During my last visit to Dresden, Frosty gave me a DVD packed with a bunch of stuff that he thought I would enjoy. It was mostly music and graphic design manuals, but he also included a movie called “Man Bites Dog”, which is an older (1992) Belgian documentary-style dark comedy about a serial killer. I'd never heard of it before, however Frosty explained the story and said that it was a bit violent, but funny – the type of humor that I'm into, basically. I got around to watching it early Friday evening.
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For the most part, he was right. “Man Bites Dog” is a dark comedy/satire/social commentary. Very dark and with much of the humor stemming from the set up. Basically, a camera crew follows around a serial killer while he does what serial killers do (um, kill people) and over time the boundaries between the observers and participants become blurred and then, ultimately, non-existent. It's a premise that I could get behind, because to me, funny is 20% punchline and 80% situation.
That said, the movie was just way too brutal for me. The absurdity of the situation was indeed amusing, but the graphic violence (even though it was in black and white...which I totally appreciated) just left me feeling mostly disturbed...and, um, icky.
Needless to say, I did not sleep so well Friday night. So, when I woke up on Saturday, I decided to stop by my friendly neighborhood videothek to rent a couple of flicks to watch later in the evening in the hopes of clearing my mind. I got up relatively early, spent the day out and about, ran some errands and just generally stayed away from my apartment.
I like to conduct my errand-running in a circular pattern, as it just makes my brain feel better. This means that I start out from my apartment, then I go to the place on my list that's furthest away, do stuff there and work my way back around to my apartment. I do not like to backtrack.
In this case (since I was already in town), the video store was kind of at the halfway point in my afternoon. I stopped inside, looked around for about half an hour and settled on “Grandma's Boy”, which I've already seen a couple of times, and “Dave Chappelle's Block Party”, which I haven't seen at all, but have been meaning to for a very long time.
I was apparently not the only person in Altona who intended on making it a “Video Aktuell” night, because the line was super long and by the time I got up to the counter I was not only seriously contemplating renting a Wii for the evening (for 6 Euros?!), but also getting a pint of Ben & Jerry's New York Super Fudge Chunk. I did neither, before I could decide, the dude at the counter rang up the movies and asked me to check and sign the reciept – and I went merrily along my way.
I only had a couple of other things that I wanted to do before calling it a day, when I ran into French Christoph...who is literally the only person that I ever randomly run into in Hamburg on a regular basis. Seriously, I see him all the time. It's kind of weird because we'll stop and chat for a moment, then say “Man, why don't we hang out more?!” -- “I don't know! It's weird, right?!” -- “Yeah, totally!” -- “Okay, bye!”
Then, I went to the Mercado and picked up a couple of bottles of delicious Ginger-Orange Bionade, stopped by Subway and got myself some din-din and headed home.
Upon my arrival back at the apartment, I get myself all comfy for a night of hilariousness with Dave, Bionade and my chicken teriyaki sub on honey oat. However, when I open up the DVD, I do not see “Dave Chappelle's Block Party”...but rather the film “Pregnant Sluts”.
It's at this point that I mentally flashbacked to the moment at the video counter when the guy asked me to read the reciept. He was bascially like, “Did you really really look at the list?” And I was all like, “Yeah, I totally want to rent exactly these movies right here on this paper. I want to see them so bad.” And thinking back, I really only looked at the first movie. Damn it.
Damn it. Damn.IT!
Really, the thing that bugged me the most was that I had to go all the way back to the video store...like right then. However, once I complete my circle and reach the end station (home), I just don't want to go back out again (unless it's already been previously planned). I couldn't really just keep “Pregnant Sluts” until the next day and be like “Oops...my bad” I mean, maybe I could – but it would just be kind of awkward
And it's not so much because of the porn part. For a person of my upbringing (quite conservative and Christian) and my education (a very liberal women's college), I don't have a whole lot of problems with pornography – granted that everyone is of the age of legal consent and particpants of their own volition. That said, pregnancy porn just creeps me out – and I didn't want those dudes at the store to think that I'm the weird chick that loves pregnant sluts. So, I hopped on my bike (thank goodness I got one of those!), explained the situation – the guy said he was kind of expecting me to come back – and exchanged the movie for the correct one.
And that's the story of the most exciting thing that happened to me this weekend.
Well, also I got some news that my younger brother is going to become a dad next year – but, unfortunately, the previous paragraphs sort of make that news really kind of inappropriate.
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