Well, Tomorrow’s One Better, Isn’t it?

Every year there’s a magic number date that the numerological treat special because completely by accident the calendar did something interesting. Most of the time I couldn’t care less and silently root for the passing of this magical day so that I don’t have to hear about it again for another hundred years. But this year is different, this year actually IS special? Why? What makes this year’s coincidental chrono peculiarity more special than previous years? Simple: I care about it. And that makes all the difference in the world.

Tomorrow is the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the eleventh year of this twenty first century. The century does nothing to help this holiday, so it was scarcely worth mentioning, but I did it anyway because I have no control over the things that my brain tells my fingers to clickity clack. The important thing is that, if you’ve been listening to my points between the pointless, tomorrow is 11/11/11.

These etherial whisps just want to show you a good time. Now let’s shimmy out of those pants, mortal.

Believers in new age mysticism and synchronicity will no doubt have their crystals all shiny and at the ready tomorrow, primed to the optimus for the opening of an intradimensional gateway at the stroke of 11:11:11 am when all 1,111 ”fun loving” Spirit Guardians will pour into our plane of existence handing out puppies and chocolate to all the good little boys and girls and giving hand jobs to the less fortunate. No shaky oldling will go unhelped across the street and everyone will win the lottery! Twice! And if you don’t believe that the world around you is flooded with billions of highly trained invisible Celestial beings here to assist you with all of your every day needs, then you’re missin’ out Jack! I haven’t had to blend my own iced cocktail in years because they just love doin’ it for me, I feel like a dick any time I do anything for myself!

But that’s not why I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s accidentidate, not that I don’t enjoy a good chocolate hand job, because I do, it’s two great tastes that taste great together. For me, tomorrow is important because of one 1984 film which was brave enough to ask the question, “How much more black could this be?” and wise enough to answer, “None, none more black.”

For tomorrow, the eleventh day of November in the year of our lost something eleven; is Nigel Tufnel day.

For those of you that don’t know and love “This is Spinal Tap”, shut up. Shut up and never speak to me about anything you deem important ever again because you have forfeit your right to be taken seriously for the rest of what you charitably call your life. For those that do honor and obey the film, thank you for your service to your country, you’re a true patriot and may the sound track of your life always be in doubly.

Tonight we’re gonna rock you, tonight!

You may say that you’ve never seen, never heard of, and never liked Spinal Tap, but I’ll bet dollars to other, rounder dollars, that at some point in your life you have heard, or even used yourself, the term or slight variation of, “This one goes to eleven.” In which case, you are worshiping at the altar of Nigel Tufnel and the almighty Tap, which is why tomorrow will be, for me and millions like me, a celebration of the Majesty of Rock, and to a slightly lesser extent, the mystery of roll. My only regret for tomorrow is in not having the forethought when I began working on ‘staching my visage for the month of Movember, to grow a magnificent “Derek Smalls”, and now I feel like an idiot… AND I have a mustache…

But celebrate I shall and persevere I must, for tomorrow is quite possibly the single most important day in the history of all of… history… not to put it in too much fucking perspective now. Unfortunately it looks like too few others put it in the proper perspective as a quick Fandango search revealed no showings of “This is Spinal Tap” in the Los Angeles area tomorrow so it’s up to me to plan my own little celebration and recognition of this holy of holies, which I’m sharing with you in the hopes that you will adopt it as your own.

I will be spending the day in my favorite t-shirt depicting a 100% accurate reproduction of my skeleton, doing everything as hard, loud and dumb as I can, and when I get home and settle in with some appropriately proportioned sandwiches and properly stuffed olives, I am going to back time my “This is Spinal Tap” DVD so that at exactly 11:11 pm tomorrow night the famous dialogue exchange in question will announce to every Midwayer standing imperceptibly by my side at the ready to assist in anything I may need, that everything will be all right. Because when others are all the way up with no where else to go, I know that when ever I need that extra push over the cliff, I can just reach down for that one louder, on this day more than any other.

But if that doesn’t work, I could always use a chocolate handy to brighten up my day…

Maybe these new age folks are on to something with this thing that I just invented that they believe in…

Happy Nigel Tufnel Day everybody!

Pornflix … I Mean … Netflix !!

"I should'a listened to those assholes at Van Full of Candy"

You like Netflix? I like Netflix. All I know is that they need a new “genre” in their schtick, and that’s the one that would have kept them from losing 800,000 subscribers. For reals. Remember when you were a kid and you’d go to the movie rental store? In my case it was a furniture rental store that had videos for rent, don’t ask, and there was the Action section, the Family section, the Sci-Fi section and that section in the back, with dim lights and a black velvet curtain or even Old Western style saloon doors with a laminated hot pink printout labeled “18+ Only”, “Adults Only”, “No Kids Allowed”. Yeah … that section. The one that the dirty old men would hang out in and when they walked out, you would look at them in awe and wonder how they’d get their mustache to smell like salmon Marlboro’s. That secret place that you would peak in with virgin eyes and see covers of VHS movies that had baby oil’d body parts of all different sizes and different colors, except for the BIG parts that were a SPECIFIC color, but am I jealous now? Well sure, yeah. But did I get over it? No. So fuck your stupid judgement about my little white boy junk.

Just do it already ... FUCK !!!

I guess what I’m getting at is that Netflix should have the dirty section so I can watch an entire skin-flick without having to hunch over my smartphone for 20 secsonds at a time and watch little bits of dirty’ness with one hand while I mix pancake batter with the other and try to keep my back from tightening up during the whole ordeal. Regardless if it’s daily or not all I want is the naughty place for guys like me … guys like you … hell, girls like you. Oh and for the 800,000 people who decided that Netflix wasn’t for them anymore. Hey Netflix, sex sells, dirty, filthy, hardcore-porn sex sells, so get with the fucking program bitches. For now, I’ll watch Prince of Persia and pretend that some good shit’s about to happen.

Van Full of Candy’s Celebrity Sex Tape Auditions

Pamela likes our van candy ... so should you !!

First it was Pamela & Tommy, then Paris, and then that one Kardashian chick. Rock stars, television stars, and others who ride the coattails of their father and become reality TV stars. Two glaring things stick out like a sore thumb … that I’m assuming have been smashed by a hammer, because how else would a thumb be sore? Well, there’s always the explanation that you were sitting around with your thumb up your ass and you were startled when somebody actually asked you to do something, and you moved too fast and broke your thumb causing it to stick out like a sore thumb. So there’s two idioms for you to enjoy for the price of one. You’re welcome. Now, speaking of things in one’s ass, lets get back to the main gist of this talk, Sex Tapes, and the two things that stick out like … god I hate repeating myself !!

#1. Not one of the stars of any of the celebrity sex tapes are comedic blog writers/sketch comedy performers … and …

#2. All of the aforementioned “accidental” porn stars have only BENEFITED their careers from having their sex taped “accidentally” leaked … so …

In an effort to level the playing field and get this celebrity porn industry into other aspects of the entertainment world, Van Full of Candy does hereby declare that we will be holding auditions for hot starlet types who are looking to take their career to a whole new level, which level that might be is still yet to be determined but please know it will be a WHOLE NEW ONE !!

We have the perfect props and the perfect premise. We have the piece de resistance first of all … a goddamn van full of candy, and then the story line just writes itself, not that there’ll be much story if you know what I’m sayin’. So … if you’d like to be one of the lucky chosen ones to star in our celebrity sex tape, then you’ll need to leave us a comment on this blog letting us know how to get in touch with you so we can meet in person and … well … rehearse a little. That’s just part of the process, the dirty, metal smelling, why is this gas can next to me tedious process. Now don’t get discouraged if you don’t make it … we will have literally thousands of applicants and it takes a long long LONG time to “interview” each and every one of you, but please know … we won’t NOT interview a single one of you soon to be starlets. And remember, first come … first served.

When Horror Movies Go Porn (Netflix Style)

Hey kids, sorry about not posting anything for your junkie fix on Friday … here’s a little orgasmic Van Full of Candy teaser for ya !!

Brad Pitt : The Movie … Right?

In our many drives up and down this country’s most awesome state of Californyeaye (no offense NY in lieu of the 10 year) we see many great things , and being that half of the van is based GawdDammHollywood bitches we see a lot of movie-stars and boring shit like that. Yeah boring, I said it … it’s like seeing a crack addict when  you live in Oakland, it’s not unusual, you just get used to it, and in a number of cases it’s your own family if not yourself, but if you’re visiting from Montana and you see a crack addict, you bust out your camera phone and show all of your family when you get back because you don’t know how to upload to YouTube or Facebook yet, not will you ever, if you even have a phone with a camera, or a cell phone, or … well … even a camera, but I digress Montanians.

As the van made its way through the LA, it stumbled upon a billboard that could only be described as a documentary or biopic or something along the lines of a movie about somebody that has to do with something biographically filmy. The billboard is titled “Brad Pitt” in bold beautiful white letters, and then underneath his hot handsome name is a picture of Hotty McHotterson with a beautiful green baseball field background, his luxurious light brown hair kissed by the sun giving highlights that women would kill for, or spend $180 dollars for at a beeeeuty salon, looking back with his look of confidence and a slight smirk of “yeah, I belong here” that makes us all slow our cars down and puppy dog eye a little at his marvel and hit the brakes just in time to avoid that completely annoying fender bender that would get us to our destination 30 minutes later than normal and hope that douchebag has insurance … and then there’s some other words underneath it which really don’t matter much, blah blah blah, Moneyball, blah, other names, blah blah.

I'd watch that movie all day ... whatever the fuck it is !!

What’s the point of wasting all that billboard space with more words that don’t mean anything more than they had to make a smaller picture of Brad-Brad? Why even put his name? We know who he is !! We don’t need to know anything more than his beautiful face, as big as possible on billboards and posters around the city, and we just know when to show up to drop our $12 to see his Academy Award winning performances over and over and … 12 Monkeys counts right? Anyway, what I’m getting at is I cannot WAIT to see the movie named “Brad Pitt” because it just HAS to be great !! And what the F is a moneyball? Besides the one that hangs a little lower than the other in his sack?

Burn Baby, Burn! (Hitler Inferno)

Human beings have kind of a sick obsession with dead bodies.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a monster, I get that the rapidly decaying, lifeless corpse over there used to belong to someone you had some fondness for. But at no point forward will that bio degrading fleshy mound of used ta was, ever do anything again that it used to do when previously possessed by the life force of who ever they aren’t anymore. Tickle it all you’d like, it ain’t never gonna giggle that unmistakable titter that you fell in love with. Call it by name, dangle it’s favorite bag of salty treats in front of it, it’s not going to pop up and suddenly begin recirculating all of your favorite bloods and give you a great big knowing hug. And if it DOES, run like hell for a stabbing or shooting utensil because your loved one is now zombified and it’s either you or it Jack!

The point I’m trying to make is this: the second your beloved friend, relative or lover breathes their last, the container they left behind that they used to drive around in to be recognizable to other things living in this plane of existence is no more them than the carton that the milk came in is going to help increase your bone density. You’re just left with an expensive bag of recycling. Feel free to mourn the person you’ve lost, but let’s try to be a little more reasonable about what remains, and treat it more like the ’74 Rambler that it is.

Now that I’ve angered and alienated most of you, let’s get to the two stories I found this morning about the uproar caused by the cremating of one barely dead (and mistaken) infant, and one already excessively dead Nazi…

Appropriateness at this point really isn't an issue I don't think...

Apparently, last year an Ohio funeral home made an isty bitsy boo boo and set alight the wrong dead baby, which, surprisingly, wasn’t met well by the guardians of said unintentionally reduced child shell. The story states that, due to a morgue mix up the body of a 14 month old was mistakenly released to the Marlan J. Gary Funeral Home, in stead of the 22 DAY old infant intended for a ride on the grill. And because the Funeral Home just cooked the baby they were given, they had their license suspended for six months.

This issue raises a lot of, what I feel are natural questions with me. Now, I’m no baby scientist, I’ve said that time and time again when ever someone runs up to me in a panic, desperately pleading for my expertise in baby science, so I feel it bears repeating: I’m no baby scientist, but I’m fairly certain that there is a decided difference between the density and general volume of the body of a one year and two month old child versus that of a three week and one day old child. I could go to Target right now and pick up a jumper with a tag that says “0-4 months” or something, and compare that to a pair of slacks in the ”Pre-pre-pre School to Pre-pre School” section and likely not be surprised by the decided difference in expected sizes.

So, does a hearse just back up to a morgue, wait to hear the thump in the bed and drive off, or are there some sort of checks in place to make sure that not only is the morgue giving away the right dead baby, but that the funeral home is RECEIVING the right dead baby? Just the shere handling of the body seems like it would tip me off if I were a dead baby delivery man. If I’m delivering a deceased 22 day old, I expect I should be able to chuck that bitch in the back of a corpse limo with one hand. Just lob it in under hand and high five myself for another day of life more than that poor bastard. And if it took say, two hands and a little bit of heft, and I checked my clip board and it said “22 dayer” I would probably wonder if I had the right infant cadaver.

Conversely, if I were a crematorier, just thinking from a strictly business stand point, I imagine I use a different amount of fuel to burn the body of a 22 day old than I would for a 14 month old. So if I were intending to roast a 22 day old, put in a bag of 22 day older fuel and just tossed in what I thought was a 22 day old, I imagine if I were to come back later, I would likely find a good deal of 14 month old left uncrematized and wonder if my baby burning fuel supplier was fucking me over.

Aside from all of that obviousness, what gets me the most about the article is where is says:

“A hearing officer noted that cremation is irreversible and said funeral directors must take precautions to ‘get it right.’ “

I doubt that most people need be reminded that reducing human remains to ash is awful difficult to undo. I’m certain that most of us didn’t think that cremation was just a fancy term for “dehydration” and that a body could just be returned to its former glory by simply splashing it with a Dixie cup of water.

Hmmm, skinheads are different than I remember...

Meanwhile, over in Germany in what seems like one of the more extreme promotional tie-ins I’ve seen for tomorrow’s release of Marvel’s “Captain America: The First Avenger”; the bones of Rudolf Hess, one of Adolph Hitler’s deputies, were exhumed and cremated. Germans don’t quite get the collectible cup level of promotion, and you can’t tell them that they’re doing it wrong or they might murder millions of Jews.

It seems that, with the lease on Hess’ burial plot coming up for renewal in October, and with the grave site having become a pilgrimage site for neo-Nazis, “Hess’ relatives and Lutheran church authorities in the town decided it was best to remove the remains.” And viola, no more neo-Nazis. Right?

“The grave is now empty,” said cemetery administrator Andreas Fabel. “The bones are gone.”

Soooo… neo-Nazis couldn’t still commune at the former grave site of their martyred hero?

They apparently “cremated the remains and scattered them secretly in a lake, whose name and location are not being divulged”, so in a way, they’ve sort of made just about anywhere a fair place to come together and celebrate the memory of Rudolf Hess. He’s now circulating in the water ways of Where Ever Germany, being carried out to sea, and floating about on the breeze. These short sighted Nazi haters have effectively dusted all of us with Nazi particles. Thanks, just what I needed, to breathe Nazi while I’m just minding my own business, hating just fine on my own thank you very much. I really have a hard time believing that neo-Nazis are so sentimental that they’re going to have any difficulty mustering up enough focused drive to gather for a hate fest just because the bones of one of their heroes, that they could never positively confirm or deny the existence of in the first place, might not be where they were last week.

But if it makes you feel any better Lutherans, congratulations, you just re-killed a dead Nazi. You won World War II. And you just spoiled the ending of “Captain America” for me, assholes!

VFoC’s Oscar Predictstravaganza!

It's the "Emmys" of award shows.

It’s Oscar time again, the glittering jewel in the crown of Award Season. The time when all of the biggest names in the flicker shows all get together and give each other trophies of naked faceless men. And we at Van Full of Candy are legally obligated to lift our faces skyward and take notice of the greatness of these Silver Screen demigods by way of predicting which talkies will be rewarded for their splendiferousnessitude… Oscar picks!

We have randomly (not really) selected a hand full of categories to make our respective predictions. We will each be making individual picks for each category based on our respective areas of knowledge and expertise. So let’s meet the award show guessers.

In the green corner…

Jesse: I’m a long time viewer of the Academy Awards presentation ceremony festivities program, and as such I believe I have found a valuable insight into the minds of the academy which will help make my predictions logically flawless. If there is one thing consistent from year to year, beside no one having seen the majority of the nominated films, it’s that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences love Nazis. Nothing polishes their Oscar more than a good master race picture show. So I have devised a highly scientific formula which will determine which nominee in each category is the Naziest, and therefore, the most likely to give the Academy a grief boner.

And in the blue corner…

Jason: I pick my movies the way I pick my favorite football teams. By how awesome their uniform is. Since none of the movies that we are making predictions for had any kind of cool posters or covers, I only half-heartedly watched any of them, and I was usually on Valium to make it through any of them because of my migraines. So with my thorough knowledge of these fine movies, I will make my predictions based on my acute memory and my love for flashy uniforms.

So let’s get to the picks.

Art Direction

Alice in Wonderland // Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 // Inception // The King’s Speech // True Grit

Now you might say that this one is a no brainer based on my system. “The King’s Speech” is all about Nazis, and a talking king I guess. But take a look at the other nominees, they all have a little bit of Nazi in them if you are willing to just look hard enough for Nazis in everything, like I am. And with this being the Art Direction category, I must look for the most artful depiction of Nazis in film this year, and really, “The King’s Speech”? Isn’t that a little on the Nazi nose? Not artful at all. So then, which movie has the most artful depiction of Nazis? (Winner: True Grit)

(My pick: Alice in Wonderland) The only real art that could actually be directed would have been in Alice in Wonderland since it was set in a magical place. The other movies weren’t really magical, except MAYBE Harry Potter, but the art in Alice was the most “alive” and “real” and could actually take direction from a human being. This should be the easy winner, however Potter will come in a close second. But if Potter eeks out a win, I change my mind to Harry Potter.

Documentary Short Subject

Killing in the Name // Poster Girl // Strangers No More // Sun Come Up // The Warriors of Qiugang

Terrorism? Iraq? Global Warming? China? Nonsense. The Academy couldn’t give a shit less. Israel? You bet your foreskin! (Winner: Strangers No More)

(My pick: Sun Come Up) All the other movies are about war and death and killing, that’s just way too depressing. Sun Come Up is at least about something cheery, global warming. It’s like a warm spring day as you lay in the sun that’s beaming through your window. This should be a favorite to win.

Foreign Language Film

Biutiful // Dogtooth // In a Better World // Incendies // Outside the Law (Hors-la-loi)

Calling the foreign language film winner can usually be very difficult as the only thing that’s ever happened in most foreign countries was World War II. This year is a little different. While some of the films attempt to tell stories that don’t some how come back to how much of a meany Germans were, the award goes to the one set after the Big One. (Winner: Outside the Law (Hors-la-loi))

(My pick: Incendies – Canada) This one is a hands down winner, so if you’re into betting, bet the farm.  I can totally understand what Canadians are saying for the most part. The other movies were just way too hard to understand. They may as well have been speaking Greek. However, I could pick out a few words in the Mexican movie, but they totally spelled Beautiful wrong, so that’s the second main reason I didn’t pick them.

Makeup

Barney’s Version // The Way Back // The Wolfman

It’s a well known fact that Hitler was working on a project to develop Nazi wolfmans. And any time anyone attempts to make Paul Giamatti look like a human being is like a practice in eugenics. But you can’t beat a good gulag road picture. (Winner: The Way Back)

(My pick: None of them) I think the Academy really messed up on this nomination and now an award will sit alone backstage. First of all, Wearwolves don’t wear makeup, they don’t have time, and the other two movies are about men. My grandpappy told me “Men don’t wear makeup”, so, considering nobody in any of these movies actually wore makeup, there cannot be a winner. Stupid.

Music (Original Score)

How to Train Your Dragon // Inception // The King’s Speech // 127 Hours // The Social Network

Original Score refers to all of the music in a movie that you normally would never listen to. For this category I purchased each of these movie sound tracks and played them as loud as I could in my living room while locked in a closet in a neighbor’s bedroom to determine which sounded most like the sound of an approaching war machine. (Winner: How to Train Your Dragon)

(My pick: The Social Network) This category is really really hard to pick a winner for because none of the music was made by a pop star whos name I recognize. I’m just going to have to go with Trent Reznor only because I know he was in a nail band and made cool sounds that actually don’t sound like music, so yeah, I’m gonna go with that based on principle.

Sound Mixing

Inception // The King’s Speech // Salt // The Social Network // True Grit

Truth time now. I’ve seen 2 1/2 of these nominees, none of which was “The King’s Speech”. But I have to assume, that at some point in the movie there is, if even in the background, a clip of a shouty, angry Fuhrer screaming something in foreign. And if that’s audible at all, then show’s over folks, call this one a Nazi. (Winner: The King’s Speech)

(My pick: Two way tie between Inception & The King’s Speech) Sound mixing is one of those things that you love, or you just straight up hate. It just happens that I straight up hate it, so based upon the number of people it took to mix the music for these movies, I’m gonna have to go with the ones who had the less people because they had to work that much harder. My picks only had three people doing all the work and the other three movies cheated a little with four people doing the work.

Supour Heroues

First: I’m the bloody Batgent, guv’na!

Then: Spider-Lad, Spider-Lad, does what ever is not unbecoming of a Spider-Lad to do!

Lord Clark, of Kent.

And now…

Look, up in the air, it’s a parrot! It’s a sky lorry! No, it’s – Superbloke!

What in the name of god’s three color butt hole is going on here!?

Batman, Superman, Spider-Man. Three fictional AMERICAN super heroes and champions of Gotham City, Metropolis and New York, three fictional AMERICAN cities! So why then I ask you, true believers, are they all now being portrayed in our cineplexes and flicker show houses by a bunch of freedom hating, beef boiling, soggy english twats!?

Just announced yesterday, old world imperialist actor Henry Cavill has been cast to play Superman in the franchise re-boot “Man of Steel” set to debut December 2012. This pasty muncher, best known for his roles in “The Tudors” and the upcoming Greed god epic “Immortals”, meaning unknown to most right thinking Americans, apparently specializes in the portrayal of fictionalized European demigods. And now HE is who will be standing up for all to see as a beacon of “Truth, Justice and the AMERICAN way”?! It is for SHAME!

Now, I realize that I am the only one who is going to be brave enough to stand up to this injustice (league) and call it out for what it is. But I’m used to taking unpopular stands for those who are afraid to speak up against the (masters of) evil of this world. And I say to you, here and now, that this, British actors, with their extra vowels and distracting distortion of god’s American English language, playing the roles of iconic American folk heroes, is nothing short of socially acceptable, twenty-first century black face! That’s right! I said it, and no, I do not believe that I am at all over stating the severity of this slight in even the tiniest little bit. It’s like seeing Spider-Man played in black face! (Not to be confused with black Spider-Man which was played by a white man, but an AMERICAN white man.)

Pip, pip. There's a good lad.

So today, we have boat loads of swarthy British actors, washing up on our shores, carrying with them all of their filth and disease and acting trophies. They smear on a little American accent and toss about “y’all”s and “ain’t”s with the insensitivity of a watermelon grin. These despicable opportunists pause but for only a moment from their usual dabbing of their cheeks with fine cream filled puffed pastry or the swatting away at the unwashed peasantry just long enough to dirty their fine porcelain hands in the art of stealing money from starving American actors like George Clooney, Tobey Maguire and Brandon Routh! They put on the old soft shoe and play act as “Americans” and it’s all forgiven, their grotesque little minstrel show is all accepted as good-natured and all in good fun, when in reality it is a direct insult to all Americans and our very ancient and proud way of life!

If this is all just payback for Robert Downey Jr.’s terrible British accent in the new Sherlock Holmes, fine, we get it, fair is fair, but enough is enough!

And all of this comes, not co-incidentally, as America faces harrowing economic hardship. Unemployment is at a staggering 114% and one in seven American actors is forcibly fed to the other six to ensure the very survival of the species! Yet now in our most dire of need, elitist, effeminate, atheist Hollywood directors and producers, rather than make a stand and support the fine country that has given them every opportunity in the world to destroy the very moral fabric of our society, instead take the liberty to yank down the emaciated Uncle Sam’s be-striped trousers and point and laugh at his once strong and turgid, but now limp and flaccid economy. They are shipping away the last of our entertainment industry jobs to their art house, mayo dipped fry chomping, tea swilling British bastard co-conspirators!

I for one will not stand idly by as the greatest of our uniquely American heroes are swallowed up, one by one, by the gaping maw of the so called ”mother land”. I will be protesting each and every one of these abominations until the roles are relinquished from the squishy pale hands of these usurpers and returned to the squishy artificially tanned hands of America’s finest acting forces.

Unless of course they turn out to be really good. Then what can I do?