Categories
Opinions

Camping for Adults

Isn’t it a little bit interesting, if perhaps not outright strange with a hint of absurd, how “camping” means something completely different to adults than it does to kids. When you’re young, camping is kind of like your average family outing except instead of revolving around Pirate-themed mini-golf, you just hang out in the woods with your folks and maybe your dog and once in a while go swimming down by the beach. All your food is cooked over the fire, by your parents, served to you on thin white plates. Water is mysteriously, and plentifully, provided by a large blue cooler than dad keeps in the truck, though for some reason you’re never thirsty. On the first and last days of the trip, all the tents, gear, pic-nic and supplies magically pack and unpack themselves and you never have to worry a drip.

Then you become am adult and everything changes.

When adults talk about camping they aren’t talking about the wild, colourful and fun example listed above that fills in the blanks for the childhood camping experience and related memories. When adults talk about camping they are talking about something radically different that in reality actually has very little to do with camping and quite a bit in common with voluntary alcohol poisoning. After all, what does one expect to happen when the only thing on the agenda for three days  is to make fire, stare at fire, and finish off an entire bottle of Gin. I suppose hot dogs fit in there somewhere too, but depending in the state of fire and Gin, they often times fall into a tertiary role.

In this way, I guess that camping actually has quite a bit in common with a backyard barbecue. On the surface they both involve lawn chairs, copious amounts of drinking, cooking meat over a grill and paper plates, but its not often at a barbecue that you happen to catch one of your neighbours walk by wearing nothing but a beer-belly and a snake tattoo, or hear strangers blast Metallica louder than God or see and entire family down the lane pack everything they own, screaming kids including, into their RV like it was a clown car. Backyard barbecues operate off of a certain understanding of a noise limit.  In the forest, there is no such thing. Outdoor voices what?

Now, I’ve heard people talk about camping as a way to escape from the city and reconnect with nature and trees and wildlife and all that, but that’s a damnright lie. Camping is essentially a way for well-to-do, white, suburbanite families and groups of friends to pack up, go to the woods, and slowly destroy said woods. Camping generates trash, lots of it. Everything is disposal, and there’s only so much Styrofoam those fires will lick up before everyone has trouble breathing and their burgers taste like draino.

Ever really see what a camp site looks like after three days? How big are those garbage bags? Wonder what forty cars driving back and forth from the beach smells like?

Categories
Books

Looks like it will a good year, in reading at least

It’s late July and that dastardly summer heat wave is finally over, which means I can get back to being a human and acting like one, rather than hiding in the shade all day reading books. Enemy of the sun, pavement and all other things that give off heat (including the very air itself some days) my apartment became a four room cave of hell, with my only recluse fleeing to Second Cup, the mall or the movies. With my wallet groaning at all the added strain that iced coffee has caused it, I’ve been reduced to counting pennies and paying for film passes with exact change.

Yet, despite the reality that my body was never made to endure this sort of tropical weather we’ve been “enjoying” ( hey, we live in Canada, I only bought tickets for terrible winters, not summers too) it hasn’t been as soul destroying as I may have been making it out to be. I have, after all, managed to plow my way through over 22 books so far this years (more than my previous last year total) and show little sign of giving up. Calming down, sure, but there’s still five months of days left in this year and if I can even remotely keep up my pace I should be hitting some sort of personal milestones along the way.

Though, realistically, the summer always contributes more to my book knock-out tally than the rest of the year combined, largely due to the absence of evening classes and all the reading time they generally require. As exciting ancient texts, commentaries and ethnographic studies are, they aren’t as easy to burn through as all the trashy fiction, Stephen King and other nonsense that make up my usual fare, or entirely eligible for reading list tallies, since they, in effect, are part of other tallies issued by my classes. Competing tallies? Perhaps.

Regardless, it looks like it should be a good year, at least when it comes to reading. The weather, well that’s another beast altogether.

Categories
Updates

Seth Rogen Movies

I realized the other day when I was sitting down in front of the television going over the stack of movies I recently bought that almost all of them are comedies and almost all of them feature Seth Rogen. Somehow that man has not only become identified as one of the premier faces in comedy these days, but also apparently stars in the type of comedies that I’ll buy off Amazon the moment they for $2.50. The strangest thing is that it all just sort of happened; it’s not like there was any sort of concentrated effort on my part to expand my Seth Rogen film collection.

Heck, I don’t even think that had anyone asked me that I would have even said I was a big fan of it. However, evidence is beginning to point to the contrary. Oh my.

For the three of you out there who don’t know who Seth Rogen is, he’s that funny looking Jewish guy with goofy teeth and a big fro that first appeared as the cameraman helping Veronica Corningstone film the kitty beauty contest in Anchorman. After that he got a break as the stock guy working at Smart Tech alongside Steve Carell in the 40 Year old Virgin. From there he’s pretty much been in 2-3 movies a year, most of them either directed or produced by Judd Apatow.

I suspect it all has something to do with fellows like Apatow who have cornered the market on raunchy, rude, and ridiculous young adult comedies these days, especially considering that Kevin Smith doesn’t really seem to care anymore. Yet regardless of Apatow’s writing, directing and producing promiscuity these days he probably wouldn’t have been able to pull it all off without someone like Seth Rogen who combines perfect line delivery and some mighty good improvisation. Also he looks funny, which certainly helps since as humans we haven’t really lost out taste for seeing fat guys get hit in the face with flying objects.