Starting Monday will be the first in a week-long series of posts about the late-night Mecca of the polis. That being the one and only Denny’s. There will be other week-long series for other locations but Denny’s will be the first to get epic-blog treatment.
Denny’s has an undeniable pop culture aura about it. One of the best moments in the first Santa Clause is the Christmas Eve dinner at Denny’s after the failure of cooking the turkey at home. At a Cinematic Titanic party recently Joel Hodgson revealed that he wrote the MST3k opening theme at a Denny’s. One of the finer moments of Family Guy (slim as they come now) is when Chris describes something along the lines that in his new town there should be two Denny’s. With that being the case you can say you don’t want to go to a certain one but go to “the good one” on the other side of town.
But Denny’s has a bad rap. Rightfully so. Some of the waiters aren’t exactly that great. The turnover rate is pretty great. In the process they don’t learn how to operate in such a place. Sometimes the Oreo shakes come with HUGE chunks of cookie, a coffee refill may take a lifetime, or even something like a water may not arrive until the meal has been over for some time. That’s the bad rap that comes with the territory.
Yet Denny’s has another bad rap that is largely undeserved I think. There will always be the pervading sentiment that “Nobody’s at Denny’s” or “There’s nothing to do there.” But at this point in history it is as cliché to say that about Denny’s as it is to say MTV doesn’t play music videos. Both things have been argued about enough times and it doesn’t do a bit of good.
Do I agree with said sentiments? Yes. But I try to do something about it. With the right people and absurd amounts of coffee that place will be hoppin’ like Judy Garland after a trip to Walgreen’s.
For me though, Denny’s became a haven. Need to unwind after a newspaper production? Denny’s. Raven is closed? Denny’s. Significant other break up with you? Denny’s. Want to hang out with a hopeful significant other after a late movie? Denny’s.
Sure, it really began to go downhill over time. I’ll cover those reasons in the next week. But no matter what I find myself drawn to the place. Like a famous band returning for a hometown show I have to go to Denny’s whenever I return to my polis.
Denny’s was and still is my place. Being up that late at night I’m usually drunk, creative, or a combination of both. As such, I’m not into Maine lobster or Korean Barbeque. No, I want a Moons Over My Hammy, an Oreo Blender Blaster, coffee, and water. That’s late night fuel that creates sketches, scripts, stories, and integral events. That place makes for great jokes and at least one of the best theme songs ever.
With such an spiritual and physical attachment to the place I think it is best to go into the DeLorean and look back on what made Denny’s my polis’ version of the Double R Diner, The Max, The Satellite of Love, and From Dusk ‘til Dawn all rolled into one deep-fried, greasy, burgers-as-appetizers getaway.
Showing posts with label mst3k. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mst3k. Show all posts
Friday, February 15, 2008
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Chapter 10: Thursdays, before a meeting
No matter what, Thursday afternoons at the Erie Square Gazette offices before a meeting was usually alive with activity with liberal amounts of inactivity (aka “rest”).
Except for one semester, I usually didn’t have a class in the Thursday afternoon period. I usually had classes in the morning or later on toward night. This worked out great because chances were that we had put our very souls on the line in order to create an issue of the newspaper. This is really no exaggeration. I seriously sliced a piece of skin off one of my fingers creating an issue once back in 2002.
If one were to walk in to the office of the Erie Square Gazette on a Thursday afternoon before a meeting one could see any number of things happening. Sometimes we anxiously awaited the printer to call and tell us the issues were ready because we only handed it at 10 am that morning instead of 5 pm the night before. Sometimes we’d get lackeys to distribute these papers. One such lackey was Trey, a man who could generate a solid week worth of material. He was ubiquitous around the office despite being completely oblivious to the fact that nobody really wanted him there. We usually would try to send him to the far away spots to distribute papers just to get him out of the office for a little while. It only worked a couple times but he caught on.
The office was, for the most part, open to guests at all times. The only time the masses may not have been allowed in was during the final hours of producing an issue. Even then though there may still be a few select people around to keep us sane.
Thursday afternoons though saw everyone free from classes for a little while. We all converged into what we essentially turned into our dorm. We could call it that considering how much we ate and slept there. If we could have stayed overnight we would have.
The College Center itself could be busy during the afternoons Thursdays. But if you were really cool you were at the ESG offices. With 3 rooms all to ourselves and enough chairs and couches to go around (along with the occasional pillow) it was easy to have a little get together of friends to cut loose and relax from the week. We certainly had all the resources for such massive weekly gatherings.
There was always something playing those afternoons. Back in the day we put our high-speed modems to work.
Many times I would have a marathon of whatever videos RJ or I would download. Many classic MST3k shorts were played, including classics such as “A Date with Your Family,” “Mr. B Natural,” and my all-time favorite, “What to Do on a Date.”
Music videos also got play. The uncensored version of Prodigy’s “Smack My Bitch Up” proved to be quite popular. Other classics included New Order’s “Blue Monday,” Marilyn Manson’s “The Beautiful People,” and a personal favorite being Genesis’ “Land of Confusion”. Hate the band all you want; that video is genius.
TV shows did get their fair share as well. Easily the most popular series we watched was Clone High. But there was more than just Clone High, sir. We had an episode of ALF on the computer as well.
But the reigning kings of programming at the ESG were easily Bill Cosby, Himself, Robin Williams: Live on Broadway, and GoodFellas. It was hard to not walk into the office and miss how chocolate cake can be served for breakfast, the origin of golf, or how Joe Pesci needed his mom’s butcher knife. I might have also obtained a copy of Bowling for Columbine 6 months before the official DVD release, but I cannot confirm that nor can I confirm the relatively huge screening we may or may not have not unlikely had.
Anyways, I don’t believe I’m exaggerating when I say any one of those could be played 3 times in a given day and then have more time on a Thursday afternoon. We may not have watched them all the time but it was like putting on a good album. The sound of it was great. I could fall asleep to the peaceful sounds of Bill Cosby talking about how he thought his name as a child was “Jesus Christ” and his brother “Damn it.” If I was feeling bad and it was too early to go to Denny’s it would be okay to hear Robin Williams talk about Olestra and anal leakage.
Once during a play of GoodFellas Trey sat and watched it. A couple minutes in as Ray Liotta is giving narration Trey asks “Is that Liev Schreiber?” That being a remark met with what can only be described as a resounding chorus of sighs from all in the room. Minutes later, as Robert De Niro makes his bombastic entrance onscreen Trey asks “Is that Robert De Niro?” and was met with a more exasperated, yet still resounding chorus of sighs.
The second movement of sighs had hardly ended when he finally asked “Is this a mob movie or something?”
Except for one semester, I usually didn’t have a class in the Thursday afternoon period. I usually had classes in the morning or later on toward night. This worked out great because chances were that we had put our very souls on the line in order to create an issue of the newspaper. This is really no exaggeration. I seriously sliced a piece of skin off one of my fingers creating an issue once back in 2002.
If one were to walk in to the office of the Erie Square Gazette on a Thursday afternoon before a meeting one could see any number of things happening. Sometimes we anxiously awaited the printer to call and tell us the issues were ready because we only handed it at 10 am that morning instead of 5 pm the night before. Sometimes we’d get lackeys to distribute these papers. One such lackey was Trey, a man who could generate a solid week worth of material. He was ubiquitous around the office despite being completely oblivious to the fact that nobody really wanted him there. We usually would try to send him to the far away spots to distribute papers just to get him out of the office for a little while. It only worked a couple times but he caught on.
The office was, for the most part, open to guests at all times. The only time the masses may not have been allowed in was during the final hours of producing an issue. Even then though there may still be a few select people around to keep us sane.
Thursday afternoons though saw everyone free from classes for a little while. We all converged into what we essentially turned into our dorm. We could call it that considering how much we ate and slept there. If we could have stayed overnight we would have.
The College Center itself could be busy during the afternoons Thursdays. But if you were really cool you were at the ESG offices. With 3 rooms all to ourselves and enough chairs and couches to go around (along with the occasional pillow) it was easy to have a little get together of friends to cut loose and relax from the week. We certainly had all the resources for such massive weekly gatherings.
There was always something playing those afternoons. Back in the day we put our high-speed modems to work.
Many times I would have a marathon of whatever videos RJ or I would download. Many classic MST3k shorts were played, including classics such as “A Date with Your Family,” “Mr. B Natural,” and my all-time favorite, “What to Do on a Date.”
Music videos also got play. The uncensored version of Prodigy’s “Smack My Bitch Up” proved to be quite popular. Other classics included New Order’s “Blue Monday,” Marilyn Manson’s “The Beautiful People,” and a personal favorite being Genesis’ “Land of Confusion”. Hate the band all you want; that video is genius.
TV shows did get their fair share as well. Easily the most popular series we watched was Clone High. But there was more than just Clone High, sir. We had an episode of ALF on the computer as well.
But the reigning kings of programming at the ESG were easily Bill Cosby, Himself, Robin Williams: Live on Broadway, and GoodFellas. It was hard to not walk into the office and miss how chocolate cake can be served for breakfast, the origin of golf, or how Joe Pesci needed his mom’s butcher knife. I might have also obtained a copy of Bowling for Columbine 6 months before the official DVD release, but I cannot confirm that nor can I confirm the relatively huge screening we may or may not have not unlikely had.
Anyways, I don’t believe I’m exaggerating when I say any one of those could be played 3 times in a given day and then have more time on a Thursday afternoon. We may not have watched them all the time but it was like putting on a good album. The sound of it was great. I could fall asleep to the peaceful sounds of Bill Cosby talking about how he thought his name as a child was “Jesus Christ” and his brother “Damn it.” If I was feeling bad and it was too early to go to Denny’s it would be okay to hear Robin Williams talk about Olestra and anal leakage.
Once during a play of GoodFellas Trey sat and watched it. A couple minutes in as Ray Liotta is giving narration Trey asks “Is that Liev Schreiber?” That being a remark met with what can only be described as a resounding chorus of sighs from all in the room. Minutes later, as Robert De Niro makes his bombastic entrance onscreen Trey asks “Is that Robert De Niro?” and was met with a more exasperated, yet still resounding chorus of sighs.
The second movement of sighs had hardly ended when he finally asked “Is this a mob movie or something?”
Friday, February 8, 2008
Chapter 6: Fireworks by the river
It was early July, 2003. I was with James and Mark (known as Scott to many, but I call him Mark) and we were all bumming around Port Huron and Sarnia. We went across the border because I knew they had the Woodstock DVD at Lambton Mall. But unbeknownst to me no place was open, so we went back to the States.
While over there James did have one of his most infamous moments. It was a beautiful day and I had all the windows of my Escort (in all blogs henceforth referred to as “The Satellite of Love”) down, including my the sunroof. As we were driving to the mall we were behind a red truck with an Ontario licence plate and a Confederate Flag sticker on the rear window. We all laughed heartily. Something about that combination seemed as ridiculous as a wannabe thug from Almont.
Seconds after this discovery the truck took a right as we were taking a left at an intersection. James, sitting shotgun, actually pulls himself out of his seat as fast as he can to go through the sunroof as high as possible in order to raise his fist and yell out to the driver “SASKATCHEWAN WILL RISE AGAIN!”
I was laughing so hard at this point I probably should have pulled over. I guess that may have been a “you had to be there” moment; yet, it is so ingrained into my memory I cannot help but get red in the face with how great the delivery of the line was.
We came back to the States and went to Best Buy so I could pick up the newly released Gangs of New York DVD. With not a lot to do, we went downtown. Sarnia was going to have a fireworks display by the water, so naturally Port Huron folk could come and witness it.
I cannot remember which building we were by for the fireworks, but it was in that stretch by the library and all that government jazz. The buildings in the stretch are so similar as to become anonymous.
The people were taking their sweet time getting the fireworks going. Knowing also that this fireworks display would not even be close to matching the near phallic power of the Detroit fireworks, the Mystery Science Theater 3000 parts of my brain were starting to fire up. The anticipation in the crowd was becoming palpable and this only worsened my condition.
Jason Watson was there with his family and I’m sure he was there with his girlfriend. Even though I wasn’t officially Editor-in-Chief of the ESG it was already well known I would be. I decided Jason would be the Business/Ad Manager. At the time I was afraid of the kid because he seemed too cool for his own good. But that would mean he’d be a great manager.
He came over and said hello. I told him about his new position at the ESG and he was happy. He went back to his family only feet away.
Storm, Allison (aka Katrina) came by us to visit. Storm was the Photo Editor the previous semester and would be for the rest of my time at the ESG and beyond. That’s just because she’s the best. Allison I met through RJ. She came to the office often and became a staff writer for the Winter 2003 semester. We got along well. Both of them stayed along with the others they were with.
Finally, one firework went off. It was a pretty weak one at that. My MST3k instinct kicked in with excessive effect.
“That’s the show everyone! Thanks for coming!”
Mark and James began to laugh. My Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot had joined in.
The assault on the fireworks continued. We were hurling jokes and jabs left and right to the fireworks. A number of my jokes were directly taken from episodes of the show and a few were originals. Some that I recall:
“These fireworks have a refreshing mint flavor!” (an MST3k chestnut from the film and episode 1001- Soultaker)
“These isn’t even a fireworks show, someone’s SUV just flipped over.”
“Every time a firework explodes, a Canadian cop gets his badge.”
“Psst…we’re out of fireworks…someone run to the drug store and get some more!”
A good James joke I recall was during the finale when a bunch of them went off at once and he “struggled” to say “I…SHOULDN’T…HAVE…TAKEN…ALL…THAT…ACID!!! AHH!!!”
A rousing time was had by all. We heard some laughs from folks nearby.
Sadly, I haven’t seen Allison since then. She was a good lass. But something good that did come from this was something Jason told me a few months later. Apparently Mark, James, and I made enough of an impression on Jason’s family to elicit a response from his mom along the lines of “Your friends are kinda weird.”
To this day I find that endlessly flattering.
***
Thanks for a fine opening week. See you Monday.
While over there James did have one of his most infamous moments. It was a beautiful day and I had all the windows of my Escort (in all blogs henceforth referred to as “The Satellite of Love”) down, including my the sunroof. As we were driving to the mall we were behind a red truck with an Ontario licence plate and a Confederate Flag sticker on the rear window. We all laughed heartily. Something about that combination seemed as ridiculous as a wannabe thug from Almont.
Seconds after this discovery the truck took a right as we were taking a left at an intersection. James, sitting shotgun, actually pulls himself out of his seat as fast as he can to go through the sunroof as high as possible in order to raise his fist and yell out to the driver “SASKATCHEWAN WILL RISE AGAIN!”
I was laughing so hard at this point I probably should have pulled over. I guess that may have been a “you had to be there” moment; yet, it is so ingrained into my memory I cannot help but get red in the face with how great the delivery of the line was.
We came back to the States and went to Best Buy so I could pick up the newly released Gangs of New York DVD. With not a lot to do, we went downtown. Sarnia was going to have a fireworks display by the water, so naturally Port Huron folk could come and witness it.
I cannot remember which building we were by for the fireworks, but it was in that stretch by the library and all that government jazz. The buildings in the stretch are so similar as to become anonymous.
The people were taking their sweet time getting the fireworks going. Knowing also that this fireworks display would not even be close to matching the near phallic power of the Detroit fireworks, the Mystery Science Theater 3000 parts of my brain were starting to fire up. The anticipation in the crowd was becoming palpable and this only worsened my condition.
Jason Watson was there with his family and I’m sure he was there with his girlfriend. Even though I wasn’t officially Editor-in-Chief of the ESG it was already well known I would be. I decided Jason would be the Business/Ad Manager. At the time I was afraid of the kid because he seemed too cool for his own good. But that would mean he’d be a great manager.
He came over and said hello. I told him about his new position at the ESG and he was happy. He went back to his family only feet away.
Storm, Allison (aka Katrina) came by us to visit. Storm was the Photo Editor the previous semester and would be for the rest of my time at the ESG and beyond. That’s just because she’s the best. Allison I met through RJ. She came to the office often and became a staff writer for the Winter 2003 semester. We got along well. Both of them stayed along with the others they were with.
Finally, one firework went off. It was a pretty weak one at that. My MST3k instinct kicked in with excessive effect.
“That’s the show everyone! Thanks for coming!”
Mark and James began to laugh. My Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot had joined in.
The assault on the fireworks continued. We were hurling jokes and jabs left and right to the fireworks. A number of my jokes were directly taken from episodes of the show and a few were originals. Some that I recall:
“These fireworks have a refreshing mint flavor!” (an MST3k chestnut from the film and episode 1001- Soultaker)
“These isn’t even a fireworks show, someone’s SUV just flipped over.”
“Every time a firework explodes, a Canadian cop gets his badge.”
“Psst…we’re out of fireworks…someone run to the drug store and get some more!”
A good James joke I recall was during the finale when a bunch of them went off at once and he “struggled” to say “I…SHOULDN’T…HAVE…TAKEN…ALL…THAT…ACID!!! AHH!!!”
A rousing time was had by all. We heard some laughs from folks nearby.
Sadly, I haven’t seen Allison since then. She was a good lass. But something good that did come from this was something Jason told me a few months later. Apparently Mark, James, and I made enough of an impression on Jason’s family to elicit a response from his mom along the lines of “Your friends are kinda weird.”
To this day I find that endlessly flattering.
***
Thanks for a fine opening week. See you Monday.
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