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White Tower Musings

~ This blog will be an attempt to explain the significance of various works of great writing, the authors that create them, and some effort to understand correlations between great writing and contemporary events.

White Tower Musings

Tag Archives: Crime

Righteous Anger, Royals with Cheese, and Decent Folk: Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction

13 Saturday Jul 2019

Posted by Joshua Ryan "Jammer" Smith in Film Review

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Character Study, Choice, Crime, Crime Cinema, Ezekiel 25:17, Film, film review, Goodfellas, Individual Will, It's time to adopt the Metric System in America for crying out loud, John Travolta, Jules, Metric System, Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino, Redemption, Royal with Cheese, Samuel L. Jackson, The Departed, Uma Thurman, Ving Rhames, violence, virtue

 

A McDonald's Big Mac and French Fries ar

I mean, I would argue that the film is enough to make the case for the United States to start using the metric system.  It would make going through a drive-through a lot more enjoyable, and would also give one a sense of class.  Ordering a quarter-pounder with cheese sounds like I’m buying auto-parts or tanks of oil rather than a delicious cheeseburger.  Whereas if I had to say I’d like a Royal with cheese?  Come on America, it’s time.  We can join the rest of the world already, and maybe at the same time we’re finally getting rid of day-light savings time?

I can dream.

Pulp-Fiction1I write a lot on this blog about moments in my life that were moments of transitions, or else when I encountered a work of art which profoundly altered the course of my life.  I recognize that this can be a bit frustrating for the reader who probably sees me now as a kind of Polly-Anna who can’t see a butterfly without undergoing a kind of spiritual and intellectual Eureaka moment.  But I am honest, or at least try to be honest, when I write about the films and books and graphic novels that I read and enjoy whenever I write these essays and so I hope my reader believes me when I say that no film has ever so impacted my life as much as Pulp Fiction.

Along with Stephen King’s The Green Mile, the film was “given” to me by my sophomore high school English teacher Miss Tucker who told me I should see the film when I got the chance.  The two of us would often talk before class about literature, art, film, and what we thought about such works. I admit completely without shame that I had a small “intellectual” crush on the woman, she was just really wise and smart and funny and I loved her.  The conversations often dealt with Stephen King, and while I would gush about his prose, and too often about the violence in his works, she would ask me what I thought about the work as a whole and what I felt he was trying to do with the work.  And somewhere, somewhere in all this dialogue, she told me that I needed to see a film entitled Pulp Fiction.  I wrote the title down and hit my local Hastings grabbing up the film and watching it.

My first impression was the basement scene.  Because, well, it’s the basement scene.  But after that I found other elements of the film to appreciate.

Pulp Fiction Basement

Pulp Fiction didn’t just take over my life, it totally consumed me, and so when my friend TJ was looking for films for the Movie-Group program at the library where we both work I suggested Pulp Fiction without hesitation.  He said yes, and in April of this year I finally got to watch Pulp Fiction in an actual movie theater, though I suppose the word “watch” is a misnomer as I spent most of my time in the back row mouthing along to virtually every line of dialogue.

I’ve tried so many times to write about Pulp Fiction for this blog and every one of my efforts have ended either in disaster or abandonment.  My problem stems from the fact that, if it hasn’t been made clear, I really love this film and there’s nothing more 149113640-Pulp_Fiction_-_Shot_Marvin_in_the_face.gifobnoxious than listening to someone prattle endlessly on about why something is awesome.  Passion, and conviction of passion is one thing, but somebody telling you that you NEED to see a film is galling.  And especially with Pulp Fiction, a film I’ve now seen close to 30 times, I run the risk of letting my passion get ahead of me.  I wanted to try and focus on at least one aspect of the film that felt important or significant and as I watched the film again I kept asking the same question: Do I still feel that Jules is a good person.

More writers and critics and YouTube bloggers that you can swing a cat at have tackled Pulp Fiction and the dialogues of good and evil and so I don’t want to try to even tackle that conversation.  Much like Citizen Kane or Vertigo before you even start to talk you have to acknowledge everyone who’s come before you, so when I write about Jules here I want to make absolutely clear I’m only writing about my own perception of the character and not anyone else’s.

Jules to me was always the heart of the film, or at least the intellectual center of it, and Pulp Fictionthat never really changed.  Even when I was young I would watch the film for Jules.  Vincent was interesting, and I admit that I had a crush on Mia, and even Honey-Bunny and Ringo were somewhat interesting to me for their dialogue and choice to rob a restaurant, but even then their characters were secondary to Samual L. Jackson who just managed to steal the whole damn show.

It doesn’t help that he has arguably some of the greatest lines in the entire film.  Looking at just one scene one is able to feel the full force of his character.

Jules: You, flock of seagulls, you know why we’re here? Why don’t you tell my man Vincent where you got the shit hid at?

Marvin: It’s over th…

Jules: I don’t remember askin’ you a Goddamn thing! You were saying?

Roger: It’s in the cupboard.

[Vincent starts looking in the upper cupboard]

Roger: No, no, the one by your kn-knees.Pulp Fiction-Suitcase

Jules: We happy?

[Vincent continues staring at the briefcase’s contents]

Jules: Vincent! We happy?

Vincent: Yeah, we happy.

Brett: I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name. I got yours, Vincent, right? But I didn’t get yours…

Jules: My name’s Pitt. And your ass ain’t talkin’ your way out of this shit.

Brett: No, no, I just want you to know… I just want you to know how sorry we are that things got so fucked up with us and Mr. Wallace. We got into this thing with the best intentions and I never…

Jules: [Jules shoots the man on the couch] I’m sorry, did I break your concentration? I didn’t mean to do that. Please, continue, you were saying something about best intentions. What’s the matter? Oh, you were finished! Well, allow me to retort. What does Marsellus Wallace look like?

Brett: What?

Jules: What country are you from?

Brett: What? What? Wh – ?

Jules: “What” ain’t no country I’ve ever heard of. They speak English in Pulp Fiction Say WhatWhat?

Brett: What?

Jules: English, motherfucker, do you speak it?

Brett: Yes! Yes!

Jules: Then you know what I’m sayin’!

Brett: Yes!

Jules: Describe what Marsellus Wallace looks like!

Brett: What?

Jules: Say ‘what’ again. Say ‘what’ again, I dare you, I double dare you motherfucker, say what one more Goddamn time!

The interrogation scene in the apartment with Brett has become more than just an incredible moment in cinema.  Apart from becoming a meme, it has become a cultural staple that’s been parodied and plagiarized by comedians and artists for decades and, while the dialogue is incredible, it’s Jackson’s performance and delivery that makes the scene what it is.  Jules appears all at once as a frightening and dangerous man who, up to this moment did not seem terrible ferocious.  Or, put it another way, he seemed like an average every-day human being.Jules-Pulp Fiction 4

Pulp Fiction is incredible for making murderers, drug-dealers, gangsters, and criminals terribly human so that, while we’re watching them, we either see ourselves or people that we know.  The set up to this scene is not two men discussing how they’re going to murder Brett and his friends in horrible way, nor is it bragging and boasting about the people they’ve killed in the past.  Instead it’s two men, two friends almost, discussing hash bars, the differences between American and European culture, television pilots, foot massages, and finally taking the boss’s wife out on the town.   And this last conversation only further humanizes these two men:

Jules: Why you so interested in the big man’s wife?

Vincent: He’s goin’ out of town, Florida. And he asked me if I’d take care of her while he’s gone.

Jules: [motioning a gun to the head] Take care of her?

Vincent: No, man. Just take her out. Show her a good time. Make sure she don’t get lonely.

Jules: You’re gonna be taking Mia Wallace out on a date?Quentin Tarantino

Vincent: It is not a date. It’s just like if you were gonna take your buddy’s wife to a movie or somethin’. It’s just good company, that’s all.

[Jules looks at him as though to say, ‘Really?’]

Vincent: It’s not a date. It’s definitely not a date.

This commonplace attitude relaxes the viewer and gets them acclimated to Jules and Vincent, but watching the movie again I was struck by how subtle Jackson was in conveying the real threat of his presence.  After these long conversations about seemingly mundane actions and realities, Jules enters the apartment and, if the reader pays attention they can see that his later actions are not so totally random.

After entering the apartment they watch Jules steadily build the tension:

Jules: Hey kids! How you boys doin’?

[to man laying on the couch]

Jules: Hey, keep chillin’. You know who we are? We’re associates of your business partner Marsellus Wallace. You do remember your business partner don’t you? Let me take a wild guess here. You’re Brett, right?Jules-Pulp Fiction 5

Brett: Yeah.

Jules: I thought so. You remember your business partner Marsellus Wallace, don’t you, Brett?

Brett: Yeah, yeah, I remember him.

Jules: Good. Looks like me an Vincent caught you boys at breakfast. Sorry about that. Whatcha havin’?

Brett: Hamburgers.

Jules: Hamburgers! The cornerstone of any nutritious breakfast. What kind of hamburgers?

Brett: Ch-cheeseburgers.

Jules: No, no no, where’d you get ’em? McDonalds? Wendy’s? Jack in the Box? Where?

Brett: Big Kahuna Burger.

Jules: Big Kahuna Burger. That’s that Hawaiian burger joint. I hear they got some tasty burgers. I ain’t never had one myself. How are they?

Brett: They’re good.Jules Burger

Jules: Mind if I try one of yours? This is yours here, right?

[Picks up burger and takes a bite]

Jules: Mmm-mmmm. That is a tasty burger. Vincent, ever have a Big Kahuna Burger?

[Vincent shakes his head]

Jules: Wanna bite? They’re real tasty.

Vincent: Ain’t hungry.

Jules: Well, if you like burgers give ’em a try sometime. I can’t usually get ’em myself because my girlfriend’s a vegitarian which pretty much makes me a vegitarian. But I do love the taste of a good burger. Mm-mm-mm. You know what they call a Quarter Pounder with cheese in France?

Brett: No.

Jules: Tell ’em, Vincent.

Vincent: A Royale with cheese.

Jules: A Royale with cheese! You know why they call it that?

Brett: Because of the metric system?

Jules: Check out the big brain on Brett! You’re a smart motherfucker. That’s right. The metric system. What’s in this?

Brett: Sprite.

Jules: Sprite, good. You mind if I have some of your tasty beverage to wash this down?

Brett: Go right ahead.

Jules: Ah, hit the spot.

Having spent now a good decade watching this film regularly I never really noticed this scene.  It was just more filler before the violence, but watching it again I saw everything,.  Jules doesn’t just enter in, act cool, and then shoot one of these men.  Once he’s in the room he goes at these men aggressively.  He doesn’t yell or scream at first, but he does show that he can do what he wants with them without fear or hesitation.  I Jules-Vincent-Pulp Fiction 2wouldn’t let a stranger take a bite out of a cheeseburger I paid good money for, it’s my cheeseburger, and yet Jules asks for a bite  knowing he’s going to pick it up anyway.  And even while he’s chewing it he compliments them for having good taste before then grabbing Brett’s Sprite and drinking the entire soda.

It’s subtle, and something that I missed for ten years before I actually saw Jules for what he is: a violent person.

Now Jules does, many have argued, come to some kind of redemption by the end of the film, for not but a few seconds after this interaction he has a near-death experience that permanently alters his perspective, not just about his own life and actions, but existence overall.  He decides that he’s done with crime, and in fact that he’s going to lead a life defined by pursuit of some new ideal:

Jules: Whether or not what we experienced was an According to Hoyle miracle is insignificant. What is significant is that I felt the touch of God. God got involved.

He then follows this up with:Jules-Pulp Fiction

Jules: I’ll just walk the earth.

Vincent: What’cha mean walk the earth?

Jules: You know, walk the earth, meet people… get into adventures. Like Caine from “Kung Fu.”

And then of course, the most infamous scene in Pulp Fiction apart from Marvin’s death, and the basement scene, and the adrenaline shot scene, and the dance at Jack Rabbit Slims, and the royal with cheese…okay, in arguably the most dramatic and character driven moment of the entire movie I should say, Jules delivers the most powerful lines in the film as he observes his own condition and address his desire for redemption:

Jules: I’m not giving you that money. I’m buying something from you. Wanna know what I’m buyin’ Ringo?

Pumpkin: What?

Jules: Your life. I’m givin’ you that money so I don’t have to kill your ass. You read the Bible?

Pumpkin: Not regularly.

Jules: There’s a passage I got memorized. Ezekiel 25:17. “The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak Jules-Pulp Fiction 2through the valley of the darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy My brothers. And you will know I am the Lord when I lay My vengeance upon you.” Now… I been sayin’ that shit for years. And if you ever heard it, that meant your ass. You’d be dead right now. I never gave much thought to what it meant. I just thought it was a cold-blooded thing to say to a motherfucker before I popped a cap in his ass. But I saw some shit this mornin’ made me think twice. See, now I’m thinking: maybe it means you’re the evil man. And I’m the righteous man. And Mr. 9mm here… he’s the shepherd protecting my righteous ass in the valley of darkness. Or it could mean you’re the righteous man and I’m the shepherd and it’s the world that’s evil and selfish. And I’d like that. But that shit ain’t the truth. The truth is you’re the weak. And I’m the tyranny of evil men. But I’m tryin’, Ringo. I’m tryin’ real hard to be the shepherd.

Put aside the fact that Jules consistently misquotes the Bible (Eziekiel 25:17 doesn’t actually read this way) this moment has been dissected by film scholars, Tarantino Fans, and that one obnoxious dude who has “real evidence” that there’s a masonic conspiracy found in the “messages” of this movie all over the world.  People gravitate to this Jules-Pulp Fiction 3moment because, again, it’s the scene that has the most dramatic effect in terms of character in the film.  Jules at this moment becomes the center of Tarantino’s film because he’s the first character who really seems to be trying to change and achieve redemption of some kind.

I’ve noted in previous essays that when I was a teenager gangsters and criminals really appealed to me in terms of my media consumption.  Whether it was watching Goodfellas endlessly or memorizing almost every line of The Departed, movies about violent criminals appealed to me as I was trying to figure out who I was, what I wanted, and ultimately who I was going to be.  Puberty is a bitch, and as I noted in my previousDeparted 10 essays, I think what appealed to me about these characters, their lives, and their worlds, was that they were dark, and darkness even if it was vicarious felt satisfying.  These men were taking control of their environment, and in the chaos and confusion of their existence they somehow managed to find control which was something I lacked.

Pulp Fiction, in hindsight was different from these movies, because while these films ultimately revealed that such a life would ultimately lead to destruction, Tarantino offered the character of Jules who, despite the chaos around him, seems to find some kind of redemption by turning away from his life.  And in some way I would argue that he does.  His story ends when he delivers the glowing suitcase to his boss Marcellus Wallace which means that he ultimately escapes the chaos of a life of crime. 

But at the same time watching the film again, I’m not in such a rush to defend Jules, or to argue that he totally redeems himself.

Jules is a criminal at the end of everything, and a man who has made a living stealing, killing, and hurting people, and even his “redemptive act” is still tainted by the fact that he allowed Honey-bunny and Ringo to leave with several of the other patrons’s money and goods.  He himself notes that he’s not a decent sort of man but that he’s trying to be, and so while there has been an effort by many fans and critics to argue that Jules achieves redemption, in my view there really shouldn’t be a rush to argue for redemption.  Instead if there is any virtue in Jules, it’s in realizing that that there isn’t a redemption, but choice.

Jules choses to alter his life and try to be a new person and that, ultimately, is the real sign of strength. Jules-Vincent-Pulp Fiction

Having recently turned thirty, and having seen the choices I’ve made in life in this life to date, I’ve become more cognizant of my faults and mistakes in life, and I’ve tried to actively work on them.  It doesn’t mean that I have totally and completely changed, and in fact I probably never will.  There’s a sadness in this realization, but also a comfort.  I make the choice to work on these faults and try to become a better man and friend and worker and human being, and that choice reveals a nuanced perspective of life that I recognized in Jules as I stood in the back of the movie theater watching Jules point that gun at the viewers, many of whom stayed and gave us one of the best nights we’ve had thus far with the movie group.Pulp Fiction 2

Life is not about achieving redemption and then being perfect.  Life is more about the daily victories and choosing to try and be better, and so a longer and far more impactful lesson in Pulp Fiction this time around for me was not in looking for one moment that changed everything, but one choice.

It’s the choice to help Honey-Bunny and Ringo rather than just shoot them and get out of the restaurant that reveals that Jules as a man wants to try and be a better human being.  It’s the choice of a young man who’s spent his life hating himself to try and find beauty in existence and to keep chugging coffee and hope that, if nothing else, some review he wrote about Pulp Fiction might finally generate enough political will to get Americans to start using the metric system.

It’s a long shot, but maybe one day I’ll finally pull up to a McDonalds and order a Royal with cheese with large fries.  One can only hope.

bacon-cheeseburger

 

 

*Writer’s Note*

All quotes cited from Pulp Fiction were provided by IMDb.com.

 

**Writer’s Note**

I’ve provided a few reviews of Pulp Fiction from the time it premiered originally in 1994, to a few more recent reviews.  Hope you enjoy:

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/pulp-fiction-1994

https://www.nytimes.com/1994/09/23/movies/film-festival-review-pulp-fiction-quentin-tarantino-s-wild-ride-life-s-dangerous.html

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/may/15/pulp-fiction-review

https://www.vulture.com/2014/10/review-roundup-pulp-fiction-20-years.html

https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/movie-reviews/pulp-fiction-95345/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2014/10/17/pulp-fiction-is-20-years-old-read-the-washington-post-reviews-from-1994/?utm_term=.39fe358b949b

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Who and How F@*%$d Up Are You?-The Departed and Identity

05 Tuesday Mar 2019

Posted by Joshua Ryan "Jammer" Smith in Film Review, History, Masculinity Studies

≈ 1 Comment

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"How fucked up are you?", Anti-Hero, Boston, Cop Movies, Crime, Crime Films, Drama, Father-Son Relationship, fathers, Film, film review, fuck, Goodfellas, history, Human Developement, Identity, integrity, Jack Nicholson, Leonardo DiCaprio, Mafia, Mark Wahlberg, Martin Scorsese, Martin Sheen, Masculinity Studies, Matt Damon, Personal Development, Police, Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino, The Departed, violence, Working Class Men

Departed 1

I had only seen Taxi Driver and Goodfellas when I watched Martin Scorsese tickle Stan Smith with his eyebrows.  Despite my ignorance of the man’s larger body of work at the time the scene still made me laugh because I knew enough about Martin Scorsese to know that those eyebrows are their own caricature and I’m positive they have their own star on the Hollywood block somewhere between Cher and Elizabeth Taylor.  The biopic of their life is supposed to be directed by Edgar Wright but that’s one of those rumors I don’t put much stock in.Pulp-Fiction1

I’m trying more and more to stop thinking so much about who I was.  This is not because I hate my past, I don’t, but my regular reader has probably heard me describe my youth and adolescence as a less than enjoyable period of my life.  I was a privileged kid who came from a great and loving family, but more and more I’ve realized that I have always had some modicum of depression.  I just never really liked myself and I didn’t enjoy it much when people complimented me or told me they thought I was exceptional.  This self loathing really kicked in during puberty and it was during this time that I found an outlet for the growing darkness and search for identity in three outlets: heavy metal, writing, and cinema.  My sophomore English teacher helped me with the second two, first by giving me her water damaged paperback copy of Stephen King’s The Green Mile, and the second by recommending me to watch a film called Pulp Fiction.

Quentin Tarantino hit my brain like a typhoon and I just ingested the man’s collected work, and because I’ve always been the kind of person I am, when I find an artist that I like I disappear into their world and philosophy.  There could never be enough interviews by Tarantino to read, there could never be enough essays written by Tarantino, and there could never be enough books about Tarantino.  Somewhere, in all this research I kept hearing the same name over and over again, Martin Scorsese.  This name became something important, and so when I got the chance I went to Hastings and checked out Taxi Driver, Mean Streets, and Goodfellas.  If Tarantino was god, then Scorsese was a titan because I recognized something in the man’s oeuvre, even if I didn’t or couldn’t explain what it was. -

Somewhere in all this endless consumption of media The Departed came to theaters and I begged my dad to take me to see it.  To the man’s credit he did and afterwards we discussed Jack Nicholson’s character.  Dad tried to argue that the man basically recycled every single one of his previous roles and formed it into one central character.  I believed him at the time but now I’m a little dubious.  I didn’t, and still don’t, see any of the President from Mars Attacks in Frank Costello but maybe if he’d spoken a little French.

The Departed is a movie that I must have watched somewhere around  twenty or thirty times, and that number honestly feels a little low.  Being a teenage boy the film mostly appealed to me fo it’s non-stop irreverence.  One need only look at one early scene in the film when Mark Wahlberg’s character Staff Seargent Dignam makes a small address to members of an investigative unit:

Ellerby: [during a conference briefing about Costello and his crew] Staff Sergeant Dignam is our liaison to the the undercover department, his undercover work is extensive. He’s here to give us his report. Sergeant Dignam.

Dignam: Ok. My people are out there. They’re like fuckin’ indians. You’re not gonna see ’em you’re not gonna hear about ’em except from me or Captain Queenan. Departed 6You will not ever know the identity of undercover people. Unfortunately, this shithole has more fuckin’ leaks than the Iraqi Navy.

Ellerby: Fuck yourself.

Dignam: I’m tired from fuckin’ your wife.

Ellerby: How’s your mother?

Dignam: Good, she’s tired from fuckin’ my father.

Or perhaps another when Billy Costigan, played Leonardo DiCaprio, orders a drink at a bar:

Billy Costigan: [to the bartender] Cranberry juice.

Man Glassed in Bar: It’s a natural diuretic. My girlfriend drinks it when she’s got her period. What, do you got your period?Departed 10

[Billy grabs an empty glass and smashes it onto the man’s head. Mr. French grabs Billy throws him against the wall. Billy tries to go towards the man again and French holds him against the wall. Billy pushes French’s hands away]

Billy Costigan: Get your fuckin’ hands off me!

Mr. French: [calmly] Hey, hey, hey… do you know me?

Billy Costigan: No, no.

Mr. French: Well, I’m the guy that tells you there are guys you can hit and there’s guys you can’t. Now, that’s not quite a guy you can’t hit, but it’s almost a guy you can’t hit. So I’m gonna make a fuckin’ ruling on this right now. You don’t fuckin’ hit him. You understand?

Billy Costigan: Yeah, excellent. Fine, fine, fine.

Mr. French: I fucking know you. I know your family. You make one more drug deal with that idiot fucking cop-magnet of a cousin of yours and I’ll forget your grandmother was so nice to me. I’ll cut your fucking nuts off. You understand that?

Billy Costigan: Yeah, yeah, I do.Departed 9

Mr. French: What are you drinkin’?

Billy Costigan: [embarrassed] A cranberry juice.

Mr. French: What is it, your period?

These scenes are probably easy bait in terms of showing the character of the film, but when I was a teenage boy the free use of “fucks” and the constant violence of the film was something deeply fascinating.  Part of it was probably because I grew up with a working class father who would regail me with stories about the violence of the Rugby pitch, and the irreverent songs that would accompany a game.  Listening to dad I developed early an appreciation for vulgar language and considered a point of pride when I developed my own limerick about the woman named “Runt.”  Language and violence were the means of expression, as I understood them, or working class men.  Men who, it should be noted, I wanted to be and wasn’t.

They were also men I wanted to fuck, but that’s for another essay.

86939db4b107c3e65ea565f19ce25bfb

The Departed was a film about men acting and being themselves, and the darkness implied by all of this violence was lost on me, to some extent.  Being a kid who loved Stephen King, being the kid who loved Heavy Metal, and being the kid who memorized every scene and line in almost every Scorsese and Tarantino movie, I’ve recognized more and more that the darkness of those films was it’s own sort of therapy.  It’s a pathetic aphorism, but young men don’t know who they are, they don’t know what they want, and they don’t understand how to really find what identifies them.  And because of all that constant shifting of identity and confusion, it’s not uncommon for young men to find solace in spiritual, intellectual, and philosophical darkness.

I gravitated to gangsters, murderers, and sociopaths in movies not because I wanted totumblr_o0g5m25yqr1t5jzlpo1_400 be them, but because in their stories I found some kind of emotional solace.  My world, really my brain, was trying to manage my personal darkness, and the only way to really handle it was to watch movies about sociopaths who stabbed people to death with pens, or, in the case of The Departed, asked people which hand they jerked off with before cutting off the other hand.

At this point though my reader is probably wondering where this is going.  Allright, they say, you’ve told us ad nauseam about the fact that you were bummed out as a teenager and so you became an edge lord.  Big fucking whooped-dee-doo, why should I care?  What relevance does your depression have to do with The Departed?Departed 7

This is a fair question and it actually gets me back on track.  You see the other day I had another spell of my depression and it became so unendurable that I had to take a day off from writing.  I spent most of the morning cleaning around the house, trying not to think about blaming myself for something stupid I’d done and in an effort to channel Special Agent Dale Cooper from Twin Peaks (“Once a day, everyday, give yourself a present”) I decided to go grab some Taco Bueno and watch a movie I hadn’t watched in ages.  The Departed was on my shelf when I came home and I watched it, reciting most of the lines from memory, but by the end of the film I realized that I had missed something.

The Departed is a film that explores the violence  and vulgarity of criminals, but it also, like every Martin Scorsese film, explores identity and how young men create it.

The first lines of the film lay this concept out plainly as it opens to two men fighting in the streets, and Frank Costello begins:Departed 4

Frank Costello: I don’t want to be a product of my environment. I want my environment to be a product of me.

Right from the start Scorsese sets the expectation of the audience and the character of the film.  Frank Costello is a man who knows who and what he is, and as he narrates his philosophy of life the reader becomes more and more aware of his individual philosophy concerning what is and isn’t one’s sense of self:

Years ago we had the church. That was only a way of saying, we had each other. The Knights of Columbus were real head-breakers; true guineas. They took over their piece of the city. Twenty years after an Irishman couldn’t get a fucking job, we had the presidency. May he rest in peace. That’s what the niggers don’t realize. If I got one thing against the black chappies, it’s this: no one gives it to you. You have to take it.Departed 13

Scorsese opens his film with the steady integration of races showing how the lower classes of Boston handled the push, which tended to be violent, and as he narrates he focuses on his identity of being Irish has impacted his views.  Scorsese is effective in opening Frank as a man composed of darkness (Nicholson is literally hidden in shadow for the first five to ten minutes of the film) who can only see violence as a means of advancing anywhere culturally.

The idea of identity isn’t just a minor opening idea however, it’s a question and concept that’s repeated througout the film as the central conflict lies in the two protagonists William Costigan and Colin Sullivan, two “rats.”  Sullivan works for the Boston State Police Department but is a rat for Costello, and the other, Billy Costigan working for Costello, but really working as an undercover officer for the Boston State Police Departed 3Department.  Scorsese plays these two men as a sort of duality, each trying to figure out who they are and what it is that they actually want.  Costigan, played by deCaprio, has an early interaction with the head of Special Investigative Services and one scene only further’s this question of what identity actually is:

Oliver Queenan: [during Costigan’s interview] We have a question: Do you want to be a cop, or do you want to appear to be a cop? It’s an honest question. A lot of guys just want to appear to be cops. Gun, badge, pretend they’re on TV.

Dignam: Yeah, a lot of people just wanna slam a nigger’s head through a plate-glass window.

Billy Costigan: I’m all set without your own personal job application. Alright, Sergeant?

Dignam: What the fuck did you say to me, trainee?Departed 11

Billy Costigan: [to Queenan] With all due respect, sir, what do you want from me?

Dignam: Hey asshole, he can’t help you! I know what you are, okay? I know what you are and I know what you are not. I’m the best friend you have on the face of this earth, and I’m gonna help you understand something, you punk. You’re no fuckin’ cop!

There really isn’t a quote which feels so dramatically powerful to me than this one.  This is largely because of it’s applicability to almost any situation in life.  I’m a realist, and often that translates to a poor worldview concerning humanity that borders on cynicism, but I don’t believe I’m too far off the mark when I observe that most people in this life aspire to be something.  Often it’s not even the identity that matters so much as the Departed 2societal benefits and advantages.  Looking at myself I wanted to be a rock star.  I would listen to Appetite for Destruction over and over again, I’d listen to all of my Slipknot records, and for two years after High School I made plans to “go up to Dallas” and become a musician.  What’s important about this story is that in that time I never learned how to play a musical instrument, I never got a job working in a music store, and I never took the initiative to leave my parents house and join a band. 

The reason was, I didn’t want to be a rock star, I wanted to appear to be a rock star.  A lot of people do.  They want to smash their guitars, date supermodels and porn stars, throw tvs out windows, and just generally not give a shit.

The Departed is a film about identity and how young men create it for themselves, and who are the icons of masculinity that help them establish that modicum of masculinity.  For Sullivan it’s Costello, for Costigan it’s father first, and then eventually Captain Oliver Queenan.  The reader follows these two men as they try to be something they are, and aren’t, for entirely different reasons.  Sullivan wants to appear to be a Departed 5cop so that he can enjoy the societal and monetary perks that comes with being a corrupt cop, for Costigan wants to work alongside criminals bearing witness to atrocity after atrocity because he wants to help his community and his environment.  And in each of these men’s struggle there is something relevant and human.

In a scene about halfway through the film Costigan meets with Dignam and Queenan beneath a bridge and there’s a brief exchange:

Billy Costigan: I’m going fucking nuts, man. I can’t be someone else every fuckin’ day. It’s been a year of this. I’ve had enough of this shit!

Dignam: Calm down, alright? Most people in the world do it every day. What’s the big deal?Departed 12

It’s easy sometimes to lose who you are in this impersonal modern world.  It’s easy to pretend like you didn’t hear someone mutter the n-word when a black person walks onto the subway.  It’s easy to pretend that it doesn’t bother or offend you when somebody slaps a confederate flag on the back of their truck.  It’s easy to smile and nod at work when a customer tells you that ever since the fags started getting married that the country’s values are imploding.  It’s easy to say that you’re going to be a rockstar when your fourteen because you’ve never lived outside your parents house.  And a million minor abuses and challenges of integrity are expected in this life because ultimately because in this impersonal modern age integrity is not always observed as a virtue.

Life, unfortunately is often about compromises, and far too often about Departed 8disappointments.  My rock star fantasies ended up in the crapper as my parents finally had to confront me and tell me that I could either go to school or get a job, I chose the former and it was one of the best choices I could ever make.  I met my wife, I came to terms with my pansexuality, and I made friends that have impacted my life in ways I can’t even begin to imagine.  It was a moment of compromise that lead me to my current station in life, but it was also a moment of integrity.  I knew I couldn’t just get a job and start floating through life, that wasn’t me.  I knew who I was and what I was was an academic pussy, and a writer.

Identity isn’t something that comes without sacrifice, pain, and honesty.  William Costigan was a man who came from privilege, and by the end of the film he’s helped bring down a man who’s plagued the working class neighborhoods of Boston, whileHow Fucked up are you Sullivan has plundered and gained at the expense of good people who are trying to make their world better.  Scorsese is able to make a relevant comment about what identity is in the Information Age, which is often not what it at first appears.  Many people have to pretend to be something else either because they’re tired, because they’re afraid of other people’s opinion, because they want to be something they’re not, or perhaps they’re lying to get something out of this world because that want to be something else. 

The Departed offers up to the reader the idea that life is about choices, and that ultimately beneath all the clutter and data of “who you are.”  Put another way, the only real determining factor of identity is what you actually do.  A rat is a rat, but the rat who steals the cheese, rather than waiting for it to fall from the plate are two entirely different creatures.

cheese-types-31579-1920x1080

 

 

*Writer’s Note*

All quotes from The Departed were provided by IMDB.com

 

**Writer’s Note**

I’ve provided a few links to reviews about The Departed in case the reader would like a bit of outside perspective instead of my non-stop introspective nonsense.  Enjoy:

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-departed-2007

https://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/06/movies/06depa.html

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2007/02/the-movie-review-the-departed/69423/

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2006/oct/06/thriller.mattdamon

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A Goodfella is Hard to Find, and Twice as Hard to Whack

13 Tuesday Jun 2017

Posted by Joshua Ryan "Jammer" Smith in Biography, Film Review, History, Masculinity Studies, Philosophy

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

"Go Get Your Fuckin' Shinebox", "wiseguys", Anti-Hero, biography, Catherine Scorsese, Corruption, Crime, Film, film review, Gangsters, Goodfellas, Hastings, Henry Hill, history, Individual Will, Jimmy Conway, Joe Pesci, Lorraine Bracco, lufthansa heist, Martin Scorsese, masculinity, Masculinity Studies, morality, Pulp Fiction, Ray Liotta, Robert De Niro, violence, Working Class Men

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There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow men. True nobility lies in being superior to your former self. –Ernest Hemingway

 

As far back as I can remember, personally, I always wanted to be Chewbacca from STAR WARS.  The reason for that was largely simple, nobody ever really fucked with Chewie.  Han Solo was the guy all the boys on the playground wanted to be, and I was often regulated to playing Chewie.  I didn’t mind this so much because Chewbacca was tall like I was, covered in hair which became more and more true with each passing year, and nobody in the movies ever beat Chewie in a one on one fight.  He pretty much just Goodfellaswalked around doing whatever he wanted to because who’s going to tell a Wookie what he can and can’t do?

I suppose in this way Ray Liotta and I have something in common, because his character Henry Hill (based upon an actual person) from Martin Scorsese’s opus Goodfellas, expresses more-or-less the same sentiment about being a gangster.  The film opens with these lines after Joe Pesci has stabbed a mobster a dozen times with a butcher knife in Henry’s trunk and Robert de Niro has shot the man four times (I counted):

Henry Hill: [narrating] For as long as I can remember I always wanted to be a gangster. To me that was better than being president of the United States. To be a gangster was to own the world.

There was a time in my life when I could watch the movie Goodfellas over and over again and never seem to get bored or bothered by it.  Part of this was the fact that I was a teenage boy and a high school loser to boot.  When you’re the weird kid, and your perceive yourself as the weird kid, and that perception only further influences your dress, behavior, and attitude, and people around you perceive it, and puberty is happening to you like a sledgehammer to the scrotum,  darkness tends to be something you gravitate towards you.  Then again, I’ve always found morbid topics interesting.  Being a kid I would look at horror movie covers and memorize the names of killers Pulp-Fiction1because there was something cool about being close to that darkness.  I think this is the best explanation of why Goodfellas, and Pulp Fiction before it, appealed so much to me.

On one side note I find it bothersome that Pulp Fiction is one of the films that changed my life and I still haven’t gotten around to reviewing it yet.

Goodfellas didn’t stumble into my life, it was handed to me by my tenth-grade English teacher.  She and I would usually talk before class because she was funny, she had great insight, and I guess she saw something in me.  She originally introduced me to Stephen King, giving me her water-damaged copy of The Green Mile, which lead me to other works by King and secured my desire to become a writer.  But at some other point she told me to find a copy of a movie called Pulp Fiction.  I rented a copy of the movie from Hastings (#restinpeace) and watching Tarantino movies I started also trying to find interviews with the man and a name kept popping up: Martin Scorsese.

Goodfellas wasn’t the first Scorsese film I saw, I believe the first one I watched was either Mean Streets or Taxi Driver.  But Goodfellas kept popping up, usually alongside Raging Bull as Marin Scorsese’s supreme cinematic achievement.  Not long thereafter my parents gave me a copy of Goodfellas and Braveheart for Easter and I watched it and disappeared.

I have yet to watch a Scorsese film that is not good.  Even his first major film Mean Streets, which is obviously rough since it’s his first full movie, is extraordinarily good. goodfellas-1990-001-martin-scorsese-behind-camera-00n-3vi Scorsese as a director was brought up under a documentarian tradition and so whenever he makes his films he tries to simply capture the human being’s honest behavior.  Rather than tell a narrative emotionally or personally, he allows the characters and people to perform their own arcs, and Goodfellas is probably his best demonstration of this outside Raging Bull.  The story is about a man named Henry Hill, the child of an Irish/Italian marriage and that lineage is important.  He grows up in a poor neighborhood watching the cab-stand across the street where the “wiseguys” or gangsters hang out wanting to join their world.  He eventually makes his way into the organization and the rest of the film follows him living the life of a gangster until he eventually has to leave the life for the sake of his survival.tumblr_nxpf5eeGTd1tpri36o1_1280

The movie, while it follows multiple characters, centers on Henry and he narrates his life and thoughts first person as if analyzing his behavior for the audience.  Part of the miracle of the film is that this structure could feel obvious or overdone, but it never does.  The film sucks you in and holds you close to the material while Henry observes the realities of Gangster life.  He notes early in the film about the benefits of such a system:

Henry Hill: [narrating] For us to live any other way was nuts. Uh, to us, those goody-good people who worked shitty jobs for bum paychecks and took the subway to work every day, and worried about their bills, were dead. I mean, they were suckers. They had no balls. If we wanted something, we just took it. If anyone complained twice they got hit so bad, believe me, they never complained again.

In an earlier scene he mentions something similar:goodfellas-parole

Henry Hill: [narrating] One day some of the kids from the neighborhood carried my mother’s groceries all the way home. You know why? It was outta respect.

Henry eventually is caught for drug trafficking and has to sell out his friends Paulie and Jimmy Conway, and the final scene offers Henry’s summation of everything he learned from the experience, and the final conclusion is as revealing as it is disturbing:

[last lines]

Henry Hill: [narrating] Anything I wanted was a phone call away. Free cars. The keys to a dozen hideout flats all over the city. I bet twenty, thirty grand over a weekend and then I’d either blow the winnings in a week or go to the sharks to pay back the bookies.

[Henry leaves the witness stand and speaks directly to the camera]

Henry Hill: Didn’t matter. It didn’t mean anything. When I was broke, I’d go out and rob some more. We ran everything. We paid off cops. We paid off lawyers. We paid off judges. Everybody had their hands out. Everything was for the taking. And now it’s all over. good-fellas-still-03

[narrating]

Henry Hill: And that’s the hardest part. Today everything is different; there’s no action… have to wait around like everyone else. Can’t even get decent food – right after I got here, I ordered some spaghetti with marinara sauce, and I got egg noodles and ketchup. I’m an average nobody… get to live the rest of my life like a schnook.

Henry’s final speech reveals a bit of Scorsese’s ultimate aesthetic goal which is to get the viewer to observe how the Goodfella lifestyle has infected Henry and how, even after everything he’s seen and done, he still longs for a life of crime because the benefits of such a life seem far better than the average day-to-day lifestyle of real people.  Now this isn’t a Goodfellas_134Pyxurznovel observation, dozens of critics have noted that part of the success of the movie is this very realization about Henry, and many have noted that the appeal of the film is the way the characters suck you into the reality and world almost making you want to stay inside that world yourself.  Almost every person would love to live a life where they don’t have to work, they can take anything they want, and just generally live and behave without worrying about reprisal.

With this being the case there doesn’t appear to be much room for me to come in and offer up any new material, my reader would note, but as always I have to disagree.

The reason I must contest my reader is because there was a time when Goodfellas was a movie I loved to watch, but over the last few years I’ve stopped watching it as much.  It’s not that I no longer love the film, I still consider it one my favorite movies of all time, and, to be honest, I’d watch it before just about most of the films currently being de59b7440018777a383c6c81fe8f9690released.  But since I’ve started maturing emotionally, and puberty no longer holds my gonads like a vice, the appeal of that world and reality has dimmed.

I lead a very privileged life, but the desire to work and contribute something to my world and community is what drives me more than anything, and watching Goodfellas again recently I was struck by how narcissistic each of the characters was.  Whether it was Mauri always bitching about nobody paying him, or Henry as a kid noting that he didn’t want to go to school because the Gangster life was far more lucrative.  Even Karen observes how this selfishness comes to become, in her own words, normal:

Karen: [narrating] After awhile, it got to be all normal. None of it seemed like crime. It was more like Henry was enterprising, and that he and the guys were making a few bucks hustling, while all the other guys were sitting on their asses, waiting for handouts. Our husbands weren’t brain surgeons, they were blue-collar guys. The only way they could make extra money, real extra money, was to go out and cut a few corners. tumblr_o0g5m25yqr1t5jzlpo1_400

[Cuts to Henry and Tommy hijacking a truck]

Goodfellas is a wonderful film about the real gangster lifestyle, and throughout the movie there are plenty of opportunities for Martin Scorsese to bring in his brilliance for making iconic shots and scenes, and also remind the viewer that he owns virtually every Rolling Stone record.  On a side note, Scorsese is the only director I know who can ever effectively use the song Gimme Shelter in a film and make it sound even more amazing than it already does.  But I think if you push deeper into the film the entire movie becomes one long documentary and meditation on the impulse of selfishness.

Every character wants to enjoy the riches and agency that being a mobster, or being related to a mobster, brings them.  While the characters like Jimmy, Tommy, Henry,facebook Paulie, Karen, and Maurie are driven by their selfishness, Scorsese demonstrates that they live in a system which perpetuates that selfishness and thus reinforces it into a sick kind of normality.  It becomes okay to steal, murder, and beat-up innocent people because you have a license to do it.

As Tommy is being led to the house to become a Made man Henry notes this subtly:

Henry Hill: [narrating] You know, we always called each other good fellas. Like you said to, uh, somebody, “You’re gonna like this guy. He’s all right. He’s a good fella. He’s one of us.” You understand? We were good fellas. Wiseguys. But Jimmy and I could never be made because we had Irish blood. It didn’t even matter that my mother was Sicilian. To become a member of a crew you’ve got to be one hundred per cent Italian so they can trace all your relatives back to the old country. See, it’s the highest honor they can give you. It means you belong to a family and crew. It 8a0bd1dae84a6ea150374bc202fd1c2emeans that nobody can fuck around with you. It also means you could fuck around with anybody just as long as they aren’t also a member. It’s like a license to steal. It’s a license to do anything. As far as Jimmy was concerned with Tommy being made, it was like we were all being made. We would now have one of our own as a member.

People crave to be part of a system or tribe by nature, and if one exists that can benefit them dramatically then they’ll react violently.  If I can offer one last quote as justification, Henry observes in the film, shortly after Tommy kills the Made-man Billy Batts (with his infamous “Shine-box” line), that this is the case:

Henry Hill: [narrating] If you’re part of a crew, nobody ever tells you that they’re going to kill you, doesn’t happen that way. There weren’t any arguments or curses like in the movies. See, your murderers come with smiles, they come as your friends, the people who’ve cared for you all of your life. And they always seem to come at a time that you’re at your weakest and most in need of their help.

The easiest attack made against Goodfellas as a work of art is the fact that there is so much violence in the movie, but that violence has tended to obscure the real art that is behind it.  The same goes for the first-hand narrative structure of the movie which has been reproduced ad nauseum in far too many movies that are trying to be clever or else just bad rip-offs of Scorsese’s work.  Goodfellas, as it exists, tries to show how the 8Mgxdgangster lifestyle can infect people and lead them down a path of self destruction.  Henry, from the time he’s thirteen, sees the gangsters and their “freedom” as more of an opportunity than participation in society.  Instead of trying to find a job, work hard, and make something of himself, he chooses crime, and while he succeeds for a while, it’s ultimately his undoing and he almost winds up whacked because of it.

Scorsese’s genius is showing these people, these characters, and getting the viewer to ask themselves are we really seduced by this freedom, or after watching this film do we stop and realize that there’s nothing truly glamourous about it.  It’s a violent, narcissistic society that feigns community for the sake of personal gain.  And apart from the great music, it almost always ends in disaster.

I still love Goodfellas, and I still love watching Goodfellas.  What’s changed is that I no longer see these characters as any kind of anti-heroes.  They’re just selfish-bastards dressed up in nice suits.  Though this last point does make me reconsider being a gangster only because it’s hard as fuck to find a decent tailor.

Brody-Goodfellas-1200

 

*Writer’s Note*

I didn’t get a chance to mention it in the essay, but part of the appeal of Goodfellas for me is seeing Martin Scorsese’s mother play Tommy’s mother.  It’s impressive to watch the woman not only handle her own alongside actors like Pesci, De Niro, and Liotta and not even bat an eye, but also, if you watch the scene carefully, steal the entire scene.

goodfellas_22

And if you don’t believe me here’s the actual scene:

And Scorsese himself talking about it:

 

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Andy Kubert Andy Warhol Andy Weir An Ent is Not a Tree A New Hope Ang Lee An Ideal Husband animal cruelty Animal Farm Animal House Animal Reproduction Animals animation An Indian’s Views of Indian Affairs Anita Bryant Anita Pallenberg ankh Anna Karenina Anna Kendrick Anne Kronenberg Annie Hall Annie Proulx A Noiseless Patient Spider Anomolisa Anthem Anthony Bertrand Anthony Bourdain Anthony Comstock Anthony Everitt Anthony Perkins anthropology Anti-Bullshit Anti-Hero Anti-psychotics Anti-Semitism Anti-theism Anti-War Novel Antoine de Saint-Exupery Anya Taylor-Joy Any Human Heart Apartheid apathy Aplasia Apocalypse Apocalypse Now Apollyon Appalachia apple Apple Inc. Apple Logo apples apples & peanut butter Aquaman A Queer History of the United States Arches Archibald Cox Are You My Mother? Arguably Arguably Essays Argument Ariel Aristophanes Aristotle Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth Arkham Knight Armie Hammer Armitage Family Arnold Swarzenegger A Room of One's Own A Rose for Emily Art Art Commentary Art Culture arthropoda Arthropododa Arthropods Arthur C. Clark Arthurian Romances Artificial Intelligence Artificial Landscape Artillery artist artistic integrity artist models Art Spiegleman Arundhati Roy A Separate Peace As I Lay Dying A spider sewed at night Assassin's Creed Assassin's Creed 2 Assassin's Creed Odyssey Assassin's Creed Revelations Assassination of Julius Caesar Assault on Precinct 13 astronaut astrophysics Astrophysics for People in a Hurry A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again A Tale of Two Cities Atheism atheism identity Atheism is NOT a religion it's important to remember that Atheists: Inside the World of Non-Believers Athens Atmosphere in Science Fiction A Tolkien Bestiary Atom Bombs Atomic Library atronomy Atticus Finch Attraction audience Audubon Society Book of Insects and Arachnids Augusto Pinochet Au Revoir Les Enfants Au Revoir Mes Enfants Austin Dickinson Author's Social role authorial freedom Authorial Integrity Author of the Century Author Vs Voice Vs Persona avant garde Ave Maria Avengers 2 Ayatollah Khomeini Ayn Rand Azar Nafisi B.J. Novak babboon Babel Fish Baby babysitter Back to the Future bacon is amazing and if you disagree you're a goddamn communist Bag End baking Ballyhoo Balrog Banalization of Corporate Aesthetic banalization of homosexuality Band of Brothers BANKSY Banned Books Banned Book Week Bara Barack Obama Barbara Love Barbara Streisand Barista Barn Burning Barnes& Noble Barracoon Barry Levinson Barry Strauss Basic Writings of Existentialism basket Bassem Youssef Batman Batman: The Animated Series Batman: The Court of Owls Batman: The Dark Knight Returns Batman: Year One Batman Arkham Asylum A serious House on Serious Earth Batman Forever Batman Pajama Pants Batman Vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice battle Beads Beast Beat Poetry Beauty and the Beast Beaver Dams Beavers Because I Could not Stop for Death Bechdel Test Bedknobs and Broomsticks Bee Bee Documentaries Bee Hives Bee Keepers beer Bees Beetle Bee Wilson bell belles lettres Ben Bradlee Bender Bender's Big Score Benedict Cumberbatch Benedict Cumberbatch naked sunbathing Benjamin Alire Sáenz Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Franklin: An American Life Benjamin Netanyahu Benjamin Walfisch Beowulf Berlin Wall Bernard Heine Best of Enemies Bettie Boop Betty Elms Betty Friedan Betty Gabriel Between the World and Me Be Wherever You Are Bi Any Other Name Bi Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out bias bibliophilia Biblophilia Big Bang Theory Big Bird big black dicks Big Daddy big dicks Big Game Hunting Big Jake Big Mac Big M Burgers Bikini Babes Bilbo Bilbo Baggins bildungsroman Bile Bill Duke Bill Maher Bill Murray Bill O'Reilly Bill Schutt Billy Conolly Bind Crosby Bing Bong Bing Crosby Biographia Literaria biography Biography as Craft biological arguments biology Biopic Birdbox is about Birds in Boxes...I'm sure it is birds Birthdays Bisexuality bite my shoulder Black-face Black and Tans Black Body Black Colleges Blackface Black Friday Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays Black Humor Black Klansman Black Lives in Media Black Lives Matter Black Male Body as commodity Black Men black men in porn Black Sabbath Black Sexuality Black Woman Sexuality Black Women Black women's narratives Blade Runner Blade Runner 2049 Blade Runner Threeway Blaise Pascal Blasphemy Blasphemy for the Sake of Blasphemy Blogging Blogs and Ethos Blood, Class, and Nostalgia: Anglo-American Ironies Blood Meridian Blood Meridian or the Evening Redness in the West Bloody Kansas Bloody Sunday blowjob Blue Blues Blue Shell blue shoes Blue Velvet Blue Whale Metaphor Blurb Bob Bob's Burgers Boba-Loompia Bob Cratchit Bob Dylan Bob Hope Bob Hoskins Bob Woodward body body humor body image body issues body objectification Bohemian Rhapsody Boiling Lobsters Bolo Ties Bonnie Hunt Boobs Boogeyman book burning Book Club Book Covers Book Covers and why the Matter Book List Book Review books Books about Sex Toys Books about Writing Books by Jammer booooooooooobs Bootsy Barker Bites Borderlands Born a Crime Born a Crime: Stories From A South African Childhood Born in Dixie Born in Dixie: The History of Smith County Texas Boston bottlecaps bow-ties bow tie boy's club Boyd McDonald brackets Brad Douglas Bradley Pierce Bradley Whitford Breaking Bad Breast Cancer Breast Feeding Breast Milk Breast Milk as Menstrual Blood Breasts Breasts and Fruit Breasts Vs Boobs Brendan Gleeson Brenda Wineapple Bret Easton Ellis Brett Brett Witter Brian and Stewie Brian Jay Jones Brian K. Vaughn Bridge to Terabithia Brief Interviews with Hideous Men Bright Noa British Aristocracy British Empire Brokeback Mountain Broomhilda Bruce Cabot Brás de Oliva Domingos Bubbles Buckley VS. Vidal: The Historic 1968 ABS News Debates Buddy, Can You Spare a Tie Bugonia Bugs Bunny Buildungsroman Bullet Vibrator bullshit-ocracy Bullshit Is Everywhere Bullshit is Everywhere: Full Transcript Bulls On Parade Bunny Tales: Behind Closed Doors at the Playboy Mansion Burt Renyolds Burying Fletcher Bush Administration Buster Keaton Butch Butcher Knife Butch Lesbian butterknife button Buzz Buzz: A Stimulating History of the Sex Toy BWS Johnson Byzantine Empire C-3PO C.S. Lewis Cait Murphey Calaban Caleb Landry Jones Call Me By Your Name Call of Duty Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Calvin and Hobbes Calvin C. Hernton Calvin Candie Calypso Campaign Finance Laws Camp Climax Can't You Hear Me Knocking Cancer Candide Candle Candy Candy Land Cannibalism Cannibalism: A Perfectly Natural History Canon Capitalism capitalism and Christianity Captain Genderfuck Caravan of Death Carinval Carl Bernstein Carl Japikse Carl Jung Carl Malden Carlo Ginzburg Carl Sagan Carl Weathers Carnival Carrie Cartoons Cartoons and Romantic studies Casper the Friendly Ghost Cassie Phillips Castle Anthrax Castro Street Catalyst Academy Catalyst University Catch-22 Catching the Big Fish Catching the Big Fish: Meditation Consciousness and Creativity Catharsis Catherine Keener Catherine Scorsese Cat on a Hot Tin Roof cats CBS News CCTV Celie and Shug censorship Cetology Chadwick Boseman chainsaw Challenging Faith Chamelion Champion of Unreason Chandalier Changes chaos chaos theory Char Character Study Charles Darwin Charles Dickens Charles II Charleston Charlie Brown Reference I Hope You Get Charlie Chaplin Charlie Glickman Charlie Kaufman Charlie Rose Charlize Theron Charlotte Haze Chaucer Chauvanism Che: A Revolutionary Life cheating Cheese Che Guevara Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life Che Guevara t-shirts Chemical Bonds Chernobyl Chernobyl Diaries Chernobyl Ferris Wheel Cherry Darling chess Chessboard Chester Benington Chicago Chief Joseph child developement Childe Harold Childhood Childish Gambino Children's Book Children's Entertainment children's fiction Chile China China church protests Chip Zdarsky Chivalry Chivalry is NOT a thing chocolate Choice Cholera Chorus Chris Chris Jones Chris Packard Christian Christianity Christian Rhetoric Christina Chaney Christine Christmas Christmas Songs Christoph Bode Christopher Hitchens Christopher Lloyd Christopher Nolan Christopher Stahl Chuck Palahniuk Churchillian cicada cicada shells Cicero Cinnamon cake Circles circumcision Circus Cirith Gorgor C is for Cookie cisgender men Citizen Kane Citizenship City Civic Duty Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice Civil Disobedience Civil War Claire Quilty clam Clappy the Sad Clown with Clap Clarence Clare Virginia Eby Clarissa Explains It All class Classical Hero Classic Literature Cleopatra Cleopatra's sexuality Cleopatra: A Life Cleopatra VII Clerks II Cleve Jones Clifton Pollard climate Clint Eastwood clitoris Cloche Hat clocks Clopin Clown Clumsy CNN Coagula COBRA coffee coffee mug coffeeshop Coffee With Jammer cognition coins Cold War Colin Firth Colonel Cathcart Colonel Korn colonialism color Color in Art Color in Literature comedy Comicosity Comic relief Comics Comic Shop Comic Shop: The Retail Mavericks WHo Gave Us a New Geek Culture Comic Shops Coming out Coming out Narratives Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women in World War Two Comix Commandments Commando Commerce commodifying the female body Common Sense Commune Communism Composition studies Conan the Barbarian Confederate Flag Confession confidence Conformity Consider the Lobster Constance Brittain Bouchard Constantine Constantine XI Constantinople Contemporary Composition: The Major Pedagogical Theories contrarian Control Conversation Cookie Monster cookies Coon and Friends Cop Movies Coraline Cordelia Corey Taylor corgi Cormac McCarthy Cornetto Trilogy Corporate Influence corporate product Corporations corpse Corruption Corruption of Small Town America Cosmic Treadmill Cosmos Counterfeit Lesbian country couple Courtly-Love Courtroom Narrative Cow & Chicken Cowboys coxcomb Cracked.com Crazy Harry Crazy Wisdom creation Creative Crisis creative genius Creative Non-Fiction creative space Creative Writing Creators Creators and Creations Creator Vs. Creation Creature of Frankenstein Crime Crime and Punishment Crime Cinema Crime Films Crisco Criss Cross Criterion Cronkite Cross Dressing crossed legs Cruising the Movies Cruising the Movies: A Sexual Guide to Oldies on TV Crusades Crying babies crystal Crystal Gems Cthulhu Cuba Cube Cujo Cullen Bunn Cult of Hemingway Cultural Compulsion culture Cunnilingus Cyber-Punk D'Artagnan D.A. Powell D.B.A.A.: Don't Be An Asshole D.T. Max Dafne Keen dagger Daily Show Globe is Going the Wrong Way Dale Cooper Dale Peck Dallas Shooting DAMN Damon Brown Dan Dietle Dan Gearino Dangerous Board Games that can Kill You Daniel Chaudhry Daniel Clowes Daniel Kaluuya Daniel Radcliffe Danny Kaye Dan O'Bannon Dan Rather Dan Vega Dan White Darjeeling Dark Knight Returns Darkness Darren D’Addario Darryl W. Bullock Darth Vader's Little Princess Darth Vader and Son Daryl Hannah data Dave Archambault II Dave Gibbons Dave McKean David David Bowie David Bowie Made Me Gay David Bowie Made Me Gay: 100 Years of LGBT Music David Copperfield David Day David Foster Wallace David in the Orrery David L. Ulin David Lipksy David Lipsky David Lynch David Lynch Keeps His Head David M. 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Doge Domestcity Domestic Abuse domestic affection Domino Effect Don't eat Eels...That is All Donald Duck Donald Pleasence Donald Regan Donald Trump Donald Trump Alec Baldwin Don DeLillo Don Juan Don Juan de Marco Donna Anderson Donna Deitch Don Quixote Don Shewey Doris Kearns Goodwin Dorling Kindersley Handbook Dory Dostoyevsky Doug Douglas Adams Douglas Brinkley Douglas Sadownick Dr. Eldon Tyrell Dr. King Schultz Dr. Manhattan Dr. Rockso Dr. Salvador Allende Dr. Sam Loomis Dr. Strangelove Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb Draft Drag Kings dragonfly Drama Dream Dream Country Dreams Drugs Drunk DSM Duke Johnson Duma Key Duncan Duracell Durin's Bane Dustin Hoffman Dyke dysfunctional relationship dystopia East Texas Ebony Clock Eccentricity economic disparity economic disparity between blacks and whites economics Eddie Marsan Eddie Valiant Edgar Allen Poe Edgar Wright Edith Hamilton Edith Hamilton's Mythology Editorial Edmund Burke Edmund Wilson Ed Skrein Educated Women Education Edward Gibbon Edward Muir Edward Norton Effect of AIDS on Gay Male Sexual Identity and Perception eggs Ego Egypt Egyptian Empire Egyption Revolution Elaine Noble Elbert "Bo" Smith Elder elderberries Eldon Tyrell Eleanor Roosevelt electricity El Gigante Elie Wiesel Elio and Oliver elitism Ellen Montgomery Ellen Page Ellen Page is awesome just in case you didn't know and if you didn't know you really need to know because seriously she's fucking cool as fuck Elliot Kirschner Elliot Richardson Elmo Saves Christmas elocution Elsa Martinelli Elves Elvis Emerson and Antislavery Emerson’s ‘Moral Sentiment’ and Poe’s ‘Poetic Sentiment’ A Reconsideration Emile Hirsch Emily Dickinson Emily Dikinson emotion empathy Empire empiricism encomium Endless Nights Endnotes enema Engineer English-Irish relationship English 1301 English History English Romanticism Ent-Wives Entertainment Entmoot Entomophobia Ents enviornmentalism Eowyn Epic Epic Novels Epilepsy Episcopal Episcopal Church Epistemology of the Closet Epistolary Novel Eraserhead Eraserhead Baby erectile dysfunction Eric Idle Erika Moen Ernest Hemingway Ernie and Bert Ernle Bradford erotic fantasy Erwin Rommel Escape from New York Esquire Essais Essay Essay Collection Essential Dykes to Watch Out For Esther Garrel Estimating Emerson: An Anthology of Criticism from Carlyle to Cavell Eternal Recurrence Ethan Hawke ethics ethos Et Tu Brute? Eugenics E Unibus Pluram E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction Eurocentrism Europe European "Discovery" fallacy European exploration European History Eva Green Eve's Garden Eve Arnold Even Stevens Everybody Behaves Badly: The True Story Behind Hemingway’s Masterpiece The Sun Also Rises Everybody looks better than I do in heels and I can't stand it Everyday is Exactly the Same Everyday Use Evil Evil as a Force Evil as Force Evil Bear Man Evil Dead Evil is abscence evolution Evolution is not JUST a theory excrement exile existentialism Existentialism and Human Emotions Exit Through the Gift Shop Experimental Essay Expose Eye Imagery in Blade Runner eye liner Eyes eye shadow Eyes Wide Shut Orgies are actually a pain to schedule Ezekiel 25:17 Ezra Pound F. Murray Abraham F. Scott Fitzgerald F. Valentine Hooven III Faber Fabio Moon fable Facebook Activism facebook arguments Faeries Faggot Faggots Fahrenheit 451 failed environment Failed Hero Failed Writer failure Fairy Tale Faith Fallacy Fall of Constantinople Fall Out 4 Fallout 4 Familial exile family Family Guy Family Guy Ipecac Fan Culture Fans fantasy Farcical Aquatic Ceremonies are not the basis for a system of government Fareed Zakaria Farley Granger Farm-Aid Farm Crisis 1980s farting fart jokes Fart Proudly Fast Food Fastfood Nation Father-Son Relationship fathers fatwah Fat Woman Stereotype fear fear of death Fear of Laughter feces Federal Housing Administration Federation Federico Infante Tutt'Art felching fellare Female Masculinity Female Masturbation Female Orgasm Female Poets Female Sexuality Feminimity feminine energy Feminism femnism fencing Ferguson fertility festival Feudalism Feudalism is also NOT a thing Fiction Fidel Castro fidger spinner Fidget Spinner Fievel Goes West Fight Club Film Film Noire Film Presentations of Gay Men film review Finding Dory Finding Nemo Finnegan's Wake Fiona Staples fire Fire Demons Firehose Firehouse Shining fireworks First Lady First Love Fish Fisherman fish sex Five reasons 'Gatsby' is the great American novel flags Flannery O'Conner Flashpoint Flawed hero flowers fly fishing Folk Hero folklore Fondation of Reality Fonts food chain For Argument’s Sake: Why Do We Feel Compelled to Fight About Everything? Forgetting Sarah Marshall Forrest Forrest Gump For the Sake of Argument: Essays and Minority Reports fossils foundation of reality Founding Father Founding Fathers Founding Fathers Purity Myth Fourteen Stories None of Them are yours Fourth Dimension Fox News Fozzy Bear Fraggle Rock frame narrative FrameRate France Frances Gies Francis Dolarhyde Francis Ford Coppola Francois Rabelias Frank Frankenstein Frankenstein 200th anniversary Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus Franklin J. Schaffner Frank Miller Frank Oz Franz Xaver Kappus François Rabelais Frasier Fraw Freddy Mercury Freddy Mercury is GOD Frederick Douglass Frederick Douglass: Selected Speeches and Writings Frederic March Frederico Infante Fred Hembree Fred Kaplan Freedom freedom of information freeing the figure from the marrble free speech Free the Breast free will Freewill Free Working Press French Press French Revolution Freshman Year Composition Course Freud Freya's Unusual Wedding Frida Friday the 13th Friedrich Nietzsche friendship Frodo Frodo Baggins From Hell fruit juice fuck Fuck-ups fucking Full Frontal Full Metal Jacket Fumi Miyabi funeral Fun Home Fusion Futurama G.I. Joe Gabriel Ba Gaga Feminism: Sex, Gender, and the End of Normal Gai Mizuki Gaius Cassius Longinus Gal Gadot gambling Game of Thrones Gandalf Gangs of New York Gangsters garden Garden of Eden Garnet Garth Ennis Gary Collison Gary K. Wolfe Gary King Gauntlets Gay Gay Asian Art Gay Batman Sex Fantasy Gay Comics Gay Erotic Comics Gay Leather Fetish Gay Literature Gay Macho Gay Macho: The Life and Death of the Homosexual Clone Gay Male Butt Cheek Gay Male Identity Gay Manga Gay Masculinity Gay Men Gay Men Comics Gay Movie Night Gay people in politics Gay Porn Gay Pornographic Comics Gay Sex Gays in Politics Gaza Wall gender Gender Expectations GenderFluid Gender Fluid GenderFuck Gender Identification Gender Identity Gender Inversion GenderQueer Gender Studies Gender Trouble Gene Kelly General George Patton General Omar Bradley generational gap generational trauma Genetically Modified Organisms Gengar Gengorah Tagame genocide Genre Gentlemen Prefer Blondes Geocentric Universe Geoff Johns Geoffrey Rush geometry George C. McGavin George C. Scott George Clooney George Gordon Lord Byron George Lucas George Orwell George Owell: A Collection of Essays George Takei George W. Bush George Washington Gerald M. Garmon Gerald of Wales German Legend Gertrude Stein Get Out Get your credit score and work on gathering reliable assets Ghassan Massoud Ghostbusters Ghost of Christmas Present Ghosts Ghost World Ghus giant cocks Giant Robots Giant Robots Fighting Giant Spider and Me Giant Spider and Me: A Post-Apocalyptic Tale 1 GI Bill gif/jif? Gilgamesh Gimme Shelter Gina Sheridan Giraffe Girl in the Radiator Girls Girls Education Girl Up Gladiator glasses Glen Quagmire Gloria Steinem Goals Goat-Demon Imagery Goats Shit...A LOT god God's Little Acre God...I am really Gay god is not Great gods Godwin's Law Goethe Gollum Gollum/Smeagol Gonzo Good and Evil Goodfellas Good Morning Vietnam GoodReads GoodReads Reviews Good Vibrations Good vs Evil Goofy GOP Gordon Gecko Gore Vidal Go Set A Watchman Gotham Gothic Gourmet government acountability GPS Gracie and Frankie Graduate School Graduate Student graduation graffiti Graham Chapman grammar grandchildren grandma Grandparents Grant Morrison Grant Morrison may be nuts but damn if he doesn't deliver grapes graphic novel Grave Robbers graveyard Gravity Great Courses Great Expectations Great Hookers I Have Known Great Speeches by Native Americans Great White Sharks Grecian Urn Greece Greece History Greek Greek Drama Greek Fire Green Tea grieving Grinch Grocery Shopping Grotesque Groucho Marx Grouchy Old People growing Guest Author Guitar gum Gun-Violence Gundam Gun Powder Guys H.D.F. Kitto H.G. Wells H.P. Lovecraft H.R. Haldeman Halcyon Haleth son of Hama Hal Halbrook Hal Incandenza Hallie Lieberman Halloween Hamburger hammer Hammond Typewriter Hamnet Shakespeare hamsters Hands Up Don't Shoot Hank Williams Sr. Hannah and Her Sisters Hannibal Hannibal Lecter References Hans Zimmer Happiness Happy Birthday Harbinger Vol. 1 Harlem Renaissance Harmony Harmony the Sex Robot Harold and George Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle Harold Bloom Harper Lee Harpers Harrisson Ford Harry Belafonte Harry Morgan Harry Potter Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Harry Potter getting fucked in the ass Harvey Keitel Harvey Milk Harvey Milk gives me hope Hastings Hatari Having erotic dreams/fantasies about sailors and whales is perfectly normal...Todd Hayao Miazaki Hays Code Hazel headband headphones Heart Beating Heart Shaped Box Heath Ledger Heavy Metal Hector He did it with a bucket Heimdall Heinrich Brunner Helena Bonham Carter Hell Helter Skelter henge Henry David Thoreau Henry Drummond Henry Ford Henry Hill Henry I Henry Killinger Henry Kissinger Henry Louis Gates Jr Henry Miller Henry of Huntington he Perilous Plot of Professor Poopypants Here's Johnney! Herman Melville Hermoine Didn't Masturbate and Neither Did Jane Eyre Hero Herodotus heroes Heroes of the Homosexual community heteronormativity Heterosexuality High Anxiety Hillary Chute Hillbillies Hippie Historical Accuracy Historical Discourse history History Book History of Comics History of Smith County History of the English People Hitcahi Wand Hitch-22 Hitchcock-Truffault Hitchhiker's Guide Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Hitler Fetish Hobbits Hocus Pocus Holden Caulfield Holidays Hollywood Holt/Cold Home Owner’s Loan Corporation Homo-Social Relationships Homoeroticism Homophobia Homos Homosexual Clone Homosexuality Homosexuality as mental illness Homosexuality History Homosexuality in 1950s Homosexual seduction Honda P2 Robot Honest Trailers Honesty of the Artist about the Creative Process honey Hook hooker Hookers Hooker with a Penis Hope Hope Speech Horace Smith Horns horror Horror Comics Horror Fiction Horror Movies Hostel hot alien babe Hotel Rooms Hot Fuzz Hot Gates Houen Matsuri housewives Howard Hawks Howard K. Smith How Hiram Really Died and What Came After HOWL How People Become Atheists How to Make Love like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale How To Talk to Girls At Parties How Unpleasant to Meet Mr. Eliot HR 40 Hubris Huckleberry Hound Hugh Hefner Hugh Jackman Human/Robot Love Story Human Beings Perception of Reality Human Body Human connection Human Developement Human evolution human exploration Human Ideas are Grander than any Religion humanity Human Memory Human Narcissim Humbert Humbert Humor humors Hunger Games Hunter S. Thompson Hurricane Lolita husbands and wives Hyena Hymn to Intellectual Beauty Hypersexualization of Female Breasts I'm almost positive the song Tribute is the song they couldn't remember but I realize that's a controversial position I'm Going to Go Back There Someday I'm Not a Racist But... I'm Tired I've Been Down That Road Before I, Claudius Icarian Games Icarus Ice Cream that ISN'T Ice Cream Ida Tarbell Idealism identification Identity Identity Crisis Idris Elba If a woman is upset it's not because she's on her period it's because you're being a dick If they ask if you want Pepsi throw over the table throat punch the shit out of them and then proceed to burn that motherf@#$er down If you're reading this pat yourself on the back because you can read and that's awesome ignorance I have Measured Out My Life in Coffee Spoons and K Cups I know too many Michaels I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings I Like It Like That I Like it Like That: True Stories of Gay Male Desire Illuminated Manuscripts illusion Illusion of choice I Love Lucy I Love Lucy Mug I Love Penis...Mug iMac Imaginary Time imagination Immanuel Kant immigrants imperialism Imposter Complex Impressionists In Bed with David amd Jonathan incest Incorporation of images in Pedagogy Independence Day Independent Comics Indie Fiction Individual Initiative Individual Will Industrial Nightmare industry infidelity Infinite Jest Infinite Jest Blogs Infinite Possibility Infinity Informed Democracy Inherit the Wind Injustice innocence vs ignorance In One Person Inquisition insanity Insects Inside Out inspiration integrity intellectual Intellectual Declaration of Independance Intellectual masculinity Intellectual Parent Inter Library Loan internet interracial relationships Interview Inu Yoshi invert Invisible Man Invitation to a Beheading Ion IOWA iPad Ipecac iPhone ipod IRA I Racist Iran-Contra Irish Breakfast Tea Irish history Irish Writers I Ruck, Therefore I Am Isaac Asmiov Isaac Deutscher Isabel Allende Isabella St. James Ishmael Islam isolation Israel Issa Rae It It's an Honor It's illegal in the state of Texas to own more than six "realistic" vibrators It's time to adopt the Metric System in America for crying out loud It's truly truly difficult to find good coffee and by good coffee I mean the type that leaves you feeling as if you've actually tasted something beyond human understanding close to the furnace of all Italy Ivory Tower of Academia ivy I wandered lonely as a cloud I Want a Wife I Was a Playboy Bunny I Will Fight No More Forever I work at a Public Library J.D. Rockefeller J.D. Salinger J.K. Rowling J.R.R. Tolkien J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century J. Robert Oppenheimer J.Y. Smith Jack-O Lantern Jack Halberstam Jack Lemmon Jack Nicholson Jacob Marley Jacques Tardi Jaimee Fox Jake Gyllenhaal James A. Berlin James Franco James Garner James Joyce James Mason James Smallwood James Walker Jamie Lee Curtis Jammer Jammer's Books Jammer Talks Jammer Talks About Janelle Asselin Janet Leigh Jane Tompkins Janissaries Janitor Jared Leto Jason Momoa Jason Reitman Jason Robards Jason Segel Jason Starr Jason Walker Jasper Fforde JAWS Jazz Jealousy between Writers Jean-Baptiste Clamence Jean-Paul Sartre Jean Fouquet Jeffrey Brown jem Jenna Jameson Jennifer Jason Leigh Jennings Jenny Kleeman Jeremy Irons Jerome Lawrence Jerry A. Coyne Jerusalem Jesse Ventura Jessica Rabbit Jessica Roake Jesus Jewish men Jewish mother Jim Crow Laws Jim Gaffigan McDonalds Jim Gordon Jim Henson Jim Henson: A Life Jim Henson: The Biography Jimmy Breslin Jimmy Conway Jimmy Stewart Jim Woodring Jiraiya Joanne Webb Joan Quigley Joe Hill Joel Myerson Joe Pesci Johann Sebastian Bach Johnathan Franzen Johnathan Hyde John Bernard Books John Bunyan John Carpenter John Carroll Lynch John Cleese John Colapinto John F. Kennedy John Gavin John Goodfellow John Harvey Kellogg John Irving John Keating John Keats John Knowles John le Carre John Lee Hancock John Lennon John Lennon Vs Harry Potter John McCain Puppet John McTernan John Metta John Milton John N. Mitchel John Oliver John O’Meara John Quinn John Steinbeck John Thomas Scopes John Travolta John Wayne John Wayne Westerns Joker Joker's Scars Jonathan Kemp Jonathan Luna Jon Lee Anderson Jon Stewart Jon Stewart if you're reading this please come back we miss you Jordan Peele Joseph Burgo Joseph Cohen Joseph Heller Joseph Stalin Joshua Jammer Smith Josiah Bartlet journalism Journalistic Credibility Journalistic Integrity Joyce in Bloom Judaism Judge Doom Judge John M. Woolsey Judi Dench Judith Judith "Jack" Halberstam Judith Butler Judy Brady juggler Jules Julie Andrews Julie Andrews in Drag Julie Roucheleau Julius Caesar July 4th Jumanji Jumpin Jack Flash Jump in the Line Junji Ito Jurassic Park Just for the record Henry Kissinger is a collossal asshat and is perhaps the most revolting human being that has walked this earth and I just wanted to remind you of that fact along with the fact that Justice Justin Hall Just Say No Kake Kansas Kapital Karl Marx Kate Kate Dickie Kate McKinnon Kate Spade Katharine Graham Katherine V. Forrest Katy Perry Katy Perry's Boobs Katy Perry Elmo Katy Perry Wearing Red Velvet Kazuhide Ichikawa Keep it Gay Keira Knightly Keith Haring Keith Houston Keith Richards Keith Richards's Hands Kelsy Grammar was a GREAT Beast Kendrick Lamar Kenneth Clark Kermit the Frog Kevin Birmingham Kevin J. Hayes Kevin Spacey Key & Peele Kikori Morino Kill Bill killing animals for food Killing in the Name Kill Your Darlings King King Auberon King Baldwin IV King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem Kingdom of Heaven King George VI Kinght King James Bible King Lear Kingsman-The Secret Service Kinsey Kirk Douglass Kirsten Dunst Kissing Ass Kissinger Kissinger: A Touch of Evil Kitty Fane KKK Knight Armor Knights Knights in culture Knockers knots knowledge Korean War Kouri Kristina McKenna Kristin Wiig Krysten Ritter Ku-Klux-Klan Kubla Khan Kumada Poohsuke Kunio-Awara Kurtis J. Wiebe Kyle MacLachlan labia majora labia minora Labyrinth Lady Gaga Lady Kluck Lamprey Landfall landscape Langston Hughes Language Language of Cinema Language of Lord of the Rings Lani Kaahumanu La Republica de la Serrenissima de Venetzia Larry Kramer Larry Wilmore Last Week Tonight Lateralus Laughter Laughter in the Dark Laura Laura Bates Laura Dern Laura Herring Laura Palmer Laurel and Hardy Lauren Bacall Lawrence of Arabia leaf leather Leather Daddy Leatherface Leather Straps Leaves of Grass lecture Lee Harvy Oswald Left Behind Legend of Zelda Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past Leley M.M. 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