race involves tying a person's arms and legs to four horses which are then sent running in four different directions; the Barrel Roll is a particular nasty event in which you are placed in a barrel full of nails and rolled down a hill; and the Teetering Rock involves a boulder falling on you from above. So, obviously, it sucks to the guest of honor at this festival of death.

Thankfully, hitchhiking teacher Tom White and his dead-behind-the-eyes companion, Terry Adams, escape the clutches of Mayor Buckman and his horde of evil rednecks. They decide to treat the whole series of events as a dream and continue on to the teacher's conference where we can assume love blossomed and dirty love was made. As for the citizens of Pleasant Valley, they can't wait until the next bicentennial, in fact, they plan to have a rocket-ship made to "blast them Yankees into space." Yeeehaw!

Worst Vacation Ever: Troll 2

Destination: Nilbog (pop. 26)

Disaster: Trolls...I mean, goblins.

Troll 2 is a cult film of the "so excrementally bad it's good" variety, and here are some reasons why it is so terrible/awesome:

1. The Waits family participates in something called a "vacation exchange" with a family they've never met. A "vacation exchange" is when one family trades houses with another family for up to a month. If this sounds like the worst idea ever, you're right, especially if you are trading houses with a creepy family from a ghost town called Nilbog, which is soooo obviously Goblin spelled backwards. Why wouldn't you trade houses with a family from Hawaii or the south of France?

2. Important vacation lesson #1: "You can't piss on hospitality. I won't allow it!"

3. This:


4. If a family vacation is threatened by a war of words between your dad and your horny older sister, sing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat." Sing it (poorly) in a round if necessary.

5. In the epic battle between goblins and mankind, the only weapon necessary to prevail is a little boy with a double-decker bologna sandwich!

6. And let's talk about the goblins' disdain for meat products. When Joshua starts to eat the double-decker bologna sandwich given to him by his dead grandfather, the Goblin Queen implores him to think about the fat content, the cholesterol. Granted, the goblins want to feed us chocolate cake that turns us into slimy, green plant-goo and eat us, but they also seem to care about our health. See, nobody is all bad.

7. This:


8. This strange conversation between father and son (setting the scene-Joshua has just prevented his family from eating a dinner made with goblin-goo by pissing on the food)

Joshua: What are you going to do to me, Daddy?

Michael: (looks as if he is removing his belt to whip his son) Tightening my belt one loop so that I don't feel hunger pains, and your sister and mother will have to do likewise. Okay, Joshua. You wanna get rough with me? You wanna show me that you don't like the choice of this house for our vacation by going on a hunger strike? Well, I'll accept the challenge. But just remember when I was your age, I really did suffer from hunger. We'll see who gets through this, but just remember I've got more practice than you. I'll see you tomorrow.

I want to know more of Michael Waits' back-story. He suffered from hunger? Are we talking starvation or just regular old "I'm hungry--think I'll have a snack?"

9. Re: #6-The goblins do seem concerned with Joshua's diet, but they also eat his mom, so..maybe they do suck.

Worst Vacation Ever: Westworld

Destination: Delos, home to MedievalWorld, RomanWorld, and WestWorld

Disaster: homicidal robots

Imagine you are vacationing with your family at Walt Disney World, riding the popular It's A Small World attraction, and suddenly the animatronic children of the world jump into your boat and starting mercilessly slaughtering everyone around you (feel free to imagine this happening on Pirates of the Caribbean if you prefer). That is pretty much what happens in Michael Crichton's Westworld.
Set in a near future where everyone dresses in 70's garb, Delos touts itself as "the most exciting vacation place in the history of man." Clearly they've never been to historic  Williamsburg. Boy howdy--now there's a good time!  Our heroes choose to spend $1,000 a day to hang out in WestWorld, a replica Old West town chock full of robot cowboys to shoot and robot hookers to bone.  It's a virtual wonderland, for people who want to senselessly kill others and solicit prostitutes.  

As it goes in most sci-fi thrillers, the robots begin developing some kind of disease which causes their circuits to go haywire and next thing you know they're refusing sex to creepy fat guys in MedievalWorld and filling James Brolin with lead on the streets of WestWorld.  The scariest bot of them all is known as The Gunslinger who develops a hard-on for harassing Peter, played by Richard Benjamin.  The Gunslinger follows Peter from the dusty streets of WestWorld, through the corpse-strewn walkways of RomanWorld, all over the underground catacombs of Delos, and finally catches up with him in MedivalWorld where Peter sets him ablaze.  

On a side note, if I could choose a section of Delos to vacation in it would totally be RomanWorld.  Why? One word: robo-orgy!