I Move For One Of Those Bad Court Thingys

...often times when I'm not really thinking about anything pertinent, a tornado of randomness whizzes in and out of my consciousness. It could anything horrifying to something hilarious to a thought about something in passing and so on. In those moments, I might go from "Sometimes, dogs will eat people food." to "I wonder what it would feel like to wear Zubaz...I never did find out." to "Big Johnson t-shirts...I remember those.". No reminders necessary. On occasion though, a thought will stop and pause for a moment or two and force me to actually contemplate its consequential nature, if any. I had two such thoughts today (so far).

Both thoughts were related to things that I suddenly acknowledged as being overrated to myself. No particular reason went into these two separate-but-related ideas. No emotional baggage drudged up. No fear of clowns or velvet clown paintings (though, that could eventually be a thing). Just complete thin air transforming into a concrete idea that no one asked to hear about. Allow me to share these thoughts.

Motorhead is one of those bands. What one? One of those bands. I can be sitting anywhere and suddenly I will hear Love Me Like A Reptile, instantly pulling out my invisible guitar with specked gloss exterior and random sharp edges for furious air soloing. Sometimes, a Motorhead song is so good that you want to caveman into a cement bowl on a skateboard with no wheels to feel the trucks scrape against the concrete before slamming one's face into the glass-filled bottom. Two songs later, I turn into Walt Kowalski, standing on my lawn pointing a hunting rifle at the jukebox, threatening an inanimate object to switch to the Bee Gees before I get upset.

Motorhead has some really great songs. I would contend that Ace Of Spades is a perfect album that captures them at their creative apex. They also have a treasure trove of duds. Having once owned about ten Motorhead albums and being incapable of getting through many of them more than one time, I can say that beyond their great songs, most runs together as filler. Taken as individual songs between Bad Company and The Misfits, maybe those songs would be worth a gauntlet or two. A few in succession and I need to hear some Curtis Mayfield...stat.

The other thought that unearthed itself upon my face today was how uneven Full Metal Jacket is to me. I am an avowed Stanley Kubrick disciple. I believe he did things with staging, camera movement and atmospherics that people have been ripping off ever since. He had a visual palette that is mostly unmatched. In the first half of Full Metal Jacket alone, the scene in the men's room at the barracks is a prime example of his mastery of film making.

I have seen the movie on two separate occasions and each time, I always feel like the movie drips in the back half. Am I missing something? Will a third viewing provide me with the clarity that I need to truly appreciate Full Metal Jacket? I've watched Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey  and The Killing multiple times with rabid glee. The Shining and A Clockwork Orange fill me with awe and jealousy. Do I need a third round with Full Metal Jacket?